Guild Wars 2

Why are these items taking up one of the slots in a chest when you open it? They are near useless and if anyone actually wants them, they can acquire them easily in the game without spending 36g for the chance to get one.

Please remove these useless items from the chests, anything would be better than getting more of these, especially when you have paid for it.

Admittedly this does tend to be an item which people either don’t need at all, or really seem to need. I get them quickly enough, but having just dumped all of them into a guildhall, and seeing that ~300 more will be needed soon, I don’t mind receiving them. I’ve got a friend that grabs them at every opportunity to level her alts (she’s still sitting on a level 46 mes, and I know she likely wants to get another alt going).

Perhaps additional sinks are required, for those that don’t have a hall to support nor alts to level?

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Why are these items taking up one of the slots in a chest when you open it? They are near useless and if anyone actually wants them, they can acquire them easily in the game without spending 36g for the chance to get one.

Please remove these useless items from the chests, anything would be better than getting more of these, especially when you have paid for it.

Instant Repair Canisters are still in those, too.

Greener.6204:

Admittedly this does tend to be an item which people either don’t need at all, or really seem to need. I get them quickly enough, but having just dumped all of them into a guildhall, and seeing that ~300 more will be needed soon, I don’t mind receiving them. I’ve got a friend that grabs them at every opportunity to level her alts (she’s still sitting on a level 46 mes, and I know she likely wants to get another alt going).

Perhaps additional sinks are required, for those that don’t have a hall to support nor alts to level?

I already donated several stacks for the guild hall, leveled several alts with them, used 500 for spirit shards and I still have two stacks sitting in the bank. We don’t need more sinks for them, i just don’t want to pay gold or gems for them when they are already so easy to get in the game.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Why are these items taking up one of the slots in a chest when you open it? They are near useless and if anyone actually wants them, they can acquire them easily in the game without spending 36g for the chance to get one.

Please remove these useless items from the chests, anything would be better than getting more of these, especially when you have paid for it.

Instant Repair Canisters are still in those, too.

Ah yes, I forgot about those. Have a heap of those too. Remove those as well, neither serve a purpose if you are paying for the chance. at something decent.

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

One can also obtain Keys by playing the game (where I get the majority of my Keys), thus, if removal of items were to be predicated on availability outside the Gem Store, we would have to remove everything in the Chests.

I’m sure some players like (insert item of choice) being included in the BL Chests, whereas others find them superfluous .

BL chests have to include fluff. The idea is that they always drop junk, except sometimes they drop something mildly useful or interesting. (Oh, yeah, sometimes someone else hits the jackpot — that’s what keeps the rest of us playing and some of us spending cash to buy them.)

Don’t want the fluff? Delete it.
(I’m more sympathetic than that sounds — I also get bored with stuff filling up inventory, especially from boxes like BL chest. I just think it detracts from my fun to worry about it.)

BLC’s are there to keep you spending money/gold on them. If you are foolish enough to spend money or Gold on RNG, then that’s your decision to make. I made the mistake of buying keys back during first Halloween, because we where under the impression that you would get the skins, after 75 keys, and nothing to show for it, I never bought them again. They really are not worth the money/gold, they will not change them untill people stop buying keys.

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

BrotherBelial.3094:

… after 75 keys, and nothing to show for it, I never bought them again. They really are not worth the money/gold, they will not change them untill people stop buying keys.

This is the premise. Better value from your gold/gems when opening chests. ToK and repair canisters are not value as they are so easily obtained elsewhere or are completely superfluous.

Chests are just not worth opening right now for 36g per key and part of that reason is the rubbish like these items that you get constantly.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

BL chests have to include fluff. The idea is that they always drop junk, except sometimes they drop something mildly useful or interesting. (Oh, yeah, sometimes someone else hits the jackpot — that’s what keeps the rest of us playing and some of us spending cash to buy them.)

Don’t want the fluff? Delete it.
(I’m more sympathetic than that sounds — I also get bored with stuff filling up inventory, especially from boxes like BL chest. I just think it detracts from my fun to worry about it.)

I have no issue with fluff, such as boosters and merchants, bank access express items, thats why I open the chests, because they are actually useful. The other items do not belong in there.

What is useless to one, is treasure to another. Useful to one is garbage to the other. I’m not sure the Devs should cater to some, but not others.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

Wrong. You can obtain them at a much faster rate than you can obtain ToK. Many players find ToK useful either to level up characters or for the spirit shards. They may even find them more useful than the boosters. Why are you thinking that what you find useful to you is the standard on what should and shouldn’t be among the rewards in the BL chests?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have no issue with fluff, such as boosters and merchants, bank access express items, thats why I open the chests, because they are actually useful. The other items do not belong in there.

