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Well the new boxes dropped and you know what is going to happen. It won’t be long before some agreived sot is going to be beasting the forums about how the mean people at cryptic/ perfect world MADE them spend hundreds of real world dollars on zen and keys chasing their tholian dream that was never realized. I avoid making posts like this on the STO forums because I expect to be attacked by deranged people who think I’m some servant of PWE defending their malicious business model. Not at all. On the matter of lock boxes I’m very much in it for myself. I guess I’m also posting here because I was part of a brief discussion on the diplo channel and wanted to hear more about what everyone thought in greater detail.
I’m not a gambler and I don’t believe in luck. When I look at lockboxes I set a manageable loss, stick to it regardless of outcome and cut my losses accordingly. If I get nothing I sort of expected that. Certain items I hope will appear I see as a cash cow that will allow me finance improvements for my characters; I suppose I could define these as tangible gains.
My intention is to open 30 lock boxes total. Budget is just over $30. In the big picture an endgame ship runs around $25. If I hit one I’ve recovered most of the loss. I don’t think that 10 is a high enough number of attempts to challenge the spread/odds. 30 is enough room to work.
As I stated last night I am 7 boxes in. I’m of the opinion I have already met my goal of paying back the full investment;
Star Cruiser MU x1
Standard Doof pack x2
20,0000 FM pool x2
5,000 FM pool x1
Phased Tetryon weapon X1One decent item did the job: that’s pretty much $25 in end game cruiser with a science bend (my fave). If I chose to keep it I would probably get use out of it. If I want to sell it I had better do it soon because there will probably be a fair number out there. Before I put it on the block I’ll have to do some market research.
Standard doff packs are really garbage. It’s not even quality like the gamma packs were. I bought gamma packs for nice officers and didn’t care that there was an additional promotion. A single uncommon. What a load….hopefully they are full of security officers 😀
The fleet marks packs are a junker in most peoples cases. I predict they will make people in large fleets rather mad at one another until the FM requirements go up a bit more. In a low staff fleet (like our KDF one) this is just what we need. We have a respectable leaderboard over there and a list of only 10 or so people (foolish people who have multiple characters make the number appear greater 😳 ) has accomplished a lot. I have ended up doing more grinding than I would like and having a bump in my fleet mark production will allow me to get that stagnated project underway where otherwise it would be lying idle. I will probably give the small FM to the Fed Klingon I made for the fleet proper (did it when the TNG 25th swag dropped 🙂 ) but as it stands he’s level 2 and won’t be stealing anybody’s thunder on the leaderboards.
Tetryon packs are a bit of an unknown commodity and waiting on these is the right course of action. Somewhere on the interwebs THAT guy is feverishly opening phased tetryon packs to outfit his whole escort with 4 DHC and 3 turrets and he will continue opening boxes until he catches them all. As he gets closer to his goal the mania and desperation will grow and he will pay more for another box to open; I’ll be waiting.
A casual review of my “treasures” really only shows 1 good item. I’m looking at the FM boosts as valuable because they alleviate me of time purely grinding where I could pursue other ingame activities.
The real point of this is to check in on everyone else and learn how you all feel about the boxes. When the fenegi ones rolled I realized that me not buying wouldn’t change anything. I followed a similar strategy then and financed some nice stuff for all of my characters. I know I can’t change the system and they won’t get rid of them so I might as well try to use them to my advantage.
when i first started playing i bought some lockboxes (cardassian) and thought they were a rip off, like you, i don’t have good luck.
i had a few c-store credits and did buy a couple keys for tholian lockboxes. i got crew and lobi crystals. the crew was not too bad.
i would like a tholian ship but i have already busted my budget on this game. actually it was suppose to be free to play. a key is no guarantee i would get a ship.
🙂
Personally, I would prefer if they just put everything into the store, and be done with it. Not really a fan of lockboxes as a way to get stuff. That said, I see it as a necessary evil to keep the game afloat. C’est la vie. I don’t/won’t rage about it on the forums. I will most likely not spend real money to open these boxes. I probably will, however, buy some keys off the exchange, though. I’ll wait for price to come back down to the 1 mill range. Or, maybe use my stipend.
as a addition I opened boxes 8-10 the other evening. I was fairly certain I’d made my money back on the projected 30 before now I figure it’s in the bag.
5000 fm bonus x2
point defence/jump console x1Box 10 saw the pd/j cross faction console. Sold off to a klingon player this one could net a good payout. I tend to avoid gimmick consoles because they take up a slot that could be used for something more directly associated with my total build and they all seem to suffer from long cooldowns which make them unattractive when I compare them to BOff powers. I may hold this one for myself because it would feel pretty good to obliterate a rash of tractor pets in the blink of an eye before punishing their shocked owner. If there is anything that has market value apart from the tholian vessel this could have the potential to be the second place item. Got a 2 million quote on the mirror ships. I’m not surprised they are a bit low but 2 million is okay cash. If more appear in the next 20 I’m pretty sure I’d hold the the one I prefer but as it stands a science geared cruiser sounds like it might get my fed engineer out of mothballs: who knows?
@sargon: I started playing just before the cardassian boxes were introduced. I never tried them and having them cluttering my screen just made me mad. When the next wave arrived I took a note from the ferengi they were themed on and realized playing the speculating game might reduce my frustration with their constant appearances.There are no certainties playing the lock box game. I wouldn’t trust my “luck” any further than I could throw it. Me getting the tholian “ultimate prize” is an impossibility but hitting a couple of the lower laying fruit on the tree will enable me to improve the quality of my characters for a fairly low investment into the game. I guess if I’m probability challenged (more PC than unlucky ;)) I can lower my excpectations and not be as likely to take it to heart or subscribe to the, “it must be in the next one” mentality that is so hurtful to some people.
@latinumbar: No question I prefer getting what I pay for. If I was set on a particular item I wouldn’t touch lock boxes. Because I am foolish enough to have many characters getting little tickets items to distribute among the many is just as good as one “super prize”.i hate to admit it, but i broke down and bought a 10 key pack. doff packs and lobi cyrstals till number 3 and i about fainted. got a tholian web ship. after that more doff packs and lobi crystals.
of course now i am wanting a fleet ship; the fleet star cruiser.
I had my full of them last round. I don’t hate them but I don’t see a point in them any more as when i get my new PC i will be busy with with fleet stuff and the fleet ships are better then lock box ships.
@Sargon: Congrats 😀 . Are you going to fly it or sell it? If I was in your situation it would be a very hard call. As a sci ship I think the layout/set up is hot but aesthetically it does nothing for me. Either way you could have a solid end game ship if you ever wanted to pursue a career in the sciences (it probably flies a bit like one of the faster cruisers) or you will be able to make yourself rich.
@Cross82: I wish I was more jazzed about the fleet ships. Before I saw the statlines I considered joining a fleet as a means of getting one. When I saw the stats I was rather underwhelmed. By the time I had joined the 44th I’d learned about fleet mods, single character unlocks and tier 5 shutouts and as a result I’m far more discriminating when I look at them. I’m at the point I’m thinking being part of the fleet was the prize and the ships are a dubious honour.
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