Guild Wars 2

lol, i am lucky enough if a key drops ones a year……

Just a flesh wound.3589:

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.

Most players won’t be playing the game long enough to ever get to “1-2 scraps left to go.”

Abimes.9726:

Ty candyhearts , this feed back is appreciated =)

If only anet could give us the data to compare before / after .

It’s nothing really. I have made this habit to test things for so long. It’s probably one of my favorite things to do. Though I wont lie this time it actually gave me a bit of a headache.

We could really use any information what so ever. I understand the increase % was added but even if they don’t want to say by how much they could at least indicate the areas of the game that could possibly have the best odds. (My guess is Fractals at the moment. I’ve seen people say the most often that they got theirs from there more than anywhere else).

I had a friend tell me a bit a go now that since; he completed around 4 maps and got 1 key. Which is better than my odds. But he seemed defeated and claimed it took so long it’s just not worth it.

I’m guessing we have no “worth” grinding way to get keys anymore minus gold to gems. Means a lot more people at SW. I mean when there is game there is farming, right? xD

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

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.

The chance to get a black lion key from non-city map completion seems to be under 5%. The chance originally was around 30% or more, but the chance appears to have been significantly reduced (stealth nerf?) a few years ago. Meanwhile, city maps only give transmutation charges.

When I was recently working on doing map completion for a few of my alts, I finished over 20 maps in a row (including a mix of low, mid and high level non-city maps) without getting any keys from the map completion. Given the amount of time it takes to complete a map, and the very low chance of obtaining a key as a reward, map completion is not a good strategy for obtaining keys.

Random musings

I brought up gambling because many times BLTC and keys are called gambling here. And I’m talking legal definition, not dictionary. To avoid legal ramifications, items in the shop are priced and their drop rates in BLTC adjusted so your 84-125 gem key rewards you with items that are priced at the store for at least that much. I am trying with this to remove that argument from the discussion.

And I’ve said that scraps are an insidious psychological reward because until you get 10, they aren’t of any immediate value and since they drop frequently if you only need a couple to get that ticket you are more likely to buy some keys.

@Abimes it doesn’t quite work out to that amount since due to RNG, using the drop percentage in the wiki, it becomes cheaper the more you open because of scraps. And here is what I mean.

You list 30 keys as average. Breaking down the distribution you get the following.

Full keys: 0 – 54.1%; 1 – 33.6%; 2 – 10.1%; 3 – 2.0%; 4 – 0.3%
Scraps: 0-9 – 48.0%; 10-19 – 52.0%; 20+ – 0.0%

This means that roughly 25.9% of the times you will get nothing, no ticket drops, not enough scraps for a ticket. That is the problem with RNG. On the other hand 29.8% of the time you’ll get 2 or more. And because of the conversion rate of scraps to tickets, the average is 1.13 tickets rather than the straight up estimate of 1.58 because you have extra scraps. But what happens when you double the sample to 60?

Full keys: 0 – 29.2%; 1 – 36.3%; 2 – 22.2%; 3 – 8.9%; 4 – 2.6%; 5 – 0.6%; 6 – 0.1%
Scraps: 0-9 – 0.2%; 10-19 – 51.7%; 20-29 – 47.7%; 30-39 – 0.3%; 40+ – 0.0%

On the bright side, there is now only a 0.6% chance of getting none. And the average is now 2.70 tickets, again less than the 3.16 from simple calculations but because of the cumulative nature of scraps that second group of 30 actually delivered 1.57 more which is darn close to 1.58. That means 90 keys will likely yield you 4 tickets which will drop your cost of 2550 gems (your 25 +5 pack) per ticket to roughly 2100 gems (25 pack) per ticket.

Open enough and on average it drops to 20 keys per ticket but we are talking a lot of keys. Buy keys in bulk and that puts the gem cost at 1680 gems, $21€/£14.28. That’s why I said if they sold keys directly, as some suggest, 1200 gems each would be a steal.

Of course right now converting 1200 gems to gold will give you roughly 160 gold at the moment. Dwyana’s skins are half that.

