Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one here getting chest drops but getting next to no keys??? I know you get good items and such in them so the keys need to be rare, I also know I can buy them from the trade post.

But could the keys be improved slightly as rewards for clearing area’s or something at least?? I spend a lot of time just exploring and completing area’s and all I normally get at the end are weapon transforming things. (Transmuation??) or if I complete the daily quest I get mystic coins.

Well it’s a f2p game, they want you to spend rl cash =) I am sitting at 138 chest last i checked =)

When the game first released, it was a 50% chance to get a Key. Clearly that has been reduced a great deal, probably to 5% now in order to increase Gem Store and Key Sales.

Because of this, I do longer care to open chests and consider them useless junk. Regardless of having perma items, the fact they now rarely offer keys makes me want to just ignore them even more.

Agreed. Adding perma-items to the chests is ArenaNet’s blatant attempt to increase gem sales…it’s a little sad.

I think I have 23 chests in the vault right now. Every once in a while I get a key as a reward (storyline? didn’t really pay attention) and from the chest itself. Usually consumables in there, nothing fancy for me so far.

You can get Keys in game from a number of methods. There is a chance of getting one as a daily quest reward, and they are always given as a reward for certain personal story missions. I have 3 characters that I play regularly — one is in the low 50s, the other two in the low 30s and I’ve gotten about 10 keys so far. TBH I think this is fairly generous.

But yes, you will almost always have more chests than you have keys unless you buy the keys from the gem shop.

I just opened 5 chests, got 2 keys, so got to open 7 chests. So keys are still dropping. The first time I opened 5 chests ( 3 weeks ago) I also got two keys, the second time(about a week ago) I got none. So for me it does not feel as if they have changed the droprate.

I could probably count the amount of different shape-changing tonics that I have to guesstimate the amount of chests I have opened so far. On top of my head I would say around 10, which would be ~1/3 of chests found, I don’t think that’s too bad.

Complaing about not getting free items when they never promise you would it sad too.

Is it free when you have to work for them? Nope, last I checked Arena net wants me to explore or complete daily tasks and complete dungeons.

Sure they are not promised but the last thing I want is a ton of unopened chests.

Perhaps if the price of the keys were about 1/3 of what they are right now it would relate to the value of the stuff in the chests.

@ NoOneShotU

Sorry, quoting doesn’t work for me atm. I guess that depends on what you are measuring that at. Usually there is a booster in there – which kinda covers the cost of the key (of course you don’t know what booster you are getting) plus 3 of the transform-me-into-a-critter tonics, sometimes another key or another odd “service” item.
Considering I don’t use time-limited items much I already got a fair share of “samples”, which I believe is the intent.
Now if the ueber-item would drop in every 100th chest that I could not get otherwise – then I would not like it being teased like this. Until then it costs me 1 inventory slot – well, plus the “samples” that I hoard.

I have something like 50 or so unopened chests in my bank…..the only ones ive opened have been with the few keys ive gotten in game. While its kinda frustrating…….I accept that this is one way they are trying to make their micro transaction system work for them which is their business model.

I knew going in that playing GW2 would mean I would be presented with many incentives to spend $$ for gems. We as players have to accept that if we like the game and want to keep playing it Anet needs to make money via the gem store. There is absolutely nothing in those chests that I ‘need’.

Paulus magintie.7432:

Is it free when you have to work for them? Nope, last I checked Arena net wants me to explore or complete daily tasks and complete dungeons.

Sure they are not promised but the last thing I want is a ton of unopened chests.

You can destroy the chests you know (or sell them in the tp).

And yes they are free, all of the things you mentioned are rewarded with etiher xp, karma, copper, items or mystic coins the keys are freebies to get you to try the chest and hopefully buy a few sometime.

draylore.2837:

(…)

I knew going in that playing GW2 would mean I would be presented with many incentives to spend $$ for gems. We as players have to accept that if we like the game and want to keep playing it Anet needs to make money via the gem store. There is absolutely nothing in those chests that I ‘need’.

I agree and I am happy that this is one of the few items that remind me – otherwise the store is not “in-my-face” all the time.

tbh I had well over 50 chests by the time I hit 80. I sold it all on TP. I found exactly 2 keys from mob drops and about 5 keys from the chests itself. The rest of keys were story rewards.

I have gotten nothing except useless tonics and maybe a few self repair canisters (single use). I wouldn’t spend real money to buy these things. The general value of what’s in the chest is very poor. Like the mystic forge, it’s a jackslot machine – designed to funnel more money into it than it will spit out – at least the mystic forge has a high and/or reliable chance of giving you some usable items. so i can see someone finding value in spending cash/coin on that.

