Any RNG in microtransactions is predatory and unethical. Over the course of the last few years, ANET has consistently been restricting visual customization available in the base game and expansions, by locking more and more of that content behind paywalls. These paywalls have increased in price, and the products sold have decreased in actual offering. For the mount-passes specifically, there are 3 reasons why I find them unacceptable: 1) They are yet another RNG gambling mechanism that preys on people with inhibition and spending problems (serious mental issues) to keep spending money until they get the skins they want. In short: ANET is specifically targeting sick people to take advantage of them. 2) The visual customization offered by these skins dwarfs anything available in-game at the moment for mounts. The base skins have 1 dye channel each, and while not as pot-ugly as the base glider was, create an unmistakably generic, bland look for the typical player. This serves to highlight the disparity between them and players that pay more money, making "normal" players feel like 2nd-class citizens. While this disparity is acceptable in open-world content for F2P players and people who have bought expansions, it is utterly unacceptable that such additional flaunting of wealth, and not achievement or dedication via legendary equipment (for example), exists between mutual paying players. 3) The base price for mount skins is ridiculously high already. Over the last few years we have seen more and more customization be locked behind the gemstore paywall. The amount of items offered in packages has gone down - whereas complete armor sets used to be sold for 400 gems, we now have incomplete sets being sold for triple the price. Gliders furthermore underlined this issue - and were much more drastic in terms of its tiering (addressed in the point above), being insidious in driving players towards spending. Mount skins further cement this, with a preimplanted demand for visual customization due to low default availability and their incredibly high price-point underlining the increasingly exploitative nature of the business model ANET chooses to employ. I am speaking as someone who has spent over $1k on this game. I have spent my last cent. No more gathering tools. No more convenience consumables like repair canisters and revive orbs. No more "premium" character customization. No more rename contracts. No more bag slot unlocks. Not more gold-for-gems. No more outfits. No more gliders. No more armor skins. No more expansions. No more minis. No more dye packs. No more intruments. No more weapon skins. No more home instance nodes. No more area passes. No more Home Portal Stones. No more shared inventory slots. No more. I will not buy any more things to support this game. It is clear that whatever good-natured people there are at ANET, their executive staff is driven by pure, unfiltered greed. Whatever claims at "customer friendly pricing" ANET may have had in the past have died with this exposure of their incredibly evil exploitation scheme. Black Lion Chests were already pushing it for me - but the historic lack of BLC exclusive items, and general worthlessness of them being widely acknowledged by the playerbase were enough for me to turn an inner blind eye towards them. No longer. I am done. Atrocious missteps in class design had already put me on the edge. The disregard for feasible class builds across game modes was a significant turn-off, resulting in me playing less and less as of late. I'm think I'm done for good now. I enjoyed my time with the game, and liked the experiences I shared with others in it. And I will miss the game Guild Wars 2 was. But I would rather see it die now, before it becomes even worse.
Any RNG in microtransactions is predatory and unethical. Over the course of the last few years, ANET has consistently been restricting visual customization available in the base game and expansions, by locking more and more of that content behind paywalls. These paywalls have increased in price, and the products sold have decreased in actual offering. For the mount-passes specifically, there are 3 reasons why I find them unacceptable: 1) They are yet another RNG gambling mechanism that preys on people with inhibition and spending problems (serious mental issues) to keep spending money until they get the skins they want. In short: ANET is specifically targeting sick people to take advantage of them. 2) The visual customization offered by these skins dwarfs anything available in-game at the moment for mounts. The base skins have 1 dye channel each, and while not as pot-ugly as the base glider was, create an unmistakably generic, bland look for the typical player. This serves to highlight the disparity between them and players that pay more money, making "normal" players feel like 2nd-class citizens. While this disparity is acceptable in open-world content for F2P players and people who have bought expansions, it is utterly unacceptable that such additional flaunting of wealth, and not achievement or dedication via legendary equipment (for example), exists between mutual paying players. 3) The base price for mount skins is ridiculously high already. Over the last few years we have seen more and more customization be locked behind the gemstore paywall. The amount of items offered in packages has gone down - whereas complete armor sets used to be sold for 400 gems, we now have incomplete sets being sold for triple the price. Gliders furthermore underlined this issue - and were much more drastic in terms of its tiering (addressed in the point above), being insidious in driving players towards spending. Mount skins further cement this, with a preimplanted demand for visual customization due to low default availability and their incredibly high price-point underlining the increasingly exploitative nature of the business model ANET chooses to employ. I am speaking as someone who has spent over $1k on this game. I have spent my last cent. No more gathering tools. No more convenience consumables like repair canisters and revive orbs. No more "premium" character customization. No more rename contracts. No more bag slot unlocks. Not more gold-for-gems. No more outfits. No more gliders. No more armor skins. No more expansions. No more minis. No more dye packs. No more intruments. No more weapon skins. No more home instance nodes. No more area passes. No more Home Portal Stones. No more shared inventory slots. No more. I will not buy any more things to support this game. It is clear that whatever good-natured people there are at ANET, their executive staff is driven by pure, unfiltered greed. Whatever claims at "customer friendly pricing" ANET may have had in the past have died with this exposure of their incredibly evil exploitation scheme. Black Lion Chests were already pushing it for me - but the historic lack of BLC exclusive items, and general worthlessness of them being widely acknowledged by the playerbase were enough for me to turn an inner blind eye towards them. No longer. I am done. Atrocious missteps in class design had already put me on the edge. The disregard for feasible class builds across game modes was a significant turn-off, resulting in me playing less and less as of late. I'm think I'm done for good now. I enjoyed my time with the game, and liked the experiences I shared with others in it. And I will miss the game Guild Wars 2 was. But I would rather see it die now, before it becomes even worse.
