Its gambling, plain and simple. You and I might not think its a good idea, but Vegas tells a different story. I also have spend maybe $50 on keys (and might even buy a few more now that I know its worth 1 billion EC) but its just gambling. Dont expect to get what you want.
What would be nice, but will probably never happen is every time you open a box the next box you open has a higher chance of giving you a ship. Not a big difference but lets say by the time you spend $100 on keys you'll have almost a 100% chance of getting a ship.
_____________________________________________________
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
What would be nice, but will probably never happen is every time you open a box the next box you open has a higher chance of giving you a ship. Not a big difference but lets say by the time you spend $100 on keys you'll have almost a 100% chance of getting a ship.
I would be ok with that, although I think the number should be lower than $100 for a single tier 6 ship.
They're a lottery, no guarantee of getting the top prize no matter how many you open (chance is small and not cumulative). Most folk tend to open them for the Lobi and treat anything else as a bonus.
As well as player-player trades if you have something to offer, the ships eventually turn up in the market where you can buy them for EC (tens to hundreds of millions though, so you need an uncapped bank). You'd have been better selling the keys there and picking up the ship package with the proceeds if you weren't interested in any of the other stuff.
I would be ok with that, although I think the number should be lower than $100 for a single tier 6 ship.
No different from buying a lottery ticket. The Lottery doesn't guarantee you'll win if you buy 'X' number of tickets and neither does Cryptic.
For most ships, the best method is as described above, just sell the keys on the Exchange and buy the ship you want for EC. In this case though, you're after a ship that's almost completely unattainable. Normally, lock box ships have a very low drop rate and the drop rate on the Vonph is even lower then usual. A lot of lockbox ships go for 100-200M EC on the exchange, this ship is pushing almost a billion. (800-900M at current price.)
You could spend hundreds of dollars and never get the ship. You have decided to go after one of the hardest ships in the game to acquire. You should be prepared that it's likely that getting the ship will end up costing you several hundred dollars, and even then you still might not get it.
The business model is PT barnum's: theres a sucker born ever min. Or, if you want it in more simple terms, its a lottery system / model.
Keys are to get lobi, which over a period of time = free ships. Ive got 820 lobi atm, gunning for that new raider. I can earn 2 keys a night if I work at it with my alts farming dil every which way. I have a decent set of alts. The rewards for carefully picked admiralty is helping here a lot -- I capped 8k on a guy from that alone one night, though 1/2 that is more normal in a day. My AH flipper (buy/sell -> profit) guy earns a few keys a week too. It all adds up. There are a few items that people are paying 2,3, even 5X the value for an individual than for a stack of the same thing. And my mail from selling tells me the same guy bought 20 of them. Derp.
Anything you get out of a box besides lobi is a bonus, you should be happy to get whatever it is. It might be a ship. You might stumble into the 7-11, buy a lotto ticket, and be a billionaire too. Its not likely, but it could happen.
Just keep that view in mind: the box is for lobi, which is for ships. With that in mind, its worth buying keys for EC and Dil2zen (but never real money!!!) with a "long haul" approach to getting what you want. I get a lobi ship once a year, and until the recent price freak-out, I was getting 1-2 EC purchased ships a year as well. Not a lot, but you pick carefully what you want and work towards the goal.
It is a tier 6 ship. Other tier 6 ships sell for 3000 zen.
See, that's part of the problem right there. It's not just some "other" T6 ship. Lock box ships are meant to be rare. Not for everyone.
So how much are you willing to pay for a rare ship that might be subpar compared to a Zen ship? Would you be willing to pay $450 (400 keys = 45000 Zen) if it was in the C-Store? How many do you think Cryptic would sell if they had them in the store for that much? Hardly any I would suspect. And yet people open lock boxes like crazy cause they're hoping they can spend far less than that and get one.
Is the ship worth $225 to you? Cause if you just bought the keys, sold them for EC, that's roughly what it would take for you to buy one outright.
So if you don't feel that owning that rare ship is worth either of those prices, then why did you spend $40 to open lock boxes? I think it should be obvious why the business model "works".
