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2000 Uncollected Arena Crystals

DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
in General Discussion
It is time for another Deluge of Numbers in the Arena post.

A while back I did an analysis comparing standard and uncollected arena crystals. Based on that analysis I concluded that the data supported the notion that the value of the two crystals, exempting the Punisher rarity, was identical: the UC crystal cost five times as much and dropped rewards that were scaled up by five times. However, that was not enough data to do more than estimate what that actual value was. The crystal states the drop rates for the different types of drops - gold, units, etc - but does not state the breakdown for the different values of each - how often the low gold drop vs the high gold drop occurs. To do that requires a lot more data.

Since February of 2020 I've been recording UC crystal openings individually and I now have 2000 individual drops recorded (this does not include any of the 2019 data, by the way, for technical reasons), which let me estimate the internal drop rates of the different types to moderately better accuracy. Here's a summary of that data:

2000 UC crystals
1685 Gold drops
300 Unit drops
8 Punisher drops
7 Energy Refill (x5) drops

The crystal states its drop rates as:

Gold: 83.98%
Units: 15%
Energy: 0.35%
4* Punisher: 0.65%
5* Punisher: 0.02%

My data is pretty close to this and within the margin for error: 84.25% gold, 15% units, 0.4% 4* Punisher, 0.35% Energy. Here's the deeper breakdown not listed by the crystal:

Gold:
15k: 985/1685 (58.46%)
25k: 419/1685 (24.87%)
50k: 281/1685 (16.68%)

Average Gold per Gold drop: 23,323 gold

Units:
75: 194/300 (64.67%)
225: 106/300 (35.33%)

Average Units per Unit drop: 128 Units

If we accept the Kabam stated drop rates for the crystal, we can then use the breakdown numbers to calculate the average value per crystal. It is 83.98% x 23323 gold + 15% x 128 units = 19587 gold + 19.2 units. This is pretty close to my original estimates for gold, and slightly higher for units, which is not too surprising as most of the drops are gold, so the earlier gold numbers would have been more accurate than the unit numbers. If we divide these by five, we get the average value of the standard arena crystal: 3917 gold and 3.8 units.


Some trivia:

Longest streak of just gold drops: 28
Longest streak of just unit drops: 4
Highest non-trivial density of unit drops: six of eight and eight of thirteen drops

Best batch of 100 openings for gold: 2,586000 (with 20% gold boost)
Best batch of 100 openings for gold: 2,235,000 (without 20% gold boost)
Worst batch of 100 openings for gold: 1,520,000
Best batch of 100 openings for units: 2850
Worst batch of 100 openings for units: 900

Average gold drops per 100 during 20% gold boost (normalized to remove 20% boost): 1,961,415
Average gold drops per 100 outside 20% gold boosts: 1,967,201 (so, basically the same)

Maximum "rare drops" per 100: 3 (one 4* Punisher and two energy in one batch, three 4* Punisher drops in another)

Number of drops to go before odds of 5* Punisher showing up at least once would have been 50%: 1465

What does 2000 Uncollected Arena Crystal openings look like?



Something like that.
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Comments

  • Options
    SpideyFunkoSpideyFunko Posts: 21,806 ★★★★★
    well this turned into exactly what I expected it would turn into


    Nice data DNA!
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    SummonerNRSummonerNR Posts: 10,647 Guardian
    edited March 2021
    redacting my own “Space Lasers” comment, putting something useful instead 😀


    Fyi, here's DNA's original analysis set from a while back that he mentioned...

    https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/173631/arena-crystal-drop-odds-analysis#latest
  • Options
    danielmathdanielmath Posts: 4,045 ★★★★★
    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    Pretty much anytime someone actually compiled a meaningful sample size in this game, it’s matchup the given odds. There’s never been anything shown to question the rng. All the complaints are when someone opens a few crystals and gets unlucky.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    We don't have to trust Kabam on whether they are using any of the previously discussed patents, we can just read them and ask whether those specific inventions appear to be applicable to anything Kabam does in MCOC. And none of them do. It is not a question of whether they would use them or not, it is a much simpler question of whether any of them describe something that wouldn't be obvious if done in MCOC. And so far as I can see, all of the patents attached to Kabam either describe patents that would be blatantly obvious if implemented in MCOC or describe patents that have nothing to do with anything MCOC does.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    _Sham_ said:

    Explain this (regular crystals),. I noticed the drop rate of units are very low when you open them while you are stuck in a quest.

