Official Mount Adoption Feedback Thread [merged]

[Sylv.5324]

I'm really upset. I've been with the franchise since early GW1. Mounts were what I wanted most to be added to GW2. Now we get a bunch of them, and the choice is gamble RNG at 5 bucks a pop, or pay over a hundred to get the one you want, guaranteed.

That's not fair.

I can't even begin to express the disappointment I'm feeling about this patch. I thought you guys were better than that. I've put in 9k hours on this game alone, have been with you guys for over a decade, and have whaled out on quite a few months when I knew the game was doing poorly (and when it was doing well) just to support you guys with my wallet, and now you guys just want to soak me for another 120+ bucks? After I bought the most expensive xpac option for HoT AND PoF?

I would be paying _less _to play WoW and have some 200 mounts I can get in-game. I know, because that's what I used to do before I came here.

I'm an invalid, I want an MMO to be able to run around under blue skies and hang out with my friends. GW2 was what felt like MY MMO. I turned to this game when I was struggling with cancer just to get real life out of my head. But this just makes me feel MORE sick, not better. I don't know what to do.

If you guys had been up front about this from the launch of the xpac, that it would cost double to quadruple the amount of PoF just to access its mount skins, I would have passed.

[TheLastNobody.8319]

Honestly, not really, and it’s made me look at other games. It feels like I now have to play the game on ANET’s time rather than mine with how many things have daily rewards limits, or are tied to a timer. And if they aren’t, I need to pray to the RNG gods I get it via drop, otherwise, save gold and buy it on the TP for a price that’ll probably leave me broke and having to save up for again.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Wait. Hold on.

Isn't this slightly better than the black lion chest? I mean yes, you can gamble for a skin you want and -not- get it, but it then removes that option from the pool. Eventually you will have larger and larger chances to get what you want. If you liked black lion chests for super rare/rare weapon skins, this is actually slightly better than that.

I'm not saying it still doesnt -reek- of lootbox, but the lootboxes that contained rare skins didnt progressively have better rates the more gems you spent.

Lets say they put these in the black lion chest as rare drops, as was mentioned before. I don't think there would be even a fraction of the backlash that I'm seeing here if they did. There was some backlash when the hydra skin was introduced, because it was tied to account, but that only really hurts the people who dont buy the keys in the first place.

Iiiiiii think I'm on the fence about this. It would be one thing if we could get dupes, but I'm going to have to weigh the "you will always get something you dont have" side of it. Because that way you are guaranteed what you want at some point, instead of potentially spending and spending and never getting what you want.

[Fallesafe.5932]

@Tsakhi.8124 said:

@Fallesafe.5932 said:

@feroxeu.7416 said:this is a carebear game. Anyone who says they don't feel rewarded are just numb due to the amount of rewards they recieve. Facts: You get rewarded for losing. You get rewarded for winning. You get rewarded for logging in.

And it's all garbage. I wish I had a giant snow-shovel to throw it all into the delete-incinerator at the same time. This game absolutely showers you with trash while offering you nothing of any real value. If came up to you every day, and gave you a milk-crate full of ribbons, and colored drinking straws, and chewing gum, and number 2 pencils how long would it take before you started getting annoyed?

laughs

In my case, I'd start making things from those items MacGyver style. Then again, you're looking at someone that is delighted to get leaves as presents. Heh.

lol, that's an interesting answer. Teach me your ways. ;)

[Myhr.9108]

@Luna.6807 said:I'm very disappointed with the RNG lootbox system for the mount skins. I spent my last 400 gems on one of the boxes only to get a bland bunny skin - a mount that I rarely use. I mainly play wvw so gold is already low given that WvW is not profitable at all against those who farm day in and day out. Thus, when I go farm for something, it's something that I really want. You might ask why I don't just spend real money to get gems? Because GW2 seems to forget that different countries have different currencies. Yes, GW2, when I have to pay dollars or euros for gems I have to pay 10-15 times my currency value because I do not get paid in the super currency. Yes, that's not your problem, but I'd really like you to take that into consideration. Moreover, even if I was to farm for gold to buy all 30 skins - I would have to get around 2.7k gold - that's almost the price of a legendary on the trade post!!! That's a crazy price. I will not gamble the little gold I have on random skins. I don't find gambling thrilling or rewarding in any way! And I think you should also consider adding a gambling addition warning and helpline to your profit endeavors of this nature.

