Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Of course samplers sell better. People are lazy and samplers cover all bases without actually requiring any effort. They are the dairy store bought birthday card of the chocolate world. If my sampler box also had a token that I could hand in for $5000 now though…..

Also, thanks, I am now hungry. -_-

Behellagh.1468:

Forum Bug, she’s on it.

What anime is that?

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

Kain Francois.4328:

Behellagh.1468:

Forum Bug, she’s on it.

What anime is that?

Ah (or Oh) My Goddess!

That’s Skuld, the youngest of the three Norn sisters of fate who in this series is a system debugger for Yggdrasil, the computer system that governs reality.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

Also, they often don’t make all the sampler ones separately. You can ONLY get them in the sampler and no where else. This actually bugs me a lot lol.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

That assumes that they sell boxes of cherry centered ones but if they don’t, samplers are your only choice. Lets face it, any analogy is never going to be 100% accurate. And chocolate samplers aren’t a blind random collection either. And CCG booster packs normally have a guarantee that one card is from the rare or uncommon set. But if all you cared about were Moxes and Black Lotus (yes I go that far back) you aren’t going to care about whatever else is in the rare pool.

Behellagh.1468:

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

And just as with your McDonald’s Monopoly analogy, you completely gloss over the fact that people have the option to buy the prize at its actual value if they don’t want to try the sampler. ANet has priced weapon skins at 500~600 gems, but there is absolutely no other source of BL skins that lets you buy them for 500~600 gems, the only alternative right now to spending 2550 gems for one BL skin is to buy it from someone else who has spent 2550 gems to get it.

So of course people will see tickets as the main point of chests when they’re the only source of tickets.

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

That assumes that they sell boxes of cherry centered ones but if they don’t, samplers are your only choice. Lets face it, any analogy is never going to be 100% accurate. And chocolate samplers aren’t a blind random collection either. And CCG booster packs normally have a guarantee that one card is from the rare or uncommon set. But if all you cared about were Moxes and Black Lotus (yes I go that far back) you aren’t going to care about whatever else is in the rare pool.

Let’s try another analogy

Let’s say there is only one place that you can buy a car. You go to the dealership and they sell you boxes with a random chance to get one of a 10 part ticket. Inside the boxes are also other items such as cigarette lighters, car wax, tire pressure gauge, a coupon for a new tire. etc.. The dealer claims these items are the real purpose of the boxes and the car scraps are just the bonus. You must buy a variable, unknown number of boxes until you finally get enough car scraps to get the car you want.

If someone tried to convince you that the reasons you bought all those boxes was to get the random items inside and that this sampler was a good way for you to buy a car, would you believe him?

The people buying the keys are trying to get the ticket. They are not trying to get the other items and this is why your analogies fail. You’re looking at it from the “dealership’s” perspective. Not from the people who are trying to “buy the car” and have to buy boxes with cigarette lighters inside instead.

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

No, the tickets are what people are after so they are the point of the boxes, and anet has changed. When the game first started no-one cared about the boxes because they contained absolutely nothing of value and only served to clog your inventory with crap. So Anet started baiting them with valuable items like the permanent Bank/makeover et al. to get people to buy them, and then the added tickets. Prior to the addition of tickets chests were all but worthless selling for about three copper on the trading post. These days they go for about 2 silver, all on the back of the weapon skins. Don’t kid yourself Anet added these thing deliberately to make people buy keys, and this change can only indicate people haven’t really taken the bait. And of course they haven’t, the drop rates are bad, why would they pay real money for this?

Behellagh.1468:

No. My point being is that BLTC had these items from day one that’s what you spent keys on to get. Then in July 2013 they added tickets and now players seem to forget that the so called junk was what players were buying keys to get before tickets were added.

The free key at the end of the first chapter of the personal story was put there so new players would get a sampler of what the Gem Store offered. Their first free hit.

But once they added tickets the chest’s true purpose doesn’t matter anymore to some of you. It’s all about the tickets and if you don’t get one or at least a scrap then it’s a rip off. It’s not a rip off, it’s working as intended, as a means to get random stuff that is or once was available at the Gem Shop, plus some exclusives which includes tickets and scraps. Consciously ignoring that by saying the chests and hence the keys are only about the tickets is a perverted view on what that item is for.

That stuff was no less junk in 2012 than it is in 2015. The fact that we knew it was junk, and that Anet knew it was junk, is the reason they kept putting other prizes in the chests. There were contracts, and I think some skins, in them way back in 2012. They had to keep sweetening the pot to keep any chance of a few suckers actually buying the things.

