Black Lion Statuette

[Sojourner.4621]

@SRoode.7318 said:

@kinjiro.3251 said:

@"Cakemeister.5792" said:I'm pretty happy, it's making the home nodes a lot more affordable.

Sorry to say that this is untrue. 8400 gems to open 100 chests=2k plus gold in conversion. You can spend $105 on gems to buy keys or you can convert that to gold and buy multiple nodes on the bltc. statuettes did not make nodes cheaper by any means.

It is true. Iron nodes are now less than 1/10th the price on the market.

Basically this.... anything that causes people to buy more black lion chests will cause the drop rates to go up which will in turn lower the cost of the nodes, even if technically this only sets a firm "max cost" for the node by saying "at most you need 100 chests." Technically with the rare 25 statue drop that you can get from the BLC rolls you can actually get the node much much sooner. But it is as always even more complicated than that. The new statues will cause more people to buy the chests more often, feeling it is a better value long term ( and they are correct) which in turn means more frequency of items like the home instance nodes dropping, and so lower costs on the TP. It's notable that the Advanced Cloth/Leather racks have ALSO dropped in price from 723g to 250g in the last 24 hours, and yet they are not even available from the statuettes.

[Vargamonth.2047]

Statuettes are definitely a nice addition for those who missed some BLC exclusive item they really wanted and increases the overall value of BLC keys. However, what they did with BLC loot tables in the last iteration feels really awkward.

I do not know how the loot tables work internally: some items might have a greater drop chance than others on the same category. If every item in the same category has the same drop chance, however, current tables are just terrible.

Exclusive dyes already used to plummet to fairly reasonable prices as uncommon drops. As common drops, the market gets flooded with them and their value is completely destroyed. By also increasing the amount of available dye kits on every BLC iteration, the timespan for every dye kit to be included in BLC will also get smaller, making hard for them to recover value.How does this fit with new BL dye kit realeases? There will always be players ready to pay a lot for the latest shiny thing, and if there's demand they will also be offer, but does really make sense to buy those RNG kits when you expect those dyes to become pretty much worthless and easily affordable several months later?

Something similar goes for the uncommon weapon sets. As rare drops they already used to settle at reasonable prices (very similar to their release price for a single black lion claim ticket). As uncommon drops, their price drops so much that you can propably buy the whole collection and easily get the gold back (and probably get some benefit) by using the 7 ticket reward on the next seasonal black lion weapon set.Which is another point. By having the tables flooded with low value drops, tickets and ticket scraps become harder to get by regular means and the collection reward from the uncommon BLC weapon set becomes defnitely the way to go. It's hard to determine how this will affect BL weapon prices in the future, as it will depend on people using the excess of tickets for gold or convenience, but its definitely kinda weird.

And last, probably the worst part of the change: the BLC exclusive skins/items. Where they used to compete with maybe one or tow dye kits, now they share the table with 16 weapon skins. They already were a really nasty RNG deal, you could get them with just a few keys or spent tenths and still miss them. If drop categories share the same drop chance, then the change has made them elusive to ridiculous levels.

So, overall, BLC have become more normalized in the sense that players will get something special more often. On the other hand, that special thing is guaranteed to be less special way cheaper than it used to be, so the gold return in the long run is probably the same.Statuettes are a nice adition to get that elusive exclusive item you missed, but at the same time it looks like they have made those items much more elusive and almost guaranteed to be missed.I like statuttes. I think they were needed. However, I still prefer the BLC loot tables from two iterations back wothout statuettes, than the current one with them.

[Shirlias.8104]

Luck removed!Thanks ANET!

[Lonecap.4105]

This is an amazing addition! I was sad no balance patch but this was nice at least. Even better is that with my free key, I got 25 statuettes as a drop!