Isn’t “fluff” anything that isn’t useful to you? There’s nothing wrong with being against fluff — some people prefer to get nothing rather than stuff they have to delete. Most gamers, however, prefer to get a lot of stuff — empty chests tend to depress more players than junk does. (I know the psychology and it still works on me: more feels better than less, even if it’s the same net value.)

tl;dr there’s no meaningful difference between “the other items do not belong” and “I have an issue with fluff.”

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Instant Repair Canisters are still in those, too.

Not anymore. They were removed during the latest BLC shake-up. You can get a permanent version now though.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Why are these items taking up one of the slots in a chest when you open it? They are near useless

And you have answered your question. Players getting anything useful out of those chests? Now, that would be unnatural.

Black Lion Chests are never going to include only good or useful items for 2 reasons:

1) What’s good or useful for one person is worthless junk to another. I have an entire row of my bank devoted to boosters (and this is after consolidating the ones I can, like Enchanted Combat Boosters) because I always get them faster than I use them. I really don’t need more but other people would be devastated if they were removed from black lion chests, login rewards and other places.

2) The chests are a form of gambling. The whole idea is that you have a very small chance of something amazing, a low chance of something good and will most likely get things you didn’t really want. It’s supposed to be just enough that you don’t feel like it was a complete waste (i.e. one useful item out of 3) and a feeling that maybe next time – if you just buy one more key – you might get the really good prize.

If they remove everything except the items players really want it becomes a guaranteed reward and then people buy fewer keys. It’s great for people buying keys to get those prizes, but not good for Anet.

(I’m not completely sure but I think many counties also require that you have to get something for it to be legal for players under 18 to buy keys. That’s why kids are allowed to play those fairground games where you fish a duck out a pond or pick a peg out a board to win a prize, which is probably a lollipop but might be a giant cuddly toy. Because you’re guaranteed a prize and all the possible prizes are known to players it’s not as strictly controlled as conventional gambling.)

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

Wrong. You can obtain them at a much faster rate than you can obtain ToK. Many players find ToK useful either to level up characters or for the spirit shards. They may even find them more useful than the boosters. Why are you thinking that what you find useful to you is the standard on what should and shouldn’t be among the rewards in the BL chests?

But I too find the ToK useful for those reasons, just not useful enough to think they should be included in the BLC. Please show me how I can get 10 of any of those other items or even all of them combined, per day, because ToK I can easily get that many just by doing dailies, playing PvP and WvW. If you know a way I can get my boosters and BL merchants/ bank expresses without buying keys, great!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have no issue with fluff, such as boosters and merchants, bank access express items, thats why I open the chests, because they are actually useful. The other items do not belong in there.

Isn’t “fluff” anything that isn’t useful to you? There’s nothing wrong with being against fluff — some people prefer to get nothing rather than stuff they have to delete. Most gamers, however, prefer to get a lot of stuff — empty chests tend to depress more players than junk does. (I know the psychology and it still works on me: more feels better than less, even if it’s the same net value.)

tl;dr there’s no meaningful difference between “the other items do not belong” and “I have an issue with fluff.”

I would not classify “fluff” as something that isn’t useful, I would consider something not useful to be useless and have no place in the BLC, so no I don’t agree with your tldr.
“Fluff” should be something that is useful to anyone and still not easily obtained as an in-game reward, such as boosters or BL bank express/merchants etc.

ToK are just too common to be included in something people pay real money for.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

Wrong. You can obtain them at a much faster rate than you can obtain ToK. Many players find ToK useful either to level up characters or for the spirit shards. They may even find them more useful than the boosters. Why are you thinking that what you find useful to you is the standard on what should and shouldn’t be among the rewards in the BL chests?

But I too find the ToK useful for those reasons, just not useful enough to think they should be included in the BLC. Please show me how I can get 10 of any of those other items or even all of them combined, per day, because ToK I can easily get that many just by doing dailies, playing PvP and WvW. If you know a way I can get my boosters and BL merchants/ bank expresses without buying keys, great!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have no issue with fluff, such as boosters and merchants, bank access express items, thats why I open the chests, because they are actually useful. The other items do not belong in there.

