I'll back off on saying what a horrible idea this is if @Shan can confirm that the mailbox exploit has been fixed. Imagine someone getting double or triple free dil every time that they do one of these offers. It would be unfair to the folks who are paying for dil and to the ones who are doing the offers. If people are able to cheat their way to massive amounts of dil for free, I'm done.
Folks here are getting prepared to raise their pitchforks without even knowing what this is going to look like. Maybe wait to see exactly what it is, and how it works, and whether you even care, before burning down the joint?
Since TP already named the company they’re using for this (ironSource) I googled reviews for them. I suggest others do the same before diving into this “feature”.
Not just from an end user perspective either, but from their direct customers as well. It may be wise to stay away if these reviews are representative of their services.
Ummm....reading those reviews
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
I did some research last night and I learned a few things....
1. It seems quite a few of you like to plan ahead and,
2. You prefer to invest in quality tools!
While the power of the 50-inch model is nice, I think for the kind of work we do around here, you've got to go with the versatility offered by the True Temper.
I've got some stuff to collect from my mailbox, so I can test for you whether or not it's been fixed.
How do I do it?
There are literally videos on YouTube of people doing it. I'm like... how has this not been fixed? There are entire fleets who've been using this to get extra chrons and copies of golds for a while.
I first reported this to DB as a bug in November of last year when I became aware of it. I don't like to broadcast when I come to be in possession of knowledge of game-breaking bugs. I generally just report them - quietly - to the team and hope that they're fixed. Most have been. Some have not been. This is one where I just can't be quiet because it has the potential to be very damaging to the game balance.
Folks here are getting prepared to raise their pitchforks without even knowing what this is going to look like. Maybe wait to see exactly what it is, and how it works, and whether you even care, before burning down the joint?
Since TP already named the company they’re using for this (ironSource) I googled reviews for them. I suggest others do the same before diving into this “feature”.
Not just from an end user perspective either, but from their direct customers as well. It may be wise to stay away if these reviews are representative of their services.
Ummm....reading those reviews
I can confirm from personal experience that Ironsource is terrible...
Their CS is the worst I have ever encountered... in other games I used to play, I had issues with some of the offers. They don't even read your complain and just send automated non-sequitur replies. Like asking for screenshot 5 times (in response to emails that already have the screenshot) and then going back to copy-pasting generic offer rules. Seesh.... I am contacting you because I followed the rules to the letter and the dil/crown/gems didn't show up.
I really hope TP/WRG CS will pick up the slack and not pass the buck to these guys. Otherwise we will have a lot of unhappy players and probably hurt TP/WRG more in the long run. I can't even count the number of games I have rage quit because of Ironsource. I now make it a point not to play any games that partner with them. But this is a new experience with these guys getting added to a game I already love and play. Hope to never get into that screen and ignore that this every happened
As for all the other complains about the quality of offers etc, I agree with all of them. They are hardly ever worth the time or the money spend. And then my point above if something goes wrong they will not help at all.
skittles offer is crap, sent my endless pop up links, when I finally found the correct page, it wouldn't let me submit by constantly telling me that my valid zip code is invalid (after giving them an e-mail address). Going to submit a ticket for the 127 dil
On one device the button is showing on another device it's not IPhone 7 is fine Iphone 5c is not.
First impressions of the content - totally skipable. Seriously no reward is worth this let alone a meager 24 dilithium for some of them - yes i tried those on the pretense they would be quicker/easier/less invasive - totally wrong on that front.
Half of them require far too much personal data,
others require a work email, google yahoo etc are not allowed in order to register - my work email is not for personal use in this way, so there is no way I would give out that level of information.
The quizzes I have taken so far are far to long if you don't get some right or if you get all of them right (it doesn't seem to matter) you have to take another quiz yeah that's right if people couldn't make it through the first one they won't stand a chance on the other ones that are "shorter." I've spent half an hour to an hour wasted and got nothing to show for it. Except a phone battery that is drained it would appear.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
I tried one out to see how it worked - 172 dil for “answering a short survey and entering to win a $100 McDonald’s gift card.” I put that in parentheses because the short survey led to another, which led to another, which led to requests for my home address and phone number, which led to an unending string of offers to try free samples of hygiene products, home loan refinancing services, roof-mounted solar panels, “better” health insurance, vape products, Medicare supplements, magic back pain cures, and other utter [self-censored naughty word for male cow feces].
Even if you’re smart and give nothing but fake identifying information and a burner email address, these offers are predatory at best and full-on identity theft scams at worst. I have half a mind to cease all Timelines-related spending until the feature is removed, as even receiving the stated rewards on time and in full (something IronSource seems incapable of doing based on the reviews) isn’t worth this blatantly nefarious cash grab.