And here’s the problem with diffusing key drops across the population as ANet is doing. Assume they have a handle of how many extra keys key farmers generate beyond 1 a week and they up the drop rate so those extra keys are now dropped around the world every week.

One player opening 1000 chests should get on average 20 full tickets and 320 scraps or 32 more tickets for a total of 52 tickets.

Ten players opening 100 chests each will still cumulatively get 20 full tickets but only 32-33 scraps each or 3 more tickets for a total of 50 tickets.

One hundred players opening 10 chests each again will cumulatively get 20 full tickets but virtually nobody will get 10 scraps out of 10 chests so the total tickets drop is only 20.

Same number of keys, way fewer tickets, 60% fewer tickets.

Some have suggested that this change is the fault of P4F players. Schemes are spun that keyfarming bots on P4F accounts could generate loads of keys, upgrade the account, buy the available skins that can be sold for the highest amount of gold and then sell that gold for more than the $50 for the HoT account.

Now if that is true we can see that they can place restrictions into the game based on being P4F. If this was a concern this restriction would only be on them on not on everyone. This also assumes the can’t spot suspicious forms of game play and shut down a P4F bot before it upgrades and impacts the economy.

Maybe they should add farm a key to the PvE dailies. I know several players who would never farm keys now considering this as a valid activity now that there’s a weekly limit. It can be a guild activity, the weekly key farm.

I don’t disagree that the BLC have some crap in them or that some of the gem shop staples are overpriced in what they provide. Boosters should last a lot longer if you are charging a dollar for each of them. If you can buy something from a vendor for in game coin, it shouldn’t be in the chest, ever. See Boost Enchantment Powder.

That’s it. Fire away.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Seems like an awesome change to me. Key farming was never intended, keys are supposed to be a major contribution to their gem store sales, but were being significantly undermined by key farming.

What “undermined” key selling from gem stores is that it’s excruciatingly random…
If they start selling ticket scrap instead, they would sold them a lot more…

IF anet added bl ticket sales to store they would have to make public their pricing model for those tickets, which is ridiculous to begin with…

Im just happy I kept my tickets from last few months… gonna wait some more and buy a precursor with them in a few weeks.

Like I showed. Based on the drop rate documented in the wiki for BLC, the large scale aggregate average is 20 keys per ticket. At bulk price for keys that’s 1680 gems so $21€. Since new skins go on sale of one ticket, that’s probably the targeted price point.

Behellagh.1468:

Like I showed. Based on the drop rate documented in the wiki for BLC, the large scale aggregate average is 20 keys per ticket. At bulk price for keys that’s 1680 gems so $21€. Since new skins go on sale of one ticket, that’s probably the targeted price point.

ANet has never said what the drop rate is. The only known research I’ve seen on it suggests its much closer to 30 keys for one ticket, not 20. (It says 32% chance of dropping. 20 keys to get 10 scraps is 50%).

Black lion chest drop rate

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Like I showed. Based on the drop rate documented in the wiki for BLC, the large scale aggregate average is 20 keys per ticket. At bulk price for keys that’s 1680 gems so $21€. Since new skins go on sale of one ticket, that’s probably the targeted price point.

ANet has never said what the drop rate is. The only known research I’ve seen on it suggests its much closer to 30 keys for one ticket, not 20. (It says 32% chance of dropping. 20 keys to get 10 scraps is 50%).

Black lion chest drop rate

When you factor in the drop rates of the full ticket, it adds up to approximately 20 keys average

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

TwinkleToes.8719:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Like I showed. Based on the drop rate documented in the wiki for BLC, the large scale aggregate average is 20 keys per ticket. At bulk price for keys that’s 1680 gems so $21€. Since new skins go on sale of one ticket, that’s probably the targeted price point.

ANet has never said what the drop rate is. The only known research I’ve seen on it suggests its much closer to 30 keys for one ticket, not 20. (It says 32% chance of dropping. 20 keys to get 10 scraps is 50%).