The business model is PT barnum's: theres a sucker born ever min. Or, if you want it in more simple terms, its a lottery system / model.
Keys are to get lobi, which over a period of time = free ships. Ive got 820 lobi atm, gunning for that new raider. I can earn 2 keys a night if I work at it with my alts farming dil every which way. I have a decent set of alts. The rewards for carefully picked admiralty is helping here a lot -- I capped 8k on a guy from that alone one night, though 1/2 that is more normal in a day. My AH flipper (buy/sell -> profit) guy earns a few keys a week too. It all adds up. There are a few items that people are paying 2,3, even 5X the value for an individual than for a stack of the same thing. And my mail from selling tells me the same guy bought 20 of them. Derp.
Anything you get out of a box besides lobi is a bonus, you should be happy to get whatever it is. It might be a ship. You might stumble into the 7-11, buy a lotto ticket, and be a billionaire too. Its not likely, but it could happen.
Just keep that view in mind: the box is for lobi, which is for ships. With that in mind, its worth buying keys for EC and Dil2zen (but never real money!!!) with a "long haul" approach to getting what you want. I get a lobi ship once a year, and until the recent price freak-out, I was getting 1-2 EC purchased ships a year as well. Not a lot, but you pick carefully what you want and work towards the goal.
I don't understand the "lock box is for lobi" thing. Cause it's really not if you're intending to use the lobi for ships. To get 900 lobi means opening about 180 boxes. At 4m a key, you're spending 720m in EC to get a ship you can buy for far, far less off the exchange etc. During the promo pack event there were people selling 900 lobi ships for 110m - 130m. The only things you really need lobi for is the consoles/weapons which cannot be bought/sold. So unless you're opening boxes specifically to get the lobi to buy some console/weapon you don't have yet, then you're opening the lock boxes to "gamble".
I just opened 10 boxes as I wanted the Ferengi Whip. I have 3 consoles I think I want to get (1 for sure) so will need to end up opening about 120 boxes eventually. Anything beyond that, no matter how I try and justify it, if I'm honest with myself, I'll just be opening boxes to gamble. And yes, I will be doing that lol
It is a tier 6 ship. Other tier 6 ships sell for 3000 zen. I have spent about 40 bucks on keys and gotten lots of junk and a few marginally useful items.
Can anyone explain this business model to me? I know they got 40 dollars out of me instead of 30 but I am not a satisfied customer. I would have been happy to pay 50 for the ship but with keys I could spend 50 and still not get it. So instead of 50 dollars and a happy customer they got 40 dollars and a resentful customer who is unlikely to continue to support their game.
I just don't understand the reasoning.
I know this post is little more than a whine but I am really pretty annoyed. I think the idea of lockboxes is pretty idiotic but maybe someone can enlighten me.
(Trivial but I wanted to vent a bit. Forty bucks for a ship makes me happy. Forty bucks for research packs and ugly weapons does not)
Hahaha. I still remember when I got the free keys from first buying and get the Galor on first try.
Bad luck dude, try again with 100 bucks next time
I am from Belgium and english isn't my main language, sorry if I make mistakes.
The business model is PT barnum's: theres a sucker born ever min. Or, if you want it in more simple terms, its a lottery system / model.
Keys are to get lobi, which over a period of time = free ships. Ive got 820 lobi atm, gunning for that new raider. I can earn 2 keys a night if I work at it with my alts farming dil every which way. I have a decent set of alts. The rewards for carefully picked admiralty is helping here a lot -- I capped 8k on a guy from that alone one night, though 1/2 that is more normal in a day. My AH flipper (buy/sell -> profit) guy earns a few keys a week too. It all adds up. There are a few items that people are paying 2,3, even 5X the value for an individual than for a stack of the same thing. And my mail from selling tells me the same guy bought 20 of them. Derp.
Anything you get out of a box besides lobi is a bonus, you should be happy to get whatever it is. It might be a ship. You might stumble into the 7-11, buy a lotto ticket, and be a billionaire too. Its not likely, but it could happen.
