Guild Wars 2

Thanks for completely not fixing the problem at all.
Everyone’s biggest beef with the Halloween event was the fact that to get some of the lasting mementos from the event, you either had to pay through the nose on the TP, or rely on sketchy RNG. So what is your fix? To add in more RNG! Hurrah!

This is a terrible way to handle items from holiday events. Holiday event items are supposed to be accessible to all players. A super low chance to drop from chests, means the majority of players won’t even get a skin this Halloween. This irks me almost as much as the dev response of “Hey, if you don’t get a skin buy it off the TP!”. How is 5+ gold an accessible way for non-80’s to get these skins? Or better yet, just wait till after Halloween when the select few who have been controlling the precursor market decide to take advantage of Halloween skins. Prices will skyrocket, more people will turn to 3rd party or gem purchases for gold just like they currently do.

I’m extremely dissapointed that Anet is going to be money-grubbing their holiday events for everything they are worth. I am not even looking forward to any subsequent holiday events after this.

200+ Black Lion chests = 0 skins
30+ Chests of the Black King = 0 skins

Wait… cheasts of the black king? o.O

lol, seems like I’m missing something.
only played long enough to get the 6 pages and turn’em in before logging out and waiting till the 26th

I’ve made peace with it. Yes, it looks as if the holiday events in this game are going to drive you to the gem store for black lion keys, tonics and themed clothing. They are going to make that a big part of these events. They are a company and they have office space, staff and severs to pay for and they have said from the beginning GW2 is a micro-transaction business model and not a subscription fee model.

You can ignore the holiday events, you can also grind for coin to convert to gems to buy the needed items to compete.

Bottom line is yeah Halloween in GW2 is really micro-transaction heavy, but it’s also completely optional to jump in.

P.S. The micro-transaction models general pull in more these companies than subscription model sans micro-transactions.

I think the Mad Chests are actually even more of a con than the BLCs – Since you have to use 2 boosters, which have some what of a use. The drop rate for anything remotely good in the MCs is still horrible, one member in our guild got one deathly avian skin – totaling about 100+ Mad Chests opened, oh well – my faith in AC is ever dwindling, come the next event I’m just not going to bother with it, no more money spent on essentially a gambling system, then a patch which again – replaces the system with another gambling system.

I think what we can do, is warn every player not to take part in these events. Because like Sam said, these events are a cover for a micro-transaction system with baiting players with carrots that most; if many will never get.

I am enjoying the event and I have not spent a dime yet. I am glad they made this change too. I am okay without being given everything just because….

I’d be willing to pay a monthly fee of say 10 dollars if it meant I would not be nickled and dimed to death. I’d say 15 dollars like almost every other mmo, but frankly the game in it’s current state is not worth that much.

People still haven’t learned their lesson from the first round of RNG chests, it seems. Do NOT gamble for the skins. Wait for them to come out on the TP and buy them instead.

What ANet has done is essentially increase the potential pool of BLC skins in the community by an exponential amount (6 Mysterious Tonics + 2 Boosters is basically the contents from 2 BLC’s). This WILL increase the number of skins available on the market, and it WILL lower the prices going forward, especially since the player base can continue to generate Mad King Chests from the Mystic Forge long after Halloween is over for as long as there are Candy Corns in circulation in the economy. And I’m willing to bet that there’s tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of CC’s out there right now, more than enough to last us all the way till next year’s Halloween. (It happened in GW1, it’s sure going to happen in GW2!)

By all means, if you have extra MT’s and Boosters lying around, make a few MKC’s and take a punt, but do NOT sink your savings into this. Gamble only what you can afford to lose.

This Mad King Chest is infuriating, it takes 2 things that are useful from you and gives you nothing in return. Its a load of BS and ArenaNet had lead me to believe they were smarter company than that.

I don’t mind paying for things. I actually like the micro transaction model, but the drop rate in these chests are atrocious. Your just asking us to give you money and your giving us nothing in return but disappointment. Unless you change the drop rate on the chests, you can expect that I and Most of the other players will never pay for them. Overall your looking at lost revenue and majority of unhappy players.

At least have the boxes give tokens we can collect to buy the rare drops. IE 5 Black Lion Tokens per chest and let us buy for example the GreatSword Saw Skin for say 200 tokens. Then at least you have a high end price control for people who open 40 boxes and get Jack kitten. You could make the tokens trade-able and have a black lion chest economy or you can make them account bound to force individuals to pay the item they want in full.

Look at the model for Magic Cards*: 5 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or ultra rare. That is what your boxes should look like. Check out Star Trek Online’s model for their random item boxes, they do a great job.

Your Black Lion Chests are a box of disappointment with every purchase.

*I have no idea what the actual distribution currently is, I haven’t played those games for 10 years.

