New wvw lockboxes devaluated

[Bluevan.9248]

boxes have cheap loot and getting infusion from them is a long story which wont happen for most players. also 5k tickets for cosmetic infusion? come on. for legendary backpack you need 2800 tickets. for 4 legendary armor pieces you need 5080 tickets but for small infusion which is purely cosmetic you need 5k. this is badges of honor we have thousands of, not claim tickets which are limited per week and you can get some more after latest wvw reward updates which were good. also new trader with wvw currency is nice.

[Balsa.3951]

On 6/15/2023 at 10:23 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Anet knew exactly what they where doing when setting up the loot table.

soft wood such a immature taunt from Anet

[Gorani.7205]

On 6/17/2023 at 10:58 PM, Draygo.9473 said:

I'm estimating they average out to about 18-20s with rare items included. (wiki one is off due to the drop rate of the ball of mist charged essence being unknown).

Also keep in mind that the WXP items dont have a value to them, even though they technically do, as you get either a half a level up or a full level and associated bonuses for that. Not sure how exactly to value the booster though. 

It is greatly misleading to take a look at the average and not the median value. The further away the average is from the median, the greater are the extremes, turning the "reward box" into a lottery ticket and not a reward.
(e.g. 99 people get 5$ a day for their work, 1 person gets 100.000 $; the average is 1004,95 $, the median is still 5$ - and 99 people still can't buy food when they come home from work and feed their family)

[Solvar.7953]

The real problem of the lottery is some will be lucky, some not.  In the example of 100 people, if it is guaranteed a different person gets that $100,000 each day, then over the course of 100 work days, that average of $1000/day is fine.  But with random nature, after 100 hundred days, you would have some people that have gotten $100K twice, or maybe 3 times, and some people who haven't gotten it at all.

I suppose the thing is, if I get more keys than lockboxes, I won't complain, as it still ends up being free loot, but actually buying keys is not worth it.  This is one of my complaints with GW2 - they often add things which take several currencies, one of which I may have in abundance, another in shortage, and so you have to go to gw efficiency to try to figure out values, where as if it was just a single currency, it becomes a simpler decision to determine if it is worth spending that currency or not.

 

[Hesione.9412]

On 6/16/2023 at 8:20 AM, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Meanwhile I'm annoyed that you have to type to delete the keys. Yea I'm just selling the chests.

That's why my keys are going into a shared inventory slot (I play more than one character in wvw). I'll delete once I hit 250.

[Lucy.3728]

On 6/15/2023 at 1:37 PM, Polar.8634 said:

Because contents of boxes are worth around 10-15s, most people sell them without opening. Price of box on TP is already 25s. With this, our new infusion "prestige" is being defvaluated too, would be funny if infusion worth 5k tickets dropped from boxes of total price 200-300g in the end.

While infusion looks cool and all, either decrease it's ticket price or improve box average drops, because this looks silly now.

Wow, a wvw infusion.
I don't care.
I don't want to stick out in wvw.
If I could set it that it's only me who sees the shiny, sparkling infusion then I may be interested but apparently that is the exact opposite reason why ppl are interested in infusions xD
(I know I'm weird. I didn't bother with legendary gear until the armory for it got implemented)

I don't do bosses for infusions, I don't do metas for infusions, I don't open loot boxes for infusions. (I got some from winter's day though)

Either the box is worth its content (and the 20 I opened weren't) or it goes to the tp until the price drop equals its content. With ppl after infusions that balance wont happen.

But I'm all for making things cheaper that I want to buy and making things more expensive that I want to sell ^^ (for scientific reasons of course).

Edited June 25, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[blp.3489]

According to the wiki page, the contents of large loot bags, which are dropped from enemy players, are worth 56(buy)/64(sell) copper on average based on the drop rates of the content.  The TP price at the moment is 3.39(buy)/18.17(sell) silver.  Why would anyone pay 18s for something worth less on average than 64c?  I've been routinely opening my loot bags without any thought, is there any reason why anyone would open them rather than sell them?  They don't list any high value contents like infusions.

[Gorani.7205]

A collection of thoughts about the boxes (data used up till 25/06/2023):
1. Are they a reward box, or a lottery ticket?
I would define the box as a reward, if the content of the box is at least as "valuable" as the price of a key. Considering you open all boxes with key drops from in-game, you have to consider it a reward. If you take the lowest priced key (3.5 silver + 5 Badges worth around 30 copper each), you hit the spot of 5 silver, which is the price of an unopened box directly to the merchant. That only works for 5 keys each week. Key prices go up from there and take a big jump in value, when you hit the need to pay with Skirmish Tickets. Doing a low amount of dailies, will exceed the influx of unopened boxes compared to reasonable key prices after day three in the week. It sounds fair to call the boxes a lottery ticket at this point.

