Guild Wars 2

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Another whiny thread from someone who doesn’t understand what the words “random” and “rare” mean?

And don’t even try the “there was no RNG like this in GW1” lies. Go ahead and name one everlasting tonic that isn’t acquired via RNG.

Also, the unbreakable bell gives you near-unlimited potential to annoy everyone around you. If it were a common drop, everyone with ears would be really angry.

Taikanaru.5746:

This isn’t about some weapon skin, it’s about playing a fun mini-game. By keeping them rare they are locking out content from a lot of players once Wintersday ends.

All of the other Wintersday content disappears after Wintersday…

The birthday tonics were 100%, but the chance of getting the one you want was RNG.

I actually don’t mind getting items from an RNG as long as I’m not paying real money for it. I’d even say I look forward to farming Lunar Fortunes each year in GW1 for a chance to get a Celestial Mini. (And for the record I don’t do it to sell them, I do it to get one to keep. Which is lucky because except for one year when I got 3 in a row I’ve only ever gotten 1.)

I also like that I know if I don’t get it I’ve got the option of buying one from another player. Yes they’re insanely expensive (although the price usually crashes by the end of the event) but it’s do-able.

What I do have a problem with is having to pay real money to play an RNG and having no other option. Which is why I’m trying for the bell and trying to forget about the festive minis.

You guys keep throwing percentages around but its entirely possible that the delivery method could be something else, for example it could be: every X minutes the next person to open a gift recieves a bell.

I’ve seen other games use this instead of fixed percentage to ensure the rarity of an item.

Danikat.8537:

I actually don’t mind getting items from an RNG as long as I’m not paying real money for it. I’d even say I look forward to farming Lunar Fortunes each year in GW1 for a chance to get a Celestial Mini. (And for the record I don’t do it to sell them, I do it to get one to keep. Which is lucky because except for one year when I got 3 in a row I’ve only ever gotten 1.)

I also like that I know if I don’t get it I’ve got the option of buying one from another player. Yes they’re insanely expensive (although the price usually crashes by the end of the event) but it’s do-able.

What I do have a problem with is having to pay real money to play an RNG and having no other option. Which is why I’m trying for the bell and trying to forget about the festive minis.

As much I loved them, I somewhat doubt they’ll bring them back. Doing things like Lunar Fortunes wouldn’t be profitable, real-money wise. If they did bring them back, it wouldn’t be the same. It’d essentially be like this Wintersday’s mystery boxes, I imagine.

I haven’t read through the entire thread, just the OP, but is the OP really quitting and calling GW2 RNG based because of an item that (I assume) gives no one any kind of advantage?

Vanthian.9267:

The amount of gifts required to get that unbreakable bell must be ungodly. On a statistical bell curve I should have had 2 by now if they have a 0.01% chance to drop.

If it has a 0.01% chance to drop, simple (and statistically wrong) math would put you at 10k boxes to get the item you want. And that’s if the laws of the universe made it fact that rolling a 100-sided die 100 times would roll every number exactly once.

I made the mistake of trying for the Endless Griffon Tonic and ended up kitten at the game. Gambling is pointless in this game if you don’t like to lose. “The house always wins” is a mantra ANet has adopted and applies to every RNG aspect of this game. You would do well to remember that before thinking too drastically.

I purchased 40 small wintersday presents and then 30 medium presents.

I got the Unbreakable Choir Bell out of the medium ones. I don’t play the Choir game bell at all (cant infact).

I’m sorry, OP, and please don’t take this wrong. You make a valid point about the RNG and possibly never getting a good roll, even after spending so much. But I look at the picture you posted and I just see a kid on Christmas morning, decked out in great jammies, staring incredulously at a mountain of ripped boxes and wrapping paper, wondering why he didn’t get the pony he was asking for. Again, I apologize, I’m not trying to trivialize your valid complaint, but I guess, growing up poor, my mindset is that sometimes you just don’t get what you want, regardless of how much effort you put into it.

