They've become way too dependent on people throwing Zen away on (undisclosed) chances on maybe winning something. From what I've heard, they don't sell even on the exchange like they used to. Haven't for some time. Once in a great while makes it an event, a constant barrage of "throw your Zen out the window, and no, by the way, we won't tell you what your chances are of winning" is obviously going to get old eventually.
I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster - they themselves, I imagine, would argue differently were the tables turned. It is also my understanding that lotteries and casinos in most jurisdictions are required by law to disclose their odds - why should it be any different here?
Also, quite aside from the in-universe logical inconsistency that is the lobi store (much of its contents would be far better situated in various reputations' dilithium stores), you have the stark fact that if you use the most conservative return estimate (1 key = 4 lobi) and a per-key real-money cost of US$1.25, the costs of many items actually end up approaching if not exceeding those of complete games.
Average is 5 Lobi per box. 4 is the minimum. Lobi Store is still way too expensive, especially for a single Character unlock.
The Consoles, Space Weapons, and Ground Weapons/Armor you can't even sell on the Exchange (Bind on Acquire).
Until the last two sets, all Space Sets were of Rare (Blue) Quality. Really?? 40 Keys worth of Lobi (~$40 or 200 Million EC) for one piece of Rare Equipment!!!
'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.'
Average is 5 Lobi per box. 4 is the minimum. Lobi Store is still way too expensive, especially for a single Character unlock.
The Consoles, Space Weapons, and Ground Weapons/Armor you can't even sell on the Exchange (Bind on Acquire).
Until the last two sets, all Space Sets were of Rare (Blue) Quality. Really?? 40 Keys worth of Lobi (~$40 or 200 Million EC) for one piece of Rare Equipment!!!
No doubt.... The Lobi Consortium, making extreme high-end brand companies blush since the early 22nd century. Abject, naked greed - the organization likes to take credit for inventing the concept as a business practice.
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While having the newer ones be purple from the outset is very nice, make no mistake -- the Lobi space equipment is the top tier of the game. With account bound currency and bind on pick up items, these are very deliberately outside of the in-game economy, the pay-to-win goodies Cryptic always makes real money off of.
The Xindi set is pretty much the defining core of my Narcine build (set bonuses are excellent and it includes the only auto-turret in the game) and the Sphere Builder set is very, very punishing while easily blending into existing anti-proton builds. Honestly, I can't imagine buying a lobi ship to sell on the exchange for mere ec before buying (and reveling in) pretty much every single lobi store ship gear set first.
I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown, but you can enter into this pact as an informed participant.
A gamble is still a gamble. I guess if people don't mind throwing money away on these things it's OK by me. I just feel like the pace of gamble box things is accelerating. Promo boxes and key sales, extension of sales. It's like they are having to push harder.
I don't mind special lock box ships. It's a workaround for getting my KDF characters new ships. There are so many z-store ships my feds can or have gotten so any special lock box ships go to my KDFs.
My thoughts on a couple of issues:
•If they disclose the "odds", players who open 1,000 boxes and get nothing will complain.
•Maybe they make it so only characters over level 18 can open the gamble boxes? :P
I put almost 2 million refined dilithium on pheonix boxes, thats 6600zen at the time, In return i got got over 300 boxes to use and got:
No ultra rares or epics.
50+ very rares.
140+ rares.
270+ uncommons.
The percentage chance on those two rarities must be very low, however i made this choice willingly because getting starship upgrades plus other things like RMC and certain weapons and then the chance of getting a special ship was greater in these boxes than spending 6600zen on 60 keys for the latest lockbox and getting less value from them.
In this case the odds were not my favor but that's okay, coming away with some much needed upgrades and a few toys was my primary reason.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I converted ca. 3.5 million Dilithium to Phoenix boxes. I got 1 Epic token (YAY me! But I traded it for 2 UR ones), and am currently sitting on ca. 1,400 Phoenix Upgrades (a bit less, probably, as I consumed a few already).
I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown.
Great job at turning your entire argument into an ad hominem. shadowfirefly00 had a good point, though, not just in the USA, but in many civilized countries, companies that deal in gambling are obligated, by Law, to publish the odds. Naturally, Cryptic found a way to sleaze out from under there, by pretending the Grand Prize is just a byproduct of the lockbox content. I doubt that argument would really hold up in Court, if it ever came to that; but no one would take 'em there, of course.
How is it an ad hominem? I described a possible outlook people running these might hold and the factual environment that might give rise to that outlook. We don't have precise odds tables but a good understanding of them can be had for very little effort. Having seen cases where the direct odds tables are made available in other games, I'd point it doesn't significantly change the behavior of the participants. Many of them still won't read those table at all and even fewer can grasp that when told point blank the chance is 1 in 200 that doesn't mean opening 200 boxes will guarantee success.
