Real Conspiracy Theory Hours, Booster Shop Edition
Preamble and Note: This isn't deadly serious. It is not the end of the world. I am not losing money. It drives me a little crazy, but at the end of the day, it's a mobile game and I honestly find it kind of funny. I will now proceed to use much more serious language, for dramatic effect.
SECOND DINNER HAS DUPED US LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, and I have the receipts! Do I have the actual receipts? No, but I have anecdotal evidence, and today that will be enough. I share with you my story. Maybe yours will be similar.
Each season, once I hit infinite, I spend the rest of the month dedicating my time with Marvel Snap to gaming the Bonus Booster shop so that I can get "good splits" for the cards I like. For me, that means inked. For you that might be gold, but for me it's inked. I want that ink baby. I usually do one card at a time, sometimes, two. If you don't know how gaming the shop works, a very brief explanation:
The bonus booster shop will show you 3 random variants (important distinction here, not cards, but VARIANTS) that are unable to be upgraded because you don't have enough boosters. Let's say, a "Green" variant with 8 boosters, a "Blue" variant with 17 boosters, and a "Red" variant with 32 boosters. You can then spend the credits and the game covers the remaining boosters. People pretty quickly figured out how to game this: if you have enough boosters for every card you don't want to upgrade, you'll only see the cards you do. In order to do this, you have to systematically earn enough boosters for every single card in the game to cover all variants for that card. At that point, the shop when it turns over would be empty, so then all you do is upgrade what you want until you're out of boosters, the shop turns over, and voila, the EXACT card you need is there waiting for you to be upgraded again.
Now this gets trickier the more variants you have for one card. Say you have 5 variants for Venom, and you REALLY want that Inked split, but you've made every variant "Green." That now means that in order to "force" the variant you're trying to upgrade, you'd have to earn AT LEAST 10 boosters for Venom before the shop turns over. Otherwise, the shop might just show one of the Green variants instead. There's a chance it will show the one you want, but it might not, and now you have to wait another 8 hours. Does this make sense?
This is why quickly upgrading a new series 5 card is actually easier- there's no variant competition. In any case, I've realized the easiest thing to do when trying to upgrade one specific card is keep all variants in "Grey" except for the one I'm actively upgrading, that way I only have to earn 5 boosters to force my variant, or said another way, 1 game (ie, 6 boosters).
IN COMES THE CONSPIRACY THEORY FOLKS
I go to bed right around 9:30, and wake up at about 4:00 for work. I get in about an hour before everybody else at 5 so I can check emails and work in peace before it gets busy. When I first get up, I usually upgrade my card from the 10:00 shop turnover from the night before. Now I've got until the shop turns over at 6 to earn, like I said before, 5 boosters. 1 game. I've already hit infinite. So while I check emails and catch up on stuff, I play games, not playing a single card, usually even snapping too to donate cubes to the other guy. I don't care, I just want those damn boosters. In that hour between 5 and 6, I can probably get in like 15-20 games at the rate I'm going, I don't exactly know but it's a good number of games. I'll usually stack the deck I'm playing so every other card is Infinite border, except for the one I'm gunning for, to increase the odds just a smidge. And I cannot tell you the number of times that in that hour, not a SINGLE booster has gone to that card during that time.
Now that would be enough to drive me a little crazy, but this is what sends me over the edge into Pepe Silvia territory: you know those games where, presumably because of internet connections issues, the other player "retreats" midway through Turn 2 after not playing anything? Probably happens once every 10-15 games? When I need those 5 boosters, and THAT game happens, EVERY SINGLE TIME, without fucking fail, THAT is when the game gives the card I want boosters. Why? Because it's only 2 boosters.
It's the games way of saying, see? We're being fair. We're giving all the cards boosters, even the one you want. ;)
You could set a fucking clock to it. What drove me to wrote this was that this particular morning, my 10:00 upgrade from last night I got to do was actually the one that enabled me to do a split. It was, yet again, not the one I wanted. Sigh, that's alright, one more go around. During the 5-6 hour though, the 2 booster game actually happened TWICE. In a row. And BOTH went to the card I needed, and no other game did. I was cackling like a banshee, sitting there with 4 boosters as the shop turned over.
Second Dinner may not know how to code animations properly on Deep Space or Isle of Silence, but boy do they know how to trigger my deep seated paranoia. Happy snapping.