Vanthian.9267:

…

2461 Ugly Wool Sweaters
25 Drops of Magic Glue (in drops of 25)
50 Wads of Enchanted Stuffing (in Wads of 25)
476 Flawless Snowflake (either 1 or in groups of 10)
1 Bell Focus Skin
1 Wooden Dagger Skin
3 Pop Gun Skin
5 Toy Sword Skin
4 Toy Staff Skin
2 Slingshot Skin
5 Princess Wand Skin
16 Giver’s Orichalcum Imbued Inscription
12 Giver’s Intricate Glossamer Insignia
33 Choir Bells (in bundles of 3)
AND SUPPOSEDLY Unbreakable Choir Bell
…

With 2461 sweaters you can buy 123 bells at the npc, so you would have 156. I bought around 150 bells at <1s each and expect them to last me past the point where I get bored of them.
I was complaining about the very low chance of a unbreakable bell to a friend quoting the wiki for saying ~12k gifts were opened for 1 unbreakable bell. He said if there were only 12k ppl playing the game and if the drop rate was only 1 gift and hour and everyone opened this one gift then there would be 1 bell an hour, and how many hours has the event been going on? (ofc there are more than 12k and more than 1/hour) Games need RNG like this to keep items rare, and since this item gives no pve or pvp advantage, I have no problems with it being rare. Plus they were nice enough to give breakable ones very easily so everyone can enjoy bells.

mjhungness.8059:

I’m sorry, OP, and please don’t take this wrong. You make a valid point about the RNG and possibly never getting a good roll, even after spending so much. But I look at the picture you posted and I just see a kid on Christmas morning, decked out in great jammies, staring incredulously at a mountain of ripped boxes and wrapping paper, wondering why he didn’t get the pony he was asking for. Again, I apologize, I’m not trying to trivialize your valid complaint, but I guess, growing up poor, my mindset is that sometimes you just don’t get what you want, regardless of how much effort you put into it.

No offense taken my friend. As it turns out I am not actually all that rich (in game or out), but I was always taught hard work pays off (in real life anyway). Now, when they started to market Guild Wars 2 I was a little worried about how the game would turn out. After 6+ years of Guild Wars 1 I saw the potential of Guild Wars 2, but I also saw that the game would be nothing like Guild Wars 1.

Then the interviews and quotes started to roll out. Claiming skill based progression and rewards because you did something successful and right not because you happen to get lucky on the 100th try. My personal favorite quote was the one about dungeons, “Every time you run a dungeon, you are going to get something you can use.”

Now that quote sounds amazing and I blame myself for actually thinking I was going to get something I could really use every run. The truth is, I wear exotics and I get blues and greens 95% of the time in dungeons. They are not usable unless I want to downgrade. I will give them that they didn’t say it would be better; just usable.

The post is more so about the amount of RNG in this game than me not getting the bell. The bell just services as a good example of what they said there wouldn’t a lot of. Most of the rare items in game are RNG dependent to get, but as I have stated there are some rare things that are RNG independent.

seandkiller.8471:

I haven’t read through the entire thread, just the OP, but is the OP really quitting and calling GW2 RNG based because of an item that (I assume) gives no one any kind of advantage?

It is not due to the item, it is due to the ever increasing amount of RNG in the game. The game launched with some RNG for rare items, but with each monthly event they have introduced more rare items on even worse RNG. It feels like they are probing the community to see how far they can push the RNG until we break.

Example: Halloween mini’s could be bought as a bundle of 3 together then forged into a rarer one. There was no RNG for this, but for the rare everlasting weapon skins there was a horrible RNG (until some of the recipes were found which I think was a bow, and one other skin).

Fast forward to wintersday: They have some okay skins for sale for some ugly socks/hats/sweater, but the good skins are available in the gem store. Awesome, although… the minis are now on a horrible RNG like the weapons skins were for Halloween. One might think this is not so bad, they just swapped weapons with mini’s…. until you realize to get all of the holiday minis in this instant you need to open boxes until you get 3 different holiday mini’s + 4 extra just to get the rarer one from the forge. They increased the RNG required to attain what most mini collectors want. I can’t help but feel for any mini collector out there this holiday season.

I am not talking about the frames you get from Tixx, those I approve of and understand. They did a great job with centaur, doll, solider, griffon, and golem mini’s and the way they are handled. I understand why we can only craft 2. They need a push for us to buy the other 3 (I am fine with that).

Turin.1024:

You guys keep throwing percentages around but its entirely possible that the delivery method could be something else, for example it could be: every X minutes the next person to open a gift recieves a bell.

I’ve seen other games use this instead of fixed percentage to ensure the rarity of an item.

I had not thought about that. I have heard of most people getting their bell after 2k+ gifts (giant at the time I was trying). If that is the way it works I think I am more appalled at that then RNG. Reminds me of those horrible radio stations, “The 20th caller is the next to WIN!”

