How do Lockboxes work?

zeruin

It may seem like a stupid question, but how do you guys think lock boxes are going to work in this game? The only other game I've played that had a a similar system to this was Tera, but the keys were sometimes available as loot or quest rewards. Will the same be true for Neverwinter's keys, or will they likely be Zen store only? I have no experience with Cryptic games.

I remember reading the other day that each lockbox contains 10 Tarmalune trade bars + a random item. Does that sound about right to anyone?

If so.. will lockboxes also be the only way to acquire Tarmalune bars?

arcademaster

Keys are only available via the zen-store, but they can be traded among players, so you can get some for AD from the auction house.

Trade bars are only available from lockboxes, that's also right. However I'm not sure about the amount. From what I gathered there weren't any boxes to open yet, so no one could test. In STO, you get a guaranteed 4 bars (they are named differently there, but doesn't matter), but there is a chance they can contain up to 100. The average to expect is 5 bars IIRC. I'm rather sure it'll be the same here since the pricing of items you can get with those bars identical to STO's bar shop.

And then there is a random item that is the actual reward of the box (the bars are a consolation price so to speak). There is usually one grand price and several other prices, but usually the average value of anything but the grand price tends to be less than a key. And the chance of the grand price will be about half a percent. Cryptic will deny that, but lot's of players opened lot's of boxes on the test server and in real life for some pretty solid numbers. THis is a different game, these things can be different here, but I'd expect at the very least numbers in the same ballpark.

My recommendation from someone who has been playing Cryptic games since they went F2P: Only buy keys if you want something specific with trade bars that can't be traded with other players. In all other cases, just buying what you want from the auction house will be cheaper. (Including the grand price)

delgatto42

Lockboxes were my main reason for leaving STO. Wasn't even the cash-grab aspect of them. It was two fold, Very much became pay to win (the stuff you get out of a lockbox was OP compared to the other stuff in the game, and tho people could earn keys in game, it generally took hundreds of keys to get the uber rare item from the lockbox, giving a huge advantage to the person that spends 100$ on keys over the person that has to decide if their dilithium would be used to get a new ship, or have a non chance of getting the kickass item from the lockbox), and the other part was the lockbox spam. OMG every min or so someone somewhere getting some cool item from a lockbox and everyone on the game had to know about it. Sheash, if your gonna give people a way to gamble and pay to win, at least don't force that **** down our throats. I still have high hoped for Neverwinter, but seeing that they will have lockboxes, really makes my stomach sink. I'm not a fan of pay to win, and unless we can earn 30-40 keys a day playing semi casually, there is no way the free to player has a reasonable chance of getting the hawt brokenness from a lockbox vs people that drop a few hundred dollars on lockboxes.

arcademaster

delgatto42 wrote: »

Lockboxes were my main reason for leaving STO. Wasn't even the cash-grab aspect of them. It was two fold, Very much became pay to win (the stuff you get out of a lockbox was OP compared to the other stuff in the game, and tho people could earn keys in game, it generally took hundreds of keys to get the uber rare item from the lockbox, giving a huge advantage to the person that spends 100$ on keys over the person that has to decide if their dilithium would be used to get a new ship, or have a non chance of getting the kickass item from the lockbox), and the other part was the lockbox spam. OMG every min or so someone somewhere getting some cool item from a lockbox and everyone on the game had to know about it. Sheash, if your gonna give people a way to gamble and pay to win, at least don't force that **** down our throats. I still have high hoped for Neverwinter, but seeing that they will have lockboxes, really makes my stomach sink. I'm not a fan of pay to win, and unless we can earn 30-40 keys a day playing semi casually, there is no way the free to player has a reasonable chance of getting the hawt brokenness from a lockbox vs people that drop a few hundred dollars on lockboxes.

Fleet ships are just as good as lockbox ships and the drop rate has been heavily reduced, to the point where I had to play for 2 hours before I found the first box when they introduced the last one.

So I think you left too early :P

symonhumbleuk

Lockbox, the odds are against you.

aandrethegiant

zeruin wrote: »

how do lock boxes work?

Mine don't, they stay locked

malibear

aandrethegiant wrote: »

Mine don't, they stay locked

Then sell them to meeeee :-P

khupa1

Normally I just dump them. One have to spend a lot of $ on keys just to get something good.

kallethen

Think of a lockbox as an instant scratch lotto ticket. The chances of you getting the big prize that's advertised in neon letters is very, very small. So if you are comfortable with gambling, you'll be okay with lockboxes.