Isn’t “fluff” anything that isn’t useful to you? There’s nothing wrong with being against fluff — some people prefer to get nothing rather than stuff they have to delete. Most gamers, however, prefer to get a lot of stuff — empty chests tend to depress more players than junk does. (I know the psychology and it still works on me: more feels better than less, even if it’s the same net value.)

tl;dr there’s no meaningful difference between “the other items do not belong” and “I have an issue with fluff.”

I would not classify “fluff” as something that isn’t useful, I would consider something not useful to be useless and have no place in the BLC, so no I don’t agree with your tldr.
“Fluff” should be something that is useful to anyone and still not easily obtained as an in-game reward, such as boosters or BL bank express/merchants etc.

ToK are just too common to be included in something people pay real money for.

Transmutation charges can be obtained by doing map completion for the cities. If you have an extra character slot, you can do the Rata Sum one in about 10 minutes for like 3 charges.

Unidentified dyes can be obtained from the laurel merchant. You can also farm the HoT story. Unlikely to be sustainable as you’ll need to get to level 80. There’s the potential, if you have another account, to carry an under leveled vharacter through assuming they are not restricted as they are for the PS.

Crafting bags contain crafting materials. All of these materials can be obtained anywhere in the game.

I never said anything about being able to obtain boosters and the QoL consumables outside the chests or gem store. I’m not sure where you got that idea.

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

Wrong. You can obtain them at a much faster rate than you can obtain ToK. Many players find ToK useful either to level up characters or for the spirit shards. They may even find them more useful than the boosters. Why are you thinking that what you find useful to you is the standard on what should and shouldn’t be among the rewards in the BL chests?

Claiming ToK as useful is disingenuous. I have literal stacks of them, there is nothing to do with them once you have 17 level 80s. You get them from just logging in, you get them from PvP, you get them from WvW, you literally get drowned in ToK, you don’t need them in the RNG chests too.

Dinks.2478:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well I don’t find any use for the boosters so please remove them as well. In fact, remove any item that can be bought from the TP.

There are players who appreciate those tomes of knowledge even if there are other ways to obtain. them.

The boosters are at least not obtainable from other sources without paying gold/gems.

But I find them useless therefore they should be removed. Unidentified dyes should be removed because you can get them from the laurel merchant and some loot bags. Transmutation charges should be removed because you can get them from map completion and/or re-rolling a character to farm the town map completion. Crafting bags should be removed because you can get the mats by playing the game.

Isn’t that the entire premise on why you don’t want ToK in the bl chests? Whether or not there are other sources doesn’t matter.

No its not the entire premise. You cannot obtain thousands of those other items easily in the game simply by playing.

Wrong. You can obtain them at a much faster rate than you can obtain ToK. Many players find ToK useful either to level up characters or for the spirit shards. They may even find them more useful than the boosters. Why are you thinking that what you find useful to you is the standard on what should and shouldn’t be among the rewards in the BL chests?

Claiming ToK as useful is disingenuous. I have literal stacks of them, there is nothing to do with them once you have 17 level 80s. You get them from just logging in, you get them from PvP, you get them from WvW, you literally get drowned in ToK, you don’t need them in the RNG chests too.

No it is not disingenuous. ToK are useful for quickly leveling your characters and for spirit shards. Spirit shards are used for certain skins, legendary weapons, or can be converted to gold. They’re also used for ascended crafting.

Not everyone does WvW. Not everyone does PvP. Logging in only gives you like 10 every 28 days. Not everyone is able to do all game modes like you to the point where they have no use for them. ToK is a reward that players can still make use out of.

I personally have a goal to craft all legendary weapons by the end of the year. Spirit shards will be the one item that could hold me back. So anytime that I do open a BL chest, receiving a ToK would be appreciated by me and far from being useless. I have zero use for boosters. They have no value to me but I’m pretty sure they do for someone else so I wouldn’t go as far as to flatly state that the boosters are useless for everyone like you did in regards to ToK.

Tomes of Knowledge are also useful in obtaining Black Lion Chest keys. That’s at least 40 per month used.

First, not everyone is swimming in ToK. New players and veterans who like to level toons more than they like to play at L80 have stated in other threads that they run out all the time. (Me? I use them for key toon runs, so I’m very, very slowly whittling down the stacks.)

Second, alright, you want to use a different definition of ‘fluff’ than “anything used to fluff up the drop tables”. Then it is still the case that the chests (and any similar lotto-like RNG offers) are going to include nearly ‘useless’ items. The entire point is to fill out the the drops so that we are always getting something.

