Guild Wars 2

Not about the game, I love the game.

Just bought some shadow dyes from the gem store. The first time I’ve ever bought dyes. I thought I was going to get some cool shadow dyes. I got 4 commons and an uncommon and I had all but one of them already. I’m don’t mind range for things that are in the game, and black lion chests which are an advertised crap shoot, but I thought I was going to get shadow dyes not ones I already owned.

Oh well, lesson learned. At least I bought the gems with gold and not real life money. I would be seriously kittened off then.

Rule 1 about cash shops, if the item has “random” anywhere in its description, run away.

Sorry about your luck. :T

I can understand them not wanting you to have them right off the bat but yeah. Would be nice if we got one guaranteed special dye.

Yep. Only touch those dyes if you have money to throw at a gamble or if you don’t know any better.

Don’t forget there are people that bought 5 and got between 1 and 5 shadow dyes. That is random, you are just one of the people who didn’t. And then an even smaller minority to talk about it on the forums.

25 dyes, 10 are shadow. So each pull is looking at a 10/25 or 2/5 chance of getting shadow dyes. But being random, it isn’t unrealistic to get less than that is a small sample size, or get get lucky and get more…

Remember: when you buy black lion keys or dye packs, you are ALWAYS gambling!

That said, I was feeling lucky on this, bought 5 packs and got two shadows(violet and orange) and a couple of dyes I didn’t have. Was hoping for the abyss…But at least I got some shadows.

I would avoid spending gems on anything random. You will quickly learn that the odds are so greatly against you.

Yeah, I feel you.

First time buying dyes for me as well, convinced that I would have at least gotten one shadow dye and instead I end up with a green shade dye that is worth less than 1s. After re-reading, I notice that the package contains one of 25 dyes and so not only shadow but also “shade”.

I cursed in map chat for a good 10 mins. It really felt like a scam, with the little things written small and that huge dye pack with “SHADOW” printed all over it. Let’s even say “shade”.

I had to marathon 10 dungeons to get back those 19g. Never did such fast speedruns in my life.

Fortunately I only bought 125 gems with gold but this served as a lesson. Never buy dyes in the TP again. Never. I should have bought the shadow dye I wanted straight from the TP: it would have cost me just 7g more. I really thought one shadow was guaranteed lol. How disappointing.

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

25 dyes, 10 are shadow. So each pull is looking at a 10/25 or 2/5 chance of getting shadow dyes. But being random, it isn’t unrealistic to get less than that is a small sample size, or get get lucky and get more…

Um, the special dye packs have never had uniform distribution. Your odds of getting a shadow dye could be considerably worse than 2/5…

Mysticjedi.6053:

Not about the game, I love the game.

Just bought some shadow dyes from the gem store. The first time I’ve ever bought dyes. I thought I was going to get some cool shadow dyes. I got 4 commons and an uncommon and I had all but one of them already. I’m don’t mind range for things that are in the game, and black lion chests which are an advertised crap shoot, but I thought I was going to get shadow dyes not ones I already owned.

Oh well, lesson learned. At least I bought the gems with gold and not real life money. I would be seriously kittened off then.

There are 25 options, 10 of which are the new dyes. So you have a 40% chance of getting a Shadow Dye, and if you’re hoping for a specific dye you have a 4% chance.

RNG is RNG. I was looking at them too, but I know I wouldn’t get anything good. Even if I got one of the Shadow Dyes, the only one I might want is Abyss because it’s the first absolutely pure black dye across all materials, it would not get me even half enough to actually buy the Abyss version.

Heck, even 4% might be a high estimate. Who knows if all the dyes drop at an equal rate?

I bought one shadow dye pack and ended up getting shadow blue so rng is rng I guess. I’m happy with it. Dat shadow abyss doe.

BarnabeJonez.6023:

Heck, even 4% might be a high estimate. Who knows if all the dyes drop at an equal rate?

We know they don’t and never have. The dye kits appear to roll a rarity tier check then roll for specific color within that rarity. The second check is uniform distribution. The first check is far from it.

I don’t buy dye kits for this very reason. I can’t justify spending the gems for a random chance. I just buy the specific dye from those listed.

With that said, i do think they should re-think the dye mechanics in the game. Just make buying a dye kit a guaranteed rare dye…not necessarily the “themed” dye, but at least a dye that would have some peripheral value and possibly be a color the buyer would not have already. Getting fine and masterwork dyes after spending gems is just adding salt to the wound…

…same goes for unidentified rare [color] dye. if you buy an unidentified rare dye you should get a “rare” dye….jmho.

