VIP Key and Tarmalune trade bar

regenerde

This weeks "bounty":
Profession Special Pack, 6 Trade Bars
Companion Fortification Pack, 5 TB
Companion Fortification Pack, 6 TB
Professional Special Pack, 13 TB
Strongbox of Enchantments, 3 TB
Olhydras Artifact Pack, 10 TB
Black Ice Shaping Special Pack, 5 TB
and with the AH prices for those packs going straight to hell...

And unless i hit the Trade Bars "Jackpot" at some point, i doubt that i will have enough TBs from 30 keys to get even one Coalescent Ward.

tassedethe13

Somehow, this post has been moved from the general discussion to here...

rapo973

graalx3 said:

Just for the record the drop rate of Tarmalune Trade Bars hasn't been touched since 02/04/2014.

Good to know and your answer is appreciated.
On the other hand, some players are providing some useful opinions, saying (mainly and despite the title of this post) that, due to the current RNG, the value for money of the lockbox keys is very low in terms of objects and taralume bars found.
You may want to use this info for your internal evaluations in order to balance the AD change nerf. Some players may want to spend more on the zen market (VIP) instead of spending on 3rd party websites if the correct improvements are implemented.

regenerde

Trade Bars should be at least some kind of "failsafe", if you get only some random junk from the lockbox, at least let it be 10+ Trade Bars per lockbox for sure, so that we can get 1 Coalescent Ward after 20 keys again.

rayrdan

in 22 days of vip i got 164 tarmabars which is 7.4 tarma a day.. standart i would say considering i didnt find any jackpot

santralafax

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

sharonious

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

You do need a lot of black ice... IF you want to do the elemental infusion of the elven/m6-pvp/dragonflight/lionsmane armors. Takes a huge chunk to get your profession to level 5 (50k+), plus the amount needed to do the armor upgrades.

... but that's the only reason.

rayrdan

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

thats the fun part of lockboxes, you have to check which one is worth opening to minimize the ad loss considering a standart tarmalune drop.
everything below 18k + fees is loss ads.

santralafax

sharonious said:

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

You do need a lot of black ice... IF you want to do the elemental infusion of the elven/m6-pvp/dragonflight/lionsmane armors. Takes a huge chunk to get your profession to level 5 (50k+), plus the amount needed to do the armor upgrades.

... but that's the only reason.

I'm on a fence on that one. Since I had developed black ice and used bi gear for awhile on my last toon, it was easy to upgrade to rank 5 and do the infusion when that came about. Now that I've developed a new toon as my main, I don't know that I want to bother for ading just 2 points to the armor. It's a very expensive upgrade for not that much improvement.

regenerde

rayrdan said:

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

thats the fun part of lockboxes, you have to check which one is worth opening to minimize the ad loss considering a standart tarmalune drop.
everything below 18k + fees is loss ads.

And which one would that be?
Or do you have some kind of X-ray vision, to see the content of the lockbox before opening it?

rversant

graalx3 said:

Just for the record the drop rate of Tarmalune Trade Bars hasn't been touched since 02/04/2014.

Can you check the Crushing wave box just out of curiosity? I get that its probably all coded jargon but from my own observations It's just the newer boxes give about 50% less bars. its not a VIP key thing. its a lockbox thing. personally I've never gotten more than 5 bars afaik from a crushing wave box and I not only use VIP keys I buy 10 packs of keys fairly often when i'm bored. opening about 80-100 of these and never once getting over 5 is pretty rare when the boxes before regularly gave up too 10 and sometimes more.

with the large number of "free" keys I felt that they have decided too tweak tradebar rate on newer boxes too lower the amount of "free" coal wards given. This way players have too decide whether too open older boxes for less sought after rewards and more bars. or new boxes for a chance at the big prizes but less bars.

TBH It doesnt phase me too much. Its an adjustment that keeps Coal wards viable. I mean look at how much the cost of weapon/armor enchants has dropped. it also adds value too opening and Exhausting the supplies of old boxes. As long as the old boxes dont lose the higher bars I dont mind if the newer ones have lower bar drop rates.

thefabricant

graalx3 said:

Just for the record the drop rate of Tarmalune Trade Bars hasn't been touched since 02/04/2014.

