Djinn.9245

> @Swagger.1459 said:

> This is the super EASY guide to obtaining all 30 mount skins for FREE! Guaranteed!!!

>

> 1. Gather crafting materials daily and sell them on the BLTC!

>

> 2. Exchange the gold earned from selling mats into 400 FREE gems at the end of each week!

>

> 3. Buy your 1 FREE mount license, you earned with FREE gold and FREE gems, and enjoy it!

>

> 4. Repeat steps 1-3 weekly, and you will get all 30 mount skins for FREE!

>

> 5. Don’t rush yourself, just gather casually and savor the journey to collect all 30 FREE mount skins!

>

> You are very welcome!!!

My time isn't free.

> @Cynn.1659 said:

> Loot boxes are here to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for acquiring different mount skins.

How does having to pay for skins you didn't choose give you a sense of pride?

Edit: upon seeing the gif I guess there is some meme you are referring to that I am unaware of.

> @IndigoSundown.5419 said:

>The overall marketing strategy, and the we-won't-do-this-again-in-the-next-planned-releases statement make it harder for me to believe ANet had overall consumer interests in mind.

But only in the next planned releases I'll bet....

> @alceste.8712 said:

> I actually agree. The mount skins are purely cosmetic to boot. You are not in any way weaker.

It's not about power, its about introducing an expansion that is centered around mounts, purposefully making those mount only have 1 dye channel which is not very visible in most cases, and then only offering 30 out of 36 skins in a gamble box to try to force players who are eager to personalize their new mounts to waste their money on gambling. It is this kind of sleazy practice that people are mad about.

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > @Vayne.8563 said:

> >No they didn't drop the ball twice. They did what they were doing to keep the doors open. You think box sales alone are going to run this game. If you give away stuff, people will buy less of it. And unlike the one glider skin we get by default which was total crap, the five mount skins we get were really good out of the box. Sometimes I think people are living in a bubble and don't see what's going on with other MMOs

>

> If they want more money then they need to ask for it in a way that doesn't involve RNG. I gave them $90 for PoF, even though the "bonus goods" for doing so were mostly kitten, because I want this game to succeed, but I don't want to reward them for treating me like a pile of kitten with these kitten gambling boxes. I will commit right now to spending at least 2000-3000 gems if it'll get me 4-6 of the skins I wanted out of the existing 30, but I'm not going to pay for skins I don't want, and I'm not going to be gambling. Stop trying to make this into a "people are whining about having to pay for things" discussion, *that is not the point here.*

>

Exactly. I would be more than happy to buy some mount skins. But I want mount skins, not to gamble. Anet isn't offering any actual skins which don't cost 2000 gems. A random chance at a skin doesn't count for me.

> @Vayne.8563 said:

> > @TexZero.7910 said:

> > > @Vayne.8563 said:

> > > And we didn't get glider skins by playing the game either. So?

> >

> > So Anet dropped the ball twice ?

> >

> > I mean what more do you want to say about it. There's a distinct lack of long term goals, be it Armor/Skins etc... that can be earned via playing.

> > At the end of the day, it's a game. The shop being poorly utilized to ship content that could be put into the game doesn't excuse the game having a very poorly managed endgame.

>

> No they didn't drop the ball twice. They did what they were doing to keep the doors open.

I have seen no sign that GW2's doors are in threat of closing. No sign that the desperate measure of swindling their own customers is necessary - not that I think that it should ever be done if a company has any morals.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> It seems the quote says _releaseS_, not release. It's best to quote the actual statement, rather than editing.

>

> Regardless, time will tell.

True, but it says "planned releases" - if they are already in the planning stages, then Anet isn't making any changes, they already planned that the next releases would be individual or sets. But of course they don't make any statement about future releases that are not already in planning. As you say, time will tell.

> @Ghanto.9784 said:

> I'm wondering about this line, "You get a brand-new, unique mount skin every time, for a substantial discount versus an individual purchase price."

>

> So does this mean that we'll be able to buy only the skins we want in the future but for some reason they'll have to cost "substantially" more because there's no randomness involved? Hmm....

