A quick Preface: I am trying to show how Lotto-Boxes could be done fairly and still profitably, it is important to know that every item I propose in the following Lotto-Boxes have equivalent drop chances to the other items in the box, which are a matter of simple math to work out.
VA/LG Ship Salvage Box:
The War has been waging for a few years, and more than a few ships from both sides have been crippled, evacuated, and left to drift. Ghost ships, devoid of living crew, but full of each Factions technology, left in the voids of space that held their last moments. A number of these ships have been salvaged on each side, repaired, and given to select Captains for use in the war. Even some from the other side.
Each Box has the chance to give you a LG/VA ship. No matter what ships you have or don't have, every VA/LG ship is possible to attain via Ship Salvage Box. if you already have that particular ship on that character, the Ship-item in your inventory will not be usable, but it can be traded or sold on the Exchange.
Each Box will drop one of the following:
- Exploration Cruiser Retrofit
- Long-Range Science Vessel retrofit
- Tactical Escort Retrofit
- Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit
- Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
- Multi-Vector Advanced Escort
- Marauder Patrol Cruiser
- Kar'Fi Battle Carrier
- Varanus Fleet Support Vessel
- B'Rel Bird of Prey Retrofit
- Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
- Galor Class Cruiser
Price: 1300 C-Points. 8.3% Drop Chance per Item.
Away Team Field Kit Box:
Away Teams are the quintessential front-line explorers and strike teams employed by both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. keeping them well-equipped is in the survival intrest of the Away-Teams, their Commanding Officers, and their governments at large. With one of these Field Kits, you can equip an entire way team. If the gear isn't suited to your tastes, then you can always trade it away or sell it on the Exchange.
*Note: Items with [Borg] Modifiers will not drop from Away Team Field Kit Boxes.
Each box will contain five items from each category:
Personal Shields:
- Very Rare Mk X Personal Shields with random Modifiers.
- Rare Mk XI Personal Shields with random Modifiers.
- Uncommon Mk XII Personal Shields with random Modifiers.
Body Armor:
- Very Rare Mk X Body Armor with random Modifiers.
- Rare Mk XI Body Armor with random Modifiers.
- Uncommon Mk XII Body Armor with random Modifiers.
Ground Weapons:
- Very Rare Mk X Ground Weapons of any type with random Modifiers.
- Rare Mk XI Ground Weapons of any type with random Modifiers.
- Uncommon Mk XII Ground Weapons of any type with random Modifiers.
Price: 1400 C-Points. Low (>1%) chance of getting any
specific item, but you're getting five from each category (Ground Shields, Body Armor, and Ground Weapons).
Ship Refit/Retrofit Console Requisition:
As Ships wear out and technology advances, oftentimes new ships take their place, but sometimes, necessity requires that older vessels be refitted, sometime several times, in order to be put back into service. Many times, these refits include updates to old technologies and new technologies that take the place of truly obsolete systems, or are put in places previously reserved for technology which has since been simplified or simply made smaller and more efficient. Now, you can get your hands on these updated and refined technologies and specialized consoles. If you get one you already have, the item-box it comes in will be trade-able and sell-able on the Exchange.
Each Ship Refit/Retrofit Console Requisition Box will drop one of the following:
- Quad Phaser Cannons
- Graviton Pulse Generator
- Magnetometric Generator
- Point Defense System
- Ionized Gas Sensor
- Impulse Capacitance Cell
- Nadeon Detonator Module
- Tachyon Detection Field
- Cloaking Device
- Bio-Neural Warhead
- Subspace Jump console
- Quad Disruptor Cannons
- Tachyon Drones
- Orion Interceptors
- Theta Radiation Vent console
- Plasmonic Leech console
- Aceton Assimilator console
- Barrier Field Generator
- Transwarp Computer
- Isometric Charge Module
- Photonic Displacer Module
- Antimatter Spread Module
- Enhanced Plasma Manifold
- Tachyon Detection Grid console
- Grappler console
- Advanced Transwarp Drive console
- Repair Platform Console
Price: 350 C-Points. 3.7% drop chance per item.
Comments
That way you have an incentive to get the boxes (if you get one on your first box, you save a bunch of money/C-Points) or an easy way to get the ship as well if not. Regardless, Cryptic makes a nice profit.
A boat is just a boat...but the mystery box could be anything! It could even be a boat!
