Guild Wars 2

Duo to this surge of RNG boxes, people have become disappointed with the game, and both ArenaNet and BLTC image was ruined.

I have a simple solution to fix this problem. Both players and ArenaNet would benefit from this solution.

I propose the introduction of Red/VIP Gems. And before the rage starts I’ll explain it.

- Normal Gems can be converted to Gold, and Gold can be converted to Gems.
– Red/VIP would not be allowed to convert to Gold, nor Gold to Red/VIP Gems.

Red/VIP Gems could only be used to buy Skins and special items, but for half the price.

You could still convert Gold to Normal Gems and buy RNG Boxes, or buy Normal Gems and convert them to Gold.

Example:

Jade Weapon Ticket – 4000 Normal Gems / 2000 Red/VIP Gems.

You can convert 100g~ to Normal gems (which is the average amount of money you have to spend on RNG to get a ticket) and buy the Ticket if you hate RNG, or you can buy 2000 VIP Gems for 20 bucks and buy it.

You could still play on RNG if you like gamble.

With this solution, ArenaNet would increase their income, players would be happier and there would be another Gold Sink in the game.

I can’t see a reason not to implement this solution.

Post what you think. Maybe if you like it we can draw some attention.

EDIT: I won’t spend money on RNG because I know it sucks, but if ArenaNet had this solution I would easily spend 200euros and buy all the skins. I know you guys would do the same.

ArenaNet, please open your eyes.

how about blue gems being trade-able with ingame gold and red gems being bought with real cash?

and items bought with blue gems can have all the RNG that they want. while red gems the actual item that you wanna buy.

What about fixing the RNG model first instead of creating a more distinct cash-shop elitism between the hard working players and the big cash spenders?

Blue or red gems wouldn’t really make a difference for Anet. They really don’t care whether you buy gems with gold or with real money, if you buy gems with real money, they get their money from the gems, if you buy the gems with gold, well, someone must have bought the gems in the first place to sell them for gold, so they got their money as well, from their point of view both is the same, so don’t really see what they would win by complicating the system like that.

I won’t spend money on RNG either (or even gold bought gems), but it’s not ArenaNet that needs to open their eyes, it’s us (as in, the game population as a whole). They have offered weapon skins for sale before (christmas, flame and frost) and for much lower prices, the fact that they’ve done RNG boxes for the last three events makes me think that they’re selling MUCH more than the skins did. If people really put their wallet where their mouth is (at least where it seems to be according to forums, that isn’t a majority nor representative of the community as a whole), and stopped buying the RNG boxes, and bought the skins offered for direct sale, I bet we’d see more direct sales and less RNG boxes in the future.

And yes, I’m sure you’d spend $200 on all the skins, but I doubt most people would (I wouldn’t, but for other reasons that aren’t relevant)… and makes more business sense to have, instead of a product where 3 people will spend $200, one where you have 10 people spend $50 each (the equivalent cost of 50 rich coffers in this case).

You mean, the only way to get those skins now is to grind gold (and thus not doing the special event stuff) or use RL cash. This only caters to the people who have the luxury to be able to spend RL cash, and those that prefer mindlessly grinding gold.
Which makes it impossible for people who just play the game to obtain these skins. RNG has the advantage that those grinding the themed events have a high(er) chance of getting one, and those that just like to play the game also (but at a lower rate).

I do agree on your point that including the skin in the cash-shop would be an improvement, but only as an additional way of obtaining those skins.

LHound.8964:

What about fixing the RNG model first instead of creating a more distinct cash-shop elitism between the hard working players and the big cash spenders?

That’s what I’m seeing here. We don’t need more cash shop currency we need more in game currency and more ways of getting them.

For example, the guild skins. In other titles they have these kinds of things however they aren’t required to have to be doing something with a guild all the time. One can solo run certain things in the game and get this currency. It solves the problem of people being in the same guild but being in different time zones not having access to guild runs and still being able to get what they want in the game. The way they gave people more incentive to do things with their guilds is to increase the amount by 2 when doing these things. Thus if people run with just their guilds they get more currency and can buy more things from the in game store.

There’s also the aspect of making every activity give a certain currency and placing the items people need in the store for that currency so that you can have multiple ways of getting the items you need. (for example T6 materials could be bought with karma, laurels, or gold and one could buy them directly, no more boxes or bags to randomly generate one when opened or be completely nerfed like the Orr karma boxes to control the economy.) The economy btw solved itself in these instances, people sold alot of them all at once but because so many people were posting it became impossible to get a profit very quickly so people stopped selling them because it was easier to buy them from the vendors.

