Guild Wars 2

Its unfortunate to see an MMO event turn out to be wealth controlled.
Spent $20 to try my luck with the black lion chests, got nothing. No problem. I knew the risk going into it, and at the same time I am supporting the developers. However when you see these players spending $50+ on gems and not getting a skin, it just makes everyone upset. Its safe to assume that most of them will not purchase gems for future events.

The defensive statement being used- “the skins will always be available on the trading post” sounds nice, but that option is already becoming a niche for very wealthy players only. These already high prices will increase exponentially after the event is over. Look at the legendary pre-cursor weapons. Anyone can get these on any day of the year and the prices are high; imagine the prices of these halloween-exclusive skins a month or two after halloween.

So what could be done?

Have every -account- be granted one redeemable “halloween token”. You can redeem this token for one (just one) halloween skin. If possible, the skin purchased with this token would be account bound. Simple. There would still be a market for the other halloween items, and everyone would be happy. The wealthy can still make their investments, and the casual player that doesn’t have exorbitant amounts of money will be satisfied with the skin they like best.

Doing anything else would be problematic. For instance; Increasing the skin loot chances would anger everyone that had already purchased the chests.

(Had to create a new post due to a certain rule redacting the old thread. Fixed the issue in this one.)

I wouldn’t mind just going out and collecting Candy Corn to make Candy Corn Tokens to trade towards stuff

I’m a big fan of the one token for everyone. That way, the players who were in this particular event can commemorate them being there and makes us feel special, kinda like birthday presents in GW1. Make the items a testament to how long you’ve been dedicated to the game. If people want to sell that away, let them. People will keep buying the game further down the road, and the people that have been here since the start want that recognition. Great idea, OP

aeonZgamer.5307:

I wouldn’t mind just going out and collecting Candy Corn to make Candy Corn Tokens to trade towards stuff

this would be awesome <3 they could keep the cash shop still always the lazy people.

but i do think the op is on to something, though im no crazy over the skins anyway so .. but i know plenty of others are

Guys… don’t forget, this event hasn’t even run 24 hours. There may be more down the road.

Works for me

Stormdancer.4972:

Guys… don’t forget, this event hasn’t even run 24 hours. There may be more down the road.

How dare you bring logic into this…More stuff coming which could provide the weapon skins. That’s just crazy talk.

You already get the devil horns and the backpack.

I also get the intense feeling that a lot of you haven’t tried farming for candy corn or any of the other mats and have an inflated sense of how rare they are (they aren’t.)

Yeah, people are whining a bit too much about this. No one is making you spend money. You could just as easily farm the gold. If you don’t want to farm the gold because it “takes too long” then spend cash.

Yes please, Halloween should be for everyone, let casual players with real day jobs have cool stuff too.

This would actually be a wonderfull solution, where Anet would be the greatest winner.

They already ‘won’ by selling this many chests.

Giving all the dismayed players something in return would cost them next to nothing to implement it.
Here the players win.

When the players feel like Anet took their concerns seriously, and doesn’t want to be a money grabbing cash shop MMO, it will reflect positively on the future.
Here Anet wins again.

And for all thoe opposed to this: consider that Anet managed to kitten of a large majority of the people who actually wanted to spend MORE cash on their game, beyond the initial purchase cost!
Right or wrong, gambling or calculated… this is a very silly thing to do as a B2P game.

Making amends might not be justified for all here, but it sure would be smart!

I wouldn’t be opposed to everyone getting a single 4 hour skin for fun. Part of the fun for these things is connected to the rarity though (admittedly some things may be too grindy).

You could give everyone $1,000.00 and they still wouldn’t be happy.

^I’d be pretty pumped

Everyone needs to take back and realize that the Black Lion Chest items are not the main draw of the event. They are cool no doubt (I really wish I could have a Greatsaw!) but there is SO MUCH OTHER CONTENT in the event… and it’s only Act 1!