    I should also point out the game has no way to know if you are "stuck in a quest." The game engine is simply not that smart. I open crystals when I am in or out of AQ, in or out of AW, and in or out of content. The game has no way to know whether at that moment I am "stuck" or not, unless you think at the beginning of time Kabam added a deep learning AI to the Unity engine to monitor player activity. Which, if they did, would have made them the most sophisticated game development studio on the planet back in 2013.

    They could have added it later you say? They swapped one version of Unity for another newer version of Unity back in 2017 and broke well-timed blocks for months. That seems unlikely.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    ItsDamien said:

    Hell there's probably a patent to put a laser focuser on the moon to target cities.

    Generation of energy on surface of moon, and transport of the energy to earth by laser
  • Options
    RamOnTheLakeRamOnTheLake Posts: 22 ★
    edited March 2021
    DNA3000 said:

    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    We don't have to trust Kabam on whether they are using any of the previously discussed patents, we can just read them and ask whether those specific inventions appear to be applicable to anything Kabam does in MCOC. And none of them do. It is not a question of whether they would use them or not, it is a much simpler question of whether any of them describe something that wouldn't be obvious if done in MCOC. And so far as I can see, all of the patents attached to Kabam either describe patents that would be blatantly obvious if implemented in MCOC or describe patents that have nothing to do with anything MCOC does.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/ContestOfChampions/comments/ghpxw1/to_all_the_players_who_keep_saying_equal_chance/?ref=share&ref_source=link

    “(18) In exemplary implementations, the system and method provides for drop rates associated with virtual items to be modified based on one or more "triggers" associated with a specific player, set of players or across all players of the game. When these triggers are met, the system then makes a change to drop rates associated with one or more virtual items which are available for purchase. (19) In some implementations, triggers may include an individual player purchasing a threshold number of mystery boxes in general or an individual purchasing a threshold number of a specific mystery box. In other implementations, a trigger may require a player to hold a threshold number of mystery boxes in that player's virtual goods inventory, or alternatively, hold a threshold number of a specific mystery box or set of mystery boxes in the player's virtual goods inventory. In these cases, if the trigger is met, when the specific player makes a purchase of an applicable mystery box, that player will obtain a different drop rate for one or more of the virtual items in the mystery box. Typically, the different drop rate will comprise an enhanced drop rate such that the player is more likely to obtain a high value virtual item although this is not required.”

    First off I don’t necessarily agree with _sham_, but I disagree with the idea that Kabam wouldn’t use their shady patents because other companies don’t. The patent I linked is certainly applicable and this would be impossible to detect without lots and lots of data. This patent is about changing drop rates based on triggers(“triggers may include an individual player purchasing a threshold number of mystery boxes in general or an individual purchasing a threshold number of a specific mystery box”) which is states can include spending habits. I don’t have proof that this patent is being implemented but you also don’t have proof that it isn’t being implemented. I also don’t believe it’s as simple as, “can I personally detect the use of this patent”? Unless you have access to all of kabam’s user data, it would be impossible to detect something like this. The only factual things in this conversation is that Kabam owns a couple questionable patents and they’ve done shady things in the past(bait and switch with that 12.0 update/refusing to show drop rates until being it became mandatory). Like I said, I’m not saying Kabam is actually using these patents but I’m also not going to vindicate them when their is no justifiable reason to own such questionable patents.

  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    ItsDamien said:

    _Sham_ said:

    ItsDamien said:

    _Sham_ said:

    Explain this (regular crystals),. I noticed the drop rate of units are very low when you open them while you are stuck in a quest. (Dynamic drop rate Patent)


    The patent has nothing to do with RNG in game. Patents are registered so that the creator has some legal right if it is used by anyone else. Hell there's probably a patent to put a laser focuser on the moon to target cities. Doesn't mean it'll ever be used.

    In other words, you got unlucky.
    Yeah they worked so hard to create that Patent but smh not using in their most popular game lol
    Lots of companies have patents registered that are as beneficial to them, or have greater benefit, and don't use them.

    Having a patent does not mean it is being used. Believing that it is, is conspiratorial and against the forum rules.
    I don't know if it is conspiratorial per se, but it is an odd assumption. For example, Kabam has this patent:

    System and method for providing a quest from a probability item bundle in an online game

    Why aren't people coming to the forums demanding to know why they aren't getting those quest keys? Also, a lot of people probably wish they implemented this one:

    System and method for implementing a refund calculator in a game.

    And I'm not sure how you'd force it into this game:

    System and method for providing separate drift and steering controls

    but it would probably make playing MODOK ten times more awesome.
  • Options
    xNigxNig Posts: 7,250 ★★★★★
    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    The fact is, you cannot prove something that isn’t happening. For example, how do you prove that you’re not an alcoholic?

