Strongboxes and Prophetic cards

1

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 10:12am

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Another thing that is killing this game (after unbalance classes, constant crashes etc.) are the Strongboxes events.
Everybody knows the Scamboxes and the rate of loot they give (same goes for prophetic cards and other them alike).
After a while it gets pretty annoying

when instead an item you are 'hunting' you get so called 'rewards'. But how about the promised item (mount, scroll, earing slot, ship devices etc.)?

When I go to a shop for a certain item I don't get anything else accept what I am paying for.
But the strongboxes resemble a situation:

Quoted

Let say I'm in a bakery and when I ask for bread and the salesperson gives me a box (for which I have to pay ofc.).
When I open it, i get a slice of ham instead of bread ( good, at least I will have something to eat with the bread).
So I ask for another one.
This time I get a sausage.
In the next is a crumb of bread (good start) ... in next one there is only a slice of cheese and the next one has some butter.
That is not what I came here for , but the salesperson says, that, because I've opened 10 boxes I get one for free.
That makes me happy.
So I take it and open it.
And what do you know after opening the box I get another bread crumb.
Only 98 and I will have the whole bread.
After a while and 300 ham slices, 120 apples and few pieces of butter,.... and some myrrh...
I finally got my 100th crumb , and now i have enough to get a real bread.
Yupii!!!.

The point is that, If I'm going to a shop and want to buy precisely an item I don't get to open boxes and may or may not I will get it. I pay for it so I get it.

My suggestion is to put the rewards into the Boutique so they have fixed value. And when I want it, I know how much I need to pay for it to get it for sure.
So as not to take the fun from those who like the uncertainty of opening the boxes let say that during one week ppl can buy the Strongboxes, and try to loot the item. But when the event is over they can buy it from Boutique. It would lower the prices on those items (like the huge prices for a mount are) in game and also give ppl the chance to have one of them. It would also make it attractive since the one disadvantage in this game is lack of mounts an ordinary, casual player can buy in-game (not investing much money).

EDIT:
/05-29-2014/
The thing most ppl not getting here is that this server is FREE to play and CS transactions are just the additive to the game, but more frequently this game became PAY to play and the transactions became huge-macro-transactions. This type of scamming and exploitation only draws ppl away from the game.
For new players to catch up with others starts to be harder and harder unless they actually pay a lot of money on a FREE to play server.
This proposition of mine would bring back the microtransaction back and make it easy for new ppl to level with others, older gamers.

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "SΛΤΗΩ" (May 29th 2014, 9:53am)

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2

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 11:12am

Qing

Intermediate

Posts: 187

Quoted from "Teppisch"

Same like if you play lotto.

Or like Gambling!

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3

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 11:43am

Verdopetro

Beginner

Posts: 23

Slot machine

that boxes are kinda slot machine (the only diference you always get something) in my opinion i would say to buy that ability for high amound of gold acordinaly to current max lvl, its not about kill the game also a nice sugestion would be to put a fixed price value of crystal based on max lvl and on other side you remove the ability to sell crystal for gold so economy will not be affected and makes life easy for players

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4

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 11:45am

Spinecrawler

Intermediate

Posts: 205

Occupation: Bez majzla i młota to ch*j nie robota!

Gambling it is.

Is it even legal ? I mean a LOT of underaged ppl play this game.

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5

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 12:14pm

Randir

Trainee

Posts: 160

If the Servers would be for ex in Germany, it would not be allowed. But its a russian company. So its not against (their) laws.

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6

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 2:19pm

IAmGroot

Professional

Posts: 1,349

Location: Wisconsin - USA

Occupation: Destoryer of all things you love

If they would do this, and I kind of wish they would, they would have to set a really high price for the top tier items.
Prices like 40,000 crystals for a Wraith.
So would you be willing to pay that?
Or would you be trying to buy one from someone that won one in lets say 10 boxes that is trying to sell for 35,000 shards to get some profit below the item shop price?

