Guild Wars 2

Has anyone noticed an increase in key drops?
I for one have only noticed the chests drop more frequently since the last patch but i have very very rarely gotten a key as a drop (like twice and i have been playing since original beta)

Since beta, I only got 1 key (From branded, I still remember it xD).

have got like 3 keys all before the change in the drop rates

I got one key to drop in WvW the other night on Reset. Second key drop ever since release.

Not a fan. This restriction should be on F2P accounts only.

No keys yet. Other people have reported spending time killing mobs to check and no keys.

My personal guess. It will be at most one key per account per month (as an average across all players who actively play and kill mobs for at least an hour or two each day)

since launch of gw2, I have gotten 4. Since the “buff” 0, this is anets money we are talking about, they prolly only raised it 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%

Nick Lentz.6982:

since launch of gw2, I have gotten 4. Since the “buff” 0, this is anets money we are talking about, they prolly only raised it 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%

Ahhhhh. But I think you’re missing something. What happens next after a few keys drop for Mr Average Player?

Let’s say they did raise it substantially. Let’s say the Mr Average Player who hasn’t been buying keys and didn’t do key runs now gets one key a month as a drop. Some time passes. One day he looks and he has 6 or 7 scraps. All he needs is a bit more and he could have a shiny new weapon skin. What can he do to get those last few scraps?

He could do key runs but at one a week it will take him around 2-3 months to get 3 or 4 more scraps. If he wants to get those last few scraps in a timely manner, he will need to buy keys. If keys drop more frequently but not too often then ANet gets key purchases from people who do not ordinarily buy.

I got one key yesterday from random mob. Also I finish 3 high level map and got a key when finish them. I know that last part is not part of it but I got 4 key in just few hour. Finally got some good thing from key to a full ticket also a scrap makeover kit and a few thing I could sell for good gold the rest junk.

Key drop rate bevor the change was super craap. Now it’s a bit less super craap, which puts it in the range of still super craap.

Hell even if they had doubled the drop rate (which I highly doubt) we are looking at 1 key more per year approximately.

2.5k Hours played since vanilla beta/launch. 3-4 keys in total via drops. Let’s check this off as “anet wanting to boost blc key sales” and stop worrying if there were any positive effects to the game (which are non relevant in size).

Taking a guess that the average may have been one key a year for most active players, so maybe we will be getting five keys a year instead of one..I don’t know.

yeah….

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nick Lentz.6982:

since launch of gw2, I have gotten 4. Since the “buff” 0, this is anets money we are talking about, they prolly only raised it 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%

Ahhhhh. But I think you’re missing something. What happens next after a few keys drop for Mr Average Player?

Let’s say they did raise it substantially. Let’s say the Mr Average Player who hasn’t been buying keys and didn’t do key runs now gets one key a month as a drop. Some time passes. One day he looks and he has 6 or 7 scraps. All he needs is a bit more and he could have a shiny new weapon skin. What can he do to get those last few scraps?

He could do key runs but at one a week it will take him around 2-3 months to get 3 or 4 more scraps. If he wants to get those last few scraps in a timely manner, he will need to buy keys. If keys drop more frequently but not too often then ANet gets key purchases from people who do not ordinarily buy.

Ive opened a decent amount of chests via key runs and levelling (and chests yielding another key) and the first I’ve ever heard of a “scrap” or “ticket” was last week when they nerfed key runs. Never seen the drop, didn’t know vendor existed. I did get a cheaper node once but nothing else but useless boosters and merchants.

Where did “Mr. Average Player” that doesn’t do key runs or buy keys… get enough keys to even get ONE scrap?!

Loxias.2375:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nick Lentz.6982:

since launch of gw2, I have gotten 4. Since the “buff” 0, this is anets money we are talking about, they prolly only raised it 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%

Ahhhhh. But I think you’re missing something. What happens next after a few keys drop for Mr Average Player?

Let’s say they did raise it substantially. Let’s say the Mr Average Player who hasn’t been buying keys and didn’t do key runs now gets one key a month as a drop. Some time passes. One day he looks and he has 6 or 7 scraps. All he needs is a bit more and he could have a shiny new weapon skin. What can he do to get those last few scraps?