There’s also a problem getting runes in this game some of them have inflated so far out of whack that some people can’t get the ones they need. Sure there’s crafting but when the materials almost never drop off mobs there’s no way of getting these materials for these runes. If everyone’s supposed to have an easy time gearing themselves as we’ve been told we can, then why not make these runes more available to the public using one of the three currencies available? Say Karma for example. It would instantly cure the problem and solve the issue of people abusing the economy (the people who played since headstart and abused the system to get multiple precursors during the event making them rich and giving them the ability to manipulate the market pricing by buying all of the items up and them posting them with larger prices than before.)

much better then what OP is proposing.

Another “I hate RNG post?” Really? I do not understand why there is so much complaint about RNG. One of the initials is for the word “random.” Random never means guaranteed.

Also people complain about those that can constantly grind and get stuff or those with money able to buy gems where others cannot. This also doesn’t mean they will get anything either. I know two guys that this applies to.

One is a friend who is retired and plays all day grinding out gold, mats, and drops. He wanted one of molten tickets so bad he could taste it, and with all the drops and gold converted to gems to buy keys, he still didn’t get one ticket.

Another friend of mine has money to burn and bought a huge amount of the rich coffers. Over $250 RL money to get them and didn’t get one Jade Weapon ticket.

Having money and time also does not guaranty that you will get some of those rare things. Only dumb luck will get you these drops. And again, random is the key word. Not one person playing the game is guaranteed anything. That is the nature of the game.

Also it is Anet’s game and they can place rarity at whatever levels they want. It is up to all of us to decide how hard (or not) or how much money (if any) we want to fork over for better chances at these RNG items. Personally, if I get them “Great!” if not, “So what?” Either way I know there are other skins down the road that will come up and eventually I’ll get one.

jheryn.8390:

Another “I hate RNG post?” Really? I do not understand why there is so much complaint about RNG. One of the initials is for the word “random.” Random never means guaranteed.

Also people complain about those that can constantly grind and get stuff or those with money able to buy gems where others cannot. This also doesn’t mean they will get anything either. I know two guys that this applies to.

One is a friend who is retired and plays all day grinding out gold, mats, and drops. He wanted one of molten tickets so bad he could taste it, and with all the drops and gold converted to gems to buy keys, he still didn’t get one ticket.

Another friend of mine has money to burn and bought a huge amount of the rich coffers. Over $250 RL money to get them and didn’t get one Jade Weapon ticket.

Having money and time also does not guaranty that you will get some of those rare things. Only dumb luck will get you these drops. And again, random is the key word. Not one person playing the game is guaranteed anything. That is the nature of the game.

Also it is Anet’s game and they can place rarity at whatever levels they want. It is up to all of us to decide how hard (or not) or how much money (if any) we want to fork over for better chances at these RNG items. Personally, if I get them “Great!” if not, “So what?” Either way I know there are other skins down the road that will come up and eventually I’ll get one.

I hate RNG, but unlike people like you, I give suggestions and try to fix the problem.
I don’t want to take RNG out of the game, I just want to give people other “options”.

As for the other posts:

With the model I present people would be able to get the Skins from Gold or From Real life cash. Both from a guaranteed ticket or from RNG.

If you want to grind the Skins you could simply farm 100gold. But if you work and don’t have time for time for that, just spend 20-25euros and its done.

You could still convert Gems->Gold and Gold-> but the Red Gems would only be available via Cash, and could only be spent on Gem Store Items.

The difference is that Red Gems would have 50% discount, BUT forcing people to buy them, instead of converting Gold, making ArenaNet profit increase.

Edit: Also making players happy because they would have another way to get items instead of RNG.

You can still play RNG if you think you’re lucky, but like me, after opening 3500 chest and nothing, I would be happy to buy a couple of those for Real life cash.

RNG is fine. GW1 had it too and it worked out pretty well. Sometimes it can be frustrating though. I can remember of a friend which got mini-ghostly and crystal-blade out of the HoH-Chest in about 30 runs.
Buying just the skins you want is . . . boring. If you want spend gold / money on something, everybody needs to have the same chance.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

RNG is fine. GW1 had it too and it worked out pretty well. Sometimes it can be frustrating though. I can remember of a friend which got mini-ghostly and crystal-blade out of the HoH-Chest in about 30 runs.
Buying just the skins you want is . . . boring. If you want spend gold / money on something, everybody needs to have the same chance.

That’s why I don’t want RNG out of the game.

You can buy a “cheap” RNG Chest and try to get the item, or you can buy the item from the shop for a “moderately high” amount of cash.

The trick is:

You have to spend an average of 100g to get the item from RNG.
You can buy the item for 100g from Gem Store.

