Is the Vault Working for You? Vault Efficiency

Malcrof

My hoarding begins today, i gave it a few days, got 1 4* cover i desperately needed, and 1 3* cover that finished my perfect build for another, also, the extra health packs... really upping my PVP game!

so, token hoarding for a bit

may need 100 health packs for Ant man!

Dauthi

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

If my logic is erroneous and I am lying, please explain how. I would love to be able to refute it, but I can't refute claims by themselves.

Do you believe a .1% increase in drops is significant? From a statistical standpoint, a drop going from 1% to 1.1% has virtually no sway in your drop rate. That is what you get if you wait 2 months. That is a 1/1000 bonus chance to pull the desired cover, meaning if you had 1000 tokens, you are likely to get it (I am not sure how else to explain this). The point we are both trying to get through is that if a system has a ridiculously low effect rate, .1% in that case, why should it be there at all?

The logic isn't erroneous, it's just predicated on the worst-case scenario, and it's only concerned with 4*s. Your concern is, in effect, with the size of the vault. Focusing on the marginal value of the next pull is somewhat misleading (see your figure of 1000 tokens to get one 4* cover, when we all know that 300 tokens guarantees all three 4* covers in the vault).

I was trying explain how insignificant .1% was! It had nothing to do with the odds in the Vault. I even said "I'm not sure how else to explain it".

It's the total expected value of the cumulative pulls to that point that matters more.

Personally, I'm not going to be saving up 300 tokens, because 100% reliability isn't worth it to me. (Plus, once you get those 300 tokens, you still have to wait for a vault that's worth clearing out.)

Assuming that the vault resets every 5 days, I'll be stockpiling tokens until there's a combination of useful 3* and 4* covers in a vault. When that happens, I'll pull until I'm out of those tokens or I have a run of good luck that pushes the effective value of the next pull low enough for me to stop. Sometimes I'll come out fairly empty handed, but overall, I'm going to get more out of this than I would the old taco system, which makes me happy.

It is focused on pulling one cover, I figured that it would make things easier, and other's can use the numbers and multiply their odds if they need 5, 10 or 20 of the covers, and they pull X times. I wasn't going to write multiple scenarios. Either way, yes your odds go up, but it isn't going to be because you pulled 3 moonstones, which was supposed to be how the system works. Multiplying low numbers will still result in an insignificant change. I think earlier I said 2 months results in an extra .1% value from the Vault system, but that is just on the last pull. Every pull before it would be slightly less.

If someone else wants to run those numbers, I would pat them on the back, because I'm all math'd out.

_RiO_ wrote:

The biggest and only significant difference in the updated system lies with increased conversion from the poor gambling addicts that don't get the math behind the odds and just keep on playing and playing because "the odds keep on getting better". The system even has a pretty spinning roulette added to further fuel the suspense and adrenaline rush of the gamble.


The Vault was a nice idea in concept. The Vault was presented nicely to us. But as always; it's still a wolf in sheeps' clothes.

This was one of my worries too. I didn't want people to think "I just blew 10 tokens, if I buy that 40 pack my chances will be incredible to get (X) cover!". I was hoping the math would show how insignificant removing 1/300 prizes really is.

Linkster79

The only way I feel let down is that the devs stated once you pulled an award you won't be able to get that reward again, then they flooded the Vault with health packs and multiples of the same 2*.

I honestly thought it would be one of each cover and a few other extras thrown in.

Deadsider

At the end of the day, the people upset had too high hopes I think. From 0% to a chance, no matter how slim, with a prize list you can chose to go in on or not that does have improving odds on extra pulls and people are still somehow upset. What odds were people expecting, from 1% or 25% after ten pulls? Really now, that's just unrealistic. Then saying the devs duped them? Well I'd like to see a source you have that says they were going for massive returns on extra pulls. I'll wait.

The other huge plus people are missing is the transparency; we got a new system that pulls back the curtain a bit on the loot table and gives an insiders edge, and are willing to see how it goes and to make changes. This is amazing and a great step on building bridges from dev to player. Don't let greed of whatever imagined drop rates you wanted to have happen wreck this beautiful step towards rebuilding a positive community.

