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Undine Lockbox NOT giving me a ship!!

borgx666borgx666 Member Posts: 127 Arc User
i have spent well over £200, opened around 200 lockboxes and still have NOT got an Undine Nicor Ship!!

all other boxes ive opened in the past i got a ship after about 60 boxes
what the hell is going on with the Undine Lockbox??
talk about being ripped off, its nothing more than a cash cow for cryptic

how many more boxes, how much more money do i have to blow to get 1 of these non existant ships!! :mad:
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Post edited by borgx666 on
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Comments

  • szimszim Member Posts: 2,503 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    None! Stop opening lockboxes and sell Master Keys on the exchange instead. 200£ gave you like what? 300 keys? 300 x 2'600'000 million EC = 780'000'000 EC. You could have bought almost 4 Nicor ships by now.

    Don't gamble. At least not with real money.
  • jbmonroejbmonroe Member Posts: 809 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I appreciate your frustration, but it's like any other form of gambling--there's no guarantee of a payoff. The house always wins. As they say in the investment trade: past performance is no guarantee of future earnings.

    This is how an otherwise F2P game makes money.

    I haven't seen any Nicors flown by players so far, so I assume that the percentage on them is pretty low. Your experience suggests that the chance is about one-half a percent--but it might be lower. (Or higher. That's the nature of random numbers--even pseudo-random numbers.)

    Declaring it a rip-off just ignores that all gambling is about risk--and when it's not a so-called "game of skill" versus human opponents, it's nothing but risk. The reality is that no one made you spend the £200 but you. You made a decision, and you're seeing the consequences.

    All you have to do now is decide between wisdom or acceptance. Choose well, amigo.
    boldly-watched.png
  • timelord79timelord79 Member Posts: 1,852 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    You realize that there is no guarantees for anything, right?

    You are most likely to pull junk out of the box every single time. It is possible to roll a rare event, too and it is a statisticall certainty it will happen eventually but the most likely outcome at every single role is the most common content the box has.

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXqYnM8OR3I/U1bEqPjg9DI/AAAAAAAAE-M/eTVzuzvqXVQ/s1600/Chance3.png
    11750640_1051211588222593_450219911807924697_n.jpg
  • notapwefannotapwefan Member Posts: 1,138 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    wrong decision, and here is why:

    You could have used 179 EUR (147 GBP today's exchange rate) to buy 21500 Zen.

    10 keys = 1125 Zen (normal price)
    (21500/1125)*10 = 190 keys

    Key price in exchange (yesterday's price) ) = 2,5 mil (might be more)
    190*2.5 mil = 475 mil?

    Current prices of 8472 nicor ship = 179 mil



    But thank you for your contribution. Please visit QnoS and I will buy you a drink, and a slave girl in dark alleys of the city.
    Grinding for MkIV epic gear?
    Ain't Nobody Got Time for That


    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • captainrevo1captainrevo1 Member Posts: 3,948 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    borgx666 wrote: »
    i have spent well over £200, opened around 200 lockboxes and still have NOT got an Undine Nicor Ship!!

    all other boxes ive opened in the past i got a ship after about 60 boxes
    what the hell is going on with the Undine Lockbox??
    talk about being ripped off, its nothing more than a cash cow for cryptic

    how many more boxes, how much more money do i have to blow to get 1 of these non existant ships!! :mad:

    The odds of getting one of these ships is slightly better than 1 in 200. So even after opening 200 boxes the statistical chance of you getting a ship is just 1.

    And statistics mean nothing in a game of random chance. There is no mechanic that guarantees you a ship. You could open 1000 and not get any or you could have 10. It's pure chance.
  • anazondaanazonda Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    You know, if it was as simple as just buying X-Amount of boxes, they could just price it properly, and everyone would buy the ship at the "intended price".

    The absolute point of the lock-boxes, is to lure the gullible and naive into spending small amounts of money.. so small that they seem insignificant enough for people to lose sight of the fact that 100 x1 dollar is 100 dollars.

    One dollar here, one dollar there... that's nothing right?

