Standard or Gold Pack

[joe.melin]

Just curious if most players are going for the Gold packs to ensure they get a good player or loading up on the standard packs trying to boost their odds of a Diamond or Perfect level card???

Also and word on what the "special packs" are and when those are coming?

[Westheim]

Never bought a gold pack. With five standard packs you have a pretty decent chance for a gold+ card anyway.

[Kushiel]

When I was building my team, I bought gold packs. Now, I buy standards because I am looking for Babe Ruth

[DonkeyKongSr]

Originally Posted by joe.melin

Just curious if most players are going for the Gold packs to ensure they get a good player or loading up on the standard packs trying to boost their odds of a Diamond or Perfect level card???

Also and word on what the "special packs" are and when those are coming?

I go with standard. You can buy many golds for under $5K right now (plus, many you'll pull are barely sellable at $1K), and increasing your odds at diamonds and perfects is important. Unless you add cash, it'll probably take many seasons to be able to buy a perfect, so you've got to play the lottery and hope to pull one.

[joe.melin]

Good call... just bought 15 standard packs and pulled a 97 Justin Turner. Not one other card over a 75 (Tananka), but hey I got that Diamond!

[SayHey1]

I've decided packs aren't worth it (of either type) once you hit a certain point.

A "guaranteed" Gold isn't necessarily good enough of a player to improve my team...and no...I don't have a team of high golds, Diamonds or Perfects.

I've just decided the points I do have are better served marshalling them over time until I finally have enough to get a player I feel will REALLY make a difference.

Shame though. I really was into packs early on. How cool it would be to score a Diamond or Perfect player opening packs. But after opening about 100 packs (and watching hundreds of other packs being opened by others) I've determined its just not worth it.

[ArcAngel]

I don't feel that packs are worth it for the collector because you are spending more for packs over time than if you just bought the cards individually.

That said, I am with SayHey1 in that I am also not buying packs for the reason I mentioned above.

[Fyrestorm3]

For me, packs are fun. I make sure to keep a couple thousand PP in case a need arises or a bargain is found, but every few days I'll treat myself to a pack. In addition to being probably the only way I'll ever see a Perfect on my team (as unlikely as it is to pull one), I find that if I wind up pulling a really good card, I'm more likely to use it and diversify my lineup. Just the way I am, chances are I'm not going to buy a Joe Schmoe historical legend if I don't know who he is - but if I happen to pull that card, I'll give him a shot. It's more organic to me that way.

As for the OP's topic though: standard packs, always.

[mikezone13]

One account to buy packs, one account to only use the auction house. One I do a little bit of both with but mostly auction.

As said earlier once your roster doesn't have many glaring holes you need to selectively upgrade it to stick with those with all of the diamonds and perfects.For that you need PP and judicial (read lucky) auction house buys.

[mrbucket]

In a mild defense of packs, I do think they offer a good return. The auction house is ideal if you have a specific need or are able to grab a bargain but if you want to get your hands on a diamond/perfect then the you're probably better off with packs unless you have a crazy flow of PP points coming through.

Looking through the auction house I took some values of what the various levels are going for based on the average amounts that these cards are going for.

(There's a lot of problems with my methods but just bear with me please)

So I figure Perfects go for an average of 60,000 PP You've got 1/1000 chance of getting one in a pack.

Diamonds - 20,000 PP: 1/150 chance of getting one

Golds - 5000 PP: 1/50 chance of getting one

Silver - 400 PP: 1/20 chance of getting one

Bronze - 25 PP: 1/5 chance of getting one

Iron - 5 PP: 72.2% chance of getting one

That means the expected return for a standard pack is

Perfects = 60000 * 0.001 * 5 = 300
Diamonds = 20000 * 0.0067 * 5 = 666.67
Gold = 5000 * 0.02 * 5 = 500
Silver = 400 * 0.05 * 5 = 100
Bronze = 25 * 0.2 * 5 = 25
Iron = 5 * 0.722 * 5 = 18.06
Plus a guaranteed bronze = 25

That means for your 1000 PP investment you get an expected 1634.73 PP return. 63.5% on your hard earned PP!

Gold Packs work out for your 5000 PP investment you get an expected 6609.73 PP return. A 32.2% return on your PP.

So Standard Packs definitely work out better than your Gold packs (to answer the thread question).

Of course you have to ready yourself for disappointment. There's a 66.7% chance that a standard pack will have nothing but bronzes and irons.

You can quibble with my valuations of the various tiers. They're very rough and I got them by going through the auction house at random and seeing the average price that cards having been selling for. Though if you reduce my perfect/diamond/gold/silver valulations by a third then you still get a positive return for the standard pack (the gold pack is a negative return by then though)

[mess]

I bought Gold packs to start off my team but I've been buying Standard ever since.

It was worth it (IMO) to get a solid foundation.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by mess

I bought Gold packs to start off my team but I've been buying Standard ever since.

It was worth it (IMO) to get a solid foundation.

Almost exactly what I said previously The guaranteed gold cards can help build a solid foundation and if they are no help to the manager they can be sold for a minimum 1000 PP. This 1000 pp can get you a very decent player to fill in the gaps. The player that invests $50 on a new or terrible starting team can get 15 gold card packs because you get 75k PP for the $50. and a fair chance of pulling a Diamond. It may not be an end game team but it will help you not get embarrassed and it will help you make achievements to start getting selective. This is how I built my Horned Frogs. I had a plan and sold all the golds on the AH that did not fit my plan. Then I bought Standard packs with that money and got a Lou Gehrig Top WAR 100 OVR card in those packs. He fits any plan

[George_Bell]

Originally Posted by SayHey1

I've decided packs aren't worth it (of either type) once you hit a certain point.

