Guild Wars 2

I must have spent over 200 dollars in black lion chest keys. Probably not as much as some people but more than others. This is also over the span of about 4 years ofc.

If i had just converted all the gems I got from the money I spent I would have gotten far more my money’s worth than this incredibly pathetic attempt at RNG.

EVEN IF, I got so lucky as to find some ridiculously expensive item that i could sell, I would have MAYBE gotten somewhere close to breaking even.

My advise; stay away from this money grab. Never been worth.

Pro tip: BLC weren’t designed to be money making devices for the players. Anyone who thinks that didn’t research the subject or think it through.

The worth is the fun of anticipation that one might ‘get lucky’. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, yes.

It is now worth it for a select few who only lack a few very expensive skins and other stuff that they can now almost reliably get from the new wardrobe unlock item. Unless you’re one of them, it’s not worth it.

I don’t think it’s ever been worth it. Which is why I’ve never bought them.

Sadly it’s a very common, and apparently very effective way of making money in MMOs these days. It’s even appearing in real life – I went to an anime/gaming/comics convention in the summer and there was a stall selling these “lucky boxes” that looked like ? blocks from Mario. Inside was a random selection of comics, trading cards, art prints, toys and other stuff. Just like black lion chests most people would never get anything they actually wanted and if they were lucky they’d get something they could trade, but loads of people were buying them. Some people were just hanging around the stall buying one, opening it, buying another and so on.

Until the last update I didn’t mind black lion chests too much, because everything in them was either obtainable elsewhere or tradable. So if you wanted a specific item you could just buy it and if you got a “good” drop that you didn’t want you could trade it and use the gold to buy something you did want.

Now it seems they’re removing that. The new wardrobe unlock is account bound and the item you get is instantly unlocked so if you don’t want it you’re stuck with it, and some items are already exclusive to it. I have a horrible feeling they won’t be the only ones and we’ll start seeing more minis, gliders, even outfits, dyes, maybe even armour and weapons that are only obtainable that way.

Yeah. They’re obviously trying out different things, to see what sells. I’m expecting more gem store items such as outfits, gliders, exclusive weapon/armor skins, etc, to come out first (and maybe only) in BLC.

Oh well, I’ll consider it a way for ANet to say, ’don’t spend your gems.’ Because even if it’s something I want the drop rate is going to be so low that the average person would spend far more to get that RNG outfit/glider/skin than the normal price for it.

And ain’t no one got time for that.

I didn’t buy because it’s effectively gambling, something we do far too much of in this game.

In most cases boosts aren’t worth having and most of the other items are of low value. If I want a specific Item I will buy it, or make it.

It used to be worth for getting Black Lion Tickets, buying 1 ticket weapon waiting will it goes up in price then TPing it. It gave more gold then straight gems to gold. However I think now there are just too many BLC skins and not as much interest in getting older ones. Also the change made it worse for getting liquid gold, but possibly better for getting expensive, but account bound stuff.

gems → gold has more value. kitten blc.

Depended what you were after. In the early days (2012), back when keys dropped more either in the wild, as map completion or as a seemingly frequent drop, the chests were a nice way to get a cross-sample of smaller items from the gems shop, as it still is today. It let the players experience boosters, express items and the like. And if they liked the convenience or usefulness of some of those items, they could buy those directly from the gem shop.

Then they started to add claim tickets into them and I guess that spurred sales when it went from a single weapon skin claim ticket to the current scrap/full ticket system we have today. Farming keys were profitable back in those days, not buying them. At some point players confused the two.

Chests were like a pack of Magic cards, the excitement is in opening them to see if you got anything new or useful not the cash value of the cards you got.

I use to buy them a lot but they removed boosters from the drops.

Buying keys, with gold or RL cash, has never been “worth it.” Keys are a monetizing scheme deigned to take advantage of psychological weakness. It’s sleazy.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Buying keys, with gold or RL cash, has never been “worth it.” Keys are a monetizing scheme deigned to take advantage of psychological weakness. It’s sleazy.

Pretty much this.

I guess another answer might be, “yes, buying keys is worth it…for ANet’s bottom line.” Getting players to spend more on gambling for.something than they would ever choose to spend buying it outright is very worth it to the casino/gaming company.

Well, since the changes I have gotten 3 guarantee unlocks. The first two were meh unlocks, in game stuff/minis…the 3rd unlock I got was the wide-rimmed glasses, which cost more to buy from the gem store than the cost of the key.

