Guild Wars 2

I think it’s been established that a lot of people aren’t happy with the way festival mini pets are being distributed. There have also been some good suggestions for how to fix it, but I’m worried they’re getting buried in between complaints and complaints about the complaints.

So what I’d like to do is collect them all into 1 thread, and try to find out which ones people like best. So with that as the aim please don’t post in this thread unless you’re offering a solution to the mini pet distribution issue, an improvement to an existing suggestion or voting for your preffered one.

Also just to clarify I’m not referring to the minis you get from the airship dungeon and/or buying direct from the gem store. I’m referring to the ones that come from the gem store chest – the Snowman, Festive Golem and Airship (and by extension the quaggan which you use them to create).

Here are the ideas I’ve seen so far, in no particular order:
1) Make the minis unbound. That way regardless of how they’re originally available everyone will have a chance to get them later on by buying them. It might be a small chance (because they’re rare or expensive or both) but that’s ok.

Some people won’t pay real money for them if this is an option, but other people will buy more in order to sell them and overall it will balance out.

2) Make them either cost real money OR be aquired through luck, not both. This seems to be the root of the issue, as it was with the halloween weapon skins. No one minds paying real money for cosmetic items, no one minds getting them by luck, but paying for the chance to get lucky is too many downsides for the reward to balance it out.

3) We buy a chest and get a bunch of random items, as now. But we are also guarenteed to get a ticket item and can trade a number of tickets for any of the items that come from the chest. So you’ve still got the gambling element, but with a maximum spend. We KNOW that if we open 30 chests, or 52 or whatever amount Anet thinks is reasonable we will have gotten enough tickets to get the item(s) we really want.

They are available to buy with gems outside of the chests. At least, the mini toy venturi is. I think the other minis will be added later.

I am a fan of option one though.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

They are available to buy with gems outside of the chests. At least, the mini toy venturi is. I think the other minis will be added later.

I am a fan of option one though.

As I said I’m talking about the minis from the chests, not the ones from the dungeon. This is the mini Snowman, Airship and Festive Golem. Not Ventari, the princess doll, the soldier, the golem and whatever the 5th one is.

I’ve edited the first post to clarify that.

The thing is that 50% of the complaint is the minis from the chest and the other 50% of the complaint is only being able to craft two dungeon minis and having to buy the other 3 via gems. The minis issue is both sides, not one.

My personal solution for the chest minis is to bring back the Halloween system. Make it so we can buy a pack of the three minis (Snowman, Golem, and Elemental) and use the same forge recipe with stuffing to make the Quaggan. People were upset about having to buy the minis twice with halloween but at least there are multiple ways to receive the Quaggan for this event.

My solution for the dungeon minis is to make the dungeons a daily once the LA event begins. Give players that complete the dungeons the same reward for each dungeon daily so everyone has a chance to receive these awesome minis without having to fork out even more gems.

Anet wins because they get gems from the mini pack + another purchase of the same mini if people want to pursue the Quaggan via forge (unless players found him through other means).

Players win because we have various ways to obtain a lot of great minis and can still say, “Hey, I was there! I did the dungeons and I got all these minis. I wanted the rest so I forked out some gems and got the other 4 as well!”

I like all 3 of your ideas.

I’d like to see them available for the jumpers and hats, even if it’s like 500+ and 1000+ for the Quaggan.
So, Basically 3, but using the system they have in game already.

Mini Pet Pack like the spooky trio = WIN!

Thanks for starting a civil and constructive thread about this! I am loving the event so far and am definitely in the spirit of Wintersday, but I agree we need to voice some suggestions about the mini issue.

I loved the Halloween system and would gladly buy two mini packs so I can get all three festive minis, then craft a quaggan. On a side note, I also don’t mind that we have to pay gems for some of the “dungeon minis.” As long as I get what I’m paying for without RNG, I have no problem paying Anet real money for pixels.

Really, the Halloween system was awesome, I don’t know why they changed it. Seeing the mini pack along with all those lovely winter weapon skins in the gem store would make my Wintersday!

I don’t get why so many people are complaining about MINIS… They are no more than completely aesthetic pets, it’s not a big deal if you can’t get every single mini from some event.

