Guild Wars 2

Stephane Lo Presti

Content Marketing Manager, French

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BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
General
•Added Vertical Position Near slider to camera options. The existing Vertical Position slider has been renamed Vertical Position Far.
•Added greater precision to camera position sliders.
•Adjusted some default camera positions when using the Adjust Camera to Character Height camera option.
•Achievements for the previous beta weekend have been disabled from the Achievements tab.

Personal Story
•Black Lion Chest Keys from the early personal story rewards have been limited to one per week accountwide.

Items
•Increased the drop rate of Black Lion Chests and Black Lion Chest Keys throughout the world.
•Laurel vendors now sell 1 hour of the new Item Booster, replacing the Laureate Magic Find Booster.
•Laurel vendors now sell 1 hour of the new Experience Booster, replacing the Laureate Experience Booster.

I would like to know what the key drop rate was and went to. I can’t be the only one thinking this is just BS. Stephane you made a statement saying Black Lion Chest Keys now have increased drop rates, but from what I’ve experienced is that it has not increased at all. Would you be so kind to tell us all what the drop rate was and what it is now?

I for one have never EVER received a key as a random drop, but at least I’m now flush with Black Lion Chests.

Has anyone noticed this increase please share.

It’s… higher? I got a key today from doing Harathi Hinterlands events. shrugs That key was the first key drop in what? Two years? Three?

What is the new drop rate?

Insufficient.

Judging by the old drop rate which was terrible, it’s now slightly less terrible, yet still terrible enough to warrent it being insignificant.

Uhh. One a week. From doing my weekly key run. Zero so far from mob drops.

AegisRunestone.8672:

It’s… higher? I got a key today from doing Harathi Hinterlands events. shrugs That key was the first key drop in what? Two years? Three?

Interesting. I was doing the Ulgoth event yesterday and a player pinged a key and said it dropped from a random Centaur. It’s kind of reinforcing my belief of “kill everything.”

If I had to calculate…

.000001*(-1)={newdroprate}

Sounds about right..

You have a better chance at winning a dollar from a two dollar lottery scratcher ticket then you do getting a key in game. Might as well be farming your one week guarantee PS key reward.

Didnt have any key drop in months and I play a lot

Got ~6 BL chests, 0 keys. And I play a lot after that update.

No idea. I have a stack of 150 black lion chests sitting in my bank. I don’t buy keys. If I get keys, I open one. If not, it can sit in my bank.

Slightly less than one-in-don’t-worry-about-it-you’re-not-getting-one.

As Cyrano Jones says …

The drop rate is the same as the drop rate of rain. In the Sahara. During a 100-year drought.

Yeah – what’s up with that? lol

probably by .00001%

Kreejaffa.3682:

What is the new drop rate?

Insufficient.

What’s the monthly subscription fee?

Too much.

somewhere between a precursor and a loot bag, I’m sure.

yall can forget seeing these keys as a drop on ANY type of regular basis… Anet is holding on to the teet of that cash cow harder than a middle american housewife who just discovered her husband won the lottery… or got approval for food stamps.. take your pick.

Um…i got 2 keys since the change in drop rate…one from WvW and one from a Silverwaste’s mob, the wolf with the flower on its head lol …before that, it only dropped twice since i started playing the game 3 years ago. So i guess its an improvement!! xD

Sorry, I’d show you exactly how big the increase was but I left my electron microscope at home today.

Even if each player would be guranted 1 key drop per week, they would only be able to get like 2 skins on average for free per year

Nor me or a single guildie has had a key drop since update.
I and a few guildies have had precursors since that time and it’s a joke now that pre’s are easier to get than keys.

It’s working as intended guys. Don’t worry yourselves with details.

Just remeber 100% of 0.000000000001% is 0.000000000002%

This weekend was the first time since the update I’ve been able to play any considerable amount. I had 6 chest drops in 7 hours, no keys yet.
I’m not expecting that to change much, and it won’t affect how I play. I’ve accepted that rngesus has forsaken me. :p

AegisRunestone.8672:

It’s… higher? I got a key today from doing Harathi Hinterlands events. shrugs That key was the first key drop in what? Two years? Three?

Same here, I got a key this week from a random kill while completing a map. I don’t know if I got incredibly lucky, but as AegisRunestone said that had never happened to me since 2-3 years.

I find the increased drop rate of chests a little annoying, it was fine as it was before to remind people of the gem store, but right now it feels a bit like these tv ads that loop 3 or 4 times in a row.

ANet never releases drop rate info. Never. The most I’ve ever seen them do in 6 years of following drop rate data is to confirm a data-supported theory that players have proposed (and I only remember that happening 2-3x and in GW1).

