Guild Wars 2

Alright so I gave things some serious thought as to why I HAVEN’T purchased any keys yet. That’s right, what makes me so hesitant to buy them when I have quite a few chests sitting like everyone else does? I have spent real money in the gem store before, so what gives? Well, heres’s my beef:

1. The contents are correct in that they don’t give a nasty overbearing advantage (I support not doing P2W) but most commonly dropped items in them are completely undermined for what you paid for. I paid real money to get an item with gambling elements, not to gamble and hope my money didn’t get sucked down into something else like a crafting booster which I can’t sell, trade, and never ever use. I can turn my gems into gold, so why not all the items I get from the chest? Doesn’t make much sense there. At least if I got several boosters I didn’t need, I could trade for others I do need and I wouldn’t be so disgruntled in this regard. The point is: I paid for random and I can’t even offset my “losses” if they are something I don’t like.

2. An average of 5 tickets for one skin with a horrid drop rate on tickets… And the ticket scraps are a massive punch below the belt. Why Arena.net has resorted to that kind of pitch makes me NOT want to buy gems at all (or anything else) because of how you’re potentially stringing along your customers for the small carrot at the end of a very long tunnel.. The actual scraps are probably what irk me the most because it’s blatantly attempting to reel you in with a “false hope” item. If we did the real math on how much money is required for a skin at 5 tickets, it would vastly outweigh the cost of any of the skins priced in the store (which are also not cheap, mind you). Yes we could convert gems to gold to get the skins, but that is not the argument we are addressing here as SOMEONE is still doing the legwork to make said skins available on the market.

3. Price. This is a game that has entertainment value as it’s core focus. I could understand fully if the drop rates were consistent with much cheaper keys as a means of equalizing “fairness” with what you’re getting but that’s not the case now.

My potential suggestions for fixing the situation:

- keep the current price for keys while offering 4-5 items instead of 3 and giving us somewhat better odds of decent items. Not expecting to strike it rich, but the current loot tables are just bad any way you look at it. Maybe give us an option on all item drops to “roll” for what I want based on categories available to me. This would require some careful thought to prevent market saturation.
- make them significantly cheaper by a large margin while keeping current drop levels and amounts.
- offer us a chance to PICK what we want based upon what kind of drop the item should be (like if it’s a ticket we should be able to pick from a list of items in similar drop rate category). This would be mixing gambling and picking and I would feel very comfortable spending money on something like this because I still have some flexibility on what I am getting.

TLDR: People should WANT to keep and open up their chests. You all at ArenaNet have failed to do this effectively. Look at the trader and you’ll see clear evidence of that along with people readily destroying these chests as soon as they get them. For such a potential money maker and the fact you push them so hard, this makes ZERO sense. No, nobody forced anyone to buy the chests, but it’s pushed hard and I am not okay with this when it’s currently setting people up for disappointment in a game for entertainment value. Using probability tactics to pull people’s money is a low move.

you wanted gambling.. you got gambling. now you complain the house won.

Well, usually all the items that you want to have from the chest (weapon tickets/scraps, permanent contracts, skins) are available on the tp for gold for a far better price.

Even if you open 10k chests, you will still end up paying gems for items you dont want and loose in the end.

Personally, I would have designed the Black Lion Chests to ALWAYS pay out a ticket scrap, no matter what, with a low chance for a full ticket.

I’d also then lower the scrap to ticket conversion rate slightly to offset.

This would maintain my profit level from selling keys and keep the in-game economy impact the same while also mitigating a lot of player anguish over “wasted keys” since you’d always be building equity in your tickets as opposed to the current scenario in which you could potentially NEVER get a ticket (because RNG is an evil mistress).

My big problem with Black Lion Chests (and the reason I never buy keys) is that it is always a straight up gamble, and gambling is for suckers. If you designed it so that there was gambling AND progress you could keep it as a profit generator AND increase the participation rate in key purchases.

DeltaElite.5832:

TLDR: People should WANT to keep and open up their chests. You all at ArenaNet have failed to do this effectively. Look at the trader and you’ll see clear evidence of that along with people readily destroying these chests as soon as they get them. For such a potential money maker and the fact you push them so hard, this makes ZERO sense. No, nobody forced anyone to buy the chests, but it’s pushed hard and I am not okay with this when it’s currently setting people up for disappointment in a game for entertainment value. Using probability tactics to pull people’s money is a low move.

