Token Previewing

245

Comments

  • MegaBee
    MegaBee Posts: 1,044 Chairperson of the Boards
    St_Bernadus said:
    Off topic I know but I did always wonder why counting cards was frowned upon to the "asked to leave" level in casinos. You are only observing what has been dealt out.
    I mean maybe that is it they only want to part drunk folk from their money, people paying attention is bad for business.

    (Unless there is more to counting than that)
    People winning too much is bad for the casino's business.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    St_Bernadus said:
    Off topic I know but I did always wonder why counting cards was frowned upon to the "asked to leave" level in casinos. You are only observing what has been dealt out.
    I mean maybe that is it they only want to part drunk folk from their money, people paying attention is bad for business.

    (Unless there is more to counting than that)

    the short answer is money.  The long answer is: because casinos get to set the rules of their own games. If you play blackjack optimally (without the ability to count cards), you will lose a small amount over time (I think the house wins by a small 5-10% margin over time).  But if you can count cards effectively (and the universe of cards is properly limited), then you can make money off the casino (by raising your bets whenever the odds are stacked in your favor).  Casinos don't like that, and since they can exercise control over the behvaiour of their patrons (e.g., in order to get service from the Casino you must wear clothing), they get to decline service to people who don't follow the house rules. 

    (note, in most modern casinos, counting cards in blackjack is now pretty difficult from a pure mathematical perspective: they use more decks simultaneously, and don't ever let the shoes get low enough that the players can really get much of an advantage from tracking the earlier hands). 
  • LifeofAgony
    LifeofAgony Posts: 690 Critical Contributor
    This isn’t counting cards;  this is cheating.  Knowingly taking steps that have nothing to do with the game to exploit your token pulls to determine whether or not you want to pull.

    Lets keep this on-topic as I’m hoping at least someone will pipe up from the official voices side to say this is good or otherwise.
  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't preview, but I can certainly see the allure to it.  As a new store is released that may or may not have characters that you really want to improve is released, I can see the draw of knowing in advance if spending your hard won in-game currency will be worth splurging or if waiting is the better option.  Dropping hundreds of CP and not getting anything useful is not a great feeling (which is why I don't usually pull anything from anything except Latest tokens.)

    That being said, if the official policy of the devs is to dissuade us from previewing, there needs to be better in-game options to promote the approved spending methods without feeling sad afterwards.
  • bowla33
    bowla33 Posts: 203 Tile Toppler
    I think if the pack odds were much bettter, you'd get reduced issues of this nature. But in the midst of a personal 0/92 in pulling latest legends, I can't even imagine dropping 12k hero points to buy a 1:167 chance at a 5. 

    Make less prison soap odds and you'll eliminate people worrying about the resources they spend 8hrs/day accumulating. 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    pheregas said:
    I don't preview, but I can certainly see the allure to it.  As a new store is released that may or may not have characters that you really want to improve is released, I can see the draw of knowing in advance if spending your hard won in-game currency will be worth splurging or if waiting is the better option.  Dropping hundreds of CP and not getting anything useful is not a great feeling (which is why I don't usually pull anything from anything except Latest tokens.)

    That being said, if the official policy of the devs is to dissuade us from previewing, there needs to be better in-game options to promote the approved spending methods without feeling sad afterwards.

    But Demi/D3 seem to think that sad feeling is good for business because it incentivizes the next purchase.  Remember that loot boxes work because the leverage the exact same psychology/brain chemistry as slot machines or blackjack (that little endorphin high we all get while we wait for the animation to resolve).  It's straight up gambling.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    LifeofAgony said:
    This isn’t counting cards;  this is cheating.  Knowingly taking steps that have nothing to do with the game to exploit your token pulls to determine whether or not you want to pull.

    Lets keep this on-topic as I’m hoping at least someone will pipe up from the official voices side to say this is good or otherwise.
    I don't really see how you can meaningfully distinguish between the two. Both are exploiting weaknesses in a system by use of extrinsic knowledge/action. 

    Also, I would be absolutely stunned if someone from Demi or D3 issued any new information on this topic in this thread. 
  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:
    pheregas said:
    I don't preview, but I can certainly see the allure to it.  As a new store is released that may or may not have characters that you really want to improve is released, I can see the draw of knowing in advance if spending your hard won in-game currency will be worth splurging or if waiting is the better option.  Dropping hundreds of CP and not getting anything useful is not a great feeling (which is why I don't usually pull anything from anything except Latest tokens.)

    That being said, if the official policy of the devs is to dissuade us from previewing, there needs to be better in-game options to promote the approved spending methods without feeling sad afterwards.

