Guild Wars 2

Gems have a set real world currency value. Gem card?

But w/e. Regardless of the currency all games I have seen with high value rare chance items bundle them with a purchase of something else, be it a chest, a loot cube, a card pack, or w/e, and its done to avoid “gambling” laws applying to RMT.

Anet always wins, players always lose.

It’s not technically a gamble because you’re not at risk of losing your money/gems. You always get something, even if it’s just worthless junk like mystery tonics. There is a low chance you will get what you want, or anything else rare/valuable, but under no circumstances do you lose your money and get nothing in return.

I would suggest people read before actually going in spending money and then whining about not reading/understanding what they have spent money on.

ArenaNet have never even implied that the scraps would be almost guaranteed drops. Quite the contrary, they made it quite clear that a big part of the Key drops would be replaced by the scrap drops.
The keys had around 25% drop-rate based on research. Lets say they move that down to 10%, which would give the scraps about 15% chance to drop. Lets then add a few extra % since one can assume that it was not only the removed key % that was given as a chance for scraps.

That would mean it would probably be something around 20%, which is more or less 1 in 5 and that does seems to be quite close to what people have reported since the release, and that would most likely be considered common.

LordByron.8369:

the game sosts 40$
Game expansions costs average 20-30….

Then we see that people would accept 20-30$ for a weapon skin.

That is why i prefer expansions….

Lol 20-30 would be pretty reasonable compared to what we have…

Drop rate seems to be about 10%.
You need 50 scraps to get a weapon (after this week)
That is an average of 500 keys… which are 450 gems/5

That is a total of 45,000 gems, or 1350g, or $500 to get a single skin

$30 aint lookin so bad now is it?

Not that half of you that posted the ridiculous stuff about gambling laws will come back, but every single one of you is so wrong your not even in the right area code.

RNG through computer game cash shops are not gambling because you own nothing. All gems purchases are a service, read the Terms of Use. You are buying the right to have access to something ArenaNet (or other MMO publishers) owns. They are completely within their rights to take away anything on your account “At any time, for any reason, or no reason at all.”

Since your buying a service it can be in no way considering gambling because you are not risking anything that you own. You don’t own gems ever, you are basically donating money to their server upkeep and they are allowing you to use some gems within their game that they are gods over.

People really should learn to read the Terms of Use if they are going to attempt to challenge games. They are super precisely written and have almost always held up in court. (Always in the case of the US) That is why they can permanently ban you from the game at their will. They could shut down all servers tomorrow an walk away with all of your money and likely only a handful of players would get back their recent gem purchase money.

Don’t believe me? Go read their Terms of Use for yourself.

TLDR: Read the ToS. You own nothing in GW2, every gem purchase is a service, and has no value. ArenaNet is the God of GW2 they can do whatever they want.

30 chests and 7 scaps so far!

16g for (5) x 5 = already spend 80G

And the skin i want is now 19g in the trading post

but i must go on or else its a waste of money spend on 7 scraps. Maybe if im Lucky i get 3 in the next 5 :S

But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop.. and looking at the RNG drop from the monsters i feel like beeing kicked in the balls too!

Thanks for giving me such a wonderfull time! You just lost a customer to your gem shop! GG

Magnetron.5823:

3
But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop

I would suggest you look up the definition of being robbed.

Willingly giving money to someone is not being robbed.

Magnetron.5823:

30 chests and 7 scaps so far!

16g for (5) x 5 = already spend 90G

And the skin i want is now 19g in the trading post

but i must go on or else its a waste of money spend on 7 scraps. Maybe if im Lucky i get 3 in the next 5 :S

But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop.. and looking at the RNG drop from the monsters i feel like beeing kicked in the balls too!

Thanks for giving me such a wonderfull time! You just lost a customer to your gem shop! GG

On the flip side look at all that other stuff that you got.

This is one thing I don’t like about the complaints with RNG. They always IGNORE what else they got. Calculate the value of all the other items. Then tell me if you were “Robbed”. I think you will find that you were not.

Magnetron.5823:

30 chests and 7 scaps so far!

16g for (5) x 5 = already spend 90G

And the skin i want is now 19g in the trading post

but i must go on or else its a waste of money spend on 7 scraps. Maybe if im Lucky i get 3 in the next 5 :S

But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop.. and looking at the RNG drop from the monsters i feel like beeing kicked in the balls too!