    Based on your OP, you clearly are not gullible or naive...
    You simply realized that lock-boxes are a trap, designed to give you a sense that you can win something grand, and then... Disappoint you.

    Just to be clear: There is nothing in this post designed to upset you... I simply and honestly believe that this is the way the lock-boxes work.
    Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
    Let me put the rumors to rest: it's definitely still the C-Store (Cryptic Store) It just takes ZEN.
    Like Duty Officers? Support effords to gather ideas
  • timelord79timelord79 Member Posts: 1,852 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    It's also a matter of intention when opening a box.

    if you only do it for the one rare price you already lost most likely.

    But it's not like you got nohing out of it.

    Let's start with lobi. If you indeed opened 200 boxes you have at the absolute bare minimum 800 lobi, which is enough for, guess what, a ship!

    Maybe not exactly the one you wanted, but a ship nonetheless.

    You can pick any of the lobi ships available in fact.

    So if none of them interest you, pick the one with the highest price on the exchange, sell it and you should at last be half way to the Nicor already.


    Now let's look at what else you got out of the boxes. Doffs, high value weapons, traits...

    Sell the ones you don't want. there should be tons in your inventory. probably millions worth of EC.


    If you are STILL not at what you need for the Nicor on the exchange the difference should be so minimal, that you can get the remeining EC together in no time. ;)
    11750640_1051211588222593_450219911807924697_n.jpg
  • decroniadecronia Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    The odds of getting one of these ships is slightly better than 1 in 200. So even after opening 200 boxes the statistical chance of you getting a ship is just 1.

    And statistics mean nothing in a game of random chance. There is no mechanic that guarantees you a ship. You could open 1000 and not get any or you could have 10. It's pure chance.

    Exactly, I still don't understand why people think opening more boxes means their chance increases. I opened a couple of boxes when the Cardy ones came out and there was the gold one. I got the ship. Other opened tons and never got it.

    I have only opened a couple since on the odd occasion I buy a key off the exchange, and even then it more along the lines of entering those texting comps you can get on soft drinks or bars of chocolate. That is "well it's only pennies so I might as well give it a quick go". I get lucky I get lucky and if not it's not really a problem as it is only one or two keys once in a blue moon.
  • revandarklighterrevandarklighter Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    What part of gambling didn't you understand OP?
    You can open literally 100000 lockboxes without getting one. Or get one in the first one.


    I will never ever ever understand how a sane adult person can invest that kind of money into gambling, even less into lockbox gambling.
    Buying a handful of keys for here and there... bad enough. But £200???
    You get a used car for that. You get four to six full priced new games for this. An entire village in africa can live from that money for a month.
    But no... knowingly investing that into gambling and then whining that one doesn't win.
    Lets just say I have not much respect for the people who do that as persons.... Hard to imagine that such person is reliable enough to even hold a bank account... not even thinking about having or educating own children at some point. Sorry... But just no.
  • emarosa26emarosa26 Member Posts: 125 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Anyone stupid enough to spend that much money on the chance of getting one digital item kind of deserves to be taken advantage of...
  • dongemaharudongemaharu Member Posts: 544 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    If you have enough, you can use the lobi you got from the boxes to get a lobi ship most in demand on the exchange, sell it there, and sell all the loot you got. Should get you somewhat close to enough EC to buy the ship on the exchange.
  • edgecrysgeredgecrysger Member Posts: 2,740 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    borgx666 wrote: »
    i have spent well over £200, opened around 200 lockboxes and still have NOT got an Undine Nicor Ship!!

    Well, not our fault if you are a fool. Specially if you waste REAL money in lockboxes, and specially in UNDINE lockboxes.

    I dont have anything else to say. Only rich people or people who doesnt care the game at all wastes so much money in lockboxes, and thats precisely what cryptic wants.. thank you so much. :mad:

    And im "glad" that you didnt get a ship.
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    OP - ok, you have spent (some would say wasted) £200 on keys and you think you have got nothing?

    Well, you must have found something worth putting on the exchange, and so, bung those on the exchange - hopefully you have enough for the ship. If not, you have at least 800 Lobi, and they can be used to buy Lobi ships - get one of them repeat process.

