Overwatch loot boxes feel like goddamn Christmas to open. Then a bunch of garbage spills out, and you feel like a jackarse. Some people suspect that they’re rigged. Blizzard, however, insists they’re not, and they have finally released official loot box odds to back that up. At least, for China.
As part of a new law that recently went into effect, game makers must now disclose loot box odds in China. Yesterday, Blizzard did their due diligence for Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone (via Eurogamer). The odds for Overwatch are as follows:
- Every box contains at least one rare (blue) item.
- Players get an epic (purple) item once every 5.5 boxes.
- Legendary items appear once every 13.5 boxes.
I asked Blizzard if these odds apply to other regions, but as of writing, I had yet to hear back.
These odds, though, seem… alright. I feel like purples and oranges could drop a bit more frequently, but I suppose we can’t always get what we want. Granted, I’m still frustrated by loot boxes as a general concept. They’re cheap, often unsatisfying casino thrills sloppily spread atop games with otherwise rewarding mechanics, and odds don’t tell the full story when, say, you get multiple repeats of skins you already have. Seems like we’re just gonna have to live with loot boxes, though, because they’re clearly not going anywhere any time soon.
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18 responses to “Blizzard Reveals Overwatch Loot Box Odds In China”
They should represent the odds as a percentage. Saying that there will be a drop ‘every n boxes’ could lead people to expect them if they just buy that number of boxes–which I’m sure is what they want them to think. Really, people could get something awesome every time or never. A percentage would represent that more realistically.
Most Blizzard games have bad luck protection. In Hearthstone for instance, your odds of getting a legendary increase until it’s guaranteed at 40 packs. Maybe they’re implying they have some degree of bad luck protection here as well.
The one thing that annoys me is that these items are still all cosmetic… To say something is LEGENDARY, but really has no difference to any other item drop, is stupid.
They are cosmetic, however many of the legendary skins have changes to the characters model that the other skins do not.
The day any of these items do ANYTHING to alter gameplay, is the day people set Blizzard HQ on fire while screaming “Pay2win!”
Well I guess we just found the guy who wants to shell out $50 so that he can get a better weapon than everyone else for easy kills. How about, instead of that, you learn to play the game with skill on the same playing field as everyone else…
Some legendary skins also change some of the default voice lines (e.g. witch mercy will say ‘my spell is on you’ instead of ‘Healing stream engaged’, or ‘my servants never die’ when she rezzes people)
I don’t get why people care with loot boxes? It doesn’t effect gameplay at all and it’s just a nice reward for playing the game. It might be better to give credits instead to allow people to get what they want but really it doesn’t change the core gameplay in this case at all.
It’s because there are timed events that happen where you can only get x skin for 3 weeks and then it’s unavailable for like 1 year or more until they decide to do the event again. Coupled with the fact that these event items cost more in game coins than regular items (making them harder to get all round) and you end up with people caring a lot, especially since some of the skins look really cool.
Some people really do like the parts of games that aren’t just the mechanics and rules. Fancy graphics and customisation options are some of the kinds of gameplay I likes to see in some games, so I think it’s fair to criticise how they are built into the game as much as any mechanic is.
good, next step have it so that we cant get duplicates of things like grey items. The more you play or pay the more likely you get things you dont already have. it truly is the only blemish on an otherwise brilliant game.
Yep. Blizzard shouldn’t be scared of people collecting the lot, to do so you’d either have to spend many hours in the game or pay for lots of micros, a boon for Blizzard either way (and they keep making more so the community comes back for it too).
So if we take those numbers and apply them across a sample of say 100 boxes can we work out the %’s?
Blue = 100%
Purple = 18.18%
Orange = 7.40%
Not sure if this lines up with my experience or not, would have to have someone open 100 boxes and find out I guess?
Technically opening 100 boxes would prove nothing percentage wise. As the percentage chance is reset every time.
Reset to different values every time?
Otherwise I can’t see why that would not work, although you’d want more than 100 boxes done.
There is also a small chance to get grays from every box, I have seen it more then a few times … (resulting in duplicates/gold instead)
Whatever they reckon, I get crap and only crap. Best moment I had in the game is when I shift/tabbed and saw my mates all playing PUBG, finally a real game that doesn’t nerf something every 5 mins I thought.
Do you have to pay real money to unlock these things?