If an item can be bought from the gem shop or on the TP, always purchase it from the TP unless you want to pay for the thrill you get “rolling the dice.” The market always adjusts to fit the drop rates and prices tend to drop a lot after those who wanted to be “first” finish collecting.

This goes for Black Lion skins, limited-edition dyes, and minis.

Yeah, if there’s a particular type of dyes you want from those gem store sets, you’re better off converting the cost in gems to gold and buying the dye right off the TP instead of buying the dye packs and trying your luck.

The main reason they do them this way is so that the supply and prices can’t be manipulated as easily. If you could straight up buy a single shadow dye for a sum of gems, it would dictate the price on the TP (until it goes unavailable). Having this random thing makes it so that the supply is more variable, and consequently the price is as well.

Of course it really sucks if you just want to have the dye to use and not play “Guild Wars 2 – Trading Post Edition”. Like I said, just convert the gems you otherwise would’ve spent on the dye packs into gold to buy the actual dye(s) from the TP.

Catslock.3074:

I bought one shadow dye pack and ended up getting shadow blue so rng is rng I guess. I’m happy with it. Dat shadow abyss doe.

I did the exact same thing, with the same results. The Shadow Blue is very nice, very dark. =)

Bought 5 shadow dye packs, got 2! Shadow Abyss, Shadow Violet and 2 commons…Not complaining here at all

I know your feel, I gave up on those dye-packs long ago because of that, since I already own all the dyes you can get from non-cashshop drops in the game
Would be nice if there would ONLY be special dyes in those packs, might acutally buy them then, but as they are right now, the risk/reward ratio is way to high for me, if there is one I really want I would just buy it from the auctionhouse for gold.

I am sorry this is in no way kittening right. People were yelling at me because I bought my wings and didn’t look at them before I bought them.

The kittening store says you are getting SHADOW DYES. You should get what you are buying not some random chance. That is absolute BS.

This company gets away with a lot of false advertising that other companies wouldn’t. Lots of white knights too.

Yeah the “chance” items in the Gem Store should be avoided, its a very shady business practice.

BarnabeJonez.6023:

Who knows if all the dyes drop at an equal rate?

Spoiler alert: They don’t.

If every dye had the same chance then it would be 10/25 to get a shadow dye, but the rare dyes have much lower chance to drop than masterwork and common ones, and among the rare dyes there are others besides shadow ones, so overall the chances are very small.

Nafeasonto.8925:

The kittening store says you are getting SHADOW DYES.

Read it again. Go on. We’ll wait. Read the whole thing this time. Cogitate on it for a few seconds. There’s no rush.

You should get what you are buying not some random chance.

You got exactly what you were buying. You bought a random chance.

That is absolute BS.

As opposed to not reading the product description and flinging money into the void then coming on here to complain about you not knowing what you were getting into.

Like people do Every. Single. Time.

Novuake.2691:

Yeah the “chance” items in the Gem Store should be avoided, its a very shady business practice.

“Shady” business practice…..were you being punny?

But really, it’s not a scam, or shady, it’s simply trying your luck. If they didn’t state in the description that it was a chance to get a shadow or other dye, then we’d have a problem.

I personally don’t mind their gem shop much. Most of the items are a direct buy, which is awesome. Coming from a game where a good number of fluff items are locked into RNG boxes/purchases, this has been like a breath of fresh air.. So for me, I’m OK with the current level of RNG items they toss on the shop. People just have to know what they’re getting into.

Cash shop RNG is the worst kind of RNG.

I have the exact same experience as you.

I bought 5 of them, and ended up 4 blues and 1 green.

Anet said there’re 10 new dyes out of 25 choices lol…
But instead of having 10/25 chance of getting the new dye, I bet the actual percentage to get those new dye is like 1%.
If the chance is really 10/25, the chance of not getting any shadow dyes in 5 consecutive rounds is 7.7% (0.6 to the power of 5).

Totally a fraud! Anet, thank you for tricking your customer, that I’ll never fall to your RNG fraud again. I will never spend a penny on those RNG related things you have created.

I do not look for the most expensive dye, just any new dye and I’d be happy, despite losing money in the process. It is the feeling of getting SOMETHING from the kit that I decide to buy it. But truth is I can’t even get one single new dye from 5 bags, not even the cheapest one, that feeling of you pay for something yet getting nothing is really horrible. It doesn’t has to break-even the cost, but at least make player feel like they’re rewarded with something…

Aomine.5012:

Anet said there’re 10 new dyes out of 25 choices lol…

And it IS 10 new dyes out of 25 chances.

