Negative , the amount of mental gymnastics you have to go through to clarify your point. We been getting free pheons since the game launch , and still people miss use those pheons.
I’m not here to justify AGS, just to point out the irony of people complain about pheons but also waste them.
And you using phrase like cost you an arm and a leg just show how bad faith and the length you go to justify your point. Negative pheons might take you 1 week to recover and for those who heavily effect clearly have more then 6 character that they can easily farm back. So “ charging arm and leg for it” it more of an inconvenience and not even mention whatever they bought they get to keep.
So your analogy fail again, you didn’t take the stuff because it free you choose to buy the stuff with the free credit that was given. And again if you are buying stuff just cause you have “ Free” money then again get your priorities check out.
How is the time when the pheons were spent relevant?
They removed them over a day later, nearly 12h later they gave the go ahead to use them after the maintenance to “stop the exploit” part of it and said people obtained and “used them in good faith” and will not be removed.
People spent them the next day after being told they can. So it didn’t matter if you rush or not to use them.
“Do you agree or disagree with the fact that the pheons were given out free?” - YES
“Do you agree or disagree with the fact that the “freenes” of those pheons was reversed?” - YES
“If you somehow agree with the two above, then do you not agree that doing it like this is extremely scummy?” - I think removing the pheons was the only FAIR solution they could do after they distributed more pheons to some players and less to others. - well ofc they could give pheons to anyone who got less than 240 so everyone ends up with 240 total, but ofc they wont do this as they will lose money.
“You go to a used card dealer and they show you something and then tell you it’s free. Your’re like OK and you take that since free is free. Two day later they send a bill about your free car, charging arm and leg for it.” - Now here some things need to be changed for it to be accurate with what AGS did. like this:
you are given “free” car. Than you are asked to return the car, because giving it was mistake/not fair to everyone and ect. But you sell the car so they cant take it back from you (maybe you are genious/smartass). And as they have nothing to take from you, they charge you money and you go to negative. - doesnt something like this seems more accurate to what happened? So if you didnt sell the car you would be just on the 0 - no gains no loses. And when you sold the car for money (lets say you got 500$ for selling the car) - and after this they make you go to -500$ negative coz you dont have the car - isnt this fair? you still are at 0.
Now what you complain about is that after you sold the car for 500$ - you bought some sh*t that you didnt needed. Now here comes the question - Why did you buy stuff you didnt need?
you may say stuff like - it was free so i spent them unwisely. - But then again you get other free pheons too all the time. - do you spend them unwisely too? I doubt it. These were pheons that were given free and we were told that we got to keep them. so you should threat them as any other pheon you get.
You may have spent the pheons on things you need. - now this is logical, but you wouldnt be here complaining if this was the case, since you would have bought those pheons anyway to buy the things you need, or you would need to wait more time to save up pheons for those things. - so you should be happy to be able to get the things you need now, and spend pheons on them later. And again - if this was the case , you wouldnt be here complaining
now the obvious reason for your complains is - you realized AGS made mistake, Spent the pheons on whatever stuff, just so AGS cant take the pheons back. And this here is called exploit. And its only natural for you to go to the negative (even the punishment for exploiting is too little). And dont start with “we didnt knew ags would take them away bs”. there were more than enough posts in the forums about smartasses showing off how they spent 240 pheons saying AGS cant get them back now, and laughing at the community as if they won the lottery
Because I was responding to his point and you randomly jump in ? And make a general claim of the entire population when his point was aim toward me as an individual which I responded to what I did… as an individual
And now let’s come back to reality. AGS told us in an official message, which is still visible through Steam updates, that the Pheons were safe to spend and would not be removed.
However many in the community, to this day, believe the players who spent the Pheons did so maliciously expecting them to be deleted. Because AGS had the nerve to call them exploiters and they only represented 5.8% of the player base, it was easy for the 94% to just believe and allow them to be punished.
Frankly, the 94% reaction to this is sickening. As much as this makes me not want to play another AGS title, it also makes me want to avoid playing another game with this awful community.
to be fair this is the first time i hear that AGS called those players exploiters, i didnt know this till now.
If you read my full comment you will understand that there is no reason for those players to be here complaining if that was not the case. I mean there is always the possibility that i missed something with my judgement, but the chances are pretty low.
And things like: “i got free pheons so i spent them on things i dont need” is just excuses. Imagine you are poor and get 500$ gift that you are told you can keep. Would you spend them on totally useless things that you done need? Think the answer is pretty obvious.
Some more lies and doubling down calling us exploiters.
They claimed Pheons were sent only because an item has to be attached to system mail. This already is untrue, and is completely disproven when you realize they sent THREE items in each mail. 10 Pheons, 1 Card pack and 1 Battle item bundle.
Surely, the message could have been sent only with battle items or cards, and not Pheons, if an item MUST be attached? Considering the Cards nor Battle Items were never deleted, and only the Pheons were, it seems like it would have been a lot less work?
