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Lock boxes, is it worth buying old versions?
shireknight
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I notice there are old lock boxes for sale on The Exchange (like a Ferengie one) and I was wondering, is it worth buying say one of each of the old boxes or do the boxes get better and better contents over time which makes the old ones irrelevant and worth less than the new ones?
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The only reason to open boxes would be lobi. Anything else you get would be bonus since the odds are so horrific.
If all you want is one of the lockbox ships, on average you'd be better off selling the keys and then buying the ship you want.
I don't work with lock boxes, in fact I've pretty much ignore every discussion about them until now, but I'm a little surprised at this tactic. I took a quick look on the exchange. Cardassian Galor-class was selling for EC138,000,000. Lock box keys were EC1,900,000. So I'd have to save up for, then sell 73 keys to have the EC needed to buy a Galor. As I said, I don't open lock boxes (with 2 test exceptions). So you're saying that earning and selling 72 keys is more likely to get me a Galor than using them to open lock boxes? It may not be the lottery, but that's some pretty miserable odds, especially realizing people are encouraged to buy the keys with real money. If that's the case, I think I'd rather see the Galor as a zen-purchase ship.
The older boxes are not necessarily made obsolete by newer boxes being released. It's just a matter of what sorts of things you are hoping to find.
I'm not going to tell anyone not to open a lockbox. I'll buy some keys now and then and open a few myself.
But I will suggest that you mind the entire range of possibilities.
If you think that some single thing is so much better than any other similar thing in a different box and that you absolutely must have that item, then it doesn't matter what else is there.
If, for example, you absolutely, positively must have the D'Kora Marauder then you have two options: Find one for sale on the exchange or open some Ferengi lockboxes.
But otherwise I would look at the entire box and decide which one you think is most likely to offer you something that you won't mind getting.
I must have gotten very lucky then last night. Had bought 10 keys in the sale and opened three hirogen lock boxes. First one I got the ship, second an officer pack with decent lobi and the third, another hirogen ship.
Two ships in three boxes is pretty sweet.
Tests[1] show that the droprate of lockbox ships is near/below 0.5%. Assuming it's supposed to be 0.5%, 72 keys would give you ~30.3% chance of getting the ship. If you're not that lucky (by definition, most people aren't) here's some more chances:
50% chance to get the ship would need ~138 keys
90% chance to get the ship would need ~459 keys
95% chance to get the ship would need ~598 keys
99% chance to get the ship would need ~919 keys
If you're the 1 out of 10 who has opened ~459 boxes and not gotten the ship, you should at least have enough lobi crystals (and other reward items) to sell on the exchange and then buy the ship there (assuming exchange prices are in similar proportions then as they are now)
If you want only one specific item from a lockbox, just buy it on the exchange. If you have the money/EC to spare, open some boxes and be happy with whatever you receive.
[1] search the Academy subforum for threads with "lockbox loot tables" in the title
I've found the Dominion box tends to give out the Rich Dilithium claims more consistently. I have no statistical proof for that and admit that I may have just been lucky.
I do the lockboxes with the criteria of "Which box has the most prizes that I want the least? I'll skip those ones."
Yes, there are a few instances where people just get super lucky on boxes. But there are many people who'll post that they opened hundreds of boxes and got nothing of note. I'd tell you to stop opening boxes while you're ahead.
Personally, I buy 10 keys when they are on sale, and then open 10 of whatever new box just came out.
And that's it. So far, I've not even gotten a Mirror Universe ship let alone the grand prize ship of any box.
Every week their are lotteries with sometimes 30 million to 1 odds of you having the winning numbers, and a statistician will tell you that @ 30000000 to 1 odds, it's pointless even buying a ticket ... Yet almost every week, guess what? Someone winds the jackpot ...
I created a new Fed toon and when he was lvl 4 (yep, Ensign level 4) He got his first Voth Lockbox ... So just for the hell of it I bought 1 key only ... He received Voth Bastion FDC from that one box, which I then sold on the exchange for 75 million EC (it took all of 5 mins to sell at that price) ...
Now what are the odds of that!!!
I've also received many, many really nice pieces of equipment from various Lockboxes, which I've then sold on the exchange for many millions of EC, so much in fact that I had to 'buy' the EC Cap upgrade from the C-Store.
Moral of the story? If you feel like gambling, and you have the Cash/Zen/EC to do it, then go ahead.
