VIP tokens and the "Improved" VIP Wheel

[Rex_Typhoon]

..... winning the level 6/7 gems is a privilege, not a right

Technically - technically the possibility of winning is a right earned by people who pay for VIP status.

Technically.

It is a privilege for the non-VIP'ers who get a 2 hour VIP window.

[CondorHero]

Probably my last post in this thread. I respectively direct you to the following post:
http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....VIP-Membership

I quote from the post:

• Free Cooldowns - Never pay for a building, levy, technology or duel cooldown again!
• Exclusive Castle Appearance – Stand out from the crowd with a new castle appearance, only available for VIP players!
• VIP Daily Quests – Receive a variety of daily quests just for VIP players, each offering unique and special rewards.
• VIP Weekly Gift Packs – Looking for more gifts and prizes? Receive exclusive weekly gift packs, filled with surprises!
• VIP Tokens – With these tokens, you’ll be able to test your luck with the VIP Wheel, where all sorts of items are up for grabs.
• Bonus EXP – Receive bonus experience battling monsters and by complete campaigns!
• Automatic Check-in – Tired of having to manually check-in everyday? With automatic check-in, you don’t have to worry about that.
• Increased Friend Limit – Is your friend’s list full? Upgrade to VIP 3 or higher and you’ll receive a higher friend’s list capacity.
• Devotion Bonus – Need that extra devotion boost to help you with the Daily Tasks? Earn devotion bonuses each and every day!
• Bonus Kyanite from Plunder – Looking for more motivation to plunder your enemy’s cities? Receive additional Kyanite with every plunder!
• 1-Click Astral Capture – Tired of having to capture all those Astrals? Reach VIP 5 or higher and you’ll be able to capture them all with just one click!
• More Alchemy Attempts – Running low on Gold? Take advantage of these additional Alchemy attempts and exchange your Balens for Gold.
• More Mystery Shop Attempts – Looking for more great deals? Make use of the Mystery Shop with additional attempts!
• Less Honor Loss In-Battle – Lady luck not on your side in-battle? With this benefit, you’ll only lose a fraction of (or any!) Honor when losing in-battle.

It said in the post that you can test your luck in the VIP wheel. So there you go, you get to test it and get some rewards.
It did not say you will get level 6/7 gems from it.

I understand that all the angst here came from the fact that you feel that the gems should not be put in if it can't be gotten. However, it has been proven that someone has gotten it before. So your point is not valid.
Then there are others who wants the odds of getting level 6/7 gems raised. Usually the VIP members.

Imagine the odds of getting those gems is raised so high that you get 1 every 10 complete spins. What would non-VIP members say?

I'm done with this. You guys continue with your discussion.

[Kitwritten]

yes I agree, the possibility of winning, is a right of vip people......we pay for that privilege....

if we want the right to have level 6/7 gems, we can always buy transposers and collect / gem gems so we guarantee that we will get level 6/7 gems....and we pay for the right to have the items to pay or *own * the gems.

we buy and * own * the right to participate in the vip wheel, we buy and * own * the right to try for level 6/7 gems on the vip wheel, but I have never brought vip status with the understanding that it gives me the right to get 6/7 gems from the vip.... only that it gets me the right to hope that I may get one.....

bugger it, its faster and easier to say, you are right, rex...lol....

[R25734489]

2 MONTHS AND I ALWAYS SAVE MY TOKENS SO I GET THE FULL 8 spins and as said 500k was the best i ever got .so ya it is just a ease and i have given up the remote chance of ever winning high items . better chances winning lotto lol

[WildestDream]

Condor and Ratty,

I do understand your points of view, you are moderators for the Forum and have to follow company policy.
Someone seems to forget that VIP customers are the BREAD and BUTTER for the business.

Imagine the odds of getting those gems is raised so high that you get 1 every 10 complete spins. What would non-VIP members say?

1. Are you now playing
VIP customers (who pay for the party) vs Free Players (who benefit from VIP customers existence, otherwise there would be no Wartunes) ?
and expect me to believe you really care?
Good one
Remember? He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

2. How about a fair chance to win ALL displayed items even with the first spin?
The current situation could be described as pretense.
So give a chance to really win the displayed items, hide the prizes (like in the card shuffle) or scrap the entire VIP.

To answer your upcoming question Why care about the VIP customers in the first place?

The VIP fees guarantee a steady flow of income, which can be estimated and are therefore represent an important benchmark.
In the end it's all a question of the amount on the bottom line.
Wartunes does not exist because there was a bunch of philanthropist who loved to give a free game to some kids, but businessmen.


About R2Games
Reality Squared Games is an international online game publisher specializing in micro-transaction-based, free-to-play browser games. (...) We enjoy working with teams who are able to think outside of the box and discover new and unique game ideas that are creative, profitable, and most importantly, fun for our players.

And if R2 are writing about "micro-transaction-based", they are with 8 USD monthly VIP fees already beyond this segment.
Micro transactions are penny/cent payments and I fail to find anything in this price range on R2/Wartunes.

The main motivation "Fun" is easily replaced with disappointment due to VIP Wheel, displaying items which are never won.
Oh, I forgot, you know someone who got 1 Gem from VIP Wheel.
One out of how many thousand players?
I'd buy a Lotto Ticket with his luck, but am afraid I'll be sooner hit by a Meteor on the way to town.

For your consideration:

The majority of cashers are also VIP customers, buying special items which are not avail with VIP only (usually Wings, Mounts and Double Skills)
You can annoy a certain amount of people with jovial ignorance, but at some stage word of "KEY customer dissatisfaction" spreads and the business goes *pooof*


Ignore us, I'm counting your days...


Hint:
Pay for Online Games always directly with your Credit Card, the Credit Card Company protects you as their customer and will do ChargeBacks on your behalf for a period of 180 days.
In case the Online Game Company messes up, get your money back.

