Guild Wars 2

Just spent my first and last $10 on gems to open a few chests. Not worth it by a long shot.

People will spend money when you deliver value, but the current suite of chest contents aren’t worth the money. Improvement needed.

Neverwinter’s nightmare chests are far more gratifying to open because the loot is better.

sfidare.2503:

Just spent my first and last $10 on gems to open a few chests. Not worth it by a long shot.

People will spend money when you deliver value, but the current suite of chest contents aren’t worth the money. Improvement needed.

Neverwinter’s nightmare chests are far more gratifying to open because the loot is better.

Thats why everyone loves Gw2 – no need of using the gemstore, it`s only a way to show the devs your support

sfidare.2503:

Just spent my first and last $10 on gems to open a few chests. Not worth it by a long shot.

People will spend money when you deliver value, but the current suite of chest contents aren’t worth the money. Improvement needed.

Neverwinter’s nightmare chests are far more gratifying to open because the loot is better.

You do realize that there’s no guarantee on what you get from the chests, right? RNG is RNG.

In my opinion, Anet made a great effort in not providing ptw items on the gem store.
Nearly everything is convenience or cosmetic and its a good approach. Unfortunately, RNG based items like the BLTC are part of the deal.

Personally i never spent any real money on gems but propably surpassed the 40k gem mark that i bought with in game gold now.

A good chunk of it was for keys.

I never have spent money on RNG items, however I will spend time to get them……having said that after the lastest patch, I seriously doubt I will even spend time doing in in future.

Last night I used two keys and got a 2 dumb boosters a stupid dye and 2 annoying tomes of knowlege, The last item must have been really bad because I can’t even remember what it was.

I used a BLKey that I got from the Personal Story last night. To my surprise, I actually got another BLKey from the Chest. I thought the Chests didn’t drop keys anymore?

The second chest had a Scrap in it, for the record. Yay? :P I’m now up to 7 Scraps.

lol… Zaxres you have renewed my faith

I dunno if it’s just me, but scrap droprate was improved with this patch?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

sfidare.2503:

Just spent my first and last $10 on gems to open a few chests. Not worth it by a long shot.

People will spend money when you deliver value, but the current suite of chest contents aren’t worth the money. Improvement needed.

Neverwinter’s nightmare chests are far more gratifying to open because the loot is better.

You do realize that there’s no guarantee on what you get from the chests, right? RNG is RNG.

Wrong — thier RNG is broken, doesn’t apply equally to all accounts--they know its’ broken and can’t find where the problem is.

OK, I know this is in the area of tinfoil hats and everything, but in my experience, the results of the first BL key is usually pretty good. This got me wondering – because if it’s programmed like that, it would be pretty smart right? (you get the taste of success, so you continue gambling!). So I tested it, because using 25 keys at once rarely got me anywhere.

So, I used 1 key a day. Surprisingly, this netted me with consistent scraps, I’d say one to two full tickets per 25 keys. And if I didn’t get a scrap, I got another good result (e.g. an expensive BL item). It was slow, but at least I got my scraps. In this manner, I got at least twice as many scraps as I would opening many BL chests all at once. I’d really like to see the test results of others over, say, 25 days, but I also realize noone would be even remotely interested to replicate my crazy tinfoil hat experiment. Plus, this experiment was done before the recent overhaul, so it might be completely outdated information anyway.

The only thing I use gems for IS the chests (I did buy character slots, bank expansion and all of the gathering tools with gems but now those tools are account bound, I just swap them onto the character I may be using that day). I have had excellent luck and now that the tonics will be gone, I will continue to buy gems from gold and turnover chests.

Very rarely is a chest devoid of anything useful. It may be an armor, killstreak, crafting or speed booster but those have tangible value. Dyes are always useful considering they are character bound.

I think you should give the chests more of a chance, try saving 40 gold and convert that to gems, it should give you enough to get another 5 keys…..

Buttercup. That is a fascinating find and fascinating idea.

Cassocaster: Would you be better off with what you got from the chests or taking the same number of gems, converting them to gold and buying what you want on TP?
In order for keys to have value, you would have to value (and that is very subjective to the player) what you get from a chest (random) versus what you could get that you pick TP. Given the randomness there would be a pretty compelling case for the chest to be quite a bit better.