Me, I've not used Zen to purchase lockbox keys. I have gotten a couple through the auction exchanges. I personally don't see them as evil (especially since they give better prizes even at the low end of the prize chart compared to the old grab bags). I just see them for what they are.

ranncore

arcademaster wrote: »

Fleet ships are just as good as lockbox ships and the drop rate has been heavily reduced, to the point where I had to play for 2 hours before I found the first box when they introduced the last one.

So I think you left too early :P

Ehh... lockboxes were also the primary reason I stopped playing STO, and that was only a month or two ago. I threw away 10+ a day, then just stopped playing when I realised I would never be as strong as anyone who threw money at the system.

The pay2win is strong in STO. That didn't stop me from having an awful lot of fun while I played it, but it did stop me from continuing to play it further.

starkaos

The lockbox gives about 10 Trade Bars. Which makes sense for the prices in the Trade Bar Store. A ship in the Lobi Store in Star Trek Online costs 800 lobi while the Blue Armored Nightmare costs 1600 Trade Bars.

deathssickle

If they had a Uberkey that opened a ulimited amount, Id consider using it to find out some statistics for them. See how many it takes to pull the Uber Item out of the box(Id get enough boxes by getting others to give them to me to test it(I know Andre and others would))

starkaos

The problem with the uberkey is it would make anything in the lockbox worthless. In order for a uberkey to exist in a F2P environment, the lockboxes have to be bind on pickup and/or the items in the lockboxes bind on pickup. Either way true F2Pers would never be able to acquire lockbox items if a uberkey exists.

jetah

I remember reading that the Nightmare lockbox will be the (nearly) only means of getting Tarmalune Trade Bars, however, I cant see waiting to get 2k before getting something. That is 200 boxes at 10 per. This leads me to believe that the boxes will drop from each end boss at lv60 (maybe heroic dungeons) or something else.

l1zardo1

starkaos wrote: »

The problem with the uberkey is it would make anything in the lockbox worthless. In order for a uberkey to exist in a F2P environment, the lockboxes have to be bind on pickup and/or the items in the lockboxes bind on pickup. Either way true F2Pers would never be able to acquire lockbox items if a uberkey exists.

Nah, the 1% drop rate for the epic item makes it very valuable still.

x0y1

delgatto42 wrote: »

Lockboxes were my main reason for leaving STO. Wasn't even the cash-grab aspect of them. It was two fold, Very much became pay to win (the stuff you get out of a lockbox was OP compared to the other stuff in the game, and tho people could earn keys in game, it generally took hundreds of keys to get the uber rare item from the lockbox, giving a huge advantage to the person that spends 100$ on keys over the person that has to decide if their dilithium would be used to get a new ship, or have a non chance of getting the kickass item from the lockbox), and the other part was the lockbox spam. OMG every min or so someone somewhere getting some cool item from a lockbox and everyone on the game had to know about it. Sheash, if your gonna give people a way to gamble and pay to win, at least don't force that **** down our throats. I still have high hoped for Neverwinter, but seeing that they will have lockboxes, really makes my stomach sink. I'm not a fan of pay to win, and unless we can earn 30-40 keys a day playing semi casually, there is no way the free to player has a reasonable chance of getting the hawt brokenness from a lockbox vs people that drop a few hundred dollars on lockboxes.

From the removed patch notes:

[*]Nightmare Lockbox

• The Nightmare Lockbox is now dropping at level 10 and above!
• Players will receive these periodically through battle.
• These lockboxes can be unlocked by Enchanted Keys, purchased through the Zen Market.

So have fun, because it will be exactly like in STO BUT at last there it was not that bad because you could buy keys from other players via auction house without spending $ and you can buy most items from the lockbox there too.

So instead of gambling for a ship with a ~0.5% drop chance from the lockbox. I just bought it from the ah, needed ~1 week to get the ingame currency for it.

Sometimes I buy keys from the AH and very rare with $ but less for rare items but more for the lobi crystals (here Tarmalune Trade Bars). Any extras would be bonus but I was more after a +crit console you could not get otherwise.

IMHO Star Trek Online has a very good balance between stuff you can buy or just get for free after a while, less in CO. I am not sure if NW has the right balance yet, the astral diamond only AH scares me a bit.........................

redshift2k5

kallethen wrote: »

Think of a lockbox as an instant scratch lotto ticket. The chances of you getting the big prize that's advertised in neon letters is very, very small. So if you are comfortable with gambling, you'll be okay with lockboxes.

Me, I've not used Zen to purchase lockbox keys. I have gotten a couple through the auction exchanges. I personally don't see them as evil (especially since they give better prizes even at the low end of the prize chart compared to the old grab bags). I just see them for what they are.