I have to agree that the amount of gambling in this game is problematic. Gambling in an MMO has obviously been done before many times, but I would rather it be kept limited to one small area/minigame, such as black lion chests, and it would be best if the rewards were obtainable by other means. It is, however, becoming increasingly invasive in GW2 as the exclusive means to obtain several items, as opposed to an aside which players who enjoy playing content over gambling can ignore.

I also think there is a slight difference between the connotations of RNG and gambling. RNG is the old standby system for loot in games, which is fine if implemented in a reasonable fashion. When you down a large boss/enemy in other games, you or your group are pretty much always guaranteed something good, although it may not be the item you want. Thus, your work is usually rewarded in a significant way, while still maintaining that component of uncertainty through the RNG to keep things exciting.

GW2 has failed to strike that same balance, IMO. It has gone with a model of pure gambling for cosmetic rewards (legendary precursors, unbreakable bells, etc.) and easy 100% guaranteed rewards for “practical” items (dungeon tokens, etc.).

What this means is that the really fun items are virtually impossible to get without paying a fortune for them, while practical items are very easy to get through a token system and thus 1) lack variety and 2) cause some players to lose interest in the game more quickly.

Dungeon tokens and guaranteed practical rewards are great in one way for casuals (including myself at this stage), which is that we can gear up without grinding for months. The flip side of the coin is that once we have that gear, there’s not much to look forward to except the cosmetic rewards, which we are forced to gamble or pay exorbitant amounts for.

Somewhat ironically, I believe the “personalized” loot system is somewhat responsible for this. Anet meant it so that we wouldn’t be fighting over loot, but it also means that they are limited as far as a meaningful RNG reward system goes. For example, they cannot have a pool of high-level RNG items drop that are soulbound/account bound on acquire, as the person getting the item might not want to/be able to use it, and if they were not soulbound/account bound, then five items would drop every time and the TP would get flooded with those items, driving down the price and making running the dungeon/doing the event itself less meaningful.

I don’t want legendaries and such to be easy to get; I would like, however, a tier of cosmetic upgrades with significant variety and personalization options that is obtainable exclusively through playing through content, not gambling.

As for the bell, I think everybody should also be able to get one through a skill-based challenge and it should be soulbound/account bound. For an item which can play music for others to hear, I really only want people with a semblance of musical skill (even if it’s only guitar hero skill) to be able to get one anyhow /tongueincheek

Being able to forge 4 stacks of 250 bells into an unbreakable bell wouldn’t be such a bad addition.

It makes sense for a lot of reasons:

1. If you have 1,000 bells, you already aren’t going to run out in a reasonable time frame.
2. Players unable to reach a collection of 1,000 still have something to show for the time and effort they’ve spent.
3. The market value of 20,000 sweaters already exceeds the price of an unbreakable bell, and the value of 1,000 bells is already very close.

As it is now, players may put in just as much effort recycling their laundry into gifts, and may have little to show for it in the end — they could be working towards something instead.

it’s really a shame they put so much grind into this game. either grind for endless gifts or grind for the gold itself to buy the bell or the gifts..
Why the bell is such a rare item anyways I don’t understand – it’s not like it has some extra special skin like legendaries, it’s just an instrument.. something other games offer from the start for pretty much every player.. the reasoning of limiting such simple items escapes me.

at first I was ok with the amount of grind this game has, as it’s never affected me (legendaries not really my thing, exotic armor is expensive but obtainable), but this is something I’d really like but will never have. I did buy small gifts (as the chance should be equal to the big one, as was kindly posted by the dev above) from my 300 sweaters, 150 hats and 120 socks (nearly all of them obtained from gifts from the bell choir – thats how much I like it) and opened those – still nothing. that was hours of ‘work’ ingame and I still don’t get the item I want… I can of course grind for more presents and hope to get the bell then… but the dropchance is too low for a normal player to obtain it aside from pure luck. the single use ones are quite expensive as well and only last such a short time. and their prices will rise a lot when they no longer drop from presents.

I could convert 50$ or so into ingame currency and buy the bell.. for an instrument.. which should be available for every player any way.. I’d happily pay 2-4$ for a gemstore purchase of such an item. well.. obviously they don’t want my money if I’m not willing to gamble with it.

there are so many strange decisions by ANet, I really don’t get it. don’t they want to earn money? It seems they only really profit from collectors and gamblers, are they really such a large part of the playerbase? I’d have assumed there are way more casual gamers who would pay a few bucks for something they like but won’t put in 50$ and gamble with it, with a very real possibility of losing it without anything to show for it. Isn’t the whole point about microtransactions that the amount is so small nobody really cares?