Overall, I see most items in the chests to be valued higher than the cost of 1 key…even more so if you get that elusive 4th item. However some items, like the Tomes of Knowledge, need to be tossed out of circulation.

Considering the many chest I’ve opened from free keys I know that 95% of the time I would have wasted my money if I bought the key instead and got something I don’t need; like a Tome of Knowledge. Totaling all of them together though would cancel out that rare 5% where I actually got something useful so buying them is pretty much 100% not worth it.
But I have naturally bad luck + it’s against my religion to spend money on gambling related things. :> If you have the money and want to help fund the next expansion and don’t need any other gem store items then I say go for it. Someone’s bound to win the lottery eventually.

“Has buying BL Chest Keys ever been worth it?”

Short answer: No.

15char answer:
Noooooooooooooo

You can probably guess what the long answer is based on the above.

Behellagh.1468:

Depended what you were after. In the early days (2012), back when keys dropped more either in the wild, as map completion or as a seemingly frequent drop, the chests were a nice way to get a cross-sample of smaller items from the gems shop, as it still is today. It let the players experience boosters, express items and the like. And if they liked the convenience or usefulness of some of those items, they could buy those directly from the gem shop.

Then they started to add claim tickets into them and I guess that spurred sales when it went from a single weapon skin claim ticket to the current scrap/full ticket system we have today. Farming keys were profitable back in those days, not buying them. At some point players confused the two.

Chests were like a pack of Magic cards, the excitement is in opening them to see if you got anything new or useful not the cash value of the cards you got.

Did keys drop more often in the early days?

I’ve been playing since day 1 of the headstart weekend and I didn’t get a key as a drop at all for about the first 2 years. Then I got 1 from a champion in Orr. Since then I’ve had another 2, one from a random level 9 bandit when I was playing a level 12 character, and one I’m not actually sure where it came from, I just found it in my bag and I certainly didn’t complete a map, do a story chapter that awards one or buy it so it must have been a drop.

1 account is obviously an absurdly small sample size, but my understanding is the rate of keys dropping has always been the same and always been incredibly low. But maybe people thought it was a bigger deal early on and tended to talk about it more.

Keys from map completion are more common, and in my experience the rate of getting those has been fairly consistent.

Also I think your last point is a big factor in different opinions. I don’t see anything exciting about opening a packet if there’s a very high chance that what’s inside it will be worth far less than I paid. (And this is allowing for the fact that worth is subjective – I’m not just talking about cash value here.)

Sure when I go to open a chest I have that moment of wondering if I’ll finally get something I want, or something valuable I can sell for a lot of money, but that’s offset by the knowledge that every other time that hasn’t been the case, and it only lasts for a second or so until I open it and have it confirmed that this time was also a let down. Then the best I can say for it is I’m glad I never, ever buy keys and only ever use free ones.

TheDevice.2751:

I must have spent over 200 dollars in black lion chest keys. Probably not as much as some people but more than others. This is also over the span of about 4 years ofc.

If i had just converted all the gems I got from the money I spent I would have gotten far more my money’s worth than this incredibly pathetic attempt at RNG.

EVEN IF, I got so lucky as to find some ridiculously expensive item that i could sell, I would have MAYBE gotten somewhere close to breaking even.

My advise; stay away from this money grab. Never been worth.

I think it depends on the type of player you are. I don’t grind for stuff and so even after playing for 4 years I hardly have any Minis, Skins, etc. When I buy the (very) occasional key as a treat, I often get something that I didn’t have and I like getting BL scraps / tickets. I also used to like and use the Boosters I received.

For players who already have a lot in the game, I imagine that BL chests are not a good deal.

Of course now that Anet has ruined one of the slots for me with the Festival Bag, I won’t be buying any more keys and will be saving the ones I get in the hope that they eventually get rid of it.

They pile up, I sell them off….

Danikat.8537:

Behellagh.1468:

Depended what you were after. In the early days (2012), back when keys dropped more either in the wild, as map completion or as a seemingly frequent drop, the chests were a nice way to get a cross-sample of smaller items from the gems shop, as it still is today. It let the players experience boosters, express items and the like. And if they liked the convenience or usefulness of some of those items, they could buy those directly from the gem shop.

Then they started to add claim tickets into them and I guess that spurred sales when it went from a single weapon skin claim ticket to the current scrap/full ticket system we have today. Farming keys were profitable back in those days, not buying them. At some point players confused the two.

