Guild Wars 2

All I can say is nice forward planning ANET, you cant say you didnt know people would use comms for keys, otherwise you would not have put them there in the first place. The only reason ANET is taking them out is because it is losing THEM money, it has nothing to do with in game economy.
As per some of the other posts instead of giving mostly crap out of chests make the drop rate of rare items better. Yes I have brought gems and traded them for keys and sick of getting stupid useless boosters I cant use for example, I am a master crafter therefore why do I get mostly crafting boosters when opening a chest. Also money bags giving a few silver, which dont even make up 1/10th of a key price
Yes I have learned a very important lesson. Dont buy keys…. simples

PowerCat.5738:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wintersday/Captain-s-council-commendation-here-to-stay/first

The question was whether the commendations and care package would still be available, not if Lyns would accept them!

Indeed, Anthony Ordon did not lie. But like a used car saleman, he didn’t bother to tell the whole truth. He “neglected” to mention that Lionguard Lyns would be PROMPTLY REMOVED at the beginning of Wintersday.

Reannah.7360’s intent was clear. We all wanted to know if we should continue making and using the CCC’s, or if we should spend them. BASED ON this post, I assumed I had time to use them… Instead of just having them sit in my bank this whole time.

The second I saw this new currency during the Lost Shores, I (AND others) posted on the forum, asking how long the currency would be around. Anet didn’t deign to provide an answer to the peons until WEEKS AFTER the event had ended. I don’t care if the BLKeys have been removed… But I await, with eager anticipation, to see if Anet screws us over by changing the previous ratios or other items.

LinseyMurdock.4165:

Lionguard Lyns will be returning in the end of January build without the Black Lion Keys in her inventory. She will then remain up for everyone to liquidate their Commendations and will likely be leaving entirely after about a month.

so, what happens with the ppl that have tons of commendations only for buy keys? You MUST announce it first and THEN delete the keys from the merchant… Some guild mates has spend tons of gold making exotics for commendations for keys…
Sincerely you cant put one item in the game, Deactivated for excessive buys and then delete it without give to the player a opportunity for spend their items in what they want.
Totally unfair, please think in dont do it.

atleast put some new stuff in that can be useful, i wont wast 10k commandation in salvage kits or Gathering tools.

Make the rare and exotic items salvage or something cmon Anet

I have to admit, the removal of the BL Keys is incredibly frustrating. They were the only reason I pursued the commendations in the first place, and I now have eight stacks of commendations (that have been wasting bank slots for how long now?) that can’t be used for the keys I intended them for. I’d honestly rather have the trinkets back that I donated than anything else that the vendor offers.

Very, very annoying move, ANet.

Klink.8970:

Yeah, I had enough commendation to get around 1200 keys.

That is the exact reason that she’s being disabled. Frankly, given ANet’s reaction to the Snowflake Ecto exploiters, I’m surprised they aren’t also handing out bans to anyone who mass produced keys, given that they could be used to obtain the highly-valuable permanent Bank, TP, MF accesses and make hundreds of gold.

I rarely talk kitten about anet but… After I spent a buncha gold on exotics to change through mystic forge solely for keys and a few salvage kits, just to find the kitten is disabled afterwards AND now this guy saying keys being taken out… She was disabled but the recipe wasn’t? That’s bull kitten good kitten job anet.

At least give me enough time to get some lube next time anet. sigh…

Disgusting.

To remove lynn but NOT disable the recipie, saying she is “restocking” and then removing some of the items. How about next time you tell us BEFORE disabling the vendor?

Restocking CLEARLY IMPLIES THAT SHE WILL HAVE THE SAME STOCK.

This has the smell of Zynga-Style moneygrabing tbh.

Blueshield.6291:

Klink.8970:

Yeah, I had enough commendation to get around 1200 keys.

That is the exact reason that she’s being disabled. Frankly, given ANet’s reaction to the Snowflake Ecto exploiters, I’m surprised they aren’t also handing out bans to anyone who mass produced keys, given that they could be used to obtain the highly-valuable permanent Bank, TP, MF accesses and make hundreds of gold.

Your argument makes no sense to me. At the time Lyns was added to the game, buying mats to craft exotic trinkets and then trading for the commendations made the keys cheaper than trading gold>gems>keys, but not by a ridiculous amount (IIRC it was about a 20% discount). The people who were mass producing keys were basically taking advantage of a sale that by all appearances had been put in the game intentionally for Wintersday.