Ship Salvage Box:
Few problems with this one. First and foremost, that you're proposing cross-factional ships that aren't supposed to be cross-factional. Second, that you're proposing that these should be tradeable/sellable. Third, the proposed cost of the box is too high to "hook" anybody into wanting it that bad.
I get that you're trying to open a path whereby Cryptic might be able to offer something like the Galor without actually selling it. But I already have a way to obtain most of the ships you're talking about on the C-Store, with account-wide unlocks... the salvage box is simply not a great way to get those. And they're not going to undercut the C-Store.
Away Team Box:
First problem is that you have just opened the door to selling "pay-to-win" gear in the C-Store. I don't think that's such a great idea. You're also proposing to deal out 15 very useful items in one "drop"... which strikes me as more than generous, even though the proposed cost of the box is not exactly cheap. And the final issue is that the box is not exactly cheap. Is it a good deal? Sheyeah. But it's not chump change and its not going to be a "hot sell".
Ship Refit Box:
Now this idea I like, apart from the fact that some of these consoles are ship-specific and can't easily be made to work on every ship. I think the price is just about right, even. I'd like it even better if Cryptic would just sell the consoles outright on the C-Store so I can skip the ship if I don't want it.
But, as with your other examples, it departs from the Lock-Box paradigm that Cryptic has already committed to follow. There will be future boxes and the Master Key for 100 CP is supposed to work with all of them. They're not going to load the box with nothing but consoles for 100 CP.
The current Lock-Box would have been a much better deal if they had left out the shuttle pets, the non-combat Sehlat, the tribble and the special commodities. Probably the shield, and the lesser XP buffs too. They should have saved that stuff for a Q giveaway mission. I wouldn't have minded getting stuff I don't need if I don't have to pay for it. The DS-9 costume, I will grudgingly admit, probably belongs in the box even though it's not that great a prize. One of the mistakes was putting items in the boxes that would be perceived as throwaway items.
The boxes should have had chances to get one of:
- The Galor
- The cross-faction console
- A cross-faction Runabout
- Large skill boost
- Large CXP boost
- DS9 Costume Pack (Fed)
- Cardassian Costume Pack (which doesn't exist)
- Bajoran Militia Costume Pack
- Combat Horta Pet (? - Not DS-9 themed, but at least theoretically useful)
- Special DS-9 themed DO Pack
- Stack of 5 Combo consumable devices
THAT would have been somewhat tempting to buy a few keys for.
yeah, but don't you REALLY want that $5000 captains chair? The guy at the comic shop i go to really wants to talk my wife and i into one. they look so great!
Heh, I really do, I first saw it a year or two ago, but I've managed to keep my senses on that.:D
The whole point (or part of it) is that they realized there are items people would pay much more than $30 for and they need a system to extract that money.
Like I say, I'd be more comfortable with blind auctions because then the losers get their C-Points back to spend on whatever else they want.
Sure, but the game isn't set up to do blind auctions. The Lock-Boxes don't require anything special in the way of a UI or a special system that wouldn't be useful except during the auction. They're just drops. The only special mechanic involved is the unlock part and I imagine it wasn't that difficult to set up, relatively speaking.
I think it would pay to develop the blind auction tech. I could crunch numbers if I had access to them.
I can say that, from what I understand, once a C-Point becomes an STO point, it's credited as an STO sale on the books so a blind auction that returns STO points would have the same net effect and then the losers could CHOOSE if they want a DS9 costume pack or a dilithium horta (what do they do? I haven't opened mine yet) or a bundle of DOff provisions.
Actually I thought I'd specifically excluded all the ones that required specific ships to use, the Ablative Armor Console, MVAm Console, and Saucer Seperation console weren't in there, and I figured the Cloak Console is actually probably the simplest change, well worth the income gotten from making them work with everything (and as I understand it's already the Devs intention to make all the consoles work with everything).
First, I don't think Cryptic is committed to follow the Lock-Box Paradigm, we had a Lotto-Box during the Winter Event, now a Lock-Lotto-Box. They're experimenting, trying to find a way to have Lotto-Boxes without too much rage. That's why I made this thread, to suggest a better way than the ways they have done to date.
