As said, it all depends on what you're opening them for. If you're doing it for The Rare Ship... no, it's not worth it. If you're happy with anything that comes out of the box... go for it. /shrug Personally, I would say that opening them just for the Lobi isn't worth it, either. Save the EC/sell the keys, and buy the lobi item from the exchange/another player. As long as it's not BoP, of course.
I open 20 or 30 boxes each time they release a new one, for the entertainment. And I use Dil->Zen or EC to buy the keys, not $. Gear boxes? Great, something to stick on one of my alts. Traits? Meh, sell some, use some. Mining Tickets? Save 'em for a Dil weekend. Lobi? Buy a ship every so often. Etc, etc.
(It's a good thing that I don't open them for The Rare Ship, since I've gotten just one in all the boxes I've opened. And I've gotten enough Lobi to buy several ships over the years, so it's a bunch of boxes.)
...opening Random Whatevers can be fun. Heck, I've bought cheap boxes of old CCG's (for $5-10) just for opening all the packs. And some of those games have even been entertaining, when I could find a second player who'd care.
They're called gamble boxes for a reason. The answer to your question depends entirely on how lucky you feel.
1) They are not gamble boxes. You get SOMETHING in each box.
2) How you FEEL is irrelivant. If you need lobi for a console or the boo gun, they are worth the resources. Otherwise, let the fools waste money praying to RNGeesus.
This is the craziest way to rationalize gambling.
There is no rationalizing gambling. It is an irrational activity done based on feelings which is based on luck. Rational has nothing to do with any of it.
"I always get something" is a bizarre way to rationalize gambling though.
Not really. If that something is something you want anyways...than it ain't gambling. So you enter a everyone wins raffle for instance. The lowest prize in the raffle is a pen that they got donated to them. Not a cheap pen...but a nice one because they had the company that makes these pens donate a bunch of them. One that you would pay 40 bucks for. And the other prizes are bigger and nice and all things you would also want. The raffle costs 25 bucks a ticket. So if you buy a ticket, in this case, you have exactly zero chance of losing. If you want the lobi crystals for lobi items that are BTC, than there is no losing.
You're talking about a very different situation where the junk prizes are both desired and worth more than the cost of the gambletoken. In STO, there are very few of the junk prizes that even come close to having an expected sale price exceeding that of a key, using your example it would be as though you had no interest in pens and wound up "winning" a 5-cent pen.
Attempting to pass on this comparison on as legit is either dangerously misguided or terribly deceptive.
I'm honestly trying to understand how this raffle-gambler in your analogy can exist in the real world and I can only come to the conclusion they're a somewhat dim fellow who doesn't realize the large number of prize pens, with the "worth 40 bucks MSRP" sticker on the packaging, are actually 5-cent pens. Moreover, when they win this worthless pen, they tell themself, "it's not a total loss, you just made 40 bucks from a 25 buck investment" to soften the blow to their ego, and walk away feeling accomplished for making such a wise decision. This is the type of person who winds up getting a harsh reality check at some point, unless they can insulate themselves from reality for the rest of their lives.
I have to be honest, it's still not making sense, surely you aren't trying to suggest this is how gamblers think? Maybe I need a better example to really get a grasp of the thinking process.
Opening lock boxes used to be a viable strategy if you were interested in getting something big. Since the release of the Infinity box, prices for most items have dropped though so it's better to just sell the keys - as long as not too many people start doing that and fewer people opening boxes of course.
Infinity was good for the playerbase in general, but bad for box openers - at least in my case.
Because they are fools. I mean I love them to bits because this is one the few games I have seen where the whales are content for the average players...but they are fools nonetheless. I suppose if the messaging to properly use the lockboxes were to be taken in, there could be an issue...but the nice thing is, fools never listen...so that won't happen. This messaging is to protect the little guys.
I'd not call the whales fools unless they are buying 2000 keys and can't afford to buy food/utilities/etc. Some people (sadly not I) can drop a couple hundred bucks and not have a second thought.
I could say the same about people who pay $600/mo for a car payment; 'they're fools' but if they got the income for it, go for it. At least the STO whales benefit the community by supplying ships to the Exchange.