Chests were like a pack of Magic cards, the excitement is in opening them to see if you got anything new or useful not the cash value of the cards you got.

Did keys drop more often in the early days?

I’ve been playing since day 1 of the headstart weekend and I didn’t get a key as a drop at all for about the first 2 years. Then I got 1 from a champion in Orr. Since then I’ve had another 2, one from a random level 9 bandit when I was playing a level 12 character, and one I’m not actually sure where it came from, I just found it in my bag and I certainly didn’t complete a map, do a story chapter that awards one or buy it so it must have been a drop.

1 account is obviously an absurdly small sample size, but my understanding is the rate of keys dropping has always been the same and always been incredibly low. But maybe people thought it was a bigger deal early on and tended to talk about it more.

Keys from map completion are more common, and in my experience the rate of getting those has been fairly consistent.

Also I think your last point is a big factor in different opinions. I don’t see anything exciting about opening a packet if there’s a very high chance that what’s inside it will be worth far less than I paid. (And this is allowing for the fact that worth is subjective – I’m not just talking about cash value here.)

Sure when I go to open a chest I have that moment of wondering if I’ll finally get something I want, or something valuable I can sell for a lot of money, but that’s offset by the knowledge that every other time that hasn’t been the case, and it only lasts for a second or so until I open it and have it confirmed that this time was also a let down. Then the best I can say for it is I’m glad I never, ever buy keys and only ever use free ones.

It seemed to me. I started in December 2012 and I remember getting keys from unexpected sources, not map completes or from the chests themselves. There were times back then when I ended up opening three chests with one key because they dropped from the chest at a higher rate. That chance was significantly reduced once they started putting claim tickets in them.

Worth is debatable but gem value, it was fairly on par with a price of a key. Now it’s much tougher to see if the gem value is roughly equivalent, how do you price a wardrobe unlock when most items in there aren’t bought with gems?

Some items lose their “worth” as an account matures. Who needs tomes if you aren’t leveling anymore? Yes you can trade them for one spirit shard but if you never use spirit shards.

If you aren’t into fashion wars then transmutation charges, hair and total makeover kits are “worthless”.

I’m ignoring the drops you can sell because gold value turns into a discussion about the exchange rate.

We should thank ANet for giving us a clear picture of what drops so we can now look at that and make an informed decision, rather than rely on anecdotal reports as to what dropped and their frequency.

i never spent a real world penny other than to buy this game myself . and see no need to

when i can use the ingame gold to buy the gems i need thus i save a lot of money and

time for the more important things in life !! and if i run out of space well bank clean up

and use that money to get more gems to buy more bank space and stuff i want

Behellagh.1468:

We should thank ANet for giving us a clear picture of what drops so we can now look at that and make an informed decision, rather than rely on anecdotal reports as to what dropped and their frequency.

We can’t really make an informed decision, since drop rates are still anecdotal — we’d need data on at least 1000 keys to get a reasonable idea of the approximate rates.

What we do know (and we’ve always known) is that the most likely drops are junk, with a small chance of worth-mentioning-to-guildies, and virtually no chance of getting something awesome.

Until they remove the seasonal item or make it a fourth slot i won’t be buying any more…. and i used to buy 50 keys each time i got my fortnightly pay.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

l — we’d need data on at least 1000 keys to get a reasonable idea of the approximate rates.

You could collect data on 100,000 keys, and I guarantee you someone here on the forum or on Reddit would still shriek “sample size too small!” and bang their rattler on their food tray.

Anet is fully aware of the nature of RNG. They have built entire portions of the game around it. For as long as the discussions about drop rates have gone on in this forum, I think it says a lot that Anet hasn’t simply told us flat out what the drop rates are.

I don’t beleive they want players to be able to make an informed decision. It’s a game in that respect: Hint at things here and there to trick the players into thinking they are making an informed decision, without ever revealing the root details.

Nope, but with the seasonal item, it seems like it’s even worse.

I’ve purchased BL keys once… and that was from the Account Jump Start. I would never buy them on their own.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Behellagh.1468:

We should thank ANet for giving us a clear picture of what drops so we can now look at that and make an informed decision, rather than rely on anecdotal reports as to what dropped and their frequency.

We can’t really make an informed decision, since drop rates are still anecdotal — we’d need data on at least 1000 keys to get a reasonable idea of the approximate rates.