    Bottom line is, you are looking to buy one from someone else.


    Now your £200 aren't completely wasted, but for future reference, buy keys (or even better, buy contraband to turn into dil into Zen to buy keys) and sell them on the exchange, let someone else gamble away their £200.



    Or, accept you gambled £200 and lost it all.


    Edit for correct currency...
  • o0kami87o0kami87 Member Posts: 590 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Wow, this took a while to pop up, thought I'd see this post sooner. Every box someone yells about the money they spend, the way I see it I should Thank you for keeping the servers up, meet me at ESD sometime, we can share a bottle of Romulan Ale. (It's Okay, I'm a Romulan Ambassador)
    First, Vice Admiral, U.S.S. Wolf Pack-F, NX-101687-FFirst., Vice Admiral, A.R.W. Moon WolfWolf, I.K.S. Frost Bite
  • notapwefannotapwefan Member Posts: 1,138 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    o0kami87 wrote: »
    the way I see it I should Thank you for keeping the servers up, meet me at ESD sometime, we can share a bottle of Romulan Ale. (It's Okay, I'm a Romulan Ambassador)

    After drinking blood wine from the fountain and fornicating with a slave girl in holy city of QnoS, I fail to see how and why would they like to touch Romulan Ale.
    Grinding for MkIV epic gear?
    Ain't Nobody Got Time for That


    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • norobladnoroblad Member Posts: 2,624 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    borgx666 wrote: »
    i have spent well over £200, opened around 200 lockboxes and still have NOT got an Undine Nicor Ship!!

    all other boxes ive opened in the past i got a ship after about 60 boxes
    what the hell is going on with the Undine Lockbox??
    talk about being ripped off, its nothing more than a cash cow for cryptic

    how many more boxes, how much more money do i have to blow to get 1 of these non existant ships!! :mad:

    There are many ways to look at statistics. You can look at the averages and say "well, there is a 1% chance to win, so if I open just over 100, I should get one, right?". This is sort of true, but ...

    every box you have 1 in 100 chance to win (or whatever it is, using 1% cause its easy to explain). There is no memory of your earlier attempts, its a new go and each new go is *extremely unlikely* to win.

    So every time you open one, you should expect to not win. Eventually you will, sure. But when it happens, it happens.
  • hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    The chances in most lockboxes, determined by duplicating lockboxes and keys with tribble transfers, is around 1/200.

    Each box you open has a 0.5% chance of giving a lockbox, and a 99.5% of giving something else.

    You say you got a ship every other lockbox in under 60 keys. Statistically, that's very lucky. With a single lockbox, you have just over a 74% of NOT getting a ship within 30 keys. Barely over 1/4 of actually getting one - doing that repeatedly is impressive. If you've done that four times, you're an outlier, your chances of having done that are about 0.4% (while rare, this is still not so rare that you'd expect your story to be unique - there should be a very few others who've had the same outcome).

    At 200 your expected ships is 1, but your actual chances of having one aren't that reassuring. You've got about a 37% chance of NOT getting a ship within 200 keys.

    The variance on this kind of thing is HUGE - neither of those situations is far enough off of average to even be unusual, they're literally things you'd expect to happen dozens of times a day (particularly if you look at the entire population as a single unit opening all the boxes - not many individual users are opening boxes at the rate the OP is).
  • baudlbaudl Member Posts: 4,060 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    if your goal was/is to get a ship out of a lockbox, the most ineffective way to do it is by opening lockboxes...

    as others have stated already...you could have gotten atleast 4 with that kind of real money...wait another 3 weeks and the price per ship further drops

    patients and using 2 braincells could have gotten you the ship for a 10th of what you already spent.


    the only reason ever to open lockboxes would be to get Lobi....
    Go pro or go home
  • spacebaronlinespacebaronline Member Posts: 1,103 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I don't think that anyone has done a mass opening experiment like the fellow that did 5000 for several of the last ones(no he did not open 5000 "real" boxes - but copied them to tribble over and over to get 5000 tribble boxes - but results are the same)

    it appeared that the drop rate was dropping over the last few boxes - it could now be as high as 1/250!!!

    of course as someone pointed out - that means you could open 1 box and get the ship - or open 400 and not get the ship.