Schei.7301:

I don’t get why so many people are complaining about MINIS… They are no more than completely aesthetic pets, it’s not a big deal if you can’t get every single mini from some event.

To the collectors not ever being able to get them all, due to a lack of funds at the present time to buy gems to RNG the hell out of the game is a big deal

On topic however, I’m in favour of Method 3 in the future but would like to see option 1 for the current event.

This game is all about aesthetics, and some people like to collect minipets. This was the case in GW1 and it is still the case in GW2. I personally bought 30 boxes and only got 1 minipet and nothing else of value out of them (not even a hat), so I’m feeling the sting. Really wish I had the option of just buying the minis.

Prothescar.7842:

This game is all about aesthetics, and some people like to collect minipets. This was the case in GW1 and it is still the case in GW2. I personally bought 30 boxes and only got 1 minipet and nothing else of value out of them (not even a hat), so I’m feeling the sting. Really wish I had the option of just buying the minis.

Yup my point exactly – “Mini Pack” = WIN

Schei.7301:

I don’t get why so many people are complaining about MINIS… They are no more than completely aesthetic pets, it’s not a big deal if you can’t get every single mini from some event.

For the same reasons a lot of people complained about the weapon skins in the BLTC chests as Halloween. You’re right, they are only aesthetics, but a lot of people really want them and are willing to pay Anet big bucks for them. Just not to gamble for them.

It is in Anet’s best interests and ours that a solution be found that makes players happy and earns Anet cash.

Also as others have pointed out, mini collecting is a beloved activity for many players, including those of us who were mini collectors in GW1. Whether players should or should not be passionate about minis is not really the issue. Players ARE that passionate about it, and it would be better for everyone if the system was designed to satisfy collectors and earn Anet their well-deserved money. I don’t really see how the gambling benefits anyone.

I think 3 would be the best approach for future events to keep everyone happy, but for the current event 1 would probably be the simplest to impliment and most likely to solve the issue.

I’m surprised so many people like the idea of a mini pack, I felt like it was a bit of a let down to just buy them, but it is definately preferable to the current system.

It would be nice if the pets were unbound. Wintersday (and christmas) is all about giving, and I could give the ones I have 2 or hree times to others who weren’t that lucky but still wish for a mini. Or to people who doesn’t have the big money.

It would still be a pain what amount of money I needed to get my festive golem, but on the other hand I’d be happy being able to make others happy as well.

So everyone who’s complaining is a collector now? :|

Option 1 sounds like the best compromise to the situation. NCsoft and Anet are trying to maximize their cash shop profits, so why not make pets unbound? The players will continue to increase their spending on the hope of getting a mini and other players can buy the mini with gold off of the trade broker.

The mini pack was an excellent idea. No deception, no chance, just straight up purchase. Buy another pack of three to get the rare mini. I don’t get a boost from having to waste time and money collecting minis I just like them because they are fun and cute.

But now that they’ve implemented RNG to mini pet acquisition, their motives are fairly transparent. It would be nice if they could compromise with us on this.

I miss the GW1 minis. Free pets on your character’s birthday AND they were tradeable in a buy to play game. :/ Even the collector’s edition mini could be traded. I mention this only because there are a lot of people who haven’t played the first game so they don’t know what it was like before GW2 came out.

I just wanted to add, that neither I nor my sister are a mini pet collector but we do love snowmen and the quaggans so I looked on the minis page the moment I saw the after imaged on the collector’s tab as we both thought they were extremely cute. Since I didn’t see the mini pack I saw for Halloween, I went to the forums to find out the answer… I can only surmise that Anet neither wants collector’s money or people who are just interested in certain minis. My sister and I would have each bought the two packs needed so we could get the quaggan as well as the snowman but now we don’t. We have bought boxes (a total of 4) but they weren’t for the minis (just to see what came in them and then for more reindeer tonics) so we’re not going to spend a lot of money on those either just for a chance.

Basically Anet missed their bell curve on the minis. I would have preferred that they continued to sell the mini set as a holiday special thing for those interested at the time and for collectors. All they would gain is more money from both groups. As it stands now collectors aren’t happy, non-collectors won’t care as much towards them either because the sheer amount of chance is enough to make them apathetic towards any purchase.

