Guild Wars 2

Hello, I rarely makes any posts on the forums, so forgive any errors etc.

TL;DR: With “special” Black Lion Chests, offer the normal 3 slots, and then add the “special” slot to a 4th unique slot, to make the lootboxes attractive (instead of punishing people for buying seasonal ones).

Black Lion Chests are normally 3 random items, right? Now, Wintersday, Lunar New year and now Head of the Snake has followed each other in pretty much continous succession (the latter not having a day off).

I like that you offer a special, guaranteed item alongside the Black Lion Chests, but the way A-net goes about it just feels like a “don’t buy our crates now” and are really unattractive. The problem is that the 3 Random items gets reduced to 2… WHY?!
I am buying the Black Lions Chests in hope to get a new exclusive wardrobe unlock, weapon skin, a new dye, miniature etc. Why would I want to trade one of those slots for a guaranteed, lower-value item like a Divine Lucky Envelope that offers literally nothing (in the Envelope’s case, you could get the Golden Lanterns, but it’s more effective (less of a gamble) to just buy gems, and convert to gold than buying Black Lion chests for actual money and gamle on the envelope). The envelope offered literally no value. And now, with Head of the Snake, we are given a high-tier crafting bag. That has more value than the Envelope for sure, as those ingredients are a bit hard to come by, and are rather expensive on the Black Lion Market.

To me, this feels like a really cheap trick from A-net, as my ability to gamble on a rare unlock is decreased by 33%, and instead I’m given a common bag or item that I can get in the game without much effort. Literally who would think “oh hey, I can now get a crafting bag from the black lion chest! Better spend 125/450 gems on keys so that I can get those commonly acquireable bags!” ?
No one.

Please consider not making “special” Black Lion Chests punish you, but instead offer the bag as an EXTRA reward to make the Black Lion chests worthwile to buy when they are “special”.

I’m sorry if I sound frustrated, but being unnable to buy the item I want to buy (a Black Lion Chest with 3 random slots), I am forced to wait unless I want to waste gems (and actual money (I know that gambling on Black Lion Chests is a waste of money in itself, but at least it would not feel bad, like it does now)).

So before the change, you were just one of the many unlucky chaps that seemed to ALWAYS get a Booster in one of their chest slots? “3 random items” was never a thing.

Here’s what happened…people who liked to(?), or at least did, buy chest keys all the time, complained a ton b/c ‘these stupid boosters!’. Of course they had too many and it seemed like a waste of a slot. So Anet changed that slot to a rotating item. Something their ‘big fish’ could feel like wasn’t as much of a waste. That was, until all those people used all their stacks of boosters and realized what a qol it had been all along.

Now boosters sell for ‘real gems w/o compensation’, so to speak, and in that slots place you get some seasonal shenanigans. What Anet did next is great, you’ll like this…they added a FOURTH ‘invisible’ slot for only rare items. Yes, this gives you a 4th roll with no stipulations other than gambling luck and funtimes. they also added a couple new items that are small perks to new players, but absolutely HUGE for some veteran players wondering if that 4 yr old skin is worth the 2k gold.

tldr: the chests are better than ever except for brand new players who might prefer a stash of boosters…

While I’m not the target audience for gamble boxes, I have to agree that the move to replace one of the random items with a seasonal drop easily gained though play is very much designed to make the boxes less attractive, not more.

So how are you doing on Boosters and/or what are they worth to you?

That is the point. They didn’t replace some ‘random item’.

They only took Boosters out of the rolls and replaced it with a seasonal item. And then gave you a rare chance for a 4th roll. That’s it.

Now do I think a Magic Find Booster, or several of the others, is better than a Wintersday Present? Of course I do, but the rolls are better no doubt.

Maybe make a thread titled "Can we please go back to guaranteed Boosters in BL Chests!!!’ if you really think you have a point.

edit: you won’t ever get a 4th roll.

Hello Tman, thank you for the reply!

First, sorry if I have triggered you in any way :-) . When you mention it, I do remember boosters way back when. I’ve just come back after a 4 year break, and upon noticing the 1 special, 2 proper random slots, I went full “???”. Whatever the case may be, invisible slot or not, it’s really unappealing to see a guaranteed low-value item take up a space that intuitively should be a random slot. Part of what is troubling me is how bad the visual slot of it is handled. If there is an “invisible” slot, it should be mentioned somewhere. I did not know about this.