Thanks for giving me such a wonderfull time! You just lost a customer to your gem shop! GG

Your first mistake was buying black lion keys. It’s common knowledge that they are a ripoff.

Don’t feel alone, though. Months ago I swore never to buy another key, but I thought that the addition of scraps would make it more worthwhile. Because of that, I figured “eh, wth… I’ll try it this time”. 20 chests later, I had 2 scraps. I would have done better to trade directly to gold and get the item off the TP.

It’s foolish to waste RL money on RNG. If you see something that you want that is a direct sale, buy it. If not, it isn’t worth the purchase. Gambling $20-40 USD for a chance to maybe possibly get a single weapon skin if the stars are aligned properly just isn’t worth it, IMO.

I think you are almost always better off trading gems for gold and buying what you want off the TP. A few people get lucky, but I’ve never had a drop from any RNG thing from the store that was worth more on the TP than I spend in Gems to acquire it.

I’m honestly glad there’s a lot of people talking about this issue, this is one of many threads.

I personally don’t mind RNG, I personally don’t mind paying for some visual items in game… but this is just absurd.

I really don’t think as I’ve stated many times since this has been out, that Anet really meant to charge 300 dollars on one skin.

Right now they’re going for about 60 dollars in keys, which is already an absurd amount. Paying 10 dollars alone is already a high cost for one item when the game costs about 50 dollars, that’s 20% of what you paid for the game in one purchase.

But to charge 300 dollars for one item is absurd, that’s 600% of the original cost for the entire game purchase.

This really needs to be addressed, it’s not even about “oh I wanna buy that item but it’s too expensive”, my main character is a Necro, I want nothing to do with those items, it doesn’t match the look.

This is about the absurd unreasonable way they’re going about this, 300 dollars for an item is just unheard of. Even if I didn’t want the item, if they’re charging that much for one item it makes me feel uneasy about the future of the game.

anzenketh.3759:

Magnetron.5823:

30 chests and 7 scaps so far!

16g for (5) x 5 = already spend 90G

And the skin i want is now 19g in the trading post

but i must go on or else its a waste of money spend on 7 scraps. Maybe if im Lucky i get 3 in the next 5 :S

But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop.. and looking at the RNG drop from the monsters i feel like beeing kicked in the balls too!

Thanks for giving me such a wonderfull time! You just lost a customer to your gem shop! GG

On the flip side look at all that other stuff that you got.

This is one thing I don’t like about the complaints with RNG. They always IGNORE what else they got. Calculate the value of all the other items. Then tell me if you were “Robbed”. I think you will find that you were not.

Yeah, because a booster, a unid dye, and a bank access are totally worth something.
Or a booster, a 50influence 1 time item, and 3 mysterious tonic, cause those are also worth something.
Same with the chest I opened before (just can’t remember what it was I got).

People should just delete the chests (like I am), maybe once the supply on the tp gets to zero, and no new ones are added, people won’t be able to open chests as easily so people would finally stop buying the kitten keys.

skullmount.1758:

anzenketh.3759:

Magnetron.5823:

30 chests and 7 scaps so far!

16g for (5) x 5 = already spend 90G

And the skin i want is now 19g in the trading post

but i must go on or else its a waste of money spend on 7 scraps. Maybe if im Lucky i get 3 in the next 5 :S

But after this.. i will never ever buy something from the gem shop again! I am beeing robbed, backstabbed because i buy from the gem shop.. and looking at the RNG drop from the monsters i feel like beeing kicked in the balls too!

Thanks for giving me such a wonderfull time! You just lost a customer to your gem shop! GG

On the flip side look at all that other stuff that you got.

This is one thing I don’t like about the complaints with RNG. They always IGNORE what else they got. Calculate the value of all the other items. Then tell me if you were “Robbed”. I think you will find that you were not.

Yeah, because a booster, a unid dye, and a bank access are totally worth something.
Or a booster, a 50influence 1 time item, and 3 mysterious tonic, cause those are also worth something.
Same with the chest I opened before (just can’t remember what it was I got).

People should just delete the chests (like I am), maybe once the supply on the tp gets to zero, and no new ones are added, people won’t be able to open chests as easily so people would finally stop buying the kitten keys.

