Guild Wars 2

RoRo.8270:

This isn’t a p2p game anet is a business not a charity

One can operate a successful business without exploiting their customers. Its not either or, they can make money out of the gem shop by putting up skins for sale directly.

facepalm Do YOU guys have the stats on gem sales or skin purchases or stuff like that? Clearly if the Wintersday Skin sold well, currently skins would have also jut gone straight into the gem store. However, likely the prospect that ANYONE can buy the skins deterred a lot of people from going for the Wintersday skins and some of those skins were pretty nice too!

Just because you are angry and think this is killing goodwill doesn’t mean it actually is. Clearly Anet, who actually has the stats, show that people are more willing to splurge on keys during special limited time offers, if only because they can get “limited edition” skins that are limited by RNG. The value of a collection is measured by rare and hard to get items. It’s not rare if its just on the gem store.

Clearly Anet understands what skin collectors want better then some of its player base.

Tinni.4351:

Clearly Anet understands what skin collectors want better then some of its player base.

The fact that they understand the gambling mentality and base systems on getting money from it doesn’t mean its not exploitative.

And the playerbase is getting tired of the extensive RNG aspects of the game, its coming through in the feedback.

morrolan.9608:

The fact that they understand the gambling mentality and base systems on getting money from it doesn’t mean its not exploitative.

And the playerbase is getting tired of the extensive RNG aspects of the game, its coming through in the feedback.

No, it isn’t.

People are still happily spending $50+ on keys every single time ArenaNet does something like this. Only if people will stop buying keys altogether, ArenaNet will be forced to re-think their strategies.

Until then I will not spend a gem on anything that involves gambling.

“I have sunk 40 dollars and over 100g to buy gems for some random chance to get these tickets”

Oh my friggin’ god, that’s the purchase price of the w h o l e game.

If they can elicit this kind of money by making buys a gamble, how could they n o t do it?

Stop it!!! If you don’t buy crap, they stop making crap. It’s the fault of everybody giving them money for doing it, when they keep on rolling out stuff casino-style.

clay.7849:

Exactly. Someone needs to remind Zenith that companies work for us – the consumer – and not the other way around. We get to tell them whatever the hell we kitten well please because we paid for their game.

- It’s a quid pro quo situation. There are tons of products and services out there and I have no obligation to buy them. You would do well to actually read what is said in EULA that you agreed to when you started playing the game. Companies may respond to player posts for PR reasons, but they have no obligation to read anything we’re posting here, much less make changes based on them.

If you want to make a difference, the first step is to get hired to Anet. Your impact as forum poster is worth jack squat.

Zenith.6403:

clay.7849:

Exactly. Someone needs to remind Zenith that companies work for us – the consumer – and not the other way around. We get to tell them whatever the hell we kitten well please because we paid for their game.

- It’s a quid pro quo situation. There are tons of products and services out there and I have no obligation to buy them. You would do well to actually read what is said in EULA that you agreed to when you started playing the game. Companies may respond to player posts for PR reasons, but they have no obligation to read anything we’re posting here, much less make changes based on them.

If you want to make a difference, the first step is to get hired to Anet. Your impact as forum poster is worth jack squat.

There are thousands of examples I can give of public pressure causing a company to make changes without anyone needing to infiltrate the company. Yes, attempts at making changes through a forum may not always work. But, they don’t always NOT work either. The best way to make sure NOTHING happens is to say nothing at all.

And, I still don’t have to stop telling a company what to do. They still work for us, the consumer. Without us, they don’t exist.

Milennin.4825:

morrolan.9608:

The fact that they understand the gambling mentality and base systems on getting money from it doesn’t mean its not exploitative.

And the playerbase is getting tired of the extensive RNG aspects of the game, its coming through in the feedback.

No, it isn’t.

People are still happily spending $50+ on keys every single time ArenaNet does something like this. Only if people will stop buying keys altogether, ArenaNet will be forced to re-think their strategies.

Until then I will not spend a gem on anything that involves gambling.

I wish people would STOP assuming that its the same people who are buying keys/chests whatever every single time. No, no, it isn’t.