See this is the exact problem. People don’t care about the book… why? Because it’s something EVERYONE can get easily. It’s value as a skin is nothing… you won’t stand out using it. People fail to realize that if the Greatsaw was easy to get and everyone got one with a medium amount of effort, that the coolness of it (and uniqueness) would diminish greatly.

I seriously cannot believe how many people overlook the fact we have 2 easily obtainable rewards so far, in Act 1. Devil Horns and Book. Everyone instead chooses to say “but I want the candy from the top shelf!” and focus on ONE set of skins.

I can sympathize with the people who think that the gambling aspect of the chest is bad. Because I do agree with that for the most part, I just chose not to get worked up about such a small thing. I can not sympathize with the people that think all the skins should be something that most everyone can get.

Its this kind of thing that makes me think sub based mmos were actually better. I was one who thought this move to f2p would be a good thing for the customer but now I see it actually limits the amount of the things in game you can access without paying far more than a sub. Much more access to everything in the game for a much cheaper price overall.

I did not mean to anger anyone. I just thought it would be a productive suggestion that’s all.

Logan.2706:

I did not mean to anger anyone. I just thought it would be a productive suggestion that’s all.

It was.

All those shouting that the complainers are spoiled brats and such, seem to neglect we’re talking trust in a company here.

Your idea could restore some of the lost trust.

That’s way more important than being right or wrong.

Many Anet customers are unhappy today, specifically those customers who supported the game the most financially.

People can call those supporting paying cxcustomers whiners if they want, that doesn’t change the fact that Anet did bad business here.
This many posts with complaints isn’t ‘whining’ or ‘being right to complain’… it’s mostly a sign something went wrong between company and customer.

Your idea is a wonderful way to regain some of that trust.

I think a lot of people were going into this first event with the I WANT to do and get everything idea. (this isn’t a bad thing, just unrealistic) We also had no way of knowing. We had to find this out once the event started. People are going to be disappointed when they realize that they won’t be able to get everything from this event. This is understandable since most people won’t have the time or money or luck to get some or any of the weapons and black lion chest skins.

Everything boils down to peoples expectations. This could have been avoided with a little more information being provided from arena net. Simply saying as part of the update info and announcements that the items in the BL chests are going to be fairly rare and that some the weapons are going to take a significant amount of time to craft, would have given people REALISTIC expectations of just what they might be able to get.

I am all for the "wait and see… " and “it’s a surprise” but finding out that a certain skin they want is going to be super super hard to obtain is not a fun surprise.

Something that might make everyone feel a little bit better about the event is saying something like “there will be a holiday item everyone can get if you do this” like they festival hats in GW1. Another nice gesture that would go a long way is for people to get a few black lion keys as event rewards. Most people won’t get a cool skin but at least everyone would have a chance at one.

vvp.8512:

You already get the devil horns and the backpack.

I also get the intense feeling that a lot of you haven’t tried farming for candy corn or any of the other mats and have an inflated sense of how rare they are (they aren’t.)

Halloween mats aren’t the problem…It’s the lodestones and wine.

I think its a great suggestion

I agree that having the attitude of not wanting it all is a good mental attitude to take. From experience in other games, I know that it sometimes took me 2 and sometimes even 3 years to get all the achievements for a holiday done.

As for the chests, I did buy a bunch of them on TP. However, I on-purpose did not buy the keys. I wanted to wait and see how that played out. If it was being reported, as it is now, that the drop rate on holiday items is extrememly low, then I won’t spend money on keys. If it gets adjusted, now or in another year, then I will. In any case, I’ll open the chests as I pickup keys, and be none the worse off. I do feel sorry for folks that spent a lot of money for keys and got nothing special.

The items you get from the MF are not worth my time and trouble. I don’t like the MF, but understand that hard core players need something to do/obtain. As a casual player, I don’t expect to be able to obtain everything, unless it is over a very long period of time. I think the recipes/mats are asking a lot, but perhaps that makes the ones that can do it more easily happy, in that they can say they have something I don’t have. I’m used to that with raiders in other games. More power to you. I don’t want to spend that much time/money anyway, and I’ll be OK with just looking at yours.

the drop rate is that low? I wanted to buy a gem card for keys, but it seems that it isn’t worth it.

