Arena Crystal Unit Drop Rate Seems Wonky over the last two weeks.

MMCskippyMMCskippy Member Posts: 356 ★★
I've been tracking the results of opening Arena Crystals in packs of 10 for quite some time.

I tracked to help fight my cognitive bias to focus on bad luck strings or bad pattern recognition. For example, I also track PHC shard crystal openings in packs of 5 because I thought "I never get 4* pulls" and it turns out that over time, I saw the correct drop rate of 4*s.

The only reason I'm making this post is that, historically for me, 10 Packs of Arena Crystals would drop a few gold only rewards every so often, but the more likely outcome is 15 unit drops, maybe a 30 unit drop and then rarer outlier drops of more than 30 units.

Cut to the last (10) 10 crystal openings: 8 gold only drops and (2) gold and unit drops (60 units each time). It's almost the reverse of what I was used to seeing. If I average out those 120 units over 10 openings, is less than the 15% drop rate, but that's not the factor that made me write this post. I get that things are randomized, but my frequency of gold only drops has jumped quite a bit over what I'm used to seeing and I thought that was weird.

Scrolling back through my entire screenshot history, there aren't any other dry spells like this. This new weird drop rate seems to have coincided with the Anniversary bonus where earning BCs is easier with the anniversary boosts in arena. It isn't **that** much easier to get BCs during this event. BCs need to be worth something... and 50k of gold for a 10 pack of arena crystals seems pretty meager.

I'm interested to know if anyone else tracks their openings like this and has noticed a change.

I was thinking about including screenshots, but they'd be pretty lame. I still can... or maybe a screen recording of me scrolling through a few hundred screenshots of results to show the old pattern and the recent pattern.

Comments

  • Cranky_TrumpCranky_Trump Member Posts: 263
    I feel like people were saying this last year as if it were a big conspiracy by Kabam to get us to buy units instead of earning them
  • BlackJ4zzBlackJ4zz Member Posts: 243 ★★
    Simply put, due to the Gifting event, Kabam want you to buy units instead of earning them in Arena to be able to complete the gifting event Milestones.
  • tinman76tinman76 Member Posts: 117
    BlackJ4zz said:

    Simply put, due to the Gifting event, Kabam want you to buy units instead of earning them in Arena to be able to complete the gifting event Milestones.

    This👆
  • SgtSlaughter78SgtSlaughter78 Member Posts: 464 ★★★
    I genuinely noticed units drying up over the last two weeks too. Opening batches of 10 and all gold. Seemed unusual. Had some units drop today, a few 15 unit drops.
  • theMercenarytheMercenary Member Posts: 643 ★★★
    even gold is so less. make the math. I opened 37 UC arena crystals before gold boost expires, only get 75 or 150 units or something. but imo its just my **** luck. I dont have energy to think about kabam's conspiracies. I'm just a labor in a big big factory, shareholders are already not playing arenas lol...
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,640 Guardian
    MMCskippy said:

    I'm interested to know if anyone else tracks their openings like this and has noticed a change.

    Like that? Nope. But I did do this: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/1075362

    It is within the statistical margin for error, but if anything the drop rate for units actually rose over time. There was no signal of units decreasing, or being lower than expected, and the overall data basically matches the in-game published drop odds (at least for unit/gold ratios).
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,983 ★★★★★

    I feel like people were saying this last year as if it were a big conspiracy by Kabam to get us to buy units instead of earning them

    Everything is a big conspiracy. Everything.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,640 Guardian

    I feel like people were saying this last year as if it were a big conspiracy by Kabam to get us to buy units instead of earning them

    Everything is a big conspiracy. Everything.
    No one thinks the people who spread conspiracy theories on the forums are part of a big conspiracy to get players to believe in conspiracy theories that cause them to play inefficiently and thus generate more revenue for Kabam. Yet.
  • Bugmat78Bugmat78 Member Posts: 2,378 ★★★★★
    edited December 2019
    I grinded chips throughout the gold boost - only got about 30 units from over 3 dozen crystals (both uncollected and regular)...as soon as the gold boost ended I got double that in the next 3 regular crystals alone.

    Make of that what you will.
  • MMCskippyMMCskippy Member Posts: 356 ★★
    I do think it's weird that trying to start a meaningful conversation is labeled as a conspiracy.

    I'll be more than ok with posting that things are trending back to what I was used to seeing.

    For the my last (10) 10 packs, the drop rate is close enough to the 15% drop rate, but that's only because I had 200,000 BC chips to get enough pulls to have the statistics work based on total units dropped over 10 openings.

    But if you're not grinding arena a lot, or open less arena crystals, you may be seeing a real unit dry spell.
  • Deadpool87Deadpool87 Member Posts: 573 ★★★
    Just cashed in 144,000 battlechips this morning. Ended up getting 300 units from them. Not too bad of a ratio.
  • MMCskippyMMCskippy Member Posts: 356 ★★
    That's a big enough sample size to start getting to posted drop rates! Nice!
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