[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amhDYr9YOVc[/media]
TL;DW, update adds lootbox-exclusive content for the first time in GW2 history, pushing players to spend a lot of money to gamble for content with no alternatives to obtain these skins (which are useless if you don't already have the mount they're for, further adding to the bullshit RNG).
To be honest doing this lootbox gamble thing when this being such a big topic among freetoplay games was a REALLY bad idea on ANets part. GW2 just had a really good exap and a balance patch but its being overshaowed by the lootbox gamble thing. I could make the arguement that you can just farm gold in game and covert them into gems, that what i did to acquire some skins and I know just by typing this im part of the problem, but I hope they learn for this and avoid it in the future or i just dont give my money to them anymore
[QUOTE=Bryceanater;52873631]I could make the arguement that you can just farm gold in game and covert them into gems[/QUOTE]
I'd consider myself a consistent player who does a shitton of the stuff the game has to offer, but I'm happy if I can see 100g a month, which is about what it costs for a single ticket, let alone the 2800 gold for the full pack if you don't want to risk all that effort for a complete shot in the dark. Worse off, players who don't have the griffon because they already can't scrap up 250g are still able to unlock griffon skins from the thing
There's a thousand ways they could have implemented these skins, made bank, and kept the player base happy, but this was the worst
When done right, I think loot boxes work okay in MMOs just because they have to replace that old subscription fee model somehow. But this one seems super poorly implemented. Especially for a company that has tooted its own horn quite a bit for how fairly they normally price things.
It's bad. For a game that mostly relies on player review, this is gonna kill Anet. I love them dearly, and would gladly instabuy some of the skins, but this is fucking ridiculous. It seems like they're responding and taking criticism right now, instead of being quiet about it, so hopefully something will be done.
The problem with GW2 is that there are less and less map/completion/achievement rewards. They don't seem to understand people would gladly grind for these things, because imo, gw2 makes grinding fun and rewarding. They're slowly replacing that with "BUY THIS" "Buy THAT" instantly!!!
That is fine and all too, because it is possible to trade in-world currency for gems. The only problem is that they have a time window when these things are available, so you could spend tons of hours grinding for gold for a conversion only for the thing you wanted to be gone. Sometimes forever. (months, years)
[editline]9th November 2017[/editline]
I love gw2, I genuinely do, it's one of the mmos that a lot of people can play and come back to. The world is not static, everything is immersive, the stories are great, PoF was a fantastic expansion with a great price.
I now see it was because they wanna cash out on fucking rng lootboxes. God damn.
What's hilarious is that only a handful of people in chat were actually bothered by this and most people I've talked to are fine with the notion. Hell, the price of gems spiked the day the skins were released. Some "outrage". It's not really a lootbox because you can't get duplicate mount skins. Once you unlock a skin, it's removed from the pool of potential skins you can get. It's not like a typical loot box where you can get the same damn item out of three boxes.
Adding to that, 3 out of 5 current mounts are unlocked during the course of Path of Fire and are needed to progress in the game. The griffin is on the pricier side, but almost all of the PoF maps are great for grinding. Between the 2g you get from dailies and selling off loot you get from completing bounties, making gold is not that hard. It took me about a week to get the griffin, and most of that was waiting for mystic coins to sell on the trading post.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52873979]What's hilarious is that only a handful of people in chat were actually bothered by this and most people I've talked to are fine with the notion. Hell, the price of gems spiked the day the skins were released. Some "outrage". It's not really a lootbox because you can't get duplicate mount skins. Once you unlock a skin, it's removed from the pool of potential skins you can get. It's not like a typical loot box where you can get the same damn item out of three boxes.
