I thought that buying 25 keys for chests would give me at least one black lion ticket… but no… only scraps, boosters and one okay dye. 2 dyes worth 99c and 2s95c. Tybalt backpack and scarlet holo mini.
Did I fall for a trap, is it known that you get nothing good out of the chests? Or did RNG just really kitten me over?
If this is normal, does arena-net punish customers by lowering any good drops form chests because they are aware or key farmer and want to decrease their profit? Would love to hear someone elses opinion and experience?
Maybe I was hoping for more, but not expecting! My question was, if it is normal to not get anything in 25 chests? And if yes, is it due to the fact that Arena net can’t oversaturate the market with things they would normally sell, because there are so many key farmer?
Is it so weird to see a connection between the two?
It’s not a trap. It’s just random. It’s terrible and unrewarding, but that information is pretty easily available. It sounds like your luck is a little on the poor side, in this instance, but there’s no guaranteed way to get a scrap/ticket from the chests. Also, it’s really not worth speculating on any level of conspiracy from ANET, as there’s absolutely no way to verify or disprove any of that. If you want to believe it, that’s your issue, but nobody who is in the know will be confirming it.
“Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but what about the recent drought of content?”
-Mike O’Brien
Because we can’t be angry about both?
The drop rates for tickets are low, but decent for scraps. But in general, the drop rates for most of the things that most people want are low enough that a lot of people will need to open more than 25 chests before they see it.
Think of it as a lottery: if you enjoy the anticipation of opening to be worth the price, great. If not, you can just about anything else directly for cheaper on the TP or in the gem shop, by converting gems to gold (or just avoiding converting gold to gems).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
People who farm value their time close to zero. Any item that can be achieved through farming consistently will therefore always be undervalued.
You will always be better off just buying the weapons off the TP while they are still available for 1 ticket. This would also be the case if real money was the only method to participate in RNG as lucky people always undervalue their luck.
Don’t listen to the people suggesting you simply were on the bad end of RNG, you’re paying for a raffle where most of the tickets are handed out to people for free.
Well, everyone think “I will be the one that can get [Insert a name of a super rare item]” so it’s quite normal to give keys a try. But nope, usually it’s not you the lucky one.
The odds at one time was something in line with 1 in 4 or 5 for a scrap and 1 in 40 or 50 for a ticket. That meant on average with a large enough sample that 50 keys would yield 1 to 1.25 tickets and 10 to 12.5 scraps for another 1 to 1.25 tickets. So 2 to 2.5 tickets per 50 keys or 1 to 1.25 tickets per 25 keys, on AVERAGE when looking at 100s of open chests.
But probabilities don’t work that way. Using the better odds of 1 in 4 and 1 in 40, with 25 keys you have a 53.1% chance of not finding a whole ticket and a 92.9% chance of finding fewer than 10 scraps. Those aren’t great odds, roughly a 50% chance, a coin flip. of not getting enough scraps or finding a whole ticket with only 25 keys.
50 keys are a lot better but it’s still a 28.2% chance of no whole ticket and a 16.4% chance of fewer than 10 scraps. That’s still a 4.6% chance of not getting the equivalent of a ticket but a 66.3% of 2 or more; 32.4% of 3 or more.
Now 50 keys cost 4200 gems, that’s worth 510 gold when exchanged. You can pretty much buy any of the available skins including most of the 7 ticket ones.
You had some bad luck, but not spectacularly bad luck. 25 keys has a roughly even chance of giving you a full ticket outright, and failing that should give you ~6-8 scraps, putting you close to a full ticket. Plus you can always get lucky with a good dye or one of the contracts.
Last time I bought a 25 pack of keys I ended up with 2 full tickets and a bunch of scraps. You just had a fairly bad pull. Keys are a much better deal now than they’ve been in the past – there’s still a lot of luck involved, for sure, but you aren’t very obviously better off turning the gems into gold and just buying what you want, like you were in the past.
The only time I got keys in bulk it was part of a package that included other stuff I wanted. 15 keys yielded me 1 scrap. That was pretty bad luck, but occasionally it’s going to play out that way. No trap, except in as much as all Skinner Boxes are traps.
Mhmmm… so is it really like ensign said? I need to buy everything with gold or be playing the game at the time that the skin came out? And If I neither have the gold nor the time at that EXACT time, I can just forget the skin because there is no reliable way of getting tickets? (besides key farming)
I understand that I might be exaggerating a bit, but I am still a bit confused what the reasoning is for such low rates of these tickets. The only thing that comes to my mind, is that they don’t want to reward key farmers. When was the last time you got the key from a normal mob in PvE or PvP? Exactly! Is there another way of getting keys that I forgot?
