Gwynefyrdd, the Halloween miniature
Add to mine that virtually all my gold is gone, but that’s probably exactly what Anet was going for.
Here is a thread that ANet should read, RNG as a concept. Here people are discussing why extremely rare and random drop rewards are disliked and how token or alternate methods are favored.
Perhaps ANet doesn’t realized that people expect holidays to be fun. Not a stressful farm or spending all your gold to try to get a particular reward. People play on holidays to relax, get loot, get whatever holiday rewards the game offers. They don’t want to be stressed and unhappy about the drop rates on an account bound item. If they had even just made the mini sellable that would have greatly reduced the complaints about this.
I opened about 40k and finally…….. got the mini!!!!
It’s hard to describe my feelings about RNG since if it wasn’t soooooooo rare I would not be excited right now
they don’t care.
As an update, I would like to refine the suggested Mystic Forge recipe I gave:
— 13 Mini Zuzus
— 1 Ploy-luminescent Undulating Refractor (Green)
— 1 Ploy-luminescent Undulating Refractor (Black)
— 1 Ploy-luminescent Undulating Refractor (Orange)
I do not know how many bags I have opened at this point, but I did tally up the results of the first 32k bags, and I found that there was on average 24 luck per bag. I started at 153% magic find from luck, and have now reached 300% magic find from luck. Based on that, I have calculated that I have opened 156k bags, contents containing the following:
— 0 Mini Gwynefyrdd
— 17 Mini Zuzus
— 1 Oontz Necklace of the Gourd
— 3 Oontz Necklaces of the Ghoul
— 7 Endless Halloween Tonics
— ~40k each of Dragonite Ore, Empyreal Fragments, and Bloodstone Dust
— 2500 shiny wrappers
At this stage, there is no reason for me to continue opening bags since I have quite literally run out of all inventory space and karma for the ascended materials. That and I have finished maxing out magic find.
Please, please, please do not make account bound RNG anymore. It is depressing to see all this hard work for naught (with respect to the goal of obtaining the mini). I do not regret maxing my magic find, but now there’s just no reason to keep opening bags.
Also, an amusing side calculation. Anet stated yesterday that more than 137 million ToT bags were generated in game. I opened more than 0.1% of those ToT bags and did not get a Mini Gwynefyrdd. I have to wonder how many Gwynefyrdds are in game.
I have to wonder how many Gwynefyrdds are in game.
Surely more of them then mini Karkas!
(edited by OmniPotentes.4817)
I think there are more Mini Karka than Gwynefyrdds if you include the ones added to wardrobe. They costed 20g at the beginning (sure a lot of gold back then, but still). I think most of them are just on accounts who quit the game long ago. It was not a terribly rare mini.
Ok, that was a quick run across the room and here’s the answer:
Yep.
With the Maize Balm recipe making ToT bags a year-around item for those who craft it, or with the use of Vial of Maize Balm drops, pups will continue to be available for the foreseeable future. Obviously there’s Halloween 2015 to be designed, but it would be nearly a year before that would roll out, so the short answer is…
Yes.
Si.
Oui.
Ya.
I’m sorry, Gaile, but I’m going to have to disagree with the justification that ‘it will be available for the foreseeable future because Maize Balm will continue to be craftable’. Given that people have opened HUNDREDS of thousands of bags and not received the miniature, it is safe to assume that the drop rate is extremely, extremely low. This combined with the fact that Maize Balm is time-gated to one per day means that you could potentially farm about nine stacks of ToT bags (that’s IF you crafted every day and IF you didn’t waste any throws) over an ENTIRE YEAR. And considering it takes 100 candy corn to craft one, you’d also need to make sure you have the ingredients as the price of everything Halloween-related is most definitely going to go up after the holiday ends.
The problem with this kind of reward structure is that the people who truly want the miniature will most likely not get it (barring being extremely rich with funds to be able to purchase hundreds of thousands of ToT bags), and then you are going to have cases of people getting it who do not care about it (one of my guildies, for instance). If it was sellable, well that might be another story (still with an extremely ridiculous drop rate, imo), but as it stands, getting one is like winning a raffle of something you may or may not care for, but being unable to give it away in the case that you don’t want it. Worst case scenario is that people are TRASHING something that has a 1 in 100,000 chances (if not higher) of dropping.