SO you can buy RNG chest, and try to be lucky. If you’re lucky you would save money.

If you think you’re lucky then gamble 50g on chests and try to get lucky.
If you think you’re unlucky or you’re tired of RNG then just buy it from Gem Store.

Either way, ArenaNet would increase the profit and players would be happy.

Arcanis.2437:

I hate RNG, but unlike people like you, I give suggestions and try to fix the problem.
I don’t want to take RNG out of the game, I just want to give people other “options”.

First of all, where in my post did I say that I hated RNG? I don’t hate it at all. I was defending it. I think it is perfectly fine. Maybe you need to read my post again.

I also don’t remember saying there was a problem other than the complaints people make about RNG. I think RNG is great. I don’t want everyone to have everything I do. I also don’t want to have everything everyone else does. It makes the game interesting to me. “People like me” don’t have a problem with RNG. You do. There is no problem to be fixed in my opinion. “People like you” are the ones thinking that there is a problem.

You said above you hate RNG and then go on to say you don’t want it out of the game. What’s up with that?

Next time you want to call me out on a post, maybe you should read it better and understand what I was saying.

jheryn.8390:

Arcanis.2437:

I hate RNG, but unlike people like you, I give suggestions and try to fix the problem.
I don’t want to take RNG out of the game, I just want to give people other “options”.

First of all, where in my post did I say that I hated RNG? I don’t hate it at all. I was defending it. I think it is perfectly fine. Maybe you need to read my post again.

I also don’t remember saying there was a problem other than the complaints people make about RNG. I think RNG is great. I don’t want everyone to have everything I do. I also don’t want to have everything everyone else does. It makes the game interesting to me. “People like me” don’t have a problem with RNG. You do. There is no problem to be fixed in my opinion. “People like you” are the ones thinking that there is a problem.

You said above you hate RNG and then go on to say you don’t want it out of the game. What’s up with that?

Next time you want to call me out on a post, maybe you should read it better and understand what I was saying.

This post isn’t about you or your me complex.

This is about opinions and solution from people that want options other than RNG.

I want to read what people think about my opinion and if they think that should be options other than RNG.

I would also love to read what ArenaNet think about my idea, and about the option to have skins from ways other than RNG.

I have to say I don’t agree with your idea/opinion. RNG makes the game interesting. It makes that rare chance when I get something mean even more. I enjoy this type of game play.

Also I don’t see how Jheryn has a me complex. There are a lot of players like us that enjoy it the way it is. What you are wanting from this thread is for people that think like you to respond and no one else. To make your idea sound all grand, I think you have the me complex. This is from your statement above.

This is about opinions and solution from people that want options other than RNG.

The forums are setup so people of differing opinions can way in on things. Otherwise what is the point of having the forums if people of differing opinions can’t both have a voice, but you seem to only want people that share your idea to say anything here.

Once they add options to the game where an item isn’t rare, like how they do with the RNG skins, the item looses it rare value. It puts there so anyone can get it and then it isn’t as cool.

Also your idea isn’t a bad idea, but I don’t agree with it because I like the current setup, I like items to be rare and not having everyone get one makes when I do seem better.

P.S. Just so you know I have yet to get a ticket from any of the skins for the different events. Hoping my luck changes with the Dragon Festival.

How about just letting us buy the skins for gems? What good would having yet another currency do but maybe add more confusion? Just get rid of them or let us buy em outright.

Arcanis.2437:

This post isn’t about you or your me complex.

This is about opinions and solution from people that want options other than RNG.

I want to read what people think about my opinion and if they think that should be options other than RNG.

I would also love to read what ArenaNet think about my idea, and about the option to have skins from ways other than RNG.

LOL. “Me complex.” I am not the one who called someone out incorrectly and then will not admit it. Instead you try to turn it back on me? That is funny.

You said you want to know what people think about your opinion and other options than RNG? If you cannot get that from my first post which you obviously just got defensive about and did not read, here are my thoughts to your questions.

You opinion about the red gems is bad. All it does is negate the need for RNG which many people have no problem with. Anet would not make money this way, they would lose it. All RNG purchases would drop to nothing. My real life job is in finance and projecting profits and purchasing trends. Your model is bad for Anet profits and I am certain they would tell you the same.

As to the second part, I don’t think there should be options other than RNG. And since other options are not going to happen anytime soon, the point is moot.

munkiman.3068:

How about just letting us buy the skins for gems? What good would having yet another currency do but maybe add more confusion? Just get rid of them or let us buy em outright.

The problem is:

If they put the skins for Normal Gems, people will just convert gold and buy them, instead of gambling on RNG.

This would make ArenaNet lose way to much money.