Sorry graal...you going to get a lot of tinfoil hat probability conspiracies here regardless of what you say, without revealing information you probably can't reveal, but thanks for trying regardless

tassedethe13

One of the problem in this game is "A chance" label without explaining the percentage, and another problem is " X % " label which is totally not the real percentage ( Yes i look at you 10 % success rate !! )

anolia123

Stochastic is always a fun topic, especially if people think like, 10% that means I maybe need 5 p.wards , 10 as worst case. I do not have any insight in what Cryptic is doing, but from a math standpoint, it is perfectly acceptable to burn 100 p.wards on a 10% chance, look up the "urn problem"

And now back to our tin foil hat discussion , I am inclined to say that some boxes have better chances than others, I have an average of about 7 tbars per box.

rayrdan

regenerde said:

rayrdan said:

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

thats the fun part of lockboxes, you have to check which one is worth opening to minimize the ad loss considering a standart tarmalune drop.
everything below 18k + fees is loss ads.

And which one would that be?
Or do you have some kind of X-ray vision, to see the content of the lockbox before opening it?

you just check prices of the possible drops in your lockboxes.
for example i dont open lockboxes with companions kits, dragon shards but im very likely to open things with planar idols.

tassedethe13

anolia123 said:

Stochastic is always a fun topic, especially if people think like, 10% that means I maybe need 5 p.wards , 10 as worst case. I do not have any insight in what Cryptic is doing, but from a math standpoint, it is perfectly acceptable to burn 100 p.wards on a 10% chance, look up the "urn problem"

And now back to our tin foil hat discussion , I am inclined to say that some boxes have better chances than others, I have an average of about 7 tbars per box.

Have you ever play with the companion "Wild Hunt Rider" and his 2% chance to increase damage by 10% for 5 seconds on encounter use? It works ON EACH ROTATION !

And even more, if you upgrade it, you lower the proc rate.

regenerde

rayrdan said:

regenerde said:

rayrdan said:

santralafax said:

I've been getting numerous Black Ice Profession packs from the Crushing Wave lockbox. Since they have done next to nothing with Black Ice in several mods, it's kind of an insult. I collect BI while working on my second character's boons, but see no reason to even refine it.

thats the fun part of lockboxes, you have to check which one is worth opening to minimize the ad loss considering a standart tarmalune drop.
everything below 18k + fees is loss ads.

And which one would that be?
Or do you have some kind of X-ray vision, to see the content of the lockbox before opening it?

you just check prices of the possible drops in your lockboxes.
for example i dont open lockboxes with companions kits, dragon shards but im very likely to open things with planar idols.

That crosses pretty much all recent lockboxes of the list...
- Unearthed
- Frozen Crystal
- Lockbox of the Magnificent Emporium
left to check out, and i have to see first, how much those lockboxes cost on the AH.

Anyway, i'd like to add, that i'm not opening any lockbox with a chance of getting some rank 4 enchantment in it either.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

regenerde

Little update, the Trade Bar count is roughly the same for old lockboxes.

I opened 5 Lockboxes of the Magnificent Emporium:
- Reghed Barbarin Relic, 5 TB
- Strongbox of Enchantments, 5 TB
- DATED Companion Fortification Kit, 6 TB
- DATED Companion Fortification Kit, 6 TB
and some other junk i can't remember with also a low number of TB.

And since the Frozen Crystal Lockbox has also those [censored] Dated Companion Fortification Kit in the loottable, i'm giving the Unearthed Lockbox a try...

tassedethe13

regenerde said:

Little update, the Trade Bar count is roughly the same for old lockboxes.

I opened 5 Lockboxes of the Magnificent Emporium:
- Reghed Barbarin Relic, 5 TB
- Strongbox of Enchantments, 5 TB
- DATED Companion Fortification Kit, 6 TB
- DATED Companion Fortification Kit, 6 TB
and some other junk i can't remember with also a low number of TB.

And since the Frozen Crystal Lockbox has also those [censored] Dated Companion Fortification Kit in the loottable, i'm giving the Unearthed Lockbox a try...