And, going by your logic…if a player buys thousands of gems, then keys, with real money and opens the chests, they should be banned for RNG rewards that may or may not make them hundreds of in-game gold? The only difference there is that ANet is profiting from it, which a cynical person would say makes all the difference to them. Otherwise, they’re the same situation.

The snowflake recipe clearly was an exploit. Trading commendations for keys was not, which is backed up by ANet not saying anything about bans related to it. They simply decided they didn’t like the after-effects of the keys being available through the merchant, and that decision is entirely unfair for anyone who was working toward buying keys. In addition, if they intended to remove the BL Keys all along, as your post indicates they were, they should have made that clear sooner than yesterday, since the NPC has been inactive for weeks, but average players (not “exploiters”) could still stockpile commendations expecting to have access to the keys later.

In any case, if ANet is going to continue to cry “exploit” for these things they are putting in the game, they need to put patches through much more stringent QA before live implementation, especially focusing on how the patches and events are going to impact the economy.

Blueshield.6291:

Klink.8970:

Yeah, I had enough commendation to get around 1200 keys.

That is the exact reason that she’s being disabled. Frankly, given ANet’s reaction to the Snowflake Ecto exploiters, I’m surprised they aren’t also handing out bans to anyone who mass produced keys, given that they could be used to obtain the highly-valuable permanent Bank, TP, MF accesses and make hundreds of gold.

The main problem with this explanation is that buying keys with money is not an alternative to converting in-game stuff into keys. If you want to spend money and buy keys, you’ll buy keys. If you have in-game goods and want keys, you’ll find the cheapest rate and buy keys. you would never sit down and say “I want 10 keys, how will I go about buying them.” I am sure that everyone who has ever bought gems with money has not been in-game bankrupt and does have an alternative to real money when making gem purchases.
The only way this explanation would work is if Anet was disappointed people weren’t buying gems with gold as much since adding Lyns.

People will always find the cheapest route to something. If you don’t want everyone to use only one route, then make all routes the same cost. That’s what I liked best about GW2 when I started. ex: all of the same level and grade items have the same stats and only differ on their combination.

Please tell me this is not true , i am devastated been throwing everything in the forge

I think we need to slow down about commendation keys as an exploit of the publisher or the customer. To me it looks more like a well intentioned story with too much carrot. The cheaper keys did not break the Tyrian or publisher economy, just not healthy for either.

Questions I have:
Is there a way to slow down the production of CCs in game, you know for everyone not here in the forums?
Are the skins available from Lyn available anywhere else?
Would those with large holdings of CCs be ‘ok’ with a lesser than expected return in something else, such as jugs or karma?
Would it be rude to ask if there is a process to vet rewards from a Tyrian meta-economic perspective?

I will miss the story of captain’s commendations and hope it is repeated elsewhere. Tyria needs more anti-Randian drivers.

So, any response as to why you bait and switched us?

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

So, any response as to why you bait and switched us?

You may or may not have to wait another few weeks for a reply. shrugs

I hope they will reply soon but then again I also hope I’ll win the lottery

Ah. Bait and switch. I love how the old buzzwords still lay dormant beneath the surface, resurfacing at times like these.

Seriously, why is everyone so angry exactly? It was an exploit – they obviously did not intend for people to be able to get such gross amounts of commendations, nor did they intend for keys to be able, through this system, to be “bought” for under the BLTC price. They can’t prepare for every eventuality for every action they take, so sometimes something like this is all that they can do. They’re running a business.

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

It was an exploit.

I do hope you’re being sarcastic? An exploit?

Seems to be that these kindof balls-ups by Anet only hurt the casual players. The hardcore out there identify the opportunity early, are all over it like a rash and usually don’t share it with the general public.

The casual players use the “services” as intended and then get royally screwed over when Anet realise the mistake and swing the nerf bat.

I personally have enough commendations put back for 10 BLKs – yes 10. Wow, big deal Anet. But you screw me over because you create an opportunity for the hardcore to buy 1000s!

Why isn’t anyone THINKING!!!! e.g. you can only purchase 1 BLK per day perhaps – limit the amount that can be exchanged rather than hammer the casual players.

