Guild Wars 2

Okay ArenaNet(AN) so I’m going to propose something that will make you millions of dollars and I want nothing in return, except for you to keep creating great content for me to play. Add every dye to be purchased individually on the gem store. You can also add specials with unreleased limited time sets for holidays and events.

*Note that in my examples I’m using current trading post prices to when this was written.

Lets take the abyss dye(55g) and the white dye(31g) for example. Two colors I think would work well together on my characters armor. That totals to 86g. I can currently purchase 800 gems for $10 and convert that into roughly 200g depending on market prices. This gives me more than enough gold to buy my dyes at the trading post(TP). This however is labor intensive and I’d be willing to bet that most players are lazy and won’t go through this tedious conversion of gems to gold in order to get their two favorite dyes in the game.

I propose that you introduce a tiered system in place for all dye colors where common: 100 gems uncommon: 400 gems and rare: 800 gems.

Lets say 50,000 players are zealous enough to convert gems into gold and buy their favorite dyes on the trading post. They would have to spend $10 each earning AN $500,000 which is roughly enough to pay 5 programmers salaries according to your salaries listed on glassdoor.com.

Now lets say you introduce my proposed tiered system and people start buying gems to purchase their favorite dyes. With both of my chosen dyes being in the rare category it would cost players $20 in order to purchase both dyes. Now it is my firm belief that people will pay for convenience and lets say this plan is only half as successful as I predict it will be, and only 250,000 people buy their two favorite rare dyes. I don’t believe 250,000 people to be too far fetched considering there have been 4.6 million copies of Guild Wars 2 sold since it’s debut in August 2011 according to a document released by KDB Daewoo Securities. If 250,000 players bought two rare dyes on my tiered system for $20 total, AN would earn, drum roll please… that’s right, $5,000,000. As they say in the biz, that’s a lot of f***ing blow fish, or in your case programmers. That’s enough to pay your 5 programmers from earlier for 10 years, and it costs you virtually nothing. It would probably take you one sprint, if you guys use scrum that is.

I believe this be a fair and profitable way for AN to offer a way for players, such as myself, to acquire their favorite dyes and customize their armor sets to look just the way they want them to. Thank you for your time and consideration of my proposal, I’ll see you on the battlegrounds.

They already sell dye for gems. if someone wants a dye they can exchange the gems for gold and buy the dye

converting gold is labor intensive? wtf?

@Envy, never underestimate how lazy people are. Converting gems to gold is overthinking, gems for dye is simple, people like simple.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

@Envy, never underestimate how lazy people are. Converting gems to gold is overthinking, gems for dye is simple, people like simple.

No, im sorry, but i just dont think thats how it works.

If youre too lazy thats you. But dont lose touch the difference with subjective schemas and objective reality.

Checkmate. http://blog.rejoiner.com/2012/07/amazon-1clickpatent/

Ghost Wolf.3479:

Checkmate. http://blog.rejoiner.com/2012/07/amazon-1clickpatent/

wondering if that actually has something to do with this

Hardly a checkmate. That system removes filling out forms over and over again, ones that some people find tedious. Gems → gold is literally a couple of clicks. The option is already there, and I’d rather not see Anet tie a fixed gem value to tradeable items with a fluctuating gold value – that’s how you break an economy.

There’s a problem with your design, and your assumption.

Using your example, you’re saying that people would spend the equivalent of 200g (800 gems) on a “rare dye package” that unlocks 1 rare dye, in your case Abyss. Abyss costs 55g usually.

People are lazy, but they certainly aren’t so lazy to blow their money/gold on an item that could otherwise cost them only 1/4 of that. People are lazy, but certainly not lazy enough that they wouldn’t become vocal when they realise how ripped off they’ve been.

In fact, for 200g you could probably buy every non-BL rare dye in game. Now, if that was what you were suggesting (rather than a pack containing just 1 dye), then that could be seen as somewhat reasonable. (Although then, because demand for the TP dyes goes down, the price would drop and the gemstore pack would become overpriced). But paying a premium for that kind of convenience is far more worthwhile and reasonable. However, this kind of package would be useful to the very few, who haven’t unlocked many dyes already.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

There’s a problem with your design, and your assumption.

