The whole “point” of gem value is a psychological trick F2P games play. AB plays several other psychological tricks.
If there is one currency, everything is easy to understand. If we say a gold key is worth 400 gold, and a gem key is worth 1000 gold, and so on, then everything can be compared in terms of one base currency and we can make strong arguments for if the rewards’ balance. If there are multiple currencies, it gets more complicated. Especially if some currencies can’t be converted, or if there are multiple conversion rates.
That’s definitely the case of GoW. I can technically convert gold to gems, but only via LTs which means I have to spend a lot and the rate is random. Not much else converts to gems. Dollars convert to gold or gems, but at variable rates that change consistently based on what deals are available. Many other currencies are not just inconvertible, the only way to obtain them is via luck. How do I compare the value of a diamond to a mythic ingot? What about an epic ingot? Event keys?
It means if you’re comparing two deals for two different classes of items, it’s very difficult to agree on a value because once a luck-based currency is involved the only value measurements are subjective. This is the psychological trick.
Maybe the other complex thing here isn’t really a psychological trick, it’s a side effect of lumping several things together. Daily Tasks were always random, even with a refresh you were praying for a good refresh. But the weekly events were somewhat predictable and had fixed rewards for fixed effort.
Overall, “random rewards” are harder to evaluate than “fixed rewards”. If I say I’m going to give you 100 diamonds/week, you know exactly when you’ll have 4000 diamonds: 40 weeks. Now what if I say I’ll give you on average 100 diamonds/week based on random probability?
There’s only about a 50% chance you’ll get your 4000 diamonds in 40 weeks. There’s a 25% chance you’ll have more. There’s a 25% chance you’ll have less. Maybe I decided to give out between 10 and 190 diamonds daily. That means some lucky saps have 7500 or more diamonds. And some suckers only got 400. When I say you’ll get “an average of” 100 diamonds/week, you need to know the range of values to understand your true rates. If the range is [90, 110] then you can say “Oh, 39-41 weeks”. If the range is [50-150] then you’ll probably want to estimate 38-42 weeks. You won’t know where you fall until you’ve been through most of the interval.
So I don’t like a system based on “average value” because it means a player with bad luck gets less rewards for doing the same thing. If you argue, “but it will balance out over time”, probability doesn’t work like that. The length of your losing streak doesn’t matter to probability. It can always get longer, unless the system is set up to correct it. Now, we also don’t know this about the AB.
It’s possible they guarantee the average. How would you do that? Well, let’s say I want to average 300 gems/week. I can note that means a set of combinations of 20 and 100 gems that add up to 300 is { 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 100, 100 }. Then I can shuffle that set and call it your rewards for the week. If you always get 5x 20 gems and 100x 100 gems over 7 days, you will always average 300 gems/week, but can’t always predict when the 100 gem days come. We haven’t seen 7 days or 30 days of Adventure Board so we can’t accurately tell if they are guaranteeing the average like this. (It’s certainly not in the game data.)
So due to the complexities involved, it’s way too early to draw any conclusions. Some people have 300 gems today and are ecstatic. Others have 60 gems today and want to know why Sirrian hates them. If you want my “3 days in” opinion: “It’s just like PvP points: people get different rewards for the same effort and it’s inherently unfair. Scrap it.” If you want a positive response, I think the community should stop asking the community to have a final verdict every 2 hours.
and 1 VIP key = 50 gems. I’ll make a list and update it if people have values to contribute.
. I can come back to it later, or I’m sure others can/will pitch in.)
, on average.