Holiday Ops 2022 / 2023 Loot Box Value Guide
13Disciple | 11-Dec-2022
As a WGNA CC, I was provided with 200 Holiday boxes (50 of each type) for the purpose of making content on Twitch and for this article. I've supplemented this data with users that sent me their videos and screenshots.
This type of written article takes hours and hours of data entry, on top of putting together the tables and graphics. If you would like to support my work, please pop on over to my Twitch, or my YouTube page and check out my content.
This type of written article takes hours and hours of data entry, on top of putting together the tables and graphics. If you would like to support my work, please pop on over to my Twitch, or my YouTube page and check out my content.
These boxes are yet again excellent value. If you want to put gold or premium time (purchased for gold) in your account, I would recommend purchasing large (gift) boxes. This year sees the continuation of a guaranteed vehicle mechanic. Now you are guaranteed to get a tier 8 vehicle drop after 50 large gift boxes.
Since the vehicles that drop are guaranteed to be vehicles you don't already own, and that every 50 boxes you are guaranteed one of the tier 8's/9 you don't yet own, you can now fully know exactly how much it will cost you to guarantee that you get one (or all) of the new Holiday Ops Tanks.
While I would still like to have the tanks sold outside boxes, this is a big improvement to consumers. It effectively caps how much you will need to spend to get the exact vehicle you may be fishing for.
Since the vehicles that drop are guaranteed to be vehicles you don't already own, and that every 50 boxes you are guaranteed one of the tier 8's/9 you don't yet own, you can now fully know exactly how much it will cost you to guarantee that you get one (or all) of the new Holiday Ops Tanks.
While I would still like to have the tanks sold outside boxes, this is a big improvement to consumers. It effectively caps how much you will need to spend to get the exact vehicle you may be fishing for.
Gold per USD Value
A note on data: I want to thank everybody that has submitted data to me. This year I was able to get 6,281 total boxes entered for this data.
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For this calculation I used ONLY Gold and Tank Value, ignoring credits, premium time, and garage slots.
Approximate gold per dollar value is likely considerably lower for the smaller packages, as you are far less likely to draw a high tier premium where much of the value of the boxes resides. NEW For 2022/23 This year a new package was added - 200 boxes, for the price of 240 USD. This means we have a new tier for value! This package offers the most gold per dollar estimate, at a whopping 665 gold per USD! |
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Total Gold Value: 6,301,058 / 6,281 boxes = 1,003.19 gold per box average
If we only use the raw gold and gold value of duplicate tanks (assume all duplicates) - and ignore all other items in the boxes then we get ~ 751 gold per box. Total Gold Value: 5,008,550 / 6,281 boxes = 797.41 gold per box average In Terms of Total Gold Value per Box, I calculated the confidence intervals.
Based on the overall 1,003 gold per box average. Upper 95th percentile confidence interval is 1048, and lower 95th percentile confidence interval is 958. |
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Despite the gold per dollar behing higher than last year... The average raw gold per box dropped by 3 gold per box or ~ 0.9% lower than last years averages. However, this difference sits within the confidence interval, meaning it could be caused by sample variance.
Lets take a look at the Gold per dollar value year over year (YoY) changes. The first year I did this analysis I only used 225 boxes. I placed the sample size in this chart so that it's clear to you that the lower sample size could point to inaccuracy of the actual value for that year of data.
This year's value are noticeably higher than the last 2 years. If we consider the frequent War Chest bundle of 25,000 gold for $100 USD which yields 250 gold per $1 USD. Using this benchmark, it's quite clear that the 75 box bundle is still a good value. However the new 200 box bundle now offers the best value available for World of Tanks content annually.
If we consider the worst case scenario of buying two sets of 25 boxes for a total 80 USD, and assume only 1 high tier premium was the result and it was the lowest value tier 8 premium, we'd still get about 279.38 gold per dollar. Which means even in the unlikely event of a worst case scenario, holiday ops boxes are still the best value year round when compared to the War Chest bundle.