Ok, I don't care if I get some hate for this but...If you don't like something in the gem store, DON'T BUY IT. Before anyone jump toward the sky, no, I don't think RNG lootboxes for mount skins is reasonable, it makes the price for a single skin very unclear, and it indeed predates on some psychological weaknesses...like many frequent commercial practices, if I may add. There is only one real answer : DO NOT BUY IT.

I've lost the count of people saying "ho, yeah, it's atrocious, I had 400-800 gems laying there so I bought one-two licenses to test, didn't get what I wanted, and now I'm unhappy." Uuuuuuuuurgh, what? I'm sorry, but if I put a random green on the TP for 10.000 gold and someone buys it, it's not my fault. Of course, in the mount adoption licences case, it's a little more complex, because it does predate on curiosity, impatience, lack of self-control, and straight lack of reflection...

I'm sorry, but if you bought one-two licenses to "test", all you can complain about is being manipulated (which many people do, to be fair), but I'm afraid it's a weak weak complain, as NOTHING about those lootboxes was convoluted. People just feel entitled to have more than the default skins and are pissed off when they're too weak to resist some really obvious attempt at manipulating them. Shared responsability at its worse, it's a loose-loose situation.

Again, I'm not saying those lootboxes are ok, but I really wish people had more control over themselves, it would make the whole argument against random lootboxes much much stronger than it is now.

[FrigginPaco.4178]

There is a disturbing lack of qualifiers regarding the word "rewarding".

I would say, for example, there is a ton to "pursue" in this game, but maybe to someone who is achievement hunting, those little rewards and AP are very small increments towards feeling "rewarded".

Maybe you want to say, "Do you feel as though there are enough loot rewards in the game as it exists today?" or something to that effect concerning actual drops.

Gotta be specific, yo.

[Fluorescence.4539]

@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:Wait. Hold on.

Isn't this slightly better than the black lion chest? I mean yes, you can gamble for a skin you want and -not- get it, but it then removes that option from the pool. Eventually you will have larger and larger chances to get what you want. If you liked black lion chests for super rare/rare weapon skins, this is actually slightly better than that.

I'm not saying it still doesnt -reek- of lootbox, but the lootboxes that contained rare skins didnt progressively have better rates the more gems you spent.

Lets say they put these in the black lion chest as rare drops, as was mentioned before. I don't think there would be even a fraction of the backlash that I'm seeing here if they did. There was some backlash when the hydra skin was introduced, because it was tied to account, but that only really hurts the people who dont buy the keys in the first place.

Iiiiiii think I'm on the fence about this. It would be one thing if we could get dupes, but I'm going to have to weigh the "you will always get something you dont have" side of it. Because that way you are guaranteed what you want at some point, instead of potentially spending and spending and never getting what you want.

I'm already against the RNG aspect of black lion chests, so it won't change anything or make the idea of 'getting something' better. In the end it's still the aspect of value. If you get something you value as worthless, you basically got nothing. The idea of me spending money, but risking to get nothing in return makes it a gamble I do not want to play. I've never spend a single coin on black lion chests either and this will be just the same :/

[Drew.1865]

When getting leather to craft requires traveling to a specific living world zone and spamming a key for an hour and you have to click containers two to three times to see loot that most of the time is trash how could the player feel rewarded for playing?

[Senecxys.9437]

Okay so my two cents. As a long time mmo player RNG for novelty things isn't a big deal to me. Done right, it is rewarding even if you get frustrated along the way and the setup is nice because unlike some instances in other games - at least here I'm guaranteed something i don't have and I'm not going to get doubles. So thats a win in my book.

However I really feel like this was poorly done. So much should have been thought about in the system like whether or not you have all the mounts unlocked and player mount preference. I for one hadn't bothered with the Griffin (250 gold ouch) but now i have four skins for it meaning i spent 20$ and got nothing I could use. Thats a big problem.

