Recent revelations about games using 'dynamic rates based on player activity' could have pretty bad implications for MMOs, ARPG's, and other loot games. Here's what we know.
The reason why games "decided" to show the percentages of the gacha system is because the EU forced them to do it otherwise the games would have been banned.
China indee did it "first". However the initial proposal actually happened a year earlier in South Korea, but due to the differences in government structure China was able to "implement" the new ruling quicker.
If the shareholders weren't more shortsighted than my grandma, they would have. But somehow shareholders don't understand that happy customer = happy to pay = more profit = happy shareholder
@@AnymMusic Shareholders go for short term money making, playing the long game of happy customers isn't gaining them the short term profit making. They have no connection with the companies nor the products they invest in, other then knowing it will gain them quick easy money. For all they care the company goes bust next year, they don't care that the employees are pushed to the max and beyond with work pressure, where a underpaid employee now has to work 300% harder for the same crappy income, meanwhile some rich filth with millions on their account now made another few millions while doing nothing. Then when the employee losses their job cause the company closed down after imploding, the same rich feckers say "You are a free loader, you shouldn't get money, work for your money reeeeee". They destroy everything for short term gains, happy customers = slow profit making, not something they want.
@@Jorendo That is not entirely true. Shareholders mostly are long term invested. What causes this issue of untrust and most importantly short term thinking from the company are the dividens. The Company looks into possible increase in income and decrease in outcome (eg lootboxes or cosmetics in a shop / less employee or less payment to them) btw payment is a really big number for a company and most people kinda dont "want" to understand that... back to topic, this 2 (fairly simplified) points increase the profit and this increase the dividens in the end (simplified) -> and that is what companies are looking for and the shareholders.
@@mw2984 this would be true if all stocks pay dividends most do not - making that wall of text completely pointless and you a fool for believing every TH-cam video you watch. Investors invest on terms. They give X amount expecting X in return in X amount of time. Some short term, some long term. Mostly short term, couple years.
Drop rates changing based on player location refers to the 'player' location in the real world, not what part of the game the character is in. They're basically saying that people in richer countries like the US could have lower drop rates so they'll be more likely to spend money.
I actually think its the other way around, rates will be worse in e.g Korea, because they are known for being highly pay to win, and getting mad when a game isn't pay to win enough, because they don't have the time to play the same amount as people in the west.
@@Slitheringpeanut Most of them did used to be good. Back when "make good product, sell good product, make next good product" was the pipeline and not "make buggy product, squeeze players for every possible penny with gamba, abandon product for next buggy product"
Anecdotally, this happened to me in Destiny 2 a few times. I quit Destiny 2 after every major expansion, and don't play much until the next one. My friend however never quit and grinded out dozens to hundreds of raid runs trying to get raid gear. After months, I returned to the game. He offered to sherpa me through the new raids so that he could try to get the raid gear he STILL didn't have. He sherpa'd me through one run and I got the ultra rare raid exotic, and he again did not. He raided hundreds of times putting in hundreds of hours and got nothing. I returned from a long break, ran one raid, and got the exotic drop. This happened twice.
Imagine treating your best customers like this and thinking it’s okay. Even more baffling when a game has a cash shop. Once a company destroys trust with its customers, it’s over.
Funnily enough, with my brother its the opposite in Destiny 2 I play a lot more, and he plays like once a week or even less. When we do some dungeon or etc together, I usually get all the items he wanted from the place and he gets nothing, or the same gloves 2-3 times lol
That's just RNG, the dynamic rates have to do more with loot boxes than just actual loot drop RNG. Did you just read the title and have a knee-jerk reaction?
In this case, everyone has an equal chance to get good loot as raids are repeatable as long as you have time and usually there's no way to just pay to get an item. Unlike loot boxes where you're forced to fork over money or sometimes you can get it for free by just playing but with abysmal drop rates. So I don't think Destiny 2 is actively fucking over your friend, he's just unlucky.
China's government was actually ahead of the curve on this one. They made it law a long time ago that any game of chance has to have its percentages published publicly to players. I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, but they got that one right. This is why games from China, like Genshin, makes it so easy to see the percentages of gacha stuff. Hopefully other countries pass some laws like this as well.
@@Lineboy78 1000% true, i quit BDO for a year, i come back and tap pen blackstar in 16 attempts, my buddy who didnt quit cant get pen dim tree on his 56th attempt. no one believed me when i say all games with RNG definitely boosts drop rates when u start or come back. you have about a week or two of "making it rain" then quit and play another game. after a month youll really watch your RNG drop. ive got both infinite pots before the pitty pieces using my theory, got them both in under 100hrs of grinding
Caught...but not really punished. If we get caught stealing...ALL the stolen items and money are confiscated and we go to jail. Why don't the same things happen to companies?
i dont understand why nexom wouldnt be fined the full 400 profit + an extra 100 + criminal charges aginst the ones that made the decision so they cant just hide behind the company and move on
Yeah I never understood that either, why not take all the profit they made with these illegal activities, plus a massive fine. Criminal charges is often hard to do cause then some middle management manager gets F'ed over as we seen with the Volkswagen scandal. Some engineer got blamed for messing with the numbers to make the car seem to be less polluting then it was while selling it as a "See how green our car is!". Higher management and the CEO got off easy, some engineer got jail time, even though everyone knows the CEO was fully aware and likely the bastard who gave the order to mess with the numbers to begin with cause there is no way some engineer thinks to himself one day "What if I just fiddle with the numbers a bit to make it look better".
Because corruption is endemic all over the world. Probably the judge got a fat bribe under the table and gave them a slap on the wrist fine - for companies like this they just regard it as the cost of doing business, it's not even a punishment, they literally factor possible fines into their budget. South Korea is particularly corrupt and hyper capitalist as well, their entire society is pretty much owned by three mega corporations who work their people into early graves and force their kids to study like 16 hours a day.
Doesn't take a scientist to realize how predatory genshin is with their time gated content, spewing out characters yet most of which you would need to farm 3-4 months to get (assuming you're not starting a new acc) and daily resin to keep you playing. So much work for so little. 50/50 for 90 rolls? Where as 90 rolls would usually take around a month of actively playing, that alone tells you what kinda D***s they are.
@@Scadipippen true, but in my own experience, Genshin's just feels far worse. Even Star Rail's, made by the same people and having near identical systems, feels much better and it happens far less.
In Warframe, you get a random reward each day for logging in. Usually these are just random resource items or whatever, but rarely you can get a discount voucher for the cash shop. It's impossible to say for sure, but it's quite widely agreed by the community that you get these discounts much more often when you haven't logged in for a while or just haven't been playing much, and that lines up with my own experience. Take a break, come back and right away get a discount voucher.
World of Tanks has similar coupons, and it's 100% apparent, that they aren't random. And why would they be? Coupons obviously drop to entice people to spend, so they are frequent, and probably also target the players based on their previous spending behaviour. The game also has certain "(please) come back" rewards, that are even named as suchs, and the game tells you how those trigger - like, after you've been away for more than 30 days, etc.
My understanding is if you don't login for a while, they give you a welcome back coupon. I believe daily rewards are set in stone, unless the dailies set in stone are just the milestones maybe
Oh... That makes a lot of sense now, I play Warframe very casually, sometimes I get an itch to play and grind and when that wears off, I take long breaks and almost every time I come back I get a discount voucher (Which I use, their pretty good ngl). I don't mind spending money on Warframe time from time, but that's pretty sneaky from their part if they really do that.
"adjusting rates based on player location" seeing how its Korea, i am pretty sure this might be referring to like internet cafes, where the cafes will make deals with game devs that if players are playing there, they get more drop rates or something so that players use this internet cafe instead of others.
I think 'changed based on location' is referring to real world location, Eastern culture has very different expectations for loot games compared to other cultures across the world. Steam adjusts it's price based on regional economy, it's different but has some overlap.
To be fair - when they added hidden streamer queue in Path of Exile for the league - it was changed and swept under the rug too fast, and noone seems to talk about it ever since. After that whole Nexon drama, the "streamer RNG" term starts to be really concerning.
There is no question whatsoever that drop rates, currency success rates, log in ability, etc,,,are tweaked upward for streamers. None. I watched about an hour of one of the famous POE streamers and his results were consistently better than basically I have experienced every using the same currency. GGG just got caught red handed that time with the log-ins. I was part of an elite guild in the early days of WOW. There was a hidden buff for elite guilds. It was widely known
On the subject of loot in Path of Exile, I noticed long ago the "welcome back" buff. That's where you get a Divine Orb (or Exalt in the old days) within a couple hours of logging in to play if you've been away for a couple days. Then...those drops dry up again. If you play every single day, especially if you're grinding long hours, your drop RATE decreases. Yes, of course you'll still get more items and currency overall, but the rate is better temporarily if you stay away from the game for days. The drop rates are definitely manipulated to encourage players to return, but discouraged from grinding. Whether that's a good or bad thing, I leave up to each individual...