If we consider the worst case scenario of buying two sets of 25 boxes for a total 80 USD, and assume only 1 high tier premium was the result and it was the lowest value tier 8 premium, we'd still get about 279.38 gold per dollar. Which means even in the unlikely event of a worst case scenario, holiday ops boxes are still the best value year round when compared to the War Chest bundle.
Drop Rates (Your Drop Rates Will Vary)
Wargaming once more decided to publish the drop rates for all regions. Even more interesting is the fact that the drop rates from last year to this year haven't actually changed. Below is an image from last year's 2022 large boxes, where the drop rates for low tier common items, low tier tanks, and high tier tanks are identical.
Observed Drop Rates For Standard Items
Drop rates from the data for standard items
Drop rates for standard items published by Wargaming
Drop Rates For Low Tier Vehicles
Drop rates from the data for low tier vehicles
Drop rates for low tier vehicles published by Wargaming
Drop Rates For Tier 8 Vehicles
PLEASE NOTE: Because the tank drops at tier 8 are guaranteed to drop un-owned tanks first, this will skew the percent drops toward the vehicles that haven't yet been on sale in the premium shop.
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Why are the drop rates for tier 8 higher in the data than in the article?
It may not seem intuitive but it should statistically be higher than 2.4%. The new 'bad luck' mechanic that says after 49 boxes of no tier 8 premiums, it guarantees the 50th box to contain one, it sets a floor for the drop rate. This means it's impossible to go below a 2% drop rate (when data sets are divisible by 50). Normally a standard distribution for this drop would be around 2.4% evenly spread between 0% and 4.8%. With this mechanic you technically get a spike at 2% because all probabilities between 0 and 2% are summed up here. This floor to the drop rates means the average in the data is displaced to be higher than 2.4%. This higher drop chance also accounts for the lower percentage chance observed in standard items. If higher than average drops are tier 8 tanks, then this would inevitably reduce the other two. The image is Courtesy of Overlord_Prime. You should absolutely check out his Twitch Channel! |
Illustrated drop chance with the new mechanic
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This higher drop chance at tier 8 also accounts for the lower percentage chance observed in 'standard' drops.
Drop rate for tier 8 vehicles from the data
Drop rate for tier 8 vehicles published by Wargaming
Bonus Resource Drop Rates
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This year Wargaming scrapped the ornaments and started with a new system from scratch - resources. Each box was guaranteed to drop 50 resources of type from which ever box you purchased, and an additional 150 resources of a random type. I inquireda bout the drop rates, and I was told they should all be equally likely, therefore the expectation was 25% for each resource. The data mostly matches this with an unexpected deficit for Meteoric Iron at 23.9%; however this could be explained by sample variance.
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3D Skins for Tier 10 Tanks
This holiday season brings with it new 3D skins for tier 10s - and our first Holiday Ops 3D style for tier 9! New this year is the S. Conq, STRV 103b, Minotauro, BC 155 58, and Char Futur 4. Along with these new skins, it was also possible to draw the skins from last year: FV4005, Obj 268 V4, Vz. 55, Sheridan, ST-II, and Rinoceronte. Adding in the 3D styles from last year's holiday Muddies the draw rate a bit. If you were missing both sets, then you'll get random pulls from both. Because of this, I decided to list the average number of boxes to pull five 3D skins, so that if you are going into this Holiday missing only the new ones, you know roughly the average number of boxes to draw them all. Once you pull all five new 3D Styles, you are unable to pull duplicates.
"Luckiest" Boxes
For a bit of humor I've added in the luckiest boxes again - based on average gold value. We don't have a large enough data set to show a normalization of expected equality across all of these, but I thought it was humorous to list anyway. Rather surprisingly Lunar boxes are quite a bit ahead of all other box types, with CC boxes actaully rounding out the bottom.
Criticism for Holiday Ops 2022 - 2023
The Good
The main criticism for last year was the difficulty in obtaining the credit bonus, for both people buying boxes and those that are free to play. Last year I was given 200 boxes, bought another 20 for myself, and was still unable to obtain the credit bonus. Luckily this year, this problem has been resolved. It's now possible for free to play players to obtain the bonus with in a couple weeks of activity - and for those buying boxes it's even simpler. I'm glad to see this change - way to go Wargaming!