And, really? I don't like the lock-box paradigm. Lotto-boxes yes, fine, earn-able with an abysmal Dilithium Grind, Ok, I can swallow that, it's bitter, and I still think that "all roads lead to the C-Store" is an unethical greedy idea, but I'm trying to compromise here. But these Cardy boxes which railroad you to the C-Store one-way-or-another, however, is not a step forward, it's a step back.
I actually preferred the Winter Box, which at least we had a (admittedly extremely slim) chance of getting without ever going to the C-Store.
I could not disagree more strenuously. A straight Lotto Box is fine so long as all items in the box are of equal value. Any Lotto Box that has one big worthwhile item virtually everyone wants and a TRIBBLE-ton of junk virtually nobody wants, or they already have, or is completely useless to them (XP bonuses for VA/LGs), is a slap in the face, it's a tease, it leads to hard feelings and forum-rage.
With a box with all equal-value items, if you get the wrong item, you can conceivably trade for the item you want rather easily. (You got a second Bug? I got that Tactical Escort Retrofit you wanted, lets trade!) Can you imagine trying to trade a DS9 Uniform Pack for the Galor you want? That's not gonna happen unless somebody is really generous, really stupid, or really lucky (and got two Galors).
My one real issue, well...
This is a pretty bad excuse to open up existing faction-specific ships to both factions. At least Cryptic has the decency to come up with a story explanation and gives them out in a way to ensure there would not be many of them around. Your idea just hands ships to people regardless of faction for a set cost, in no way limiting availability beyond price.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Askray
It didn't make any sense to me to have a Lotto Box containing an item be more expensive than the item itself.
1,600 C-points for a VA/LG ship becomes 1,300 C-Points for a random VA/LG ship, between 1,100 C-Points and 1,700 C-Points worth of Dilithium (assuming a mid-range 275 Dilithium per C-Point Exchange Rate for anythign between all Purple Mk Xs and all green Mk XIIs) becomes 1,400 C-Points when weighted for the worth of Modifiers and discounted for being a Lotto Box.
Since the Consoles don't get sold by themselves, I figured their value at 350 each, with the NX & Oberth costing 400 C-Points, I figured the consoles, which have uses beyond T1 (unlike the ships) would be the bulk of the 400 C-point Cost (around 380) then a 30-Point reduction for being in a Lotto Box than a specific purchase..
Anyway, yeah, I stand by my pricing.
Ahem:
To clarify: Even some ships from the other Faction have been salvaged and given to Captains on a given side, KDF ships salvaged and given to Starfleet Captains, Starfleet Vessels salvaged and given to KDF Captains.. You get the idea.
With all the battles in the war, surely most Classes of ship have been lost once or twice by now to salvage/capture by the enemy.
Now I will admit that because of the number of Fed VA Ships to KDF LG Ships, the chances are far more likely that you'd get a Fed ship out of the Box than a KDF one, but that's just all the more reason for more LG KDF ships to come down the pipe.
As to the rarity issue.. Well, I don't buy the CBS excuse we've gotten from PWE about why they have to be rare, I think that's just their excuse to limit the supply to increase the demand and the profits. And you know how I feel about Rarity Bragging rights..
How about I offer a counter-idea, though? One with less blatant faction-erasure, that holds true to your box's concept.
For the same cost, the box could contain:
Tokens could be the common loot, with every third box dropping a fancy ship crate instead.
This would be optimal, IMO, because
That might very well work. But I would want the drop chances of all the ships to be equal, and to justify the Lotto Portion of it, we wouldn't want a token to choose. After all, if there's a token to choose for cheaper, then nobody will go the direct route of buying the straight ship. And if the Lotto is more expensive, everyone who gets the regular VA ships will feel ripped off because they paid more money for it then necessary.
So, say there's the three Cross Faction Ships, the Bug, the Galor, and the Science-y ship, in the Fed Box, there would the six Fed VA ships and the three Cross faction, so I'd want a equal drop chance of 11% per ship.
In the KDF Lotto Box, we would hopefully have an equivalent number of KDF LG ships (meaning we'd need two more) in order to give all the ships in the KDF the equivalent drop chance (to avoid the exploit of getting a better drop chance with the KDF Box then shipping the Ship requisition box over to your Fed) of 11% per ship.
