Guild Wars 2

I think a discussion of weapon tickets are in order. Im sure a fair bit of us would love to get the weapon skins for the new events or wanted the past event weapon skins. However getting a ticket can be difficult and sometimes very much against you, as seen by some of those who bought lots of southsun crates to no avail. I think many would agree they dislike the ticket system is currently, on the same note ArenaNet wants to make money(who doesnt) so this can be viewed as profitable.

So how can we appease both parties ? Perhaps a few options i can see

Option 1- More Tickets- Rather then simply having 1 ticket or essentially 1 valuable item on the loot table for the crates or chest, simply provide several. Black Lion chests are starting to get that idea with adding rare backpacks, the idea here simply is you have a better chance at getting something. It just might not be the something you want, so while your disappointed its not what you want you didnt walk away with junk all the time.

Option 2- Improving odds- This falls into much in the same in how there is a gem store purchase limit, there should be a limit set on the creates. In that there should be a point where you have opened enough crates that the game goes “ok you deserve it”. The idea here would be the more you open, the higher chance it is the next crate for the goods.

Option 3- Up/Down – This is simple , decrease the drop rate of crates but increase the rewards . Or simply increase the rate but reduce chances. To use an analogy it would be like buying scratch offs and changing it to $1 ones where you can buy a lot but little chance of anything good or to a $10 one where you have a higher chance for a payout.

Anyway these are my thoughts im curious what others thinks about a change in the ticket system.

It’s simple to me..alot of people would have bought the skins if you could buy them in the BLC,listed for 600 – 800 each.Now lot of people will not even try buying those chests,so i dunno how that works out for anet.Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

Greatsword 800Gems
Sword 600 Gems..

You get the idea..And in this way i would have surely bought atleast 4 weapons,axe/sword/hammer/greatsword…But as of now ? I won’t be buying anything,since i know my luck is terrible with these kind of things.I honestly think its a bad idea to be selling these skins in this way.

1. I dunno about you, but from my perspective, there would be two ways to implement that, considering that the probabilities need to sum to 100%. First would be to reduce the chance of getting some common stuff and using that to implement the new rares. That would be a good thing for the players. Second would be to squeeze the new rares into the same slot as the others, resulting in more possible rares, but no increase in probability to get one. That would be a pretty bad idea, assuming that a person is “aiming” for a specific rare rather than just the category itself. And honestly, it would just result in people asking for a way to trade the “unwanted” rares for the ones that they want. So either way, you’re looking at either increasing the odds and/or adding a generic “Exchange For Rare Item Ticket”.

2. But if you did that, then people would and could research it as a group and get the exact amount of crates you need to get the guaranteed rare. This would then give an exact price roof for the item. And considering how many complaints we get from people who do not get the rares, if the guarantee was perceived as “unfair”, then it’d cause a massive kittenstorm. Bad idea.

3. But some people like farming the crates, so lowering the drop rates would be screwing over those people in favor of the ones who buy them. And that’s always a bad ending.

Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

But what is, just what if, the implementation is there to ensure rarity, rather than maximum profits? I know it sounds “crazy”, but it’s possible that the marketing department is taking into account the vision the developers have about actual rare items.

Caedmon.6798:

It’s simple to me..alot of people would have bought the skins if you could buy them in the BLC,listed for 600 – 800 each.Now lot of people will not even try buying those chests,so i dunno how that works out for anet.Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

Greatsword 800Gems
Sword 600 Gems..

You get the idea..And in this way i would have surely bought atleast 4 weapons,axe/sword/hammer/greatsword…But as of now ? I won’t be buying anything,since i know my luck is terrible with these kind of things.I honestly think its a bad idea to be selling these skins in this way.

I don’t think nearly as many people buy chests as skins…but I’d wager a percentage of the people spend a LOT more money on chests than skins…and I mean a lot. Like hundreds of dollars a lot.

In the end of the day, the question is how many people don’t buy the chests, compared to how many people are crazily overspending on them.

I hate it, but it´s the price you have to pay for a “free to play” game.

Trek Online does the same with their version of chests and ships that can only be acquired there.
Frankly, just be happy it´s only a skin and not actually new types of Sigils or something on them.

