Guild Wars 2

Seeing so many people crying about losing gambles, I remembered a forum posting on AION forums. Someone who tried acquiring a certain item with relatively low odds failed so often that his actual chances of failing this badly were around 1 in 15000. For those who don’t really understand gambling, basically this means you have 15000 lottery tickets in front of you and 14999 of those give you a “win”, only one gives you a “loss”, and he picked that. In the actual game it was basically repeatedly failing over and over and over on attempts to get the item, based on chance.
Now, if several million players play a game, there WILL be tens or even hundreds who will have this happen to them, and some who will encounter even worse “bad luck”! This is the, uh, both cruel and funny side of gambling guys.

As an additional note, because I think many people do not understand this, I’d like to add that your past results in a truly random gamble can never affect your future results (you know those sad people who think writing down the numbers/colours that were drawn in the last 100 games would give them a hint of what “has to come” next..).

Or in other words:
If humankind exists indefinitely and does never get wiped out by any sort of crazy event, then there will be a person who, on flipping a (perfect) coin will get 100,000,000x ‘head’ in a row (should be doable within one’s life span if not slacking off), that’s what makes math so fascinating at times.
Well except if all humans agree on stopping flipping coins :/

All true, but in my country every game of chance has to list the calculated odds.

That’s where they went wrong.

That doesn’t mean YOU will win, but at least the general outcome would be clearer from the start.

It’s not about maths, it’s about doing good business.
Anet didn’t make themselves trustworthy for future sales here. They seem to realise that now and are already announcing adjustments (or at least that they’ll look into things)

Maths and calculating chance, is just a small side of the story.

difference here being that its not a lottery where people have to be against the amount of players in the game, but rather a % chance which apparently seems so low its probably easier to win the lotto then get anything in game.

at least since they are boasting the chests, one might think that in each chest you would get something more “halloween like” even if its not the weapons skins, then at least you feel like your part of the holiday event. but no they left it with all the regular
account bound rubbish that no one wants anyway.

The way they promote it in the BLTC it sounds like you will likely get something. When I read of people opening 40 chests and getting not one Halloween item that is crazy bad.

Especially since these aren’t even pay to win items just skins.

I sure will never pay for a single key.

NinjaKnight.1340:

The way they promote it in the BLTC it sounds like you will likely get something.

“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 chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!”

I don’t read anything about “likely” in the official statement. You do?

PS: Guys, some of you sound like my 5 year old daughter. She always wanna have all the things other children have, no matter what, no matter if she can use or even really likes them by herself. Maybe its time to grow up a little bit and just relax?

Uh, anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

Kathmandu.2417:

NinjaKnight.1340:

The way they promote it in the BLTC it sounds like you will likely get something.

“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 chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!”

I don’t read anything about “likely” in the official statement. You do?

Doesn’t exactly sound like it’s only a very slim chance either…

People accept low drop rates in the game itself, not when they pay real money.
Anet had their trust, given the reputation of the shop in GW1.
They failed that trust with these droprates.

When customer trust is gone, no reasoning about chance rates, lottery or splitting words in announceents will restore the damage done.
They messed up here, even though it made them tons of money in short term. In the long run, they lost the trust of many of their customers.

GW2’s reputation isn’t all that good at the moment, in general ‘MMO land’.
This isn’t helping one bit.

The problem here is that people assume that this has to work like a lottery. This shouldn’t be gambling at all.

When I first heard about this I thought it would be like a 33% chance to get a Halloween related item. If you wanted one specific skin, it would probably end up around 1-3% chance. This seems reasonable. If you open 10 chests, you are very likely to get an item.

Kimbald.2697:

Kathmandu.2417:

NinjaKnight.1340:

The way they promote it in the BLTC it sounds like you will likely get something.

“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 chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!”

I don’t read anything about “likely” in the official statement. You do?

Doesn’t exactly sound like it’s only a very slim chance either…

A chance is a chance. What is slim for you is great for me, it’s veeeery subjective. Would be great if Arena publicized the hard values for the drops… but I don’t wonder they didn’t.

Kimbald.2697:

People accept low drop rates in the game itself, not when they pay real money.

You don’t have to pay real money for the Halloween skins. It’s your free personal choice. Don’t blame Arena if you did.

Kimbald.2697:

Anet had their trust, given the reputation of the shop in GW1.
They failed that trust with these droprates.

Ok, I didn’t play GW1 so I have no idea how it was handled in the good old times. But as a new customer I don’t see any issues with the event. You wanna be the first one with the new skins – you pay for this a lot. You are a patient guy? Then you can have the new skins for less. You don’t bother? It’s ok because the new skins do not impact the game. So what?

