Question on holiday unboxing

[Toad]

I should know the answer to these but yeah...

 

Can you unbox old Halloween/holiday effects during the Halloween event? If so, how? Are they available in all the boxes? Or the same boxes as the new effects? 

 

In what other instances can you unbox holiday effects outside of the specific holiday schedule?

 

Are there any holiday effects that you can no longer unbox?

[Alecto]

To break it down - Since Halloween 2018
Holiday event begins (let's say halloween 2020 in this case). A new cosmetic case is released, with new effects (in this case Gravelly Ghoul, Vexed Volcanics, Green Giggler, Laugh o Lantern, Plum Prankster, Pumpkin Party, Pyroland Nightmare, Gourdian Angel). This is the event specific pool of effects.
For the duration of the event, unusuals unboxed from all cosmetic Cases (not Crates, only Cases with tiered cosmetics) will have one effect from the event pool of effects. All cases can only give cosmetics from their respective crate - so if you want an unusual Rotation Sensation you'll need to open Gun Mettle cases, you want an unusual of one of the new cosmetics you'll have to open the new case.

Each group of effects (recolours of the same effect are the same group, eg Vexed Volcanics and Gravelly Ghoul are one group, Pumpkin Party is another group, so on) has an equal chance of being unboxed. So there's 5 groups of effects, 3 variations maximum so 15 different outcomes - some effects will be 2 or 3 of these outcomes because they don't have 3 variations - Pumpkin Party has only the one version so it would be 3 of these outcomes. Gravelly Ghoul is roughly twice as common as Vexed Volcanics because it occupies 2 outcomes while Volcanics occupies 1 because there's 3 outcomes per group (idk why I guess it's easier for them to program it that way?)

When the event ends, this pool of new effects is then restricted to the case from that event. These effects can only be unboxed from this case from now on, all cosmetics from other cases cannot be unboxed with this set of effects. All cases go back to dropping unusuals with their normal effect pools (gen 1-3, can still get the case specific effects if the case has a set of them.)

Old Crates (up to end of the line, and crate where the cosmetics are not ranked) cannot unbox new effects, during an event they will still drop whatever effects they normally drop through the rest of the year (so robo effects from robo crate, EotL effects from EotL crate, gen 1-3 from unlocked cosmetic crates etc)

 

As far as effects you cannot unbox anymore, this only includes Halloween effects pre-2015. 

 

With taunt unusualifiers, the effect pool is decided when the unusualifier is used - so once the event ends the taunt effects from that event cannot be created anymore.

[Toad]

Thanks for the response.

 

A bit confused, you stated two things:

 

"For the duration of the event, unusuals unboxed from all cosmetic Cases (not Crates, only Cases with tiered cosmetics) will have one effect from the event pool of effects. "

 

"When the event ends, this pool of new effects is then restricted to the case from that event."

 

Does this mean if I wanted to unbox halloween 2019 effects, I'd have to unbox the cases that were released around Halloween 2019? The current new cases wouldn't have those older halloween effects. Is this what you are saying? 

 

"These effects can only be unboxed from this case from now on, all cosmetics from other cases cannot be unboxed with this set of effects. "

 

This seems to contradict your first statement.  Ugh, I'm still very confused.

[Alecto]

5 hours ago, Toad said:

Thanks for the response.

 

A bit confused, you stated two things:

 

"For the duration of the event, unusuals unboxed from all cosmetic Cases (not Crates, only Cases with tiered cosmetics) will have one effect from the event pool of effects. "

 

"When the event ends, this pool of new effects is then restricted to the case from that event."

 

Does this mean if I wanted to unbox halloween 2019 effects, I'd have to unbox the cases that were released around Halloween 2019? The current new cases wouldn't have those older halloween effects. Is this what you are saying? 

 

"These effects can only be unboxed from this case from now on, all cosmetics from other cases cannot be unboxed with this set of effects. "

 

This seems to contradict your first statement.  Ugh, I'm still very confused.

So, if you want a Halloween 2019 effect, you'd need to unbox Spooky Spoils (the 2019 case) after the event ends. Those effects are now part of the regular effect pool for the Spooky Spoils case, there is no other way to unbox them. They are discontinued on any hat outside of the Spooky Spoils case (eg I have a Mystical Medley Mann o War, 2019 effect - because it's from a case other than Spooky Spoils, it will remain 1 of 1 forever unless either there's a second one in an unscanned backpack or if valve changes the way halloween effects work). If you try to get one of these effects during the 2020 event, you'll only be able to get a 2020 effect.

[Toad]

So during the current halloween event, I can unbox any of the new unusual halloween effects and older halloween effects on almost any case. After the event, these 2020 halloween effects will be limited to the 2020 halloween case outside of halloween events. During 2021 halloween, the 2020 halloween case will have all the halloween effects including the 2021 ones, but after, that 2020 case will revert back to the 2020 effects only.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here. Thanks for your patience, this stuff is confusing to me!

[Alecto]

8 hours ago, Toad said:

So during the current halloween event, I can unbox any of the new unusual halloween effects and older halloween effects on almost any case. After the event, these 2020 halloween effects will be limited to the 2020 halloween case outside of halloween events. During 2021 halloween, the 2020 halloween case will have all the halloween effects including the 2021 ones, but after, that 2020 case will revert back to the 2020 effects only.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here. Thanks for your patience, this stuff is confusing to me!

Nope, during this event, the only effects you will be able to unbox during the current event are the 2020 halloween effects. Right now any case (not crate) will give ONLY new 2020 halloween effects.

Once the event ends, you will be able to unbox the normal pool of effects for each case. So for halloween cases that includes the effects which came out with the case. 

[Toad]

" So for halloween cases that includes the effects which came out with the case. "

 

This is part that's tripping me up. Basically, outside of halloween, if I unbox a 2018 halloween case for example, I can get any normal effect including the 2018 halloween effects on that cosmetic, right?

[Pollen]

50 minutes ago, Toad said:

" So for halloween cases that includes the effects which came out with the case. "

 

This is part that's tripping me up. Basically, outside of halloween, if I unbox a 2018 halloween case for example, I can get any normal effect including the 2018 halloween effects on that cosmetic, right?

Yes, I believe you can unbox 1st and 3rd gen effects as well as the Event/Case Effects which leads to the oversaturation of these Effects on hats in which the same case were released.

That is the main reason there is a distain for the New Halloween Unusuals. Because of these oversaturated markets on some of the garbage hats, people think that the Effect itself is garbage.

When on "Limited" hats (hats that were only able to be unboxed for the duration of the event, and can no longer be unboxed), the new Halloween effects are actually quite good.