I did not buy keys during halloween, I did not buy consortium chests during Karka event and I did not buy any of the RNG stuff during Winter’s Day. Heck, the only thing I bought during Winter’s Day was the Fancy Winter’s Day costume. I did however spend $45 AUD on keys this time.

Why? Because I really, really, really wanted the Fused Short Bow skin and since I knew all I had to do was get just one token, I was happy to have a go at it. Normally I wouldn’t have gone beyond $10-$20 but I REALLY wanted the skin and I have been happy with the Living Story content and so happy to give Anet more of my money. I.e. I was happy to support Anet through purchasing gems. I got my bow too, so I am super happy. Especially since $45 was the upper limit of what I was willing to spend.

However, that does not mean I will chase the next skin. Indeed, as my characters stabilize and I get all the gear I want on them with looks I am happy with, the chances of me buying skins lessens.

If you are not happy to buy keys, that’s fine. 95% of the time, I don’t buy keys either. Of all the skins available in-game less then 5% are/were (include Halloween and Karka) bound to the gem store RNG. Game play wise, only the Fractal skins are RNG. That’s really not a lot of skins that are only RNG or even gem RNG. So please, get some perspective here!

Also, IF the fused skins were on the gem store, they would have been priced at no more then 800 gems. The winter’s day skins were priced at 500 gems. If I could directly buy the skins, I would have bought the shortbow and maybe a couple of dagger skins for my thief and elementalist. So maximum 2400 gems (that’s assuming the skins were priced at 800). Instead I bought 3600 gems. I am sorry folks, but the math is on the side of RNG AND it is preciously because its not the same people chasing the skins every single time that you will never win. I spend $45 in 8 months for RNG skin, that’s not an unreasonable amount to me. Now if I was spending $45 each event, then maybe I too would be complaining about RNG.

clay.7849:

Zenith.6403:

clay.7849:

Exactly. Someone needs to remind Zenith that companies work for us – the consumer – and not the other way around. We get to tell them whatever the hell we kitten well please because we paid for their game.

- It’s a quid pro quo situation. There are tons of products and services out there and I have no obligation to buy them. You would do well to actually read what is said in EULA that you agreed to when you started playing the game. Companies may respond to player posts for PR reasons, but they have no obligation to read anything we’re posting here, much less make changes based on them.

If you want to make a difference, the first step is to get hired to Anet. Your impact as forum poster is worth jack squat.

There are thousands of examples I can give of public pressure causing a company to make changes without anyone needing to infiltrate the company. Yes, attempts at making changes through a forum may not always work. But, they don’t always NOT work either. The best way to make sure NOTHING happens is to say nothing at all.

And, I still don’t have to stop telling a company what to do. They still work for us, the consumer. Without us, they don’t exist.

But your forum ranting in isolation will do nothing. Anet has other stats. In this particular case, gems bought and exchanged for key stats. Not to mention gems bought and exchanged for key stats from the last events. If 5% of people complain but 30% of people go buy keys… who do you think they are going to listen to?

@Tinni

I agree wholeheartedly that people need to stop buying keys if they want things to change. And, as a person who doesn’t care about the skins or the keys, I really have no dog in this race.

I just was pointing out that regardless of what anyone says or what ANet is making, I think the OP has a point. The cash shop for keys for RNG based skins is a bad idea. And, specifically to the post you are quoting, I was responding to someone who said we have no right to tell a company what to do. As a believer in democracy and capitalism, I think that is just plain stupid to say.

I’m gonna leave now, as I really don’t care all that much.

I wouldn’t mind the black lion chests that much if they dropped stuff that was halfway useable other than karma jugs and such. Even some token T6 mats would be good. The problem is if you don’t hit the jackpot so to speak you get nothing worthwile. I know with the dailies and monthlies and other chests I have more karma than I know what to do with at this point.

" I did however spend $45 AUD on keys this time.
Why? Because I really, really, really wanted the Fused Short Bow skin"

OK, after my last post just being venting I actually got a suggestion:
→ Code the drops, so that for each “failed” chest the chance of a rare/event drop increases, resetting on “success”. Making sure you get at least one drop out of $5 to $10.

