Need Advice: TE or Card Pack

Hi guys. I tried searching for a topic like this but I don't exactly know what to put in the search box. I've spent maybe around $50 on card packs and so far I haven't had any luck. Would it be wiser to spend my Mobacoins buying TE instead or should I continue trying my luck on pulling cards? I did some research and even the Step-up packs offer crazy low chances on 5* or 6* units. :s

P.S.

I started considering this after I pulled five 3* units from a Premium Box. T_T

Don't ever buy Premium Mega Boxes, there's a 1 card in 20 boxes chance pulling a 6* on those. Maybe even less. It's about as premium as the roll of toilet paper in my bathroom.

The only time you should ever consider buying is when the step ups are around, and even then it would make sense to go all the way to Step 7 AND if you need the extras to push for that added bit of rank (in this event, that would be the black books). Chances are still low (don't be fooled by that 10x nonsense, as an example, 10 x of 1% is still only 10%).

TLDR, If you aren't gunning for rank, get TE and save yourself the heartache/regret. It'll cost as much to buy the TE and secure a guaranteed decent 6* then to blow that all up to Step 7 and get only 4*s.

I see... T__T.. there goes $50 of regret.. thanks for the detailed response.. I wonder how all those other people get lucky though.. @_@

They get lucky because of resources. If you have 3 darts and try to hit the bulls eye your chances of actually hitting it aren't that high as opposed to a person that has 100 darts.

aww.. dem CEO's buying all the luck..

i think i've spent somewhere around $400-$500 over the course of 4 months and i've gotten exactly 1 6* from stepups. 3 5*s though, if that counts, and helps you make your decision.

Momokomoko wrote:

Hi guys. I tried searching for a topic like this but I don't exactly know what to put in the search box. I've spent maybe around $50 on card packs and so far I haven't had any luck. Would it be wiser to spend my Mobacoins buying TE instead or should I continue trying my luck on pulling cards? I did some research and even the Step-up packs offer crazy low chances on 5* or 6* units. :s

P.S.

I started considering this after I pulled five 3* units from a Premium Box. T_T

Alright, this is my own opinion, and it seems to be vastly different from others, which mostly think TE is worth more. I think Potions are worth more, and you can know why if you read the latter part.

In a normal stable market, the market should settle on a price where buying TE and paying for card packs should have a similar value.
The chance of getting a really good card from the card pack is so low that people will not want to sell it at a much lower price than what they paid for, and people will not want to pay too much so that they can just get more out of card packs either.

The problem left is that TE is a consumable, so the market is not really stable(amount of card and amount of TE are changing all the time)
Its like not only you took away the gold standard, but also used corn as your major currency.

Also, depends on how much a gambler you are.
I will post the chance in the Japanese version for your reference(their law required them to list the probability of raffles)

This is from the Elf series
★4（4 types）　97%
★5（3 types）　2%
★6（2 types）　0.2%
This is from the Airship brigade series
★4（5 types）　96%
★5（3 types）　3.8%
★6（1 types）　0.2%
This is from the dream breaker series
★4（5 types）　96%
★5（3 types）　3.8%
★6（1 types）　0.2%
This is the premium
★3（29 types）　64.02%
★4（27 types）　34.4%
★5（30 types）　1.38%
★6（19 types）　0.2%

As you can see, the chance of getting a ★6 is just 0.2%, 1/500, or 2 out of 1000.
and chance of ★5 is not that high either, but you can get about 1 out of 20~40.
And bad news is, the box of 14 cards(exclusive to our version) seems to include 2★s as well, so the chance goes down.

Anyway, using these numbers, it is not hard to do a simple reverse calculation, and show that the price of 5★ is about 90TE from the above card packs while 6★ is about 1500TE.(a bit lower if people are pulling discounted buy 5 get 1 free or buy 10 get 4 free packs.)
In reality, since we get tons of premium tickets and some 4*+ tickets, these numbers will go down(especially I am sure that a lot of people simply get new accounts for their beginners packs and tickets)
But I'd say that if they did not change the chances, buying TE to pay for cards is the better way of getting 5 and 6★ cards. Scientifically(statistically), it is more efficient to buy TE and buy cards.(Hey, check my shop tinyurl/mythshop, I sell in Potions ;9)

But if you like to gamble, then pulling packs might be your choice.


The economy is not very stable in this game, the major factors of economy depends on the rarity of the cards(not the ★, but the actual availability of the cards), the practicability of the card(so rare and useful cards are more expensive), the demand of the card, etc.
However, it also depends on the type of event, the level of the player and the strength of that player's main force.