Adding to that, 3 out of 5 current mounts are unlocked during the course of Path of Fire and are needed to progress in the game. The griffin is on the pricier side, but almost all of the PoF maps are great for grinding. Between the 2g you get from dailies and selling off loot you get from completing bounties, making gold is not that hard. It took me about a week to get the griffin, and most of that was waiting for mystic coins to sell on the trading post.[/QUOTE]
A chance of duplicates isn't the defining characteristic of a lootbox, these are slightly better for not having duplicates but it doesn't stop it being a lootbox.
They are way too expensive, it wouldn't be so bad if you could buy them individually but $5 for a chance at a skin you want is ridiculous, especially if you can end up with a skin for a mount you don't even own.
[QUOTE=squids_eye;52874033]A chance of duplicates isn't the defining characteristic of a lootbox, these are slightly better for not having duplicates but it doesn't stop it being a lootbox.
They are way too expensive, it wouldn't be so bad if you could buy them individually but $5 for a chance at a skin you want is ridiculous, especially if you can end up with a skin for a mount you don't even own.[/QUOTE]
You would have a point if certain mounts were limited, i.e pre-order bonus. They're not. The Jackal and Griffin are the only two mounts not required to complete the main quest line. Jackal requires you to unlock certain masteries with one of the other MQ mounts. If you complete the main Path of Fire story, you can complete the side quest to get the Griffin. So, getting a skin for "a mount you don't even own" is a non-issue because it'll sit there unlocked for whenever you get around to getting the mount.
GW2 has had lootboxes forever. That's what the Black Lion Chests are. Most of the time you open up one of those, it's a near useless exp boost or something.
I don't know. I find it a silly thing to be complaining about. They're skins. They have no impact on the game besides making the critter you're strutting around on look shiny. You're also not being forced to buy them with real money. You just grind to get gems, which is something I've always done.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52874216]You would have a point if certain mounts were limited, i.e pre-order bonus. They're not. The Jackal and Griffin are the only two mounts not required to complete the main quest line. Jackal requires you to unlock certain masteries with one of the other MQ mounts. If you complete the main Path of Fire story, you can complete the side quest to get the Griffin. So, getting a skin for "a mount you don't even own" is a non-issue because it'll sit there unlocked for whenever you get around to getting the mount.
GW2 has had lootboxes forever. That's what the Black Lion Chests are. Most of the time you open up one of those, it's a near useless exp boost or something.
I don't know. I find it a silly thing to be complaining about. They're skins. They have no impact on the game besides making the critter you're strutting around on look shiny. You're also not being forced to buy them with real money. You just grind to get gems, which is something I've always done.[/QUOTE]
it's a mindset like this that won't fix this gambling system... it's not healthy for the playerbase or for anet
Wouldn't be a huge problem if I could directly pay for the skin I want instead of rolling the dice for it.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52874216]YI don't know. I find it a silly thing to be complaining about. They're skins. They have no impact on the game besides making the critter you're strutting around on look shiny. [/quote]
point needs repeating- [i]in a game with horizontal progress, [b]cosmetics are the endgame[/b][/i]. We don't have newer more prestigious gear to obtain in expansions, just a few new variances to stat sets and a handful of skins (a vast majority of which are ugly, especially compared to gemstore outfits and armor sets). This has been the core of guild wars since it first launched; pursuit of skins and nonsense like titles from achievements. Selling skins for gliders was pretty well accepted, but saw constant requests for some to be unlockable in game, and gripes from bundles where a good skin was tied to some shitty outfit. In total, only 3 unlockable ones showed up, one of which having been an existing backpiece, they're exceedingly hard to obtain, and all of them are lackluster compared to the cash shop ones.