He could do key runs but at one a week it will take him around 2-3 months to get 3 or 4 more scraps. If he wants to get those last few scraps in a timely manner, he will need to buy keys. If keys drop more frequently but not too often then ANet gets key purchases from people who do not ordinarily buy.

Ive opened a decent amount of chests via key runs and levelling (and chests yielding another key) and the first I’ve ever heard of a “scrap” or “ticket” was last week when they nerfed key runs. Never seen the drop, didn’t know vendor existed. I did get a cheaper node once but nothing else but useless boosters and merchants.

Where did “Mr. Average Player” that doesn’t do key runs or buy keys… get enough keys to even get ONE scrap?!

I’m not dead sure what you’re asking here. I’m talking about now, where they said they increased the chance for a key to drop and what would happen if the keys dropped at a rate that across the game, the average player gets one a month and what happens after time goes by and he gets a few scraps and wants to get more.

On average a person gets a scrap about every 3 chests. It can be more and it can be less, but if you open enough chests then you’ll average out to one scrap every 3 chests.

Edit: here are the current best known statistics on what drops and how often. I’ve done key runs frequently and they’ve averaged out to one scrap per 3 chests.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest/Drop_rate

Loxias.2375:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nick Lentz.6982:

since launch of gw2, I have gotten 4. Since the “buff” 0, this is anets money we are talking about, they prolly only raised it 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%

Ahhhhh. But I think you’re missing something. What happens next after a few keys drop for Mr Average Player?

Let’s say they did raise it substantially. Let’s say the Mr Average Player who hasn’t been buying keys and didn’t do key runs now gets one key a month as a drop. Some time passes. One day he looks and he has 6 or 7 scraps. All he needs is a bit more and he could have a shiny new weapon skin. What can he do to get those last few scraps?

He could do key runs but at one a week it will take him around 2-3 months to get 3 or 4 more scraps. If he wants to get those last few scraps in a timely manner, he will need to buy keys. If keys drop more frequently but not too often then ANet gets key purchases from people who do not ordinarily buy.

Ive opened a decent amount of chests via key runs and levelling (and chests yielding another key) and the first I’ve ever heard of a “scrap” or “ticket” was last week when they nerfed key runs. Never seen the drop, didn’t know vendor existed. I did get a cheaper node once but nothing else but useless boosters and merchants.

Where did “Mr. Average Player” that doesn’t do key runs or buy keys… get enough keys to even get ONE scrap?!

You must have had horrible (way on the outlier side of things) luck if you’ve never received even one scrap, much less a ticket. I’m not an especially hardcore key-runner; I averaged about one a week before the change, and I have at least 10 BLC skins in the bank.

I’ve had 3 as drops. I’ve also played since beta. Got all 3 of mine from the same place/mob in Queensdale. The grubs in the vineyard at the monastery.

Guys I am just. . . laughing really. Please don’t take this as bragging.

I farmed my heart out testing the odds of getting a key since the change.
0 keys. 20 BLC. 1 precursor.

LOL I can get a precursor easier than a key. I just . . . xD

CandyHearts.6025:

Guys I am just. . . laughing really. Please don’t take this as bragging.

I farmed my heart out testing the odds of getting a key since the change.
0 keys. 20 BLC. 1 precursor.

LOL I can get a precursor easier than a key. I just . . . xD

You can give precursor to me and I will gift to you 25 keys if it make you feel better.

CandyHearts.6025:

Guys I am just. . . laughing really. Please don’t take this as bragging.

I farmed my heart out testing the odds of getting a key since the change.
0 keys. 20 BLC. 1 precursor.

LOL I can get a precursor easier than a key. I just . . . xD

Nice! I know of two people in my guild that had key drops this week. I’ve been leveling a new character so I’m killing more mobs with hearts, eotm, and story dungeons. No drop yet!

rhapsody.3615:

CandyHearts.6025:

Guys I am just. . . laughing really. Please don’t take this as bragging.