Using your example, you’re saying that people would spend the equivalent of 200g (800 gems) on a “rare dye package” that unlocks 1 rare dye, in your case Abyss. Abyss costs 55g usually.

People are lazy, but they certainly aren’t so lazy to blow their money/gold on an item that could otherwise cost them only 1/4 of that. People are lazy, but certainly not lazy enough that they wouldn’t become vocal when they realise how ripped off they’ve been.

In fact, for 200g you could probably buy every non-BL rare dye in game. Now, if that was what you were suggesting (rather than a pack containing just 1 dye), then that could be seen as somewhat reasonable. (Although then, because demand for the TP dyes goes down, the price would drop and the gemstore pack would become overpriced). But paying a premium for that kind of convenience is far more worthwhile and reasonable. However, this kind of package would be useful to the very few, who haven’t unlocked many dyes already.

I hear your argument and I agree, the trade post(TP) would be a competing market. There’s a few options here, one is that ArenaNet(AN) abolishes the sale of dyes in the TP, and people complain for a while but after the heat dyes down and AN produces new never before released dyes, people will adjust and forget about the time when dyes were sold in the TP. I see dyes as becoming a major player in the gem store. Developers could even create patterned dyes that add multicolored designs to armor making dyes even more desirable than they currently are.

That’s one option however, I suggest an alternative point of view. As trends have shown in the TP the cost of dyes has only increased over time. The introduction of dyes for gems could drive demand up for dyes on the TP causing people rush to buy up the “cheaper” dyes on the TP, ultimately driving up the cost of Dyes until eventually it evens out. Then AN can either leave the two systems in place to balance each other out or as mentioned earlier abolish dyes in the TP when people won’t riot over inflated prices. Lets also not forget that this allows people to purchase all rare dyes at $10 a piece including the Electro Blue Dye which is currently for sale at 977g which converts to $55 for 4,400 gems!

I do like your idea of buying packs of dyes as well, as I also mentioned the possible implementation of “sets” of dyes based off holidays and events in my original post. I think that would be a great way for AN to give more bang for your buck when buying dyes with gems.

My original gem price proposal may be high, but it gets the conversation started. Which is allow people to easily buy dyes on the gem store rather than the inflated price that some of the more rare dyes have become. I chose 800 gems for the most desirable dyes because currently the most desirable finishers are 800 gems so that seemed, to me, like the avg. gem price for “rare” or desirable content sold on the gem store.

The point I want to make here though, that I think is getting lost, is that selling dyes in the gem store is a good thing, for both developers and players. This could be a very big revenue stream for AN which allows them to continue generating enjoyable content for us to play without a subscription cost, everybody wins.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

The point I want to make here though, that I think is getting lost, is that selling dyes in the gem store is a good thing, for both developers and players. This could be a very big revenue stream for AN which allows them to continue generating enjoyable content for us to play without a subscription cost, everybody wins.

You’re missing the macro-economy to focus one set of micro-transactions. It’s better for the game to offer the dyes via the trading post:

• Anyone getting an unneeded or unwanted dye can sell it.
• Anyone wanting a dye can buy it.
• The value is tied to supply & demand and so ANet doesn’t have to micro-manage it.
• Transactions sink gold from the economy.

Plus, your schema isn’t necessarily less labor-intensive than what you have to do now: you’d still have to figure out which set of dyes to purchase.

tl;dr there’s some good ideas in the thread; they just aren’t a sufficient improvement over the status quo.

That would mean that it would only balance out the price of exclusive dyes to the maximum of the cost of 800 gems. So it doesn’t really balance out the price that much- there are only 25 dyes currently worth over 200 gold.

How is this a benefit to the players? How does this make things more fair? It doesn’t- it makes almost all dyes available in-game wildly more expensive (if you also removed all the other methods of acquisition). Dyes and basic customisation is a staple in MMOs and RPGs.. placing it behind a pay wall is very bad news for any new player and would make any veteran question A-net’s judgement and financial plan.

You seem to be prioritising the idea of maximising A-net’s profits before their reputation and the desires of the players. Doing such a harsh business move could easily turn a load of new players off of the game- players who would’ve otherwise spent their money on future expansions or other gemstore items.