And anyone that bothered to do their dailes in 2012, already had a nice pile of the same pieces of junk.

To put it plainly, buying a BL key has never been worth it. And it likely never will be.

Behellagh.1468:

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Yeah that purpose is called a gold sink, to wipe out a player’s accumulated wealth, or to soak them for substantial cash via gem purchases… and what better way then to entice them into purchasing a key for ~28 gold, that will, more than 99% of the time, yield a handful of junk worth less then 3 gold, or even more often worth less as the key purchasing player will find the contents of their chest useless and unwanted, and will instantly regret WASTING their hard earned gold, or RL dollars on them.

Key sales are lacking because they are ridiculously overpriced and the payoff is absolutely not worth it, in very nearly, just shy of every case… to the extent that one can almost guarantee that they will feel disappointed and ripped of if they actually purchased the key via the gem store.

I would love to see the Vegas odds on opening a chest that has content with a real world, or game economy value higher then, or even equal to, the cost of the key purchased to open it. 100:1? 500:1?

I am thinking probably closer to 1000:1 if not higher.

It would be considered a “sucker bet”.

People who farmed a couple keys, felt a little scammed, because they were gambling with their time, instead of their wallets… even though, there are several farms that pay off way better then average chest content value… so really they ARE wasting money 99% of the time.

People who do things like key farming, do it, not to undermine a game’s economy, but because they LIKE to farm stuff, they enjoy the semi-brainless loot runs. I am one of these people. I have farmed most of the better GW2 farms that have been discovered…. to ABSURD levels. At one time I had more then 7,000 gilded strongboxes in my bank. I made a lot less from opening them all then you might think.

The point is people with that farmer/grinder mentality and play style will ALWAYS be farming something, keys, Orr events/champs, Frostgorge, Silver Wastes, etc, etc, etc

In reality, while they were farming keys, they were thwarting their OWN gold farming potential, I can farm ~20 gold an hour doing the right farm, with the right set up…. and so can many others.

When a person farms keys, however, even if every chest had contents valued at 3 gold, which they don’t, not even remotely close, they would be making only `6 gold an hour, in reality the payout is probably closer to ~1 gold and hour.

Ha, even doing a world boss once an hour would yield better, more valuable loot, 99.5% or so of the time.

The effect of this killing blow to key farming will ONLY succeed in doing 2 things for sure:

1) Driving these farmers to other farms, where they will generate exponentially more gold/wealth then they ever did key farming.

and

2) Driving the price of black lion skins sky high in the next month or so.

As the BL Tickets people have sitting in their bank, patiently awaiting the day that a decent set comes out, one that wont make their male characters look like they are having gender identification issues, get spent, that existing surplus dries up, and the TP prices on Black Lion skins is gonna raise to the point that players will see them as not worth their 500+ gold price tag and will look to other items to work towards.

The Deathly Pauldrons, Ghastly Grinning Shield and other Halloween skins come to mind. I love all those skins, but 950+ gold for a shoulder armor skin, or an awesome shield skin, that is the highest priced item on the TP, valued higher then 2 Legendary weapons in some cases is just not worth the gold. I would never spend that much on a simple skin, especially since I don’t use a shield and currently have the shield precursor in my bank.

Point being that the value of weapons skins can only go so high before interest in said skins, and the likelihood of being able to sell them, starts to shrink….. drastically.

Just some food for thought.

I would love to see the Vegas odds on opening a chest that has content with a real world, or game economy value higher then, or even equal to, the cost of the key purchased to open it. 100:1? 500:1? Higer?

It would be considered a “sucker bet”.

Bring back key farming, or watch key sales plummet like never before.

I’ll keep my eye on this one…

In the interest of science and my own curiosity, I bought 5 keys. I’d like to be able to calculate a real value for what I got, but some of the items aren’t actually sold for gems. I calculated a gold>gem value for the applicable items.

Black Lion Chest Key x 1 (125 gems)

Mini Hawk – 1 (167g – Avian 3 pack cost/3)
Item Booster x 1 (100 gems)
Bank Access Express x 2 (70 gems)
Merchant Express x 1 (35 gems)

Claim Ticket Scrap x 1 (60gems – 1/10 the cost of a store skin)

Mini Mai Trin x 1 (3.9g – 18 gems)
Large Guild Discovery x 1 (60 silver – 1 gem)
Boost Powder x 4 (40s – less than 1 gem)
Unidentified Dye x 3 (2.3 gold – 10 gems)

Armor Booster x 1
Rejuvenation Booster x 3
Strength Booster x 1
TP to Friend x 1

The total value of the calculable items is 587 gems, and average of 33 gems per item(gems/18) rewarded. But it should be noted that I opened 6 chests, not just the 5 that I purchased for 450 gems. The final chest gave a 35 gem item and two incalculable items, and was opened using a 125 gem key. It is also worth noting that the ‘face value’ of the keys used is 750 gems.