2. What's in the box?
First of all, I will just focus on the rewards that could be turned into liquid currency (e.g. excluding WxP bottles). There is guild siege, which is worth some silver and the enhancements. Since those are items you would normally use in actively playing WvW, you might have to deduct the price of "normal" enhancement or superior siege from the guild / mist-infused price to get a realistic gain on coin. In total (and when deducting the 5 silver from the cheapest key, see above), it doesn't look that good.
Officers Remnant caches are where the money is, but at the current data set, you need around 170 cheapest keys to get one (which take 34 weeks to acquire). Even then, at the current price, you make around 70 silver of profit (current buy price minus value of keys in coin). Doing one daily Anomaly will get you the same profit. In the long run, prices will probably go down for the cache, because right now, completionists are buying them, because WvW players don't really need a marauder exotic weapon for their own use and probably are not keen on skin completion.
Crafting materials in the box are the biggest factor that make rewards from the box crappy. They are of such a low value compared to keys that they drag down the average worth of the box significantly and due to the amount of them on the loot table, heavily contribute to a abyssal median of the the table. And looking at the dataset, the amount of T2 Wood is ten times as high as other T2 stuff, so I wonder if there is something wrong with the loot table.

3. My Conclusion
If ANet wanted to add the boxes as lottery item, they should not have called it part of the "reward update", because right now, you are burning coin and resources for opening boxes in larger amounts. I don't have a problem with the super rare drops (caches & the infusion), but I think the average worth needs to get increased and especially the extremes need to be shifted out of "the coppers". My way of doing that would be to throw out the materials from the loot table and replace them with loot containers that include materials with over all better values, like Mist-wrapped Packet (includes ascended basic mats) and Mist-wrapped Bundles (which include T6 mats and T6 fine mats). You would still have randomness, but at least the "cheap key" option every week would be a good way to get something decent you can use as a WvW player, either for in game use, or on your legendary journey.

[Dayra.7405]

1. As you get free keys for the weeklies, your computation isn't complete.

2. It's a little reward in any-case, you can sell it to the NPC as garbage, should the HP price drop further.

3. If you burn coins for gambling or not is completely up to you.

Don't look a gifted horse into the mouth, we say in german 🙂

Edited June 25, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Squirrell.1493]

If you gift me a horse, at least, don't promote it to be a steed, when in fact it' a haridelle

[Draygo.9473]

On 6/22/2023 at 8:49 AM, Gorani.7205 said:

It is greatly misleading to take a look at the average and not the median value. The further away the average is from the median, the greater are the extremes, turning the "reward box" into a lottery ticket and not a reward.
(e.g. 99 people get 5$ a day for their work, 1 person gets 100.000 $; the average is 1004,95 $, the median is still 5$ - and 99 people still can't buy food when they come home from work and feed their family)

Irrelevant for the actual market value of something. Gambling or not, there still is an expected value for opening. If the risk is to high for you, then sell on the market and someone else will buy it. It doesn't affect the expected value of the chance if you or someone else opens it.

Generally, you should sell if the market is paying more than the expected value, if its less you can buy. But due to the rarity issue you should probably not buy unless you can buy a large quantity. A proper valuation will let you know if its better in the long run to open or not open and sell on the AH. 

 

Ive opened 500 boxes myself, and so far i'm pretty much even, and no I havent gotten the 'big' reward just 3 skins + the random loot. People also dont calculate that WXP = Gold, though the boosters are hard to put a value on. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Draygo.9473

[Polar.8634]

7 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Wow, a wvw infusion.
I don't care.
I don't want to stick out in wvw.
If I could set it that it's only me who sees the shiny, sparkling infusion then I may be interested but apparently that is the exact opposite reason why ppl are interested in infusions xD
(I know I'm weird. I didn't bother with legendary gear until the armory for it got implemented)

I don't do bosses for infusions, I don't do metas for infusions, I don't open loot boxes for infusions. (I got some from winter's day though)

Either the box is worth its content (and the 20 I opened weren't) or it goes to the tp until the price drop equals its content. With ppl after infusions that balance wont happen.

But I'm all for making things cheaper that I want to buy and making things more expensive that I want to sell ^^ (for scientific reasons of course).

my topic is about reawards anet promised to wvw players. Infusion and box prices are interconnected. This topic is not about you like infusions or not.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

On 6/15/2023 at 4:23 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Anet knew exactly what they where doing when setting up the loot table.

You lost me at "Anet knew exactly what they where doing"