OP, how can you play continuously for seven years and not ever make 400m ec?
I guess when you aren't really going after ec with a high priority and from time to time buy seemingly minor stuff (it adds up), it may feel like it. None of my toons is substantially over 100M (if I would combine them of course it'd be way more), but I probably earned multiples of it, but there's the odd doff for a couple millions, a "we get the starbase tier V done in 15 minutes" shopping spree etc. So you may feel like 400M is out of reach, but it can easily be done with some focusing.
Nonetheless, I still feel that a properly managed/regulated 'lottery'* doesn't let the same person win the grand prize several times in a row within a matter of minutes.
IMO, you feel very wrongly there. A properly regulated lottery does NOT care who already won and who didn't - otherwise there would be ways to game the system and it would stop being a lottery. And since a completely random setup is also the easiest to implement, most of the theories that whoever makes whatever lottery does twist it a bit are unfounded.
One problem here is that humans do not have a working feeling about randomness - and that's by evolution. An important survival trait is spotting patterns within our world, so we are condidtioned to always look for them, even if they're not there. And so many things that are random feel "rigged".
So it often turns up. When Bridge (the card game) tournament had hands drawn by a computer, players complained that the algorithm may be wrong because the number of very good hands was completely dissimilar from everything they've known over the years. Looking into it, it was found out that "hand shuffled" cards are just not random enough. Similarily, iTunes had to change its "random play" function to a more complicated less random algorithm because people didn't feel like it was random that they got so many songs from the same artist in such a short time - and similar issues.
* Whilst I understand that The Powers That Be prefer that opening lock boxes isn't a lottery, I'm not sure how else to refer to it.
In my eyes you can say "lottery" all right, because for almost all intents and purposes from a player's POV it is. It cannot be from Cryptic's side for legal reasons, so they don't like the term. But that's legalese that's not really of interest to a player.
The odds of the lottery are on the order of 1/13,983,816, the odds of a lockbox are on the order of 1/250.
In other words, the odds of winning a lockbox ship are 55,935x better.
Also: the "big guys" play hundreds of games in a very short amount of time. Independent games at that (your chances of getting something out of box 17 do not change with what you got from boxes 1-16). While lotteries are also independent, they are only this in between weeks. In a single draw you won't win twice unless you entered the same numbers multiple times. (This in turn increases your winning chances, so if you play 10 times a week, you have the ration down to about 1:5600). But when somebody is opening hundreds of boxes with only mouseclicking on them as quickly as possible, him winning twice in 5 minutes is already analogous to multiple years having passed between lottery wins.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Sorry that it sucks. I'm pretty happy with my AoY pack so it's no big deal for me right now, but I definitely feel what you're going through. I'd say just calm down and ignore the lockboxes. It's what I have resolved to do.
Not saying that I never buy keys or anything, but just saying that I don't expect to win anything either. At this point, I'm just buying up lobi slowly but surely.
I'd say just keep your eyes for ships from the C-Store that you want to buy. Yes, it's really shady that Cryptic declined to an endgame Connie all of these years only to release one in a lockbox. But what do you expect from a company that can't even be up front about their giveaway/promotions. They just don't care.
At one point I heard of a exploit to the lockbox thing - it was if you won the prize and opened another box right away - there was a high probability that you would win again. Of course it was just "talk" and rumor, but if memory serves correct, which it does not very often, cryptic did a hot patch in like no time. Or I could be just remembering a rant on the forums about an exploit with no proof. Either way - meh. Carry on, nothing to see here.
easy answer, don't open lockboxes or buy exchange lockbox ships, if you have money to spend buy c-store ships instead, for the most part c-store ships are just as good as lockbox ships as far as I am concerned.