    But with the lower numbers of Nicors out there there could be a mix of a few things:

    Less people buying boxes

    Higher demand for the ship on the exchange

    Cryptic lowered the drop rate - they never "officially" publish what it is so it's just a guess on our part.

    I think most other gambling things in America have to post odds - but I am not sure - like do Vegas casino's have to post the slot machine odds?
  • spaceeagle20spaceeagle20 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    timelord79 wrote: »
    It's also a matter of intention when opening a box.

    if you only do it for the one rare price you already lost most likely.

    But it's not like you got nohing out of it.

    Let's start with lobi. If you indeed opened 200 boxes you have at the absolute bare minimum 800 lobi, which is enough for, guess what, a ship!

    Maybe not exactly the one you wanted, but a ship nonetheless.

    You can pick any of the lobi ships available in fact.

    So if none of them interest you, pick the one with the highest price on the exchange, sell it and you should at last be half way to the Nicor already.


    Now let's look at what else you got out of the boxes. Doffs, high value weapons, traits...

    Sell the ones you don't want. there should be tons in your inventory. probably millions worth of EC.


    If you are STILL not at what you need for the Nicor on the exchange the difference should be so minimal, that you can get the remeining EC together in no time. ;)

    Real story.
    Never been a lock boxes addict, but, when I saw the stats of that ship, I decided that it was worth a try.
    Moreover, in the first days after the release of the undine lock boxes, I noticed that in the game many times the yellow message popping up " X has acquired an undine nicor bioship" so I thought that maybe the chances of getting it were better in those days, so if I was going to spend X dil, zen or money, better do it now also considering that there was a discount on the master keys.
    My friend told me that she got the ship after opening about 60 lockboxes so I thought to give it a try although I had no intention of spending the hell out of my resources to get that ship. If I were to get it after some lockboxes, fine ... otherwise I'd stick with my Avenger and see you at the exchange.
    Anyway, I needed lobis to buy 3 Elachi bioinfusion consoles for my toons, a console that I could find only in the lobi store.
    I got the ship after opening about 40-50 lockboxes.
    I have spent only 20$ in real money, the rest was dilithium and EC.
    Also because, during the process, I came to acquire a few consoles, especially that one which looks like a pancake lol , MK XII purple undine weapons which didn't appeal to me at all for PvE :D but I thought they would have sold well those days and actually they sold fairly well,many green doffs, a few blue and purple doff and I sold them the ones I didn't need ( for example a purple ground geologist which I sold for 14 millions ), a ship, some mk XII fluidic kits, dense beams ( 3 of them I gave to my toons) and so on ... and the white doffs went all to my fleet's projects giving me fleet credits.
    So it's not just the shiny ship which matters, but all of the rest that you can find and possibly sell at the exchange, getting a fair good amount of EC that you can then spend - say- half on buying stuff that you need and half on buying a few more keys, depending on the most logical course of action in that moment.
    P58WJe7.jpg


  • walshicuswalshicus Member Posts: 1,314 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I've opened 896 lockboxes and kept a record of their contents. So far I've won a Grand Prize ship 4 times, giving a chance to win of 0.45%.

    But that doesn't mean you'll get a Grand Prize ship by opening 222 lockboxes; that's not how statistics works.

    With the data I have so far, in order to have a 95% chance of getting a Grand Prize ship you'd need to open 664 lockboxes:

    Chance to win: 0.45%
    Chance to lose: 99.55%
    Chance to lose x times in a row: 99.55% ^ x
    Chance to win x times in a row: 1 - (99.55% ^ x)
    Value of x to make chance to win x times in a row 95%: 664
    http://mmo-economics.com - analysing the economic interactions in MMOs.
  • darkjeffdarkjeff Member Posts: 2,590 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    borgx666 wrote: »
    all other boxes ive opened in the past i got a ship after about 60 boxes

    Sounds like you're a lucky son of a gun, and your luck finally ran out.