If you put them for Red Gems people would be forced to buy them for Cash.
They would still be able to buy the skins from Gold or Normal Gems, but would be 2x more expensive.

Like 4000 normal gems, 2000 Red gems.

This makes ArenaNet more profitable, while making us more happy.

You can still always play on RNG.

By playing on RNG you could have the skins for less money, making it more attractive.

@munkiman,

I like your idea and don’t like it at the same time. I think they should add more weapon skins to the cash shop to allow people to buy some, but I want them to keep some sets as RNG drops. One problem I see in game is that there aren’t enough weapons skins that are easy to get, they need to make some sets that are not tied to RNG. But they need to leave some tied to RNG so having something that is rare have a more fulfeeling feel to it.

The best way to fix this is to operate on a system that rewards failures so that if you are unlucky enough to fail on rolls, you get rewarded in the end.

Here is how the system works. Typically, you get a ticket from the chest that you can exchange for a skin. Let’s say 1 Fused ticket can be exchanged for 1 skin.

Well let’s say that you open a chest and you don’t get a ticket. Instead, you are given a token. You continue to open several more chests, and all of them failed, but you still get tokens. For each fail, you get 1 token.

Now Arenanet can set a predetermined number of tokens that you can exchange for a ticket.

We can set that at 30 – meaning, if you fail at RNG enough that you have failed 30 times, you should have 30 tokens and you shall be able to exchange those 30 tokens for 1 ticket.

The great thing about this is that this can even entice players to spend even more on the shop. For example, let’s say that I open 15 chests. 14 of those failed, so I have 14 tokens, but the 15th one gave me a ticket to exchange. Hurray!

But now I have 14 tokens left, so it’d be a waste to just have them lying around. I should try and open 16 more tokens so that I could buy another skin that I wouldn’t have went for otherwise!

Arcanis.2437:

munkiman.3068:

How about just letting us buy the skins for gems? What good would having yet another currency do but maybe add more confusion? Just get rid of them or let us buy em outright.

The problem is:

If they put the skins for Normal Gems, people will just convert gold and buy them, instead of gambling on RNG.

This would make ArenaNet lose way to much money.

If you put them for Red Gems people would be forced to buy them for Cash.
They would still be able to buy the skins from Gold or Normal Gems, but would be 2x more expensive.

Like 4000 normal gems, 2000 Red gems.

This makes ArenaNet more profitable, while making us more happy.

You can still always play on RNG.

It doesn’t make them more profitable because Arenanet doesn’t care about whether you buy your gems with money or gold, they just want gems sold.

Arenanet does not supply gems for the exchange, each and every gem sold trough there means that someone purchased the gems with real money and exchanged it for gold on the exchange. Arenanet doesn’t care whether the gems you bought the gems you’re using with gold or real money, either way someone at one point paid real money for them. There are no gems in circulation in the game that weren’t paid with real money in the first place.

Which is why the price fluctuates, because it depends on how many gems are being offered for sale at any given time Vs. how many are being bought.

Vol.5241:

The best way to fix this is to operate on a system that rewards failures so that if you are unlucky enough to fail on rolls, you get rewarded in the end.

Here is how the system works. Typically, you get a ticket from the chest that you can exchange for a skin. Let’s say 1 Fused ticket can be exchanged for 1 skin.

Well let’s say that you open a chest and you don’t get a ticket. Instead, you are given a token. You continue to open several more chests, and all of them failed, but you still get tokens. For each fail, you get 1 token.

Now Arenanet can set a predetermined number of tokens that you can exchange for a ticket.

We can set that at 30 – meaning, if you fail at RNG enough that you have failed 30 times, you should have 30 tokens and you shall be able to exchange those 30 tokens for 1 ticket.

The great thing about this is that this can even entice players to spend even more on the shop. For example, let’s say that I open 15 chests. 14 of those failed, so I have 14 tokens, but the 15th one gave me a ticket to exchange. Hurray!

But now I have 14 tokens left, so it’d be a waste to just have them lying around. I should try and open 16 more tokens so that I could buy another skin that I wouldn’t have went for otherwise!

This right here is the first real idea that I have heard that I could get behind. The only thing I would say is have the number of tokens be higher then that so the items can still have some "rare’ value to them. I could see this idea working out really well, it would allow the players who buy a whole bunch of gems be happy they got a ticket while keeping the rarity of the sets.

Hire a team of people that is tasked to bring in revenue by creating convenience and cosmetic features.

-Weapons and special effects
-Armors and special effects
-Mounts and transportion systems
-Player owned real-estate, public instance with mini games
-Animations (dance, jump, dodge, attack)

There are so many ways they can make money. They just don’t care enough about this game anymore. That’s what I think.