But yeah I learned my lesson, don’t buy keys… but Herr der Friedhöfe, even if it is RNG a company that makes money from gem purchases should maybe think of adjusting the RNG. Just my personal opinion though.
Yup food for whales or new players, it’s better to just buy the skin with gold. It’s even better to spend only gold in the gem store, never real cash, otherwise the only content we will see is more cash shop.
The only time it’s okay to buy keys is if you think of them as the occasional scratch ticket or dropping $5 on Powerball when the jackpot is $300 million. If you are lucky, you might win $3. If very lucky you’ll get $10. But if, in the case of Powerball, you are blowing $100s or $1000s because you think you’ll break even or get 5 or more numbers, you’re in trouble.
Keys are grab bags of minor gem store items with the off chance, of a chance, to get something worth the investment. Otherwise learn to get excited over a dye pack or a hairstyle kit.
I believe keys are better to buy than buying all the ‘junk’ that keys give. So if you wanted boosters, revive orbs, and repair canisters, it would be better to buy keys than each of those specifically. If you’re buying them for the non-account-bound items, you’re going to have a bad time.
heh, and in SW:ToR it’s the exact opposite.
you always have a guaranteed good drop, 3 even most of the time and most packs drop at least around 5-8 items.
Anet just made the chests wrong, added plenty of junk, to less good stuff and made them drop barely anything at all.
Maybe. Like a lot of people will tell you Black Lion Chests are a huge gamble. I buy keys from time to time primarily for the chance to get scraps/tickets and sometimes it can be hugely disappointing when you open ten or more and get maybe like 4 scraps, but aside from those the chests come with a lot of useful items from the gem store like boosts, dye kits, and identity kits. I don’t mean to brag but I once received a Permanent Black Lion Merchant that I sold for over 200g, but that was like 1 in maybe 100 chests.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you buy the chests solely for scraps and tickets you might be wasting your money, especially if you feel like the other stuff is pure garbage.
Mhmmm… so is it really like ensign said? I need to buy everything with gold or be playing the game at the time that the skin came out? And If I neither have the gold nor the time at that EXACT time, I can just forget the skin because there is no reliable way of getting tickets? (besides key farming)
I understand that I might be exaggerating a bit, but I am still a bit confused what the reasoning is for such low rates of these tickets. The only thing that comes to my mind, is that they don’t want to reward key farmers. When was the last time you got the key from a normal mob in PvE or PvP? Exactly! Is there another way of getting keys that I forgot?
But yeah I learned my lesson, don’t buy keys… but Herr der Friedhöfe, even if it is RNG a company that makes money from gem purchases should maybe think of adjusting the RNG. Just my personal opinion though.
This might not be what you want to hear, but if you want X and you can get it from the chests or the TP. 9 out of 10 times it is a better use of the $ to buy the gems and convert it to gold and buy the item out right from the TP.
“A conquered people will always resist you,
Edair. But allies-allies will fight by your side”~Cobiah Mariner
They are a gamble, and a gamble that’s priced for customers that throw tons of money at the game. If you’re just going to spend $10, $20 on gems and only want the skins you’re going to be better off buying gold with your gems and buying the skins you want directly.
Keys aren’t a terrible deal though. The tickets and ticket scraps are great, of course, and there’s a lot of value locked up in things like black lion salvage kits and, while rare, the permanent contracts. If you enjoy the gamble and get mileage out of the boosters and the like I wouldn’t dissuade you from buying, but you’re going to have bad luck on occasion and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
They are a gamble, and a gamble that’s priced for customers that throw tons of money at the game. If you’re just going to spend $10, $20 on gems and only want the skins you’re going to be better off buying gold with your gems and buying the skins you want directly.
Keys aren’t a terrible deal though. The tickets and ticket scraps are great, of course, and there’s a lot of value locked up in things like black lion salvage kits and, while rare, the permanent contracts. If you enjoy the gamble and get mileage out of the boosters and the like I wouldn’t dissuade you from buying, but you’re going to have bad luck on occasion and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
Gonna throw in the leveling scrolls too. While their value depends heavily on who has them at the time I picked up 7 levels with my keys yesterday.
“A conquered people will always resist you,
Edair. But allies-allies will fight by your side”~Cobiah Mariner
Maybe I was hoping for more, but not expecting! My question was, if it is normal to not get anything in 25 chests? And if yes, is it due to the fact that Arena net can’t oversaturate the market with things they would normally sell, because there are so many key farmer?
Is it so weird to see a connection between the two?
How many scraps did you get? Scrap drop rate is about .3, so I think you got about 6-7 scraps…