[Sojourner.4621]

@hqeq umop apisdn.7526 said:Unfortunately this item is meant for whales. For a casual player who doesnt want to spend a lot of money on keys (i.e. the majority of players that will be opening the customer appreciation pack) this simply takes up a slot for a potential better item and gives them something that is going to clog their inventory until they either just spend it on transmuation shards or heavy crafting bag.

I think this item was designed to clog your inventory as a reminder and to try and convince you to buy more BL keys that you otherwise wouldnt have thought of buying if this system didnt exist.

Or for people who do regular map completion and weekly key farms... since this takes literally nothing away from anyone, and only adds a benefit to everyone who will ever open even a single black lion chest for any reason. Seriously, why are people upset about being given extra features and improved QoL on stuff that already existed again?

[Sojourner.4621]

@"Vargamonth.2047" said:Statuettes are definitely a nice addition for those who missed some BLC exclusive item they really wanted and increases the overall value of BLC keys. However, what they did with BLC loot tables in the last iteration feels really awkward.

I do not know how the loot tables work internally: some items might have a greater drop chance than others on the same category. If every item in the same category has the same drop chance, however, current tables are just terrible.

Exclusive dyes already used to plummet to fairly reasonable prices as uncommon drops. As common drops, the market gets flooded with them and their value is completely destroyed. By also increasing the amount of available dye kits on every BLC iteration, the timespan for every dye kit to be included in BLC will also get smaller, making hard for them to recover value.How does this fit with new BL dye kit realeases? There will always be players ready to pay a lot for the latest shiny thing, and if there's demand they will also be offer, but does really make sense to buy those RNG kits when you expect those dyes to become pretty much worthless and easily affordable several months later?

Something similar goes for the uncommon weapon sets. As rare drops they already used to settle at reasonable prices (very similar to their release price for a single black lion claim ticket). As uncommon drops, their price drops so much that you can propably buy the whole collection and easily get the gold back (and probably get some benefit) by using the 7 ticket reward on the next seasonal black lion weapon set.Which is another point. By having the tables flooded with low value drops, tickets and ticket scraps become harder to get by regular means and the collection reward from the uncommon BLC weapon set becomes defnitely the way to go. It's hard to determine how this will affect BL weapon prices in the future, as it will depend on people using the excess of tickets for gold or convenience, but its definitely kinda weird.

And last, probably the worst part of the change: the BLC exclusive skins/items. Where they used to compete with maybe one or tow dye kits, now they share the table with 16 weapon skins. They already were a really nasty RNG deal, you could get them with just a few keys or spent tenths and still miss them. If drop categories share the same drop chance, then the change has made them elusive to ridiculous levels.

So, overall, BLC have become more normalized in the sense that players will get something special more often. On the other hand, that special thing is guaranteed to be less special way cheaper than it used to be, so the gold return in the long run is probably the same.Statuettes are a nice adition to get that elusive exclusive item you missed, but at the same time it looks like they have made those items much more elusive and almost guaranteed to be missed.I like statuttes. I think they were needed. However, I still prefer the BLC loot tables from two iterations back wothout statuettes, than the current one with them.

Sorry, the dye prices NEEDED to plummet. There is no reasonable way that any dye is actually worth 800g in any truly sane person's mind. The same goes for weapon skins. This new loot table was clearly designed with the fact that certain things were so massively over-inflated that they needed to get a price drop. "Ohno, muh profits" isn't a good argument for what is actually a positive change for most of the rest of the community. It means that the rich who can afford to hoard skins won't make as much money... OH NO YOU'RE HURTING THE 1% WHILE HELPING THE ENTIRE REST OF THE GAME AFFORD THINGS. Worst update ever.

Sorry if I am having difficulty conjuring up tears for you. Meanwhile the nodes like Iron Ore are 90% cheaper than they were yesterday, which makes them actually obtainable for people rather than an unrealistic 5k gold cost. THANK YOU ANET. Thank you for deliberately tanking the overpriced skin/dye/node economy. This was absolutely needed and thank you.