I have never bothered opening lockboxes and am happy to use c-store and event ships, I don't fare any worse then some other dude who has a lockbox ship.
if all players were to stop trying to win lockbox ships by stop opening lockboxes and refuse to pay the extortionate exchange prices you might see some changes.
as long as there are players out there that are willing to gamble or pay through the nose for lockbox ships don't expect to see any changes, as long as the lockbox money is flowing cryptic are unlikely to change anything.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Have not run the odds in awhile - but I think it's around 200/1 for the grand prize and 4.5 lobi per box - if someone has the time to burn and cares, they can do it risk free to test on tribble.
cryptic/pe took my lobi from the times I was saving they did it on an accident and yet they haven't done anything to help rectify that and now I am stuck with nothing
look in the exchange the dreadnought is in fact in the exchange I seen it myself
uh, lobi Ships come boxed, you can actually sell them on the exchange.
did you bother to look in the lobi store when you read his post?
it costs 900 lobi
If you opened so many lockboxes, why don't you use the lobi you got and buy a Kelvin Dreadnought with it.
If you would rather have a Connie, sell it and use the EC to buy a Connie
It seems to me you don't really care what people are telling you in this thread and are just content to 'stomp your feet and hold your breath' until someone gives you what you want.
Okay...at this point I am calling BS. I mean seriously...played 7 years and don't know how to generate 300 million EC like it was nothing with a zen stipend?!? Played 7 years and don't know to sell keys for EC and buy the ships? 7 years and don't know what a lobi ship is vs a lockbox ship? Basically EVERY solution given has been met back with some "reason" why it doesn't work...and now you pull this one final BS. Yeah...no...I don't believe a word of anything you say now. You pushed it one step too far. You are just full of it. Or you are the dumbest person I have met so far who plays this game...and I met some pretty dumb ones...take your pick.
I'm with you.
Sorry, I usually try to be nice and offer help, but this guy is either a liar or just plain stupid.
OP every post you make just makes you look more and more like and entitled whiner.
Ok you didn't win a ship prize from keys, just bad luck. Fair enough.
So you find it hard to earn EC, ok maybe a reasonable complain were you a 1 month AOY newbie. But you're a 6-7 year veteran, how have you never saved up any ec on any of your characters!
Now the real kicker....you're either subbed or a lifer as you get a 500 zen per month stipend. What the hell is your problem! You get free currency given to you every month for crying out loud. Over the course of 6 years you could have earned 36,000 zen, plenty to buy a lockbox ship. How have you not already realised that it's better sense to just buy off the exchange!
like I can get 400 mill EC you all think its so so easy and as for your last comment I do not write like a 5 yr old I am a combat vet thank you very much if you doubt that then here I went to Ft Benning for basic training did 14 yrs I was a 11B which means 11 Bravo infantry my first duty station Ft Lewis WA second Ft Drum NY the last two Ft Hood TX and Ft Bliss TX
Yeah, I have no idea what all that means. But, from that first sentence, I'm getting you don't have 400 mil to spend, therefore went the gambling route, in hopes of better luck, and the latter didn't exactly work out. Right? Honestly, that is rarely a good idea, unless you can afford to take the likely loss (in EvE Online we used to say: "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose."). If you go the gambling route, and you lose, you just get very upset. Q.E.D.
It means he was a grunt. An infantryman with the army. He rattled off a bunch of **** that has no relevance to his laziness when it comes to writing. And as a fellow former infantryman, I have to say this. For someone who was in the military, where they drill discipline into a person repeatedly, as well as try to instill a sense of pride and attention to detail, OP seems to have failed and forgotten a lot.
To the OP:
1. It's like making your bed in the morning. Good habits, discipline. Write like a 5 year old(which you did), expect to get corrected on it. And instead of ******** about it, work at getting better, so that you get treated better.
2. Military service is irrelevant to the thread.
3. There's no reason to tilt over a GAME. You can't control anyone else. All you can do is control yourself and your behavior.
4. Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is more durable. You have to start somewhere, and keep "soldiering on" to get somewhere in the game. Make something a routine until it becomes second nature. Throwing in the towel, tapping out, then whining about it like a baby-back ***** is a bad attitude, and wastes time that could be spent better.
