The Journey To Fully Cover Silver Surfer - A $15,000 Cost

notamutant

Hey guys,

It has been a while since I last uploaded any youtube videos, and I thought this was the perfect thing to get back into the groove with. So first, I added 3,000,000 HP to my sandboxed account. Then I spent around 8 hours opening 40 packs to build up a good number of Legendary tokens. And then I proceeded to open those tokens until I had a fully covered Silver Surfer. This was a painful journey, but I feel like I have grown a lot over the past few trying days in my efforts to cover him.
Again, as a reminder, this is a sandboxed account used for experimentation purposes only. I hope you guys can use my videos to determine if it is actually worth the time and money to super-whale up for Silver Surfer. I am uploading the first two videos now, the first showing the actual process of getting 260+ legendary tokens, and then a second video showing opening over 260 legendary tokens. I plan to release another couple of videos over the next week showing what Silver Surfer is like in action. I haven't had a chance to actually play with him myself yet, but am really looking forward to it.


Here is the first video: https://youtu.be/7hpj1gHi88A

Here is the second video opening the legendaries: https://youtu.be/Au3CjD5gP3g

lukewin

Thanks for the videos. I watched the opening of the first 2 40 pks. You got 8 3* out of the first, and 2 4* and 13 3* in the second. I probably would've opened a Legendary as soon as I could, as opposed to banking them all away to open them. Might give a better sample of how many it takes. I might consider having a sandboxed account because it looks fun to open tokens.

notamutant

lukewin wrote:

Thanks for the videos. I watched the opening of the first 2 40 pks. You got 8 3* out of the first, and 2 4* and 13 3* in the second. I probably would've opened a Legendary as soon as I could, as opposed to banking them all away to open them. Might give a better sample of how many it takes. I might consider having a sandboxed account because it looks fun to open tokens.

Haha! If you watched the full video, you would know just how "fun" it was to open hundreds of 40 packs. The novelty wears off very fast when you have every cover already.

Unknown

We told you it would be more than 260 bro..

lukewin

notamutant wrote:

lukewin wrote:

Thanks for the videos. I watched the opening of the first 2 40 pks. You got 8 3* out of the first, and 2 4* and 13 3* in the second. I probably would've opened a Legendary as soon as I could, as opposed to banking them all away to open them. Might give a better sample of how many it takes. I might consider having a sandboxed account because it looks fun to open tokens.

Haha! If you watched the full video, you would know just how "fun" it was to open hundreds of 40 packs. The novelty wears off very fast when you have every cover already.

I know the novelty wears off, that's why I stopped watching after the 2nd 10 pk. Lol. Pulling 15 SS covers out of your initial 260 still beat the odds, especially since you pulled your 13th pretty early on. The 5% represents a chance at SS, so even if you pulled 13 blacks out of the 260, that would be right on, with 5%. I was watching the 2nd video, and I lol'd when at 17:04. "Aaah, another black. Aaah, that's sounds racist." 15 seconds later "AAAAah, another black!" If you don't want to watch the whole video, I'd watch that part, just because out of context, it seems very wrong.

stowaway

Two words to keep in mind if you're really going to do this again for the next 5*: auto clicker.

Wobby

Holy ****. $16,000+ .....

GuntherBlobel

My attitude about this has changed so much over the last few years. I've also noticed that there is substantially less freak out on the Forums about the $ cost of "keeping up."

I used to get nauseous just thinking that someone might spend a couple hundred bucks to get X-Force --- pre-buff, post-buff, post nerf, whatever --- it didn't matter.

But now I hope that a bunch of really well-off individuals whale for SS and pay the salaries at Demiurge for the next year. Go whales! I should thank them as much as I thank Demiurge for this fun game.

Dragon_Nexus

GuntherBlobel wrote:

My attitude about this has changed so much over the last few years. I've also noticed that there is substantially less freak out on the Forums about the $ cost of "keeping up."

I used to get nauseous just thinking that someone might spend a couple hundred bucks to get X-Force --- pre-buff, post-buff, post nerf, whatever --- it didn't matter.

But now I hope that a bunch of really well-off individuals whale for SS and pay the salaries at Demiurge for the next year. Go whales! I should thank them as much as I thank Demiurge for this fun game.

I kinda feel the same. If someone wants to put the equivilent of a 6-12 months salary down on maxing out a character then that's their choice. I don't find it likely I'm going to bump into them in PvP anyway, these people will be blasting through beyond the 1300 mark anyway.

4*s are more of a whale threat than 5*s, really, since 5*s are so prohibitively expensive. 4*s however feel more instantly obtainable with the right funds. I was seeing maxed out Hulkbusters within a week of his release in PvP. Not many, sure, but they were there. That's scary =S

puppychow

16k to max cover SS is probably on the lower end of the cost spectrum. Nothing scientific to offer you, but that's my gut feeling since as someone else pointed out you could easily get 15 covers of the same color.

That said, while $16k sounds like a lot of money to most people here (myself included), some players probably make that much in a week---after tax. If these super whales are willing to spend and support D3, my hat's off to them.

notamutant

puppychow wrote:

16k to max cover SS is probably on the lower end of the cost spectrum. Nothing scientific to offer you, but that's my gut feeling since as someone else pointed out you could easily get 15 covers of the same color.

That said, while $16k sounds like a lot of money to most people here (myself included), some players probably make that much in a week---after tax. If these super whales are willing to spend and support D3, my hat's off to them.