If you let everyone have a free skin, people will complain that the skins are worthless since everyone got one. Then some idiot will claim that anyone who has one is a poor noob because they got it for free and real players earned more then one. People are mean and complain, its just the way it is. The only way to stop all the complaints is to shut down the servers, then people don’t have a game to complain about.

They should make it each chest you open increases the odds of getting a skin.
10 chests = 25% 15 chests for 50% 20 chests 75% 25 chests if you still don’t have one then the odds are 100% and it gives you one When you get one the odds reset.

The real question is, how do you know people really did pay 50 bux and got nothing? They could be just generating a bandwagon effect for others to jump onto to increase the chances of the items before opeing the 100+ chests they have from PvEing….

Screaming that the house is on fire enough will eventually bring people running to the rescue…

Another question is, why do you feel entitled to a skin for free? Even having an event should be reward enough……

vvp.8512:

You already get the devil horns and the backpack.

I also get the intense feeling that a lot of you haven’t tried farming for candy corn or any of the other mats and have an inflated sense of how rare they are (they aren’t.)

What backpack? I want a backpack! (feels lost and confused!)

zaxziakohl.5243:

What backpack? I want a backpack! (feels lost and confused!)

After you do the “scavenger hunt” that starts in Lion’s Arch (where you look for the ghosts)… you return back to the Asura that originally started the quest. You show her that you have all.. emm.. 5 (or is it 6?) parts of the story in your inventory.. and the Asura puts them all together for you and then you get sent a book/backpack in your Mail.

—
not sure if i should’ave put that behind spoiler tags. the book was already mentioned so i don’t think i spoiled anything..

I like the token idea, like the hats from GW1. everyone gets one skin token at the end/start of the event (too late for Halloween but not to late for Christmas… er wintersday, sorry). New weapons every year.

maybe have the token be available at the end of an easy chain of tasks (like the jingle bear and moa from 1) easy, but did require you to go play the world a bit. Just keep the tasks confined to the starting areas so new players aren’t left out.

and for the record… the $$ I dumped into gems this morning not going to do it again without knowing the drop chances on the chests. I like A-Net, but that was more of a donation than I wanted to give (twice what I plan to spend every holiday since I was trying to get something for a friend too.). I’ll still buy gems in the future, but I’ll be spending them on something other than inventory clogging chest keys.

BlueStoat.9157:

I like the token idea, like the hats from GW1. everyone gets one skin token at the end/start of the event (too late for Halloween but not to late for Christmas… er wintersday, sorry). New weapons every year.

maybe have the token be available at the end of an easy chain of tasks (like the jingle bear and moa from 1) easy, but did require you to go play the world a bit. Just keep the tasks confined to the starting areas so new players aren’t left out.

and for the record… the $$ I dumped into gems this morning not going to do it again without knowing the drop chances on the chests. I like A-Net, but that was more of a donation than I wanted to give (twice what I plan to spend every holiday since I was trying to get something for a friend too.). I’ll still buy gems in the future, but I’ll be spending them on something other than inventory clogging chest keys.

They did acknowledge that the drop rate was a bit infuriating. Stated that you should keep your items from the chest because they would provide ways to turn those into Halloween items.

DinoDoll.3682:

zaxziakohl.5243:

What backpack? I want a backpack! (feels lost and confused!)

After you do the “scavenger hunt” that starts in Lion’s Arch (where you look for the ghosts)… you return back to the Asura that originally started the quest. You show her that you have all.. emm.. 5 (or is it 6?) parts of the story in your inventory.. and the Asura puts them all together for you and then you get sent a book/backpack in your Mail.

—
not sure if i should’ave put that behind spoiler tags. the book was already mentioned so i don’t think i spoiled anything..

Ty I shall get on it, sounds cool.