Guild Wars 2

What a lot of people are forgetting at there’s a limited acquisition window on these items too; when you take that into consideration, these items swiftly disappear out of the reach of normal players; people who probably have 100 socks / sweaters, maybe 50 hats and have only just hit the monthly achievement present opening requirement.

These posts with people opening thousands of presents in order to get the skin are the exception, not the norm, and if they’re having a hard time getting these items, normal players stand no chance whatsoever. That’s where ArenaNet’s RNG statistics get it wrong; they favour the gold-rich, not the average player.

Quests with these things as a reward are a much better idea and a lot more inclusive.

And if ArenaNet want to make money from the store, they should release items that are exclusive to it and won’t drop in the game itself. The current system only serves to muddy the waters and frustrate players.

I just don’t get, why things can’t be, say 2500(or how many ever) ugly hats for an unbreakable bell(even maybe make this version account bound). Then still have the unbound version as RNG drop from gifts, but also give 1 ugly hat per gift. Either you get lucky, or well, you get lucky. Is there something I’m missing with a model like this?

Shayne Hawke.9160:

STAND BACK, EVERYONE, I’M GOING TO DO…

…

MATH!

Assume that the drop rate of an Unbreakable Choir Bell is 0.01%, or 1 in every 10,000 gifts. Then the probability of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell is 99.99%, or 9,999 in every 10,000 gifts. Since the probability of getting something from any gift is independent from what you get from any other gift, we can express the probability of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell as the product of these probabilities. That is, the chance not receiving an Unbreakable Choir Bell is (.9999)^x, where x is equal to the number of gifts that you open.

How many gifts do we need to open to have a 50% chance of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell? Solve (.9999)^x = .50 for x. Using rules of logarithms, it can be shown that x = ~6931 gifts. So, you must open about 6931 gifts to have a 50% chance of receiving an Unbreakable Choir Bell.

How many gifts do we need for a 25% chance of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell? About 13862 gifts.

10% chance of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell? About 23025 gifts.

1% chance of not getting an Unbreakable Choir Bell? About 46049 gifts.

As you can see, it takes a great amount of gifts to be sure that you will get one of these unbreakable bells. Only after about seven thousand gifts will you be more likely to have seen one of these bells than not.

Stand back from the Exponential Distribution. Which is not the best way to figure this out. It is best to use a Exponential Distribution when the item in questions has a rate of appearance of a Poisson distribution (in which your lambda is a small value; I believe most books go to 20 for their appendix: However our lambda is in the thousands). It is best to use a normal approximation in this case due to that. This is what I was saying when I said a bell curve in the start. A bell curve is a type of normal approximation with fairly large intervals (or small if you so choose).

I will add links if you want, but that is off topic.

The topic is, why have RNG special holiday items with such drop rates when you stated the game was to be one of skill?

Guild Wars 2 allowed me an opportunity I have not yet experienced, the chance to be with the curve by playing the game early enough that I was not always playing catch up. When ANet announced the Halloween event I was excited, a chance to get all the holiday goods and not be left out. ANet thought differently.

This minimal grinding, no monthly cost game has turned in to either the most grind intensive or the most expensive game I have ever played. I have played as much as I possibly can(read way too much) over this halloween event, and I have not received a single halloween item save for the crafting ingredients. No weapon skins, no temporary weapons, no armor. The only thing I did receive was the slippers for completing the clock tower. Bravo ANet, you did a perfect job with the foot in the door technique.

Having the slippers, I wanted more, and quickly hopped in to the labyrinth. I completed both chests, and I only received green items. ANet had already changed it so I could not run it again until the game reset, waiting twenty four hours between runs is extreme. This is a limited time holiday event after all. It was then I decided to purchase gems with real money to buy three sets of keys. I was able to open sixteen chests and received nothing for my real money. I then made as many mad king chests, eight I believe, and was greeted with the same fact.

Yesterday the Mad King himself made an appearance, surely he would drop something. After running that approximately twenty five times, receiving largely nothing but two rares, I am close to giving up. As I said, this is either going to be the worst grind I have ever played, or I will have to drop far too much money to buy the keys which never seem to drop anymore, or the items themselves from the TP.

I have demonstrated I am willing to put down the time. I have jumped at the chance to do any event that could lead to a chest and do them as often as allowed. I did not know that this would be ultra elite items, I thought that is what legendaries were for. I thought I would be rewarded for running halloween events with halloween items. ANet thinks differently.

It’s not like the skins are the only content that was released…

And I thoroughly enjoyed the other content and am not complaining about it. But, instead of saying “oh well” to the things I didn’t like, I would rather try to provide Arenanet with feedback so my overall experience in the future is better, and in return Arenanet gets more of my money. Win-win.

After spending thousands of euros in casino I asked where is my jackpot, wtf is with low win chance?
…they threw me out!

This is why I don’t go to casinos, I don’t support the casino mentality. I want to however support Arenanet, I want to feel like it’s worth my money to buy Black Lion Keys. But if the casino mentality is the course that Arenanet is going to take with event souvenirs then they can count me out when it comes to spending real money on events in the future.

For me it has to do more with the fact that they already have the crazy rare skins…. they are called LEGENDARIES. With those at least in the end you have something to show for it. Halloween is supposed to be a fun side event, which only lasts for a week a year, and after spending a week farming for the skins/items, and dropping money on Black Lion Keys (because as it was pointed out, this game is free and I made a conscious decision to support the developers), I have NOTHING to show for it except six stacks of candy corn and a bunch of all but useless tonics.

All of the special skins/weapons in my opinion should have been given out in a way similar to the Mad Kings Clock Tower. It was extremely fun, wonderfully hard, and after a few hours of working at it, you get a guaranteed special reward. Nothing handed to you, you still have to work for it, but at least you have something to show for it in the end.