City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Super Packs Update - 12/2/2011

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-12-02 18:45 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Party_Kake View Post
If I purchase $5 in CCG content or super packs, I possess something. And, it turns out it's something desirable.
This is flat out not true depending on your definition of "desirable". It seems very likely that it will be able to buy 5 packs and get nothing desirable.

Quote:
Gambling means randomly winning or losing money, or exchangeable tokens that have money value, or chips that don't really have money value but can be exchanged for money, depending on how you look at that.
Use that $5 and buy a dictionary.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazey View Post
How many people do you think had even heard the term "Coupon Collector's Problem" before it was brought up in regard to the super packs?
Most everyone I would bother talking to in real life? Many people on any game theory board?

Quote:
How exactly is using a term almost know-one knows, and using it inaccurately, "ease of communication"?
Even if someone has not heard of it, they can look it up on wikipedia in 9 seconds and get a good grasp of the idea.

Getting a collection of X from a random sample has lower odds that most people will estimate. This is caused by the fact that the chance of getting the last missing piece is much lower than the chance of getting the first few pieces. Those basic ideas are just as applicable here as in a strictly defined coupon collector.

Even more to the point, you can limit the problem to a strict collector problem and generate an upper bound on the probability. In other words, you can create a hypothetical system that follows the exact problem and show how bad the odds are, then you can show that all the variances only make the odds worse.

No, really, do what I just said. Imagine you want to collect 3 sets for 3 different ATs. Now imagine that the system only had those 3 sets in the pool and nothing else. Work out those odds - it is exactly the collector problem. Everyone here can do it. Then realize that none of the changes that make this hypothetical different than the real system will make the real system have better odds than that. That represents an upper bound on reality.

If the best case it horrible, what does that say about the average and worst cases?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
And if the person who gave the very precise directions was completely wrong ?

Because that is what happened here.
No, that actually didn't happen. You're confused.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by rsclark View Post
No, really, do what I just said. Imagine you want to collect 3 sets for 3 different ATs. Now imagine that the system only had those 3 sets in the pool and nothing else. Work out those odds - it is exactly the collector problem. Everyone here can do it. Then realize that none of the changes that make this hypothetical different than the real system will make the real system have better odds than that. That represents an upper bound on reality.
You've forgotten about trading.
That automatically makes things in your scenario better than the Coupon Collector's Problem.
Even if you have to sell 3 duplicates to make enough to buy 1 new, that still lowers the expectation on the time to collect the full sets.

Take your scenario, and include trading, and you have a far better situation the Coupon Collector's Problem, and the difference between the two only grows the more sets you add.

Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.

BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"

 

Posted

Seeing someone else brought this up:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Party_Kake View Post
Gambling means randomly winning or losing money, or exchangeable tokens that have money value, or chips that don't really have money value but can be exchanged for money, depending on how you look at that.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Gambling

Quote:
Gambling [gam-buhl]  
gam·ble   [gam-buhl] verb, -bled, -bling, noun
verb (used without object)
1. to play at any game of chance for money or other stakes.
2. to stake or risk money, or anything of value, on the outcome of something involving chance: to gamble on a toss of the dice.
verb (used with object)
3. to lose or squander by betting (usually followed by away ): He gambled all his hard-earned money away in one night.
4. to wager or risk (money or something else of value): to gamble one's freedom.
5. to take a chance on; venture; risk: I'm gambling that our new store will be a success.
noun
6. any matter or thing involving risk or hazardous uncertainty.
7. a venture in a game of chance for stakes, especially for high stakes.
Let's see. You are using the first usage.
The second usage includes anything of value. I'm pretty sure that most players value costume and some players will value the ATOs.
The sixth usage also applies.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Party_Kake View Post
But this is the sale of a randomized collection of virtual goods which are not necessary for players, and it's meant to provide players with something for their purchase. I'm seeing a distinct detachment between what we know so far and what people are assuming will happen.
Do you agree that costumes or ATOs can be valued by players? If so, then it is gambling.



Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

 

Posted

After reading the thread, I have concluded that people are entirely too caught up in the semantics of whether or not this falls into the Coupon Collector's problem.

That is unimportant.

Here is what is important (IMHO):

- The Dev team is listening and has been willing to compromise a bit. Let's not burn that by filling this thread with noise.

- The Costume Parts are currently still exclusive to the packs. This is not good; I suggest they be made available simultaneous to Super Pack release for 400 pp. The people who would have bought them anyway will buy them still (no lost sales). The people who would not have bought them may get pieces in the packs and decide to buy more to get more pieces (new sales). If they are exclusive to the packs, those who refuse to buy packs will lose out on them (lost sales) and those who want them enough to buy packs will get frustrated and quit around 400 points spent (potentially lost or gained sales, definite lost goodwill).

- The ATOs from the packs are still intended to be tradeable. This is not good. It leads to people making a RL profit off of gthe ingame market by violating the EULA. It's okay for the ones that are earned ingame to be tradeable. However, the ones you buy from the store need to be segregated withing the system. I suggest that instead of trading to the ingame market, you check into allowing people to return packs to the market at an exchange rate, even 10 to 1 or so. Essentially a button in the market that 'eats' some of your packs and spits out a new pack.

- The ATOs no longer being exclusive to packs is awesome, and thank you thank you thank you. This makes the 80pp price point much closer to reasonable, depending on the projected mean cost of collecting a costume set.

- Although I don't think Samuel Tow's point applies directly to this particular issue, it is important. More VIP-only goodies that non-VIPs can see/drool over need to be introduced in order to get more Freems and Preems to want to upgrade. But that is it's own thread (per Positron's clarification, thanks Positron! ).

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
After reading the thread, I have concluded that people are entirely too caught up in the semantics of whether or not this falls into the Coupon Collector's problem.

That is unimportant.
Thank you. The end.

Member of:
Repeat Offenders Network - The Largest Coalition Network in the Game, across Virtue, Freedom, Justice and Exalted. Open to all, check us out.

Current Team Project: Pending

 

Posted

According to your definition of gambling, #6 can be used to describe any activity at all, including deciding whether or not to get out of bed in the morning.

And "anything of value" describes anything made out of matter or energy. Thus, something as simple as breathing would constitute gambling, in a bizarre, nobody's actually going to bother analyzing the atomic structure of a human to calculate out how many atoms are wasted in the process of converting oxygen to carbon dioxide, kind of way.

you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
- The ATOs from the packs are still intended to be tradeable. This is not good. It leads to people making a RL profit off of gthe ingame market by violating the EULA.
I'm not sure I follow the logic, there. It leads to people making an *in-game* profit by spending RL money on the packs and selling the contents in game, surely? Trading in-game items for inf/other in-game items has always been okay: even selling Costume Codes for inf has been allowed, while trading art for inf hasn't been, because the art is an out-of-game item.

Making a RL profit would require selling the ATOs for actual cash, in an out-of-game transaction followed by an in-game transfer of the ATOs. That would be against the EULA, but presumably be no more of a risk than with any other IO.

Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast View Post
That would be against the EULA, but presumably be no more of a risk than with any other IO.
Normal IOs only cost you time spent playing the game, which presumably you would be doing anyway.

ATOs have a calculable, non-subjective value. Let's say you are a Blaster and the ATOs are not weighted by Archetype. Let's further say that there is one ATO in every pack. There are 12 different Archetypes, so that means you will spend an average of $12 just to get a single Blaster IO. An average of $72 to pull a set.

Therefore, just by playing the ingame market, you can pull a set that is demonstrably worth $72 in real American dollars.

This is bad.

The fact that ATOs are also available ingame mitigates this only slightly. I am requesting a bit of code that differentiates the storebought ones, so that they cannot be traded ingame or sold in the Auction House.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazey View Post
You've forgotten about trading.
That automatically makes things in your scenario better than the Coupon Collector's Problem.
Even if you have to sell 3 duplicates to make enough to buy 1 new, that still lowers the expectation on the time to collect the full sets.