Just keep that view in mind: the box is for lobi, which is for ships. With that in mind, its worth buying keys for EC and Dil2zen (but never real money!!!) with a "long haul" approach to getting what you want. I get a lobi ship once a year, and until the recent price freak-out, I was getting 1-2 EC purchased ships a year as well. Not a lot, but you pick carefully what you want and work towards the goal.
I don't understand the "lock box is for lobi" thing. Cause it's really not if you're intending to use the lobi for ships. To get 900 lobi means opening about 180 boxes. At 4m a key, you're spending 720m in EC to get a ship you can buy for far, far less off the exchange etc. During the promo pack event there were people selling 900 lobi ships for 110m - 130m. The only things you really need lobi for is the consoles/weapons which cannot be bought/sold. So unless you're opening boxes specifically to get the lobi to buy some console/weapon you don't have yet, then you're opening the lock boxes to "gamble".
I just opened 10 boxes as I wanted the Ferengi Whip. I have 3 consoles I think I want to get (1 for sure) so will need to end up opening about 120 boxes eventually. Anything beyond that, no matter how I try and justify it, if I'm honest with myself, I'll just be opening boxes to gamble. And yes, I will be doing that lol
The point is about expectations. If all you expect out of a box is lobi, you can evaluate whether you want to open that box or not, depending on current economics and logic. You look at the box and weigh whether its worth 5 million EC or 125 zen or 30k dil or whatever the rates are today to get your 4 lobi. If the answer is no, you don't open that box. If the answer is yes, you do.
You are correct: the economy this past month has not made opening boxes for lobi a good buy "in general". I just happened to have enough lobi before the market went insane that finishing out my 900 is boarderline sensible. I am NOT recommending opening boxes for lobi. I am just saying that when you open a box, your mindset needs to be only about the lobi. Because 90% of the time you will get more or less worthless trash that is worth 1/10 the value of the key you just burned.
Also you have to keep in mind real vs play money. I can't sell my dil to zen to actual real dollars. Sure, if I *bought* the zen with cash, I would spend a hundred bucks to get my 900 lobi. But I am just burning out dil ... which I am about to get a tractor trailer full of from the event in 10 or so days and I have a new alt burning out the reps which will net another big pile. a couple hundred K dil for that raider is worth it to me -- and that is what it will cost me from my starting place. Everyone has their own starting place and economics to consider. If you really want to know I was an idiot and gambled on one of the officer packs to dreads last year and got a lot of lobi for my troubles. A very small number of boxes here and there in that mix, but that was with keys that cost less than a million each.
I've spent more than a 100 on keys along, I can say I felt the same way but one day I did get the ship I was trying for at the time. Like the other ships I gotten off the exchange which are box ships, I fly them once in a while but not always. Lessen learn for me.
Well with these loto boxes, Cryptic/PWE always wins.
Don't spend ANY money on them you aren't prepared to loose, because you're gonna loose it, no question about that.
BUT, Cryptic in fairness added lobi crystals and the lobi store to this whole situation.
You get a small amount of lobi after you open a box, no matter what. There's some great things in the lobi store that you can work up to, earn towards. Even if you don't win anything from those boxes, even some much sought after ships, some really useful console sets, weapons and gear.
I won one of those dreadnoughts and a cruiser, and I wasn't even going after the ships, I spent money on keys to get the lobi, to get a console. The ships were just pleasant surprises, honest.
Another thing, The dread has a lot of hype around it, but as someone who owns one, TBH, you get a better ship outta the Odyssey if you ask me.
The dread's way too big, it takes up a lot of your view.
It's got the worst turn rate of any ship in my opinion.
It's just new and unusual, but it's nothing special when it comes to performance.
I think you'd do better selling keys and getting one of the two other ships, they are much better preformers and are more available and reasonably priced.
@saumerez if you are willing to spend some money. Buy keys for zen. Sell them and buy the ship you want.usually it is the cheapest way to go. Otherwise its gambling. I like to gamble.
I have so far opened 25 boxes and have gotten nothing buy garbage not even one weapon, I knew what I was in for though, so I'm ok with it. Now I'm 100 lobi closer to getting these two lobi consoles. I made more EC from selling Polymorphic consoles than anything else.
