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Time for a Pity System?
doctorstegi
Member Posts: 1,221 Arc User
I opened 1059 Phoenix Boxes today. That is 4.236.000 Dillithium or in zen around 8.472. I got 174 Ultra Rare, 354 Very Rare and 531 Rare. Now this is not the first time for me that I opened a massive amount of phoenix boxes and got 0 epic tokens out of it. I think in cases like this there should be a pity system. Same goes for Lock Boxes and Promo Boxes. Its insane for people who spend money to buy keys they open 200 - 300 boxes and don't get a ship. I think something like a pity system is way past due. And no I don't need the epic tokens I purely opened those boxes for upgrades but thinking how other people may need it so they can get an event ship they don't have ect... I mean luck is one thing but over 1000 boxes and 0 Epic Token is somewhat of a joke and it needs to be said again. Other games have pity systems why not STO? (Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Phoenix ships can't be traded. At the very least they should make those tradable, then it would be correct what you're saying.
Just stop buying them altogether. There's no point in getting a single-character unlocked ship anymore. Wait for the inevitable MUDD- or Legendary treatment.
I bought a lot of keys and promo packs in the past, but I'm done with it. Everything you get through the system will be rendered obsolete at some point anyway, even promo ships that were released when they (Cryptic) already knew fully well that they'd be made account unlocks some day, as with the Inquiry.
Mind you this is only on lockboxes, the version of the Phoenix box there is the Astral Lockbox and it still has the standard odds per box.
Lockboxes and Promo boxes already have a pity system, it's Lobi.
Phoenix kinda has one for the Ship upgrade token, but maybe they could do something for the UR ships.
Except, someone still has to open boxes to put ships on the exchange, so no opening, no ships on the exchange...... and only an insane person would spend money on keys to put on the exchange.... they don't get any benefit buying just one ship, only the seller (and Cryptic) actually gets a benefit. The exchange is a bigger con than buying Mudds at full price.
Statistically, it is about the same price whether you gamble for it or buy keys to sell and then buy a ship with the EC, since that statistical average cost to get one gambling is where most sellers set the price on the market. The only difference is that there is a little less risk buying the ship off the exchange rather than gambling for it because the chance of getting it cheaper mostly balances the risk of paying more for it.
Of course, neither one of those options are viable for most players with a limited budget so the problem is still mainly moot for non-whales.
- Improve the odds of getting an Epic. The odds are much worse than lock boxes. My guess is somewhere between 1:500 and 1:1,000. Even lowering to 1:400 would make it less painful.
- Allow trading the Epic tokens. I have 2 of them on PC that I have no use for because I own the account-locked versions of the event ships. I'd be happy to be able to sell them at a reasonable price or gift them to someone in my fleet.
Especially at the cost most lockbox ships are being kept at these days. Used to be that even the current lockbox ship would probably top out around 400 mil. Maybe more if its a canon ship. Nowadays most of the time it doesn't matter. Want one? Pay 1 Bil like its a PROMO ship.
I personally hate that. The supply of lockbox ships is much greater than Promo ships. Why are they the same frickin' price?!
#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!"
Everything has become more expensive. Keys also used to cost around half what they're now going for, there was a time when waiting made sense when a key was 5 or 6 million on the Exchange.
So it's not really surprising that the big prizes' prices have also gone up.
When keys cost around 5 million a piece, that 400m price tag for a lockbox ship that you'd never get (on average) from every 80 boxes was actually rather low. If they're 2.5 times more expensive now while keys have roughly doubled in price, then their value is now closer to what it should be.
It may be a bad thing for the average player who wants a LB ship from the Exchange, but there are underlying issues at play here. Namely, inflation. The causes? I'm not sure, but the issues stretch beyond an increase in LB ship prices.
'Don't buy keys with Zen to open boxes yourself, get everything from the Exchange.' It wouldn't surprise me if the increase in prices (not just of the big ship prize, but also of things like traits) is a direct result of that.
Exactly, it is why prices have gone up and it's the absolute WORST advice to give someone. Inflation isn't the fault of Cryptic here, it's the few players that have caused it. The person buying the ship that way gets ONLY the ship. The seller buys keys with all that EC, opens boxes, wins a few ship and sells everything, netting a few more billion to buy keys with. It's the biggest con in the game.
The best advice is wait for Mudds or the Campaign to refresh. Ships are not the be-all/end-all of the game.
Would there be more ships from Lockboxes being used ingame if people were not purchasing them off the Exchange and immediately placing them back on the Exchange for a higher price?
Should Lockbox ships be placed into the Bind on Pickup category?
I say yes to the last question. Ships should be used. Not traded about like works of art.
I've had the good fortune to open Lockboxes and get the ships everyone wanted from them. My ingame chat was immediately barraged by people offering large amounts of EC for them before the announcement in the Chat box finished scrolling up. Amounts well over the 2 billion EC limit. Those people were immediately placed on my Ignore list.
The most valuable things in the Phoenix store are the Phoenix Upgrade Tokens. Used properly, they can make an average ship with an average set of gear quite formidable.
I say no to some sort of, "Pity System". A resounding no at that. I've opened well over a thousand Phoenix Tokens and Lockboxes over the time I've spent playing this game. In both cases, I made a choice to open them. No one forced me to spend the money required to acquire either the Phoenix Tokens or the Zen needed to buy keys.
As long as I am in control of what I spend on this game, I have no cause to come in here and whine about how "unfair" the odds are.
I disagree, but you are of course entitled to your opinion.
People open lock boxes and promo packs for lobi and now the R&D boxes for the advanced console mats. Some of them win ships that they have no need for, that they would rather turn into credits to use for gear, traits, more lock box keys.