Black lion chest drop rate

When you factor in the drop rates of the full ticket, it adds up to approximately 20 keys average

Over time, maybe. But a full ticket only drops in one out of 50 chests and is RNG based so there’s no guarantee if you open 100 chests you’ll get even one. I don’t think a discussion of pricing should include the very lucky and unusual drops. That’s like calculating the value of the contents by adding in all of the 1000 gold permanent items and using that inflated price when telling people how much the contents of the chest are worth. The average person is going to be using scraps alone and that’s what the pricing should be based on.

Behellagh.1468:

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

Should the cost for the individual player be calculated by the odds for the aggregate? Most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used for one particular set of 10 scraps. Not the cost reached over long periods of time if they continue to open chests.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

Should the cost for the individual player be calculated by the offs for the aggregate, most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used. Not the cost reached over long periods of time.

Because you can’t be bothered to check the wiki itself.

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

You then apply binomial distribution for n independent trials for both a full ticket and binned rates on scraps (0-9;10-19;20-29 …). You then multiply and sum all the various combinations to get the chance for X number of usable tickets. 100 chests using the roughly 2% for tickets, 32% for scrap (I was using the exact values) yields an average of 4.8 tickets with 54.5% of the time yielding 5 or more tickets.

The odds of getting 9 or fewer scraps and no tickets out of 100 chests is over 224 million to 1.

Edit: misremember the scrap rate when writing the post.

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

Should the cost for the individual player be calculated by the offs for the aggregate, most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used. Not the cost reached over long periods of time.

Because you can’t be bothered to check the wiki itself.

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

I realized after I posted that you were adding in the rare chance for a full ticket and changed what I said. Since you posted before I changed it, I’ll repeat.

Should the cost for the individual player for the one weapon he is selling be calculated by the odds for the aggregate who, over large numbers of drops will get the occasional lucky ticket? Most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used for one particular set of 10 scraps. Not the cost reached over long periods of time if they continue to open chests. When I’m calculating how many key runs it will take me to get a ticket, I don’t count in the faint possibility for a full ticket. When I’m calculating what the contents of the chest are on average, I don’t throw in the 1000 or more gold items that one day I might get. I calculate the number of runs and the probable value of the contents by what is usual. Not what is unusual.

Ever since I got boost enchantment powder I stopped buying keys, and according to the droprate you are super likely to get it. I got 2 scraps in a chest so the chances of blowing gems on a key just for two powders and an unidentified dye or anything else I wouldn’t want are too large to be worth the investment.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

Should the cost for the individual player be calculated by the offs for the aggregate, most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used. Not the cost reached over long periods of time.

Because you can’t be bothered to check the wiki itself.

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

I realized after I posted that you were adding in the rare chance for a full ticket and changed what I said. Since you posted before I changed it, I’ll repeat.

Should the cost for the individual player for the one weapon he is selling be calculated by the odds for the aggregate who, over large numbers of drops will get the occasional lucky ticket? Most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used for one particular set of 10 scraps. Not the cost reached over long periods of time if they continue to open chests.

When I sell it’s based on the current range of prices on the TP for that skin.

This goes back to the intent of getting tickets. Are you getting them for your own personal use. “Gee that’s a sweet skin for my mesmer.” Or are you “crafting”.

I’m going to guess that ANet didn’t think anyone would bother doing something as boring, long and repetitive as continuously creating and running a character through the first personal story chapter. And if a player does it, it’s for acquiring a ticket skin for themselves. The idea that a cottage industry would get created to sell these “free” skins probably surprised them. The size of it and how it’s grown even more so.

To answer your question, the price will rise to what the market will bear to balance the influx of new supply to sales. If that price is now high enough that it’s better to buy keys and deal with the RNG, so be it. But there will always be somebody who has money and doesn’t want to deal with RNG and would be willing to pay 500 gold for a one ticket skin.

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

As I said, numerous times, this is based on the current drop rate data in the wiki for Black Lion Chests and is an aggregate when a large number of chests are used.