[Vargamonth.2047]

@"Sojourner.4621" said:

Sorry, the dye prices NEEDED to plummet. There is no reasonable way that any dye is actually worth 800g in any truly sane person's mind. The same goes for weapon skins. This new loot table was clearly designed with the fact that certain things were so massively over-inflated that they needed to get a price drop. "Ohno, muh profits" isn't a good argument for what is actually a positive change for most of the rest of the community. It means that the rich who can afford to hoard skins won't make as much money... OH NO YOU'RE HURTING THE 1% WHILE HELPING THE ENTIRE REST OF THE GAME AFFORD THINGS. Worst update ever.

Sorry if I am having difficulty conjuring up tears for you. Meanwhile the nodes like Iron Ore are 90% cheaper than they were yesterday, which makes them actually obtainable for people rather than an unrealistic 5k gold cost. THANK YOU ANET. Thank you for deliberately tanking the overpriced skin/dye/node economy. This was absolutely needed and thank you.

There's no way for a dye attainable as an uncommon drop from BLC to ever cost 800g.The insanely priced dyes are the ones which are currently unattainable outside the trading post and have been for a long while. And yes, I'm completely with you on shaking up these things from time to time to correct overinflated prices and prevent heavy hoarding.There's a difference, however, between correcting overinflated prices and making things pretty much worthless. Look at blue shift dyes, for example.

Powder Blue Dye (currently the cheapest black lion kit dye) used to cost about 25-30 gold at release, more than a year ago. Pricy? Arguable. A single RNG dye roll costs 125 gems (100 gems if bought on a 5 unit pack), so based on the gem/gold conversion ratio seems a reasonable price.

As time passed and the dye became unattainable, its price began to inflate, peaking about 80g. Then, on October 17, the shake-up took place and the price dropped to 17-21 gold (cheaper than during release). IMHO this approach was more than enough to refill supply, prevent overinflation and mitigate hoarding. After the first weeks of the patch (where players open more BLC and hoarders get rid of their failed investment) the price started to rise again up to 30-35g.And then , at December 12, the new model, with dyes as common drops kicked in. Powder Blue Dye currently costs less than 2.5g (and still going down) and its supply is 2.5 times greater than ever was (there are currently 254 dyes on sale, and going up). This is not correction, this is crazy.If we look at the most expensive dye of the set, Phthalo Blue, instead, we get something similar. It used to cost between 100 and 200 gold at realease and for a long while. Expensive, yes, but it was kind of the jackpot of a 100-125 gem RNG kit (which also includes many few silver worth rolls). Inflated up to close 400 gold. Shake-up happened and dropped to 40 gold. Started to recover to about 100 gold. And after this final new model shake-up, it's worht less than 5 gold.Right now, getting ALL 9 exclusive Blue Shift Dye Kit dyes costs less than 30g, where a single RNG roll on the original item went for 125-100 gems (and only 9 out of 25 were exclusive, with the remaining ones being worth pretty much nothing). The whole set, on average, would have taken about 2500 gems (so over 500g) to get, and now its woth about 30g. As I said, this is not correction, this is no overinflation prevention, this is madness.

And the same goes for the weapon skins. A Merciless Scepter was worth 70-80 gold at release, more than 2 years ago. As time passed it became more pricy, peaking about 200g for a very long time. BL weapon skins stay attainable for 3 claim tickets for a very very long time after the initial release, so they can't really overinflate that much. It wasn't until October 17 (when I guess the 3 ticket option expired) that the weapon became stupidly expensive, going for about 900g. A shake-up was probably needed. Well, with the new model, the Merciless Scepter goes for about 16g (and it has been less than 24 hours since it was reintroduced, with a free BLCK truth be told).

