@PB234, that’s precisely how to think about it. For any given treasure box, there’s a standard base prize, whether your city is maxed out or not. It’s just much easier to calculate the multiplier on a maxed-out city because we know what the base payouts are. For cities that aren’t maxed out, the specific base prizes for the different building tiers are unknown, so figuring out the exact multiplier received is more of a guess.
To your question: it’s almost certainly the first scenario. A 1,200 gem reward would be the base prize of 1,000 gems hitting a 1.2x multiplier . The alternative, where the price itself is a fluctuating number equal or above base like 1,200 with a 1.0x multiplier, is much less likely from a game development perspective. It’s simpler to code a fixed base reward and then apply a random multiplier.
The system is designed with that base value and then a multiplier is applied, likely to a couple decimal places, to create that feeling of variability and excitement. It definitely helps make sense of the rewards when you know you’ve hit a higher multiplier. And you’re right, if you get a large gem amount, for example 8,500 gems on a brown box, that means it’s an 8.5x multiplier.
How them would you account for a gem prize on a TB that is less than 1,000 gems? (just curious) if the base is 1,000 gems as an example, and i received only 950 gems on a brown box last night.
@NashRivers In that scenario, you would have received a multiplier that is less than 1.0x. For a brown box in a maxed-out city with a base of 1,000 gems, a 950 gem prize would mean you hit a 0.95x multiplier. The multipliers can range from as low as 0.5x all the way up to 10x.
Funnily enough, this connects to a separate discussion I had with @WV_Julie. We suspected that some numbers in the game aren’t exact and are likely simplified or rounded. For instance, some T7 buildings are actually valued at 1.25M but show up as 1.2M in the store. This same principle explains why, when you check your gem balance after collecting a treasure box, the reward isn’t always a round number (e.g., 3,700) but something specific like 3724. It’s likely because the multiplier is something more precise than a clean number like 1.2x.
So, even if the “base” numbers are simplified, the core reasoning still applies: a multiplier (which can be less than 1.0x) is applied to determine your final reward. Hope that helps clarify it!
I agree with that! The other day on a brown box I got 953 gems. For me I wont focus too much on the multiplier as I’m just going to build my city as I can, try and keep my HMP as much as possible, and just enjoy the world of CW in the meantime. But I will admit, those TB’s are the highlight of coming here (and checking them throughout the day on the app) I love getting good rewards and get excited when i see flaming/lighting or flaming/bubbles. So far, i have noticed that a lot of my flame boxed (Not all of them) have been producing PP’s more often than not. I have also noticed over the last month I think, that the gem prizes are less and less these days.
Hi @Big_E_2, while that was accurate about a year ago, a multiplier has recently been introduced for treasure boxes. I have kept records of nearly every treasure box opened and have documented multiple instances of receiving less the maxed out base rewards.
A large sample size is likely needed to see this, as the overall chance of it happening may not be high. The probability also seems to vary by the reward type. For instance, since the chance of receiving coins is the highest, you are more likely to see a sub-25M coin reward. This is followed by charms, passes, and finally gems. Because gems already have a very low drop rate, the chance of also getting a small multiplier on top of that is incredibly small.
The attached images from my city are examples of these rewards, which I should not have received based on the old system. The dates and times are also listed under each file.
@Night_Guy I have noticed that these lower payouts (factor under 1.0) occur later in the day after a lot of chests have been collected. And then they stay low until the next day resets. Kind of like getting throttled on your data carrier. And this only happens on the brown chests as far as I can tell. Would be nice to see a daily tracking of brown chests to see when the throttling occurs.
@Elanor Your “throttling” analogy seems very fitting. I’ve been trying to pin down the timing as well. Sometimes the lower payouts happen right before midnight, which would align with a daily reset, but I’ve also seen them in the afternoon, so I’m still observing to find a more consistent trigger.
It’s logical to think that the payout algorithm isn’t static. Server-side events, like a city reset or a system update in Casino World, could easily influence or reset the payout calculations.
Adding to that, I’ve noticed that Treasure Box prizes and the appearance of lightning rounds seem to be synchronized across different accounts. It might just be chance, but it’s another pattern I’ve noticed that suggests these events are centrally controlled.
I’ve also observed that the sub-1x rewards appear in waves, usually for a maximum of four chests before the rewards normalize. This further suggests it might be a deliberate, temporary adjustment in the system.
I need to gather more data and analyze my existing treasure box records.
I assumed the lower rewards on maxed cities were due to the issue Elanor pointed out, in effect after you open a certain number of boxes in a day your city drops down a TB reward “level” from the maximum and you start to see the lower rewards. You probably see this regularly if you 24/7 collect only brown boxes, I collect blue if they are normal flames/bubbles and also yellow on both if lightning, only purple is flames lighting and skip purple bubble lightning.
At my peak playing here my monthly report said I opened 1500 boxes a month so roughly 50 per day, if I recall correctly I would occasionally see this just before the day reset (when the monthly challenges become active which for my timezone is 7-8pm). These days my average is more like 500-1000 boxes per month as it gets tedious doing this so haven’t seen the above drop for nearly 12 months. You could test this and count how many boxes are collected after the daily reset until till the drop, it is probably 50-60?
Just wanted to check if anyone else is seeing lower-tier treasure box rewards? It seems to have started for me in the last half hour along with a few other users that I know of.
My coins from TB have been kind of low and I was getting mostly Smoke. I also was at opening 32 today and for me it seems that is when it tends to reduction. It is that or I was thinking maybe there is a figure from all the rewards collected that once it is attained, reduction begins?
@Eddi_Bets I believe it’s based on Pacific Time since their servers are located in WA, though they could be using datacenters elsewhere, of course. So far, I’ve seen it happen towards the end of the day, too.
Also, a quick update for everyone: Samantha has enabled editing for me on this post, so I’ll be able to update the tips section soon. It’ll take some time as work calls at the moment.