5. Spend within your means. Don't be that fuzzy private fresh out of BCT, blowing all your money on hookers and a small **** syndrome truck.
6. Get in the front leaning rest position, and beat your face until I get tired. Then drink water and recover.
cryptic/pe took my lobi from the times I was saving they did it on an accident and yet they haven't done anything to help rectify that and now I am stuck with nothing
look in the exchange the dreadnought is in fact in the exchange I seen it myself
uh, lobi Ships come boxed, you can actually sell them on the exchange.
did you bother to look in the lobi store when you read his post?
it costs 900 lobi
If you opened so many lockboxes, why don't you use the lobi you got and buy a Kelvin Dreadnought with it.
If you would rather have a Connie, sell it and use the EC to buy a Connie
It seems to me you don't really care what people are telling you in this thread and are just content to 'stomp your feet and hold your breath' until someone gives you what you want.
Okay...at this point I am calling BS. I mean seriously...played 7 years and don't know how to generate 300 million EC like it was nothing with a zen stipend?!? Played 7 years and don't know to sell keys for EC and buy the ships? 7 years and don't know what a lobi ship is vs a lockbox ship? Basically EVERY solution given has been met back with some "reason" why it doesn't work...and now you pull this one final BS. Yeah...no...I don't believe a word of anything you say now. You pushed it one step too far. You are just full of it. Or you are the dumbest person I have met so far who plays this game...and I met some pretty dumb ones...take your pick.
I'm with you.
Sorry, I usually try to be nice and offer help, but this guy is either a liar or just plain stupid.
I'm with you. Like I said, assuming $100 = ~600,000,000 EC (6 mil per key x 100), spending $3,000 would have netted him 18,000,000,000 EC. It's getting progressively harder to believe in all his 7 years playing, he never realized he could just sell keys. Or to believe the entire account, for that matter.
I consider myself pretty lousy at earning EC. As long as I have been playing, and as much as I have learned over the years, I should be much better at earning EC then I am. Even as bad as I am at making EC, I still easily acquired a Vengeance, and am already just shy of having enough for a KT Connie if I want one (I don't.)
And this is without the benefit of a monthly stipend as I'm not a LTS. I just can't believe that someone that claims to have been playing since the first days of beta doesn't have 250M EC. It's just not realistic.
Please explain me:
How do you know, lockboxes work random?
This thread is full of lockbox specialists, and I wonder if they have checked the server code personally?
Is there any neutral instance, that checks the server code after every patch and ensures no manipulation in between?
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
Please explain me:
How do you know, lockboxes work random?
This thread is full of lockbox specialists, and I wonder if they have checked the server code personally?
Is there any neutral instance, that checks the server code after every patch and ensures no manipulation in between?
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
Cryptic is greedy, for sure. I highly doubt they're committing some sort of fraud, though. They're not stupid (the sort of fines/jail time you could get for that in the U.S. is staggering).
Also, the burden of proof is on YOU if you think something fishy is going on. Until you bring such proof, it's fair to assume Cryptic is on the up-and-up with this.
Please explain me:
How do you know, lockboxes work random?
This thread is full of lockbox specialists, and I wonder if they have checked the server code personally?
Is there any neutral instance, that checks the server code after every patch and ensures no manipulation in between?
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
I can offer the following:
I've opened a few hundred boxes.
I've won two ships (the D'kora and Narcine)
While the sample size is tiny, it's consistent with the "generally posted" drop rate of *average* 1 per 200 boxes. (Do a bit of googling). There are plenty of people who've run trials or monitored the opening of real boxes (collating others results).
What evidence do you have that Cryptic are manipulating this to be anything else? It would not serve their interests to do so, which is my main reason for accepting the above odds; 1/200 is common enough to be possible, but rare enough that only mega-spenders can drive the probability high. What would they gain by lowering the odds?