@@MrVvulf To be fair - it's a good thing to motivate you to play after a break, but it should be officially announced then. But, then it would be abused a lot by bots or even normal players - leveling 10 different characters on different account to have "AFK" divine farm
It's actually one of the main reason loot boxes game are "forbidden" in Belgium, for a while already. They fall under the regulations of gambling games, and therefore the company has to prove the odds of winning are locked and can't be changed by the company.. That's why it's not forbidden per say, it's just that the (serious) companies don't bother to apply the law and just do not publish their games here.
Dear Force, I am a lifelong MMO fan (although not for the last 5 years or so, because of the drought) I work full time and am soloing parenthood. I am lucky to squeeze in 5 hours of gaming a week but dream of the day that there is an MMO worth my time and I actually have the time to sit down and grind. The future of MMOs has been looking very bleak for a long time. I do however have the time to pop on each and every new "episode"? you put out while making dinner or cleaning or whatever domestic duty I have in front of me. In my opinion you are hands down the best content creator out there. Honest, well spoken, concise and to the point. Watching your channel has almost become my only connection to gaming these days. Thank you for what you do. I hope you become wealthy beyond your dreams for the content you pump out. You deserve it. This particular one hit home. I have always been suspicious of these practices especially when RMT is involved. My friends would mock me as a conspiracy theorist. It bums me out that my friends may have been wrong. Cheers to 1 million subs, and here is to a million more.
The lack of proper punishment for companies is a huge problem all over and it’s something that really, really needs to be addressed. It can have far worse consequences than just loot box scams as companies get a slap-on-the-wrist for things like dumping chemicals into local water supplies. (That happened around here only a few years ago.) As long as the fines are merely seen as “the cost of doing business”, they won’t be a deterrent.
I LOVE lootboxes. i HATE keys. I HATE no currency to reduce rng. I HATE pay-to-open. Lootboxes are a tool for developers to make items interesting and more unique. They should never be tied to real money in any way.
I hear you and these are all fair points. From my perspective, you can just have the part that you like "opening something up and getting an item (or something akin to that) through any other possible creative means rather than a "lootbox". Games are supposed to be imaginative/fun new experiences. I'm sure a developer can figure out how to do it without a box.@@IHateNumbersOnNames
In WoW Legion there was this system called "Bad luck protection" which basically gave you more and more % chance to find a legendary if you didn't find any after days of activities, so I always assumed that there was the same system implemented for returning players. After several years of pause, I managed to get 3 rare mounts in one day just the day I returned while I couldn't get them before for months if not years of farming... Back-End RNG manipulation might be crazy in a lot more games than we think, but it's probably something that we will never truely be sure of except if a situation is brought to us like the Maplestory one.
Maplestory has had "adjusted rates based on player location in the world" from almost 15 years ago. Until some patch removed it, I don't know when. Basically if you were playing from an internet cafe that was partnered with Nexon, you would go to an npc in game which checks where you're playing from, and if you are playing on a computer in a partnered internet cafe (I don't know how they check that, IPs or mac addresses are possible) you will unlock better rates for the play session, and unlock access to grinding maps with good amounts of monsters and a 1.5x exp multiplier, plus you would have a lot less people there so it would be easier to grind uncontested. Internet cafes have hourly fees for playtime there. As far as I know the only partnered internet cafe franchises were in South Korea and SEA region of the world, so good luck unlocking the bonuses on the western servers. There might've been some cafes in other Asian countries but nothing outside of Asia.
There is cure for this: STOP BUY, players are at fault that they can get away with loot boxes and any other rng shit. Because players keep buying.. they know, but they just keep buy all that shit.
I don't want the government fiddling even more around a private medium. Next they define quotas what content the game has to contain, what stories and characters are appropriate, and how long you are allowed to play.
I never get people who buy into gambling to begin with, its a waste of time and money. But the lack of morality of the people behind it, even pushing it to kids with unregulated gambling like in CSGO is beyond despicable anyways.
addiction is usually caused by an underlying issue, its a psychological weakness, for some its a coping mechanism to deal with supressed emotions. i think you should read up on it because addicted people are usually some kind of victim even tho they might be destructive to the people around them. im not saying they shouldnt be held responsible but we need lots of empathy for people like that. otherwise i fully agree with you, the people behind it, do not have morals or principles, i dont even know if they are humans because they are intentionally abusing psychological weaknesses to get you hooked.
there was MMO that i think the most ethical that i know of. Swords of Legends Online. But the global version already shut down. Chinese version is still running and strong tho. In that game, not a single p2w item in cash shop, no gacha, no lootbox, you will always get equipment that you don't have from clearing dungeons and raids, you don't need to grind 24/7, your starter free mount has better stat even compare to the premium ones, and some other good things that most MMOs don't have. Too bad gameforge just too incompetence to market the game for the global version, so it's dead.
@@PrawiSucia_Official I actually really liked that game when it first launched. It fizzled out pretty steadily sadly enough, mainly because the devs didn't update things quickly enough. Basically ran out of content within the first month or two. You're right though, the monetary system for the game was pretty decent. They didn't over charge and even with the building decorations (Which could have been leveraged to hell and back) you could earn everything you needed by playing the game.
@@Sabamonster yeah global version was way behind the chinese version. We were waiting update 3.0. Gameforge suddenly went radio silent for months before shut down.
Item Farmers in games: 1) Use VPN and choose a poorer country 2) Remove all your in-game friends, or make sure they are on alts using crappy gear 3) Keep all high value items on mules or in stashes 4) Switch accounts after a high value drop 5) PROFIT!
I used to play Vindictus with a handful of mates and I can tell you that whenever someone came back after a hiatus they had otherwordly luck. At one time I had two accounts, and I stopped playing on one for a long time, went back to it and instantly got a weapon to max rank trying to fail enhancement for materials back on a character I didn't play. A friend from that group was recently trying to hype me up for the new game Vindictus: Defying Fate. Lol. Lmao.
Vindictus is a nice game that is unfortunately hampered by these other mechanics and that is probably never going to change. Even without dynamic rates the other stuff they do still sucks.
THE PROBLEM is that they are literally changing the value of what you are purchasing without adjusting prices accordingly, as you are playing, in real time. You think you are buying into a set of odds but your money is not getting what you think you agreed upon when you spent it, no. You are getting whatever they decide is fair, behind your back. At that point, the only real choice left is to treat them as betrayers of the trust and blacklist them as a company.
Over-greed must be fought hard because the people we're fighting against are VERY rich and influential. So many games do this. They punish dedicated hardcores and they have for decades. Casual-chasing has to happen to some degree, but most are smart enough to realize we've gone way too far away from the proper rewarding for dedication and regular use.
I agree but I think it's a little more complicated than that. it also bottoms in addiction, hobby, gambling, life situations such as unemployed etc. I see it as this: We all need to escape reality, best way of doing it is 1. having a job (especially so if you're dedicated enough to become better at it), 2, alcohol and drugs 3. friends 4: games. Friends an replace drugs btw but still.. Addictive games can become a bit like drugs and gaming in one making it rather great! Reality is the empty feeling where you know that everything in life is pointless. When you see how your life from above is just an eternal circle where you go round and round to the same locations. Where rooms are just empty walls and life is just like an amusement park filled with useless distractions. That kinda feeling, ya know?
I know in Warframe that each daily login has a chance to give a discount on platinum. However if you login ones every 30 days that chance becomes 100%.
Yeah this one is not so secret at all in Warframe. Though honestly maybe I prefer they don't hit me with the tempting deals while I'm in no life mode. :P It's easy for me to drop some money into a game picturing that it will be my main for while and then two weeks later you have some more clarity of mind and realize you are about done with the game. Lost Ark and Black Desert both got like $150+ from me and I loved my time with them and would have paid that asking price but after a month I still end up putting the games down and realizing that they aren't going to my "main game" for whatever reason and still have most my premium currency unspent.
In arccheage Korean mmo, I regularly had little used alts roll on my rng weapon upgrades for tradeable gear. They would usually get it when main toon would not. I have experienced many of the things you explained playing 7yrs of that game. Rng boxes gave top loot the first minutes released...then not. I just didn't buy many loot crates and worked my way around it best o could until it became impossible to advance without buying them constantly when kaka took over publishing agsin.