It only makes zero sense to people who don’t understand how the business works. These items locked behind the chests are completely optional. If you want them, you need to invest Gold or real money into getting keys to open them. And because some of these skins take so many tickets to get, that makes them much more rare and valuable. People who can afford to buy Gems will do so to get keys, and that helps the game with microtransaction revenue. Case in point, I bought three “25 stacks” of BL Keys a few months ago, and I’ve never converted Gold to Gems.

The main mistake you’re making with your complaint is that you don’t know the difference between what you want, and what you need. You want the items that are locked behind the chests, therefore you complain that you can’t get them. This is working as intended. If the items weren’t desirable, you wouldn’t want them. See how it works? Going further, since you don’t need these items to play the game, Anet is not forcing anyone to invest in BL Key purchases. Simply toss the locked chests if you get one as a drop.

When I buy $25 worth of lottery tickets, I should be guaranteed to win at least $25 from them. Anything less just isn’t fair.

When I buy $25 worth of digital lottery tickets in a video game, I should be guaranteed to win at least some valueless digital items that give me a sense of enjoyment from them. Anything less just isn’t fair.

Corrections in bold.

If you are going to change the quote, please take my name off it, those are no longer my words.

tolunart.2095:

When I buy $25 worth of lottery tickets, I should be guaranteed to win at least $25 from them. Anything less just isn’t fair.

I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or just naive. Since there are people who actually believe that, I’ll treat it like it’s legit for the sake of argument.

Life isn’t “fair” and lotteries of any sort are especially not “fair.” They are equitable between participants, (each buyer has the same chances as another) but the simple fact is the house wins. It exists to make money for someone.

You are all forgetting that the BLC use to never give tickets. It was, and my eyes, will always be a Whitman Sampler of Gem Store items. Now most of those items I would never buy in the first place. What the chests use to have was a fairly good chance of dropping another key. But I’m an RPG hoarder. I hoard consumables not wanting to start relying on them only to run out at some point. I still have kite fortunes.

But then ANet slapped a “chance to enter for a new car” on their sampler box and everyone conveniently forgets that the purpose of the BLC is to expose players to Gem Store Items in hopes there’s some consumable that they would be willing to pay for directly.

Yes, I hate how ticket and ticket scrapes hides the true cost of these skins. But if EVE freaked out over an $80 costume piece, what would happen if ANet simply offered skins in the $100, $200, $300 range in gems? However a player wielding one of these weapon skins either paid a lot or was very lucky. And it does give that player a since of being one of the few.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DeltaElite.5832:

TLDR: People should WANT to keep and open up their chests. You all at ArenaNet have failed to do this effectively. Look at the trader and you’ll see clear evidence of that along with people readily destroying these chests as soon as they get them. For such a potential money maker and the fact you push them so hard, this makes ZERO sense. No, nobody forced anyone to buy the chests, but it’s pushed hard and I am not okay with this when it’s currently setting people up for disappointment in a game for entertainment value. Using probability tactics to pull people’s money is a low move.

It only makes zero sense to people who don’t understand how the business works. These items locked behind the chests are completely optional. If you want them, you need to invest Gold or real money into getting keys to open them. And because some of these skins take so many tickets to get, that makes them much more rare and valuable. People who can afford to buy Gems will do so to get keys, and that helps the game with microtransaction revenue. Case in point, I bought three “25 stacks” of BL Keys a few months ago, and I’ve never converted Gold to Gems.

The main mistake you’re making with your complaint is that you don’t know the difference between what you want, and what you need. You want the items that are locked behind the chests, therefore you complain that you can’t get them. This is working as intended. If the items weren’t desirable, you wouldn’t want them. See how it works? Going further, since you don’t need these items to play the game, Anet is not forcing anyone to invest in BL Key purchases. Simply toss the locked chests if you get one as a drop.

None of the items in the gem store are needs. I covered that in my original post. Your average person is not going to buy 25 stacks of keys. I am not worried I can’t get them without the chests. I am complaining because you need to spend an asinine amount of money just to get those tickets for a skin… Something which offers a large amount of exclusive content. Do I feel I deserve a skin from every chest? Absolutely not, but I do feel I am not going to blow a car payment’s worth of money on keys just to land a skin or something else of equivalent value because that’s not logical with my money. “People who can afford” is NOT a good business tactic for a game based on targeting all ages with all these chests popping up repeatedly. It is a much more viable business tactic to sell high volume at cheaper prices than vice versa.

My point: if you’re going to go through the rounds of making people gamble for tickets, don’t punch them in the gut by offering pieces of things with such a ridiculous drop rate. What’s next? Booster fragments to combine to make one 3-hour booster?