[quote]You're also not being forced to buy them with real money. You just grind to get gems, which is something I've always done.[/QUOTE]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ddi1iga.png[/img]
boy I can't wait to spend the next year grinding old content and exploit farms to keep buying tickets til I get the couple skins I like. I can't even go past 9999 in that dialogue to put in the 12,000 gems it'd cost to buy all 30 licences individually, ending in a potential expense of $150 if down the line I decide I want the whole shebang
I love the skins. A lot of them. I have enough characters that I could legitimately have each and every one of them assigned somewhere and I'd be totally cool with spending that amount of money if I had even an iota of control over what I got out of a $20 investment and could bypass (or at least sell off) all the trash filler, like people already do with the dye packs and BL skins
[editline]9th November 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52873979]What's hilarious is that only a handful of people in chat were actually bothered by this and most people I've talked to are fine with the notion.[/QUOTE]
[url]https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/14758/official-mount-adoption-feedback-thread-merged/p1[/url]
devs asking for feedback on mount adoption licences, 2.3k posts/54k views after one day
[url=https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/14567/poll-mount-skins-distribution-a-serious-poll/p1]mount skin distribution poll[/url] on official forums
2200 votes and an overwhelming concensus on "I'd spend money but not with the RNG bullshit"
[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7bevvt/mount_adoption_licenses_are_an_outrage/]Mount Adoption Licences are an Outrage[/url]
Reddit post approaching 5k upvotes and 2.3k replies, it's [i]the second most popular thread [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/top/?sort=top&t=year]of the past year[/url] after only a day and a half[/i], with the 18 of the top 25 threads of the past week all being about this problem
A lot of the people I play with are on hiatus and not even logging in more than once a week as we're all waiting for the next living story update to hopefully bring some content. The new zones are pretty and large but didn't bring anything with longevity on its bones and many people capped out masteries and rewarding achievements before halloween even rolled around, [i]there's just nowhere to be with these expensive toys[/i] and I feel that's largely impacting the perception of their value
I already associate most black lion stuff as being loot crate only type of stuff, like the black lion ticket weapon stuff.
I like guildwars 2 though, I like that its fairly cheap and theres no subscription fees so the devs gotta make money someway. It's a shitty deal for the players and loot crates are, imo, gambling disguised as a game which is immoral but thats the industry at the moment. If that money goes to gw2 peeps to keep the servers running and occasionally bringing out new content then its money that (indirectly since the "loot crates" are shit) well spent.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52874216]You would have a point if certain mounts were limited, i.e pre-order bonus. They're not. The Jackal and Griffin are the only two mounts not required to complete the main quest line. Jackal requires you to unlock certain masteries with one of the other MQ mounts. If you complete the main Path of Fire story, you can complete the side quest to get the Griffin. So, getting a skin for "a mount you don't even own" is a non-issue because it'll sit there unlocked for whenever you get around to getting the mount.
GW2 has had lootboxes forever. That's what the Black Lion Chests are. Most of the time you open up one of those, it's a near useless exp boost or something.
I don't know. I find it a silly thing to be complaining about. They're skins. They have no impact on the game besides making the critter you're strutting around on look shiny. You're also not being forced to buy them with real money. You just grind to get gems, which is something I've always done.[/QUOTE]
The griffin one DOES take a lot of time and gold to get, though.
Mostly gold. Specifically, 250 gold. Not an ENORMOUS amount, but not something most people can make in a week or two, either.
Sure, you can grind up that amount eventually. But if you're the type of player that doesn't have tons of gold, but is fine with buying skins, then due to how this is set up, you can end up being gated out of something you [I]bought[/I] for a month or two, when depending on a dice roll, you could have gotten something you could use instantly.
It is kind of weird that people are getting upset over the mount skin lootbox and not the black lion chest one, but there are a few differences that might explain it.
BLCs mostly just have a chance at weapon skins. You can RARELY get a token for a skin (or even just a skin?) from them, and [I]sometimes[/I] 1/10th of a token for a skin. So they should be worse than something you can buy and automatically get a unique skin, right?
