Guild Wars 2

Heya,

I know, there are probably many posts out there from people complaining about this, and i know it’s all about RNG, but if you spend €50 just to get that sword and end up getting just junk items (Bank Acces, Trading Post, Merchant Expresses, Revive Orbs, …) you will be a little frustrated i guess. I had a few “Uncommon” items, Metabolic Primer (What is that thing doing here…) and LA Survivors Dye Kit (which had a blue rarity dye in it…) I didn’t even get a “Rare” or “Super Rare” item. My reaction was like “Meeh, seriously?”

So please, just do something about your Black Lion Chest!

(Yes, i know my English is not good, but i had to let them know, if they even read this)

Regards

There was a guy that spent $150 and didn’t get it. Just a recipe for ill feeling.

I agree, this is just.. bad logic.. bad design..
I mean, yea, people want the sword and show they are willing to pay for it.
But what happens after you pay for it, and still don’t get it?

I feel ur pain, 154 key and i got nothing don’t think I’ll ever play their RNG fest again

I also got blues from the dye kits lmao they’re like the biggest scam

Just did the math I basically spent: 12936 gems (2100 gem/25 keys) which is around 161 USD if real life money. Thank god I used in game gold what a scam almost 200 bucks and no sword lmao

This is exactly the reason i won’t buy any keys anymore. It’s just pure gambling with very weird odds.

It’s barely worth the effort to do a weekly key-farm any more.

…and I would never buy those keys.

I needed 40 keys to have it, so yeah… RNG.

morrolan.9608:

There was a guy that spent $150 and didn’t get it. Just a recipe for ill feeling.

If there are players out there genuinely doing this and spending crazy money on keys, then Anet will feel validated through their sales metrics and have no incentive to change tactic, regardless of feedback.

Whilst I generally agree this rng lockbox stuff is getting silly, unless players stop throwing cash at the gem store to buy keys, items locked behind rng lock boxes will continue.

You know who doesn’t care? Anet. Why would they change it, when people are suckered into buying $50^ in keys? Show where you want a change by voting with your wallet.

Wasted 10$+10g for 10 keys.
Got elemental sword in 2nd key.
Your RNG arguments are invalid.

I decided I absolutely had to have this sword. I only had 5 keys (which I got from pvp reward tracks), and I told myself I was only going to use those keys.

Got the sword on the 3rd key.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Wasted 10$+10g for 10 keys.
Got elemental sword in 2nd key.
Your RNG arguments are invalid.

No, they’re not. Just because RNG was favorable to you doesn’t mean they were favorable to everyone.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Wasted 10$+10g for 10 keys.
Got elemental sword in 2nd key.
Your RNG arguments are invalid.

I don’t get how you can’t see the problem. But never the less your post is a good example for how bad RNG is. Just because you got what you wanted in a reasonable number of chests, that doesn’t mean other did too. There are people out there who will never see the sword no matter how many keys they buy, just the nature of statistics. And to give an example on the logic in your comment, think about this: Just because you are in the situation to get enough to eat on the table, does that mean hunger famine and starvation does not exist in this world?

Now back on topic:

If they removed account bound from the sword, there would be no problem at all. If we take all the people who want the sword and divide it in different cases, the current system will be not optimal in most of them:

• Player 1: gets the sword in a reasonable number of chest, no problem here
• Player 2: gets the sword but is uninterested in it. Due to account binding he is unable to sell a potential worthy skin. Might be frustrated
• Player 3: won’t buy keys, as it is not worth the hazel. But is still annoyed that he will lose out on the skin.
• Player 4: buys hundreds of keys doesn’t get the sword. I don’t have to say it, he will be extremely frustrated
• Player 5: gets a duplicated sword, which he can’t sell. As I heard the duplicate will get exchanged with a key, instead of being a skin which might be sell able for a good margin.

As it stands 4 out of 5 times players will run into problems with the way the elemental sword is set up. I don’t see how such a stupid system can be justified.
My proposal would be to either remove the account binding so no one loses out or another possibility would be to design skins like this with an exchange for black lion tickets. This would at least decrease the chance of opening hundreds of chests without getting the skin by a large margin.
But as it stands it seems, with so many people buying keys, that anet will likely stay with this system. We might even see a big increase in account bound black lion skins, no matter how terrible the underlying system is for the customer.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Wasted 10$+10g for 10 keys.
Got elemental sword in 2nd key.
Your RNG arguments are invalid.

You don’t have any logic or you don’t know how RNG works. It does not matter how hard you try, even 100 tries does not guarantee elemental sword to drop. You just got lucky.

I wanted to get Grasping Phantom Glider at halloween, but I didn’t get it. Then I had over 20 keys. But I got Mini Celestial Rooster after 4 tries, I had 4 keys from map completion rewards, then I got lucky.

