"Actual" value of a regular pack?

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Phunkabilly

BTW, love the avatar Prof. Ape. Looooooved Greg the Bunny for the short time it was on the air

It was such a great cast and so funny. One of my favorite lines from Warren was:

"I'll be spending the weekend up in the wine country. That's what I call the room above my garage."

I remember being pissed when it got bumped by Fox for a new reality show. That show was American Idol. I guess they made the right business decision.

[ronhatch]

Originally Posted by ignats75

ronhatch. Your numbers are slightly off. Don't forget that a reg pack includes ONE GUARANTEED bronze card. That pushes the AEV based on probabilities to just over 500.

I included that in my calculations.


Whether or not I did it correctly is certainly open to debate. Screenshot of my spreadsheet below... "Minimum" is the instant sell price and "Ratio" is the stated odds ratio of getting that type of card. "3,000 packs" is the expected number of cards of that type you're expected to average based on those odds. Note that the bronze cards average exactly two per pack, because of the guaranteed card plus a one-out-of-five chance with five random cards in the pack. Iron cards are simply the total number of cards (18,000) minus the expected cards for other tiers. The "Value" column is the expected number of cards multiplied by that minimum sale price and the average divides the total sales by the 3,000 packs that went into the calculations.

[ignats75]

I can't find my spreadsheet now, but, we're pretty close either way. I posted that not to challenge, but to make sure your methodology was correct. It really doesn't matter. Bottom line is the ROI on buying regular packs suck. But sucks less than buying gold packs.

[mayday10]

I have tracked my pack opening for about 2500-3000 cards. The odds are pretty true for the most part. I am way high on my bronzes, and very short on silvers. Had 3 perfects in my first 1000 cards and have completely dried up.

[steamrollers]

Based on what I have pulled from 19-21 the average return on a standard pack is around 373. Yes that is awful and not what is truly expected, just my numbers. And don’t get down on gold packs, a while back on discord I said something about how awful the return was on gold packs when they were 5k and Kris jumped in saying they were a better investment based on their numbers than standard packs lol. It’s like a bad poker player getting lucky and winning a tourney despite making atrocious plays and thinking they are great

[tykond]

The same goes with the Diamond and Historical packs, right? They re up this weekend, and are a bad investment, right?

[thejojo]

Last time I tried them they were a bad investment unless you want Gary Sanchez. But if you get lucky and pull a Barry Larkin then it is a good investment.

[ronhatch]

Originally Posted by ignats75

I can't find my spreadsheet now, but, we're pretty close either way. I posted that not to challenge, but to make sure your methodology was correct. It really doesn't matter. Bottom line is the ROI on buying regular packs suck. But sucks less than buying gold packs.

Yeah, I was coming from the standpoint that it's entirely possible that I misunderstood something about how the pack is randomized, so I figured showing my work should rule that out.

In any case, my brother claims that he looked at the *actual* expected return from selling on the auction house in 19 and 20, and that there was a net expected gain over the long run. Remember that the values we're computing here are the *minimum* sale prices. Many cards can be sold for more... and if it's enough more, it skews the averages significantly higher.

[ronhatch]

So, FWIW... my first perfect historical pull was from my 98th opened pack (one of those was a gold mission completion reward, the rest standard). After the auction house cut, I netted 225,000 PP (and it was sold below the 7-day average). Now, I definitely had some luck go my way... I keep track of the percentages vs. expected, and I'm higher in every category except Diamond.

However... the thing is, with that one card covering well over double the cost of buying the packs I opened to get it, you can see how the value is so extremely skewed towards those few high end cards that the average value of opening a pack really CAN be greater than the cost in the long run even though individual packs will almost always be a losing proposition.

[zagtastic]

Originally Posted by ronhatch

So, FWIW... my first perfect historical pull was from my 98th opened pack (one of those was a gold mission completion reward, the rest standard). After the auction house cut, I netted 225,000 PP (and it was sold below the 7-day average). Now, I definitely had some luck go my way... I keep track of the percentages vs. expected, and I'm higher in every category except Diamond.

However... the thing is, with that one card covering well over double the cost of buying the packs I opened to get it, you can see how the value is so extremely skewed towards those few high end cards that the average value of opening a pack really CAN be greater than the cost in the long run even though individual packs will almost always be a losing proposition.

in other words, the answer is: depends on what's in it

[ronhatch]

Originally Posted by zagtastic

in other words, the answer is: depends on what's in it

Well, my point is that what's in it will be worth quite a lot just often enough to raise the *average* value significantly. I could literally open another hundred packs that were completely worthless and still have an average value above the cost of the pack... but over 99% of that average value would be in a single card, so the variance is astronomically high. That, in turn, makes it very easy to have your luck be much better or worse than average. So it's not *dependable* even if it *is* a good bet in the long run.