Small mistake there...but the T6 connie comes from a promo box...not a lockbox. Those have a 1 in a 100ish chance of a drop but come from a box that is currently selling for over 25 mil ec each. So assuming the 25 mil price point, for 1.4 bil EC, you can get 56 boxes (or sell that many if you have them for that amount). Chances of winning a connie off that is MUCH lower that 71%.
Yeah, yeah, glad 2 people just had to point out my mistake. And then didn't bother to do the correct math.
I'll just use your 56 boxes, 1% chance and 25M... 43%
So 1.4B buying off the Exchange or $140 in real money from C-store.
If you aimed for 75% chance you'd have to buy 138 R&D boxes for 3.45B (Exchange) or $345 (funny how those prices are the same numbers)
They're called gamble boxes for a reason. The answer to your question depends entirely on how lucky you feel.
1) They are not gamble boxes. You get SOMETHING in each box.
2) How you FEEL is irrelivant. If you need lobi for a console or the boo gun, they are worth the resources. Otherwise, let the fools waste money praying to RNGeesus.
This is the craziest way to rationalize gambling.
There is no rationalizing gambling. It is an irrational activity done based on feelings which is based on luck. Rational has nothing to do with any of it.
"I always get something" is a bizarre way to rationalize gambling though.
Not really. If that something is something you want anyways...than it ain't gambling. So you enter a everyone wins raffle for instance. The lowest prize in the raffle is a pen that they got donated to them. Not a cheap pen...but a nice one because they had the company that makes these pens donate a bunch of them. One that you would pay 40 bucks for. And the other prizes are bigger and nice and all things you would also want. The raffle costs 25 bucks a ticket. So if you buy a ticket, in this case, you have exactly zero chance of losing. If you want the lobi crystals for lobi items that are BTC, than there is no losing.
You're talking about a very different situation where the junk prizes are both desired and worth more than the cost of the gambletoken. In STO, there are very few of the junk prizes that even come close to having an expected sale price exceeding that of a key, using your example it would be as though you had no interest in pens and wound up "winning" a 5-cent pen.
Attempting to pass on this comparison on as legit is either dangerously misguided or terribly deceptive.
I'm honestly trying to understand how this raffle-gambler in your analogy can exist in the real world and I can only come to the conclusion they're a somewhat dim fellow who doesn't realize the large number of prize pens, with the "worth 40 bucks MSRP" sticker on the packaging, are actually 5-cent pens. Moreover, when they win this worthless pen, they tell themself, "it's not a total loss, you just made 40 bucks from a 25 buck investment" to soften the blow to their ego, and walk away feeling accomplished for making such a wise decision. This is the type of person who winds up getting a harsh reality check at some point, unless they can insulate themselves from reality for the rest of their lives.
I have to be honest, it's still not making sense, surely you aren't trying to suggest this is how gamblers think? Maybe I need a better example to really get a grasp of the thinking process.
The value you place of a piece of equipment that is considered some of the BiC and bound to character is pretty subjective. So...no, the lobi are not junk prizes. They have a value that is dependent on how much you value those BtC items. If you do not prize them at all..than lobi is pretty worthless based on what the lobi ships sell for. If you however DO value those BiC items...the lobi can have a much higher value...and hence worth the cost of keys to get.
You're making it seem like you win lobi items in every lock box.
What exactly do you think the people buying the keys off the Exchange do with them? They open boxes with them of course. So long as keys keep selling on the exchange SOMEBODY is opening boxes, all other factors aside.
While it's likely most keys in existence at the moment will eventually be eaten, it's a mistake to conclude keys bought from the exchange are being eaten by the buyers or to be certain they will be eaten.
The volume of trade in the key market has been heavily influenced by years of steady hype among traders to apply on it the "buy low, sell high" approach, as a means of building space wealth, due to its relatively simple emergent dynamics and predictable cycles.
Right now, when a newly produced key is sold on the exchange, it is much more likely to be bought by someone who will relist it on the exchange at a later time than be eaten by the buyer. Keys typically change hands many times before they wind up being eaten.
The endgame on the key market seems to be: at some point a newly created key will likely never be consumed; that no matter how low the market price, it will be more profitable to attempt to sell it to someone than to eat it.
