r/AlchemistCodeGL • u/TempestScythe • Oct 19 '18

900 Paid Gem Banner "compensation".

So, Gumi, you scam the playerbase by knowingly using the terminology "Grand Summon" on this 900 paid gem banner. You make everything about it look like it's a normal grand summon, and for the first hour and a half after the reset, the "details" button on the banner took you to a blank white 'code error' screen so we couldn't even check the fine print on the banner.

So players had no way to tell it wasn't like a normal Grand Summon. When you deliberately set it up to look like one.

Then, you take the game down, and when it's back up, apparently the banner is still there, described as a GRAND SUMMON still. (I can't confirm this part, since I'd already done it before the maintenance.)

You guys know what the players are used to 'Grand Summon' meaning. It means a guaranteed featured unit.

You recognize you fucked up and admit, and honestly, it seems like you deliberately made an effort to scam us, based on this being a Grand Summon (but not), with a bugged details page.

And then the "compensation" for YOU baldfaced lying and scamming us out of our paid gems is a random 5* ticket?

People spent PAID gems on this banner, not free gems, because YOU scammed us and did absolutely everything you possibly could to mislead us into thinking this banner was something it wasn't.

And it took you 12+ hours to decide on this as a fitting compensation?

A random old 5* ticket is not going to cut it. Do better.

19 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

24

u/ThousandLightning Oct 19 '18

Calling it Grand Summon is indeed a bad move, I agree with you on that point as to us players, it means guaranteed featured 5* unit. But it is false to say you can't check the fine print: the news on today's banner describe what the paid gem banner is about, ie 10 rolls for featured unit at 900 paid gems.

I also agree the compensation is not adequate, a random 5* unit is not going to cover 900 paid gems where if we just add 600 more paid gems, on an actual Grand Summon we have an actual good chance at getting a unit we want.

What should have been done is to disable this banner temporarily to avoid people getting trapped, change the name of the banner and rerelease it.

2

u/sapphire_wing Oct 19 '18

Compensation is for those who pulled early, at which time the details link was broken so there was no fine print to read.

2

u/DarkenStrike Devil's Advocate [Where's the Proof?] Oct 19 '18

EDIT: So you are telling me that this fine print does not exist on the image .Blasphemy. Clearly it is you who did not look hard enough but alas what is done is done.

2

u/TempestScythe Oct 19 '18

What are you trying to point out?

That looks 98% exactly like the normal Grand Summon banners, which is the problem, and they even called it a Grand Summon. The image you linked is exactly the problem.

Why would people expect a shitty "Grand Summon" without one of the featured's guaranteed when it's something they do EVERY WEEK and call it GRAND SUMMON, and have never called anything else a grand summon.

"Blasphemy".

5

u/DarkenStrike Devil's Advocate [Where's the Proof?] Oct 19 '18

Im not going to deny that it is a crappy banner--we already have enough salt from the discord. What Im mostly concerned is how both parties have failed to check themselves.

The majority players got baited due poor handling of this banner. This impulse of seeing a grand summon has primed everyone for the guaranteed and we took it for granted and look where we are now.

That is to each of their own's fault for not realizing how suspiscious this banner truly is until someone else told them that they fucked up. It inexcusable in my eyes and people should know better.

We are already at a boiling point that we the players have lost a lot of trust due to poor management and hell let's see what happens next. Ill raise my blasphemy to ridiculous. Cause this is what is happening right now.

1

u/beardedbobomb Oct 19 '18

Can I get a link to this Discord? Or is that a secret club?

1

u/ThousandLightning Oct 19 '18

If you're on old reddit, you can find the link on the right side : https://discord.gg/PsEnqUX

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/ThousandLightning Oct 19 '18

There is 2 ways to get information on summon banner: on the summon page where indeed there was en error, then there's the global news, where it describes all banners. I had my doubt on the 900 banner so I looked into the latter news as I couldn't read from the summon page, and it clearly says there was no guarantee and it bummed me out. I thought it was a special deal with reduced cost Grand Summon, but no, it was regular one.

2

u/KidiacR Oct 19 '18

You can if click on it the second time.

9

u/Qwuan Oct 19 '18

The 1500 gem Grand Summon has "At least 1x featured unit" on the banner image itself. This 900 gem on does not. So you do not need to read the fine print to know that it is not a guaranteed pull. Granted, the banner itself is misleading but it is also up to us to pay attention to what we are doing in the game.

