Please add more ways to obtain Black Lion Statuettes.

I'm a player from Belgium, and as some of you might know, we have an 'anti-lootbox law' which prohibites games in Belgium to offer 'gambling' items in videogames. This means that players in Belgium can't buy Black Lion Keys from the BLTC. Now one of the only ways to obtain Black Lion Statuettes (BLS), is by opening Black Lion Chests. I know that there are ways of getting Black Lion Keys in game, but these are rather sparse and time consuming in my opinion. This means that it takes ages to finally save up enough BLS to get a certain skin or item from the Black Lion Merchant, only to have the item go out of rotation when finally having enough. I've been saving for MONTHS now and only have around 47, so about 13 more to go untill I can finally get a cosmetic item listed at 60 BLS. Doesn't seem all that fair that other regions can just buy a bunch of keys and have enough BLS in no time.

It would be good to add other ways of obtaining Black Lion Statuettes besides the current way of opening Black Lion Chests so that people in regions with gambling laws can also accumulate a fair amount of BLS. Maybe even selling BLS in the gemstore for a small fee, or even making the cosmetic skins available in the gemstore would be rather nice instead of having them 'out of reach' for our region.

I'd rather not use a VPN or any other region altering software.

Would love to hear other peoples toughts on this.

Thanks!

Purchasing BLC keys is probably one of Anet's biggest resources for getting money. I can't think that they would make getting them easier as it would cut into their finances.

Maybe appeal to your legislature and have the law changed so that you can buy them again?

@kharmin.7683 said:Purchasing BLC keys is probably one of Anet's biggest resources for getting money. I can't think that they would make getting them easier as it would cut into their finances.

Maybe appeal to your legislature and have the law changed so that you can buy them again?

Not going to happen I'm afraid. The items sold by the Black Lion Merchant are items that are not in the Black Lion Chest, so I don't see how that would cut into their finances. Unless there are people who specifically buy Keys for BLS. Then again, one of my suggestions is to sell BLS on the gemstore, or sell the items sold by the Black Lion Merchant on the gemstore. This way they will still receive money for it.

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:Purchasing BLC keys is probably one of Anet's biggest resources for getting money. I can't think that they would make getting them easier as it would cut into their finances.

Maybe appeal to your legislature and have the law changed so that you can buy them again?

Black Lion Statuettes come from BLC. This 'gambling' is why (IMO) Anet will not offer BLS elsewhere; there are probably many players who spend a lot of money on keys for BLC. The statuettes are just a bonus or, as some have speculated, their way of getting around BLC being 100% RNG. I just don't see Anet changing this formula.

But I've been wrong before. /shrug

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:Purchasing BLC keys is probably one of Anet's biggest resources for getting money. I can't think that they would make getting them easier as it would cut into their finances.

Maybe appeal to your legislature and have the law changed so that you can buy them again?

I understand what you are getting at, but the point you're missing is that it's a fixed amount of 2 BLS per opened chest (with a rare chance of 25), so why not just sell BLS as a stand-alone item on the gemstore if they are just considered a 'bonus' anyway and most people don't buy BLC Keys for the statuettes.

Because the only way to get BLS is from BLC for which one needs BLK. Granted, many players key farm but I'd wager more purchase their keys. This is the pattern that I don't believe Anet is willing to change.

They could add a BLK-to-BLS conversion to the already existing BL merchant at a rate of maybe 2-3 BLS's for a key. This way, you can earn some BLS if you don't want to gamble with the keys, or in your case since you can't buy keys, you can do the weekly keyfarm to at least have an option to obtain BLS's regularly.

@"kharmin.7683" said:Because the only way to get BLS is from BLC for which one needs BLK. Granted, many players key farm but I'd wager more purchase their keys. This is the pattern that I don't believe Anet is willing to change.

You said it yourself that statuettes are just a bonus drop. I'd wager that most people buy keys for the off-chance of getting one of the rare drops, NOT because of the guaranteed statuette drop. So not much would change financially.

Statuettes are a mere solace for "if you gamble enough of these, you can still save enough of this and buy a guaranteed item at that vendor". The point I'm trying to make is that even these items put in place as a guarantee, are not easily obtainable for players in a likewise region as mine. Almost borderline unobtainable. It hits hard seeing a streamer randomly buy an item and showing multiple stacks of statuettes in his bank, knowing he has a surefire way of obtaining them ingame through money conversion.