    But Demi/D3 seem to think that sad feeling is good for business because it incentivizes the next purchase.  Remember that loot boxes work because the leverage the exact same psychology/brain chemistry as slot machines or blackjack (that little endorphin high we all get while we wait for the animation to resolve).  It's straight up gambling.
    True enough.  If only this game gave me something worth purchasing...  That wasn't massively overpriced that is...

    I don't buy anything with Iso (been post iso for quite some time now.)

    I don't really need HP for the way I play PVP.  I buy the daily half off deals on tokens, but that doesn't require money.

    I refuse to pay money for costumes.

    I will, however, occasionally participate in the odd HP purchase for costumes or token bundles.

    If the game had a VIP mode that was tokens/HP only.  Or even just tokens only...  I'd probably throw some money at the game again for that.
  • dkffiv
    dkffiv Posts: 1,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:
    LifeofAgony said:
    This isn’t counting cards;  this is cheating.  Knowingly taking steps that have nothing to do with the game to exploit your token pulls to determine whether or not you want to pull.

    Lets keep this on-topic as I’m hoping at least someone will pipe up from the official voices side to say this is good or otherwise.
    I don't really see how you can meaningfully distinguish between the two. Both are exploiting weaknesses in a system by use of extrinsic knowledge/action. 
    The casino example takes money away from the house whereas the game example gives money to the house.
  • fight4thedream
    fight4thedream GLOBAL_MODERATORS Posts: 1,973 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    ***Mod note: Removed one post for providing too much information in how the exploit works. While I appreciate the attempt to not go directly into detail, anything that could potentially give a user ideas on how the exploit works is a no-go. Any future posts that fall into this grey area will be removed and the user issued a warning. 

    Finally, please keep this thread on topic. The OP has clearly stated they do not wish to have this thread go of course into comparisons with card counting. If you wish to have that discussion, please take it to the off topic forum. Thank you.
  • LifeofAgony
    LifeofAgony Posts: 690 Critical Contributor
    bluewolf said:
    First....the use of this exploit is d632efinitely frowned upon and not encouraged by the devs.  Hence you will never see them trying to publicize or otherwise encourage its use.

    Second......despite the OP's beliefs, the % of the players who are using it is vanishingly small compared to the thousands of players out there.

    Third....to take advantage of this exploit (previewing) requires on-hand resources which are either hoarded or purchased.  So it is very likely that people using it actually spend money on the game, or at least have in the past.  Which makes it more of an annoyance to the devs, perhaps, vs the zero-tolerance approach for someone who is adding resources for free (which is very quickly caught and causes your account to be sandboxed).

    Now...to fix/eliminate the exploit would cause the following:

    1.  A less snappy, less fun, slower user experience
    2.  An increase in consumption of user resources (real world, not in-game).  Possibly requiring much newer devices than are currently supported.  Hence there could well be a significant loss of current/potential customers (read some app store reviews and you'll quickly see there are a much broader range of users than you run into here or on Line, etc).
    3.  A large investment - in terms of initial cost and ongoing expense - on the part of the developers.  Which would presumably require them to somehow make that up in terms of revenue from ALL players.  IE reducing rewards, or more expensive IAPs.

    So the question is......is the problem so bad that all these negatives are required to fix it?  Presuming the developers had the will to do so?
    Yes.  Cheating is bad and should be fixed, regardless.  Otherwise why do you box one-hit KO bots or resource hackers?  Cheating is cheating.  Fix it all.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    LifeofAgony said:
    bluewolf said:
    First....the use of this exploit is d632efinitely frowned upon and not encouraged by the devs.  Hence you will never see them trying to publicize or otherwise encourage its use.

    Second......despite the OP's beliefs, the % of the players who are using it is vanishingly small compared to the thousands of players out there.

    Third....to take advantage of this exploit (previewing) requires on-hand resources which are either hoarded or purchased.  So it is very likely that people using it actually spend money on the game, or at least have in the past.  Which makes it more of an annoyance to the devs, perhaps, vs the zero-tolerance approach for someone who is adding resources for free (which is very quickly caught and causes your account to be sandboxed).

    Now...to fix/eliminate the exploit would cause the following:

    1.  A less snappy, less fun, slower user experience
    2.  An increase in consumption of user resources (real world, not in-game).  Possibly requiring much newer devices than are currently supported.  Hence there could well be a significant loss of current/potential customers (read some app store reviews and you'll quickly see there are a much broader range of users than you run into here or on Line, etc).
    3.  A large investment - in terms of initial cost and ongoing expense - on the part of the developers.  Which would presumably require them to somehow make that up in terms of revenue from ALL players.  IE reducing rewards, or more expensive IAPs.

