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Official Mount Adoption Feedback Thread [merged]


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"Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile." -my view on the road you're taking.

ArenaNet, I have the utmost respect for you. Both as a game developer and a company. However, this adoption of RNG cosmetics is just so very, very disappointing. Black Lion chests are fine since you can sell the rewards on the BLTC; allowing those who want to gamble an option, but making the items earn-able without RNG. "Adoption Contracts" need to be changed to a similar system, or give an opener a choice in what mount skin they get for 400 gems.

As for that quote above? That is what I fear you will do if "Adoption Contracts" become successful. Let's say I buy into the Contracts. Deciding to spend 2K gems for 5 chances at a skin I want, I'm giving you an inch. You make a similar offer again, but this time decide the non-duplicate guarantee isn't earning enough projected revenue, so it's removed resulting in duplicates galore. That's you taking the mile.

So I wont give an inch, I will not be buying these skins unless there is a change. That is called speaking with wallets. I sincerely hope you will listen and choose a direction that earns my continued respect of your company, ArenaNet.

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Greetings Guild Wars 2 Community,

I am making this post out of a desire to express my deep resentment at what I consider a very nasty bit of profiteering at the expense of the community by ArenaNet/NCSoft. I purchased Guild Wars 2 at full price at launch, played for a while but unfortunate real life came along and forced me to put the game aside for a time. Couple years on the first expansion was released, which I purchased shortly after launch at full retail price with the intention to play the game. Unfortunately once again commitments and responsibilities got in the way of those plans and alas, I did not get to play the game.

Fast forward to today, I purchase the newest expansion at full retail price and finally I am going to get to enjoy the game and play through all that old content that time had no permitted up until now. I log in and low and behold I find that I have to pay for much of that content again. That's right, Season 2, Season 3, locked and at 200 of NCSofts RMT currency per mission. Apparently this is because I did not play the game on ARENANET's schedule.

Though I am as much a paying customer as anyone else. I am forced to pay almost double the game cost because I did not play the game when the developers told me I should play the game. Think about that for a second and tell me that is not truly asinine. That is among some of the worst profiteering I have seen in the gaming industry, worse than the Eve Online micro scandal and various others in my opinion.

I purchased a license to the content in your game, and then purchased 2 additional licenses to access the added content to your game, It should not be the prerogative of the company running that game to tell the license holder when he or she can or cannot play that content or suffer a financial fine for all intents and purposes.

I just wanted to express my deep resentment at what I consider one of the most blatant examples of exploitative profiteering within the entertainment industry.

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I think the price for the RNG mount skins is fine. 400 for a skin is pretty typical for any skin - armors and weapons tend to vary between 150 and 400, outfits from 500 to 800, gliders from 400 to 700.

If there's any issue, it'd be the pure RNG aspect of it. The simple solution then would be to add more purchase options. I would suggest the followign three options:

  • 400 Gems, 1:30 RNG chance of any of the skins (what we have)
  • 500 Gems, 1:6 RNG chance for any one mount's skins (e.g., a "Raptor Stable" a "Springer Stable" etc.)
  • 600 Gems, Take your pick, no RNG, of any of the skins

This way, those who just want a specific extra skin could shell out a little more gems, while those who don't care but "want something other than default" can take a cheaper option.

The Reforged Warhound being 2000 gems is ridiculous, completely and undeniably, and I would see that reduced to at most 800, but 600 would be ideal to match the "take your pick" option of above. The Spooky Mount Pack was fine because it was effectively 5 skins at 400 Gems each, but this is one skin. It'd be fine if it had came with the Forged Outfit and other things like your typical pack, but this is alone. Those who bought it already could either be given 1,200 gem refund, or create a pack that is 2,000 and those who bought the Reforged Warhound skin could get the rest of the pack free (and should they have anything from the pact should it be packaging old items like the Forged Outfit, refund that bit like when that sylvari-themed package was released and folks bought it for Canach's Backpack while having the other items already).