We can look at Jade Weapons as comparision, since they are listed as rare drops (what used to be the "cheap" weapon set two BLC iterations ago). Jade weapons never inflate that much, since there ae pretty old and have been re-released several time, but anyway, the currently cheapest skin, Jade Flintlock, costs 22 gold at the trading post when it was at 170g yesterday. The staff, the most expensive ones, goes for 45g today and was also about 180g yesterday.22- 45 gold range is not more expensive than what a fresh black lion weapon skin goes for, so BLC weapon drops as rare drops is more than enough to prevent items from overinflation (specially if we get a free key). What's the point on placing a weapon set as uncommon roll and flood the market to ridiculous levels (probably remlving any value for those weapons for years to come)? If they felt the weapon set as ultra-rare drop wasnt dropping down enough, they could have placed both sets as rare and call it a day.As I said in my origial post, the prices for weapon sets as uncommon drops are so low, that you can easily buy the whole set, get 7 claim tickets from the collection and recover all your investment by selling weapons got with those tickets (and you probably will still get some benefit or some ticket spare for your convenience if you prefer). This, again, is not correction, is not overinflation prevention, this is pretty much giving a weapon set for free. You may do it from time to time and most people will be happy, but as a regular model, it's absolute madness.

And, as I said, the worst part is not about these items going insanely cheap. My biggest concern is about how the loot tables work for the uncommon category because, if they all have the same probability and I want that exclusive griffon hatchling glider+ backpack, which I have no other way to get, I rather have to deal with a couple of dye kits competing for the uncommon roll than with 16 pretty much worhtless weapon skins.

[Emmalouise.1763]

@Substance E.4852 said:

@Murke.7193 said:This is the first time that I am willing to buy keys with money.

I know the loot boxes aren't a good deal, but the old system never appealed to me because I felt like I could open 1000 boxes and there'd be a good chance I wouldn't get a single thing I actually wanted. I have 0 interest in the rez stones, teleport to friends, primers, buffs and etc that most people probably appreciate, so for me they simply weren't worth it. With the recent changes, I know that if I open 10 chests I will at least get 1 makeover kit, so it isn't a waste. Now if I open 1000 boxes I am guaranteed I will get a surplus of awesome things that I actually want and maybe some other cool stuff too that I didn't even know I wanted, like the new griffon glider. I love this change.

You do realize that you can just up and buy a complete kit for less than the cost of 5 keys right?

This is how easy it is to fleece people.

@Substance E.4852 said:

@Murke.7193 said:This is the first time that I am willing to buy keys with money.

I know the loot boxes aren't a good deal, but the old system never appealed to me because I felt like I could open 1000 boxes and there'd be a good chance I wouldn't get a single thing I actually wanted. I have 0 interest in the rez stones, teleport to friends, primers, buffs and etc that most people probably appreciate, so for me they simply weren't worth it. With the recent changes, I know that if I open 10 chests I will at least get 1 makeover kit, so it isn't a waste. Now if I open 1000 boxes I am guaranteed I will get a surplus of awesome things that I actually want and maybe some other cool stuff too that I didn't even know I wanted, like the new griffon glider. I love this change.

You do realize that you can just up and buy a complete kit for less than the cost of 5 keys right?

This is how easy it is to fleece people.

@Substance E.4852 said:

@Murke.7193 said:This is the first time that I am willing to buy keys with money.

I know the loot boxes aren't a good deal, but the old system never appealed to me because I felt like I could open 1000 boxes and there'd be a good chance I wouldn't get a single thing I actually wanted. I have 0 interest in the rez stones, teleport to friends, primers, buffs and etc that most people probably appreciate, so for me they simply weren't worth it. With the recent changes, I know that if I open 10 chests I will at least get 1 makeover kit, so it isn't a waste. Now if I open 1000 boxes I am guaranteed I will get a surplus of awesome things that I actually want and maybe some other cool stuff too that I didn't even know I wanted, like the new griffon glider. I love this change.

You do realize that you can just up and buy a complete kit for less than the cost of 5 keys right?