In this game, every TE is equivalent to about 5 mins most of the time, its a little bit more than that, depends on the event at the time.
In panel events, its currently 945/937 * 5mins, since each TE gives you 945 BT pts on 35-7 but a 5 min quest gives you 937.
In Tower events and battle events, TEs are about 10mins (cool down time of even quests)

However, given a encounter event or an arena event, Potions are roughly equivalent to 30 mins(300training pts take 30 min to recover.), but if you are a lower level player(I consider player lv 100 as a common standard starter lv), your potions are much less effective, while TEs keep their effectiveness.(not affected by level)

This is important and well calculated into the game by the developers, so you can be a free player and grind really hard to get 5★ or even 6★ in panel events if you spend 18 hours or so a day(about 9~10 for 5★), but you can never grind a 5* from an encounter bosses event, it is just 6 times more time consuming, and you have limited time a day.

The developers calculated a certain amount of TE or Potions they want players to buy in each event, they make it so that free players that can invest a lot of time and players that pay a certain amount can get some kind of "compensation" in certain events, and those are the panel event BT pts rewards.
However, they also show more graciously towards paid players, so, if the same players spend the same amount in encounter events, they are more likely to get the 5★s in those events as well.
And you can see for yourself the current market, I take 2 cards as example: Therese and Dermond.
Zande is still pretty new, and the event is still on going, so the price is not that stable(you keep getting new ones into the market)
But as you can see, these 2 are the 5★ from 2 event types.
Therese is somewhere in the 70~80TE price range, but Dermond can be obtained as low as 15~20TE.
Dermond is not too hard to grind for, so you have a lot in the market, Therese is cuter, and more people want her, but she's also rarer, since you can't grind for her. If you spend the same time to grind in those two types of events, you can at barely get the 4★ reward in the encounter, but the 5★ in panel.

If you look at the 6★ reward prices of these 2 events, that'd be much funnier.
Matahari and Francois, you have Matahari that sells for 100~180TE, and Francois, I don't even know the exact price since so little people are selling or even willing to give up the card for pure TE, is in the range of 1200~2200TE.

This is reasonable, you have 2 major factors that make the price at least 10 times higher:
1) Potions are 6 times more effective, so spending the same amount of potions vs TE gives you at least 6 times the price range.
2) Free players can't grind for it, players that pay a smaller amount can't really get it as well, so it is much rarer, thus will only raise the price more.

So, if you are a hardcore player with a pretty strong force, I'd say you save up on potions, and wait for an encounter event, and aim for the 6★, then sell it for 4 digit TE and buy other 6★s.
You need around 50TE to buy the event 5★ that gives you an edge, and then the rest is around 500 Potions(can be (p)) and tons of feeders to max that 5★.
If you don't have a good force, then buy some practical 5★(not expensive for their looks but strong in stats, you can also do a male team with an 4★Alex, since male cards are usually less expensive)

At this time of the Fanta age, you're better off buying TE over a couple of boxes.

If you're just looking for specific cards, you have more positive guarantees using TE as a bargaining tool.

If you're just competing to win an event & you don't care about what cards you're getting anymore, the boxes that provide you those support items are the way to go.

The only time you want to buy a box for two good reasons is when they release a series box only available during a specific event.

@MythSearcher

Your reply was insanely long but it did give me some insight on how I would want to plan my future in the game. I'll probably still buy TE with my Mobacoins but would start stocking up on potions too. Right now the market is trading 2 pots for 1 TE but they cost the same in the in-game shop so even if I want more pots, getting TE is the way to go. @_@

@The6thToe

ZOMGWTF $400 to get ONE 6*!! I hope that 6* was worth it. T_T

@memphiskite

Yep. That's what I plan to do moving forward. Get TE to buy specific cards then buy a box for event-specific cards. I'm giving up on pulling 6* in packs. T_T

atm, you will never go wrong with buying TE...

Momokomoko wrote:

@MythSearcher

Your reply was insanely long

Yeah, being a teacher, I have the tendency to over explain stuff, sorry.
But you get the essence of my post.

Rant about planning which boxes to buy:

I would also recommend looking at the specific cards you get in the boxes on Japanese wiki if you are planning for an event. For the upcoming arena event there is 1 5* that has B speed 30 deploy, and 2 that are D speed 15 and 20 deploy (and they are both poison). From a team planning perspective, these are pretty bad cards for arena. Even if a 5* is low deploy, if it is d speed poison, the battle will almost be over before the poison goes off. Additionally, the 4*s are all 20-25 deploy, and you can probably get them for 1-2 te before the event starts. So for this particular event, there is no point in buying boxes.

It also seems like the prices of 5* cards are higher the fewer there are for that particular series. I recall during the soul hunters 1 event, Patrica was 80-100 te. During soul hunters 2 Bernard was 100-120 TE. This past training event, the Emerald X Shadow Shakedown, Aquilla and Olvis were 20-30 TE into the second or third day of packs. Canis had a higher price (I think around 60 the entire event), but when buying packs not only do you have to worry about pulling a 5*, you also have to worry about pulling the right one XD.