Out of curiosity I converted dil to zen and got a infinity r&d box, then copied the character over to tribble until I had 64 boxes. Those have a regular price of 160 Euros and - not surprised - I got nothing but Lobi and mats. Mind you, not even enough Lobi to buy a Lobi store ship and such a ship would then sell for around 300 million EC.
If you look at either real currency or in-game currency, playing with those boxes always leads to a terrible pay-out.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
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Both on Lobi and odds, it does not pay to open boxes. For r n D packs it is 10 Lobi and about a 1 in 100 chance. But someone could open 1 pack and get a ship or 200 and get none. 100 packs times 16 million ec is 1.6 billion which could get you a ship on the exchange. Problem is, if lots of people did not gamble then there would be fewer ships on the exchange and the prices would go up. The fact that Lobi ships sell for as cheap as they do tells me a lot of people gamble a lot on boxes and packs.
the Lobi space equipment is the top tier of the game.
uh, no, it's not...very FEW of the gear pieces in there are actually GOOD - most are just average, beaten out by free gear you can pick up from missions, to outright TRIBBLE *cough*elachi subspace torpedo*cough*tethered quantum mines*cough*
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
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I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown.
Great job at turning your entire argument into an ad hominem. shadowfirefly00 had a good point, though, not just in the USA, but in many civilized countries, companies that deal in gambling are obligated, by Law, to publish the odds. Naturally, Cryptic found a way to sleaze out from under there, by pretending the Grand Prize is just a byproduct of the lockbox content. I doubt that argument would really hold up in Court, if it ever came to that; but no one would take 'em there, of course.
Gambling laws don't usually cover stuff that isnt gambling for money. Think of other games like Fallout: New Vegas ot The Witcher 3 which have gambling in them.
the Lobi space equipment is the top tier of the game.
uh, no, it's not...very FEW of the gear pieces in there are actually GOOD - most are just average, beaten out by free gear you can pick up from missions, to outright **** *cough*elachi subspace torpedo*cough*tethered quantum mines*cough*
Dunno about that. Delphic set is pretty darn good.
the Lobi space equipment is the top tier of the game.
uh, no, it's not...very FEW of the gear pieces in there are actually GOOD - most are just average, beaten out by free gear you can pick up from missions, to outright **** *cough*elachi subspace torpedo*cough*tethered quantum mines*cough*
Is the Elachi torpedo really that bad? I mean, it makes up part of a set, doesn't it?
I'd say Elachi torp is okay-ish by itself. 2-piece comes with a (small) Disruptor dmg boost and some extra shield. I have the full set (all Epic, of course), but rarely find myself slotting it. I'm usually getting a lot more from the 2-piece bonus of the set with the Hydrodynamic Compensator in it, than from the Elachi set. And 'Haywire' procs too little, imho, to warrant slotting a stray single cannon.
I'd forgotten I had the Elachi set full-gold blah, blah, blah. It's simply integral to my Sheshar being the complete Elachi experience. That ship and the t6 pilot destroyer are both simply a joy to fly as all-Elachi-all-the-time builds.
And yeah, there are a number of lobi-only consoles that are crown jewels among consoles. The weapons are merely good in most cases, but when the two do line up? BOOM. The Sphere Builder trio rocks on toast.
I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown.
Great job at turning your entire argument into an ad hominem. shadowfirefly00 had a good point, though, not just in the USA, but in many civilized countries, companies that deal in gambling are obligated, by Law, to publish the odds. Naturally, Cryptic found a way to sleaze out from under there, by pretending the Grand Prize is just a byproduct of the lockbox content. I doubt that argument would really hold up in Court, if it ever came to that; but no one would take 'em there, of course.
Gambling laws don't usually cover stuff that isnt gambling for money. Think of other games like Fallout: New Vegas ot The Witcher 3 which have gambling in them.
Lockboxes aren't gambling at all, since they all contain items. They're like trading card packs, you know there are cards in every pack but you don't know which cards until you buy and open them.
I for one am curious as to why the relevant people feel that actively not disclosing the odds even passes ethical muster
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown.
Great job at turning your entire argument into an ad hominem. shadowfirefly00 had a good point, though, not just in the USA, but in many civilized countries, companies that deal in gambling are obligated, by Law, to publish the odds. Naturally, Cryptic found a way to sleaze out from under there, by pretending the Grand Prize is just a byproduct of the lockbox content. I doubt that argument would really hold up in Court, if it ever came to that; but no one would take 'em there, of course.
