Black Lion Chest Rule Number 1: Never TRY to get any specific item.
If you’re going to buy a lotto ticket and expect to win, you are being 100% foolish. If you buy a lotto ticket and expect to enjoy the gamble, then you are doing it correctly.
Buying keys to get a specific item is 100% foolish.
That’s absolutely true. But knowing that doesn’t help at all if you want a specific item and the only way to get it is to buy tickets.
Minis were/are completely RNG ….. some of them I am just getting now from being able to turn in a ticket thing and pick from the previous years
Aye, but mini’s were/are also tradeable. I can’t remember if there were any the weren’t mind oyu. I’ve forgotten more than I remember of the game lol
Mini’s may have been tradable but I can think of minis that were so far beyond most player’s means that it didn’t matter. There were promotion pre launch minis like the Island Guardian, which no one but the riches players could afford, or minis like the mini polar bear, which people farmed for the entire holiday period only not to get one, and not be able to afford one either.
I was a mini collector in Guild Wars 1 and there was no way I’d have ever been able to complete that collection.
You’re not wrong but I still think there is a huge difference between an item which is extremely expensive and one which is only available by RNG.
If it’s expensive then it may take a lot of time and effort but it’s a relatively fixed goal and one you can track your progress towards. Whereas if it’s random you could in theory keep trying forever and no matter what you do, how much effort or time you put in or how good you are you might never get it.
This is why no one ever recommends waiting to get a precursor as a drop instead of buying one. Even when they were the most expensive items in the game (except finished legendaries) and the price just kept on going up it was more practical to farm the gold and buy it than to wait to get one as a drop.
When I finished a Wintersday spent farming the mini polar bear and I was left with nothing but candy canes and booze at least I knew I had the option of buying it as a backup plan. Sure the price was measured in stacks of ambraces and that was more money than I’d ever even seen in GW1. But it was a fixed goal I could work towards. My main concern was that if I ever did somehow have the money I wouldn’t be able to find one for sale.
Whereas if I get to the end of the Lunar New Year and I don’t have a mini rooster there is absolutely nothing I can do. It doesn’t matter how much gold I have or what I’m willing to do to obtain one. My chance is gone, potentially forever since there’s no guarantee the mini will return next year.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