This is how easy it is to fleece people.

or you could key farm once a week and do map completion on the throw away char and just save for the items you want :)

[Levefre.6371]

I don't understand the 'thank you' posts in this thread. If anything, I feel this dolyak manure sandwich has only gotten smellier, but maybe I'm not the target audience. Certainly doesn't seem that way following the mount skin debacle.

Let's take an example here. Ignoring the obviously overpriced Jackal Backpack, which - as an uncommon item - is apparently worth more than the Quaggan Backpack at 60 Statuettes.

This will be in the unit price of £. Work out the $ equivalent for yourselves.

So there's the Mini Fox Kit, which is priced at 20 Statuettes. Fair enough, right? Assuming you only get 1 Statuette per opened chest, you'd need 20 BLC Keys.20x BLC Keys = 4 x packs of 5 for 450 gems OR 25 for 2,100 gems (Which gives you 5 spare)

2,000 Gem Card averages at £15.99 - £16.99 depending. (From a website such as CDkeys.com)2,800 Gems bought from the Gem Store is £29.75. (Since the second option only nets you 1,600 Gems, this is the pack you'd need to buy)

Let's go with the first option of 4 x 450 Gems; you would pay 1,800 Gems for your keys.

When the Mini Fox Kit was on the Gem Store, it cost 400 Gems. You've already spent 1,800 gems on the keys, so we're well over that amount by this point. Explain to me how this is better? Before anyone pipes up with the predictable lines of; "But it's just a mini", that isn't the point. You're paying more money for items that aren't worth the price you're paying. Using the formula I stated above, figure out the cost for the Jackal Backpack, or the Immortal Skin Box, which is priced at 150 Statuettes. That's insane.

If the only advantages to these BLC changes are - as some pointed out - lowered prices on rare dyes/nodes/skins (which can be obscene, I agree), then sure, I think I'd appreciate this effort. Not the other implications, though. Not by a long shot.

[WARIORSCHARGEING.2637]

yet again another bad idea from anet . and more gem shop junk . also the best way to buy keys if you buy them at all . is use in game gold and never real world money

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:Unless it stays a permanent guaranteed addition, I'm not interested personally.I'm already mega picky on opening chest when 95% of the stuff in them is stuff I would never want to be stuck with.

Actually if they were temporary, that would be the negative side.

[Fiontar.4695]

@"Ameepa.6793" said:So much complaining considering that this is exactly what people have been asking for a long time. A way to get a guaranteed drop from chests without relying on RNG. The system has even been suggested in this exact form.

It's an insulting response to what people have been asking for. The costs for items in black lion statues are absurd. It's such an obviously spiteful way to "give people what they've been asking for".

For me, personally, the thing that makes this the most groan worthy is that it just shows that ANet is never going to change. They won't fix these costs, because it "wouldn't be fair to those who have already spent their BLS". Don't people see how the cycle just continues to repeat itself? They make some greedy offering via the gem store. People express outrage. If the outrage reaches a high enough point, ANet offers a lip service apology, says "we can't change this, because it wouldn't be fair to those who already purchased X, but we hear you and will do better next time". Next time rolls around and they move 1% of the way in the direction of players, players are still outraged. The defenders say, "but they did move in the direction of players". Anet promises to do better next time. Rinse. Repeat.

They had a real opportunity here and they blew it. That's their never ending story...

[Levefre.6371]

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@"Ameepa.6793" said:So much complaining considering that this is exactly what people have been asking for a long time. A way to get a guaranteed drop from chests without relying on RNG. The system has even been suggested in this exact form.

It's an insulting response to what people have been asking for. The costs for items in black lion statues are absurd. It's such an obviously spiteful way to "give people what they've been asking for".

