23 replies to this topic

[davoodoo]

Ok, ive seen multiple times already.
Supply caches are better than conversion for QUICK cbills.

Ok lets check, teams got 12 players you only earn them on win, so 1/12 chance on win is reasonable assumption.
W/l of 1.0 is also reasonable assumption.
And lets say each cache awards on average 250k in either resale or direct. srm2, happen often and they sell for 10k, even with rare module for 1-2 mils it aint far fetched assumption.

Now depending on how much you think you can earn per match
100k?? 2.4mil per cache earned
200k?? 4.8mil per cache earned
300k?? 7.2mil per cache earned.

Now lets take random popular heavy mech, something relatively cheap stock, warhammer.
Variants go for more or less 6mil stock.
You need to open 24 caches to earn that 6mil.

In the course of gathering those caches you earned anywhere between 57.6 to 172.8 mil cbills during the course of 576 matches.(very quick buck here).
Enough to buy 9 to 28 warhammers...

By the time you gather enough supply caches to get some cbills out of them you will already be a millionaire.

Edited by davoodoo, 29 July 2016 - 06:06 PM.

[Tyler Valentine]

It's extra money, not one or the other.

[El Bandito]

davoodoo, on 29 July 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

-flawed logic-

Tyler Valentine, on 29 July 2016 - 06:26 PM, said:

It's extra money, not one or the other.

This.

[davoodoo]

Its not flawed, not when you hear "its good for new players" or "instead of buying mechs for mc just open caches and youll buy it for cbills cheaper"

[El Bandito]

davoodoo, on 30 July 2016 - 04:24 AM, said:

Its not flawed, not when you hear "its good for new players" or "instead of buying mechs for mc just open caches and youll buy it for cbills cheaper"

1. It is pretty good value for newbies on average. Newbies can play the game, earn in game currency while spending few MC on keys to open any crates they won to make extra income. Something like buying three Clan mechs to elite them costs tens of millions of C-Bills. Some players just don't have the time or patience to earn 30+ million per chassis, and crates help in that regard.

2. Crates are no substitute for buying mechs using MC or cash due to its high RNG factor, that I agree with.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 July 2016 - 10:02 AM.

[davoodoo]

El Bandito, on 30 July 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

1. It is pretty good value for newbies on average. Newbies can play the game, earn in game currency while spending few MC on keys to open any crates they won to make extra income. Something like buying three Clan mechs to elite them costs tens of millions of C-Bills. Some players just don't have the time or patience to earn 30+ million per chassis, and crates help in that regard.

But thats the point, caches arent readily available, before they manage to gather enough caches to buy anything with their content they get hundreds of matches of experience and are swimming in cbills, Better to save up for mech bay.

Even if you have pathetic skills and cant play for **** 100k is still a pretty much guaranteed pay and it still earns them 2.5mil cbills for every cache, which content range from srm2 for 10k fairly common to modules and mechs extremely rare.

Edited by davoodoo, 30 July 2016 - 10:57 AM.

[El Bandito]

davoodoo, on 30 July 2016 - 10:55 AM, said:

But thats the point, caches arent readily available, before they manage to gather enough caches to buy anything with their content they get hundreds of matches of experience and are swimming in cbills, Better to save up for mech bay.

I am pretty sure that most of those who are willing to spend MC on keys are able to afford MC for mechbays in the first place. One simply does not swim in C-Bills, unless one buys a lot of packs. I played this game for fours years and still I am far from rich enough to purchase everything I wanted with C-Bills.

[Paigan]

El Bandito, on 30 July 2016 - 11:11 AM, said:

I am pretty sure that most of those who are willing to spend MC on keys are able to afford MC for mechbays in the first place. One simply does not swim in C-Bills, unless one buys a lot of packs. I played this game for fours years and still I am far from rich enough to purchase everything I wanted with C-Bills.

Then you're doing something wrong.
I play for less than 2 years (casually, I work full time, have hobbies and a GF) and I don't know what to spend my CBs on anymore (please no envy here. My point is efficiency, not bragging).

[MuzMuzMuz]

I'd really love some "Further" supply cache clarification.

Whilst higher value rewards such as "a summoner battlemech" or "1000 MC" of course appear less frequently in supply caches, when we open one we have inspected does the game "roll a Fair 8 sided dice" to determine which listed reward we receive?

It seems to be presented that way - one would assume an even chance to receive one of the eight listed rewards? If so, I would thank PGI for actually disclosing the odds. Whilst I'm opposed in general to the idea of introducing gambling type mechanics to a game that asks you buy their in game virtual or micro currency with real dollars, A lot of shadier "lootbox and key" arrangements on other games never disclosed their odds - or at worst where accused of a bait and switch tactic by their player base, initially offering higher rewards only to tone them down later after the players had reported good results.

If the odds of each reward are one in eight, it's easy enough to do a risk and reward calculation on each supply cache. Of course, if a player has a specific goal such as obtaining 'Mech bays, CBills or even MC they'll need to open a large number of caches to counter variance and see a reasonable assumption of their gamble paying off - requiring an even larger number of supply caches to cherry pick their bets from - which given drop rates will take some time to acquire (a year or two in my case).