I’m not really sure how that extra key should be counted, since it was consumed and isn’t an item I still have. Had I not opened the extra chest, and replacing that key with the average value, the end result would have been 460 gems in items.

I’m not sure how to put a value to the armor/strength/rejuvenation boosters, either. Their effects are comparable to some food items, which doesn’t make them carry much real worth at all. Just a few silver, so there maybe shouldn’t be any change in the overall numbers by simply omitting them.

In the end, counting the key, I got lucky and came out ahead. Without it, I am just slightly ahead of breaking even. But that is also counting the coin value of items that I could just as well bought directly ingame.

As far as it being worth it or not, I’m still going to go with no. I could have bought the valuable/useful items I received for almost the same cost. Actually lower if I purchased only the ones I really wanted in higher discounted quantities. The only real rewards I got from these chests are the scrap and mini hawk, as I can’t get them anywhere else. And the only thing prevent a big loss is the fact that I bought a key bundle, and not individual keys.

edit
One thing I forgot to mention is that the mini hawk is account bound, and from a previous gemstore 3-pack. It’s a pack I never bought, so I did get a new mini out of. But if I had bought that pack previously, that mini would just be another 167 gems wasted on a completely useless duplicate item.

thisisit.6954:

Ashen.2907:

The F2P business model is not just about attempting to encourage people to buy the game, some people never will, it is also about encouraging people to make microtransactions.

Its doing quite the opposite for me. Make the rewards from chests better encourages. Trying to force me by reducing the other ways makes me determined not to buy.

Were you buying keys before ?

i wonder if the a pre step, or step one for something else. maybe HoT, will be offering some new lion chest stuff or maybe a way to earn keys, or something.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

That assumes that they sell boxes of cherry centered ones but if they don’t, samplers are your only choice. Lets face it, any analogy is never going to be 100% accurate. And chocolate samplers aren’t a blind random collection either. And CCG booster packs normally have a guarantee that one card is from the rare or uncommon set. But if all you cared about were Moxes and Black Lotus (yes I go that far back) you aren’t going to care about whatever else is in the rare pool.

Let’s try another analogy

Let’s say there is only one place that you can buy a car. You go to the dealership and they sell you boxes with a random chance to get one of a 10 part ticket. Inside the boxes are also other items such as cigarette lighters, car wax, tire pressure gauge, a coupon for a new tire. etc.. The dealer claims these items are the real purpose of the boxes and the car scraps are just the bonus. You must buy a variable, unknown number of boxes until you finally get enough car scraps to get the car you want.

If someone tried to convince you that the reasons you bought all those boxes was to get the random items inside and that this sampler was a good way for you to buy a car, would you believe him?

The people buying the keys are trying to get the ticket. They are not trying to get the other items and this is why your analogies fail. You’re looking at it from the “dealership’s” perspective. Not from the people who are trying to “buy the car” and have to buy boxes with cigarette lighters inside instead.

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

Behellagh.1468:

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

You are mistaken.

What something is worth is subjective. By definition if someone does not believe that something is worth the gem price of a key on average then it is not worth the price of a gem key, to them.

It does not matter how many you get of something that is worthless to you, it remains worthless. Zero value multiplied by any number of boosts, etc remains zero.

Fine, value in gems.

Valueless in gems, to me.

A chance to get something is not worth even one gem to me.

It would appear that Anet also considered the original contents of the BLCs to be worth less than their list price as they felt the need to add to those contents at some significant cost to the company. Probably not an indication that they considered the original intent/content of the BLCs to be sustainable.

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

That assumes that they sell boxes of cherry centered ones but if they don’t, samplers are your only choice. Lets face it, any analogy is never going to be 100% accurate. And chocolate samplers aren’t a blind random collection either. And CCG booster packs normally have a guarantee that one card is from the rare or uncommon set. But if all you cared about were Moxes and Black Lotus (yes I go that far back) you aren’t going to care about whatever else is in the rare pool.