As was pointed out earlier in this thread, if you're a space whale, opening hundreds of boxes in rapid succession would produce the observed string of success results; what that observation does not tell you is how many boxes that "winner" is opening to get the result.
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
On Tribble, it's a lot simpler to explain how lockboxes work.
There was some talk months ago that the 'professional' Lockbox openers do so at specific times within the hour. That would only be pertinent if the seed for the pseudo-random number generator by time.
In LotRO a few years ago there was much speculation that the seed used to generate the pseudo-random numbers was based upon some sort of internal Character ID number. If that were the case that would be pertinent why some characters have what seems like lousy luck with getting any of larger prizes.
Still another seed was using say like the number of milliseconds since the beginning of the computer age (was generally January 1, 1970).
Any company using a pseudo-random number generator will never tell you what the mechanism is to provide the seed to that generator.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Please explain me:
How do you know, lockboxes work random?
This thread is full of lockbox specialists, and I wonder if they have checked the server code personally?
Is there any neutral instance, that checks the server code after every patch and ensures no manipulation in between?
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
Nobody here has ever seen the code, of course, and nobody ever will. But there's - apart from the fact that the burden of proof is on others - a good many arguments to be made for it being probable that the drop is indeed purely random:
1) It is the easiest to program. Less work for Cryptic. Just tell your RNG the odds and he will tell you the outcome.
2) It is what it is advertised to be - no legal risks. Yes, companies try to find loopholes to increase revenue, but not all do, and even those who do will prefer the legal way as often as possible. Being a 24/7 cheat is just tedious, always the danger of getting caught, always having to keep in mind the things that are not as you say so you don't slip up, ... So yes, even "evil" companies will be honest in the most things they do.
3) There is no conceivable significant gain from not using randomness. Yes, regular "floaters" are nice and too many at a time may be annoying, but here the large numbers of boxes opened will work that out most of the time.
On the other hand, I have yet to read any compelling argument to not believe them. I am not asking for proof - nobody can give that - but a reasonable doubt. Simple observation of "I know a guy who opened 3000 boxes and got nada on ships" would indeed be enough - it is improbably enough to not happen, but a more controlled experiment than just saying would be helpful here. And don't forget that even the extremely unlikely is bound to happen, if only enough people try it. Like the lottery from earlier in the thread with a winning chance of only 1 in 14 million will produce winners all the time because millions of people are playing. And if you buy as many lockboxes as you "theoretically" need to get one ship, you will have a roughly 36% chance (closing in on 1/e) to get none.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Comments
I guess when you aren't really going after ec with a high priority and from time to time buy seemingly minor stuff (it adds up), it may feel like it. None of my toons is substantially over 100M (if I would combine them of course it'd be way more), but I probably earned multiples of it, but there's the odd doff for a couple millions, a "we get the starbase tier V done in 15 minutes" shopping spree etc. So you may feel like 400M is out of reach, but it can easily be done with some focusing.
IMO, you feel very wrongly there. A properly regulated lottery does NOT care who already won and who didn't - otherwise there would be ways to game the system and it would stop being a lottery. And since a completely random setup is also the easiest to implement, most of the theories that whoever makes whatever lottery does twist it a bit are unfounded.
One problem here is that humans do not have a working feeling about randomness - and that's by evolution. An important survival trait is spotting patterns within our world, so we are condidtioned to always look for them, even if they're not there. And so many things that are random feel "rigged".
So it often turns up. When Bridge (the card game) tournament had hands drawn by a computer, players complained that the algorithm may be wrong because the number of very good hands was completely dissimilar from everything they've known over the years. Looking into it, it was found out that "hand shuffled" cards are just not random enough. Similarily, iTunes had to change its "random play" function to a more complicated less random algorithm because people didn't feel like it was random that they got so many songs from the same artist in such a short time - and similar issues.
In my eyes you can say "lottery" all right, because for almost all intents and purposes from a player's POV it is. It cannot be from Cryptic's side for legal reasons, so they don't like the term. But that's legalese that's not really of interest to a player.
