Guild Wars 2

I just spent $100 on black lion chests to get a weapon skin. T_T I feel dirty and I think I might quit this game now for good. That’s an insane amount to have to spend to get enough ticket scraps for ONE weapon skin.

I’ve purchased ~ 5 full armor sets, ~10 character slots, a few bank/bag expansions, everlasting gathering tools, 2 copperfed salvage-o-matics and a billion hair/makeover kits. Never regretted any of it though I’ve always thought it was a bit expensive.

But these black lion weapon claim tickets…
It wouldn’t be so bad if we could purchase them directly but the chest is full of so much junk!

- exp boosters / tome of knowledge (I have 10 lvl 80’s, don’t need those)
- dyes (I have almost all dyes unlocked so none that are useful or very worth money)
- Revive Orbs/ Repair Canisters (lol?)
- Tybalt Backpiece -_-
- Mini Pack 2 / 2x Scarlet minis (I hate minis in this game!)
- 11 guild influence boosters (Our guild has like 800k influence?)
- 2 box of funs (not very fun)
- 30~ mystery tonics (ugh)
- Crafting Boosters! (I have almost all professions at 400+)
- speed/armor/weapon boosts (meh, I’ll use them but I don’t care about them)

Just feeling really deflated and while I understand it’s my choice to buy these, I think it’s horrible that it spent so much and it’s really made me feel gross about even playing. :C

Why didn’t you just convert it to gold? 4200 gems gets you about 300 gold these days.

Why would you support real money RNG gambling in games anyway…

Gambling is designed for you to lose. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy roulette tables every now and again.
Computerized gambling even more so. Stay away. At all costs.

It’s amazing how games are allowed to run these gambling practices whilst still allowing children to play the game. And the new gen cash hungry “developers” are loving it.

Sorry to hear though.

Since everything you get in the chest has some value, maybe not to you, it’s not gambling per se. Most have either a gem or gold value associated with them. Everyone’s a “winner”, just some lucky players may get something worth considerably more.

It’s just sadly since the introduction of skin tickets, the lure is too great for some. Doesn’t matter what the odds are.

You could farm key’s instead next time

There’s that old saying,

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

So you’ve been fooled once by trying ANet’s RNG boxes. You aren’t the first, as there have been numerous threads on the forum about it. Take it as a fairly cheap lesson learned that gambling favors the house and go on from there.

They aren’t going to stop selling them. Not only do they sell well to people like you trying them out for the first time but apparently some people actually like paying for keys. (Shrug).

Behellagh.1468:

Since everything you get in the chest has some value, maybe not to you, it’s not gambling per se. Most have either a gem or gold value associated with them. Everyone’s a “winner”, just some lucky players may get something worth considerably more.

It’s just sadly since the introduction of skin tickets, the lure is too great for some. Doesn’t matter what the odds are.

90% if the problem is the player does not know what the actual odds are. 10%? 5%? 1%? 0.1% for a ticket? Who knows.

Realist.5812:

Behellagh.1468:

Since everything you get in the chest has some value, maybe not to you, it’s not gambling per se. Most have either a gem or gold value associated with them. Everyone’s a “winner”, just some lucky players may get something worth considerably more.

It’s just sadly since the introduction of skin tickets, the lure is too great for some. Doesn’t matter what the odds are.

90% if the problem is the player does not know what the actual odds are. 10%? 5%? 1%? 0.1% for a ticket? Who knows.

It is not the job of the house to tell you what your odds are. that would be like shooting themselves on the leg.

Personal responsibility is a thing, use it. Next time OP will think twice before investing in chance.

Realist.5812:

Behellagh.1468:

Since everything you get in the chest has some value, maybe not to you, it’s not gambling per se. Most have either a gem or gold value associated with them. Everyone’s a “winner”, just some lucky players may get something worth considerably more.

It’s just sadly since the introduction of skin tickets, the lure is too great for some. Doesn’t matter what the odds are.

