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150 Lockboxes
doriangreigh
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 707 Arc User
I have never been so disgusted with this game. I enjoy spending large amount of times playing, but there are times when your gambling/RNG really make me want never see this game again even despite the enjoyable people that play.
My birthday was recent and I decided what the hey I spend a large amount of time playing this game and decided to go ahead and spend $150 and buy 3 of the 50key/coalward pack. I have to say this is this worst case of customer abuse I have ever seen. Gambling should be illegal in every game. When hard earned money is spent there should be adequate compensation. After 150 lockboxes I did not get a single Minsc or either mount option. I did not even get a single R10 enchantment. The best things I got were 200 mount tokens 130 companion tokens and 8900 trade bars. Honestly money better spent would have been flat trading in $150 on AD at the exchange at least i'd feel like i was helping other players.
I believe Cryptic needs to take a serious look at lockboxes. They have made some decent changes but these lockboxes are the worst. I do not feel cryptic is doing any favors or justice to those who spend real money. And maybe there need to be further looking at moving away form lockboxes and do more to encourage people to buy zen and sell for AD to help clear that back log. You have already taken steps for this by removing a lot of old services you could just buy with zen, start looking at lock boxes the same way, maybe remove keys from Zen and make them AD only, put a daily limit on how many can be bought and if you want to buy keys you can sell zen for the AD to get them or just clue into the fact that you are better off selling zen to AD farmers than buying a gambling key.
You have already made ward use have an escalating chance at getting a guaranteed result, you need to be doing this for lockboxes. Or would you like to see a list of realistic things people can do with their money other than give it Neverwinter.
Do something about this horrible RNG fest with lock boxes. I want to feel like you get something, it would have been nice to at least gotten a couple of mincs. In fact after 150 boxes i'd expect that if i didn't have 2- 3 mincs at least 1 of the mount options, rather than a hoard of enchantments that will barely fetch 30k AD. There was a time when you could sell lockbox contents to nearly recoup your expense of the key but any more its feeling like cryptic is telling people $1000 every quarter from paying players or go elsewhere.
My birthday was recent and I decided what the hey I spend a large amount of time playing this game and decided to go ahead and spend $150 and buy 3 of the 50key/coalward pack. I have to say this is this worst case of customer abuse I have ever seen. Gambling should be illegal in every game. When hard earned money is spent there should be adequate compensation. After 150 lockboxes I did not get a single Minsc or either mount option. I did not even get a single R10 enchantment. The best things I got were 200 mount tokens 130 companion tokens and 8900 trade bars. Honestly money better spent would have been flat trading in $150 on AD at the exchange at least i'd feel like i was helping other players.
I believe Cryptic needs to take a serious look at lockboxes. They have made some decent changes but these lockboxes are the worst. I do not feel cryptic is doing any favors or justice to those who spend real money. And maybe there need to be further looking at moving away form lockboxes and do more to encourage people to buy zen and sell for AD to help clear that back log. You have already taken steps for this by removing a lot of old services you could just buy with zen, start looking at lock boxes the same way, maybe remove keys from Zen and make them AD only, put a daily limit on how many can be bought and if you want to buy keys you can sell zen for the AD to get them or just clue into the fact that you are better off selling zen to AD farmers than buying a gambling key.
You have already made ward use have an escalating chance at getting a guaranteed result, you need to be doing this for lockboxes. Or would you like to see a list of realistic things people can do with their money other than give it Neverwinter.
Do something about this horrible RNG fest with lock boxes. I want to feel like you get something, it would have been nice to at least gotten a couple of mincs. In fact after 150 boxes i'd expect that if i didn't have 2- 3 mincs at least 1 of the mount options, rather than a hoard of enchantments that will barely fetch 30k AD. There was a time when you could sell lockbox contents to nearly recoup your expense of the key but any more its feeling like cryptic is telling people $1000 every quarter from paying players or go elsewhere.
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Comments
You said it yourself though, lock boxes are gambling, just because you gambled and felt like you lost doesn't mean it's a scam. It's pure RNG and pure gamble.
Had the boxes i opened averaged 500 trade bars per box or even 250 i'd feel like i got something, but 8900 / 150 lock boxes is 60 trade bars per box. Considering real life money was spent a video game should not be this bad on gambling for in game products. Again this a game not a freaking casino.
It is my opinion that most games new from release are what about 60 - 70, assuming any expansions maybe another 20 - 30 per expansion. The pricing in this game is outrageous and all under the guise "people can grind AD and trade for zen" well if you want people to buy zen to sell to the grinders ditch the lock boxes and let the people who pay get same real value instead of gambling on some horrendous RNG which the game has in abundance and just put a bunch of HAMSTER for sale every month that can be bought for AD or make the zen shop a rotation monthly or quarterly feed of new stuff, get it now while its in stock sort of thing, and get rid of this lock box garbage. I'd much rather buy an account wide comp or mount pack from zen store than deal with this poor excuse of a loot bag called a lockbox.
The whole purpose of these boxes is to try your luck. If you want a guarantee you need to directly buy what you want and not roll the dice with the boxes.