So please please please, implement being able to pick the mount you're rolling the skin for. I.E. a simple ‘drop box’ menu to select one of the mounts and then RNG from that pool of skins. This improves the odds that the player will get something they like and can actually use while still ensuring they may still have to buy multiple chances. You get the money and the player is moderately happy.

The other issue is account bound. Of those 4 griffin skins, only one or two I really like enough to want to use. I also got several jackal skins that my friends and guildmates wanted more than i did. Were these not account bound I could have given them the ones they really liked and then have been all the more driven to buy even more since any i got that i didn't like could be given or traded off. Increasing the value of my purchase as a customer and allowing for there to be a 'second market' in the Trading post, just like with the dyes and minis. Though i understand that this option does lose you some sales as i wouldn't feel ‘forced’ to buy every single one but to be fair, forcing everyone to try buying them all seems to be why everyone is so upset here and it is an awful business practice anyway.

Alternatively! Adding a second type of adoption where at a higher cost I could select the exact skin I wanted. Say, instead of 400 gems, I pay at least three times the sum so 1200 to 1600 gems. To me that seems fair and even 2000 would be acceptable as 15$+ for a novelty mount in other mmos is pretty normal and thats not including the cost of paying a sub like in WoW.

All in all though, I really like the skins - even those considered ‘recolors’ and 5$ each is pretty cheap in my opinion but not getting to choose even what mount it is for is pretty upsetting.

[Vincent Xavier Snow.5869]

First of all, I'm a veteran player and I've been around since beta, and despite my previous gemstore purchases I refuse to support gambling with real money.

I was excited for mount skins and ready to drop gems on them, but I will not spend money on gem store items I don't want (i.e. all the skins I would get before getting the ones I do want).

For those of you justifying this RNG lootbox practice in GW2 by saying that BLCs were already in place since launch, I see two major problems with your argument:

1. Most of the skins obtained from BLCs are selectable and tradeable. Furthermore I can obtain claim tickets (albeit slowly) without the need to buy keys. The exclusive account-bound skins offered by BLCs are few and far between, and are skins for armor, weapons, gliders... But unlike mount skins, if I want to put anything other than the default armor or weapons skins on something there are hundreds of non-gemstore options to choose from. If I want a glider skin I can just buy one I want on the gemstore for ~400 gems. If I want something other than the default mount skins, I'll have to gamble for them, as we don't have any of the same options compared to weapons, armor, and gliders.
2. BLCs have always been a bit scummy, so saying that their existence justifies something worse is a pretty terrible argument. By that logic, irl nuclear bombs aren't a big deal because fireworks can also hurt people by exploding and we already use those all the time. Obvious exaggeration is obvious, but the point stands.

I've supported GW2 from the beginning, in no small part because of the principles it was founded on - breaking the MMO mold, providing a more player/consumer-friendly option in the market... but if cash shop gambling is the sort of thing we can expect from Anet going forwards, then players like myself will leave.

Maybe you'll be fine financially by relying only on the whales, but your average playerbase is going to take a serious hit and I won't feel even a little sorry for you.

[Beyonder.3659]

mount adoption license 250-300 gems, with purchase in bulkindividual mounts on sale 400 gems.

new mount skins get added to the same adoption license pool.

Appeal to collectors through discounted prices, appeal to other players getting the one mount skin they want. everyone wins.

[Jordan.5930]

@feroxeu.7416 said:this is a carebear game. Anyone who says they don't feel rewarded are just numb due to the amount of rewards they recieve. Facts: You get rewarded for losing. You get rewarded for winning. You get rewarded for logging in.

@FrigginPaco.4178 said:There is a disturbing lack of qualifiers regarding the word "rewarding".

I would say, for example, there is a ton to "pursue" in this game, but maybe to someone who is achievement hunting, those little rewards and AP are very small increments towards feeling "rewarded".

Maybe you want to say, "Do you feel as though there are enough loot rewards in the game as it exists today?" or something to that effect concerning actual drops.

Gotta be specific, yo.

Yes for some people it's in-game loot rewards. But for others maybe titles make the game rewarding, maybe it's the satisfaction of 100% map completion, maybe it's winning a PvP match or just having enough fun mechanics to play with your friends. I intentionally left it opened ended so people could more freely express their thoughts.

