Changes to rewards structure should trigger refund options

mjh

I'm writing this on behalf of a friend, who introduced me to this game, since he doesn't post here.

He's been playing since launch and has spoken highly of this game, despite all it's pitfalls and disappointments. He recently decided to support the devs and purchase some HP. He has been building his team and wanted that last OBW Blue cover. There was a thread on here that said it's worth it to buy a cover to get from 4 to 5 for good characters, so he did.

Not even 2 days later they started giving out 2* covers for Lightning rounds and other PvP events. He ended up getting the very cover he bought, 3 times over. He sent a letter to D3 to express his frustration at this point and it goes like this:

Hello, I recently purchased a 5th Blue ability for Original Black Widow for 500 coins, and a day later you began to offer covers as rewards for lightning rounds where I received 2 blue covers in the same event. I have been playing since launch and recently decided to purchase $20 worth of coins. I love the game but I feel that with the recent change I gave up my coins unnecessarily. Please credit back the coins I spent. I say nothing but good things about the game and have persuaded quite a few friends to play as well. Thank you.

A pretty reasonable request. Imagine you bought a pair of shoes and they went on sale the next day? Every store I know would give you back the difference, this is the same scenario. Here is D3's response:

We're very sorry that this happened, but, regrettably, we are not able to credit the HP for this case.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you!

Best Regards,

D3Publisher Support Team

This is a pretty pathetic move on D3's part. They already have his money and have now goated him out of coins after he decided to support them and get all his friends to play.

MarvelMan

Sounds like par for the course with their recent player unfriendly changes.

Unknown

I've spent thousands in HP for covers of Spidey, Hulk, Lazy Thor and have received them in various rewards since. That's just how RNG goes.

mjh

Toxicadam wrote:

I've spent thousands in HP for covers of Spidey, Hulk, Lazy Thor and have received them in various rewards since. That's just how RNG goes.

not within 24 hours though? Also this is a different scenario as the reward system for pvp was changed

Unknown

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

I've spent thousands in HP for covers of Spidey, Hulk, Lazy Thor and have received them in various rewards since. That's just how RNG goes.

not within 24 hours though? Also this is a different scenario as the reward system for pvp was changed

So? It's still just luck of the draw. He might have never gotten those OBW covers or he might have gotten something else. He paid for something he didn't have at the time and considered it a good investment. A bit later he had a windfall of the same thing. Annoying? Sure. But that really is not D3's fault in this case, seeing as they weren't specifically giving out OBW covers, they're giving out random cover rewards from a selection of almost two dozen different characters. Which ones you get? Toss a coin. No business is required to take a return, just because you realized after a day you don't need something after all - if they have a returns policy, great. Far as I'm aware luck based games, including this one, generally don't. Why should they make exceptions?

Could they have formulated their reply better? Sure. But the actual complaint? Please.

Unknown

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

I've spent thousands in HP for covers of Spidey, Hulk, Lazy Thor and have received them in various rewards since. That's just how RNG goes.

not within 24 hours though? Also this is a different scenario as the reward system for pvp was changed

I don't think the timing matters. Even though the rewards for PvP were changed (and they were changed to benefit ALL players), it was still a manner of RNG that determined he got that final cover. It would have been no different than if he had won a standard token in a lightning round or PvE node and pulled her.

Anytime you buy a digital good, you have to expect that it could lose it's value at any point. This is Demiurge's sandbox and we are just borrowing their toys. They could decide to remove OBW's healing tomorrow and you are owed no recourse, because they believe it's for the betterment of the game. You just have to understand and accept that.

Dormammu

I'm pretty sure that it's actually a rule if you buy a cover with HP and max out a character's color, that's the next cover you'll get from your next token. (d'oh!)

Unknown

Such terrible customer service.

LordWill

That seems unusual for them. One of the better aspects has been their customer support. They have impressed me.

Every time I have had an issue they have usually exceeded my expectations. The customer service side of their operations seems to truly care about the customer and I have never had an issue with them.

I am sure they aren't going to be 100% all the time, and you will get some cases here and there that slip through the cracks or isn't handled properly.

You could send a mail to D3PAdmin and see if he couldn't look into it.