What we do know (and we’ve always known) is that the most likely drops are junk, with a small chance of worth-mentioning-to-guildies, and virtually no chance of getting something awesome.

I meant in general. The most common super rare item is rarer than the rarest item in rare; the most common in rare is rarer than the rarest in uncommon and all three of those pools only fall from a fourth slot. Now yes, anecdotally it appears that happens around 1 in 6 on average. Also within those classifications we don’t know how each item is weighted. But NOBODY should expect any of those in the two common slots period.

Danikat.8537:

Did keys drop more often in the early days?

I’ve been playing since day 1 of the headstart weekend and I didn’t get a key as a drop at all for about the first 2 years. Then I got 1 from a champion in Orr. Since then I’ve had another 2, one from a random level 9 bandit when I was playing a level 12 character, and one I’m not actually sure where it came from, I just found it in my bag and I certainly didn’t complete a map, do a story chapter that awards one or buy it so it must have been a drop.

1 account is obviously an absurdly small sample size, but my understanding is the rate of keys dropping has always been the same and always been incredibly low.

IIRC, the key drop rate was lower earlier on. When they nerfed key farming to 1/week per story step, they also _said_they increased key drops slightly. Since the rate was always extremely low, a small percentage rate increase would likely only be noticeable with extreme numbers of drops.

They’ve always been overpriced, aside from the rare occasions where they’ve handed one out for free.

I’m not paying more than 15 gems each – that’s all they’re worth.

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

Felahr.9830:

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

I hate to make assumptions: but not even close to likely. A single key via gems right now is the rough equivalent of 21G-31G depending on how many you buy at a time. You’d have to get one hell of a consistent streak (permanently if “have always” means anything) of full tickets, and/or mini and dye packs with rares in them. Just one chest without any of these doubles the cost of each key. So, unless this or you’ve hit the jackpot (without mentioning it) on perma contracts or lots of nodes, or you actually bought just a few keys, bucked the odds in a massive way and are just functionally trolling the details…no way Jose.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Buying keys, with gold or RL cash, has never been “worth it.” Keys are a monetizing scheme deigned to take advantage of psychological weakness. It’s sleazy.

Ashen.2907:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Buying keys, with gold or RL cash, has never been “worth it.” Keys are a monetizing scheme deigned to take advantage of psychological weakness. It’s sleazy.

Pretty much this.

I guess another answer might be, “yes, buying keys is worth it…for ANet’s bottom line.” Getting players to spend more on gambling for.something than they would ever choose to spend buying it outright is very worth it to the casino/gaming company.

There is nothing sleazy about nor is it gambling. Is there chance involved, sure. But there is nothing important to the game that comes from the box. It is all cosmetic that has no affect on a person’s ability to play the game compared to someone who doesn’t open a single one.

For a game that does not have a monthly fee, there is nothing wrong for Anet to offer for sale cosmetic items in the manner they do.

Wildkitten.3872:

There is nothing sleazy about nor is it gambling. Is there chance involved, sure. But there is nothing important to the game that comes from the box. It is all cosmetic that has no affect on a person’s ability to play the game compared to someone who doesn’t open a single one.

For a game that does not have a monthly fee, there is nothing wrong for Anet to offer for sale cosmetic items in the manner they do.

Whether “nothing important to the game … comes from the box” or not has no bearing on whether chests are a gamble or not. The three elements required for gambling are consideration, chance and prize. All three are present. Players pay for keys, the boxes use RNG and users get virtual stuff.

Ask yourself why ANet uses keys instead of just producing and selling the items straight up. They do so because human weaknesses are such that people will spend more on keys than they would be willing to spend on a given item. There’s certainly nothing noble in pandering to compulsive gambling and the gambler’s fallacy.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

l — we’d need data on at least 1000 keys to get a reasonable idea of the approximate rates.

Neural.1824:

You could collect data on 100,000 keys, and I guarantee you someone here on the forum or on Reddit would still shriek “sample size too small!” and bang their rattler on their food tray.

Shrieking “sample size too small” isn’t a factor in determining whether a sample size is too small. As a rule of thumb, if you end up with less than 20 results in a bin (e.g. in this case, 20 of each general category of drop), there’s a strong likelihood of skewed results. As an extreme example, if you have a sample of BL chests resulting in a single home instance node out of 100 drops, getting one more of them would double the estimated rate. The greater the variety of drops, the bigger the sample needed to represent the potential odds.

