Probably I made this overly long, most players already know most of this, but I think this is friendly to complete newbies :)
Anyway here goes!
My regular strategy is minimal XP, but with events that goes out the window!
Luckily though, if you don't overdo it, you'll only level once or twice!
The crate event works as follows:
A. First you need to obtain the crates! The crates can be obtained in two ways:
- PvE: It doesn't matter what you hit, only how much energy you spend.
- PvP: Just like PvE, simply expend stamina points and the crates will be randomly created/dropped. (thx stuartb & KizbotBro!)
But since raiding can be combined with making money (and 100 other benefits of PvP vs like 1 benefit from PvE) there's not even a choice to make here! :D
This is how it USED to be:
You can steal crates from other players - but this presumes the player has at least 1 crate in possession.
You have a chance to steal one crate each time you raid/attack another player.
Attacking seems more probable to successfully steal than raiding.
Early, you had to PvE, because at this point it was very unlikely to find a player already in possession of a crate.
You want to avoid big energy targets cos if you don't get anything you might be out of energy. And clicking 100 times on a weak one isn't fun, so find a balance you prefer.
As a secondary objective, try minimizing XP by looking for lowest XP/energy targets.
B. Now that you have a number of crates on hand the next step is to "open" them.
What you actually do is ATTEMPT to open them, meaning that if you fail you keep the crate (the total number doesn't change), and get the hated "Sorry!" dialog.
You get to choose between three ways to "open" them; free, cash, gold.
Free has a pretty low success rate. Cash has medium. And gold opens every attempt.
When you successfully open, the crate is consumed.
At this point you get 1 out of several possible contents, randomly chosen.
C. Why the heck do we do all this?
Among the various content you can receive, the main objective is getting "event parts" or "tokens".
These can grant you indestructible units with increasingly better stats as your parts count accumulates.
Collect-10 events have prizes at 3,5,7,9 and the grand prize at 10! These units are "tiered" - read on.
Auction/leaderboard events have prizes at 5,10,15,20,25, AND also top X, top Y and #1 leader grand prize (players ordered after # of parts).
(The "crates" and "parts" are named differently each event.)
Other content you can get is cash, valor, several "crap units", concrete, extra ally (auction only).
D. Important to know is the probability of getting the next part decreases the more parts you have - only collect 10 events! (thx mxz!)
And also important to know is that much in this game is decided based on what tier your player level belongs to.
Tiers being ranges of levels, as follows:
Tier 1: lvl1 - 25
Tier 2: lvl26 - 50
Tier 3: lvl51 - 75
Tier 4: lvl76 - 100
Tier 5: lvl101 - 150
Tier 6: lvl151 - 200
The lower tier you're in the easier the game will be for you! - The biggest reason to camp!
Similar to above: Only for 10-events, given a successful open of a crate, the probability of the content being a part decreases as you go up in tiers. (thx mxz!)
Tiered units get stronger the higher tier you are though.
Instructions:
0. It is VERY important to start RIGHT AWAY!
As soon as you see the event you need to attempt your first crate!
To get the timer going as early as possible to make use of the total event time as much as possible.
1. When the event has just started, go do PvP ASAP!
If you run out of stamina, as backup plan go to any mission, it doesn't matter which, the more energy you spend the more chances of a crate dropping.
2. Always open the crates with cash to maximize your chances!
It's a VERY small price to pay for what you might get - a really obvious choice!
3. The very most important part!
Set a timer (on your phone) to approx 1m below of what the countdown timer says!
You need to open as many crates as possible during the event time and this is the only sure way to do it.
As for some math and probabilities... here's an estimate for the gold case from me:
Given an open, I've read that the probability to get the 10:th part is like 2% at the higher tiers (some-1 provide more data on this!). That makes the prob to get 9->10 after N tries:
1-(1-[prob to get])^N or 1-[prob NOT to get]^N or 1-0.98^N
at 20 opens it's 33%, 40 means 55%, 60 means 70%
50 opens, equaling 1 vault, being 1500 gold (including all resets) is 64%
100 opens, equaling 2 vault, being 3000 gold (including all resets) is 87%
150 opens, equaling 3 vault, being 4500 gold (including all resets) is 95%
I understand this is no comfort to you guys (especially the gold players), but hope it at least gives a more clear picture...
Something advanced worth mentioning:
The Mcdoc Method. (applies to gold spenders)
http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?35884
Ask questions!
Tell me what you think!
Discuss!
If I've missed anything, post it and I'll edit it in :)
P.S. Especially, I would like to get the exact percentages, for each part, for each tier!