Guild Wars 2

Those items:
Personal Black Lion trader Express
Personal Black Lion Merchant Express
Permanent Bank Access Express

Do they still drop from Black Lion chests?
It’s the main reason I purchase Black lion key, but I’m at 150€ spend (100 today alone) in keys so far and got none of them.

How rare are them to not drop after more than 100 chests open? To be honest, I feel kind of stupid for spending so much on something that could/should be sold directly on the Gem store and have my inventory cluttered with non stacking black lion tools just because the RNG on those is on par with Precursors.

I got the Personal Black Lion Trader Express like 2 weeks ago after randomly opening 1 chest. I wasn’t even trying to get it. I have almost 100 chests sitting in my bank, and I got 1 key from completing a zone… and I got a permanent trading post dude!

Errr
You can get “Black Lion Trader Express”, “Black Lion Merchant Express” and “Bank Access Express” on the Trade Post. You buy them with gems and there price are 35-50 gems for one. With various discount offers.

Now they are not personal as you ask for, but apart from being accessible by all, then they do them same thing.

Regards
Hill

The Personal and Permanent Items are usable ad nauseam. Meaning that anywhere (but maybe spvp) you can access those services anytime any number of time.

Like Forever. And Ever. Like now. or now. or now…

Hill.5107:

Errr
You can get “Black Lion Trader Express”, “Black Lion Merchant Express” and “Bank Access Express” on the Trade Post. You buy them with gems and there price are 35-50 gems for one. With various discount offers.

Now they are not personal as you ask for, but apart from being accessible by all, then they do them same thing.

Regards
Hill

The drops are permanent and free. They last forever, no matter how many times you use. The express do the same thing except that they cost, and have only one use. BIG difference! I lucked out and got the permanent bank express from a chest, I can use it anywhere,anytime and forever. I would love to get the permanent trader express!

Blude.6812:

The drops are permanent and free. They last forever, no matter how many times you use. The express do the same thing except that they cost, and have only one use. BIG difference! I lucked out and got the permanent bank express from a chest, I can use it anywhere,anytime and forever. I would love to get the permanent trader express!

Did you get that recently? I want to know before dumping another 50€ on the odd chance I got one before the Black Friday promo ends.

off topic question, can you get the black lion keys anywhere else apart from gem store ?

angan.6572:

off topic question, can you get the black lion keys anywhere else apart from gem store ?

Not a lot of them. You get one for completing the level 1-10 story chain, and I think also for 2-3 other story chains per character as you go, and then you can randomly get one for each map completion, but these are fairly rare. I haven’t found one as an actual drop since beta.

angan.6572:

off topic question, can you get the black lion keys anywhere else apart from gem store ?

you can get them by trading captain’s council commendation at lion’s arch now

OK, that’s it ! Over 250 chests opened and not even one. I’m done with randomness in this game.

So basically I burned more than 200 bucks in the game for a fleeting hope of getting something awesome and got nothing but junk and wasted space. Precursors are notoriously impossible to obtain and I lost a lot of time and ig-gold in the mystic forge where nothing at all is awarded for what I threw at Zommoros. I am not giving any more money to anet until the situation on RNG changes.

I completely understand that nobody forced my to purchased gems/keys with real money, but now that’s beyond ridiculous. Kitten it, I feel so kitten and cheated now.

Now I demand recipes to transform those 20ish bank access/trader/merchant I got from those kitten black lion chest.
And I can’t believe you can’t stack those black lion tools! That’s just bullkitten!

And Yes, I used “kitten” instead of all the potential swearing.

Vereen Silenthunter.2704:

Blude.6812:

The drops are permanent and free. They last forever, no matter how many times you use. The express do the same thing except that they cost, and have only one use. BIG difference! I lucked out and got the permanent bank express from a chest, I can use it anywhere,anytime and forever. I would love to get the permanent trader express!

Did you get that recently? I want to know before dumping another 50€ on the odd chance I got one before the Black Friday promo ends.