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Personally, I'm OK with the semi-random nature of the adoption system, but balk at the price. For Halloween, they released 5 mounts for 1600 gems suggesting that internally each mount is valued at about 300 gems. Maybe we can say that an individual mount is worth 400 gems, but since its a 5-mount bundle you get it discounted. This adoption system has a single mount for 400 gems, but it should really be discounted if its going to be random. Maybe place it at 200 gems. One reason I'm OK with the RNG of the system is that I actually like the majority of the mounts and can't decide which one I would want to get! I'm OK with rolling for a few this month and then trying again a few months later. I know not everyone feels the same way, and some people have a clear preference and only want one or two of them and may not have the self control to hold themselves back from gambling. I feel that in those cases 400-600 gems would be appropriate for a single selected skin. That brings things in line with the spooky mount pack, which to my understanding was well-received. 2000 gems for a single skin, comparable to the cost of the expansion itself, is incredibly overpriced.

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I'm really glad you guys opened up a discussion post about this topic! To be fair, I've never used these forums before, but I feel so strongly about this that I'm dusting it off!

While GW2 has had lootboxes before, they were never really that bad. Yes, it sucked that nice stuff was locked in there but most of it you could buy off the TP if you had enough gold or if you were lucky enough to save up enough scraps. There were the dye kits, which in my opinion are a huge ripoff and nearly impossible to buy off the TP (some of the dyes cost almost as much as a legendary precursor! Comon!) but again, not super in your face as you couldn't even preview the new dyes in game without going to an outside source and finding the codes.

But these mounts? These mounts are completely different. You've never locked something so cosmetic inside an account bound RNG based box before. Gliders were never RNG based , Most outfits are sold as is, even cosmetic infinite tools were sold separately. Even Minis which would make the most sense to be in a loot box are sold as individuals! (Although recently I've noticed gliders and outfits in the BLC....humm, a trend?)

The fact that these mounts are in RNG boxes means you knew they'd be popular and hard to ignore, it just screams 'cash grab'.

I'm not upset over the prices either, 400 gems seems fair for SOME of the mount skins like the cosmic/fire/ice ones. Especially since there are things far less cool that sell for 400 gems in the store, like a cosmetic backpiece that's a plain....quiver. Also the 25$ price tag on the completely remodled mount with new animations also seems fair! Especially cuz' it's inline with what Blizzard sells it's optional super cool mounts in WoW for and it's not like you threw it into a $25 RNG box.

I ate up the boxed 1600 gem halloween mount skin pack with relish! Though a number of my friends were dismayed that they couldn't just buy they skin they wanted. Also it really sucked you put the skin pack into the BLC. I overheard on mapchat someone bought the mounts, then had the pack drop in a chest and....couldn't do anything with it since it was account bound.

I'm wondering where this path will lead you, are you going to keep adding mounts to the stable? Eventually a new player will have to gamble with 1 in 50 odds? 1 in 100?

I'm begging you, as someone with an addictive personality, please don't go down this road. (Every time I log in, I have to say the mantra "Don't gamble, you've spent your GW2 money for the month, don't gamble....play the game. Forget the mounts.". It's a buzzkill.) There are plenty of options for you to market these skins and still make money. Let us pick them out of the box, or just offer them like you've always offered all your other items. As limited timed individual items for sale. I would easily spend another $30 on the skins I want if I KNEW I was buying them.

Thanks, and again, I'm glad you are at least offering to hear from us.

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This dude is talking about this "gatcha system" and the "cost" of it all. Don't even know who he is or why I should care about his opinion on a game he doesn't even play. /shrug

I bought my shit with gems. I didn't spend a dollar on it. In fact, no one needs to spend a dollar on it because you can purchase each of these skins with Gold. Wait a second, no, you don't even have to do that. You don't have to buy any of the skins because your mounts already have skin that looks pretty friggin good as it is. These items are completely optional vanity items that change nothing about the game play.

I don't understand why you guys are making a big deal out of this. Do you all buy every skin, costume, dye and whatever else in the game?