Copps

Try buying 4 rags red covers and having him nerfed the next day. While spending 500hp on a cover and getting it over and over the next day is annoying it was still a good investment in a character that is still incredibly good. She is the best 2 star head and shoulders above ares who is likely second. And in the long term scheme of things 500hp is a small price to pay for the lesson he just learned about rng and cover rewards.

Unknown

This is just RNG being RNG. Your friend must have known that they could have gotten a blue OBW cover from the very next standard token they open, even. But instead of waiting, they decided to take the IAP shortcut. This is what happens with IAP games, you use real money to take a known shortcut rather than the unknown waiting game.

Think of it this way. You are walking down a long, dark path. You cant see More than a few steps ahead of you. You know that someday you will reach the end, but you have no idea how far it is. Someone gave you a phone, though, and at any time you can use that phone to call a cab. That cab is running on a flat rate service. You know the rate beforehand - $100. What do you do? Maybe the path goes on for months and months. Maybe the end of the path is 30 feet ahead of you. No way of knowing.

In this case, your friend called the cab when the end of the path was 30 feet ahead of them. Does your friend deserve a refund? Not at all - they knew the cost, they knew the terms, they knew the risk. they could have kept walking, but they got tired, so they took the easier, and more expensive, way out.


Another analogy:
If you buy a car today form a dealership and tomorrow your grandmother dies and leaves you her brand new car, are you entitled to return that car to the dealership for a full refund? Hell no. You signed the paperwork, you paid the money. If you want to sell that car for a substantial loss you can (250 iso), but once the transaction is complete, you own it - plain and simple.

Spoit

Copps wrote:

Try buying 4 rags red covers and having him nerfed the next day. While spending 500hp on a cover and getting it over and over the next day is annoying it was still a good investment in a character that is still incredibly good. She is the best 2 star head and shoulders above ares who is likely second. And in the long term scheme of things 500hp is a small price to pay for the lesson he just learned about rng and cover rewards.

Did They ever come to a thorverine like concensus re: people spending money right before the rag nerf?

BearVenger

kermitk50 wrote:

Another analogy:
If you buy a car today form a dealership and tomorrow your grandmother dies and leaves you her brand new car, are you entitled to return that car to the dealership for a full refund? Hell no. You signed the paperwork, you paid the money. If you want to sell that car for a substantial loss you can (250 iso), but once the transaction is complete, you own it - plain and simple.

Edit: Poster below beat me to it. I think most car dealerships would be chill with a next-day refund, too.

Unknown

I'm wondering what they ever did for the people who got **** on the Rag change. Didn't affect me, but I know they dangled that carrot for the longest time and then... poof. Never heard anything about it again. Normally, I read the forums on a daily basis, so I would have figured I would have caught a thread exploding with some kind of responses to an answer to that.

Unknown

To D3, and all those saying that the guy doesn't have a right to a refund, I would quote the wise sage Lebowski:

"You're not wrong. You're just a tinykitty."

Unknown

rngesus is a cruel cruel mistress (manstress?)

Unknown

He needs to just bite the bullet on this one IMO. There are plenty of 2* characters I've yet to receive from the new reward system and there are a few that I've seen multiple times. It's all RNG and it isn't the devs fault that he spent money on something that he could have randomly received at any time while playing the game, and that time happened to be a couple of days later.

Unknown

Just FYI:

The Federal Trade Commission has a rule that applies to every state in the United States when it comes to buyer's remorse. This is known as the three-day cooling-off period. With this rule, buyers have three days before a purchase becomes binding. If the customer wants to get out of the purchase some time before the three business day window, he can do so without consequence. This rule does not apply to car purchases or to items under $25.

Unknown

While I don't think D3 is necessarily in the wrong here, they might as well have just refunded the guy some HP. The chances of getting any 2*s from fights are low enough that this situation can't be very common. They'd have been smarter to just let him spend the HP on something else.

Unknown

True story even with the new rewards system I have yet to even see a 2* cover from it so it was by no means guaranteed that he would see 2 OBW the next day. I'm afraid sometimes buyers remorse is something you just have to live with.

Unknown

Oh boy...this brings back memories of Rags...bring in Jozier on this one. He's got the authority of knowhow and such.