What would be interesting to know is what exactly happened to their player base since this news got out, and if there was no change, it's safe to assume that not just Nexon but other companies will keep doing this and be even bolder about it going forward.
I know for a fact this happens in sports games fantasy team building modes all the time. I've opened so many packs from free to play means and got barely anything worthwhile. Then when I swiped it was like a whole different set of odds, getting tons of good stuff. On multiple occasions. The amount of money I've wasted back in 2017 on MLB the show, I'm a dummy I know. I should have just put that money into bitcoin back then
There's thousands of games to play today but it's so hard to find a game that's not either absolutely stacked with cheaters or company exploiting their own playerbase.
This has been happening forever. It's not just loot games. Probably almost any game. FPS for sure. It's common knowledge that players who purchase extra from shops, get favored treatment in various ways likely through algorithms. It reinforces their purchases and makes them more likely to purchase again. It punishes players who do not spend. Players will likely cave and purchase, falling into that trap. Every major company uses this technology in some way. It can manifest in so many ways and most gamers don't even realize it. Companies have knobs they can turn to affect your gameplay and make it different from other players. Depending on how much if at all you spend. Or other factors like player behavior. We as gamers don't have access to a lot of the behind the scenes information because they "own it" so we can't even extract data and talk to each other effectively to resist or fight back. It's all word of mouth anecdotal which can be dismissed as chance. It's a serious problem, and is a very large reason why I almost never play games anymore. I can actively feel this malice in the game. I know it to be true, but cant prove it and I cant do anything to change it other than not buy or participate.
These companies have turn these players into hamsters, trapped on a treadmill forever chasing after the next loot, while filling their bank with gold. Without supervision it Is hard not to exploit these hamsters when they are so happy to hand over their hard earn money to fill their addiction or ego. lol
Another possibility for "player location" based loot table adjustments could be who the access provider is. For example, drop and loot-box item tables could be different for users logged in from a PC-Bang or Internet Café vs a residential service ISP vs a university dormitory vs a cellular/mobile service.
There should be an independent third party which inspects these companies if gamble mechanics are involved. And of course the fines should be way higher if those companies scam their customers.
I gave the FF7 gatcha game a try. I remember pulling 2 really big pulls on my first free pulls and got an "Error" which required me to restart the game from scratch. From that point I knew what was up.
The price of what? They dont have gear or enhancement loot boxes in their games, apart from Diablo Immortal, which to me doesnt even count as Blizzard game.
@@deadcan47 Like D4 and OW2. maybe they are not selling armor or skin with status but the price is too high for digital items, you can almost buy a AAA game. not to mention their unethical business practices with D4. Like activating Battle Pass without even confirmation.
@@Phoenix-rj8ou Oh yea, I agree, $20 for a bunch of pixels to give your horse a different color is just ridicilous. Not sure if it is true, but apparently they made more money of the sparkly unicorn mount in WOW than from the whole SC2 franchise. If that is indeed true, then no wonder the management will be forcing cash shop items into games instead of developing new games.
@@Phoenix-rj8ou And it is not ok, but as long as people keep buying those items, they will keep making them. FOMO and completionist syndrome are powerful mechanisms to milk your player base.
This thing with rates is happening for many years. Even back in like 2010 in Last Chaos the rates to upgrade weapons were higher in some locations and lower in cities. I "exploited" it many times so always had upgraded weapons and armor for cheap price! P.s. In the main city where all players gathered the rate for upgrade were terrible, so it always needed like 10x more resources to get an upgraded equipment
it's a fine line between holding back loot to tempt people to spend and "bad luck protection", ie if you go a long time without a big drop your chances to get a big drop gradually increase, but once you get that drop you get reset back to a regular drop chance... or just pay $10 and get the shiny thing.
I'm pretty sure in path of exile the chance of league mechanics spawning in maps is massively boosted if you return after not playing for a couple days. There is a league mechanic (delirium mirror) that has a higher chance of spawning if more other league mechanics are in the map so it is a really good indicator to estimate if this is occuring and normally the chance of a delirium mirror spawning is around 5-10% but after not playing for 2+ days it's more like 50% to get a delirium mirror for the first 2 or 3 maps.
Im pretty sure the friends list thing is if you have more you have better rates as if you get good stuff, show it off to friends, they would be more incentivized to try and get it too by spending money.
Oh we definitely need some transparency from these companies about this variable loot table and what all that entails. The ramifications to how they can manipulate players is crazy and I wonder how many games I've played have been doing that?
On the other side - This sounds exactly like what every one wants to have in the game = Bad Luck Protection After you haven´t gotten enough rare Drops or you play solo or you where away for a few days, that you get extra Magicfind to have higherDroprates, till it tones itself back down to the baseline.
I’ve always thought it was that way, like when I read an article about games like CoD gave you more armor for the first “x” hours so you can feel like you are really good at pvp
I have seen this in more than a few games with login rewards. I take a few months off and I will see premium currency offers with high discounts after I come back which after as little as a week of regular logins will show a clear taper down to the lowest discount offers. I have not witnessed any game loot drops with a clear curve, dropping loot potential, or optimization. I have seen many oddball drops that break up the pattern of drops. In Vegas, Atlantic City, and Colorado all machines must comply with payout tables that do not have some kind of regressive algorithm to punish players in some fashion. I can't speak to other states' rules. The authorities in the states I mentioned can test any machine at any time with no notice to be sure casinos are in compliance.
I took a break from honkai star rail when huohuo dropped and came back at around the end of argenti banner and pulled for him. I got him in like 30 pulls or so and his lightcone in 10. After this video I feel like that is not just luck anymore. But at the same time I have been getting 5* pretty early on banners in general so idk.
The mere suspicion that Devs COULD be pulling this kind of crap.....means there has to be regulation, AND a level of transparency with regulators. Player CANNOT trust Devs NOT to be behaving nefariously,.....unless the Dev can evidence honesty, integrity etc.
This just confirmed some of the theories I had about ESO loot tables and rate. As much as I want to play the game, it seems I am less rewarded the more I play and it’s just soul crushing. I saw the difference since I usually play with my husband (who plays less than me) and at some point it cannot just pass off as rng anymore. I guess I’ll just stick to doing the expansion and then play more of other games now.
If I'm being honest, I've always assumed that this was the case anyway. I've noticed in my journey across multiple MMO's that coming back after extended breaks, being a new player, etc. my drop rates were much better returning or just starting out than after I had "settled in" to the game. I think on the BRIGHT side this can be and IS a positive in most MMO's but on the flipside of that same coin, if this is being used for profits rather than player experience this is a huge L and something that companies should be held accountable for.
"Change rates based off player location" is probably referring to their physical address by IP. So players in internet cafes can show off their cool lewt, and players in high income zip codes will have worse odds because they might be willing to whale for more money to get what they want.
GW2 it could be RNG but playing on my alt account I got a ton of good loot from raiding now I get a fair amount of the same drops in the long run on my main account but my alt account got an infusion on the first raid I did plus an ascended armor box, does make me question if this is happen there.
Twice playing wow I have experienced highly suspect rare mount drop clusters on new or returning accounts. And characters that are new to an instance also seem to have that bump.
I believe this happened in Ow1 with loot boxes. Every time I came back for an event, I would get a legendary skin from my first 5 pull. People will say nah it's just RNG, but it happened each event like 4 times a year for several years like clock work.
I saw a video similar to this a few months ago, and this post reminded me of something someone said to me last night that it's the players who make MMOs fun to play and play with are vanishing from the genre. One thing you didn't mention is toxic players and the impact they have had on the genre. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
I'm just gonna come right out and say it: anyone that didn't believe this was happening was an idiot, no offense (well). I've been asking for YEARS why it is that people believe MMO devs don't manipulate drop rates in subtle ways to get "more" out of players. Whether that be more money, more play time, stretching out that subscription, luring you in, whatever. There was never anything at all preventing desperate MMO devs from manipulating probability as desired to increase player engagement, retention, and spending as often as they wanted. People acted like it was illegal for individual players to have uniquely and _deliberately_ bad RNG. Hilariously enough, the list of conditions resulting in altered probabilities are exactly the sorts of things I expected, based on my own experiences. And yet people insist that suspecting targeted probability manipulation is "tinfoil". Suspecting anything other than exactly what you're told is tinfoil really...I absolutely hate this planet that stigmatizes everything short of absolute trust. It's moronic. Glad to see this finally coming out though. Doesn't ruin MMOs any more for me, because I've already hated this shit for years and assumed it was going on to begin with. All I see is a reveal that might lead to a step in a better direction.