I’ll be honest; I really want the puppy because it is adorable and because it reminds me of one of our dogs that we lost earlier in the year (who was only eight). That said, I fail to see the point in making something super rare that is account bound on acquire as it makes it impossible for those of us that truly want it to work toward, unlike almost every other item in the game.
Ok, that was a quick run across the room and here’s the answer:
Yep.
With the Maize Balm recipe making ToT bags a year-around item for those who craft it, or with the use of Vial of Maize Balm drops, pups will continue to be available for the foreseeable future. Obviously there’s Halloween 2015 to be designed, but it would be nearly a year before that would roll out, so the short answer is…
Yes.
Si.
Oui.
Ya.I’m sorry, Gaile, but I’m going to have to disagree with the justification that ‘it will be available for the foreseeable future because Maize Balm will continue to be craftable’. Given that people have opened HUNDREDS of thousands of bags and not received the miniature, it is safe to assume that the drop rate is extremely, extremely low. This combined with the fact that Maize Balm is time-gated to one per day means that you could potentially farm about nine stacks of ToT bags (that’s IF you crafted every day and IF you didn’t waste any throws) over an ENTIRE YEAR. And considering it takes 100 candy corn to craft one, you’d also need to make sure you have the ingredients as the price of everything Halloween-related is most definitely going to go up after the holiday ends.
The problem with this kind of reward structure is that the people who truly want the miniature will most likely not get it (barring being extremely rich with funds to be able to purchase hundreds of thousands of ToT bags), and then you are going to have cases of people getting it who do not care about it (one of my guildies, for instance). If it was sellable, well that might be another story (still with an extremely ridiculous drop rate, imo), but as it stands, getting one is like winning a raffle of something you may or may not care for, but being unable to give it away in the case that you don’t want it. Worst case scenario is that people are TRASHING something that has a 1 in 100,000 chances (if not higher) of dropping.
I’ll be honest; I really want the puppy because it is adorable and because it reminds me of one of our dogs that we lost earlier in the year (who was only eight). That said, I fail to see the point in making something super rare that is account bound on acquire as it makes it impossible for those of us that truly want it to work toward, unlike almost every other item in the game.
Just wanna say, I totally agree with everything said here. I’ve been pretty much in the lab since day 1 leveling my ele from lvl 20. He’s now well into 80 with pretty much all of the gear he needs and I still have yet to get the Mini Gwyn. It should definitely be made a trade-able object – even if it winds up being hundreds of gold in price, at least that’s slightly more possible than a 1/100,000 chance of a drop (or 1/20,000 I think I read somewhere) for those of us who actually want it.
even if it winds up being hundreds of gold in price, at least that’s slightly more possible than a 1/100,000 chance of a drop (or 1/20,000 I think I read somewhere) for those of us who actually want it.
Well, I can pretty much say with high certainty that it is not a 1/20,000 drop. The odds of not getting the mini in 156k bags is 0.04% chance if it were a 1/20,000 drop. If it were 1/100,000, then the odds of not getting the mini in 156k bags would be 21% chance. Granted this is not a true RNG, but I believe the sample size is large enough to overcome the margins of error between a RNG and a pseudo-RNG, so I am inclined to think the latter.
(edited by PiTheMathGod.3742)
So today, I decided that my Engineer had enough bad luck opening tot bags, that I switched to my Mesmer in hopes that his Mesmer magic would have better luck on the tot bags. So after opening quite a few bags, I FINALLY got Zuzu the cat… wait what? That is not Gwynefyrdd! FmL.
Just a suggestion, but since Winterday’s just around the corner . . . might be a solid win if this puppy became a Winterday’s gift choice.
Hint, hint, hint.
So it’s dropping “as designed” but designed to do what?
Use up trick or treat bags.
So it’s dropping “as designed” but designed to do what?
Aaaand of course the moment I post this I get Gwynefrydd AND a Gift of Souls right after. WTF RNG?!