Except
1. They're weapon skins. There's a whole lot of weapon skins you can earn purely with in-game money. Even ones that look better than the BLC ones, with enough effort or luck! [sp]Or if you just personally like the free ones better, or if the BLC ones just suck for that timeframe.[/sp]
2. Once you get a weapon token, you can choose which skin you want. It's still not great, since you can pay for a few BLC keys and still not get a token. The mount thing is better in a way, since you're just straight paying for one, and you know you'll get one. And you'll always get one you don't already have. But there's something about being able to choose what you get that's much more satisfying. Especially since [I]you know you'll be able to use it immediately.[/I]
3. If you do get a full skin instead of a token from a BLC - or hell, even just use your token to buy a skin you don't even want - as long as you don't soulbind it, you can actually sell it and get a substantial amount of gold back. Enough to be able to buy a different skin that you want actually want, or at least a large chunk of the price. I'm pretty sure you can't do that with the mount skins. Don't like the mount skin you bought, or you can't even use it yet? Too bad!
3b. On the other side of that coin, if you don't want to put up with rng bullshit for BLC weapon skins, you can buy a specific one off the trading post from someone else with in-game gold. You can even just use the money you would spend on BLC keys to instead buy gold to use on the trading post! It might not be as efficient as if you got lucky, but not everyone's lucky. On the other hand, you want to skip the rng bullshit and get a specific mount skin? Too bad! Even if you grind up enough in-game gold, the only option for the skins is through rng.
4. If you're lucky or determined, you can actually earn BLC keys without needing to pay a cent. You can get them as extremely rare drops, or as rewards for completing maps and story missions. They've limited how often you can get them, but that still means you can get a free key at least once a week if you put aside a character slot for it.
Mount adoption kits dropping from a mob or as a story reward? hahahahahahahahaha
5. Alternatively, there's ONE mount skin that's not RNG. But it's 25$. Fuckin 25$. Key prices have stayed the same since launch (or roughly the same, if they've changed). But everything else has slowly risen in price. Armor skins, which you buy directly and not through rng, have risen in price a lot. (also, often you can't exchange any of the parts out for other ones, so you're stuck with one set, but that's unrelated). Minis? Their price has also risen. They've risen the prices by just taking the old skins and minis off the market, while offering new skins that cost more for some reason.
6. One RNG mount is about 5$, which [I]seems[/I] alright. Maybe a bit high, but it's relatively the same (or better) compared to weapon skins from BLCs. But if you want to customize every mount, that's AT LEAST 20-25$. And that's just for ONE option on each, not even necessarily the one you want. You can spend 25$ and get 5 griffon skins, which if you're not stacked with gold, can't use. Even if you HAVE a griffon AND were hoping ONLY for griffon skins, you can still end up not getting a skin you want for said griffon.
If you really want a specific skin, there's a 1/3 chance you'll have to buy at least 20 mounts before getting it - 100$!
Again, you can customize every weapon on every character for free. (unless if you run out of skin-change-points, whatever they're called, but that's only if you're changing armor and weapon skins every week. And never simply using new armor and weapons with said skins.) The only way to customize a mount right now is through dye, which changes a little bit of their color.
If they had done it so you had the RNG separated into the 5 separate mount categories, so you could KNOW you were getting a jackal skin or KNOW you were getting a raptor skin, just not which, they would have been received better.
If they had separated the normal looking mount skins from the deviantart level sparklewolf mount skins, (and hopefully made the normal ones cheaper than the sparkly ones), they would have been received better.
If they had offered several mount skins to earn for free, they would have been received better.
If they had allowed you to trade mount skins you don't want with other ones you DO want, they would have been received better. (I don't THINK you can trade them, I haven't checked yet.)