However, once we’re dealing with a large enough sample, then we can start putting upper and lower bounds on the drop rates, even if we only have a few drops of certain types.

Well to play devils advocate, I have personally gotten both a perma hair contract (sold for 2800g and made a legendary) and a perma bank access contract (kept). I am aware of how incredibly lucky I got, and I’m in no way encouraging people to buy keys based on my anecdotal success. I am simply posting this to provide a counter argument that it actually can rarely pay off.

The hair contract I got after spending probably about the same as the OP on keys alone over the years. Sold for 2800g iirc.

The bank access… I got from the first key that came out of a “daily chest of black lion goods” and I didn’t even know you could get keys from that login reward. Super duper wierd luck-out.

So the way to look at it is that they are just a form of gambling like every other. You can either incredibly low chance of hit the jackpot, or its money wasted. The non jackpot items are fluff, it’s supposed to be a hit-or-miss reward system. Items like boosters, halloween bag, consumable access items are a miss. Sometimes you win a skin or something worth ~50-100g, thats a small win like you bought a $10 ticket and won $50, but its still not the jackpot.

Do you ever buy a lottery ticket in real life and expect to win big? Nope. If you bought 20 tickets at once do you expect to win big? Nope. Use the same application of reasoning when gambling in the game.

BLK’s have never been worth there price for me personally.

No.

Items such as these only promote gambling in every game whilst having an extremely low chance of success / dropping something valuable.

TheDevice.2751:

I must have spent over 200 dollars in black lion chest keys. Probably not as much as some people but more than others. This is also over the span of about 4 years ofc.

If i had just converted all the gems I got from the money I spent I would have gotten far more my money’s worth than this incredibly pathetic attempt at RNG.

EVEN IF, I got so lucky as to find some ridiculously expensive item that i could sell, I would have MAYBE gotten somewhere close to breaking even.

My advise; stay away from this money grab. Never been worth.

It use to be until they stated that they will all BL chests now have Holiday kitten in them. Which means one less actual reward that is useful. I do not even do my weekly key run anymore on my 3 accounts. Just not worth it anymore. Until they change it back I know I will not be opening anymore until they change it back!!!!

Kruhljak.2705:

Felahr.9830:

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

I hate to make assumptions: but not even close to likely. A single key via gems right now is the rough equivalent of 21G-31G depending on how many you buy at a time.

For a single key? That sounds pretty high but then I never trade gems for gold. Can someone show the numbers on this?

Djinn.9245:

Kruhljak.2705:

Felahr.9830:

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

I hate to make assumptions: but not even close to likely. A single key via gems right now is the rough equivalent of 21G-31G depending on how many you buy at a time.

For a single key? That sounds pretty high but then I never trade gems for gold. Can someone show the numbers on this?

it would be based on gem to gold conversion at the instant you check it, which fluctuates constantly

yes, i have gotten home nodes and other such high money items which i have then sold. its absolutely been worth it to me for the loot i get. i absolutely do come out ahead, every time.

Felahr.9830:

Djinn.9245:

Kruhljak.2705:

Felahr.9830:

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

I hate to make assumptions: but not even close to likely. A single key via gems right now is the rough equivalent of 21G-31G depending on how many you buy at a time.

For a single key? That sounds pretty high but then I never trade gems for gold. Can someone show the numbers on this?

it would be based on gem to gold conversion at the instant you check it, which fluctuates constantly

yes, i have gotten home nodes and other such high money items which i have then sold. its absolutely been worth it to me for the loot i get. i absolutely do come out ahead, every time.

I just looked at the conversion on GW2Spidy and I had no idea that Gems were worth so much. It gives me a different perspective on purchasing keys (and selling Gems).

Djinn.9245:

Kruhljak.2705:

Felahr.9830:

I have always easily made my money back. getting expensive dyes, BL weapons skins, minis, etc, i have yet to buy keys and NOT come out ahead. totally worth it.

I hate to make assumptions: but not even close to likely. A single key via gems right now is the rough equivalent of 21G-31G depending on how many you buy at a time.

For a single key? That sounds pretty high but then I never trade gems for gold. Can someone show the numbers on this?

Going to the exchange in game, 25 keys at the gem shop is 2100 gems, you can buy 2100 gems for around 586-587 gold at the moment, so around 23.5g each. A single key is 125 gems and that will cost you about 35 gold.