There are ups and downs to what you're saying.
I am for them having all the top tier items in the item shop, however, as I said, they would have to set prices high so there is still incentive for people to open boxes.

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7

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 2:51pm

ValekLost

Trainee

Posts: 99

Location: Italy

Occupation: :U

Quoted from "Teppisch"

Strongboxes cost more, but they have better prices inside.
Prophetcards cost less most of the time and you have garantueed prices, but most of the times the Items aren't as good as the ones from strongboxes.

[list]

I can't shop so much, but I like far more Prophetic Cards than Strongboxes.
As a vanity-lover, I can say that with PC you can win a lot of useful stuff: gold dust, CC, costumes, fancy mounts, tons of elixirs, mountfeed, june token for the Adventurer Stone and so on. Stuff that make you save a lot of BC avoiding to buy them (I made my runes til the full set 4 only with the prizes of PC. And beside I upgraded them again with buyed CC, I still have 500K of gold dust).
I've won also something like 150+ elixir boxes on the Italian server, with 2 PC events.

Strongboxes make me angry :/
They cost a lot, their droprate is very low. The most of the time you win only fragments of scrolls or scrolls that don't pay anything on the Auction House. If you're lucky you can win some [battle Mount x]'s token.
I understand frustrated ppl saying "it's the 2nd time I buy 10k BC of Strongboxes and I've only won a stupid epic scroll", or something like that.
With 10k BC of PC's compasses I can win a lot more.

Strongboxes have better prizes IF you win them. If you don't you have only a bucket of fragments/token and the only thing you can do is trying to sell them on /world.
PC have worse prizes but you always win something useful.

Plus...the more you spend, the more you win. The daily lottery is a shame because the more money you can spend, the more golds you'll win. So a Boutique event, for extreme Boutique shoppers :/

I don't like Strongboxes events at all. At least PC give boutique items that you can usually buy during all the year, not exclusive stuff you can only buy in game at crazy prices :/

Quoted from "Randir"

If the Servers would be for ex in Germany, it would not be allowed. But its a russian company. So its not against (their) laws.

These servers, as far as I know, should be located in the Netherlands ò.O[/list]

Thakalek
Arisen Summoner ~ Lv 60
<Pirati Astrali>
From [ITA] server

"Oh my GOSH! FROGS! Frogs EVERYWHERE on this SHIP! And they're ALL CHASINGMEAHHHH!" [Me, during every Archdemon event ._.]

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8

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 3:10pm

Randir

Trainee

Posts: 160

These servers, as far as I know, should be located in the Netherlands ò.O[/list]
Yep but the Company is not in the EU.

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9

Wednesday, May 28th 2014, 8:32pm

Xaraman

Trainee

Posts: 138

Location: Dublin

Occupation: Senior bottle washer, Madness guild

My idea would be to significantly increase the chance for a top tier item to drop after a certain amount of boxes (ie Euro spent). They keep these sort of stats, so I don't it would be too much of a problem to guarantee someone a top tier drop after approx €xxx euro spent on the boxes.

Depending on the rate they will bring the boxes out or the importance of the item this could be anywhere from €30-€150. To be honest, I don't think anyone should be spending any more than €150 on an in game item. That's almost 1 years sub for other games.

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10

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 12:38am

ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER

Sage

Posts: 5,464

RE: Strongboxes and Prophetic cards

Quoted from "SΛΤΗΩ"

Another thing that is killing this game (after unbalance classes, constant crashes etc.) are the Strongboxes events.
Everybody knows the Scamboxes and the rate of loot they give (same goes for prophetic cards and other them alike).
After a while it gets pretty annoying when instead an item you are 'hunting' you get so called 'rewards'. But how about the promised item (mount, scroll, earing slot, ship devices etc.)?

