Lootbox drop rates in Overwatch have been a notorious mystery since the game’s launch. Anyone who’s played the game will attest to the dry spells that can happen with endless unlucky lootboxes. Well good news: Thanks to the Chinese Government’s recent ruling on disclosing odds in video games, Blizzard was forced to reveal the numbers and have already done so on their Chinese page.
For those of you who aren’t fluent in Chinese or take no pleasure in deciphering Google translations, I’ll lay it out plain. On average, the chance of acquiring an epic item from a lootbox is one in 5.5 lootboxes opened. For the legendary items, you have an average chance of one in every 13.5 opened. That’s an 18.2 percent chance to get an epic and a measly 7.4 percent chance to get a legendary. Furthermore, if an item is a duplicate of one you already have, the item will simply become currency for the player. After seeing these probabilities, going through countless lootboxes and getting nothing but garbage items and credits isn’t such a wonder anymore.
China’s ruling went into effect on May 1st (but was passed in December) and Overwatch wasn’t the only game affected. Hearthstone card drop rates from card packs were also forcibly revealed. An interesting note concerning Hearthstone: the probability of higher card quality actually increases as the player opens more packs. Where’s that feature for Overwatch, Blizzard?
Just as Overwatch wasn’t the only game affected, Blizzard wasn’t the only major company to be affected by the ruling either. Perfect World (Valve’s Chinese distributor for Dota 2) had to post their rates for Treasure (the only loot container present in the Chinese version). Riot Game’s popular MOBA, League of Legends, also complied in regards to Hextech Chests.
One day you might end up getting that skin you’ve always wanted, so don’t give up hope. The numbers may be against you, but at least Overwatch never feels like a grind. Surpassing 30 million players recently, it certainly won’t be losing popularity anytime soon. May the RNG Gods be with you on the quest for that one last emote.
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