Oranisagu.3706:

I could convert 50$ or so into ingame currency and buy the bell.. for an instrument.. which should be available for every player any way.. I’d happily pay 2-4$ for a gemstore purchase of such an item. well.. obviously they don’t want my money if I’m not willing to gamble with it.

there are so many strange decisions by ANet, I really don’t get it. don’t they want to earn money? It seems they only really profit from collectors and gamblers, are they really such a large part of the playerbase? I’d have assumed there are way more casual gamers who would pay a few bucks for something they like but won’t put in 50$ and gamble with it, with a very real possibility of losing it without anything to show for it. Isn’t the whole point about microtransactions that the amount is so small nobody really cares?

To my knowledge a very large part of the community in Guild Wars 1 (that I ran with and knew) were HUGE collectors. To the point where one of my friends had every bow in the game (not just skins for one type of bow but for all four types). He had 3 accounts and I could not being to think of how many mules (characters solely for the purpose of storing items) he had. I am, somewhat, of a collector myself. I usually keep armor (my very first character from Guild Wars 1 still has his starter armor from pre searing for around 6+ years strong :P) and collect the different skins just to wear them from time to time. I also had quite the collection of mini’s.

Yet in Guild Wars 2 I find myself put off from mini’s for now. Only due to how they decided to implement them this time around.

I believe the Guild Wars 1 community will stick around for a while with RNG gamble fest, but not forever. Just like I have come to not wanting to give them money to gamble at a chance for something that should be offered for skill instead of luck.

FYI: RNG mean Random Number Generation.

I’m posting this because I didn’t know and had to look it up.

I opened up tons of gifts, nothing.

I went ahead and bought it with a combo of gems and farmed gold. I -literally- hate myself for it but I don’t want to miss out on stuff as a protest of their business practices anymore like I did with the scythe and greatsaw. I wanted to give the scythe to my partner.

But yeah.. it should have been obtainable in some other manner.

They’d make 20 times as much money if they simply made these into micro transactions. People who get them at these prices are rarer than the bell.

Micro-transactions = profit. Lots of it. Enough to outweigh any meaning of rarity or people who get them at the inflated prices. Why do you think steam is how it is?

Certain things just have no quantifiable purpose in being rare. People might troll but there are plenty other ways to make noise that are far more annoying if they want to do that.

There is a thread in the Bug forum that is also reporting this issue (more Dev response too…not particularly helpful responses…but Dev responses none the less).
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Tixx-present-is-no-present-at-all/page/3#post1056919

All this hoopla for an item that doesn’t even give stats? It’s a toy. A cool toy, but still. The designers made the choice to put something cool and desirable in the game that is NOT intended that everyone just have one. In our society, that raises the cool factor even more.

If this part of the game frustrates you, do the other fun stuff. I mean really. If the lottery IRL pisses you off, are you the angry old man that keeps buying lottery tickets and grumbles every Saturday night when he lost?

I think it’s awesome that the game designers figured out how to add something fun and desirable to the game, without affecting combat balance. Great job, Anet!

When people are collecting things, it’s the more rare items that add value to a collection. You ever have someone show you their collection of something? As they’re proudly discussing the items, it’s the combat stories they tell you, of how they managed to locate and acquire the more difficult items, and their eyes shine as they retell the story.

<- desiring the Unbreakable Bell too (but if I don’t get one, what the heck)

But I understand why people complain about that stupid system. No normal player will be able to acquire the thousands of gifts one would need to have a reasonable chance for a rare drop. I do Wintersday activities every day and know the Jumping Puzzle in and out, but still I will have a maximum of a few hundred gifts collected in the end. People with more ingame gold or the will to spend real money just buy 5k gifts or the bell itself on the TP. That is what annoys be about the system. Kind of contradicts with the spirit of doing fun activities and getting rewards for the completion of challenging tasks (and no, I’m not saying give the bell to anyone who does perfect at the choir game, I know that would be fairly cheap).

We have been given two free minis, we can get the toy weapon skins fairly easily, you can’t have everything. There will always be something from every monthly event that most people will never have. But there’s always next event right, no use complaining. If you’re going to be upset, why even bother?

