Forum Discussion

DIrishB's avatar
12 years ago

Spinner Wheel is ridiculous...

DIrishB wrote:
While I'm loving every other aspect of the Christmas update, the Spinner Wheel is a sickening ripoff. I bought 20 tokens for 100 donuts, and received 1 Lisa snowman (which I already had from last year), 1 Helter Shelter (which was nice), and 18 times I got $1,000 cash.

Seriously? According to the wheel, there's a 30% chance to get cash (since it occupies 3 of 10 spaces), yet I got cash 90% of the time.

Even worse, as the wheel was slowing down, it would seem to slightly brake on cash to ensure that was the prize, and NOT do so on the characters or buildings.

Obviously programmed to give the wanted items (buildings, alternate skins, characters) at a ridiculously small percent, while wasting people's donuts for cash the vast majority of the time.

Just let me pay donuts for the stuff I want, forget this chance/lottery crap, since it's blatantly fixed beyond the supposed 10% chance for each wheel space. That's obviously not the case, so at least stop promoting it that way.



Yea man I feel the same way every time I'm about to get that one building it feels like all of a sudden it goes faster and skips it to cash
  • Just obtained my first token from the Egg-nog bar 24 hour wait. Took it for a spin and Marge snowman was given, already have Marge snow-man from last year. Ah well, I'll see what the next long wait of 24 hours brings.
  • DIrishB wrote:
    i_set_fire wrote:
    I have spun 22 times (11 on each account) and not gotten cash yet. The wheel is awesome!


    Just guessing, but I assume you didn't already have any snowmen or alternate skins with Christmas lights from last year going into the update. Thats what makes it more infuriating. For those of us who have spent money on donuts for some of those things, or acquired them through Santa coins from last year's event, we have a much lesser chance of getting something we need. Not a very good way to approach rewarding your long time players and donut purchasers.



    I didn't have the lights, but I did have the snowmen already. You get extras of the snowmen from the wheel so now I have some doubles. I was surprised to see some of the donut costing skins from last year on the wheel. Thought it seemed like a kick in the face to people who actually paid for them last year.
  • DIrishB wrote:

    Did you go to school and learn about statistics and probability at all?


    Yes, when I learned statistics and probability, it was determined by how probable something was, not by whether one thing was the same size as another. Just as an example, if you have a roulette board where all the slots are equally sized, and then put a magnet down on the #34, the wheel will appear to have an equal chance but will (or can be made to) in fact be statistically more likely to fall on 34. In this case, obviously there is no physical thing, so I would say that the best way to get the accurate statistical likelihood would be to look inside the programming and see what each possible prize has set as the probability, as people have done for every previous event (and non-event, like the track stuff, for instance). Based on how sure you were, I was assuming you did that, but based on your long rant about all of the assumptions you made being wrong and how it's everybody's fault but yours, it looks like you didn't (so my assumption was wrong too!).

    The cash prizes (once all snowmen and Christmas lights are collected) take up 3 spaces of the board, on which there are 10 spaces, hence there's a 30% chance to land on them (or so they'd have you believe).


    Assumption.

    Your argument basically backs up my point that the spinner is rigged.


    Incorrect. If the spinner stated odds at 30% and was in fact hitting at 10%, that would be rigged. But you can't tell me what the spinner is *supposed* to be at, because you didn't bother to do a single bit of research. You just assumed that the first thing that popped into your head was accurate, then proved that it was inaccurate, then got mad at other people for the dumb assumption that you made.

    My God, man, try working on your reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, please.


    If you are going to be condescending, try not to be such a total idiot, it makes it hard to stop laughing at you long enough to explain where specifically you are wrong.

    EDIT: Seriously, though, if you are actually half as angry as you are acting, and not just playing it up as some bizarre Tapped Out cry for attention (as plenty of people do), you owe it to yourself to shut the game off for a day or two and walk away. Go outside. Or if it's too cold, watch a movie. Do something to take your mind off of a game that is clearly causing far too much stress in your life. Or celebrate the fact that the primary source of stress in your life is a stupid video game. As much as I am making fun of you in the rest of this, I'm not here; take a break, this game is not worth anywhere near the stress you are causing yourself.
  • aka_kahn wrote:
    Here's a picture i just took to show its rigged, or at least flawed. The arrow is on a building space yet it gave me 50 gift cards.

    http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q724/naikenhead/0839E627-4F9B-4264-8D3C-CA700214BB4B_zpsuj8nrsa4.png


    As for me in that case.

    I got Lisa Snowman figure when it was on the skyscraper thingy

    http://i.imgur.com/coTmXJU.png

    Maybe it is where Krusty points at? In that case it would have been correct for both of us.
  • I have found they wheel can be manipulated to land where you want. I'm afraid to explain because EA will fix it. Let me also add the wheel can be spun in either direction depending on where the item you want is located in relation to the arrow. I hate to tease but "experiment" and don't blurt it out if you figure it out.
  • mutibabe wrote:
    Ajjaxx23 wrote:
    I got the Yeti guy but I'm having trouble finding him again. Does he just have tasks like the other characters?


