Don't bankrupt your EC purchasing the red boxes from the Exchange. I have blue boxes, skill boosts (for a VA...honestly) and worthless hortas to show for my trouble. To be fair, I do have Targ pups, Photonic Tribbles, and Photonic BOs. But I already had that junk from the referral program. I think the drop rate for blue boxes is somewhere extremely high, like 40%. Hortas, Gekli's, Targs, and skill boosts are like 40%. Photonic BOs, Photonic Tribbles, and DOff packs are like 15%. That leaves 5% or less for the Jem'Hadar ship, and buying 100 doesn't even guarantee you'll hit.
ANOTHER LESSON: Don't ever ever ever buy any non-reward pets in the C-Store. They'll either be released in TRIBBLE like this to be put on the Exchange for nothing, or will be given out free anyway. As for the reward pets for stuff like testing, they will eventually hit the C-Store too as they have in the past so don't bother fretting.
Also stories like the above are extremely rare. You may be led to think hope is alive. It most certainly is NOT. Don't be like me, or worse the guy who blew $750 on it (that is paycheck money for a lot of low-income people).
That leaves 5% or less for the Jem'Hadar ship, and buying 100 doesn't even guarantee you'll hit.
We are fairly confident that the actual rate is much lower, around 0.65%. If we are correct, then your probability of obtaining the ship in 100 boxes is 48%.
That means that nearly half of the people who buy 100 boxes at a cost of $125 US will not get a ship!
I think it is unethical for Cryptic not to disclose the odds up front.
I just love how people willfully blow their money on grab bags, then blame Cryptic for the temptation because they didn't get the uber rare item they wanted. Tis the season, I suppose.
Its good more people are seeing the light. The grab bags are scams. But hey if some people need to spend their entire paycheck to figure it out, lesson learned for next time.
And sadly, there will be a next time.
Fully agree. Regretably PW / Cryptic will release more money grab bags the next year, thats a fixed decission I read on the Dev blog.
What I will do is tell as much friends of mine how look at STO not to buy that junk.
Nobody forces you to play. If you don't like it, don't spend the money. That, or just do the daily race and cross your fingers. Personally, I like the gamble. Haven't got a Jemy yet, but there's still time.
I just love how people willfully blow their money on grab bags, then blame Cryptic for the temptation because they didn't get the uber rare item they wanted. Tis the season, I suppose.
And how exactly do people know it's uber rare? Nowhere does it say anything about the odds. Hindsight is 20/20.
Nobody forces you to play. If you don't like it, don't spend the money. That, or just do the daily race and cross your fingers. Personally, I like the gamble. Haven't got a Jemy yet, but there's still time.
Well, look.
That's nice but it does get in the way of the idea that everyone should have equal access to major gameplay components like ships.
I am done with games of chance in STO. I have seen the light. And they are definitely ramping this practice up. I put money into the red boxes and came away with nothing.
LESSON LEARNED THE HARD WAY! I don't care if they release the Enterprise-F or any other "exclusive" item this way, I won't go for it, I'll just make do with what I have which is pretty darn impressive.
Live and learn!
Well at least you learned right? Can't say that much most humans :rolleyes:
I have the money..but it isn't worth it to me, 20 red boxes from the "oh my bad on dimished returns" reciepts, couple blue, and a bunch of green and I've only gotten useless pets..who knows though...
Do you not get a door to the Star Trek universe that stays open for a littlle longer? Our lifetime money's just about ran out if it hasn't already. Anything beyond 2012's a bonus. Maybe a paid expansion pack? Who knows?
Which brave souls would be the first to queue up and lay down coin for that would be interesting to see.
^ This game has been far from Star Trek for a very long time...the lottery scam is the latest example. STO is not the MMO people bought a LTS for during Beta or before hand when pre-ordering. STO is a completely different creature thirsty for cash...killing the good name of Star Trek...STO is the thing Star Trek destroys in the future.
We are fairly confident that the actual rate is much lower, around 0.65%. If we are correct, then your probability of obtaining the ship in 100 boxes is 48%.