Vol.5241:

The best way to fix this is to operate on a system that rewards failures so that if you are unlucky enough to fail on rolls, you get rewarded in the end.

Here is how the system works. Typically, you get a ticket from the chest that you can exchange for a skin. Let’s say 1 Fused ticket can be exchanged for 1 skin.

Well let’s say that you open a chest and you don’t get a ticket. Instead, you are given a token. You continue to open several more chests, and all of them failed, but you still get tokens. For each fail, you get 1 token.

Now Arenanet can set a predetermined number of tokens that you can exchange for a ticket.

We can set that at 30 – meaning, if you fail at RNG enough that you have failed 30 times, you should have 30 tokens and you shall be able to exchange those 30 tokens for 1 ticket.

The great thing about this is that this can even entice players to spend even more on the shop. For example, let’s say that I open 15 chests. 14 of those failed, so I have 14 tokens, but the 15th one gave me a ticket to exchange. Hurray!

But now I have 14 tokens left, so it’d be a waste to just have them lying around. I should try and open 16 more tokens so that I could buy another skin that I wouldn’t have went for otherwise!

I like this.

They used something similar on the Halloween.

I would also like to hear what ArenaNet thinks of this idea as well.

Calae.1738:

Hire a team of people that is tasked to bring in revenue by creating convenience and cosmetic features.
-Weapons and special effects
-Armors and special effects
-Mounts and transportion systems
-Player owned real-estate, public instance with mini games
-Animations (dance, jump, dodge, attack)

This is a good idea and they obviously have some of that going on. All the minis and town clothes they put out are evidence of this. I am sure that most of those things will probably be released when they feel they need to add some different purchase elements to the game. So good thinking on your part. This is touches on what Hjorje said above. Maybe if they created great looking skins for sale making more skins available in game, they could keep sets like the molten and jade still as RNG’s and keeping the “Wow I got one!” element still in the game. If all skins were available to everyone, as Hjorje said, it would take away the excitement of getting something cool.

Vol’s idea was cool too. Still keeps rare things rare.

1. Get rid of Gem <—> Gold.
2. Make everything on Gem Store reasonably priced.
3. Add more convenience items.

Problem solved.

Zacchary.6183:

1. Get rid of Gem <—> Gold.
2. Make everything on Gem Store reasonably priced.
3. Add more convenience items.

Problem solved.

Why would they do that?… I’d be willing to bet that one of the big reasons people buy gems is to convert to gold. Arenanet doesn’t care whether you get your gems with a credit card or with gold, each and every gem sold in exchange is sold and paid in RL by players, whether you get your gems with credit card or gold, those gems at one point were paid with RL, Anet gets their money either way.

Anet gets their money but loses customer loyalty and risks hurting themselves through word-of-mouth advertising.

I agree with OP, but would go one further. I think they should do away with gold to gems. Don’t grab the pitchforks.

From Anet’s perspective, if they add content into the game, they have to price it knowing that people can obtain it by running CoF a ton and converting the gold to gems. Therefore, they

1. Have to set the price of items very high to make doing that inconvenient and
2. Make much of the content temporary so that people need gold on hand to convert in gems, rather than have months to grind for the thing they want and
3. Introduce RNG into every way of obtaining items to obscure the very high price. (Besides being annoying, that’s all RNG really is – it’s a way to make someone spend $1 one hundred times and make the thing feel cheaper, rather than charge $100 outright.)

What I mean is that if Anet knew when they put items in the gemstore that people would pay CASH for those items, not grind gold and convert it to gems, they could put weapon skins in the store and expect to do well from it.

As is, however, the existence of people with huge gold stores who play the game (read, run CoF) all the time but therefore don’t need to buy gems is built into the price of every item. This is why the sclerite skins were basically only obtainable by burning piles of money at the RNG altar. That makes the prices for regular players, who wouldn’t mind buying a skin for say two or three dollars, much higher than they would otherwise be.

There should be a wall between what can be purchased with money and what can be purchased with gold. Let those two economies exist separately, and most people will be better off.

Zacchary.6183:

Anet gets their money but loses customer loyalty and risks hurting themselves through word-of-mouth advertising.

Agreed.

Anet image and Gem store is broken because of the RNG boxes.

People spending hundreds of Euros, and opening 2000+ normal boxes / 100rich and getting nothing.

Personally I had to spend 40euros and 300g just to get a single ticket. Opened 105rich coffers and nothing.

Stinson.5972:

I agree with OP, but would go one further. I think they should do away with gold to gems. Don’t grab the pitchforks.