I’ve had mixed results and I’m still on the fence about them. Last night however I got my best item so far. I randomly got a key from a normal mob in Iron Marches and decided to use it right away. To my surprise I got an endless mystery tonic (the furniture one). These sell for like 400 gold on the TP. But I have the worst luck with scraps, so far I’ve only gotten about 3 from 25 or so chests.

Most of the things in the gemstore aren’t really worth their price.

For example, it would take you a long, long time gathering with an infinite harvesting tool to gather the amount of mats you could get by simply converting the same amount of gems to gold and buying the mats off the trading post.

The same effect is true for pretty much everything in the trading post that isn’t an exclusive armor skin.

But apparently people would rather have the items for the novelty of it, so they keep buying them, so ANet has no reason to lower prices.

Bombsaway.7198:

Buttercup. That is a fascinating find and fascinating idea.

Cassocaster: Would you be better off with what you got from the chests or taking the same number of gems, converting them to gold and buying what you want on TP?
In order for keys to have value, you would have to value (and that is very subjective to the player) what you get from a chest (random) versus what you could get that you pick TP. Given the randomness there would be a pretty compelling case for the chest to be quite a bit better.

At this point, my 2 main toons have ascended weapons, one has a full complement of ascended trinkets and I am working on the second set. I only use gold for market speculation and consumables since I am very tied to the looks I have created for my characters and believe them, currently, to be “tricked out” as far as I want to take them.

This means I have surplus gold (no, I won’t send anyone any of it) and no true “want” for my characters that cannot be crafted since I am 400 in chef, jeweler, armorsmith and 500 in huntsmen, weapon smith, artificer and leather smith. Tailor is only to 435 but I am not rushing that. That and creative skinning (like using Godskull weapons, for example, or karma armor) keeps my costs down, I have the mats from farming and drops/salvage.

I take a small amount of that gold to take a stab at getting some cool item but always come back with something useful. I can see your point, if I wanted high end dyes still, I am not going to roll the dice with a BLTC chest because 40 gold can buy a number of very rare dyes but the chance at something new or out of reach in a chest is very low.

I look at my key purchases to be a bit like lottery tickets, few win big but only those that play can win.

Gibson.4036:

Most of the things in the gemstore aren’t really worth their price.

For example, it would take you a long, long time gathering with an infinite harvesting tool to gather the amount of mats you could get by simply converting the same amount of gems to gold and buying the mats off the trading post.

The same effect is true for pretty much everything in the trading post that isn’t an exclusive armor skin.

But apparently people would rather have the items for the novelty of it, so they keep buying them, so ANet has no reason to lower prices.

To be honest, the gathering tools would take years to pay for themselves but for me it is the convenience and backpack space. I never have to wonder or waste space on spares. This may seem to be a stretch for some but it makes my play time easier and the sickle from the Aetherblade release can be used as I run by a node, I don’t even stop….the orich sickle takes 3X the time.

Cassocaster.4576:

The only thing I use gems for IS the chests (I did buy character slots, bank expansion and all of the gathering tools with gems but now those tools are account bound, I just swap them onto the character I may be using that day). I have had excellent luck and now that the tonics will be gone, I will continue to buy gems from gold and turnover chests.

Very rarely is a chest devoid of anything useful. It may be an armor, killstreak, crafting or speed booster but those have tangible value. Dyes are always useful considering they are character bound.

I think you should give the chests more of a chance, try saving 40 gold and convert that to gems, it should give you enough to get another 5 keys…..

I’ll stick with farming the keys instead from the PS. That gets me a key and around 10s.

Switching out some of the booster for the bonfire was a nice change. Would have been even nicer if all the boosters were removed and their chances added to the bonfire(maybe with a bit of reduction since bonfires are shared).

I have 12 crafting boosters sitting in the bank but at most I’ll have use for 2 of them for cooking and jewelcrafting. 1 if they release both at the same time. Only needed half a booster for each of the other professions and I think half of that time was wasted chatting in LA.

Thanks John. Never thought I’d get an answer on this from you, but I’ve come to trust your answers blindly.