That means that nearly half of the people who buy 100 boxes at a cost of $125 US will not get a ship!
I think it is unethical for Cryptic not to disclose the odds up front.
they wont disclose odds, but its 0.65% same as all other PWE lotto-box "rare" items.
the reason not to disclose is if people know 100% fact that there is less than 1% chacne no one will buy it.
It's a pretty good sign of things to come with perfect world that rather than release good content that inspires loyalty and raises the bar, we see this kind of cash grab garbage floated out and trumped up to be somehow beneficial for the game and for it's users.
Cryptic has lost it's way, and unfortunately these grab bag cash store items are a pretty good indicator that the game will continue to move away form western standards and towards eastern free to play junk.
Perfect world games are awful substandard online money schemes with horrible grind, bare bones content and rigged pay to win pvp, it's staggering how quickly STO has made a course adjustment towards emulating this ethos and fallen into the trap of sacrificing pride in a product for a quick buck.
In four months time with the only new content on the horizon going to be a featured episode series that will likely take less than five hours to complete, I can only see further development of good content replaced with items in the cstore to reach into fans of the IP's pocket.
Where is our starbases, territory control and exploration content? the romulan faction and the rest of the Klingon faction?
Well guys I feel bad after spending only 400 C-points I got lucky and got the Bug ship and the bad thing was I was'nt trying for the ship all I wanted was the Holo bridge officer.I think I'm gonna hold my own contest when the ship is no longer available and give it away as a prize for winning.I dont need EC I have more then I need and I dont even like the ship looks or stats I prefer Cruiser class ships.I'll post in the general discussion forum when I'm gonna have the contest so look out for it.And to everyone Happy Holidays.
Do you not get a door to the Star Trek universe that stays open for a littlle longer? Our lifetime money's just about ran out if it hasn't already. Anything beyond 2012's a bonus. Maybe a paid expansion pack? Who knows?
Which brave souls would be the first to queue up and lay down coin for that would be interesting to see.
Depending on what the expansion entailed, Id more than likely shell out for it.
Well guys I feel bad after spending only 400 C-points I got lucky and got the Bug ship and the bad thing was I was'nt trying for the ship all I wanted was the Holo bridge officer.I think I'm gonna hold my own contest when the ship is no longer available and give it away as a prize for winning.I dont need EC I have more then I need and I dont even like the ship looks or stats I prefer Cruiser class ships.I'll post in the general discussion forum when I'm gonna have the contest so look out for it.And to everyone Happy Holidays.
I'm thinking this may not be straight probability but that there's some other variable like player class or how many boxes you buy at a time or what instance you're in when you buy/open them and what your difficulty setting is.
I heard there was a thread on this that's apparently gone now, indicating that this isn't a simple dice roll.
There's something odd about sdangelo's claim that the ship has cropped up among all sets of buyers. The odds should be against that unless they were doing something like setting the droprate based on your history of purchases so that light spenders get a higher droprate and heavy spenders get a lower droprate.
All i really want are the scarfs, but they made that difficult to get as well, i don't have any extra money to spend on c-points nor do i want to shell out for them, as nothing is garenteed with this event.
Though i think it is a neat idea, i find the whole thing feels riged to incouage one to buy gift boxes, as most get nothing but green boxes from the race, i think i've gotten 4 blue boxes in seven days.
giving everyone who has subscribed for the last 6 to 10 months, as well as lifers, the holo officer or the bug ship would have been a much better thank you, than the, here play or pay and you might win event, that we got.
This whole event does not keep with star trek or the christmas spirit, unless Cryptic are the Ferengie, just out to make a profit, and scew over anyone they can in the process, mostly the poor like me.
The greedier u get the less i want to spend to keep playing this game.
I honestly thought Cryptic was going to westernize PW's business model and that, among other things, they would have many times over the droprate when and if they did lottery items like this so that you'd be almost assured a win by dropping $50 in. Y'Know, like everything in the grab bag having an equal 12% chance, which remains what the absence of any odds disclosures and the C-Store text seems to imply.
