Guild Wars 2

People have commented in threads about their displeasure about loot being subject to random acquisition through purchasing chests in the gem store.

Additionally, loot that is subject to luck from chests from mobs.

I hope that ANET is aware of the long term potential consequences. Eventually people who feel like I do will become fed up with the RNG and cash shop dependent systems and leave.

My suggestion on how the system could have been better this time is that the vendor should have also taken candy in as payment for the armor skins. As it is, you could kill mobs every day during the event and not get one ticket because it is totally and completely up to luck.

I prefer the system in WvW where you get badges and then use those to get loot. Effort equals rewards.

I did not even attempt to get the tickets for the last skins that are RNG or gem shop dependent. Now that this appears to be an established trend I’m beginning to lose interest in shallow stories with little of note to do other than hope for a ticket that has nothing to do with effort and everything to do with luck.

What I have enjoyed in the temporary or seasonal content:

-Wintersday – fun events, loot could be obtained through effort, other skins were on sale in gemstore (not RNG)
-Mad King Event – fun things to do, nice quests
-Living world – the dungeon like instance in Roxie and Braham’s quests and the quests for the two main characters, the loot reward for the achievement
- Southsun story was ok but not in depth enough, the buffs from the npc’s were a nice addition, drops were ok
- SAB – fun activity, great way of handling loot

What I haven’t enjoyed:

- RNG for loot, gemstore chests for loot, content that is temporary and looks rushed.

I enjoy the game. I think it has a solid foundation. For the first time ever I prefer PvP over PvE. Ever. WvW is just plain fun.

But I still want the cool PvE stuff. And I want my friends to not say….I’m going to go play (insert game name here) until they stop with this RNG crap. RNG is ok for the best of the best of the best. For temporary skins its just annoying.

Suggestion:
Come up with some sort of in game survey to find out what your players prefer and work on improvement. If it shows that the majority of your players prefer the gemstore chest RNG and in game RNG for those items, I’ll know I’m just not the typical player and forget about it.

They should just have two ways of getting the skins. RNG Boxes, and through some achievements that actually time and effort in the game. Currently they have different skins available through the achievements, but I think that they should always at least give out one ticket per RNG Box “storyline” so that players can remember that they participated in those events. Christmas was a great example of how it should always be done.

If the event skins gained from those boxes would look bad thing could be considered ok, But the more we go the more we witness the implementation of “legendary” skins into the boxes instead of the game itself. Molten weapons, Southsun cove weapons and now the Dragon weapons look a lot better then the legendaries.
I see only 2 reasons behind these lotteries:
gambling addicts spend more money then regular players and
selling skins directly at a lower price will make people buy them with in-game gold so a-net will not earn money

This argument will be shot down with the reasoning all similar arguments are shot down:

These items are optional. You are not being forced to pay for them, and there is no advantage to owning them.

Now, that being said, I do agree with the fact that RNG rewards are out of this world, and I think the whole system should be overhauled. But it is a losing argument because of the above fact, and ANet’s failsafe to the claim of unfairness.

I believe RNG on paid items out of the gemshop is not fair.
For example black lion chest keys or other chest are not worth any of your money at all.
But i dont want to be negative all the way… so the items of some events like the weapons and armor are more worth your money. because you get the item you pay for not a chance. since this is obviously a choice from the players i dont choose to buy any rng drop chest or keys from the gemshop. i would recommend anyone not to do so either.

Redbear.5910:

I believe RNG on paid items out of the gemshop is not fair.

I agree with this, and the original post.

No, there is no direct obligation to get the armor tickets. But when people want them, and spend real world money at the gem store for a CHANCE at getting them, that is online gambling. It’s a slot machine for a virtual reward.

According to the FBI (http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/june/gambling_060607) gambling in free online games is not currently illegal… Though many states prohibit gambling by minors, and as far as I know there are minors playing this game who could be gambling on the chance of a gem store reward.

If you’re going to make a very desirable item and give people a gem store option, it should be directly purchasable, not a result of gambling.

I didn’t bother with the other systems either from the previous events. This time I used MF and noticed a big change with my mf armor on even to this day compared to when i don’t have it on when opening these boxes. I get better candy and more drops with MF on. Seems like they might be testing it a bit.

I also received a ticket, not something I was aiming for I assure you I just was curious to see what the drop rate would be like after about the 49th opening that’s when a ticket dropped. These were the regular boxes too. I never buy those from any store in any game.

They said they were working on the in game rewards system which tells me they know there’s a problem with their current RNG only rewards and the dependence on not only the cash shop but a single currency for items that can only be found in the TP which is highly manipulated by those players who used the SS event to get multiple precursors and who used head start to find the fastest farm zones and built their gold up to inflation levels and continue to make a mockery of the TP to this day.

If they’re going to make cosmetics and sell them do it direct. It’s more honest. Have the capacity in game to make enough money to get the gems in the store for the small things, not ten million sinks where players have no choice but to throw chunks of money into the hole and not get a return. Have a system of rewards that uses vendors for open world because the majority of the players they originally attracted to this game were not interested in dungeons trust me, they made the open world the best sounding thing ever and that’s where the rewards system needs the most help.

I know they are working on it right now I just hope it’s something that makes sense. A two system recovery would be nice, non RNG vendors for many of the Runes and Sigils or T6 mats to keep crafting relevant, and a salvage system where essential items can be acquired by using a higher cost salvage kit on whites blues greens and rares would be nice.