I farmed my heart out testing the odds of getting a key since the change.
0 keys. 20 BLC. 1 precursor.

LOL I can get a precursor easier than a key. I just . . . xD

Nice! I know of two people in my guild that had key drops this week. I’ve been leveling a new character so I’m killing more mobs with hearts, eotm, and story dungeons. No drop yet!

When I was farming SW someone had a key drop from a hyena.
My friend got one from map completion.

So there’s hope but nothing that will be quick and painless.

@25 keys for precursor XD! Such the boosters. Much worth.

CandyHearts.6025:

@25 keys for precursor XD! Such the boosters. Much worth.

You say precursor easier to get than key. If one key hard to get I offer very good solution 25 key for precursor.

Qugi.2653:

CandyHearts.6025:

@25 keys for precursor XD! Such the boosters. Much worth.

You say key hard to get than precursor. If one key hard to get I offer solution 25 for precursor.

Dang it and I sold it last night. I knew I shoulda held onto it ;_;

Of course I am only making some jokes about this.

Wait a few months and we will have some hard data in the form of black lion chest prices.

Onerios.4962:

Wait a few months and we will have some hard data in the form of black lion chest prices.

Agreed. 4 days is way too soon to tell anything about the drop rate, no matter how many mobs one person killed in those four days. There have been anecdotal reports of keys dropping, but nothing useful so far.

Since the change, my whole guild had exactly 0 key drops. There was also one precursor drop.

That ratio for some reason didn’t surprise me at all.

I’m going to guess that we aren’t likely to notice much increase in the number of keys: I suspect that not all that many keys were farmed relative to the entire community and so it wouldn’t take a large rate increase to make up for it. As individuals, we almost certainly wouldn’t notice and even medium-sized guilds probably don’t have enough players to be certain that they are seeing the status quo.

Begin wild speculation:
Suppose in August, 1,000 people farm 20+/week and 10,000 farm ~3/week (which might be incredibly high or low than actual data). That would be 50,000 keys per week, which has since reduced to 11,000 per week.

In this hypothetical, that would leave a deficit of 39k keys to make up each week. There might be 300,000 people playing each week, meaning just one additional key dropping for every 7 people would make up for all the farming that is no longer happening.

(For our purposes, we can ignore purchased keys and those obtained from other parts of the personal story, since, in theory, those numbers need not have changed since the last patch.)

End wild speculation

The point of this make-believe scenario is to show how few additional keys need to drop across the entire community in order to make up for the number farmed by a tiny (if intense) minority.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’m going to guess that we aren’t likely to notice much increase in the number of keys: I suspect that not all that many keys were farmed relative to the entire community and so it wouldn’t take a large rate increase to make up for it. As individuals, we almost certainly wouldn’t notice and even medium-sized guilds probably don’t have enough players to be certain that they are seeing the status quo.

Begin wild speculation:
Suppose in August, 1,000 people farm 20+/week and 10,000 farm ~3/week (which might be incredibly high or low than actual data). That would be 50,000 keys per week, which has since reduced to 11,000 per week.

In this hypothetical, that would leave a deficit of 39k keys to make up each week. There might be 300,000 people playing each week, meaning just one additional key dropping for every 7 people would make up for all the farming that is no longer happening.

(For our purposes, we can ignore purchased keys and those obtained from other parts of the personal story, since, in theory, those numbers need not have changed since the last patch.)

End wild speculation

The point of this make-believe scenario is to show how few additional keys need to drop across the entire community in order to make up for the number farmed by a tiny (if intense) minority.

One minor point though. The same number of keys dropping as the number of keys that were farmed doesn’t mean the same number of completed tickets and weapon skins purchased, for personal use or for sale. Not if those keys are spread across the player base and so are unable to be upgraded from scraps to one ticket.

Your scenario only makes up for numbers of keys. Not numbers of completed tickets and then skins bought and then put on the trading post.

Yes, we will never be able to speculate on the rate of keys dropping from the cost of BLTC skins on the trading post. Even if 10 times the number of keys drop, they will be spread out over a much larger portion of the game population, and instead of 1 player collecting 10 scraps, those 10 scraps will be spread out over 7, 8, or 10 players. Prices may rise even though the drop rate increases.

