Nexon Gatcha Scam

hellmarik · January 13

After watching this makes me not want to ever buy gatchas again.

Helsa · January 13

Other than the in-game activity dynamic odds manipulation, which we've all experienced, particularly when crafting, and called "Nexon odds", this doesn't effect me because I took a Statistics course, in college, and so have avoided gacha.

On the other hand, if true:

officially lying is bad. I can't condone this but I think it can be explained beyond the "greedy capitalists" explanation. To be sure "greedy capitalists" might be precisely what's going on but then does it come from the very top or is it the actions of ambitious young middle-management pricks acting on their own initiative. There are also considerations of game balance and cost to the consumer.

For example lets say you have an item with a 0.01% chance to gacha; that's 1 in 10,000. Let's say the best rate via bundle is 50¢ per shot. The expected amount to spend is the cost of 10,000 tries, which at 50¢ is $5,000. If they offered the item outright for $5,000 would you buy it? In fact, some would! Overall though, I would think Nexon has done the study and the math and found gacha leads to more overall revenue, despite people like me that avoid gacha.

They could lower the cost for the item but then there are game balance issues. If you lower it to say $100, then you're gonna get at least 50 times as many people with the item. Great! Oversupply then it's cheaper in the auction house! If you have 50 times more people getting through the game much easier, what does that do to retention, not just the folks that bought, but those that are upset with pay-to-win? So maybe you think: "who cares about pay-to-win complainers, they're a bunch of cheapskates that will never help to keep the game alive!" Ah, but they do. The free-players provide atmosphere by their presence and help to make the game appear to be more alive. If they all up and quit then the place will look like the original servers just before the merges (yes, I include Alexina just before its' merge).

You could take another route and say, don't offer as good of an item so you can charge less. Sure, but then less people want less impressive stuff. Yes, that can mean greedy capitalists but even ethical business has to cover costs. You need to offer an item, or a chance at an item, that people would actually want to spend money on.

So, odds manipulation for items that help you move forward in the game is not a simple issue, but things like fashion do not effect game play so I think they can be sold outside of gacha. But here's the thing, the items that do help you to win, found inside a gacha, require "dummy" items and they shouldn't be total garbage, so that's where the fashion items come in; it's all inter-related.

The in-game odds manipulation, that crafters have all suspected for years, can be seen as a game balance thing all-the-while being a dirty trick. Still, once you know about it, you can work to "game" your way around it. I won't say how because why would I; Nexon reads these forums. In the case of Gacha, those whales willing to spend the money don't let it go to waste because the unwanted items all get sold for in-game gold which is used to buy the item, via the in-game markets, for those that were either looking for another item or managed a second one. This would be an example of how whales can "game" the system.

Justison · January 13

iv spent 20$ on mabi ghacha and goten 1 or 2 good items and one time i spent 300$ got 1 half decent item and a clip bord and 60% of the rest was dyes and after that burn i shied away from gachas.
it's not just the ghacha eather the in game drop and rates have the same bs.
me and a few other long term payers have grinded for things like trying to get a kraken heart and after 1000s of runs and months of runing it never got a single one. and i'm sure a lot of people have heard of that 1 returning player or beginner that got it on their 1st run.
and during the tec drop rate event u could pretty much see the drop rate scam bs in real time. but evean then i hoped it was just bad luck and pray to rng for better luck. I feel robbed of my time effort and loyalty and betrayed. i would go out of my way to invite and bring people to mabi and teach and help people to understand and how to play the game. but now that i know the 30+ weapons that are bricked at step 6 trying to get step 7 to the point it was made into a joke by soul streamers how bad my luck is. i'm so upset i cant evean bring my self to play mabinogi any more after playing and supporting it for years this might be it..... this pic is from me and a friend talking during the tec drop rate event and for a year before that event i was runing tecs every day and only got 1 ruin matt and during that event ya i was getting maybe 1 a day but that was with 20-100+ runs a day during a "drop rate event" and that event was probably them just turning down the limiter bull crap they set on us active players... i'm not coming back until nexon dose something to apologies for this and put a stop to it... and i'm informing everyone i can of this bullcrap.....