The BLTC boxes can contain more keys and thus open in runs, if this has been altered and removed then darn right they’re going to be ignored, they were not anything but a try your luck esque gamble anyways.

however I’ve had players claiming they were banned for simply pointing the failure out on the forum :S

What on earth made them think that players would go for the well established and downright toxic paradigm of “random drop boxes”
specifically ones that originally only drop mediocre temporary boosts… the boosts themselves weren’t worth it and the very idea itself is loathe in most online “F2P” games which hold the monicker of “P2W”

Yes there will always be those who enjoy this aspect in games to the ire and claims of masochism of others, but it’s no good adding in “rng with your rng” on to a limited edition item without also just offering it up for flat cash so that those hoarding box keys will have an incentive to dig into them and not horde them for the chance of a specific drop

I have no issues with people paying to be unique, paying to perhaps get additional wealth via a lucky drop. (which isn’t as game-breaking as say paying to get imbalanced stats) But the chances are they aren’t going to be bothered with the rates of drops on all event items being flat out bad in the first place, ineffectual and lame in potency for it’s regular rewards and generally looking like they were handled by a TOTALLY DIFFERENT COMPANY.

Cash shops have been done VERY well by other games, and without gambling, remove the RNG from those investments and you make for a much healthier game.
Or you could ignore this and ya know, continue to lose out on potentially healthy income whilst avoiding short term gains that only serve to burn your playerbase to the point where they quit or refuse to support you, the one thing that will kill your profit margins due to gamers being a VERY paranoid and angry bunch these days due to bad attempt to milk them by companies lately via “DLC” and whatnot.

TL;DR:

Seriously A-net CS team, kill the RNG/Boxes idea… you’ll make a packet from those that WANT to support your game in doing so and decide what is and what isn’t WORTH keeping in the shop

this is an Event yes… but not for us but for ANET, it is an event where in you guys spends so much to get so less, i mean 125 gems for 1 key that’s ridiculous.. and gem exhange have been getting expensive as we speak

everything in this game is connected with gems, its how they earn money, they game is buy to play and no monthly fees so they get back at you by making you depend on gems

its just how business works, they let you have fun a few weeks then nerfs it.. i have never played an online game that changes so much, yeah change is good but too much of it sucks

as long as people buy gems they will make more of these events in the future where all them good stuff are bought with gems

I do agree that the RNG system with the boxes was a completely ridiculous idea, but I’m also pretty sure that ArenaNet has already taken that point head on and are doing what they can to make up for it with the Mad King chest, but what people don’t want to face is the fact that they can’t just magically fix the issue the drop rate created.

If they make it store bought, refund players (or anything along those lines) there’s going to be just as much backlash as there was when people opened insane amounts of chests with nothing but the standard box contents to show for it. That they’re doing what they can with the Mad King chest (in a way, a sign that they understand their mistake) should be appreciated more than it is bashed upon. Yes, it’s another lottery chest. But they did not have to do this, either, and that point seems to be lost here.

In the end though the rational decision would be to withhold final judgment until the next big event. If they have learned their lesson, and in future events make things more accessible and steer away from making us gamble for skins then that should be the end of it. If they continue with the chests being the only way to get them, however, that’s a completely different story.

I have to agree, fixing a problem with RNG with more RNG is not a fix at all.

Finally a way to get rid of those stupid boosters… I never use them, will (probably) never use them but I can’t throw them away because I can never throw anything way that might have a purpose sometime somewhere…

I’ve opened 12 chests since August, and have only ever used one booster (the first I got). The rest is just gathering dust in my bank….

I do agree that the RNG system with the boxes was a completely ridiculous idea, but I’m also pretty sure that ArenaNet has already taken that point head on and are doing what they can to make up for it with the Mad King chest, but what people don’t want to face is the fact that they can’t just magically fix the issue the drop rate created.

If they make it store bought, refund players (or anything along those lines) there’s going to be just as much backlash as there was when people opened insane amounts of chests with nothing but the standard box contents to show for it. That they’re doing what they can with the Mad King chest (in a way, a sign that they understand their mistake) should be appreciated more than it is bashed upon. Yes, it’s another lottery chest. But they did not have to do this, either, and that point seems to be lost here.

In the end though the rational decision would be to withhold final judgment until the next big event. If they have learned their lesson, and in future events make things more accessible and steer away from making us gamble for skins then that should be the end of it. If they continue with the chests being the only way to get them, however, that’s a completely different story.

Indeed, but honestly people are ALREADY angry so changing this pronto is in their best interest at least then players cannot claim that it’s a downhill slide and that A-net are being highly pro-active.
Players are swarming away due to botters and A-nets questionable responses on the forums to what actions are being seemingly not taken.
This is the kind of thing that doesn’t help to stem that tide any, what I’m not getting though is why their template for random boxes etc, seems so closely tied with games that have ABYSMAL reputations and are hated in the gaming community, when there are games that do cash shops so right, and are making money hand over fist and breaking records out there already. LoL’s income isn’t ALL sponsorships from the E-sports crowd, their cash-shop skins give the player such value for money that the few quid you throw their way is never missed and it never truly imbalances the game to any sort of unacceptable degree.