I have had 3 keys drop from mobs in 3 years. I have received none since the “increase” in drops.

I’ve gotten 3 keys in 3 years, but nearly 2 of those years I wasn’t playing. No precursors.

No keys since the rate increase.

Who cares about the keydrop! as long sa the BLchests give 70% complet BS no one conna buy those keys.

No keys since the patch, on the other hand an acquaintance got 3 keys in the first thee days after the patch. They also have something like 3 or 4 Tequatl weapons.

Guess the patch just shifted the concentration of keys from people who farmed to people with lucky accounts (being slightly facetious, I don’t really believe in lucky accounts, but cynicism is starting to creep in).

exp.3168:

Who cares about the keydrop! as long sa the BLchests give 70% complet BS no one conna buy those keys.

What does the drop rate have to do with buying them?

uhohhotdog.3598:

exp.3168:

Who cares about the keydrop! as long sa the BLchests give 70% complet BS no one conna buy those keys.

What does the drop rate have to do with buying them?

You dont belive they limited the key farming in hope that people would buy them for gems instead?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Your scenario only makes up for numbers of keys. Not numbers of completed tickets and then skins bought and then put on the trading post.

Of course, it’s a completely imaginary scenario, oversimplifying the entire supply of keys and demand for the contents of the chests. It wasn’t meant to “prove” anything — only to demonstrate that there are many possible scenarios and it’s too soon to speculate.

So far, I’m looking at the secondary BL chest content markets, things like backpack skins — and prices haven’t skyrocketed, which they do whenever the supply of keys drops. (They are roughly about as low as when keys were on sale for the anniversary.)

Linken.6345:

uhohhotdog.3598:

exp.3168:

Who cares about the keydrop! as long sa the BLchests give 70% complet BS no one conna buy those keys.

What does the drop rate have to do with buying them?

You dont belive they limited the key farming in hope that people would buy them for gems instead?

I don’t. People buy tons of keys anyhow.

I believe something may be coming, hopefully good, and the key farm limit was step one for something that next.

Linken.6345:

uhohhotdog.3598:

exp.3168:

Who cares about the keydrop! as long sa the BLchests give 70% complet BS no one conna buy those keys.

What does the drop rate have to do with buying them?

You dont belive they limited the key farming in hope that people would buy them for gems instead?

That has nothing to do with what the topic is about and what he said.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Of course, it’s a completely imaginary scenario, oversimplifying the entire supply of keys and demand for the contents of the chests. It wasn’t meant to “prove” anything — only to demonstrate that there are many possible scenarios and it’s too soon to speculate.

So far, I’m looking at the secondary BL chest content markets, things like backpack skins — and prices haven’t skyrocketed, which they do whenever the supply of keys drops. (They are roughly about as low as when keys were on sale for the anniversary.)

Thanks for bringing this up. After reading your post, I decided to check out Spidy to see what’s happening to the supply for the five tradable minis you can get out of the BLC’s (Holographic Scarlet, Caithe, Mai Trin, Marjory Delaqua and Kasmeer) and it does appear that there has been a significant decrease in volume (about 33%) since the nerf. I’m not sure why that’s yet to be reflected in their prices, but there are a few other secondary items that are seeing an increase in price, namely the permanent contracts, special gathering nodes and unopened endless tonics. I guess those increases might be attributable to speculators buying up what little volume there is on those particular high value items.

It is still too soon to tell, but like you said those secondary items can be a good indicator as to how many keys are dropping in the wild. Let’s see if their supply continues to drop.

Given the low starting value they would have to crank up the drop rate by some pretty crazy amounts for it to be noticeable. Even more so given the short time period between the patch and now. The drop rates of the chests does seem to have increased since their price is around half of what they used to be but that is probably combined with a lower demand.

I started at launch. I only got Black Lion keys from personal storyline and when a friend gifted me some with gems never from a drop, reward, or chest.