The thing is, the cash shop is meant to work this way, if they wanted everything to be available to everyone, they would charge a monthly fee and have everything available in game. Instead, they make their money primarily from a small minority of players who drop unimaginable sums of money into the cash shop to get those special items that you have to be either very lucky or very persistent to have.

If you could get all these items with $100 worth of gems these people would quickly grow bored and leave. So you would need to constantly introduce more $5 and $10 items into the shop to keep as many people as possible buying them. But that kind of effort equals the monthly sub model, with diminishing returns as people get the skins they like and stop buying the new ones. It’s a path of failure.

So either you do what monthly games do, offer a variety of challenges behind gear requirements (raids and such), then periodically raise the number requirements so that people have to log in constantly to keep their gear up to date, or go the cash shop route, where a few very rare items (legendary weapons, exclusive skins) require a significant monetary investment to acquire.

It is fortunate that GW2 offers something of a hybrid approach where you can buy gems with in-game currency, trading time spent playing for money, and also has challenging content tied to gear requirements that you can work towards if you are so inclined. They are trying to give everyone what they want, but of course by dividing their efforts no one thing is going to be perfect.

How about they also add a chance for the ticket or a random skin to drop from slain Molten enemies?
It would give me and everyone I’ve talked to about it a reason to keep fighting them.
As it is, I just try to avoid them altogether, because they’re more annoying than challenging to fight.

It would also appease the people that don’t want to spend gems on the keys, but still like the skins.
Instead of spending cash to get them, you have to put in a lot of effort.
Should probly make the skins account bound if they are added, to prevent everyone from farming them just to make a quick buck on the trade post.

clay.7849:

Then give us stuff that will make me want to purchase gems. Like I said, I haven’t purchased gems because of RNG – same with you. So, the smart people aren’t purchasing gems. How is that helping their bottom line?

Is this a serious contention or are you being coy? I’d imagine it is helping their bottom line because the dollars of the impatient and unintelligent are of equivalent value to “smart people” dollars.

edit: To be clear, I’m not saying that people spending money on Gems to try for the skins right now are by definition unintelligent and/or impatient (okay, maybe impatient). I was just adopting the counterpoint to clay’s premise for the sake of argument.

Here is my suggestion.

Put these skins on the Gem Store for a good chunk of price.
And also add them to the Black Lion Chests, or w/e chests to get them.

That way the people who dont wanna spend a good 30~50 dollars on some skins, and would rather push their luck with 10+ dollars can do so.

Hawkian.6580:

clay.7849:

Then give us stuff that will make me want to purchase gems. Like I said, I haven’t purchased gems because of RNG – same with you. So, the smart people aren’t purchasing gems. How is that helping their bottom line?

Is this a serious contention or are you being coy? I’d imagine it is helping their bottom line because the dollars of the impatient and unintelligent are of equivalent value to “smart people” dollars.

edit: To be clear, I’m not saying that people spending money on Gems to try for the skins right now are by definition unintelligent and/or impatient (okay, maybe impatient). I was just adopting the counterpoint to clay’s premise for the sake of argument.

We honestly don’t know. I can’t imagine that there are people out there that are dropping huge dollars on this game just for the chance of getting a skin. If there are, then perhaps I am just naive. Again, I know that we don’t know this, but doesn’t it seem like it would be a heck of a lot easier – and also better for the community – if skins were just available in the cash shop?

Of course, then it would take away from the “rareness” of the skin and would possibly drop the perceived “coolness” or worth of the item.

I dunno, I just can’t get my head around the fact that people spend large amounts of money for Black Lion Keys which is worse than playing the Mystic Toilet.

I think they should stop adding and adding to RNG’s. They create more money sinks, which we have enough of (cough WvW).

I have to agree with the OP in the sense that this armor is ONLY available by RNG …

I like the suggestion of Tekietee above here but i would like to extend it a bit. And for this i sort of look to GW1 and how costumes were introduced there, and apply this to how GW2 works:

Gem store items
- Frost Pack: $20,- … buy account wide access to all the armor skin pieces (basically how the HOM reward pieces work), buy account wide access to all the weapon skins. And get 5 fire-pits.
- Frost Armor: $10,- get account wide access to all armor skin pieces.
- Frost Weaponry: $10,- get account wide access to all weapon skins.
- Fire Pits: w/e they cost now.