Anet please learn from this. People genuinely love to give you money, if you let them. But the moment you start thinking that you can grab more through tricks and slights of hands is the moment you lose more money and customers. I don’t mind the RNG boxes when it doesn’t effect my own purchases. I wish RNG boxes would be used as a poor man’s way to obtain items directly sold in the store. Why can’t both things live in harmony? Those who like to gamble can and if they’re lucky pay less than someone who bought directly in the store. There’s also always the threshold people who will pay a certain dollar amount on a chance before by directly, that’s even more money still! With lastly the group that will pay the dollar amount given for the direct purchase of what they want. That’s 3 groups of buyers that are providing money! Why can’t you please both the risk taker and the non-risk taker? Why must it always be one or the other?

I did some research and came to the conclusion its Nexons influence why we have RNG boxes in gem shop. Nexon has RNG boxes everywhere in their item shop.

I 100% agree with all three suggestions.

Make the minis unbound so that those of us who have extra can give or sell to those who have none (leave the quaggan account bound if you wish – though I would have no objection to it being unbound as well).

And learn from this for future events.

People do like to gamble so I don’t object to RNG – But if you are going to have RNG in which an item is obtained by gambling, then make the chest/lottery widely available through game play ONLY. Those things sold by the gem store should never be used for such a purpose.

It is the combination of money plus RNG that makes people feel cheated and frustrated.

Be honest with people up-front and sell them honest goods – you will have a far more loyal and long lasting player base in the long run because of it.

(Just want to add:

On a practical note, making the minis account bound is shooting ones self in the foot money-wise.

Those who are willing to spend actual cash on the chance of getting the minis will stop once they have the one(s) they want. There is no reason to buy more boxes. The chance of something like a perm-hair kit is too low of an incentive to keep buying. But if people could sell unwanted minis then there is more incentive to buy a few extra boxes and take a chance on one of those extra-rare items because you know you can at least sell any extra minis you get.)

Best solution would be to make them unbound. This way players can trade or sell the ones they already have and don’t get ripped off if they release a mini-pack or something else along those lines.

Any other solution would be wasted money to all those who already gambled for them. Only logical solution would be to make them able to be traded.

I like most of those ideas;

1) Not being Account Bound would open up the ability to at least buy them at some point, even if they’d be incredibly expensive. And as written, this may be an incentive for some rich (real life) players to buy even more to create themselves a stock of additional minis for future sales and profits. Currently the box isn’t even in the Hot Items list, if that doesn’t say anything.

2) I think they can be both from real money (RNG box) and in-game luck, but more like the Karka event ones, where I believe we can still go to Southsun Cove and grind up Young Karka for a minimal chance of obtaining one. Combined with not being Account Bound, they could stop dropping after the event of course. If Account Bound, at least with promises of letting the same batch of minis drop during the Wintersday event of 2013, besides additional new ones, should work too. My collection would be “broken” for a year, but I’d know I can get another shot at getting them next year.

Side-note; For all I/we know, the same miniatures may appear during Wintersday 2013, and as such, may not require as many purchases of RNG boxes this year, since we get the same chance next year. But without any word on that, it’s hard to know. And I understand from a profit making standpoint, stating such things may not be viable. I would at least prefer to see additions added though.

3) A set “you will get what you want” amount of purchases through having a ticket drop from each box could work, though then they may as well just have a direct purchase for the amount of Gems that it would take, as that would be more profitable for them, considering during say 30 boxes, chances are that you get at least one of the miniatures. Which means you wouldn’t need to spend 30 purchases to get the collection. I’d rather see the Halloween approach, a pack with the pets, and another purchase to combine into a fourth. I don’t mind spending €25 (2000 Gems) if I know what I get. I mind spending €50 and not getting what I want, which can likely happen with RNG boxes. If I wanted to gamble, I’d do so where I can get something of real value back, e.g., money in Vegas.
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The problem I have with the way they handled this batch of minis, is both as a collector and a fear that they may just shoot themselves a bit in the foot with the strategy they pursue to monetize on them currently.

If my collection gets broken because I were not lucky enough to get the miniatures I wanted for a reasonable real cash cost (yes, sure, you can spend Gold, but I am talking about real cash here, as Gold doesn’t support ANet and the development of the game going forwards), where is my incentive to keep collecting? Why should I as a collector keep collecting, when my Collectibles list is broken by unattainable miniatures?