Nope.

Randomness is actually pretty predictable.

If a random system is meant to give you something 33% of the time, it should give you something 33% of the time with fairly low deviations.

In GW1, all gifts worked pretty much like that.

You got 100 people opening 100 gifts each, and they’ll get pretty much the same things.

Kathmandu, without debating endlessly over subjective opinions, do consider this:

if the main feedback about a holliday event, the very day it’s launched, is a 10 page thread full of customers who feel wronged, while your supportive threads hardly reach a page… than you did something wrong.

I didn’t buy keys and never will, it’s not about ‘my’ loss.

It’s not even an argument that all these complainers are wrong to do so or not.

It’s the simple fact that if you run a shop and one day a crowd of angry customers show up at your door, it’s time to ask ourself what you did wrong.

Maybe it’s all defendable, maybe it’s all ‘open for interpretation’.
But fact of the matter is that people feel cheated out of real money.
You can easily do this in game with low drop rates and such, but once real money is involved, it’s different.

Anet made it sound a lot better than it was, the whole ‘improved Black Lion chest’ announcement.
Did they lie? No.
Did they make it sound too good and too available? Yes, else the outcries wouldn’t be so loud and many.
And mostly: as mentioned above: people expected the same droprate as in GW1. That’s the trust Anet abused to sell so many chests now.

When a mass screams murder, i’m the first to wonder if they’re still being critical and fair.
But when your goal is selling something to that mass yelling at you… it’s time to question yourself more than them.

Ah, the horrors of Aion. Entire game ruled by gambling. It’s a shame they had to do it this way for GW2. .-.

I agree with @Kimbald.

I haven’t bought keys for the event, but I’ve bought before, and I was seriously considering buying more if the skins were appealing to my tastes. But after checking that I’d need 100~ or more, and I’d still have a chance of not getting anything at all, made me change my mind.

Just by reading the event main page led me to believe that I’d have a fair chance at getting what I expected, it’s a gem item after all.
If it was stated “Every BLC you open will have a 1% chance of giving halloween-themed skins!”, I wouldn’t even consider buying keys for the chests. But it wasn’t, and for some reason, I made up expectations (10~25%), but that was wrong. And I’m not alone in this, but thankfully, I haven’t bought keys or I’d probably be pretty upset right now too.

Which is a shame, I don’t know how or what they can do to compensate players who felt cheated, if they compensate them at all, because I really like this game and it’s developers.
With their design ideas I believe they are the kind of people who place customers above anything else, so I really want them to be successful. But this seems like a pretty nasty hit to their popularity as a “good” (as in, not money-driven) developer…

Kathmandu.2417:

NinjaKnight.1340:

The way they promote it in the BLTC it sounds like you will likely get something.

“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 chance to give you one of six exclusive Halloween-themed weapon skins!”

I don’t read anything about “likely” in the official statement. You do?

PS: Guys, some of you sound like my 5 year old daughter. She always wanna have all the things other children have, no matter what, no matter if she can use or even really likes them by herself. Maybe its time to grow up a little bit and just relax?

Way to take things out of context. Typical GW2 white knight in action.

People are not complaining they want everything but they would want something after opening say 40 chests.

2 Kimbald:

I understand your point. But
a) two dozen guys who complain here are not necessary representative for the majority of the players.
b) you have always, always, always two dozen guys complaining about everything in forum.
c) even if it is key factor for the shop keeper to maintain his customers happy the silly complains of the customers don’t become less silly.

If someone feels cheated because he gambled without knowing the rules instead of waiting a little bit then… Hey, see it like a lessen for the future: TANSTAAFL.

When you gamble you should indeed know the chances of losing are very real, and very high…

But if that is the excuse for what is happening here, I’ll tell you this:

my country, and many other countries, have strict laws on gambling.
Basic rule is that even for the smallest scratch ticket, you are obliged to announce the chances of winning.
Every chance game, every gamble, can be calculated what the actual chance of winning is.

Anet knew.
they decided not to tell and let people believe it was the same chance of winning they used in GW1. They didn’t say so, but what else would you expect but the same rate of winning they used in the past?

I’ve said it before: rare drops in the game is one thing.
As soon as real money is involved, people expect something better.

^^^ this, thank you

I can certainly agree that expecting certain odds of “winning” rare items is unreasonable, but on the other side, I also feel like ANet might have more purchases in future events (heck, even this event) if the odds were a bit more slanted toward the players benefit. I personally bought $20 worth of gems, spent nearly all of those gems on keys, and went to town on chests that I had saved up. I didn’t get anything, of course. I certainly don’t feel “cheated” in the slightest, but at the same time, I don’t feel encouraged to spend any more money on gems due to a lack of return on my previous investment.