So many trade bars....

regenerde

Yeah, they're really spoiling me. I heard from someone else, that he sometimes only gets a single TB from a lockbox.
So, probably it is working as intended...

Edit: Unearthed Lockbox
+ Iron Strongbox of Enchantments, 3 TB

I'm done with testing old lockboxes, and i'm going back to the recent lockboxes after this short test. In the end, it looks like it doesn't matter which lockbox you open, the TB outcome is more or less the same.

tassedethe13

And on another thread, one guy is telling that the lockbox drop rate is increased, I thought myself "Why did i have so many lockboxes? I got more than my usual lockbox trash..."

regenerde

Well, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar."

thefabricant

anolia123 said:

Stochastic is always a fun topic, especially if people think like, 10% that means I maybe need 5 p.wards , 10 as worst case. I do not have any insight in what Cryptic is doing, but from a math standpoint, it is perfectly acceptable to burn 100 p.wards on a 10% chance, look up the "urn problem"

And now back to our tin foil hat discussion , I am inclined to say that some boxes have better chances than others, I have an average of about 7 tbars per box.

shhhhhh....you not allowed to mention proper maths on a game's forum, especially when discussing or alluding to probability, it scares people To keep the tinfoil hat tinfoil hat, no real maths is allowed, it must all be hot air

rayrdan

i cant really give a detail but in 22 days of vip opening old lockboxes im at 685k ads and 178 bars,
no purple drops, no jackpots...
its kinda ok i think.

for bars drop here the numbers:
6, 10, 6, 10, 3, 10, 4, 10, 3, 17, 5, 4, 2, 10, 8, 5, 10, 17, 3, 3, 18, 10, 4

tassedethe13

rayrdan said:

i cant really give a detail but in 22 days of vip opening old lockboxes im at 685k ads and 178 bars,
no purple drops, no jackpots...
its kinda ok i think.

for bars drop here the numbers:
6, 10, 6, 10, 3, 10, 4, 10, 3, 17, 5, 4, 2, 10, 8, 5, 10, 17, 3, 3, 18, 10, 4

You got two "rare" 17 tbars... But in 22 days you don't have enought for a coalescent ward, maybe 2-3 more days which make you able to get one ward each month

I have some VIP keys waiting for the new lockbox, i will post my results when i will have opened them.

regenerde

156 TB this month, also keeping the keys for now, until the new lockbox is in game.

lorddemonrage

graalx3 said:

Just for the record the drop rate of Tarmalune Trade Bars hasn't been touched since 02/04/2014.

graalx3 said:

Just for the record the drop rate of Tarmalune Trade Bars hasn't been touched since 02/04/2014.

this answer does not surprise me, but this is also in contrast to not only other people saying they are seeing less, the many topics created stating they are less, and even my own experience that they are less in number than before. That coupled with the fact that you get more "HAMSTER blue boxes" from them like dated companion fortification kits than actual mounts/artifacts makes me more believe that the lock boxes are in general nerfed from what they were pre-vip. i can remember buying a 10 stack of keys and at least getting 1 mount/artifact from them.

I always say, if your gonna do something bad, at least have the dignity to admit it when your are caught. To continue lying about it despite the overwhelming amount of evidence just insults everyone involved.

darkstarcrash

10 lockboxes are not nearly enough of a sample size to give real drop percentages. If you got a mount or artifact with 10 keys each time, you are quite lucky.

And the people who post about their drops are usually one of two camps: the lucky who brag (thefabricant's thread about Lostmauth horns) and the unlucky ("I've been invoking on 20 characters for 3 years and I've never gotten a coal ward!"). So seeing lots of posts saying they get fewer trade bars just means that the unlucky are posting, which is normal.

From large-scale rng tests, mount drops are pretty consistent at ~0.2% for every lockbox, and tradebar jackpots at 0.5-1.5%.

rollingonit

30 lockboxes (25 falcion+4 chroma 2+1 Arms Deal 3 cases)

Valuable items
AWP Hyper Beast - Battle Scarred - $15
Stattrack P250 Undertow - Factory New - $18.95

I can now buy a full game on steam or not sure if possible, but I think it is, I could buy $30 worth of Neverwinter keys.

Some systems are just better than others. RNG still rules lockboxes though.