Guild Wars 2

I bought a bunch of keys when Lovestruck weapons came out, never gonna do it again.

Pretty much every MMO with a cash shop has this kind of gamble items on sale, but it sucks… it wouldn’t be so bad though if they also sold weapon skins for a fixed price.

make BL chest just an alternative to get cash shop items, dont block stuff behind it, specially now with the wardrobe thing, more people will be willing to buy full sets of skins

No.

I don’t mind RNG stuff when they are an alternative to other things, but there’s absolutely no other source for too many of the things you can find in there. Yes, you can buy some off the trading post, but they originally had to come from those boxes.

On top of that, because of keys being farmable from the personal story, they had set the drops considering that, so they have HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY BAD drop rates. Finding a key as loot is never exciting, because you know you will most definitely get useless crap from them.

Because of that, farming 100 keys with personal story will always be better than paying for them. It’ll take a little fortune to get so many. And so, those that do not grind personal story for keys will see those boxes as mostly useless.

Seriously, they should have put 25 keys at the end of the entire personal story instead one at level 10, and 3 at other level not as may people reach. More people would join together in parties to get the whole story done faster that way, and maybe that way the rewards would feel better than a 3 greens.

As for me, although they do not work exactly the same, these boxes feel like Kompu Gatcha, which got banned for a very, very good reason. They exploit how the reward system of the brain works to get people to spend more than they should, and sometimes more than they can, by giving little reward. Turns out that losing tempts people into playing again more than winning.

They are a dirty trick used by monetization systems, too often used in browser games and certain MMOs, as far as I’m concerned it should be illegal worldwide, and since I consider this boxes to be the same, I do not bother at all with them other than the 3 extremely rare drops I’ve found so far.

Zanshin.5379:

I once asked if maybe Anet needed a gambling license or something (because this is real money we’re talking about) but I don’t think I ever got an official answer, pointing to concrete laws or regulations.

They don’t need a license. It’s not considered gambling because the items have no intrinsic value.

I don’t particularly care for the Black Lion chests. I’ve never gotten anything worthwhile out of them so I have 0 incentive to purchase keys. I will open one up whenever I get a key drop and usually end up destroying the tonics I always get from them. I’ve gotten one scrap the whole time playing, and I almost deleted it too b/c I thought it was just junk like the rest of the stuff in there. Given that it’s called a “scrap” I figured it was trash like most “scraps” in life are. To me the chests are just a little extra bonus if I happen to come across a key in my travels.

I’m personally puzzled as to why these aren’t regulated by state gambling authorities. I know the legal reason (the real money → gems step lets Anet pretend that there is no economic value changing hands when keys are bought), but the actual justification for the current state of the law escapes me.

Buying keys is similar to buying lottery tickets IRL. If you enjoy lotteries then go for the keys. However, there is a reason why financial consultants never recommend just buying more tickets as a means to increasing your wealth. If you have the capacity to think it through you probably will not be buying the keys.

Honestly, they’re not that rare. Opening 5 chests, I usually get 2-3 ticket scraps, though never more and sometimes less.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

I’m personally puzzled as to why these aren’t regulated by state gambling authorities. I know the legal reason (the real money -> gems step lets Anet pretend that there is no economic value changing hands when keys are bought), but the actual justification for the current state of the law escapes me.

It varies depending on where you are in the world (and therefore what the law is) but here’s a few reasons that commonly apply:

1) You’re not using real money to gamble. You buy gems with real money in a straight transaction. What you do with those gems afterwards doesn’t matter because it’s not a real currency and has no value as legal tender anywhere in the world.

2) You’re guaranteed a prize and can find out what all the possible prizes are beforehand, therefore although it’s technically gambling it’s not in the same league as a lottery or even a scratch card where you can spend money and get nothing.

(As I mentioned before I suspect this is an important one in at least some places. This is why things like fairground games which are almost entirely based on luck can be open to under 18’s, because whilst you might not get back a prize worth what you paid you will get something and therefore it’s not technically gambling.)

3) As far as the law is concerned none of the items actually exist and the designs are Anet’s intellectual property both before and after you win them (the same is true of gems), so legally nothing has changed hands anyway.

