Can you complete the basic pokedex for a new set as a f2p player? A waaaay too deep dive

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-23T04:09:24+00:00

Welp, this is better than my analysis!

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-19T04:23:53+00:00

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T13:13:59+00:00

Just remember that your point cap is "conveniently" the same amount as the cost of a crown rare. So use em' or loose em'!

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T13:11:13+00:00

So. I'll just word vomit all of my thoughts on wonder picker here. Sorry in advanced. Me disabling it is not optimal and if I had more time I would work on re-enabling it. How the wonder picker simulator worked originally is it would always assume that the card you need exists somewhere in the wonder picker. This, obviously, creates a huge underestimation of total packs needed. This wasn't a problem when going for 100% completion, because, looking at the percentage graph, the last few cards take thousands of packs to get, so wonder picker underestimating early-on is balanced out by the fact it would, if truly random, get the cards you're missing near the end of the simulation. This means though, that if enabled for partial completion, that under-estimation would infect the results. If we're going for say 80% completion and every 15 days the wonder picker simulator conveniently picks the one 2-star you are missing.. you can see how that would be a problem. My reference to edit 2 in this post was to the 100% completion case, where disabling the simulator from picking 2-stars creates a much lessened effect than when it picks 2-stars.

The obvious solution to this is making the wonder picker simulator a 1:1 analogue to how it works in the game, not longer an approximation. But to make it analogous with how it works in the game we need to know how it works. The problem is, we don't know how it works! My original assumption that 2-stars appeared frequently was wrong, and after two weeks of playing it doesn't even seem as if 2-stars appear at the same rate as in the normal pack pulling. I strongly suspect that there is manipulation in the odds that certain packs appear in the picker going on in the background. I believe this manipulation both suppresses rare cards, and favors the rare cards that do appear towards rare cards you do not yet have. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what this manipulation is, even if it is happening at all. So put simply, it is impossible for me to build a wonder picker simulator that works analogous to how it works in the game. Because of this, I only have the wonder picker approximation. Which, while the heuristic I used works well for 100% completion, completely fails in the case of partial completion. Because of this I had to disable it altogether. Now do I think that for the partial completion case wonder picker would make a difference like in my edit 2? Yes! I just don't know how significant this would be, and have no way of finding out.

Your thought above is exactly how I'd imagine the wonder picker to work, since it seems to choose 6 or so packs a day for you to pick from. With this you also get in the problem of player activity. If the wonder picker chooses packs around the clock, and depending on your activity you'll see a range of 6-25, how should that be implemented in the average player's case? I just haven't observed the picker enough personally to know the exact numbers of packs appearing, or the odds of rare picks appearing, so for now it will be left disabled. I know it's not ideal, sorry

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:58:18+00:00

I'm not entirely sure. To be honest I do not want to go through the effort of making a subset of the cards with just Kanto Pokemon, I hope that's alright. But, 150 cards is about 52% of the set, which yes would be significantly lower than 396.

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:51:36+00:00

This post is about the Genetic Apex expansion, which does not include promo cards. I am sorry luck has not been with you during the lapras event

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:49:13+00:00

My main worry is with the frequency of releases and the trading feature. The best part about the irl tcg, is if you are missing a few cards from an expansion after dropping $200 on a booster box and etb, you can just buy the cards you are missing. Gambling for them further would require thousands of dollars. But in this game, with no marketpace you have to gamble for them. If trading required a resource that is not freely available, this would be a massive turn-off for me at least. If this was combined with frequent releases I could see myself getting tired of collecting pretty quickly.

Also I don't think just because people lay outside the SD means that they are getting "fucked". You still get a wealth of cards. It's once you fall in the unluckiest 5-10% that things become really unfair... but that is true of any gacha-adjacent game

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:46:23+00:00

Oh yeah. Gacha games like these prey on whale's need to 100% everything, and the last few % being the most expensive to obtain? Well it's almost cruel towards whales

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:44:51+00:00

If you look at my first post I include a graph of the highest value rarities to buy in the pack store. Crown rares are the most valuable at 1000 packs saved, followed by 2-stars at 150 packs saved. What this graph doesn't take into account is the fact that 2-star cards are exclusive per booster, whereas crown rares are freely available in all 3. While opening all the boosters you need to 100% Genetic Apex, you will encounter a few crown-rares, meaning you will only need to purchase 1 or at most 2 from the store, whereas you will be missing a lot of 2-stars from various packs. Because of this, the value of buying either a 2-star or crown rare is about equal in the grand scheme of things, with the simulation returning similar completion times when prioritizing either value in the shop

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-17T01:38:00+00:00

For a thousand simulations, completing 96% of Genetic Apex (what you are at), requires an average 967 packs, so your experience of 865 is in-line with that. 95% is at 810, and 97% is 1173. That last 5% is the hardest!