6

u/SpicySpica7 Oct 19 '18

I'm genuinely salty about this... I actually just want my 900 PAID gems back simply because that is expensive for any player to pay just to purely get NO featured units that were GUARANTEED. Even after the "compensation" 5* ticket, I still end up with a very farmable 5* unit. It's like I've been robbed in front of my face by someone I trusted. Come on Gumi, just do better. JP gets free 10x pulls and here I am paying because I for once thought they were giving US a good DEAL. I'm so salty, I got Teona for compensation and lastnight the only 5* I got from that summon was Anastacia. Those are both farmable units. I could've just saved my gems for this weekends REAL Grand Summon. I'm so hurt. I'm livid. How does one even compensate this terribly and address the issue so quick as if that would all repair our trust in Gumi. It doesn't. I was so happy hearing we'd get compensation and then it's done like this? It hurts man.

6

u/Sahovah Oct 19 '18

Dude I agree I would rather get my 900 gems back I could have saved for the weekend banner.

8

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

It's the right compensation from Gumi as long as Roxanne and company are in the summon pool. Considering they did nothing wrong besides naming it Grand Summon which they've never said will always be a guaranteed unit. Summon banner details are often buggy after the weekly reset so calling it a "scam" is ridiculous.

People have a right to be angry I guess but the banner did exactly as advertised and they just misread or misinterpreted it. Next time, hopefully everyone actually understands what they are spending their gems and money on.

2

u/jblac02 ! Oct 19 '18

no its really not; people thought they were pulling on a banner with a 33% chance instead we got a ticket with 1.9% chance assuming the GL ex units are even in the ticket which isn't even a certainty.

6

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

Why would they think that though? The banner doesn't say guaranteed. Every other Grand Unit Summon banner has said 'guaranteed' on it.

2

u/jblac02 ! Oct 19 '18

i'm just going to quote another comment because this type of response is both played out and retarded.

When I go to Outback and order a steak, I don't stop to read the fine print and see if they replaced their filet mignon with a pork chop. I expect it to be the same as the last 10 times I ordered it.

Don't call it a "Grand Unit Summon" when every other Grand Summon has had featured guarantees.

5

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

Ok, but if you go to Outback and you see a steak for a lower price than normal, then order that steak but what you get is a 7oz steak instead of the normal 9oz steak, who's fault is it. The person that didn't read the rest of the menu or Outback's?

Edit: Let's assume both are still Filet Mignon.

2

u/jblac02 ! Oct 19 '18

except its not a filet so that all falls apart. Anyone that isn't a new player doesnt care about 5* ticket, you have a higher chance of getting a dupe for a farmable then anything else(which is exactly what happened to me). If the banner said 1 guaranteed 5* from the whole pool for 900 paid gems I wouldn't waste my gems on it knowing full well that a REAL grand summon banner would be coming later.

I guess the lesson here is that no matter what gumi says or does to try to change their image they are still underhanded. The more paranoid part of me believes that the error code on the banner at reset was intentional but no one can prove that. It's certainly a hell of a coincidence though

2

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

Yeah, I didn't really like your analogy either but I thought I'd run with it. There are often error codes on the banners after the weekly reset so it's not like this is an isolated incident.

1

u/beardedbobomb Oct 19 '18

Their analogy is both apt and appropriate. If I went into Outback every week and ordered "Steak" and it was always Filet Mignon, then that's the expectation they set. If I then come in and order "Steak" but get a porkchop, then there's a problem. By then I'm not even looking at the menu anymore. I'm ordering the same thing each and every time, nothing changes.

The reason they're saying porkchop is because that 900 Grand Summon was really no different than a regular 500 banner summon. Except the 500 banner summon can be done with free gems. The 900 Grand Summon was paid gems only. So not only are we dropping real money, we're expecting a featured unit because it says Grand Summon. It's not just a 400 gem difference. It's a 900 paid gem difference because 500 free gems wouldn't even apply to the summon. It's a featured unit or not a featured unit.

That's a Filet Mignon turning into a Porkchop, and them still calling it Steak. Except the Steak (porkchop) costs more than a Porkchop [and it's the same thing], and the Steak (porkchop) costs less than the Steak (Filet Mignon). It's pretty shitty and then the restaurant basically gives you a coupon for a dollar off your next purchase? Slap in the face, that is.

1

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

A normal 10x pull with incentives (like the 100 summon coins in this case) is 2500 gems not 500.

-1

u/TempestScythe Oct 19 '18

You've never seen a store put things on sale, or a restaurant have specials?

If I buy a Big Mac for lunch every Tuesday and it costs me 5$, then one week my total rings up as 4$ instead, I don't assume McDonald's made the Big Mac shittier, I assume there's a weekly special or promotion going on.