In the case of keys, there is absolutely no way for players to come up with a plausible theory: we just don’t kill enough foes and given the low drop rate, you’d have to track thousands and thousands of drops.

For example, one player recently opened 25,000 champ bags and got a single precursor. And there are plenty of examples of folks opening that many ToTs before getting their first mini gwyn (ghost puppy). The rate for keys (even after the buff) is presumably lower, which would mean tracking enough kills to get 25k drops. You’d have to forgo auto-looting, to ensure you were counting drops correctly.

tl;dr

• Those who know (ANet), won’t say.
• Those who say (any of us posting here), don’t know.

Actually, the game could use a Mystic Forge recipe that consumes Black Lion Chests. I have a stack and a half.

Then I will just chalk this down as another line of BS from Anet. Thanks all.

In 7000 hours in game I have had 3 keys drop, pre patch, none since. Even doubled with getting 6 keys in the same allotted time span, and given the chance of something useful from a chest, it could quite honestly take me years to get a full ticket for a skin.

I would buy them but I refuse to pray to RNGesus to get a ticket for a skin I may like, so instead I just buy the skins occasionally with gold. However, with the inability for some people to quickly farm keys it will become much more difficult to afford the new skins now.

I do map completion rarely on new characters, but even then the odds of getting something good from a chest, it makes getting a key a meh experience; even when one graces me with it’s presence.

IMO it seems that in order to cure the common cold that was key farming they gave the rest of us chemotherapy.

NecroN.8306:

Then I will just chalk this down as another line of BS from Anet. Thanks all.

Why? There’s no evidence at all for what the drop rate was pre-patch (except: very very low). And there’s no data now either for whatever the new drop rate might be (except: very very low). All we have is stories from people who did or didn’t get a few keys; we don’t know how many drops they are getting, so we have no baseline with which to compare.

tl;dr we don’t know the drop rate before the patch; we don’t know it after — it’s (so far) impossible to say if it’s higher or the same.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NecroN.8306:

Then I will just chalk this down as another line of BS from Anet. Thanks all.

Why? There’s no evidence at all for what the drop rate was pre-patch (except: very very low). And there’s no data now either for whatever the new drop rate might be (except: very very low). All we have is stories from people who did or didn’t get a few keys; we don’t know how many drops they are getting, so we have no baseline with which to compare.

tl;dr we don’t know the drop rate before the patch; we don’t know it after — it’s (so far) impossible to say if it’s higher or the same.

You are 100% right. There is No evidence that they raised the key drop rate at all. Without Anet showing us the actual drop rate it’s just empty words (BS).

NecroN.8306:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NecroN.8306:

Then I will just chalk this down as another line of BS from Anet. Thanks all.

Why? There’s no evidence at all for what the drop rate was pre-patch (except: very very low). And there’s no data now either for whatever the new drop rate might be (except: very very low). All we have is stories from people who did or didn’t get a few keys; we don’t know how many drops they are getting, so we have no baseline with which to compare.

tl;dr we don’t know the drop rate before the patch; we don’t know it after — it’s (so far) impossible to say if it’s higher or the same.

You are 100% right. There is No evidence that they raised the key drop rate at all. Without Anet showing us the actual drop rate it’s just empty words (BS).

I got one yesterday which brings my grand total up to 3 in 3 years.

Pretty sure there are people who have seen more precursors drop from mobs in less time…

Not sure if it counts as part of the increased drop, but since the change i have had 2 keys as rewards for completing the starting zones (one for Queensdale, one for Wayfarer foothills) on different characters. It seems to be an option instead of the materials reward. Don’t know yet if it is time gated but I don’t think it is linked to the personal story limit as I get one for doing that on Thursday, and then one for Wayfarer today. I don’t think I ever had one for zone completion before the changes.

Oenanthe.6549:

Not sure if it counts as part of the increased drop, but since the change i have had 2 keys as rewards for completing the starting zones (one for Queensdale, one for Wayfarer foothills) on different characters. It seems to be an option instead of the materials reward. Don’t know yet if it is time gated but I don’t think it is linked to the personal story limit as I get one for doing that on Thursday, and then one for Wayfarer today. I don’t think I ever had one for zone completion before the changes.

They were available for zone completion before the change. Supposedly the chance to get one got increased here as well, can’t be sure. I’ve gotten multiple via zone completion pre change though.

i can’t remember getting one for map completion pre change. I guess it might just be RNG being perverse, or it could be that the chance of getting one has increased significantly. I will probably be finishing a few more zones in the near future to see if the keys keep dropping for me or if its back to the 40 pieces of leather.

I’ve gotten at least 3 recently, maybe more, (after I bought a batch of 25 and had a surplus of a couple). I have been working toward map completion on my characters and got some there but I know the last one was from a drop.

Still never found one from dropz. Probably was a 0.001% increase.