Wolf Rayet.4073:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Of course, it’s a completely imaginary scenario, oversimplifying the entire supply of keys and demand for the contents of the chests. It wasn’t meant to “prove” anything — only to demonstrate that there are many possible scenarios and it’s too soon to speculate.

So far, I’m looking at the secondary BL chest content markets, things like backpack skins — and prices haven’t skyrocketed, which they do whenever the supply of keys drops. (They are roughly about as low as when keys were on sale for the anniversary.)

Thanks for bringing this up. After reading your post, I decided to check out Spidy to see what’s happening to the supply for the five tradable minis you can get out of the BLC’s (Holographic Scarlet, Caithe, Mai Trin, Marjory Delaqua and Kasmeer) and it does appear that there has been a significant decrease in volume (about 33%) since the nerf. I’m not sure why that’s yet to be reflected in their prices, but there are a few other secondary items that are seeing an increase in price, namely the permanent contracts, special gathering nodes and unopened endless tonics. I guess those increases might be attributable to speculators buying up what little volume there is on those particular high value items.

It is still too soon to tell, but like you said those secondary items can be a good indicator as to how many keys are dropping in the wild. Let’s see if their supply continues to drop.

Good point. I was looking at prices and not supply — that’s a better indicator that something is changing. However, that could as easily be more people are hoarding those minis in anticipation of price spikes (I know that I did) rather than a decrease in the source of the supply.

Obviously the main market of interest to the majority of players is going to be BL weapon skins and that can be even more complicated to disentangle.

In the past, short-term changes in the ability to farm keys has affected the prices quickly, which is why I was focused on price. Secondary markets always tanked when keys were in high supply (due to gem store sales or give-aways) and always rose when something reduced the amount of farming (e.g. new living story or when the chest farm was first discovered). Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future earnings.

or to tl;dr, it’s just too soon to tell what the impact is going to be and it’s probably too soon to speculate, since we have so little data about how many new keys enter Tyria, either before or since the update.

I find it so funny that people expect a perfect market reaction almost immediately. Here is how the majority of people will notice the decreased supply of keys and blc contents:

- once current supply of stock on the TP runs out a new equalibrium will be found at a higher price (if supply has droped) or lower price (if supply has increased). This is not instant. Not everyone monitors their TP items. Just look at how long it took for silk cloth to hit 1.2 silver and beyond after asceneded armor got introduced.

- looking at slow moving inefficient markets (the secondary blc item market for expensive items – permanent kits etc) is not an optimal way of judging how the general market is affected. Looking at faster moving affected markets (like minis) is in general a better idea.

- black lion ticket skins are also slower affected since the supply here has been aquired already and is not significantly affected by the ticket decrease/increase yet (because most people buy the skins at 1 ticket prices, not at 3, 5 or 7). Though here too, prices are rising.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’m going to guess that we aren’t likely to notice much increase in the number of keys: I suspect that not all that many keys were farmed relative to the entire community and so it wouldn’t take a large rate increase to make up for it. As individuals, we almost certainly wouldn’t notice and even medium-sized guilds probably don’t have enough players to be certain that they are seeing the status quo.

Begin wild speculation:
Suppose in August, 1,000 people farm 20+/week and 10,000 farm ~3/week (which might be incredibly high or low than actual data). That would be 50,000 keys per week, which has since reduced to 11,000 per week.

In this hypothetical, that would leave a deficit of 39k keys to make up each week. There might be 300,000 people playing each week, meaning just one additional key dropping for every 7 people would make up for all the farming that is no longer happening.

(For our purposes, we can ignore purchased keys and those obtained from other parts of the personal story, since, in theory, those numbers need not have changed since the last patch.)

End wild speculation

The point of this make-believe scenario is to show how few additional keys need to drop across the entire community in order to make up for the number farmed by a tiny (if intense) minority.

Let’s use some more accurate numbers. Let’s assume 1 key per year or per 700 hours played (going by my subjective 3-4 keys in 2,5k years of play and what others have stated as their drop rate). Even if doubled, we are looking at 350 hours per key per person.