Behellagh.1468:

You are all forgetting that the BLC use to never give tickets. It was, and my eyes, will always be a Whitman Sampler of Gem Store items. Now most of those items I would never buy in the first place. What the chests use to have was a fairly good chance of dropping another key. But I’m an RPG hoarder. I hoard consumables not wanting to start relying on them only to run out at some point. I still have kite fortunes.

But then ANet slapped a “chance to enter for a new car” on their sampler box and everyone conveniently forgets that the purpose of the BLC is to expose players to Gem Store Items in hopes there’s some consumable that they would be willing to pay for ..

This is also what I was getting at but you explained it more clearly than me. I agree here.

DeltaElite.5832:

None of the items in the gem store are needs. I covered that in my original post. Your average person is not going to buy 25 stacks of keys. I am not worried I can’t get them without the chests. I am complaining because you need to spend an asinine amount of money just to get those tickets for a skin… Something which offers a large amount of exclusive content. Do I feel I deserve a skin from every chest? Absolutely not, but I do feel I am not going to blow a car payment’s worth of money on keys just to land a skin or something else of equivalent value because that’s not logical with my money. “People who can afford” is NOT a good business tactic for a game based on targeting all ages with all these chests popping up repeatedly. It is a much more viable business tactic to sell high volume at cheaper prices than vice versa.

My point: if you’re going to go through the rounds of making people gamble for tickets, don’t punch them in the gut by offering pieces of things with such a ridiculous drop rate. What’s next? Booster fragments to combine to make one 3-hour booster?

Providing an option for players who can afford to spend money on microtransactions IS a good tactic on two fronts. 1) It creates revenue for the company and 2) creates rarity among the exclusive Gem Store skins, since not everyone will buy BL Keys to get tickets.

Point 1 is self explanatory, so I’ll cover Point 2. Rarity of an item can lead to its desirability. If something is rare, it’s sought it. People want it for themselves, so they’re driven to get one. At this point, you can convert Gold to Gems to buy keys, buy the item directly via the Trading Post, or buy keys with real money (the last relates to Point 1). By offering items in bulk, you destroy the prestige of having it, as it’s no longer rare. The more people who have it, the less impact there is. That leads to less people wanting it, and then the item becomes semi worthless.

I’ll use the example of the item Final Rest. This item was supposed to be ultra rare, so everyone wanted it. After the Devs fixed the drop rate of this item, it went from an item everyone wanted, to an item that’s immediately sold, since no one wants it anymore. A similar thing could happen with Molten/Jade/Tormented weapon skins if everyone could easily get one. But right now, the only way to get these exclusive skins is using tickets from the chests, or from other players who have used tickets from the chest.

It all comes down to what you want. If you truly want an item, you have options to get them. There are players who haven’t spent a single penny on this game, yet have all they want from Gold to Gem conversions. Plus, you can bypass RNG completely by using the TP to buy whichever skin you want. When you understand these options, the less you’ll complain.

Alfador.7649:

tolunart.2095:

When I buy $25 worth of lottery tickets, I should be guaranteed to win at least $25 from them. Anything less just isn’t fair.

I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or just naive. Since there are people who actually believe that, I’ll treat it like it’s legit for the sake of argument.

Sarcasm. I don’t buy lottery tickets or random stuff box keys. You can get keys for free in game by “farming” the Personal Story. Create a human character, choose the middle class origin, and you can run through the first part of the PS and get a key in about half an hour or less. I got several tickets, three more tickets’ worth of scraps, and various other valuable items just by doing this when I had some time to kill.

You don’t need to spend money on this game, it’s great if you can afford to, but not required. They are going to keep introducing things that will make money as long as they keep selling, regardless of individual complaints on the forums.

tolunart.2095:

Alfador.7649:

tolunart.2095:

When I buy $25 worth of lottery tickets, I should be guaranteed to win at least $25 from them. Anything less just isn’t fair.

I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or just naive. Since there are people who actually believe that, I’ll treat it like it’s legit for the sake of argument.

Sarcasm. I don’t buy lottery tickets or random stuff box keys. You can get keys for free in game by “farming” the Personal Story. Create a human character, choose the middle class origin, and you can run through the first part of the PS and get a key in about half an hour or less. I got several tickets, three more tickets’ worth of scraps, and various other valuable items just by doing this when I had some time to kill.

You don’t need to spend money on this game, it’s great if you can afford to, but not required. They are going to keep introducing things that will make money as long as they keep selling, regardless of individual complaints on the forums.