And the extra money means what- more content? Well… that’s not necessarily a good thing. It was noted that during LS1 and 2 with the biweekly updates, many players were struggling to keep up from the vast amounts of content, achievements and new things to learn. More content in a short time frame (and continuously piling it on) isn’t necessary and isn’t very good for the game’s largely casual playerbase.

TL;DR: It would be wrong for A-net to take things available through normal game-play and shove them behind a paywall, simply for profit.

EDIT: If it was a new feature, then I could totally understand it. For example, if they made dye packs purchasable from the gem-store to dye weapons (using the same colours/swatches that are present for armour). Of course, I’d prefer it for free, but at least they wouldn’t be stealing away a feature we already have and demanding us to pay a premium for it.

Another case of an angry player who thinks all ANet cares about is the Gem Shop.

Behellagh.1468:

Another case of an angry player who thinks all ANet cares about is the Gem Shop.

Aaah, I see. Well, if it is a troll post, that would explain a lot. :P

It’s not a troll post, I genuinely want to be able to just buy dyes at a reasonable price. The trade post has created a monster where some of the rare dyes have become so expensive no one is spending money on them, if you look at the available vs. ordered on Electro Blue Dye, you’ll see that people are ordering under 600g but the dye is listed available at 977 gold. I’m not going to dish out $55 for any piece of content in any game ever, and I should never have to.

Note: I know ordered and available prices are not an indication that the most expensive dyes aren’t selling but I don’t have gem store sales numbers at my disposal so we are working with what we’ve got.

Forget about the initial proposal and here me out. I should be able to customize my character to my liking with dyes without spending an absurd amount of extra IRL money or countless hours “gambling” for it with unidentified dyes, or playing ungodly amounts of hours to amass a small in-game fortune that rivals kings to buy one dye on the trade post. Should armor dyes be a difficult item to get? Can we all agree that if the cost to buy a dye outright with IRL money is more expensive than the new Guild Wars Expansion, the current trade post system, as it pertains to dyes, is broken?

Now if we can all agree that some dyes are outrageously priced, then can we not agree that a “dyes for gems” system would help regulate those prices to something more reasonable? If gas prices became so expensive you couldn’t afford to drive your car to work, would you not want the government to step in and regulate the price of gas to something the average American or European could afford? Ludicrous trade post prices are preventing me from enjoying something that as Crimson Clouds has stated “…a staple in MMOs and RPGs…”, and in my opinion should be something that is relatively easy or at least enjoyably difficult to obtain?

Another point to mention is that to my knowledge they haven’t released any new dyes since the games release, leaving something that I find so enjoyable to tweak, ignored. If dyes became a revenue stream for the game, then ArenaNet would be inclined to come up with new dyes(hopefully patterned dyes as I’ve mentioned in previous posts) adding depth and more customization to every new set of armor.

Hopefully you guys can see the benefits of offering some way to inexpensively, or at least in a reasonable amount of playtime, obtain a vast majority if not all of the dyes in the game. As the current system stands some dyes sit at the bottom, not worth selling on trade post. While others sit at the top, more expensive to buy outright than Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Maybe my initial proposition was too expensive as a whole for dyes, but it’s considerably cheaper for some dyes when you look at the other end of the spectrum. I don’t want content gated by spending money ever, that’s not my goal. *In fact my goal is to eliminate a money/time barrier that is preventing me from enjoying simple color swatch content. That barrier is the trading post. content is being gated by spending money because, and here is the main point, the average player honestly isn’t able to obtain certain dyes without buying gems and converting them to gold. I say the average player because the average player can’t amass 977g without playing for months to obtain it, and that’s if they save every penny preventing them from being able to use their in-game gold for other enjoyable content in the game. If everyone still thinks $55 is a reasonable price to buy one dye outright in any game, then I’ll end this discussion and keep dreaming of completing my dye collection, because I’ll never spend the price of a game on a sliver within a sliver of content within a game.

Behellagh.1468:

Another case of an angry player who thinks all ANet cares about is the Gem Shop.