A "guaranteed" Gold isn't necessarily good enough of a player to improve my team...and no...I don't have a team of high golds, Diamonds or Perfects.

I've just decided the points I do have are better served marshalling them over time until I finally have enough to get a player I feel will REALLY make a difference.

Shame though. I really was into packs early on. How cool it would be to score a Diamond or Perfect player opening packs. But after opening about 100 packs (and watching hundreds of other packs being opened by others) I've determined its just not worth it.

And that's exactly what will happen to everyone over a period of time. Spending money right away will take the fun out of building a team. Spending a month or earning points will build a team that good, but with the ability to keep players forever....then what's the point after a while...

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by George_Bell

And that's exactly what will happen to everyone over a period of time. Spending money right away will take the fun out of building a team. Spending a month or earning points will build a team that good, but with the ability to keep players forever....then what's the point after a while...

The beauty of PT is that everybody gets to do it their own way. Some people will never tire of opening packs. I want Babe Ruth because I grew up more years ago than most here and he was and is my baseball hero. After my team was pretty much built, I open standard packs as often as I can. I will never tire of it because I want that Babe card. The fat man as many younger fans call him trained on women, cigars and booze and still dominated his era. If he were playing now, he would still dominate with all the training methods in use in modern baseball. Ohtani is a 2 way player and may never be any better than he is now in MLB. Based on his playing and pitching the Angels took a shellacking on his contract. Maybe they made enough in PR to offset the cost early. But if he does not get better that early boost will be gone and they will still be paying.. Babe was a pitcher first and one of the best until they realized this guy is too valuable to miss any days in the batting order.

So, we open packs

[George_Bell]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

The beauty of PT is that everybody gets to do it their own way. Some people will never tire of opening packs. I want Babe Ruth because I grew up more years ago than most here and he was and is my baseball hero. After my team was pretty much built, I open standard packs as often as I can. I will never tire of it because I want that Babe card. The fat man as many younger fans call him trained on women, cigars and booze and still dominated his era. If he were playing now, he would still dominate with all the training methods in use in modern baseball. Ohtani is a 2 way player and may never be any better than he is now in MLB. Based on his playing and pitching the Angels took a shellacking on his contract. Maybe they made enough in PR to offset the cost early. But if he does not get better that early boost will be gone and they will still be paying.. Babe was a pitcher first and one of the best until they realized this guy is too valuable to miss any days in the batting order.

So, we open packs

The beauty of any game is you get to play your own way in the standards allowed by said game. So I'm not gonna compliment OOTP for that aspect of a game. I think it's a horrible mistake to allow players to remain the same forever. As a few have said in this thread, they don't see the point in opening pack anymore. Sure, some people will, but I think the majority, once their team is built, will lose interest. If i wanted to, i start a single player game, edit my team, and be amazing. That's not very fun though, and after a while, without any challenge, I would move on.

So yes, like every other game everywhere, we can play this however we want. And like many games out there, this perfect team mode is definitely not PERFECT.

[George_Bell]

apologies, my contribution to this thread was in a whole different direction to it's intent. I believe opening more packs is obviously better, so i believe the standard packs are the way to go.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

The beauty of PT is that everybody gets to do it their own way. Some people will never tire of opening packs. I want Babe Ruth because I grew up more years ago than most here and he was and is my baseball hero. After my team was pretty much built, I open standard packs as often as I can. I will never tire of it because I want that Babe card. The fat man as many younger fans call him trained on women, cigars and booze and still dominated his era. If he were playing now, he would still dominate with all the training methods in use in modern baseball. Ohtani is a 2 way player and may never be any better than he is now in MLB. Based on his playing and pitching the Angels took a shellacking on his contract. Maybe they made enough in PR to offset the cost early. But if he does not get better that early boost will be gone and they will still be paying.. Babe was a pitcher first and one of the best until they realized this guy is too valuable to miss any days in the batting order.

So, we open packs

Yep. I know that I can maybe someday afford some one of the "cheaper" perfect cards if I saved up enough money, but there's no way that I could ever afford the more rare ones. So while I use the auction house for most of my team needs, it's a lot of fun to still open some packs and hope for the best.

It's also a lot of fun discovering other players, and other cards, that don't show up in the auction house very often. Like, for example, I have the DIamond Ben Zobrist 2009 All-Star, which I'm pretty sure has only ever sold once on the auction house (given its price history is 25k/25k/25k).

So yes, you open up a lot of packs, and it's definitely not the most efficient use of resources. But it's still fun, and a chance to hit it big if you get lucky.

[mess]

I opened a 99 Kershaw last night from a standard pack and almost pooped my pants

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Yep. I know that I can maybe someday afford some one of the "cheaper" perfect cards if I saved up enough money, but there's no way that I could ever afford the more rare ones. So while I use the auction house for most of my team needs, it's a lot of fun to still open some packs and hope for the best.

It's also a lot of fun discovering other players, and other cards, that don't show up in the auction house very often. Like, for example, I have the DIamond Ben Zobrist 2009 All-Star, which I'm pretty sure has only ever sold once on the auction house (given its price history is 25k/25k/25k).

So yes, you open up a lot of packs, and it's definitely not the most efficient use of resources. But it's still fun, and a chance to hit it big if you get lucky.

I got the The Big Train, Walter Johnson himself from a standard pack this morning. He fit in nicely letting me sell a Bauer I replaced my number 5 with a number 1 to sit on top of my rotation with Randy Johnson.


Edit: Actually it was early afternoon.

[Thalion]

Johnson & Johnson, for the win!