If the odds of obtaining one of the eight rewards listed when inspecting a supply cache are not even, then as a player base we're up the creek and would have to collate the results of tens of thousands of caches being opened to determine the value of a 25mc supply cache key in an environment where the developer has already stated the odds and frequency of supply cache items dropping are subject to change.

Edited by MuzMuzMuz, 01 August 2016 - 05:34 AM.

[El Bandito]

MuzMuzMuz, on 01 August 2016 - 05:26 AM, said:

I'd really love some "Further" supply cache clarification.

Whilst higher value rewards such as "a summoner battlemech" or "1000 MC" of course appear less frequently in supply caches, when we open one we have inspected does the game "roll a Fair 8 sided dice" to determine which listed reward we receive?

I believe PGI themselves had admitted that it is not an 8-sided dice. Better prizes have much less chance of getting picked.

[Sabazial]

I opened a bunch of them and it gave me the lowest value item every single time. It could just be the RNG gods hating me, but you can only take getting so many airstrikes and other useless garbage before you kinda don't bother with it anymore.

Seen these boxes in many of the mmo's i play and the odds are never in your favour.

[MuzMuzMuz]

El Bandito, on 01 August 2016 - 05:35 AM, said:

I believe PGI themselves had admitted that it is not an 8-sided dice. Better prizes have much less chance of getting picked.

If so I'm at a loss to see where they've stated it, I think this was the relevant part of the patch notes,

InnerSphereNews, on 15 July 2016 - 04:39 PM, said:

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Prior to unlocking a Supply Cache with a Supply Cache Key you will be able to examine its contents. If you do not desire any of the Items in a Supply Cache or if you otherwise do not wish to keep it, Supply Caches can be sold outright for 50,000 C-Bills.

Balancing Cost with Reward

For some of the higher-value items you can acquire from a Supply Cache, such as a Summoner SMN-D (including a Mech Bay to house it) or a 1000 MC pack, the value of a Supply Cache Reward can far exceed the value of the Supply Cache Key used to unlock it. The more valuable the item however, the rarer it will be!

In addition to high-value items Supply Caches will contain items on the lower end of the currency value spectrum, such as an SRM 4 or a Targeting Computer MkIV. If you have no use for those items as equipment you can choose to sell them back for C-Bills through your Inventory screen.

In the case of the SRM 4 and TC, both with a standard purchase cost of 120,000 C-Bills each, their re-sale values would be 60,000 C-Bills. With a Supply Cache Key cost of 25 MC this translates to approximately 2,400 C-Bills received per MC spent; better than the 1,375 C-Bills-per-MC value you would receive from acquiring a 1,100,000 C-Bill Pack for 800 MC!

Supply Cache Contents

Supply Caches can currently contain the following items, with more to be added in future patches (such as Colors, Patterns, and Decals):

• Weapons
• Equipment
• Engines
• Modules
• OmniPods
• Cockpit Items
• Active Premium Time
• C-Bill Rewards
• GXP Rewards
• MC Rewards
• 'Mech Bays
• 'Mechs (includes a Mech Bay!)
• Supply Cache Keys (Single Keys and Bundles)

The patch notes above only state regarding high value rewards "the value of a Supply Cache Reward can far exceed the value of the Supply Cache Key used to unlock it. The more valuable the item however, the rarer it will be!".

The patch notes do not state whether they are rare to simply appear in supply caches or are rare to be picked from the contents of an inspected supply cache.

Can anyone please link where PGI have clarified the odds of obtaining any one of the eight items from an inspected supply cache?

Belphegore, on 01 August 2016 - 05:36 AM, said:

I opened a bunch of them and it gave me the lowest value item every single time.

Tough luck Belphegore, but even at one in eight, there's sure to be dozens of players who've opened "a bunch of supply crates" and only gotten the lowest rewards. We'd need a huge thread with hundreds of players who bought higher tier MC packages during the "Stockpile WIth MC" event displaying content and rewards from all caches to review the statistics and derive the odds ourselves.

[Lucian Nostra]

MuzMuzMuz, on 01 August 2016 - 06:57 AM, said:

If so I'm at a loss to see where they've stated it, I think this was the relevant part of the patch notes,

[/i]

The patch notes above only state regarding high value rewards "the value of a Supply Cache Reward can far exceed the value of the Supply Cache Key used to unlock it. The more valuable the item however, the rarer it will be!".

The patch notes do not state whether they are rare to simply appear in supply caches or are rare to be picked from the contents of an inspected supply cache.

Can anyone please link where PGI have clarified the odds of obtaining any one of the eight items from an inspected supply cache?



Tough luck Belphegore, but even at one in eight, there's sure to be dozens of players who've opened "a bunch of supply crates" and only gotten the lowest rewards. We'd need a huge thread with hundreds of players who bought higher tier MC packages during the "Stockpile WIth MC" event displaying content and rewards from all caches to review the statistics and derive the odds ourselves.