Don’t kid yourself, ANet is not a charity. They are sole making games to make money. Yes employees love what they do, and they love to make fun and enjoyable content for players. But make no mistake, if they were not getting paid they would not be making content, period. Servers don’t run on good will. The gem store is the only revenue source that keeps people on payroll and servers running, and therefore is at the top of their priority list. And rightfully so, no one should work for free, and I am happy to spend the occasional $10 – $20 in the gem store for cool content as long as I don’t have to pay a subscription fee. If ANet does something in the interest of it’s players, it’s because happy players continue to play and spend money in their gem store. If you don’t believe that, then make everything in the gem store free forever and see how long servers continue to stay on and living world content keeps getting published.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

It’s not a troll post, I genuinely want to be able to just buy dyes at a reasonable price. The trade post has created a monster where some of the rare dyes have become so expensive no one is spending money on them, if you look at the available vs. ordered on Electro Blue Dye, you’ll see that people are ordering under 600g but the dye is listed available at 977 gold. I’m not going to dish out $55 for any piece of content in any game ever, and I should never have to.

Note: I know ordered and available prices are not an indication that the most expensive dyes aren’t selling but I don’t have gem store sales numbers at my disposal so we are working with what we’ve got.

Forget about the initial proposal and here me out. I should be able to customize my character to my liking with dyes without spending an absurd amount of extra IRL money or countless hours “gambling” for it with unidentified dyes, or playing ungodly amounts of hours to amass a small in-game fortune that rivals kings to buy one dye on the trade post. Should armor dyes be a difficult item to get? Can we all agree that if the cost to buy a dye outright with IRL money is more expensive than the new Guild Wars Expansion, the current trade post system, as it pertains to dyes, is broken?

Now if we can all agree that some dyes are outrageously priced, then can we not agree that a “dyes for gems” system would help regulate those prices to something more reasonable? If gas prices became so expensive you couldn’t afford to drive your car to work, would you not want the government to step in and regulate the price of gas to something the average American or European could afford? Ludicrous trade post prices are preventing me from enjoying something that as Crimson Clouds has stated “…a staple in MMOs and RPGs…”, and in my opinion should be something that is relatively easy or at least enjoyably difficult to obtain?

Another point to mention is that to my knowledge they haven’t released any new dyes since the games release, leaving something that I find so enjoyable to tweak, ignored. If dyes became a revenue stream for the game, then ArenaNet would be inclined to come up with new dyes(hopefully patterned dyes as I’ve mentioned in previous posts) adding depth and more customization to every new set of armor.

Hopefully you guys can see the benefits of offering some way to inexpensively, or at least in a reasonable amount of playtime, obtain a vast majority if not all of the dyes in the game. As the current system stands some dyes sit at the bottom, not worth selling on trade post. While others sit at the top, more expensive to buy outright than Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Maybe my initial proposition was too expensive as a whole for dyes, but it’s considerably cheaper for some dyes when you look at the other end of the spectrum. I don’t want content gated by spending money ever, that’s not my goal. *In fact my goal is to eliminate a money/time barrier that is preventing me from enjoying simple color swatch content. That barrier is the trading post. content is being gated by spending money because, and here is the main point, the average player honestly isn’t able to obtain certain dyes without buying gems and converting them to gold. I say the average player because the average player can’t amass 977g without playing for months to obtain it, and that’s if they save every penny preventing them from being able to use their in-game gold for other enjoyable content in the game. If everyone still thinks $55 is a reasonable price to buy one dye outright in any game, then I’ll end this discussion and keep dreaming of completing my dye collection, because I’ll never spend the price of a game on a sliver within a sliver of content within a game.

Behellagh.1468:

Another case of an angry player who thinks all ANet cares about is the Gem Shop.

Don’t kid yourself, ANet is not a charity. They are sole making games to make money. Yes employees love what they do, and they love to make fun and enjoyable content for players. But make no mistake, if they were not getting paid they would not be making content, period. Servers don’t run on good will. The gem store is the only revenue source that keeps people on payroll and servers running, and therefore is at the top of their priority list. And rightfully so, no one should work for free, and I am happy to spend the occasional $10 – $20 in the gem store for cool content as long as I don’t have to pay a subscription fee. If ANet does something in the interest of it’s players, it’s because happy players continue to play and spend money in their gem store. If you don’t believe that, then make everything in the gem store free forever and see how long servers continue to stay on and living world content keeps getting published.

you can get electro blue for free on your 3rd birthday

but honestly, i hate people picking dyes because of their tp price.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

I should be able to customize my character to my liking with dyes without spending an absurd amount of extra IRL money or countless hours “gambling” for it

Why should you be able to customize to your liking without spending any effort? You can play the game without extra effort by forgoing dyes and skins. If you want to add to your options, you should expect to spend time and/or money.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

The trade post has created a monster where some of the rare dyes have become so expensive no one is spending money on them, if you look at the available vs. ordered on Electro Blue Dye, you’ll see that people are ordering under 600g but the dye is listed available at 977 gold. I’m not going to dish out $55 for any piece of content in any game ever, and I should never have to.