I get that the OP prefers to get absolutely anything else. I’ll rephrase my point then:

BL chests have to include useless stuff. The idea is that they always drop junk, except sometimes they drop something mildly useful or interesting. (Oh, yeah, sometimes someone else hits the jackpot — that’s what keeps the rest of us playing and some of us spending cash to buy them.)

tl;dr Don’t want the garbage? Delete it.
(I’m more sympathetic than that sounds — I also get bored with stuff filling up inventory, especially from boxes like BL chest. I just think it detracts from my fun to worry about it.)

Black Lion Chests have many forms of consolation prizes. It is simply part of the pervasive RNG game.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

…
BL chests have to include useless stuff. The idea is that they always drop junk, except sometimes they drop something mildly useful or interesting. (Oh, yeah, sometimes someone else hits the jackpot — that’s what keeps the rest of us playing and some of us spending cash to buy them.) …

I would agree with you if we were talking about tangible objects that have a value attached to them simply by existing and being made from some resource, but these are 1’s and 0’s that cost nothing to produce. There is absolutely zero reason why every BLC could not have some actual in-game value for anyone who opened one. There would be far more incentive to purchase keys if you KNEW you would get something decent, as it is now, you can get 2 ToK and a 15% speed boost and pay 36g for them.

Ayrilana.1396:

…I never said anything about being able to obtain boosters and the QoL consumables outside the chests or gem store. I’m not sure where you got that idea.

You never specified that you weren’t talking about those either. I assumed we were talking about all the items in the BLC, not just trans charges and unid dyes.

at the end of the day, nothing bought with money should be useless. Give an alternate reason to use/spend them or even trade some for equal or slightly lesser value things gem-t0-gem. I believe that would make everyone happy.
E.g. I have stacks of tok, stacks of teleports, and stacks of rez thingies…I wouldn’t mind trading at a 3:1 ratio or even 10:1 in some instances for things of equal value.

Akkeros.1675:

at the end of the day, nothing bought with money should be useless.

There isn’t anything in the chests that are useless. Everything in there can be used by you. Just because you personally don’t use something that you get from a chest, does not make it useless. You choose not to use it.

I have a lot of things I won’t use out of the chests as well. No one forced me to buy or farm keys. When I use them I know I am taking a gamble at getting what I consider junk. That is just life and the chance we take with RNG. That isn’t ANet’s fault, that is our choice to gamble.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

…
BL chests have to include useless stuff. The idea is that they always drop junk, except sometimes they drop something mildly useful or interesting. (Oh, yeah, sometimes someone else hits the jackpot — that’s what keeps the rest of us playing and some of us spending cash to buy them.) …

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I would agree with you if we were talking about tangible objects that have a value attached to them simply by existing and being made from some resource, but these are 1’s and 0’s that cost nothing to produce. There is absolutely zero reason why every BLC could not have some actual in-game value for anyone who opened one. There would be far more incentive to purchase keys if you KNEW you would get something decent, as it is now, you can get 2 ToK and a 15% speed boost and pay 36g for them.

I must be making my point poorly, because you keep mincing my phrasing without responding to the main idea:
BL chests are not designed to provide anything decent — they are provided as a lottery and sold for the entertainment value of anticipating what might be in them. Think of them as Bags of Junk that very, very rarely have a surprise.

They aren’t like Cracker Jacks, that always include candy (the guaranteed decent thing) and a prize (which, way back when, was often junk, but occasionally really cool if you were the right age to appreciate it).

If they contained “decent stuff”, more people would buy them, sure. And fewer people would buy those things in the gem shop and more people would have them in game than ArenaNet thinks is good for the game.

tl;dr delete the stuff you have no use for; enjoy the rest
(and stop buying them if you aren’t getting your entertainment value out of them)

Andddd this is why I never buy keys.

Tomes of Knowledge are anything BUT useless, as I have 23 level 80s, if ever I wanted another character to lvl 80 fast, bam, done, and if ever I am in need of any spirit shards last minute? Boom, done.

jheryn.8390:

Akkeros.1675:

at the end of the day, nothing bought with money should be useless.

There isn’t anything in the chests that are useless. Everything in there can be used by you. Just because you personally don’t use something that you get from a chest, does not make it useless. You choose not to use it.

