Guild Wars 2

There are a lot of complex recipes in the game. Many of them require exotic item (and I mean “exotic” not in the orange sense, but just in the “unusual” sense).

I was looking at some stuff in my bank today, and how I’ve managed to gather several small stacks (< 250) of items that I very likely will never use.

For example: I have 39 Revive Orbs. In fact, in the 4 years I’ve been part of GW2, I have received: 40.

I used one to see how it worked, said “kitten this” and just started storing them. (sorry devs, even the changes you made to them won’t get me to use them).

I also have a number of merchant express, trading post express, etc.

35 XP boosters
24 Item boosters,

and so on.

All of these items come from Black Lion Chests. Over time I have purchased keys, and gotten them as drops etc.

My proposal is that these items be incorporated as alternate recipe items.

For example:
XP boosters, which drop from Black lion chests, go for 100gems if you buy them directly. Currently this is worth around 27gold. So let’s set a value for them at 20gold.

How about allowing players to craft their legendary component with 5 XP boosters instead of 100Icy Runestones?

That’s the basics of the idea. Allow boosters and such to be used in recipes as a replacement for gold sink items (since gold and/or real cash was spent to obtain them in the first place).

BL Chest drops have never been intended to be anything other than consolation prizes and junky ones at that. I can’t imagine why ANet would want to create a situation in which people would feel obliged to hang on to unwanted drops, until they had enough for some recipe. They certainly wouldn’t want to add more gold to the economy nor remove existing gold sinks (such as the Icy Runestones).

BL chests are White Elephant lotto: you usually get something for which you have little or no use; once in a long time, you get something worth telling your friends. Those who don’t like those odds shouldn’t spend gems on them.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

BL Chest drops have never been intended to be anything other than consolation prizes and junky ones at that. I can’t imagine why ANet would want to create a situation in which people would feel obliged to hang on to unwanted drops, until they had enough for some recipe. They certainly wouldn’t want to add more gold to the economy nor remove existing gold sinks (such as the Icy Runestones).

BL chests are White Elephant lotto: you usually get something for which you have little or no use; once in a long time, you get something worth telling your friends. Those who don’t like those odds shouldn’t spend gems on them.

If they are little to no use, why are they selling them for a dollar a piece on the gemstore?
Anet obviously sells enough of them to justify keeping them in the gemstore (as opposed to saving space and removing that tab completely).
So are the people buying them using them at a faster rate than they drop from chests? Or are you accusing them of being the “sucker born every minute”?

Actually, Boosters don’t drop from Black Lion Chests. They were removed some time ago.

Boosters may become a desired item in Black Lion Chests some time in the future (due to scarcity), rather than the ‘trash’ item they are considered to be now.

Players acquire Keys and open Black Lion Chests for the chance at some of the rarer items. Some are happy with what they get, some are disappointed.

If players expect to be guaranteed a good drop, then their expectations may be misplaced.

Good luck.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

BL Chest drops have never been intended to be anything other than consolation prizes and junky ones at that. I can’t imagine why ANet would want to create a situation in which people would feel obliged to hang on to unwanted drops, until they had enough for some recipe. They certainly wouldn’t want to add more gold to the economy nor remove existing gold sinks (such as the Icy Runestones).

BL chests are White Elephant lotto: you usually get something for which you have little or no use; once in a long time, you get something worth telling your friends. Those who don’t like those odds shouldn’t spend gems on them.

Neural.1824:

If they are little to no use, why are they selling them for a dollar a piece on the gemstore?
Anet obviously sells enough of them to justify keeping them in the gemstore (as opposed to saving space and removing that tab completely).
So are the people buying them using them at a faster rate than they drop from chests? Or are you accusing them of being the “sucker born every minute”?

You appear to have misunderstood the point: the common contents do not need to be worth anything, because people aren’t paying for the common contents. Folks pay for the entertainment value of gambling a small fee against the the possibility of getting a huge value. Folks that just want the skins can just buy those on the TP.

In other words, they keys have a value that is independent of the likely contents. In fact, many people would still buy keys if they didn’t drop anything except the high-value items. However, people are far more likely to buy if the chests always drop something, even if the something is garbage.

It’s probably also true that many people buy because they don’t understand the risk|reward ratio and their personal expectations exceed the probable outcomes. But that doesn’t make them “suckers” — that just makes them human; we all like the idea of getting something for nothing.