It's NOT OK to Hard-Lock skins behind BL Chest RNG !!

[RoyalPredator.9163]

Dear Support & Devs,
I would like to get "Winged Reveire Skiff" skin, but it's hard-locked behind the kitten BL Chest RNG.
Chances of me getting it ever is about 0. Literally, 0.
Seen others getting very lucky drops with few keys, but in my ~10 years of GW2 daily gameplay I've only got garbage with any keys I've got.
 

Problem is, there are NO other options to obtain these skins at all... Not even a straight 1000 Gem purchase or something.
I'm highly disappointed by this disgusting merchandising. Who's with Me?

[Taclism.2406]

 

22 minutes ago, RoyalPredator.9163 said:

Not even a straight 1000 Gem purchase or something

It was last week. Will be again in a few months, probably cheaper too.

Also its not a fix, but if you have gold / dungeon currency to spare, get as many (cheap) / common BL skins, minis, etc as you can. Makes every BL chest that much more likely to drop something worth it

Edited March 30, 2022 by Taclism.2406

[Arnox.5128]

6 minutes ago, Taclism.2406 said:

It was last week. Will be again in a few months, probably cheaper too.

There are some BLC-exclusive skins that are never for sale. Which is pretty kitten terrible.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Arnox.5128

[Freya.9075]

It can be frustrating since it’s RNG, but save your statuettes. They tend to make them available with statuettes after a while. 

[knite.1542]

24 minutes ago, RoyalPredator.9163 said:

Who's with Me?

I am. Gambling in video games sucks.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

The purpose of gacha mechanics is  to entice people to spend more for a desired item.  It's disguised as less, because people  will "try their luck" and a lot of them will be tricked by the Gambler's Fallacy and Sunk-Cost Fallacy.  Sure, some people get lucky, but the average person is likely to spend more than they'd be willing to for that item were the set price even close to what they will end up spending on "chances."

 

ANet gacha are better than most in the gaming industry, but worse than others.  That said, it's a company's business how they package their products.  All we can do is tell them it's a predatory, exploitive practice. 

 

Before you weigh in on that last, here are the definitions, and they do apply.

predatory; adj. - seeking to exploit or oppress others

exploit; verb - make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource).

"Make full use of" is clearly present, as the goal is as stated above -- to have people pay more for an item than they would without the "trick."  ANet clearly derives benefit..  Since exploit applies, and "predatory" requires that there be exploitation or oppression, predatory applies.

Edited April 3, 2022 by IndigoSundown.5419
Formatting

[Gladiotor.7561]

They should just remove RNG rewards from games altogether. As a Belgian i cant purchase black lion keys (anti lootbox law) and this is a good thing. I think the Netherlands have a similar law. 

The more countries adopt this law the sooner we can ban these practises. Why is it ok to gamble? 

[EveningTempo.4796]

Incoming fix: players can now pay 1200 gems for a skin select license.

[Esquilax.3491]

7 minutes ago, Gladiotor.7561 said:

They should just remove RNG rewards from games altogether. As a Belgian i cant purchase black lion keys (anti lootbox law) and this is a good thing. I think the Netherlands have a similar law. 

The more countries adopt this law the sooner we can ban these practises. Why is it ok to gamble? 

It should at bare minimum show the drop rates for every item in the chest. How they are able to get away with it for so long is mind blowing.

 

I'm sure the industry as a whole (e.g. overwatch, fortnite) which is worth probably billions has some lobby group paying any investigators to look the other way.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Arnox.5128 said:

There are some BLC-exclusive skins that are never for sale. Which is pretty kitten terrible.

Dont they eventually get a turn in the statuette merchant though?

[SexyMofo.8923]

I got it from a map completion key. I don’t even want it. 

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

2 hours ago, Taclism.2406 said:

 

It was last week. Will be again in a few months, probably cheaper too.
 

