Lothic

Then I'll simply conclude by saying "your loss, mate".

Different items in these packs are WEIGHTED differently. That means that for every pack you open you're going to be much more likely to get some things (the Elemental Set items) than other things (the Black Wolf).

I'll leave it to Arcanaville to explain the details if she wants. Suffice it to say if you are willing to buy roughly 20-30 packs you will have a much greater than 50% chance to have ALL the elemental set pieces. The odds are so much in our favor on those things it's almost laughable to call it gambling under any connotation.

Yes but there is a difference between the OVERALL chance you have to get different things with these Super Packs. Sure the odds for the Black Wolf in particular are relatively low. But the odds are so phenomenally in our favor to get the complete Elemental costume set within 20-30 packs that it's just about as close to being strictly deterministic as the sun rising in the East tomorrow morning. Buy 30 packs and you'll have the set.

I simply find fault with your seeming willingness to look at one part of the Super Pack system and label the entirety as "pure random gambling". Just because the Black Wolf is hard to get doesn't mean that ANYTHING else you could get from Super Packs is. *shrugs*

I've been wasting my money for so many years that I'm afraid I've become far too skilled at it to need any help - thanks for offering.

At any rate good luck with the wolf...

Yep I think they've been great to many people for many reasons.

I've gotten a lot of use from things like the Enhancement Boosters, ATOs and the team/dual inspirations. Ironically I couldn't care less about Reward Merits - I had billions of INF horded on my characters before Super Packs launched so I don't really care about converting them to anything else. I have something like 12,000+ Merits sitting unclaimed in my account - you want some?

Still bottomline is that I think they are useful in enough different ways to be considered a success for all those concerned.

You know there are a lot of people out there who run their websites based on the "tip denotations" they get from people sending them money via things like PayPal. I've often found myself wanting to "tip" Paragon Studios above and beyond what I pay them with my subscriptions. To me Super Packs have now become my straightforward way to sent them a few extra dollars here or there whenever I think they deserve it.

Just about the only part of this I'd even come close to label "gambling" would be the single Black Wolf card. The rest of it is so close to the pseudo-deterministic side of the spectrum that I'll just have to respectfully disagree with your blanket statement.

Yes you might have to buy 50-100 packs to be virtually "guaranteed" of getting everything except the Black Wolf, but at that point it's not really gambling - it's just your willingness to buy that many packs or not. At that point even the ATOs are covered because if you didn't get the exact ones you wanted you likely have the means to sell the ones you didn't want to buy the ones you did.

Yep the Black Wolf in the first pack is super-lucky. But in 20 packs I'd actually expect the full costume set and anywhere from 6-8 catalysts. I was averaging about 6 or 7 catalysts from each of the "24 packs" lots I bought.

Anecdotally speaking I got all but one of the Elemental Set parts in my first 11 packs. I got the last part in my 17th pack.

From what I understand that was fairly "typical" since they were pretty heavily weighted. I'll let Arcanaville worry about the numbers that'll likely corroborate that.

Well usually I'm like Han Solo in that I don't like it when people "tell me the odds" of things but since I got my Black Wolf (on the live servers) in my 237th pack I don't feel -too- bad. At least it was less than the 420 you cited.

Good luck to everyone else still 'chasing' that dream...

Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, FOX Stupidity. Your sad devotion to the ancient Nielson ratings has not helped you conjure up the trust of your dissatisfied viewers, or given you enough clairvoyance to figure out exactly what kinds of shows your audience actually wants to watch...

Right. But the ones for May 1-7 will be available in-game tomorrow.
That was my point - just how far ahead in advance do most people need to know that?

Wouldn't even need to go as far as giving badges for this kind of thing. I'll bet if they just put in place a feature that would give you some kind of random buff (like Mystic Fortune) that would last for like 30 minutes for "donating" some sizable amount (like 1 million INF) then you'd have people tossing INF at it left and right. Maybe the amount of INF needed would scale based on level so a 50 would need to give a million whereas a level 5 might only need to give like 10k INF.

It's surely true there are a few "flippers" out there who love to make billions of INF by buying things low on the market and turning around to sell them for a profit. But I have to take some offense to the implication that what I've done to make my billions on the market has anything to do with "fleecing" my fellow players.

All I do to make "easy money" on the market is to buy raw recipes, craft enhancements, and sell them to people who pay for them. It's not my "fault" that other players make it ridiculously easy to make respectable profits by doing that. I provide a service that saves other people a few minutes of crafting and they seem more than willing to pay millions for that convenience.

So until you actually know what you're talking about I'd caution you to automatically think that anyone who does anything with the markets is "evil" and/or out to screw everyone else over.

To get back to the main point this game can use some serious INF sinking. I'm not actually in favor of selling Super Packs for INF, but that doesn't mean other better ways to sink INF couldn't be found.

Again I'll point out with the Avengers success Whedon might finally have the gravitas needed to make the WB/DC people pull their heads out of their collective backsides and let Whedon give us the Wonder Woman movie we've been waiting for. The man's life and career has been leading him towards that ultimate purpose for decades now.

I make on average 500 million a week from crafting a few dozen recipes and selling them in-between running missions/trials. I haven't really set foot in an auction house for a few years now. Basically I would not be affected by a new "transaction fee" like this in the least.

This is a "solution looking for a problem" and would do absolutely nothing to affect the way I play. Thanks, but no thanks.

I've played thousands of hours on both the red and blue sides.
People who choose to limit themselves to just one or the other are simply "strange" as far as I'm concerned.

I think pretty much -everyone- who plays this game is a geek to a certain degree. The point is the player who would spend and entire day/weekend at a Pummit is at the very least a "special" kind of geek who's probably a bit more "out there" than even the normal type of geek.

For better or worse we usually tend to be "at the mercy" of that kind of player where these things are concerned.

Well you always have to remember that no matter how cool it is for the Devs to hold these public get-togethers they are always going to be biased by the relatively small subset of people who attend them (or manage to get a few ideas through via the ustream chats).

It's kind of like the classic cliche where elections are controlled by the tiny subset of retired senior citizens are are the only ones who go out to vote. Until (or unless) the voices of the vast majority are heard we're always going to end up with slightly "disconnected" priorities from these things. *shrugs*

Yeah I guess that makes more sense. The way they described them was as the "3rd and 4th trays" without stressing they were strictly talking about the "purchasable" ones. I tend to call my third tray my "third tray" not my "second purchasable" one.

As FYI:

Amplifiers are already in the Market at least on the Beta server.

I hope they meant 4th and 5th enhancement trays because the "third" one has been around since CoH:Freedom launched.
I've been using my 3rd tray for 6+ months now. *shrugs*

Just don't get too excited - the Devs talk about all sorts of things all the the time that never happen...

I wouldn't have a problem with it, for what it's worth.
Of course I'm not a Dev... *shrugs*