Let’s discuss those chests that SEMC has been promoting: the “Wu Xing Flame Box” and the “Bear Beatdown Box.” These have been bugging me for a while, because I feel like they’re a bad deal, and since I woke up at 4 am today and was bored, I decided to figure out exactly how bad a deal they actually are.
Let’s start with the simpler one:
In this deal, you have a 2% chance of unlocking Taka’s Wu Xing Flame skin each time you press that button, which costs 99 ICE. SEMC has implemented “bad luck prevention,” which means that on draw number 50, you get the skin if you haven’t before then. So, if you have “bad luck,” you will end up paying 4950 ICE for that skin. What are your chances of it costing you that much?
For an item with drop rate x, the probability of getting the item over y draws is
1 - (( 1-x )^y)
So, for Wu Xing Flame Taka, your chance of getting Taka BEFORE the 50th draw is
1-(1-.02)^{49}) = 62.84\%
That means that you have a BETTER THAN 1:3 CHANCE OF PAYING 4950 ICE FOR THIS SKIN.
Okay, what if you decide to limit your spending to 2499 ICE, which is the price of the costliest skin you can buy for ICE in the market? What are your chances of getting the Taka skin you want? Well, for 2475 ICE you get 25 draws from the chest:
1-(1-.02)^{25}) = 39.65\%
So you only have a 2:5 chance of getting Wu Xing Flame Taka even though you spent enough to buy a legendary skin.
Okay, on to the Joule box:
This one has two skins in it, again with very low drop rates and “bad luck prevention,” but the rates and limits differ: Teddy Bear Joule has a 2% drop rate with a limit of 50 pulls, while Panda Joule has a 1% drop rate with a limit of 100 pulls. Let’s do the same calculations as for Taka for both of these skins:
For Teddy Bear Joule, your chance of getting her before the 50th draw is the same as for Wu Xing Flame Taka:
1-(1-.02)^{49}) = 62.84\%
Again, that means that you have a better than 1:3 chance of paying 4950 ICE for the skin and only a 2:5 chance of getting the skin if you limit yourself to spending less than the cost of a normal legendary skin.
How about Panda Joule? Changing our formula to reflect the lower drop rate and higher number of pulls, we get
1-(1-.01)^{99}) = 63.03\%
Doesn’t look significantly worse, right? Until you realize that you have a BETTER THAN 1:3 CHANCE OF PAYING 9900 ICE FOR PANDA JOULE!
What are your chances of getting Panda Joule if you limit yourself to those 25 pulls?
1-(1-.01)^{25}) = 22.22\%
That’s barely a 1:5 chance of getting Panda Joule by the time you’ve spent enough to get a normal legendary skin.
So, the bottom line is that you’re likely to pay WAY TOO MUCH for these skins. If you’re okay with that, go for it – just remember the Gambler’s Fallacy as you’re pressing that button …