Aomine.5012:

But instead of having 10/25 chance of getting the new dye, I bet the actual percentage to get those new dye is like 1%.
If the chance is really 10/25, the chance of not getting any shadow dyes in 5 consecutive rounds is 7.7% (0.6 to the power of 5).

The chance of 10/25 is your assumption, there is nothing saying it would be that.

Belzebu.3912:

Aomine.5012:

Anet said there’re 10 new dyes out of 25 choices lol…

And it IS 10 new dyes out of 25 chances.

Aomine.5012:

But instead of having 10/25 chance of getting the new dye, I bet the actual percentage to get those new dye is like 1%.
If the chance is really 10/25, the chance of not getting any shadow dyes in 5 consecutive rounds is 7.7% (0.6 to the power of 5).

The chance of 10/25 is your assumption, there is nothing saying it would be that.

That’s why I add a big “if”.
Truth is it’s not 10/25. I’m guessing it’s 1/25 for each new dye.

This is precisely why I don’t pay real money for things in this game. The idea you can pay cash for something and have the chance of not getting the non-existent virtual item you wanted that cost them nothing to reproduce is ludicrous to me.

Anet could easily sell these colors individually for a higher gem mark up and make money. I don’t understand why they do not unless they are making serious cash of people’s gambling compulsions.

I would feel ripped off too if I spent like 10-20 bucks and got back all crap dye, just learn from it and tell then this unacceptable with your wallet. They could really care less after the fact.

Mireles Lore.5942:

This is precisely why I don’t pay real money for things in this game. The idea you can pay cash for something and have the chance of not getting the non-existent virtual item you wanted that cost them nothing to reproduce is ludicrous to me.

Anet could easily sell these colors individually for a higher gem mark up and make money. I don’t understand why they do not unless they are making serious cash of people’s gambling compulsions.

I would feel ripped off too if I spent like 10-20 bucks and got back all crap dye, just learn from it and tell then this unacceptable with your wallet. They could really care less after the fact.

Yes, I respond to these posts just to warn people. They can ignore me and keep feeding cash to this scam. The “donation” they offers will benefit the company greatly.

Nike.2631:

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

25 dyes, 10 are shadow. So each pull is looking at a 10/25 or 2/5 chance of getting shadow dyes. But being random, it isn’t unrealistic to get less than that is a small sample size, or get get lucky and get more…

Um, the special dye packs have never had uniform distribution. Your odds of getting a shadow dye could be considerably worse than 2/5…

I always suspected this was the case, but when I suggested that the odds might not be spelled out in the description in the Black Lion Trading Company subforum a while back, I was accused of being a crazy person for not taking the X of 25 chance at face value. Is there a direct source confirming that it’s not equally weighted, so I can bookmark it for future reference?

Most of the time it is easier to buy the dye you want by transforming gems to gold, rather then spending gems to get dyekits.

an example: I wanted the new shadow longbow, and had only 2 claim ticket scraps. i opened some chest by keygrinding, but got only 2 more scraps out of 12 chests. I got waaaay to tired to do any more keygrinding, even though I still had scrolls left, but even then, a 1 in 6 chance to get one more scrap would mean I would have had to use around 36 more keys(not even I had have that many lvl 20 scrolls), and I had 600 gems left. So I had to choose between:
1: buy 5 keys which isn’t even enough in scraps, even if EVERY chest had one in it, or
2: buy about 60 gold, add the rest from my ingamegold and buy the skin from the trading post, which I ultimatly did.
Thats just the way of RNG, I know I don’t have luck with stuff like that most of the time, so I don’t even try it :/ but well, I have the bow, thats something even though I somehow doubt, to ever have enough scraps for another claimticket ever again ID

I tend to agree with the sentiment here. Don’t buy keys in hopes of Black Lion tickets and don’t buy dye kits for new dyes. Put your money into gems, convert them to gold, and buy the stuff off of the Trading post. I found its much cheaper on the wallet, then hoping for a large gamble to pay off.

Yeah I never bought Dyes before either, I know all about the Chests and Gambling, lots of other games are doing the same thing , you want something u have a 0.00001 chance bye buying stuff to open, yeah no. I did however buy this pack I too did not read the fine print…the first 5 I got I got 2 Shadow Dyes, Magenta and Turquiouse, wanted black or purple, I spent 1200 gems which leaves a bad taste in my mouth and got 2 Shadow Dyes, Never again.

I bought 2 25 packs of the dyes, got all of them minus abyss. Got a few of them twice. Though the abyss appears to be super rare, it’s on the TP for over a hundred.

