Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Gems of War chest drops always worked like this:
- A roll is made to determine the type of prize (traitstone, glory, gold, troop, ingot, etc… based on what is in the chest)
- A random rarity is rolled for that prize, if applicable, or if it is currency, a random value within the minimum and maximum that can be awarded from that type
- For prizes that there are more than one of in a given rarity group, the final prize is then determined randomly among those rarity group with another roll
This has been stated on the forums in the past, it is represented somewhat in the text of the linked help article, and it is represented in the way the subgroups are divided for chest rewards display in game, and it is represented in the explanation of what exactly went wrong with portal drop rates and was backed up with math. Are you really going to take a hard stance that it doesn’t work like this? Was something changed?
So, examining the Kurandara situation.
A player opens a bunch of keys, lets say several hundred (could be more, could be less, but for the sake of example, lets say 200)
- several of these keys roll troops, as is expected
- one of these troops rolls as a mythic. Lucky!
- The troop that happened to roll as mythic then rolls as Kurandara. Uh oh, that wasn’t supposed to be in chests yet. Lets take him away and award 2 VIP keys, thats “more than fair”, right, because only one key was consumed to get that prize!
But lets examine the same situation had Kurandara not been in chests, as it should have been.
A player opens that same amount of keys.
- several of these keys roll troops, as is expected
- one of these troops rolls as a mythic. Hey, this sounds familiar. Still lucky!
- The troop that happened to roll as mythic then… some other mythic. Lets say, uh, Yasmine’s Chosen. That person now has a Yasmine’s Chosen.
So, to reiterate.
Mistake on your end made, person that gets a “jackpot prize” is awarded 2% of the value of said prize to “try again”, I guess. This is considered generous, somehow?
Mistake not made, person that gets a “jackpot prize” keeps said jackpot prize.
We are not stating this out of a misunderstanding of how probability works. We know mythics are a rare occurrence. What is being stated here is that if Kurandara had not been blundered into the drop pool early, those that pulled Kurandara randomly from chests would have pulled a different mythic instead. The fact of the matter is, people that pulled Kurandara hit that rare occurrence to pull any mythic at all. They still would have pulled a mythic, it just would have been a different mythic. Yanking way their jackpot prize because you (the collective “you”, meaning everyone responsible for the game working like it should) made a mistake is a downright bad-faith way of dealing of this.
Just roll it into a different random mythic. The people trying to exploit were more than likely people with way too much keys on their hands that already had a bunch of mythics… if they roll a 3rd copy of Gargantaur because Kurandara got taken away, so be it. The level 596 just opening keys because they always open keys right when they get them and hope to get lucky? They’ll at least get a mythic, as it should have always been. Maybe its even a dupe for them, too, maybe not, but its the fair way to handle it because it is what should have happened had the mistake not been made. But you don’t roll back someone’s jackpot and award them a tiny percentage worth of extra tries when the mistake you made that did not at all influence the chance of them getting said jackpot in the first place.
Man, I’m not even directly affected and I’m so beyond frustrated. This really is no way to handle this. As I’ve said many times, chest drops and chest drop rates are sacrosanct in this game, the driving force behind every single other gameplay and monetization system. This is not a mistake that can keep happening, and it is not a mistake that should ever be under-compensated for, and this is so many times into both happening that I’ve honestly lost count, but I think this may be the worst one yet.
I feel like this doesn’t even describe just how much of a screw you this is to the players that pulled mythics. The rolls are supposed to be separate. The person won their million bucks and got paid out in… lets say an equivalent amount of yen, which for whatever reason this lottery picks a random currency to pay you out in (roll with it). Then due to a computer error, “yen” wasn’t actually supposed to be in the database, and they couldn’t complete that transaction. So instead of paying out like, dollars, or euro, or gold bullion, or bitcoin, or whatever other currencies they do have in their database, or they “reimburse” a couple tickets. The other people that hit the million dollar jackpot and didn’t get randomly selected to get yen all got to keep their jackpots in whatever form of currency they got.
I realize I am probably a little more angry than I should be since I wasn’t even directly affected, but come on. I feel like I get punched in the gut every time I read about the whatever many time drops were wrong again and the repeatedly kicked while down when I have to read about how there wasn’t even a good faith compensation being made. And, again, that is coming from a perspective of someone that wasn’t even directly affected.
tl;dr: Give the people that rolled pulled the troops that were removed from keys a random troop of the same rarity. Stop saying that a couple keys is “more than fair” here, the partial-truth of the explanation used to justify it not only insulting but just made me feel gross even reading it. And for the love of everything please please put measures in to stop mistakes like this from happening in the first place