Anger and Resentment from Duplicate Elite Pack Re-Rolling

Mathistopheles
Mathistopheles Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Let me start by saying that I know many people who have mentioned that talking about the re-roll process is not allowed on the forums. To that, here is a screenshot of the email I received in response to an email asking about the re-roll process: 

D3 Go! Customer Support (KY) (D3 Go!)
Jul 11, 12:12 PDT
Greetings D3 Go! Customer,
Thank you for contacting D3 Go! Customer Support.
We are sorry for any negative experience regarding your issue.
If you would like to submit further feedback on the subject, as well as stay up to date on current and future information, please visit the forums:
http://d3go.com/forums/
If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again.

Best Regards,
D3 Go! Customer Support Team (CHS)
This was the email I originally sent to them: 


Matthew A________
Jul 10, 12:04 PDT
My biggest question at this point is:

Why does D3 Go! make a system where you save up for so long (or spend a LOT of money) to get the Mana Jewels, cutting the other prizes in the meantime to say "Well, you get Mana Jewels!!", get upset at the player who has spent a ton of money for having all of the mythics that were in this pack, and then you give about a 10% chance of hitting any masterpiece compared to a 90% distribution of the mythics (which yes, I opened all in packs before this Elite Pack cycle).

I asked for a guaranteed random masterpiece, as it was my right, so I understand, that if I gathered 400 mana jewels, I was able to continually re-roll until I did not get a duplicate. When my only non-duplicates would be masterpieces, it only makes sense. Instead of emailing (an average of) 8 times regarding duplicate mythics, I decided to cut to the chase and ask for a guaranteed Masterpiece card. I understand that once Booster Crafting becomes available, there will be no more re-rolls on Elite Packs in the Masterpiece Collection.

Perhaps, if this is the way it is to be done (and unless you allow Mana Jewels to be bought, or much easier to obtain), you should allow the Masterpiece Collection Elite Boosters to NOT give a Duplicate at all. You can already tell which Cards are in a Player's Collection, so why not remove those from the random roll whenever a player redeems an Elite Pack? As it stands, I understand D3 is planning on removing these re-rolls once booster crafting comes out. After spending money to get the Mana Jewels (which many players are calling Unobtainium), if I receive a duplicate mythic which can be transformed into a booster craft of something that may contain only commons and uncommons, I am going to be pissed. As the Internet Community of people who play MtG: Puzzle Quest have already started speculating, we wait anxiously as to how the new Booster Crafting system will be implemented.

It is a shame to see one of your hobbies that you spend actual money on become not worth it anymore, especially when there is no actual monetary value associated with the items themselves: just digital versions of items with not even a secondary market to utilize. If this is what the future of the game will become, then I know many players who will not be playing the game in short order: specifically, the ones who have already spent way too much money already on a Digital Mobile Game.
Thanks,
Matthew A______

Do we have any more information about the crafting system? Specifically, will the law of diminishing returns mean that soon, a duplicate mythic purchased from an Elite Booster for someone who spends (a lot of) money on this game will be repeatedly crafted down to a pack that contains (on average) 1-2 uncommons and 3-4 commons? 



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Comments

  • Mathistopheles
    Mathistopheles Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    I will be one of the first ones to admit that I spend WAY too much money for a game that takes real world money and gives me digital cards without any actual value. This is my problem, though, and I am not complaining about the amount of money I have spent. 

    That was what happened to me in the beginning of this cycle, actually, quite exactly. I had 5 of the 7 mythics, save for Champion of Rhonas and Pyramid of the Pantheon (the 2 new ones). The only card I really wanted was Aggravated Assault. 

    I had the 800 Jewels almost right away, and bought 2 packs: Cascading Cataracts and Neheb, the Worthy. I wound up re-rolling the duplicates, and in the meantime having enough for a third pack. 2 of my 3 elite packs wound up being the mythics I was missing.  :(     BUT, within the rules of the re-roll, I had attained a non-duplicate card for each of those 2. Didn't like it, but such is the luck of the draw. 