Also: the "big guys" play hundreds of games in a very short amount of time. Independent games at that (your chances of getting something out of box 17 do not change with what you got from boxes 1-16). While lotteries are also independent, they are only this in between weeks. In a single draw you won't win twice unless you entered the same numbers multiple times. (This in turn increases your winning chances, so if you play 10 times a week, you have the ration down to about 1:5600). But when somebody is opening hundreds of boxes with only mouseclicking on them as quickly as possible, him winning twice in 5 minutes is already analogous to multiple years having passed between lottery wins.
With the current 15% off Master Key maybe I should by $2,000 worth of 'em and try my luck....
Or y'know not do this and spend it on something more valuable and lasting.
Not saying that I never buy keys or anything, but just saying that I don't expect to win anything either. At this point, I'm just buying up lobi slowly but surely.
I'd say just keep your eyes for ships from the C-Store that you want to buy. Yes, it's really shady that Cryptic declined to an endgame Connie all of these years only to release one in a lockbox. But what do you expect from a company that can't even be up front about their giveaway/promotions. They just don't care.
Like paperclips?
On lockboxes: anticipate lobi, and getting some towards getting something cool in that store. Actually getting anything else is a bonus.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
I have never bothered opening lockboxes and am happy to use c-store and event ships, I don't fare any worse then some other dude who has a lockbox ship.
if all players were to stop trying to win lockbox ships by stop opening lockboxes and refuse to pay the extortionate exchange prices you might see some changes.
as long as there are players out there that are willing to gamble or pay through the nose for lockbox ships don't expect to see any changes, as long as the lockbox money is flowing cryptic are unlikely to change anything.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I'm with you.
Sorry, I usually try to be nice and offer help, but this guy is either a liar or just plain stupid.
Ok you didn't win a ship prize from keys, just bad luck. Fair enough.
So you find it hard to earn EC, ok maybe a reasonable complain were you a 1 month AOY newbie. But you're a 6-7 year veteran, how have you never saved up any ec on any of your characters!
Now the real kicker....you're either subbed or a lifer as you get a 500 zen per month stipend. What the hell is your problem! You get free currency given to you every month for crying out loud. Over the course of 6 years you could have earned 36,000 zen, plenty to buy a lockbox ship. How have you not already realised that it's better sense to just buy off the exchange!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Search for: Kelvin Timeline Heavy Command Cruiser
It means he was a grunt. An infantryman with the army. He rattled off a bunch of **** that has no relevance to his laziness when it comes to writing. And as a fellow former infantryman, I have to say this. For someone who was in the military, where they drill discipline into a person repeatedly, as well as try to instill a sense of pride and attention to detail, OP seems to have failed and forgotten a lot.
To the OP:
1. It's like making your bed in the morning. Good habits, discipline. Write like a 5 year old(which you did), expect to get corrected on it. And instead of ******** about it, work at getting better, so that you get treated better.
2. Military service is irrelevant to the thread.
3. There's no reason to tilt over a GAME. You can't control anyone else. All you can do is control yourself and your behavior.
4. Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is more durable. You have to start somewhere, and keep "soldiering on" to get somewhere in the game. Make something a routine until it becomes second nature. Throwing in the towel, tapping out, then whining about it like a baby-back ***** is a bad attitude, and wastes time that could be spent better.
5. Spend within your means. Don't be that fuzzy private fresh out of BCT, blowing all your money on hookers and a small **** syndrome truck.
6. Get in the front leaning rest position, and beat your face until I get tired. Then drink water and recover.
Holy Grail of Gamification is Addiction | 5 Ways to Accomplisch | and the Psychology of Freemium
I'm with you. Like I said, assuming $100 = ~600,000,000 EC (6 mil per key x 100), spending $3,000 would have netted him 18,000,000,000 EC. It's getting progressively harder to believe in all his 7 years playing, he never realized he could just sell keys. Or to believe the entire account, for that matter.