I have a lot of things I won’t use out of the chests as well. No one forced me to buy or farm keys. When I use them I know I am taking a gamble at getting what I consider junk. That is just life and the chance we take with RNG. That isn’t ANet’s fault, that is our choice to gamble.

let me rephrase
at the end of the day, the money spent on fluff in a game i already payed to play “should” (the key word that you missed) not be useless to me, myself, and I. I put currency into a system and it can either pay for a specific service or it can remain some form of currency. If that is not the case then i believe gambling would be the more accurate word (that people use loosely) but if I recall, online gambling would limit distribution and thus not be used lightly by those developing the chests.

So, besides a random disagreement, did you disagree with being able to spend (or even trade) something useless to “you” for something not useless to ‘you’? Don’t overlook the forest for the trees and miss the entire point.

p.s. how is low chance, low low chance, etc RNG to begin with? random cannot distinguish between low and very low can it? Just a curiosity not addressed to anyone in particular. Mathematicians, feel free to chime in on this one.

Akkeros.1675:

let me rephrase
at the end of the day, the money spent on fluff in a game i already payed to play “should” (the key word that you missed) not be useless to me, myself, and I. I put currency into a system and it can either pay for a specific service or it can remain some form of currency. If that is not the case then i believe gambling would be the more accurate word (that people use loosely) but if I recall, online gambling would limit distribution and thus not be used lightly by those developing the chests.

Gambling would only be an issue if you were getting real world cash (or an equivalent) back from the BL chest. The gambling you’re doing is a form of entertainment, and to make the wins entertaining, they need to be rare. The other items must therefore be of lower quality, which they are.

Akkeros.1675:

p.s. how is low chance, low low chance, etc RNG to begin with? random cannot distinguish between low and very low can it? Just a curiosity not addressed to anyone in particular. Mathematicians, feel free to chime in on this one.

More of a comp-sci question, and would depend on how many bits Anet wants to put towards the calculation. Realistically, it’s probably a set of nested tables, where you do an initial roll to see which table to look at, and then roll again inside of that table to see which reward you get.

Akkeros.1675:

let me rephrase
at the end of the day, the money spent on fluff in a game i already payed to play “should” (the key word that you missed) not be useless to me, myself, and I. I put currency into a system and it can either pay for a specific service or it can remain some form of currency. If that is not the case then i believe gambling would be the more accurate word (that people use loosely) but if I recall, online gambling would limit distribution and thus not be used lightly by those developing the chests.

First of all, I did not miss the word ‘should’ in your original post. It purports that you are getting something worthless and you are not. It may be worthless to you, but not to everyone which brings me to…

The “Me, myself, and I” comment. They cannot make everything pinpointed and relevant to each individual that plays the game. There is no way for them to know what is “useless” to you and what is not. Even with your suggestions about trading things in for something else, what if you don’t like what they offer for trade in? Then they are peddling worthless items again. What if you DO like the trade in and someone else hates it? Well then what you like is now useless and needs to be scrapped. There is no way for them to make everything perfect in the eyes of everyone who plays the game.

As far as you putting currency into the game that you paid to play and received fluff, you come across like you were forced to buy the keys for the chests. Or forced to spend the money. You know what comes out of those chests. If you don’t like it and have a problem what is obtained from those chest then… …let me think… …don’t buy them.

Everyone knows what are in those chests and it is easy to find out the exact items that drop and the chances to receive any of those items if you put about 30 seconds into finding out.

Akkeros.1675:

So, besides a random disagreement, did you disagree with being able to spend (or even trade) something useless to “you” for something not useless to ‘you’? Don’t overlook the forest for the trees and miss the entire point.

Please. That attempt to portray what I said as missing your point is inane. My disagreement was not random. It was very specific.

As far as your trading or spending what you consider as useless, I don’t agree. You know what you are getting when you take a chance and buy those keys to open chests, you get what you get. You don’t get to open a mystery package and then complain about it because it didn’t meet your expectations. Take some responsibility for your own actions and how you decide to spend your money. It isn’t anyone’s fault other than your own if you bought something knowing what could be in it.

Akkeros.1675:

p.s. how is low chance, low low chance, etc RNG to begin with? random cannot distinguish between low and very low can it? Just a curiosity not addressed to anyone in particular. Mathematicians, feel free to chime in on this one.

On a scale of 1-100%. High chance 75-100%, Good chance 50-75%, Not as Good Chance 20-50%, Low Chance 5-20%, Very Low Chance 1-5%, If You Though You Were Going To Get One of These Items You are Delusional Chance .05-1%.

People could use any different combo’s than the ones I used above but the point is there. If a program is told to “randomly” offer drops at the rates above, then a .05-1% isn’t going to happen hardly at all. 75-100% will happen all the time.

