Santa Crates...Suck or not?

[CaptainSFC]

I have watched many crates being opened both live on streams and live on Discord, and, have read posts from many discrd servers.  The resuts were not encouraging.  EVERY streamer Said to not waste your m,ney and, so far, all I see for ships are the same 4 lower tier ships, Tier VII Japanese DD, Tier Vii Russian Cruiser, Tier Vii British BB and one other.  

Why would Wargaming do this to their Loyal customers who wait an entire year for this event?  Only one reason I can think of...The all mighty Dollar (or whatever currency).  Think about it, how many of us have all four of these ships?  Probably not that many.  So you buy a pack of 20 crates and get 2 ships.  Both the lower tiers, now, to get one of the ships you really want, you have to buy another pack.  Who knows, if you are missing the other two guess what you are going to do?  Buy more.  Now some will say just buy cheaper packs.  It is still the same and probably still need to urchase as many crates no  matter whar.

Just guessing but this may be how they get around the "Purely Random" requirement.  It is a shame.  The ONLY ship I want is the Missouri. Since I dont have those 4 ships I will probably have to buy 60+ containers. just to have a chance.  I cant afford that.  So I will buy none. 

This is my first Christmas with Wargaming and I am disheartened.  Wargaming is a corporation that wants to make money...I understand that but, at the Corporate Level, Directors usually get bonuses based on revenue.  Evidently this Corporation is no different.  I can only hope enough people are also as disheartened as I am and protest by not spending hard earned money until something is done differently.  Something with the Player experience at the forefront instead of Corporate greed. What a shame.

[Princess_Daystar]

Meanwhile. My list of ships obtained so far.

 

Tier 9: Benham

Tier 8: Vanguard, Ochakov

Tier 7: Ashitaka, Yudachi,

Tier 6: Mutsu, P.E.Freidrech, Gallant, Duca D Costa, T-61, WV 41, Monaghan

Tier 5: Exeter, Genova, Viribus Unitis, Mikoyan

 

Heres the thing though. Before buying crates the best question to ask is always "Will i be happy with the least value item to drop" In this case its flags. Further. Do you you play all nation ships? or just a few? Do you care about tier or no? For me i play pretty much every nation depending on my mood, so the more ships i have at all tiers the better.

[Carl_the_Cuttlefish]

I got lots of camo and the Yudachi. The camo and flags were probably worth 20$ with having 100 games of x150% XP potential. So $13 for the Yudachi was a good deal. Had no idea what it was but looks really cool. Bottom line if you use camos and premium, you get your moneys worth there and you get a ship to boot with it for $33.

[Koudai68]

Santa gifts have always worked this way, it is nothing new. It is hard for the new player cause you know what you will get or if the player doesn't have those ships, Kind of sucks for the person that sold the ship just to get it again though lol.

[dEsTurbed1]

11 minutes ago, Princess_Daystar said:

Meanwhile. My list of ships obtained so far.

 

Tier 9: Benham

Tier 8: Vanguard, Ochakov

Tier 7: Ashitaka, Yudachi,

Tier 6: Mutsu, P.E.Freidrech, Gallant, Duca D Costa, T-61, WV 41, Monaghan

Tier 5: Exeter, Genova, Viribus Unitis, Mikoyan

 

Heres the thing though. Before buying crates the best question to ask is always "Will i be happy with the least value item to drop" In this case its flags. Further. Do you you play all nation ships? or just a few? Do you care about tier or no? For me i play pretty much every nation depending on my mood, so the more ships i have at all tiers the better.

You got 4 of the short list ships.

I'm guessing the rest were all in Super containers. 

[dEsTurbed1]

11 minutes ago, Carl_the_Cuttlefish said:

I got lots of camo and the Yudachi. The camo and flags were probably worth 20$ with having 100 games of x150% XP potential. So $13 for the Yudachi was a good deal. Had no idea what it was but looks really cool. Bottom line if you use camos and premium, you get your moneys worth there and you get a ship to boot with it for $33.

Yudachi is a very difficult ship to play, but worth playing.

[Princess_Daystar]

3 minutes ago, dEsTurbed1 said:

You got 4 of the short list ships.

I'm guessing the rest were all in Super containers. 

So? i said i was pleased with the ships id gotten. If they are on a short list or not it doesnt mean much if a player is glad they got them. And i have no idea, im lazy and do the "Open all".

[mr_angry_eyes]

All loot crates suck and should be banned for gambling.

Inevitably there will be those seeded who beat the odds, suggesting to the rest of us we can too!

Don't fall prey to this predatory tactic of gambling incentive.