Cancer.9065:

Paulus magintie.7432:

Is it free when you have to work for them? Nope, last I checked Arena net wants me to explore or complete daily tasks and complete dungeons.

Sure they are not promised but the last thing I want is a ton of unopened chests.

You can destroy the chests you know (or sell them in the tp).

And yes they are free, all of the things you mentioned are rewarded with etiher xp, karma, copper, items or mystic coins the keys are freebies to get you to try the chest and hopefully buy a few sometime.

To be honest I have bought gems with in game silver before for just 1 key, but im trying not to spend my money on them because so far im level 42 with only 90 silver.

I don’t have the IRL cash or in game cash to keep buying keys and I don’t want to sell them knowing they have good items in them.

Paulus magintie.7432:

To be honest I have bought gems with in game silver before for just 1 key, but im trying not to spend my money on them because so far im level 42 with only 90 silver.

I don’t have the IRL cash or in game cash to keep buying keys and I don’t want to sell them knowing they have good items in them.

This is what they’re counting on. Eventually, people like you will buy the keys, either with cash or gold.

You will always get more chests in-game than keys. That’s the idea. None of the items in the chests are essential. Either you buy the keys, or you sell the chests on the TP. There’s not other options.

I suspect, if they follow a similar pattern as GW1, in several months or in a year they’ll roll out special weeks and weekends where the key drops are much higher than normal. Never high enough to meet the chest drop rate, but high enough to remind you what cool stuff is in the chests.

It’s a trap, really. And it’s a clever one I can’t blame Arena for constructing. In truth, having opened many chests, they aren’t worth real cash. I think Arena knows this as well, but they’re counting on the obsessive/compulsive nature of some players to want to open those chests anyway.

That being said, I’ve dropped tons of cash on the gem store…for dyes :P

Haha I read this OP and I have in my bank around 80-90 of these things. I just worry that they only stack to 250….

The chests are rather poorly implemented for two reasons.

A. The drop rate is way too high.
B. The contents are useless.

This causes people to ignore them, instead doing what ANet wants them to – buying keys. I used to play an Asian MMO years ago that also had such chests, but the implementation was truly cunning, it caused people to pay hundreds of dollars to buy them. What was different there?

A. The chests were really rare outside of the cash shop. Except for special events when every mob on the map has a small chance to drop them for an hour or so.
B. Inside the chests you could get any item from the cash shop, including endgame gear, legendaries and any mount. Or you could get trash. This had a result of a gambling casino. The chests would sell for large amounts, and people would spend tons of cash on them.

Obviously we do not want this sort of P2W in GW2, however there is a lesson to be had here. Make the chests rare, and give us a chance to receive banks lots, inventory slots, and cosmetic gear inside, in addition to the boosters and useless tonics. Then I guarantee you people will buy them for real cash, and their price in the TP will skyrocket.

I have opened 2 chest since they “improved” the contents… it’s all still crap and unless keys start going for 10 gems each I will NEVER buy them. I have spent $40 on gems so far too, so it isn’t like I am unwilling to spend money on the game, but the rewards need to be in line with the costs.

sitting on 300+ chests. whats your ezcuse?

I have noticed that the rate of keys you get from the BL chests is a lot lower. It could be just a bad streak of 10 keys though. Rare is good, but the question is how rare. No one will buy keys if it is too hard to get these new items. Sure I might spend $50 or something ,but other than that I know it’s not worth it unless we were gambling on something that could be resold. I assume they are soulbound since every other item you get from the chests are.

They should either implement a recipe to create keys (it does not have to be easy) or increase the rate of keys that you can get from chests. The goal of almost any business is to be successful and this required profits. Anet is no different, but I don’t think these new items in the boxes were done for the money. They were put in to make the boxes more desirable. Having there be less keys that you can get from the boxes would be for profit since I cannot think of any other valid reason.

I would just love it if they lowered the drop of the chests. It’s way too much right now. At first it was like… OOOOooo Chest… but when you have a stack of 50+ in your bank, your like… great another one to toss onto the pile. There isn’t anything special about getting them as people have said. They simply aren’t rare enough to warrant attention as well as the drops they have. Though I haven’t tried since the new updates.

I wouldn’t mind if rarity of the chests matched the keys because that would make more sense, but having one more often than the other is a right pain.

In GW1 you could buy keys and lockpicks and just carry them around until you find a chest which where rare but still at least 1 on a map.