When I go to a shop for a certain item I don't get anything else accept what I am paying for.
But the strongboxes resemble a situation:

Quoted

Let say I'm in a bakery and when I ask for bread and the salesperson gives me a box (for which I have to pay ofc.).
When I open it, i get a slice of ham instead of bread ( good, at least I will have something to eat with the bread).
So I ask for another one.
This time I get a sausage.
In the next is a crumb of bread (good start) ... in next one there is only a slice of cheese and the next one has some butter.
That is not what I came here for , but the salesperson says, that, because I've opened 10 boxes I get one for free.
That makes me happy.
So I take it and open it.
And what do you know after opening the box I get another bread crumb.
Only 98 and I will have the whole bread.
After a while and 300 ham slices, 120 apples and few pieces of butter,.... and some myrrh...
I finally got my 100th crumb , and now i have enough to get a real bread.
Yupii!!!.

The point is that, If I'm going to a shop and want to buy precisely an item I don't get to open boxes and may or may not I will get it. I pay for it so I get it.

My suggestion is to put the rewards into the Boutique so they have fixed value. And when I want it, I know how much I need to pay for it to get it for sure.
So as not to take the fun from those who like the uncertainty of opening the boxes let say that during one week ppl can buy the Strongboxes, and try to loot the item. But when the event is over they can buy it from Boutique. It would lower the prices on those items (like the huge prices for a mount are) in game and also give ppl the chance to have one of them. It would also make it attractive since the one disadvantage in this game is lack of mounts an ordinary, casual player can buy in-game (not investing much money).

i recommend buying the "bread" directly fro the auction house or better make a rendezvous with the seller and buy directly to save the 5% tax
do never open strongboxes if you want to save gold...

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11

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 9:02am

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Quoted from "Teppisch"

Hello,
Ofcourse it has to do with luck. As an example. If you buy 100 Strongboxes for 10.000 Crystals, the Chance that you get a Mount is pretty high. Because you have 100x the chance to drop it, but it's definitely not garantueed.
It is still a luck factor. Same like if you play lotto. BUT with strongboxes you are garantueed to get something. You will never get nothing.

Believe me I've opened on many occasions over 100 boxes and had nothing interesting from it. How many scrolls of the same type can u have? I would have better chance playing lotto.
I've also noticed that some accounts have higher chances on looting some valuable things then others (same goes for double increase on item upgrades for those accounts) without spending that much on boxes.
So it's not 'luck factor' but more account factor.

Quoted from "Teppisch"

For 10.000 Crystals you get around 700-1000 Compasses, depending on the price.

Thats the thing. For you 10k crystals is just 100€ for me it's 1/4 of my salary. For many others it's probably to expensive too.

Quoted from "Teppisch"

Throughout these 1000 Compasses you probably get around 20x lucky strike /.../. With these lucky strikes you will 100% get one of 8 good items.

Yeah, most of the lucky strikes for me end up with extra gold dust or myrrh.

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12

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 9:31am

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Quoted from "Hclftw"

If they would do this, and I kind of wish they would, they would have to set a really high price for the top tier items.
Prices like 40,000 crystals for a Wraith.
So would you be willing to pay that?
Or would you be trying to buy one from someone that won one in lets say 10 boxes that is trying to sell for 35,000 shards to get some profit below the item shop price?

There are ups and downs to what you're saying.
I am for them having all the top tier items in the item shop, however, as I said, they would have to set prices high so there is still incentive for people to open boxes.

Why would it have to be so high?
1st this would be after the event, so those who want to get it first might loot it from the boxes. Then it would be in Boutique.
2nd this worked for rhino, gryphon, raptor and wooly, lion and the rest of mounts and ppl are still buying them from CS. Also they would buy it from CS even more then the boxes bcz all want to have a battle mount, more rubies, better earslot etc.
3rd many games do it like that.

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13

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 9:44am

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Quoted from "ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER"

i recommend buying the "bread" directly fro the auction house or better make a rendezvous with the seller and buy directly to save the 5% tax
do never open strongboxes if you want to save gold...