For me, personally, the thing that makes this the most groan worthy is that it just shows that ANet is never going to change. They won't fix these costs, because it "wouldn't be fair to those who have already spent their BLS". Don't people see how the cycle just continues to repeat itself? They make some greedy offering via the gem store. People express outrage. If the outrage reaches a high enough point, ANet offers a lip service apology, says "we can't change this, because it wouldn't be fair to those who already purchased X, but we hear you and will do better next time". Next time rolls around and they move 1% of the way in the direction of players, players are still outraged. The defenders say, "but they did move in the direction of players". Anet promises to do better next time. Rinse. Repeat.

They had a real opportunity here and they blew it. That's their never ending story...

That's exactly what has been going through my mind.

[Shirlias.8104]

I see this as a fix to BLC, not something towards players.

Given a Lottery, depends the prizes the players will eventually make a try.The issue, however, was the absence of a token for those who didn't win ( though they also give it to those who happened to win ), like

How bad, you didn't win. but here's a ticket!

able to be stacked and the used as a currency to buy prizes.

Now they simply decided to add something like this, imho fixing the whole BLC thing.

[crashburntoo.7431]

BLCs and the entire idea of loot boxes or in game gambling will always carry controversy... it should be controversial. Without an objective law, we're all left to subjectively define the lines we're comfortable with based on our understanding, biases, experiences, etc. Expect controversy to remain even with an objective law, since that doesn't change how many FEEL about them.

It's worth noting that BLCs have always been "junk" boxes with a small chance of providing something rare and/or valuable. If you're using these as a means to get a particular prize, that's going to cause frustration (unless you really are that fortunate). Statistically speaking, you're going to get frustrated and feel like you've wasted your time and/or money. The addition of a guaranteed token to allow players to save up for certain items is a net benefit compared to the previous system. Does that make BLCs a "good deal" or well worth the investment? No, they're still a gamble that typically leaves the player with a handful of junk. At least you get to choose a consolation prize after enough plays.

If a player spends a few bucks now and again or uses their "weekly key", they can at least accumulate statues and get something nice. In the past, those that chose to do that with their time and/or money were left with completely random, almost always junk. It's why many chose and still actively choose not to spend their time and/or money this way. I enjoy the excitement of the click, so I play once in a while. I'm glad that this will reward me in time and that I'll get to choose that reward (from a predetermined selection).

If you're chasing something in particular, look at every way that you can get it and decide what would be the optimal route. As @Illconceived Was Na.9781 has pointed out in this thread, you can often guarantee yourself something by buying it directly for what is very likely a far lower cost to you. If you decide to gamble, expect to lose. If you win, be pleasantly surprised.

[ImTasty.2163]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:The idea was admirable, but the costs are ridiculously outrageous. Adding insult to injury, these take up a guaranteed slot and the mini takes up a guaranteed slot, so you only get two rolls at something on the actual random loot table.

Not true, you can get up to 5 items now.

I opened my freebee. Statue takes a slot, mini takes a slot, only two slots for rolls on the loot table. Explain how you get five.You get five the same way you've been getting four for a while now.

You have a chance at getting an uncommon extra item. You had 2 slots from roll and one chance for uncommon.2 guaranteed + 2 rolls + 1 chance for extra uncommon roll

Actually, these are worse than I realized. Thank you for making me read the fine print.

Each chest offers a guaranteed black lion statue, a guaranteed mini jackal, two random commons and a (slim) chance at a single role on the loot table for items of greater rarity than common! This is horrible!

So let's see, the gold standard is Overwatch loot boxes. You get four full rolls at the full loot table and, yes, you can get very luck and end up with four rares or super rares from a single chest. On the loot table is random currency awards that let you buy any item from the loot table directly. In my experience, you can typically buy a rare of your choice for every ~ $30-$40 spent. On top of a fair loot table and the rewards you get from your actual rolls.

Then we have BLCs, that are probably among the least fair in any western game. They can do much better and make more money by being more fair and reasonable with their customers.

I'm still not sure how that's worse than before. You get the same system + 1 extra statuette. These statuettes will let you buy pretty much anything you want (except super rare, permanent contracts)/Not taking into account the number of rolls, it's pretty similar to Overwatch now (give the description you gave to it).