Oh man those offers seem really sleazy. What is this a casino game? Not to mention most of them require you to spend money, so it’s not free dilithium. This is really bad
Im struggling to understand why they dont just offer more chances to elect to view ads for dilithium/chrons/honor/etc.
Make the ads longer than 30 seconds for the juicier offers if you need to, but yeah im in agreement with everyone else here. Offer wall is a horrible idea and will likely result in a negative effect on the recruitment of new players.
Clicking through a few more of these just to vet them, I'm pretty ticked off that TP would actively sponsor such predatory scams. Have any of you ever actually been able to complete one of these? So glad you are working on this instead of putting a fix to macro use that has made Skirmishes unwinnable for anyone not cheating.
Please remove this garbage. I keep waiting for TP to start quoting the Ferrengi Rules of Acquisition to us, as rationale for this awful addition to the game.
I play other games where there are easy 'watch videos for free in-game currency' offers, which work like a charm. I'd gladly watch some 30-second ads worth 5 dil each, especially if there are monthly double-dil events where every video gives you 10 dil. That approach would be far better than this offer wall.
Im going to follow up my post with some speculation:
It seems to me that the offer wall was added because recruitment of new players, retention of current players, and reactivation of retired players are all trending badly. Sales revenue is likely down. So lets examine these three “R’s” and provide some feedback.
Recruitment:
i started playing this game 1.5 years ago. Initially, i was overwhelmed by the immortalized 5* crews that my peers had. I couldnt perceive how they were able to build, let alone acquire 5 copies of legendaries. I spent a lot of time and quite a bit of $$ to try and catch up, but the early game was very painful to get through and i seemed lightyears behind people in events.
The early game needs to be sped up SIGNIFICANTLY. Im talking about starting new players with 3x the crew slots and seriously, you need to increase the “max chron cap”. 224 chrons is a JOKE. Make it 2,000. It is plain stupid to have the natural chron replenishment stop at 224 chrons. Fix this NOW, please. Veterans will see no advantage from this cap being increased, as we all have significantly more stockpiled. But in the early game, chrons = advancement. And you need to allow new players to advance FASTER.
Retention of current players:
For starters, Make squad rewards in events juicier to entice more competition. Additionally, recognize that the people in the top 5,000 in any given event are going WAY past the current tier rewards in events. So, add a 450,000 point tier and a 600,000 point tier. Make the rewards be a copy of a random 5* crew and a legendary honorable citation.
Reactivation of retired players:
Make the above changes, send inactive players 50k honor, 1500 dilithium and a random legendary. They either come back or they dont. No skin off your back.
With modest changes like that, you can improve the satisfaction levels of players and enhance your revenue through sheer volume of participation. I would implore you to explore options like the ones above instead of looking at the number of players you have today as though there will never be anymore. Thats where ideas like “offer walls” come from. You need to kill that mentality if it is coming up in your meetings/discussions about how to improve revenue.
The answer is you need recruitment, retention and reactivation. Simple.
Please remove this garbage. I keep waiting for TP to start quoting the Ferrengi Rules of Acquisition to us, as rationale for this awful addition to the game.
I play other games where there are easy 'watch videos for free in-game currency' offers, which work like a charm. I'd gladly watch some 30-second ads worth 5 dil each, especially if there are monthly double-dil events where every video gives you 10 dil. That approach would be far better than this offer wall.
This Scam Wall is well below even Ferengi morals lol. I’m questioning my ability to spend money on a game that offers utter trash like this!
Comments
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
1. It seems quite a few of you like to plan ahead and,
2. You prefer to invest in quality tools!
Ummm....reading those reviews
How do I do it?
While the power of the 50-inch model is nice, I think for the kind of work we do around here, you've got to go with the versatility offered by the True Temper.
There are literally videos on YouTube of people doing it. I'm like... how has this not been fixed? There are entire fleets who've been using this to get extra chrons and copies of golds for a while.
I first reported this to DB as a bug in November of last year when I became aware of it. I don't like to broadcast when I come to be in possession of knowledge of game-breaking bugs. I generally just report them - quietly - to the team and hope that they're fixed. Most have been. Some have not been. This is one where I just can't be quiet because it has the potential to be very damaging to the game balance.
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
I can confirm from personal experience that Ironsource is terrible...
Their CS is the worst I have ever encountered... in other games I used to play, I had issues with some of the offers. They don't even read your complain and just send automated non-sequitur replies. Like asking for screenshot 5 times (in response to emails that already have the screenshot) and then going back to copy-pasting generic offer rules. Seesh.... I am contacting you because I followed the rules to the letter and the dil/crown/gems didn't show up.
