Holiday Ops 2021 / 2022 Loot Box Value Guide
13Disciple | 13-Dec-2021
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 introduction of a new 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 you don't yet own, you can now fully know exactly how much it will cost you to guarantee that you get one 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 you don't yet own, you can now fully know exactly how much it will cost you to guarantee that you get one 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 5,347 total boxes entered for this data.
* For the sake of this calculation I rounded up each cost by 1 cent.
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 tier 8 premium where much of the value of the boxes resides. |
Total Gold Value: 5,135,359 / 5,347 boxes = 960 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: 4,013,000 / 5,347 boxes = 751 gold per box average In Terms of Total Gold Value per Box, I calculated the confidence intervals.
Based on the overall 960 gold per box average. Upper 95th percentile confidence interval is 1006, and lower 95th percentile confidence interval is 915. |
These values are roughly 37 gold per box or ~ 3.8% higher 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 puts it in roughly the same category as 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 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 80 USD, and assume only 1 premium was the result and it was the lowest value tier 8 premium, we'd still get about 258.75 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 80 USD, and assume only 1 premium was the result and it was the lowest value tier 8 premium, we'd still get about 258.75 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)
Interestingly, Wargaming 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 APAC region, where the drop rates for low tier tanks, and standard items are identical. The only difference is that in the old article they combined Tier VIII Tanks and 3D styles.
Observed Drop Rates For Standard Items
Drop Rates For Low Tier Vehicles
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.
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 and low tier tanks. 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! |
This higher drop chance at tier 8 also accounts for the lower percentage chance observed in 'standard' and 'low tier' drops.
3D Skins for Tier 10 Tanks
This holiday season brings with it new 3D skins for tier 10s. New this year is the FV4005, Obj 268 V4, Vz. 55, Sheridan, ST-II, and Rinoceronte. Along with these new skins, it was also possible to draw the skins from last year: CGC, Maus, 60TP, STB-1 and WZ-111 5a. 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. Unsurprisingly Magic boxes are at the bottom as they were the least reported set of boxes in the data set.
Criticism for Holiday Ops 2021 - 2022
There are two main points of contention for Holiday Ops this year. The first of which was an error they published in the original article stating that each large box would produce a non-duplicate ornament. The reason this is a point of contention is a basis of the second criticism. However before we get there, Wargaming has since updated the article, and has offered compensation of a non-duplicate charge, and 1500 shards for each large box purchased from the start of the event up until 2 hours after the article was changed. While I believe this is to be appropriate compensation, it still feels lacking as many people purchased the boxes after reading the article originally. Many people did not go back and re-read the article. It wasn't until much later that a separate article even appeared on the web portal stating the compensation to those that already purchased boxes, that many buyers only then realized the original had changed. These buyers bought boxes assuming they would get non-duplicate ornaments, yet they still fall outside the compensation window.
The Second Criticism is regarding the Holiday Ops Ornament Collection. In Years past, Wargaming would provide me 200 boxes (a value of over $250 USD). Because of all these boxes I was typically able to finish or at least complete the credit bonus within the first week of the Holiday Ops event. This year Wargaming has eliminated the ornament tier system, all ornaments are one tier, and there are fewer of them. Not exactly a problem, however after opening over $300 USD worth of large boxes on my account I'm still not at the complete 50% credit bonus. I've given up on completing all of the ornament sets at this point, and instead I'm slowly plugging away at daily missions and the new parcel mechanic (which replaced snow maidens) to try and inch my way into completing one full set. For some one that has opened over $300 USD worth of large boxes, it feels pretty bad that I cannot complete the ornaments this year.
Thinking about this from a free to play perspective, there is no way a free to play player will ever get the full 50% bonus, and it's highly unlikely they'll even finish a single set for the camo. Wargaming miscalculated the ornaments this year, and it's frustrating the player base. Additionally the aforementioned "non-duplicate" ornament advertisement further exacerbates this issue.
Thinking about this from a free to play perspective, there is no way a free to play player will ever get the full 50% bonus, and it's highly unlikely they'll even finish a single set for the camo. Wargaming miscalculated the ornaments this year, and it's frustrating the player base. Additionally the aforementioned "non-duplicate" ornament advertisement further exacerbates this issue.
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 Reddit, 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 Reddit, WoT Forums, and Discord. Thank you for supporting the data that allows me to post this type of content.