90% if the problem is the player does not know what the actual odds are. 10%? 5%? 1%? 0.1% for a ticket? Who knows.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest/Drop_rate
Maybe not know the actual drop rates, but researching it can give you a ball park figure of one scrap every 5 keys, RNG being RNG of course and assuming the numbers given are representative. It comes out to a 21% chance of getting a scrap. So, the average here is 1 ticket every 47 keys.

I’ve done a number of key runs and so far the drop rate matches this. Approximately 1 scrap every 5 keys when averaged out.

25 keys = 2100 gems = $26.25

If it takes 47 keys on average to make a full ticket,

1 ticket = 50 keys = $52.5

If the OP spent $100 and only got one key, either our drop rate from the wiki is off, or, more likely, the OP has some insanely bad luck. Sigh. RNG is RNG.

Let’s consider what Cash→Gems→Gold looks like:

$52.50 = 4,200 gems = 307.35 G
$100 = 8,000 gems = 588.23G

Now it’s important to consider what weapon you want to buy. If it’s, say, a Lovestruck Weapon (50-95 gold on trading post) then you’re much, much better off converting gems to gold and buying the weapon directly, instead of getting tickets.

Lovestruck, Dreamthistle, Halloween 2013, Zodiac, and Sclerite weapons are all (generally) under 300 gold— Indeed, most of them are substantially cheaper. Aetherized and Fused weapons are more expensive, but still well under 500G. (450G for Fused Warhorn seems to be the worst.)

So if you’re buying keys for the dyes, tonics, boosters, and whatever else, that’s one thing, but if, like the OP, you only want the Black Lion Tickets, save your money and just buy your favorite weapon on the Trading Post.

Good: You can buy weapons on the Trading Post for substantially less than you should expect to pay gambling on them.

Bad: Players like the OP are going to continue to assume BL keys are their best route, even though they’re spending a fortune on extras they don’t really want.

Ugly: For the pricier Fused and Aetherized skins, you’ve got to decide if you want to gamble on them or cough up the extra coins to buy them outright. You might save money, or you might lose big without a single ticket to show for it.

Welcome to “Free” to play. Sure, you don’t “need” to use the cash shop at all, but the game is designed in such a way as to heard you into the shop at all costs.

While I think $50+ for an in-game cosmetic item is much, much more than I’m willing to pay, personally, I can’t agree that I feel like I’m being pushed super hard into paying cash. I’ve been able to buy a fair few things I’ve wanted by converting gold to gems, and I’ve never really felt disadvantaged by not buying a gem store item.

Your mileage may vary, but I’m not really bothered by GW2’s setup on that front. I wish they’d do away with the gambling entirely, so it wouldn’t take advantage of people like the OP, but now that you can buy/sell Black Lion Ticket weapons on the trading post,, it’s a lot less distasteful than it was when they were pure RNG.

I’d much rather pay $180 a year to log in and find that my BiS gear has been reset and is now three tiers down. It’s fun to do all that stuff over again every six months and have another reset to look forward to.

tolunart.2095:

I’d much rather pay $180 a year to log in and find that my BiS gear has been reset and is now three tiers down. It’s fun to do all that stuff over again every six months and have another reset to look forward to.

Well, what can I say. Some people like raids/dungeons, loot, and seeing the character they invested so much time in grow powerful…and some people like to play dress up using the cash shop and games with very shallow/zergy pseudo content.

And some people call running in circles “progression.”

Realist.5812:

Why would you support real money RNG gambling in games anyway…

Gambling is designed for you to lose. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy roulette tables every now and again.
Computerized gambling even more so. Stay away. At all costs.

It’s amazing how games are allowed to run these gambling practices whilst still allowing children to play the game. And the new gen cash hungry “developers” are loving it.

Sorry to hear though.

a bit too cynical pal….the OP just handed his money and time poorly and then complained when he didnt have good luck, u make it sound like some big conspiracy of every negative aspect of mankind imaginable

I buy keys for a hoot. Got 25 during the last sale and used 20. Got 9 ticket scraps.