Because of scraps there is a cumulative effect where you will get extra tickets over the normal full ticket drop rate of roughly 2%. Open 10 chests, it’s virtually impossible to get 10 scraps. Open 100 chests, you have a 72% chance to have 30 or more scraps, so three tickets on top of the 2 full ones that will likely drop (60% for two or more).

I can only work with the data I have and that data points to an overall rate, on an individual player of 1 ticket in 20 keys. You may have to open a lot of chests to reach that point starting at zero but that’s what the data is pointing to.

Should the cost for the individual player be calculated by the offs for the aggregate, most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used. Not the cost reached over long periods of time.

Because you can’t be bothered to check the wiki itself.

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

I realized after I posted that you were adding in the rare chance for a full ticket and changed what I said. Since you posted before I changed it, I’ll repeat.

Should the cost for the individual player for the one weapon he is selling be calculated by the odds for the aggregate who, over large numbers of drops will get the occasional lucky ticket? Most people will be using scraps, and the cost of scraps is what should be used for one particular set of 10 scraps. Not the cost reached over long periods of time if they continue to open chests.

When I sell it’s based on the current range of prices on the TP for that skin.

This goes back to the intent of getting tickets. Are you getting them for your own personal use. “Gee that’s a sweet skin for my mesmer.” Or are you “crafting”.

I’m going to guess that ANet didn’t think anyone would bother doing something as boring, long and repetitive as continuously creating and running a character through the first personal story chapter. And if a player does it, it’s for acquiring a ticket skin for themselves. The idea that a cottage industry would get created to sell these “free” skins probably surprised them. The size of it and how it’s grown even more so.

To answer your question, the price will rise to what the market will bear to balance the influx of new supply to sales. If that price is now high enough that it’s better to buy keys and deal with the RNG, so be it. But there will always be somebody who has money and doesn’t want to deal with RNG and would be willing to pay 500 gold for a one ticket skin.

Your answer is talking about what the skin would be sold for. My question was about what it will cost the player to get the skin in the first place. Your previous answer is based on the aggregate and counts in the unusual lucky full ticket while my question is about the average cost to the average player with 10 scraps in his hand. Since we don’t agree on the basics, we can’t agree on the cost.

However I don’t think this nerf has anything to do with key farming by itself. I think it has to do with closing off the easy, free keys to anyone who has enough scraps that they are seriously thinking of getting a ticket, and funneling them to the gemstore.

His cost would be either the price on the TP or the amount of gold or cash needed to get enough gems to get enough for a ticket. But in reality it could cost a player as little as one key or as much as 100 keys (I’ll calculate at better number later … maybe).

Abimes keeps saying 30 keys. And while that is near the average of 1 it’s will still leave around 1/4 of the players (25.9%) using 30 keys will got nothing. 44.2% will get 1; 22.3% will get 2 or more; and 7.5% will get 3 or more.

And your dismissal of full ticket drops is a problem because they do drop enough to significantly generate tickets.

Lets say 100 players each open 30 chests so 3000 chests in total. Of the roughly 113 tickets generated as a group, 61 were full tickets, more than half. Because each player opens only 30 chests, collectively they will only get 52 tickets from scraps which leaves about 449 extra scraps will be spread around with no one player with having enough for another ticket.

This is an example of diffusion of key drops I was talking about. Lots of players with extra scraps but not enough to make a ticket.

I think it’s a good thing, as long as the keys will drop from anything we do in the game and considerably more often than they did, up until now.

It will be much better if we can do the parts of the game we prefer and still have an equal chance at getting everything; rather than being forced to farm one kind of content, if we want decent drops/gold.

However, if the “increased” droprate is only marginal and/or if the prices of keys in the gemstore remain high (most of the time) and/or if the chances of getting anything decent from the chests remains low, then it will obviously not be much of an improvement, even for those of us who didn’t farm keys.

As the prices of the skins will (presumably) increase on the TP.