They delivered as promised (the math does improve, the Vault slot is gone even if there are duplicates) and it is undeniably an improvement. Take your expectations elsewhere.

firethorne

A 3* ever day is part of the game in ddq, but a 4* character every couple months is some sort of incredibly unrealistic expectation? At that rate, even if you drew all of them for a single character, you still wouldn't be fully covered until after a year, and still need the ISO to level them.

Deadsider

Yes it is unrealistic, where did you get the idea that DDQ was going to be the go-to source for 4 star covers hm? They said _chance_ and that's what we got. Greater than zero. Oh wait, you wanted a rare 4 star every few months. I see how you feel that way with those expectations. Your expectations, that is.

Vhailorx

Deadsider wrote:

At the end of the day, the people upset had too high hopes I think. From 0% to a chance, no matter how slim, with a prize list you can chose to go in on or not that does have improving odds on extra pulls and people are still somehow upset. What odds were people expecting, from 1% or 25% after ten pulls? Really now, that's just unrealistic. Then saying the devs duped them? Well I'd like to see a source you have that says they were going for massive returns on extra pulls. I'll wait.

The other huge plus people are missing is the transparency; we got a new system that pulls back the curtain a bit on the loot table and gives an insiders edge, and are willing to see how it goes and to make changes. This is amazing and a great step on building bridges from dev to player. Don't let greed of whatever imagined drop rates you wanted to have happen wreck this beautiful step towards rebuilding a positive community.

They delivered as promised (the math does improve, the Vault slot is gone even if there are duplicates) and it is undeniably an improvement. Take your expectations elsewhere.

I think that is where you lost me. You are completely right that this new system does seem to be an improvement over the old system. But "huge plus," "amazing and a great step," "beautiful step"? We are talking about changing the odds of a 4* pull on a small set of tokens from 0 to about 1% (and a bit more if you hoard a bit, or much higher if you hoard for many months) and making a few other tweaks like adding healthpack rewards and reducing the chances for featured 3*s. Your hyperbole and the significance of the change just don't seem to match.

As for expectations, I think it's fair to say that the devs set higher expectations for this change than they have in the past. In march, when they increased the token odds for 3*s in heroic tokens, they just announced that they were increasing token odds. Same for this most recent announcement that they were increasing 4* odds in heroic tokens. That's not what they did for the vault. They advertised the vault as a significant change that would really impact the 4* transition.

I think it was perfectly reasonable for people to take that message from the devs and expect something more significant that a 1% chance of a 4* becoming a 1.003% chance after a single unsuccessful pull (and no, I don't think people expected a 25% chance of a 4* after 5 pulls from the vault. there is a vast gap between the reality and your hypothetical, and intentionally absurd, example).

The increased chances of a 4* are relatively minuscule for what I think is the typical fact-pattern (which IMO is using 10-30 individual tokens per vault; most people don't buy token packs and don't hoard for very long). I am sure that in the aggregate this change will mean many more 4*s going out the door. but that is player-base wide, and I don't care about that; I care about my individual odds. And those won't go up significantly at all unless I hoard or buy packs.

So it's a bit disappointing. Still better than the old status quo, and it's not ruining my childhood (or adulthood), it's just not as good as I hoped.

Raffoon

Pylgrim wrote:

This is what happens when people do not understand maths. How could anyone think that a pull from visible, exhaustible and limited pool is not only not better but actually worse than a pull from a virtually infinite pool is something beyond me. Even if you don't stockpile (which is a more sensible, but completely optional approach) pulling 1 out of 300 unique items is a much, much better deal than pulling 1 out of nowhere with a fixed chance. The way chance works, you could theoretically get bad pulls for the rest of your lifetime and never enjoy the years of good pulls that could have followed, evening the odds to their expected averages in the long (eternal) run. Obviously that's tremendously improbable, but goes to show how unreliable that system is.

Sorry, but that generalization that I bold underlined just doesn't hold up. Here's an example.

Let's set up a lottery. The prize is 50 quintillion dollars!

I'll pull from an infinite pool with a fixed chance that never changes. The fixed chance is 99.9999999999999999999999999999% that I will win.

You pull from a limited pool so that your chances increase. Your pool has 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 items in it. One of those items will allow you to win.

We'll each pull 10 times. Who's going to come out better?

The fact that a pool is limited does not automatically make it better.