As someone who worked a long time a software engineer in corporate America, I'll say this: I would be totally shocked if MOST of the loot box type games are NOT doing this. They are completely incentivized to do things like lower loot drop rates for people who buy more loot boxes, and raise rates for people who buy less. Think about it. If a person is already buying lots of loot boxes, he has shown himself to be someone susceptible to the slot-machine addiction mechanic. He is likely to keep buying for a while, especially if denied the jackpot item. On the other hand, you want to reward the person who isn't buying, or buying a small number of loot boxes by giving him a taste of the jackpot. Since these games aren't regulated as "gambling" (they should be), and it is almost impossible to police, it is ALL upside for them to do this. If they get caught, they are likely to pay a fine that is only a fraction of what they made doing it in the first place. This is what we call end-state Capitalism, baby!
5:00 #3 is not as you describe. it does not say change "tables" based on location. what it instead suggests is that in a city location where there may be hundreds of other players opening boxes, your rate at higher rarity items may be lower (or higher). similarly it could suggest that if you are a player who enjoys for example, event content in the game that has a low player count in attendance, you might find awards there decreased (or increased).
D2 drop rates put me off ARPG games forever. After wondering why I never got Hell uniques after 5 years of casual play I decided to find out what the drop rates were. I downloaded a cheat and all I did was boost my magic find on a charm to whatever I wanted (for single play only). At 100,000% magic find and doing Hell runs in the correct areas I still was not getting the drops, mostly nightmare uniques. I decided that the odds were at least roughly 1 in a million (prob > 1 in 10m) and realised just how many decades it would take for me to farm the runes and gear I wanted. I was out after that, I wanted a life!
decrease drop rate based on playtime is definitely already happening atleast in BDO we've suspected this. the number of new players that are running around with full set of beginners gear + PEN Blackstar weapons (Best in slots weapons with 3-4% chance of success) is wild.
I always found it weird that whenever I would come back to Overwatch after not playing for a while, I would almost always get a legendary from a loot box but never again while farming them.
Nexon was actually a solid company about 25 years ago. They had a game called Nexus TK that was actually one of the first MMORPGs, and arguably one of the best to ever exist.
The only way to stop companies from doing things like this is to stop giving them money. I no longer buy WoW expansions because of the early access premium cost, and I'm sure as hell not gonna buy anything from Nexon. A meager 2% "tax" on their income is not going to stop them from doing this, only encourage them to do more.
The other weird thing that occurred to me is that these shady sort of manipulations RELY on player ignorance. As soon as players become aware of what you are doing, it incentivizes the exact opposite actions. You want people to stick around so you shower them with good stuff once they come back from a break? Well as soon as your players find out about that they are only going to log in once every 2 week or so. Want people to buy more boxes so you decrease rewards when they get a good item? Well now they stop buying stuff as soon as they get a good drop. Seems like the best way to combat this shady sort of shit is to spread awareness. Blow up forums, plaster these games steam pages with reviews that expose all this.
I have already seen systems where you get a higher drop chance when you are offline. But these catch up mechancis are pretty transparent explained in the game. But yeah hard to say if they decrease rates when you play longer. Though Last Epoch has just bad RNG on item drops, as even after a take of a few days for them to clean up the server issues I still had bad drops afterwards and 95% of the drops were worse then what I already had.
I think there was a video where Breivik described the sensation of chasing loot in Diablo as akin to gambling. Can't remember where it was, but they knew what they were doing from very early on. Nexus is just next level.
Even though ive never spent money on microtranactions, this kind of behavior should be illegal and they should get fines that actually punish these companies, not slaps on the wrist for a few %, it should be more than half. Like take 90% of their loot box earnings.
I think the region drop rate adaptions. are like it, depending of the player region country, And i am sure, is mostly because some countries have hard regulations against " gambling in loot boxes" and it may increase drops in where forcing players to buy 1000 boxes (3.99 each) to get " UR 5 Stars thing" would be considerated illegal and made it maybe worst where those regulations don't exist... sickening.
This is why the companies dont care... the fine being worth a drop in the bucket compared to the money made for breaking the law... its not even a slap on the wrist. There seriously needs to start being ACTUAL fines proportionate to the crime and/or severe jail time to the people involved... this is why companies keep doing this crap cause even if you get caught you still got all your cake and got to eat it too, there is NO downsides except basically paying back a small "tax" in the end lol why would they care? Thats why all these companies keep doing this stuff, there is ZERO penalties in place when they break the law, they just laugh their way to the bank and move onto the next scheme!
We can sugarcoat this as them trying to "ration" good drops equally, at which point it might make sense to ditch random drops altogether. But really stuff like "adjust drop rates depending on player (real life) location" betrays insidious nature of those things. They're meant to milk money in a most effective manner. This is also not just an MMO problem. Deckbuilders, autoshooter, rogue-likes, any procedural generation based game is susceptible to this to a high extent. This situation with rng manipulation can poison gaming as a whole.
I've played several gacha games where I stop playing but tend to go back every 3 or 4 months to grab the free summons and summon and there is always 1 or more of the best heroes that gets summoned and just like that I quit that same day. One game I currently do this with and have had a 100% success in, is Dyslite. I quit for months, show up, grab freebies and last time I did it, I got 3 legendary heroes in about 40 summons and it has been about 3 months now so I might login again soon.
The friends list thing is probably more like streamer care - “add this name and you’re more likely to get the exciting drops for content creation as this is free advertising”
The reason why games "decided" to show the percentages of the gacha system is because the EU forced them to do it otherwise the games would have been banned.
I'm not EU's no.1 fan but they do some really good things!
Actually, it was China
wasn't the EU it was China
@@KageSama19A few countries started doing it.
Some countries banned loot boxes entirely.
China indee did it "first". However the initial proposal actually happened a year earlier in South Korea, but due to the differences in government structure China was able to "implement" the new ruling quicker.
Imagine a world where companies were punished as harshly for lying to customers as they are for lying to shareholders.
If the shareholders weren't more shortsighted than my grandma, they would have. But somehow shareholders don't understand that happy customer = happy to pay = more profit = happy shareholder
@@AnymMusic Shareholders go for short term money making, playing the long game of happy customers isn't gaining them the short term profit making. They have no connection with the companies nor the products they invest in, other then knowing it will gain them quick easy money. For all they care the company goes bust next year, they don't care that the employees are pushed to the max and beyond with work pressure, where a underpaid employee now has to work 300% harder for the same crappy income, meanwhile some rich filth with millions on their account now made another few millions while doing nothing. Then when the employee losses their job cause the company closed down after imploding, the same rich feckers say "You are a free loader, you shouldn't get money, work for your money reeeeee". They destroy everything for short term gains, happy customers = slow profit making, not something they want.
@@Jorendo That is not entirely true. Shareholders mostly are long term invested. What causes this issue of untrust and most importantly short term thinking from the company are the dividens. The Company looks into possible increase in income and decrease in outcome (eg lootboxes or cosmetics in a shop / less employee or less payment to them) btw payment is a really big number for a company and most people kinda dont "want" to understand that...
back to topic, this 2 (fairly simplified) points increase the profit and this increase the dividens in the end (simplified) -> and that is what companies are looking for and the shareholders.
Imagine a world in which any person with more than $10,000,000 had to follow the law and was punished at all if they did.
@@mw2984 this would be true if all stocks pay dividends most do not - making that wall of text completely pointless and you a fool for believing every TH-cam video you watch.
Investors invest on terms. They give X amount expecting X in return in X amount of time. Some short term, some long term. Mostly short term, couple years.
Drop rates changing based on player location refers to the 'player' location in the real world, not what part of the game the character is in. They're basically saying that people in richer countries like the US could have lower drop rates so they'll be more likely to spend money.
I actually think its the other way around, rates will be worse in e.g Korea, because they are known for being highly pay to win, and getting mad when a game isn't pay to win enough, because they don't have the time to play the same amount as people in the west.
I can't believe Force hasn't realized this.
@@shell5585 It's literally right there in the video =) th-cam.com/video/K2A8Q5PRKOc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=j1erY5yV-xBufWdm&t=314
Bruh he said that...
@@here2play760 He speculated it, I was confirming it, and describing one way it is used.
When game companies make the Chicago Mob look honest...sigh.
'When'? That's your first mistake, assuming they ever were.