If you are allowed, you could have a friend gift you the Black Lion Chest Keys.
Send them Gold or cash.

Not the answer you want to hear, but don't participate in trashy gatcha mechanics. It only makes companies more willing to put more stuff into them. Ideally, they shouldn't exist or should be so unprofitable for us that we won't want to participate. The anti-gambling legislation really should come to NA as well.

That said, IMO it would be a good idea to be able to trade boosters/other shitty black lion consumables back for statuettes.

Also, you can get keys from new characters or from sPvP reward tracks & WvWvW reward tracks.

Add them to map completion, also add them to AP milestones.

I like the idea of selling statuettes in the gem store. If it cost the same as keys or slightly less (because keys get you 2-3 other items) then I don't think it would lead to any loss of revenue for Anet. Even if people who currently buy keys to try for an item they want decided to just buy statuettes it would cost them the same, because every key gives you at least 1 statuette already.

The only difference is it would be an option for people who don't want to buy keys because they don't like gambling, or can't buy them because it's illegal.

@borgs.6103 said:They could add a BLK-to-BLS conversion to the already existing BL merchant at a rate of maybe 2-3 BLS's for a key. This way, you can earn some BLS if you don't want to gamble with the keys, or in your case since you can't buy keys, you can do the weekly keyfarm to at least have an option to obtain BLS's regularly.

That doesn't help the OP who wants this system because they cannot buy black lion keys. Belgium made them illegal, so they don't show in the store at all if you live there, you can't buy them even to convert to a guaranteed item rather than using on chests.

@Danikat.8537 said:The only difference is it would be an option for people who don't want to buy keys because they don't like gambling, or can't buy them because it's illegal.Which is why, IMO, Anet will never offer statuettes outside of BLC. They want people buying keys to open chests. Again, my opinion.

These laws in Belgium are most likely going EU scale.So Anet likely WILL change things.If the entirety of the EU can no longer buy keys, that's a massive loss of revenue.

Plus, the keys dissapeared for Belgian players, so they CAN make things region specific.That means they can also AD stuff region specific.

I think the best solution for both Anet and players would be adding statuetes to the Gem Store ONLY to those regions blocked out of keys.

I wish they would make a different way to release the statues. The 2 wasted slots of the chest having statues is a big reason I would never buy a key. I have some keys I will likely not use, unless they get rid of the statue wasting space in the chests.

I am on your side, but for a different reason ha ha

@gnotshr.9136 There are potential solutions, as you call them, to a problem that doesn't exist for Anet. The entire thread premise is flawed.

You cant buy them no longer in game??´If i recall that law was being enforced in all EU, i can buy them :\ never had issues in gw2 nor other mmo0s.

@Tuna Bandit.3786 said:These laws in Belgium are most likely going EU scale.So Anet likely WILL change things.If the entirety of the EU can no longer buy keys, that's a massive loss of revenue.

Plus, the keys dissapeared for Belgian players, so they CAN make things region specific.That means they can also AD stuff region specific.

I think the best solution for both Anet and players would be adding statuetes to the Gem Store ONLY to those regions blocked out of keys.

Wait what do belgium players get for level 10 story as reward then?

Meet in the middle, create a way to buy direct in Gemstore, allow one's in chest to be tradeable in TP or remove from BLC, and write your legislature to have them differentiate that from cash only versus in game currency purchases are not the same. That or as above, don't support the practice and let lack of sales drive changes.

Maybe package them with some of the gem store consumables?

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:I'm a player from Belgium, and as some of you might know, we have an 'anti-lootbox law' which prohibites games in Belgium to offer 'gambling' items in videogames. This means that players in Belgium can't buy Black Lion Keys from the BLTC. Now one of the only ways to obtain Black Lion Statuettes (BLS), is by opening Black Lion Chests. I know that there are ways of getting Black Lion Keys in game, but these are rather sparse and time consuming in my opinion. This means that it takes ages to finally save up enough BLS to get a certain skin or item from the Black Lion Merchant, only to have the item go out of rotation when finally having enough. I've been saving for MONTHS now and only have around 47, so about 13 more to go untill I can finally get a cosmetic item listed at 60 BLS. Doesn't seem all that fair that other regions can just buy a bunch of keys and have enough BLS in no time.

