Guild Wars 2

mischwoof.9785:

Kimbald.2697:

mischwoof.9785:

don’t you guys ever think that the drop rate is low because ANet wanted the item to be rare? If everyone got skins from every chest, and everyone was running around with halloween skinned weapons, wouldn’t you feel like it was less of an accomplishment to have one? seriously now :<

Either that, or just that it’s more profitable to sell more keys…

I’m positive A’Net wanted to make the droprate low for our feeling of having something rare. Not because of the sales of keys and such.

Why can’t it be both?

To be honest: I actually believe it is both.
Just not convinced that is a smart thing.

opened 15 chests GS skin 2 1h sword skins.

Sold at 65g for the GS skin

and 11g a piece for 1h sword skins

:)

Nimmi.1650:

It’s NEVER fun to lose hard earned money that you worked for in real life.

This, pretty much, sums up what I was going to say. The point many people are trying to make here isn’t that “oh no we want the skins wah” but rather “I just wasted $x thinking I had a fair shot at these”. It’s the wasted money that’s the problem. And the wasted money is caused by the low odds, hence the complaints about the low odds. If keys weren’t gem shop items I personally wouldn’t care about the odds, since there’d be no waste of real money involved.

RNG at play here. It sucks, I know(personally). Next time convert the gems into gold and purchase the skin you like from the trading post.

lol I blew 450 gems and got the shield.

Aewyn: Today it is Akujin’s problem. Because Akujin is out a lot of money and is now a dissatisfied customer. No one made them buy the chests, sure.. however..

For every special event in the future? This is now Anet’s problem, because the extremely low ratio has taught their customers a few lessons on trust. They will be the ones seeing the reflection of that in the future, not the customers.

Customers will now be far less willing to give Anet the benefit of the doubt with the gemstore, which will effect their profits. This isn’t just about giving flak.

It’s simply not a good business decision to make your customers feel like they need to be weary and distrustful of you. Thusfar, that is the outcome from this Halloween event for some people. They need to hear it, because going forward, they will either learn from this, or see a profit drop when willingness to buy keys, and other limited edition items, sharply drops.

You guys don’t have patience. You’re all too busy rushing off to gamble your money away instead of waiting to see what the event unfolds. For all you know, upon completion of a phase, you get to choose a single permanent skin of your choice.

But guys the world revolves around me! I didn’t get what I deserve!

Come on, seriously. Act like responsible adults.

Edit: And no, everyone had a fair shot at them. You all had the same fair shot as other people who got their skins.

Gambling is gambling and chance means exactly that. Remember that. Stay out of casinos.

Aewyn Starfall.9406:

Guys, it’s not a guaranteed thing. You should have known that before you did it. No one made you buy the chests. So stop giving Anet any kind of flak about it. You could have just bought it from the trading post.

It’s not like people who bought keys to open the chests didn’t know it was going to be random. It just wasn’t made clear from the outset that it was going to be so rare to obtain the skins. Of course, everyone knows that it would have been cheaper to buy the skins than try their luck with chests in hindsight.

~100 chests, a single Halloween shoulder skin
Should have spend the gems on gold instead.

Halloween costumes shouldn’t be rare on Halloween.

Aewyn Starfall.9406:

Guys, it’s not a guaranteed thing. You should have known that before you did it. No one made you buy the chests. So stop giving Anet any kind of flak about it. You could have just bought it from the trading post.

Let me quote something and put in the word that was missing:

The Black Lion Chest is getting a spooky upgrade for Halloween. Between October 23 and November 5 each Black Lion Chest you open has a SMALL chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!

Or they should’ve even said “Very small” and if you didn’t read that website, which many people didn’t do obviously then the only thing you have in-game is this:

Discover the Secrets of the Black Lion Chest

EDIT: For those wondering where the second quote comes from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/events/halloween-2012

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Ah, just let the people in this thread wallow in their misery.
“Woe is me, woe is me, I can’t get that one cosmetic item!”

GW1 had FoW armor, Vabbi armor, and the like which were much, much harder to get. To say nothing of Crystalline Swords. So yeah, GW1 had ‘absurd’ cosmetic items as well.