Paulus magintie.7432:

Am I the only one here getting chest drops but getting next to no keys??? I know you get good items and such in them so the keys need to be rare, I also know I can buy them from the trade post.

But could the keys be improved slightly as rewards for clearing area’s or something at least?? I spend a lot of time just exploring and completing area’s and all I normally get at the end are weapon transforming things. (Transmuation??) or if I complete the daily quest I get mystic coins.

What do you think is a fair ratio of keys dropping to chests dropping?
How do expect tweaking this ratio will affect the larger economy?
Have you considered selling your chests?

I think we should be getting keys again instead of the chests like in the last game, at least then you have the keys to open the chests instead of the other way around.

Then again I guess that stops you wanting to buy the keys for such a price.

@ Paulus

Sorry, I don’t understand your last post – what exactly is the difference whether the key drops or the chest? Personally I only see a different icon.

People who like the consumables will get the keys – the price is not a factor because it is relatively the same if not cheaper than buying the consumable itself plus the extra gimmicks.

Basically in GW1 people bought keys or lockpicks incase they stumble upon a chest out exploring.

Now we get the chests and fork out for a key.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

I have plenty of disposable income, so far I have opened about 15 chests, and have gotten nothing but rubbish, I have no interest in spending my gems on the privlege to get more rubbish…if they had dyes, and gear skins and other interesting vanity objects, I might be so incline to spend money on them…but I’ve seen nothing remotely worth my cash coming from them.

what are these"perma-items" that were mentioned earlier?

I feel you… I have like 10 chests but no keys. There seems to be a few keys going out in the start of the game from your personal storyline, but that’s it. :/ Guess they really want you to pay for them.

I must say that I was expecting a rare chance on Mini’s being in the chest. Maybe they will add this later. There are so many ways to make chests more enticing, even for the more casual spender. I have a feeling that they kept the drop variety at a minimum to start with and see how it goes.

Once they get more data from the game and how players spend their time and (in-game) money, they can tweak the contents of the chest to become more in line with what people expect from them and what would make them buy keys.

The perm items are definately a step in the right direction, people should just see these as a (huge) bonus though when opening chests for other reasons, since the droprate is so low. Those other reasons however should include a little more then boosters, tools and tonics though.

Dyes, Mini’s, possibly skins. I think we may never see skins in the chest though since it seems Anet have envisioned so many other ways to get them: Crafting, Dungeons, Gemshop. But they still could add some really rare ones in the chests.

i presently have 50 chest. I have opened a few when i got a key for personal story stage completion. sometimes even got more keys when i opened the chest, which allowed me to open more. Think the most I opened at one time due to keys popping was about 5.

Has anyone gotten a key from the 100% zone completion chest since the change? I haven’t seen one.

Silvermink.1456:

Has anyone gotten a key from the 100% zone completion chest since the change? I haven’t seen one.

Im not im normally getting transformer things and mystic coins from both area completion and daily quest chests. Its frankly getting a bit annoying since I don’t use either.

I’ve actually gotten a key in the past few days quite a few times from area completion. I just got one for finishing Wayfarer’s Foothills in fact.

I’ve seen a total of 50-55 total black lion chests drop, and have only gotten 7 or 8 keys total drop. Yes, it’s part of the money making scheme, but that’s a 7:1 ratio. Figure in a blc key is about 125gems, and what you get is typically worth more than the 125 gems (if bought separately). I think the drop rate should be increased for the keys to drive people to want to open the chests rather than spending all the currency on keys.

The best item I’ve ever got from chests was, by far, a stack of 5 fine transmutation stones. I’ve got that twice. I’ve also received a stack of Black Lion salvage kits on three separate occasions. I have opened probably around 20 chests at this point.

I did not spend money on keys, nor do I intend to, and it’s clear to me that if I were inclined to use the cash shop I’d have been way better off just buying the above mentioned items than gambling with the keys. With a lvl 65 main and 4 alts ranging from 25 to 47 I have 87 chests sitting in my bank; it’s probably time to just dump them onto TP and free up the space they are taking.

And to answer the question a few posts above, yes, I’ve got keys for completing a zone quite a few times (probably because I would have much preferred the transmutations stones:)).

The reduction in getting keys from chests actually is a deterrent to me buying keys from the trader. I was thinking of buying 5, with a good chance of getting 3-5 more opening chests. Without that, they just are to expensive.

And to answer the question a few posts above, yes, I’ve got keys for completing a zone quite a few times (probably because I would have much preferred the transmutations stones:)).

I got several before Tuesdays patch. I haven’t gotten one since but I’ve only completed higher level zones and that may be why.