Valento.9852:

mrstealth.6701:

I do feel bad for Anet’s art team in this mess. Because they’re going to put their talents (and they really do have some awesome artists) into making weapons that no one will ever see outside of the preview window. And all the ones they’ve designed to date will fall into the obscurity of obscenely priced reminders of what used to be.

Even if their prices skyrocket, absolutely NO GemStore weapons have prestige. Such a thing can only exist in an online world if either: a) it comes as a reward for being a long time player (veteran), b) it comes as a reward from a very difficult content (not to be confused to heavy farmed content).

So, yeah, no matter how pwetty they are, they’ll fall into obscurity.

Some of us don’t care about “prestige”, though; especially when it comes to weapon skins in a game.

Some of us just care about the way they look.

They are, after all, just skins – so, that is their entire purpose, to many of us.

Simply to look “pwetty”.

From what I’ve read, Black Lion keys are a little over two and a half times the price they should be, in the gemstore, though, if all you want are the tickets.

I think, if they insist on it being a lottery (as opposed to just selling the tickets directly), as that’s supposedly more fun, the least they could do is make the price lower than it would be, if we bought all the items separately.

As, most of the time, we won’t even want/need most of the items we get.

IMO, they should just charge for the price of the tickets that drop from the boxes (on average) and throw in the other stuff for free, as consolation prizes (and, rarely, the big jackpot wins, like permanent kits etc.).

So, assuming a ticket/weapon skin is (or should be) worth about £6.00 (about $9.00), that would be about 600 gems per 20 keys.

As opposed to the (at least) 1680 gems they cost, now.

If they did that, I think they would make a pretty decent number of key sales.

Behellagh.1468:

His cost would be either the price on the TP or the amount of gold or cash needed to get enough gems to get enough for a ticket. But in reality it could cost a player as little as one key or as much as 100 keys (I’ll calculate at better number later … maybe).

Abimes keeps saying 30 keys. And while that is near the average of 1 it’s will still leave around 1/4 of the players (25.9%) using 30 keys will got nothing. 44.2% will get 1; 22.3% will get 2 or more; and 7.5% will get 3 or more.

And your dismissal of full ticket drops is a problem because they do drop enough to significantly generate tickets.

Lets say 100 players each open 30 chests so 3000 chests in total. Of the roughly 113 tickets generated as a group, 61 were full tickets, more than half. Because each player opens only 30 chests, collectively they will only get 52 tickets from scraps which leaves about 449 extra scraps will be spread around with no one player with having enough for another ticket.

This is an example of diffusion of key drops I was talking about. Lots of players with extra scraps but not enough to make a ticket.

Yah. this is why I think the nerf is to funnel players to the gemstore to get those last few scraps. There are a lot of players who don’t do key runs or buy keys who would be tempted to buy if they had some scraps.

Well that’s just great, first they say it’s not an exploit. Then they nerf it anyway.

Keys were the only way you’d be able to get some stuff out of the 2 stacks of bloody chests that I have.

Atleast here you spend your time and effort and gold to get something that might net you something good, they even said it was up to us how we spend our time.

So instead of us putting in effort to something it barely affects the economy and server population, they want us to use exploits like getting 70 accounts and log in everyday to get the daily rewards and make money off of that.

Don’t forget all the free accounts that are made for spying, or whatever. But doing something about that is too much right?

You spend 4 gold and 30 minutes grinding a key, or 50 minutes leveling and doing the story to just have a small chance of getting something good, but atleast a chance you put effort into. So you’re saying grinding hours in Silver Wastes or Cursed Shore then converting gold into gems (further decreasing the value of gold vs gems) and buying 1 key for 125 gems (which is ridiculous) that’s completely RNG, with 1 slot always being a booster. That’s not worthwhile.

Here Anet and all people that agree with this nerf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdFTlf2BS48 Just look at it, is this better? Because they pay for accounts? A major exploits effecting the economy and server population? Is it better because it makes you money?

You also said you upped the droprate on keys throughtout the world? Can we get number on that? I’m quite sure it went from 0.0001% to 0.0002%.

I feel sad to see they would do something like this, even if they were supposedly fine with it.