@@Slitheringpeanut Most of them did used to be good. Back when "make good product, sell good product, make next good product" was the pipeline and not "make buggy product, squeeze players for every possible penny with gamba, abandon product for next buggy product"
@@Slitheringpeanutbefore 2006 and The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion
@@Slitheringpeanut Before they became huge studios focused on money only.
Anecdotally, this happened to me in Destiny 2 a few times. I quit Destiny 2 after every major expansion, and don't play much until the next one. My friend however never quit and grinded out dozens to hundreds of raid runs trying to get raid gear. After months, I returned to the game. He offered to sherpa me through the new raids so that he could try to get the raid gear he STILL didn't have. He sherpa'd me through one run and I got the ultra rare raid exotic, and he again did not. He raided hundreds of times putting in hundreds of hours and got nothing. I returned from a long break, ran one raid, and got the exotic drop.
This happened twice.
Imagine treating your best customers like this and thinking it’s okay. Even more baffling when a game has a cash shop. Once a company destroys trust with its customers, it’s over.
@@Fabulist Apparently not, cuz Nexon has been actively fucking over its players for literally my entire life, but people still play their games.
Funnily enough, with my brother its the opposite in Destiny 2
I play a lot more, and he plays like once a week or even less.
When we do some dungeon or etc together, I usually get all the items he wanted from the place and he gets nothing, or the same gloves 2-3 times lol
That's just RNG, the dynamic rates have to do more with loot boxes than just actual loot drop RNG. Did you just read the title and have a knee-jerk reaction?
In this case, everyone has an equal chance to get good loot as raids are repeatable as long as you have time and usually there's no way to just pay to get an item. Unlike loot boxes where you're forced to fork over money or sometimes you can get it for free by just playing but with abysmal drop rates. So I don't think Destiny 2 is actively fucking over your friend, he's just unlucky.
You bet your ass this happens across most, if not all gacha games and has been for ages. About time someone got caught.
Black desert is doing the same thing
China's government was actually ahead of the curve on this one. They made it law a long time ago that any game of chance has to have its percentages published publicly to players. I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, but they got that one right. This is why games from China, like Genshin, makes it so easy to see the percentages of gacha stuff. Hopefully other countries pass some laws like this as well.
@@taiidaniblues7792How about countries just start banning loot boxes or labeling them as what they are, gambling.
@@Lineboy78 1000% true, i quit BDO for a year, i come back and tap pen blackstar in 16 attempts, my buddy who didnt quit cant get pen dim tree on his 56th attempt.
no one believed me when i say all games with RNG definitely boosts drop rates when u start or come back.
you have about a week or two of "making it rain" then quit and play another game.
after a month youll really watch your RNG drop.
ive got both infinite pots before the pitty pieces using my theory, got them both in under 100hrs of grinding
Caught...but not really punished. If we get caught stealing...ALL the stolen items and money are confiscated and we go to jail. Why don't the same things happen to companies?
i dont understand why nexom wouldnt be fined the full 400 profit + an extra 100 + criminal charges aginst the ones that made the decision so they cant just hide behind the company and move on
As long as the government gets their cut of the money they don't give a shit.
@@bnick8282 who do you think gets the fine, 120% tax is better than 20%
lol this.@@bnick8282
Yeah I never understood that either, why not take all the profit they made with these illegal activities, plus a massive fine. Criminal charges is often hard to do cause then some middle management manager gets F'ed over as we seen with the Volkswagen scandal. Some engineer got blamed for messing with the numbers to make the car seem to be less polluting then it was while selling it as a "See how green our car is!". Higher management and the CEO got off easy, some engineer got jail time, even though everyone knows the CEO was fully aware and likely the bastard who gave the order to mess with the numbers to begin with cause there is no way some engineer thinks to himself one day "What if I just fiddle with the numbers a bit to make it look better".
Because corruption is endemic all over the world. Probably the judge got a fat bribe under the table and gave them a slap on the wrist fine - for companies like this they just regard it as the cost of doing business, it's not even a punishment, they literally factor possible fines into their budget. South Korea is particularly corrupt and hyper capitalist as well, their entire society is pretty much owned by three mega corporations who work their people into early graves and force their kids to study like 16 hours a day.
*slowly looks at Genshin Impact, a game where the equipment infamously has a very strange habit of constantly rolling the stats you do NOT need*
Not really a secret that most gachas if not ALL have weighted rolls on gear rolls.
Doesn't take a scientist to realize how predatory genshin is with their time gated content, spewing out characters yet most of which you would need to farm 3-4 months to get (assuming you're not starting a new acc) and daily resin to keep you playing. So much work for so little. 50/50 for 90 rolls? Where as 90 rolls would usually take around a month of actively playing, that alone tells you what kinda D***s they are.
@@Scadipippen true, but in my own experience, Genshin's just feels far worse. Even Star Rail's, made by the same people and having near identical systems, feels much better and it happens far less.
but you dont really spend money on those epuipments, you spend time.
time is money@@nemnless
In Warframe, you get a random reward each day for logging in. Usually these are just random resource items or whatever, but rarely you can get a discount voucher for the cash shop. It's impossible to say for sure, but it's quite widely agreed by the community that you get these discounts much more often when you haven't logged in for a while or just haven't been playing much, and that lines up with my own experience. Take a break, come back and right away get a discount voucher.
World of Tanks has similar coupons, and it's 100% apparent, that they aren't random. And why would they be? Coupons obviously drop to entice people to spend, so they are frequent, and probably also target the players based on their previous spending behaviour. The game also has certain "(please) come back" rewards, that are even named as suchs, and the game tells you how those trigger - like, after you've been away for more than 30 days, etc.
can confirm this. I usually get 50% or more plats discount if i don't login much.
My understanding is if you don't login for a while, they give you a welcome back coupon. I believe daily rewards are set in stone, unless the dailies set in stone are just the milestones maybe
1500 hrs in warframe can confirm this has happened to me
Oh... That makes a lot of sense now, I play Warframe very casually, sometimes I get an itch to play and grind and when that wears off, I take long breaks and almost every time I come back I get a discount voucher (Which I use, their pretty good ngl).
I don't mind spending money on Warframe time from time, but that's pretty sneaky from their part if they really do that.
"adjusting rates based on player location" seeing how its Korea, i am pretty sure this might be referring to like internet cafes, where the cafes will make deals with game devs that if players are playing there, they get more drop rates or something so that players use this internet cafe instead of others.
Yeah they confirmed in parts of Korea it was changed due to location but i’m not too sure if it was for GMS too
Um no lmfao. They mean regional location.
@@abdelrahmanrad Its both, and the only lmfao thing here is that you're so confidently incorrect.
I think 'changed based on location' is referring to real world location, Eastern culture has very different expectations for loot games compared to other cultures across the world.
Steam adjusts it's price based on regional economy, it's different but has some overlap.
100% that's what it means.
I don't see how this comes as a surprise now, this came to mind like years ago along with many other 'engagement' tactics
To be fair - when they added hidden streamer queue in Path of Exile for the league - it was changed and swept under the rug too fast, and noone seems to talk about it ever since. After that whole Nexon drama, the "streamer RNG" term starts to be really concerning.
There is no question whatsoever that drop rates, currency success rates, log in ability, etc,,,are tweaked upward for streamers. None. I watched about an hour of one of the famous POE streamers and his results were consistently better than basically I have experienced every using the same currency. GGG just got caught red handed that time with the log-ins. I was part of an elite guild in the early days of WOW. There was a hidden buff for elite guilds. It was widely known
😀😃😄😁😆😅🤣😂😭@@johnnyp6202
On the subject of loot in Path of Exile, I noticed long ago the "welcome back" buff.
That's where you get a Divine Orb (or Exalt in the old days) within a couple hours of logging in to play if you've been away for a couple days. Then...those drops dry up again. If you play every single day, especially if you're grinding long hours, your drop RATE decreases.
Yes, of course you'll still get more items and currency overall, but the rate is better temporarily if you stay away from the game for days.
The drop rates are definitely manipulated to encourage players to return, but discouraged from grinding.
Whether that's a good or bad thing, I leave up to each individual...
@@MrVvulf To be fair - it's a good thing to motivate you to play after a break, but it should be officially announced then. But, then it would be abused a lot by bots or even normal players - leveling 10 different characters on different account to have "AFK" divine farm
It's actually one of the main reason loot boxes game are "forbidden" in Belgium, for a while already. They fall under the regulations of gambling games, and therefore the company has to prove the odds of winning are locked and can't be changed by the company.. That's why it's not forbidden per say, it's just that the (serious) companies don't bother to apply the law and just do not publish their games here.