Actually I’ve had it for a few weeks. My Ranger got it, and since it was account bound, I put in the bank and now my 30 guardian is using it. My buddy who started the game before me hasn’t got one yet—they must be rare or Anet has made them even harder to get without telling us they nerfed the drops to make them even more rare. I got over 50 BL chests that I was going to buy some keys for, but the Black Friday new 25 key lvl that they invented instead of offering 50% off the keys packs that were already in the store. I decided not to buy keys ( just short of the gems needed) and would consider the 50% 25 key package a complete rip off. If I could of bought a few of the 5 key packs at 5o% off I would have.

Yeah, if Black Lion gear stacked better, like you could accumulate stacks of 200+ Black Lion picks, then they would be much better. At they stand, they are some of the worst tools in the game.

Vereen Silenthunter.2704:

OK, that’s it ! Over 250 chests opened and not even one. I’m done with randomness in this game.

So basically I burned more than 200 bucks in the game for a fleeting hope of getting something awesome and got nothing but junk and wasted space.

Yup, this game is a gambling nightmare. Want gold? Gamble or grind (and I mean grind). Want your legendary? Gamble or grind (for gold of course). About the only thing you can get by not gambling for it is karma, but that’s practically useless. It’s beyond frustrating , to say the least.

Hey Vereen,

Sorry to hear this has happened to you. Actually, I really want the permanent BLTC NPC as well, but as I stated in another post: buying keys for a small chance of getting an item is a no go. I understand that other people who do buy keys think differently – I respect that. People can do what they wish with their own money.

When the permanent NPC were first announced I thought: It is likely – not definite, but likely – that the outcome of trying to get the Trading NPC by purchasing and using keys would result in an inventory full of items that I do not want but feel obligated to keep because I spent real cash on them.

Also, there would be no upper-bound on the amount of money I’d need to spend trying to get that one NPC. Hm… No thanks, I work pretty derned hard for my money. I think I’ll just buy food instead.

How many of you had similar thoughts? Did it affect your decision to buy/not buy keys?

I love this game to pieces, and want to support it with this green paper-stuff I have sitting about, but whatever set of policies drives the Gem shop offerings is excellent at keeping my wallet closed and in my pocket. That’s regrettable because I’d love, and I mean I-Would-Love, to give Arena Net my hard-earned cash to keep their business going. But I’m not going to just give it to them, they must provide value in exchange for my cash. And keys isn’t it.

But perhaps there’s something going on over there that demands that Keys and Chests stay in place. So I’d like to offer a compromise: Keep the chests as they are, but how about also offering a subscription service that gives its members the right to buy items outright? I coin this “Pay To Buy” (p2b). Here’s how it works:

p2b subscriptions are offered in 3-month installments (or some other number greater than one) at 12$ a month, for example. Subscribers are allowed to buy Chance-Items, like the permanent NPCs and Halloween weapon skins (but only during Halloween) outright at a fixed price.

Are you sales-people giggling like teeny boppers at their first rock concert yet? I’d pay you for the right to buy! Sound crazy? Run the experiment, see what happens. If they do I’m fedex’ing ArenaNet my wallet with orders to never allow me to see it again.

I will not buy keys though unless they are reduced to the equivalent of 1 penny per key (and the rare item drop rates are not decreased)

Marketing people: See how in ‘p2b’ the ‘b’ is actually a ‘p’ but flipped upside down. Isn’t that cool?! You could even make a cool, swooshy-looking ying-yang kinda logo out of it to market it! It would be aweso….sigh, I’m tired.

Just my two cents.

Vareen – again, I’m very sorry you’ve spent so much money with no reward.

-Vawn

Vawn.3041:

Hey Vereen,

Sorry to hear this has happened to you. Actually, I really want the permanent BLTC NPC as well, but as I stated in another post: buying keys for a small chance of getting an item is a no go. I understand that other people who do buy keys think differently – I respect that. People can do what they wish with their own money.