Before they were throwing at you useless bank express, merchant etc that are absolutely useless if you got the permanent contract. To this day I still have STACKS of bank expresses that I cant use, can't trade, can't even gift to friends. And only reason Im keeping them is in hope they let us trade a few stacks against a permanent someday.

Compared to that, I see the recent changes as improvement, I dont know how it compares to Overwatch though.

To be anything like Overwatch, we'd have four full rolls on the full loot table. And, average enough black lion statues to buy a rare of our choice for every ~25 BLCs we open.

Sorry never played this stupid game. Why should overwatch be an example for GW2?

It shouldn't. Overwatch is by no means a gold standard for microtransactions because they are one of the main games that normalized lootboxes in triple a games which we can see how well that worked out with battlefront 2.

Basically the guy is complaining to just be complaining. The new black lion chest are an improvement compared to their previous versions. He doesn't realize that the very behaviour he's exhibiting by praising a different game for their microtransactions is a large part of why so many games are incorporating lootboxes.

Blizzard proved you can make a triple a game with lootboxes having a big stake in the game and people like the one you were responding to helped normalize it for other companies because they see people like that praising the lootbox system and throwing fistfulls of cash to get them.

[OutOfOrder.3719]

I think this is the best black lion chests have ever been.

Im grabbing the elementalist sword after only a $50 purchase of keys.

I opened 50 chests and now have 59 black statues. Only 1 key farm away from the elementalist sword!

At first, I was dissapointed that I didn't get the baby griffon backpack and glider. But then I noticed that I received the Svanirir Gloves and realized that I actually had pretty good luck.

I'm even tempted to try another $50 worth of keys this week.

And this is coming from someone who has never spent more than $100 on keys over 2 years of playing.

Im planning on unlocking with karma as many skins I can, before using the random Wardobe unlocks to guarantee a better chance for rare skins.

And the best part, even if I don't get the Griffon backpack after another $50 purchase this time, at a later date the griffin backpack should eventually be offered as a black statue reward.

As long as you value dye and realize that it is a common drop, I think you are really going to like the black lion chests now.

[miraude.2107]

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Fiontar.4695 said:The idea was admirable, but the costs are ridiculously outrageous. Adding insult to injury, these take up a guaranteed slot and the mini takes up a guaranteed slot, so you only get two rolls at something on the actual random loot table.

Not true, you can get up to 5 items now.

I opened my freebee. Statue takes a slot, mini takes a slot, only two slots for rolls on the loot table. Explain how you get five.You get five the same way you've been getting four for a while now.

You have a chance at getting an uncommon extra item. You had 2 slots from roll and one chance for uncommon.2 guaranteed + 2 rolls + 1 chance for extra uncommon roll

Actually, these are worse than I realized. Thank you for making me read the fine print.

Each chest offers a guaranteed black lion statue, a guaranteed mini jackal, two random commons and a (slim) chance at a single role on the loot table for items of greater rarity than common! This is horrible!

So let's see, the gold standard is Overwatch loot boxes. You get four full rolls at the full loot table and, yes, you can get very luck and end up with four rares or super rares from a single chest. On the loot table is random currency awards that let you buy any item from the loot table directly. In my experience, you can typically buy a rare of your choice for every ~ $30-$40 spent. On top of a fair loot table and the rewards you get from your actual rolls.

Then we have BLCs, that are probably among the least fair in any western game. They can do much better and make more money by being more fair and reasonable with their customers.

How the kitten is Overwatch lootboxes the gold standard? Those things are absolutely horrid. You don't see any sizable currency until you've unlocked over 80% of the cosmetics.

The jackal is upgradeable. The final upgrade is selling for 260+ gold right now. Sell the thing if you don't want it, it's pretty much gonna be snatched up by someone whose going for the star looking one. Wish I could do that with the ugly Zarya skins on Overwatch to actually get a good Zenyatta skin.