At nearly 5 million EC a pop the wise man would likely sell any keys he comes across. Zen is for ships and other stuff with specified contents. if you don't have much time then gambling may be worth a go but if you have time to grind for stuff then don't do it.
I wonder if people argued the legality of kids gambling their allowances away on baseball card packs. (Later, Magic cards, Pokemon cards, etc.....)
I got super lucky with my first few packs of Magic (beta, back in 1993) and got a Time Walk & Mox Ruby. Sold those a few years later for $300 (if only I'd waited another decade and sold them for $1k+). But I also opened packs and got total garbage rares like Lifelace, which I never played and no-one wanted. Of course, at the time, no-one knew that would happen. It was just opening packs for some of these new-fangled playing cards. $2.45/pack, back in the day. It's $4 or 5, now? Dunno, broke that habit long ago.
There are two competing schools of thought on what the value of an item is. One school believes that something is worth what you can sell it for, or sell a comparable item for. We'll call it the mark-to-market school.
The rival camp holds that an item is worth whatever you believe it is worth, for example saving portions of leftover food in jars in a shed or garage because to you, any food that touched your mouth is very valuable, and shouldn't be discarded.
The price of an item is set based directly on what it can be sold for (view from the seller). That is informed by how much people believe that item is worth (view from the buyer).
These aren't really rival schools of thought. These are rival perspectives operating within the same market principle (price maximization constrained by spending tolerances.) The food example factors in comparing the reduction in an item's worth (from the effects of preservation) to the costs of buying new food. Until it goes bad (or people give up on the hope of being practical) it hasn't reached the necessary threshold to justify a new purchase.
If the hypothetical individual in question then tries to sell their old food, then naturally there's a change in the price of the item but that's in accordance with the change in perspective from buyer to seller (one doesn't have to worry about minimizing their stated price in response to market competition with the stuff in their freezer. It's a monopoly on stored food within one's own house.)
I wonder if people argued the legality of kids gambling their allowances away on baseball card packs. (Later, Magic cards, Pokemon cards, etc.....)
And I think that's highly illustrative of the principle point in buying lock boxes. It's really not a practical exercise in buying specific ships, traits, and equipment. You buy that outright from the exchange. Now, that might not be the fun of blowing up a tactical cube in an STF. It's the fun of anticipation and of being surprised. Anything can happen and that small drama plays to a part of the human experience.
Some people won't appreciate that, but there others who do and its worth making that point to provide discussion with some context.
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The difference is that the prevailing view doesnt take into account what the seller thinks or feels about the value, it only references an outside fact - the price the market will bear. It is objective and doesnt take into account anything subjective.
The alternative view, from the rotten food hoarder or a similar person, is entirely subjective. I think, I believe, I want.
But the hoarder isn't the seller. It's an alternate viewpoint within a single economic model, a consumer for whom depreciation isn't that important.
The specific price point of a good or service is influenced by the subjective value the consumer places on it. In economics, the seller maximizes price according to constraint. Both elements factor simultaneously. So for something like a lock box (to get this tangent back onto a point of relevance) there is a certain cost to producing content and maintaining the severs necessary to deliver it. But, what we pay depends on how much we value the experience of opening those packs. The difference between limits is potential profit (which can be taken maximally until competition undercuts one's price point.)
Now of course you can have a seller set the value of an item strictly according to what they believe that item is worth (ex. a 1,000,000 EC common Mk IV phaser array) but economics no longer apply to that situation because (in eschewing two-way dynamics) it's unlikely a sale will ever be made. It's now in the realm of describing individual behavior. What they might do instead is advertise, to try to get the buyer to believe what the price point should be, but that can be taken as a secondary factor in the common economic model. It affects the buyer's principle sense of value, opening up a new feedback mechanism but not changing the core setup.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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The person who keeps all his rotten food would sell it though if someone offered a sum he thought it was worth.
That's not how economics work though. What you've created here is simply an insane situation where two crazy people have met at a unjustifiable price point for a pile of rotten food set exclusively by their deranged minds. You might hold that it's possible (though not at all plausible, and hence irrelevant to explaining mass behavior) but you've very much exited the idea that this is a school of thought.
If a school consists of you sitting in a corner then this is simply your idea. Best to present it that way.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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> @lopequil said:
> They're called gamble boxes for a reason. The answer to your question depends entirely on how lucky you feel.