That's the irksome part about D'Angelo's post yesterday -- he describes the Jem'Hadar ship as an ultra-rare item. All the data suggests it is. However, NOWHERE on the C-Store or in-game is it described as having any lower odds than the other items, like a Holographic BOff or a Gekli pet. WIth 12 items possible from a Holiday Gift Box, I'd expect a fair chance as 1 in 12 -- not less than 1 in 100. They need to fully disclose (on the C-Store page) that some items are going to appear less than others in this "randomized" grab bag or it's the definition of misleading and intellectually dishonest.
That, combined with the apparently <1% red boxes from non-C-Store in-game events, means your odds of getting a Jem'Hadar ship if you played the Q's Winter Wonderland race on one character every single day of the event are something much worse than 1 in 385.
TL/DR Constructive criticism:
* If you're going to have something in C-Store that has a randomized effect, it is essential that you say if there's a distinction in the rarity difference. That doesn't mean you have to say something like "Your odds of obtaining a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship are approximately 1 in 150." but you do have to say that it's an ultra-rare drop, whereas others are uncommon, rare, etc.
* It is important to make sure the in-game methods for obtaining this are realistic, so make sure that the odds of obtaining a Red Holiday Box are something fair (maybe 15% Red, 30% Blue, 55% Green?) so that everyone that does the missions over a reasonable time period get at least some chance to try it out without dishing out cash or grinding dilithium.
Ive yet to spend any real money or any C-Points for that matter on any of the Red Gift boxes that I picked up.
I did however dump about 30 million EC into them on the exchange and came up with nothing
I feel no pity for anyone that got so caught up in trying to find the Holy Grail that they forgo common sense and throw thousands of real dollars at nothing but lines of code.
News Flash!
You guys were warned that this was nothing but a quick cash grab scheme.
It was even speculated that the drop % for the Bug was less than 1%.
You read the horror stories about some shmoe who dumped 5000+ dollars into this bottomless grab bag pit and still not get the ship and still youre willing to try.
In the end its all on your head!
If you have that much disposable income then by all means do whatever you want with it, its your right and your business how you choose to spend your money.
But please for the love of Q stop whining on the forums about how much you spent and how many goose eggs you came up with.
I recall a series of helpful commercials that use to come on during the cartoons that I use to watch back in the early 80s, one quote stands out in particular.
Youre the Boss, Its your Choice, its your money. So think before you spend
I guess more people should have grew up watching cartoons
That's the irksome part about D'Angelo's post yesterday -- he describes the Jem'Hadar ship as an ultra-rare item. All the data suggests it is. However, NOWHERE on the C-Store or in-game is it described as having any lower odds than the other items, like a Holographic BOff or a Gekli pet. WIth 12 items possible from a Holiday Gift Box, I'd expect a fair chance as 1 in 12 -- not less than 1 in 100. They need to fully disclose (on the C-Store page) that some items are going to appear less than others in this "randomized" grab bag or it's the definition of misleading and intellectually dishonest.
That, combined with the apparently <1% red boxes from non-C-Store in-game events, means your odds of getting a Jem'Hadar ship if you played on one character every single day of the event are something much worse than 1 in 385.
I'm really leaning towards the idea that different people have different droprates, maybe based on sub, purchase history, and activity.
Consider that lifers are no longer paying directly into the sub fees of the game. Maybe a hidden cost could be in place for lifers and free players by lowering droprates based on account status and/or purchase history as an indicator of what someone will spend.
Consider that lifers are no longer paying directly into the sub fees of the game. Maybe a hidden cost could be in place for lifers and free players by lowering droprates based on account status and/or purchase history as an indicator of what someone will spend.
If that would ever be proven to be true...... the class action suit would be without fathom
Consider that lifers are no longer paying directly into the sub fees of the game. Maybe a hidden cost could be in place for lifers and free players by lowering droprates based on account status and/or purchase history as an indicator of what someone will spend.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm sorry, are you serious?