Behellagh.1468:

I heard it was a weekly reset and not timed to your last one.

No dice. I made a proper non-farming alt earlier in the week and got a key as part of my regular progression through the PS. Then tonight (post-reset) I tried again with a fresh alt made specifically for a keyrun and did NOT receive one at the end of the first PS chapters.

So based on this one sample, the “once a week” limitation is by when you last got a key, not by the overall week… Blah!

jspencer.3021:

Behellagh.1468:

I heard it was a weekly reset and not timed to your last one.

No dice. I made a proper non-farming alt earlier in the week and got a key as part of my regular progression through the PS. Then tonight (post-reset) I tried again with a fresh alt made specifically for a keyrun and did NOT receive one at the end of the first PS chapters.

So based on this one sample, the “once a week” limitation is by when you last got a key, not by the overall week… Blah!

The game’s weekly reset (excluding wvw) is midnight UTC Sunday. This is when guild missions and weekly gold transfer limits reset. So try again Saturday night/Sunday morning.

mrstealth.6701:

jspencer.3021:

Behellagh.1468:

I heard it was a weekly reset and not timed to your last one.

No dice. I made a proper non-farming alt earlier in the week and got a key as part of my regular progression through the PS. Then tonight (post-reset) I tried again with a fresh alt made specifically for a keyrun and did NOT receive one at the end of the first PS chapters.

So based on this one sample, the “once a week” limitation is by when you last got a key, not by the overall week… Blah!

The game’s weekly reset (excluding wvw) is midnight UTC Sunday. This is when guild missions and weekly gold transfer limits reset. So try again Saturday night/Sunday morning.

That’s when I’m going to try on mine then. The gold cap Is at reset on Saturday.

(From the support page about the gold cap)
For the purposes of this limit [the gold cap], a week begins at 12:01 AM UTC each Sunday (5:01 PM PDT/4:01 PM PST Saturday)

I heard the reset is either Sunday or Tuesday and not the WvW reset.

Behellagh.1468:

I heard the reset is either Sunday or Tuesday and not the WvW reset.

So far: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday. Personal account reset.

I don’t think anyone knows. We’ll just have to do key runs at likely times to see and report back.

So, from now on we are able to get only one black lion key a week from personal story lvl 10. Does anyone knows how the weekly suspension works? Does it resets on Saturday/Sunday like guild missions or is it a cooldown which lasts for 1 week?

ANet has not said and no one knows if it’s an a game wide or account specific reset yet.

I’m sure player testing will reveal it soon. I would assume it uses a CD (the reward gets a 168hr CD when initially procced) but thats just a guess atm.

I hope it’s game wide as an account specific cooldown. Most people are not going to be able to do it the same time as the previous key run, but later. So it will move forwards in the week until it moves forward enough and you’ve lost one key. A game wide reset would mean you can do it within that week at your convenience and no chance of losing out on a key because of the time moving forward.

Coulter.2315:

I’m sure player testing will reveal it soon. I would assume it uses a CD (the reward gets a 168hr CD when initially procced) but thats just a guess atm.

It’s unfortunate that players have to test this when Anet could simply give more specifics. The information will be out by next week anyway, at the cost of some player doing level 10 story every day, getting no reward.

rhapsody.3615:

Coulter.2315:

I’m sure player testing will reveal it soon. I would assume it uses a CD (the reward gets a 168hr CD when initially procced) but thats just a guess atm.

It’s unfortunate that players have to test this when Anet could simply give more specifics. The information will be out by next week anyway, at the cost of some player doing level 10 story every day, getting no reward.

Well it was put in to discourage key farming not put in to say “here’s how you still maintain getting keys on a semi regular basis.” Its there as a barrier nothing more. Releasing info on how the barrier works isn’t in their interest.

Coulter.2315:

rhapsody.3615:

Coulter.2315:

I’m sure player testing will reveal it soon. I would assume it uses a CD (the reward gets a 168hr CD when initially procced) but thats just a guess atm.