To finish it all, he double downs and says that the players who simply logged into each character to claim this mail were somehow “exploiting”.
It’s despicable behavior, and really sad that so many of the 94% buy into it because this didn’t affect them negatively.
Look, When we take into consideration that Exploit means abusing the system to make something that is not intended to work this way, they are not wrong,
Ofc the mistake was theirs to begin with. So in general - exploit is punished by bans, and now they just removed the pheons that were not intended to be there in the first place.
And they admitted their mistakes - and thats why we all got compensated by 60 pheons.
“It’s despicable behavior, and really sad that so many of the 94% buy into it because this didn’t affect them negatively.” - how did it affect you negatively? 100% of the community is in +60 pheons total. I would call this fair.
You are mad coz you didnt get more pheons than other players that got less characters? is that it?
So you agree with AGS. Opening up mail they sent, and spending the attached Pheons they promised would not be removed, is exploiting and deserves punishment.
Wrong. Players who were given Pheons, told they could safely spend them, but then deducted afterwards are not in the same situation.
Example: A player who spends all their free Pheons when they receive them. He was gifted 100 Pheons and used them expecting to be at zero Pheons afterwards, as promised by AGS. He wakes up the next day -100. He is still -40 and has set himself back months, having been TRICKED into buying items he actually couldn’t afford and likely didn’t need, and now has a bleak future.
This player is in a considerably worse situation than the player who was unaffected and now has +60 Pheons to budget properly.
The items should have been removed, not the Pheons. Tricking people into spending money they do not have, and then refusing any refund option, is despicable business behavior.
“So you agree with AGS. Opening up mail they sent, and spending the attached Pheons they promised would not be removed, is exploiting and deserves punishment.” - I agree that its AGS mistake and that we deserved the 60 pheons compensation they gave us, and i am pretty happy getting 60 free pheons myself. I also think that removing the firstly distributed pheons was the right decision, because some players got 240 pheons and other 0 (since they didnt log on time to claim them). so everyone getting 60 seems much more fair
“Wrong. Players who were given Pheons, told they could safely spend them, but then deducted afterwards are not in the same situation.” - but they are. The total is still +60 pheons for them.
" having been TRICKED into buying items he actually couldn’t afford and likely didn’t need, and now has a bleak future." - this here can be split into 2
Buying things you didnt need - Why would you buy things you dont need? give me 1 reason for this thing! Just 1! If you get 500$ free from someone and he say you got to keep them - will you buy things you dont need? This makes absolutely no f***ing sense at all
Buying things you couldnt afford - now here you should be HAPPY that you could buy things you need now, instead having to wait time to buy pheons first and buy the item after. So you got brand new items you can use for few weeks with 0 drawback, and after few weeks when you would finally be able to buy those items without this mistake AGS made- now you will be at 0 pheons, but will be using the items all that time
It is human nature to spend gifted money on items you don’t need or cannot otherwise afford.
This is why gift cards and store credit exist. Giving people a balance of fake “currency” incentivizes them to spend. In fact it is extremely rude to receive a gift card and then trade it for groceries.
This is also the whole idea behind economic stimulus packages. If you gift people currency they will overwhelmingly spend it on something they otherwise would not have been able to afford.
Everyone being given +60 is fair. However 5.8% of players being tricked into debt with no option of refund is not fair. An action which is fair for everyone does not correct an action which is unfair to 5.8% of players, who still have an outstanding debt to pay off.
The only way to “fairness” is to reverse the transactions made with the fake Pheons. This means removing the items purchased, and restoring the Pheons used. This would bring everyone up to +60, and no one would have Pheon debt.
The gift cards example is not accurate - and the reason is that Gift cards can be used for 1 particular store (or bulk of stores). Here in Lost Ark you can see the AH as the ultimate store that got everything in game in it (if we dont count the $ shop).
So if you get gift card that works for absolutely every shop in your country (this will be the server you play in). will you still spend it on things you dont need? I mean you could ofc spend them on things you could not afford, but not on thing you dont need
Pheons let you purchase items on the Lost Ark Market in the same way an Amazon Gift Card would let you purchase on the Amazon market.
If Amazon gave you a free $100 gift card, and after spending it you were charged $100 from your bank account, would you think, “Well that’s fine, I got $100 worth of product”?
Or would you think, “They scammed me and this probably is not legal.”?
If they gave all their customers a $50, as an apology, for an issue that only you experienced, would that be fair? You were still -$50, and everyone else is +$50.
Again, lets change this a little so it is accurate:
One day you wake up, open your Amazon account and see 100$ that shouldnt be there, Amazon says that this was mistake, but you still got to keep the $. you spend them, But after further review they take those money back and now you are at -100$. And they compensate you 60$ for the trouble. seems more accurate?
they compensate everyone - because its is only fair to do so. and you are not in -40$ since you didnt own those 100$ in the first place. you are also on the +60.
+60 and some item you bought for 100$ that you needed