[Sartharina.3542]

@Senecxys.9437 said:Okay so my two cents. As a long time mmo player RNG for novelty things isn't a big deal to me. Done right, it is rewarding even if you get frustrated along the way and the setup is nice because unlike some instances in other games - at least here I'm guaranteed something i don't have and I'm not going to get doubles. So thats a win in my book.

However I really feel like this was poorly done. So much should have been thought about in the system like whether or not you have all the mounts unlocked and player mount preference. I for one hadn't bothered with the Griffin (250 gold ouch) but now i have four skins for it meaning i spent 20$ and got nothing I could use. Thats a big problem.

So please please please, implement being able to pick the mount you're rolling the skin for. I.E. a simple ‘drop box’ menu to select one of the mounts and then RNG from that pool of skins. This improves the odds that the player will get something they like and can actually use while still ensuring they may still have to buy multiple chances. You get the money and the player is moderately happy.

The other issue is account bound. Of those 4 griffin skins, only one or two I really like enough to want to use. I also got several jackal skins that my friends and guildmates wanted more than i did. Were these not account bound I could have given them the ones they really liked and then have been all the more driven to buy even more since any i got that i didn't like could be given or traded off. Increasing the value of my purchase as a customer and allowing for there to be a 'second market' in the Trading post, just like with the dyes and minis. Though i understand that this option does lose you some sales as i wouldn't feel ‘forced’ to buy every single one but to be fair, forcing everyone to try buying them all seems to be why everyone is so upset here and it is an awful business practice anyway.

Alternatively! Adding a second type of adoption where at a higher cost I could select the exact skin I wanted. Say, instead of 400 gems, I pay at least three times the sum so 1200 to 1600 gems. To me that seems fair and even 2000 would be acceptable as 15$+ for a novelty mount in other mmos is pretty normal and thats not including the cost of paying a sub like in WoW.

All in all though, I really like the skins - even those considered ‘recolors’ and 5$ each is pretty cheap in my opinion but not getting to choose even what mount it is for is pretty upsetting.

It should be 600-800 for specific skins. The RNG should be left for those who want something new or for a gift, not a gamble for the one you want at a lower price.

[notebene.3190]

I can't answer this, because my idea of rewarding is most likely not your idea of rewarding. If it's about getting D3-style loot drops, then I can't answer that, as that is not what is rewarding to me. To me, it's about 'am i enjoying my time with the game'. If it's that, then I would pick 'most of the time'. If it's the loot thing, I don't even know how to vote on that in D3 itself, much less a game that is not D3, as I don't understand how others see that as objectively rewarding.

I had a friend or two I was hoping would come play GW2 with me, maybe 3-4 months after release, and one of them wouldn't play it because there weren't enough shiny things dropping, like in D3. Needless to say, no one wanted to play this with me, which has been quite a bummer for me, but oh well. It resonated with me. :)

[keyokku.5412]

Mount skins like outfits, backpacks and gliders, beautiful fashion items should be kept the same, where we can buy what we like. There was no reason to make this a randomized lootbox scenario. BLC and other small things is a different story. These skins are pretty major visible effects on our character. This is definitely an unfair exploit. 700 gems for basic, 1000 gems sounds about right for most nice mounts skins, and maybe a 2000 for the starbound griffon, or the reforged warhound is an okay stretch. But randomizing it is so appalling and placing the value of starbound griffon equal to some other basic skins just doesn't make sense either. It also seems there are skins that are just some recoloring simply made for this lootbox concept, as common drops, when they really aren't that unique or necessary. Please never do these kind of things. I know it might work as players are forced to buy many many adoption licenses to get which skins they want but it's really an exploitative business practice and doesn't fit in your overall history so far, culture and community.

[Grim West.3194]

GW2 has a ton of things to do. Even though they screwed up WvW, they've got so many other things to distract me that I still play this game a lot.

I generally don't spend that much in the gem shop. And not a sucker for loot boxes, so that stuff doesn't bother me much.

So I find the game rewarding and fun. It's the best MMO out there atm imo.