Take your scenario, and include trading, and you have a far better situation the Coupon Collector's Problem, and the difference between the two only grows the more sets you add.
Trading improves nothing. It creates a secondary economy. The comparison to the collector problem is to illustrate how long the odds actually are to people who get nauseous when they look at big numbers. Trading does not change the actual probabilities involved in getting the pack by gambling.

Also, I'd guess a 40X difference between the low and high priced parts, not a 3X. It's a tad different.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by rsclark View Post
Trading improves nothing. It creates a secondary economy.
And if you think Inf. inflation is bad now, just imagine what it will be like if ATIOs were tradeable. That would make purples look like penny candy.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Normal IOs only cost you time spent playing the game, which presumably you would be doing anyway.

ATOs have a calculable, non-subjective value. Let's say you are a Blaster and the ATOs are not weighted by Archetype. Let's further say that there is one ATO in every pack. There are 12 different Archetypes, so that means you will spend an average of $12 just to get a single Blaster IO. An average of $72 to pull a set.

Therefore, just by playing the ingame market, you can pull a set that is demonstrably worth $72 in real American dollars.

This is bad.

The fact that ATOs are also available ingame mitigates this only slightly. I am requesting a bit of code that differentiates the storebought ones, so that they cannot be traded ingame or sold in the Auction House.
The moment they follow your suggestion would make not only purples seem like penny candy, it would make PVPIOs seem like penny candy.



Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

 

Posted

Im willing to work with everyone on this, but there is one thing I will not budge on.

EVERY instance of these IOs must be able to be sold or traded.

If I pay my REAL HARD EARNED money for a booster and get a Tank IO (a class I would rather choke to death than ever play) and I am unable to sell it for inf or trade it for a desirable ATs IO, then I will NEVER under any circumstance buy a single pack.

If they ARE tradable, and I can sell the ones I cant sell or trade for inf, then I could see myself buying a decent amount of these even if they are kinda random. Ofcoarse I came from a age group that made a small fortune buying and selling MTG cards.

Psynder LVL 51 Fire/Fire/Scorpion Blaster
KnightWidow LVL 51 NightWidow
Shiver LVL 50 Ice X3 Dominator
Knight'Shade LVL 47 DP/Dark/NRG Corrupter
Currently Marking Out For: Chris Sabin, Player Dos, Daniel Bryan, Portia Perez, CM Punk

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Psynder13 View Post
Im willing to work with everyone on this, but there is one thing I will not budge on.

EVERY instance of these IOs must be able to be sold or traded.

If I pay my REAL HARD EARNED money for a booster and get a Tank IO (a class I would rather choke to death than ever play) and I am unable to sell it for inf or trade it for a desirable ATs IO, then I will NEVER under any circumstance buy a single pack.

If they ARE tradable, and I can sell the ones I cant sell or trade for inf, then I could see myself buying a decent amount of these even if they are kinda random. Of course I came from an age group that LOST a small fortune buying and selling MTG cards.
Fixed that for you.

You personally may have come out ahead, but I guarantee you the group lost its collective shirt. Or rather, traded its shirt for a pile of flimsy cardboard.

Which is the whole point of this marketing strategy. Except that the losers in our group will be getting a pile of random pixels instead of flimsy cardboard.

It bothers me not at all that people will do this, because they'll be subsidizing my play in the same way my state lottery funds a lot of government services I use.

But let's not try and paper over the ugliness of the underlying transaction.

Statesmonkey Sez: Lighten up! It's a game, for Lincoln's sake!
Also: Six years of casual play begins to look an awful lot like one year of hardcore play.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Psynder13 View Post

EVERY instance of these IOs must be able to be sold or traded.
What if you could return card items you didn't want to the store for new cards at some exchange rate.

Being able to trade RL money cards ingame would be bad for the game. You would have to deal with 10x as much Help/email spam from professional traders as you do now, not to mention the feelings that will be hurt over card trading/selling when people don't feel they got their money's worth for any or no reason.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Casual_Player View Post
Fixed that for you.