HawkMeister.4758:

I hate it, but it´s the price you have to pay for a “free to play” game.

Trek Online does the same with their version of chests and ships that can only be acquired there.
Frankly, just be happy it´s only a skin and not actually new types of Sigils or something on them.

STO is ran by Nexon, and Nexon got one of their own people to run the Guild Wars 2 cash shop. That is why it is the same. I am assuming that Nexon has tried both “non gambling” and “Gambling” methods, and have found the “gambling” methods to be the most profitable.

They will probably not go the way of just letting you buy the skins outright. Sure they could make more money in the short term. But lets say they let you buy the SAB skins from the gem store…you would be less likely to buy the skins for the SouthSun event.

Now, buy offering them only as a RNG item in chests/creates they keep you spending money on the hopes of getting one. Sure it’s cheap exploitation of human nature(what company doesn’t)…but until all those people who keep buying keys/creates stop doing so…this will not change.

eisberg.2379:

HawkMeister.4758:

I hate it, but it´s the price you have to pay for a “free to play” game.

Trek Online does the same with their version of chests and ships that can only be acquired there.
Frankly, just be happy it´s only a skin and not actually new types of Sigils or something on them.

STO is ran by Nexon, and Nexon got one of their own people to run the Guild Wars 2 cash shop. That is why it is the same. I am assuming that Nexon has tried both “non gambling” and “Gambling” methods, and have found the “gambling” methods to be the most profitable.

Uhm hate to tell you this but Nexon has nothing to do with STO, STO started the box thing long before PWE came into the picture (PWE is not Nexon) and PWE actually improved the boxes on STO to make sure people were getting well compensated for opening them.

GW2 boxes are nothing like what you find in STO. 1: you actually get lots of alternative items that are useful and fun when you open boxes in STO as well as currencies (IE their main currency is dilithium and you get vouchers to get a large amount of currecny daily from those) just one example 2: NWO boxes work similarly, you get lots of alt items and in game currency from opening these boxes, people get the awesome companion pets from them all the time (there are phoenix pets all over the place) 3: You can actually sell the items in NWO boxes on the auction house for loads.

GW2 boxes can and often do drop nothing at all. Their system of RNG is not only insulting it can be very damaging to their image. They have an enormously high rate of getting nothing even with the RNG in game purchased boxes on this game. People like me have been complaining about the total lack of T6 mats for a long time now, and somehow these people think that the solution to not having enough direct T6 drops from mobs in the open world means more RNG boxes are needed. At least in STO and NWO you can use gathering to aquire the items you need to sell to get your currency, here nothing like that exists.

There’s also the matter of cosmetics. In STO/NWO when a new cosmetic item is available it’s not from a box, it’s direct from the store. You purchase it once across the entire account and bam nothing more is needed. GW2 boxes require an enormous amount of boxes and luck of a Vegas sure thing just to win some new cosmetic tickets instead of making the content of the game actually give you a chance to really earn those new item looks.

Very VERY different companies. When STO tried the boxes for the first time, they did the same thing that happens all the time with the boxes on this game, they made it so the items were so rare that almost nothing was dropped from the boxes and there was a crapstorm of media involved with that, so much bad press in fact they changed it the very next type of box. They learned from their mistakes with the box gambling and making them almost impossible to get anything GW2 is going to have to do the same thing.

It’s amazing that the history of mmo’s is being ignored by these developers. It’s like they’ve never played another mmo before in their lives because they keep putting fail mechanisms into their games that other game developers tried and learned the hard way that these mechanisms do in fact harm the players (harms their long term bottom line) and thus shouldn’t be used.

The rng might very well be implemented because it’s simply more profitable or because Nexon forced it in, but here’s another reason we might be stuck with it. Because we’re allowed to convert gold to gems, there might simply be too many people with too much gold to make direct-buy skins a profitable venture for ANet. It’s possible the player-friendly currency conversion option has created the necessity for rng-boxes in the gem shop. Either way, I think rng is here to stay.