Will there be another way to acquire 250 use salvage kits?

Also, I concur with previous posters in support of this character being used again.

When I replaced my exotic rings with the ones I got from fractals I was happy to see that if I merged them with one exotic ring I got from a chest I would be able to get some keys and open some BL chests…I didnt notice that Lyns was disabled and now I have 2000 commendations that I cannot use in my bag…

Anet, why you didnt block the recipe to get them? If you had block the recipe I wouldnt have been able to get commendations and I would salvage/sell my exotics for some ectos and everything would be just fine, a pity for the keys, but fine.

Please, block the recipe to get them and allow players to exchange the remaining commendations for whatever they want. It will be a matter of time when commendations will be out of our the bags (remove Lyns when these happens if you want) and you will be able to sell your lovely keys for gems/real money, which is exactly what you want to do. I will personally not buy anything from the TP with gems till you don’t start to be fair with your customers.

I really don’t understand how Anet can justify this move, sure some people abused an exploit causing half price exotic trinkets but why should I/others be punished for this? When I saw these trinkets were 80-85s a pop I dropped 70g right there intending to buy keys, now I have 55k CC’s with no value… did I do something wrong? Is it wrong to play the market to get the best deal? This is just a slap in the face to dedicated players who have done nothing wrong. Lyns will be put back up with no BLK’s so players can liquidate their CC’s… but on what???? The rares and exotics are not salvageable or capable of being thrown in the forge, so what’s the point? The Black Lion Chests didn’t have items that would devastate the economy, just small rewards that make playing more worthwhile. Would it be so bad for the prices of Perma contracts to drop so people didn’t have to waste time banking or w/e?

My suggestions on this are Anet should do one of the following:

1. Remove donation packaging from Miyani and keep Lyns the same until the CC’s are gone, then restation her after say a week or so.

2. Add an option to Lyns to buy CC’s back from players for say even 10c ea. (This way we at least don’t get completely screwed over.)

3. Give her something that is useful to have many of (I.E. Black Lion Salvage kits)

4. Keep the keys but double their cost. (This way they cost slightly more than gem conversion even at the 80s price per exo trinket)

This is an excellent game and will keep getting better, I just hope to see this matter handled properly by the hardworking folks at Anet.

Dragus.1853:

The Black Lion Chests didn’t have items that would devastate the economy, just small rewards that make playing more worthwhile. Would it be so bad for the prices of Perma contracts to drop so people didn’t have to waste time banking or w/e?

If the contracts were Account Bound and NOT tradeable, Anet may have let it slide. As usual, people have to go overboard and get things removed from overuse.

Bumped so people know!

The Only EAK.9456:

Instead of removing the keys, how about fixing BLT Chests? I have over 200 of the things and, sorry Anet, you’ve yet to put anything in them with a drop rate worthy of me risking my money.

So this. From the dross I get out of a given BLC I will never use real money to get a key. Want me to buy a key, put actually useful stuff in the chest and NEVER equip I can’t use. Hell, for real money, they better have gear I can at least decon for ectos. As it is now, they are barely worth keeping in the vault in case I get a key as a drop.

Now that Lyns can’t stock up on keys anymore, I really hope she’s been secretly stocking up on other items instead, like for instance:
- Black Lion salvage kits
- 20-slot bags
- Armor skins
- Bank tabs
- Karma jugs
- (Highest tier) material packs

Well, let’s see, I really hope she surpises all of us

Agrippa Oculus.3726:

Now that Lyns can’t stock up on keys anymore, I really hope she’s been secretly stocking up on other items instead, like for instance:
- Black Lion salvage kits
- 20-slot bags
- Armor skins
- Bank tabs
- Karma jugs
- (Highest tier) material packs

Well, let’s see, I really hope she surpises all of us

I hope so. The stuff that it offered before were kind of ehhh…. except for maybe the salvage kit and keys.

I think they should make the keys either easier to obtain or give better stuff from chests…

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

So, any response as to why you bait and switched us?

This was obviously coming since wintersday first rolled out.