How many hundreds of ectos did a gold Crystalline Sword cost in GW1? Yeah exactly.

Reactions to this event on other media (e.g. reddit) and in game are overwhelmingly positive, so with that I’m done with this thread.

Difference being that people didn’t spend real money back then. Hard to believe that has to be pointed out.

FiachSidhe.3654:

Halloween costumes shouldn’t be rare on Halloween.

They’re not when you go to Lion’s Arch

FiachSidhe.3654:

Darknass.1903:

The fact of the matter is, A-Net didn’t make you buy the keys, YOU decided to buy the gems with gold or actual currency to use on they keys. Sure they decided to add a chance (small but nonetheless still a CHANCE) to receive Halloween themed items from a chest that requires you to spend gold/currency to open them (for the most part) but that doesn’t mean YOU had to do so. If you find yourself getting mad that YOU decided to spend a bunch of gems on keys and got “nothing” out of it then it is your own fault. To the point of getting “nothing”; you still get quite a bit out of the black lion chests even if not the Halloween skins often times you get a-lot more out of it then you put in, and the skins are just an added Halloween bonus.

Another weak, apologetic fanboy post defending a crap business practice with the laziest standby. the old “no one made you get ripped off, so its not a problem/I missed the point completely” defense.

You’re right, no one made us spend money on something that we assumed was designed for fun, rather than a cheap cash grab. It’s totally our fault for assuming Anet was above cheap tactics like this.

You know what else? Many of us aren’t going to WANT to spend any money in the future.
So you can sit here and try to shift blame, but it’s not going to work.

I don’t understand why you think it was meant for fun, as if it’s THE event, when real money was involved. The event is the event. You don’t have to pay a dime for the event. If you want something unique and special, then yeah, they’ll charge money for it. Just because you don’t like the results doesn’t make it an underhanded business practice. It makes you irresponsible and unable to own up to your own actions.

Again, a permanent skin good for year round is not the summary of the event, even if you want to try to make it that. It’s less than 1% of the event.

neon.4863:

Nimmi.1650:

It’s NEVER fun to lose hard earned money that you worked for in real life.

This, pretty much, sums up what I was going to say. The point many people are trying to make here isn’t that “oh no we want the skins wah” but rather “I just wasted $x thinking I had a fair shot at these”. It’s the wasted money that’s the problem. And the wasted money is caused by the low odds, hence the complaints about the low odds. If keys weren’t gem shop items I personally wouldn’t care about the odds, since there’d be no waste of real money involved.

You should have know full well that you were gambling, and thus realized that you had potential to not get any of the unique skins. Look at it this way, the BLC’s still give everything they always have, with an ADDED chance of the Halloween themed items that people might find nice to look at, you paid for a booster, tool, and set of tonics with an extra CHANCE to get the shiny skins.

I’m sure A-Net isn’t as devious as people are accusing them of being, here’s how I see it; “hey how ‘bout we add some awesome skins to the BLC for Halloween so that people that want to take the chance at getting them can show them off, and for all the people that don’t feel like taking a risk, they can just buy them off the TP if they want the skin.”

I feel for the people who feel they’ve wasted resources/time/money here but really, this is why the casino’s are full of people losing money. If you have a 1 in 100 chance of a win, it doesn’t matter how many times you lose, that chance still stays at 1 in 100 the next time you play.

You could open ten thousand chests and get nothing, your chance of getting a good item on chest 10001 is exactly the same as your chance on the very first chest you opened.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Thank you all very much for your feedback about this issue. We’ve already informed the team about all the concerns expressed in this thread, and they’ll look into it. Thanks again.

There, concerns noted. End of thread?

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Thank you all very much for your feedback about this issue. We’ve already informed the team about all the concerns expressed in this thread, and they’ll look into it. Thanks again.

Thank you.

lunawisp.2378:

I feel for the people who feel they’ve wasted resources/time/money here but really, this is why the casino’s are full of people losing money. If you have a 1 in 100 chance of a win, it doesn’t matter how many times you lose, that chance still stays at 1 in 100 the next time you play.