I loved collecting them in GW, and sure, there were 3 that were actually impossible to get, as those were given to Gaile Gray, but the others were, to a certain extent, possible to obtain through spending in-game currency and trading for them.
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And yes, not everyone, probably a majority, cares about miniatures. But there are plenty of us that likes collecting them for ourselves. We are a source of real money as well as any other player, and cutting off motivation to collect may not be the best strategy.

Have any of you played World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, or any of these style of online game?

If so, you will know that for their holiday events you do quests, and the quest giver offers you a choice of rewards, and sometimes those can be little pets (if you were really lucky).

Remember how you picked the one you hoped would be the rarest, the one hopefully not everyone had? And remember how you knew the only way to get ALL of the pets or rewards was to play the game for a number of years, and collect them all each holiday season?

The ONLY difference here is that here you also have the choice to “skip the queue” and buy them with cash. If anything, its cheating. Real players collect them using the in-game mechanics and are pretty happy when they do it.

Palleon.1657:

Have any of you played World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, or any of these style of online game?

If so, you will know that for their holiday events you do quests, and the quest giver offers you a choice of rewards, and sometimes those can be little pets (if you were really lucky).

Remember how you picked the one you hoped would be the rarest, the one hopefully not everyone had? And remember how you knew the only way to get ALL of the pets or rewards was to play the game for a number of years, and collect them all each holiday season?

The ONLY difference here is that here you also have the choice to “skip the queue” and buy them with cash. If anything, its cheating. Real players collect them using the in-game mechanics and are pretty happy when they do it.

I think you’ve confused the two sets of minis.

You seem to be talking about the ones you can make after doing the dungeon or buy in a straight transaction from the gem shop (the mini Ventari is the only one available so far). Whereas this thread is about the ones that come from the Wintersday Mystery Box – the Snowman, Festive Golem and Airship (and the Quaggan you make from them).

There is no way to get them purely through in game mechanics and you don’t get to pick which ones you get – you might get 3 the same or none at all for your money. If it was possible to get them through in-game mechanics and Anet would confirm that they will be available in future years there wouldn’t be a problem.

Anet has really disappointed me with these “boxed” minis. They’ve taken the gw1 polar bear mini, added in a heaping dose of GREED and created this…this…BS. I can’t even think of the words for it. Pathetic that they allow their greed to so influence the game. The other 5 minis may take a few years to craft all of (hopefully they return next year) but these 3 from the mystery box have ruined the event for many people.

Can I please remind everyone that the purpose of this thread is to offer solutions to the problem, or to state which of those already posted you prefer. There are already plenty of threads about being unhappy with the current situation.

Although Garreth’s post did remind me that it would be a big help if they would let us know if some/all of these minis will return next year or if this is our only chance. (Or if they haven’t decided yet they could say that, so we know they’re not just keeping it secret.) I’d be a lot more willing to try gambling for them if I could spread the cost out.

I like my idea of making them purchasable through the festive lionguard. Make each one of the mini pets an exchange item, one per type of exchange, for something like 500 wool hats, wool socks, or wool sweaters. Make us work for those mini pets…

Really though the perfect solution was the mini box that was used in the Halloween event.

Danikat.8537:

Here are the ideas I’ve seen so far, in no particular order:
1) Make the minis unbound. That way regardless of how they’re originally available everyone will have a chance to get them later on by buying them. It might be a small chance (because they’re rare or expensive or both) but that’s ok.

I only agree with this.
What is a collectable item when we can’t make it inflate price through time and sell it after months or years? Even in real life auctions, people can sell their rare collectables to other people. Collectables are meant to be tradable. They are not trophies or passports.

We can trade pokemons. We can trade limited anime collectable figurines.
We can even trade and resell rare trading card games in real life.
All these function as collectables and they are tradable.

This game doesn’t know anything about human nature and behaviours all the way from gameplay, player-player world culture and now cash items too.

I’m not a collector for mini-pets for this reason. It doesn’t function like a collectable at all. Another reason was I’m annoyed how mini-pets disappears every map change. It made me eventually forgot to click on the pets again and forgot about them.