GurlBYE

Raffoon wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

This is what happens when people do not understand maths. How could anyone think that a pull from visible, exhaustible and limited pool is not only not better but actually worse than a pull from a virtually infinite pool is something beyond me. Even if you don't stockpile (which is a more sensible, but completely optional approach) pulling 1 out of 300 unique items is a much, much better deal than pulling 1 out of nowhere with a fixed chance. The way chance works, you could theoretically get bad pulls for the rest of your lifetime and never enjoy the years of good pulls that could have followed, evening the odds to their expected averages in the long (eternal) run. Obviously that's tremendously improbable, but goes to show how unreliable that system is.

Sorry, but that generalization that I bold underlined just doesn't hold up. Here's an example.

Let's set up a lottery. The prize is 50 quintillion dollars!

I'll pull from an infinite pool with a fixed chance that never changes. The fixed chance is 99.9999999999999999999999999999% that I will win.

You pull from a limited pool so that your chances increase. Your pool has 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 items in it. One of those items will allow you to win.

We'll each pull 10 times. Who's going to come out better?

The fact that a pool is limited does not automatically make it better.

Technically they are right. on a strict hard simple number stand point

8 balls
I want number 7 in both cases.

Case 1 it is replaced
Case 2 it is not replaced.

Case 1- I draw 4, each time i draw there is a 1 in 8 chance
Case 2- I draw 4, 1st time 1/8, 1/7, 1/6, 1/5

The larger issue is the pool drawn from is too large and if it resets itself every 5 days then that is a negative.
Players don't by and large all finish deadpool daily missions on a daily basis. It's mainly popular on the forums where the larger majority has access to a larger number of leveled characters, either due to time spent playing or money.
thats at max 2 draws a day
1 draw for someone starting

The health packs also take up way more space then they need to. odds are the person does not need 5 health packs, especially since there is no health pack inventory for purchased or earned ones (HINT HINT DEVELOPERS)

Raffoon

GurlBYE wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

This is what happens when people do not understand maths. How could anyone think that a pull from visible, exhaustible and limited pool is not only not better but actually worse than a pull from a virtually infinite pool is something beyond me. Even if you don't stockpile (which is a more sensible, but completely optional approach) pulling 1 out of 300 unique items is a much, much better deal than pulling 1 out of nowhere with a fixed chance. The way chance works, you could theoretically get bad pulls for the rest of your lifetime and never enjoy the years of good pulls that could have followed, evening the odds to their expected averages in the long (eternal) run. Obviously that's tremendously improbable, but goes to show how unreliable that system is.

Sorry, but that generalization that I bold underlined just doesn't hold up. Here's an example.

Let's set up a lottery. The prize is 50 quintillion dollars!

I'll pull from an infinite pool with a fixed chance that never changes. The fixed chance is 99.9999999999999999999999999999% that I will win.

You pull from a limited pool so that your chances increase. Your pool has 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 items in it. One of those items will allow you to win.

We'll each pull 10 times. Who's going to come out better?

The fact that a pool is limited does not automatically make it better.

Technically they are right. on a strict hard simple number stand point

8 balls
I want number 7 in both cases.

Case 1 it is replaced
Case 2 it is not replaced.

Case 1- I draw 4, each time i draw there is a 1 in 8 chance
Case 2- I draw 4, 1st time 1/8, 1/7, 1/6, 1/5

The larger issue is the pool drawn from is too large and if it resets itself every 5 days then that is a negative.
Players don't by and large all finish deadpool daily missions on a daily basis. It's mainly popular on the forums where the larger majority has access to a larger number of leveled characters, either due to time spent playing or money.
thats at max 2 draws a day
1 draw for someone starting

The health packs also take up way more space then they need to. odds are the person does not need 5 health packs, especially since there is no health pack inventory for purchased or earned ones (HINT HINT DEVELOPERS)

If you assume equal starting odds, then pulling from a fixed pool would be better, yes.

That assumption was not stated. His statement was that he wondered how anyone could think that pulling something from a limited pool would be worse than pulling from an infinite pool. If the infinite pool has better odds and the number of pulls we get to make from a given pool is restricted, then the infinite pool could easily be the better choice.