Based Belgium.
Pretty sweet, would wish some more countries would give a fuck about this.
Dear Force,
I am a lifelong MMO fan (although not for the last 5 years or so, because of the drought) I work full time and am soloing parenthood. I am lucky to squeeze in 5 hours of gaming a week but dream of the day that there is an MMO worth my time and I actually have the time to sit down and grind. The future of MMOs has been looking very bleak for a long time. I do however have the time to pop on each and every new "episode"? you put out while making dinner or cleaning or whatever domestic duty I have in front of me. In my opinion you are hands down the best content creator out there. Honest, well spoken, concise and to the point. Watching your channel has almost become my only connection to gaming these days. Thank you for what you do. I hope you become wealthy beyond your dreams for the content you pump out. You deserve it. This particular one hit home. I have always been suspicious of these practices especially when RMT is involved. My friends would mock me as a conspiracy theorist. It bums me out that my friends may have been wrong. Cheers to 1 million subs, and here is to a million more.
The lack of proper punishment for companies is a huge problem all over and it’s something that really, really needs to be addressed. It can have far worse consequences than just loot box scams as companies get a slap-on-the-wrist for things like dumping chemicals into local water supplies. (That happened around here only a few years ago.) As long as the fines are merely seen as “the cost of doing business”, they won’t be a deterrent.
Lets just say what needs to be said. If your game has a loot box, I'm not playing it.
We should draw the line at PAID lootboxes. Nothing wrong with free lootboxes that are earnable
Too many won't make that stand and that's why the problem won't go away.
I LOVE lootboxes. i HATE keys. I HATE no currency to reduce rng. I HATE pay-to-open. Lootboxes are a tool for developers to make items interesting and more unique. They should never be tied to real money in any way.
I hear you and these are all fair points. From my perspective, you can just have the part that you like "opening something up and getting an item (or something akin to that) through any other possible creative means rather than a "lootbox". Games are supposed to be imaginative/fun new experiences. I'm sure a developer can figure out how to do it without a box.@@IHateNumbersOnNames
In WoW Legion there was this system called "Bad luck protection" which basically gave you more and more % chance to find a legendary if you didn't find any after days of activities, so I always assumed that there was the same system implemented for returning players. After several years of pause, I managed to get 3 rare mounts in one day just the day I returned while I couldn't get them before for months if not years of farming... Back-End RNG manipulation might be crazy in a lot more games than we think, but it's probably something that we will never truely be sure of except if a situation is brought to us like the Maplestory one.
Maplestory has had "adjusted rates based on player location in the world" from almost 15 years ago. Until some patch removed it, I don't know when. Basically if you were playing from an internet cafe that was partnered with Nexon, you would go to an npc in game which checks where you're playing from, and if you are playing on a computer in a partnered internet cafe (I don't know how they check that, IPs or mac addresses are possible) you will unlock better rates for the play session, and unlock access to grinding maps with good amounts of monsters and a 1.5x exp multiplier, plus you would have a lot less people there so it would be easier to grind uncontested. Internet cafes have hourly fees for playtime there.
As far as I know the only partnered internet cafe franchises were in South Korea and SEA region of the world, so good luck unlocking the bonuses on the western servers. There might've been some cafes in other Asian countries but nothing outside of Asia.
I just hope things will get so wild and bad that all countries make laws that loot boxes are a NO go.
Hahahah good one. Makes corporate too much money. And corporate are deeply embedded in the lawmakers seats.
There is cure for this: STOP BUY, players are at fault that they can get away with loot boxes and any other rng shit. Because players keep buying.. they know, but they just keep buy all that shit.
@@lurswenl.619 The cure you suggest does not exist, its been shown by time it self.
Only thing right now is to wait for things to go super bad.
@lurswenl.619 The waifu swipers, and min max andies need their fix 😂
I don't want the government fiddling even more around a private medium. Next they define quotas what content the game has to contain, what stories and characters are appropriate, and how long you are allowed to play.
I never get people who buy into gambling to begin with, its a waste of time and money.
But the lack of morality of the people behind it, even pushing it to kids with unregulated gambling like in CSGO is beyond despicable anyways.
It's a sickness, an addiction to the "i won!!" dopamine hit.
addiction is usually caused by an underlying issue, its a psychological weakness, for some its a coping mechanism to deal with supressed emotions. i think you should read up on it because addicted people are usually some kind of victim even tho they might be destructive to the people around them. im not saying they shouldnt be held responsible but we need lots of empathy for people like that.
otherwise i fully agree with you, the people behind it, do not have morals or principles, i dont even know if they are humans because they are intentionally abusing psychological weaknesses to get you hooked.
or .... it's just fun to win things lol@@d4rkh4l34
can we start a comment thread for the best most ethical MMOs so that people know which games to play - thanks force - good topic
Yeah, putting the baddies in the stocks is... close to impossible due to their abundance. We need a page where the good folks can be highlighted.
there was MMO that i think the most ethical that i know of. Swords of Legends Online. But the global version already shut down. Chinese version is still running and strong tho.
In that game, not a single p2w item in cash shop, no gacha, no lootbox, you will always get equipment that you don't have from clearing dungeons and raids, you don't need to grind 24/7, your starter free mount has better stat even compare to the premium ones, and some other good things that most MMOs don't have. Too bad gameforge just too incompetence to market the game for the global version, so it's dead.
@@PrawiSucia_Official I actually really liked that game when it first launched. It fizzled out pretty steadily sadly enough, mainly because the devs didn't update things quickly enough. Basically ran out of content within the first month or two. You're right though, the monetary system for the game was pretty decent. They didn't over charge and even with the building decorations (Which could have been leveraged to hell and back) you could earn everything you needed by playing the game.
@@Sabamonster yeah global version was way behind the chinese version. We were waiting update 3.0. Gameforge suddenly went radio silent for months before shut down.
Most ethical MMOs...that's going to be a very short list.
Item Farmers in games:
1) Use VPN and choose a poorer country
2) Remove all your in-game friends, or make sure they are on alts using crappy gear
3) Keep all high value items on mules or in stashes
4) Switch accounts after a high value drop
5) PROFIT!
I used to play Vindictus with a handful of mates and I can tell you that whenever someone came back after a hiatus they had otherwordly luck. At one time I had two accounts, and I stopped playing on one for a long time, went back to it and instantly got a weapon to max rank trying to fail enhancement for materials back on a character I didn't play.
A friend from that group was recently trying to hype me up for the new game Vindictus: Defying Fate.
Lol. Lmao.
Vindictus is a nice game that is unfortunately hampered by these other mechanics and that is probably never going to change. Even without dynamic rates the other stuff they do still sucks.
Another force video, and a cup of coffee. Good start to a Saturday.
in my country is almost the end of Saturday :D
THE PROBLEM is that they are literally changing the value of what you are purchasing without adjusting prices accordingly, as you are playing, in real time.
You think you are buying into a set of odds but your money is not getting what you think you agreed upon when you spent it, no. You are getting whatever they decide is fair, behind your back.
At that point, the only real choice left is to treat them as betrayers of the trust and blacklist them as a company.
RNG is a publisher's/developer's greatest design concept as it gives them complete control over the player experience.
Over-greed must be fought hard because the people we're fighting against are VERY rich and influential.
So many games do this. They punish dedicated hardcores and they have for decades. Casual-chasing has to happen to some degree, but most are smart enough to realize we've gone way too far away from the proper rewarding for dedication and regular use.
I agree but I think it's a little more complicated than that. it also bottoms in addiction, hobby, gambling, life situations such as unemployed etc.
I see it as this: We all need to escape reality, best way of doing it is 1. having a job (especially so if you're dedicated enough to become better at it), 2, alcohol and drugs 3. friends 4: games. Friends an replace drugs btw but still.. Addictive games can become a bit like drugs and gaming in one making it rather great!
Reality is the empty feeling where you know that everything in life is pointless. When you see how your life from above is just an eternal circle where you go round and round to the same locations. Where rooms are just empty walls and life is just like an amusement park filled with useless distractions.
That kinda feeling, ya know?
I know in Warframe that each daily login has a chance to give a discount on platinum. However if you login ones every 30 days that chance becomes 100%.
Ahahahahah,just enter in Warframe to see if that true,because i am not playing for about 3 weeks.You are right,just get 75% off for 48h.
