Board Thread:Plants vs. Zombies Heroes/@comment-27053902-20160729215549/@comment-28434137-20160730075422

Insert Your Name Here wrote:

MyopicCat wrote: Should you buy single packs or multipacks? And which multipacks are best, 1000 gem, 2000 or 5000 gem multipacks? I did the math, and the answer surprised me ...

Obviously there is no correct answer for everyone, it depends on how patient you are. But "how patient you are" can be quantified using the concept of "discount rate" from basic economics. (I should probably use the term "pure rate of time preference", but let's not muddy the waters too much). I made a spreadsheet that estimates your personal discount rate, and then calculates which pack type is optimal for your discount rate.

I consider myself a fairly patient person and was saving up to buy a 2000 or 5000 gem multipack. But it turns out that the best pack for me is the 1000 gem multipack. Yay for math (when it brings swift gratification)!

To try my spreadsheet out, click this link (it will prompt you to create a copy of my spreadsheet in you Google docs area). Answer the question at the top (fill in cell A5) and scroll down to row 29 to see the optimal pack type for your discount rate.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Satm72kvGnbxG1toYGbflsngsymNGRu47VYFUXJA-Ug/copy

If you just want to check my calculations (view only mode), click this instead:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Satm72kvGnbxG1toYGbflsngsymNGRu47VYFUXJA-Ug/edit Interesting...

I have tried your spreadsheets and here's my experience with it:
 * If I put 800 (which is the average earning for a free-to-play person within 8 days), the spreadsheet will tell me that the 5000 gem mega pack is still the best option. So in the end, the mega pack is still going to be the preferred choice, given that most of the players here are freeloaders.
 * When the gem amount begins to get absurdly high, things get confusing because the spreadsheet will tell you that the single pack is the best option. This gets absurd at the 40000 gem mark - when you get 5000 gems per day, the obvious choice is to buy a single mega pack, instead of wasting time clicking the single pack 50 times.

So yea you might wanna explain your calculations a bit. And maybe fix it. 800? The number you put in the orange cell (A5) should always be larger than 1000. Cell A5 does NOT represent gem income per day. The question was about much higher you value income today compared to delayed income. That part of the spreadsheet has nothing to do with the average earnings in the game, it's only about measuring your impatience.

Let me try again. Suppose I said I was giving you a present. I would give you 1000 gems right now, but if you waited a week I would give you 5000 gems instead. Almost everyone is patient enough to wait one week to get a reward that is 5 times higher.

But if the choice was between 1000 gems now, and only 1001 gems next week, pretty much everyone would take the 1000 gems now. One puny extra gem isn't worth the wait.

So, somewhere in between 1001 gems and 5000 gems is your own personal "impatence number", where you value both options equally. That number should go in cell A5. I use it to calculate your discount rate, which in turn gets used to value future packs compared to packs today.

More clear now?