You personally may have come out ahead, but I guarantee you the group lost its collective shirt. Or rather, traded its shirt for a pile of flimsy cardboard.

Which is the whole point of this marketing strategy. Except that the losers in our group will be getting a pile of random pixels instead of flimsy cardboard.

It bothers me not at all that people will do this, because they'll be subsidizing my play in the same way my state lottery funds a lot of government services I use.

But let's not try and paper over the ugliness of the underlying transaction.

Yeah no. I was able to pay my way through wrestling training, make a down payment on a brand new car, and have roughly $4000.00 left after selling off the stuff I had from playing MTG. I never bought boxes either. I would pay into the draft events (which I won atleast 60ish % of time) and then sell everything valuable to the locals and or on ebay. Any idea what the market value on the old power nines was? Ill give you a hint.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-P9-Full-...item2317126ace

OH LOOK somebody is selling a set for $5000.00 hmmm strange Ill bet hes losing a small fortune.


ANYWAY back to the topic at hand. Anyone with half a brain wont break the bank on these, and if they do its there own stupid fault. If they are tradeable, then you just keep the ones you get, have some patience and trade for the ones you want. This isnt rocket science. As long as you get them very frequently I dont see an issue. I suggest not limiting it to one per pack either. I think you should get no less than one per pack but there should be a very real chance to get more than one. The whole "ONE GOOD CARD" per pack and a ton of filler is a huge load or ripoff crap. Even modern card games have learned that.

Psynder LVL 51 Fire/Fire/Scorpion Blaster
KnightWidow LVL 51 NightWidow
Shiver LVL 50 Ice X3 Dominator
Knight'Shade LVL 47 DP/Dark/NRG Corrupter
Currently Marking Out For: Chris Sabin, Player Dos, Daniel Bryan, Portia Perez, CM Punk

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman View Post
And if you think Inf. inflation is bad now, just imagine what it will be like if ATIOs were tradeable. That would make purples look like penny candy.
And if they are not tradeable they will be almost exclusive to rich people and people who play all day and have no lives.

If we cant trade em then they can stick em right in there bums lol cause I wont be paying a cent if they are. Its already ridiculous that marketeers have ruined the whole market and made purples and other shinies near unaccessible to 90% of the players.

Im a freaking 8 year player, been here since beta and I have only two toons with any purples on them because they just dont drop, and when they do they cost more than most toons ever earn without farming or manipulating the market. Wouldnt you think that a player around as long as me should have tons of access to good stuff? Well you would be wrong because I refuse to exploit the system and take advantage of other players. The market is ruined.

So honestly who cares if these cause any kind of inflation? Maybe if it gets to the point where you cant buy anything for less than the Influence cap they will finally do something about the rampant exploitation of the in game market.

The least they could do at this point is make all the IOs function between there lowest and highest level, so you can actually get lvl 30 IOs at GASP!! lvl 30 instead of fighting with all the 1337 people for them.

Psynder LVL 51 Fire/Fire/Scorpion Blaster
KnightWidow LVL 51 NightWidow
Shiver LVL 50 Ice X3 Dominator
Knight'Shade LVL 47 DP/Dark/NRG Corrupter
Currently Marking Out For: Chris Sabin, Player Dos, Daniel Bryan, Portia Perez, CM Punk

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Therefore, just by playing the ingame market, you can pull a set that is demonstrably worth $72 in real American dollars.

This is bad.
But *why* is it bad? That's what I'm not seeing, yet. What are the negative consequences for the game and players of being able to add a supply of ATOs from the cards to the in-game market?

Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.

 

Posted

I like tradable ATOs from the packs. If I get one I don't want, I want to trade one for one I do want. Maybe only one of my chars wants ATOs, not all of them.

-------
Hew in drag baby

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast View Post
But *why* is it bad? That's what I'm not seeing, yet. What are the negative consequences for the game and players of being able to add a supply of ATOs from the cards to the in-game market?
It attaches a real life dollar value to inf, which will result in many Freems coming to the game for the express purpose of making RL money. Their means of doing so will be intrusive, and the draw of the money will lead them to attempt means that involve hacking.