    When D3 saw a number of re-rolls for the third one, I finally chimed in and asked them "Look, I have all of the mythics from the set. Is there any way you can guarantee a non-mythic in my re-roll?" There was a strong suggestion that I should wait until the next Elite Pack Rotation. I asked if the next Elite Pack Rotation would have Hour of Devastation cards, since I own all of the Amonkhet Mythics (as I said, too much money). They said they can't give any future data.  :s:s 

    So, I took another re-roll and got a Counterspell, the one I wanted least. Again, upset with the pulled card, but I did not get a dupe...so, I couldn't write them anymore about that one. The above email that I sent was in respect to the ask about the Guaranteed Masterpiece, to which their response was "We can give you one more final re-roll, where you will automatically get a Masterpiece selected at random...OR you can wait for the next rotation". 

    If Booster Crafting's guaranteed Law of Diminishing Returns means that my duplicate Mythic from an Elite Pack after I spent a ton of money turns into a 5 card pack which pops out 1-2 Uncommons and the rest Commons, I will flip my lid. 


  • GrizzoMtGPQ
    GrizzoMtGPQ Posts: 776 Critical Contributor
    I'd bet booster crafting will be more of the same of what we currently have. There will be some set of cards in the pack, you can see what they are, and you can craft to open that pack. Don't like the cards in it? Wait for the next set. Betcha any money that's how it works. No rerolls.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2017
    You're not supposed to get unlimited Rerolls. 


    It was a loophole that was being exploited and that's why you're not supposed to talk about it in the forums. 


    It's not "your right". You understood wrongly, because people on the forums were spreading misinformation, which is why they're not supposed to talk about this here anymore. 


    This is a problem the devs always have. They make a mistake, let it go on for long enough that people take it as their right to have, and then face massive backlash when they try to fix it. 


    Every story here broke the rules of the Reroll. The rules were just not enforced. I'm both surprised and disappointed that after numerous clarifications about this being an exploit, some people can still talk about doing it here without fear of reprisal. And with such a tone of entitlement. 

  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
    You talk of rules as if they are set in stone. A precedence set by repeated actions is just as much a rule as something that was hurriedly posted to the forums in an attempt to quell the incoming storm of pissed off players. Don't accuse others of entitlement just to belittle them and make their argument less valid.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Their argument is not valid. The rule WAS set in stone. Unless you're counting announcements from brigby as unofficial now, in which case there are no rules in effect. If you don't think that announcement was legit, then there should be ZERO Rerolls, because that announcement was what brought Rerolls into play. 

    The original announcement clearly stated this was a one time Reroll. One time. 

    Some people figured out they weren't tracking the number of Rerolls, relying on the honor system. This place being filled with honorable people, it was obviously quickly exploited and bragged about. 

    In typical fashion, the team took weeks/months to fix a simple exploit, and since this particular bug potentially benefits you, you're now saying it's perfectly natural to assume it's a feature not a bug. 

    If we use that line of thinking, the cycling freeze "bug" is obviously a feature to punish people who cycle too much. They've repeatedly not fixed it. Must be a feature! 

    It's nonsensical and you know it. 


  • deletedgone
    deletedgone Posts: 166 Tile Toppler
    @Ohboy have you gotten a reroll recently? The accompanying email states "If you experience another duplicate from an Elite Pack redemption, please do not hesitate to contact us for review."  This language has been present for many weeks.

    Anyway, it is not important that you be convinced of anything or agree with the other posters.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

    Rerolls are a stopgap solution to hold people over until booster crafting is released.  Sharing the expectations and hopes of the user base before a solution is announced can only help the developers understand how their plans may be received.

    @brigby if I have broken forum rules by quoting a support email, please feel free to remove/edit as needed.
  • DaddyO
    DaddyO Posts: 51 Match Maker
    Thanks OP for spending money on the game. I'm glad the developers are making money from you and other whales. There are still bugs to fix and that isn't free. I'm FTP so I try not to complain too much.  I have a huge collection of cards and I enjoyed the game generally.

    Most of us on the forums try to nudge some common sense into D3 Go! We are all here to have fun and mana jewels have been a fiasco from the onset.  The fact that something so difficult to obtain could provide no utility at all is inexplicable. The thrill of opening the pack isn't a reward. The actual card opened from the pack is the reward and when it's a duplicate it's not a reward at all - it's a punishment. Why needlessly antagonize the very people that are paying the bills? I'm self employed and I go out of my way to cater to my loyal customers. That's common sense.