Its been stated by PGI in other places by Tina and I also believe Russ. But any lick of the most BASIC level of common sense would tell a player that there is no way there is a 1/8 chance of winning a mech (or other things like mechbays) from a supply cache.

The fact that people have posted a bunch thinking it's all equal really just goes to show how daft a lot of people really are

[Mechwarrior1441491]

You eventually reach the peak and have all this useless GXp XP and C-Bills kicking around. There is no reason to really use them.

If they had you develop a dropship crew and a dropship, adding slotted commanders for an advanced Assault mode, where the slotted commanders and techs gave the base bonuses depending on who is drop commander, we'd have something else to sink the game currency into.

Adding mech commander elements like Mech pilots we advance, grant hem ranks, have different uniforms to put on them, access to our colour palette etc. Some decals only available for mech pilots of a certain rank. Now we're talking.

Edited by Mechwarrior1441491, 01 August 2016 - 08:49 AM.

[Kyrie]

What I dislike about the supply crate system is:
1) They could have made an effort to make it more lore-friendly, aka salvage and repair to useful state;
2) Its quite gimmicky.

It reminds me of the infamous quote about casinos, that casinos provide entertainment with a creative billing system. This, however, feels... cheap.

[Cy Mitchell]

Every Supply Cache I get is worth 50K C-Bills to me. That is a nice, straight up, bonus with no strings attached. For me, that is the C-Bill conversion that interest me. I have 5 keys that I got for free when I bought some MC that I will use for colors and a pattern plus the one I got for the event. I have opened one cache because it had a Summoner-D in it and I figured "oh, what the hell?" I got a Clan ERPPC instead of the Mech which was still a pretty good deal for me. I sold the other 7 caches that I have gotten.

Just look at them as an extra 50K in salvage and you will not have to waste brain cells on figuring conversions and such.

[Felio]

MuzMuzMuz, on 01 August 2016 - 06:57 AM, said:

Tough luck Belphegore, but even at one in eight, there's sure to be dozens of players who've opened "a bunch of supply crates" and only gotten the lowest rewards. We'd need a huge thread with hundreds of players who bought higher tier MC packages during the "Stockpile WIth MC" event displaying content and rewards from all caches to review the statistics and derive the odds ourselves.

Lucian Nostra, on 01 August 2016 - 08:17 AM, said:

Its been stated by PGI in other places by Tina and I also believe Russ. But any lick of the most BASIC level of common sense would tell a player that there is no way there is a 1/8 chance of winning a mech (or other things like mechbays) from a supply cache.

The fact that people have posted a bunch thinking it's all equal really just goes to show how daft a lot of people really are

Visually it is a spinning wheel. It is made to trick people into thinking each item has an even chance. Only if you are cynical enough to know it is a lie would you think otherwise.

You can't do this with slot machines in casinos. It's illegal. You can have a different number of a certain symbol on the reel (maybe three cherries and only one 7, for example), but each spot on the reel has to have an equal chance of coming up.

PGI finally pushed me to the point that I wrote to my senators and representative in the U.S. Congress about unregulated gambling with real money for virtual goods, and I mentioned MWO and these supply caches specifically, among others. I'll be shocked if any legislation actually comes out of it, but maybe it'll be on someone's radar. It's a first step.

I haven't spent more than a few dollars on randomized loot, after which I realized what a sham it is, but if you google around you can find articles on video games and gambling addiction. To their credit, PGI is at least less predatory by throttling the amount of supply caches you can receive.

[Lucian Nostra]

Felio, on 01 August 2016 - 10:41 AM, said:

Visually it is a spinning wheel. It is made to trick people into thinking each item has an even chance. Only if you are cynical enough to know it is a lie would you think otherwise.

You can't do this with slot machines in casinos. It's illegal. You can have a different number of a certain symbol on the reel (maybe three cherries and only one 7, for example), but each spot on the reel has to have an equal chance of coming up.

PGI finally pushed me to the point that I wrote to my senators and representative in the U.S. Congress about unregulated gambling with real money for virtual goods, and I mentioned MWO and these supply caches specifically, among others. I'll be shocked if any legislation actually comes out of it, but maybe it'll be on someone's radar. It's a first step.

I haven't spent more than a few dollars on randomized loot, after which I realized what a sham it is, but if you google around you can find articles on video games and gambling addiction. To their credit, PGI is at least less predatory by throttling the amount of supply caches you can receive.

Bro it's 25mc to open a cache, I don't care what the visual is when you open it there's no way pgi is gonna give mechs worth 2000-3500 MC at 1/8 and if people are dull enough to think that... i dont really care what happens to their money

[Implacable]

Yayy, I've got a big pile of omnipods for the clan mechs I have zero interest in using! Hoorayyyy!

Rant over.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Paigan, on 30 July 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

Then you're doing something wrong.
I play for less than 2 years (casually, I work full time, have hobbies and a GF) and I don't know what to spend my CBs on anymore (please no envy here. My point is efficiency, not bragging).

I have a GF, job, kids, and not many C-Bills at all. I have been playing longer than you. You know what I m doing wrong? Playing fewer hours than you. My apologies for the error on my part.