From Anet’s perspective, if they add content into the game, they have to price it knowing that people can obtain it by running CoF a ton and converting the gold to gems. Therefore, they

1. Have to set the price of items very high to make doing that inconvenient and
2. Make much of the content temporary so that people need gold on hand to convert in gems, rather than have months to grind for the thing they want and
3. Introduce RNG into every way of obtaining items to obscure the very high price. (Besides being annoying, that’s all RNG really is – it’s a way to make someone spend $1 one hundred times and make the thing feel cheaper, rather than charge $100 outright.)

What I mean is that if Anet knew when they put items in the gemstore that people would pay CASH for those items, not grind gold and convert it to gems, they could put weapon skins in the store and expect to do well from it.

As is, however, the existence of people with huge gold stores who play the game (read, run CoF) all the time but therefore don’t need to buy gems is built into the price of every item. This is why the sclerite skins were basically only obtainable by burning piles of money at the RNG altar. That makes the prices for regular players, who wouldn’t mind buying a skin for say two or three dollars, much higher than they would otherwise be.

There should be a wall between what can be purchased with money and what can be purchased with gold. Let those two economies exist separately, and most people will be better off.

This is what I’m talking about.

Anet puts items on the Gem Store expecting to get money, but people just do CoF and convert Gold.

And yes, RNG is just a way of making you spend 100euros, by making you buy 100x 1euro boxes.

Not to talk that some people get the skins from the 1st or 2nd skin, making Anet lose money.

If Anet sells the skin for the equivalent price of 100boxes, they would get 100% the RNG money, yet making us happier and more confident.

Stinson.5972:

I agree with OP, but would go one further. I think they should do away with gold to gems. Don’t grab the pitchforks.

From Anet’s perspective, if they add content into the game, they have to price it knowing that people can obtain it by running CoF a ton and converting the gold to gems. Therefore, they

1. Have to set the price of items very high to make doing that inconvenient and
2. Make much of the content temporary so that people need gold on hand to convert in gems, rather than have months to grind for the thing they want and
3. Introduce RNG into every way of obtaining items to obscure the very high price. (Besides being annoying, that’s all RNG really is – it’s a way to make someone spend $1 one hundred times and make the thing feel cheaper, rather than charge $100 outright.)

What I mean is that if Anet knew when they put items in the gemstore that people would pay CASH for those items, not grind gold and convert it to gems, they could put weapon skins in the store and expect to do well from it.

As is, however, the existence of people with huge gold stores who play the game (read, run CoF) all the time but therefore don’t need to buy gems is built into the price of every item. This is why the sclerite skins were basically only obtainable by burning piles of money at the RNG altar. That makes the prices for regular players, who wouldn’t mind buying a skin for say two or three dollars, much higher than they would otherwise be.

There should be a wall between what can be purchased with money and what can be purchased with gold. Let those two economies exist separately, and most people will be better off.

Again, that’s not how the gem exchange work. Every single gem in the exchange was paid with cash, there are no free gems, when you exchange gold for gems means that you get the gems for free, but someone else paid the cash to buy those gems and exchange them for gold. Whether you buy the gems with your own cash or gring gold and exchange for gems has no bearing on RNG or anything else because arenanet gets the money either way.

Situation A: you buy 4000 gems with 50$ – NCSoft and Arenanet get 50$.
Situation B: you grind 120 gold, buy 4000 gems – Player B had to buy 4000 gems with 50$, sell them for about 80g (there’s a tax of about 35% in gem exchange) – NCSoft and Arenanet get 40g (and actually I believe they’d prefer this way because now there are also 40g removed from the economy).

So:

From Anet’s perspective, if they add content into the game, they have to price it knowing that people can obtain it by running CoF a ton and converting the gold to gems. Therefore, they

1. Have to set the price of items very high to make doing that inconvenient and
2. Make much of the content temporary so that people need gold on hand to convert in gems, rather than have months to grind for the thing they want and

Not true, because as much as you grind gold there are no free gems, each gem was paid by some player in RL money, which is why the price fluctuates depending on gem supply and demand. Actually farming gold like crazy and buying gems won’t suddenly make more free gems appear, it’ll drive the demand up driving the price of gems up as well.

3. Introduce RNG into every way of obtaining items to obscure the very high price. (Besides being annoying, that’s all RNG really is – it’s a way to make someone spend $1 one hundred times and make the thing feel cheaper, rather than charge $100 outright.)

And this is the reason, they put skins on the store, people buy them once, they put them behind a RNG box, people buy them in the hundreds (just look at all the threads saying how much they hate them… but after opening tens or even hundreds of them).