[Rajani Isa.6294]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

Game dev industry doesn't care what you think about their gambling boxes as long as there are people paying for them. No amount of forum whining will change what anet does with BLCs. Or any company.

The faster you accept it's customers' fault these practices are being exploited in every game, the faster you will find balance.

I wouldn't say that they don't care what we think; I believe the devs here do indeed listen to us.

But they do have to pay for the game:)

[Rufo.3716]

I still don't like the guaranteed item. I might have actually opened a few chests but this round they have absolute crap in them. I don't mind a little RNG but when there is more junk stuff than useful stuff to get at common, I'm not even going to bother.

[Shirlias.8104]

@OutOfOrder.3719 said:I think this is the best black lion chests have ever been.

Im grabbing the elementalist sword after only a $50 purchase of keys.

I opened 50 chests and now have 59 black statues. Only 1 key farm away from the elementalist sword!

At first, I was dissapointed that I didn't get the baby griffon backpack and glider. But then I noticed that I received the Svanirir Gloves and realized that I actually had pretty good luck.

I'm even tempted to try another $50 worth of keys this week.

And this is coming from someone who has never spent more than $100 on keys over 2 years of playing.

Im planning on unlocking with karma as many skins I can, before using the random Wardobe unlocks to guarantee a better chance for rare skins.

And the best part, even if I don't get the Griffon backpack after another $50 purchase this time, at a later date the griffin backpack should eventually be offered as a black statue reward.

As long as you value dye and realize that it is a common drop, I think you are really going to like the black lion chests now.

Dude, you could have converted 3300 gems into 610g in order to directly buyout the sword from the TP.And by doing this you would have saved 700 gems ( maybe an outfit, or something else ).

[Anthony.7260]

So i wanted to update and say i really like the chest now. The rewards from the stillute are good. Even if you have the worse luck in the world you can stikl get a node finisher or skin..

As for are they worth it ? I am a completions person so i know to get everything i need a lot of gold gems and real money.

If you open chest with the intent of keeping and using the goodies - chest are worth it. If you are trying to make gold with black lion chest - its like ecto gambling. I realize its not a good idea to convert gems to gold and buy all the skins finishers minitures and dyes with gold. It's more expensive that way. It's cheaper now to collect these things by just mass chest rushing it. 100 keys is about 8500 gems or about 105$

Chest are good if you're a completions person otherwise they are not a good investment. If you want gold - just convert gems to gold or ecto gamble.

That's my experience any ways.

[Anthony.7260]

50 gold is 250-280 gems. 50 gold is 2.50$ and skins are about 2.50$ to 22.50$ PER SKIN in gem to gold value.

Nodes finishers minitures are 2.50$-22.50$ per item as well.

I think its less expensive to buy lots of chests and get skins and statues to unlock every thing that way.

If you're not trying to be a completionists i would say STAY AWAY from chests.

[Chichimec.9364]

For me, the BL chests went from worthless to mildly interesting. Having just started playing GW2 at the beginning of last December, I've already got some 40 chests sitting in my inventory because their content wasn't worth the price of the keys to me. When the new changes came through I opened my free chest and was delighted to find a guaranteed wardrobe unlock in there, along with a hair makeover kit and the two mandatory items. I initially thought I might have to actually buy enough keys to open all those chests. Then I used that unlock and got some mediocre harpoon gun skin. Ugh!

A new character of mine was just completing the Queensland map, so I got a second key for free. This time I got the two mandatory items, another hair makeover kit and a fourth item so banal that I already forgot what it was. So nope, I'm not going to buy 40 keys at one time. The BL statuettes can be traded for some interesting, but not compelling stuff, so I'll just work on getting a free key a week and leave it at that. Your mileage may vary of course if there are things you really want from those chests/statuettes. But hey, we each play the game the way we want to and that's the way t should be.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Isnt this too encourage people too gamble even more ?