It's a lottery. Lotteries are great for generating revenue. Said revenue pays for things that keep the game going. You may not like it, most of us may not like it, but that's the way it goes... And we still occasionally open boxes even though we know this truth.
"Intelligence is finite, stupidity is infinite" -- Umberto Eco
It is a tier 6 ship. Other tier 6 ships sell for 3000 zen.
See, that's part of the problem right there. It's not just some "other" T6 ship. Lock box ships are meant to be rare. Not for everyone.
I think the main "problem" with the most desirable lockbox ships are the traits. I had no problem if the ship itself had some special power or would simply be looking cool and thats where the desire/rarity comes from. In the case of the Vonph and some others the trait is what many players are after, since it also transforms the build/playstyle of there other ships (AHOD anyone)?
So in my opinion general gameplay influencing changes (traits, consoles), should be available to all players at reasonable costs. On the other hand Cryptic makes a TRIBBLE-lot of money this way, trying to sell you the cool new "carrot".
So as noted, because lockboxes are essentially "gambling", i'm in favor to put such mechanics also under the gambling law. So game designers/publishers have to disclose the win chances and also ensures they are met in reality. They also would have to change the rating for games utilizing those mechanics, which should add some extra hurdles to rely on such simple designed money-grabs.
OP. The thing you've got to remember is that the chance to win a ship from a lockbox never changes no matter how many boxes you open. Just because you have a 1% chance to get a ship doesn't mean you're guaranteed to win one ship in a 100 boxes. In fact you could open a million boxes and still not get a ship! All you are doing is opening a box for a random prize, and no matter which way it is spun, you can never lose. Some people say this is 'illegal' gambling, trying to state their particular State's gambling laws, but it's not, because you have paid for a (random) product and are always going to get something. Gambling laws in certain states only cover games that you have a chance of losing what you put in. If you buy keys for these boxes, you know exactly what you might get, you know you always get something and in opening even just one, accept that. For example, say you buy a Kinder Egg. It's a product that has a toy inside. That toy is random, but by some people's description, it's gambling......but IT'S NOT!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Mistake is opening boxes. You can sell the keys instantly and just buy the ship on the Exchange.
I saw someone in chat saying they were lucky and got three ships. I asked how many boxes they opened and it was 238. They could have sold the keys and made about 1.5 billion EC.
Mistake is opening boxes. You can sell the keys instantly and just buy the ship on the Exchange.
I saw someone in chat saying they were lucky and got three ships. I asked how many boxes they opened and it was 238. They could have sold the keys and made about 1.5 billion EC.
this is not quite right. In 238 keys, he got at least 952 lobi, a full t6 ship, the most recent one was selling for 1/2 a billion for a while dunno what it is currently. 4 ships for 1.5 B + a few 1-10M lesser rewards an a whole lot of junk. All told, this guy was pretty lucky, and his losses are pretty small in the grand scheme. More often, you might get 2 ships out of that ... 1 from a box and 1 from the lobi. This example would actually encourage people to gamble on it... guy probably at least broke even and had fun doing it...
saumerez
Member Posts: 34 Arc User
Comments
What would be nice, but will probably never happen is every time you open a box the next box you open has a higher chance of giving you a ship. Not a big difference but lets say by the time you spend $100 on keys you'll have almost a 100% chance of getting a ship.
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
I would be ok with that, although I think the number should be lower than $100 for a single tier 6 ship.
As well as player-player trades if you have something to offer, the ships eventually turn up in the market where you can buy them for EC (tens to hundreds of millions though, so you need an uncapped bank). You'd have been better selling the keys there and picking up the ship package with the proceeds if you weren't interested in any of the other stuff.
Except that math does not work. Keys sell for around 3.5 mill. 40 dollars would have gotten me about 35 keys.
That ships sells for 800 mill or more on the exchange.
But whatever. I am not much of a gambler so I won't be pouring any more money into that dead end.
