The thing is, you’re not getting gifts from someone you know. You’re getting gifts from a corporation. Unlike real life birthdays gifts that are carefully chosen with you in mind, gifts to players have to be designed for the maximum number of happy players that can be achieved with the minimum amount of work and cost by ANet. Which means that gifts can’t be tweaked to satisfy everyone.
They handed out a range of different items to be useful to as many types of players as possible, but to think they can or should modify the gifts so that every single player is completely happy with every single thing they got is not a realistic expectation. It’s a matter of how much scarce dev hours and money they’re willing to put into a optional gift. Considering every single thing they give could be useless to someone it’s best to be happy with the things you can use and accept that you’re not the consumer targeted for the ones you can’t.
As consumers, those left out should be pointing that out to the companies we buy from. The “gift” is a loyalty reward and marketing gimmick. If it isn’t hitting the mark on some customers that are loyal, the company should be aware of that and adjust the mark. Anet has proven perfectly capable of producing reward boxes that give a choice of items, as well as producing tickets and other methods of allowing people to swap things. I can’t see how it’s best to be happy to be left out of a quarter of the birthday gift rather than speak up about it. That’s just bad advice.
The thing is no gift will please everyone. The best ANet can hope for is to do Gift A this year and Gift B next year. And have Groups 1, 2, & 3 love Gift A and Group 4 hates Gift A and have Groups 2, 3, & 4 love Gift B and Group 1 hates Gift B. Where Group 1 and Group 4 do not include the majority of players by themselves.
It would be nice if the gift for this year pleased the vast majority of players who did not like the gifts of last year.
It isn’t hard to make the gifts exchangeable if they aren’t useful for someone. Or to make a gift box with a choice like: 1) Celebratory Dye Pack, 2) Celebratory Skin Pack, 3) Celebratory Mini Pack or whatever.
I don’t get why this seems like an impossible thing…
But some will always either have all of the dyes, skins and minis, have all they want of the categories, or not want any of them as they don’t care about collectables or how their character looks.
I’m not saying that can’t make the pool of dissatisfied smaller, but to have an expectation that there is an answer that will please everyone is unrealistic.
So because there are some people (theoretically) that would not be happy with anything, there should be no attempt to improve the current system which is broken for people in reality? So really, don’t bother doing anything at all, ever, because of these people who aren’t going to want anything? Increasing the pool to more than one type of item drastically increases the possibility for someone to get something they like and allows people who only have one category, such as dyes, to get something more than 39 silver and 96 coppers or inventory clutter.
Did you miss the part where I said I wasn’t for not making the pool of unhappy player smaller?
All my point is expecting there to be a gift where everyone will be happy with it is unrealistic.
I apologize I misunderstood your intent in regard to making the pool of unhappy players smaller.
Everyone is a hard word. But almost everyone isn’t that far off. I’m at 73 in Account Value on GW2 I have about a third of the BL weapon skins and a third of the minis. The odds that there are a significant amount of people around with all of the dyes and skins and minis unlocked or who have been able to afford to buy all the things they would want from those categories are pretty slim. Add some other BL items to the options and the odds of there being nothing for someone get smaller.
If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.
For less than 40 silver each…
And?
The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.
Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.
I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.
Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.
The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.
If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.
For less than 40 silver each…
And?
The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.
Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.
I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.
Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.
You’re the one who started involving children with your flawed analogies.
The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.
I didn’t know birthday presents were giving out dyes to some people and legendary armor to others. My mistake.
I personally kind of hope we get a free makeover kit or hair kit. I don’t need anything fancy and both of those things are always welcome in Fashion Wars 2.
Although I couldn’t get a new dye (for my account) from the 3rd year present, it was still an awesome gift. I keep hoping they’ll update it and add some of the newer sets or release more such Celebratory packs that include the new ones.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.
For less than 40 silver each…
And?
The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.
Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.
I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.
Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.
You’re the one who started involving children with your flawed analogies.
The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.