Maybe not to you no. But they are worth something. Booster is worth about the amount you get it in the gem store for same with bank access. Some players like the Mysterious Tonics some use them to convert them into a everlasting tunic and use them all the time. Dye is worth around 17-18 silver.

Seems like every update Anet is testing the waters for different types of RNG box and money making schemes. I really wish they would return to the Wintersday model of selling individual skins for 800 gems WITH a chance to get a ticket from chests. I didn’t hear anyone complaining about that, besides maybe the fact that the skins looked ugly (imo).

It’s cheaper as a matter of course to just buy the weapon skin you want on the Auction House. 15 BL keys will cost you roughly 48g give or take. With a “rare chance” for a ticket outright you are better off just buying one for that price and getting the one you want. Don’t waste your time gambling.

lordkrall.7241:

I would suggest people read before actually going in spending money and then whining about not reading/understanding what they have spent money on.

ArenaNet have never even implied that the scraps would be almost guaranteed drops. Quite the contrary, they made it quite clear that a big part of the Key drops would be replaced by the scrap drops.
The keys had around 25% drop-rate based on research. Lets say they move that down to 10%, which would give the scraps about 15% chance to drop. Lets then add a few extra % since one can assume that it was not only the removed key % that was given as a chance for scraps.

That would mean it would probably be something around 20%, which is more or less 1 in 5 and that does seems to be quite close to what people have reported since the release, and that would most likely be considered common.

I believe the main focus of the thread is one issue. I wouldn’t argue if gem store is or is not a form of gambling because all the points are fruitless. You pay for something (a meal), you have fun (without knowing if it tastes good beforehand). It’s all fine and good in that sense. Any further cases just begs the question… so what?

The problem I have with the “common” label is the price behind it. Math done many times above, one Aetherized weapon skin = around $56 dollars and that is being optimistic for the average dice roller. In the near future it would take 5 times as much to get one skin so that’s $ 56 × 5... You get the idea.

In full support of the game, whether it is the “buy it or don’t” perspective, I wish to buy it because the skins are cool and it pleases my vanity. The price on the other hand is a bit nuts, and more so to hide it behind the chances spread on scraps then calling it common.

A-net has given itself a 300% gold find buff.

Microtransactions can be done right and most of the time ArenaNet hits things just about right. There is a place for RNG boxes even in my opinion.

However I think on the skins. Particularly the “High value” Skins are where things can sometimes go wrong. I am unsure if $60 is the right price for high value skins. Perhaps a maximum value should be aimed at around 35-45. This can be obtained by lowering the cost of the keys by a small margin. Who knows they might see that this works well if Evon Gnashblade wins. Part of the reason why I would like to see him win.

I know that $280 is the wrong value. However I can see why they did that. They want the skins to retain their value over time and if they don’t increase the price then everyone will have one. They know this from the In game store from Guild Wars 1.

And thinking about it rarity wise 1 in five is the higher end of common.

All I want is the thruster aetherized sword! is that too much to ask!?

Amria.2461:

All I want is the thruster aetherized sword! is that too much to ask!?

Yes because it is not in there. Check the vendor before you get to many Chests.

50 Chests to get my 10 scraps =\

Taking this times 5 after Aug 5 is kittening absurd!

Looking back at Guild Wars 1, here’s my favorite method in delivering new weapon skins.

For those of you who don’t know: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bonus_Mission_Pack

Those missions were tailored to cover scenic, story, and reward elements into four separate packs relating to historic events of the Guild Wars universe.

Retail Price: us$9.99 / €8.99 / £5.99 for all the missions, came with awesome gameplay experiences as well as unlimited repetition rewards of 4 different skin packs for all the weapons.

Now that GW2 might be at a different financial state, costlier development reasonably needs a higher price tag. Still it would be pretty awesome to review some of the old practices of the micro-transactions store.

anzenketh.3759:

They want the skins to retain their value over time and if they don’t increase the price then everyone will have one. They know this from the In game store from Guild Wars 1.

The only comparable thing sold in GW1 were costumes, and I don’t recall everyone having them ever being considered a problem. Nothing from the GW1 cash shop ever had any value, either. You bought a costume, and it was yours to retrieve as many copies as you’d like, but it no value ingame or otherwise. Still, a lot of people bought them, which means a lot of money for NC/Anet. Probably a lot more than are buying keys right now to throw away at the chance to get a weapon skin. I know the GW1 costumes seem to have at least outsold the town clothes in GW2, but we’ll never really know about the BLCKs because we can’t just see people running around with them.