That might be a possibility if Mike didn't already state:

> @"Mike O Brien.4613" said:

> We won’t change the existing license in a way that would invalidate the investment players have made

This implies that they won't sell the skins that are currently in the gamble box individually as that would mean that the players who already gambled to try to get a skin they wanted could have instead purchased that skin outright.

> @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > @Djinn.9245 said:

> > > @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > > > @Djinn.9245 said:

> > > > > @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > > > > I farmed mats and sold mats I'd been hoarding in my bank. It sets me back for other projects but acquiring all the mounts was worth the sacrifice to me.

> > > >

> > > > >I am a Veteran player having played since Beta. I am not wealthy money wise, I don't have every item that ever appeared in the gem store, possess only one legendary which I finally managed to craft earlier this year. I don't have a full home instance but I have enough to get a farming daily done. I don't expect ArenaNet to give me stuff just because I want it.

> > > >

> > > > We're talking about the Store here - no one expects Anet to "give" them what they want. They just want the opportunity to fairly pay for what they want instead of spending their precious gold or cash on a CHANCE at what they want. It sounds like you were mainly fine with getting the licenses because you decided to simply get the entire package. And that is great for you. But for those who don't want the entire package and will never want all of the mount skins in that package, there is no reasonable way to purchase only the 1 or few that they do want.

> > > >

> > >

> > > I'd like to know where I said I bought the pack of licences?

> >

> > See below:

> > > @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > > Players do have choice - buy license tickets or don't.

> > >

> > > I farmed mats and sold mats I'd been hoarding in my bank. It sets me back for other projects but acquiring all the mounts was worth the sacrifice to me.

> >

> > Maybe you were talking about the actual mounts? But since the subject here is the SKINS, I of course assumed that was what you were talking about.

> >

> > >

> > > I haven't touched them. I can't afford them. There is a skin I want but I don't want to spend my gems gambling. It is a bummer but not a deal breaker for me as I've said before. I'm hoping skins will come out in future not locked behind RNG in the same way the 30 are now.

>

> I was replying to your statements in order (I think) but hadn't included what you'd said which is why it looks out of context and caused confusion. Apologies.

>

> I farmed mats and sold mats I'd had in my bank to acquire all of the original mounts (not skins but the mounts), including the Griffon. My point in mentioning the Griffon was because many have complained they are getting Griffon skins when they don't have a Griffon. I was trying to put across that it isn't impossible and it is very achievable if you're willing to put the effort in.

I don't think that stating you got a skin for a mount you don't own means you don't own it because it isn't achievable. 250 gold is a lot - maybe they just don't want to spend it. Maybe they have other priorities to spend it on. Maybe they are fine with just gliding. There could be many reasons why players might not currently have, or even never want to get, the griffon. Whatever their reason, "you could get the griffon" is not an appropriate response to getting a skin for something you don't even have.

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Cross-linking from Reddit:

> * [Mounts & Math: How Much for the Skins You Want?](https://redd.it/7cfbcr)

> * [Particularly the (current) first reply](

> ****

> Here's the tl;dr

> * If you want **four or more** specific skins, the most cost efficient solution is to buy the 30-pack

> * If you want one skin per mount and you don't care which skin, you need to purchase 15 to have at least a 90% chance to get that.

> * (In case it's not obvious) The pickier you are about how many skins you like/want, the more licenses you need to buy, on average, to be satisfied.

>

> Again, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a topic of at least three other active threads. This thread is entirely meant to give you an idea of how much you should expect to spend to get the sorts of skins you want.

Thanks for the cross post. Very informative post. I especially found this reply insightful:

"[–]midgard123 2 points 1 day ago

unfortunately this! I decided to spend 20 Bucks for 4 skins in the hope to get at least 1 griffon skin as i am using that mount for 99% of the time. after dropping 4 licenses and having 3 reskins of the Skimmer and one jackal which i never use I decided to drop another 20 bucks just to get something i can actually use.

Nuff said after finally beeing 60 Bucks in before I got the first griffon skin and by that time decided that if i spend so much money I at least want to have the skin i want.