Oh yes, Cryptic is DEFINITELY TRIBBLE their lifers over by adding hidden fees and taking your precious drop rates! There's an illuminati of PW board members sitting in a dimly lit table with a powerpoint presentation on how to lower drop rate percentages so you won't get a friggin ship. They're so mean and dastardly. That'll show them! "Merry Christmas you lifers! MWAHAHAHAHA!"
Oh yes, Cryptic is DEFINITELY TRIBBLE their lifers over by adding hidden fees and taking your precious drop rates! There's an illuminati of PW board members sitting in a dimly lit table with a powerpoint presentation on how to lower drop rate percentages so you won't get a friggin ship. They're so mean and dastardly. That'll show them! "Merry Christmas you lifers! MWAHAHAHAHA!"
It would be;
Easy to do
Profitable
Difficult if not impossible to prove
Profitable
Not that odd for somebody like PWE
A *possible* explanation for the odd distribution of ships
If you can't figure out that a Jem'Hadar ship has a much lower odds to get than a random pet, (because its well, a ship) you're doing it wrong.
Much lower could've been 5% instead of 12% (AFTER getting something else than a blue box out of the red box). You are assuming everyone has played eastern style MMOs before. Notice how new DOFF packs included the words "super-rare" but it was missing from the gift boxes.
A *possible* explanation for the odd distribution of ships
\
You ARE serious. o.o
You do realize that it's not in the company's best interests to do this? Cryptic was just recently bought from PW, I'm positive from a business standpoint creating any hidden fees or sabotaging data without the customer's knowledge warrants a lawsuit and that's money they can't afford to pay.
And frankly, do you have any internal knowledge how PWE works? Because I'm sick of people presuming otherwise. Unless you have proof that PWE has done this kind of thing in the past, you can't just slander a company just because you're ****ed off about not getting an item.
The odd distribution of ships is because its a game of CHANCE. You do not guarantee that everyone will get an item that has a very low percentage of acquiring, then go on a conspiracy theory that Cryptic's TRIBBLE you over because you're either a lifer or you paid an x amount of money. Just buck up, put your money away and do the race every day for the free gift. Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't, but at least you didn't spend more money playing the luck game. Heck, you can go on the exchange and get the item if you're that desperate. Seriously, that's just...crazy.
I am done with games of chance in STO. I have seen the light. And they are definitely ramping this practice up. I put money into the red boxes and came away with nothing.
LESSON LEARNED THE HARD WAY! I don't care if they release the Enterprise-F or any other "exclusive" item this way, I won't go for it, I'll just make do with what I have which is pretty darn impressive.
Live and learn!
Congrats, you have realized you have free will! If only more people could realize that rather than thinking they "have" to buy something there would be alot less complaining.
I'm amazed people can spend so much on something that could disappear or change at any moment... but coming back to this game from being away for a while I'm starting to wonder if the only real new content is cstore? $25-40 for a ship? I could go buy and play another mmorpg with that.... Need take some lessons from Riot on how to do cash store...
Even if this goes free 2 play ummm... charging someone MORE than the sub fee to get something kinda ruins the point doesn't it and they would still have to pay even with it, so messed up...
Comments
ANOTHER LESSON: Don't ever ever ever buy any non-reward pets in the C-Store. They'll either be released in TRIBBLE like this to be put on the Exchange for nothing, or will be given out free anyway. As for the reward pets for stuff like testing, they will eventually hit the C-Store too as they have in the past so don't bother fretting.
Also stories like the above are extremely rare. You may be led to think hope is alive. It most certainly is NOT. Don't be like me, or worse the guy who blew $750 on it (that is paycheck money for a lot of low-income people).
Again, 750 US Dollars.
We are fairly confident that the actual rate is much lower, around 0.65%. If we are correct, then your probability of obtaining the ship in 100 boxes is 48%.
That means that nearly half of the people who buy 100 boxes at a cost of $125 US will not get a ship!
I think it is unethical for Cryptic not to disclose the odds up front.
