Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-10276925-20130831002217/@comment-11490363-20130901235827

98.25.219.27 wrote: Ranoake, where do I start? I've been reluctant to bash you and your often opposing opinion because it is your opinion and it's your right to express it but you have a very black & white outlook that currently supports Mobage, hence your opposing view to most on this site who aren't happy with many of Mobage's tactics whether planned, by mistake, or due to incompetence. And that is fine, your welcome to share but you can't seem to accepted any other opinions as possible without some form of statistical or visual proof, so then everyone else is wrong.

Your data currently points to 50/50 odds but yet admittedly you do not have a large enough data pool nor the source code to correctly say that yet you discount any other possibilities. In addition, Mobage has a history of changing odds, buffs, boss attack or health during events so what my be 50/50 one moment could be 70/30 the next.

You have said multiple times that Praxz is contradicting himself because he is complaining about  a good or likable feature. Cannot someone like something yet strive (or complain) to make it better. Most of us like the ruby system for a variety of reasons but not the randomness of the pulls. Many of us dislike parts of this game or Mobage practices yet we like the game overall so we keep playing. You think that because someone is pushing for game improvements they hate Mobage (which is probably true atm) but if Mobage make the necessary improvements (which they are trying) and support their customer base (which they don't) those people, myself included will say thank you.

You said that if Mobage was out to screw its customers, like many people think why would they do something to cost themselves profit yet that happens in all business. Ex. Why do businesses have sales or discounted combo items or coupons when they make less money on that item? Because they increase sales and make more due to volume.

So while you continue to post and supply us with your data analysis & opinion (thank you for contributing) please take other opinions into consideration.

It is also my opinion that Mobage does weight the odds in favor of newer or possible free players. Can we all remember when we began how often we got R4's from medal pulls? probable 2 or 3/ 1000 so you can fill your deck up "encouraging" you to get more or possible spend. And now as T3 -T1 players we're lucky if we get 1 R4 per 2000 medal pulls. Additionally it seems the better the deck you have or amount of past money spent the worse odds you get. Ranoake, now that you've improved your deck greatly thru rubies I'm interested to see if your bot/bot/bot pull odds continue or even out again and how you feel about it if it doesn't. Hopefully it will even out for all of us. Good Luck! Point by point:

Firstly, let me say that yes I do get overly zealous when debating so please don't take offense.

I don't reject people's opinions out of hand, I just look at the available evidence and see if the evidence fits the particular theory a person has. I also find Occam's razor to be quite useful and most often accurate. That is, When you have 2 competing theories that both explain a given set of data, the one that makes the FEWEST assumptions is usually correct. This is not PROOF that it is correct, just a guideline, and it puts the burden of proof on the theory that has MORE assumptions. My theory is that it is 50/50. Period. No other assumptions needed, and it explains all available data perfectly. Competing theories include cyberdex checks, checks to see if a player is free or recently paid, and a host of other things, all of which require too many special cases. Again, not proof, but my money is on the simplest theory since it is adequate. I am sure I could come up with something super complex that explains the data, but no one would believe it, and rightly so.

I can't prove it is 50/50, but it is consistent as I said. However, some of the theories can be reasonably discounted based on available evidence. I would be happy to explain in detail if you want.

On Praxisz, he contradicted himself directly. It is perfectly acceptable to like a game overall but have beefs with certain aspects, I am in that grouping, but that is not what I was referring to. I am all for pushing Mobage to make the game less annoying etc, as long as it does not violate their basic model. Also, people should understand that model and accept it as the core model will not change, but maybe they will add that dialog for the chains button. We can only hope. If you disagree with the core model, then don't pay money or don't play at all, the core will not change.

Your customer analogy is not accurate since the difference between what you claim and what you illustrate by example is that in Mobages case you claim they are willing to screw customers and lose them, but a company discounting an item to GET customers is not losing them, they are gaining them. I never said they would not sacrifice profit, I said they would not sacrifice customers. They HAVE sacrificed profit already with the ruby bridges, and that is why I am still here, free players are not completely irrelevant, and there is not *as* big a gap between pay players and free players, though you can still guarantee a win with enough money, it just takes more money now since free players are more relevant.

I take other views seriously when they have some evidence to back it up and is not just fueled what what only seems to be a hatred for Mobage. Theories based on emotion tend to be wrong, and when someone makes an emotional argument, it rarely turns out to be true in my experience, so I just don't really give it that much weight. Sorry, I am all about the numbers, and while I can't prove 50/50 definitively, we can still make a reasonable guess as to what the odds are, as well as discount some of the wilder opposing theories.

I have ALWAYS been a free player, and I do remember when the odds were different in the space bridges, But the 1 in 1000 bridges are totally different from the 50/50 ruby bridges and comparing them side by side is an emotional argument. It is not valid. I also remember in one campaign episode where after the first day they changed the capture rate, this was documented by Mobage! So yes, they do play with the numbers, but the changes I saw were consistent with what people thought at the time, and it was even verified by Mobage.

Just last week I got 2 R4s in a single 50 medal pull. My 3 bot pull for X7 is a 1 in 4 chance, not that crazy and will be VERY common considering the thousands of people pulling. It is definitely frustrating to me, but I know that it is a 25% chance that it will happen to me, so I move on rather than cry foul.

Dammit I really wanted an MTM X7...