I didn’t know birthday presents were giving out dyes to some people and legendary armor to others. My mistake.
Do the math, a pair of socks vs a PS4 equates to about 40 silver to 75 gold, the cost of one of the dyes. The analogies aren’t flawed, you just don’t get them.
So the issue with you is the gold value. It’s unfair to you that someone got a lot more value out of the gift than you did.
Geez.
Please stop making up motivations. The number is a comparison. The birthday gift should be something that people enjoy. Getting to salvage a dye for 1 to 4 pigments as opposed to getting a dye that is something you couldn’t afford or is something nice but that you wouldn’t have bought for yourself is a big difference.
Unless you think “Celebratory Pigment Pack – salvage item – salvage this to get 1 to 4 pigments of your choice” is a great birthday gift…
I’ve been getting these for a year now, 18 of them, including when people were getting dyes worth hundreds of gold, if I cared that others were getting more than I, I’d have started a thread long ago. I didn’t even start this thread, and jumped in only because of the “entitled” post and the poor and mean-spirited arguments against making things better. I don’t care that people got a lot out of the dye packs, just that some of us got effectively nothing, which makes the Celebratory Dye Pack kind of a downer.
But when you don’t have a reasonable argument, trying to make me out as a bad guy is all you have left.
If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.
For less than 40 silver each…
And?
The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.
Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.
I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.
Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.
You’re the one who started involving children with your flawed analogies.
The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.
I didn’t know birthday presents were giving out dyes to some people and legendary armor to others. My mistake.
Do the math, a pair of socks vs a PS4 equates to about 40 silver to 75 gold, the cost of one of the dyes. The analogies aren’t flawed, you just don’t get them.
I think the only one who “gets” them is you.
Again. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Be happy to get any thing at all.
If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.
For less than 40 silver each…
And?
The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.
Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.
I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.
Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.
You’re the one who started involving children with your flawed analogies.
The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.
I didn’t know birthday presents were giving out dyes to some people and legendary armor to others. My mistake.
Do the math, a pair of socks vs a PS4 equates to about 40 silver to 75 gold, the cost of one of the dyes. The analogies aren’t flawed, you just don’t get them.
I think the only one who “gets” them is you.
Again. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Be happy to get any thing at all.
So the issue with you is the gold value. It’s unfair to you that someone got a lot more value out of the gift than you did.
Geez.
I honestly don’t care about the gold value – I have everything I want and more gold than I can spend.
I care about the nature of the reward systems and I want Anet to structure them so that this and the other issues I outlined in a previous post are reduced and eventually eliminated.
I wouldn’t mind the gift of last year o be modified to include more dyes, or get another dye pack with recent dyes. I had all dyes except 2 when I got my gift… Now I’ve got some left… could salvage those for pigments, but I doubt it would be a good choice.
23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.
Problem here is that you are an extreme outlier, they can’t be altering plans heavily and taking on more work that isn’t generating much, if any revenue based on satisfying a handful of people. In this case you should have mailed support and asked if you could get an alternative reward, I’m sure that they would have obliged and imo a bespoke solution like that is appropriate in this case.
i’d like everlasting combat tonics like we had in GW1
they opened up so many new opportunities, they could be maintained indefinitely and used everywhere (except pvp ofcourse)
i had one character who was exclusively a small dragon using kuunevang tonic , i gave them a dragon name and went through the whole story using dragony skills (as an ele)
please please anet give us back birthday combat tonics!
-DO make them tradeable. The people who have already unlocked the dyes and investors will complain that the market has crashed because suddenly they’re abundant and tradeable…
Um.. boohoo? That’s the risk/reward of the market. Just because someone speculated on dyes and they are now worth thousands of gold in profit to them, does not mean they have a right to that profit.
Your argument works the other way as well. You decided to buy all the dyes, that’s therefore the risk you took. Could you have predicted Anet making those dye packs a Birthday reward? No. Neither would dye traders be able to predict those dyes becoming unbound and tradeable.