Here’s how I’d do it:
“BONUS SEASONAL SLOT” [ ] Normal slots [ ] [ ] Rare slot (5% chance (or whatever it is)) [ ]

And instantly it’s more appealing.

Yo,

The Black Lion Chests have been like this for a while now, and we’re getting the (seasonal) guaranteed item every chest INSTEAD of a booster (nobody really wanted).

These seasonal items are atleast holding value when you merch, tradepost or save them up instead of a booster you 1 time use and never see again.

I understand your frustration, I, myself, like to see them with 3 slots with Chest items only.. but yeah.. marketing won’t let them I guess.

Back to the point, it’s only a new, guaranteed item instead of the boosters we used to get.. that’s all.

The only good and fair thing in that seasoned slot was frozen weapon part. At least it was something that you couldn’t get ingame other ways (you only got 3 of those from LS3Ep3 achievements).
And, personaly I think that booster is better then most of the stuff from seasoned slot. At least I can’t by a booster for 10 silvers. All 3 normal slots would be better though. Or at least put in seasoned slot something that is really hard to get/limited to get. Like that frozen weapon parts. Maybe a transmutation charge?

I really hate the gamble boxes… It’s a cynical cash grab that feels extremely unrewarding. The drop rates for decent items is abysmal to the point where you need to drop twice the price of the retail game itself just to get something good.

That said, at least the items in the chests are cosmetic and convenience stuff. I haven’t felt even remotely compelled to buy a key since the first wintersday 4 years ago (I just had to have Foostivoo… $60 usd…) I understand Anet needs to monetize the game somehow in order to keep it afloat. I just wish they would offer claim tickets and permanent bank access and merchants and stuff like that for a set price even if it’s a really high price. It just seems more honest that way.

I stopped buying Black Lion Chests the moment they removed Boosters…. I tried out some of the new ones but I mostly got black lion miniature scraps, thought I could buy myself a mini I don’t own but nope.

Also the PvE orientated stuff like the Bitterfrost advantage point, is completely useless to PvP/WvW focused players.

The hover over text for BLC says;

“Contains up to four items including a seasonal item, a convenience item, and a progression item. Exclusive skins not available anywhere else can be found inside.
Preview available.”

The preview panel of the chest has the line;

“Every chest awards 3-4 items from the following seasonal list.”

I don’t think always displaying a 4th slot that most of the time has a sorry/red x/whammy in it will make the players feel better than have a “surprise” 4th slot appear when they click on the open button.

And yes, the iteration of BLC before this new type had a guaranteed but random booster in it. Also the overall drop rate for the two items players cared about from BLC, Black Lion Claim Ticket Scraps and Black Lion Claim Ticket hasn’t changed even though we lost the chance of two scraps or two tickets.

The Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock gives players an item they don’t have from the most of the tabs in the Hero panel short on an exotic. For me this is a throw back to the notion that the BLC is a sampler of what’s available in game rather than a chance to win “big money”.

Do be aware…before the guaranteed Booster in the Black Lion Chests, it was a guaranteed Mystery Tonic.

I’m sure most would rather we didn’t revert to that offering.

There hasn’t been 3 random (from all the loot tables in a BL Chest) drops from the Black Lion Chests for years, if ever.

Edit: At release, it dropped Tonics, guaranteed, in one of the slots. Thus, it has never dropped 3 random items. (Wiki History page for Black Lion Chests for source, if one is interested.)

Tbh i thought the divine envelopes in the boxes were nice, they could be tp’d for over a gold.

I’m surprised anybody ever bought BLK. Not only are they fairly poor value, but, unlike with most gambling systems in video games, there’s nothing particularly exciting that can drop from them.

Einlanzer.1627:

I’m surprised anybody ever bought BLK. Not only are they fairly poor value, but, unlike with most gambling systems in video games, there’s nothing particularly exciting that can drop from them.

Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Behellagh.1468:

Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Indeed, prices, however, are mensurable. And those for (super)rare BLC items certainly rised considerably.
Not sure if that is intended; home instance harvesting nodes for example were overpriced before that IMO. Maybe ANet will want to check their availability one day.

Einlanzer.1627:

I’m surprised anybody ever bought BLK. Not only are they fairly poor value, but, unlike with most gambling systems in video games, there’s nothing particularly exciting that can drop from them.

I usually agree. This time however they added some minipets (avians) that I have wanted for quite some time. So I converted about 1300 gold to gems to buy keys.

Didnt get enough tickets for one of the minis nor anything worth even the time spent opening the chests.

Back to not spending money on the game.