$100 Dollars in the MicroTransaction for REQ CARDS! That surely could keep me playing for a long time. Thus the debate began with my partner. “It’s really not that much.” I pleaded, “besides, it will save me time and unlock a ton of unlockable permanent REQ cards”. Her response brought me back to reality, “How many, and after $100, how many will you have left to collect?”
To the math!
The answer is that one $100 dollar 34x gold pack + 13 free would unlock less than 10% (9.38% to be exact) or only 94 of the 1,002 Permanent REQ Cards.
Which led me to ask a few more questions.
How much would it cost to unlock everything?
How long will I have to play Halo 5 to unlock everything?
To answer, I provide two options, Alternative 1, where you never sell a sellable REQ card, and option 2, you sell ALL sellable REQ Cards.
NOTE: My analysis assumed no REQ point boosts, REQ point Cards, and ignored the Warzone package. I also did not incorporate any permanent unlocks from Promotion or Commendation awards.
Alternative 1:
There are 1,002 unlockable Permanent REQ Cards at this time, here is a matrix of their distribution across sections and rarity.
Common 133
Uncommon 188
Rare 313
Ultra Rare 195
Legendary 173
First let’s address how much it would cost.
At $0.995 per unlockable Permanent REQ card, the silver pack is the cheapest purchase option, but it only unlocks Common to Rare.
There are 634 unlockable Permanent REQ cards from Common to Rare, and you would need to buy 317 Silver packs to get them all.
There are an additional 368 Ultra Rare or Legendary unlockable Permanent REQ cards, and those can only be acquired by buying Gold Packs. By buying three “34X Gold pack+ 13 Free” for $99.99 a pop, two “15x Gold Pack + 5 Free” for 44.99 a pop, and one “3x Gold Pack” you can unlock these.
Total Cost
317 Silver packs = $630.83
1 "3x Gold Pack = $8.99
2 “15x Gold Pack + 5 Free!” = $89.98
3 “34x Gold Pack + 13 Free!” = 299.97
Grand Total $1,029.77
I ran alternate combinations, and this is the least expensive route I could find.
So I’m not going to be dropping a grand to unlock all the REQ Packs, and like most freemium games I’ve played (clash of clans, angry birds 2) I thought, “Be committed, don’t spend a dime.”
Time is more tricky, because REQ points are awarded for different reasons (I’ve seen other users try to break down how the points are assigned). So as a guess, I feel like 1 hour of game play usually yields around 6,000 REQ points.
Also, you have to estimate how likely a Bronze Pack will yield an unlockable Permanent REQ. I assumed two-thirds of the time.
The fastest way to unlock all by using only REQ Points is to buy Bronze until you have all the Common Permanent REQ Cards, then Silver to unlock all the Uncommon and Rare, then finally buy gold all the Ultra Rare to Legendary. The reason for this is because,
Bronze - Common = possibly one : 1250 *(2/3) = Approx. 1875 pts per REQ Card
Silver - Common to Rare = 2 permanent guaranteed = 2,500 pts per REQ Card
Gold - Uncommon to Legendary = 2 permanent guaranteed = 5,000 pts per REQ Card
If you don’t first buy bronze and collect all the Commons, then you are over-spending when a common shows up in a silver pack:
(Bronze Common REQ Card =1875 < Silver Common REQ Card = 2500).
Similarly for Uncommon to Rare with Silver and Gold:
(Silver Uncommon/Rare = 2500 < Gold Uncommon/Rare = 5,000).
Sticking to this approach gives you total points needed to clear each rarity level.
Common (Bronze): 133 Permanent REQ Cards @ approx 1875 = 249,375 pts needed
Uncommon (Silver): 188 Permanent REQ Cards @ 2500 = 470,000 pts needed
Rare (Silver): 313 permanent REQ Cards @ 2500 = 782,500 pts needed
Ultra Rare (Gold): 195 permanent REQ Cards @ 5000 = 975,000 pts needed
Legendary (Gold): 173 permanent REQ Cards @ 5000 = 865,000 pts needed
Grand Total: 3,341,875 pts needed to unlock all permanent REQ Cards
At 6,000 points per hour, get a comfy chair, it will take you 557 hours to get all the permanent REQ Cards, to put perspective, that is…
23.21 Twenty-four hour days
13.92 40 hour work weeks
27.85 20 hour work weeks
55.7 10 hour work weeks.
(Also, as a side note, the Bronze → Silver → Gold saves you approximately 83,125 points over doing just Silver → Gold. and if you really want to waste your time, buy all Gold first, which will cost an additional 1.3M points.)
Alternative Two: Sell it all
How Much?
This get’s a little tricky too, because it is not consistent how much you get back from sellable REQ Cards. I assumed that you can sell all the sellable cards and get 40% of the points back. Points can then be used to get cards.
For ease of analysis, I ignore the Bronze Pack for cost, and only assume Silver and Gold Packs.
To get the Common to Rare with Silver packs, this means we can avoid buying 40% of the packs from Alternative 1.
So instead of 317, you would need to buy 191 Silver packs for $380.09
Gold you would only need 2 34 Gold Pack + 13 Free and two 15 Gold Pack + 5 Free totaling $289.96
Grand Total = $670.05
So selling saves you $359 dollars compared to stockpiling.
For Time, the affect of selling is basically to reduce the cost per REQ by %40
So the overall time is reduced by %40 from Alternative 1, which results in needing 2,005,125 REQ points to unlock all permanent REQ cards.
@ 6,000 REQ points per hour of game play, here is the break down.
334.1 hours
13.92 Twenty-four hour days
8.35 40 hour work weeks
16.71 20 hour work weeks
33.42 10 hour work weeks.
Selling all saves 223 hours of game play.
To the conclusion.
First, I think they are counting on players buying Gold over Silver to unlock cards because there are almost twice as many Rare cards as any other Rarity (see above).
Second, unless you clear all the Common to Rare REQ cards, you are overpaying when you buy even the biggest Gold Pack. Remember a Silver Pack will buy you 1 REQ card for $0.99, where a Gold pack charges you anywhere from $1.07 (Gold 34X) to $1.49 (normal Gold Pack). Also, isn’t it convenient that you cannot buy Silver Packs in Bulk.
Third, I’ve heard of games with 200 hours of CONTENT that players can work through (Skyrim), but even aggressively, Halo 5 would require over 2.5X as much game play to unlock everything. I’m not sure if I’m willing to invest that much time and definitely will not be spending the money.
Fourth, The sell strategy gets you there faster, but remember, you won’t have any stockpile.
Let me know your thoughts!