    Spending cash to get all the possible mythic cards isn't an exploit. I think it should be possible to buy an entire set of cards with enough money. Even with a limited set of cards I know that against this ai I will win most of the time. If we ever go live head to head your larger collection may give you an advantage. But then again I could just play a cycling deck. 

    Cheers
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    spesler said:
    @Ohboy have you gotten a reroll recently? The accompanying email states "If you experience another duplicate from an Elite Pack redemption, please do not hesitate to contact us for review."  This language has been present for many weeks.

    Anyway, it is not important that you be convinced of anything or agree with the other posters.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

    Rerolls are a stopgap solution to hold people over until booster crafting is released.  Sharing the expectations and hopes of the user base before a solution is announced can only help the developers understand how their plans may be received.

    @brigby if I have broken forum rules by quoting a support email, please feel free to remove/edit as needed.

    Actually if that's a recent reply, then it hasn't changed since the beginning. I Rerolled once when it was first announced to try it out. I got my Reroll pack in 2 days with that email, which was faster than I expected(i expected at least a week or three). 

    But I'll like to point to two facts:

    1) the one time Reroll applies only to mythics. Masterpiece dupes get unlimited Rerolls. This language was directed to that possibility. 

    2) the use of the word review. This means that they do not guarantee that your Reroll request is going to be accepted. 


    Yes, my opinion doesn't matter much. But facts do. I will not stand by as some entitled poster blasts the cs team for enforcing the rules and closing an exploit. This whole thing is reminiscent of the first Pokémon go ban wave that sparked similar protests of "if using cheats is wrong, why did they let us use it for so long?" 


  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor

    The intent of the re-roll process was that, the first time you triggered a duplicate, you could ask for a re-roll.

    You could leniently stretch that such that if you got a duplicate on your replacement, you could get another re-roll.  The intent of this, of course, is if the RNG just ended up giving you the same card.

    Some "brilliant" players decided to take advantage of this by waiting for a rotation where they had all of the mythics, such that they could keep re-rolling into the masterpieces for free.  This is a low-brow strategy that ends up ruining it for the actual honest players.  You can be guaranteed that D3H will think twice about allowing these types of exceptions in the future.

    The responsibility of the player is to gauge which cards are in rotation, how many of those they actually want, and how many of those they already have.  You could take a risk if you have 3 cards already, just to take a stab at getting 2 clearly OP cards, or you can wait until a rotation appears where you have none of the cards already.

    Pro tip:  If you wait for a rotation where you have none of the cards, you never get a duplicate.


    I wasn't aware the well-known exploit was being deemed an entitlement by the players now.  At least now I know why every deck I face has a masterpiece in it.

  • nerdstrap
    nerdstrap Posts: 180 Tile Toppler
    Ohboy said:
    spesler said:
    @Ohboy have you gotten a reroll recently? The accompanying email states "If you experience another duplicate from an Elite Pack redemption, please do not hesitate to contact us for review."  This language has been present for many weeks.

    Anyway, it is not important that you be convinced of anything or agree with the other posters.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

    Rerolls are a stopgap solution to hold people over until booster crafting is released.  Sharing the expectations and hopes of the user base before a solution is announced can only help the developers understand how their plans may be received.

    @brigby if I have broken forum rules by quoting a support email, please feel free to remove/edit as needed.

    Actually if that's a recent reply, then it hasn't changed since the beginning. I Rerolled once when it was first announced to try it out. I got my Reroll pack in 2 days with that email, which was faster than I expected(i expected at least a week or three). 

    But I'll like to point to two facts:

    1) the one time Reroll applies only to mythics. Masterpiece dupes get unlimited Rerolls. This language was directed to that possibility. 

    2) the use of the word review. This means that they do not guarantee that your Reroll request is going to be accepted. 


    Yes, my opinion doesn't matter much. But facts do. I will not stand by as some entitled poster blasts the cs team for enforcing the rules and closing an exploit. This whole thing is reminiscent of the first Pokémon go ban wave that sparked similar protests of "if using cheats is wrong, why did they let us use it for so long?" 


    That's not even a similar situation... classic troll response
  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
    So you are stating matter-of-factly that "If you experience another duplicate from an Elite Pack redemption, please do not hesitate to contact us for review.", a direct quote from customer service to players, clearly states that 
    Ohboy said:

    1) the one time Reroll applies only to mythics. Masterpiece dupes get unlimited Rerolls. This language was directed to that possibility. 