You could open ten thousand chests and get nothing, your chance of getting a good item on chest 10001 is exactly the same as your chance on the very first chest you opened.

the difference is that at least casinos have the decency to actually tell you the odds.

mischwoof.9785:

Mkalafut.1273:

mischwoof.9785:

don’t you guys ever think that the drop rate is low because ANet wanted the item to be rare? If everyone got skins from every chest, and everyone was running around with halloween skinned weapons, wouldn’t you feel like it was less of an accomplishment to have one? seriously now :<

Accomplishment? What? This is a holiday, this is supposed to be everyone running around in halloween costumes and having fun, not a contest to see who can win the most gold or spend the most cash on the event.

If you wanted to run around with halloween themed items and have fun, then you would’ve spent candy corn on the skins that had a time limit on them. Or you know, do all of the other stuff in the event that allows you to run around in a halloween costume and have fun. Gambling on the Black Lion Chests is for a permanent version which people can flaunt off year round and look cool with. It makes perfect sense for the items to be rare.

“Fun” ? Yeah it might be fun if say, it lasted more than FOUR HOURS. Your time of ‘Fun’ will be obliterated as you spend it all farming for those bloody candy corns so that you might -maintain- your ‘fun’. The least that could be done is let the TEMPORARY item last a significant amount of time. Not even a 24 hour period? Not even lasting the event? I’d call that fair, but this 4 hour period is not fair for anyone, nor is it fun.
You know what would be fun? Seeing everyone running around with skins and costumes and awesome Halloween stuff that they either paid for and received guaranteed or won in a chance event for free.

Darknass.1903:

Nimmi.1650:

It’s NEVER fun to lose hard earned money that you worked for in real life.

You should have know full well that you were gambling, and thus realized that you had potential to not get any of the unique skins. Look at this way, the BLC’s still give everything they always have, with an ADDED chance of the Halloween themed items that people might find nice to look at, you paid for a booster, tool, and set of tonics with an extra CHANCE to get the shiny skins.

I’m sure A-Net isn’t as devious as people are accusing them of being, here’s how I see it; “hey how ‘bout we add some awesome skins to the BLC for Halloween so that people that want to take the chance at getting them can show them off, and for all the people that don’t feel like taking a risk, they can just buy them off the TP if they want the skin.”

Well, first of all, I didn’t gamble. My gems were spent else where. I just find it a little sad that this is a lesson that has to be learned in the first place.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Thank you all very much for your feedback about this issue. We’ve already informed the team about all the concerns expressed in this thread, and they’ll look into it. Thanks again.

Glad you are looking over this. :) Your fans don’t only spend money because of ‘cool’ skins. They want to support the game too. Sorry if I’m complaining, but when somebody gives you a shoulder to lean on for support, the favor should be returned in respect. ^^ That said, the rest of the Halloween content is great. I hope you guys make this right. We wouldn’t be voicing our concerns if we didn’t care about the game. ;)

@Luna Casinos have a pretty bad reputation. The only people I notice that drop tons of money at casinos usually have a gambling problem. ANet has an overall good reputation. Near perfect. I had more faith in ANet then to even think for one second comparing BLC to casinos.

TBH I think Arenanet thought their player base would have some common sense and self control which from the posts on this thread clearly they don’t.

Arenanet doods, you could give a temporary item on 1/3 chest probability or sth, that lasts for a day or so? Dunno if that would satisfy the whiners but it can’t hurt either.

fellyn.5083:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Ah, just let the people in this thread wallow in their misery.
“Woe is me, woe is me, I can’t get that one cosmetic item!”

GW1 had FoW armor, Vabbi armor, and the like which were much, much harder to get. To say nothing of Crystalline Swords. So yeah, GW1 had ‘absurd’ cosmetic items as well.

How many hundreds of ectos did a gold Crystalline Sword cost in GW1? Yeah exactly.

Reactions to this event on other media (e.g. reddit) and in game are overwhelmingly positive, so with that I’m done with this thread.

Difference being that people didn’t spend real money back then. Hard to believe that has to be pointed out.