Preamble and Note: This isn't deadly serious. It is not the end of the world. I am not losing money. It drives me a little crazy, but at the end of the day, it's a mobile game and I honestly find it kind of funny. I will now proceed to use much more serious language, for dramatic effect.
SECOND DINNER HAS DUPED US LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, and I have the receipts! Do I have the actual receipts? No, but I have anecdotal evidence, and today that will be enough. I share with you my story. Maybe yours will be similar.
Each season, once I hit infinite, I spend the rest of the month dedicating my time with Marvel Snap to gaming the Bonus Booster shop so that I can get "good splits" for the cards I like. For me, that means inked. For you that might be gold, but for me it's inked. I want that ink baby. I usually do one card at a time, sometimes, two. If you don't know how gaming the shop works, a very brief explanation:
The bonus booster shop will show you 3 random variants (important distinction here, not cards, but VARIANTS) that are unable to be upgraded because you don't have enough boosters. Let's say, a "Green" variant with 8 boosters, a "Blue" variant with 17 boosters, and a "Red" variant with 32 boosters. You can then spend the credits and the game covers the remaining boosters. People pretty quickly figured out how to game this: if you have enough boosters for every card you don't want to upgrade, you'll only see the cards you do. In order to do this, you have to systematically earn enough boosters for every single card in the game to cover all variants for that card. At that point, the shop when it turns over would be empty, so then all you do is upgrade what you want until you're out of boosters, the shop turns over, and voila, the EXACT card you need is there waiting for you to be upgraded again.
Now this gets trickier the more variants you have for one card. Say you have 5 variants for Venom, and you REALLY want that Inked split, but you've made every variant "Green." That now means that in order to "force" the variant you're trying to upgrade, you'd have to earn AT LEAST 10 boosters for Venom before the shop turns over. Otherwise, the shop might just show one of the Green variants instead. There's a chance it will show the one you want, but it might not, and now you have to wait another 8 hours. Does this make sense?
This is why quickly upgrading a new series 5 card is actually easier- there's no variant competition. In any case, I've realized the easiest thing to do when trying to upgrade one specific card is keep all variants in "Grey" except for the one I'm actively upgrading, that way I only have to earn 5 boosters to force my variant, or said another way, 1 game (ie, 6 boosters).
IN COMES THE CONSPIRACY THEORY FOLKS
I go to bed right around 9:30, and wake up at about 4:00 for work. I get in about an hour before everybody else at 5 so I can check emails and work in peace before it gets busy. When I first get up, I usually upgrade my card from the 10:00 shop turnover from the night before. Now I've got until the shop turns over at 6 to earn, like I said before, 5 boosters. 1 game. I've already hit infinite. So while I check emails and catch up on stuff, I play games, not playing a single card, usually even snapping too to donate cubes to the other guy. I don't care, I just want those damn boosters. In that hour between 5 and 6, I can probably get in like 15-20 games at the rate I'm going, I don't exactly know but it's a good number of games. I'll usually stack the deck I'm playing so every other card is Infinite border, except for the one I'm gunning for, to increase the odds just a smidge. And I cannot tell you the number of times that in that hour, not a SINGLE booster has gone to that card during that time.
Now that would be enough to drive me a little crazy, but this is what sends me over the edge into Pepe Silvia territory: you know those games where, presumably because of internet connections issues, the other player "retreats" midway through Turn 2 after not playing anything? Probably happens once every 10-15 games? When I need those 5 boosters, and THAT game happens, EVERY SINGLE TIME, without fucking fail, THAT is when the game gives the card I want boosters. Why? Because it's only 2 boosters.
It's the games way of saying, see? We're being fair. We're giving all the cards boosters, even the one you want. ;)
You could set a fucking clock to it. What drove me to wrote this was that this particular morning, my 10:00 upgrade from last night I got to do was actually the one that enabled me to do a split. It was, yet again, not the one I wanted. Sigh, that's alright, one more go around. During the 5-6 hour though, the 2 booster game actually happened TWICE. In a row. And BOTH went to the card I needed, and no other game did. I was cackling like a banshee, sitting there with 4 boosters as the shop turned over.
Second Dinner may not know how to code animations properly on Deep Space or Isle of Silence, but boy do they know how to trigger my deep seated paranoia. Happy snapping.