And unfortunately it’ll be like that for as long as people keep buying them. It’s a case of “do what I say, not what I do”.. these forums are a valid source of feedback for them, but I’d honestly say considering that the forum community, while is very vocal, is neither a majority nor representative of the community as a whole, the main feedback source is what people are doing in game, and if they see that people are buying them in droves, they can only conclude that the community (or at least part of it) does like and want more RNG boxes.

Stinson.5972:

I agree with OP, but would go one further. I think they should do away with gold to gems. Don’t grab the pitchforks.

No pitchforks, I promise. The problem with doing this is that gold to gems is one of the safeguards against considering gems as actual real currency. If a player can only acquire gems through purchasing with real world currency, then it may be considered a form of virtual currency and then gambling laws come into place. Since you can obtain gems solely through game play, via converting gold into gems, conceivably you should never have to pay a dime to get gems. Therefore, gems are not considered online virtual currency but just a game play device.

This won’t solve anything. I don’t think it CAN be solved.

If they put up a new skin for 10u (units), let’s say 8 players out of 10 buy it. That’s a 80u income.
If they put up their RNG boxes for 10u, and 2 players buy 4 each, they’re even. And that’s a low estimative.

They got to earn something with the cash shop to keep the game alive, so if you don’t like RNG, don’t support it, but as long as there are 2 guys buying them, they won’t change it.

So my suggestion is: Start taking a liking for gambling. If you don’t want to spend money, farm and spend gold instead.

locoman.1974:

Arcanis.2437:

munkiman.3068:

How about just letting us buy the skins for gems? What good would having yet another currency do but maybe add more confusion? Just get rid of them or let us buy em outright.

The problem is:

If they put the skins for Normal Gems, people will just convert gold and buy them, instead of gambling on RNG.

This would make ArenaNet lose way to much money.

If you put them for Red Gems people would be forced to buy them for Cash.
They would still be able to buy the skins from Gold or Normal Gems, but would be 2x more expensive.

Like 4000 normal gems, 2000 Red gems.

This makes ArenaNet more profitable, while making us more happy.

You can still always play on RNG.

It doesn’t make them more profitable because Arenanet doesn’t care about whether you buy your gems with money or gold, they just want gems sold.

Arenanet does not supply gems for the exchange, each and every gem sold trough there means that someone purchased the gems with real money and exchanged it for gold on the exchange. Arenanet doesn’t care whether the gems you bought the gems you’re using with gold or real money, either way someone at one point paid real money for them. There are no gems in circulation in the game that weren’t paid with real money in the first place.

Which is why the price fluctuates, because it depends on how many gems are being offered for sale at any given time Vs. how many are being bought.

This is pretty much the deal. There was a supply of gems and gold in the exchange at launch, but what percentage of that is left in there is probably fairly low.

If people in game can afford to buy gems with gold, someone will undoubtedly buy gems with cash and convert back. It’s money for them either way. Regardless we don’t know the numbers, but i can say that the RNG boxes aren’t selling even close to as well as they did through the first round via gold to gem conversion data. If the sales continue to be poor, i think we will probably see outright purchasing of skins or some other way to distribute these “rare” skins. Coffers do seems to be dropping weapon tickets though, which is a step in the right direction, now that they are tradable.

Doesn’t anyone proposing that you should be able to flat put buy skins understand that if this was the case they would not be desirable? Its their rarity that makes them attractive.

ANet would lose so much money by doing this that it will never happen.

Vol.5241:

The best way to fix this is to operate on a system that rewards failures so that if you are unlucky enough to fail on rolls, you get rewarded in the end.

Here is how the system works. Typically, you get a ticket from the chest that you can exchange for a skin. Let’s say 1 Fused ticket can be exchanged for 1 skin.

Well let’s say that you open a chest and you don’t get a ticket. Instead, you are given a token. You continue to open several more chests, and all of them failed, but you still get tokens. For each fail, you get 1 token.

Now Arenanet can set a predetermined number of tokens that you can exchange for a ticket.

We can set that at 30 – meaning, if you fail at RNG enough that you have failed 30 times, you should have 30 tokens and you shall be able to exchange those 30 tokens for 1 ticket.

The great thing about this is that this can even entice players to spend even more on the shop. For example, let’s say that I open 15 chests. 14 of those failed, so I have 14 tokens, but the 15th one gave me a ticket to exchange. Hurray!

But now I have 14 tokens left, so it’d be a waste to just have them lying around. I should try and open 16 more tokens so that I could buy another skin that I wouldn’t have went for otherwise!