Agrippa Oculus.3726:

Now that Lyns can’t stock up on keys anymore, I really hope she’s been secretly stocking up on other items instead, like for instance:
- Black Lion salvage kits
- 20-slot bags
- Armor skins
- Bank tabs
- Karma jugs
- (Highest tier) material packs

I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

It kind of sucks for those of us who got commendations via other items (not the snowflake exploit, but loot we found). The exploiters ruined it and I don’t get to buy the 5 or so keys I had saved 10 inventory slots of 250 commendations up for.

I wish they made it so you could get up to 5 more keys with commendations, so the exploiters would be no better off than the fair-players.

Since that’s not happening, I just hope there’s something else I can spend them on. 2,000 commendations buys too many kits & tools for me to carry. And the weapons don’t appeal to me at all. Please add something useful for all players that is worth spending bigger amounts of commendations on.

Clark Skinner.4902:

The exploiters ruined it and I don’t get to buy the 5 or so keys I had saved 10 inventory slots of 250 commendations up for.

Snowflake recipe and Lyns were totally unrelated. They disabled Lyns with the same patch that introduced the snowflake recipe.

Though that does raise the issue that they may have been aware of the snowflake recipe being used to produce cheap jewelry, which makes one wonder why it was even allowed to fester into a major issue, and leaves me thinking entrapment.

That may be true, but they didn’t announce that the keys would be gone.

So what followed was snowflake exploiters getting tons of commendations, and creating the necessity to kill the keys. Because of the exploiters, I lose out.

Clark Skinner.4902:

That may be true, but they didn’t announce that the keys would be gone.

They didn’t announce it, but it was becoming problematic even before wintersday, using halloween jewelry. It seemed obvious at the time that she was disabled solely because of the keys, and that when she returned she would be key-less.

Incidentally, the so-called exploiters of snowflake recipes were using the jewelry to salvage for ectos, not trade for commendations. You’re blaming them for something that was probably correctly identified earlier in the thread; the extended disabling and unceremonious removal of keys from Lyns’ inventory was all part of a massive junk/gold sink.

Chamone.6890:

- Disabling Lyns but NOT disabling the wrapping paper from Myani.
- Disabling Lyns but NOT disabling the Mystic forge recipe to convert your loot into now worthless commendations.
- Disabling Lyns WITHOUT disabling her shouting every 5 minutes to go get commendation.

I usually keep out of these sorts of dramas, but I have to admit; at face value this decision by our game masters seems sort of unethical. Perhaps they have something fantastic lined up for her new inventory that will allay my misgivings.

I don’t have any personal investment this matter. It won’t impact me if Lyns returns without keys, but I sure would hate to see this become a huge PR mess.

For some reason, I don’t mind that black lion keys are gone from Lionsguard Lyns.
It’s obvious that Lionsguard Lyns wasn’t made to get that many Black lion Keys. And as such they removed the keys from her.

Saying they should give a warning for that feels like they should give a warning whenever they make a fix that might negatively impact your incomes, and that’s just crazy. (Plinx comes to mind, dungeon token runs come to mind)

Someone has said it before, but why to remove Lyns? Creating BL keys was great if people didn’t abuse it. So… Why not to limit it?

2 keys per week? 1 key per week? 1 per day? Dunno…

I still have yet to see how this was even a problem, you converted gold into keys for a lower price than the gold/gem -> key ratio. If the gold/gem ratio went on the rise and I could get twice as many keys for my gold would this be a problem? (not that this will ever happen lol)

And what are you talking about Frizz??? People spent hours, perhaps days worth of time earning the money they invested into CC’s and then bam! With no heads up they deleted a days worth of time out of my life. I’m not looking to get into a philosophical debate about allocation of time spent playing, just saying that even if I managed to pull in 3g an hour I lost 23.33 hours to a thoughtless move by mein fuhrer anet.

First, thanks for an amazing game!

I know you are all working hard for us over there and much appreciated. I understand that it is a forever a work in progress. With that in mind I hope you do return to address this at some point, hopefully sooner then later. I could careless about black lion keys from a vendor and just enjoy playing. I do like the idea of the keys but also the harvesting eqip that will give me some inventory back as well as some really nice weapons.

I too have deeply invested in these commendations and would like something fun back. I do keep hoping it will be soon since you can still buy the packaging and use the recipe.

Thanks again for your hard work!
:)

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

So, any response as to why you bait and switched us?