Let’s try another analogy

Let’s say there is only one place that you can buy a car. You go to the dealership and they sell you boxes with a random chance to get one of a 10 part ticket. Inside the boxes are also other items such as cigarette lighters, car wax, tire pressure gauge, a coupon for a new tire. etc.. The dealer claims these items are the real purpose of the boxes and the car scraps are just the bonus. You must buy a variable, unknown number of boxes until you finally get enough car scraps to get the car you want.

If someone tried to convince you that the reasons you bought all those boxes was to get the random items inside and that this sampler was a good way for you to buy a car, would you believe him?

The people buying the keys are trying to get the ticket. They are not trying to get the other items and this is why your analogies fail. You’re looking at it from the “dealership’s” perspective. Not from the people who are trying to “buy the car” and have to buy boxes with cigarette lighters inside instead.

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

Who said we were gambling? I never did. If you remember, the miscellaneous items are the true reason to get the boxes, the (car)scraps are just a bonus that’s been thrown in. I’m buying a random number of boxes full of cigarette lighters and car wax that the dealer say I have to buy, no if ands or buts about it, if I want to get that car. I went to the dealer because I wanted the car. He is making me buy a variable number of boxes filled with miscellaneous stuff that isn’t what I want before I can get what I do want.

Behellagh.1468:

Fine, value in gems.

Irrelevant. I have no need for repair canisters (no one really does) and revive orbs are a joke in pve and can’t be used in wvw where they might be of use.

I can’t even sell them to other players to offset the cost of gold or the otherwise gold value of the gems I purchased with $.

A chest that contains a booster, powder, and repair canister isn’t remotely worth the gold or cash cost the key represented especially when you take into account the fact that you can’t buy gems in smaller increments than $10 at a time.

Behellagh.1468:

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

God, this tired argument again.

You realize the dictionary definition of gambling doesn’t actually say anything about value, right? Gambling is partaking any activity of chance with the desire for a specific outcome. If someone buys a key with the intention of getting a ticker scrap or full ticket out of the chest, then they’re gambling.

If you want to insist that the legal definition of gambling (for whichever country you’re in, mine doesn’t say it’s not gambling if you’re guaranteed equal value in consolation prizes) trumps the dictionary definition of the act of gambling, then you’re being disingenuous.

Anet should be more consequent!
Either give us another even faster way to farm blc keys or remove them totally and let us just buy everything from the chest directly for $$.

The current system is probably the worst for your customers. Your customer whales won’t buy overpriced keys just to gamble a little bit and your normal customer won’t buy keys because it’s way to expensive to pay ~1.000$$ to gamble on rng for getting 1 set of blc weapons to get ONLY ONE more achievemtpoint…

One thing you are doing Behellagh, is confusing price and value. ANet has priced the items but they are not where I value them.

Going back to the car dealership analogy.

The dealer is selling me boxes which he has priced at $500 each. Inside are his selection of items such as the cigarette lighters and car wax and tire coupons which he says are worth $40, $70, $200. (He sells these items in his dealership separately and these are the prices he sells them for) Also occasionally inside, he has put a bonus item, the car scrap.

Now, when I buy the boxes from him and get a $40 cigarette lighter and a $70 car wax, that does not mean that lighter is actually worth $40 or the car wax $70. Just because that’s the price he put on them does not mean that’s the value I assign to them. However him making me buy these $500 boxes full of items I do not want and are overpriced by my valuation, because that’s the only way I can get car scraps, does not mean that this is a fair deal for me and that there are no problems with this system. Especially when I have to buy a random number of $500 boxes because he will not sell me the car outright at a set price,

Behellagh.1468:

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

It seems to fall a bit short. Going by the drop rate research on the wiki, it’s about 120 gem return per chest. If you ignore the value of the two worst offenders on the junk list (repair and revive, which are practically useless items), that drops down to 106 gems per chest. Take out the next big junk items (TP/merch/bank NPCs), it’s down to 91 gems per.

These are items that people are not buying, because are either useless or overpriced minor convenience items. 35-250 gems for something you can easily waypoint to for a few silver. It’s not a good buy, and a lot of players already have a pile of them they’ve gotten for free anyway. Their “value”(an arbitrary number Anet chose) doesn’t really mean much to a consumer.

And if we take out one of the few useful things on the list, the Black Lion Salvage Kit, because the game has been happily giving these away for 3 years we’re down to 80 gems. I’m sure some newer players don’t have an abundance of these (yet), but all of the vets I know sure do. You’d have to be burning them up salvaging rares to run out with the rate the game gives them away.

The bottom line. A key’s worth is questionable if you’re buying them in 5 or 25 packs. But if you’re buying a single key at 125 gems, it’s not worth it. Not even close.