No different from buying a lottery ticket. The Lottery doesn't guarantee you'll win if you buy 'X' number of tickets and neither does Cryptic.
For most ships, the best method is as described above, just sell the keys on the Exchange and buy the ship you want for EC. In this case though, you're after a ship that's almost completely unattainable. Normally, lock box ships have a very low drop rate and the drop rate on the Vonph is even lower then usual. A lot of lockbox ships go for 100-200M EC on the exchange, this ship is pushing almost a billion. (800-900M at current price.)
You could spend hundreds of dollars and never get the ship. You have decided to go after one of the hardest ships in the game to acquire. You should be prepared that it's likely that getting the ship will end up costing you several hundred dollars, and even then you still might not get it.
I tried, and i was lucky to get the Vonph myself.
Keys are to get lobi, which over a period of time = free ships. Ive got 820 lobi atm, gunning for that new raider. I can earn 2 keys a night if I work at it with my alts farming dil every which way. I have a decent set of alts. The rewards for carefully picked admiralty is helping here a lot -- I capped 8k on a guy from that alone one night, though 1/2 that is more normal in a day. My AH flipper (buy/sell -> profit) guy earns a few keys a week too. It all adds up. There are a few items that people are paying 2,3, even 5X the value for an individual than for a stack of the same thing. And my mail from selling tells me the same guy bought 20 of them. Derp.
Anything you get out of a box besides lobi is a bonus, you should be happy to get whatever it is. It might be a ship. You might stumble into the 7-11, buy a lotto ticket, and be a billionaire too. Its not likely, but it could happen.
Just keep that view in mind: the box is for lobi, which is for ships. With that in mind, its worth buying keys for EC and Dil2zen (but never real money!!!) with a "long haul" approach to getting what you want. I get a lobi ship once a year, and until the recent price freak-out, I was getting 1-2 EC purchased ships a year as well. Not a lot, but you pick carefully what you want and work towards the goal.
See, that's part of the problem right there. It's not just some "other" T6 ship. Lock box ships are meant to be rare. Not for everyone.
So how much are you willing to pay for a rare ship that might be subpar compared to a Zen ship? Would you be willing to pay $450 (400 keys = 45000 Zen) if it was in the C-Store? How many do you think Cryptic would sell if they had them in the store for that much? Hardly any I would suspect. And yet people open lock boxes like crazy cause they're hoping they can spend far less than that and get one.
Is the ship worth $225 to you? Cause if you just bought the keys, sold them for EC, that's roughly what it would take for you to buy one outright.
So if you don't feel that owning that rare ship is worth either of those prices, then why did you spend $40 to open lock boxes? I think it should be obvious why the business model "works".
I don't understand the "lock box is for lobi" thing. Cause it's really not if you're intending to use the lobi for ships. To get 900 lobi means opening about 180 boxes. At 4m a key, you're spending 720m in EC to get a ship you can buy for far, far less off the exchange etc. During the promo pack event there were people selling 900 lobi ships for 110m - 130m. The only things you really need lobi for is the consoles/weapons which cannot be bought/sold. So unless you're opening boxes specifically to get the lobi to buy some console/weapon you don't have yet, then you're opening the lock boxes to "gamble".
I just opened 10 boxes as I wanted the Ferengi Whip. I have 3 consoles I think I want to get (1 for sure) so will need to end up opening about 120 boxes eventually. Anything beyond that, no matter how I try and justify it, if I'm honest with myself, I'll just be opening boxes to gamble. And yes, I will be doing that lol
Hahaha. I still remember when I got the free keys from first buying and get the Galor on first try.
Bad luck dude, try again with 100 bucks next time
The point is about expectations. If all you expect out of a box is lobi, you can evaluate whether you want to open that box or not, depending on current economics and logic. You look at the box and weigh whether its worth 5 million EC or 125 zen or 30k dil or whatever the rates are today to get your 4 lobi. If the answer is no, you don't open that box. If the answer is yes, you do.