I was going to make a similar post myself. Maybe the people I’m encountering are the exception to the rule, but the vast majority seem to be saying they have given up on getting a skin/ticket. Even watching the map chat in the cove the drop rate of chest’s and contents of dropped or bought chest’s has become a running joke. Anet has to learn rare is fine but if you make something too rare it seems unattainable and people will just stop trying. Right now the only reason the cove is populated is that it’s great for farming gold. Most of the people are not there for the chest’s like they think.

darkace.8925:

The rng might very well be implemented because it’s simply more profitable or because Nexon forced it in, but here’s another reason we might be stuck with it. Because we’re allowed to convert gold to gems, there might simply be too many people with too much gold to make direct-buy skins a profitable venture for ANet.

gold to gems conversion doesn’t factor in it at all. The gems bought for gold do not appear out of thin air – at some point somebody used real money to acquire them. So, whether someone buys chests for real money, or with converted gold, Anet gets the same amount of cash.

Caedmon.6798:

It’s simple to me..alot of people would have bought the skins if you could buy them in the BLC,listed for 600 – 800 each.Now lot of people will not even try buying those chests,so i dunno how that works out for anet.Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

Greatsword 800Gems
Sword 600 Gems..

You get the idea..And in this way i would have surely bought atleast 4 weapons,axe/sword/hammer/greatsword…But as of now ? I won’t be buying anything,since i know my luck is terrible with these kind of things.I honestly think its a bad idea to be selling these skins in this way.

I know some rich guys spend $250 for the skin. That’s mean 25 800Gems GS.
And if he was not lucky Anet can make more money with those box.(Rich ppl will buy chest until they have skin.)
So, I think Anet is making more money with those chest.(But I still don’t think it’s good idea for long term)

Anet improved upon the methods of obtainment since F&F. I see these posts a lot. The truth is, if you farm a bit each day, b4 DR hits, get like 3 chests, do that for the entire chapter of SoS, you should have a good shot. The only thing is that DR is really inconsistent sometimes. There are days where I go out with all my MF ready, like 300, and farm for an hour, pick up 4 rares and 3 chests, then for an hour after that I pick up absolutely nothing. It sucks and I see it happen to other people. Im pretty sure I wasnt just lucky either.

A suggestion I’ve raised many times before is a token system as seen in many other MMO’s (STO, Allods, Neverwinter)

In addition to a chance of getting the desired drops, you also get tokens which can be traded in for the same items (or another unusual and desirable skin) – so even if you don’t get lucky, eventually you’ll get enough tokens to obtain the desired item; or at the very least some seriously cool consolation prizes.

This actually worked IMO, because in Allods and STO I did buy chests now and then, because I knew that even if I was unlucky, I wouldn’t need to buy more than X number of chests to receive the item anyway. GW2 provides no such cap, potentially you could buy close to infinite chests and NEVER get the item if you had insanely bad luck.

Ryuujin.8236:

A suggestion I’ve raised many times before is a token system as seen in many other MMO’s (STO, Allods, Neverwinter)

In addition to a chance of getting the desired drops, you also get tokens which can be traded in for the same items (or another unusual and desirable skin) – so even if you don’t get lucky, eventually you’ll get enough tokens to obtain the desired item; or at the very least some seriously cool consolation prizes.

This actually worked IMO, because in Allods and STO I did buy chests now and then, because I knew that even if I was unlucky, I wouldn’t need to buy more than X number of chests to receive the item anyway. GW2 provides no such cap, potentially you could buy close to infinite chests and NEVER get the item if you had insanely bad luck.

Thats almost like the suggestion i made.I feel you should be able to turn in 20 crates for a ticket.That way anet could still make money from people who want it right away and those that dont want to spend money could farm them.

hammer.9721:

Ryuujin.8236:

A suggestion I’ve raised many times before is a token system as seen in many other MMO’s (STO, Allods, Neverwinter)

In addition to a chance of getting the desired drops, you also get tokens which can be traded in for the same items (or another unusual and desirable skin) – so even if you don’t get lucky, eventually you’ll get enough tokens to obtain the desired item; or at the very least some seriously cool consolation prizes.

This actually worked IMO, because in Allods and STO I did buy chests now and then, because I knew that even if I was unlucky, I wouldn’t need to buy more than X number of chests to receive the item anyway. GW2 provides no such cap, potentially you could buy close to infinite chests and NEVER get the item if you had insanely bad luck.