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Paulytnz.7619:

You keep giving this history lesson and I think people are sick of hearing about it now. Okay we get it, the chests when FIRST released had a totally different purpose – to give random items from the pool of other items you could just buy directly. With that the chance to get some super rare items you could not buy directly – Tonics, perm bank contracts etc. I would say that the people were buying the keys for these items and not the other random junk because they could simply just buy them directly anyway.

Then Anet decided to add their frist skin set in the gem store, I can’t remember exactly how it went but I remember there was a LOT of anger over it because of the RNG and cost in the long run. So Anet then decided to shift them to the chests. I would say at this point the whole focus of the chests changed, and yes in Anet’s eyes.

So please, can we stop pretending that the purpose of these chests NOW is for a random thrill of getting boosters, dyes, minis or anything else that you can buy directly. Obviously this has changed not only in the eyes of the players but also in Anets. Why else would they advertise keys and chests as the way to get the new weapon skins every time a new set comes out? They certainly do not say:

“buy some keys now for a random item that you could get directly if you want, but just buy these keys now for the fun of getting one of them randomly – you will get a surprise everytime!” “oh and btw you may also get some scraps to turn into tickets to buy these new skins, but that’s not the main point here, go for the random fun of it all!”

The purpose from ANet’s perspective has not changed. If it did then they would have substantially alter the chest’s drop table. They haven’t. They’ve tweaked it from time to time, adding one kind of “junk” to replace another. They’ve modified some of the drop rates. They’ve added items you can no longer buy directly from the Gem Shop. But it still is fundamentally a sampler whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not.

Do people buy chocolate samplers because they only want chocolate Turtles or ones with coconut fillings? No, of course not, they buy a box of what they want. So yes, if a player wants something particular that a chest drops that’s also in the Gem Shop that of course they will buy it directly. Yet boxes of chocolate samplers still sell in greater volume than boxes with only a specific kind.

Ever play a CCG? CCG booster packs are another example of a random collection where you don’t know what you are going to get, a sample of cards. Yes MTG and other CCGs became a battle of wallets with players buying cases of display boxes of boosters to get those desirable rares but that doesn’t mean the rest of those cards are junk or the intent behind the distribution method wasn’t sound.

But you all are so goal focus, your blinders don’t let you even acknowledge that there is another purpose for BLTC than a means to get tickets. They aren’t broken, your view of them are.

Your chocolate sampler analogy doesn’t hold because if I only want cherry centered chocolates, I don’t have to buy samplers with flavors I don’t like inside. I can buy cherry centered ones alone. You can’t do that with scraps/tickets. You can’t buy them alone from the gem store. They are “held hostage” within the sampler box and that’s the only way to get them. People must buy the “chocolate samples” box with chocolates that they don’t want to get those “cherry centered chocolates.”

That assumes that they sell boxes of cherry centered ones but if they don’t, samplers are your only choice. Lets face it, any analogy is never going to be 100% accurate. And chocolate samplers aren’t a blind random collection either. And CCG booster packs normally have a guarantee that one card is from the rare or uncommon set. But if all you cared about were Moxes and Black Lotus (yes I go that far back) you aren’t going to care about whatever else is in the rare pool.

Let’s try another analogy

Let’s say there is only one place that you can buy a car. You go to the dealership and they sell you boxes with a random chance to get one of a 10 part ticket. Inside the boxes are also other items such as cigarette lighters, car wax, tire pressure gauge, a coupon for a new tire. etc.. The dealer claims these items are the real purpose of the boxes and the car scraps are just the bonus. You must buy a variable, unknown number of boxes until you finally get enough car scraps to get the car you want.

If someone tried to convince you that the reasons you bought all those boxes was to get the random items inside and that this sampler was a good way for you to buy a car, would you believe him?

The people buying the keys are trying to get the ticket. They are not trying to get the other items and this is why your analogies fail. You’re looking at it from the “dealership’s” perspective. Not from the people who are trying to “buy the car” and have to buy boxes with cigarette lighters inside instead.

Except that’s not the case and you know it. You may not believe that all that “junk” is worth the gem price of a key on average but it is. As long as that is true you are getting your gems worth of goods then it’s not gambling. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want fuzzy backpacks, minis, BLSKs, Total Makeover Kits, or a butt ton of boosters.

It doesn’t matter what you delude yourself into believing the garbage in those boxes is worth it’s not why people open them, they open them for the tickets/scraps and you kitten well know it.