It’s unfortunate that players have to test this when Anet could simply give more specifics. The information will be out by next week anyway, at the cost of some player doing level 10 story every day, getting no reward.

Well it was put in to discourage key farming not put in to say “here’s how you still maintain getting keys on a semi regular basis.” Its there as a barrier nothing more. Releasing info on how the barrier works isn’t in their interest.

It’s going to be discovered anyway, at most 7 days after the announcement when the first people did their key run. If they are not answering a question like this in order to be obstructive for that 7 days, well that makes them look petty.

More likely though is their usual penchant for vague wording and common refusal to come on to the forums and answer frequently asked questions.

At this point, they should just give us 1 key every week for free.

What is so funny about this change , even if it’s a hard nerf those who used to run keys will continue to run keys cause it’s still the best way to use ToK.

I’d like to know when the reset occurs .
I’d like to know what’s the actual drop rate of black lion chests / keys.
I’d like to know what anet will give us to spend all those Tomes.
i’d like to know how many players did key farm and how many players play the game.
i’d like to know what was the actual impact on the market of key farming.
i’d like to know what the patch is going to change.
i’d like the community to have acces to all statisticaly usefull data.
i’d like to be able to consult the data on this changes.
I’d like more transparency from arena net.
i’d like … i should stop here, it’s pointless…

Abimes.9726:

What is so funny about this change , even if it’s a hard nerf those who used to run keys will continue to run keys cause it’s still the best way to use ToK.

I’d like to know when the reset occurs .
I’d like to know what’s the actual drop rate of black lion chests / keys.
I’d like to know what anet will give us to spend all those Tomes.
i’d like to know how many players did key farm and how many players play the game.
i’d like to know what was the actual impact on the market of key farming.
i’d like to know what the patch is going to change.
i’d like the community to have acces to all statisticaly usefull data.
i’d like to be able to consult the data on this changes.
I’d like more transparency from arena net.
i’d like … i should stop here, it’s pointless…

Couldn’t be more right, there was no reason for them to nerf this. And they are being really vague with information given.

Maybe Wanze is right that most skins are from bought keys. I just spoke to a guy who was asking about the Chaos weapons. After I mentioned that if available they were no longer one key, he told me he had FIFTY tickets! He said he got them when they were cheaper to buy.

O.o

I said, that’s nice. (And wondered how much he spent)

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maybe Wanze is right that most skins are from bought keys. I just spoke to a guy who was asking about the Chaos weapons. After I mentioned that if available they were no longer one key, he told me he had FIFTY tickets! He said he got them when they were cheaper to buy.

O.o

I said, that’s nice. (And wondered how much he spent)

Well now I wonder if it’s the keyrunners or whales who’ve done us the service of supplying the skins to the point they massively undercut the cost it takes to get them.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

I heard the reset is either Sunday or Tuesday and not the WvW reset.

So far: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday. Personal account reset.

I don’t think anyone knows. We’ll just have to do key runs at likely times to see and report back.

If anyone doesn’t know yet the key running reset is game wide and was at reset today. (Saturday in the U.S). The same time as the gold cap reset.

(From the support page about the gold cap)
For the purposes of this limit [the gold cap], a week begins at 12:01 AM UTC each Sunday (5:01 PM PDT/4:01 PM PST Saturday)

rhapsody.3615:

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

I did the opposite. I did the 40 story soon after the patch and got the 40 key. A few days later I did a new character and the 10 story, NO KEY.

I guess the level 10 key cant be the second one in the week, no matter what level the first was.

Angus.5961:

rhapsody.3615:

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

I did the opposite. I did the 40 story soon after the patch and got the 40 key. A few days later I did a new character and the 10 story, NO KEY.

I guess the level 10 key cant be the second one in the week, no matter what level the first was.

This is shocking. We realllllllllly need a response on this ArenNet, seriously. I’d be happy to just know the figures right now, considering I’ve received over 10 chests since this update and ZERO keys, with just ONE guild member out of 60+ actually getting a key drop.