NEVER PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM THE ZEN MARKET WITHOUT AT LEAST 20% OFF COUPON that you get for free from invoking bags saved up
second of all each pack came with a coal ward right ? that you could have flipped on the auction to recoop another portion of your luck / spending / investment or used it yourself
all those trade bars can be converted to items that can be flipped on the auction house or for your own personal use of companion or mount upgrades insignias etc .
i dont understand nor believe why you would buy 3 very expensive 50$ packs at once ..what if you hit it big in pack one why would you even need to have bought pack 2 or 3 ...something is fishy here no ?
was it gambler fallacy at that point when you lost on pack one and did not get a jackpot then bought another pack then lost again and then bought another 3rd pack right ?? and full price yet each time with no coupon for ...let me spell it out ten dollars off per pack ?? !! right LOL you spent 30 usd extra that you did not have to
let alone had you used 40% off individual key coupons in the zen market as well that you get for free from invoking !
maybe control your own "luck" a little bit better next time or control your expectations
by my calculation you could have recouped 50-75% of the "loss/ gamble " of what you put in easy had you done it right
the tradebar vendor and certain items he sells are very very valuable at the moment ..insignias / mount and companion upgrade tokens to name a few
cryptic took advantage of your greed and impulsiveness and lack of strategic purchasing and won
and you came to the forums with buyers remorse .
you could always contest the credit card transaction : D and have your account permanently banned and removed but you would get your money back
Lessons to be learned, always look for discounts, either from coupons or from seasonal sales, and when it comes down to lockbox keys, stick to buying ViP and use the daily keys from it.
Even when you only pull HAMSTER from the lockboxes, you'll still have the ViP perks, and the option to spend your Tarmalune Trade Bars during a sale, which will give you back some of your investment.
Anyway, you're not the first and you won't be the last who thought they would get something good out of those lockbox key packs... i tried them twice i think, and never touched them again.
Just killing time...
And Happy Birthday. :-)
.5% is also the percentage of people that actually read the forums
If someone wants a purple bear mount (as an example) they spend x-amount of zen and get that purple bear mount, instead of opening lockbox after lockbox on the chance they might actually get what they want... not to mention if they get the pink griffin (another example) and already have, or don't want the pink griffin then they have to fool around getting rid of it even if that's not something they want to fool with.
I get it, some people feel they are compensated for not getting the purple bear mount (as an example) if they get trade bars or something they can try to sell in the auction house... but that's not me, nor quite a few people I know. Some people actually enjoy playing the game, going on quests, running dungeons, etc.. They have no desire to become some kind of professions manufacturing master or professional auction house trader and the more time they have to spend with the undesirable tasks of professions or auction house trading the less time they have to do what they enjoy... play the game.
It's good Neverwinter has the professions manufacturing and auction house trading - for people who enjoy that kind of thing, but for the people who just want to excell at the quests and storylines while they try to obtain specific items to complete a collection the only method available to them is buying lockboxes and taking a chance they will eventually get what they're hoping for.
While I'm on the subject, I wonder how much revenue Cryptic/Neverwinter would make if players were able to buy specific items like discontinued gear, mounts, companions, etc. from one of the Neverwinter merchants (zen/tradebar/seals)?
I know a quite few people that have some pieces of gear (armor/weapons) that they just can't get anymore and would really like to complete the set, but of course they can't because those items have been discontinued in the game. Players can no longer quest for those items and they can't buy them from any merchant.
Of course Cryptic/Neverwinter wants people to spend money to help finance the game but if they are going to severely restrict the items available for purchase or insist the only way to attempt to get the items a person wants is to gamble by opening lockbox after lockbox only to spend money, become frustrated and decide it isn't worth it so stop spending money... I feel they're just discouraging a portion of the players from contributing to the financial support of the game by limiting the ways for people to provide revenue, which in some cases turns out to be the lockbox gamble - or nothing.
¢¢
I think this is a causal factor behind the recent changes to both the M21 levelling system and in M20 moving a huge percentage of stats to companions: I.e. moving players quickly to the point where they need to buy from the zen store for upgrades & needing tons of upgrade tokens for 10 mythic companions.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11494813
Another point to make is if someone has zen and wants that purple bear bad enough, in theory they will exchange their zen on the exchange for astral diamonds, thus keeping the zax flowing as well.
But if you assume 0.5% droprate: You will need 200 lockboxes to have a 50% chance of getting the top prize drop. So you should not really expect it from 150 rolls. And as with other gambling, there never are any guarantees. If you engage in gambling you really need to understand your probability theory. Probability theory is the area or math that is dealing with random chances.
And you didn't do it that badly anyways: Tradebars spent correctly are worth between 1.5k and 2.5k AD each. So you gained tradebars worth 13.35M AD using 1.5K per. That corresponds to 17.8k Zen for a gain of 2.8k Zen. And that is calculated using lowest tradebar value and does not look at all the other sellable goods you got. It would have been even better if you used coupons to purchase the keys. If you calculate in everything AND use coupons, I would guess you will be approaching a doubling of the Zen invested.
Even if you did not get the mount you desired(which should have been expected), you have made a nice net earning from opening these lockboxes. If you sell off everything you should have plenty of AD to buy a mount off the AH.
"Among the many treasures inside, the Magnificent Resurgence Lockbox offers a chance to get your hands on Tenser’s Floating Disk, unlock the Metallic Ancestry Dragonborn Race, or bring the Owlbear Cub as a companion on your adventures!"
In a more transparent world...
"Among the many treasures inside, the Magnificent Resurgence Lockbox offers a 0.5% chance to get your hands on Tenser’s Floating Disk, unlock the Metallic Ancestry Dragonborn Race, or bring the Owlbear Cub as a companion on your adventures!"
Anyway, i actually like those key deals, they keep the prices for account wide mounts rather low.
That's why I'm always amused by the popularity of videos "showing" droprate of anything.
With 150$ you could have bought account wide companions or mounts (mythic account wide mounts are very cheap).
You play the game for years you knew exactly what you did and you did a mistake! First its your own fault.
I don't know what happened, but people know things are bad - do them anyways and then complain?
You used 150$ for gambling - you lost and thats it. If you don't like gambling - don't do it!
And like I said there are other options to spend money on the game to get something!