Any of the items are available for in game currency, even the greatsword everyone wants is dropping in price, back down to 55 atm. Everything else is at or near 10 gold.

You can buy everything for gold, much less gold than the cost of a legendary or even a charrzoka for most of the items.

You don’t have to spend a single Penny.
Hard to believe that has to be pointed out.

Kirrund.2654:

You guys don’t have patience. You’re all too busy rushing off to gamble your money away instead of waiting to see what the event unfolds. For all you know, upon completion of a phase, you get to choose a single permanent skin of your choice.

But guys the world revolves around me! I didn’t get what I deserve!

Come on, seriously. Act like responsible adults.

Edit: And no, everyone had a fair shot at them. You all had the same fair shot as other people who got their skins.

Gambling is gambling and chance means exactly that. Remember that. Stay out of casinos.

This, and honestly you can get, and will be able to get Every Single Skin after the event for gold, and less gold than a legendary at that.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Seriously, I think Arenanet assumed people with access to credit cards had a bit more restraint, control, and common sense.

A lot of you probably spent gold (not $) to buy gems on the 1st day and 1st hour, why? In order to hopefully get a ton of these skins in order to sell them (beta testers often realize drops are nerfed LATER after things have been exploited by THEM) and make a ton more gold then you spent while the supply was low on the trading post.
Now you cry on here pretending you actually spent real $..
Instead you have the opposite..drops were less than you expected. You lost in your gamble. I don’t feel bad for you at all. A sure thing investment it was never.

Then of course, there are the naive and impulsive…I do feel sorry for you lack of self-control, but people lose gambling every day. Nobody wants to hear about how someone spends $20 on the lotto every week and never wins either. It’s your own fault.

Darknass.1903:

You should have know full well that you were gambling, and thus realized that you had potential to not get any of the unique skins. Look at it this way, the BLC’s still give everything they always have, with an ADDED chance of the Halloween themed items that people might find nice to look at, you paid for a booster, tool, and set of tonics with an extra CHANCE to get the shiny skins.

I’m sure A-Net isn’t as devious as people are accusing them of being, here’s how I see it; “hey how ‘bout we add some awesome skins to the BLC for Halloween so that people that want to take the chance at getting them can show them off, and for all the people that don’t feel like taking a risk, they can just buy them off the TP if they want the skin.”

I actually didn’t buy any keys. I wouldn’t ever pay for keys under normal circumstances, either, so if I had bought keys hoping for skins I would be pretty incensed. I’m thankful I didn’t buy any before I saw this thread, because knowing the odds I will definitely not buy any.

Knowing the odds makes a world of difference. If people had been told the odds beforehand this entire situation could’ve been avoided. Yeah, they’d still be low and some people would still complain, but then they’d at least know what they were getting into beforehand.

If casinos had forums then it would be full of people complaining how much they lost too.

Rustingz.1634:

mischwoof.9785:

Mkalafut.1273:

mischwoof.9785:

don’t you guys ever think that the drop rate is low because ANet wanted the item to be rare? If everyone got skins from every chest, and everyone was running around with halloween skinned weapons, wouldn’t you feel like it was less of an accomplishment to have one? seriously now :<

Accomplishment? What? This is a holiday, this is supposed to be everyone running around in halloween costumes and having fun, not a contest to see who can win the most gold or spend the most cash on the event.

If you wanted to run around with halloween themed items and have fun, then you would’ve spent candy corn on the skins that had a time limit on them. Or you know, do all of the other stuff in the event that allows you to run around in a halloween costume and have fun. Gambling on the Black Lion Chests is for a permanent version which people can flaunt off year round and look cool with. It makes perfect sense for the items to be rare.

“Fun” ? Yeah it might be fun if say, it lasted more than FOUR HOURS. Your time of ‘Fun’ will be obliterated as you spend it all farming for those bloody candy corns so that you might -maintain- your ‘fun’. The least that could be done is let the TEMPORARY item last a significant amount of time. Not even a 24 hour period? Not even lasting the event? I’d call that fair, but this 4 hour period is not fair for anyone, nor is it fun.
You know what would be fun? Seeing everyone running around with skins and costumes and awesome Halloween stuff that they either paid for and received guaranteed or won in a chance event for free.