The trade post has nothing to do with the costs — the trade post reflects supply & demand; it doesn’t set it. Further, the reason there are so few Electro Blue dyes now is that people have bought them up, which means, people did (and do) spend outrageous sums of money on them. Since there are so few available, it only takes 1-2 people willing to spend that much to drive up prices. When more were available, the price was lower.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

Can we all agree that if the cost to buy a dye outright with IRL money is more expensive than the new Guild Wars Expansion, the current trade post system, as it pertains to dyes, is broken?

No, I can’t even agree with any of the premises that led to that question. You don’t need any of the dyes and the market for dyes isn’t any different from the market for runes or sigils — they both follow supply & demand.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

Now if we can all agree that some dyes are outrageously priced, then can we not agree that a “dyes for gems” system would help regulate those prices to something more reasonable?

You keep implying that there is some sort of universal definition of “reasonable” for prices. You also imply that a dye-for-gems system would be necessarily better. The first isn’t true (reasonable people differ about what reasonable means); the second means setting a ceiling on prices and that’s only good for buyers, not necessarily for the market as a whole.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

If gas prices became so expensive you couldn’t afford to drive your car to work,

To follow the analogy, you would need to talk about the cost of paint for cars, not the the fuel. You can “drive to work” in Tyria without any dyes.

Ghost Wolf.3479:

Another point to mention is that to my knowledge they haven’t released any new dyes since the games release, leaving something that I find so enjoyable to tweak, ignored. If dyes became a revenue stream for the game, then ArenaNet would be inclined to come up with new dyes(hopefully patterned dyes as I’ve mentioned in previous posts) adding depth and more customization to every new set of armor.

Um, how can you be talking about Electro Blue and yet believe that they haven’t introduced new dyes? There are over 70 limited-edition dyes. ANet already derives revenue from dyes, via the various dye kits (and indirectly from various containers that include the dyes).

tl;dr the original post and subsequent posts are proposing solutions without having established a problem. The status quo already is that you can buy any color you want and sell any that you don’t, with prices set according to people’s preferences and how easy the colors are to obtain; it’s hard to get more efficient than that.

@Ghost Wolf

You currently can buy a Dye Pack from the Gem Shop for 160-200 gems depending on quantity. They give you 5 common and 2 uncommon or rare dyes.

A misfire on the Gem Store pre-sale and the “list” price of the Account Kits suggests that Account Bound Unidentified Dyes are coming at a bulk price of 10 gems each.

The core reason that uncommon and rare dyes are so expensive is that their creation rate is low. Their creation rate is low because of RNG and the cost to create uncommon and rare unidentified <hue> dye kits can be expensive and are rarely profitable unless you source your own materials.

And lets not forget popularity, whether for personal use or as an “investment”.

Want prices to come down. Attack the reasons why it cost so much to make if you don’t source your own mats.

ANet doesn’t have to sacrifice long term sales at the gem shop for short term gains. They are doing fine.

Basically you wanted to write:
“meh, I want dye’s for a fixed price because I don’t want to buy them from tp or with rng.”

So the answer is easy: NO! Get over your bad idea and just buy the dye you want.

Really bad idea.

When I bought my alt account I gave it a few gold and was able to buy a large selection of cheap 1-3 silver dyes. Your idea would make those cheap common dyes 100 gems each. Using the low pre-anniversary gold to gem prices of 400 gems for 66.5 gold, that’s 16 plus gold for each of the common dyes. This would price most dyes out of people easy reach and push them to buy dyes with real money, that previously was only a couple of silver.

Bad idea. Bad.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ghost Wolf.3479:

Another point to mention is that to my knowledge they haven’t released any new dyes since the games release, leaving something that I find so enjoyable to tweak, ignored. If dyes became a revenue stream for the game, then ArenaNet would be inclined to come up with new dyes(hopefully patterned dyes as I’ve mentioned in previous posts) adding depth and more customization to every new set of armor.