It looks like the cheapest way of purchasing EC imaginable.
Heck, if you want a guaranteed way to get the ship and you can drop $500 on boxes, your best bet is to sell the boxes and buy the ship.
Fully agree. Regretably PW / Cryptic will release more money grab bags the next year, thats a fixed decission I read on the Dev blog.
What I will do is tell as much friends of mine how look at STO not to buy that junk.
And how exactly do people know it's uber rare? Nowhere does it say anything about the odds. Hindsight is 20/20.
Well, look.
That's nice but it does get in the way of the idea that everyone should have equal access to major gameplay components like ships.
Well at least you learned right?
I have the money..but it isn't worth it to me, 20 red boxes from the "oh my bad on dimished returns" reciepts, couple blue, and a bunch of green and I've only gotten useless pets..who knows though...
^ This game has been far from Star Trek for a very long time...the lottery scam is the latest example. STO is not the MMO people bought a LTS for during Beta or before hand when pre-ordering. STO is a completely different creature thirsty for cash...killing the good name of Star Trek...STO is the thing Star Trek destroys in the future.
they wont disclose odds, but its 0.65% same as all other PWE lotto-box "rare" items.
the reason not to disclose is if people know 100% fact that there is less than 1% chacne no one will buy it.
Cryptic has lost it's way, and unfortunately these grab bag cash store items are a pretty good indicator that the game will continue to move away form western standards and towards eastern free to play junk.
Perfect world games are awful substandard online money schemes with horrible grind, bare bones content and rigged pay to win pvp, it's staggering how quickly STO has made a course adjustment towards emulating this ethos and fallen into the trap of sacrificing pride in a product for a quick buck.
In four months time with the only new content on the horizon going to be a featured episode series that will likely take less than five hours to complete, I can only see further development of good content replaced with items in the cstore to reach into fans of the IP's pocket.
Where is our starbases, territory control and exploration content? the romulan faction and the rest of the Klingon faction?
It's not coming in 2012, you can bet on that.
Depending on what the expansion entailed, Id more than likely shell out for it.
I'm thinking this may not be straight probability but that there's some other variable like player class or how many boxes you buy at a time or what instance you're in when you buy/open them and what your difficulty setting is.
I heard there was a thread on this that's apparently gone now, indicating that this isn't a simple dice roll.
There's something odd about sdangelo's claim that the ship has cropped up among all sets of buyers. The odds should be against that unless they were doing something like setting the droprate based on your history of purchases so that light spenders get a higher droprate and heavy spenders get a lower droprate.
If you can't figure out that a Jem'Hadar ship has a much lower odds to get than a random pet, (because its well, a ship) you're doing it wrong.
Though i think it is a neat idea, i find the whole thing feels riged to incouage one to buy gift boxes, as most get nothing but green boxes from the race, i think i've gotten 4 blue boxes in seven days.
giving everyone who has subscribed for the last 6 to 10 months, as well as lifers, the holo officer or the bug ship would have been a much better thank you, than the, here play or pay and you might win event, that we got.
This whole event does not keep with star trek or the christmas spirit, unless Cryptic are the Ferengie, just out to make a profit, and scew over anyone they can in the process, mostly the poor like me.
The greedier u get the less i want to spend to keep playing this game.
That's the irksome part about D'Angelo's post yesterday -- he describes the Jem'Hadar ship as an ultra-rare item. All the data suggests it is. However, NOWHERE on the C-Store or in-game is it described as having any lower odds than the other items, like a Holographic BOff or a Gekli pet. WIth 12 items possible from a Holiday Gift Box, I'd expect a fair chance as 1 in 12 -- not less than 1 in 100. They need to fully disclose (on the C-Store page) that some items are going to appear less than others in this "randomized" grab bag or it's the definition of misleading and intellectually dishonest.
That, combined with the apparently <1% red boxes from non-C-Store in-game events, means your odds of getting a Jem'Hadar ship if you played the Q's Winter Wonderland race on one character every single day of the event are something much worse than 1 in 385.