What I was saying is if they really REALLY want to have the rng element added for these minis, was why didn’t they wait until the festival started and then add the toy minis into these chests? At least this way people are already going to be able to build at least 2 of the ones they really want and then would be able to just buy the actual festive mini’s straight out of the store. For hardcore collectors they would be able to gamble a bit for the minis while still at least having gotten their 2 favourite ones while the rest of the population has equal and guaranteed access to the festive ones. I would gladly buy 2 trio packs to get all 4 mini’s like it was for halloween, but the way it is now, I’m not spending a dime.

QUICK SOLUTION:
Put the three “in-box” minis out in the store, just like the daily toys. I don’t care about account bound, whatever, I just want them for my collection.

Right now, other than the Wintersday items, I have the -complete- set (inc. HoM ones). So, you can imagine, how the thought of having to spend an unknown amount of money to roll the dice for two sets of three sits with me.

How will I be able to provide the latest screenshot for the wiki?

Do the right thing, ArenaNET. At least in the mini pack, you know you’re getting minis.

Additional comment.. I was planning to BUY “toys” to give as gifts to friends in the game. You’re not letting me give you my money, Anet!!! I don’t think I will buy copies of the game to give out, either.

I don’t understand why Anet had to go the RNG route with the Wintersday box minis instead of letting us buy a 500-gem pack like in Halloween. I was gladly prepared to drop 500 gems on a pack just like the Spooky Trio, and instead it got turned into a lottery.

I bought only one box just for kicks, got complete junk, and will not be buying any sort of lottery mechanism again.

What’s more baffling is that they listened to all the Halloween complaints and made the weapon skins easily obtainable (which is fantastic!), but went the complete opposite route for minis.

If they would un-bind the Holiday minis and let us buy them from the TP, that would be great. I’m sure they’d be expensive, but at least I could exchange value for an exact item, instead of merely a chance at said item.

A better idea for the Wintersday boxes is to let them contain any of the Holiday gem items, but have ALL the Holiday items obtainable plainly for a set amount of gems as well. That way, you can spend a little more for an assured purchase, or you can spend a little less to gamble. Making the minis RNG-only is very disappointing, especially when other parts of Wintersday (weapon skins) are an improvement from Halloween.

Halloween trio pack is the way to go.

ANet listened to the player base and now has weapon skins for gems.

I pray to god before this event ends they listen to us again, and give us a Wintersday Mini Trio Pack

I’m willing to pay as is the rest of the community.

All I want for Wintersday is a full collection of special minis.

I agree do it like Halloween. I spent 20 on gifts which I don’t mind doing at all. I got lucky and got 3 mini pets 2 festive golems and inferium. I traded those in for the quaggan and don’t want to lottery real life cash in hopes for the minis again. Since I have now opened 30 of the festive gem shop presents and only got those 3.

A combination of 1 and 3, imo, would be ideal.

Nice rational post, OP.

I like all of these proposed solutions.

I really am enjoying Wintersday, but making four minis available only through chests which are essentially gambles and making them account bound has to be the single bad thing about the event. You could end up with 4-5 of the same mini and none of the others, and then they’re account bound so you can’t do anything with them other than have them sit there.

Please consider making these boxes available through the Mystery Forge somehow, at the very least, if these solutions aren’t appealing.

I am for any solution that doesn’t involve gambleboxes. I will not waste my money on gambling. I will spend my money on things I can buy directly from the shop. I really hope ArenaNet takes all this feedback to heart and makes money off a whole ton of happy customers instead of off a few people who are willing to gamble and then end up disappointed with bad luck/low drop rates.

I’m for having the minipet pack like the 3 minis from halloween. GAMBLE boxes is a BIG NO WAY!!! Should have never been and it upsets me that because people bought in to it that they probably won’t change it back. Heck I’m even for the minipets being obtainable by some sort of earned through event activities. And also they should not be bound so that we can buy and sell or give them away etc.

For the ones in the mystery boxes, easy solution is to remove their account bound status. Free market ftw

I like all three of the suggested solutions. This way players who are spending real money or trading in-game gold for gems still have a guaranteed solution to get the Quaggan mini-pet or at least the gem store only minis.

While people are more than willing to spend money to support this game they love, they shouldn’t have to spend more than the initial game value ($60) on a marginally slim chance to get this one or four minis. Instead of getting 10 people to spend $10 on a set of boxes, they could get 20 people to spend (for example) $10 of money to get the items they want.