Gibson.4036:

Most of the things in the gemstore aren’t really worth their price.

For example, it would take you a long, long time gathering with an infinite harvesting tool to gather the amount of mats you could get by simply converting the same amount of gems to gold and buying the mats off the trading post.

The same effect is true for pretty much everything in the trading post that isn’t an exclusive armor skin.

But apparently people would rather have the items for the novelty of it, so they keep buying them, so ANet has no reason to lower prices.

People keep throwing this out here. The Gemstore is not for P2W. It’s for convenience. People buy those picks because it’s convenient to never have to worry about buying picks or having 5 stacks take up space.

Vol.7601:

Gibson.4036:

Most of the things in the gemstore aren’t really worth their price.

For example, it would take you a long, long time gathering with an infinite harvesting tool to gather the amount of mats you could get by simply converting the same amount of gems to gold and buying the mats off the trading post.

The same effect is true for pretty much everything in the trading post that isn’t an exclusive armor skin.

But apparently people would rather have the items for the novelty of it, so they keep buying them, so ANet has no reason to lower prices.

People keep throwing this out here. The Gemstore is not for P2W. It’s for convenience. People buy those picks because it’s convenient to never have to worry about buying picks or having 5 stacks take up space.

Also never having to worry about “… why am I getting ruined ore chunks I just equipped the ori pick … wait why do I still have mithril pick? oh! I tried to equip 1 second too early before dropping combat! >_<”. Buying picks was never an issue for me. Also accidentally swapping TO mithril picks before mining ori before I forgot I already had the ori picks equipped or having to worry about swapping tools ahead of time because the node is near a statue and that would put me in combat.

I farm the keys, and sometimes I get great stuff…sometimes, not so much.

My first chest after the update didn’t have anything I especially liked, but it was nice to get something other than Mystery Tonics (regular ones). I have 11 scraps saved up so far, only 59 more to go! Lol.

John Smith.4610:

Buttercup.5871:

OK, I know this is in the area of tinfoil hats and everything, but in my experience, the results of the first BL key is usually pretty good. This got me wondering – because if it’s programmed like that, it would be pretty smart right? (you get the taste of success, so you continue gambling!). So I tested it, because using 25 keys at once rarely got me anywhere.

So, I used 1 key a day. Surprisingly, this netted me with consistent scraps, I’d say one to two full tickets per 25 keys. And if I didn’t get a scrap, I got another good result (e.g. an expensive BL item). It was slow, but at least I got my scraps. In this manner, I got at least twice as many scraps as I would opening many BL chests all at once. I’d really like to see the test results of others over, say, 25 days, but I also realize noone would be even remotely interested to replicate my crazy tinfoil hat experiment. Plus, this experiment was done before the recent overhaul, so it might be completely outdated information anyway.

I promise you, there are no secret mechanics involved in the chest openings.

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There are a couple of secret Charr mechanics hanging out near a blown out tank in a ravine somewhere in Ascalon. If you help them rebuild the tank they give you one of their warband bandanas.

Yesterday I was leveling an alt to get story achievements and I was reminded that I get a free key as lvl 10 personal story reward, what did I get from that BLC? I received:

- 1 WXP
- 2 mystery tonics
- 2 mystery tonics
The mystery tonics stacked in my inventory. How is this even possible?
Did this ever happen to someone else? This seems to not be acting as intended or I hope so because that is really not worth gems to gain a chance to get twice the low-tier rewards.

John Smith.4610:

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There is a chicken in Tyria that you can try to kill, but you just make him angry, and you won’t like him that way.

No no, that’s a gimmick, not a mechanic.

Blude.6812:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

sfidare.2503:

Just spent my first and last $10 on gems to open a few chests. Not worth it by a long shot.

People will spend money when you deliver value, but the current suite of chest contents aren’t worth the money. Improvement needed.

Neverwinter’s nightmare chests are far more gratifying to open because the loot is better.

You do realize that there’s no guarantee on what you get from the chests, right? RNG is RNG.

Wrong — thier RNG is broken, doesn’t apply equally to all accounts--they know its’ broken and can’t find where the problem is.