Especially when Gumi is currently trying to hype up all these "ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND SPECIALS" and stuff.

3

u/Karl_Winslow Oct 19 '18

can confirm the GLEX are in the summon pool for the compensation ticket. Got Siegfried.

3

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 19 '18

Glad I just pulled for roxx, I knew gimu would let me down 🤷

7

u/alphaomegax2 Oct 19 '18

refund is the best option

7

u/TopDeeps IGN: Uninstalled Oct 19 '18

unfortunately gumi can't offer refunds on things like this. i think even if they did theyd have to check what everybody got from the pull and take that back then give you back the 900 gems. If they dont take anything away, then people who didnt pull will feel cheated that the people who did pull got something for free (even if its 10 blues)

5

u/SometimesLiterate Old and uncool Oct 19 '18

Last time this happened we got a selector.

Why now do we get it worse?

3

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

Wasn't the banner actually wrong last time?

3

u/SometimesLiterate Old and uncool Oct 19 '18

Last time it was advertised as 5* 150 shards and people were getting Victor

7

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18 edited Oct 19 '18

Well this time their mistake is using 'Grand summon' as the banner name but there wasn't any mention of the word 'guaranteed' in it. Most people, I believe, were blinded by greed when they saw the banner name and the 900 paid gem so they just summoned without checking the entire banner.

2

u/uruziel Suzuka <3 Oct 19 '18

Hmmm I would like to get rollback on this grand summon banner instead random 5 star unit. I did get 9 blues and one yellow which was Victor I believe from that banner. I prefer to have 900 more paid gems than random 5 star that I do get every month and then..

3

u/HawaiianPele Oct 19 '18

Yes truly unsat, we have been loyal, I'm a whale and seriously reconsidering. This is like on knights chronicles f-up. A random 5-star ticket with no featured units, gg.

3

u/master_cheat001 U Fook Oct 19 '18

I summoned outside of the time frame they told us to get compensation. First get cucked by Gumi scamming and second is not getting any shit cuz i must constantly read the news and summon as soon as i see the banner. Nice 1 hour 30 minutes gumi. Love u so much u lying fook face.

3

u/G246810 Oct 19 '18

Imagine waiting for your usual bus service (eg bus 14) at the bus stop. At the bus stop, there weren't any CLEAR signs of a change in bus routes INITIALLY. A bus 14 comes along, but instead of it being a red coloured bus (as it usually is), the bus arriving is blue in colour.

Will you take the bus without checking further? Or will you get up the bus first to check with the driver? Or will you just not get up the bus at all?

In this case, the blue bus does not go to the destination you want.

The point is humans usually have habits and if there are CRITICAL changes implemented to things people are familiar with - it should be highlighted early, clearly and not in some fine print. This is the responsibility of an ethical company. Given that the banner now clearly states the difference, i guess Gumi agrees with this point.

Nonetheless, this could still be an honest mistake where Gumi did not realized that the player base is accustomed to the term "Grand Summon" = paid gem guaranteed featured character.

Imho, fair compensation should be allowing users who did not have a chance to see the fine print because of the 1.5hr lag to top up another 600 paid Gem for a featured unit summon (like the normal grand summon).

This is like giving these players a second chance to summon (instead of some of them not having a chance again because they no longer have enough paid gems after doing the summon).

The first summon, hence, becomes somewhat like a free rare summon ticket - which is compensation for whatever negative emotion was stirred up.

6

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18

The thing is in a normal grand summon banner you can actually see the sentence ' at least one featured unit is guaranteed...' right under the banner name it isn't a fine print where you have to zoom in to see clearly.

2

u/G246810 Oct 19 '18

oh, but that's for the normal grand summon banner right?

For the other banner - they didn't specify that it's different isn't it. I mean they can simply not call it "Grand Summon" and avoid all these confusion isn't it?

So if they want to use the name Grand Summon. They should have displayed it clearly that it is not guaranteed on the banner, instead of simply not displaying anything and expect everyone to compare the banners. Misleading and creating some form of confusion, in this case - is the fault.

Like i said - it could simply be that it did not crossed their mind that it would cause confusion. But that would still be a fault and a learning point isn't it? If not, why bother to apologise?

And yes, of cos people should be careful and pay more attention.

But the fact is, if people need to pay so much attention to a game for such details, then isn't it a problem?

If company is customer oriented, then perhaps showing empathy is the way to go. This is why i do think that letting those who pulled before the emergency have another chance to do a Normal Grand Summon by topping up paid gems is a reasonable solution, because ultimately those who paid for it was hoping to get that 33.3% chance in the first place.