    So it’s always assumed innocent until proven guilty.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    _Sham_ said:

    Don't forget when game came out there was data mining and there were proof posted that this game was based on well known Gatcha system.

    This is an odd statement to make, because "Gatcha" based reward systems require no datamining or examination of the code to determine. In its simplest form, the champion crystals in MCOC are a form of gatcha reward system: they drop random champions from a large collection. Why would you datamine the game to attempt to prove this? This is something you could determine by playing the game, or by Kabam's own statements about how the crystals work.
    _Sham_ said:

    I believe it is profile base because that's what I have noticed during my 6 years of playing this game. And that's more logical for a company to implement such system to make more money.

    If this were true this would be easy to prove, because by definition if the game is changing the odds of crystals on you based on some kind of user profile in a way you could notice by human observation, careful data collection would be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Conversely if you cannot detect that shift in odds through careful data collection, by definition it is something human observation alone cannot notice.

    There's no way to prove the negative. However, at some point the default position has to be that the burden of proof is on those attempting to make the claim, because once you've looked at all the different crystals I have across all the different players of different types that I have and failed to find an odds discrepancy large enough to matter (if it was tiny and undetectable by me, what possible benefit could Kabam be getting from such small deviations from normal probability), the probability that there is such things going on in the game but they exist in a way that just happens to be unnoticable by me or anyone else who has done a credible data analysis becomes vanishingly small.

    To put it another way, if you believe the game manipulates crystal odds based on player profiles, why am I immune? I've been looking at crystals for a very long time. I'm not a famous Youtuber and four years ago when I started analyzing PHC drops Kabam had no idea who I was. Even if you think they are playing four dimensional chess and are specifically freezing random crystals for anyone who measures them carefully and anyone who streams crystal openings (which would preserve any data of tampering) and anyone else they happen to think would be dangerous to manipulate, how did I evade manipulation from the beginning?

    This game makes a ton of money. The incremental revenue increase from tiny random manipulation so small no one can detect it objectively seems to be not worth the risk associated with hidden tampering of RNG crystals.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    _Sham_ said:

    And frankly you think we need a super AI to know the status of the player if they are or not in a Quest and how many units or revives they have ? It's just simple database query.

    You said "stuck on a quest" which requires intelligence. If you believe that the game manipulates arena crystal odds based only on whether you are in a quest or not when the crystals are opened, that's an assertion I can demonstrate to be false in my crystal data.
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    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    ItsDamien said:

    Hell there's probably a patent to put a laser focuser on the moon to target cities.

    Generation of energy on surface of moon, and transport of the energy to earth by laser
    OMG. Hahahahaha.
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    _Sham_ said:

    @DNA3000 First I want make it clear that I am not one of those conspiracy theorist tin foil dude and I don't watch prof hof or whatever his name is.

    Second I am big fan of your posts , I like how you always describe thing with detail and with intelligent thoughts. I never disagreed any of your post and find them so helpful.

    I will be honest I haven't read all those patents posted by Kabam, there are so many and I don't have time or energy to read all that.

    But I have been playing this game for more then 6 years and I have noticed alot of weird things and pattern regarding odds of stuff you need. For example for last 2 months I noticed I need Mutant sig stones and I have been putting it on a specific champ and all of sudden since 2 months either I don't get mutant at all or I get just 1 each time I open 10. And I have opened 100s. This is just 1 example.

    Don't forget when game came out there was data mining and there were proof posted that this game was based on well known Gatcha system. I am pretty sure you know what is gacha system and what is it's purpose.

    And frankly you think we need a super AI to know the status of the player if they are or not in a Quest and how many units or revives they have ? It's just simple database query.

    We have no way sure to know because there hasn't been any Audit by any independent auditors of their system so neither you nor me can say it with 100% if it is real RNG or player profile base RNG.

    I believe it is profile base because that's what I have noticed during my 6 years of playing this game. And that's more logical for a company to implement such system to make more money.

    You're not a conspiracy theorist and your name is _Sham_? Hmm....
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    SummonerNRSummonerNR Posts: 10,647 Guardian
    @DNA3000 , you may want to backup the text of your original post up top here, maybe append to your earlier analysis thread (that one only slightly went “off the rails”, as opposed to what this one is turning into).

    Or Kabam could just clean this one up.
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    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    xNig said:

    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    The fact is, you cannot prove something that isn’t happening. For example, how do you prove that you’re not an alcoholic?