Do you have any quotes to back it up?

My luck here with the RNG is about the same everywhere else in MMO land.

Abysmal :p

Is that chicken organic? If so, I’ll pass

Bombsaway.7198:

Is that chicken organic? If so, I’ll pass

You rather have a rubber chicken?

I once spent gems on 25 BL keys and got 6 scraps +worthless boosters.

I since flip the TP and get any weapon I want.

Hard to write the moral of the story without curse words… :-/

Vol.7601:

Gibson.4036:

Most of the things in the gemstore aren’t really worth their price.

For example, it would take you a long, long time gathering with an infinite harvesting tool to gather the amount of mats you could get by simply converting the same amount of gems to gold and buying the mats off the trading post.

The same effect is true for pretty much everything in the trading post that isn’t an exclusive armor skin.

But apparently people would rather have the items for the novelty of it, so they keep buying them, so ANet has no reason to lower prices.

People keep throwing this out here. The Gemstore is not for P2W. It’s for convenience. People buy those picks because it’s convenient to never have to worry about buying picks or having 5 stacks take up space.

Yeah, I get that, but a lot of people don’t. It’s confusing to people. Just like the OP, who is looking at BLT chests and thinking there should be more value in what they contain for the cost of the keys. But that’s not how Black Lion items work. In the end, if you’re going for value, it’s almost always better to just exchange gems for gold and skip the middle man of the boost/harvesting tool/whatever.

You pay a hefty premium on Black Lion items for novelty/convenience. Black Lion keys are really just lottery tickets. There’s a very rare chance you’ll get something good out of it, but most often you won’t get nearly as much out of it as you put in.

John Smith.4610:

Buttercup.5871:

OK, I know this is in the area of tinfoil hats and everything, but in my experience, the results of the first BL key is usually pretty good. This got me wondering – because if it’s programmed like that, it would be pretty smart right? (you get the taste of success, so you continue gambling!). So I tested it, because using 25 keys at once rarely got me anywhere.

So, I used 1 key a day. Surprisingly, this netted me with consistent scraps, I’d say one to two full tickets per 25 keys. And if I didn’t get a scrap, I got another good result (e.g. an expensive BL item). It was slow, but at least I got my scraps. In this manner, I got at least twice as many scraps as I would opening many BL chests all at once. I’d really like to see the test results of others over, say, 25 days, but I also realize noone would be even remotely interested to replicate my crazy tinfoil hat experiment. Plus, this experiment was done before the recent overhaul, so it might be completely outdated information anyway.

I promise you, there are no secret mechanics involved in the chest openings.

Are you sure? not even if you stand in a less populated spot on a map like just outside the bank in the black citadel?

Sorry Buttercup , I just could’t help myself :-P

John Smith.4610:

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There is a chicken in Tyria that you can try to kill, but you just make him angry, and you won’t like him that way.

Is there something secret about the demotion of the Owl in Queensdale (of the Owl and Raccoon strolling buddies) from yellow to white? The Raccoon was white and the Owl was always yellow. After this patch, Owl is white…and looks sad like it was caught strolling around without Raccoon and was demoted.

What did Owl do to deserve this?

Lisa.6102:

John Smith.4610:

Buttercup.5871:

OK, I know this is in the area of tinfoil hats and everything, but in my experience, the results of the first BL key is usually pretty good. This got me wondering – because if it’s programmed like that, it would be pretty smart right? (you get the taste of success, so you continue gambling!). So I tested it, because using 25 keys at once rarely got me anywhere.

So, I used 1 key a day. Surprisingly, this netted me with consistent scraps, I’d say one to two full tickets per 25 keys. And if I didn’t get a scrap, I got another good result (e.g. an expensive BL item). It was slow, but at least I got my scraps. In this manner, I got at least twice as many scraps as I would opening many BL chests all at once. I’d really like to see the test results of others over, say, 25 days, but I also realize noone would be even remotely interested to replicate my crazy tinfoil hat experiment. Plus, this experiment was done before the recent overhaul, so it might be completely outdated information anyway.

I promise you, there are no secret mechanics involved in the chest openings.

Are you sure? not even if you stand in a less populated spot on a map like just outside the bank in the black citadel?