I really hope TP/WRG CS will pick up the slack and not pass the buck to these guys. Otherwise we will have a lot of unhappy players and probably hurt TP/WRG more in the long run. I can't even count the number of games I have rage quit because of Ironsource. I now make it a point not to play any games that partner with them. But this is a new experience with these guys getting added to a game I already love and play. Hope to never get into that screen and ignore that this every happened
As for all the other complains about the quality of offers etc, I agree with all of them. They are hardly ever worth the time or the money spend. And then my point above if something goes wrong they will not help at all.
As for the alleged exploit, it is the first time I hear about it unless my memory is really failing me.
So I would love to know the ticket number of the ticket that was submitted regarding this, so I may look into it. Thanks!
This quiz is well over 5 questions with no end in sight so I just gave up.
So if i need to purchase stuff in other games how is that free dilithium?
OK, I'll reply to the PM I sent you about it.
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
You can find it here.
Haha, ya...."donate" $19 for "free" dilithium. They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means....
First impressions of the content - totally skipable. Seriously no reward is worth this let alone a meager 24 dilithium for some of them - yes i tried those on the pretense they would be quicker/easier/less invasive - totally wrong on that front.
Half of them require far too much personal data,
others require a work email, google yahoo etc are not allowed in order to register - my work email is not for personal use in this way, so there is no way I would give out that level of information.
The quizzes I have taken so far are far to long if you don't get some right or if you get all of them right (it doesn't seem to matter) you have to take another quiz yeah that's right if people couldn't make it through the first one they won't stand a chance on the other ones that are "shorter." I've spent half an hour to an hour wasted and got nothing to show for it. Except a phone battery that is drained it would appear.
I don't buy into the "install this and do that" for prizes - I only install things if I trust what I'm downloading, and I don't.
I started the "take a survey", and stopped after I stopped trusting the privacy policy.
Some of the offers are "give other people money and we'll give you dilithium".
That will be the last time I ever look at the offer wall. I'm sorry, but I do not trust it and I will never use it.
Even if you’re smart and give nothing but fake identifying information and a burner email address, these offers are predatory at best and full-on identity theft scams at worst. I have half a mind to cease all Timelines-related spending until the feature is removed, as even receiving the stated rewards on time and in full (something IronSource seems incapable of doing based on the reviews) isn’t worth this blatantly nefarious cash grab.
Make the ads longer than 30 seconds for the juicier offers if you need to, but yeah im in agreement with everyone else here. Offer wall is a horrible idea and will likely result in a negative effect on the recruitment of new players.
I play other games where there are easy 'watch videos for free in-game currency' offers, which work like a charm. I'd gladly watch some 30-second ads worth 5 dil each, especially if there are monthly double-dil events where every video gives you 10 dil. That approach would be far better than this offer wall.
It seems to me that the offer wall was added because recruitment of new players, retention of current players, and reactivation of retired players are all trending badly. Sales revenue is likely down. So lets examine these three “R’s” and provide some feedback.
Recruitment:
i started playing this game 1.5 years ago. Initially, i was overwhelmed by the immortalized 5* crews that my peers had. I couldnt perceive how they were able to build, let alone acquire 5 copies of legendaries. I spent a lot of time and quite a bit of $$ to try and catch up, but the early game was very painful to get through and i seemed lightyears behind people in events.
The early game needs to be sped up SIGNIFICANTLY. Im talking about starting new players with 3x the crew slots and seriously, you need to increase the “max chron cap”. 224 chrons is a JOKE. Make it 2,000. It is plain stupid to have the natural chron replenishment stop at 224 chrons. Fix this NOW, please. Veterans will see no advantage from this cap being increased, as we all have significantly more stockpiled. But in the early game, chrons = advancement. And you need to allow new players to advance FASTER.
Retention of current players:
For starters, Make squad rewards in events juicier to entice more competition. Additionally, recognize that the people in the top 5,000 in any given event are going WAY past the current tier rewards in events. So, add a 450,000 point tier and a 600,000 point tier. Make the rewards be a copy of a random 5* crew and a legendary honorable citation.
Reactivation of retired players:
Make the above changes, send inactive players 50k honor, 1500 dilithium and a random legendary. They either come back or they dont. No skin off your back.
With modest changes like that, you can improve the satisfaction levels of players and enhance your revenue through sheer volume of participation. I would implore you to explore options like the ones above instead of looking at the number of players you have today as though there will never be anymore. Thats where ideas like “offer walls” come from. You need to kill that mentality if it is coming up in your meetings/discussions about how to improve revenue.
The answer is you need recruitment, retention and reactivation. Simple.
I saw,
I shrugged and closed the window.
Move along folks, the show's over, there's nothing to see here
This Scam Wall is well below even Ferengi morals lol. I’m questioning my ability to spend money on a game that offers utter trash like this!
a few too many things to agree to if you ask me...
Proud member of Patterns of Force
Captain Level 99
Played since January 2017
TP: Do better!!!