45,000+ bags approximately. I just stopped caring and opened/sold all day.
Little update:
51k bags opened, didn’t get any mini [zuzu, gwyn, etc], not even single one tonic, no amulets.
Well… one thing comes to my mind:
“When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.” – Ernest Hemingway
Lots of you will say it’s just QQ, but after this halloween i’m just burned out :/
This is the worst kind of content in the game, bar none.
“This is the worst kind of content in the game, bar none.”
Agreed. I wonder to whom, exactly, this was intended to appeal? I feel empathy for all the people who just wanted to complete their mini collections and have run into this brick wall. I don’t see anyone having fun here, except some accountants and a few trolls.
For the record, I love this game and I’ve played it for a long time, RNG and all, but this feels cold-blooded and downright predatory.
2 days left till end of Patch, I hope Anet makes a change.
same here.. normally I loved halloween in GW but this year was a kick in the “youknowwhats” with steel capped workingboots!
I opened tons and tons of those ToT bags and all I get is a 2 ZuZu cats… last 2 days I didnt even get wrappers.
After never getting a mob to drop me a pre, the mystic toilet to give me one, the ToT bags show me the virtual birdy… oh and after that guess what… I wont win in the Lottery for those skins (want to bet me?)
So, this year.. what was halloween like?
A cold leftover dish from last year added with some powergrind content where you dont get the nice drops (not getting a pre isnt bad enough anymore), a srsly cheesy new gemstore, …
——-
(the rest of this post is self-censored due to PEGI 12)
Stinky McLane… the only Necro known to have a toothpaste fetish
Lefty (give me a second) Fiddlesticks… one Engineer, two clumbsy hands…
I find RNG to always be what causes games to be stressful and not fun for me. So I try my best to avoid that content entirely. Even though I think this mini is one of the few that are actually cute and would be fun to have.
Unfortunately, the player base feeds the decision to use RNG. Whatever reasons (which can be guessed at for days) Anet has for using this system must be working for them. Maybe it’s a gold sink or a way to keep people in the game for longer periods of time. The reason doesn’t really matter. It seems to work.
The only way I see the RNG in this game ever being overhauled is if people stop playing along with it. That means not opening thousands of bags. Just open the ones you need to get enough cobs to buy what you want. That is promoting the token based system. I opened the amount I needed to get the cobs for Mini Zuzu and a recipe I hadn’t gotten last year. That’s it.
While players still grind for thousands of bags, and buy thousands more, RNG is working as intended (I’m assuming). What would happen if no one cared about Gwynefyrdd and didn’t waste a single gold buying bags on the TP? Supply would go up, the bags would be very low priced by the end of the event and no one would have participated, time-wise and gold-wise in the volume that was expected by Anet.
I doubt that will ever happen though, because it’s natural to want to have 100% completion of collections and obtain super hard to get items. And it saddens me that this experience has been so awful for many collectors. I too don’t like getting content I like dangled in front of me, so close, yet so far, locked behind RNG, but throwing away 100s or 1000s of gold for a slim chance to get one item… it seems counter productive, both for the player and as a means to get Anet to make any changes.
Just my take on it.
Being playing this game since launch, for over a year this was the only game I played, got 14 chars on max, 6 legendary, all the cultural armor, all frac skins etc, really loved this game but at some point this game just became disappointing, yet I kept playing cuz I still enjoy collecting mini pets, I dono if I should be glad or not but I can finally let this game go, as there is no point in collecting mini pets when clearing Anet is stuffing us over like this intentionally, instead of enjoying this holiday event I’m just in fear of the next one, so yeah time to move on after 2 years.
GUYS, I have opened 23,000 bags now and I just got my first endless tonic! No Zuzu, and no ghost wolf, but I got SOMETHING. I don’t even care if it’s only worth 3g, I shall treasure it forever. But seriously, I will keep opening these dang bags until I find the ghost wolf.
2 days left till end of Patch, I hope Anet makes a change.
They sure are making change ($$)
This is one other thing to had to the list of the horrible things anet did to this hallowen event to make it boring and grind fest.