If you disagree with one or more of those you’ll have to take it up with the authorities wherever you live.

The house always wins, otherwise it is no longer the house.
The amount of paranoia on the thread is kind of high though.

I’m not going to say I hate them but I would dislike them less if the drops made purchasing the keys worth it. Needing 10 scraps to make 1 ticket and only getting 4 scraps out of 30-40 chests is not good. I’ve never even seen a claim ticket.

I believe the idea of the BLC is okay, however it needs a major overhaul.

Currently you get 3-4 drops out of the box, sometimes more depending on LS events. Items that are practically useless tend to be very common drops, ie Mysterious Tonics. You also get various boosters, which need some work as well to make them more useful and more appealing. And then there are the minis, dye packs, makeover kits, hairstyle kits, and tickets and scraps. These are the semi rare items. Then there are the Permanent items which are super rare.

So here’s my proposal to a fix:
1) guarantee 1-2 items drawn from boosters, repair kits, tonics, bank access, TP summons, BL Merchant summon
2) guarantee 1-2 items drawn from transmute charges, dye kits, scraps, makeover kits, hairstyle kits
3) 50% chance at 1-2 items drawn from BL Ticket, minis, etc
4) 5-25% chance of 1 item of ultra rare value

Also with this reduce cost of Scrap to Ticket conversion to 5, thus reducing cost from ~ $25 / skin to ~ $10 / skin.

Any thoughts?

I have bought keys from the gem store only if I had gems left over from buying something I really wanted, I thing I may have purchased 30 keys this way got one claim ticket, the furniture tonic and I think my obsidian dye came from a chest so not bad and I don’t think I’m that lucky of a person.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

No.

It screams F2P Cash Shop. This is supposed to be a “AAA” MMO. RNG Gambling in the Gem Store is not what a AAA MMO does. It is what cheap F2P MMOs do. Which is exactly what GW2 is becoming.

1. AAA status has nothing to do with cash shop model and everything to do with how much money they invested into the game. You can have AAA games that are bad, ask Swtor.

2. AS the result of 1. Anet needs a way to generate income to return Ncsoft’s investment games that are not making money end up like Free realms. They could do p2win stuff, but a lot of people are going to complain. Lock boxes exist to prey on the minds of the weak willed, it should never affect you unless you have no will. You can buy the stuff you want from the box with gold.

3. As the result of 2, Guild wars 2 maintain its AAA status, so go back to one.

The point being cash shop has no correlation to AAA status. The other alternative is pay 15 bucks a month to play the game and then skill get hit with a cash shop with instant level boost.

Danikat.8537:

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

I’m personally puzzled as to why these aren’t regulated by state gambling authorities. I know the legal reason (the real money -> gems step lets Anet pretend that there is no economic value changing hands when keys are bought), but the actual justification for the current state of the law escapes me.

2) You’re guaranteed a prize and can find out what all the possible prizes are beforehand, therefore although it’s technically gambling it’s not in the same league as a lottery or even a scratch card where you can spend money and get nothing.

It’s not gambling, it’s not technically gambling. Nothing of any real value is awarded to the player. In order for the chests to be considered gambling, players have to be able to win something with real value. Players can’t win anything of real value, that’s why it isn’t gambling.

I have only one big problem: the drop rate. At the beginning the keys were at a low drop rate but at least they dropped from time to time.

As of now they throw the boxes at us (I have nearly 250 sitting in my bank for nothing) and I never ever get any key. They even dropped more often out of the Black Lion Box but it seems they lowered that too. I would really appreciate it if they would introduce a small drop rate like it is now with the unidentified dyes. The last time I got a Black Lion Key was a couple of months ago for completing a map, the last drop was about 1+ year ago. This is just nuts and it clearly shows that this is made to make money in a very cheap way.

silvermember.8941:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

No.

It screams F2P Cash Shop. This is supposed to be a “AAA” MMO. RNG Gambling in the Gem Store is not what a AAA MMO does. It is what cheap F2P MMOs do. Which is exactly what GW2 is becoming.