I think they should keep Aetherized weapons as just a rare drop in the Candidate Trials, or other similar activities, to have the same “I have it, and you don’t” status/elitism/showing off/whatever you want to call it, all without the ridiculousness of the BLC RNG. There isn’t any reason, aside from greed, for the real money cost and RNG associated with these skins. The idea that something must have an absurd real money value in order to retain ingame/gold value, is a very very bad one.

To be honest, I consider this type of tactic something to be expected from “free2play trash” currently littering the MMO market, not something from a dev that should know better from 8 years experience of running a successful game.

edit: as mentioned in the above post, the Bonus Mission weapons are somewhat comparable, but they were just an added incentive to a content add-on. Like the costumes, there is still no ingame value associated with them, as they are always locked to your account.

Because there are multiple posts about the same thing, I’ll just quote myself from the other threads:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

RNG means Random Number Generator

The “Random” part of RNG does not mean Guaranteed.

And note – Black Lion Scraps are not the only things that the chest can spawn. So if you have 10 “common” items on the loot table, and say the chest may only give one or two “common” drops, you have a 10% or 20% chance of getting what you want. That’s not factoring in the “uncommon” and “rare” chances either.

You can still get the items from you know running the event that is going on in the living story. Ppl should have a chose to buy them with gems if they do not want to run the event that is HOW F2P games should be made.

Jski.6180:

You can still get the items from you know running the event that is going on in the living story. Ppl should have a chose to buy them with gems if they do not want to run the event that is HOW F2P games should be made.

Ah, but there’s no promise that you WILL get them, even if you run the event until your fingers bleed and short out your keyboard.

Palador.2170:

Jski.6180:

You can still get the items from you know running the event that is going on in the living story. Ppl should have a chose to buy them with gems if they do not want to run the event that is HOW F2P games should be made.

Ah, but there’s no promise that you WILL get them, even if you run the event until your fingers bleed and short out your keyboard.

Ya that the idea… why should you get something for sure? Look at the DB event everyone has one but often do not use them. It has nothing to do with how they look most of the DB weapons look very nice its that everyone has one so it becomes pointless to run them for a “look”. Just the truth of being a human we think this way and put high value on scarcity.

Jski.6180:

You can still get the items from you know running the event that is going on in the living story. Ppl should have a chose to buy them with gems if they do not want to run the event that is HOW F2P games should be made.

That event is temporary, the BLC scraps/tickets are not. In a few weeks BLCs will be the only source of Aetherized weapons. The supply of weapons from the event will dry up, and the price from BLCs will increase 5×. The gold value of the weapons will be very high because paying the absurd $300+ price (a very conservative average) is the only way to obtain a new one.

So how much real money does one need to spend to get one weapon skin? I don’t mind spending money on gems but there is a fine line between buying skins and funnelling money into a slot machine-like chance at winning nothing.

If you don’t like it, don’t spend any real money to get scraps. If you really don’t like it, don’t play GW2 anymore. There’s plenty of other games, and even some very soon to release..

Elthurien.8356:

So how much real money does one need to spend to get one weapon skin? I don’t mind spending money on gems but there is a fine line between buying skins and funnelling money into a slot machine-like chance at winning nothing.

Current estimate from drop rates reported so far is around $60, which goes up 5x to $300 in just a few weeks when the cost goes to 5 tickets(50scraps). RNG being random some will get lucky and spend much less, but just as many will get unlucky and end up costing a great deal more.

sparklevision.8109:

If you don’t like it, don’t spend any real money to get scraps. If you really don’t like it, don’t play GW2 anymore. There’s plenty of other games, and even some very soon to release..

Here we have it peoples. Constructive criticism at it’s finest.

I’m happy with the game I got for $60, but I can tell you now, I will never spend one cent in GW2’s cash shop as long as ArenaNet are profiting from getting children hooked on gambling with real money.

I like how they did the Zephyr backpieces. You can get scraps from killing mobs, you can get them as a drop from Sanctum Sprint or you can buy them on the TP. And you can buy scraps for gems which makes it faster but it isn’t the only way to get it.