Um, how can you be talking about Electro Blue and yet believe that they haven’t introduced new dyes? There are over 70 limited-edition dyes. ANet already derives revenue from dyes, via the various dye kits (and indirectly from various containers that include the dyes).

tl;dr the original post and subsequent posts are proposing solutions without having established a problem. The status quo already is that you can buy any color you want and sell any that you don’t, with prices set according to people’s preferences and how easy the colors are to obtain; it’s hard to get more efficient than that.

Ok, now the OP makes sense- from what is mentioned in the above quote, it sounds like the OP, statements, presumptions are all based upon this misinformation. Let me educate you a little

Like Na said, there have been many sets released since launch- the first set being released during early LS1 (I believe it was the Flame/Frost Dye kits http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Dye_Kit).

The kits have only been available on the gem-store and in BL Chests (until recently, in which they have been available as one of the gifts in the 3rd Birthday Present). These kits would be in the gem-store for a couple of weeks (sometimes a little longer) and cost 125 gems each. They drop one dye when consumed from a random selection that fits with the colour theme, including 6 exclusive dyes (unobtainable anywhere else) and a wider selection of common to rare dyes. The 3rd Birthday Present Dye kits, however, allow a player to choose the exact exclusive dye they want and you’ll get one for every character that reaches its 3rd birthday. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Celebratory_Dye_Pack

In each set, there would be one or two that was highest in demand because of it being a more popular colour in the set (for example, Shadow Abyss in the shadow dye set, because it was a darker black than any other colour so far in game, whereas the other colours were just dark reds, blues, purples etc). From what I can remember, generally speaking and as a rough estimate, the exclusive dyes would often average out at around 50g-ish each whilst the dye packs were still available in the gem-store(although, like I said, commonly there would be one or two far more expensive in the set and the others far cheaper).

Prices would go up dramatically when the specific dye packs were pulled from the trading post as their method of acquisition is removed. And this is where we talk about Electro Blue in particular (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taimi%27s_Dye_Kit and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Electro_Blue_Dye). The dye itself has very few similar-looking counterparts, which is also a factor in its inflated price.

FYI- the most expensive dye in the standard sets (which can be obtained by opening any unidentified dye) is Celestial Dye at 96g. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Celestial_Dye

The exclusive dyes mostly seem to have some kind of “special effect” to them, where they have several “layers” to them. Most of them add a lot of depth to armour- they dye very rich and deep in the nooks and crannies, or around the edges, but are very strong and bold on the details or raised areas. The Taimi/Electro dyes are worth huge amounts because they are the brightest dyes in game and have a white undertone that is so strong that it can outshine the blue glow on the luminescent armour.

So, in some respects, OP… A-net are doing what you suggested already. Except they aren’t charging a premium for regular dyes you can obtain from any old place, but very special dyes that can be worth paying a premium for, or gambling your gold to try and get a good investment.

Here’s a bonus tip: most of these exclusive dyes have standard dyes that closely resemble them in hue, but just may not appear to have the same high quality (especially on large dye regions). You can find dyes that are a very close approximate using this web tool: https://www.gw2bltc.com/tool/dye/search Just type in the expensive dye you want to find a facsimile of, and then click the little eyedropper tool next to the name when it comes up as a search result.

For instance, Shadow Abyss is worth 200g+, but on metal Shadow Yellow dyes absolutely exactly the same for just 7g. On Cloth, Midnight Fire (a standard rare dye) dyes the exact same for just 10g.

An additional point, I think that the OP has forgotten, or doesn’t know, that the main source of dyes coming into the game are from black lion chests. Which means that these dyes do come from the gem store and so ANet does get money from selling them, it’s just not a direct one to one purchase.

Oh look, another rant about how rare things are rare.

That’s the point. Dyes, minis, skins, etc. are collectibles with various rarity tiers. the entire point of those rarity tiers is that you can’t easily and quickly acquire them, and that they provide an economic windfall to someone that lucks their way in to one if it’s something they have no use for.

In a game in which the entire reward system is cosmetic, giving people the ability to quickly and easily accomplish all of their goals would result in a very stagnant game where everyone would be wondering “why don’t I ever get any cool loot?”