Celine.6857:

Angus.5961:

rhapsody.3615:

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

I did the opposite. I did the 40 story soon after the patch and got the 40 key. A few days later I did a new character and the 10 story, NO KEY.

I guess the level 10 key cant be the second one in the week, no matter what level the first was.

This is shocking. We realllllllllly need a response on this ArenNet, seriously. I’d be happy to just know the figures right now, considering I’ve received over 10 chests since this update and ZERO keys, with just ONE guild member out of 60+ actually getting a key drop.

And how often/ how many players will this shocking^^ experience affect?

Almost noone

Zaron.1987:

And how often/ how many players will this shocking^^ experience affect?

Almost noone

Not even a week in and I have seen other posts with this same problem, so it is affecting players. Probably more new players than those with all level 80s, so I guess you wouldn’t care.

rhapsody.3615:

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

The only impacted key is the Chapter 1 Key. The Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 keys are not impacted and can be gained as many times as you want in a week.

The big question is if it resets tonight or if it individually tracks when you got your key. I have a throw away account I’ll be testing with tonight that’s at the final part.

Kodiak.3281:

rhapsody.3615:

I didn’t want to go back through 12 pages to be sure no one else mentioned it- I decided to level a new ele. I got a key for level 10 yesterday and for level 40 today. If I have a character without level 40 story done, I will try to get it done this week to be sure only level 10 is impacted.

Success! I got a key for level 40 story on two different characters today.

The only impacted key is the Chapter 1 Key. The Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 keys are not impacted and can be gained as many times as you want in a week.

The big question is if it resets tonight or if it individually tracks when you got your key. I have a throw away account I’ll be testing with tonight that’s at the final part.

The reset for the level 10 key is the same as the guild missions and gold cap reset. It’s Saturday (in the US) when the game resets. I did my key run after the last reset and got my key.

I wouldn’t care if there was a reasonable way of getting scraps that didn’t involve farming 30-50 of these things per effective ticket.

I’m not spending money on keys again. I’ve done so a few times, and I’ve also farmed them a few times for skins I particularly liked and/or saw massive resale potential in.

I’d buy scraps, but sorry, not buying keys. If the drop rate was what it was like at launch (I got a few in a week), then I can see this being fine as key farming via repeating the 10 PS is a stupid concept.

Hell, I might as well just stop buying gems if this is the nature of the game we’re seeing.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The reset for the level 10 key is the same as the guild missions and gold cap reset. It’s Saturday (in the US) when the game resets. I did my key run after the last reset and got my key.

For me in the US the weekly reset is in about 9 hours from now, not on Saturday. That’s when all the guild missions and everything resets. Considering when this was implemented, Tuesday, this weekly reset hasn’t occurred yet so I’m unclear how you can be 100% sure when this event hasn’t happened since patch time yet.

Don’t take me wrong, I’m pretty sure it’ll be tonight as well, but we can’t know for 100% sure until weekly reset tonight.

DeceiverX.8361:

I wouldn’t care if there was a reasonable way of getting scraps that didn’t involve farming 30-50 of these things per effective ticket.

I’m not spending money on keys again. I’ve done so a few times, and I’ve also farmed them a few times for skins I particularly liked and/or saw massive resale potential in.

I’d buy scraps, but sorry, not buying keys. If the drop rate was what it was like at launch (I got a few in a week), then I can see this being fine as key farming via repeating the 10 PS is a stupid concept.

Hell, I might as well just stop buying gems if this is the nature of the game we’re seeing.

This is the nature of the game as it’s been since release. First halloween was first debacle and I bought 50 keys and didn’t get a single skin. It would have been far more efficient for me to take those same gems, and just buy my kitten skin.

Now that’s how I see it. 100g is around 600 gems (it floats). Most new skins when they come out are 80-100g. So when new skins come out I can basically straight up buy the skins I want for X gems. Really it’s the same with anything. Permanent Bank Access is 1000g? That’s 6000 gems. Is it worth it? Up to you. Most people it won’t be. But the keys are just an awful deal and not worth going through. Let some other sucker deal with that.