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Official Mount Adoption Feedback Thread [merged]


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I and many other were angry yesterday. Still angry but more disappointed and sad to see what depths A.net has stooped to. Dumping 30 completely RNG skins on us in one day was truly appalling especially when exactly zero fresh skins are available to us in-game anywhere in the expansion that already suffers from a lack of meaningful reward. It feels dirty, it feels manipulative and it feels like trying to take advantage of your player base in an extremely negative way.

The way you as a company handled the Halloween pack was as close to perfect as you could have done it. It wasn't too cheap but it wasn't overly expensive, you knew what you were going to get and you could make a choice. Now we have one new skin for 2,000 gems and 30 completely random ones for 400 each. It just feels like you are taking advantage of the goodwill mounts brought you and even the goodwill that the initial foray into monetizing these mounts brought you and it feels like you learned nothing from Heart of Thorns and the Glider situation.

Edit: Ehh, I assumed you were just starting a fresh topic so I summed up my thoughts in this post for posterity. >.>

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I won't go into great depth here, I assume that in the 37 pages there are enough people of a similar mindset. I do enjoy Guild Wars 2 a lot and I very much appreciate there is no subscription charge. Given that one had to purchase the game before playing (prior to you making it free-to-play; and yes I did purchase the special edition) I wasn't a big fan of the small amount of bag space which inhibits the player to make the game basically more annoying to play. I am also not a fan of loot box systems and as such I have never and will probably never buy Black Lion keys. It's too close to gambling and the ways it can tempt people to spend more than they should (it's also not healthy) and I don't believe Guild Wars 2 needs that type of thing to be profitable.

But I am not hugely against cosmetic microtransactions and quality-of-life upgrades provided they are not essential for enjoyment of the game. As such I am not in itself against charging for mount skins. Especially if the price is reasonable. As such, it's mostly the way one has to rely on chance to get a skin one can actually use and wishes to use. Which is not fun, it does not enhance the game. It turns people off, counters at least some of the goodwill players may feel towards the game, its' devs and publisher and I really don't think the game needs that type of method to stay profitable.

In short, the way of acquiring those mount skins speaks of a lack of respect of the developers and publisher towards the players. It's not necessary and is a black mark on an otherwise mostly excellent game. As such I'd advise you to change that for the players and the overall health of the playerbase. Makes us want to play and we'll spend money because of our appreciation of it.

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I'll keep it simple. If you guys don't do something retroactively to amend this situation, i'm never supporting this company again. I've spent easily over $1000 in the last couple years but you are not getting a penny more unless, like I said, this is RETROACTIVELY dealt with. Not passively dealt with, "oh, well we promise not to do this again in the future," that's not good enough. It's either revert, refund, or allow single purchase or i'm out the door, period.

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@Oglaf.1074 said:

@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.

My point was about people HAVING to buy EVERY item.It would still be expensive, even if it wasn't random.

The Black Lion Chests are very much random, people seem fine with those.

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@Rikou.4720 said: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...

He pretty much nailed it.

Who thought within the company that this was a good idea especially with lootbox discussion being the hot topic the last few months. The mount licenses managed to completely destroy any good faith that PoF managed to build up. Its a real shame.

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@Chickenooble.5014 said:The seasonal content is not required for you to play the game; if you want to play it you should've logged in while it was active. Fortunately for you, the living world content can be purchased using in-game Gold. Go farm some stuff and buy it that way.

...and this is a business practice you consider entirely acceptable, slippery slope. Hope digital content consumers are prepared for the costs of the future. The realities of the market is if the consumer is willing to accept inflated prices and financial exploitation it will become the new statues quo. 15 years ago the idea of selling a consumer what we now know as DLC which is often included in the original product (and thus your just paying for an unlock to access said content), or deliberately selling a game with an unfinished campaign or story with the intention of selling the conclusion as an "add-on" would have been seen as criminal. But Alas, the consumer slowly accepted the practice with some very clever marketing I might add and now it is standard practice. Today when you pre-order a game you not only have to pay full retail price but you also have to pay a 40% surcharge if you want to actually be able to finish the game.