When the permanent NPC were first announced I thought: It is likely – not definite, but likely – that the outcome of trying to get the Trading NPC by purchasing and using keys would result in an inventory full of items that I do not want but feel obligated to keep because I spent real cash on them.

Also, there would be no upper-bound on the amount of money I’d need to spend trying to get that one NPC. Hm… No thanks, I work pretty derned hard for my money. I think I’ll just buy food instead.

How many of you had similar thoughts? Did it affect your decision to buy/not buy keys?

I love this game to pieces, and want to support it with this green paper-stuff I have sitting about, but whatever set of policies drives the Gem shop offerings is excellent at keeping my wallet closed and in my pocket. That’s regrettable because I’d love, and I mean I-Would-Love, to give Arena Net my hard-earned cash to keep their business going. But I’m not going to just give it to them, they must provide value in exchange for my cash. And keys isn’t it.

…

Thank you for taking the time to write this reply.

You captured very well the frustration coming from this situation.

That feeling of no upper-boundness is the main deal breaker for the cash shop for me as well. I love the games Anet put out so far and would be glad to throw money at them as well, but like a good Kickstarter I like to know that my money also gave some value back to me. Right now I am running around Tyria to spend my tools because I refuse to destroy anything I basically paid with real money. With that comes the inventory issue for those items incapable of stacking and experience boosters that are basically useless since the exp comes mostly from events and not creature kills.

And stop giving us tonics. Some people might like them but 3 per chest is overkill and clutters our inventories as well.

Now, to wait for the Wintersday event where I may eventually be able to Mystic forge away some boosts and stuff.

I don’t really know about the p2b stuff. But I’m sure I would pay if I could get those items for sure, because I’m a sucker for utilities.
I have my mystic forge conduit, and love it with passion, now that’s a great example of a permanent gizmo that’s done well. No matter how many mystic chests you opened, they are giving you parts in every chest that you can gather to eventually create waht you want. I just hope I could transform those tonic into black lion tokens I could exchange for utilities.

I made a post about this a while ago… in summary, I have opened more than 1000 chests with hard earned gold and about $100 of cash from the last sale, and only have 2 identical account bound endless tonics and an inventory full of useless crap to show for it. I was trying to get a perma trader npc fyi, but I’m going to move on now. Having dumped enough gold into keys to make a legendary for all my characters, I’m starting to think that I’m as much of an idiot as ANet must think for having dumped all that money, real and ingame, on this scam.

Here’s the thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/After-opening-2-stacks-of-BLCs-some-constructive-feedback/

I have not seen devs respond to any black lion chest related topics so far, so things are probably going to stay this way for the forseeable future.

I feel for those who fell into the trap and I thank you for posting your results. The Gem Store manager must be feeling pretty happy with themselves that they managed to get some people to spend $100+ on keys with that special. However, they would be ignoring the long term costs. People who feel cheated and all the business they might have gotten if the special had also applied to the smaller stacks.

BLCs are pretty much worthless now. The lack of keys to be gained in game seems to be designed to keep people wondering what goodies they are missing out on, rather than allowing them a few “free samples” that would just show them how worthless the chests really are.

BLC keys are just a lottery ticket, assuming that they didn’t remove the permanents entirely, which would just make them an absolute rip off with out even offering the possibility of something worth while.

I really hate that the Gem Store has gone this route. Rather than balanced offerings at a fair price, which would encourage many players to be regular customers, more and more of the gem store seems to be focused on fleecing a few impulsive players with some money to burn, rather than building steady revenue through loyalty and value.

Many of us would pay for worth while skins, renames and makeover tickets, but instead we have a lack of worthwhile skins, (the Light Armor Cash Shop is not worthy of a company like Arenanet), no renames, no makeovers, or any of a dozen other items and services the community has been asking for.

It’s almost like someone is enjoying the idea of giving people who buy gems as little in return as possible, rather than identifying things people really want and pricing those things so that most will agree they are actually worth the price of purchase…

I love how anet were first to respond to the ’don’t buy the garbage consortium chests’ thread but are not even touching this thread.