    No tasks, just walks around. If you click on him he does some animation. I forgot what it does exactly. Then continues walking some more.

    He sweeps up.
  • aka_kahn wrote:
    Here's a picture i just took to show its rigged, or at least flawed. The arrow is on a building space yet it gave me 50 gift cards.

    http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q724/naikenhead/0839E627-4F9B-4264-8D3C-CA700214BB4B_zpsuj8nrsa4.png


    Yup, that happened to me about 5 or 6 times out of the 80+ spins I made. Luckily I finally got everything.

    marco_rosa833 wrote:
    DIrishB wrote:
    Just let me pay donuts for the stuff I want, forget this chance/lottery crap, since it's blatantly fixed beyond the supposed 10% chance for each wheel space. That's obviously not the case, so at least stop promoting it that way.
    The intention of the wheel isn't for you to pay your way to get premium items. After you complete the event, you get like a spin token after every 1000 (or was it 3000?) gift cards. Also, you get random spin tokens through gift boxes.

    EA's intention is for you to spin out all the prizes through gameplay. The random aspect is to occupy players for longer. By paying donuts, what you are doing is paying to fast forward/skip the event. It is wholly unnecessary in order to receive many of the prizes. If you don't have what you want near the end, then start paying to spin.

    Either way, I will repeat this again. The intention is NOT for you to pay your way through prizes by buying spin tokens.




    EDIT: I'd like to add that even if it was paying for a lottery, the "booster pack" is an established business model among collectible products so you should respect EA for making the business decision. Also, I like that it gives free players a chance to win some more exclusive items as well, even though they might not win as much. Either way, you'll probably be able to pay for the items on the wheel next Christmas.


    You read none of my other posts apparently, nor got the gist of my original post that you partially quoted.

    I don't have a problem with the chance aspect of the wheel, or the once a day spin (though good luck getting everything in the next 26 days without spending donuts on extra tokens, the odds are incredibly small).

    I have a problem with the wheel displaying 3 cash prizes on a wheel with 10 spaces, which indicates a 30% chance of landing on cash. However, for long term players and donut spenders like myself who already had all of last years Christmas lights and snowmen, we started with less prizes besides the cash and duplicates of snowmen we already owned. And when spinning, we landed on cash 80-90% of the time. That, in addition to the spinner wheel's "strange"* behavior, is what led me to create this thread.

    * That strange behavior being the wheel inexplicably slowing and stopping on the cash prizes, or the ticker pointing at the desirable prize but rewarding you with cash instead, as illustrated in the post I quoted above with the picture. Come on, people, the point I'm trying to get across isn't rocket science.

    maximbarne126 wrote:
    I don't know if its just me but I didn't have a chance to win money! I could win lights, buildings, characters and snowmen and outfits. Don't know what you could win?


    That's because you didn't already own the lights and snowmen from last year's Christmas event. Those of us that did kind of got shafted on the odds of getting stuff we needed.

    i_set_fire wrote:
    DIrishB wrote:
    i_set_fire wrote:
    I have spun 22 times (11 on each account) and not gotten cash yet. The wheel is awesome!


    Just guessing, but I assume you didn't already have any snowmen or alternate skins with Christmas lights from last year going into the update. Thats what makes it more infuriating. For those of us who have spent money on donuts for some of those things, or acquired them through Santa coins from last year's event, we have a much lesser chance of getting something we need. Not a very good way to approach rewarding your long time players and donut purchasers.



    I didn't have the lights, but I did have the snowmen already. You get extras of the snowmen from the wheel so now I have some doubles. I was surprised to see some of the donut costing skins from last year on the wheel. Thought it seemed like a kick in the face to people who actually paid for them last year.


    Yep. I got several doubles of snowmen I already had. Still better than cash, though.

    thatguamguy wrote:
    DIrishB wrote:

    Did you go to school and learn about statistics and probability at all?


    Yes, when I learned statistics and probability, it was determined by how probable something was, not by whether one thing was the same size as another. Just as an example, if you have a roulette board where all the slots are equally sized, and then put a magnet down on the #34, the wheel will appear to have an equal chance but will (or can be made to) in fact be statistically more likely to fall on 34. In this case, obviously there is no physical thing, so I would say that the best way to get the accurate statistical likelihood would be to look inside the programming and see what each possible prize has set as the probability, as people have done for every previous event (and non-event, like the track stuff, for instance). Based on how sure you were, I was assuming you did that, but based on your long rant about all of the assumptions you made being wrong and how it's everybody's fault but yours, it looks like you didn't (so my assumption was wrong too!).

    The cash prizes (once all snowmen and Christmas lights are collected) take up 3 spaces of the board, on which there are 10 spaces, hence there's a 30% chance to land on them (or so they'd have you believe).


    Assumption.

    Your argument basically backs up my point that the spinner is rigged.


    Incorrect. If the spinner stated odds at 30% and was in fact hitting at 10%, that would be rigged. But you can't tell me what the spinner is *supposed* to be at, because you didn't bother to do a single bit of research. You just assumed that the first thing that popped into your head was accurate, then proved that it was inaccurate, then got mad at other people for the dumb assumption that you made.