Lucky? Yeah. But I buy blind box toys and MTG booster packs IRL. The fun is getting that thing you don’t have. Here it’s just game currency and not real money. Every night I spend 1% of my bank plus value of items on the TP selling and buying, on gems.

silvermember.8941:

It is not the job of the house to tell you what your odds are. that would be like shooting themselves on the leg.

Personal responsibility is a thing, use it. Next time OP will think twice before investing in chance.

All table games have odds that the gambler knows and can make decisions around.

In computerized gambling the odds are hidden, hence why no one should ever use them because it is obviously a load of crap.

CameronJames.4897:

Why didn’t you just convert it to gold? 4200 gems gets you about 300 gold these days.

Indeed: take advantage of the high gold:gem ratio. For 300g, you can put in a buy offer for the most expensive Fused weapon skin or outright buy around six lovestruck weapon skins.

For 100g, you can outright buy most tormented weapon skins (and all lovestrucks). Or put in buy orders for over 40 skins that are otherwise available for 3, 5, or 7 BL Tickets.

Aye, just convert Gems to Gold. But watch the exchange rate, try to get 8 gold per 100 gem.

I bought 25 keys when they were just on sale. Why? Because I acquired 7 scraps from using 10 keys while leveling toons. Yes, very lucky. So i figured, why not get 25 and hope for 3 scraps and maybe get something else.

I’ll probably save the keys for halloween or winter or some other event where you have a chance to get a new event skin.

Never bought keys before.

silvermember.8941:

It is not the job of the house to tell you what your odds are. that would be like shooting themselves on the leg.

…

Unless your gambling in Singapore or British Columbia

Which I’m guessing wouldn’t stop most gamblers anyway. The human brain has a tendency to presume that it will be the one to “beat the odds”.

Zaxares.5419:

Which I’m guessing wouldn’t stop most gamblers anyway. The human brain has a tendency to presume that it will be the one to “beat the odds”.

I can’t imagine that casinos like to announce the pay back of their slot machines as that tends to encourage machine shopping by players. However, the information that Singapore requires is just plain useless to everyone.

So the people advocating buying gold instead are basically saying BLCs are useless, right?

Axialbloom.8109:

So the people advocating buying gold instead are basically saying BLCs are useless, right?

They always have been. Expecting a jackpot to come from buying keys is like refusing to open a 401k account in favor of “buy $100 worth of scratch off tickets every month” as your retirement plan.

Axialbloom.8109:

So the people advocating buying gold instead are basically saying BLCs are useless, right?

Except without the BLC, there is no supply of skins.

So we have a problem. Skins are 1/2 off or less in terms of gem converted gold than the cost in gems, on average, to acquire from BLC. And with the exchange rate ever increasing, it’ll just get worse. If you are lucky, and you buy a skin when it costs only 1 ticket, and hold it until supply is scarce, then maybe you will make a little coin.

I can understand why key farming is a thing.

Personally I can’t imagine spending real money to buy keys for the hope of a skin. The average person, if they buy 25 keys for 2100 gems, will normally need to buy 50 for 4200 gems or $52.50 USD. If you are unlucky as OP was, you can spend substantially more.

Spending $50 for one weapon skin is way overpriced. Making it so that the unlucky spend more than that is ridiculous. And THIS is why I do key runs. I’m not about to spend that sort of money on the chance of what I want. I’ve bought character slots, armor, costumes, and bank slots with real money, but not one key.

So, I may be in the minority here, but I have no sympathy for the OP.

How much you spend in the cash shop is a choice. No one makes you do it. If you cannot control your spending, that’s no one’s fault but your own.

You could have decided you were going to spend ‘x’ in the attempt to get a ticket, and that’s it. Set a limit and stick to it.

You could have traded gold for gems instead of spending real money.

You could have bought gems, traded them to gold, and TPed the skin.