As always, we do not encourage anyone to spend more money in the Gem Store than they are comfortable with.

Not to be disagreeable, but this statement is highly inaccurate. You do encourage players to spend more money in the Gem Store than they are comfortable with, in deed if not in words. The evidence is in the post above, "the nature of random chance items means that you could get lucky and get a rare item after opening two chests, or… you could “roll” badly and open hundreds of chests and not get one. "

The entire mechanic is designed around getting players to spend more money than they are comfortable with, otherwise you wouldn’t reward them for “pulling the lever” continually. You can say that you do not encourage such behavior, but saying it doesn’t make it so. The only way to actually not encourage such behavior would be to not reward it, and to instead reward players for spending no more than a reasonable amount, for example a guaranteed “Spend X, receive Y.”

Cash money and randomized rewards should never interact, that is just straight up gambling. Or you could just go “all in” and add a bunch of slot machines and video poker to Lion’s Arch.

Ohoni nailed it. Another stickler is the fact that the price of 25 keys last weekend was hiked 40% (based on the price of 25 keys prior to the weekend) before the 50% discount.

The word you’re looking for, Nicole is “promote”. You don’t actively promote overspending, but you most definitely encourage it.

It could be my luck, but this is some of my own “encouragement” to people to be patient. I’ve completed 4 or 5 explorable zones (non-towns) in the past 2 weeks, receiving 1 BL key for 2 of those completions. If you wanna try your luck, get together with some friends and whip those WPs, POIs, and vistas.

Disclaimer: My guildmates have had worse afaik finding keys for completion, but the chance is there

The word you’re looking for, Nicole is “promote”. You don’t actively promote overspending, but you most definitely encourage it.

Yeah, while you couldn’t accurately say that ANet doesn’t “encourage” people spending too much, you could technically say that ANet doesn’t tell people to spend too much, since their encouragement is entirely through the mechanics of the system.

It’s like how casinos use site layout, the bells of the machines, oxygen feeds, and other psychological manipulations to encourage people to put another dollar into the slot machine. They don’t tell people to mortgage their how to cover their gambling addiction, but they certainly encourage it as best they can.

Nicolle Rodgers.4926:

The permanent items are rare, but the nature of random chance items means that you could get lucky and get a rare item after opening two chests, or… you could “roll” badly and open hundreds of chests and not get one. That is the way random chance works. However, Black Lion Chests do give useful items every time you open them. You may not get that elusive rare item you hope for, but you will get something you can use. As always, we do not encourage anyone to spend more money in the Gem Store than they are comfortable with.

Mz. Rodgers I have to say that is quite a disingenuous response. I’m sure by now everyone understands how RNG works and the type of mental reinforcement the Gem Store represents.

I’m not going to tell you how to run your business but I will say that if I felt the odds of me receiving a permanent item were greater than 0.01 or they were sold at a high(I’d be willing to spend 2000-3000 gems for the convenience) price individually/for a limited time only you would greatly encourage sales while removing what I feel is the horrible stigma of a terribly done cash shop on an otherwise profitable cashcow entertaining game.

As it stands my gems sit in the window with nothing whatsoever arousing me to purchase more gems, especially with real money, or purchase lottery tickets black lion keys.

A fool and his money are soon (easily) parted. Seriously spending large sums of money for something that gives you easy access to inventory bank? Maybe Anet will be encouraged to sell these items for $300, easy money for them. Some people are nothing short of stupid.

Cod Eye.1632:

A fool and his money are soon (easily) parted. Seriously spending large sums of money for something that gives you easy access to inventory bank? Maybe Anet will be encouraged to sell these items for $300, easy money for them. Some people are nothing short of stupid.

What a lovable post. Jerk.

The thing is, Anet do NOT give us the possibility to spend our money for assured convenience. I don’t feel stupid giving Anet my money if I think it will save me some gameplay time in the long run, I can afford it and that’s the point of Cash shop in most F2P/no monthly fees game.

Now, in this case, I feel stupid not getting anything of similar value in return.