[GrandAdmiral_2016]

My one and only buy results below...from this point forward it will be the dailies plus whatever pops up in the snowflake grind from my 22 T10 ships. The extra coal gives me another T10 special. I'll take the T7 and T8 premiums and sit on them both. The IJN DD is not something I would have bought but IJN DDs are never bad ships. The Russian CL? At least now I won't get it in the rest of all this. After all, this is a casino. Pick your poison. Two for eight is not bad at this point, but i'm done for this year...

 

[MajorRenegade]

I just opened up 24 mega crates and only got 1 tier 5 and a tier 7 ship i don't want..............

money i won't get back

 

[desmo_2]

Getting a ship or not has always been a hot point of contention with the "special" crate events...Santa Crates in particular.

Here is the thing, though...the Santa Crates also contain some pretty solid stuff.  Good amounts of coal, good amounts of premium time, good amounts of doubloons, good amounts of special signals, and good amounts of top shelf camo.

Before you go saying "meh" to premium time, special signals, and camo...consider this:

When stacked, that premium time, special signals, and top shelf camo (Frosty Fir, New Year Streamer, WoWS Anniversary, etc) can net some tasty totals in ship XP, Free XP, Captain XP, and silver.  Ridiculous totals per game.  Massive grind shortening totals.  Free XP ship buying totals.

Don't scoff at the stuff that isn't 'Shiny Ship'.  Most of the Shiny Ships that come from those crates are chock full of crap ships WG has pumped out through the years.

[SilverPhatShips]

 

[thehelmsman]

Hard pass for me this year, there's nothing interesting on offer in the boxes that I don't already have, and I'm already sitting on more camo and flags than I'll likely ever actually use. Looking forward to seeing what the Tanks Christmas event looks like, though.

--Helms

[Taylor3006]

In World of Tanks, you are guaranteed to get your value out of a crate. In Ships, you have the potential of getting what WoWS believes to be the value for your money. It is a small distinction but one that is very important. If you tend to buy one use camos or signal flags, then you could find the value in them. Otherwise you are just gambling. My hard and fast rule for buying any of the crates is if you are not happy with the LEAST prize offered for the money spent, it is not worth it. In other words I am not spending on them. Besides even if I get a ship, I have hundreds of ships and most of them I never play. Seems pointless to add to that. 

 

EDIT: BTW if you are buying crates to get a specific ship, DO NOT DO THIS. Most people are terribly disappointed in the end or spend more than they planned to in order to get a certain boat. 

[CaptEvul]

This is one of the few games my wife and I actually play together. As a result, we usually go a bit wild on the Santa crates every year. This year, with so many things affected by Covid, we had a bit larger of a budget than in past years because there weren't a lot of other place for us to spend our disposable income. We each opened 53 Mega's and 28 Big's. The odd numbers come from simply ploughing any doubloons we got out of the crates back into additional ones from the armory. We were entertained, which is the whole point of a game. Results are as follows:

Wife: 

Ships: Yudachi, Marblehead Lima, Hill, Monaghan, California, Makarov, Mainz, Vanguard, Sirocco, Duca D' Aosta, Orkan. In addition she received: 64 Winter Strand, 100 New Years Streamer, 50 Shadow Lurker, 120 Frosty Fir Tree, 85 Type 3 New Years, 160 New Years, 62 Ouroboros, 100 Leviathan, 150 Hydra, 90 Wyvern, 60 Dragon, 60 Red Dragon, 60 Basilisk, 120 Scylla, and 57k Coal.

Myself: Cossack, Mikoyan, Cheshire, California, Vanguard, Gascogne, Saipan, E. Loewenhardt, Indomitable. In addition: 96 Winter Strands, 100 Frosty Fir Tree, 120 New Years, 80 Type 3 New Years, 5 Asian Lantern, 40 Wyvern, 110 Red Dragon, 50 Dragon, 10 Ouroboros, 110 Scylla, 90 Basilisk, 150 Hydra, 85 Leviathon, and 60k+ Coal.

I feel like we got our Money's worth out of the containers, and we had fun opening them. It is gambling, so your mileage may vary. Don't spend more than you can afford to chasing that rare ship. Chances are you will not get it. If you already have a fair amount of lower tier premiums you have a better chance of coming out better than those players that do not. 

[BrushWolf]

Look at Santa crates or any other crate for that matter as you would buying lottery tickets. If you win great and if you don't that is great too and unlike with the lottery tickets you are guaranteed to get something although maybe not what you really wanted.

[Wombatmetal]

I don't think the crates are about the same as they were last year. I don't see any difference after opening mine.