The Bad
Not all is peachy this year. In fact even though the Holiday Ops boxes (in this years data) are a better value, especially with the 200 box bundle, than previous years I would argue that the value you actually get as a consumer is considerably diminished this year than in prior years. The reason is because of the absence of the advent calendar deals.
In prior years, every day leading up to Christmas Wargaming would sell a premium tank in the advent calendar for gold. This provided an opportunity to spend all that gold you were building up from Holiday ops, in turn a great gold sink and great value to the player. You could turn that gold into premium tanks, and advent calendar also encouraged daily log ins. This year is so much worse off with out the advent calendar - there are weekly deals, but they hardly make up for the loss. Now that players have significant gold in their coffers, there's nothing to spend it on - which makes that gold mostly useless. I had not made this connection until this year. I did not realize how integrated and necessary the advent calendar deals were, until they were gone.
Wargaming will need to come forward with a gold sink before next years Holiday Ops. I'm perfectly happy with Wargaming creating ways for me to spend my gold - as long as those ways bring value to me and the game I'm playing.
The main criticism for last year was the difficulty in obtaining the credit bonus, for both people buying boxes and those that are free to play. Last year I was given 200 boxes, bought another 20 for myself, and was still unable to obtain the credit bonus. Luckily this year, this problem has been resolved. It's now possible for free to play players to obtain the bonus with in a couple weeks of activity - and for those buying boxes it's even simpler. I'm glad to see this change - way to go Wargaming!
The Bad
Not all is peachy this year. In fact even though the Holiday Ops boxes (in this years data) are a better value, especially with the 200 box bundle, than previous years I would argue that the value you actually get as a consumer is considerably diminished this year than in prior years. The reason is because of the absence of the advent calendar deals.
In prior years, every day leading up to Christmas Wargaming would sell a premium tank in the advent calendar for gold. This provided an opportunity to spend all that gold you were building up from Holiday ops, in turn a great gold sink and great value to the player. You could turn that gold into premium tanks, and advent calendar also encouraged daily log ins. This year is so much worse off with out the advent calendar - there are weekly deals, but they hardly make up for the loss. Now that players have significant gold in their coffers, there's nothing to spend it on - which makes that gold mostly useless. I had not made this connection until this year. I did not realize how integrated and necessary the advent calendar deals were, until they were gone.
Wargaming will need to come forward with a gold sink before next years Holiday Ops. I'm perfectly happy with Wargaming creating ways for me to spend my gold - as long as those ways bring value to me and the game I'm playing.
On that note of the gold sink - here is a good example of a sink that I don't think brings value to the game. While I love the idea of spending gold for cosmetic items (this is a great way to monetize as it doesn't risk game balance). This implementation of a cosmetic is lack luster and poorly executed. You're asking me to spend a lot of gold to add cosmetic items to this dog that will expire at the end of Holiday ops. No thank you, do better.
Welcome to World of Tanks - the mobile game edition! While I do understand the desire to place a mechanic into the game to encourage daily log ins, and then time lock parts of the mechanic to improve player log in time, this feels a little too much like a mobile game. Luckily Wargaming have provided a convenient system - you spend 300k credits a day and the resources are collected for you!
Gross. I point to the area above - I'm totally ok with you introducing credit and gold sinks to help keep the economy healthy, but add things in that bring value to players, not this stuff. Please no more mobile game mechanics.
Gross. I point to the area above - I'm totally ok with you introducing credit and gold sinks to help keep the economy healthy, but add things in that bring value to players, not this stuff. Please no more mobile game mechanics.
I do want to give a shout out to all the people that spent time filling out those spreadsheets, again, none of this would be possible with out you. Feel free to stop by and say hi on my Discord or join me on Twitch. Let me know how Holiday Ops went for you this year.
Special Thanks To:
Everybody in the Discord Channel that provided your data!
I had hundreds of messages between WoT Forums, and Discord. Thank you for supporting the data that allows me to post this type of content.
Everybody in the Discord Channel that provided your data!
I had hundreds of messages between WoT Forums, and Discord. Thank you for supporting the data that allows me to post this type of content.