Dauthi

Vhailorx wrote:

Deadsider wrote:

As for expectations, I think it's fair to say that the devs set higher expectations for this change than they have in the past. In march, when they increased the token odds for 3*s in heroic tokens, they just announced that they were increasing token odds. Same for this most recent announcement that they were increasing 4* odds in heroic tokens. That's not what they did for the vault. They advertised the vault as a significant change that would really impact the 4* transition.

Yeah, they made a second video just to "toot their own horn" about The Vault, giving us a glimpse of it at the end. The concept is brilliant, it's just upsetting the results are insignificant unless they tweak the odds.

TxMoose

just noticed something. my vault has 4 mystique covers in it. we just did her 2 groups ago, right? and mine is fully covered, why would they insert 4 into this group's vault?

I'm pulling tokens this week because I need the characters (was saving my stacks for this group and the next - go figure). I've pulled a blade purple and with the black from yesterday, he's at 4/5/3 - very usable. other than that it has bee 3x 1500 iso and **s. which overall is fine with me. I've actually come out ahead with extra iso and the draw rates for the ***s are similar. I'm reserving final judgment to see what carry-over tokens do next week. how many stacks will there end up being? these are important questions that, unless I missed it, haven't been officially commented on, but there's lots of speculation out there. (someone point me in a direction if I missed someone in red answering that). if its one stack, this is a vast improvement from the old system. if there are 2 stacks, it is a slight improvement. if there are 5 stacks, it blows. if they would just take out the health packs I think the vast majority of players would like it more. or if they let us sell the excessive health packs for some iso.

positives: includes ****s and if you hoard, the more you hoard, the more your chances of something good go up. nice visual presentation of the prizes.
negatives: health packs - useless. and the animation - way too long. also the including *** covers that aren't in that pool. no idea why I have doom/gwbw/rags/4 mystique covers in my vault. I'd really prefer if they just stuck with the groups. the sheer number of things in the vault - 300 is a lot. they could cut it by 2/3 down to 100, only give one **** per rotation and let hoarding happen a little faster.

we'll see what happens with the tokens.

Pylgrim

Vhailorx wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

This is what happens when people do not understand maths. How could anyone think that a pull from visible, exhaustible and limited pool is not only not better but actually worse than a pull from a virtually infinite pool is something beyond me. Even if you don't stockpile (which is a more sensible, but completely optional approach) pulling 1 out of 300 unique items is a much, much better deal than pulling 1 out of nowhere with a fixed chance. The way chance works, you could theoretically get bad pulls for the rest of your lifetime and never enjoy the years of good pulls that could have followed, evening the odds to their expected averages in the long (eternal) run. Obviously that's tremendously improbable, but goes to show how unreliable that system is.

The vault not only gives you better odds in general, it also allows you to game the system by exhausting the odds through accumulated pulls. Moreover, the fact that the pool is visible means that you get to choose a highly favourable vault to get the most bang for your buck. As a random example, I have opened three 4*s in the whole 2015 so far from tokens. Every single one of them has been for one of the few colour covers which I already have maxed, for the only three characters I have 10+ covers in 4* land, while most of my other 4*s languish with 5 or less covers (all of which I've earned, never pulled) . If there had been a vault for those tokens and I had stockpiled them these 6 months, I'd have 4-5 4*s which I'd had made sure to draw from pools with covers I actually need. There's win from every possible vantage point.

Sure, the vault system is a slight improvement over an infinite pool of rewards because you can target particular covers. But that's not why most people are expressing concerns. The problem is that the vault pools are sufficiently large that the advantages of the vault system cannot be leveraged with only 10 vault tokens. So the defining characteristic of the vault (as advertised to players by the devs) is only accessible to those who buy packs or hoard tokens. It's a bit disappointing.

If the vault resets every 5 days, then the odds are poor enough that one could open each vault token as it is earned and never recieve a 3* or 4* reward. So for people who use that strategy, the vault amounts to little more than a new animation and slightly increased token odds. That's not bad in a vacuum, but the vault was sold a key piece of improving the 4* transition.

I was a bit down myself on the quickly rotating vault at the beginning until I saw that the vault contents are fixed and uniquely randomised for each player. Imagine getting a vault where the three 4*s are covers that you already have maxed. Now imagine vaults rotating every other month or so. You'd be forced to hoard and wait /more/ than the current method encourages and hope that next vault has some covers you actually need or prepare for an even longer wait. That and if you cashed in your tokens as you get them instead of hoarding them, if you got lucky at the beginning and got most of what you wanted, you'd also be forced to wait (or pay 1k HP to manually reset it.)