A grind fest I can work with, but this mini is just less likely to acquire with each minute that passes, each gold that you spend, with no set goal in sight other than just getting lucky.
All that’s missing is a shrine to RNGesus, where you sacrifice hapless NPCs for better luck.
(edited by Megis.9264)
Well after tons of rather negative feedback, i would like to know what the Arenanet team now thinks about this case?
Well after tons of rather negative feedback, i would like to know what the Arenanet team now thinks about this case?
Ignore rest of thread and hope everyone forgets about it
Halloween in GW2 ruined.. “we don’t make grindy games” lullululululululululutrolololololololl
Pretty sure GW2 is the only MMO this year with such a ridiculous RNG bullcrap.
Not sure if I’m derailing the thread, but had to post this here;
I’ve opened up 3,234 ToT ( on top of the ~5K I’ve already opened ) bags this morning. I got 1 Major Rune of the Mad King recipe, 2 Endless Halloween Potion and a Mini ZuZu…
I even gave one of the Hallow potion to a guildmate cause I was so let down of what I got XD
Where is my small pup ? ;(
- One of our statisticians just checked the drop rate, and there is no error in the drop rate — it truly is dropping as designed.
XD
Opened 10k~11k ToT bags, no “Mini Zuzu, Cat of Darkness” or “Mini Gwynefyrdd” or no Endless Potions…
RNG is just the tool they have decided upon in order to take as much in game coin out of the game.. 2 reasons.. to bring down some of the disparity in prices and to entice gem sales.. worked hand in hand with the unannounced gem conversion tool patching and surprisingly strange hike in conversation rates just before it landed… all adds up to something much more bean counter orientated to me .. but heyho.. all’s fair in GW2love and Conspiracy Wars.
Only thing you can really do if the Mini RNG game is frustrating you is to stop buying the bags off the TP and wasting your coin, don’t buy/convert anymore gems and either go farm bags for free.. or simply stop running the event all together and go back to playing the game as you would normally before Halloween brought this sour tasting account bound RNG mullarkey into the game.
There is only really one winner once you start spending silly amounts of gold /real money just for a chance at landing something that actually has no importance in game anyway.. its not mini’s hold much in the way of cosmetic elite status does it?
(edited by Bloodstealer.5978)
Don’t feel too bad. From all the ‘unique’ events over a two year period I have received one exclusive item. Zuzu on the first day of this event.
The world has not ended, although it is easy to understand the frustration.
Well after tons of rather negative feedback, i would like to know what the Arenanet team now thinks about this case?
Most likely the same they thought about the infamous “mini polar bear” gw1 case, which brought them even more negative feedback (and for a good reason).
They just don’t care.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
At least the Mini Polar Bear could be traded.
I’ve lost count of the amount of ToT bags I’ve opened now, it’s possibly nearing about 50k I would suppose. I’ve still yet to get a Gwynefyrdd. It’s incredibly disappointing for me as up until this point I had every single available Mini in the game and loved collecting them. However, with this one I’ve hit a brick wall and can only pray that I’m eventually going to get lucky.
Needless to say though, it’s completely dashed my enjoyment of mini collecting and subsequently my enjoyment of the game as a whole. After opening so many bags and having such a battle with RNG I have very little desire to do much in game as the energy and enthusiasm has been drained out of me.
I’ve lost count of the amount of ToT bags I’ve opened now, it’s possibly nearing about 50k I would suppose. I’ve still yet to get a Gwynefyrdd. It’s incredibly disappointing for me as up until this point I had every single available Mini in the game and loved collecting them. However, with this one I’ve hit a brick wall and can only pray that I’m eventually going to get lucky.
Needless to say though, it’s completely dashed my enjoyment of mini collecting and subsequently my enjoyment of the game as a whole. After opening so many bags and having such a battle with RNG I have very little desire to do much in game as the energy and enthusiasm has been drained out of me.
Absolutely same situation
(edited by MeGaZlo.9516)
Didn’t even get a pillowcase, much less a ghost pup.
