Ferengi Lockbox

I’ve been playing STO lately since it is more forgiving for limited time. I’ve mainly just been running DOFF missions once or twice a day, but occasionally having enough time to do a STF. I managed to get the MK XI MACO set thanks to a fortuitous shield drop plus a bunch of ECD’s I had saved from last year.

I have enjoyed myself, trying to get all the blue and purple DOFF’s you can from missions. I even took advantage of the past weekends sale to buy some DOFF packs and a few other things. I’d decided not to spend any more money on STO a few months ago, but a sales a sale and I figured I was having fun with it, so it’s worth spending a little.

Today’s release of the Ferengi lockbox has me regretting that decision. When the Jem’Hadar bugship was added in a random drop from purchased boxes, I was annoying and complained about it some. But not much since I didn’t really care about the ship.

When the Cardassian lockbox was added a few months ago, I just ignored it. A Galor kind of would be cool, but meh. I had no desire to spend money on a random chance for one. I bought a few master keys with my monthly stipend and was satisfied with the few things that dropped. They weren’t great, but I didn’t spend any real money on it since I’m a lifetime subscriber.

When the Ferengi lockbox was announced, I was actually cool with it. They were ramping up the other rewards you could get from the boxes, aside from the ship, so they didn’t all suck (still have XP boosts in there, which are useless to 90% of the player base). But they were adding a new dimension to the lockboxes. A new vendor was added that sold some items for a new currency; Lobi crystals. These Lobi crystals would drop from every lockbox.

I thought this was a much needed mechanic. You may still have to spend hundreds of dollars if you REALLY wanted that ship, but at least you would get something worthwhile in each one. Even those that just wanted to give it a few tries would get some crystals they could spend.

But then the prices for the things on the vendors was discovered. And the drop rate of crystals from boxes. For each box, you get between 1 and 10 crystals (I believe in increments of 1,2, 5, and 10 but not positive). The coolest items on the vendor cost several hundred crystals.

• Ferengi Shuttle: 800
• Bridge Officer: 300
• Complete weapon set: 600

Each master key (to unlock a box) costs $1.25. If you get extraordinary lucky to get 10 crystals in each box. you’ll need to unlock 80 boxes to get the shuttle.

80 x $1.25 = $100

That’s the minimum price to buy a shuttle. It could cost as much as a factor of 10 more if you’re really unlucky and get 1 crystal per box. A $1,000 shuttle. Compare that to the other shuttles just available for sale at 400 C-points each, or $5.

Now, I don’t plan to spend any money on this, but the stupidity of the whole things just annoys me. Instead of the extra vendor being a nice second place prize for people who spend a little money on the boxes, but don’t get the ship, it’s all about encouraging people to spend even more money on them. Now the guy who get’s lucky with the ship after just a few boxes, but wants the shuttle for a complete Ferengi set, needs to spend at least $100 to get it.

I had decided I didn’t mind the lottery style of the lockboxes. People could get lucky and they know how random chance works. But the special vendor? Someone might buy a bunch of keys, knowing they’ll at least get the Lobi crystals, but then discover it was all for naught. The $20 they spent yielded them a measly 16 crystals, which can’t get them anything.

It really is a scam worthy of a Ferengi.