Not this one. This one is completely new, and your only way to get it right now is gamble.

otherwise it's a case of hoping that when it eventually gets added to gamble pity token store that you have enought of those tokens then.

[kankanKk.2748]

you can buy it on tp around 2500g or 60keys few month later.

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

The purpose of gacha mechanics is  to entice people to spend more for a desired item.  It's disguised as less, because people  will "try their luck" and a lot of them will be tricked by the Gambler's Fallacy and Sunk-Cost Fallacy.  Sure, some people get lucky, but the average person is likely to spend more than they'd be willing to for that item were the set price even close to what they will end up spending on "chances."

 

ANet gacha are better than most in the gaming industry, but worse than others.  That said, it's a company's business how they package their products.  All we can do is tell them it's a predatory, exploitive practice. 

 

Before you weigh in on that last, here are the definitions, and they do apply.

 

predatory; adj. - seeking to exploit or oppress others

exploit; verb - make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource).

 

"Make full use of" is clearly present, as the goal is as stated above -- to have people pay more for an item than they would without the "trick."  ANet clearly derives benefit..  Since exploit applies, and "predatory" requires that there be exploitation or oppression, predatory applies.

Alternate point of view.  I never buy black lion chests to get any one specific skin or item. If I do get a cool item, that's good. If I don't, that's okay too.  Most of the time I'm satisfied with what I get from black lion chests.  It's very rare that I'm disappointed.  It happens, but not nearly as much as I'm happy...so it remains worth it. 

I'm more interested in wardrobe unlocks than I am in specific skins at this point in my Guild Wars 2 experience.  It would be predatory for sure if they were selling a skin.  But they're not.

 

Anyway whether it's predatory or not, I agree that nothing should be in the black lion chest that can't be bought in the cash shop directly for gems, or sold on the trading post for gold by other players who get them.

[Danikat.8537]

Every black lion chest has at least 1 of these items which aren't available any other way and it's very annoying. (But marginally better than my other MMO where about 1/2 the items in the boxes are exclusive to it and your chances of getting any of them are about the same as getting the exclusive from a black lion chest.)

IMO the best thing you can do is to avoid buying keys so you're not supporting the practice. They put them in there to entice players to buy keys - likely spending far more than they would be willing to spend on a direct purchase. If people didn't do that they'd stop. Of course there will always be people who for one reason or another do buy black lion keys, so it's not likely to change any time soon but at least you're not encouraging them.

There's also several countries which are considering legislation to regulate loot boxes as a form of gambling. As someone mentioned earlier some have already banned them, and game studios have mostly responded by simply blocking players in those countries from buying them, but if it becomes more widespread they'll have to actually do something about it because selling a product no one is allowed to buy is pointless.

I know the UK is in the process of updating their gambling legislation (including covering loot boxes) and while it's very unlikely to make it illegal because many forms of gambling are legal here it wouldn't surprise me if many games decide the requirements, like signing up for a gambling licence and restricting it to over 18s aren't worth the hassle and simply block or remove loot boxes.

In the meantime the only alternative is to save up black lion statuettes (which almost exclusively come from chests) and wait for the skin to be offered that way, which will be in a few months time, or wait and see if it's made available another way, which happens occasionally but can take years.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:34 PM, RoyalPredator.9163 said:

Dear Support & Devs,
I would like to get "Winged Reveire Skiff" skin, but it's hard-locked behind the kitten BL Chest RNG.
Chances of me getting it ever is about 0. Literally, 0.
Seen others getting very lucky drops with few keys, but in my ~10 years of GW2 daily gameplay I've only got garbage with any keys I've got.
 

Problem is, there are NO other options to obtain these skins at all... Not even a straight 1000 Gem purchase or something.
I'm highly disappointed by this disgusting merchandising. Who's with Me?