Frank.7452:

Being able to forge 4 stacks of 250 bells into an unbreakable bell wouldn’t be such a bad addition.

It makes sense for a lot of reasons:

1. If you have 1,000 bells, you already aren’t going to run out in a reasonable time frame.
2. Players unable to reach a collection of 1,000 still have something to show for the time and effort they’ve spent.
3. The market value of 20,000 sweaters already exceeds the price of an unbreakable bell, and the value of 1,000 bells is already very close.

As it is now, players may put in just as much effort recycling their laundry into gifts, and may have little to show for it in the end — they could be working towards something instead.

The different between 15 minutes and 2 minutes.
The different between 3 lvl and 1 lvl.
The different between 1 item and multiple items.

I think the breakable one is just not a good deal in this way.
900 giant gift, 400 medium, and 1000+ small, still didn’t get it. Put it into the gem store and I will surely get it directly.

And for those that uses math, if some one can get it on their first attempt, it means that it is still possible for you to not get it after you opened infinite boxes, though the chance of getting it will be extremely high at that time.

Whiners like you are why we can’t have nice things…

This is totally off topic. But I was just wondering why you use signet heal? I have a similar warrior build and I use Healing Rush because it heals more. I’d just like to know if I’m missing something and if I should switch.

Styxx.8501:

I just don’t get, why things can’t be, say 2500(or how many ever) ugly hats for an unbreakable bell(even maybe make this version account bound). Then still have the unbound version as RNG drop from gifts, but also give 1 ugly hat per gift. Either you get lucky, or well, you get lucky. Is there something I’m missing with a model like this?

Yeah you get a +1 for this. I don’t see why they can’t have this. Or have a gem-store option to outright buy. Because I might have actually bought gems this season if the bells were on the store. But I refuse to buy gems during any event that is super RNG hyped up (Read: The minis and the Mystery Boxes…). Have alternate ways to get items, even if it’s cash-store only. Event items should be FUN to get, even the rare ones. I’d much rather sit and grind gold—>Gems than try and somehow find(?) or buy 7000 gifts for a moderate chance to get the choir bell.

That saying, my roommate/partner totally got the unbreakable choir bell while running through a zone and opening a large chest. -_-. He was all, “Hey, you wanted this right??” and then looked at the trading post. KITTEN!

laharl.8435:

This is totally off topic. But I was just wondering why you use signet heal? I have a similar warrior build and I use Healing Rush because it heals more. I’d just like to know if I’m missing something and if I should switch.

Heal signet gives you a passive regeneration heal every so often, like the guardian virtue only not as good. You can mix that with the tier 2 minor trait that gives you regeneration based on adrenaline level to get a not so great heal every 10 seconds or so (as in a couple hundred health max). It is not good, and I don’t suggest it. I only took it because I was playing around.

I usually run with Mending + Solider runes with “For Great Justice”, “Shake it off”, and “Balanced Stance”. My traits for that is 0/20/20/10/20. Get Rending Strikes (5) and Forceful Great sword (10) in Arms line. Get Turtles Defense (2) and Merciless Hammer (10) in defense line. Get Leg Specialist (1) in Tactics line. Last but not least, get Inspiring Shouts (4) and Mobile Strikes (10) in Discipline line. The weapons I use are a Great sword and Hammer. Works well for me in dungeons and FotM. I do, however, keep a sword + shield as a offhand. When I need to switch I can flop out the defense line Merciless Hammer for Shield Master. Pretty decent build for me. Good damage and critical strike chance. Depending on your armor you can have similar stats to me… 24k health, 3.3k armor, 32% critical chance unbuffed, 2.9k attack unbuffed. With this build you can easily stack might to 17 (I have gotten and kept 22+ before but those are rare moments). Hope that answers your question.

Back on topic: To those who still assume the thread is about me not getting the bell, you are wrong. This thread was made to address the drop rate of the bell and why it is on RNG to being with. Given it has a mini game built around it, I have trouble as to seeing why this was not a reward for said mini game.

Ripred.4605:

Whiners like you are why we can’t have nice things…

It is people like you who are blind to what things are really about and I pity you. This thread is not whining about getting the bell. It is a discussion on why the game is turning more towards RNG instead of the skill based play for achievements they said it was going to be before launch. If you had taken the time to read (I know, you are to important for such a thing) the entire thread or even 1/3 of it, you might have understood this.