Sorry Buttercup , I just could’t help myself :-P

Funny huh. I think after testing 20.000 dragon boxes in 2 different ways I was allowed to voice that theory. In LA no tickets, in that place at least 2 tickets per 1k boxes (one time: 7). Consistently and without exception. I know that thinking out of the box is scary to people, but in MMO’s this made me a very rich man. From 2 years in Aion I learned server/area population can affect many things, including loot tables.

Buttercup.5871:

Funny huh. I think after testing 20.000 dragon boxes in 2 different ways I was allowed to voice that theory. In LA no tickets, in that place at least 2 tickets per 1k boxes (one time: 7). Consistently and without exception. I know that thinking out of the box is scary to people, but in MMO’s this made me a very rich man. From 2 years in Aion I learned server/area population can affect many things, including loot tables.

While bugs are always possible and can cause some strange results, it’s important to remember that these things are unintended side effects and not actually programmed to happen that way. If you find evidence of this you should file a bug report so it can be investigated and fixed. Of course, those who find “good bugs” will understandably be reluctant to do so…

John Smith.4610:

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There is a chicken in Tyria that you can try to kill, but you just make him angry, and you won’t like him that way.

I know this chicken! I attacked it and it got angry, and another player saw it and we decided to kill it. Suffice it to say, it’s HP bar didn’t budge after nearly 3 whole minutes attacking. We gave up and ran away.

Current streak is still going… up to 18 chests without a single scrap atm.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Current streak is still going… up to 18 chests without a single scrap atm.

I’ve opened hundreds of chests, probably close to 400 at this point. I’ve gotten 2 whole tickets and 6 tickets worth of scraps (which got me 3 chiro greatsword skins (I bought them during Halloween, only 1 ticket and sold for 85 G a piece); a pair of scelerite skins and one zodiac to flip, total gain on those was about 150 gold). I also got a ton of things I won’t use as well as a lot of loot of varying value, including exotics and a ton of rares.

How many lottery tickets do you buy before you win? Do you keep buying lottery tickets? I am going to guess yes. This is the exact same principal except if you hit big with a chest you will never again argue with the process.

I have killed probably 250,000 NPCs in PvE and have 6500 kills in WvW. I got one precursor on a random mob drop. That one precursor was enough to never complain about RNG again.

I killed the chicken and was disappointed when it died like any other ambient creature and didn’t drop anything.

Lesson learned: don’t waste time because you’re not going to be rewarded.

For the record, I think John is referring to an actual risen chicken in the game. You meet it during the mission “estate of decay” in the personal story line. You can’t kill the chicken until the conversation between Galina and Snarl has ended (Galina Edgecrusher: “That’s the most resilient chicken ever. Whoa – it’s coming right at us!”). If you do try to engage the chicken, it can kill you but you can’t kill it.

Buttercup.5871:

For the record, I think John is referring to an actual risen chicken in the game. You meet it during the mission “estate of decay” in the personal story line. You can’t kill the chicken until the conversation between Galina and Snarl has ended (Galina Edgecrusher: “That’s the most resilient chicken ever. Whoa – it’s coming right at us!”). If you do try to engage the chicken, it can kill you but you can’t kill it.

There’s also a chicken in ebonhawke that is immortal.

i always see chests as cheap money making business and not one you should encourage, up till now i barely opened a chest (about 20 or so, am an alt-a-holic) but all i get are boosters, summons or jet more junk.
i don’t care about them, i only have 1 scrap and can’t really do anything with that now can i.
even cheap F2P MMO’s have this and there the key drop has a higher drop rate then out here, till now i have never bought a key ever and never will.

if i buy something in a game with real money then i better have a guaranteed good drop, if not then no way ill ever buy such a thing.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Buttercup.5871:

For the record, I think John is referring to an actual risen chicken in the game. You meet it during the mission “estate of decay” in the personal story line. You can’t kill the chicken until the conversation between Galina and Snarl has ended (Galina Edgecrusher: “That’s the most resilient chicken ever. Whoa – it’s coming right at us!”). If you do try to engage the chicken, it can kill you but you can’t kill it.