Thats almost like the suggestion i made.I feel you should be able to turn in 20 crates for a ticket.That way anet could still make money from people who want it right away and those that dont want to spend money could farm them.

A token type system is a good idea I think. Like I was saying earlier for the most part if people start feeling like they have no chance to get something they will eventually stop trying. The issue I see with how it is now is that it seems like if you farm chests you have almost no shot, and if you are willing to spend money you have at best a small chance to get a skin. So essentially you are encouraging people not to play your content but to instead just buy things and cross there fingers? As it stands now its faster to farm the gold and buy the chests if your like me and don’t want to spend real money on a lottery. Thats about the only way I have found to actually feel like I am playing the content and making any progress. If I wanted a game where I just buy things well that game has already been invented…its called ebay and you get real stuff from that.

Tisler.6297:

Caedmon.6798:

It’s simple to me..alot of people would have bought the skins if you could buy them in the BLC,listed for 600 – 800 each.Now lot of people will not even try buying those chests,so i dunno how that works out for anet.Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

Greatsword 800Gems
Sword 600 Gems..

You get the idea..And in this way i would have surely bought atleast 4 weapons,axe/sword/hammer/greatsword…But as of now ? I won’t be buying anything,since i know my luck is terrible with these kind of things.I honestly think its a bad idea to be selling these skins in this way.

I know some rich guys spend $250 for the skin. That’s mean 25 800Gems GS.
And if he was not lucky Anet can make more money with those box.(Rich ppl will buy chest until they have skin.)
So, I think Anet is making more money with those chest.(But I still don’t think it’s good idea for long term)

So it’s basially only being put in for kitten with to much money ? Well thats great and all..but they have to remind they have people playing their game with a functioning brain aswell.

Up till now ive found about 5 chests,got nothing but mats,how does that motivate me to even be trying to buy these chests at all…

Caedmon.6798:

It’s simple to me..alot of people would have bought the skins if you could buy them in the BLC,listed for 600 – 800 each.Now lot of people will not even try buying those chests,so i dunno how that works out for anet.Are they really earning more money now then when they would have put all the skins in the BLC seperatly ?

Greatsword 800Gems
Sword 600 Gems..

You get the idea..And in this way i would have surely bought atleast 4 weapons,axe/sword/hammer/greatsword…But as of now ? I won’t be buying anything,since i know my luck is terrible with these kind of things.I honestly think its a bad idea to be selling these skins in this way.

HawkMeister.4758:

I hate it, but it´s the price you have to pay for a “free to play” game.

Trek Online does the same with their version of chests and ships that can only be acquired there.
Frankly, just be happy it´s only a skin and not actually new types of Sigils or something on them.

Guild wars 2 is not a “free to play”, its a buy to play, much like the original guild wars was. You buy the game, then you play for free after that. Of note, the original GW did not have any item shop style content until long into its cycle (I want to see GWEN, but maybe Nightfall, its been awhile). They never went out of business because they weren’t making profit – every sale of the game was making profit.

On topic, what I’d like to see is a dual setup – yes, it’s nice that things rarely drop a chest (so I could blow all day trying to find one) that then rarely drops a ticket (seriously, my luck I don’t even bother), but I would rather play the game instead of just grinding out the same bad guys in hopes of getting the stupid thing. Some people like that though, and it’s a nice thought if nothing else.

Now, as for that dual approach I mentioned: Keep it so you can buy the random box for relatively cheap, but also add in the ticket itself for a higher price – lets say 100 gems for a chest, 600/800 for the ticket itself. This way they can still make a bunch of money gambling on the chests, or for people like me who know they could go through a thousand boxes and barely get anything even useful they can just buy the ticket flat out at (potentially lower or) higher cost.

RNG Boxes = Random Ponchiko Nonsense
Korean style of separating fools from their money.

In fact Dontain has something to say
http://youtu.be/r3F_ZcvR-pg

bring back fused + molten pick

Soulstar.7812:

RNG Boxes = Random Ponchiko Nonsense
Korean style of separating fools from their money.

In fact Dontain has something to say
http://youtu.be/r3F_ZcvR-pg

Agree with him completely.