Something to consider.

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Whilst we wait for the restore, is more feedback really needed? Anet has acted on far less and the size and skew of the feedback must be pretty clear now esp with gaming media reporting it. Surely it is time for Anet themselves to respond, im not sure what more is left to be said regardless of a persons stance on the matter. We dont really want this dragging on and on and on at this point - that way exasperates things.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Sorry for the delay. Things went a little weird and I thought I had a disappearing thread here. All should be fine now.

As far as whether we need more feedback: As long as players want to offer their thoughts, we want to read them. I have already submitted a detailed report on the feedback, including many areas of concern, individual and aggregate suggestions, and much more. I've also had conversations on the topic, as well. So this is "in the system" so to speak, but anyone else who wants to share their thoughts is more than welcome to do so!

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@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:2.take risky action in the hope of a desired result.

You defined exactly what it is. Cheers for that.

Wrong, you are risking absolutely NOTHING, there is no RISK involved, since you think it is:noun1.a situation involving exposure to danger."flouting the law was too much of a risk"verb1.expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss.No danger, no harm, no loss...therefore no RISK.
If you say you lost gems, you didn't, because you still got a skin(whether it's one you wanted or not is immaterial).

Dude it's one definition OR the other. You can't say "No, it's not that second one, it's the first one!". You're only trying to make yourself feel better and justify the use of predatory gambling items in a game rated for kids. Grow up.

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@Soupy.4970 said:Solution: Delete them and delete the person who approved this, then delete your careers. But, you won't. Instead you'll delete the community like you deleted the megathread, lul.

On a more serious note: This doesn't deserve discussion. It doesn't deserve feedback. RNG lootboxes have been a HOT topic in the MMO industry for a LONG time, and most especially in the past year. You all as professionals with a dedicated career in the video game industry KNOW exactly why RNG boxes are kitten garbage and toxic to the video game/MMO market. You all KNOW that this was already a hot topic all across the professional MMO and video game industry, and there has been PLENTY of feedback and debates over it. Yet, you chose to ignore the fact that the majority of the video game player base is vehemently against it, and did it anyways. So we can only conclude you did it our of either pure greed, or, someone higher up the corporate chain is pulling your strings like puppets and you have no choice in the matter - which if that's the case, and you care at all about your careers, I would highly advise working for a company that cares not only about the MMO/game industry, but also about your career and your voice on this subject. Otherwise, what are you doing with your life?

If you care at ALL about us, about the industry, and about your own careers, you WILL delete this crap, you will just close this thread (because why are we even discussing this? You already know the answer), you will publicly apologize to the GW2 community, you will compensate us as part of damage control, and you will move forward with improving the Gem Store in a way that doesn't give into what you already know is a HUGE no no. Like, why did this even cross your minds? How did it even get approved? It's like we as the entire gaming community told you the stove is hot, yet you touched it anyways. ?????

If this is because of higher ups, then all this negative feedback will be good for them. I'm sure there where people against lootboxes in the company, and now that they've been proven right, and whoever voted for lootboxes proven wrong (by our incredibly strong response) they can start making changes to revert this course of action.

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I just really....REALLY hope Anet took all of the feedback to heart and won't ignore us and let this become the norm. I'm ok with paying a REASONABLE gem cost for a nice mount skin. Im not ok with gambling (yes, I said gambling. GAMBLING! omg trigger word) for one in a random box. My plea to Anet...please don't keep doing this.

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I adore the new mount skins. I even think the RNG with no duplicates to adopt @400 fine. I will gradually buy some.

I do not agree with the 2000 for one skin, no matter how cool. I do believe that offering 600-800 for a single skin that you are hand choosing goes along well with previous offerings ala gliders.

I do believe that skins or contracts to adopt should also be obtainable in other ways since these are account bound and players cannot buy them on the TP. Why not a low drop on legendary bounties or Meta events?