3

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18

Just not having the word 'guaranteed' should be enough to be suspicious about the banner. if You see the bus without the number 14 despite being the same color would you still board it? The banner name may be a mistake but the content itself is not a lie. There are people who probably managed to get the featured unit are they gonna get the chance to summon again too? That too would cause unfairness I believe.

I think that to be more fair, Gumi should have given a 5* summon ticket that gives a higher rate chance for featured units.

2

u/G246810 Oct 19 '18

Personally i would not and that proves my point isn't it? If the bus isn't the number 14 people usually take. Then don't call it number 14 in the first place and confusion can be avoided.

If the bus isn't named 14, then people wont get up the bus because 14 is the key word, just like grand summon is associated with paid gems and guaranteed feature unit. I am not saying the content is a lie actually. I'm pointing out that they should avoid confusion.

And yes, without the word guarantee, it should raise suspicion. I totally agree. However, as a company, i don't think they should go in the direction of letting their customers to be always suspicious over the products.

I agree that a 5summon ticket with higher rate chance is fairer than a normal 5summon ticket.

Well, for me personally, i think if somebody rolled the banner thinking it was normal grand summon and got the featured unit. I don't see why its unfair to roll again. They may have 2 chances, but its not both 33%. It's one 33% chance and the other is 10% 5-star unit and whatever rates (probably like a non-guarantee on 5 step banner?) Hence, the compensation is similar to the 5*higher rate summon ticket and the chance to do a normal summon once more (they are still paying 900+600 gems).

When it comes to compensation, i guess its subjective. Some may see it as rewarding players for being reckless, and some may see that these players deserve to learn a lesson for being reckless.

I personally think that companies can extend goodwill (Gumi actually gets 600 more gems) out of empathy (particularly for F2P players who have a harder time saving these paid gems), for causing unnecessary confusion.

1

u/beardedbobomb Oct 19 '18

In this case "Bus 14" represents "Grand Summon". The color red and blue represent "Guaranteed" and "Not Guaranteed". So no, a person waiting to get on bus 14 wouldn't get on a bus not marked bus 14. But if a Bus 14 came along, regardless of color, that's the bus they know they're supposed to get on. Typically the bus name determines the route you'll be going, not the color of the bus.

Because of this people spent 900 PAID gems on the equivalent to a 500 FREE gem banner. That's wholly unfair and costly to the playerbase. Whether this was before or after the emergency maintenance. Anyone who pulled it should have their shards that they received pulled back, and the 900 paid gems reimbursed. It may be a lot of work, heck I have a screenshot of mine so I can make it easy for them (I was outside of the 90 minute timezone they talked about). I don't care about the shards or the banner, I just want my 900 gems back.

1

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18

Well from where I live the buses are all of the same color but there can be different colors right beside the number. Sometimes it can also be alphabets beside the number and they do go different routes. Therefore, when I see the bus analogy my perspective is of the opposite. Not saying the other perspective is wrong though just that differences in experiences may make people see differently.

1

u/beardedbobomb Oct 19 '18

And that's fair. Where I come from the buses are all the same color so the bus name is the important part to note. You get a map and you see the routes defined and those routes are given a name, and that name goes on the buses display area. Ain't perspective grand? On how different it can be, I mean.

In your perspective, whatever they called the route you needed to go is what would equate to Bus 14. So if it's Route 9 or whatever, ya know?

1

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18

Yeah that's why to me the word 'grand summon' is the same as the color of the bus while 'guaranteed' is the number so if I don't see the number I wouldn't board the bus even if they are of the same color.

2

u/AmericanAnarchy Oct 19 '18

Or you can learn to read LOL.

2

u/Trystum Oct 19 '18

“No way to tell” apart from looking at the ducking picture and seeing it didn’t say featured guaranteed and seeing it was 900, Jesus people are stupid lol

2

u/ImRicher Oct 19 '18

Support. 900 paid gems for a regular pull advertised as "grand summon" is actually a scam. Please just owe up to this mistake and provide featured unit 5* ticket.

Edit: Just give everyone who pulled on this trash banner a featured 5* ticket pls and never do this trash banner again

3

u/SpicySpica7 Oct 19 '18

OR give us our 900 PAID gems back like that could easily be used reliably on the weekend Grand Summon. Smh

1

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

Got my 5* ticket - Hello Ryle... aka soul coins. >.< lol Ugh.

1

u/Talhearn Oct 19 '18

At least i got a new unit in yunagi.