Have you seen the prices on AH lately? For a casual player or a person who intendedly choose free to play server (like me), those things are out of reach. I already spend to much time in the game grinding gold for uppers for astral gear, and I cant afford to invest whole salary either to buy boxes from which i get crap or to pay someone who put those items on AH for half of what I'm earning in rl. I want to enjoy the game not hunt for occasions and spend all my earnings to catch up with others. It's FREE to play server not PAY to play, this is the other one which for some reasons is empty (but that's not the thing here).

Putting the items after event to CS with fixed not high price, would force those who sell the items on AH, to lower their prices. This would also mean that more ppl can afford to get those items either from AH or from CS.

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14

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 11:00am

Nyashiro

Intermediate

Posts: 281

Location: Lithuania

Occupation: No, just visiting ^^

I completely agree with Sathom, and those prices in the boutique shouldn't be THAT high. Are you really prepared to pay 400 euro/544$ for a simple mount in a game like this? Maybe, just maybe 12,5k gem shard price 1-2 weeks AFTER the strongbox event ends. People then would still have the incentive to play the lottery, as in being ahead by 2 weeks than the ones who prefer a fixed price in AH for it.

Blindoz
Blindos
Blintrez
And so on..

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15

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 11:31am

Verdopetro

Beginner

Posts: 23

Sugestion for everyone

i would suggest you guys to dont buy those boxes and spend 0 money in my.com since they wont care about us so we just pay the some coin to then, if they look for some cash they should do things more fairly for players

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16

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 12:00pm

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Quoted from "Verdopetro"

i would suggest you guys to dont buy those boxes and spend 0 money in my.com since they wont care about us so we just pay the some coin to then, if they look for some cash they should do things more fairly for players

This would be a solution, but.... (there's always a 'but'),
the heavy CS users won't stop doing that. After a while you will be far, far behind them (or in a game terms: oneshooted by them). In not so long time it will cause ppl to leave bcz they won't be able to catch up and compete with the rest, and then the servers will die.
As I said before, I would like to enjoy the game with all the endgame content, pvp included.

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17

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 12:00pm

Windstorm

Trainee

Posts: 120

Location: Sibiu

Occupation: profesional slacker .

I've said it before ,the prices of those mounts are insanely high .Even if you buy them directly from the AH,you would just feed someone's greediness ,you have to spend your real moneys for it (cus i don't think anyone CAN actually farm gold to cover around 400 euros lol ).And those boxes ,hum .Just waste of moneys if you look at their drop rate usually. I sure would buy a good mount from the Boutique ,with a decent price ,least i know on what i'm spending my RL moneys. But come on,400/500 euros for a mount ? I wonder if the prices are the same for the russian servers .Have one thing to say ,this is incredibile . And somehow ,at least for me,looks like a robbery ,while you don't have any other option to get those mounts ,only boxes or AH.Yups,I won't buy a mount that cost me 400 euros ,no yay,in my country the medium earning salary its ~ 300 /350 euros /month . Its still a game and the product its pure virtual .Its not stupid who asks for those prices ...the stupid one ish the one who accept to pay it .

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18

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 12:45pm

Biromir

Intermediate

Posts: 539

I sincerely think that putting mounts like the wraith or spinner in the itemshop for a fixed price would be the death of the game. Right now, their redeeming factor is that they are a limited number. I would speculate that there is server-wide variable controlling the influx of combat mounts from strongboxes. Server-wide drop rates are nothing new, every decent MMO has them.

Putting these mounts in the itemshop for whatever price creates an infinite supply of them. Right now, getting any mount is possible without having to gamble at all - you just buy gold and buy it from the AH. It's so good, that this action is beneficial to the ingame economy, because it lowers the currency convert ratio. Sure, people be like "you're feeding someone else's greedyness", but this is an MMO, with an economy - trading is part of the game. If you don't want to gamble, you can just buy the items you want from people who are willing to gamble, or just got lucky.