    2) the use of the word review. This means that they do not guarantee that your Reroll request is going to be accepted. 
    Nowhere in their reply do they state that it is a one time reroll for mythics and an unlimited reroll for masterpieces. Nowhere do they state that you can't contact them for review in the event that you get another duplicate in the future. It doesn't specify if they mean the same Elite Pack or an entirely different Elite Pack. This is not an exploit, people are not abusing the system. The rules were ambiguous at best. Brigby is a mouthpiece and not the end all be all when it comes to how things are handled. They are openly encouraging players to create a ticket if they get a duplicate from an Elite Pack, it can't get any more clear cut than that.

    Here are some known facts:
    1) Brigby did state in a forum post that rerolls were a one time thing, only for masterpieces. He then amended that statement to say that any duplicate would be granted a reroll. (I don't recall off-hand but I don't think he included the one time only part in this amended statement.) 
    2) It is well known that customer service has been providing multiple rerolls.
    3) No official statement has ever been made to the effect that getting multiple rerolls is exploitative.

    Perhaps his original statement that it was a one time opportunity was yet another smoke and mirror to limit customer service tickets from "honest players" while the unscrupulous "exploiters" saw past this and continued to get rerolls. Customer service strictly adheres to the rules they are given. It has been well documented on these forums about all the times customer service told players no. Perhaps not all of the customer service representatives are all-stars at their jobs and mistakes were made but this is not one of those cases.

    A precedence was set, it was a known thing, if they wanted to stop it at any time they could have. This is not like buggy code that takes man hours to discover and fix. This is an issue that could have been remedied with a simple email from whoever calls the shots. I choose to believe that it was intentional and that it was intentionally unannounced. They chose to give unlimited rerolls but didn't want to announce it. This way, the angry players got rerolls but it limited the amount of "free" stuff they had to give away.

    At this point, it seems like they have decided that they have given away too much "free" stuff and they are changing the policy, with no official announcement. Once again they are sweeping it under the rug rather than making a firm statement on the matter.
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2017
    nerdstrap said:
    That's not even a similar situation... classic troll response

    Are you adding something to the conversation?  The irony is that you are actually being the troll here.


    Edit:  Flag my post, really?  How mature.

  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2017
    It's a close parallel. 

    Players exploit a loophole. Game representatives say it's bad...stop doing it. Players keep doing it. Offenders get punished(in this case not even punished!). Offenders complain that it's not fair to them because the stick took too long to come down, indicating that despite all signs to the contrary, the dev team was OK with the cheating. 
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    So "being entitled" has become the supreme argument people throw to the left to the right in lack of better argumentation. But as you said, "everyone is entitled to their own opinion". 

    I will say this though: MTGPQ is a game of resources. You level up planeswalkers with runes, use crystals to unlock planeswalkers and buy packs, and jewels to get elite packs. In theory mana runes are the most common coin, followed by crystals and then jewels. Therefore jewels are the most valuable out of the three.

    Now like in any game, there are multiple means of obtaining these resources. Some buy them with money upfront, some simply get them as "free" game rewards though obviously in a slower manner. This is a recipe we see in very many "free to play" games nowadays and whether it works or not is another topic. And of course players will try to maximize the gain they get from these resources.

    Boosters have the random factor and they are quite similar to playing the slot machine. You take a chance... sometimes you win something, sometimes you just "have to try again". SImply put, it's gambling, except you get nothing real out of it! And it's part of the game, whoever wants to get into this it's their choice.

    We also already discussed Elite Packs are these incredibly expensive items you are meant to get very rarely. They came up, people barely got the jewels, spent them, opened their first pack... duplicate! Of course it was a feeling of frustration around simply because the risk for the reward is simply not worth the effort here (or at least many considered it so). After all, unlike boosters, which are much more common, Elite Packs are this *very rare thing*. A dupe is a dupe, whether it's mythic, rare or masterpiece.

    Some statements were done regarding the "dupe replacement" policy, and from then on this whole chaos became.
    - I saw no official statement done strictly on this topic...I was expecting a thread in News & Announcements pinned nicely to clarify the situation.
    - No adjustments were done to the in-game process. The whole "contact support to get your second dupe" should have been addressed IN GAME rather than fixed via data scripts MUCH EARLIER! It's been around for a long time now...