    So it’s always assumed innocent until proven guilty.
    We can disprove that Kabam does everything possible to make as much money as possible as they give stuff away.

    You could argue that *everything* they do serves to ultimately make more money, even giving things away. But then all that says is if they aren't using the patented techniques, that's just because they know it won't make more money. In other words it says nothing about what they are or are not doing.

    I've been posting data and analyses for a very long time now, and will continue to do so. I cannot control what people do with any of it. Some people will use that data objectively, and some will let their own subjective biases override them. A while ago I decided that the best path forward was not to focus on disproving the subjective stuff, but to strengthen the objective stuff instead. Over very long periods of time, this seems to have had a net positive effect.

    I will say this about battlechips specifically. Anyone claiming that arena battlechips contain evidence of Kabam being greedy knows nothing about mobile game monetization. The arena is an almost broken source for grindable resources that you simply do not find in hardly any F2P mobile games. On a relative basis it is a ludicrous amount of rewards, especially virtual currency (units). I have never played any F2P game mobile or PC where it is extremely easy to grind several hundred dollars of virtual currency by just playing a casual game mode for a couple hours a day max. If Kabam's motives were what some people ascribe to them, arena milestones wouldn't be handing out the gigantic amount of rewards they currently do.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,670 Guardian
    SummonerNR said:

    @DNA3000 , you may want to backup the text of your original post up top here, maybe append to your earlier analysis thread (that one only slightly went “off the rails”, as opposed to what this one is turning into).

    Or Kabam could just clean this one up.

    I did link to the original one in the OP, although maybe that isn't obvious on some viewing platforms. Also, yeah I do tend to save them if they are long enough, so I don't have to retype them if something goes awry later on.

    Anything that discusses crystal odds is likely to stray into meta discussion. I try to make sure that discussion is generally civil, so the mods don't have to take corrective action. But it is ultimately their call.
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    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    xNig said:

    RamOnTheLake said:

    You’re saying he’s wrong because he has no proof but where’s your proof that they aren’t using these patents? The only thing we know for a fact is that Kabam owns these patents. It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that Kabam is using a patent that they own. If a company can legally use a patent that would make them more money, then why the hell wouldn’t they use it? Remember this is the same company that only started showing their drop rates on crystals because the apple store forced them to. Also if you want the newly released characters you need to spend thousands of dollars. What about Kabam suggests they aren’t a company that would use anything at their disposal to make money? Of course, we can’t actually confirm if they’re using it but you can’t just dismiss the possibility because some companies have patents they don’t use. There’s also a lot of companies that do extremely unethical/questionable things so why doesn’t that apply here too?

    The fact is, you cannot prove something that isn’t happening. For example, how do you prove that you’re not an alcoholic?

    So it’s always assumed innocent until proven guilty.
    To be precise, alcoholism (addiction) is a disease that occurs between the Frontal Lobe and the Midbrain Cortex. It has symptoms (increased tolerance, presence of cravings, inability to stop regardless of consequences), so technically you can prove the existence or absence of it.
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    _Sham_ said:

    GroundedWisdom said:

    _Sham_ said:

    @DNA3000 First I want make it clear that I am not one of those conspiracy theorist tin foil dude and I don't watch prof hof or whatever his name is.

    Second I am big fan of your posts , I like how you always describe thing with detail and with intelligent thoughts. I never disagreed any of your post and find them so helpful.

    I will be honest I haven't read all those patents posted by Kabam, there are so many and I don't have time or energy to read all that.

    But I have been playing this game for more then 6 years and I have noticed alot of weird things and pattern regarding odds of stuff you need. For example for last 2 months I noticed I need Mutant sig stones and I have been putting it on a specific champ and all of sudden since 2 months either I don't get mutant at all or I get just 1 each time I open 10. And I have opened 100s. This is just 1 example.

    Don't forget when game came out there was data mining and there were proof posted that this game was based on well known Gatcha system. I am pretty sure you know what is gacha system and what is it's purpose.

    And frankly you think we need a super AI to know the status of the player if they are or not in a Quest and how many units or revives they have ? It's just simple database query.

    We have no way sure to know because there hasn't been any Audit by any independent auditors of their system so neither you nor me can say it with 100% if it is real RNG or player profile base RNG.

    I believe it is profile base because that's what I have noticed during my 6 years of playing this game. And that's more logical for a company to implement such system to make more money.

    You're not a conspiracy theorist and your name is _Sham_? Hmm....
    Wow so you assumed my name was of English origin even with by bad English ? And what my name would have to do with being conspiracy theorist or not?