It would be good to add other ways of obtaining Black Lion Statuettes besides the current way of opening Black Lion Chests so that people in regions with gambling laws can also accumulate a fair amount of BLS. Maybe even selling BLS in the gemstore for a small fee, or even making the cosmetic skins available in the gemstore would be rather nice instead of having them 'out of reach' for our region.

I'd rather not use a VPN or any other region altering software.

Would love to hear other peoples toughts on this.

Thanks!

If you vote for politicians who take others' rights to do with their property as they see fit away from them, you will end up with consequences. You say that it isn't fair that other regions can just buy a key... but that was YOUR government's choice.

If they can't sell the keys in Belgium, i agree,, why can't they just sell the statuettes there instead? Wouldn't be a gambling item and would give easy access to the statuettes for people with no way of amassing them.

@Ototo.3214 said:If they can't sell the keys in Belgium, i agree,, why can't they just sell the statuettes there instead? Wouldn't be a gambling item and would give easy access to the statuettes for people with no way of amassing them.

How would this be fair others, then? Why should they have to buy keys to get statuettes?

@Linken.6345 said:

@Tuna Bandit.3786 said:These laws in Belgium are most likely going EU scale.So Anet likely WILL change things.If the entirety of the EU can no longer buy keys, that's a massive loss of revenue.

Plus, the keys dissapeared for Belgian players, so they CAN make things region specific.That means they can also AD stuff region specific.

I think the best solution for both Anet and players would be adding statuetes to the Gem Store ONLY to those regions blocked out of keys.

We still get a Black Lion Key and also from other things like Map Completion (quite rare tho). We just can't BUY keys from the gemstore. They still show up for us in the gemstore, but they're grayed out and not interactable for us. Meaning we can't even get Black Lion Keys through ingame currency to gem conversion. So for us to get statuettes in game is by either doing certain story missions over and over or hoping a character turn at least 6 years old. This just isn't right. It makes them stupidly hard obtainable for us, meanwhile there's a merchant ingame selling some very interesting items and skins.

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Scratchpaw.1069 said:I'm a player from Belgium, and as some of you might know, we have an 'anti-lootbox law' which prohibites games in Belgium to offer 'gambling' items in videogames. This means that players in Belgium can't buy Black Lion Keys from the BLTC. Now one of the only ways to obtain Black Lion Statuettes (BLS), is by opening Black Lion Chests. I know that there are ways of getting Black Lion Keys in game, but these are rather sparse and time consuming in my opinion. This means that it takes ages to finally save up enough BLS to get a certain skin or item from the Black Lion Merchant, only to have the item go out of rotation when finally having enough. I've been saving for MONTHS now and only have around 47, so about 13 more to go untill I can finally get a cosmetic item listed at 60 BLS. Doesn't seem all that fair that other regions can just buy a bunch of keys and have enough BLS in no time.

It would be good to add other ways of obtaining Black Lion Statuettes besides the current way of opening Black Lion Chests so that people in regions with gambling laws can also accumulate a fair amount of BLS. Maybe even selling BLS in the gemstore for a small fee, or even making the cosmetic skins available in the gemstore would be rather nice instead of having them 'out of reach' for our region.

I'd rather not use a VPN or any other region altering software.

Would love to hear other peoples toughts on this.

Thanks!

This has less to do with the politicians than it does to the way of Anet offering these statuettes in game. I'm all for the anti-lootbox law. It has gotten out of hand in other games and people fell for it. The statuette item itself isn't a gambling item as it drops as a guarantee. Unfortunatly for us, this guaranteed item is bundled with a gambling item so it falls under the anti-lootbox law.

@Ototo.3214 said:If they can't sell the keys in Belgium, i agree,, why can't they just sell the statuettes there instead? Wouldn't be a gambling item and would give easy access to the statuettes for people with no way of amassing them.

Exactly.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:If they can't sell the keys in Belgium, i agree,, why can't they just sell the statuettes there instead? Wouldn't be a gambling item and would give easy access to the statuettes for people with no way of amassing them.

Sell them globally in the gemstore, what do I care? There's even a person in this thread who doesn't buy keys because of the statuette taking 25% chance off of him getting a random item. It's funny how his statement kind of exactly proves one of the points I'm trying to make here.

I just want to be able to get my statuettes through a surefire way, instead of one that is neither fun nor rng related.

What's in it for Anet to make this change? Sure, we all want easier access to things in GW2, but the current model earns the company profit. How would this change benefit Anet?