GandorEU · January 18

heh this was suspected for a long time and this is probably just tip of an iceberg of BS that Nexon does behind the scenes to squeeze out every dollar that's why I prefer the subscription model for MMORPGs you get a much better game design that way with less invented inconveniences that have paid solution in the cash shop

Shakaya · January 18

Other games at least have a pity system for their gachas, if you buy X amount of them you're guaranteed the advertised item at the end. Mabi does this with Pet Gachapons, and those are the only ones I see as worth the money. Also $5 for 1 pet gacha box and you're guaranteed a pet no matter what, even if it's not the advertised one you're pulling for, is a lot better than the fashion gachapons. At the very least you're getting a pet to be a fynn snack to the good advertised pet that you were hoping for, and it's cheaper than the old $7 pets that are always for sale as pet creation cards. And you're guaranteed the advertised pet after you buy so many of them.

And considering before pet gachas, we'd be spending like $25 for one dragon, and now you're spending about $50 for a garuanteed dragon/fat cat and possibly pulling a second one, the price doesn't feel like it increased that much. Especially 'cuz me and my husband usually buy one of the nice pets for each of us, so we'd have been spending $50 on the old system anyways. If we get unlucky and don't pull a second one we can usually at least pet trade some undesirables (to us) with another player that pulled multiple of the advertised pet and we all end up getting pets we want in the end. + some fynn snacks to spare, for the same price as the old system only giving out 2 pets in total.

But yea, I've never seen the point of buying anything other than pet gachapons. The fashion and armor ones just seem like a rip off. Especially with spooky/eerie and creepy/haunted drops always being under like 0.0## % or something dumb like that.

And I quit being an up to date fashionogi since 2019 'cuz the inflated prices for the nice special outfits are just not worth the gold grind, and I haven't bought a fashion gachapon since the Vocaloid gachapon. I have enough old outfits to cycle through, back from the days where we used to buy Outfit Bags / Character Cards came with outfits. If I could spend $20 and get the guaranteed outfit I wanted like I used to they'd get more money out of me more often. But as of right now, we only buy pet gachapons when they come out with a new OP pet about once every 3 years. (and VIP service once a year at black friday sales but that's off topic)

Justison · January 19

Shakaya wrote: »

If I could spend $20 and get the guaranteed outfit I wanted like I used to they'd get more money out of me more often. But as of right now, we only buy pet gachapons when they come out with a new OP pet about once every 3 years

and that how they get your with the drop rate scam instead of that 20$ they want people to giv that 50$ for a stack of ghacha not get the outfit and just like the boots or hat then pay another 300$-500$ trying to get the rest of the outfit all while making the drop rate % lower and lower each one your open

LoomyOfPi · January 20

Helsa wrote: »

For example lets say you have an item with a 0.01% chance to gacha; that's 1 in 10,000. Let's say the best rate via bundle is 50¢ per shot. The expected amount to spend is the cost of 10,000 tries, which at 50¢ is $5,000. If they offered the item outright for $5,000 would you buy it? In fact, some would! Overall though, I would think Nexon has done the study and the math and found gacha leads to more overall revenue, despite people like me that avoid gacha.

Funny thing is, an expected 10,000 tries is an average across all players. One person might get it on the 8th try, while their two rich friends each gets theirs around the 15,000th try. Many people cannot grasp this idea.

I'm not a mathematician, so my math could be wrong, but I believe the way to calculate odds of getting something in n-tries is to approach the problem of the odds of not getting it. So the odds of not getting that deluxe item is 9,999/10,000. The odds of not getting that item after 10,000 tries is that number raised to the power of 10,000, which is approximately 36.79%. Imagine spending $5,000 thinking that you should be getting that item any time now only to be told that the odds that you'd have opened that item by now is only 63.21%!

Things like this are why I don't buy gachas. If there is something I want, I'll buy if off the auction board from a player who bought one. If the price is too high, I'll do without. Personally, Nexon would have had more of my money if they sold new pets directly. Clearly, they make more money from selling pets through gachas than individually. So, I get to keep my real money.

Helsa · January 20

LoomyOfPi wrote: »

Helsa wrote: »

For example lets say you have an item with a 0.01% chance to gacha; that's 1 in 10,000. Let's say the best rate via bundle is 50¢ per shot. The expected amount to spend is the cost of 10,000 tries, which at 50¢ is $5,000. If they offered the item outright for $5,000 would you buy it? In fact, some would! Overall though, I would think Nexon has done the study and the math and found gacha leads to more overall revenue, despite people like me that avoid gacha.

Funny thing is, an expected 10,000 tries is an average across all players. One person might get it on the 8th try, while their two rich friends each gets theirs around the 15,000th try. Many people cannot grasp this idea.