    Btw your name does checkout , your wisdom is really grounded
    It was a joke. Sham in English means scam. Conspiracy.
    The bottom line is there are many Patents that are applied for when starting a game that are never used. There is no correlation to what content you're doing and the outcomes of the Crystals. The server doesn't even register what you're doing. You open the Crystal and an outcome is generated.
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    RamOnTheLakeRamOnTheLake Posts: 22 ★
    @DNA3000 Since you’re a patent expert you should know that patents are as broad as possible, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. In addition, they are usually written by lawyers that don’t have expertise in things such as programming a video game. They also are written in a “cover your ass” style that uses legalese to make it hard to understand/interpret. There’s a reason why contract and patent lawsuits can takes months to years to decide the intent of the language. For whatever reason you’ve come to the conclusion that Kabam doesn’t use this patent based on anecdotal evidence and your own interpretations of purposefully confusing text.

    You state that, “In other words, if it says they can adjust drop rates based on player actions, they've invented and patented the ability to do that. That's legally false.” I don’t know what you’re basing this statement off of. Kabam have patented and invented this, which is evident by this patent existing. Daniel L. King even references Kabam in his paper Video Game Monetization: A Blueprint for Practical Social Responsibility Measure in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. King states:

    “Some registered game patents appear to indicate that some game companies employ microtransaction systems that adjust the reward payout so that it is determined largely by player behaviors rather than by random chance. A patent by McClellan et al. (2017) for Kabam refers to ‘mystery boxes’ where the payout is influenced by player statistics, including (but not limited to) how much time or money the player has already spent in the game. Knowledge about the player’s behavior may be exploited, for example, in a scenario where a novice player receives better rewards at the beginning of the game, but then the odds of receiving the desired rewards reduce over time and thereby encourage more persistent play.”

    Claims 4-9 clearly states that spending habits and the player’s inventory contents can have an effect on the drop rates. You then state, “Now, how many people believe that Kabam does this? Makes crystals better so people buy more of them? Anyone?”. This statement is anecdotal evidence that’s based on your own experiences. This statement is just as meaningless as @_Sham_ saying he thinks they use this patent based on his personal experience. You would need access to user data to determine if this true or not.

    “Doesn't this mean it isn't required to increase the value of the lootbox? No: it refers specifically to ‘high value items.’ You don't have to explicitly tweak the drop odds of high value items to make a lootbox more attractive, and the patent is careful to state that this is not necessary to prevent alternate patents from attempting to interpret this one narrowly.”
    I’m sorry but this interpretation is such a stretch. How did you reach that conclusion? It’s literally just stating that when a different drop rate is implemented, it can increase your odds of getting a high value item. I agree the last part is to protect themselves but it doesn’t say anywhere in that quote that “ You don't have to explicitly tweak the drop odds of high value items to make a lootbox more attractive”. That’s conjecture based on your interpretation.

    “The method of the present invention may also include adjusting distribution probabilities associated with individual awards included in sets of potential awards in a predetermined manner in response to predetermined triggering criteria being met such that, in response to the predetermined triggering criteria being met subsequent to purchase of the first probability item bundle being purchased by the first user, one or both of the first distribution probability and/or the second distribution probability are adjusted in a predetermined manner.”
    “By way of example, presuming the applicable trigger is met, and presuming that a specific collection of virtual items potentially contains items A, B, C and D. Prior to adjustment, the probabilities of receiving the items might be as follows: A—30%, B—50%, C—2%, and D—75%. In this example, it may be that item C is a highly coveted item and thus the chances for obtaining it are purposely kept low so as to maintain the actual and/or perceived value of the item. If a trigger is met, (e.g. a player purchases the third instance of this collection), the system may adjust probabilities, by way of example, to A—30%, B—50%, C—10%, and D—75%. This adjustment may apply to all three of the purchased collections or only one of the collections (e.g. the last/third purchased collection) as determined by the game operator. In this example, this represents a reward to a player that has purchased multiple of the same collections by giving that person an increased chance of obtaining the desired item.“

    Both of these paragraphs clearly contradict what you state to be the intent of this patent. These paragraphs aren’t about making old crystals more desirable but changing the odds based on predetermined “triggers”(spending). This second paragraph makes a crystal clear example where the purchasing of the bundle a 3rd time increases the chances of getting item C from 2% to %10. It has nothing to do with the age of the crystal but rather the number of times the crystal is purchased(the trigger).

    Obviously I have no clue whether or not they use this patent. However, I do disagree with how you smugly dismiss the possible use of this patent with such a flimsy, subjective argument. Maybe you need to read the patent a couple more times.

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