Yeah this one is not so secret at all in Warframe. Though honestly maybe I prefer they don't hit me with the tempting deals while I'm in no life mode. :P
It's easy for me to drop some money into a game picturing that it will be my main for while and then two weeks later you have some more clarity of mind and realize you are about done with the game. Lost Ark and Black Desert both got like $150+ from me and I loved my time with them and would have paid that asking price but after a month I still end up putting the games down and realizing that they aren't going to my "main game" for whatever reason and still have most my premium currency unspent.
In arccheage Korean mmo, I regularly had little used alts roll on my rng weapon upgrades for tradeable gear. They would usually get it when main toon would not. I have experienced many of the things you explained playing 7yrs of that game. Rng boxes gave top loot the first minutes released...then not. I just didn't buy many loot crates and worked my way around it best o could until it became impossible to advance without buying them constantly when kaka took over publishing agsin.
What would be interesting to know is what exactly happened to their player base since this news got out, and if there was no change, it's safe to assume that not just Nexon but other companies will keep doing this and be even bolder about it going forward.
I know for a fact this happens in sports games fantasy team building modes all the time. I've opened so many packs from free to play means and got barely anything worthwhile. Then when I swiped it was like a whole different set of odds, getting tons of good stuff. On multiple occasions. The amount of money I've wasted back in 2017 on MLB the show, I'm a dummy I know. I should have just put that money into bitcoin back then
There's thousands of games to play today but it's so hard to find a game that's not either absolutely stacked with cheaters or company exploiting their own playerbase.
Great video. I hope companys become more open about stuff like this. Not holding my breath doh.
"its been proven, but theres only a chance", "I dont want to know, otherwise I wouldnt want to play these games" - YOUR AN ADDICT
This has been happening forever. It's not just loot games. Probably almost any game. FPS for sure. It's common knowledge that players who purchase extra from shops, get favored treatment in various ways likely through algorithms. It reinforces their purchases and makes them more likely to purchase again. It punishes players who do not spend. Players will likely cave and purchase, falling into that trap. Every major company uses this technology in some way. It can manifest in so many ways and most gamers don't even realize it. Companies have knobs they can turn to affect your gameplay and make it different from other players. Depending on how much if at all you spend. Or other factors like player behavior. We as gamers don't have access to a lot of the behind the scenes information because they "own it" so we can't even extract data and talk to each other effectively to resist or fight back. It's all word of mouth anecdotal which can be dismissed as chance. It's a serious problem, and is a very large reason why I almost never play games anymore. I can actively feel this malice in the game. I know it to be true, but cant prove it and I cant do anything to change it other than not buy or participate.
These companies have turn these players into hamsters, trapped on a treadmill forever chasing after the next loot, while filling their bank with gold. Without supervision it Is hard not to exploit these hamsters when they are so happy to hand over their hard earn money to fill their addiction or ego. lol
100% sure EA is on top of that patent lol
Another possibility for "player location" based loot table adjustments could be who the access provider is. For example, drop and loot-box item tables could be different for users logged in from a PC-Bang or Internet Café vs a residential service ISP vs a university dormitory vs a cellular/mobile service.
Do you have a list of the games you were running as backdrop? Some of them looked cool and I didn’t recognize a lot of them.
There should be an independent third party which inspects these companies if gamble mechanics are involved. And of course the fines should be way higher if those companies scam their customers.
They could be bought out by the same company too, just takes one person
Only YOU can stop playing gacha games. 🐻
Warframe had this system when logging in years ago. There was a different set of rewards depending on if you had been active or not.
I gave the FF7 gatcha game a try. I remember pulling 2 really big pulls on my first free pulls and got an "Error" which required me to restart the game from scratch. From that point I knew what was up.
why blizzard is not getting into trouble? maybe they are not doing gacha, but the price is not fair
The price of what? They dont have gear or enhancement loot boxes in their games, apart from Diablo Immortal, which to me doesnt even count as Blizzard game.
@@deadcan47 Like D4 and OW2. maybe they are not selling armor or skin with status but the price is too high for digital items, you can almost buy a AAA game. not to mention their unethical business practices with D4. Like activating Battle Pass without even confirmation.
i just want to know why it's okay that's all. Don't read into it too much.
@@Phoenix-rj8ou Oh yea, I agree, $20 for a bunch of pixels to give your horse a different color is just ridicilous. Not sure if it is true, but apparently they made more money of the sparkly unicorn mount in WOW than from the whole SC2 franchise. If that is indeed true, then no wonder the management will be forcing cash shop items into games instead of developing new games.
@@Phoenix-rj8ou And it is not ok, but as long as people keep buying those items, they will keep making them. FOMO and completionist syndrome are powerful mechanisms to milk your player base.
This thing with rates is happening for many years. Even back in like 2010 in Last Chaos the rates to upgrade weapons were higher in some locations and lower in cities. I "exploited" it many times so always had upgraded weapons and armor for cheap price!
P.s. In the main city where all players gathered the rate for upgrade were terrible, so it always needed like 10x more resources to get an upgraded equipment
it's a fine line between holding back loot to tempt people to spend and "bad luck protection", ie if you go a long time without a big drop your chances to get a big drop gradually increase, but once you get that drop you get reset back to a regular drop chance... or just pay $10 and get the shiny thing.
The Jimquistion went in to deep detail in to this years ago and was mostly ignored. It’s happening on app games already.
I'm pretty sure in path of exile the chance of league mechanics spawning in maps is massively boosted if you return after not playing for a couple days. There is a league mechanic (delirium mirror) that has a higher chance of spawning if more other league mechanics are in the map so it is a really good indicator to estimate if this is occuring and normally the chance of a delirium mirror spawning is around 5-10% but after not playing for 2+ days it's more like 50% to get a delirium mirror for the first 2 or 3 maps.
Im pretty sure the friends list thing is if you have more you have better rates as if you get good stuff, show it off to friends, they would be more incentivized to try and get it too by spending money.
Oh we definitely need some transparency from these companies about this variable loot table and what all that entails. The ramifications to how they can manipulate players is crazy and I wonder how many games I've played have been doing that?
can you cover the re-release of Gigantic??
On the other side - This sounds exactly like what every one wants to have in the game = Bad Luck Protection
After you haven´t gotten enough rare Drops or you play solo or you where away for a few days, that you get extra Magicfind to have higherDroprates, till it tones itself back down to the baseline.
Very good video! we need more awareness on this
I’ve always thought it was that way, like when I read an article about games like CoD gave you more armor for the first “x” hours so you can feel like you are really good at pvp
can you list alll the game clips used in this video. some of them i dont know and they looked good.
I have seen this in more than a few games with login rewards. I take a few months off and I will see premium currency offers with high discounts after I come back which after as little as a week of regular logins will show a clear taper down to the lowest discount offers.
I have not witnessed any game loot drops with a clear curve, dropping loot potential, or optimization. I have seen many oddball drops that break up the pattern of drops.
In Vegas, Atlantic City, and Colorado all machines must comply with payout tables that do not have some kind of regressive algorithm to punish players in some fashion. I can't speak to other states' rules. The authorities in the states I mentioned can test any machine at any time with no notice to be sure casinos are in compliance.
I took a break from honkai star rail when huohuo dropped and came back at around the end of argenti banner and pulled for him. I got him in like 30 pulls or so and his lightcone in 10. After this video I feel like that is not just luck anymore. But at the same time I have been getting 5* pretty early on banners in general so idk.
The mere suspicion that Devs COULD be pulling this kind of crap.....means there has to be regulation, AND a level of transparency with regulators. Player CANNOT trust Devs NOT to be behaving nefariously,.....unless the Dev can evidence honesty, integrity etc.
can you make a list of the games you're showing in this video? thank you!
This just confirmed some of the theories I had about ESO loot tables and rate. As much as I want to play the game, it seems I am less rewarded the more I play and it’s just soul crushing.
I saw the difference since I usually play with my husband (who plays less than me) and at some point it cannot just pass off as rng anymore. I guess I’ll just stick to doing the expansion and then play more of other games now.
The amount played/legendary ratio I first spotted with Mass Effect 3 online loot boxes
3:10 what game is this, looks like vindictus remaster or something
the loot location patent is about geo location irl.
If I'm being honest, I've always assumed that this was the case anyway. I've noticed in my journey across multiple MMO's that coming back after extended breaks, being a new player, etc. my drop rates were much better returning or just starting out than after I had "settled in" to the game. I think on the BRIGHT side this can be and IS a positive in most MMO's but on the flipside of that same coin, if this is being used for profits rather than player experience this is a huge L and something that companies should be held accountable for.
