Earning mount skins in game

[Endaris.1452]

What you all are forgetting is that all of these cool side quest thingies require a lot of development time.

The reason why the "quest" systems for Gen2 legendary weapons were dropped after the first 4 was precisely that Anet figured out that these sidequests require way too much development time, especially with regards to how many people would actually play them.

With mount skins it would be even more absurd because it would reduce the incentive to buy mount skins from the gemstore while cutting down on the available development resources for other things that even OP likely deems more important.

I'm not against earnable mount skins but it's not going to happen and I'm totally okay with that cause the base mounts are cool enough in my opinion.

[SoulGuardian.6203]

They just gave you one for free!

 

It would be nice, but highly unlikely. 

Mount Skins are one of those things that generate profit for the company.

 

There is one you can unlock through WvW.

 

You never know though... ANet may decide to make a one off special skin reward on some achievement. 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by SoulGuardian.6203

[soul.9651]

6 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

Because gold is the perfect currency, as it is universally earned. If you lock mount skins behind raid currency, only raiders will get them and you get complains from all other players. But everybody can earn gold.
The only thing that would somewhat be fair is that if all modes, like sPvP, WvW, PvE and OW get their own set of mount skins, so almost everybody as some way or another to get them.

Yes but the amount of gold you need to have for gold to gems conversion tells that by far not everyone will be able to earn mounts skins they want just "by playing the game". In reality people can earn enough gold for everything if they do all of the high end content constantly plus some other daily farms and how many people is that? Majority of people who dont do high end content but still have enough gold will be multiboxing, botting, afk farming call it how you want, or just farming mindlessly till they get burn out from this game and the rest straight up just gonna swipe their credit card. My point is they should make some more mount skins accessible by a real gameplay and for more people in both categories who are casuals and who are playing high end content. Plus having everything at gem store might be a reason for some new players just to stop playing this game if they do like having mount skins but also realise that most likely they will have to swipe, especially if they come from wow where mtx are even worse.. seeing same mistakes at gw2 doesnt help to attract more people.

[kharmin.7683]

9 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

Yes but the amount of gold you need to have for gold to gems conversion tells that by far not everyone will be able to earn mounts skins they want just "by playing the game".

As a very casual player, I have earned well enough gold to convert (when the conversion rates are more optimal).  Everyone is able to earn mount skins through this process if they choose. 

Or, players can simply purchase gems with cash and oh, I don't know, maybe support the studio?  There's no sub fee, so tossing $15-20 bucks to Anet once in a while would be helpful. 

[ProtoGunner.4953]

44 minutes ago, SoulGuardian.6203 said:

They just gave you one for free!

 

It would be nice, but highly unlikely. 

Mount Skins are one of those things that generate profit for the company.

 

There is one you can unlock through WvW.

 

You never know though... ANet may decide to make a one off special skin reward on some achievement. 

 

 

You are right, but wouldn't it suffice to earn maybe 10-20 out of these whopping 300 skins as in game rewards? The vast amount can still be sold in the shop. Now it just seems too greedy. We talk about 2000 gem skins which is the price of half an expansion. The game industry trained you well...

[Endaris.1452]

5 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

You are right, but wouldn't it suffice to earn maybe 10-20 out of these whopping 300 skins as in game rewards? The vast amount can still be sold in the shop. Now it just seems too greedy. We talk about 2000 gem skins which is the price of half an expansion. The game industry trained you well...

And it is raw cosmetics, none NEEDS mount skins, none forces you to buy them. It's your decision to want different shiny pixels.

The high price point is an issue on its own but that is an entirely separate debate.

If that many mount skins were earnable ingame, a lot of people would feel a lot less inclined to buy mount skins.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

2 minutes ago, Endaris.1452 said:

And it is raw cosmetics, none NEEDS mount skins, none forces you to buy them. It's your decision to want different shiny pixels.

The high price point is an issue on its own but that is an entirely separate debate.