And this is without the benefit of a monthly stipend as I'm not a LTS. I just can't believe that someone that claims to have been playing since the first days of beta doesn't have 250M EC. It's just not realistic.
How do you know, lockboxes work random?
This thread is full of lockbox specialists, and I wonder if they have checked the server code personally?
Is there any neutral instance, that checks the server code after every patch and ensures no manipulation in between?
And don't say "... on tribble". it's a completely different server with different code running that you also didn't check.
All we have is Craptics word, and everyone knows, how much of worth it has....
Holy Grail of Gamification is Addiction | 5 Ways to Accomplisch | and the Psychology of Freemium
Cryptic is greedy, for sure. I highly doubt they're committing some sort of fraud, though. They're not stupid (the sort of fines/jail time you could get for that in the U.S. is staggering).
Also, the burden of proof is on YOU if you think something fishy is going on. Until you bring such proof, it's fair to assume Cryptic is on the up-and-up with this.
I can offer the following:
I've opened a few hundred boxes.
I've won two ships (the D'kora and Narcine)
While the sample size is tiny, it's consistent with the "generally posted" drop rate of *average* 1 per 200 boxes. (Do a bit of googling). There are plenty of people who've run trials or monitored the opening of real boxes (collating others results).
What evidence do you have that Cryptic are manipulating this to be anything else? It would not serve their interests to do so, which is my main reason for accepting the above odds; 1/200 is common enough to be possible, but rare enough that only mega-spenders can drive the probability high. What would they gain by lowering the odds?
As was pointed out earlier in this thread, if you're a space whale, opening hundreds of boxes in rapid succession would produce the observed string of success results; what that observation does not tell you is how many boxes that "winner" is opening to get the result.
On Tribble, it's a lot simpler to explain how lockboxes work.
if you are opening 10-15 boxes, forget it, dont expect it, just more lobi.
they nerfed drop rate on ship from boxes about 2-3 years ago, lot smaller chance to win.
only time when you are lucky, when it is on first day of new lockboxes, then after that, drop rates become harder to get.
just when I thought my loadout was weird, and suboptimal.....
In LotRO a few years ago there was much speculation that the seed used to generate the pseudo-random numbers was based upon some sort of internal Character ID number. If that were the case that would be pertinent why some characters have what seems like lousy luck with getting any of larger prizes.
Still another seed was using say like the number of milliseconds since the beginning of the computer age (was generally January 1, 1970).
Any company using a pseudo-random number generator will never tell you what the mechanism is to provide the seed to that generator.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Nobody here has ever seen the code, of course, and nobody ever will. But there's - apart from the fact that the burden of proof is on others - a good many arguments to be made for it being probable that the drop is indeed purely random:
1) It is the easiest to program. Less work for Cryptic. Just tell your RNG the odds and he will tell you the outcome.
2) It is what it is advertised to be - no legal risks. Yes, companies try to find loopholes to increase revenue, but not all do, and even those who do will prefer the legal way as often as possible. Being a 24/7 cheat is just tedious, always the danger of getting caught, always having to keep in mind the things that are not as you say so you don't slip up, ... So yes, even "evil" companies will be honest in the most things they do.
3) There is no conceivable significant gain from not using randomness. Yes, regular "floaters" are nice and too many at a time may be annoying, but here the large numbers of boxes opened will work that out most of the time.
On the other hand, I have yet to read any compelling argument to not believe them. I am not asking for proof - nobody can give that - but a reasonable doubt. Simple observation of "I know a guy who opened 3000 boxes and got nada on ships" would indeed be enough - it is improbably enough to not happen, but a more controlled experiment than just saying would be helpful here. And don't forget that even the extremely unlikely is bound to happen, if only enough people try it. Like the lottery from earlier in the thread with a winning chance of only 1 in 14 million will produce winners all the time because millions of people are playing. And if you buy as many lockboxes as you "theoretically" need to get one ship, you will have a roughly 36% chance (closing in on 1/e) to get none.