Or you could buy a few of the weapons for 3-6s a piece, hardly a pittance my good lord, and enjoy your game of dressup for over 24 hours straight if you wish.

Just because your definition of “fun” includes only getting exactly what you wanted, doesn’t mean there isn’t fun to be found, or fun that you didn’t need to pay for.

1% people. The permanent skins are 1% of the entire event. We’re in also in the beginning phase.

I’m having fun. I didn’t spend any money. I think the event is amazing. I also have an understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around me, and that it doesn’t work exactly like I want, when I want.

Well personally I won’t be buying keys in the store anymore. I think they should have been honest about the chances and I feel ripped off from this event. A great game that feels like it is being spoiled by greed.

The funny part is, if everyone thought to not spend any money on BLCs and waited on the TP in-game, those skins wouldn’t exist in the first place.

BTIGER.3160:

If casinos had forums then it would be full of people complaining how much they lost too.

Oh, no doubt. I don’t feel sorry for people who gamble at casinos, but mostly because you should know your odds of winning are tiny, and you should also know they let you win sometimes to bait you into gambling more in hopes of increasing your winnings.

I’ll be a lot more careful about randomized cash shop items now, though. I admittedly haven’t touched an MMO for longer than a couple of days since Ragnarok Online (well before Ragnarok Online even had a cash shop) so I am pretty out of touch with how they work.

This should have been solved immediately. It’s unacceptable that ArenaNet pulled this BS with the BLC’s. Time to hire more competent people.

Yoshihito.5928:

This should have been solved immediately. It’s unacceptable that ArenaNet pulled this BS with the BLC’s. Time to hire more competent people.

Actually, they are probably being commended now for luring in so many “suckers” to buy keys for items which don’t exist for the most part.

Yes, I agree it said you had a chance, but what it feels like is your company has on purpose deceived their customer base.

So we we have to look forward to in the future is to have events that come out that will likely cost some serious money to be able to get rare items…that is if you tell us they are rare.

I feel like I wasted money – luckily I only wasted $4.50 – and then thought this must be a real low chance and confirmed it from other angry players.

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

I spent $50 dollars on 4000 gems and used them all for keys and got nothing. It was much choice, but still sucks…

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Thank you all very much for your feedback about this issue. We’ve already informed the team about all the concerns expressed in this thread, and they’ll look into it. Thanks again.

Thank you Regina, its good to feel heard

While Im aware that I freely made the choice to purchase 50 BLKs from the gem shop using weeks worth of hard earned gold on an impulse, getting essentially nothing in return is really more upsetting than I think any game should make its players feel.

Dont expect anything can be done about it now, but I hope the powers that be give some consideration, while planning future events, into if this sort of thing is worth so many unhappy players.

As for me, Im still really upset and disappointed and somewhat angry, but Ill get over it. This is a wonderful mmo and I plan on playing it for quite some time.

Thanks again

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

Excellent. Could not have said better myself.

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

Exactly. I am not asking for my money back, or for an item. I am just saying if they don’t compensate I will not be spending money on it again. That simple. They can continue. But they will lose customers to their store.

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

The chance isn’t aggressively small if most of the items can currently be bought for less than 10 gold, especially given how everyone seems to want these items and thus the demand is inflated.

Only 1 Item, the greatsword, costs significantly more than that (55 gold). People wanted a chainsaw greatsword. That want overcame their restraint, and many of them spent with their credit cards to buy keys. That’s a lack of responsibility.

Every single other weapon costs about as much as a decent skinned exotic in terms of gold. Every. Single. One.

Its a classic case of demand outpacing supply, in this case for one particular item. This led to many making bad decisions. We can pity them, but it is no one elses fault but their own.

I just spent $10 on keys and feel dirty, my sympathies to those who spent more.

edit:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

Somebody get this man a cookie

57 chests opened and nothing. cool.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

The chance isn’t aggressively small if most of the items can currently be bought for less than 10 gold, especially given how everyone seems to want these items and thus the demand is inflated.