RNG is bad and it should feel bad. -_-"
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Play the game long enough, majority of players should have realized by now that “disappointment” and “gw2 loots” are synonymous. Every loot that worth something is chocked severely in this game, way too severe.
At this point, the only option for those of us who are at tens of thousands of bags opened with no result is simple. Write an actual support ticket. Make ANet spend time and money dealing with this bull. Ive lost almost 2,000g trying to get this mini and have less to show for it than before I started farming. Before halloween I was so excited for this content to come back, but now I just want to quit playing entirely. Their RNG system at its core is garbage and until it gets reworked this kind of situation will not stop. I’m a hypocrite though as I still sit here on the last day farming, buying, and opening more freakin bags just like they want.
At this point, the only option for those of us who are at tens of thousands of bags opened with no result is simple. Write an actual support ticket. Make ANet spend time and money dealing with this bull. Ive lost almost 2,000g trying to get this mini and have less to show for it than before I started farming. Before halloween I was so excited for this content to come back, but now I just want to quit playing entirely. Their RNG system at its core is garbage and until it gets reworked this kind of situation will not stop. I’m a hypocrite though as I still sit here on the last day farming, buying, and opening more freakin bags just like they want.
I agree the RNG is beyond sucky but no one is forcing anyone to spend anything on bags – that is a personal decision to do that. I think everyone is frustrated with this and the event has only amplified an ongoing issue and reactions to it.
I chose to just farm through this event as did hubby. I got the cat in the first 500 bags. One endless tonic somewhere in the 2k bags and several runes which I gave the duplicates to hubby. I am somewhere in the area of 5k bags opened now…. Hubby on the other hand has gotten nada. No cat, no dog, no tonic. He also did not farm as long as I did. He earned enough corn cobs to just buy the danged cat. Between us out of all the bags we got I don’t think we got 200 wrappers either.
Do I have less than I started the event with? No. I sold what I could, salvaged what I could and even got 3 exotics out of the labyrinth. Will I get a weapon skin – probably not especially if your chances are more based with how many you turn in. Do I care? Not really. I do admit to experiencing a rising frustration level as I opened bag after bag to TP, eggs, Custard etc. ad nauseum for stuff I will either trash or try to sell on a flooded market. For folk that these things matter it has to be horrible which is not a nice way to spend an event.
This whole thing strikes me as such a Pavlov’s dog thing. Ring a bell and everyone starts salivating. You see it with telephones, lol. One rings and watch folk kill themselves to answer it. No one says you HAVE to answer that phone or buy that bag but you do feel compelled to. If this event was designed to have this reaction then I would say it was a big success for ANet.
(edited by Aerinndis.2730)
At this point, the only option for those of us who are at tens of thousands of bags opened with no result is simple. Write an actual support ticket. Make ANet spend time and money dealing with this bull. Ive lost almost 2,000g trying to get this mini and have less to show for it than before I started farming. Before halloween I was so excited for this content to come back, but now I just want to quit playing entirely. Their RNG system at its core is garbage and until it gets reworked this kind of situation will not stop. I’m a hypocrite though as I still sit here on the last day farming, buying, and opening more freakin bags just like they want.
Sorry to say but youand I are the perfect examples of why ANET implemented this in the first place. They simply want a gold sink in game, which when added to the gem exchange mullarkey.. makes for a perfect buffer to gem sales.
The more they can push out of game on an item that has no actual in game value other than a collectable.. is simply a win-win for them
But don’t feel to bad.. I too have gone through many thousands of bags (farmed and TP bought) and gotten nothing more than a single puddy cat, 6 pillowcases and not a lot else to write home about…
(edited by Bloodstealer.5978)
Sorry to say but youand I are the perfect examples of why ANET implemented this in the first place. They simply want a gold sink in game, which when added to the gem exchange mullarkey.. makes for a perfect buffer to gem sales.