You are correct: the economy this past month has not made opening boxes for lobi a good buy "in general". I just happened to have enough lobi before the market went insane that finishing out my 900 is boarderline sensible. I am NOT recommending opening boxes for lobi. I am just saying that when you open a box, your mindset needs to be only about the lobi. Because 90% of the time you will get more or less worthless trash that is worth 1/10 the value of the key you just burned.
Also you have to keep in mind real vs play money. I can't sell my dil to zen to actual real dollars. Sure, if I *bought* the zen with cash, I would spend a hundred bucks to get my 900 lobi. But I am just burning out dil ... which I am about to get a tractor trailer full of from the event in 10 or so days and I have a new alt burning out the reps which will net another big pile. a couple hundred K dil for that raider is worth it to me -- and that is what it will cost me from my starting place. Everyone has their own starting place and economics to consider. If you really want to know I was an idiot and gambled on one of the officer packs to dreads last year and got a lot of lobi for my troubles. A very small number of boxes here and there in that mix, but that was with keys that cost less than a million each.
I do not mind spending some money on a game I enjoy but I have no interest in gambling (in game or real world) so I am done with lockboxes and keys.
Well with these loto boxes, Cryptic/PWE always wins.
Don't spend ANY money on them you aren't prepared to loose, because you're gonna loose it, no question about that.
BUT, Cryptic in fairness added lobi crystals and the lobi store to this whole situation.
You get a small amount of lobi after you open a box, no matter what. There's some great things in the lobi store that you can work up to, earn towards. Even if you don't win anything from those boxes, even some much sought after ships, some really useful console sets, weapons and gear.
I won one of those dreadnoughts and a cruiser, and I wasn't even going after the ships, I spent money on keys to get the lobi, to get a console. The ships were just pleasant surprises, honest.
Another thing, The dread has a lot of hype around it, but as someone who owns one, TBH, you get a better ship outta the Odyssey if you ask me.
The dread's way too big, it takes up a lot of your view.
It's got the worst turn rate of any ship in my opinion.
It's just new and unusual, but it's nothing special when it comes to performance.
I think you'd do better selling keys and getting one of the two other ships, they are much better preformers and are more available and reasonably priced.
You just gave them $40. Pure and simple. Other people also pour money into the boxes. result, more money in Cryptics back pocket.
And why do people do it? (and I include myself as I like to open boxes occasionally)...
For a CHANCE at getting that rare ship.
There's the magic word. Chance. Welcome to the world of random numbers.
One day, I'll have the Vonph trait.
It's a nice ship, but I agree with @vengefuldjinn that it's way too big.
You may not like it, most of us may not like it, but that's the way it goes... And we still occasionally open boxes even though we know this truth.
I think the main "problem" with the most desirable lockbox ships are the traits. I had no problem if the ship itself had some special power or would simply be looking cool and thats where the desire/rarity comes from. In the case of the Vonph and some others the trait is what many players are after, since it also transforms the build/playstyle of there other ships (AHOD anyone)?
So in my opinion general gameplay influencing changes (traits, consoles), should be available to all players at reasonable costs. On the other hand Cryptic makes a TRIBBLE-lot of money this way, trying to sell you the cool new "carrot".
So as noted, because lockboxes are essentially "gambling", i'm in favor to put such mechanics also under the gambling law. So game designers/publishers have to disclose the win chances and also ensures they are met in reality. They also would have to change the rating for games utilizing those mechanics, which should add some extra hurdles to rely on such simple designed money-grabs.
I saw someone in chat saying they were lucky and got three ships. I asked how many boxes they opened and it was 238. They could have sold the keys and made about 1.5 billion EC.
i.imgur.com/LGpIGVB.png
FREE HONG KONG! *
this is not quite right. In 238 keys, he got at least 952 lobi, a full t6 ship, the most recent one was selling for 1/2 a billion for a while dunno what it is currently. 4 ships for 1.5 B + a few 1-10M lesser rewards an a whole lot of junk. All told, this guy was pretty lucky, and his losses are pretty small in the grand scheme. More often, you might get 2 ships out of that ... 1 from a box and 1 from the lobi. This example would actually encourage people to gamble on it... guy probably at least broke even and had fun doing it...