Kimbald, I am quite sure that such ingame random drops are not gambling in the strict legally sense.

And again, if you want to get some skins for sure then buy gems exchange them to gold and buy the skins from the market. Or make gold directly ingame – and again buy the skins from the market. You don’t have to gamble or involve real money at all. It’s your personal free choice.

Kathmandu.2417:

Kimbald, I am quite sure that such ingame random drops are not gambling in the strict legally sense.

And again, if you want to get some skins for sure then buy gems exchange them to gold and buy the skins from the market. Or make gold directly ingame. You don’t have to gamble or involve real money at all. It’s your personal free choice.

when people say they feel cheated, the argument is: it was a gamble, you should have nown (you used that very argument).

Now that I reply gambling has rules that weren’t followed here, it’s no longer gambling…

It’s not legally gambling by the way, unless you can prove that the winnings have a direct money value. In other words: you need to prove the rare skins can be sold for real money.
They can, but you can’t prove that this is their intention as reward.
So i doubt it legally is gambling indeed.

But if the argument is used to defend this whole business, I gladly supply the counter arguments saying that it’s not a fair way of gambling.

To be honest: I don’t care one bit how rare or how hard to get an in-game item is.
I don’t mind I’m not getting them, and I don’t feel obliged to chase them.

But they crossed a fine line here.

If people are invited to spend real money, and given the way these things were handled in GW1, one would expect to get something in return.
Not for every dollar or euro spend, but at least something once you spend 15, 20, 30 dollars or more…

It makes the game look like a cheap Asian MMO, while it should be different from those.
And I apologie to the Asian MMO’s that don’t use a shop model as basis

I understand many of the arguments given, and I understand it’s not the end of the world.
But it’s real money.
People don’t take this as light as game money, or drop rates of dungeons, and other hard ways to aquire rare items.

People feel cheated, that’s the bottom line.

Saying they shouldn’t be, doesn’t do much.
Anet should be very weary of stepping on the toes of their loyal customers actually spending their real money on their game…

GW2’s reputation isn’t all that good if you look outside this game community itself.
It’s not what it is hyped up to be, that’s the general consensus these days on boards outside the game itself.
From today on it’s also a Asian (sorry again) money grabbing MMO.
Bad publicity, real bad.

Kimbald.2697:

when people say they feel cheated, the argument is: it was a gamble, you should have nown (you used that very argument).

Now that I reply gambling has rules that weren’t followed here, it’s no longer gambling…

Kimbald, I only mentioned to you that the event is not a gambling in a juristic sense of this word. So it doesn’t make sense to put juristic arguments on the table. Just forget them, they do not work.

I’m 100% with you that this event is a gambling in the common sense. But common sense says to me: in the gambling you take your chance and you can win but you can lose either. If you always win its not a gamble.

I see a lot of people here who apparently don’t understand what gambling does mean – or cannot stand to lose. I say, it’s silly and childish. Grow up, guys. You cannot have everything and pay nothing.

You say it is bad than people complain. You are right. But people always complain. Right now people complain that they buy 100 chests and get nothing (this is not true by the way, but ok). If the chance to get some skins would be higher you would have the same people here complaining that they bought 50 chests and got nothing. Or 10 chests – and got nothing. Or got a lot of skins they don’t need but not the skin they wanted. Buh, buh, Arena, buh!

If you take random out of this and put the skins in the shop for direct buying you will have people complaining how expensive the skins are and how bad it is to force customers to pay with real money for them. If the skins are so cheap that basically everyone can afford them you’ll get people complaining that everyone has everything and nothing is special.

And if you don’t have new skins at all people complain that there is nothing new in the game.

People complain, it’s more human than desire to eat, to sleep or to have sex.

The thing is: the skins all the fuss is about do not actually impact the game in any way. The don’t make your char better or stronger, they don’t show that you’re better or richer player. They are just optic, nothing more. So Arena didn’t grab for you money they merely offer you opportunity to spend your money for something you don’t need. If it’s crossing the line for you than you are a dreamer.

Guild Wars 2 early adopters get rewarded all the time. It’s still a risk, though, and here is one of the times where the risk part factored instead of the reward. If you’ve got no data about how rare the items in the chest are, then making assumptions about that is taking a risk. Do you buy in early and hope to cash in on the panicked market, or do you wait for reports to come in about drop rates before you make your decision? You should have already bought the gems pre-event because the gem spike was easy to anticipate, so in the end it’s all another risk taking game, where the people who decided to wait won out this time.