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

25 dyes, 10 are shadow. So each pull is looking at a 10/25 or 2/5 chance of getting shadow dyes.

Are you so sure that droping a shadow dye is as likely as dropping any other, and that the drop chances aren’t weighted?

I purposely throw every bl chest I get in the trash in defiance of their broken RNG/gambling system. Sometimes when i’m bored I will buy some off the tp just to throw them away. You learned your lesson my friend. Don’t ever gamble with those chests unless you are prepared to get zero return off them.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I purposely throw every bl chest I get in the trash in defiance of their broken RNG/gambling system. Sometimes when i’m bored I will buy some off the tp just to throw them away. You learned your lesson my friend. Don’t ever gamble with those chests unless you are prepared to get zero return off them.

Accepting that the RNG sucks may be a better way of dealing with this than throwing them away. I like to reroll alts and have a couple of character slots I reroll occasionally. The key’s I get from this I use and just accept the drops for what they are. The RNG is pure gambling and I never chase after them. Though at least I’m going to use them when the game gives me the opportunity during regular game play.

Don’t flame OP though. He’s a new player and is learning like those before him.

Kedarrian.2905:

Don’t flame OP though. He’s a new player and is learning like those before him.

He’s been around for at least 3 months. What’s the cutoff for flame resistance?

(gosh the kitten filter is senstive. Type a perfectly normal word, and it got kittened!)

Mireles Lore.5942:

I don’t understand why they do not unless they are making serious cash of people’s gambling compulsions.

Answered your own question.

They do it because it pays off, same with BL tickets. People drop a crazy amount of money on these skins. I think for tickets the chance came down to about 25 keys to get 1 ticket (this factors in scraps).
25 keys are sold in bulk, at 2100 for 25 keys. Greatest deal you can get, per key you pay the least amount of gems. Still thats more then 25$ worth of gems, for 1 ticket to get 1 weapon.

Ow, wait… the skin is no longer on it’s introduction period. Now it costs 5 tickets. Thats around 130$ in gems. Utterly ridiculous of course and anyone that does the math buys this kind of stuff straight from the TP, from those who gambled and got lucky. Because overall it’s much cheaper.

It baffles me why they insist on hiding dyes behind RNG. If I want to give them real money to get the dye I want, just take it please! They sell armor and weapon skins directly, why not dyes?!?

If they are trying to protect the ‘value’ of rare dyes, can’t they just make the dyes you get account bound? Are they account bound already?

It baffles me that people still buy it.

But also that arenanet doesn’t disclose the chances. This might vary, but here in this country atleast loteries disclose the win chance’s.

The dye description:
“Contains one random armor dye from a pool of 25 colors that includes 10 exclusive colors”

At what point is there any hint that these 10 exclusive dye’s have a significantly lower chance to drop? How could anyone reading this, without prior knowledge of arenanet’s gemstore rng bullkitten, have any inkling on what his chances are of getting one of the exclusive dye’s?

I do not blame people at all for thinking “ow, so 10/25th chance for an exclusive dye”. Because that is all you have to go by, without any further descriptive explaination that the exclusive dye’s are deliberately much rarer. And that you do not have 10/25th chance for an exclusive dye, not even close.

Yeah, honestly, I wish ANet would cut the paid RNG down. I wouldn’t mind so much if it were RNG about which Shadow Dyes you get, but I won’t pay money for the chance at the item I want. Assuming I win RNG to get a Shadow Dye, I still have to win the RNG for the shade I want. It feels like throwing money away to me.

Same with Black Lion Weapon Skins. I just won’t put any money toward keys because they only have a chance to let me pay for a skin I want. I’m happy to support the game and pay for the skins and cosmetics I want, but real money RNG is not cool with me.

Maybe they assume most people are converting gold to gems so they think it’s OK. I think gems to gold is wrong somehow so I don’t do it the other way either. That means they lose the money I might have spent on dyes.

Someone in another thread on a similar topic summed it up this way:

The house always wins.

I can understand wanting to sell dye for specific events in game. Why make it a crap shoot. I could see making the gamble in the actual dye type. Not common dyes. I got burned once so not falling for it again.

I have buyer’s remorse over those black wings I purchased. Now that the hype’s died down I see them as too bulky and unaesthetic.

Lorgus.6148:

I have buyer’s remorse over those black wings I purchased. Now that the hype’s died down I see them as too bulky and unaesthetic.

That’s what I’m hoping for. I bought them for my Revenant, so I figure by the time I actually use them most of the people will have stopped.