The Black Lion things? An average of more than the game’s value to get a one-time skin? With no other way to get it than sheer luck? I’ll gladly pass.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Black_Lion_Claim_Ticket_Scrap&diff=638206&oldid=636745

The wiki was changed to reflect the general consensus that the scraps are indeed a rare drop, which I find to be hilarious.

I was collecting BL keys by completing maps and getting them from mobs. the first 14 BL chests I opened of the course of about a week yielded 1 scrap every other chest so I had 7 scraps and thought that if I purchased a few additional keys I would then have 10 scraps needed to purchase the weapon skin I wanted. Yea that did not happen I ended up purchasing about 50 BL keys and of them I got around 14 scraps and no weapon tickets.

I also noticed that I did not receive 1 BL key back as I do recall a long time ago you got BL keys back frequently from opening chests which appears to me like these have been removed or the drop rate of them has been greatly reduced.

These boxes are really just a waste of money or gold. I could understand IF the skins were really cool then I wouldn’t mind splurging on them trying to get a cool skin. But honestly these skins are mediocre at best and the amount of gold it costs to get them, on average, you could quite literally buy a legendary.

I’ve been playing GW2 for a year and a half and I have 6 scraps…

danbuter.2314:

Don’t spend real money on this. Seriously. The only reason RNG continues is because people keep buying gems.

lockheedlight.5910:

People really need to stop buying black lion keys. Maybe then we will get to just buy the weapons instead.

Still, after a year, I think you are both right. Sadly there seem to be enough people that buy the keys withs gems (and the gems with real money) and the black lion chest lottery still exists.

Greetings.

Really? Necro? This day and age? Read the thread dates before you post people.

I never buy bltc keys. I only get them when they drop or come as a reward… I have 8 scraps total waiting in my bank since game release. 2 of those came from the same chest. The day after I got another one. This was quite recently…

Stop necroing things!!

Necromancer is not a valid forum class.

omg what a ripoff. I got 25 keys, out of that I got 3 scraps.
Seriously Anet? so basically the cost of 1 skin on that weapon merchant is 10k gems or something?
Stop giving me crap when I open chest and give me kitten I want. Or sell me kitten I want on gemstore. This RNG just made sure I’ll never again buy a single durping black lion key on your store.

Gimli.9461:

omg what a ripoff. I got 25 keys, out of that I got 3 scraps.
Seriously Anet? so basically the cost of 1 skin on that weapon merchant is 10k gems or something?
Stop giving me crap when I open chest and give me kitten I want. Or sell me kitten I want on gemstore. This RNG just made sure I’ll never again buy a single durping black lion key on your store.

Black lion chests are pure RNG (well, occasionally there are guaranteed drops, but not right now AFAIK, and generally they’re not valuable because they’re guaranteed) — you might get valuable drops, but mostly you’ll get boosts or other things which may or may not be valuable to you. If they’re not, you’ll do a lot better selling gems and buying the thing you want, rather than gambling for it with RNG.

It’s been like that the whole time the game has been around, and the comments apply to other RNG boxes (like exclusive dyes)… because some people like gambling, the price of buying the RNG box may be slightly higher than the average return. (Sort of like the lottery. :-)

The whole Ticket Scrap thing is a bit meh for me… well more the fact that all those nice weapon skins are hidden behind a slot machine. The amount of real world money needed to complete a single set… well I guess you could buy them off the TP… if you had enough gold which can also be purchased with gems…
The whole thing makes me sad.

Ever heard of key farming? Little effort, free keys. Still face the RNG, but at least you’re not spending $ on keys. I do both, but like the slot machine. Plus I have fairly good luck in scoring scraps and even a full ticket one time. Yesterday I had 7 scraps, used 12 keys, bought 2 weapon skins, still have a few scraps left.

Necro power OP. Please nerf (and read the first post to see how long ago it was made).

RoseofGilead.8907:

Necro power OP. Please nerf (and read the first post to see how long ago it was made).

Yet if they created a new thread, you’d be there yelling at them about not using the search feature to find existing threads… so.. which is it?

Neural.1824:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Necro power OP. Please nerf (and read the first post to see how long ago it was made).

Yet if they created a new thread, you’d be there yelling at them about not using the search feature to find existing threads… so.. which is it?

If a thread is over a year old and has gone at least 6 months without someone posting in it, people wouldn’t care if a new thread was made. It’s when you get three (or more) posts on the same topic within a week that people will get grumpy (and rightly so).