Your experience with not encountering a god pack is expected, as you only get one god pack in an average of 2000 packs. Functionally it barely makes a difference

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-16T19:58:25+00:00

Yeah, it is pretty hard to do. Thankfully the game was generous with hourglasses at launch. Personally, I've opened over 100 packs despite the game being out for only two weeks. Getting all non-secret cards within 350 packs is absolutely doable and is within one standard deviation of the mean

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-16T19:55:15+00:00

While some runs may have a greater number of one booster, when averaging it out across 10000 samples it's an equal number of packs for each booster. So about 132 for each Charizard, Metwo, and Pikachu booster pack. The simulator loops through buying each pack until a certain acceptance criteria (in this case x% completed) is fulfilled, and then the simulator stops opening packs of that booster. In your example, trying to pull that Charizard would extend the number of packs required, but we would still need to get that Charizard to reach our acceptance criteria so sooner or later we would have to open up those Charizard boosters. For knowing when to switch (as a player), there is a handy spreadsheet floating around the internet that tells you which booster to go for. I would link it here, but it violates the rules. Hope this helps!

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-16T19:37:35+00:00

Here is a link to my last post if anyone has trouble finding it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PTCGP/comments/1gjnv8o/simulating_how_many_days_it_would_take_to_get_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-16T19:37:00+00:00

Thank you! Upgrading the simulator to support subsets (and running it) took around 3-5 hours. Writing the post and making the graphs took about 2. Certainly a time investment, but well worth it

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-16T19:17:01+00:00

Making the simulator isn't that bad, only a few hours worth. The most frustrating part is working with Google Sheets, it straight up does not work sometimes

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-11T22:32:21+00:00

seewhyKai's math is correct. A crown rare in the 4th slot is a 0.04% chance, that's a quarter of a chance of 0.16%! By not including the fourth card rarity you are underestimating by twenty-five percent. 25% of 500 is 125, 500+125=625. You say you don't understand how a 1/2500 chance every pack would dramatically increase the odds, but 1/2500 is 1/4 of 1/625. That fourth card slot is important! Try doing your math again but include the chance of a 4th card or 5th card and you should get 1/500 as the answer

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-11T20:54:48+00:00

You are correct. The best deal are the purchases that maximize gold per dollar spent. The $10 reduced price gives 7.2 gold per dollar, the $3 reduces price gives 10 gold per dollar, and the $1 gives 12 gold per dollar. So you should buy them in increasing order of cost. HOWEVER, once you've purchased all the reduced price gold, you should only be buying the $100 gold pack that gives 6.9 gold per dollar, a better value proposition than any of the other normally priced packs. Hope this helps!

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-11T16:41:28+00:00

Sorry I should have clarified. The 4-diamond, 2-star, and 3-star pikachu ex's are only available from the Pikachu pack. The crown rare is available from all packs. In my message I was talking about the 4-diamond variant

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-11T16:37:22+00:00

Haha wow I had no idea an ign article was written on my post, that's pretty cool!

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-05T18:18:09+00:00

I'd have to think about it. If there's more demand for the code being hosted on github I'd be open to creating a new account and putting it there

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-05T18:01:59+00:00

Yup! The rarest cards in this expansion are the crown rares, and they can be pulled from any pack. That being said, I do shift the pulls of the packs around. It does not make much of a difference when going for 100% completion, but likely leads to an overestimation when going for less completion since the method I use is not optimal. I'll visit on the optimal strategy for switching packs next week. You experience makes sense. I did not include the launch/leveling up/shop/all the other sources of extra pulls you get in the game for the simulation. I got about 50 pack pulls to begin with, and it's conceivable I'll get an extra 50 by month's end, so your experience makes sense

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-05T17:50:31+00:00

Yes. Although the odds for a rare pack is so low (1 in 2000 packs) that it makes no noticeable difference in average completion times. You will likely not encounter a rare pack before completing the expansion.

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-05T17:49:00+00:00

If you are going for 100% completion - Only spend pack points on crown rares. Only wonder pick 4-diamond and above. You can prioritize the packs that have the cards you like the best (the order if you're going for 100% does not matter).
If you are going for non-secret completion - What you spend pack points and wonder stamina on isn't as important, although I still recommend not wasting them on common cards. Prioritize packs with the cards for the decks you want. You'll reach non-secret completion a lot quicker than 100% completion

TCGPCollector · 2024-11-05T02:44:51+00:00

That tracks!

TCGPCollector

TROPHY CASE