You could have spent 10$, bought a char slot and farmed keys.

Instead, you spent and spent and spent, and are now here complaining that you didn’t have enough control to simply stop. This is no different than choosing to spend your money on instant lotto cards. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but the only person that can draw the line at how much you spend is you.

I just saw a post on Reddit the other day where the guy hypothesized that the RNG for Black Lion chests includes the time in the string. He put forth that if you opened chests until you got a scrap, and then opened a chest every 3.7 seconds after that, you got a ticket every time. He had around 100 opens to back up his theory, and a number of other folks said they got the same results. If this is the case its entirely possible that you just missed that mark. For something that has so much of a cost, in the future, don’t open them all in the span of 20 seconds. I know I’m guilty of it myself, especially with a scroll wheel that left clicks on each click of the wheel.

Kind of sad that you have to spend so much money on keys and chests for an item instead of just playing the game and clearing content. Protip: gold grind is not content.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Kind of sad that you have to spend so much money on keys and chests for an item instead of just playing the game and clearing content. Protip: gold grind is not content.

OP did not have to spend anything.
He wanted a skin and chose to take the expensive route to get there.

This is a case of an uninformed player spending more than he needed to because he didn’t understand the Black Lion Chest system (a common problem).

mtpelion.4562:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Kind of sad that you have to spend so much money on keys and chests for an item instead of just playing the game and clearing content. Protip: gold grind is not content.

OP did not have to spend anything.
He wanted a skin and chose to take the expensive route to get there.

This is a case of an uninformed player spending more than he needed to because he didn’t understand the Black Lion Chest system (a common problem).

This. The basic rule of this game is never buy anything that is RNG from the gem store. You are always better off buying it from the TP.

If playing this game were rewarding then the OP wouldn’t have felt compelled to use the cash shop in the first place. The fact that the shop even has these RNG gambles is highly unethical.

CameronJames.4897:

Why didn’t you just convert it to gold? 4200 gems gets you about 300 gold these days.

in any other game that would be reversed, there is a reason why i never trade my gems for gold.
i don’t pay €20,- for a lousy amount of gold, i want about 2000G for that real amount of gold.

sorudo.9054:

CameronJames.4897:

Why didn’t you just convert it to gold? 4200 gems gets you about 300 gold these days.

in any other game that would be reversed, there is a reason why i never trade my gems for gold.
i don’t pay €20,- for a lousy amount of gold, i want about 2000G for that real amount of gold.

And eventually it may get to that point. We just aren’t there.

Also guys remember that a while back, someone from Nexon was added to the team to help with the cash shop. That alone should be a huge warning.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

If playing this game were rewarding then the OP wouldn’t have felt compelled to use the cash shop in the first place. The fact that the shop even has these RNG gambles is highly unethical.

The game is rewarding … he can purchase anything he wants in the cash stop using rewards from the game.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

If playing this game were rewarding then the OP wouldn’t have felt compelled to use the cash shop in the first place. The fact that the shop even has these RNG gambles is highly unethical.

This is actually one of the most rewarding structures possible. You can convert your time in nearly ANY activity that you enjoy into the reward for nearly any other activity. This system allows you to play the content you like and avoid the content you don’t like and still have access to all the rewards in the game.

Lol no it’s not. It’s always easier to just swipe your credit card if your time has any value at all. Sure, some if the content may be fun but it is so unrewarding that the time investment isn’t worth it.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Lol no it’s not. It’s always easier to just swipe your credit card if your time has any value at all. Sure, some if the content may be fun but it is so unrewarding that the time investment isn’t worth it.

If you need fake prizes popping up in order to keep you attracted to a game, this model isn’t going to work for you and you should move on.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Lol no it’s not. It’s always easier to just swipe your credit card if your time has any value at all. Sure, some if the content may be fun but it is so unrewarding that the time investment isn’t worth it.