[Rex_Typhoon]

Condorhero - one point - I'm not actually testing my luck. I'm testing a mathematical formula that weighs heavily against winning elite items (for the aforementioned reasons).

Luck would imply that if you put 18 objects on the wheel, you would have a 1:18 chance of getting any one of those items.

If I may make a bold suggestion - why not make the probability of those elite items appearing significantly lower than the other items, make the wheel larger (20+ items) with repeated low-level items, and make the probability of getting something on the wheel actually luck based (in other words, 1:X, with X being the number of items). THAT would be testing your luck.

[Kitwritten]

Condor and Ratty,

I do understand your points of view, you are moderators for the Forum and have to follow company policy.
Someone seems to forget that VIP customers are the BREAD and BUTTER for the business.

thats incorrect, we have accounts with moderator tools...... we have personal accounts for personal opinions that can conflict with official R2 games policy....

[Ratty_Da_Nom]

now as a player on my personal account, I am a VIPer, and personally I want to have access to more seeds on the VIP wheel, but it caters to the biggest whingers..... the players that think that cos they have money, that R2 games should kiss their butts..... so other people like me that pay money too, miss out unless we pay extra money for the seeds......

I think thats **, cos I pay for VIP and I saw items on the vip wheel that I wanted,...and if R2 gave a rats butt about the players, instead of the profit, then my voice as a paying player, would be treated as egual as a vip wheel whinger......

when they last changed the wheel for the whingers, I lost out on my seeds.... thats not looking after the paying player... thats screwing over the non whingers cos the whingers will not stop throwing tantrums

[CondorHero]

Condorhero - one point - I'm not actually testing my luck. I'm testing a mathematical formula that weighs heavily against winning elite items (for the aforementioned reasons).

Luck would imply that if you put 18 objects on the wheel, you would have a 1:18 chance of getting any one of those items.

If I may make a bold suggestion - why not make the probability of those elite items appearing significantly lower than the other items, make the wheel larger (20+ items) with repeated low-level items, and make the probability of getting something on the wheel actually luck based (in other words, 1:X, with X being the number of items). THAT would be testing your luck.

I'm going to go back on my word and make one more post here.

The reason is that people misunderstood the meaning of "randomness" and "luck". The statistician in me would correct it:
Randomness is a phenomenon that describes situation with uncertainty. It is no way stating that the available outcomes are equally likely.
A uniform distribution (discrete or continuous) would describe that. Your example above is also describing a uniform distribution.


Now, the VIP wheel is indeed random, but it is not uniformly distributed. No one told you it is uniformly distributed. As per your suggestion, I suppose it can be done so that you have 10000 items on the wheel and then there's exactly one level 6 gem and one level 7 gem. Would that make you happier? Perhaps you should know this: the game is doing exactly the same thing, except that the visuals are not there for you to see.

Finally, as an end note. I'm a VIP level 8 player and have probably spent more than a fair amount of money on this game. I still don't think that the odds of getting a level 6/7 gem should be raised. This is so that non-cashers and non-VIP player can still have some fun in the game. Imagine VIP players running around in level 8 gems (after synthesizing all the level 7 gems) and non-VIP players going around with level 4-5 gems. What fun is there for non-VIP players? But that's my view, not R2Game's view.

[Rex_Typhoon]

Your point is a fair one Condor, but I think the main issue is the whole sense of the wheel being, pardon my language here, a ****-tease.

I'm not saying (nor would I agree with) L6/7 gems being a free for all. That would just be silly. Nor should their probability be increased. The problem that people have is that the items are there at such an infinitesimally small chance of getting that there is no point in them being there at all. Frankly, I'd rather sub out the L6/7 gems for L3/4/5 gems instead with a higher chance of actually getting them, or, to make it seem even better, two L3 gems and thus you can make the uniform distribution a little more even handed.

The uniform distribution I described is also different from how the wheel works. At least with a 1:18 chance you have a 1:18 chance of guessing right, whether you are or are not. With the current uniform distribution, my odds of determining (note: determining, NOT guessing) what I will get are a lot higher than 1:18 - in fact, looking at the wheel, I can determine what I will get on the first spin with a 1:3 chance depending on the contents, and usually 1:1 without doubt.

Let's actually look at some of the arguments when put together.

People have argued that the VIP wheel should have a better chance of getting the elite stuff. Counterarguments have suggested that the VIP wheel is a fluff point of being a VIP member and that it is, mostly superfluous. If that's the case and the wheel is not that important in determining whether people get VIP memberships, then why have the stuff in there that is fractionally likely to get? If you remove the "'leet" stuff from the wheel, it won't matter because that's not the reason that people become VIP members. Without it there, people won't whing about not getting elite stuff - out of sight is out of mind (and people won't whing about the removal because the odds of getting the stuff in the first place were so small as to barely be there)

Another counterargument is that giving VIP members increased access to "stuff" is going to make them powerful and drive away other players (by other players, I'm assuming we're worried about the non-cashers, who may become potential cashers). If that is the argument, then again, remove the tease from the wheel and provide stuff which isn't as broken and which players have a higher chance of getting. Ratty has referenced ONE person who got a high level gem, and good for them, but that is one person out of how many VIP members and how many spins total using how many VIP tokens?

I think ditching the elite stuff that is nigh impossible to get in favour of middle-ground stuff that VIPs can get access to without breaking the game necessarily (ie. I'd love to see Crypt Keys and Socket Rods in the VIP Wheel) AND for which non-cashers can eventually have access to through their 2H VIP windows (which will make the Wheel a greater selling feature along with all the other goodies offered to VIP members) might be the best solution to the issue here. That's me though - I think a compromise should honestly be considered, and hopefully R2 is listening to this.