Guild Wars 2

The alternative to RNG always seem to involve “just let us directly purchase skins!!!” but that’s not really a good solution from Anet’s point of view because of sticker shock. In this forum alone there are people who bought 100 crates, who spent $100+ dollars on gems to try for a skin. I myself spent $95 trying for a fused weapon skin and this time I spent $20 for a Sclerite weapon.

If the skins were direct purchase, they could not be priced more then $20 and believe you me, a lot of people would rage at $20. I mean, Rox’s Weapons skin set had TWO skins that worked out to be $7 each and there are people complaining that it was too expensive! There is just no going around the fact that people will not spend a lot of money directly buying skins and that’s why the RNG boxes will stick around…

But they don’t have to! My solution is that we hold gem auctions for these skins. Everyday for the period the skins are around (Fused skins were around for 2 month and so will the current skins) Anet auctions off a small number of skins, say 100 (still only 6000 skins over a period of 2 months). It’s a blind auction (so you don’t know how high the current bids are) and you bid the maximum you are willing to pay for the skin starting at a minimum of 700 gems. At the end of the day the 10 highest bidders get the skins. I am thinking that this system might need a “bidding fee” to discourage people from putting in silly bids like 701 gems or whatever but I am not sure.

Anyway, this way players aren’t effected by sticker stock. Anet is still able to sell skins for $100+ without actually offering skins for $100 (because some people will offer that much to get the skin of their dream). The skins are still rare since only a limited number of players will have them, thus there will be incentive for people to bid high. But what we do avoid is people spending copious amounts of money and getting nothing in return. Because if you get a skin, you are happy but if you spend money and get nothing – that’s why you rage.

Anyway, that’s my idea.

PS. It doesn’t have to be a blind auction and you can certainly just try topping the lowest bid. I just thought of a blind auction because that would make people stop and consider how much they were willing to spend chasing one skin and not just get into the heat of bidding and try and out bid each other.

Pretty good idea, actually. They’d have to code for a new mechanic to implement, but if they thought the return was worth the development, I’m sure they’d do it. A blind auction has it’s pros and cons for both sides of a bidding war for sure. Maybe more of an eBay style auction where you only see when your max bid has been passed?

The biggest drawback is that RNG boxes make Anet real cash. Money is spent in large sums when people gamble in general, so I believe the only way they’ll abandon RNG boxes or look for alternatives is when sales go down significantly.

2nd thought: instead of an auction-style competition, what about the idea of a lottery? Buy entries to a lottery with gem-purchased tickets (relatively low cost … maybe 50 each?) and the winners are chosen randomly from the pool. It can be coded so one person does or doesn’t win multiple items in the same lottery depending on which outcome Anet prefers.

So only rich players who grind all day long can get a skin? While poor players who have to buy gems still don’t have the money to outbid rich players.

Onshidesigns.1069:

So only rich players who grind all day long can get a skin? While poor players who have to buy gems still don’t have the money to outbid rich players.

I think your definition of “Rich” is a bit too narrow. Players who are buying gems are time poor, thus they can’t grind all day, but they maybe be cash rich. So they can buy more gems outright, while time rich but cash poor players grind all day to save-up in-game gold which they can convert to gems. So as long as a player is “rich” either time wise or cash wise, the auction system will work for them.

However, there is an inherent “fairness” to the RNG system in that everybody (in-theory) is equal in the eyes of RNG. Still, those who can buy more gems – either using RL cash or in-game gold, are buying more crates/chests and thus giving themselves more chances to “win”. So… shrug