[POLL] Mount Skins Distribution - A Serious Poll

[Huddi.8297]

A little insight from a PvP player and roamer: As I cannot use my mount in either of my two favorite game modes, I see no incentive to buying and mount skins.

[Aelyn.7954]

I don't like the fact that good looking mounts are hidden behind the RNG-paywall in form of 15-20 completely unnecessary ones (well, at least for me) with minor changes (dye patterns etc.). Every single one of them is not worth 400 gems.

 

Other than that, the price is totally fine for mounts like Starbound Griffon, Primal Hare etc.

[Elear.8459]

I'm not even mad, looking at how bland half of the skins are I'm just relieved I feel no urge to buy any of them. After prior dealings with games that did item shop thing very aggressively with core game suffering for it, I rather refrain from buying anything (altough I still buy character slots and such I guess). So I suppose I shouldn't really care, but still, I do agree that RNG aspect is terrible because it encourages creation of "filler" items that very few people actually want but everyone has to wade trough in hopes of getting one they want. And despite being declared "no-shopper", seeing all the rage about whole issue both in game and outside makes me have flashbacks to other games that turned terrible precisely because of such practices, and yes, it affects my enjoyment of game, because I can't help but worry that it's about to go down that dark path to join the others in limbo of games that do everything to milk the whales.

 

 

Short version: RNG practices make me worry about future of game more and enjoy actually playing it less.

[Asum.4960]

> @Zeivu.3615 said:

> People buy blindboxes all the time in real life: sometimes the item's value is over five bucks each and you can get duplicates. But when it's pixels with duplicate damage control protection it becomes gambling and corrupt?

 

First of all, no we don't do that all the time.

Even in cases where people may consider buying a random product, aka an event where you could buy a random food and be surprised by what you may get or broaden your horizon, or be it cards for a card game, it is either under the assumption that all offered products are of equal desirability, or have actual value and no system in place that prevents you from trading unwanted results for something of interest. Or they do it for the experience, the (most often social) event, itself, which can have value on it's own.

I don't think that applies to sitting in front of your computer and gambling for random virtual goods, falling into the sunk cost fallacy if you don't get what you want at first.

Giving kids and other vulnerable people the ability to spend real money with the click of a button to gamble potentially hundred+ of dollars for some shiny they set their eyes on, with Gem's as fake currency in place, so they don't notice as easily how much money they are actually spending is, in my opinion, not an ethical business model.

 

Make a good product, give it a reasonable price, sell it.

 

Secondly, as mentioned, real world things have real value and can be resold/traded.

Digital goods have no additional production or material cost (and therefore value) aside from the initial generation, and can be sold once or billions of times with zero additional cost.

Giving people no option but to gamble for virtual goods with no intrinsic value, if they want the product, is unethical.

 

Sure, it's "optional", but so is playing the game and buying future content. I can't imagine that's what Arena Net wants to rely on.

Everything is "optional" in life, there are just subjective priorities.

Just because you or I may be (semi) stable adults with potential disposable income, or may not really care for skins at all and think this isn't a big deal, doesn't mean a vulnerable kid with a troubled family with money problems may not decide that one of those 5€ skins may make him smile that day, just to then end up spending 100€ gambling for it and feeling miserable upon finally getting it.

 

All I'm saying is, I wouldn't want to be responsible for that and I don't like this new overtly capitalist, exploitative direction GW2 is heading in.

I picked GW2 to play, and the original GW before that, precisely because ArenaNet weren't doing this stuff in a sea of exploitative business models.

 

Again, make a good product, give it a reasonable price and let people decide if it's worth it.

 

TL:DR

Sorry for the ramble, I'm just sick and tired of this pay real money for random virtual goods Lootbox shit and thought Anet to be better than this.

Just skip it, I'm tired.

 

[cherrycola.3127]

Will not be buying these until I can pick the skin I want without RNG, period. Having one kind of random loot box can be argued to be a necessary evil in today's market, but adding more and more for increasingly high prices seems excessive and greedy.