There’s also a chicken in ebonhawke that is immortal.

It’s not immortal, just hard to kill. I killed it once with about 5 other players, took a while but eventually he died.

The problem with these chests are they are not worth the cost.

I have opened a few reciently because i was getting them for free on map complete.
However after using the free keys, i can say for a fact i am NEVER purchasing one.

Is this the kind of marketing you guys really want?
Because this is the marketing that these chests are giving.

Also replacing guild discoveries with essences of luck was a TERRIBLE move.

Which person in upper management thought this was a good swap?
Because we can get essences by just breaking down blues and greens, guild discovery on the other hand is something which requires more capital.

Anyhow, for those of u guys who want to still gamble on this long dark hole that we call the black lions chest, hats off to you.

However you will never see me waste any of my real money, or converted gold money on keys, in which the only way i will be happy would require a near godly RNG table of luck.

Again.. i thought the point in these chest was for anet to make money….
Yet im pretty sure no one will spend real money on getting keys after opening a few.

Now if u want to waste or burn your gold converted gems… then again.. that is your call, however thats not how anet makes money.

So I got a key from my personal story. Happily I bought a Black Lion Chest from TP and opened it. It gave me the following:

- Unidentified Dye
- Mysterious Tonic (1 use)
- WXP Booster

Seriously Anet? That’s your upgrade?
Just to be clear I have Game messages turned on, so it lets me see clearly what I received.
Regardless, I’m quite disappointed with the “upgrade” you guys did.

and there are guides out there to farm keys by creating a new toon, personal story, get key—delete and repeat. Some quick guides suggest 20-30 minutes each time.

Cassocaster.4576:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Current streak is still going… up to 18 chests without a single scrap atm.

I’ve opened hundreds of chests, probably close to 400 at this point. I’ve gotten 2 whole tickets and 6 tickets worth of scraps (which got me 3 chiro greatsword skins (I bought them during Halloween, only 1 ticket and sold for 85 G a piece); a pair of scelerite skins and one zodiac to flip, total gain on those was about 150 gold). I also got a ton of things I won’t use as well as a lot of loot of varying value, including exotics and a ton of rares.

How many lottery tickets do you buy before you win? Do you keep buying lottery tickets? I am going to guess yes. This is the exact same principal except if you hit big with a chest you will never again argue with the process.

I have killed probably 250,000 NPCs in PvE and have 6500 kills in WvW. I got one precursor on a random mob drop. That one precursor was enough to never complain about RNG again.

My only point was the horrible RNG that I have been experiencing. 0 for 18. No ticket scraps.

The calculated drop rate chance for a ticket scrap has been said to be around 1 in 5. Your odds of 8 full tickets (80 scraps) out of 400 chests confirms these odds.

If my luck was ‘average’ I should have seen about 3 ticket scraps out of 18 chests. But my luck just plain sucks. Zero.

Naekuh.7925:

The problem with these chests are they are not worth the cost.

Working as intended. It’s a lottery. Might as well complain that a lotto ticket isn’t worth the money.

Again.. i thought the point in these chest was for anet to make money….
Yet im pretty sure no one will spend real money on getting keys after opening a few.

Clearly you’re wrong. Buying keys to open chests has been a losing proposition from the start of the game. Nevertheless, they remain in the game with only small tweaks to their loot tables every once in a while, and no apparent change to the rarity of items worth anything.

Ms. Cox isn’t dumb. If they weren’t making money, she’d have changed something by now.

Gibson.4036:

Naekuh.7925:

The problem with these chests are they are not worth the cost.

Working as intended. It’s a lottery. Might as well complain that a lotto ticket isn’t worth the money.

Again.. i thought the point in these chest was for anet to make money….
Yet im pretty sure no one will spend real money on getting keys after opening a few.

Clearly you’re wrong. Buying keys to open chests has been a losing proposition from the start of the game. Nevertheless, they remain in the game with only small tweaks to their loot tables every once in a while, and no apparent change to the rarity of items worth anything.

Ms. Cox isn’t dumb. If they weren’t making money, she’d have changed something by now.

Unfortunately a fool and their money are soon to part; thus the cost of those keys is still inflated far beyond their worth.