In the end I dropped 100€ before i finally got one of the 2 griffion skins i wanted. (Would have made more sense to buy the whole pack outright, but if i knew the expected cost before i would not even have gone in at all)

That beeing said this was the last time i ever spent money on the item shop. This is simply disgusting."

> @Griever.8150 said:

> They definitively didn't go as far as i wished (rework of that system entirely) but at least they acknowledged that it was a mistake and that they screwed up. Not something a lot of game companies capable of doing nowadays.

I don't see this admission at all. Mike says they "made some missteps" and then says that the missteps are:

-Anet should have anticipated the alarm over the random element. This doesn't mean that they think they shouldn't have added the gamble box, just that Anet didn't anticipate the reaction.

-Releasing the majority of skins was easy to perceive as intentionally channeling us toward randomization. I'm not sure how Anet could be _unintentionally_ channeling us toward randomization unless they intended to release some additional skins outside of the gamble box that didn't get released by mistake which Mike could have said if it was the case.

-The gamble box is a large set which could be perceived by the players as decreasing our odds of receiving the skin we want. Since it actually **IS** decreasing our odds of receiving the skin we want, I really don't understand why Mike made this point at all.

**So the "missteps" are about THE PLAYERS' reaction and THE PLAYERS' perceptions. Not admitting that Anet did anything wrong.**

> @"Mike O Brien.4613" said:

> Hi,

>

> We made a commitment to you in March 2012 that we’d fund GW2 live development through non-pay-to-win microtransactions. We try different ideas, but we always hold true to that commitment. We’ve been collecting and discussing your feedback on the Mount Adoption License, and today I’d like to acknowledge and respond to the concerns you’ve raised, and to share our perspective with you.

>

> You have valid concerns about random boxes. We hoped that the design of the Mount Adoption License would be reassuring. In this case, we made some missteps:

>

> * At a time when there’s a lot of debate about random boxes in gaming, we should have anticipated that a new system with a random element would cause alarm.

> * We released mount skins with three different purchase models, but with the majority of skins released so far through the Adoption License. It’s easy to perceive this as intentionally channeling you toward randomization.

> * The Adoption License is a large set at 30 skins. We stand by the work our artists put into each skin, but it’s understandable to see this as pushing down the odds of acquiring any one skin, and to worry that we might add more skins to lower the chances further.

>

>

> Here are some of the benefits we had in mind when designing the Mount Adoption License:...

> @Randulf.7614 said:

> > @"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

> > I'd rather have gotten no response than this "we know better" message talking down to us.

>

> I'm not. A "no response" is how Lotro are approaching the same situation with the added problem of ignoring the community and carrying on regardless. Whilst I get the criticism against Mike's statement, he did at least acknowledge the situation and put steps in to mitigate it. Could he have gone further? Yeah I think that's a fair call, but I think it would have been way worse to have stayed silent.

Did he put in steps to mitigate it? All he said was that they wouldn't add any mounts to the existing gamble box. Of course we don't know if they actually planned to add any more mounts anyway.

> @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > @Djinn.9245 said:

> > > @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> > > I farmed mats and sold mats I'd been hoarding in my bank. It sets me back for other projects but acquiring all the mounts was worth the sacrifice to me.

> >

> > >I am a Veteran player having played since Beta. I am not wealthy money wise, I don't have every item that ever appeared in the gem store, possess only one legendary which I finally managed to craft earlier this year. I don't have a full home instance but I have enough to get a farming daily done. I don't expect ArenaNet to give me stuff just because I want it.

> >

> > We're talking about the Store here - no one expects Anet to "give" them what they want. They just want the opportunity to fairly pay for what they want instead of spending their precious gold or cash on a CHANCE at what they want. It sounds like you were mainly fine with getting the licenses because you decided to simply get the entire package. And that is great for you. But for those who don't want the entire package and will never want all of the mount skins in that package, there is no reasonable way to purchase only the 1 or few that they do want.

> >

>

> I'd like to know where I said I bought the pack of licences?

See below:

> @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> Players do have choice - buy license tickets or don't.

>

> I farmed mats and sold mats I'd been hoarding in my bank. It sets me back for other projects but acquiring all the mounts was worth the sacrifice to me.