Gambling laws don't usually cover stuff that isnt gambling for money. Think of other games like Fallout: New Vegas ot The Witcher 3 which have gambling in them.
Lockboxes aren't gambling at all, since they all contain items. They're like trading card packs, you know there are cards in every pack but you don't know which cards until you buy and open them.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
It is the best analog to them, really. That being said, most (maybe all?) trading card companies post odds of rarity distribution on the large boxes of packs.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
Not giving the odds of winning means they can alter said odds whenever they feel like it, as well. No one can cry foul about it, either, since they never stated what the odds would be in the first place.
Some people think that's a shady practice, and it's hard for me to argue that it isn't.
Without posting fixed odds, they can change things at will. If too many ships are dropping, they could always lower the drop rate. Without clear communication, they can do just about anything with the drop tables.
Comments
Also, quite aside from the in-universe logical inconsistency that is the lobi store (much of its contents would be far better situated in various reputations' dilithium stores), you have the stark fact that if you use the most conservative return estimate (1 key = 4 lobi) and a per-key real-money cost of US$1.25, the costs of many items actually end up approaching if not exceeding those of complete games.
The Consoles, Space Weapons, and Ground Weapons/Armor you can't even sell on the Exchange (Bind on Acquire).
Until the last two sets, all Space Sets were of Rare (Blue) Quality. Really?? 40 Keys worth of Lobi (~$40 or 200 Million EC) for one piece of Rare Equipment!!!
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.'
No doubt.... The Lobi Consortium, making extreme high-end brand companies blush since the early 22nd century. Abject, naked greed - the organization likes to take credit for inventing the concept as a business practice.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
The Xindi set is pretty much the defining core of my Narcine build (set bonuses are excellent and it includes the only auto-turret in the game) and the Sphere Builder set is very, very punishing while easily blending into existing anti-proton builds. Honestly, I can't imagine buying a lobi ship to sell on the exchange for mere ec before buying (and reveling in) pretty much every single lobi store ship gear set first.
I'm going with "because no one makes you pull the slot machine handle" and "I don't feel its an ethical necessity to protect the stupid from themselves." People largely exposed the nature and distribution of the rewards table with experimentation and have made those results publicly available for years now. It may require some rudimentary search skills and a willingness to read for 3-5 minutes before choosing to throw money at an unknown, but you can enter into this pact as an informed participant.
My thoughts on a couple of issues:
•If they disclose the "odds", players who open 1,000 boxes and get nothing will complain.
•Maybe they make it so only characters over level 18 can open the gamble boxes? :P
No ultra rares or epics.
50+ very rares.
140+ rares.
270+ uncommons.
The percentage chance on those two rarities must be very low, however i made this choice willingly because getting starship upgrades plus other things like RMC and certain weapons and then the chance of getting a special ship was greater in these boxes than spending 6600zen on 60 keys for the latest lockbox and getting less value from them.
In this case the odds were not my favor but that's okay, coming away with some much needed upgrades and a few toys was my primary reason.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Great job at turning your entire argument into an ad hominem.
If you look at either real currency or in-game currency, playing with those boxes always leads to a terrible pay-out.
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100 packs times 16 million ec is 1.6 billion which could get you a ship on the exchange. Problem is, if lots of people did not gamble then there would be fewer ships on the exchange and the prices would go up. The fact that Lobi ships sell for as cheap as they do tells me a lot of people gamble a lot on boxes and packs.
uh, no, it's not...very FEW of the gear pieces in there are actually GOOD - most are just average, beaten out by free gear you can pick up from missions, to outright TRIBBLE *cough*elachi subspace torpedo*cough*tethered quantum mines*cough*
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
This is true.
Dunno about that. Delphic set is pretty darn good.
I'd say Elachi torp is okay-ish by itself. 2-piece comes with a (small) Disruptor dmg boost and some extra shield. I have the full set (all Epic, of course), but rarely find myself slotting it. I'm usually getting a lot more from the 2-piece bonus of the set with the Hydrodynamic Compensator in it, than from the Elachi set. And 'Haywire' procs too little, imho, to warrant slotting a stray single cannon.
And yeah, there are a number of lobi-only consoles that are crown jewels among consoles. The weapons are merely good in most cases, but when the two do line up? BOOM. The Sphere Builder trio rocks on toast.
It is the best analog to them, really. That being said, most (maybe all?) trading card companies post odds of rarity distribution on the large boxes of packs.
Some people think that's a shady practice, and it's hard for me to argue that it isn't.