Just because you can buy content doesn’t mean game is not rewarding. In fact, the idea that you can play the game to get shop items is proof in the rewards related to playing the game itself. If you don’t think the time investment to be rewarded playing the game is worth it … WTH are you doing here? Another doomsday prophet?

Dark Catalyst.1028:

The fact that the shop even has these RNG gambles is highly unethical.

That’s a common misunderstanding of how lotteries and other types of gambling work. The reward is the excitement from rolling the dice — the ’’House’’ always wins in the long run.

Commonly, in state-sponsored lotteries, the expected value of a ticket is 50 cents on the dollar, i.e. if you play every day for a few thousand years, you’ll get half what you gambled. Odds are even worse after realizing that the 50 cents includes the jackpot, averaged across everyone playing.

That doesn’t make offering the lotto unethical, even though the poor odds don’t discourage people from playing.

In GW2, the various lotteries are generally more financially rewarding: flushing the right items with Zomorros is usually profitable (if you are willing to click 1,000s of times) and things like dye kits tend to have better than a 50% rate of return (if you don’t sell instantly).

But the point is: you are paying for the excitement of rolling the dice, in the hopes that you’ll be the lucky one. If you just want the item directly, it’s always going to be cheaper to convert gems to gold and buy on the TP.

Axialbloom.8109:

So the people advocating buying gold instead are basically saying BLCs are useless, right?

If you only care about the skin, and not any of the rest of the pile of doodads and thingamajigs you’ll get out of chests, then, yes, you’re probably better off getting the skin directly off the trading post. (If it’s a super expensive skin, then you have a choice between a gamble or a high premium for surety.)

If you just open the occasional chest for the fun of it, and/or you like tonics, boosters, etc., then the BLCs might be something you like.

The main problem is people buying up a ton of keys when they only want a single weapon skin. That’s a recipe for disappointment.

That’s why I use a disposable toon to farm lv10 stories. No way in heck are they getting a penny until they make it more in our favor.

How long does it take to farm a key, once you’ve gotten practiced with it?

Redenaz.8631:

How long does it take to farm a key, once you’ve gotten practiced with it?

Roughly 20 minutes. It helps if you have friends to farm with you, so it’s not so dreary, but hey, easy Black Lion keys!

CameronJames.4897:

Why didn’t you just convert it to gold? 4200 gems gets you about 300 gold these days.

Because most people hope to get lucky, and that makes them take risks.

“What if I get some golden tickets? What if I make back MORE if I play the RNG??”

Black Lion Keys, the Mystic Forge and even Unidentified Dyes have this in common. In general, you’re better off selling the UIDs and buying the dyes you want, selling those rares and exotics, and only using BLKs that you find in the wild.

The people who get lucky are happy, and understandably so.

The rest of us? Depends how much we just flushed. In all things, never waste more than you’re happy to lose.

JNetRocks.3652:

Just feeling really deflated and while I understand it’s my choice to buy these, I think it’s horrible that it spent so much and it’s really made me feel gross about even playing. :C

Walk away while you can, OP. These type of games are designed to rope in gullible and impulsive people who then spend hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to make up for those who play completely free. It wouldn’t be profitable otherwise.

Find a subscription game, friend. With the cash you spent on those scam chests you could have subscribed to any game for half a year and earned all the skins one can wish for by simply playing.

there was a topic about something like this on reddit a while ago. Someone tried to figure out if there was money to be made from black lion chests. Spend like 5k gold on keys. didn’t even make back half of that.

Using money on black lion chests is not a viable way to get the items you want in the game. It’s as close to lottery system as it gets. You can spend money to get it but the chance for you to actually make that money back is slim to none.

Next time I suggest you farm gold and then buy the skin you want from it. Don’t blame Anet for your gambling addiction or your lack of common sense.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Lol no it’s not. It’s always easier to just swipe your credit card if your time has any value at all. Sure, some if the content may be fun but it is so unrewarding that the time investment isn’t worth it.

The game offers both options….one being easier than another in no way FORCES anyone to choose one over the other.

At least this game presents options….