Market Prices / Skin aquisition - bit of a rant

[Orthonen.9470]

It makes sense for that helmet to be close to inaccessible. We're talking about the Khan-Ur, anything with that title speaks owner of all the Charr Legions in existence. While I like to consider my Character a Gladium who defected to Adventurer/Special forces of Tyria, that Helmet is about as meaningful as Frostmourne is to the Lich King, or Excalibur to King Arthur.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Aridon.8362 said:It makes sense for that helmet to be close to inaccessible. We're talking about the Khan-Ur, anything with that title speaks owner of all the Charr Legions in existence. While I like to consider my Character a Gladium who defected to Adventurer/Special forces of Tyria, that Helmet is about as meaningful as Frostmourne is to the Lich King, or Excalibur to King Arthur.

I know you're not being literal, but your statement remains false, in that according to GW2 efficiency, out of 235k accounts, there are 1691 (0.719%) that show the Claw of the Khan-Ur unlocked, while only 38 accounts (0.016%) show the Gaze/Glance/Glower of Khan-Ur.

Incidentally the 'cost' of the Claw, a legendary weapon, is listed at around 2346 gold, while the helmet is showing at 1980 gold.

So more people possess the legendary weapon of the Khan-Ur than do his hat...

Locking the helmet behind RNG is indefensible, and only for 1 reason really - it's a really nice helmet skin. If it was something awkward or silly looking, nobody would care. But the numbers are there for all to see, and when a helmet skin rivals the cost of a legendary weapon, yet has a mere fraction of the people who have it unlocked, I'd say that's a big red flag.

[kharmin.7683]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:Locking the helmet behind RNG is indefensible, and only for 1 reason really - it's a really nice helmet skin. If it was something awkward or silly looking, nobody would care. But the numbers are there for all to see, and when a helmet skin rivals the cost of a legendary weapon, yet has a mere fraction of the people who have it unlocked, I'd say that's a big red flag.I think that this is by design to get people to replay the content in praise of the RNG gods. If it dropped at a higher rate, people wouldn't continue to play the content.

[Zaxares.5419]

It is almost certainly by design to compel players to keep grinding at that RNG altar, no doubt. However, I think in the long run such an approach does more harm than good, because it fosters the impression that "all the good stuff is either super expensive or locked behind grind", which is not a good thing when it comes to trying to attract and keep new blood (which is vital for keeping the game as a whole going).

Instead, I think that the super rare stuff should be purchasable via tokens that you can build up by doing the content in question. (Or for Grothmar and Bjora, just have it require massive amounts of Chilis and Eternal Ice plus gold. Those two maps BADLY need more sinks for those currencies.) Exactly how many tokens are required is something ANet would need to decide, but it at least gives players a distinct goal to work towards, not a nebulous target.

As for keeping interest in the maps themselves going, I think ANet had the right idea back when Legendary collections were introduced. Tying the creation of a Legendary to older content was and is a fantastic way of drawing player attention. I can say with certainty that since Transcendence and Conflux were released, there has been a HUGE influx of new players into both PvP and WvW. Likewise, back when Aurora and Vision were introduced, we saw massive numbers of players return to the LS3 and LS4 maps, but now that the trinkets have been acquired (and since no duplicates of either can be made), player interest evaporated once they couldn't make any more. It may be moot now considering the Legendary Armory is coming, but I think that allowing players to craft multiple copies would have helped to sustain interest in those maps at a lower, but steady rate, instead of what it's like now, where the LS3/4 maps are all but deserted except on daily days (and even then, numbers are still fairly low).