I had a bunch of Ecto after some an impulse buying spree, and decided to kill time by playing with Tarrktun. Purchased 16 Globs of Destabilized Ecto, and with fingers crossed, I was up roughly 1k Gold profit. I took a step back, closed my game, and sat on my hands for a few minutes. This is the first time I’ve walked away from Tarrktun, and wanted to share some tips to proper gambling (to stop me from logging back in to do more). I hope this guide helps others with an itchy finger for RNG.
1) Only start to gamble with what you can afford to lose. A good starting ceiling would be 50% of your liquid assets.
2) Mentally prepare yourself to lose. The reason for this is once you assume you’ll lose everything, you technically can’t go anywhere but up. If you do lose, the psychological effect of the loss won’t hurt. And if you win, it feels so much better.
3) Know when to stop. One of my flaws is that when I’m up big, I get in the mindset of “I can winz moar”. When I keep going after big profits, that’s when RNG balance kicks in, the house will take back everything and then some. Set a profit threshold, and once you hit it, walk away no matter what. Winning against RNG is like a Siren’s Song. Don’t let it tempt you.
4) Optional – Superstition helps. Remember what you did and what you wore when you started to gamble. If you win, you’ll want to consider recreating the events that helped you win. Today, I was in my boxers watching the American men’s gymnastics team do routines, and the profit came when two ripped guys hugged after the parallel bars. If I decide to play with Tarrktun again, I’ll have to do it while wearing the same boxers, and wait for the American men do well in another event.
As a RL Blackjack dealer, I’d point out that the first three rules are very good rules to follow in any gambling what so ever.
Consider everything gambled lost, and thus don’t gamble what you can’t afford to lose.
Of course, you’re very welcome to forget the third rule when playing at my table
And, as with any gambling, the odds are that you will lose. You will hear about winners just as you can read about people winning lotteries around the world. But the odds are you will lose every time. If gambling were a good way to invest money you would see it recommended by financial planners. It isn’t. And, it isn’t a good way to invest resources made in a game either.
All you need to know about gambling is about expected value. How many ectos are you going to get when you gamble 1000 of them? Answer is 994. When you gamble 1000 gold you get 973 gold in return. Gambling is a waste of your money.
I know you lost a lot of money from ecto investment.
But making a post about ecto gambling won’t bump up the price.
Some day, some patch, ecto price will rise. Don’t worry about it.
Why do you think I have some sinister motive to manipulate the prices? It’s been proven that one person cannot control (or even influence) the market. I simply wanted to share my recent experience in Ecto gambling, and how I managed to walk away on top. If you look at my OP objectively, I have sound advice on how to set limits so you don’t lose your shirt.
In addition, never did I mention once that with Ecto prices so low, it’s a great time to play with Tarrktun. And even if I did, unless the lucrative map and meta rewards are reduced, the value on luxury goods will remain low.
Started gambling for fun, won like 300g and 1k ectos. Thought wtf this is easy money. Kept gambling to get to 100 times for item as well. Almost lost all my fortune, had to sell a prec i was saving to get some money back.In the end i lost 200g out of the 800 i had and like 450 out of the starting 500 i had. I felt like a serious gamble addict , that was so terrible.I WILL NEVER ECTO GAMBLE AGAIN.
As far as I can tell, the advantage of this is that you can get portable mystic forge parts — which was useful back when they were largely unavailable. By now, we have enough that the parts (or the completed thing) don’t give much money.
