I want to talk about the Gift of Fashions Past chance machine.

tl;dr: I want to talk about how the absolute sea of superfluous junk being dropped by this machine makes it a completely useless site feature.

So, GoFP currently serves as the only way to obtain retired Subeautique and Vanity items. (Outside of user shops and the Hustler.) The GoFP item has existed for some time, but the actual machine came out in late 2014. During this iteration, it would give out retired Subeautique items as well as Costume Trunk items. It wasn't changed to give out Vanity items until mid 2016.

The chance machine currently costs 50 CSC a pull. In today's economy, CSC are currently selling at a rate of ~125k sP each. 50 CSC therefore equates to 6.25 million sP.

So, let's take a look at Vanity and retired Subeautique items.

Assuming those lists are correct, there are 1902 items currently in circulation in the machine. Vanity has 8 unbuyable items, and a total of 91 (out of 298) that are worth more than 6.25m. It also has 13 items going for 1m or less. Subeautique has 3 unbuyable items, and a total of 82 (out of 1604) that are worth more than 6.25m. It unfortunately also has 943 items going for 1m or less.

A few mathematical calculations later... You currently have a 9% chance of receiving an item that you couldn't buy in the user shops for cheaper. If you're looking to get one of those utterly unobtainable Vanity items, well you're looking at a <5% chance. And on the more unpleasant side, you currently have a whopping 50% chance of getting an item worth less than 1m.

All in all, not exactly great.

As far as solutions go, well, I don't really have many.

I was tossing around the idea that the price of the machine could be reduced to 25 CSC a pull. In this case, you'd have an increased chance of 21% to get an item even remotely profitable (182 Vanity & 222 Sub items are > 3.125m/25CSC). However, it could be argued that this increased chance might lead even more people to sell Sub items for cheap, devaluing the entire system even more.

Could staff filter out items that have already completely lost their value? Theoretically yes, but that would likely be too difficult and time intensive than it's worth.

I think my best solution involves a couple things:

1. The Vanity items are removed from the GoFP pool and placed in the Cash Shop.
2. Reduce the price of GoFP to 25 CSC a pull.
3. Limit the amount of pulls a user can do daily. (5? 10?) In this way, it's primarily a Sub pool that has a better chance of something fun coming out, and items won't completely flood the system.

Ideally, the Vanity Editions* will get re-released into the Cash Shop regardless. (I've made a suggestion post about it here.)

• Vanity 1st through 5th Editions were released as books that opened to a random set from their collection. Vanity 6th Edition was released directly into the Cash Shop without the book containing them.

The last edition was released nearly 3 years ago. I know the First Edition was brought back for the 2015 Black Friday sale, but I can't really find proof that the rest returned any other time. (Oh and staff, if you do bring them back, please allow users to choose their sets!)

Now you might be saying, "but , GoFP is a CHANCE machine! It might not always be worth it! Not everything is meant to be obtainable!" Okay, well, then what is even the point of this site feature? It utterly fails at being a CSC sink, given how unwanted most of the items currently are. (Again, 50% of items are worth less than 1m sP. I pity the user who pulls out a Professor New Magnetized Fabric Scrap...) It's also pretty damn atrocious for getting rare Vanity items into the system too - hello <5%. Currently, GoFP seems to only exists as something for staff to point to whenever someone asks for a re-release of Vanity items. Because "see, see! There's a chance machine right over there for Vanity!" But again, there's a 16% chance you get a Vanity item, and only a 5% chance you get an item even worth it. Let me go ahead and not completely squander my CSC...

Need some more proof? Well, for the sake of science, and with a healthy dose of morbid curiosity, I actually used the chance machine. Quite a few times, unfortunately... Over the course of about a month, I received 22 items. 2 were vanity, and 0 were priced over 6mil sP. * Disclaimer: I might've used the machine prior to this, but have no recollection or record of it.

--- Also, - I'm honestly not sure if this belongs more in Suggestions or Feedback. I'll leave it up to you.

Oh that's good to hear! Thanks for the information!

Wow I’m really really impressed with how much time and thought you put into this!

I don’t like the limiting pulls but that’s because I like to buy a lot at once, however the percentages you showed of how low the likely hood of even breaking even with the GOFP machine is really interesting!

I’m glad to see staff are able to make minimum cap for the machine though! That’s awesome! But since 100 csc is over 10mil it might be hard for them to make the machine profitable/possible to break even, even half the time without taking out a lot of items from the pool, though your idea of lowering the cost is interesting too!

I’ve used the Machine a lot and used to but GOFP in dozens at a time so it’s really good to see other people love it as much as I do :)

I'm fine with any tweaks that may occur. I like using the feature from time to time, just for the sheer gamble.

I don't even use the machine to turn a profit. I use whatever I get from the bathhouse to get retired SBQ (because I still need over a 1000). I usually get something I need too (or don't have, in turns of Vanity items), so I don't exactly care if my free CSC could have been better spent. I'm fine with tweaks, so long as item availability isn't hurt too badly.

I love using this chance machine, and I do enjoy the gamble of it....sometimes lol. Would love to see it worked on some.

You're kind of a math champ, and that's awesome. I know it's a waste of CSC, but I still enjoy using it, even if the items aren't on par with the CSC cost.

This is a really great breakdown of how this chance machine is operating. Makes me wanna resist using it as often as I have. I do enjoy the gamble tho. I'm fine with the tweaks suggested, and will be interested to see if anything comes of it.

How about a Suggestion that these items that are genuinely desirable and super unbuyable l get re-released as part of Black Friday?

It's not like treats like this don't happen.

Subeta doesn't regulate the prices of CSC; it's a player's free market thingy. To some degree if they make any particular Chance Machine more yummy, then folks will buy more CSC directly but they will also be on the lookout to exchange their sP for it. The higher amount of sP that CSC goes for, the less yummy the Chance Machine will be. There's a feedback loop there, and any tweaks that staff does should be cautious.

An update. Supposedly, Amber went through recently and upped the minimum price requirements in this machine to better balance it. So, to be fair, I just went and gave it a spin 10 times.

I actually really like that idea. Subeautique items used to be very rare but are now very common. I would love to see them (one day) become rarer than then are now.

I’m glad this is being looked at in a positive and beneficial way and that our feedback is being considered.

Same! I like getting retired items from it, putting in like 150-200csc can end up being worth it but it can also end up being pretty bad hehe. It's a fun feature and I hope any tweaks to it will improve it! Thanks for all the stats on it OP.

I feel like a moving price basement would be best for the machine, based on periodically updated user shop prices. Is there an algorithm on things like quest items that could be modified for this?