Asking a million gold for a powerful mount that is very limited supply is not greedy, even if most players can't afford that. Not every player should have a spinner or a wraith. That would make the game unplayable. The strongbox combat mounts SHOULD be rare. For decent mounts that should be available to everyone - you have prophetic cards, that allow every endgame player to get a mount from them.

@Windstorm - yes it is the same in RU for a free player. The prices are different, because wages in Russia are different, but the game outside of Russia is tailored towards the first world market, because that's where the big money is. If it was tailored to markets like ours, where our monthly wages are less than 1k euros, you'd have 10 times as many people running around in lvl 13s, since those would be 10 times cheaper to get, money wise, and the same gold wise.

Colin Quinn Recipe for success/dinner. 1/2 cup of brass you know whats, a tablespoon of I don't give a care, and a pound of get off my back, jack!

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19

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 1:09pm

SΛΤΗΩ

Intermediate

Posts: 222

Location: Poland

Occupation: Whatever, wherever, whenever

Quoted from "Biromir"

I sincerely think that putting mounts like the wraith or spinner in the itemshop for a fixed price would be the death of the game. Right now, their redeeming factor is that they are a limited number. I would speculate that there is server-wide variable controlling the influx of combat mounts from strongboxes. Server-wide drop rates are nothing new, every decent MMO has them.

Putting these mounts in the itemshop for whatever price creates an infinite supply of them. Right now, getting any mount is possible without having to gamble at all - you just buy gold and buy it from the AH. It's so good, that this action is beneficial to the ingame economy, because it lowers the currency convert ratio. Sure, people be like "you're feeding someone else's greedyness", but this is an MMO, with an economy - trading is part of the game. If you don't want to gamble, you can just buy the items you want from people who are willing to gamble, or just got lucky.

Asking a million gold for a powerful mount that is very limited supply is not greedy, even if most players can't afford that. Not every player should have a spinner or a wraith. That would make the game unplayable. The strongbox combat mounts SHOULD be rare. For decent mounts that should be available to everyone - you have prophetic cards, that allow every endgame player to get a mount from them.

It's hard not to agree with you although introducing mounts like Lion (ok, this one is no battle one) or Raptor or even Rhino into CS didn't destroyed the game. Many ppl bought them just to have them. And after a while, there were other mounts, better ones. The same will be with those which are currently 'the best'. So I see no harm of putting them into CS for a price so that many ppl would have them. Where's the harm in that? Why limit the amount of those mounts in-game? Even more, the AH sells aren't good for the company income since their are done by in-game money, whereas the sell in CS would give them income from each sold item.
And finally, maybe then we would have events like "The Great Battle of Mounts" :thumbsup:

Btw., I'm not talking only about mounts. Also would be nice to have scrolls and other things in Boutique for a good price.

ps. You can buy CC in Boutique and yet you don't see everyone with lvl 13 runes.

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20

Thursday, May 29th 2014, 2:15pm

IAmGroot

Professional

Posts: 1,349

Location: Wisconsin - USA

Occupation: Destoryer of all things you love

Quoted from "Windstorm"

I've said it before ,the prices of those mounts are insanely high .Even if you buy them directly from the AH,you would just feed someone's greediness

If you have never opened strongboxes, you don't know the pain of opening them by this statement.
The CS users are greedy?
It took me 35,000 crystals to get my first Wraith this sale.
Another 30,000 crystals to get another.
I was hoping I could do well and win another one in a few crystals (3,000-6,000) to get back some of the crystals I had spent.
I did not. I ended up opening another 25,000 crystals worth of boxes to get another Wraith and sell it and ended up selling it for 25,000 crystals.
To be fair, I think these mounts are actually going for too cheap, considering the amount of boxes you have to open to get one.

I opened over 1,300 boxes this sale and have opened that or more on some other box sales.
Unless you consistently open boxes, you really shouldn't call anyone "greedy" for what they want to charge on items they pay real $$$ for.

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