Maybe you were talking about the actual mounts? But since the subject here is the SKINS, I of course assumed that was what you were talking about.

>

> I haven't touched them. I can't afford them. There is a skin I want but I don't want to spend my gems gambling. It is a bummer but not a deal breaker for me as I've said before. I'm hoping skins will come out in future not locked behind RNG in the same way the 30 are now.

> @ProtoGunner.4953 said:

> > @FrizzFreston.5290 said:

> > > @ProtoGunner.4953 said:

> > > The whole griffon mount collection takes 4-5 hours and 250g is really not that much to get.

> >

> > In your opinion. I know lots of people who think 250 gold is a large sum of gold. Hell I think it is alot of money.

>

> At this point I had only about 500g left, so I went down to 250 and on day later I was up to 300 again. Sorry, but no, it's not much. You get money faster than you think. Of course not if you play 1h per week. But that's a question of relativity. There are people who have 100'000g and btw the highest I had was around 2k gold, but then again I have about 7 legendaries, so everyone it's own.

>

> Besides that 250g is 15€/$ which is about the same price I pay for two beers. It's the other way around if you really want it.

The fact that you can make 50 gold in 1 day doesn't mean that everyone else can. I've been playing since beta and I couldn't make 50 gold in one day if I tried.

> @Fireballer.2956 said:

> BUT I can say one good thing arenanet, is that you guys responded to us at the very least and you did and say this will stop but ill have to see on how far you guys actually improve to gain my trust

All Anet said was that they wouldn't add any more mounts to THIS random box. They didn't promise anything else.

> @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> I farmed mats and sold mats I'd been hoarding in my bank. It sets me back for other projects but acquiring all the mounts was worth the sacrifice to me.

>I am a Veteran player having played since Beta. I am not wealthy money wise, I don't have every item that ever appeared in the gem store, possess only one legendary which I finally managed to craft earlier this year. I don't have a full home instance but I have enough to get a farming daily done. I don't expect ArenaNet to give me stuff just because I want it.

We're talking about the Store here - no one expects Anet to "give" them what they want. They just want the opportunity to fairly pay for what they want instead of spending their precious gold or cash on a CHANCE at what they want. It sounds like you were mainly fine with getting the licenses because you decided to simply get the entire package. And that is great for you. But for those who don't want the entire package and will never want all of the mount skins in that package, there is no reasonable way to purchase only the 1 or few that they do want.

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > @Rashagar.8349 said:

> >I'm sure your perspective is as valid to you as mine is to me, but really you are just using a different definition of "demographic" to what my statement was using. Since to me, them releasing the skins with an rng element meant that this initial release method was simply meant to appeal to the people who enjoy rng elements.

>

> I don't acknowledge that as a valid premise. A skin is art. It is a thing that people value for its aesthetics. You cannot say "this skin is for these players, not for those players," the skin has to be for anyone that like the skin. It'd be like opening a restaurant that serves burgers and also chicken, but has a weird rule that you can order burgers off the menu, but if you want chicken, the only way to get it is off an RNG roll with 29 other food items, some of them salads. It's just nonsensical.

>

> If people like RNG, fine, give them RNG, but don't make it the ONLY way to acquire that thing. I highly doubt that there is a single player in GW2's community who believes that the RNG mount box *should* be the only method of acquiring them, that they could *only* enjoy getting the skin they want by participating in an RNG loot box to earn it. I think that if you could acquire them individually as well, it would only *heighten* the experience for fans of RNG, since they could get that feeling that they';d "beat the odds" and got a 800gem skin for half the price. I just don't see a "they had to give something to the poor RNG fans out there" argument as a good faith position, it just comes across as a Potemkin village.

In fact, the majority of posts I read where people did purchase licenses and were happy with their purchase still stated that they thought it was wrong that the skins were only available that way, or stated that they didn't actually like the RNG wall.

> @fizzypetal.7936 said:

> As of September 2017, Guild Wars 2 had over **11 million players**.