I like to open them for the, what will i get this time. Yes I do not buy the key, bt truthfully, when i do have one, it nice to see. I got some cute mini and nice dye too.

I have played this game since launch , i only droped 3 or 4 keys in more than 3 years lets assume they increase the drop rate by larges amounts and you’ll be able to drop one key / month.

That would mean 12 keys / year , right !?
And you have to get 30 keys to be sure to get one ticket (10 scraps)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest/Drop_rate

OR

pay 31€88 to have the 1 ticket skins (if you buys them directly by 25+5 keys at once)

OR

Pay 46€88 To have the 1 ticket skins (if you pay them key per key)

-> That leaves us with the Most Expensive Skins Ever Made in Videogame History
-> And they would take more time to craft than a legendary skin. (if you wan’t to make them by your self)

#I’mNotLettingThisFallIntoOblivionUntillSomethingIsDone.

You can still get keys by doing higher personal stories, you can still get them by doing map completion.

I’ve dropped 5 BL keys so far, since I’m playing. One in last years Halloween Labyrinth, one from an ambient turned halloween creature, one from an enemy in wvw, one from a risen spider, one from a destroyer. Spider was the night before the patch, destroyer yesterday and my friend dropped one half an hour later too- didn’t ask him what he killed, though.

And since I despise the personal story at least since unlocking traits I don’t feel too bad for those who did that over and over. GO OUT AND KILL STUFF!

@ jana and if there is nothing left to do (sorry but i can’t complete maps only once and finished all my stories.) AND EVEN SO dude the time it takes to make a scrap is still ridiculous for a skin.

GO OUT AND KILL STUFF in pvp ? you know the thing in the mist you can’t get out anymore or you can’t get into a match. so you’r saying all pvp players are forced to play pve when you, for nothing in the world are forced to play pvp (expet maybe 2 days for the balth backpack).

I personaly made 3 keys runs in 3 years lets agree it’s not huge…. , but it was THE ONLY WAY to make tomes usefull i have over 4 k shards more than 1 k tomes … and when i decide to actualy pay 10€ for a slot (last weak) to actualy use those tomes … they cut the grass under our feets. And i want to point out it’s been said more than once key farm was working as intended for the personal story update patch … NO sorry NO i can’t agree with that.

NB : “I’ve dropped 5 BL keys so far, since I’m playing” GZ only 25 more to go to get a ticket

#I’mNotLettingThisFallIntoOblivionUntillSomethingIsDone.

You can create multiple characters. Was just trying to show you guys that the limitation to PS lvl 10 story doesn’tmean the end of the world.

Yeah, you should also kill stuff in pvp – I have no idea whether or not keys drop there but they do in PvE and wvw – and you had to do some pve to get your char to lvl 10/the story. Don’t get your “HEART OF THE MIST” point, sorry – did you do the personal story while waiting for a match to start?
A good way to make tomes useful is to indirectly sell your spirit shards by turning T5 into T6 mats, by making superior siege (you can buy usual siege and all stuff on the TP) and more stuff one can probably find out with google.

The keys dropped, meaning I got them when I killed mobs which was really rare and which should now be increased – the point of this thread.

Jana.6831:

You can create multiple characters. Was just trying to show you guys that the limitation to PS lvl 10 story doesn’tmean the end of the world.

Yeah, you should also kill stuff in pvp – I have no idea whether or not keys drop there but they do in PvE and wvw – and you had to do some pve to get your char to lvl 10/the story. Don’t get your “HEART OF THE MIST” point, sorry – did you do the personal story while waiting for a match to start?
A good way to make tomes useful is to indirectly sell your spirit shards by turning T5 into T6 mats, by making superior siege (you can buy usual siege and all stuff on the TP) and more stuff one can probably find out with google.

The keys dropped, meaning I got them when I killed mobs which was really rare and which should now be increased – the point of this thread.

No you can’t. That’s what the entire nerf argument is about. For the purpose of getting the key with the personal story level 10 quest line, you CAN’T create multiple characters because you are now limited to 1 key per account per week.

Cyninja.2954:

No you can’t. That’s what the entire nerf argument is about. For the purpose of getting the key with the personal story level 10 quest line, you CAN’T create multiple characters because you are now limited to 1 key per account per week.

I was referring to map completion – sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.

Jana.6831:

You can create multiple characters. Was just trying to show you guys that the limitation to PS lvl 10 story doesn’tmean the end of the world.