They would definitely get the 20 people’s money without leaving a sour taste in their mouth over gambling real money or hard-earned gold (when converted into gems).

My personal solution is not to give a crap about the mini-pets, as long they insist on continuing to do this random chest nonsense with events.

It’s perfectly obvious to me why they do it this way. By extension, it’s perfectly obvious to me why I shouldn’t bother with the chests. I don’t like feeling like I’m being taken advantage of, and that is generally what chance-based gambling is: someone being taken advantage of. (Hint: It’s generally not the side that makes the rules.)

Whatever. I’ll manage without some mini-pets. I forget about the ones I already have nine tenths of the time, anyway. I just hope they don’t end up being used for Polymock…

I have an idea for the random minis and future events. I got the idea well buying the toy ones. Why not just sell them individual for 350 gems and have a special fourth mini that you need the other three for. That way A net is at least getting $30-35 depending on how much a person buys in gems for them.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Best solution would be to make them unbound. This way players can trade or sell the ones they already have and don’t get ripped off if they release a mini-pack or something else along those lines.

Any other solution would be wasted money to all those who already gambled for them. Only logical solution would be to make them able to be traded.

I agree, making them unbound gives players and developers the most freedom by providing stable negotiating positions to each and projecting growth is more easily done and has a higher chance of successful iteration.

I honestly don’t think making all minis trade-able would upset cash-shop profits. The distinction between gems, Tyrian gold, and cash doesn’t really exist and artificially buttressing walls between the currencies may actually be costing the developers funds. Consider all the collectors who would buy gems for gold so they could participate in the collecting game/culture. Consider how the trader game/culture overlaps the mini collector game/culture. Yes, the gems-shop may see fewer $200 purchases but they will likely be replaced by smaller purchases totaling more.

Merry Wintersday everyone, peer review twinkles!

The real solution is for everybody to stop buying gambling boxes. That way Anet will be forced to look for an alternative way to market these things. All the time people continue to buy these things, Anet will continue to sell them.

Mandrax.7342:

The real solution is for everybody to stop buying gambling boxes. That way Anet will be forced to look for an alternative way to market these things. All the time people continue to buy these things, Anet will continue to sell them.

Agreed. If the RNG boxes do not sell they will come up with another way to get the items to us for gems/cash.

Mandrax.7342:

The real solution is for everybody to stop buying gambling boxes. That way Anet will be forced to look for an alternative way to market these things. All the time people continue to buy these things, Anet will continue to sell them.

Exactly, but how do we go about stopping everyone from buying them? There appears to be enough gambling addicts or pseudo addicts buying them that are perpetuating them. I’d dare to say that a good number of people maybe even a majority of players don’t buy them or even the keys for the BLCs. I wish people would have not bought to begin with. Then we would never have seen them in the future events and their further attempt to make people buy them by binding the pets. I just hope that they will listen and at least reverse them being bound. And for future events make them minipet packs.

All 3 suggestions are fantastic. Speaking as a player, I personally would like to see mini’s be 100% gem free and given purely as a reward for dedicated players participating in special events, so they can be a prestige item. IRL it can be hard enough to justify to friends/family the desire to spend most of one’s free time in a virtual world, let alone gambling RL$ for a chance at a digital “pet that doesn’t do anything”.

Personally, during Hallowe’en I opened a dozen BL chests and crafted 9 MK chests, and got 0 skins or exotics. I stayed away form consordium chests completely for that reason, and am considering avoiding wintersday boxes as well. My only other suggestion is that if ANET is going to keep with this formula, then they should treat it as a proper lottery and post the actual odds for these items instead of just calling it “a chance”?

Speaking as a collector, it’s all or nothing: If I can’t [eventually] have a complete collection of mini’s, I’m going to drop “collecting” as a reason for playing. Having 9 new mini’s come out as part of a special event would be daunting enough without adding in the RL$ + gambling + poor odds factor. For that matter there’s been almost 20 new mini’s between the 3 events in 60 days. As much as I hate to say it, ArenaNet is starting to remind me an awful lot of Zynga in that regard

Furthermore, what I WOULD be happy to purchase from the gemstore is an item that would allow me to be accompanied by several minis at once.