The more they can push out of game on an item that has no actual in game value other than a collectable.. is simply a win-win for themBut don’t feel to bad.. I too have gone through many thousands of bags (farmed and TP bought) and gotten nothing more than a single puddy cat, 6 pillowcases and not a lot else to write home about…
I know it’s my choice, I just made the choice to farm out another 500 bags and buy 3,000 more with the same result as before. It’s just dumb imo because had I not had to waste all this gold on bags trying to get one mini, I would’ve just spent it all on the gemstore sales, where ANet makes actual money. They’re screwing themselves out of real world profit by trying to nerf in game player profit. One day they’ll realize they only hurt themselves by making content like this.
This type of seemingly pointless grind was the reason I quit another game that shall not be mentioned and told all my friends about what a “grind free” (or atleast grinds with an end in sight) experience GW2 was. Now I’m not so sure what to think.
The wiki estimates one every 20k bags.
Well over 150k, here, and nothing.
I’m not a big mini collector. I decided early on not to get sucked into it as I tend to feel like I have to have them all. I try to go for the minis I like and this ghost dog/wolf was one of them. I haven’t bought or farmed nearly the amount the others here have but after 3k bags I have: 3 pillowcases & 1 endless Halloween tonic. I guess that’s not a bad haul considering some have had worse luck with more bags.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind this being both an account bound mini and an extremely rare drop. I don’t see the maize balm making up for the amount of ToT bags needed for even a remote chance at getting the mini.
Maybe they’ll consider making it trade-able or releasing it next year for purchase with cobs.
Devs: Trait Challenge Issued
I wonder if Anet is gonna reimburse the players for all the computer peripherals that were broken, attempting to get this mini. Or the medical bills for anyone permanently physically or mentally scarred by the ordeal.
At this point, the only option for those of us who are at tens of thousands of bags opened with no result is simple. Write an actual support ticket. Make ANet spend time and money dealing with this bull. Ive lost almost 2,000g trying to get this mini and have less to show for it than before I started farming. Before halloween I was so excited for this content to come back, but now I just want to quit playing entirely. Their RNG system at its core is garbage and until it gets reworked this kind of situation will not stop. I’m a hypocrite though as I still sit here on the last day farming, buying, and opening more freakin bags just like they want.
I agree the RNG is beyond sucky but no one is forcing anyone to spend anything on bags – that is a personal decision to do that. I think everyone is frustrated with this and the event has only amplified an ongoing issue and reactions to it.
I chose to just farm through this event as did hubby. I got the cat in the first 500 bags. One endless tonic somewhere in the 2k bags and several runes which I gave the duplicates to hubby. I am somewhere in the area of 5k bags opened now…. Hubby on the other hand has gotten nada. No cat, no dog, no tonic. He also did not farm as long as I did. He earned enough corn cobs to just buy the danged cat. Between us out of all the bags we got I don’t think we got 200 wrappers either.
Do I have less than I started the event with? No. I sold what I could, salvaged what I could and even got 3 exotics out of the labyrinth. Will I get a weapon skin – probably not especially if your chances are more based with how many you turn in. Do I care? Not really. I do admit to experiencing a rising frustration level as I opened bag after bag to TP, eggs, Custard etc. ad nauseum for stuff I will either trash or try to sell on a flooded market. For folk that these things matter it has to be horrible which is not a nice way to spend an event.
This whole thing strikes me as such a Pavlov’s dog thing. Ring a bell and everyone starts salivating. You see it with telephones, lol. One rings and watch folk kill themselves to answer it. No one says you HAVE to answer that phone or buy that bag but you do feel compelled to. If this event was designed to have this reaction then I would say it was a big success for ANet.
I think u are missing the point, from wat u saying I presume u are not a mini collector, or at least not a proper mini collector that collect every single mini, so ofc u wouldnt care less if u get the mini dog or not, but for the rest of us in this thread, we have collected pretty much every mini up till now, which is why not being able to collect this particular mini is so extremely frustrating, this mini wouldnt mean a thing to u, but for us it means completing our set of collection.
The wiki estimates one every 20k bags.
Well over 150k, here, and nothing.
Well I’m no where near 20k bags! Yikes. I was having wrist and finger cramps from what I did farm. I can’t imagine how much pain I’d have been in had I tried for something like that!
Still, sigh maybe I’ll get her eventually.