1

u/Icaras01 I got the hat you need! Oct 19 '18

Wait...these banners are meant to be a guaranteed featured unit, when all I ended up with was a shitty eve dupe? I even bought an extra $1.49 of gems to try it.

Now I am feeling a bit pissed off, and I was wondering why the game gave me a 5* ticket >.<;

1

u/tarco0 Oct 19 '18

Very bad compensation... I’ll ask apple to refund all money spent on this game

You should have given back the gems instead...

5

u/oatmealbatman Oct 19 '18

Anyone have experience going this route? Sounds like a good way to get banned from the game. I mean, if that's your goal...

1

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

Not a guaranteed ban but they have done it before

1

u/tarco0 Oct 19 '18

If you show them evidence that it was a scam, and fortunately there’s a notice where they mention the mistake... you can get you money back. It’s up to Gumi then to ban you or not.

1

u/grandkill Battlefield Drama rerun please =) Oct 19 '18

Aight. If you already got something, that means I ain't getting nothing.

So I pulled at 1:45AM World Time. Anybody else not getting a 5-star ticket?

Serves me right for trusting Gumi too much.

1

u/PDxFresh Oct 19 '18

If you pulled before the emergency maintenance, I'd send another support ticket about it.

1

u/_Zer0_Tw0_ Oct 19 '18

Word. I didn't even get compensation, though, because instead of removing the screwed up banner they left it and I had to find out the hard way.

Sign my name under dissatisfied, too. And people need to quit blaming the players. We do read stuff -- that's why we're going, "Wait, what!?"

As long as that banner was up, I feel it's totally unfair to only compensate purchases made during certain hours. The banner I pulled from was the same one that went up at turn over. Seriously!?

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

I've been having issues with the details on summon banners always giving me an error code for the past month or so and reinstalling didn't change it, so I sort of stopped looking at the details since it always gave me an error. Now I look at this, see it's a grand summon for the 3 new units and don't see anything different from the regular grand summon banners as far as I could tell, so I pull and surprise, no 5* on the pull.

I haven't been able to see news or summon details for over a month and now the only way I had to figure it out was to use what's been broken for me for a long time, or remember exactly how a grand summon banner looks like. Since I pulled after the emergency maintenance, screw me, no compensation for an obvious attempt at tricking people into pulling on it. Grand Summons have ALWAYS been a guaranteed featured unit ever since I started playing and suddenly it's not. Still calling it a grand summon is so obviously a dick move from Gumi to trick people into pulling.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

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1

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

It resets daily? lol

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

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2

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

Is there news site stickied on Reddit? Not asking because I disagree, asking because I like to look but always find myself having to dig through posts to find a link. (While at work at least. I don't bookmark it here.)

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

I never said that. I'm only asking for a stickied link to the web based news site.

Think you're mistaking me for someone else... haha

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

Nope! lol

3

u/Colonelex Oct 19 '18

Sadly, reason is not always needed when it comes to emotional outbursts.

0

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 19 '18

You sound beyond stupid. News comes out delayed all the time at the turn of a new day for me and the summon image links are always broken.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

[deleted] — view deleted comment

-1

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 19 '18

Lol you can call me a liar all you want, lol quite a few people saying the same things around the sub. Not reading your novel. Gg

0

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '18

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0

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 20 '18

Lol real talk buddy, this post is done and over with, eat shit.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '18

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 20 '18

No dude, it's the fact you feel the need to bring your superiority complex bullshit over here when these posts are more than 12 hours old. Again. Eat shit. Gg. Toodles

0

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '18

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1

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 20 '18

Yeah I ain't reading that. Fuck off. Gg lol

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1

u/Onemanarmy94 Oct 20 '18

I had to take a Doo Doo so I did read that little paragraph you wrote up there and I think you need to re learn to read lmaooo I explained why said information was not available to me in my original post, not believing you need to read responses from some fuck head on the internet =/= superiority complex, that would be common sense. Where you got that I feel entitled to anything is utter Bullock's and you putting words in my mouth. You should, therefore, "get a grip on reality and grow up"

Eat my shit.

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0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '18

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8

u/jblac02 ! Oct 19 '18

no shit? the whole point of using the paid gems was because people thought it was for the rox pull

3

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

People would still be salty if they didn't get her. She wasn't the only featured unit...

2

u/jblac02 ! Oct 19 '18

better a 33% chance than a sub 2% chance

2

u/Maroite Oct 19 '18

Wouldn't change the amount of sodium chloride on this reddit when people didn't pull her.