Obligatory post about current promotion

Rowena

The minor giftbag prize chance is at 1/632

^ - what's with this? Didn't it start at 400 when we had this a few months back and that was nerfed from the time before.

In addition there is no free giftbag claim to help the number go down at all and help balance out all of the giftbags containing nothing but ylemshards.

Lim

Did you know:
It starts at 1/800.

Aishia

Just Ylem shards and just inks makes me think giftbags got a pretty major downgrade. Very unappealing.

Rashar

Dude.

I shall never require ink again.

Or ylemshards.

(Wat to do with ylemshards. Free icons for everybody. )

On a side note, giftbags are alright if you're bashing. They're affordable for the average player and you have a decent chance to get chocolates and pills and chalices. We endgame players don't like them, but heck, I bought quite a few to help an alt level up. If anything I'd like to see iterators and scrolls go away, but what sort of midrange neatness do you replace them with? I dunno.

Aside from going for the minor prize when the chance gets low and for bashy alts, I don't see any need for them. Buuut, there are giftbags laying around everywhere. So they're selling.

Or maybe those are mine. Whoops. Fine me!

Jensen

I'm playing an alt right now and the giftbags are okay, not great. Inks are meh as are shards, chalices chocolates are good, but I'm never pumped for class change crystals.

Rowena

Class change crystals you used to be able to trade in for 5 credits during the last promo. Can't seem to do that now.

Voxes and style scrolls are already so flooded that everyone that wants one has one and they don't carry much value any more.

It just feels very lackluster compared to what we've seen in the past.

Ishin

Shards can be usedt o buy special pets in Delve, if memory serves.

Benedicto

Yeah I got 20 full of inks, shards, iterators, scrolls and then a couple with gold or grimstims/hearts/eyes. I was bit like "Meh".

Alexina

I finally get to be that sarcastic voice that says 'o noes, free stuff'.

How I've longed for this.

Areka

They're not free since you're paying for the giftbags?

Edit: To clarify, you're paying for the giftbags and often times not even getting a single credit's worth of return on the gamble (such as with hearts and things).

Jensen

I'm betting she's looking at is as "I'm buying credits and receiving free giftbags" not "I'm buying giftbags." In my case I was using bound credits. Totes not worth it that way.

Teani

Um, actually, I think you are paying for the CREDITS and the giftbags themselves are a free gift that comes with the purchases.

Areka

Except those of us paying 15 credits a pop.

Alexina

O noes, free stuff.

Aarbrok

All this aside...Not a person is making you buy the giftbags.

Reasons why I am not buying them, I dont need inks, ylemshards, or phoenix hearts.
(Problem solved)

EDIT: That and I am poor, I cant even afford a 10 dollar lesson package.

Maite

My first giftbag had a language token. So I am totally happy!

Jensen

Alexina said:

O noes, free stuff.

more like bai bai 15 bound credits, hello inks? =/=

Teani

Still your choice to gamble with the bound credits, so sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If you buy them on site it's a free gift.

Jensen

A gamble implies there's some odds of getting more than your investment. I used up a little more than 200 credits to get them and I def did not receive even half that in value back. It's very meh, very very very meh

Areka

And we're allowed and valid in discussing and having issues with the ratios of the return without forever having to battle the 'suck it up' police. This isn't Vegas.

The idea is to encourage spending money, which helps the economy of the game and its guilds as well as support the company that makes the game we all enjoy. That is the purpose of incentives. When buying giftbags, (and I do mean buying with credits), when you take a 50,000g+ loss for over 90% of the gamble, there's an issue, as that then reflects with what we do with our real money (which helps pay for our fab producers and so on).

The trollish 'lol whining at free stuff' and 'well no one told you you had to pay for things even though that is the idea of the promotion' doesn't do anything but create bad feelings and divides and isn't productive beyond tottering about on a high horse (which yes, I do know that high horses are rather tempting, the view is often superior to being on the ground, even if you don't always see what you're stepping in).

Anyway. Some new style scrolls would be nice, or rotating them by promo. I really like my growing collection. Maybe could add a token for a custom scroll to the artie list? That would be pretty neat.

Teani

Instead of complaining, come up with ideas on what to do about it. The only things I've seen so far (aside from the things recently added by @Areka) have been 'Remove these things because they're worthless' and 'Add something more fun' without anything more constructive and that doesn't really solve the problem.

I admit I didn't consider the 15 cr ingame purchases. My thoughts went straight to the giftbags you get for free when you buy credits, and those -are- free. And a gamble never guarantees you walk away with what you invested or more. It's a significant risk with a -potential- gain. Granted, in this case the chance for a gain is very slim.

Jensen

Not knowing a solution doesn't mean you don't recognize a problem. This is a problem, and had I known of the poor turnout beforehand, I wouldn't have bought those giftbags with my bound credits.

Alexina

You -do- realize that if the average return per giftbag purchased with 15 credits was higher than 15 credits, we'd essentially have an infinite credits machine here?

Areka

It would be nice if the average return per giftbag purchased with 15cr amounted to more than the cost of 1cr.

Oleis

For the sake of clarity, the current average for this month is just under 4cr. The average for the May giftbag promo was about 3.5.

We're actually over the IRE standard of 3cr.

This isn't to suggest that your complaints are unwarranted -- there's a definite need for some new content. But in terms of pure VALUE, I wanted to make sure we had our numbers straight.

Areka

Thank you for that, Oleis. It helps with perspective and gauging.

Rowena

How when the chance for a giveaway is lower? Do the regular bags just have a higher chance of giving something decent?

How do you work that out as well, like what are you pricing ylemshards at? To me they're worthless and I have over a hundred of them.

Oleis

Gold, Edibles, Inks and ylem shards are valued at 0cr.

I don't know what you mean about the chance of a giveaway.

Rowena

Oleis said:

Gold, Edibles, Inks and ylem shards are valued at 0cr.

I don't know what you mean about the chance of a giveaway.

The minor prize in the giftbag thing, it says 1 / 800 when it rests. Last time it was 1 / 400.

Oleis

You're correct, my mistake. It changed from 500 to 800 this month (most likely to correct that higher-than-required average we had in May).

Riluo

opps double