1. AAA status has nothing to do with cash shop model and everything to do with how much money they invested into the game. You can have AAA games that are bad, ask Swtor.

2. AS the result of 1. Anet needs a way to generate income to return Ncsoft’s investment games that are not making money end up like Free realms. They could do p2win stuff, but a lot of people are going to complain. Lock boxes exist to prey on the minds of the weak willed, it should never affect you unless you have no will. You can buy the stuff you want from the box with gold.

3. As the result of 2, Guild wars 2 maintain its AAA status, so go back to one.

The point being cash shop has no correlation to AAA status. The other alternative is pay 15 bucks a month to play the game and then skill get hit with a cash shop with instant level boost.

When I say AAA, I mean as in a rating, not how much money was invested into it.

GW2 was advertised as “You get everything a P2P game offers and more, just without the monthly fee”. Which is completely false. There is so much stuff locked behind the cash shop that P2P games offer for free. GW2 is no where near the quality of a “AAA” P2P MMO. It is more in line with those cheap F2P MMOs.

And a monthly fee is the alternative? Yeah, that would be way better. Seriously it would be. 15 bucks a month and have access to everything in game? That is way cheaper than what we currently have to deal with. I’d rather pay a monthly fee than deal with GW2’s RNG gambling overpriced F2P cash shop.

Dye kits and BLTCs via keys are the only RNG I can think of in the Gem Shop. And you don’t think P2P games doesn’t have paid unique looks for sale?

And sorry AAA in reference to games refers to development budget.

In Lottery, you buy a relatively cheap ticket and can won a LOT.
In BLTC, you can buy an expensive key and can won MINIMALs.
Even if “RNG is RNG”, you think its okay?

cranked.3812:

RNG boxes are never a good idea.

This ^

Black Lion Keys are a JOKE and a RIPOFF!

There are a number of quite detailed and interesting breakdowns of the drops and drop chances from Black Lion Chests, and the numbers are not in the favor of players. Anything that anyone might actually really want to have drop (like tickets and perma merchant, etc) have a terrible drop chance. I don’t remember the exact number, but its worse than 1 out of 1000 chests.

The only way to win is to not give in and to not buy them. If you do, it’ll get worse. I’ve seen this before on other pixel sites and games. Stay strong, userbase.

^ A noble appeal, but futile. Experience (most recently the gem price jump during the Black Lion Key sales during March) has shown that there’s a great many users who are more than happy to gamble on keys.

I don’t mind Black Lion Chests alone existing, because let’s face it: It’s fun to gamble, and it is exciting when you don’t want anything in particular.

However, limited-time offers are exploitive in nature, and I find it quite shocking ANET would do such a thing. As someone who went all the way for a Fused Weapon Ticket when they were first released, I was shocked that it took me 137 chests just for one ticket.

Black Lion Ticket scraps are even worse, because they drive compulsions to gamble even more when you have just 6 out of 10 scraps, yet the chances of getting 10 scraps are LOWER than getting a full ticket.

So what we have is a system of absurdly low drop rates which pressures you to buy more and more. I understand ANET is a business seeking profit, but this kind of system in my opinion is very immoral.

Black lion keys farmed are GREAT… Black lion keys bought… Are a ripoff at best.

Ye, I like them. RNG is a smart marketing trick, loads of people will try their luck and get less out of it than they invested, a few get lucky. They’ll try again because ‘today is their day!’ lose some more money, spend some more. Viva Las Vegas. It’s smart and aslong as the skins aren’t bound and my selfishness doesn’t get harmed, I say good for them.

It keeps them motivated to design new skins, so far I’ve loved my of them:
Dreamwhistle, Aetherized Pistol, Lovestruck, 50% of the Tormented Weapons, 75% of the Halloween Weapons, 50% of the Zodiac Weapons, most Winterday weapons, I know most people like Fused Weapons. All in all good designs.

I haven’t encountered enough cashshops to say this is normal, but from what I’ve experienced most cashshops have a similar item.

i don’t like them at all, not in GW2, not in any game in existence.
they are nothing more then a way to make money from (excuse the wording) weak-minded individuals, grabbing their money in trade for junk stuff.