Obviously, I concur the the odds are against you and would discourage it as a matter of principle, unless, maybe, if you were trying to get lobi.
Guys, if we keep discouraging people, eventually no ones gonna open a lockbox anymore, and then who would we sell keys to?
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
*grin*
While a pretty sound theory, I can honestly say I haven't opened a single lockbox since they removed the gold lockboxes. That was a long time ago. It's just a bad deal, unless you're generally pretty lucky.
That is wrong for so many reasons I just had to spell it out for you.
Current master key prices fluctuate from 1.8 to 2 mil.
Add up the net worth of any given lockbox. (i.e. chance multiplied by exchange value)
Subtract the master key from the net worth.
And you end up with a loss of ~1.2 million per key on the hirogen box for example.
I will say the first 3-4 of them I didn't like lockboxes but due to the fact people pretty much stopped opening them at one point it forced them to push out that survey. Which the game has pretty much gotten better with them to the point that myself I can afford to open hundreds of them a week without paying a dime myself. Plus the special doffs keep getting better and better so I am always finding stuff I like out of them. Even if I don't like the ships there are always something good about them like for instance the ground and space weapons especially for a mainly KDF player all these disruptor type weapons make a KDF player want to keep playing and do lockboxes.
Also the mining claims really help my fed characters so I can increase the amount of characters that are hitting cap each day. I just wish I could get the mining claims on my kdf characters moved over to feds though I have probally well over a thousand of them that I sit on and never use because marauding keeps those characters always overcap that its not much of any use and they collect dust.
But what is the real value of ECs??? You can get a quarter of a million ECs just selling the Item Drops from a single SB 24 run, with no monetary investment required. Once you have all your fancy consoles, Doffs, BOs and Ships, what else can you spend ECs on???
The "real" value of EC has to come directly from an exchange to "real" money.
2 key ratios:
1 5 dollar ship module is 7 million EC
1 1.25 dollar key (or 90 cent key during sale, or 1.1 in bulk, whatever) is 1.9 mil.
in the first, 1 EC is 0.0000007 cents.
in the second, 1 EC is 0.00000058 cents.
average is zeros... 65 cents.
The ratios, like real world exchange rates for currency, are in constant flux.
I have a friend (former neighbor) who tends to win a lot with gambling (I do his taxes so I know this first hand). He wins at casinos (Showboat in Atlantic City being his favorite, from which he netted $105,000 in 2013), he wins from scratch-off cards, and he wins minor prizes (i.e never the grand prize) from lotteries. I wouldn't use his odds as some kind of reference for people at large because it would be ridiculous. He is the very definition of an outlier. He makes 80+% of his income from various gambling ventures. Could everyone do that? Would I advise other people to do what he does? Would I even suggest to people that they even attempt it to shoot for those results? No, in all cases, because empirical evidence as well as historical data tells us that if the odds were as good as related, the people running the games would not make money.
Didn't stop people from buying subprime mortgages, lottery tickets, pulling the arm on slot machines, etc. There will ALWAYS be a market for keys.
as stated,I'm one of those that doesn't really have anything else to spend ec on except keys and food for the fleet.
What's amusing, and annoying at the same time, is that the price of keys is being artificially inflated ...
I know for certain of at least one player who almost every second he's logged in, purposely buys any keys at, or under, 1.7 million and then reposts them at a higher price, and he currently has several hundred keys in reserve.
To me this is wrong, and disgusting, and I for one believe Cryptic should remove the keys from him, post them up for a reasonable amount and ban him from from the game ...
I have no problem with people making a reasonable amount on gear from the Exchange, especially rare gear like Lockbox ships and equipment, but I detest the 'sharks' who prey on others, and purposely price gouge ... JMHO.
That is non sense, because people will always buy the key with the lowest price. If your "friend" sells it for 2 mill, and there is a key for 1,99 million,s people will always buy that one. And anyways, you will not find keys for less than 1,8, almost the last time i checked. And if he has several keys in reserve, well, he wasted a lot of money so, he will be in his right to sell the keys ar whatever price he wants LOL. But no, the exhange is made in a way, people sell everything they want for the price they want, and thats the good thing, because for people to sell anything, most of the times they will need to sell the item at the lowest price, so in the end, you will be buying always the cheapest item xDD.
Now, that some of the prices on the exchange are really abusive, i agree, the keys are one example, ships in general and a few more things. But well, i dont think that will never change.