If I was looking to make money off a game, and I had the choice between loathed “cancerous” cash shop types, of which GW2 canvassed and asked about and got a resounding “don’t do it like those games” response, and the League of Legends skins shop, the latter wins hands down due to the fact that one is a game that basks in it’s own horrible “pseudo gambling” systems, and the other is insanely successful and record breaking :S

How was it ever a competition between the two? and how did any aspect of the FIRST ever get a look in, this is a professionally made and updated game…
The first “F2P” (forced to pay) paradigm is NOT professional, it’s just exploitative.

I’m not defending the initial idea in the least, don’t get me wrong. It was a horribly greedy decision, and isn’t going to be something that’s forgotten for a long time to come (no matter how hard they try). But they can’t really fix this. Making them more common would result in the skins market value could take a huge nosedive in the value and people will be furious (some people have spent upwards of 30g for the skins, after all) and the rage here will continue all the same.

They can make them account-bound, and then make them bought via the gem store. Once again, they’ll suffer the same issue with people being upset over having spent gold, and in addition people who bought keys for it will likely be upset as well for this not having been the plan from the beginning.

Or they could refund the gems, which doesn’t cost them anything (technically speaking) but this really is a completely unreasonable idea, to be honest. Some people got skins, others didn’t. Refunding would require them to refund everyone. Not exactly a viable solution either.

They threw us a bone with the Mad King’s chest, perhaps not the best bone. But at least we can free up some bank space. I do believe, however they should have said something to make it clear they they won’t repeat this mistake again.

P.S. I agree, I love LoL’s system for skins although it’s not quite so simple. At the present state of the game its necessary to spend money if you want to own a significant portion of the roster. Either that, or win around twenty-five matches every day for a year.

There are town costumes you can buy with a fixed number of gems if you want mementos.

I think we all need to come to terms with this thing being a lottery. I know people who got skins in less than 10 Black Lion Chests (disclosure: not me). It’s luck. Now, ArenaNet has given us another go at the lottery, AND at such short notice. But if you treasure the boosts more than the lottery ticket, why are you making those Mad King Chests? Keep those boosts and use them!

What this does show, however, is that ArenaNet takes our feedback seriously, and are willing to make changes. You may not have had as much luck with chests as you’d like, but I don’t think it’s fair to rail at them for this.

axiology.5807:

There are town costumes you can buy with a fixed number of gems if you want mementos.

I think we all need to come to terms with this thing being a lottery. I know people who got skins in less than 10 Black Lion Chests (disclosure: not me). It’s luck. Now, ArenaNet has given us another go at the lottery, AND at such short notice. But if you treasure the boosts more than the lottery ticket, why are you making those Mad King Chests? Keep those boosts and use them!

What this does show, however, is that ArenaNet takes our feedback seriously, and are willing to make changes. You may not have had as much luck with chests as you’d like, but I don’t think it’s fair to rail at them for this.

This. They did not have to listen, and they did not have to make these changes. That they took the time to do so should be appreciated, but it seems quite a few people are just too determined to move on and enjoy themselves at this point.

Dont see why players havent caught onto what this game is realy about..It surely isnt about guilds…More like vanity wars then anything. Every peice of item carrires the same stats in the same order for every prefix.

People like the OP realy need to rethink gaming in whole. Seems people like him play games assuming there is self entitlement’s for just playing.

If the keys were 5 gems each, I’d consider it.

Chances are they’ll add more content to make it ‘Guild Wars’ eventually. But a gear treadmill really isn’t necessary to make a game enjoyable. Vanity can be just as fun if you want it to be.

Aside from that, your comment directed at the OP was completely uncalled for. This is, from what I could tell, a sensible well-thought out discussion of differing opinions. Coming in and acting so derogatory isn’t wanted or needed.

My only beef with what they did was including the mystery tonics in the recipe because some people (myself included) realize those have absolutely no value and got rid of them when we opened our BLC’s at the start of the event. As a result I sort of got stiffed twice in the deal because I have the items I need except the useless one. Ah well, fool me once sort of deal.

F2P game yall are talking about. This game is free to play.

Free….

If there is something in the game that you want, but are unwilling to pay the price for(even if the price varies via rng), then too bad for you. Complaining about it is rather silly.

I want a mansion for the price of a 2 bedroom home! I want to buy a winning lotto ticket, having a “chance” to win just isn’t working for me! I want a free yacht!! Bleh.

Having these items be harder to get increases their desirability. It means if you are fortunate or determined enough, you get to have something in the game that is unique and special.

God forbid we have some people have anything not everyone has though, right? Yall want Anet to just cough up everything with no effort so we all have the exact same crap? >.< That sounds dreadful. And Anets business model would collapse, and then the game would suffer from that too.

Tldr; Get over it. Try harder if it matters enough to you. If it doesn’t matter enough to you, then that is the problem, you don’t care enough to bother doing whatever it takes.

um, forgive me if I am wrong, but is this not act 1 of 4? and if so, is it possible that there are other, non RNG ways of getting the skins? maybe we are counting chickens before they hatch?