Really it is a 1.66% repeating chance to get a specific color cover. I still think statistically I am right that perfectly average statistics would lead to a fully covered SS at 260 tokens, likely with the covers falling out in a 4/4/5 5/4/4 or 4/5/4 order.

simonsez

It's unfortunate that human nature dictates that people will insist on going with their gut instinct, even after being presented with conclusive evidence to the contrary.

puppychow

simonsez wrote:

It's unfortunate that human nature dictates that people will insist on going with their gut instinct, even after being presented with conclusive evidence to the contrary.

How's this for going with my gut instinct? I managed to get the legendary token in Stretch Goals event today. BUT. . . I have a gut feeling that if I manage to snag a SS cover off it, it will screw up my scaling for Iceman pve (since my highest character level is 181, by design). SO. . . I will wait til after that event is over before opening my token.

fmftint

puppychow wrote:

simonsez wrote:

It's unfortunate that human nature dictates that people will insist on going with their gut instinct, even after being presented with conclusive evidence to the contrary.

How's this for going with my gut instinct? I managed to get the legendary token in Stretch Goals event today. BUT. . . I have a gut feeling that if I manage to snag a SS cover off it, it will screw up my scaling for Iceman pve (since my highest character level is 181, by design). SO. . . I will wait til after that event is over before opening my token.

Or you could open the token and let it sit in your cover queue till after Meet Rocket & Groot

Jathro

notamutant wrote:

to determine if it is actually worth the time and money to super-whale up for Silver Surfer.

$15,000 can get a pretty decent car. Cars get you laid. No one ever got laid because of a digital Silver Surfer (at least not that I'm aware of)

MaskedMan

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

GuntherBlobel wrote:

My attitude about this has changed so much over the last few years. I've also noticed that there is substantially less freak out on the Forums about the $ cost of "keeping up."

I used to get nauseous just thinking that someone might spend a couple hundred bucks to get X-Force --- pre-buff, post-buff, post nerf, whatever --- it didn't matter.

But now I hope that a bunch of really well-off individuals whale for SS and pay the salaries at Demiurge for the next year. Go whales! I should thank them as much as I thank Demiurge for this fun game.

I kinda feel the same. If someone wants to put the equivilent of a 6-12 months salary down on maxing out a character then that's their choice. I don't find it likely I'm going to bump into them in PvP anyway, these people will be blasting through beyond the 1300 mark anyway.

4*s are more of a whale threat than 5*s, really, since 5*s are so prohibitively expensive. 4*s however feel more instantly obtainable with the right funds. I was seeing maxed out Hulkbusters within a week of his release in PvP. Not many, sure, but they were there. That's scary =S

While I agree with the sentiment "6 month's salary"? Dude if that is you 6-12 month salary you need to go back to school and stop hocking fries.

My wife would definitely leave me if I spent 15K on a game though. No discussion, no screaming.

The worst part is that 40 packs where always a bad deal before so it was easy to avoid them. Buying 1 Heroic a day would get you 80 cards for the same price as a 40 pack. Drop rate increase isn't THAT much.

puppychow

fmftint wrote:

Or you could open the token and let it sit in your cover queue till after Meet Rocket & Groot

Yes, I thought about doing that. But I'm deathly afraid I'll hit the sell all button by mistake. I tend to get a lot of tokens/covers since I do LR and all the rest of the events.

puppychow

MaskedMan wrote:

The worst part is that 40 packs where always a bad deal before so it was easy to avoid them. Buying 1 Heroic a day would get you 80 cards for the same price as a 40 pack. Drop rate increase isn't THAT much.

Speaking of packs, the current 40 pk from Women of Marvel costs "only" 10k hp, and still gives you the legendary token. Also, I skimmed through the 3/4s, and it seems to have same draw as the more expensive 40 heroic pk. Now's your chance to hoard those leg tokens!!! Save 1.2k hp per WoM 40 pk!!!

GrimSkald

puppychow wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Or you could open the token and let it sit in your cover queue till after Meet Rocket & Groot

Yes, I thought about doing that. But I'm deathly afraid I'll hit the sell all button by mistake. I tend to get a lot of tokens/covers since I do LR and all the rest of the events.

Honestly, if you really want to get a 5*, wait until next month - at that point the overall chance doubles. I haven't decided if I want to open my one token up later this week (when Mr. Fantastic and FalCap get added - this increases my chances of drawing something I need,) or next month.

Lemminkäinen

notamutant wrote:

puppychow wrote:

16k to max cover SS is probably on the lower end of the cost spectrum. Nothing scientific to offer you, but that's my gut feeling since as someone else pointed out you could easily get 15 covers of the same color.

That said, while $16k sounds like a lot of money to most people here (myself included), some players probably make that much in a week---after tax. If these super whales are willing to spend and support D3, my hat's off to them.

Really it is a 1.66% repeating chance to get a specific color cover. I still think statistically I am right that perfectly average statistics would lead to a fully covered SS at 260 tokens, likely with the covers falling out in a 4/4/5 5/4/4 or 4/5/4 order.

I ran a simulation of building a million Silver Surfers and it will, on average, take 307 tokens to get a 13-cover SS. I ran the simulation a couple of times and always got the same result.

GrimSkald

Lemminkäinen wrote:

I ran a simulation of building a million Silver Surfers and it will, on average, take 307 tokens to get a 13-cover SS. I ran the simulation a couple of times and always got the same result.

So that actually puts it cheaper at what was projected in the main thread - they were averaging around $24k (American.) Your projection puts it at $17499 (American.) Not enough for a good new car at all, really.