    I've accrued over 200 keys during my time in STO. Of those 200+ keys, only 10 have been used on the Undine lockbox. I have never won a single ship (aside from a few worthless mirror ships). :(

    (Of course, then I bought a few DOff packs with my stipend and got a JHAS on the second one. :D)
  • hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I don't think that anyone has done a mass opening experiment like the fellow that did 5000 for several of the last ones(no he did not open 5000 "real" boxes - but copied them to tribble over and over to get 5000 tribble boxes - but results are the same)

    Yes, they did. 12,000 tribble-cloned boxes, detailed in two threads here on the forums and the STOwiki page.

    There's no indication of declining chances.

    The whole history, in order from first to last:

    Cardassian: 0.40
    Ferengi: 0.37 (lowest)
    Tholian: 0.41
    Temporal: 0.41
    Dominion: 0.38
    Tal Shiar: 0.42
    Elachi: 0.42
    Voth: 0.40
    Hirogen: 0.44 (highest)
    Undine: 0.42

    Mean: 0.407
    Median: 0.41

    The lowest drop rate seen in a lockbox was from one of the first, and the highest was from one of the most recent. The current lockbox is above the long-term average. In fact, all lockboxes that have been above average have been in the bottom half of the list (and no, that doesn't suggest a trend towards better drop rates, either, the variances here are so small as to be meaningless).
  • chiyoumikuchiyoumiku Member Posts: 1,028 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    This is called "Gambling".
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    Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
  • pwecangetlostpwecangetlost Member Posts: 538 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Thank you for supporting the game. :P

    As other people have said, best thing to do is use the Lobi and other things from the box, sell them for ec, and buy the ship. Buying keys and selling them would have been more efficient from the start.
  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Captains,

    May I remind you...?

    Flaming and/or Trolling
    You may not post content which contains insults to other users or Perfect World Entertainment Staff, are specifically made to create undue discontent on the forums, disturbances in forum threads, pick fights or otherwise promote unfriendly conversation.

    Insulting other posters is against the rule regardless of your reasons for doing it.

    I advise anyone who violated the rule to go back and edit your posts, ASAP.

    ~ Bluegeek
    My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here
    Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
  • blessedladyboyblessedladyboy Member Posts: 349 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I got mine selling keys, was going to wait for it to drop a bit more but couldn't wait and after trying it I'm not sure how much it will....ship is awesome second only in power to my scimitar except it handles like a dream!...love it totally op!
  • gardatgardat Member Posts: 280 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I opened ten lockboxes today and received a Nicor on the seventh one I opened.

    Lucky? Sure! :D

    But OP: RNG is RNG, you can't predict randomness.

    Edited for a typo.
    486 DX2/66Mhz, 4MB SD-RAM, 16KB L-1 cache, 120MB HDD, 3.5" FDD, 2x CD-ROM, 8-Bit Soundblaster Pro, IBM Model M PS/2 keyboard, Microsoft trackball mouse, 256KB S3 graphics chip, 14" VGA CRT monitor, MS-DOS 6.22
  • adorenkoadorenko Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    borgx666 wrote: »
    i have spent well over £200, opened around 200 lockboxes and still have NOT got an Undine Nicor Ship!!

    all other boxes ive opened in the past i got a ship after about 60 boxes
    what the hell is going on with the Undine Lockbox??
    talk about being ripped off, its nothing more than a cash cow for cryptic

    how many more boxes, how much more money do i have to blow to get 1 of these non existant ships!! :mad:

    Yep.

    /10 characters
    Looking for more info on Dilithium Rising? Click on the link below:

    [SIGPIC]Click here to visit my STO YouTube channel[/SIGPIC]
  • adorenkoadorenko Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I got mine selling keys, was going to wait for it to drop a bit more but couldn't wait and after trying it I'm not sure how much it will....ship is awesome second only in power to my scimitar except it handles like a dream!...love it totally op!

    Good to know I made the right purchase on buying my Scimitar bundle and not wasting them on keys.

    The only reason I might open a few boxes would be for some lobi and some officers and if I get lucky great.
    Looking for more info on Dilithium Rising? Click on the link below:

    [SIGPIC]Click here to visit my STO YouTube channel[/SIGPIC]
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