    So the question is......is the problem so bad that all these negatives are required to fix it?  Presuming the developers had the will to do so?
    Yes.  Cheating is bad and should be fixed, regardless.  Otherwise why do you box one-hit KO bots or resource hackers?  Cheating is cheating.  Fix it all.
    I hate to be the jaded old-timer in the conversation, but that's not really how the world works.  It's not always easy to define cheating.  And even when it is easy, FIXING the problem can sometimes be costlier than leaving it alone, as explained by Bluewolf. 

    You can say that it all needs to be "fixed" as loudly as you want, but actually making that fix happen can be quite hard.

  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    So why can’t those accounts be sandboxed?
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    To me it is simple, just sandbox those people who do it.  They can play against each other all the time.  It is clearly outside of the rules according to actions the devs/publisher are taking concerning even discussing the exploit.

    By sandboxing them you are not impairing them from playing the game, which is usually the key complaint in any legal case.  They can continue to play the game in slice 6, the "exploitation bracket".  They don't get to choose brackets and are placed there automatically and that bracket starts at 3AM EST time.  
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Warbringa said:
    To me it is simple, just sandbox those people who do it.  They can play against each other all the time.  It is clearly outside of the rules according to actions the devs/publisher are taking concerning even discussing the exploit.

    By sandboxing them you are not impairing them from playing the game, which is usually the key complaint in any legal case.  They can continue to play the game in slice 6, the "exploitation bracket".  They don't get to choose brackets and are placed there automatically and that bracket starts at 3AM EST time.  
    short answer: $

    long answer: just sandboxing everyone would cause serious upheaval.  Lots of CS requests from people who were erroneously sandboxed (and without going into details, it is difficult to parse out legitimate use from low level previewing), and lots of rancor from those heavy spenders who do preview, but also spend lots of money. 
  • jp1
    jp1 Posts: 1,081 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m going about being a spender all wrong, I didn’t know it meant I could cheat without recourse.
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:
    Warbringa said:
    To me it is simple, just sandbox those people who do it.  They can play against each other all the time.  It is clearly outside of the rules according to actions the devs/publisher are taking concerning even discussing the exploit.

    By sandboxing them you are not impairing them from playing the game, which is usually the key complaint in any legal case.  They can continue to play the game in slice 6, the "exploitation bracket".  They don't get to choose brackets and are placed there automatically and that bracket starts at 3AM EST time.  
    short answer: $

    long answer: just sandboxing everyone would cause serious upheaval.  Lots of CS requests from people who were erroneously sandboxed (and without going into details, it is difficult to parse out legitimate use from low level previewing), and lots of rancor from those heavy spenders who do preview, but also spend lots of money. 
    Why would I want to spend any more money on a game that encourages cheating, which they are doing by allowing it to occur without penalty?  Let us all be clear on this, "previewing" is cheating as you are manipulating your future pulls by knowing to pull or not based on the current string and characters available at the time of the "preview". It seems to me they should be able to identify with high accuracy those who are manipulating the system.   
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Warbringa said:
    Vhailorx said:
    Warbringa said:
    To me it is simple, just sandbox those people who do it.  They can play against each other all the time.  It is clearly outside of the rules according to actions the devs/publisher are taking concerning even discussing the exploit.

    By sandboxing them you are not impairing them from playing the game, which is usually the key complaint in any legal case.  They can continue to play the game in slice 6, the "exploitation bracket".  They don't get to choose brackets and are placed there automatically and that bracket starts at 3AM EST time.  
    short answer: $

    long answer: just sandboxing everyone would cause serious upheaval.  Lots of CS requests from people who were erroneously sandboxed (and without going into details, it is difficult to parse out legitimate use from low level previewing), and lots of rancor from those heavy spenders who do preview, but also spend lots of money. 
    Why would I want to spend any more money on a game that encourages cheating, which they are doing by allowing it to occur without penalty?  Let us all be clear on this, "previewing" is cheating as you are manipulating your future pulls by knowing to pull or not based on the current string and characters available at the time of the "preview". It seems to me they should be able to identify with high accuracy those who are manipulating the system.   
    Don't confuse my answer for endorsement.  Those are the facts (and in fact they have been the facts for a long time now).  If that makes you question your decision to play the game, then I would encourage you to stop because this is unlikely to change any time soon.

    Also, starting the timer on this thread's closure now. . .

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