Whales with jobs, how do you justify your spending beyond dolphin territory?

I currently consider myself a moderate spender (dolphin?). I'm very comfortable right now and this is how I justify it:

  • monthly express pass ($8 AUD/month)
  • nameless glory ($15 AUD/month)
  • all bonus topups ($313 AUD/year)
  • spread over a year this is about $50/month (in USD this is $31/month)

For a game I really enjoy and as my main hobby this is really cheap compared to other forms of entertainment.

The thing I most enjoy is progressing my roster strength and now I'm considering characters in the E2S1 territory which is pushing me to contemplate whether I spend more via the shard packs and what value I'd get out of it.

I did the math of these packs and the conclusion is that these are bloody expensive for the value you get (pls confirm the math if I'm wrong - I used the warp calculator). The value to spend ratio basically drops off a cliff after the monthly pass/BP+top-ups.

  • $150 = 50 pulls = 15% chance of getting 1 featured 5*
  • $300 = 100 pulls = 64% chance of getting 1 featured 5*
  • $450 = 150 pulls = 79% chance of getting 1 featured 5*

Basically it's about $450 to have a good chance of getting 1 copy of a character. With a good well paying job and even with a wife+kids it's not going to break my bank, but I think to myself, nearly half a grand for ONE character... it doesn't feel very financially responsible for me and the value I get doesn't feel right.

If I spend this extra once a month, over a year this is $5k+ which is a decent amount of money for responsible investing, paying off the mortgage or even a nice 1-2 week holiday for the family OR I get an additional 12 characters.. hmmm.

I wonder if hoyo ever considered dropping the price of these. Say if it was $100 per character, I'd be willing to spend a lot more but I'm sure they got the numbers crunched that this is perhaps the optimal price point to maximise revenue but who knows.

Edit: ok my numbers are quite off as in the warp calculator I think I should be ticking the "guaranteed" box so I wasn't factoring in the 50/50.