I think most of the upset comes from the fact that the Halloween skins were well priced, and these feel really off price wise.

Love the skins. I will slowly support the designers and animators as I gradually buy them. I hope they will stay for a while in the gem store.

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Honestly, if the pack was split into types (raptor, springer, jackal, taimi's floating head, griffon), with a pick one of two, three, whatever arbitrary number? I'd feel more alright on the issue. If there were mount skins I could earn by actually playing content, I'd feel more alright about it. If you did both, I might even consider spending monies to get the one jackal skin I do kinda like.

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@Chickenooble.5014 said:

I bought my kitten 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?

Not all of them, just usually the ones I like. In any MMO, Guild Wars 2 (also commonly referred to as 'Fashion Wars') not excluded, looks are a great part of the endgame content. So far, GW2 has performed very admirably.

No, we don't have to buy them if we don't want them. Thing is, we do want (some of) them. I calculated the gold costs of it earlier in this thread - at an average of gathering about 90 gold a week, we spend 6 months farming for these skins. Skins that most of us don't all want. We want some of them, and we're willing to pay for those, but not (immediately) for the ones that would be off sitting in the bank, having been far better off not being adopted at all.

We're making a big deal not about the cost, mostly not even about them being in the gem store, but about the randomness of it. I am not the only one who doesn't have the money or the luck to try for the few mounts that I do want. So I haven't tried at all. That's my choice, but the fact that I have to make it does make me sad, because there is a few skins I really would have liked.

Edited for details.

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@Chickenooble.5014 said: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 kitten 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?

its a big deal because this game is all about cosmetics. the entire foundation of our monetary system revolves around buying and trading/acquiring skins... there are literally 100's of thousands of gold worth of items for sale in the cash shop and 100x that amount for sale on the BLTC... if you were to earn the gold to buy even a fraction of that would cost roughly 200k gold..... now you go grind out 200k gold bub..... I dare you....

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Quick and short.

I spent hundreds of euros in this game since I liked you being customer friendly and I wanted to support it. I won't spend another cent on this game until you stop pushing this rng bullshit with black lion exclusive items, mounts etc. From when you started doing it (last year) my playing time has considerably dropped more and more, as I find disgusting and disheartening to see how things have changed over the years, and every time a new patch like this hits all my enthusiasm vanish.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that when I buy an expansion I get second class stuff. You had 30+ skins ready in a month and we couldn't even get the dye channels on the mounts bought with the expansion? Like the glider in HoT you had to go cheap with it. -.-

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I bought 2 adoption licenses. Thinking about it over the last 24 hours made me so angry, I'm not buying any more.

Please, Anet, do NOT make us spend gems on RNG items. There are some players that have a lot of gold at this point, and can probably convert to gems. But the bulk of us spend hard earned cash for gems. Having something be random is just insulting.

I'll purchase skins that are single and identified if I like them, but I don't want 27 skins that I did NOT want to get 3 I wanted.

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I realize that this practice is probably financially successful in the short run, but I'd like to point out that almost every game I've quit (and stopped spending money on) in the last 8 years or so has been due to RNG issues. GW2 has been an "oasis" in the desert for me where for the most part it's possible to work towards goals and have measurable progression. Systems based on all or nothing rng (either you got the skin you wanted or you didn't) break that.

While mount skins are only cosmetic, this mechanic does (as many others point out) smack of "grabby" practices that other companies engage in. Practices we have long been glad that Anet does not engage in, for the most part. I certainly won't be trying my chances. I would rather pay directly for the skin I want, or work toward it ingame. Note that items acquired ingame (like legendaries) can still be a revenue driver for GW2 through the currency exchange. So if you put that swank skin behind a craftwall you can still make money off it.

Alternatively, if you have to keep the current system, make the mount skins tradable on the TP. Then you make money through the gem store directly AND the currency exchange. Some people may just use ingame gold, but others will keep buying adoption tickets after 30 just to sell the skins. It should work out fine.

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