[Jordan.5930]

@notebene.3190 said:I can't answer this, because my idea of rewarding is most likely not your idea of rewarding. If it's about getting D3-style loot drops, then I can't answer that, as that is not what is rewarding to me. To me, it's about 'am i enjoying my time with the game'. If it's that, then I would pick 'most of the time'. If it's the loot thing, I don't even know how to vote on that in D3 itself, much less a game that is not D3, as I don't understand how others see that as objectively rewarding.

I had a friend or two I was hoping would come play GW2 with me, maybe 3-4 months after release, and one of them wouldn't play it because there weren't enough shiny things dropping, like in D3. Needless to say, no one wanted to play this with me, which has been quite a bummer for me, but oh well. It resonated with me. :)

@Jordan.5930 said:

@feroxeu.7416 said:this is a carebear game. Anyone who says they don't feel rewarded are just numb due to the amount of rewards they recieve. Facts: You get rewarded for losing. You get rewarded for winning. You get rewarded for logging in.

@FrigginPaco.4178 said:There is a disturbing lack of qualifiers regarding the word "rewarding".

I would say, for example, there is a ton to "pursue" in this game, but maybe to someone who is achievement hunting, those little rewards and AP are very small increments towards feeling "rewarded".

Maybe you want to say, "Do you feel as though there are enough loot rewards in the game as it exists today?" or something to that effect concerning actual drops.

Gotta be specific, yo.

Yes for some people it's in-game loot rewards. But for others maybe titles make the game rewarding, maybe it's the satisfaction of 100% map completion, maybe it's winning a PvP match or just having enough fun mechanics to play with your friends. I intentionally left it opened ended so people could more freely express their thoughts.

Read this. Just to make everything clear, there is no correct answer to this question people. It's your own personal opinion and if your opinion differs from what counts as rewarding than my own, that's fine :)

[BrendanMcCoy.1289]

It's highly predatory. Stop with RNG RMT rewards. One it the other, not both.

The black lion chests are bad enough. Do you not make enough off of direct sales?

[Renoss.5601]

uck this shit i'm out, I had hopes you were different than the like like of EA or Warnerbros. but no, kiss you community goodbye.

[Galactic.6453]

@AnodicShadow.3647 said:

It's sad to see all of these people wishing for Anet and GW2 to fall. Why is there so much hatred in people's hearts nowadays? I personally wouldn't mind getting any of the mount skins, especially because of no duplicates and equal chance of getting them. It takes a lot of work to make sure these skins work/aren't buggy/are textured correctly and 400 gems for what would probably cost at least 1000 with some of them is a great deal. I don't care if it's random. I'm just happy to get a skin in general since I can probably find a dye combo that looks great on it.

Liking the game doesn't mean you have to like everything they do. Liking the game means you want it to develop into a good direction. This is business strategy is exploitative and people don't want it to continue like this. And not only is it irrelevant to argue about how much work was put into each skin, I seriously doubt those ticket mount skins even require more work than an entirely new glider, which are like 400-500 gems each.There are three types, retextures, skins with slightly modified models and skins with the same models but with particle effects.For the first one they only need to modify the color texture and draw four masks for each dye channel because everything else stays the same.For the modified models, they need to remodel and retexturize some parts of it but it's definitely not much more work than making a new glider from scratchAnd for the ones with particle effects, they need to make new textures or add some fancy shaders, and make and add some particle effects. The models are still the same.

Just because it's sparkly and shiny doesn't necessarily mean it takes a lot of time to make them and you aren't getting a special deal because they're in lootboxes.The main reason for them to put the skins into lootboxes is to sell more bulk. If they sold them like gliders people would just buy the ones they want, but with RNG they can convince people to buy more skins than they would have in the upfront method. Most people aren't like you and just want any, they want a specific one or a specific few. It's just plain manipulative psychology.

[Asgorath.6754]

Aside of merging complain threads into 1 so their main forum looks "clean", do they plan to do anything about it, or just wait that it dies down and leave it as it is currently?