It doesn’t take a mathematician, just a little common sense.

tl/dr: Don’t tell someone what they were thinking. Don’t complain when you know exactly what you are buying and then say you didn’t want it. Take some responsibility for your own spending.

I’ve already got enough ToKs and level-20/30 auto-boost scrolls on hand to insta-level half a dozen new toons to 80, but I already have 9 level 80 toons, and I have no reason to level any more to 80 at this point.

As a result, I’d much prefer that they either remove ToK’s and other forms boosts from BLCs entirely, or make them able to be sellable on the TP.

While they’re at it, I’d also appreciate some alternate ways to spend the 400+ Transmutation Charges or the 4000+ Spirit Shards that I’ll never use.

Kalendraf.9521:

I’ve already got enough ToKs and level-20/30 auto-boost scrolls on hand to insta-level half a dozen new toons to 80, but I already have 9 level 80 toons, and I have no reason to level any more to 80 at this point.

As a result, I’d much prefer that they either remove ToK’s and other forms boosts from BLCs entirely, or make them able to be sellable on the TP.

While they’re at it, I’d also appreciate some alternate ways to spend the 400+ Transmutation Charges or the 4000+ Spirit Shards that I’ll never use.

Between my lvl 20/30 boosters and my ToK I could probably hit 80 on the character limit and still have some left. If I could give them away to some of these people on here who apparently don’t have any I’m sure we’d both be happier.

tl/dr: Don’t tell someone what they were thinking. Don’t complain when you know exactly what you are buying and then say you didn’t want it. Take some responsibility for your own spending.

well, it was a little long but i read the top and bottom.

amazing explanations i am sure, thanks!

At OP, do you think that by having some other method of using these things dropped in chests it would be “as bad” or would it irritate you more if you had 9 of them but needed 10 to actually trade them in, lol?
Again, i totally know what you mean. I only play wvw so the rez orbs and teleports really have no value to me. But if they do to someone else, by me having stacks of them…it seems so wasteful. It would be nice to trade them to other players or trade them for other goods of equal or lesser value.

Akkeros.1675:

… At OP, do you think that by having some other method of using these things dropped in chests it would be “as bad” or would it irritate you more if you had 9 of them but needed 10 to actually trade them in, lol?
Again, i totally know what you mean. I only play wvw so the rez orbs and teleports really have no value to me. But if they do to someone else, by me having stacks of them…it seems so wasteful. It would be nice to trade them to other players or trade them for other goods of equal or lesser value.

What about instead of even having any of the items drop in the chests, they are all removed completely and replaced with a BLTC Coin that can be traded for any of the common items in the chest?

So to be clear, what I am advocating is for all of the below to be removed and the same chance to gain a token which is tradeable for any of these same items.

Bank Access Express
Trading Post Express
Merchant Express
Teleport to Friend
Tome of Knowledge
Unidentified Dye
Transmutation Charge
Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap
Revive Orb (2)
Large Crafting Bag
Medium Crafting Bag
Black Lion Salvage Kit
Toy Miniature Egg

That way you can choose what is useful to you and not just put the ToKs you got with the other 1000 you have. I really think this is a good idea that solves all the issues.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

What about instead of even having any of the items drop in the chests, they are all removed completely and replaced with a BLTC Coin that can be traded for any of the common items in the chest?

So to be clear, what I am advocating is for all of the below to be removed and the same chance to gain a token which is tradeable for any of these same items.

Bank Access Express
Trading Post Express
Merchant Express
Teleport to Friend
Tome of Knowledge
Unidentified Dye
Transmutation Charge
Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap
Revive Orb (2)
Large Crafting Bag
Medium Crafting Bag
Black Lion Salvage Kit
Toy Miniature Egg

That way you can choose what is useful to you and not just put the ToKs you got with the other 1000 you have. I really think this is a good idea that solves all the issues.

I approve of the concept. Obviously the token prices would be dependent upon the usefulness of the individual items in order to preserve value for items that affect TP prices, but the idea is a good one.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

That way you can choose what is useful to you and not just put the ToKs you got with the other 1000 you have. I really think this is a good idea that solves all the issues.

That misses the point: the chests aren’t intended to have “useful” items. They are for the entertainment value that comes from hoping for a great drop. It’s a lotto ticket, with some consolation prizes. There aren’t any “issues” except from those of us who insist that BL chests must have some sort of minimum utility.