Only 1 Item, the greatsword, costs significantly more than that (55 gold). People wanted a chainsaw greatsword. That want overcame their restraint, and many of them spent with their credit cards to buy keys. That’s a lack of responsibility.

Every single other weapon costs about as much as a decent skinned exotic in terms of gold. Every. Single. One.

Its a classic case of demand outpacing supply, in this case for one particular item. This led to many making bad decisions. We can pity them, but it is no one elses fault but their own.

In the meantime, the scythe staff skin is currently going for 40g, I am sure those “10g” and below items were skins people don’t want, or simply don’t exist. But thank you for skewing one small fact to try and suit your flawed portrayal of a larger picture.

Whether or not people chose to spend money or not is irrelevant, but I expect people to defend bad decisions in every game, so it’s no surprise there are people in this topic actually behind ArenaNet on this.

The fact is that they deliberately misled their player base so that they could rake in more cash. I didn’t want to believe it. I thought ArenaNet was above things like this. They never tell you how pitifully low your chances are of getting an item, and make a big fuss out of advertising the skins.

Yes, the event itself is fun outside of weapon skins, but why take the time to design weapon skins that 95% of the playerbase will never see or use? The low drop rate of BLC skins combined with the ABSURD requirements for crafted weapon skins (see my post on the subject) makes absolutely no sense to me. This game is 2 months old. Very, very, VERY few people have upwards of 100g or more to spend on a single weapon skin and it will stay that way for a very long time.

neon.4863:

BTIGER.3160:

If casinos had forums then it would be full of people complaining how much they lost too.

Oh, no doubt. I don’t feel sorry for people who gamble at casinos, but mostly because you should know your odds of winning are tiny, and you should also know they let you win sometimes to bait you into gambling more in hopes of increasing your winnings.

I’ll be a lot more careful about randomized cash shop items now, though. I admittedly haven’t touched an MMO for longer than a couple of days since Ragnarok Online (well before Ragnarok Online even had a cash shop) so I am pretty out of touch with how they work.

I remember RO.

This is unfortunately basically how most F2P games operate for profit, from the lowliest kind to the high profile ones

Yoshihito.5928:

This should have been solved immediately. It’s unacceptable that ArenaNet pulled this BS with the BLC’s. Time to hire more competent people.

Anet must know that the majority player’s fun cannot be at the expense of :

1. RNG, especially when it comes to RL money
2. minority of people controlling the game economy

It is not simple or easy creating balance for the game mechanism, like the Mystic Forge, but it is beyond understanding that an event that is designed to entertain players, having to have this debacle. They could have simply sold the most coveted vanity items in gem store for a fixed amount of gems. And more skin designs in BLC for those who like the thrills of gambling and winning the odds. Just costumes won’t cut it, because PvE look is what defines the character for many people.

Anet can maintain player’s fun, immersion, and attention without backlash of any sort.
If you want to make big profits not just profit, you need to get a smarter way to do it. This is as counter productive as it can be in the long run.

Thank you Regina for your patience and support.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

The chance isn’t aggressively small if most of the items can currently be bought for less than 10 gold, especially given how everyone seems to want these items and thus the demand is inflated.

Only 1 Item, the greatsword, costs significantly more than that (55 gold). People wanted a chainsaw greatsword. That want overcame their restraint, and many of them spent with their credit cards to buy keys. That’s a lack of responsibility.

Every single other weapon costs about as much as a decent skinned exotic in terms of gold. Every. Single. One.

Its a classic case of demand outpacing supply, in this case for one particular item. This led to many making bad decisions. We can pity them, but it is no one elses fault but their own.

There is a gaping hole in this argument, friend.

None of these items would be available for purchase were it not for many of the people complaining in this thread. The market for gold buyers is ONLY available on the backs of keybuyers. Period. There is not one without the other.

The trouble is, the two are clearly not equal in terms of investment and result.

Obviously, waiting and buying it with gold is a better choice. But if everyone did that, there would be no items. So all the clever patience and responsibility in the world wouldn’t make those skins pop up on the auction house. What did? A bunch of players dumping money into an RNG that is obviously more stingy than most anticipated.