I have two Epic phoenix tokens I have no use for (have all the account unlocks) sitting in my bank because they are bound to account. That's a waste because others really want them and can spend (as with the OP) 4+ million dil without getting them.
Have you ever bought a lock box or lobi weapon, trait, mini doff pack, costume unlock from the exchange? I have. If those had all been bind on pickup the person selling would be stuck with gear they don't want, and I wouldn't have the beams for my space barbie. The current system is win-win except for those phoenix tokens.
I've also bought ships to fly, including Herald, Tholian, Xindi. (Yes I have a lot of alts.)
Turning an epic that someone just spent 4 million dil to NOT get into 2 x UR that you can get by opening a couple of 10-packs seems like a horrible waste. 1 epic = 8 upgrade tokens? Doesn't seem worthwhile.
If cryptic isn't willing to make them tradeable, it would be nice if they added something useful like 50-100 lobi or a box of several Elite Captain or Elite Bridge Officer tokens. In the Mudd's bundles 1 epic token is valued the same as an account-unlocked lock box or promo pack ship, 50 lock box keys, 16 x Elite boff tokens, etc.
I see you only included the parts of my post you wanted to.
The OP wants some sort of compensation for NOT getting something he/she wanted from opening Phoenix prize packs or Lockboxes. Why? Whenever I make the choice to spend on items such as Prize packs or Lockboxes, it is a choice on my part. I do not expect some sort of compensation from Cryptic or Gearbox because I did not get, "the ship they said was in the box!". I knew prior to spending the money what the odds are. No one at either Cryptic or Gearbox came to my house and made me spend the money I did.
Bingo!
Answer is easy......plain, simple greed.
> As for the - also mentioned - lockbox and promo ships:
>
> Just stop buying them altogether. There's no point in getting a single-character unlocked ship anymore. Wait for the inevitable MUDD- or Legendary treatment.
>
> I bought a lot of keys and promo packs in the past, but I'm done with it. Everything you get through the system will be rendered obsolete at some point anyway, even promo ships that were released when they (Cryptic) already knew fully well that they'd be made account unlocks some day, as with the Inquiry.
Promo ships are almost always better than legendary ships and frankly I don't particularly care what my alts are flying, I certainly wouldn't have two of my characters flying the same ship! How dull is that?
Even the legendary Inquiry which is 'ironically' an almost copy/paste of the promo is not quite as good. I'd rather have a ship that is 1% better on my main than a ship 1% worse on all my characters.
I've said this many a time now as someone who has opened his fair share of boxes and promo packs over the years, do NOT open promo packs or lockboxes expecting to pull a ship as you're going to be disappointed 99.99% of the time. If you're going to open the packs do it because you want the lobi or just had some keys/zen you wanted to burn.
As to why certain ships go for alot higher than others, this is often because of a few reasons. First is how rare the ship is. Certain ships aren't opened as often as others are which limits the supply of those ships even further. Another factor is how hard it is to drop a certain type of ship. Box ships and promo ships fetch a higher price because they're much harder to drop than something like a lobi ship. The biggest reason certain ships go for alot higher than others is due to what it can offer people, such as a highly desirable trait, console, and/or layout for certain builds, or just highly popular ship from the show. As a prime example an Atlas Dreadnought is going to go for far more than something like Vengeance because the Atlas gives access to DPRM. There are plenty of valid reasons ships may go for higher than others.
While I do believe there are plenty of ships that are way overpriced, simply because a ship goes for more than what you personally may be willing to pay doesn't automatically make it greed. No one is obligated to sell a ship for lower purely because someone thinks it's too high or wants it cheaper.
Also far too many people have this attitude that if they don't drop a ship by x amount of boxes there's something wrong and they should be compensated for it. Well no that's not how that works. Promo packs and lockboxes are essentially digital trading card packs similar to Pokemon, Yugioh, MTG or similar. When I go into a card shop and pay my $3 to open a pack of MTG, I'm paying for 15 cards in the pack. I might get lucky and pull a bonus foil card for 16 cards, I might get a card word $50+ on the secondary market, or I could get 15 useless cards not even worth the $3 I paid for the pack. What you're paying for is the minimum prize with a chance you might get more. Per my card pack analogy I'm paying for 15 cards. It may not be 15 cards I want, but I'm guaranteed 15 cards, and I'm getting 15 cards. Likewise the same applies to promo packs and box ships in game. You are paying for the minimum prize. You might get lucky and drop a ship but you're not guaranteed to do so. If someone chooses to open the boxes and/or promo packs, that is a choice they made and are not owed any kind of compensation if/when they don't get what they wanted. If you want a specific ship you will do far far better by flipping keys or promo packs and buying the ship on the secondary market directly.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Most of my toons fly different ships as well (1). But for things like traits and consoles, it's certainly nice to have the option to use it on the entire account. Especially when you've basically already paid more than enough for that - a promo ship tends to be more expensive, on average, than the entire legendary pack (certainly when only accounting for the actual ships in the pack, i.e. ignoring all the other stuff) in this case.
I just don't see the point of getting a ship for one toon anymore, when you can get it cheaper for the entire account in a year or two. Yes, the lay-out and seatings etc. may differ a bit in a few cases, but that hardly matters. It's not like the L-Inquiry would have anyone struggle to complete content when they were doing fine in the promo Inquiry. Besides, the Legendary one grants everything the Promo one also unlocked.
And in most cases account-wide unlocking treatments haven't actually resulted in any differences - everything from Mudd's store is the same it was with the original, character-restricted release.
(1) With a few exceptions, as some have 'inherited' the ship, with a different build, from another toon when that one got, in my own, personal timeline and lore, promoted to admiral for example.