[mayday10]

IMO, there is waaaaay too little "action" on the packs and/or they are too costly and hard to come by.

I have been tracking my pack opening for my 3 teams and it has been 210 packs (1,260 cards) since an historical diamond (no perfects). That was a McGuire for my 'main' team. Before that, it was 114 packs (684 cards) since the previous Historical Diamond. That is nearly 2,000-cards worth for 1 of those players. That would roughly be 324,000pp or almost $200 spent. Not to mention the time and grinding to get all those packs with little payoff, it is enough to turn people onto some other hobby.

You dont want these things to grow on trees... but you also don't want to freeze everyone out for the entirety of the catalog

[dkgo]

But those 324 packs also returned a whole lot of other cards worth points. You probably got at least 200K points back from selling all the various golds, historic silvers, and live diamonds and such.

The math has been done a lot but IIRC you get about 450 PP in equity just in quicksell value. If all lives are just worth quicksell thats 300 PP plus 150 PP in historicals, which I would venture to estimate are worth 3-4x quicksell on average at minimum which would equal about 800PP in expected "return" per pack. But it takes a lot of packs to regress towards that mean.

I open at least 100 packs a day now in 20. Sometimes I get just one live diamond, sometimes I get three perfects. The biggest problem is how tedious it is to manage your collection. It takes 3 clicks just to quicksell a card. It should be one.

[mayday10]

Originally Posted by dkgo

The biggest problem is how tedious it is to manage your collection. It takes 3 clicks just to quicksell a card. It should be one.

Thats the other issue. I have a lot of cards and a lot of duplicates.... but the number of keystrokes needed to see that player in the auction house, activating him, most of the time finding someone else to deactivate first, go back try to remember the number you have in mind, more clicks to auction. It is tedious. I find my collection 'clutter' to be growing and growing, even when I make an effort to clean it up.

[benderguy1]

Originally Posted by mayday10

Thats the other issue. I have a lot of cards and a lot of duplicates.... but the number of keystrokes needed to see that player in the auction house, activating him, most of the time finding someone else to deactivate first, go back try to remember the number you have in mind, more clicks to auction. It is tedious. I find my collection 'clutter' to be growing and growing, even when I make an effort to clean it up.

Same. Some days it feels more like an eBay game than baseball.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by dkgo

But those 324 packs also returned a whole lot of other cards worth points. You probably got at least 200K points back from selling all the various golds, historic silvers, and live diamonds and such.

The math has been done a lot but IIRC you get about 450 PP in equity just in quicksell value. If all lives are just worth quicksell thats 300 PP plus 150 PP in historicals, which I would venture to estimate are worth 3-4x quicksell on average at minimum which would equal about 800PP in expected "return" per pack. But it takes a lot of packs to regress towards that mean.

I open at least 100 packs a day now in 20. Sometimes I get just one live diamond, sometimes I get three perfects. The biggest problem is how tedious it is to manage your collection. It takes 3 clicks just to quicksell a card. It should be one.

Until you F up and quick sell a valuable card. I do agree too many clicks though.

[dkgo]

Maybe give an "are you sure" warning if the card is at least a diamond. But for every silver it is really annoying.

And there is absolutely no good reason to have a post-sale confirmation popup that you have to acknowledge with a click after you already confirmed that you do want to sell the card you clicked to sell.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Maybe give an "are you sure" warning if the card is at least a diamond. But for every silver it is really annoying.

And there is absolutely no good reason to have a post-sale confirmation popup that you have to acknowledge with a click after you already confirmed that you do want to sell the card you clicked to sell.

As a F2P player who gets a steady stream of duplicate players through the packs I earn in tournaments, I have no issue with the 3-click Quick Sell. I appreciate the safety valve so I don’t make a stupid mistake.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Maybe give an "are you sure" warning if the card is at least a diamond. But for every silver it is really annoying.

And there is absolutely no good reason to have a post-sale confirmation popup that you have to acknowledge with a click after you already confirmed that you do want to sell the card you clicked to sell.

That's not as bad as getting a popup that you sold a card when you are trying to bid on a card at the last second.

[allenciox]

I would argue that standard packs are worth considerably more in PT21 than in PT20. The reason? The Live missions. Since 70% of cards drawn are live, in PT20 most of these were just quicksell value. Now almost all bronze and silver live cards have a very significant premium associated with them above the quick-sell value. In fact, it has gotten to the point that a live bronze or silver card is worth more on average than the average non-live card.

If you are willing to put in the time to put all these cards up for auction, and put no premium on the considerable time required to do so, then a standard pack might be worth > 1000 PP on average.