Woah, some of these background games look cool, anywhere i can find a list of then?
"Change rates based off player location" is probably referring to their physical address by IP. So players in internet cafes can show off their cool lewt, and players in high income zip codes will have worse odds because they might be willing to whale for more money to get what they want.
This confirms my experience with many MMO's... As soon as I come back to a game after a long time away, the best items drop.
A lot of games on that video that I don't think i know, are there any list of the games?
GW2 it could be RNG but playing on my alt account I got a ton of good loot from raiding now I get a fair amount of the same drops in the long run on my main account but my alt account got an infusion on the first raid I did plus an ascended armor box, does make me question if this is happen there.
Twice playing wow I have experienced highly suspect rare mount drop clusters on new or returning accounts. And characters that are new to an instance also seem to have that bump.
I believe this happened in Ow1 with loot boxes. Every time I came back for an event, I would get a legendary skin from my first 5 pull. People will say nah it's just RNG, but it happened each event like 4 times a year for several years like clock work.
Pretty sure this happens in pokemon go. If you take a break for a while, when you come back you suddenly seem to get more shinies
I saw a video similar to this a few months ago, and this post reminded me of something someone said to me last night that it's the players who make MMOs fun to play and play with are vanishing from the genre. One thing you didn't mention is toxic players and the impact they have had on the genre. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
I'm just gonna come right out and say it: anyone that didn't believe this was happening was an idiot, no offense (well). I've been asking for YEARS why it is that people believe MMO devs don't manipulate drop rates in subtle ways to get "more" out of players. Whether that be more money, more play time, stretching out that subscription, luring you in, whatever.
There was never anything at all preventing desperate MMO devs from manipulating probability as desired to increase player engagement, retention, and spending as often as they wanted. People acted like it was illegal for individual players to have uniquely and _deliberately_ bad RNG. Hilariously enough, the list of conditions resulting in altered probabilities are exactly the sorts of things I expected, based on my own experiences. And yet people insist that suspecting targeted probability manipulation is "tinfoil". Suspecting anything other than exactly what you're told is tinfoil really...I absolutely hate this planet that stigmatizes everything short of absolute trust. It's moronic.
Glad to see this finally coming out though. Doesn't ruin MMOs any more for me, because I've already hated this shit for years and assumed it was going on to begin with. All I see is a reveal that might lead to a step in a better direction.
As someone who worked a long time a software engineer in corporate America, I'll say this: I would be totally shocked if MOST of the loot box type games are NOT doing this. They are completely incentivized to do things like lower loot drop rates for people who buy more loot boxes, and raise rates for people who buy less. Think about it. If a person is already buying lots of loot boxes, he has shown himself to be someone susceptible to the slot-machine addiction mechanic. He is likely to keep buying for a while, especially if denied the jackpot item.
On the other hand, you want to reward the person who isn't buying, or buying a small number of loot boxes by giving him a taste of the jackpot. Since these games aren't regulated as "gambling" (they should be), and it is almost impossible to police, it is ALL upside for them to do this. If they get caught, they are likely to pay a fine that is only a fraction of what they made doing it in the first place.
This is what we call end-state Capitalism, baby!
5:00 #3 is not as you describe. it does not say change "tables" based on location. what it instead suggests is that in a city location where there may be hundreds of other players opening boxes, your rate at higher rarity items may be lower (or higher). similarly it could suggest that if you are a player who enjoys for example, event content in the game that has a low player count in attendance, you might find awards there decreased (or increased).
What is the game from the gameplay footage he is showing? Is that BDSO?
D2 drop rates put me off ARPG games forever. After wondering why I never got Hell uniques after 5 years of casual play I decided to find out what the drop rates were.
I downloaded a cheat and all I did was boost my magic find on a charm to whatever I wanted (for single play only). At 100,000% magic find and doing Hell runs in the correct areas I still was not getting the drops, mostly nightmare uniques. I decided that the odds were at least roughly 1 in a million (prob > 1 in 10m) and realised just how many decades it would take for me to farm the runes and gear I wanted. I was out after that, I wanted a life!
decrease drop rate based on playtime is definitely already happening atleast in BDO we've suspected this. the number of new players that are running around with full set of beginners gear + PEN Blackstar weapons (Best in slots weapons with 3-4% chance of success) is wild.
Thank you for covering this, this has to stop!
does anyone know what all the games shown in the video are called? I was watching while listening & realised I didn't know a bunch of these.
change rates based on location pertains to player irl location does it not?
Will you be covering the upcomming highly anticipated new MMOARPG Car Insurance Online?
I always found it weird that whenever I would come back to Overwatch after not playing for a while, I would almost always get a legendary from a loot box but never again while farming them.
Nexon was actually a solid company about 25 years ago. They had a game called Nexus TK that was actually one of the first MMORPGs, and arguably one of the best to ever exist.
Thank you for reporting on this and speaking truth to power. You have become one of my faves in these past few months. Keep up the fantastic work.
The only way to stop companies from doing things like this is to stop giving them money. I no longer buy WoW expansions because of the early access premium cost, and I'm sure as hell not gonna buy anything from Nexon. A meager 2% "tax" on their income is not going to stop them from doing this, only encourage them to do more.
game location vs irl location .. now that is just crazy
returning player bonuses are fine as long as it's clear. Like giving a buff for a few days or something that people can hover over and read.
What is the game being shown at 3:08?
The other weird thing that occurred to me is that these shady sort of manipulations RELY on player ignorance. As soon as players become aware of what you are doing, it incentivizes the exact opposite actions. You want people to stick around so you shower them with good stuff once they come back from a break? Well as soon as your players find out about that they are only going to log in once every 2 week or so. Want people to buy more boxes so you decrease rewards when they get a good item? Well now they stop buying stuff as soon as they get a good drop. Seems like the best way to combat this shady sort of shit is to spread awareness. Blow up forums, plaster these games steam pages with reviews that expose all this.
I have already seen systems where you get a higher drop chance when you are offline. But these catch up mechancis are pretty transparent explained in the game.
But yeah hard to say if they decrease rates when you play longer. Though Last Epoch has just bad RNG on item drops, as even after a take of a few days for them to clean up the server issues I still had bad drops afterwards and 95% of the drops were worse then what I already had.
Yeah all I ever get are minion based drops
I think there was a video where Breivik described the sensation of chasing loot in Diablo as akin to gambling. Can't remember where it was, but they knew what they were doing from very early on. Nexus is just next level.
Even though ive never spent money on microtranactions, this kind of behavior should be illegal and they should get fines that actually punish these companies, not slaps on the wrist for a few %, it should be more than half. Like take 90% of their loot box earnings.
I think the region drop rate adaptions. are like it, depending of the player region country, And i am sure, is mostly because some countries have hard regulations against " gambling in loot boxes" and it may increase drops in where forcing players to buy 1000 boxes (3.99 each) to get " UR 5 Stars thing" would be considerated illegal and made it maybe worst where those regulations don't exist... sickening.
This is why the companies dont care... the fine being worth a drop in the bucket compared to the money made for breaking the law... its not even a slap on the wrist. There seriously needs to start being ACTUAL fines proportionate to the crime and/or severe jail time to the people involved... this is why companies keep doing this crap cause even if you get caught you still got all your cake and got to eat it too, there is NO downsides except basically paying back a small "tax" in the end lol why would they care? Thats why all these companies keep doing this stuff, there is ZERO penalties in place when they break the law, they just laugh their way to the bank and move onto the next scheme!
We can sugarcoat this as them trying to "ration" good drops equally, at which point it might make sense to ditch random drops altogether.
But really stuff like "adjust drop rates depending on player (real life) location" betrays insidious nature of those things. They're meant to milk money in a most effective manner.
This is also not just an MMO problem. Deckbuilders, autoshooter, rogue-likes, any procedural generation based game is susceptible to this to a high extent. This situation with rng manipulation can poison gaming as a whole.
I've played several gacha games where I stop playing but tend to go back every 3 or 4 months to grab the free summons and summon and there is always 1 or more of the best heroes that gets summoned and just like that I quit that same day.
One game I currently do this with and have had a 100% success in, is Dyslite. I quit for months, show up, grab freebies and last time I did it, I got 3 legendary heroes in about 40 summons and it has been about 3 months now so I might login again soon.
could the frequent playing punishment be an anti gaming addiction thing because alot of these games have the hardcoregamers or gaming addicts?
The friends list thing is probably more like streamer care - “add this name and you’re more likely to get the exciting drops for content creation as this is free advertising”