We’re both clearly on different sides here, but I think with clear eyes it isn’t difficult to see the problem here. The challenge for Anet is how to improve this system in the future to reward players who take the initiative and invest in them rather than those who sat on their hands and then ridiculed.

I was looking forward to this Event, but it seems it is just like “blahblah blah gems blah blah gems blahblahblah”. I’ll give it a try without buying keys, but if it turns I’ll have to buy the fun of Halloween with gems, I’ll be really, really mad. Not Thorn-joking mad.

Pikafan.3792:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

spencerharrison.8136:

To the posters insulting people who bought keys and expected an item:

We aren’t talking about the US economy or housing market. We’re talking about a stupid video game where people want to run around with a pumpkin rifle. Based on colorful advertising and good faith, a lot of people paid some money with the understanding that doing so would give them a “chance” at those items.

That “chance” is being proven to be aggressively small. Different people came into this with different expectations, but I do think its safe to say that the cost of keys, coupled with the tiny percent chance of a skin, equates to a more cynical policy than fans of Anet anticipated.

Fair enough. Lesson learned. Personal responsibility also means licking your wounds and moving on. Those that feel they got misled, will be less likely to give Anet cash like that on impulse.

In my opinion, that’s bad business for Anet, and less fun for the players who weren’t so lucky. It didn’t have to be that way, and I don’t think there is ANY harm in lambasting Anet for this mess. They can, and should do better by their players.

The chance isn’t aggressively small if most of the items can currently be bought for less than 10 gold, especially given how everyone seems to want these items and thus the demand is inflated.

Only 1 Item, the greatsword, costs significantly more than that (55 gold). People wanted a chainsaw greatsword. That want overcame their restraint, and many of them spent with their credit cards to buy keys. That’s a lack of responsibility.

Every single other weapon costs about as much as a decent skinned exotic in terms of gold. Every. Single. One.

Its a classic case of demand outpacing supply, in this case for one particular item. This led to many making bad decisions. We can pity them, but it is no one elses fault but their own.

In the meantime, the scythe staff skin is currently going for 40g, I am sure those “10g” and below items were skins people don’t want, or simply don’t exist. But thank you for skewing one small fact to try and suit your flawed portrayal of a larger picture.

Current Prices (1:39 am October 23):
The Chain sword (one handed) is 8 gold (and falling). No one wants a chainsaw sword. Nope. No one.
The Rifle is 5 gold.
The Shield is 20 gold.
The dagger is 8 gold. No dagger thiefs out there, mhmmm.
All 9 of the shoulder pads (3 of light, medium, and heavy) are all worth 5-10 gold. No one wants spikey skull shoulder pads. Nope, no one.

Yup, I REALLY skewed it. Those drops must be SO rare, to be worth less than typical “cool skinned” exotics.

Reality is this: The greatsword is used by Guardians, Mesmers, Warriors, and Rangers. 3 Of those classes have very popular greatsword builds.

Staves are also used by Necros,Guardians, Mesmers, and Elementalist. Again, higher demand.

Basic supply and demand. The drops are fine, judging by market prices of say…the one handed chainsaw. Demand is skewed toward the items used by most classes. Common sense.

There is a gaping hole in this argument, friend.

None of these items would be available for purchase were it not for many of the people complaining in this thread. The market for gold buyers is ONLY available on the backs of keybuyers. Period. There is not one without the other.

The trouble is, the two are clearly not equal in terms of investment and result.

Obviously, waiting and buying it with gold is a better choice. But if everyone did that, there would be no items. So all the clever patience and responsibility in the world wouldn’t make those skins pop up on the auction house. What did? A bunch of players dumping money into an RNG that is obviously more stingy than most anticipated.

We’re both clearly on different sides here, but I think with clear eyes it isn’t difficult to see the problem here. The challenge for Anet is how to improve this system in the future to reward players who take the initiative and invest in them rather than those who sat on their hands and then ridiculed.

That’s just not true. If they were so rare, then all of the above items would be much more expensive. They aren’t. The people that got nothing complain the most. The people that got multiple drops sell them on the market. The RNG is not kind to all.