Yeah, you should also kill stuff in pvp – I have no idea whether or not keys drop there but they do in PvE and wvw – and you had to do some pve to get your char to lvl 10/the story. Don’t get your “HEART OF THE MIST” point, sorry – did you do the personal story while waiting for a match to start?
A good way to make tomes useful is to indirectly sell your spirit shards by turning T5 into T6 mats, by making superior siege (you can buy usual siege and all stuff on the TP) and more stuff one can probably find out with google.

The keys dropped, meaning I got them when I killed mobs which was really rare and which should now be increased – the point of this thread.

The keys did drop, but the rate they dropped meant those keys had next to no influence on the price of gems or BL skins. I highly doubt the buffed drop rate means it’s going to be raining keys; a drop rate change from 1/8000 to 1/4000 is likely on the scale of what’s happened

The point of this thread is that you can’t keep repeating the first 10 levels constantly for keys, so we’re going to get less chests opened, less tickets obtained, and less BL skins on the market.

Ahem, sorry to step in at this juncture, buuuuttt had a key and a chest drop in the past 24 hours (possibly rng).
Felt like releasing my inner child when it happened lol.

Intermission over, please continue

Jana.6831:

Cyninja.2954:

No you can’t. That’s what the entire nerf argument is about. For the purpose of getting the key with the personal story level 10 quest line, you CAN’T create multiple characters because you are now limited to 1 key per account per week.

I was referring to map completion – sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.

Map completion takes on average 50-60 hours. Let’s assume 30 minutes per keyrun (which is realistic with the lowend being 15-20 minutes and highend being 40 minutes).

That’s 25-30 keys you could farm in that time. Now let’s compare that to the aproximately 5-10 keys you get at best for map completion (probably more around 5 keys tops). Not to mention that map completion can be very frustrating when events are not up on Orr etc. I’ve done it 4 times, and every times I think about taking one of my other characters through the entire process I cringe.

@ Jana are you there ? ( i had to change the last word of this sentence cause it was moderated…)

How can you compare somthing that ususaly took 20 min to some one playing pve H24 ?
If you actualy had a clue of what you where talking of you’d know a pvp player gets like 1/10 or maybe 1/100 of the drops you get in pve. And no you don’t kill stuff in pvp It’s pvp dude players don’t stack in corners for you to loot them and even if they did they don’t loot stuff. The point is the only moment we actualy could kill stuff was during we wait for Queues wich we can’t but that’s another thread.

And for those T5 into T6 we’d already have to at least get as much as the tomes we get/have.

And no the point of this thread is showing arenanet that a slight improvement in key drops is not going to change anything to the impact the nerf has. If you had a bit of statistic at school it shouln’t be to difficult to understand why.(unless the drop rate increase is huge)

According to ArenaNet we are the best community in gaming. Why then do they keep reducing reward levels and at the same time the gold:gem ratio keeps climbing? Is that how you treat people you think are the best? If I am having someone over to dinner that I really enjoy as a person I don’t keep making worse meals or do my best Monte Hall impression and RNG the best food behind 1 of 3 doors.

ArenaNet’s words need to start matching their actions and they won’t until we as “the best community in gaming” start demanding a better rewards system and less gambling by not buying anything with real money.

I expect better.

Time to tighten up what you can do for free era begins…

Abimes.9726:

@ Jana are you there ? ( i had to change the last word of this sentence cause it was moderated…)

How can you compare somthing that ususaly took 20 min to some one playing pve H24 ?
If you actualy had a clue of what you where talking of you’d know a pvp player gets like 1/10 or maybe 1/100 of the drops you get in pve. And no you don’t kill stuff in pvp It’s pvp dude players don’t stack in corners for you to loot them and even if they did they don’t loot stuff. The point is the only moment we actualy could kill stuff was during we wait for Queues wich we can’t but that’s another thread.

And for those T5 into T6 we’d already have to at least get as much as the tomes we get/have.

And no the point of this thread is showing arenanet that a slight improvement in key drops is not going to change anything to the impact the nerf has. If you had a bit of statistic at school it shouln’t be to difficult to understand why.(unless the drop rate increase is huge)

Well we do not have any of the numbers, so we can’t say yes one way or the other. we only have our own experience and thoughts on it, no data to really back it up.

After some consideration and depending on the key drop rate increase, I’m strongly in favor of this change.