    Now some might argue each player understood whatever he or she wanted out of the spontaneous statements done on the forums here and there and even worse, started abusing them. And I don't blame any particular person on the topic. I know Brigby for instance was genuinely trying to help fix the situation and came to the community with some answers to the concerns.

    But ultimately, without a clear alignment on the dupe rule policy you can't blame people either for investing in jewels according to these spontaneous "sort of official" statements. I myself of course played the resource game, as I am not some blind bull simply throwing my jewels on random packs. I played intelligently according to the described rules. Just because other people were either more impulsive or could not be as strategic doesn't mean my smart thinking was "exploiting". I did not ask for any freebies, I played by the "dupes get replaced with the same Elite pack" rule! Plain and simple! I see no loophole in that, nor am I asking for preferential treatment, as I expect the rule to apply the same for everyone!

    Some will argue that hunting for non-dupes should be forbidden in this game, while others claim that such an expensive prize should be a non-dupe. At 100 euro to be honest I don't think we are talking about entitlement, but the prices in this game are a totally different topic and I prefer not to focus on that.

    So yeah, these are my arguments. I never abused any bugs, nor am I interested in doing that - don't need it, I may not be the best player but I'm an okay one! But if being strategic in spending my resources in this game is seen as being an exploiter then I am clearly in the wrong community.

    Peace!
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    Tilwin90 said:
    <snip>
    Peace!


    You bring up good points but the issue that is considered an exploit is basically what the OP did:  Deliberately waiting until he already had most of the cards, then rolled multiple packs, continuously submitting them for replacement with the clear intent that he would eventually get the specific card he was looking for.

    Take a look at this thread:

    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64544/issue-with-mythic-dupes-in-elite-boosters


    The OP is literally just continuing the exploit.


    The "entitlement" part is the fact that players think that they are basically guaranteed a non-duplicate.  While those same players may feel like they "deserve" a non-duplicate, it was never the intent.  This should be obvious, otherwise the packs would just award a non-duplicate in the first place.

  • shteev
    shteev Posts: 2,031 Chairperson of the Boards
    Isn't ANYONE going to link to anything a moderator said, or are we all just going to keep claiming that they agreed with whatever we said?
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    shteev said:
    Isn't ANYONE going to link to anything a moderator said, or are we all just going to keep claiming that they agreed with whatever we said?


    Here:

    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/61875/masterpiece-collection-duplicates/


  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2017
    shteev said:
    Isn't ANYONE going to link to anything a moderator said, or are we all just going to keep claiming that they agreed with whatever we said?

    I'm glad you reminded me.

    Here's the original link:



    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/61875/masterpiece-collection-duplicates/p2


    And this was brigby's attempt to tell us exploiting this was bad the first time this exploit was brought up, before he was derailed.


    http://forums.d3go.com/discussion/63228/elite-pack-3-masterpiece-collection


    Here's a reply from Brigby when I first voiced my concern that this would be exploitable:

    //Removed Partial Private Message -Brigby

    Steeme said:
    Tilwin90 said:
    <snip>
    Peace!


    You bring up good points but the issue that is considered an exploit is basically what the OP did:  Deliberately waiting until he already had most of the cards, then rolled multiple packs, continuously submitting them for replacement with the clear intent that he would eventually get the specific card he was looking for.

    Take a look at this thread:

    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64544/issue-with-mythic-dupes-in-elite-boosters


    The OP is literally just continuing the exploit.


    The "entitlement" part is the fact that players think that they are basically guaranteed a non-duplicate.  While those same players may feel like they "deserve" a non-duplicate, it was never the intent.  This should be obvious, otherwise the packs would just award a non-duplicate in the first place.


    I think you got played. He is basically describing himself doing the same thing as OP did, but calling his actions smart instead of morally questionable. I watched a televised debate last year where someone used the exact same argument. 

    The entire argument that this isn't an exploitation basically comes down to this basic(ridiculous) idea:

    The announcement from brigby about rerolling dupes is totally legit, that's why it's not an exploit. The part in that exact announcement about it being a one time thing is to be ignored, that's why it's not an exploit.

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