>

> I wager not even 0.5% are expressing a view one way or the other about the mount skin loot box lottery - I haven't seen anywhere close to 55,000 individuals posting in Reddit, in these forums or elsewhere. What I do see are the same people doom speaking and adding pages full of noise over and over again instead of leaving constructive feedback posts.

>

> Example:

> _I don't like the RNG nature of the loot boxes because my luck is rubbish. I won't participate but will happily buy reasonably priced individual skins from the Gem Store as and when. It would also be nice if skins were available as drops, story completion rewards or collection achievements._

You haven't seen the huge number of posts that are exactly like this? O.o

> @Rashagar.8349 said:

> > @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > > @Rashagar.8349 said:

> > > Yeah it's just funny hearing it being talked as some kind of act of magical contortion when for me the true contortionists are, for example, player "A" who believes that Anet's motives lie somewhere between skeazy and EA levels of evil because Anet dared to target a demographic with their initial release that didn't include player "A" haha!

> >

> > It's not about "targeting demographics." The Halloween mounts did not "target my demographic," because I didn't want the faux-skeleton designs, and I was totally fine with that. The problem here is that they *did* "target my demographic," in that there are several of those skins that I definitely want, but then they presented them as being impossible to own without buying into a corrupt gambling scheme. That's the problem, for me at least, and from what I gather, for a lot of other players. Nobody forced them to put these skins behind gamble boxes, and nobody is forcing them to keep them there. They could have made a better choice going in and they can still make a better choice now. It's a harder choice now because they might have to take a cut to make it right by the people who already bought in, but the longer they allow it to continue the worse that problem will become.

>

>releasing the skins with an rng element meant that this initial release method was simply meant to appeal to the people who enjoy rng elements. Nothing more.

I again find it interesting that you can come to such definitive conclusions - do you happen to work for Anet Marketing to know for a fact what their motive was? I say definitively that their motive was to make more money off mount skins than they would have if they sold them individually by manipulating players with a gamble box. Nothing more. Do you have evidence to prove my statement wrong?

>Calling it a "corrupt gambling scheme" doesn't make it one, that's imbuing their actions with a motive

There have been many articles over the years and very recently that prove that gamble boxes manipulate the player both psychologically and chemically. I don't see what else you can call it but corrupt when you are talking about manipulating people into spending more money.

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> I will give an example from many multiplayer FPS games, they used to follow the DLC/Season Pass system of release but that is becoming less and less frequent as many gaming companies are trying to find a different release system. The problem with many paid upgrades is that you lock content out of the players and the community becomes fractured with those that own this and that expansion and those who don't. In the end you find it more and more difficult to find players to play some content.

> It's one of the many reasons why the Guild Wars 1 system (an expansion/campaign every 6 months / 1 year) wasn't sustainable in the long run.

>

> The expansion system used to work when games were created with an end in sight. "This game will release now, get 2 expansions in 2 years and then end", now that games are created to last a very long time, the expansion model has its own limits.

Great point. Perhaps that's why GW2 was originally created to not have paid expansions at all.

> @Rangerdeity.5847 said:

> when questioning their decision to not change it you have to take the minds of the people who put thousands of gold into getting the ones they wanted into account. if you opened 13 of these bastards to get the skin you wanted then 2 weeks later someone could open one box and get whatever skin they wanted you would be a little annoyed.

As someone pointed out on the first day of Mike's response, Anet could have pulled everyone's License skins (they've done that before), refunded the gems, made the skins individually purchaseable for something like 700-900 gems AS WELL as the License random pack, then people could have chosen the method they preferred. People who purchased the entire pack could have done so again if they chose, people who purchased random Licenses could have done so again if they chose, people who preferred to buy the exact skin could have done so, etc. Win for the players, win for Anet's reputation. The only loss would have been to Anet's wallet which is why they didn't do it.

As we have seen from the financials people have posted, Anet is not hurting for money. They have actually hired 100 people recently. So I don't know why they are resorting to locking all mount skins behind sleazy gambling boxes except to be greedy.

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> X would be because "that interpretation is fundamentally incompatible with my perspective of the situation." You're entitled to your perspective of the situation, but that doesn't mean that it should apply to everyone. Their perspective is as valid to them as yours is to you.