[QUOTE=dai;52874396]point needs repeating- [i]in a game with horizontal progress, [b]cosmetics are the endgame[/b][/i]. We don't have newer more prestigious gear to obtain in expansions, just a few new variances to stat sets and a handful of skins (a vast majority of which are ugly, especially compared to gemstore outfits and armor sets). This has been the core of guild wars since it first launched; pursuit of skins and nonsense like titles from achievements. Selling skins for gliders was pretty well accepted, but saw constant requests for some to be unlockable in game, and gripes from bundles where a good skin was tied to some shitty outfit. In total, only 3 unlockable ones showed up, one of which having been an existing backpiece, they're exceedingly hard to obtain, and all of them are lackluster compared to the cash shop ones.[/quote]
I guess? I've never really been interested in cosmetic stuff. The mounts are really the only cosmetic thing that has actually interested me. Barring that, I'm still working to unlock things that came out two years ago because I don't have a lot of free time.
[quote][img]https://i.imgur.com/ddi1iga.png[/img]
boy I can't wait to spend the next year grinding old content and exploit farms to keep buying tickets til I get the couple skins I like. I can't even go past 9999 in that dialogue to put in the 12,000 gems it'd cost to buy all 30 licences individually, ending in a potential expense of $150 if down the line I decide I want the whole shebang
I love the skins. A lot of them. I have enough characters that I could legitimately have each and every one of them assigned somewhere and I'd be totally cool with spending that amount of money if I had even an iota of control over what I got out of a $20 investment and could bypass (or at least sell off) all the trash filler, like people already do with the dye packs and BL skins[/quote]
Gold to gem prices are currently severely inflated. Prior to the skins being released it cost 24 gold and some odd silver to buy 100 gems. It's currently nearly 33 gold and has actually come down a bit: [url]http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem[/url]
[quote][url]https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/14758/official-mount-adoption-feedback-thread-merged/p1[/url]
devs asking for feedback on mount adoption licences, 2.3k posts/54k views after one day
[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7bevvt/mount_adoption_licenses_are_an_outrage/]Mount Adoption Licences are an Outrage[/url]
Reddit post approaching 5k upvotes and 2.3k replies, it's [i]the second most popular thread [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/top/?sort=top&t=year]of the past year[/url] after only a day and a half[/i]
A lot of the people I play with are on hiatus and not even logging in more than once a week as we're all waiting for the next living story update to hopefully bring some content. The new zones are pretty and large but didn't bring anything with longevity on its bones and many people capped out masteries and rewarding achievements before halloween even rolled around, [i]there's just nowhere to be with these expensive toys[/i] and I feel that's largely impacting the perception of their value[/QUOTE]
I rarely bother with the GW2 forums unless I'm trying to find information on something and I don't touch reddit because the layout of the posting system bugs the hell out of me. And again, I'm still working my way through unlocking everything on the new maps. I only play for an hour or two a day.
[QUOTE=Last or First;52874486]The griffin one DOES take a lot of time and gold to get, though.
Mostly gold. Specifically, 250 gold. Not an ENORMOUS amount, but not something most people can make in a week or two, either.
Sure, you can grind up that amount eventually. But if you're the type of player that doesn't have tons of gold, but is fine with buying skins, then due to how this is set up, you can end up being gated out of something you [I]bought[/I] for a month or two, when depending on a dice roll, you could have gotten something you could use instantly.[/quote]
I'm aware. I have the griffin...And I was able to get it within a week of unlocking the quest because I sold off a lot of the crafting materials I've been hoarding. The time factor would certainly be a concern if the items were limited, like the 30 pack is (appeals to "I need it now" players), but the single use/10 pack tickets aren't. If you're patient and are willing to put in the time, they're achievable. I'm far from rich on GW2, the average amount of gold I have tends to be about 5. I'm still determined to grind in order to get the gems...Once the gem price drops back down, anyway.
[quote]Again, you can customize every weapon on every character for free. (unless if you run out of skin-change-points, whatever they're called, but that's only if you're changing armor and weapon skins every week. And never simply using new armor and weapons with said skins.) The only way to customize a mount right now is through dye, which changes a little bit of their color.[/quote]
Not exactly true. Mount skins allow you to change four aspects of their color opposed to the one of unskinned mounts.