Added to the black lion chests :
- Fire pit
- Frost token ‘1’ & ‘2’
‘1’. The token can be exchanged at the armor/weapon NPC in exchange for access to a single piece of the armor or weapon set.
‘2’. As more living story segments are released this ‘token’ should be made more general, something like ‘Momento Armor Token’, ‘Momento Weapon Token’, so that people can choose where (which story) they deliver their token to get access to a single piece of the event armor.

Story Reward …
A unique single piece of armor or a weapon skin, this works similar to how ‘hats’ worked in GW1, but seeing GW2 i think it would not have to be a ‘hat’ all the time. Preferably every living story ‘climax/end’ would have a particular armor skin piece. Which ‘after’ X stories, would form a either complete set or would complement (fit with) any of the higher tier armors. (so for example, currently the attacks seem to be flame legion related, effect charr, norn, humans mostly, any of these could give inspiration for an armor piece to complement any of the racial armors or a dungeon armor. OR the rewords could from a ‘living armor’ set in the end…)

• To give people a chance to collect the armor pieces of the past, a ‘historian’ like character could send the adventurer on a couple of quests to ‘relive’ the story and receive the armor piece reward at the end of the ‘relived’ story.

To me this sounds like a value for money deal, and the Frost Keys (and later other kinds of keys) still add value to the Black Chests. People that want the armor, or just the weapons can get them for a more than reasonable price (seeing they are always available skins for all characters on the account). And for those people that just care about a memorabilia item, also get a cool reward at the end of the story.

In this way you reach ‘all’ kinds of customers, and if I learned anything about economy and keeping a business alive (may be even more applicable for an MMO), it is to have a long term strategy that involves binding customers to you for repeated purchases of good value/quality for money deals.

No consumers, no business.. now you may be able to fool some people some time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time (<- apparently quoted from ‘Bob Marley: Get-up Stand Up’) … So you stay in business by having long term content consumers that keep coming back for more, and that is done by defining the measure of success not in short terms of ROI for shareholders value, but by making sure you give players good value for money. This will turn out to be the ROI in the end anyways, maybe over a more extended period of time, but it will come and it will keep coming!

A way to do RNG somewhat decent is to offer an replacement or ‘additional option’ in an RNG fashion, though instead of RNG i would rather see this only used in certain events. I can not really see anything wrong with offering a certain hard to get item as a reward for a certain holiday event ‘thing’. This would mean that there is the gem-shop full armor set, there is a holiday reward item, and there is a certain armor piece that comes from a hard to do (like the tower thing) holiday event ‘dungeon (or the sorts)’ … meaning that the hard to get item is a reward for taking the time to do this certain thing, there are/(is) (a) memorabilia item(s) that comes with the other event things. And there is an assortment of gem-shop items.

Now what you do NOT want to do is make the hard to get item the only way to get such an item, you want to make it an additional/replacement item… So what would that look like in an actual holiday event:

Halloween:
- Gem-Shop, has Mad-King armor, including pumpkin hat (+ other assortment items)
- Tower event, has ‘Mad-King’s Head’, pumpkin ‘hat’ with flames.
- Event itself, has the back-item (book).

• The gem-shop armor (apart from the hat) could also be linked to the various other in-game event ‘things’. So people have the choice to spend the time or the money (i would say it to be only fair to sell each individual armor piece as well, so that people don’t have to buy the whole thing if they only need a chest or piece or a hat).

Wintersday:
- Gem-shop, has an armor skin with fur (and an assortment of winter clothing)
- The most difficult event ‘thing’ has a ‘toy maker mini’
- The various events have a chance on the winter fur lined armor, but always give the various minis.

• obviously the gem-shop would also offer the individual pieces so that people can complete the armor.

• the armor completion deal could be offered like 3-4 days prior to the end of event, so that people can feel complete for the finale.

Sounds sensible, and it sounds reasonable, it offers cash/time exchange, it offers a special thing for the most effort, and it gives incentive to take part in the event and to spend some gems near the end of it.