They will violate the EULA and encourage others to so so, causing mass bannings, which will hurt the reputation of the game.

Been through this already in Star Wars Galaxies, except for the Freem part.

The ATOs that are obtained in game should be tradeable, that's okay.

The ones you can attach an actual real life value to, as in "It cost me $150 to complete that set!" should not be.

The chances of tradeable RL money ATOs not having obvious major bad effects on the game I equate to the chances of everyone who has created an AE arc going back to the AE tomorrow and adjusting their arcs so that the story quality and rewards gain rate are roughly equal to the average ingame mission.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
It attaches a real life dollar value to inf, which will result in many Freems coming to the game for the express purpose of making RL money. Their means of doing so will be intrusive, and the draw of the money will lead them to attempt means that involve hacking.

They will violate the EULA and encourage others to so so, causing mass bannings, which will hurt the reputation of the game.

Been through this already in Star Wars Galaxies, except for the Freem part.

The ATOs that are obtained in game should be tradeable, that's okay.

The ones you can attach an actual real life value to, as in "It cost me $150 to complete that set!" should not be.

The chances of tradeable RL money ATOs not having obvious major bad effects on the game I equate to the chances of everyone who has created an AE arc going back to the AE tomorrow and adjusting their arcs so that the story quality and rewards gain rate are roughly equal to the average ingame mission.
Kitsune, all that is telling me is that the Super Packs need to be scrapped entirely. There is simply no way they will work unless the ATOs from the packs can be traded.



Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snow Globe View Post
Kitsune, all that is telling me is that the Super Packs need to be scrapped entirely. There is simply no way they will work unless the ATOs from the packs can be traded.
All it tells me is that Kitsune is good at making dire predictions that lack empirical evidence.

City's always had to deal with RMT sellers. This isn't going to be some sudden sea change that will wreck our pristine game. And other games have shown that converting RL money to in-game assets can in fact work.

De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
It attaches a real life dollar value to inf, which will result in many Freems coming to the game for the express purpose of making RL money. Their means of doing so will be intrusive, and the draw of the money will lead them to attempt means that involve hacking.

They will violate the EULA and encourage others to so so, causing mass bannings, which will hurt the reputation of the game.

Been through this already in Star Wars Galaxies, except for the Freem part.

The ATOs that are obtained in game should be tradeable, that's okay.

The ones you can attach an actual real life value to, as in "It cost me $150 to complete that set!" should not be.

The chances of tradeable RL money ATOs not having obvious major bad effects on the game I equate to the chances of everyone who has created an AE arc going back to the AE tomorrow and adjusting their arcs so that the story quality and rewards gain rate are roughly equal to the average ingame mission.
I'm afraid if you really believe this, making the store-bought ones non-tradable is meaningless. The fact that they are identical to the ones earnable in-game means the ones earnable in-game still have the same real-life cash value as the store-bought ones, and therefore they can be farmed in-game and then sold for values comparable to their average cost in the store. The fact that the store-bought ones themselves specifically are not tradeable and therefore not sellable is actually irrelevant to the issue of price anchoring.

I doubt its really going to have a significant negative effect, though, because fundamentally the ATIOs aren't powerful enough to be directly worth those cash values. What it costs the average player to acquire is not the same thing as its intrinsic redemption value. I would think there would be a higher incentive to sell purples for cash whether the paragon store sold them or not, and that doesn't really happen because there aren't enough buyers to make the problem significant.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Psynder I respect that you're good and all at M:tG, maybe even better than me, but keep in mind that this isn't supposed to be the main draw to the game, it's supposed to be a perk for VIPs.

I don't think that a fully functional ccg model is appropriate here because it IS supposed to be a thing that you have to be a VIP to really benefit from. That's what they're trying to do, they're trying to give VIPs something to really make the status symbol worthwhile.

you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3