Among the other posts:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/404-Elemental-Sword-not-found/6539466

RNG … great to give players a variety of drops. Great to limit game wide the number of a particular items released. Terrible from a player perspective when wanting a particular drop.

Let’s say that the drop rate for a 4th slot from a BLTC is 10%. Then say the chance of rolling from the uncommon table is 66% and the sword has a 50% chance (that’s on the high side) from that table. All together that’s roughly a one in 30 chance.

At those odds, 1 in every 30 (coincidence) players opening 100 chests won’t get it. That is the ugly truth about the math. That’s why probability is always taught with statistics in college. With just 25 chests, the chance of not getting it shoots up to over 1 in 3.

When you are spending money in the hope of getting one of these, standard binomial distribution isn’t comforting when you don’t get it. Opening 100 chests and not getting it is just rage inducing. Makes that $90 monocle rage in EVE seem like small potatoes.

Randulf.7614:

morrolan.9608:

There was a guy that spent $150 and didn’t get it. Just a recipe for ill feeling.

If there are players out there genuinely doing this and spending crazy money on keys, then Anet will feel validated through their sales metrics and have no incentive to change tactic, regardless of feedback.

I would hope that the company (which built a rep as a players company) actually has better ethics than that to not screw over players that much.

This is nothing new in almost every single MMO out there (particularly those with Asia based themes or companies).

I’m glad they didn’t make it a sellable skin as it would essentially add a bit of a “P2w” element to it. As far as I’m concerned, the drop rate doesn’t even seem that bad compared to rng from other games. You have to remember Anet’s aim is to ultimately generate sales. RNG boxes with a desired drop have always been a huge income earner in other games. Just look at pretty much every mainstream game out there.

The biggest offenders I know are rng boxes from a few certain MMOs where 20 USD may get you 4- 5 boxes. Then from those boxes you got your typical rubbish drops, 5% chance of getting you anything remotely good and less than a percent chance of some ridiculously good drop. It’s not uncommon for some rich folks or addicts to drop hundreds to thousands during events similar to this.

BLC opens are honestly not that bad. I’d say it’s still the fairest I’ve seen in terms of ticket scraps.

P.S I didn’t care about the sword and got it with a story key. In my experiences with RNG in the past, do it with no expectations so rather than be sorely frustrated and disappointed, you can rather be pleasantly surprised when it occurs.

Look on the bright side, it’s a cosmetic. It’s simply playing on nostalgia. As a player who didn’t touch the original Guild Wars 2, I couldn’t see the appeal to it.

I mean I rolled 154 chest and got no sword so that’s less than 1% chance which is worse than most P2W/RNG box MMOs out there.

Just because you don’t care about the skin doesn’t mean I don’t. I am an avid skin collector and this is basically my end game but ANet decided to gate it behind trash RNG in trash boxes which is just as bad, if not worse than RNG box MMOs.

Sure you got the drop in a low amount of keys so of course ‘it doesn’t seem that bad’.

You just had good luck, doesn’t mean the system is good right now or fair to the rest of us.

fishball.7204:

I mean I rolled 154 chest and got no sword so that’s less than 1% chance which is worse than most P2W/RNG box MMOs out there.

That doesn’t tell you the odds. It just means you you had bad luck.

The odds might be 50:1 and you’d have a 4% of not getting one to unlock. At 25:1, there’d be over a 1% chance you wouldn’t get any. (At 20:1, it would be a 0.3% chance, which seems low until you consider more than 1000 are going to open 100 boxes or more.)

So not only was your luck bad, it might not even have been unusually bad.

Yeah you’re right no way to tell the real odds at all.

Just using it as an example of how ‘bad luck’ can ruin it for someone.

$160 on keys and still not getting the skin sounds like one of those P2W/RNG box MMOs people love to shame but unfortunately it’s a reality right now in GW2.

fishball.7204:

Yeah you’re right no way to tell the real odds at all.

Just using it as an example of how ‘bad luck’ can ruin it for someone.

$160 on keys and still not getting the skin sounds like one of those P2W/RNG box MMOs people love to shame but unfortunately it’s a reality right now in GW2.

Fair enough. I’m really sorry you didn’t get one and I can see how it would sour you not just on BL chest, but perhaps even on the game.

I’m no fan of the details of how they released this skin; I think they didn’t remember the hard-earned lesson from BL tickets + scraps. I kind of hope that they reach out to those who spent a lot, with… well, something.

Yesterday I got my elemental sword skin with my LS lvl 10 Key ^^

I really dont get this decision. I am not an oracle, but I am pretty sure that selling it at maybe 500gems would net them much more money.

Very weird decision to make it rng.

I opened one chest and got the elemental sword.

DavyMcB.1603:

I really dont get this decision. I am not an oracle, but I am pretty sure that selling it at maybe 500gems would net them much more money.

Very weird decision to make it rng.

Perhaps it wasn’t motivated by “most money” but something else, like “most interesting”, or “most compelling”, or “fun”, or something?