Some people call them gamble boxes because they don't understand the legal definition of gambling.
Precisely. You are buying the 'license' to use a key on a box in exchange for a random item. It's a guaranteed raffle prize. Legal definition of Gambling in actual law is 'where a person places a stake (of money) in a game of chance where the person is likely to lose all the stake'. In-game playing Dabo is the only gambling which takes place (and actually has odds listed).
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
I'd argue no since lock boxes are steadily growing and replacing actual game content and rewards. You get more out of a lock box on a gamble then you do out of missions and farming in what was supposed to be an MMO. Lock boxes are increasingly being used in more games and even got Electronic Arts in to trouble recently because of the prices and grinds they setup to get hero/villain characters on a game.
Still there are forum goers on here who will argue till they're blue in the face that a company has to make money somehow. To a point that's true but you have to ask what is the point of being a game company when all you are doing is peddling lock boxes over more engaging new content in a massive multiplayer game. Screams bad choices to me and if it wasn't for the Star Trek IP this game would be at the bottom of the ocean.
It IS gambling by the historical and commonly understood definition of the word, just not illegal gambling as defined by the laws of the countries in which STO operates.
Just like you can murder someone and be charged with the legal crime of manslaughter. It is still murder.
Comments
I open 20 or 30 boxes each time they release a new one, for the entertainment. And I use Dil->Zen or EC to buy the keys, not $. Gear boxes? Great, something to stick on one of my alts. Traits? Meh, sell some, use some. Mining Tickets? Save 'em for a Dil weekend. Lobi? Buy a ship every so often. Etc, etc.
(It's a good thing that I don't open them for The Rare Ship, since I've gotten just one in all the boxes I've opened. And I've gotten enough Lobi to buy several ships over the years, so it's a bunch of boxes.)
...opening Random Whatevers can be fun. Heck, I've bought cheap boxes of old CCG's (for $5-10) just for opening all the packs. And some of those games have even been entertaining, when I could find a second player who'd care.
You're talking about a very different situation where the junk prizes are both desired and worth more than the cost of the gambletoken. In STO, there are very few of the junk prizes that even come close to having an expected sale price exceeding that of a key, using your example it would be as though you had no interest in pens and wound up "winning" a 5-cent pen.
Attempting to pass on this comparison on as legit is either dangerously misguided or terribly deceptive.
I'm honestly trying to understand how this raffle-gambler in your analogy can exist in the real world and I can only come to the conclusion they're a somewhat dim fellow who doesn't realize the large number of prize pens, with the "worth 40 bucks MSRP" sticker on the packaging, are actually 5-cent pens. Moreover, when they win this worthless pen, they tell themself, "it's not a total loss, you just made 40 bucks from a 25 buck investment" to soften the blow to their ego, and walk away feeling accomplished for making such a wise decision. This is the type of person who winds up getting a harsh reality check at some point, unless they can insulate themselves from reality for the rest of their lives.
I have to be honest, it's still not making sense, surely you aren't trying to suggest this is how gamblers think? Maybe I need a better example to really get a grasp of the thinking process.
Infinity was good for the playerbase in general, but bad for box openers - at least in my case.
I'd not call the whales fools unless they are buying 2000 keys and can't afford to buy food/utilities/etc. Some people (sadly not I) can drop a couple hundred bucks and not have a second thought.
I could say the same about people who pay $600/mo for a car payment; 'they're fools' but if they got the income for it, go for it. At least the STO whales benefit the community by supplying ships to the Exchange.
Yeah, yeah, glad 2 people just had to point out my mistake.
I'll just use your 56 boxes, 1% chance and 25M... 43%
So 1.4B buying off the Exchange or $140 in real money from C-store.
If you aimed for 75% chance you'd have to buy 138 R&D boxes for 3.45B (Exchange) or $345 (funny how those prices are the same numbers)
You're making it seem like you win lobi items in every lock box.
While it's likely most keys in existence at the moment will eventually be eaten, it's a mistake to conclude keys bought from the exchange are being eaten by the buyers or to be certain they will be eaten.
The volume of trade in the key market has been heavily influenced by years of steady hype among traders to apply on it the "buy low, sell high" approach, as a means of building space wealth, due to its relatively simple emergent dynamics and predictable cycles.