    My God, man, try working on your reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, please.


    If you are going to be condescending, try not to be such a total idiot, it makes it hard to stop laughing at you long enough to explain where specifically you are wrong.

    EDIT: Seriously, though, if you are actually half as angry as you are acting, and not just playing it up as some bizarre Tapped Out cry for attention (as plenty of people do), you owe it to yourself to shut the game off for a day or two and walk away. Go outside. Or if it's too cold, watch a movie. Do something to take your mind off of a game that is clearly causing far too much stress in your life. Or celebrate the fact that the primary source of stress in your life is a stupid video game. As much as I am making fun of you in the rest of this, I'm not here; take a break, this game is not worth anywhere near the stress you are causing yourself.


    I understand its a game, and I assure you, it's not causing me that much grief. And if I choose to vent on a forum, what concern of that is yours? You point out my assumptions, then make a fair amount yourself about my personal life? Are you aware of your hypocrisy?

    However, whether you realize it or not, you're confirming my point: that the odds aren't as presented based on the spinner wheel. Obviously in real life such a wheel, with equally sized portions, would have an equal chance of landing on any one space. Hence, since that's obviously not the case given the large number of cash "wins", it's programmed to land on cash a vast majority of the time. As I've said several times, which you've conveniently ignored, based on the wheel, that basically amounts to false advertising and manipulation. If they were doing such a thing in a Vegas casino, for instance, the gaming board would have shut it down and brought them up on state and federal charges. But, since the prizes aren't actual cash, they're allowed to get away with it. Now, I use that merely as an example, and again reiterate that as someone who has spent a fair amount of money on this game in the past year and a half, it's a bit insulting to be faced with crappy odds from the get go because I made the mistake of acquiring the house lights and snowmen from last year. Not a great way of approaching the players who actually spend money on the game. Do you understand my point or do I need to list my reasons for a dozenth time in this thread for you to understand where I'm coming from?

    All I'm saying is they should have been up front with the odds. If the cash prizes are so inherently more likely to be landed on, they should be larger or occupy more spaces of the wheel, so that at first sight it's obvious thats the likely outcome. One shouldn't need to hack and examine the files to determine the odds. That's a ridiculous statement.

    All that said, I'm glad newer and free players are able to win stuff they missed from last year, I just wish it wasn't at the cost of kicking long term and donut buyers in the shins at the same time.

    If you need further proof of the spinner being faulty, examine the screenshots below:

    da_caveman wrote:
    aka_kahn wrote:
    Here's a picture i just took to show its rigged, or at least flawed. The arrow is on a building space yet it gave me 50 gift cards.

    http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q724/naikenhead/0839E627-4F9B-4264-8D3C-CA700214BB4B_zpsuj8nrsa4.png



    As for me in that case.

    I got Lisa Snowman figure when it was on the skyscraper thingy

    http://i.imgur.com/coTmXJU.png

    Maybe it is where Krusty points at? In that case it would have been correct for both of us.
  • Thecure668 wrote:
    I got clausco with my coin this morning. Quite happy about that. I don't know if it's anything that special though.


    It is based on the odds that spAnser posted:

    spAnser wrote:

    Claus Co/Gift Cards 1.56%
    Decorated Houses #1/Cash 20.22%
    Snow Monster/Gift Cards 1.68%
    Decorated Houses #2/Cash 20.22%
    Helter Shelter/Gift Cards 2.25%
    Decorated Houses #3/Cash 20.22%
    Ice God/Gift Cards 2.25%
    Mr. Plow & Plow King/Gift Cards 5.05%
    Simpson Family Snowmen/Gift Cards 13.48%


    So for the "best" prizes, there's between a 1-3% chance of landing on those, and about a 5% chance of winning Mr. Plow or Plow King. Once all the Simpsons snowmen have been collected, those spaces are replaced with Gift Cards, and when one of the "best" prizes are won, those are also replaced with gift cards, though of a higher number (100 if I recall correctly, versus the 25 and 50 versions).

    So once all the snowmen and Christmas lights have been won, the odds get quite stacked.


    Those odds were the basis of my point, which some didn't seem to understand: that the spinner wheel was a poor and misleading choice when the odds as presented visually are an equal 10% to land on any one, but the reality is another thing entirely. It's dishonest, plain and simple.


    All that said, I love this game, and am certainly no JoshSherer. I've spent hundreds, if not thousands on this game, over the past year and a half I've been playing. I've collected or bought everything that's been released, from all donut buildings, items, and characters, all Limited Time and episode tie-in buildings, characters, decorations, and alternate skins, etc. I'm a huge fan of the game and am proud to have one of the few Springfield's out there with everything. And that's why the Spinner Wheel was insulting: it's an inherently dishonest business practice to present the odds as being equal but the programming telling a very different truth. It's a scumbag maneuver, simply put.

    I'm merely hoping my critique and the complaints of others on the board will prevent something like this being done in the future.

About The Simpsons Tapped Out General Discussion

Talk about your The Simpsons: Tapped Out experience with other TSTO players.

49,415 PostsLatest Activity: 3 months ago