My haul from 48 crates was

V - Yahagi; VI - E. Loewenhardt; VII - Gorizia, Poltava, California, Flint;  VIII - Chesire, Champagne, Ochakov, P. Bagration; IX - Neustrashimty, Agir

 

[SoothingWhaleSongEU]

There are four things here:

1) The exact drop rate of A SHIP! for the 3 types of Santa gift crates are not advertised. The playerbase can compare results and work out an average but it's not announced by WG.
The best sample I have seen is a guy who opened 40 Mega gift crates and got 4 ships (1/10) and 60 big crates and got 4 ships (1/15).

2) Kinda obvious but worth remembering that RNG is RNG. Even if the above odds 1/10 for mega and 1/15 for big *is* accurate, then that doesn't stop you being unlucky and opening far more for no ship. Others will be luckier.

3) Are you happy getting the coal, doubloons, signals and camo instead of a ship?
They guy who had the 40 mega and 60 big posted this distribution.
 

Spoiler

Big (60x): Dubs: 8,000 coal: 45,000 Premium: 90 days New Year Camo: 45 Type 3 - New Year Camo: 90 Winter Strands Camo: 48 New Year Streamer Camo: 96 Frosty Fir Tree Camo: 96 Dragon signals: 30 Red Dragon signals: 30 Wyvern Signals: 30 Hydra Signals: 30 Ouroboros signals: 0 Basilisk signals: 60 Scylla signals: 15 Leviathan signals: 0

Ships: Orkan, California, P. Bagration, Siliwangi

Mega(40x): Dubs: 8,000 coal: 25,000 Premium: 0 New Year Camo: 100 Type 3 - New Year Camo: 100 Winter Strands Camo: 60 New Year Streamer Camo: 120 Frosty Fir Tree Camo: 40 Mosaic Camo: 0 Asian Lantern Camo: 5 Spring Sky camo: 0 Dragon signals: 60 Red Dragon signals: 90 Wyvern Signals: 0 Hydra Signals: 60 Ouroboros signals: 0 Basilisk signals: 30 Scylla signals: 30 Leviathan signals: 30

Ships: Makarov, Champagne, Z-35, Cheshire, Indomitable

4) The short list is more complicated and best explained by the original reddit thread.

Whilst it isn't yet proved to *definitely* work as the theory states, there is vast amount of evidence that even if you're lucky enough to "roll a ship" then you'll likely end up with: 

Duca d'Aosta, Yūdachi, Vanguard or Ochakov from a Mega gift crate 
OR

Makarov, California or Orkan from a Big gift crate.

If you already have at least one of the relevant shortlist then you can get the others from the 107 big list but all 7 are far, far more common than other ships. It was the sheer number of Makarov drops which drew people's attention in the first place.

It's still unclear if it's *absolutely certain* you'll get one of these first if you don't have *any* from the 3 or 4 ship short list. But I have literally not seen anyone saying they got another ship without pre-owning/first rolling at least one relevant short list ship.

This actually matches how containers were *specifically described to work back with 2016 Christmas Boxes  and 2017 Christmas Boxes. The outrage being this is an incredibly common trend but hasn't been announced anywhere in the news, Armoury or Premium shop.

[iBrowEcc0]

1 hour ago, Princess_Daystar said:

 

Heres the thing though. Before buying crates the best question to ask is always "Will i be happy with the least value item to drop" In this case its flags. Further. Do you you play all nation ships? or just a few? Do you care about tier or no? For me i play pretty much every nation depending on my mood, so the more ships i have at all tiers the better.

Finger on the scale....  that's the point.  How do you not realize that?!

[Maksimus54]

If you like gambling go for it. I've done great before but this go around I didn't do well. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit unhappy since I only got 3k Dubs, 15k coal, no ships and no premium time out of 40 big crates. I've used santa crates to stack up premium time before and this time it didn't pan out. The flags and camo's will get used, but I wouldn't consider my haul worth the money

[dEsTurbed1]

1 hour ago, Princess_Daystar said:

So? i said i was pleased with the ships id gotten. If they are on a short list or not it doesnt mean much if a player is glad they got them. And i have no idea, im lazy and do the "Open all".

I'm with you on being pleased with a ship.

[ItsSubmersible]

Doesn't matter. Same as walking in to a casino and pulling a slots lever. Maybe you win, probably not. If you can afford it and know you may not get the jackpot & it doesn't bother you, great. Otherwise, don't gamble.

[Rabin69]

Finally the odds rolled in my favor a bit. Got Ochakov, Cheshire, 6k dubs and 25k coal plus mixed camos out of 20 mega crates.

The icing on the cake is below. But that's it for me spending any more cash this year. I got lucky and I'm getting out.

 

[Rothgar_57]

ok how many of the short list ship do you already have?

[Girlz_Day]

NOT ONE PENNY!