Because that’s what they do best.
DR and RNG just to name a few others

I could have gotten keys from Lyns?

Another gravey train I missed out on. Somehow folks make money off of this stuff and I find out about it only after ANet shuts it down…

It never ceases to amaze me that the number one way to make money in GW2 is off of developer burps. I swear the economy is skewed every time some new feature is introduced.

nothing new added, only keys taken out…203,130 salvage uses here I come.

lol, salvage junk into crafting materials is what I have named my plan ‘G’ [IMPRACTICAL]
plan ‘F’ was to salvage her items to get ectos [DENIED]
plan ‘E’ was to mystic forge her items into sellable items [DENIED]
plan ‘D’ never existed
plan ‘C’ was to buy temporary exotic items for my alts (until they can afford the ones they want) [IMPRACTICAL]
plan ‘B’ was to have unlimited supply of mining tools and salvage kits [IMPRACTICAL]
plan ‘A’ was to buy keys [DENIED]

currently, my overall plan is this: 3% B, 10% C, ~2% G, 85% H (destroy them)

I would like to add a quick note to Anet: The order in which you disabled this feature was amateur, misleading, and cruel. I’m sure you had a reason for removing keys, but it wasn’t me: I have never and will never buy keys with gems. Chests are not worth that much.

juno.1840:

It never ceases to amaze me that the number one way to make money in GW2 is off of developer burps. I swear the economy is skewed every time some new feature is introduced.

Those “burps” are usually intentionally implemented methods for developers or their friends/family to abuse, only to be removed once they become public knowledge. To be fair, it’s also possible that some of them make it through testing because the testers have the same intentions to abuse them until they become public knowledge.

I just bought full sets of level 80 exotic weapons for all my alts (7 of them)… even my level 4 engineer has level 80 exotic weapons now.

oh, I think I have a plan ‘I’ !:
1) buy her exotic weapons
2) transmute them with level 80 blue/white items (new update says they’ll keep their exotic status)
3) throw the exotic soulbound item into mystic forge
4) sell forged item for small percent of coins used to get commendations in the first place
52,000 commendations = 40 weapons = 40 Fine T Stones = 10 sellable weapons = ~30g (cost me 100g to get those commendations)
but at least it’s better than destroying
anyone want to test for me if transmuted Lyns weapons can be forged? I’ll try it when I get home. and yes, I do have around 60 extra Fine T Stones (I’ve only ever used like 3 of them)

Mystic.5934:

2) transmute them with level 80 blue/white items (new update says they’ll keep their exotic status)
3) throw the exotic soulbound item into mystic forge

I don’t think that works.

And, if it does work, expect it to be changed soon.

Mystic.5934:

oh, I think I have a plan ‘I’ !:
1) buy her exotic weapons
2) transmute them with level 80 blue/white items (new update says they’ll keep their exotic status)
3) throw the exotic soulbound item into mystic forge
4) sell forged item for small percent of coins used to get commendations in the first place
52,000 commendations = 40 weapons = 40 Fine T Stones = 10 sellable weapons = ~30g (cost me 100g to get those commendations)
but at least it’s better than destroying
anyone want to test for me if transmuted Lyns weapons can be forged? I’ll try it when I get home. and yes, I do have around 60 extra Fine T Stones (I’ve only ever used like 3 of them)

I’ve tested. still can’t be forged/salvaged/vendored even.

I tested my plan ‘I’:
I bought a level 80 exotic Lyonguard Sword (greatsword)
I bought a level 80 basic Greatsword (greatsword)
I transmuted them with a fine Transmutation Stone
look of Lyonguard Sword
stats of Greatsword
sigil of Lyonguard Sword
The resulting item was a level 80 basic Lyonguard Sword with basic Greatsword stats with sup sigil of karka slaying with orange text (where an exotic would say ‘exotic’, this said nothing, meaning it was basic = their update of this has a bug)
putting 4 of these in the mystic forge gave me a level 80 Fine Greatsword. FAIL

plan J: salvaging these with a BL kit gave me a mithril and a superior sigil of karka slaying
looking on spidy, superior sigil of karka slaying was worth 40g before the patch, 4g within minutes after the patch, and currently about 1.5g. not a horrible alternative. Once commendations are gone, this sigil will be more rare and hopefully go up in price… if anyone wants it :P