Hello, and welcome back to Joe and STO!

It’s been a loooong time…too long. Real life has taken over, and I’m barely finding time to log in and do my dailies. But today, we got a fairly big announcement that’s worth digging into.

Better Odds and More Prizes in the Phoenix Prize Pack!

While one of the larger changes is, indeed, the Phoenix Upgrade Token losing effectiveness (I’ll get into that once more numbers on new drop rates and the overall effectiveness of the updated Phoenix Upgrade work out compared to other Tech Upgrade tokens), that’s not for this blog post. Once updated effective drop rates and effectiveness tests are done and the community posts some more concrete numbers, I’ll try to do an update of my own, if nothing else just linking to their work.

For now, I want to focus on some of the other changes happening.

RARITY LEVEL CHANGES

If you’re like me, you probably read this section and wondered what was going on.

So I went through in-game and made a few handy (and poorly handwritten) notes on how the change effectively works:

  • Uncommon becomes Rare
  • Rare becomes Very Rare
  • Very Rare becomes Ultra Rare
  • Current Ultra Rare loses its Tier 5 ship prize selections (as these ships are all outdated).
  • Epic has no changes (and will add the T’Pau Science Vessel [T6] as an option)

So now, Rare becomes the lowest level of Prize Token you can obtain. A Phoenix Upgrade Token will still only take 1 lowest-rarity Prize Token to buy, for example.

INCREAED ODDS OF HIGHER RARITIES

While vague, the blog post does mention an increase in chances of pulling anything above the Rare level (which will now be the lowest rarity of prize token).

Let’s say Uncommons were 75%, Rares 15%, Very Rares 6%, Ultra Rares 3%, and Epics 1%. These may not be the actual amounts, but I think my point will stand.

What could happen is they add Uncommons and Rares together, knock a few percent off that, then increase Very Rares, Ultra Rares, and Epics by a relatively small amount.

Rares could now be 86%, Very Rares 7.25%, Ultra Rares 4.25%, and Epics 2.5%

I feel to be noticeable, Very Rares and perhaps Ultra Rares will need to go to double-digit chances. I don’t see Epics going much above 1% (as that’s this box’s version of the Grand Prize, and we know those chances in Lock Boxes and Promo Boxes tends to be under 1%). But this is opinion and beyond the scope of this update. Pardon me for that.

(Screenshot from CasualSAB’s video discussing the Event Campaign prize structure.)

“What Happens to my Current Prize Tokens!?”

They’ll convert mostly 1-to-1 into the new system.

  • Each Uncommon becomes a Rare after the update.
  • Each Rare becomes a Very Rare after the update.
  • Each Very Rare becomes an Ultra Rare after the update.
  • Each current Ultra Rare doubles after the update.

The only thing not upgrading is Ultra Rare; everything else upgrades at a 1-to-1 switchover.

T6-X UPGRADES GETTING VARIED PRICING

During the special Phoenix Prize Box Events (which will start with the update on PC and run for 1 week), we’ve been able to buy an “Experimental Ship Upgrade Token” (“T6-X token”) for the price of one Ultra Rare prize token.

With the update, the Ultra Rare price is increasing (though maybe not really as new Ultra Rare is the same as old Very Rare), but we’ll be able to use lower-rarity tokens to buy them.

  • OLD PRICING STRUCTURE
    • 1 Ultra Rare prize token = 2x T6-X tokens
  • NEW PRICING STRUCTURE
    • CHOICE OF:
      • 5 Ultra Rare prize tokens = 1x T6-X token
      • 20 Very Rare prize tokens = 1x T6-X token
      • 100 Rare prize tokens = 1x T6-X token

While the price has effectively increased 10-fold, you now don’t need to have only Ultra Rare prize tokens to get a T6-X token. At the very worst, 100 Phoenix Boxes will get you a single T6-X token during the Phoenix Prize Box Events. To put an equivalent Zen cost to that, 100 boxes is 400,000 Dilithium, which at 500:1 exchange rate is 800 Zen, requiring a $10 Zen charge. Considering a single T6-X token in the C-Store is 1,000 Zen, that seems to be a fair price in Dilithium-equivalent pricing.

NO MORE PURCHASING NEW PHOENIX BOXES WITH LOWEST-RARITY TOKENS

You can no longer trade in 10 of the lowest-rarity token to get a new box.
Personally, I never got why this was a thing, and the one time I accidentally did it, I hated it was even there, so for me it’s GOOD RIDDANCE. ha ha!

NEW ADDITIONS

A few older items are getting moved to the Phoenix Prize Box. While we know anything from Mudd’s that moves here will de-list from Mudd’s Market, we’re unsure what that means for stuff that’s in the C-Store. As a mid-writing edit (is there such a thing?), C-Store items listed below will also lose any account-wide purchase availability. However, like with the Tier 1 through Tier 4 ships becoming per-character Dilithium purchases, if you have anything that’s an account-wide unlock already, you’ll retain that ability to reclaim as much as you can.

Also keep in mind, anything listed below is a per-character claim. If you want more, you’ll need more of that type of token on other characters. Also, aside from the “NX-” registry and costume unlocks, I don’t believe anything here unlocks for repeated reclaims.

New items sorted by where they’ll be (remember, Rare is the lowest rarity now), with links to the items listed:

Changed Rarities (even after the general rarity level changes)

Along with the general rarity level changes outlined near the top of this post, we’ll have some current items moving around the Phoenix Prize Store itself.

  • Crystalline Shard (pet) moves to Rare from what would have been Very Rare.
    • This keeps it at the same named rarity as it is now while essentially moving it down to the most common type of prize token.
  • Young Nanov (vanity pet) (ROM only) moves to Rare from what would have been Ultra Rare.
    • This is an actual down shift.
  • Risa Mini-Powerboard – Elite moves to Very Rare from what would have been Ultra Rare.
    • This keeps it at the same named rarity as it is now.
  • Red Matter Capacitor moves to Very Rare from what would have been Ultra Rare.
    • This keeps it at the same named rarity as it is now.
  • Faction-Appropriate EMH Mk 1 Science Officer moves to Ultra Rare from what would have been Very Rare.
    • This is the only rarity upgrade in the bunch.

Hoping the Dilithium Exchange Rises like the Phoenix from the Ash

These changes, along with the Phoenix Upgrade Token changes (again, I’ll try to get to those later), are meant to help spur some Dilithium spending, either immediately in players grabbing Phoenix Prize Boxes to get prize tokens to get the current Phoenix Upgrade Tokens (they’ll turn into “Classic” versions and retain their tech point levels) or in the future to need more tokens for upgrades and newer prizes. That spending should keep some Dilithium off the Dilithium Exchange, easing backlog issues (which have been up to around 15 days lately!).

As for the upgrade tokens, I’d keep an eye on Spencer, Auggie, or any other YouTube-based content creator. Some are more well known for their numerical analysis and min/maxing stuff like this (highest upgrade reward for the least cost). I can only really parrot back what they’re saying, just in written form.

Until then (if I get that far), continue enjoying Star Trek Online!

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