Right now, when a newly produced key is sold on the exchange, it is much more likely to be bought by someone who will relist it on the exchange at a later time than be eaten by the buyer. Keys typically change hands many times before they wind up being eaten.
The endgame on the key market seems to be: at some point a newly created key will likely never be consumed; that no matter how low the market price, it will be more profitable to attempt to sell it to someone than to eat it.
I got super lucky with my first few packs of Magic (beta, back in 1993) and got a Time Walk & Mox Ruby. Sold those a few years later for $300 (if only I'd waited another decade and sold them for $1k+). But I also opened packs and got total garbage rares like Lifelace, which I never played and no-one wanted. Of course, at the time, no-one knew that would happen. It was just opening packs for some of these new-fangled playing cards. $2.45/pack, back in the day. It's $4 or 5, now? Dunno, broke that habit long ago.
The price of an item is set based directly on what it can be sold for (view from the seller). That is informed by how much people believe that item is worth (view from the buyer).
These aren't really rival schools of thought. These are rival perspectives operating within the same market principle (price maximization constrained by spending tolerances.) The food example factors in comparing the reduction in an item's worth (from the effects of preservation) to the costs of buying new food. Until it goes bad (or people give up on the hope of being practical) it hasn't reached the necessary threshold to justify a new purchase.
If the hypothetical individual in question then tries to sell their old food, then naturally there's a change in the price of the item but that's in accordance with the change in perspective from buyer to seller (one doesn't have to worry about minimizing their stated price in response to market competition with the stuff in their freezer. It's a monopoly on stored food within one's own house.)
And I think that's highly illustrative of the principle point in buying lock boxes. It's really not a practical exercise in buying specific ships, traits, and equipment. You buy that outright from the exchange. Now, that might not be the fun of blowing up a tactical cube in an STF. It's the fun of anticipation and of being surprised. Anything can happen and that small drama plays to a part of the human experience.
Some people won't appreciate that, but there others who do and its worth making that point to provide discussion with some context.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
But the hoarder isn't the seller. It's an alternate viewpoint within a single economic model, a consumer for whom depreciation isn't that important.
The specific price point of a good or service is influenced by the subjective value the consumer places on it. In economics, the seller maximizes price according to constraint. Both elements factor simultaneously. So for something like a lock box (to get this tangent back onto a point of relevance) there is a certain cost to producing content and maintaining the severs necessary to deliver it. But, what we pay depends on how much we value the experience of opening those packs. The difference between limits is potential profit (which can be taken maximally until competition undercuts one's price point.)
Now of course you can have a seller set the value of an item strictly according to what they believe that item is worth (ex. a 1,000,000 EC common Mk IV phaser array) but economics no longer apply to that situation because (in eschewing two-way dynamics) it's unlikely a sale will ever be made. It's now in the realm of describing individual behavior. What they might do instead is advertise, to try to get the buyer to believe what the price point should be, but that can be taken as a secondary factor in the common economic model. It affects the buyer's principle sense of value, opening up a new feedback mechanism but not changing the core setup.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
That's not how economics work though. What you've created here is simply an insane situation where two crazy people have met at a unjustifiable price point for a pile of rotten food set exclusively by their deranged minds. You might hold that it's possible (though not at all plausible, and hence irrelevant to explaining mass behavior) but you've very much exited the idea that this is a school of thought.
If a school consists of you sitting in a corner then this is simply your idea. Best to present it that way.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Precisely. You are buying the 'license' to use a key on a box in exchange for a random item. It's a guaranteed raffle prize. Legal definition of Gambling in actual law is 'where a person places a stake (of money) in a game of chance where the person is likely to lose all the stake'. In-game playing Dabo is the only gambling which takes place (and actually has odds listed).
Still there are forum goers on here who will argue till they're blue in the face that a company has to make money somehow. To a point that's true but you have to ask what is the point of being a game company when all you are doing is peddling lock boxes over more engaging new content in a massive multiplayer game. Screams bad choices to me and if it wasn't for the Star Trek IP this game would be at the bottom of the ocean.
Just like you can murder someone and be charged with the legal crime of manslaughter. It is still murder.