I'm not sure you would want that skin; you can not see in front of the Skiff when the sails are unfurled.  At least, you can't see on Asura characters.  Doubt it's any different on other races. 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Inculpatus cedo.9234
clear up any ambiguity

[yann.1946]

5 hours ago, Gladiotor.7561 said:

They should just remove RNG rewards from games altogether. As a Belgian i cant purchase black lion keys (anti lootbox law) and this is a good thing. I think the Netherlands have a similar law. 

The more countries adopt this law the sooner we can ban these practises. Why is it ok to gamble? 

That seems like a little extreme. Rng rewards are a good way to introduce excitement to the lootpool. How does someone feel when they get a rare drop for example. 

[Asum.4960]

6 hours ago, Freya.9075 said:

It can be frustrating since it’s RNG, but save your statuettes. They tend to make them available with statuettes after a while. 

The catch here is that people who refuse to engage with this gambling scheme also don't have access to Statuettes, as the only way to acquire those is also through the gambling scheme. 

[Freya.9075]

32 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

The catch here is that people who refuse to engage with this gambling scheme also don't have access to Statuettes, as the only way to acquire those is also through the gambling scheme. 

For sure. I know not all approve with RNG in games and rightfully so. My tips was more aimed towards the ppl who does weekly key farming or buy a few of them and really want the item. It will take a while to save up, but it does help knowing since it doesn’t seem they will change black lion boxes any time soon. 

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Asum.4960 said:

The catch here is that people who refuse to engage with this gambling scheme also don't have access to Statuettes, as the only way to acquire those is also through the gambling scheme. 

You can get statuettes with free keys, it's just a lot slower than buying them. It wouldn't be a viable way to get all the exclusives from black lion chests but it does mean you can do it without directly supporting the sale of loot boxes.

[aspirine.6852]

7 hours ago, Gladiotor.7561 said:

They should just remove RNG rewards from games altogether. As a Belgian i cant purchase black lion keys (anti lootbox law) and this is a good thing. I think the Netherlands have a similar law. 

The more countries adopt this law the sooner we can ban these practises. Why is it ok to gamble? 

We have that similar law but it doesnt apply to GW2 since I can still buy it all.  I cant play lost ark for some weird reason..

[Danikat.8537]

5 minutes ago, aspirine.6852 said:

We have that similar law but it doesnt apply to GW2 since I can still buy it all.  I cant play lost ark for some weird reason..

It might depend on how they implement it. Maybe the developers of Lost Ark just decided it wasn't worth complying with the requirements.

It's a bit like why so many countries are always excluded from competitions even if that type of contest is legal there - there will be restrictions or fees which mean it's not worth the trouble for the number of participants you'll get. That can be true even within a country. For example in the UK lotteries are legal but the charity I work for won't allow them as fundraisers because the rules for running one are so complicated it's really not worth the hassle. (Especially when you can make some fairly minor changes to the format and have it classed as a tombola, which is easy to organise.)

That's why I'm expecting a lot of games to stop selling loot boxes in the UK if the updated legislation classes them as loot boxes. It will still be legal but they'll have to restrict it to over 18's, sign up for a gambling licence and comply with the reporting requirements and I think there's a different tax rate on that income. Well worth doing if you're running an online casino but not if only part of your audience is from the UK, they're not all over 18 and you've never needed to check before so you'd have to build a system to do that and loot boxes aren't even your main source of income.

[ugrakarma.9416]

RNG is a thing of the past MMOS "korean grind" style.

Its time to drop it completely, new generation of mmo players is skis hungry and will buy anything they throw on TP.

Edited March 30, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Super Hayes.6890]

I key farm once a week. Sometimes I get something cool, most of the time I don't. I don't even buy keys on sale. This system has worked well for me. I still don't have my ebonhawke hand crossbow though :(

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

You can get statuettes with free keys, it's just a lot slower than buying them. It wouldn't be a viable way to get all the exclusives from black lion chests but it does mean you can do it without directly supporting the sale of loot boxes.

Yep.  I have a good supply of statuettes from this over the years.  This also speaks to the merchant not really having anything I find alluring or interesting, so they keep piling up.