If that many mount skins were earnable ingame, a lot of people would feel a lot less inclined to buy mount skins.

This is a non-argument: you don't need the game to live, so don't play it. Where do you draw the line? Especially in GW2 where it's easy to acquire BiS gear and the 'hunt' for cosmetics is the main incentive for many players? I remind you that a lot of people only play for rewards.

[Endaris.1452]

13 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

This is a non-argument: you don't need the game to live, so don't play it. Where do you draw the line?

Simple, they are not integral to the functionality of the game in any way, they have no interaction with any game mechanics, nor do they even provide any convenience for the user.

Raw cosmetics that have no impact on the philosophy of "play the game the way you want".

If you want to argue that appearance is part of that philosophy that would take it to the point where there shouldn't be any skins in the gem shop at all. And at that point, all I can say is that a (near-)F2P game has to monetize something and that something should definitely fit the line I mentioned above in order to not sully the general experience for players with less money.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Endaris.1452

[RadiantWolf.2058]

7 hours ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

You can literally earn mount skins within the game right now by collecting gold and exchanging it for gems.

I should have assumed this would be the first response.

 

Making gold is in itself a skill, yes. But making gold to convert to gems to buy skins with isn't exactly interacting with the content I mentioned.

 

People can still buy the flashy gem store skins with gold.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

4 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

To simplify my earlier post: I'm not opposed to the idea of earning mount skins in-game. I'm opposed to the idea of adding very, very rare drops to repetitive content and especially the idea that it's a good incentive for players to repeat it. There's nothing fun about being stuck grinding the same thing over and over with no guarantee it will ever pay off.

At least with gold there's multiple ways to get it so if you're bored with one you can do something else instead. I think that's part of why they simplified the dungeon tokens, everything I want or need from dungeons always seems to come from Honor of the Waves or Twilight Arbor so when I found myself faced with doing multiple runs of the same 4 paths again I decided to find something else to use instead, even though I was guaranteed to get tokens. Now I can do any dungeons and get the items I need or want, which is a lot nicer.

A collection or whatever for mount skins would be ok if it was a guaranteed reward. Or buying them with the various currencies tied to specific areas of the game. Not hoping for a random drop.

 

 

Very very rare mounts are fun to hope for.

 

But reading your responses having epic quest chains to get mounts would be amazing as well. I think it is just more of a design load than making skins and adding them to loot tables.

Edited August 31, 2022 by RadiantWolf.2058

[Ashen.2907]

57 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Now it just seems too greedy

The only greed present is casting aspersions on others for not giving you the product of their labor for free. The modern age of entitlement has trained you well.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

I don't think all mount skins should be free in game. I think that in a game with no subscription the overwhelming majority being in the shop makes sense but it would be very nice to have some in game.

 

I love GW2, it has some of the best moment to moment gameplay of any MMORPG out there but it does lack prestige rewards which is a shame for a game with horizontal progression. All it has are a few infusions which aren't ideal for people who want weapons or mounts that sparkle instead of characters. I think it would be neat if ANet was a little better about that. Hence this hypothetical.

 

....But I do tend to get confused emote reactions raining from the sky when I mention something like this. Maybe people just prefer that all mount skins are always 100% gemstore only (and one PvP one) idk.

[Danikat.8537]

2 hours ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

Now that I think of it, it is kind of weird that you can't ride a horse, since they are like the animal to ride on. 🤔
Maybe as a Warclaw or Jackal skin someday.

Horses don't exist in Tyria. They're presumed to be extinct because there's mentions of them and historical references, but there are no living horses anywhere in the parts of Tyria, Elona and Cantha that we've seen. (There is one horse in the Mists, but he's almost certainly not a typical example and also likely to be hundreds of years old.)
 