I wouldn’t mind more loot for the same effort/price; I just don’t think it ‘needs’ to happen.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

That way you can choose what is useful to you and not just put the ToKs you got with the other 1000 you have. I really think this is a good idea that solves all the issues.

That misses the point: the chests aren’t intended to have “useful” items. They are for the entertainment value that comes from hoping for a great drop. It’s a lotto ticket, with some consolation prizes. There aren’t any “issues” except from those of us who insist that BL chests must have some sort of minimum utility.

I wouldn’t mind more loot for the same effort/price; I just don’t think it ‘needs’ to happen.

Do you have a quote or anything where it’s been stated that the chests are not actually intended to have useful items? Because, to me, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes the entertainment value is anticipation of winning big, but there is no reason for the booby prize to also not be worth opening the chest for in its own right.

I’d buy a hell of a lot more keys if I knew I could at least choose something useful to me personally with each chest, and get the added bonus of a small chance to win a big prize.

I’ll say this again. Chests are samplers of what’s available in the gem shop. So if you don’t care about about the booster and two random, likely relatively inexpensive gem shop bric-a-brac that simply isn’t exciting to most.

Now I’m about to play a LS instance where I will likely frequently die repeatedly so in this case, I’m happy to have all those repair canisters.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Akkeros.1675:

… At OP, do you think that by having some other method of using these things dropped in chests it would be “as bad” or would it irritate you more if you had 9 of them but needed 10 to actually trade them in, lol?
Again, i totally know what you mean. I only play wvw so the rez orbs and teleports really have no value to me. But if they do to someone else, by me having stacks of them…it seems so wasteful. It would be nice to trade them to other players or trade them for other goods of equal or lesser value.

What about instead of even having any of the items drop in the chests, they are all removed completely and replaced with a BLTC Coin that can be traded for any of the common items in the chest?

So to be clear, what I am advocating is for all of the below to be removed and the same chance to gain a token which is tradeable for any of these same items.

Bank Access Express
Trading Post Express
Merchant Express
Teleport to Friend
Tome of Knowledge
Unidentified Dye
Transmutation Charge
Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap
Revive Orb (2)
Large Crafting Bag
Medium Crafting Bag
Black Lion Salvage Kit
Toy Miniature Egg

That way you can choose what is useful to you and not just put the ToKs you got with the other 1000 you have. I really think this is a good idea that solves all the issues.

you have just become my hero….great idea!
it would please everyone (probably even those that argue that their black lion chests are suppose to have unusable junk in it and they like it that way)

Akkeros.1675:

it would please everyone (probably even those that argue that their black lion chests are suppose to have unusable junk in it and they like it that way)

No one is arguing that they prefer junk; I just don’t get upset about it. The point is that all lotteries work that way. A tiny number of astronomically unlikely mega prizes and some extremely unlikely major prizes are all that promoters need.

Let’s ask the question a different way: currently most lotteries give away 50% of ticket sales in prizes, 5-10% is admin fees, and the remainder is ‘profit’ going to e.g. schools for some US states. So if a million tickets are sold, the total prizes come out to US$ 500,000, perhaps $450,000 in the jackpot (and near-jackpot) and the rest distributed among about half the others, i.e. about a dime per person.

Suppose they doubled the amount available to non-jackpots — less junk, reducing the jackpot accordingly. That leaves $US400k in top prizes and … still only 20 cents per person for the rest. Do you think that will sell more tickets than the original set up?

Lottos offer the chance to dream about an amazing win — the more amazing the win, the better the ticket sales. The value of the ‘filler’ prizes is less important.

I’m not at all against getting more for the same value; that would be better for me personally, since I’ve yet to get a ‘great’ drop (let alone a jackpot) from the chests.

I just don’t think that is going to happen because I believe that ANet thinks things ain’t broke, so they don’t need fixin’.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I just don’t think that is going to happen because I believe that ANet thinks things ain’t broke, so they don’t need fixin’.

The target market for these things doesn’t care about these issues, just like most Powerball ticket buyers don’t say “I hope I get the $100 prize for matching four out of five numbers because I probably won’t win the jackpot so at least I’ll get back more than I spent.”

If you think like that you’re going to put the money into an interest-bearing savings account or CDs or something, not lottery tickets.

And they do tweak the lottery boxes occasionally – it’s good for marketing but as those who complain about Magic Find know, a 200% increase to a 1-in-a-million chance is still only 3 in 1,000,000. If you pay real money for the keys it’s to chase the dream of a valuable item like a permanent makeover kit or whatever, not to get $1.25 worth of items for every $1.00 you spend.