This year I’m hoping for another dye selection kit or a mini selection kit.
I was very happy with the third birthday present but if they updated the old and newer dye kits to include the new dyes added in the last year I think it’d make a lot of people happier.
Let’s be honest though the people who have everything collected will feel left out no matter what and those people are such a minority that it’s difficult to imagine what they’d want. The only thing that could possibly satisfy everyone is an item that offers a selection of one of a number of rewards. A mini, a dye or some black lion bumph, whatever.
I bet you it’d be useless to some people no matter what.
Because asking for things you get in the game to be rewarding is bad and greedy and draws attacks or trolling statements like the one I quoted above. Happy Birthday, here’s 40 silver. Happy Birthday, here’s 74 gold. Same thing…
Exactly , asking for birthday gifts its very improper.
I love birthday gifts , but rather not demand any from anyone . Surprise is the best !!
They are kittened if they do, kittened if they don’t regardless of what we get. Someone, somewhere won’t be happy because they cannot please everyone all the time.
As such, I’m just putting my feet up and waiting to see what we do get. Hopefully another couple of birthday boosters (as we have every year thus far). I love those things, and could always use more.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
An added inventory slot would be nice. I’ve heard tell of people wanting past Black Lion Weapon skins to the gift this go round. Like the dye kit you get to choose from a selection of several types (fused skins would be nice to see again).
Because asking for things you get in the game to be rewarding is bad and greedy and draws attacks or trolling statements like the one I quoted above. Happy Birthday, here’s 40 silver. Happy Birthday, here’s 74 gold. Same thing…
Exactly , asking for birthday gifts its very improper.
I love birthday gifts , but rather not demand any from anyone . Surprise is the best !!
You do get that it isn’t the same as a personal birthday right? It’s an item given by a company to its customers.
I think there could be a few changes for dyes, both Black Lion ones and the account bound versions from birthdays:
Black Lion dyes:
Changed to exotic. So they can be filtered better in the trading post, and so using them in the mystic forge produces only other BL dyes (rare dyes would have small chance to get upgraded to exotic dyes on the mystic forge).
Celebratory Dye Pack
Kept rare, so they can be used in the mystic forge with other easier to get rare dyes.
They can never be a result in the mystic forge, so using them or other rare dyes in the mystic forge always results in tradeable dyes.
Kept account bound.
Produce more pigments than other rares when salvaged. To make that a decent option too.
So if you already have all the dyes from the birthday container, you can either try the mystic forge with other rares to get another dye that will always be tradeable, or salvage them to get pigment.
Going deeper into birthday woes, there could be something we can do with all those exp scrolls and queen Jennahs that have no use.
Maybe there could be vendor tab in the birthday vendor, with a limited stock. The stock would go up once by one for each character that logs in that has birthdays earned, the vendor would give you a choice to buy other alternate things in exchange for the surplus Queen Minis and scrolls. So if a character had 3 birthdays unclaimed, logging in with that character would increase the stock by 3 once. Then after that character gets a 4th birthday, logging in again gives 1 more stock to the vendor.
The new Birthday vendor tab could have some items with limited number of purchases like up to 5 mini eggs from each collection, some with unlimited purchases like 1h Celebration boosters and tomes of knowledge. The vendor would also give you extra queen Jennahs for free, but since stock of what you can buy with them is limited by the number of birthdays, not the number of Jennahs and scrolls you have, it won’t matter, it’ll simply allow people who discarded their extra Jennahs and scrolls to still get the stuff. As you’ll only be able to exchange as many as your birthday stock allows.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!
A couple of months ago they did bring back a few older items like the bunny ears and aviator glass. Then again these have been asked for many times to make a come back.
Last year it was a dye of choice (account bound) and they regulated dye market a bit. My guess this year will be precursor of choice (account bound) with same target.
Last year it was a dye of choice (account bound) and they regulated dye market a bit. My guess this year will be precursor of choice (account bound) with same target.
