[Suggestion] Chest-exclusive items for Black Lion Claim Tickets?

[Toolbox.9375]

Let's get one thing out of the way; people who go for the chest-exclusive items for the entirety of their availability, wasting hundreds of keys with no success, are soured to the chest-and-key system the instant the item is retired from the drop charts, if not before that. It's infuriating to put so much into trying to get those blasted things, only to end up with a hair kit at best.

Something does drop with relative consistency, however... The Black Lion Claim Ticket Scrap. It's something that you will accumulate as you desperately try to acquire the drop that you're actually after. What if chest-exclusive items were to be added to Black Lion Claim Ticket merchants, so that even if you don't luck into the item you want, you can at least know that you're making progress towards it? Personally, I'm done with keys in their current state. Even chasing the free ones from personal story and map completion has lost any appeal, because I know I don't have the luck to have any sort of chance at what I'm after. If I could be guaranteed that I'd eventually get what I'm trying to get, however, I'd be FAR more inclined to grab up keys from time to time. How about the rest of you? Would you like to see chest-exclusive items available for purchase via Black Lion Claim Tickets? If not, why not?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

In the past, chest-exclusive items were offered in the Black Lion Exclusives Chest (with no RNG). We don't know, yet, but the Devs may be planning on continuing the practice. Thus, they would not be offering those items for Scraps.

Good luck.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I prefer the method they implemented with the Black Lion Exclusives Chest:

• All the older exclusives were made available
• In a non-bound, tradeable drop
• That allows you to choose the one you want.

[Starfall Leyline.2481]

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:I prefer the method they implemented with the Black Lion Exclusives Chest:

• All the older exclusives were made available
• In a non-bound, tradeable drop
• That allows you to choose the one you want.

While that would be neat, I don't see it being a "Regular" thing. It'd be a very occasional event-type release like what they did for the scarlet items. So I'm not sure hoping for that is necessarily productive. They need (financially) a reason for people to buy the BL chest keys, and if they did that people wouldn't have much of a reason to. I like Toolbox's idea because it does give people a reason to buy keys, and support the company, but it also doesn't feel like a futile fight against the fickle fortune of fabled functions. I mean random number generators.

[Ohoni.6057]

Where's the "remove the Black Lion Chests" option?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:I prefer the method they implemented with the

Black Lion Exclusives Chest

:

• All the older exclusives were made available
• In a non-bound, tradeable drop
• That allows you to choose the one you want.

While that would be neat, I don't see it being a "Regular" thing. It'd be a very occasional event-type release like what they did for the scarlet items. So I'm not sure hoping for that is necessarily productive. They need (financially) a reason for people to buy the BL chest keys, and if they did that people wouldn't have much of a reason to. I like Toolbox's idea because it does give people a reason to buy keys, and support the company, but it also doesn't feel like a futile fight against the fickle fortune of fabled functions. I mean random number generators.

The BLEC was a drop from the BL chest; it's as much (if not more) of an incentive as account bound unlocks.(That said, I admire the alliteration: fickle fortunes of fantastical fabled functions for fostering followers indeed ;) )

[Starfall Leyline.2481]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I prefer the method they implemented with the

Black Lion Exclusives Chest

:

• All the older exclusives were made available
• In a non-bound, tradeable drop
• That allows you to choose the one you want.

While that would be neat, I don't see it being a "Regular" thing. It'd be a very occasional event-type release like what they did for the scarlet items. So I'm not sure hoping for that is necessarily productive. They need (financially) a reason for people to buy the BL chest keys, and if they did that people wouldn't have much of a reason to. I like Toolbox's idea because it does give people a reason to buy keys, and support the company, but it also doesn't feel like a futile fight against the fickle fortune of fabled functions. I mean random number generators.

The BLEC was a drop from the BL chest; it's as much (if not more) of an incentive as account bound unlocks.(That said, I admire the alliteration: fickle fortunes of fantastical fabled functions for fostering followers indeed ;) )

Interesting! I admit, I didn't remember that aspect of it. I didn't use them much back in the day, which is likely why I didn't recall it. While that is more amenable to the current system than what I thought, statistically I'm not sure if Anet would go for it, because for better or worse, the way they have things now is weighted to people buying more keys than less.

If you just had to buy enough keys to get it to drop once, you might do it more regularly, yeah, but you also wouldn't necessarily do it as much either. I remember getting all kinds of unlocks I didn't really want just trying to get one of the gliders. I hated myself for every batch of gems I purchased. If I had gotten that item as the drop the first time I got an item, I wouldn't have spent as much.

Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding how frequently it'd be dropping from BLCs? At any rate, it wouldn't be in Anet's favor to make the items non-bound for a good long time, otherwise people would just not bother buying the keys and would just wait for it to enter the exclusives chest and be sold on the TP.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Starfall Leyline.2481 said:Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding how frequently it'd be dropping from BLCs? At any rate, it wouldn't be in Anet's favor to make the items non-bound for a good long time, otherwise people would just not bother buying the keys and would just wait for it to enter the exclusives chest and be sold on the TP.

It's still available on the TP, for roughly the same price as it has been for ages: 350-650 gold (today, there are three buy offers around 450g, and seven sell offers below 620g).

[Toolbox.9375]

Ah, I hadn't known about the Exclusives Chest, I'll admit. Even still, though, it's entirely up to chance whether you get that or not; the only difference is that it can be bought and sold on the Trading Post. Which, honestly, is another option versus a Claim Ticket store... But I'm not sure how the unbound items would compare in terms of revenue for Arena Net themselves.

[Kegisak.8459]

I think it's in Anet's best interest to move away from an exclusively random system as much as possible, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, everything that's been happening with Star Wars Battlefront 2, people are really soured to the idea of loot crates. I mean, heck, we all saw how the Mount Adoption system went down. Cynically speaking, taking a step away from that Random style of content acquisition would look great for Anet in the eyes of its community and the larger community, possibly drawing people in. And obviously from a less (or more) cynical perspective it's better for us as players.

Also, with gambling commissions starting to take a look at loot crate systems, it's better to play it on the safe side and move away from systems that resemble gambling as much as possible. The ability to 'purchase' items through a resource that you get consistently moves away from the definition of gambling, and is generally well looked-upon. After all, Hearthstone went without complaint for what, five years? And CCG packs are kind of the essence of Loot Crates. But Hearthstone has Pity Timers (in which players WILL unlock higher-rarity cards after a certain amount of packs), and the ability to break down unwanted items for a currency that can be used to purchase cards.

Of course I'm not necessarily saying that Anet should give us consistent currency or the ability to burn loot chest items. An MMO is a different beast than a CCG or an FPS. They'll need to explore the best solution for the system. Nevertheless, I think that moving away from pure chance unlocks, to a means by which the player is able to 'save up' for an item they want through a more practical means than 'hundreds of gold' is the best option for both the players and Anet themselves.

[Toolbox.9375]

@Kegisak.8459 said:Nevertheless, I think that moving away from pure chance unlocks, to a means by which the player is able to 'save up' for an item they want through a more practical means than 'hundreds of gold' is the best option for both the players and Anet themselves.

The main problem is, not even hundreds of gold can get you what you're after, unless you spend an indeterminate amount on keys and hope it doesn't add up to the thousands or tens of thousands. :(