This is a very good idea +1
I would support that

I personally feel as though the gem system is just fine as it is. As others have stated, every gem you can buy with gold was bought & paid for after all. Vol’s token idea strikes me as being something that could work for many of us; a RNG element for those that want to gamble, and a choice for those of us who want a direct purchase. As for keeping them rare, is it really worth doing it like we have now just to let a few “special snowflakes” be happy, all the while upsetting the rest of the playerbase? In the case of the current batch of skins, most people I’ve talked to want them because they’re pretty.

To add to the discussion, I think selling cheap RNG boxes (like we have now) alongside direct purchases for the same items could work out to be more profitable as well. Set the prices like they were for the Rox & Braham skins as to not drive people off, and keep the RNG box prices low to encourage people to buy more. This way, if people that gamble don’t get a skin, they’ll still have the option of buying it outright. (Profiting off both the boxes and direct sale) All the while, ANet can make more money (and build their reptutation) in the long run by not kittening off both sides.

In the end RNG is great short term. So long as Anet keeps pushing out these crap little events (Moa racing… really? Thats the best we could do? 16GB of game and we must partake in Moa racing… FAILPOCALYPSE) they will continue to make money. And they will continue to gain new players.

They will also however continue to lose veteran players as those who play for any extended duration will come to see how diminishing the returns (get it? xD ) really are. Anet is starting to lose touch with delivery on promise, and fair exchange here. If I wanted to gamble I would go to a casino. But I don’t want to gamble. And that’s all it has become. Players are gambling, and becoming addicted to it hence Anet not stopping with RNG. The house always wins and this casino is winning big for Anet.

I invested in GW2 because I thought it would be a game that would be entertaining for a loooong time. But the repitition is becoming so bad that I might as well be replaying any old FPS or D3. I can’t even acquire half of the cool stuff I want, and would pay RL for, anymore.

I know I sound like I’m hating. I still love GW2. But there needs to be some resolution to RNG and that dang mystic blackhole of happiness leeching in the middle of Lions Arch. There is nothing legendary about buying pre-cursors off the TP or flushing hundreds of weapons away. Could you imagine a bard signing, “Hi ho rumdimdum. She bought it off the TP for about 300 x is actual value…!” See what I’m saying here?

Everything cool about this game has become chance. Luck. The fact that you have a Jade weapon tickets means nothing. It’s not a demonstration of your skill or dedication. It’s just ‘lucky’.

Eg1: “Where’d you get that sword?!”
“From completing the coolest/hardest dungeon/quest/event in the game.”
“Wow… awesome.”

Eg2: “Where’d you get that sword?!”
“Off the TP. I had to spend like $50 though.”
“Sheesh. That’s more than the game cost me in the first place.”
“I know what you mean.”

I’m seeing the difference in the 2 guilds I rep for. We have diminishing ( my favourite word right now) active veteran players. I hardly know anyone in my guild anymore. RNG has its minor perks. And then has its major, vast, deep, devastating pitfalls lined with spikes and broken legendary/rare skin dreams.

@Vol I’m digging the token idea. Everyone wins. And I mean everyone. Not only share-holders, holding companies, investors and developers but the players too. To those who say it may diminish variety, that is no fault of the players. It’s due there being low variety in the first place. Instead of developing more variety Anet is just increasing rarity through RNG and sucking players into a gambling racket.

Sorry about the length of the post

OP, your solution could easily be implemented and will solve a lot of what’s wrong with the gem store currently. Different kinds of gems or tokens out of RNG chests – it all works, as long as there’s a point where you’ll be 100% rewarded for investing in what are essentially lottery tickets. Sadly, there are people here who are practically begging to be shafted by Arena.NET. In my view, standing up for real money gambling in video games is like standing up for DRM – the Xbone is a smoldering trainwreck, yet people will still buy it, much as they will continue to buy RNG boxes.

Seeing how no one on the team wants to respond to these requests, I can only assume they don’t care what your opinion on the matter is, so long as they continue to make money. And until people realize it’s their wallets feeding these policies it’ll never end.

not gonna happen.

nc soft is happy with the RNG boxes sales results.

I believe some individuals stated something like this prior. Make it that everytime you open a chest and fail to get a ticket, your chance on the next chest goes up some by accumalating luck points. So everytime you fail multiple times in a row you gain more an more luck points giving you a better chance. Once you do eventually get a ticket, the luck points are wiped out and you start back to zero.
Atlantica online has this system in place when trying to upgrade equipment. And how oversees them, Nexon

The main point of RNG is to keep something rare (I won’t be surprised if it also have a limited number of x drops per day per server plugged into the programming however this is just speculation).

It sucks I know but that is the reality of it. If a certain item drops too much too often, it loses value as it becomes common. Rare items i believe should stay rare, eventually you’ll get something other people don’t have.

Suggestions to increase the drops will most probably be ignored.