Guild Wars 2

I decided to spend 800 gems on some boxes, to treat myself. Bear in mind I don’t have particularly much this time of year what with presents and all, and £8.50 is a decent amount to me, as it is a lot of people.

I had 200 residual gems, so before I opened the boxes, I bought the earmuffs and the santa hat.

10 boxes. 6 hats, one mini, 3 tonics.

Now, most people will say “Well, that’s RNG for you” – But, I buy Keys in Dota 2 every so often, and I’ve never felt disheartened when I’ve opened a box.

You see, with Dota 2, you know you’re going to get something that is worth at least the price of your key. Most of the time it’s strange weps, but for some events it’s unique skins. However, you know that you will get a skin, and that will trade for either the others, or a key itsself. It’s relitively risk free, and you always feel pleased after opening a box. Then, on top of that, you have the chance of something MORE, be it a unusual courier or just a courier itsself.

With GW2, just opening a flat box gets you next to nothing. You get very few ugly things, and multiple untradable duplicates. After opening 10, I felt disheartened, where I should be at least pleased with what I got, regardless if I got something rare or not.
And this is the issue – You don’t get your money’s worth from the box unless you get lucky. You should get that regardless, then have the possibility of being lucky on top.

It’s really annoying – I had a fantastic evening, One shotted the jumping puzzle, did the smash the town cheevie, played 8 fret Rock Band, I had a great time. However, after opening those, I’ve been left pretty disheartened, and certainly not wanting to open more boxes, which should be the point.
Crates in Dota work fantastically because regardless, you always want to open more. You know you will at least get your key’s worth, so you open it and try your luck on something special, not trying your luck on getting your money’s worth.

I WANT to spend money on these things, since I want to support the game that I really enjoy. But coming away from this so disheartened, there’s nothing really pushing me to buy any more.

So that’s my suggestion/observation. Agree, disagree, or whatever.

(Footnote – TF2 used to have this problem, but when they implemented strange weps, you never felt like you lost with a crate, and you always broke even. This carried over to Dota 2.)