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/TAEeaFY.jpg[/IMG]
Also, mount skins are account bound, so you can't trade them..Which is why people aren't going to get duplicates.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52874625]I'm aware. I have the griffin...And I was able to get it within a week of unlocking the quest because I sold off a lot of the crafting materials I've been hoarding. The time factor would certainly be a concern if the items were limited, like the 30 pack is (appeals to "I need it now" players), but the single use/10 pack tickets aren't. If you're patient and are willing to put in the time, they're achievable. I'm far from rich on GW2, the average amount of gold I have tends to be about 5. I'm still determined to grind in order to get the gems...Once the gem price drops back down, anyway.[/quote]
It is true that you'll eventually have the griffon if you work for it. It's not like the skin will be unavailable forever. It's annoying if you don't have it yet, but still want a mount skin for a non-griffon mount, since you might have to wait a couple of weeks to even be able to use it.
Also, not everyone has a hoard of unused craft materials. Some people use them, or sell them regularly so they don't pile up.
[QUOTE=SadisticGecko;52874625]Not exactly true. Mount skins allow you to change four aspects of their color opposed to the one of unskinned mounts.
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/TAEeaFY.jpg[/IMG]
Also, mount skins are account bound, so you can't trade them..Which is why people aren't going to get duplicates.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, I messed up the wording in that.
Let me say what I was meaning to say:
The only [I]free[/I] way to customize a mount right now is through dye, which changes a little bit of their color.
(Sure, you can freely dye a mount you've paid for, but that requires having paid for it, or grinding enough gold for gems)
just my humble opinion but I think gw2 has been going down a slow steady slope into cash-store shittyness for a looong time now
when I started playing, it was pretty feasible to get things from the gem store with in-game money, at a reasonable rate, and it was a fairly tame selection of cosmetics and convenience items
but over time, it got harder and harder to buy gems with gold, and more and more of the the content added in updates became market content - literally to the point where the few bits of armour and equipment they added to in-game rewards looked like absolute ass compared to the gem store armour sets and loot-crate(!) weapon skins added far more frequently
the the last straw for me was when HoT was going to cost more than the full game did and making the base game f2p with *no* reward or compensation for veteran players... and it didn't even come with a character slot so you had to pay extra on top of that to actually play the new class. (actually IIRC you got a char slot and a discount if you preordered the expansion well in advance but that's almost worse than having nothing at all... preordering is the devil)
this recent thing sounds a little overblown but to me it's just another shitty thing on a long list which makes me never want to reinstall this game
[editline]10th November 2017[/editline]
also it's absurd to say that skins don't matter in gw2, your character caps out stat-wise almost immediately when you reach level 80, the rest of the game is spent 10% getting a few minuscule stat improvements and 90% chasing cosmetics
[QUOTE=krail9;52875842]also it's absurd to say that skins don't matter in gw2, your character caps out stat-wise almost immediately when you reach level 80, the rest of the game is spent 10% getting a few minuscule stat improvements and 90% chasing cosmetics[/QUOTE]
I don't know why it's absurd to say that. Maybe it's true for you, but it isn't for me. I've never found the appeal to them in the three years that I've played. I've never really liked the over-the-top skins that are sold in the gem store. All my character's appearances are "outfits" cobbled together from armor/weapon skins you can find in game, and I like that appearance considerably better.
I've never chased cosmetics in any game I've played. Right now on GW2, I spend most of my time working on map completion, trying to get masteries, and working on getting unlocks. Presently, I'm working on grinding up the last few levels of letherworking to craft the final thing I need for Mawdrey II.
In talking to a friend last night, I think the reason that I'm completely unbothered by this is because I expected it. When anet did the halloween mount skins, I suspected that more skins were in the pipeline and that they'd be gem store exclusives. I just idn't know how they were going to deliver them. And yes, I bought the skin pack even though I didn't have the griffin unlocked because that was on the "to do" list.
I saw this coming when mounts were first announced
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