My background is in neurology so I kinda get the analogies used with gambling and lottery and it all follows a principle of random reward postulated by Skinner. Any game/company/marketing device that has a prize or “drop rate” or RNG (as things are called here) employs this basic concept. However, the reason I posted on this thread was not due to a lack of understanding of what was being brought or how it is set up….simply a desire to improve the situation without affecting the goal of ANET to entice spending.
Thus, I found it somewhat stimulating to watch people clamor to produce reason why not to improve a situation that would globally change, thus also improving their own situation (i.e. they argue to keep a situation less ideal). It creates self-fulfilling prophecies (so to speak) of any chance to get someone to listen to any reasoning for altering a feature. I believe this is seen in all threads on these forums where a global desire for change gets hung up do to all minor details being argued and everything gets placed in the to-do-much-later pile while people hash it out amongst themselves.

Serious mode off.
Yup, more cool stuff please….less lame stuff. Thanks

p.s. I loved the nest concept stated by the comp-sci discipline response to my RNG joke…which i assume was not that funny. But I actually find that very interesting, so thanks to fine lad that posted that.

Akkeros.1675:

Thus, I found it somewhat stimulating to watch people clamor to produce reason why not to improve a situation that would globally change, thus also improving their own situation (i.e. they argue to keep a situation less ideal).

No one is “clamoring” to “produce a reason” — your “ideal” (better minimum drops) and ANet’s goal (more sales) aren’t the same. Of course every player wants better loot for less effort. That doesn’t always means it benefits the community of players to do it in the simplest or most obvious ways.

It helps when trying to change a company’s choices to understand why they have made them.

Behellagh.1468:

I’ll say this again. Chests are samplers of what’s available in the gem shop. So if you don’t care about about the booster and two random, likely relatively inexpensive gem shop bric-a-brac that simply isn’t exciting to most.

Now I’m about to play a LS instance where I will likely frequently die repeatedly so in this case, I’m happy to have all those repair canisters.

I don’t think that is the case, its not like you are buying a tasting plate at the cafe. The chests themselves as drops are merely advertising for the gem store, there is no real need for them to drop at all, they could just be sold as open chests in the gem store, removing the keys entirely.

I’ll like having those 180 repair canisters I have too.

tolunart.2095:

… The target market for these things doesn’t care about these issues, just like most Powerball ticket buyers don’t say “I hope I get the $100 prize for matching four out of five numbers because I probably won’t win the jackpot so at least I’ll get back more than I spent.” …

You are never going to get back more than you spent because the chests do not drop gold or real money.

The target market for the keys would be come orders of magnitide larger if people actually knew they could get something useful from opening them. People are getting sick of RNG. If every chest you opened could be guaranteed to be tradeable for a BLticket scrap, then there is an incremental progress towards a BLticket for a weapon. Much like the entire reason for adding precursor crafting.

This is not like a lottery at all because the items contained within the chests did not exist until you created them by opening the chest, there is no prize pool.

When I was growing up, my parents had carnival rides and stuff that we ran at shows etc, I used to run the Laughing Clowns. When we first got it, the previous owner didn’t give anyone a prize if they didn’t win, but we started giving something because we felt it was a good way to at least give back something as we were a local company that relied on repeat customers, satisfaction was paramount.
Just like the chests, but the items were profit given away. At first we only had one item for girls and one for boys but after a while we realised that not everyone was going to be satisfied with one item, so in the end we had a whole board of items that everyone who had a go could choose from, so even if they did not win, they would walk away at least satisfied they got to choose something they wanted. We bought the small prizes so cheap it didn’t matter that we gave away 20c for every $2 we made because the same people came back again and again and again because to buy the item they got for losing in a shop would have been $2 anyway. None of the items in the chest even exist and have no bearing on profit whatsoever.

I just think that a lot more people would buy keys if there was not so much RNG.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I just think that a lot more people would buy keys if there was not so much RNG.

That certainly seems possible. Likely even.

The question is, would they buy more keys than they do now?

Compared to other games rng crates, the BL chests are incredibly poor value.

Ashen.2907:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I just think that a lot more people would buy keys if there was not so much RNG.

That certainly seems possible. Likely even.

The question is, would they buy more keys than they do now?

Now that’s the key question and point

Well, it’s been two years, but I was really happy to see they finally removed the ToK from the BL chests! There is much more incentive to actually open them now with the increased value from the change. To me, that is.

Anyway, looking forward to opening chests again.

Thanks, ANet!