With an average time of 30 minutes per key run, that’s 700 keys one could farm in the same time (1,400 for the old system). Thus 1 person can supply as many keys as 700 normal players (1,400 under the old system) to the market. As an added bonus, the ticket scraps are also pooled to 1 stash instead of having multiple partial tickets accross many accounts.

At 5 million accounts, it would take about 7,000 (3,500 under old drop rate) people key farming to match the entire key supply generate through the rest of the community.

What I’m trying to say is, your hypothetical numbers are far off from where key drops used to be. A substantial increase in drop % would be required to offset the focused farming from the past.

Under your example, and using assumed past drop rates it would look something along the lines of this:

1 keyfarmer playing 10 hours = 20 keys.

This is equivalent of 700 hours x 20 keys = 14,000 hours of play time needed.

Ergo 1,400 players would have to play 10 hours to make up for 1 key farmer. Or the way you put it:

1,000 keyfarmers farms 20 hours per farmer / 10,000 normal player farm 20 hours per person

Total keys farmed:

1,000 × 20 hours x 2 = 40,000 keys farmed by farmers
10,000 × 20 hours / 700 = 285 keys goten via drops

To make up for the 40,000 keys missing the drop rate would have to increase significantly. That is not counting the fact that the ticket scraps are still not pooled to 1 or few people but split over a wide player base.

The hypothetical situation looks way bleaker when applied to actual drop rates, does it not?

Currently sitting on 140 chests. I’ve gotten all of 3 key drops, apart from starter zone. None since the supposed bump.

Ever since the patched, I have gotten 3 chest from EoTM but no keys so far. I’m guessing it must of been a 0.0001% increased.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The point of this make-believe scenario is to show how few additional keys need to drop across the entire community in order to make up for the number farmed by a tiny (if intense) minority.

“How few”? You do realize, that 1 key per 7 weeks on average, among all the types of players would be a really, really massive upgrade to the previous drop rates? We previously had an average drop rate of 1 key per year, but that was an average among the top of most active players. When averaged among all types, including the less active ones or doing the content where keys are less likely to drop (far less drop rolls) it was way lower than that.

We’re talking here about drop rate increases of around 1000-2000% at the very least (probably even more). And that’s even ignoring the case where you need 10 scraps to make a ticket, and that any scraps that can’t be converted are irrelevant to the conversation about the BL skin prices.

That’s not “just a few more” key drops.

I’m guessing you guys still don’t realize that “we increased key drop rates” is just PR talk to make nerfing key farms seem less problematic for the community. Because saying “We nerfed key farming” would have just sounded bad so they added “but we gave you something” at the end to make it sound better.

Now I’m sure the key drop rate has been increased ( so technically they’re not lying) but the rate must be so low it will never impact you as a player.

3 chests and 0 keys

Got 3 keys as a drop after the patch. Don’t ask me how many chests, got a few more than usual in 80 zones though.

I doubt the change will be noticeable.

After watching a youtube video on the contents of the BLC I’m not sure I’m all that interested like I was the first week of play.

90% of the stuff in that box I don’t care about, the tickets and scraps seem to be the only reason people want them….while i will say there are a lot of things in those boxes that could be very useful for new accounts, i don’t think they have much value for older accounts, beyond the scraps/tickets.

I think the BLC needs a rework. I mean the big driver for people opening them are weapon skins….and maybe some super rare items that no one every really gets anyway, even if they had key farmed like crazy in the past.

I had opened a few, having purchased them on sale, but also getting a few for map completion and the now nerfed leveling up experience. Most of the stuff i got was sent to my bank to pile up with what i got in game….boosters are worthless for the most part to me, most of the convenience items…backpack and minis didn’t interest me….i got a few tickets and some scrap, but asking me to choose a weapon that ill use across multiple characters for a long time to warrant spending the tickets on one skin…they are going to sit there for a while i think….and not get used…

The dyes were the biggest thing of interest, and i could have converted the gems to gold and gotten way better dyes, of my choice, than what i got from the keys.

These things are fun, i wont lie, but i don’t see much value in them…

So maybe anet can look into taking out the garbage from the BLC, putting in a selection of skins, dyes are fine, and i dunno…stuff people actually want….beyond the tickets and one in a million items.