1 hour ago, soul.9651 said:

Yes but the amount of gold you need to have for gold to gems conversion tells that by far not everyone will be able to earn mounts skins they want just "by playing the game". In reality people can earn enough gold for everything if they do all of the high end content constantly plus some other daily farms and how many people is that? Majority of people who dont do high end content but still have enough gold will be multiboxing, botting, afk farming call it how you want, or just farming mindlessly till they get burn out from this game and the rest straight up just gonna swipe their credit card. My point is they should make some more mount skins accessible by a real gameplay and for more people in both categories who are casuals and who are playing high end content. Plus having everything at gem store might be a reason for some new players just to stop playing this game if they do like having mount skins but also realise that most likely they will have to swipe, especially if they come from wow where mtx are even worse.. seeing same mistakes at gw2 doesnt help to attract more people.

In this context there's an important distinction between being able to get a thing you want and being able to get everything.

It's entirely possible to get a mount skin, or anything else, from the gem store by playing casually, saving up gold and converting it to gems. It's just a matter of time and some practical choices; like recognising that if you're a casual player you're not going to be routinely making legendaries or collecting all the unique exotics so you don't need many Mystic Coins and can safely sell the ones you do get to fund the things you do want to buy.

It's probably not possible, certainly not practical to try to get everything in the game that way, or even everything in the gem store because new stuff will be added faster than they can save up the gold to get it. But it's also highly unlikely a casual player will want everything, so that's irrelevant. They can pick an item they do want and wait for gold to accumulate until they can afford it. (Which might also mean waiting for a good time to convert gold into gems and waiting for the item to come back, but I assume a casual player isn't in a massive hurry to get a new skin.)

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Guys I really don't get it. You defend by all means (also smileys) your point and promote the shop skins whereas literally every youtuber and reviewer in general says it's bad. Where is this loyalty coming from? Stockholm syndrome? Anyways, have fun with your shop skins where you farm two weeks for gold to get a skin instead of doing quests and getting rewards...

[ProtoGunner.4953]

18 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

The only greed present is casting aspersions on others for not giving you the product of their labor for free. The modern age of entitlement has trained you well.

What are you talking about? I sank thousands of Euros into this game/franchise over the past 16 years... and don't twist my opinion here: I always said it's okay to have mount skins in a gem/money shop, but they could at least add some to earn with in game content.

Edited August 31, 2022 by ProtoGunner.4953

[Ashen.2907]

Just now, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

What are you talking about? I sank thousands of Euros into this game/franchise over the past 16 years...

Then reread your own post(s).

You know the ones where you call others greedy for not giving the product of their labor for free.

[kharmin.7683]

5 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Guys I really don't get it. You defend by all means (also smileys) your point and promote the shop skins whereas literally every youtuber and reviewer in general says it's bad. Where is this loyalty coming from? Stockholm syndrome? Anyways, have fun with your shop skins where you farm two weeks for gold to get a skin instead of doing quests and getting rewards...

Do quests, gain rewards, cash them in for gold, purchase mount skin.  /shrug

[Endaris.1452]

1 minute ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Guys I really don't get it. You defend by all means (also smileys) your point and promote the shop skins whereas literally every youtuber and reviewer in general says it's bad. Where is this loyalty coming from? Stockholm syndrome? Anyways, have fun with your shop skins where you farm two weeks for gold to get a skin instead of doing quests and getting rewards...

I don't promote them and I didn't buy a single mount skin ever. The single mount skin I had before the 10th birthday was a skin I dropped from a black lion chest I opened with a key I got from story/map completion.

Mount skins are overpriced and and the random roll mechanic for license is predatory and unethical. I'll condemn that any day and won't ever support that system. That doesn't mean however that I'm generally opposed to the concept of making a certain type of cosmetic gemshop-exclusive.

Anet has mostly given up on gemshop-exclusive armor skins after player requests already and I can understand if they overcompensate with the exclusivity of mount skins in turn.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

3 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Then reread your own post(s).

You know the ones where you call others greedy for not giving the product of their labor for free.

Don't you think when you release 300 mount skins and only the basic ones and one other are earnable via in game? Wow...

