Dear Jack Emmert - You Answered my Question, Here's my Response "Perception".

To Provide Readers with a re-cap of my question that was asked of Jack Emmert during the Q&A Today (18 January 2017)

Jack's response for those that may have missed it during the live stream, was as follows;

Let's break that down to the raw elements;


The way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted:

So a perception by it's definition is the way something is "understood".

what we don't know (information kept confidential by Daybreak);

• The purchasing data
• The actual drop rates
• The cost to create the capsule content

Let's focus on what we do know and how it leads not to "my perception" but "the perception any reasonable person would formbased on the information openly available to them".

To quote the elements of your post Jack,



Now although I said we'd focus on what we do know, I just wanted to quickly touch on this ambiguous topic, you say you're tweaking the drop rates based on "how many people buy". That's your quote "how many people buy".

What are you saying?

• You increase the drop rate when people buy too many?
• You decrease the drop rate when people buy too many?
• You increase the drop rate when you decide something is too rare? or not rare enough?

What are the parameters behind how you define your drop rate or tweak your drop rate based upon sales? I don't see how you can provide the community comfort with this statement when all information in relation to the data is tightly sealed away behind closed doors?

You're asking for us to "part with our money" in the form of a "gambling box" and that we should "place our trust in you that you'll make it fair".

Come on now Jack, really!?!? I don't say this at all to insult you but it's like a casino operator telling me, play the slot machine, I promise it's not rigged, at all to make me a profit.




This is simply shown by giving you the raw data, you say you look at this, but again define no parameters, you obviously have a thought on what you deem to be an "Acceptable price" of a rare item.

Given that the rare materials have gone for more than 90mil+ the last two capsules, it can tacitly be inferred that you agree 100mil is an acceptable price for a player to pay for a rare time capsule item?

If this is not the case, what do you plan to do about it?

Are you looking at the same auction house as the players? You say "we can trade" items from the time
capsules and I even note in the recent stream SJ and Mepps were like "you can trade" it's kind of deceptive, not on purpose, but because it doesn't acknowledge the "broken state of the in game economy".

Either the devs are completely oblivious to it or you're choosing to turn a blind eye; either way let's take a quick delve into the treasure chest known as the "broker" on US PC/PS








Just to really prove the point too Jack, Look at this, the rare stuff from the previous capsules is still far cheaper than the new rare items - now you tell me, do you think it would be reasonable to "assume" the rare items from capsules past should now be going up or down?

You might argue, but the capsules are gone so any "supply" is going to be at it's maximum... You might say that but before you do, looking at the flaming phoenix feather, if drop rates were the same "why are there still way more amber, emerald and crimson mist auras than flaming phoenix feathers and phoenix materials?




So as you can see Jack, it's not a "misplaced" perception, it's a "reasonable perception" formed by the facts the community has available to them and the impact upon them within the game.

It's a conclusion drawn simply through the "Evidence" presented to the users within the game as evidenced by the above screenshots.

I really look forward to your further response in relation to this matter and possibly even any thoughts you might have on how we fix what, clearly evidenced above, is a broken economy.

[disclaimer] the screnshots were taken from an alt account, because I didn't want to make this about how much money I do or do not have myself.

I will be back later to post about the last part of your comment about getting our 99c worth, but I would like to play the game tonight also

To any community members that respond, please bear in mind this is a response to Jack, I'm not looking to receive your answers you may wish to make on his behalf.

Please keep all comments constructive and we can all have a good time.

normally i just browse the forums, but this i couldnt resist. logged on to give this thread a thumbs up!

I love your entire post. I'm happy you took the time to give credibility to our perception through a rational and sound argument. It was very well put together (and obviously a lot of work), and encompassed many of my thoughts. Obviously we're never going to get the data on their end, but it is clear what we see on our end in the auction house every day since the Amazonian Time Capsules were released. Jack's response was surprising to me, as it really seems hard to give such a flawed response. I can't blame him though, as his response seems to be honest, and flawed only because the reality of the situation is that our perception is very reasonable and that there was nothing else he could say to you.

I know certain individuals will tell you you are wasting your time on this path of questioning and debating on time capsules, and that you would be better off putting your time and effort into criticizing/"complaining"/"whining" about other things in these q&a's as well as during this time leading up to the stats revamp. I'm genuinely glad that you don't care and still push for fairness.

But pay TC who want, right? And the players can put whatever price they want on Broker, right? Just get rid of these feats at the moment because if they're spending $200 in TC this is their problem with their money because this is completely wrong. Although I agree that feats by RNG has been a wrong direction selected by the game. They should just put the materials directly in the Marketplace and so you buy and get the feat. Much more simple.

I'm dying lmao

I just had to drop by this thread because I watched it live when he said. PERCEPTION.
I was like

Should have included the gear and trinkets, neither of which is just a cosmetic item and one helps you in content to the point where it could be needed if a certain gear piece hasn't dropped, plus the gear mods which will be needed soon enough.

Lol well said...i do not need to say more...lol "perception"...infuriated me when he said that

Well yeah, I mean it all just exacerbates what is a rather obvious problem

your signature has Zoom running on treadmill how did you get him to do that?

Is perception the latest meme?

#perceptionmatters tweet your friends today

Lot of BS in that QA.

The bottom line is they know exactly what they were doing. The demand factors into a requirement to have a sub. Feats associated with the items drive the price up. Rarity of the items does this even more. Though players set the price of items on the broker, they're obviously going to do so in accordance with the laws of supply and demand. At the same time, they moved to undermine the worth of items that non paying players could use to trade, increasing the supply of crafting materials, including bits/bytes. This further enforces the push to utilize the new 'rares' as the go to for profit on all levels. (Both for the player selling the items as well as those spending real cash to acquire the items - either through an insane amount of key purchases, or by subscribing to gain access to the considerable funds needed for the items)

Got to love the lie about adding things to the MP. It's no wonder these guys get DDoS'd so often.

If i could i would like the original post 1 million times That is perfect.
Also waiting for the usual suspects to come in this thread and twist around everything said in the OP and claim how its flawed logic and that we are crazy because the drop rates of the phoenix feather and void essence are fine

Logged in to +1.

The devs got owned, exposed, and just destroyed here. Bravo proxy.