You’re right, but that’s a form of exploiting technically and that is not how they designed people to obtain the keys. I expect to further their sales that eventually that form of farming will be demolished to prevent Lions Arch keys from being free.. Most likely by incorporating it later into the story if I had to take a guess. That certainly wasn’t there as an optional path to getting keys. Not saying people are wrong for doing it because I fully understand why they are, but I am saying that Arena definitely did not see people farming keys as an issue until that method popped up.

Penguin, as far as value is concerned – they really shouldn’t have made the skins tradable if everything else in the LA boxes aren’t collectively…Particularly when the rest of the skins in the store or any other vendor cannot be exchanged in the same way. If they were account bound like many of the things in this game, “value and prestige” would be a nonissue since nothing is exchanging hands with other players. Those skins are only worth something because Arena has ALLOWED them to be worth something as a means of getting people to buy and use gems on the TP and gemstore. In a way it’s smart, but in another it’s completely pigeon-holing your customers by withholding content from them at a steep price just to get a taste for it. Short term money makers are very poor business practices with serious potential ramifications for the upfront gains seen.

DeltaElite.5832:

You’re right, but that’s a form of exploiting technically and that is not how they designed people to obtain the keys. I expect to further their sales that eventually that form of farming will be demolished to prevent Lions Arch keys from being free.. Most likely by incorporating it later into the story if I had to take a guess. That certainly wasn’t there as an optional path to getting keys. Not saying people are wrong for doing it because I fully understand why they are, but I am saying that Arena definitely did not see people farming keys as an issue until that method popped up.

What? They give out keys at several points in the PS, the first being at the end of the first “chapter” at the recommended level 10 instance. It’s been this way since the beginning of the game, and if they saw it as a problem they would simply remove the keys from the rewards. It’s not a random chance, they specifically give out the keys at these points in the PS. If they didn’t want people to get them that way they wouldn’t give them out.

DeltaElite.5832:

Penguin, as far as value is concerned – they really shouldn’t have made the skins tradable if everything else in the LA boxes aren’t collectively…Particularly when the rest of the skins in the store or any other vendor cannot be exchanged in the same way. If they were account bound like many of the things in this game, “value and prestige” would be a nonissue since nothing is exchanging hands with other players. Those skins are only worth something because Arena has ALLOWED them to be worth something as a means of getting people to buy and use gems on the TP and gemstore. In a way it’s smart, but in another it’s completely pigeon-holing your customers by withholding content from them at a steep price just to get a taste for it. Short term money makers are very poor business practices with serious potential ramifications for the upfront gains seen.

The weapon skins were originally untradeable and give out through several different means, including direct purchase. The buyable skins were a flop and the RNG skins were rarer than Legendaries. There were numerous complaints – and through more than just forum posts and reddit, I’m sure – so they eventually came to the current method. This was not something that was done on a whim, they put a lot of thought and experimented with different methods before they settled on this.

No method is going to please everyone, but this makes them accessible to the average player – with time and dedication invested in obtaining them – while still keeping them rare enough to satisfy the people who care about showing off their wealth and dedication to a crowd of people who don’t give a kitten about their wealth and dedication.

If they sold the keys in the gem store for like 25 gems each I would be much more inclined to buy them, but for 125 gems each or 5 for 450 it’s way to expensive.

DeltaElite.5832:

I know they have definitely already discussed this matter, but whether they feel it is a threatening aspect to the game is another story. That’s an answer I don’t have. It still doesn’t change the fact it’s a form of exploiting, though. Exploiting comes in many different forms, some of which are not innately game breaking initially. I did something very similar to this in GW1, actually. In my case they patched it before the rest of the players caught on because the rewards were much greater.

It’s not an exploit. Exploiting would be if you found a way to get 10 keys at once from the PS award when you should only get one. And it doesn’t harm the game at all, they would quickly take action if it had a significant impact on key sales.

Remember the karma weapons? Buying a weapon for something like 10 karma when other comparable weapons cost 1500 karma is an exploit, it was clearly a mistake and not intended. Being able to get a key or three after playing the game for an hour is not.

While I admit farming keys is degenerate gameplay, it’s a ridiculous amount of work just for one key. Even if you can do it in a half an hour your “pay” is at best $3.12 and at worst $2.10 an hour. I spend 60-70 gold a month on gems and bough 5 when they were on sale just for chuckles, plus 35% off of the for 5 price. What a deal!

Anyways I’m sure ANet doesn’t mind someone jumping through so many hoops just to get a single key as a reward.

If they replaced Mystery Tonics with Black Lion Claim Ticket Scraps, then I might consider buying keys again.