Two Lotto Boxes, equal drop chances, unique ships without abysmal drop rates.. Can we actually agree on something?? :eek:
HA! i see what you did there. clever:cool:
they farm MUCH more money, and actually just give away 0,0001% of the prople that, what they were gambling for. thats the point of gambling.
im not giving one single coin to those. i just unlock a) gold boxes with b) ingame credits or dilithium-gained cpoints. thats it. you should all do so, and this will end VERY soon.
btw: the actual droprates of veryrare goldboxes are totally in line with the delithium you can gain with the chars. just open these and youll get your ship without! spending realmoney on them!
it IS an excuse for not putting the ship into cstore.
Actually, I think it's worse than that. I think they realize these are items most people wouldn't pay more than $30 for. Therefore they know that by putting it in a mystery box they can fleece a lot of people and make more money.
If they sold the Jem'Hadar or Cardassian ship for $30 a few people would pay that price, but a lot more wouldn't. If they made them $50 or $100, even fewer would be interested. But by making a mystery box and not publishing the odds, they know they can rope a lot of people in to spending $5 or $10, knowing full well that most of them will end up with absolutely nothing they want (it may have some "value", but if you never had any desire to have it then it's worthless to you).
The fact they refuse to publish the odds so people can make an informed decision is the absolute worst part of these lotteries. It shows they know that disclosing the odds would discourage a lot of people from buying the boxes, which means they are willingly taking advantage of people's ignorance. That's what really upsets me about the whole thing.
If they were up front about the odds of winning, even if only in the FAQ and didn't go out of their way to promote it, then I'd have absolutely no problems with the lotteries, because at least then people could know what they are paying money for.
Your great idea would never because that would make sense. Also, as is proven by the drop boxes,people are willing to spend more than what you have in your OP, so they would not be willing to charge less than what it costs for just one of the ships from the C Store now when they could potentially make SO MUCH more in a game of chance. Buisness 101 I'm afraid to say.
Yeah.. I get that a lot. "It's too resonable and would make the players happy, they'll never do it.."
"They have no interest in giving us a square deal, when they could fleece us.."
"Any proposed solution that allows someone to actually feel good about what and how they're spending isn't making them spend enough.."
Well, darn it, I'm an optimist! I'm going to keep trying!
... I think it would be more constructive to suggest lock-box loot tables that have a remote chance of actually happening.
Aside from the fact that the lock boxes contained more than their share of throwaways, they were not particularly well-designed around a DS-9/Bajor/Cardassian theme.
They need to improve the loot and/or drop the cost of master keys, and they should keep the loot organized around central themes.
For example, they had a perfect opportunity to design and include a cross-faction Cardassian costume set that would have had as much or more interest than the relatively unobtainable ship. True, not everyone would have wanted it, but a lot would and it would have been a pretty decent consolation prize. The Cardy fans would have been absolutely giddy, and they would have been worth a great deal in trade.
It was a blown opportunity, in my book.
From a pure marketing perspective, the boxes are no-brainers. Everything in them is "worth" at least the 100 CP they're asking for a key. Even the throwaways might have pleased new players who never had a chance to get those things. From their POV, it's a real bargain. Of course they know people are going to overspend on this... that's kind of the point. But I honestly believe that they believe there is good value here, that there aren't any "losing" boxes.
So no, I don't really think that we're going to convince Cryptic that their lock-box paradigm stinks. Especially since the prize spam suggests that people are paying serious money on this. I think we'll have better luck convincing them to put a bit more thought and value into them next time.
The "ship salvage box" simply does not make sense from a marketing perspective. They are not really attractive purchases. The main reason is because people would buy fewer of them trying to get the Galor because they're at least ten times the cost of one master key. Psychologically, it doesn't press the same buttons. For ten times the price, you want to get exactly what you're paying for. At ten times the price, it's going to dramatically increase your sales resistance if you get a result that you're not satisfied with.
They're simply not going to set themselves up for a fail. Even if it was a "bargain", you'd get fewer people and probably more complaints. It's not a bargain from Cryptic's perspective because they'd be losing money on normal ship purchases.
Here's how the ship salvage box -could- work: Instead of putting random ships in there and jacking up the price, they could put in random Ship Costumes and Bridges with the chance of getting a console or an actual ship like the Galor. Maybe the box needs more than one Master Key to open, not more than three. That would bring the price per box down to a more reasonable level, the 'theme' of ship salvage is more consistent than the in-game Cardassian lock-box, and there's more equitable value in the loot table.
I don't think they would even do that, but it's more likely than a random ship box.