They do have the advantage of the 'consolation prize' of the trade bars; time will tell if the volume of trade bars is worth the purchase of a stack of keys, but at least you are guaranteed to get something even if it is only via trade bars.

starkaos

l1zardo1 wrote: »

Nah, the 1% drop rate for the epic item makes it very valuable still.

No it doesn't. It just means that I would open more lockboxes. Anyone could just give the lockboxes to me and I would give them the spoils. In order to deal with this, then the devs would have to make lockboxes a rare drop so people might see 1 per day and have the items bind on pickup. DCUO has an uberkey for their lockboxes and this is what they had to do.

sjiro

A Coalescent Ward is 1000 Zen in the Cash Shop.
A Coalescent Ward is 200 trade bars in the bazaar.

That means each bar is worth roughly 5 Zen.

Which means.. The nightmare is worth 10,000 Zen and The Heavy Nightmare is 12,500 Zen. Roughly $100 and $125.
However, since it requires Keys from the shop to actually get the bars (and each box will likely award an average of around 5 bars*), the actual price you will probably spend to purchase a Nightmare mount is 45,000 Zen (Based on current key prices).

Do note that the Lock boxes also drop purple gear on occasion.

Am I missing something?

*Based on the information I have available concerning STO boxes

warpet

looks like lockboxes will be able to give u ultimate game weapon ,since u can buy it for that bars u get opening lock box

syberghost

Anybody who thinks the lockboxes in STO make it "Pay 2 Win" doesn't have a very good understanding of the words "Pay" and "Win", nor the number "2".

navhar

Would be nice to get keys as a rare drop from the endgame challenges.

gillrmn

khupa1 wrote: »

Normally I just dump them. One have to spend a lot of $ on keys just to get something good.

Is it possible to dump them? The NPC wont buy it.

zagrim

gillrmn wrote: »

Is it possible to dump them? The NPC wont buy it.

I'm guessing that by dumping them he means just dropping them from your inventory and destroy them. Not selling them to an NPC

zorlun

Stupid question, but I can't seem to learn it anywhere, lockboxes can drop anywhere anytime ? Or are they special loot from boss ?

I'm very new to this, I didn't play any MMO with this sort of thing, that make me a bit curious on all the racket about it ?

vestinious1

Lockboxes will be drops from level 10 onwards.

gillrmn

zorlun wrote: »

Stupid question, but I can't seem to learn it anywhere, lockboxes can drop anywhere anytime ? Or are they special loot from boss ?

I'm very new to this, I didn't play any MMO with this sort of thing, that make me a bit curious on all the racket about it ?

Anywhere anytime. They may even drop while fighting first mob in my foundry quest (as happened to me).

selonw

lockboxes are also called gacha, which in some forms are illegal in Japan for example.

thing with lockboxes are that even thoug it states it has 10 items, its not 1/10 to get the item you want.
The good 2-3 items are usually less then 0.1% chance, while the 99,9% gives HAMSTER items.

I wouldnt support that system and rather wait until some fools buy them, get lucky, and sells them on auctionhall. In the end, thats usually cheaper, unless your Donald Ducks lucky cousin.

Also it tends to make people buy gold/ad on suspicious sites, making the economy inflate

timm4444

selonw wrote: »

lockboxes are also called gacha, which in some forms are illegal in Japan for example.

thing with lockboxes are that even thoug it states it has 10 items, its not 1/10 to get the item you want.
The good 2-3 items are usually less then 0.1% chance, while the 99,9% gives HAMSTER items.

I wouldnt support that system and rather wait until some fools buy them, get lucky, and sells them on auctionhall. In the end, thats usually cheaper, unless your Donald Ducks lucky cousin.

Also it tends to make people buy gold/ad on suspicious sites, making the economy inflate

As opposed to buying AD off the exchange. . .

bpphantom

The STO lockboxes are the same as these and in practice are the same as the GW2 Black Lion Chests. 100% chance to get garbage with a 0.1% chance for something good and a 0.01% chance for something awesome. Some people have luck. I do not. I'll be either stashing them away until the economy gets me a good price for them, or just giving them to strangers.

timm4444

bpphantom wrote: »

The STO lockboxes are the same as these and in practice are the same as the GW2 Black Lion Chests. 100% chance to get garbage with a 0.1% chance for something good and a 0.01% chance for something awesome. Some people have luck. I do not. I'll be either stashing them away until the economy gets me a good price for them, or just giving them to strangers.

I would like to point out that I am a stranger. . .