Guild Wars 2

Hello Arenanet,

I see there’s a lot of complaints about your Halloween event. It’s true, you can never please everyone, and it’s true some people will complain no matter what. But some of the complaints are valid. Here’s my suggestions on how you can avoid the bulk of the (valid) complaints in the future.

First, take a look at the complaints. People are upset they spent money on Lion Keys and got nothing (special, i.e. Halloween related) back. The counter argument is that, of course, this was chance based; and furthermore, if everyone gets these special skins or what not, by simply spending some amount of money, then they are no longer special.

Who is right? Well, both views are, of course! In order to please both crowds, and increase your own revenue, this is what you can do. Taking some cues from Magic: The Gathering, and other collectible card games, etc.

1) Make several rarity tiers of skins for your next event. Perhaps 3: common, uncommon, and rare. You can add an Ultra-Rare, if you want. All of them should have a holiday flavour, but rares should be somehow more desirable than commons. For example, a common dagger skin could a small skull for halloween. An ultra-rare could have some ghastly-weapon like effect plus some trail or something (something cooler than the exotic weapons, but not as cool as legendaries).

2) Every opened Black Lion Chest should include at least one common skin. Again, these common skins should not be all that awesome, or distinctive. If everyone starts running around killing dragons with these skins, it shouldn’t look ridiculous. They’re meant to be FUN. They should make people that spent money on keys expecting at least something Halloween-y happy. That is all.

3) Rares and ultra-rares is where you get your repeat-customers money. People who really want some amazing skins will gamble on getting them. Just like people who want a particular Ultra-Rare foil card will spend hundreds of dollars on booster packs and what have you.

3 a) (Edited in): Also, include a warning on the label regarding rarities and what not. For example: “Every BLC will include at least one skin. Only 1 in 20 will have uncommon skins. Only 1 in 500 will have rares”.

4) …

5) Profit! Everyone should be happy now. People who just want to have something fun in the spirit of the holidays should get it with no great effort. People who want something really special can gamble for it. We don’t get the problem of everyone running around with a Halloween spider-bow. And you, Arenanet, increase your revenue as both casuals and hardcore players will spend money on gems to their varying degrees of hearts content.

This is actually a great idea. I’m not one of the people upset over getting nothing from my 30 bucks because i understood what i was doing- but even I could agree that something new would have been funner for me than nothing.

Addenda: I realise that some people will manage to find a reason to complain no matter what. But I think there’s a difference between valid complaints (e.g. “I spent 50USD and got nothing special”) and invalid ones (“I spent 50USD and did not get this ultra-rare skins I was warned beforehand is very rare”)

But this would end up as greatsword being the ultra rare, followed by greatswords again and then followed by greatswords again, and then you have all the other weapons. Surely you know that only greatswords get the coolest skins! /end half-sarcasm..

Finally , some constructive criticism! I actually thought something like that too.. I hope they will do something like that in act 2,3 and 4

Jrunyon.3012:

But this would end up as greatsword being the ultra rare, followed by greatswords again and then followed by greatswords again, and then you have all the other weapons. Surely you know that only greatswords get the coolest skins! /end half-sarcasm..

Despite your intended sarcasm, chances at a cool greatsword, a dandy greatsword and an ultra wicked kittening greatsword would be acceptable to myself!

I like this idea. It really shouldn’t be so hard to get some silly halloween skins but I don’t see the harm in some being hard to get. I’d be happy with some silly skins to run around in for a week and then forget. Everyone gets something without destroying any of the precious rarity.

Obviously the limiting factor becomes how many of the skins they can model. Aside from the resource concerns (having to load all these extra models into the active memory) this was one of the main reasons TF2 decided to outsource its paid content.

I agree with the OP that giving players clear information what to expect decreases frustration. Especially give us hints whether we are “going in the right or wrong direction”. Somebody who pays to open 99 chests and finds nothing special, will assume that there is nothing, that he was misled or that he misunderstood the event.

Or about the lions arch pumpkin event: usually events end when I leave the orange circle! That is your user interface, people! participating in hundreds of events has taught us that we don’t leave the orange circle!
The missing Piece of information for the ghost book detector event and the pumking carver event was for me that I should look for these things in Kryta! Outside the circle. After I knew that I had a chance and stopped thinking it was broken.

The user interface of the ghost detector looks like it was designed by someone who never played the game before. I haven’t played all classes yet, I admit, but does any class have a “skill” in slot 5 that is a radar / display and not an action??
Pressing 5 appears to be doing something! but it doesn’t. After a long time I figured out that it might a passive radar that changes its icon automatically! without me having to waste candy to be allowed to press 1-4. Look at radar first, then waste candy. It’s still difficult enough after you figured that out. It’s easier to use aggregations of other players as radar than the radar…

Then, the tool and first hint come via mail. No other event does that! It’s quite unexpected. NPCs all give us the tool in the inventory or place it into our hands. Mail is something I ignore and I collect the money from it later, while waiting for some skill to recharge. again it feels designed by someone who has never played GW2 before.

Ok there is this Serena ghost that we can use to practice, but I only found the scanner “hours” later in my mail. you were trying to do the right thing giving us an example, but if you at the same time break your own consistent UI for one event, it’s frustrating.

We have no senses in video games other than some LOD impaired sight and some not-really-“dolby surround audio”. The user interface is all we have. If it doesn’t give us hints whether what we are doing has any effect at all, it’s as if we are blinded and deafened and our hands are tied for no reason.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

Obviously the limiting factor becomes how many of the skins they can model. Aside from the resource concerns (having to load all these extra models into the active memory) this was one of the main reasons TF2 decided to outsource its paid content.

Agreed. I don’t deny that there are technical limitations on the number of skins that can be introduced in the game. However, I doubt this limitation is so severe that my suggestion could not be implemented.

Moka.9641:

Finally , some constructive criticism! I actually thought something like that too.. I hope they will do something like that in act 2,3 and 4

I really doubt they can do anything like this about this current holiday event. Hopefully, they do something like this for the next one though (Christmas, then Valentines and how knows…)

That would be a good idea. Personally I would like a direct sale even better, though. And while greatswords are quite impressive, don’t underestimate staffs

Having a more articulated rarity statement would be a good move, but I dunno… Having a skin of some sort in EVERY chest I think would be a bad idea. They’d be everywhere, and I think it would take a lot of the “specialness” of the skins out of it.

Well, even if I were looking for a special skin for one of my weapons, if I can’t wield a greatsword, that skin is a waste for me. I see a lot of drops through out the game that are always for other professions than mine, but rarely get what I can use on my character.

That is disappointing and there does not seem to be any way I can change that because there is no way to exchange one type I cannot use for a type I can use.

Maybe the common skins could be time-limited? Instead of having them available from a vendor in LA, they could be the “trash” commons in the BLCs.