[Cloud.7613]

@Rashagar.8349 said:

See the thing is, tonedeaf is exactly how I feel the community's reaction to it is too.Pardon? Unable to appreciate or understand the concerns or difficulties of others, in what way is the community – or those who are complaining – not understanding the role of ANet/those in charge? The way in which these loot boxes were implemented is absolutely awful. If they wanted to bring in loot boxes, there's a plethora of ways in which they could have done it that wasn't so consumer unfriendly.

1. Mount separate contracts: still gross, but it lowers the % in which you'll get a mount that you don't care about if you're after specific mounts.
2. A flat price based on quality of skin and then cheaper gamble contracts: still psychologically beneficial for what they want to achieve and doesn't bother those who want to catch em' all.
3. Release mounts by smaller proportion: gives chase rare mounts per 'grouping', in this instance at least the percentage in which you'll get what you want is better than the initial 3.33%. This also again, doesn't hurt those who want to catch em' all and benefits those who want to roll the more friendly dice for the skin.

Overall what they chose to do was bundle it all together (30) – give no mounts to any form of achievement, raid ect – and laugh to the bank.

Like, you can think it's too expensive. That's fair enough. Everyone has different ideas about what "too expensive" is for them and there's no wrong answer.In its current form, they are too expensive. Some skins could easily be valued at 800-1k gems, if not more. The issue arises when you get a skin for a mount that you don't use, in which it's not only useless to you, but you'll need to spend another 400 gems to reroll til you get something of personal value or just a low overall quality skin.

You can say you'd prefer to only buy the thing you want (most likely for a higher price) instead of it being randomised. That's fair enough. It's a preference, and it's a preference that probably should be catered for (though from the sounds of it when it is being catered for there are a lot of people here who won't be happy with how it'll be implemented, those expecting to spend 400 gems on the shiniest of shinies for example).... Yeah, that's the problem, in its current iteration, gambling is one of the only thing beings catered for. Those who decide to gamble and hopefully come out RNG king and those who want all the mounts anyway. If you cannot see how this is a problem, i don't know what to tell you, you're anti-consumer.

But things like trying to justify that preference by calling the alternative predatory behaviour and all that just seems to show a fundamental lack of understanding of what makes the other instances of predatory game behaviour actually deserve the label. And I just wish people would be smarter about throwing those words around, because when it's applied in the wrong instances (like this one) it detracts from the severity of the actual instances of predatory behaviour. And then I start wondering why people are deliberately misusing the label and what they're trying to gain by manipulating current gamer trends to their own ends, and it's not a happy line of thinking.I can agree with this, however, that doesn't mean the method they chose was good especially seeing how not one mount was included in actual game play that didn't involve Gold Wars 2.

[Klausvenus.1872]

There are 30 skins.. way more than I was originally thinking they would add... however, some of them are just bland, retextures, or add more dye slots. Why not add at least one/two skins per mounts via in game rewards?

Give us the basic skins as in game rewards, give us something to work towards... allow people to be able to use more than one dye. THEN have the RNG loot box for all of the "special" skins.

[Aru.7894]

This is a very disappointing practice that I hoped to never see in Guild Wars 2. I like what someone said on reddit at some point and I think you should follow that:Account bound, expensive, RNG - choose 2 out of 3

RNG and expensive. At least Black Lion Trading Post would stabilise the prices.Random and account bound. We won't mind that much we are not getting what we want, if it's cheap (and no, 400 gems is far away from cheap in RNG game).Expensive and account-bound. People choose the skin they want - no complaints.

[Firebaall.5127]

I'm glad there's outrage.

The RNG bullshit has been in GW2 from the start (BLC keys), and they are testing the limits that their customers will put up with.

Well, we're at those limits Anet. Do you understand what that means? Was it worth it to find out how scummy you could get before you got significant push back from your customers and held up by the media as a joke? You're there now. The question now is: "What are you going to do about it"?

I'd like to see a removal of ALL RNG items from the gemstore (including BLC keys). Sell your items for a set price, and stop taking advantage of human nature to increase your bottom line. It's to a point that I'd like to see governmental regulations put in place to stop gaming companies from skirting responsibilities in reaping GAMBLING profits.

Your move Anet. Lets see if you can step up.