PeterGibbons316

This is the first time we have had the ability to obtain a guaranteed cover from a token, and not as a reward from an event. This is huge - especially considering the overwhelming number of characters now available in the game. The ability to earn known 4* covers from tokens is just icing on the cake and will really help with 4* progressions for players that aren't active/competitive enough to earn them through alliance/event rewards.

Personally I have been hoarding a lot of DDQ tokens because I already have most of the top tier 3* characters pretty well covered, and even when a character did come up that would justify spending those tokens there was no promise that I would earn the token I needed. I'm still hoarding vault tokens, but now when the cover I need comes up I am far more likely (or actually completely certain if I have 300 tokens stockpiled) to obtain the cover I need.

Adding some degree of certainty makes this system much better than having everything be completely up to change.

TxMoose

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

This is the first time we have had the ability to obtain a guaranteed cover from a token, and not as a reward from an event. This is huge - especially considering the overwhelming number of characters now available in the game. The ability to earn known 4* covers from tokens is just icing on the cake and will really help with 4* progressions for players that aren't active/competitive enough to earn them through alliance/event rewards.

Personally I have been hoarding a lot of DDQ tokens because I already have most of the top tier 3* characters pretty well covered, and even when a character did come up that would justify spending those tokens there was no promise that I would earn the token I needed. I'm still hoarding vault tokens, but now when the cover I need comes up I am far more likely (or actually completely certain if I have 300 tokens stockpiled) to obtain the cover I need.

Adding some degree of certainty makes this system much better than having everything be completely up to change.

I agree on most points, except that the 300 that you save up - assuming there's 2 stacks, that will be next may before you can target a group. if there's 5 piles or something like that, will be over 2 years... now, if there's one pile, obviously it helps a tremendous amount, but still will be new years before you get to target something.

PeterGibbons316

TxMoose wrote:

I agree on most points, except that the 300 that you save up - assuming there's 2 stacks, that will be next may before you can target a group. if there's 5 piles or something like that, will be over 2 years... now, if there's one pile, obviously it helps a tremendous amount, but still will be new years before you get to target something.

Sure, but that's my choice. Either take a risk at a reward now, or wait for a guaranteed one.

What I will probably do is stockpile all my sweet tokens, and spend my savory ones.

_RiO_

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Adding some degree of certainty makes this system much better than having everything be completely up to change.

Given the amount of tokens needed to buy certainty and the time or money needed to accrue said tokens, said 'degree of certainty' it is a farce in everything including name.

turul

So what happens when you buy a 40pack when there are less than 40 contents left in the Vault?

IceIX

turul wrote:

So what happens when you buy a 40pack when there are less than 40 contents left in the Vault?

You can't. The 40 pack option simply isn't available. Same for 10 packs when you have 9 or less remaining.


Also, with this upcoming 4th of July Versus Event running, we're going to be trying out a different Vault. Deadpool Daily Vaults will still be running with this one alongside.
This Vault will be set up to run during all 3 Versus Events (Captain America, Falcon, and Captain Marvel). It'll have 50 items total as opposed to 300.

We're still working out the precise contents. Expect similar to the Deadpool Dailies, but with less Health Packs.

turul

IceIX wrote:

turul wrote:

So what happens when you buy a 40pack when there are less than 40 neents left in the Vault?

You can't. The 40 pack option simply isn't available. Same for 10 packs when you have 9 or less remaining.


Also, with this upcoming 4th of July Versus Event running, we're going to be trying out a different Vault. Deadpool Daily Vaults will still be running with this one alongside.
This Vault will be set up to run during all 3 Versus Events (Captain America, Falcon, and Captain Marvel). It'll have 50 items total as opposed to 300.

We're still working out the precise contents. Expect similar to the Deadpool Dailies, but with less Health Packs.

I suggest not randomising high-end rewards so it will be equally rewarding for anyone.
There is Iron Fist Shortage btw. Devil Dino could also have a spot there!

Will there be 3x3 earnable tokens as usual?