I'm not a mathematician, so my math could be wrong, but I believe the way to calculate odds of getting something in n-tries is to approach the problem of the odds of not getting it. So the odds of not getting that deluxe item is 9,999/10,000. The odds of not getting that item after 10,000 tries is that number raised to the power of 10,000, which is approximately 36.79%. Imagine spending $5,000 thinking that you should be getting that item any time now only to be told that the odds that you'd have opened that item by now is only 63.21%!

Things like this are why I don't buy gachas. If there is something I want, I'll buy if off the auction board from a player who bought one. If the price is too high, I'll do without. Personally, Nexon would have had more of my money if they sold new pets directly. Clearly, they make more money from selling pets through gachas than individually. So, I get to keep my real money.

1/10000 of getting vs 9999/10000 of not getting is kinda the same thing but you DO get SOMETHING. The idea that some will probably get it is what I was referring to when I said how the whales "game" the system.

LoomyOfPi · January 23

My previous post was just a friendly comment. No criticism intended.

What I was getting at was that many people don't understand chance (the Monty Hall problem comes to mind), and those that DO understand it are willing to prey on those who don't.

Helsa · January 24

LoomyOfPi wrote: »

My previous post was just a friendly comment. No criticism intended.

What I was getting at was that many people don't understand chance (the Monty Hall problem comes to mind), and those that DO understand it are willing to prey on those who don't.

I wasn't upset or anything; did it come across that way? My bad.

Zakizo · January 29

This is why these kinds of games, more relevant to most of us here Mabi specifically, should have a transparent hard pity on any systems where it's actually possible (e.g. erg, special upgrades, or all rare drops) where after a certain number of attempts the result you're aiming for can be guaranteed. It's not really feasible on things like reforge lines being what you want (it is feasible for upgrading ranks), but implementing it where possible is the only way to restore some level of confidence in rates working in an honest way.
We're well past the point of "just trust us." I already have a friend who is convinced that after a while of farming they're throttling his drops of a material he farms to sell. There's a belief based on data from KR mabi that party members getting a rare drop can prevent you from getting one, despite information provided on the update implying the opposite. Whether these beliefs are true or not, the idea of invisible systems working against you and Nexon outright lying about it shouldn't be a constant source of stress for players. It's still possible to start heading in the right direction, it's just a question of if they're willing to accept the consequences of what they've done and do it.

Michael_Mind · February 11

I would like to see and transparent percentage chance of each item within a gacha, like Genshin Impact is doing it.

Elebon · February 12

Michael_Mind wrote: »

I would like to see and transparent percentage chance of each item within a gacha, like Genshin Impact is doing it.

Hi @Michael_Mind

We post the full rates of all items in our Gachapons, such as the current Circus Troupe Box. The rates for that gachapon can be found on this page, and we have the link for it listed in the Circus Troupe Box webpage itself, right before images of the items.

Arachne · February 12

English is my second language, so I am sorry for any typos or grammatical horrors.

Feedback:

I started playing when open beta started in NA (I miss that Morrighan statue start screen).

Then I went away from Mabinogi several years, when reforges came out. At that time, reforges was just unbalance and as a free player (at that time) it was really hard to keep up.

I came back 4-5 years later and there were some very nice changes like free rebirth, been able to set a shop without service, balanced reforges, quality of life changes, etc. It was really nice surprise to find out that there were events all the time (when I started it was like one event per month maximum).
Then found other not so nice like not been able to use any previously purchased Premium cards to rebirth and get the clothes I purchased. Now you have to create a new character with that card to get them.

The problem I am see right now with Mabinogi is:
1. This game does not respect the players effort and time
2. Gatcha is not worth the money

I farmed dungeons for weeks/months for enchants and materials I need, but no luck. This leaves me with a very bad taste because the more effort and time I dedicate, there is no noticeable improvement.

I am from an era when Premium and Pet cards gave what you wanted. Now we must gamble our way to get something we want for a 0.22% chance (at best). I have purchased gatcha (pet and clothes) multiple times to support this game, but the items I get back are not even good enough to justify the money.

I know that this game needs to make money in order to survive but there must be a balance between what the company wants and players wants.

Due to some recent results with the different gatchas I tried, I decided not to purchase them anymore. I just don’t see the value anymore.

I am aware of the recent issues with Maple Story and how my own experience with this game has been so far, it is giving me very bad vibes right now.

I am not saying that what has been previously stated for the drop rates is not true, is just my mabi experience so far doesn't support that claim.

I am aware of the limitations a GM may have regarding access to certain information and what can share with the player base, but right now I as a player I really want that someone at Nexon can look at this, verify and tell us that everything is working as intended. That would be good.

Thanks for your time ^.^
Sharon+Tarlach

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