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Im playing this game for last 5 year's and i bought gem's for real money many many time's , i did that in order to suport this game ,but recent priceing made me to think twice before i ever do it again.I even bought PoF Deluxe and if i could go back in time i wouldnt do it , not because it doesnt worth , but because some1 is makeing fool of me.The fact that they added 30 mount skin's is cool , but not even one that you can get while playing PoF content is absurd,this is the break point when it's get all about the money.I was one sec away of buying 30 mount's pack , but when i saw that there is one mount that cost 2k gem's , at first i was thinking that they made mistake in codeing and put wrong price on item ,but it wasnt the case.You guy's are selling 5 year's old outfit's for 700 gem's.I rly hope so that you will all sit and think twice what you will do next , you dont earn money from those who buy gem's for gold.

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Im playing this game for last 5 year's and i bought gem's for real money many many time's , i did that in order to suport this game ,but recent priceing made me to think twice before i ever do it again.I even bought PoF Deluxe and if i could go back in time i wouldnt do it , not because it doesnt worth , but because some1 is makeing fool of me.The fact that they added 30 mount skin's is cool , but not even one that you can get while playing PoF content is absurd,this is the break point when it's get all about the money.I was one sec away of buying 30 mount's pack , but when i saw that there is one mount that cost 2k gem's , at first i was thinking that they made mistake in codeing and put wrong price on item ,but it wasnt the case.You guy's are selling 5 year's old outfit's for 700 gem's.I rly hope so that you will all sit and think twice what you will do next , you dont earn money from those who buy gem's for gold.

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There was a good idea that BogOtter posed in his video about making the mount chance item cost Legendary Bounties in addition to gems. That'd make it so even though the chances are slim you'll get the mount you want, there's a direct path to farm it in game. In addition, this could be one of the systems in the game that ANet could expand upon, and keep adding skins through the same item path, making it easier to add one or two minor skins to the game without it being a big deal on either end. I dunno, I really like the idea

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I do not like the decision to make the adoption licenses random, one thing I always liked about Guild Wars 2 was if there was a skin I liked from the gem store I could buy that one skin I wanted without getting a load of ones I did not want.

The thing I find even more surprising is the pricing on the 30 skins is 3 times more than the expansion which implemented mounts cost. I would love to buy 1 skin for each mount but if you want me to do the random chance lottery at getting it then Arena Net can **** right off and I make no apology for the tone because that is how much I despise paying money for a chance at getting something I want.

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Must of gotten removed during the merging process. hm. Reposting my feedback from tumblr tho: Just my two cents on this whole issue but. I’d like to suggest refunding everyones gems then allowing them to either have the packages divided per mount so the odds are more favorable for the skins they want or allowing people to buy a token they can exchange for the exact skin they want. Personally I’d prefer the latter. I love you guys payment model and I’ll happily throw money at you. Just don’t show me stuff I want, and force me to deal with RNG to acquire it. It feels like a money grab and I had previously thought really highly of you guys. As Jim Sterling said….I’m deeply disappointed in you guys going this route. I don't have an issue with the price as is, I do have an issue with the overall RNG aspect. Just to make that...very clear...

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I have no issues with the skins and the way they're handed out.People saying it's going to be expensive to get all the skins.. erm.. yes?It's going to be very expensive buying every outfit too, or every 'toy', or everything else in the in-game store.It's going to be very expensive buying every item in other games, like Overwatch, too.And it's still going to be very expensive to get every skin, even if they're not handed to you randomly.

You can buy gems with in-game gold, did people forget that?So you'll still be able to get them all without paying any real money, especially since you'll never get a skin you already own.

And I'm pretty sure they'll be handed out in-game in some way too later on. ;)

I will say that I think the price should be dropped a bit though, and the skin not in the Adoption thingy is waaaay too expensive.Other than that, I'm fine with it, at least they're not a tease, like the Black Lions Chests are.

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If the previous 37 pages of discussion are restored, I will remove this post. Until then, have this edited feedback of mine from last night / today that I was working on refining when the thread went poof.