[ProtoGunner.4953]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Do quests, gain rewards, cash them in for gold, purchase mount skin.  /shrug

And instead of what I want to play, I go for the most efficient way and farm gold for days to get enough for the mount skin that may or may not be available the moment I want to buy it? Great fun.

[Asum.4960]

22 hours ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

We talk about 2000 gem skins which is the price of half an expansion. The game industry trained you well...

It's worse than half, PoF and EoD were 30€ baseline (that's all the Especs, Maps, Events, new models, textures, animation rigs, achivements/collections, voice acting, music, etc.) - 2000 Gem Mount skins, which are a single model on an existing animation rig, are 25€. 

You know, "Micro"-Transaction.

 

20 hours ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Guys I really don't get it. You defend by all means (also smileys) your point and promote the shop skins whereas literally every youtuber and reviewer in general says it's bad. Where is this loyalty coming from? Stockholm syndrome? Anyways, have fun with your shop skins where you farm two weeks for gold to get a skin instead of doing quests and getting rewards...

I think it's partially a generational gap as well. Older gamers still remember games just being sold complete, coming even with completely free cheat codes or command consoles for single player games to mess around with, and all content in the game being earnable in game/tied to gameplay (most to all of which is MTX these days - at least in the "AAA" sphere).

 

The post-mobile generation is very used to everything being monetized, and the industry has done great effort to convince them that "they are supporting the devs" while share-holders and CEO's pay themselves out millions in boni - or that "video games just have gotten more expensive to make, so they need to be more monetized", while they sell exponentially more copies now days at zero extra cost as unlimited digital product, and physical copies and shipping and distribution has nearly disappeared as cost - rocketing video games from extremely niche hobby to highest profile and earning entertainment industry in the world. 

 

You are going to have a tough time to argue people out of those propagated mindsets, especially since they double as convenient excuses/justifications for personal excessive spending.

 (I've seen even "whales" of pay-to-win mobile games justifying spending thousands of dollars on buying power to crush everybody by convincing themselves that really they even deserve a pat on the back and admiration by the lowly free-to-plays for supporting the game for them - it's a deep psychological rabbit hole ripe for exploitation).

 

/E:

Dang, I think <15 seconds until confused reaction after posting might be a new record for me. Cheers!

Edited September 1, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Gibson.4036]

The upside of “you can buy it with gold” is that it gives leeway to earn it in the parts of the game you prefer.

The downside is that it incentivizes efficiency, where you find the optimal method of earning gold and repeat that same thing over and over.

I only started getting legendaries in the last year. Ascension, Aurene Amulet, Aurora, and Vision have all taken me to parts of the game or had me play in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise. The experience of those would have been much diminished if I could have just done stuff I’ve always done and bought them with gold.

It’s a balance.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[PancakeMix.9604]

Make mount skins rare drops from content and allow players to sell them on the TP if they don't want them. People who want to buy them with gold can do that, and it gives more incentive to do content. ANet will still make money people converting gems > gold to buy mounts, I'm sure of it. Probably even more if a mount is hard enough to get, people pay $300+ in gold value in World of Warcraft just to get mounts that are hard to get.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

23 minutes ago, PancakeMix.9604 said:

Make mount skins rare drops from content and allow players to sell them on the TP if they don't want them. People who want to buy them with gold can do that, and it gives more incentive to do content. ANet will still make money people converting gems > gold to buy mounts, I'm sure of it. Probably even more if a mount is hard enough to get, people pay $300+ in gold value in World of Warcraft just to get mounts that are hard to get.

This would be acceptable I think. It takes some of the prestige out of it but oh well. Maybe if mounts dropped from challenge modes those couldn't be sold?

 

I don't even play challenge modes, I just think those people should have a shiny to flex with. It's like advertising content.

[Miragen.6127]

Would be interesting if there were skins that actually represented something aside from a dollar value, but it doesn't seem the player base is interested in achievement based rewards.