No. That’ll never happen. They won’t even give an Ascended item much less a precursor.
Last year it was a dye of choice (account bound) and they regulated dye market a bit. My guess this year will be precursor of choice (account bound) with same target.
Need to pass that pipe…
Anyway, I don’t get why they stopped doing minis. Just something to show loyalty like the HoM rewards. As one is deluded if they think others care a month or two down the line.
Think anyone cares about my black widow or fire gauntlets? No. And that’s going back 11 years of dedication to the franchise.
The price reduction in gems comes from being able to buy them with the gold the game hands you just for playing. Farm up some gold Play to get gold and get use that gold to get free (no real world money) gems. Can’t get much cheaper than free.
Edited because people are fixating on the word farm rather the the idea that you can play, get ingame tokens (gold) and use these tokens(gold) to buy items at reduced or free (no real world money) costs.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of the community was happy with the 3rd year b-day dye present. I think there was even a thread about how people thought it was awesome except for tp flippers of coarse.
So the issue with you is the gold value. It’s unfair to you that someone got a lot more value out of the gift than you did.
Geez.
Please stop making up motivations. The number is a comparison. The birthday gift should be something that people enjoy. Getting to salvage a dye for 1 to 4 pigments as opposed to getting a dye that is something you couldn’t afford or is something nice but that you wouldn’t have bought for yourself is a big difference.
Unless you think “Celebratory Pigment Pack – salvage item – salvage this to get 1 to 4 pigments of your choice” is a great birthday gift…
I’ve been getting these for a year now, 18 of them, including when people were getting dyes worth hundreds of gold, if I cared that others were getting more than I, I’d have started a thread long ago. I didn’t even start this thread, and jumped in only because of the “entitled” post and the poor and mean-spirited arguments against making things better. I don’t care that people got a lot out of the dye packs, just that some of us got effectively nothing, which makes the Celebratory Dye Pack kind of a downer.
But when you don’t have a reasonable argument, trying to make me out as a bad guy is all you have left.
Then why have you mentioned, numerous times the value of dyes to those who didn’t have them vs picking one and salvaging it for pigments. It certainly seems like the gold value is something that bothered you.
As long as the birthday gifts appeal to the majority of players, I don’t see any issues. Just because some players chose to max out their dyes, doesn’t mean it was unreasonable, or unfair, for Anet to include them as a gift.
Edit: To add onto what I said, let’s say the 4th birthday gift is a chest that let’s us choose any black lion weapon skin (account bound). It would be unfair for players not to be given that sort of gift because of the very very that had unlocked all of those skins.
The price reduction in gems comes from being able to buy them with the gold the game hands you just for playing. Farm up some gold and get free gems. Can’t get much cheaper than free.
If you have to farm for something, it’s not “free.”
The price reduction in gems comes from being able to buy them with the gold the game hands you just for playing. Farm up some gold and get free gems. Can’t get much cheaper than free.
If you have to farm for something, it’s not “free.”
That’s not how “free” works.
And I’m talking about real money.
If you were go in a shop and play there and while playing there the shop hands you tokens you can use to buy items in the shop, do you say, “I had to play in this shop to get these tokens. That means the items aren’t free!”
Nope. You were in the game playing. You got in game tokens (gold) and you used them to get free stuff.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
The price reduction in gems comes from being able to buy them with the gold the game hands you just for playing. Farm up some gold and get free gems. Can’t get much cheaper than free.
If you have to farm for something, it’s not “free.”
That’s not how “free” works.
And I’m talking about real money.
If you were go in a shop and play there and while playing there the shop hands you tokens you can use to buy items in the shop, do you say, “I had to play in this shop to get these tokens. That means the items aren’t free!”
Nope. You were in the game playing. You got in game tokens (gold) and you used them to get free stuff.
In real life agreements where you volunteer your time for non-cash “pay” exist. Your time does have a monetary value. But considering the game practically demands you have full coffers I agree that the gem system is really cheap.