Considering that everything has been merged now and I hope this means that ANET intends to review the feedback gathered here, I will make one more mention of my thoughts on this:

  • Price mount skins similar to glider skins. 400 - 800 gem range. You do not sell outfits / gliders for more than 800 gems each, please don't try to take advantage of our goodwill with mounts. The lower end of that said range would be simple recolors, while the higher end would be flashier, more elaborately edited skins, skins that have heavy particle effects, etc. Follow the model you used for glider skins-- that is what your playerbase is used to, and probably expected to carry over for mount skins. So far, even considering how they're priced, they all still follow this value model besides the Reforged Warhound (and that is a whole other can of worms). Spooky mounts at 2000g /5 = 400g each. The Mountbox at 12400g /31 = 400g each. I will even do a rough of the theoretical pricing of each skin if they were sold individually..RAPTOR SKINS:Coastal Spiketail (400g) /// Savannah Monitor (400g) /// Canyon Spiketail (500g) /// Striped Tri-horn (500g) /// Flamelander (700g) /// Stormridge (700g)SPRINGER SKINS:Tawny Hare (400g) /// Windy Spot (400g) /// Desert Lop (500g) /// Elonian Jackalope (500g) /// Arctic Jerboa (700g) /// Primal Hare (700g)SKIMMER SKINS:Bright Ringfin (400g) /// Oasis Skate (400g) /// River Moth Wing (500g) /// Spined Longtail (500g) /// Dajkah Lantern (700g) /// Oceanic Ray (700g)JACKAL SKINS:Banded Mystic (400g) /// Polished Stone (400g) /// Crowned Ancient (500g) /// Twin Sands (500g) /// Stardust (700g) /// Pyroclast (700g)GRIFFON SKINS:Highlands Harrier (400g) /// Spotted Sylph (400g) /// Badlands Stalker (500g) /// Clouded Corvus (500g) /// Fire Pinion (700g) /// Starbound (700g)

  • Sell them individually. Please, for the love of god. Even gliders in a bundle with say an outfit or a backpiece are sold individually (to my knowledge, not sure about backpieces specifically). Outfits are the same way-- you can still buy them individually even if they're in a bundle. I don't care if you bundle skins for a discount, or to allow people to buy them all at once-- but also offer the option to buy them in singles so those that don't want them all don't have to get skins they wont use.

  • Actually add some skins in to be earned through in game content. Like, honestly ANET. I love you. But not everything has to be done through your gemstore. Even if it was just the really simple recolor skins (like Coastal Spiketail/Tawny Hare/Bright Ringfin/Banded Mystic/Highlands Harrier), at least allow your playerbase to earn something for their mounts via the expansion that, I dunno, brought mounts to begin with? You could give them to the Mount Heart Merchants to sell for trade contracts, give them for completing achievements, events, collections, etc. There is so much you could do with mount skin acquisition and yet the money has you blind.

  • If you absolutely must, for whatever unfortunate reason, must keep this RNG system then please, PLEASE consider making the skins tradable on the TP like other RNG content like dyes, Black Lion Skins (that rely on ticket RNG from chests), etc. Lower the price to something more manageable in the long run-- 100/200g and/or make it so we can limit the selection to a species of our choice per box. but the bullet points before this are the preferable course of action for the future of this game. You already have Black Lion Chests and that other LWS1 box. You don't need another; BLCs are bad enough as is.

Edit: Now that it isn't 2 AM I've gone back and made some things look nicer, reword others to sound better and add some afterthoughts.

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@Hezkore.9568 said:People saying it's going to be expensive to get all the skins.. erm.. yes?It's going to be very expensive buying every outfit too, or every 'toy', or everything else in the in-game store.It's going to be very expensive buying every item in other games, like Overwatch, too.

You're missing the point entirely.

When you buy an Outift, you get the Outfit you want for Gems.

When you buy one of these Mount Skin Loot Boxes, you gamble for the skin(s) you want.

See the horrible, horrible difference? If you could just outright purchase the Mount Skin you want for Gems, it would be business as usual. Clearly the GW2 player base has no qualms about buying premium content for Gems. No, it is using your Gems to gamble that has everyone in an uproar.

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