Previously, only the people who dedicated themselves to a divergent playstyle had a reasonable access to keys (and thus scraps and skins). With this change, the key distribution will be more even across the playerbase giving ALL players better access to scraps (and most likely increasing overall key sales as a much larger number of players will now be hitting the “1-2 scraps left to go” mark where buying a key is more enticing). The offset of course is that those players who previously dedicated themselves to the divergent playstyle will see a significant reduction in their access to keys. Overall, this is a good change for the game as a whole, the majority of players, and ArenaNet’s bottom line, despite the strong negative impact being felt by the former key farmers.

mtpelion.4562:

After some consideration and depending on the key drop rate increase, I’m strongly in favor of this change.

Previously, only the people who dedicated themselves to a divergent playstyle had a reasonable access to keys (and thus scraps and skins). With this change, the key distribution will be more even across the playerbase giving ALL players better access to scraps (and most likely increasing overall key sales as a much larger number of players will now be hitting the “1-2 scraps left to go” mark where buying a key is more enticing). The offset of course is that those players who previously dedicated themselves to the divergent playstyle will see a significant reduction in their access to keys. Overall, this is a good change for the game as a whole, the majority of players, and ArenaNet’s bottom line, despite the strong negative impact being felt by the former key farmers.

a much larger number of players will now be hitting the “1-2 scraps left to go” mark where buying a key is more enticing

In my opinion this is 100% the reason why it was put in. It’s not to nerf the key farmers but to stop people who need just a bit more to complete a ticket, from finishing up up for free (in a timely manner). By closing off the free pathway, that leaves the gemstore pathway as the only way to get those last scraps and not run keys for a month or two.

This as a 100% gemstore driven decision.

100%, there people go again, using numbers for their facts without something to back it up, hehe

TJgalon.5012:

100%, there people go again, using numbers for their facts without something to back it up, hehe

If you had read, I said in my opinion. i wasn’t stating it as a fact.

TJgalon.5012:

100%, there people go again, using numbers for their facts without something to back it up, hehe

If you’re referring to the post above yours, the word opinion is in the same sentence. I agree with that opinion, too. That this change is completely because of the gemstore. But that doesn’t make it any more of a fact, because we don’t know Anet’s reasoning for sure unless they tell us.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

TJgalon.5012:

100%, there people go again, using numbers for their facts without something to back it up, hehe

If you had read, I said in my opinion. i wasn’t stating it as a fact.

it was mostly a joke to the last part saying 100% for gem store. sorry.

TJgalon.5012:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

TJgalon.5012:

100%, there people go again, using numbers for their facts without something to back it up, hehe

If you had read, I said in my opinion. i wasn’t stating it as a fact.

it was mostly a joke to the last part saying 100% for gem store. sorry.

Next time, try making jokes that are actually funny. Not ones that claim people are saying something they didn’t mean. That never goes over well.

Farmed every day for hours on end since the change. Killed mobs for hours upon hours. Completed maps.

0 keys. 10 BLC+.

Now part of this could be blamed on the fact I have horrible RNG. But regardless it’s obvious the drop rate wasn’t increased enough to call it noticeable.

I started off on this “test” hopeful to be able to come back and provide positive feedback that would cheer up the community. v_v I have failed.

Ty candyhearts , this feed back is appreciated =)

If only anet could give us the data to compare before / after .
i’d gladly run statistic tests for days if they wan’t ( R is ready whenever they want).

+ i’ll prob put my company lawyer on Anet’s back or at least ask him if it’s worth it. Beacause they refused to pay back my 10 € slot i just bought (for key farming) a bit less than a weak before this patch hit us (never used it) . To me it’s embezzelment. W8 & See

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

Kain Francois.4328:

What if… Keys were a PvP track reward?

Nice Idea! Please add them as a dungeon completion reward also (for those of us who do not play PvP).

Change the dungeons to have all paths active at once and it all has to be completed | Vanquished | Cleared for the end chest to contain a Black Lion Key XD

That way it takes as much or more time as a low level key farm, removes server strain from character creations, improves dungeons so that are not “run” but Vanquished (like gw1 Vanquishing reward), improves dungeons to be more desirable.

Only if you complete all paths of a dungeon.

Valento.9852:

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

Kain Francois.4328:

What if… Keys were a PvP track reward?

Nice Idea! Please add them as a dungeon completion reward also (for those of us who do not play PvP).

Change the dungeons to have all paths active at once and it all has to be completed | Vanquished | Cleared for the end chest to contain a Black Lion Key XD

That way it takes as much or more time as a low level key farm, removes server strain from character creations, improves dungeons so that are not “run” but Vanquished (like gw1 Vanquishing reward), improves dungeons to be more desirable.

Only if you complete all paths of a dungeon.

I would be happy with that