Just give in to the marketing manipulation - it will be easier for everyone. lol ;P

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @Djinn.9245 said:

> > Just presenting what I know. I heard rumor that 1600 gems was a discounted price but I didn't find any actual statement from Anet to that effect.

> It literally said in the Gem Shop window: ~~2000~~ 1600 gems (20% discount).

Ah, I didn't see it in the store (didn't care at the time) and the wiki didn't give that info.

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @Djinn.9245 said:

> > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > > @jheryn.8390 said:

> > >

> > > > I agree with you except on one point. We kind of do see what they might sell it for as the warhound went for 2000 gems.

> > >

> > > I was sort of hoping no one noticed my (intentional) oversight. I can't for the life of me figure out how that skin is worth 2k gems when the spooky skins cost 2k total (retail) and look as intricate to me. On the other hand, if ANet intended to price Starbound at 2k gems, then the 9600 for 30 is starting to look an awful lot like a "substantial discount".

> > >

> > > Either way, proves my point that Mike O'Brien's "substantial discount" is a classic "eye of the beholder" statement that only applies to ANet staff familiar with pricing decisions. There's absolutely no way a typical customer would have a sense of the meaning of "discount" based on the numbers we had seen prior to the licenses: the spooky mount pack.

> > >

> > > In other words, if ANet wants us to be grateful for the idea of RNG licenses as a discount, they need to let us know what prices we would have had instead.

> >

> > Spooky skins: 5 for 1600 gems = 320 gems a piece. Not sure how 400 gems for a random skin = a discount vs 320 gems for specific skins.

>

> The 'retail' price is 5 for 2000 gems = 400 each. 1600 was the discount price.

> Even so, the main point is lost in that nitpick: we have no idea how much ANet would have charged for Starbound and other mount outfits. 400 is a lot less than the 2k for the stand-alone jackal. So in O'Brien's mind, that might be the "substantial discount".

>

> I'm not saying I like ANet's original plan (I don't), I'm not saying I think O'Brien's "message" addressed our concerns well (I don't). I'm saying we have no idea what he meant by "substantial discount". And I'm also saying that is his responsibility, too. He shouldn't assume we have any idea what their alternatives were.

Just presenting what I know. I heard rumor that 1600 gems was a discounted price but I didn't find any actual statement from Anet to that effect.

But you are correct that we simply don't know and we are forced to draw our own conclusions. Either way: 2000 gems as a "regular price" for 1 skin is ludicrous, 400 gems for a random skin as opposed to 400 or 320 for a known skin is not any kind of discount.

> @Erasculio.2914 said:

> We are in a pivotal moment of Guild Wars 2's history - a few weeks after the release of the game's second expansion, which has received pretty good reviews and appears to have a better reception by the playerbase than the first expansion. Despite ArenaNet's shenanigans with the mount skins, it appears to be a successful time for them. With that in mind, IMO it's a great time to see how happy the forum community is with the game. So, without further ado...

I used to be really happy with this game. When I started playing, it was the game about "play your own way" and I really liked it. I enjoyed the Living World but was sad that when a section was finished it went away so if I missed it I could never experience it. Anet changed that which was great by me.

I started getting unhappy with Dry Top and the platforming. I was EXTREMELY unhappy with HoT for the platforming, confusing maps, and punishing mobs. I was relieved when LW season 3 started as I liked those maps much better. I was VERY unhappy with the whole Balthazar story. I thought it was far fetched and felt forced. I continue to be unhappy with what Anet has done with the Gods. These beings who cared enough about Humans to bring them to a whole new planet and live there with them now abandoned Humans without warning them about destroying the dragons, doing something better about locking up a maniacal Balthazar so someone couldn't accidentally unlock him, doing something about Dhuum who is likely also to escape, etc. I really liked the PoF maps except for the metas.

So while I loved GW2 at the beginning, there has been a series of disappointments after Dry Top. The PoF maps started to bring my estimation of GW2 back up, but now 30 out of 36 mount skins being locked in a lootbox, and the knowledge that Anet will be adding more lootboxes have practically negated my goodwill from the PoF maps.