TL/DR Constructive criticism:
* If you're going to have something in C-Store that has a randomized effect, it is essential that you say if there's a distinction in the rarity difference. That doesn't mean you have to say something like "Your odds of obtaining a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship are approximately 1 in 150." but you do have to say that it's an ultra-rare drop, whereas others are uncommon, rare, etc.
* It is important to make sure the in-game methods for obtaining this are realistic, so make sure that the odds of obtaining a Red Holiday Box are something fair (maybe 15% Red, 30% Blue, 55% Green?) so that everyone that does the missions over a reasonable time period get at least some chance to try it out without dishing out cash or grinding dilithium.
I did however dump about 30 million EC into them on the exchange and came up with nothing
I feel no pity for anyone that got so caught up in trying to find the Holy Grail that they forgo common sense and throw thousands of real dollars at nothing but lines of code.
News Flash!
You guys were warned that this was nothing but a quick cash grab scheme.
It was even speculated that the drop % for the Bug was less than 1%.
You read the horror stories about some shmoe who dumped 5000+ dollars into this bottomless grab bag pit and still not get the ship and still youre willing to try.
In the end its all on your head!
If you have that much disposable income then by all means do whatever you want with it, its your right and your business how you choose to spend your money.
But please for the love of Q stop whining on the forums about how much you spent and how many goose eggs you came up with.
I recall a series of helpful commercials that use to come on during the cartoons that I use to watch back in the early 80s, one quote stands out in particular.
Youre the Boss, Its your Choice, its your money. So think before you spend
I guess more people should have grew up watching cartoons
I'm really leaning towards the idea that different people have different droprates, maybe based on sub, purchase history, and activity.
If that would ever be proven to be true...... the class action suit would be without fathom
Proving it sounds like doing the kind of math I hate with the deepest sense of passion.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm sorry, are you serious?
Oh yes, Cryptic is DEFINITELY TRIBBLE their lifers over by adding hidden fees and taking your precious drop rates! There's an illuminati of PW board members sitting in a dimly lit table with a powerpoint presentation on how to lower drop rate percentages so you won't get a friggin ship. They're so mean and dastardly. That'll show them! "Merry Christmas you lifers! MWAHAHAHAHA!"
It would be;
- Easy to do
- Profitable
- Difficult if not impossible to prove
- Profitable
- Not that odd for somebody like PWE
- A *possible* explanation for the odd distribution of ships
\High sales numbers would generally be considered positive feedback.
Much lower could've been 5% instead of 12% (AFTER getting something else than a blue box out of the red box). You are assuming everyone has played eastern style MMOs before. Notice how new DOFF packs included the words "super-rare" but it was missing from the gift boxes.
You ARE serious. o.o
You do realize that it's not in the company's best interests to do this? Cryptic was just recently bought from PW, I'm positive from a business standpoint creating any hidden fees or sabotaging data without the customer's knowledge warrants a lawsuit and that's money they can't afford to pay.
And frankly, do you have any internal knowledge how PWE works? Because I'm sick of people presuming otherwise. Unless you have proof that PWE has done this kind of thing in the past, you can't just slander a company just because you're ****ed off about not getting an item.
The odd distribution of ships is because its a game of CHANCE. You do not guarantee that everyone will get an item that has a very low percentage of acquiring, then go on a conspiracy theory that Cryptic's TRIBBLE you over because you're either a lifer or you paid an x amount of money. Just buck up, put your money away and do the race every day for the free gift. Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't, but at least you didn't spend more money playing the luck game. Heck, you can go on the exchange and get the item if you're that desperate. Seriously, that's just...crazy.
Congrats, you have realized you have free will! If only more people could realize that rather than thinking they "have" to buy something there would be alot less complaining.
Even if this goes free 2 play ummm... charging someone MORE than the sub fee to get something kinda ruins the point doesn't it and they would still have to pay even with it, so messed up...
Actually, such a lawsuit could never win because any Philosopher of Math could tell you that probabilities are not verifiable from real world data.