[Nilson.9865]

How many skins are in that chest? 30? If i buy 5 licenses it is too much random for me. 1/30; 1/29; 1/28; 1/27; 1/26...

I would spend 1000 gems per skin. But only for particular one, not random.

[JasonLucas.4981]

I'm totally fine with microtransactions in a B2P game, but **RNG ISN'T OKAY!**

In this case is even worse because there are some recolors skins that are here just for "bait", so your money is wasted on something that isn't worth. We also have dyes, recolors have no sense.

[Kronos.3695]

> @jdmThor.3806 said:

> > @Kronos.3695 said:

> > > @jdmThor.3806 said:

> > > Because one is guaranteed a unique skin for every purchase, I'm completely fine with this. People want to have everything they want too easily. Anet is not even forcing anyone to spend any real money to get all the skins if they don't want to.

> >

> > Not at all?

> > If out of 30 skins I like only one, it will be possibile that due to RNG I'ìll have to spend almost 10k gems instead of 400 to get the one that I want after unlocking the rest.

> > Is that normal for you?

>

> Sure, it's just a skin and not required at all. If you want it, then do what it takes to get it. Pay real money or farm gold in game. Again, you get a unique skin for every purchase. This is already way more generous than a lot of RNG things in other mmos which goes even for things that are needed for gameplay. 10k gems isn't really a lot to complete a collection of 30 mount skins.

 

Again, NO?

Probably you have some issue to understand the problem here: I want to buy a skin but to get it I'm not paying his price, but a change to get it as first or last, letting the skin itselft costing between 400 and 12000 gems (if you go for the single tries).

 

If you're ok with this as you said on another post, It's your problem, because most of the community isn't happy to turn the game in a RNG fest for skins like most of F2P corean MMOs are.

 

I want a skin? Give a me reasonable price and I can decide if I want to buy it or not, don't lock it behind a ridicoulos RNG box.

[Faaris.8013]

Looks like I'm part of the majority here, I am willing to pay 5 bucks for a skin, but I won't buy 10 skins to get one for a jackal. I mainly use the jackal and the chance to get one in the first try is 6/30 or 1/5. If you don't get one with the first try, your chances are slightly higher, 6/29, then 6/28 and so on. A guild mate bought the 10 tickets package and only got one jackal skin. It is quite possible that you get no jackal skin in the first 10 attempts, that's 50 euros gone to waste. The probability of that to happen is 6.5% after all. I really don't like the odds here, and what if I get that ugly Pyroclast skin (as hapopened to my guild mate, but he likes it)?

 

I got 3 tickets yesterday and of course I got no jackal skin. I only want a jackal skin to get 4 dye channels, a thing that should not have been removed from the base skins anyway at release. I'm not going to buy more of those tickets, they feel like a rip off. I'm not a gambler, this random stuff doesn't appeal to me. After I bought some gems yesterday the first thing I got from the gemstore was the Noble Outfit for 700, simply because I wanted to get something I want for my money and feel good about having spent money. With the rest I bought the three mount tickets and got a griffon, a bunny and a skimmer skin that I don't want. The chance to get a jackal skin with the next purchase is only 22.2%. Sorry, not gonna happen. If that's your business model now, good luck.

 

Oh, and please don't come with gold to gems this time. 4000 gems cost 1.240 gold today. Most people don't have that kind of ingame cash and spending 124 gold on something you never wanted (an ugly bunny skin) doesn't feel good either.

 

Oh and another edit: How comes that this business model only works in the game industry? You remember the times when the music industry sold us titles we never wanted when we bought an album? You liked one song but had to buy a whole album. That doesn't work anymore and people just buy the song they want. Imagine Apple's music store would apply that model: you get a chance to unlock a song for 3 bucks per ticket, out of a pool that contains 30 songs. You are only interested in 5 or 6 songs, would you buy any tickets? Every game has kind of a local monopoly, because you cannot get those pixels anywhere else. But there are other games on the market.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

> @"Dreamy Lu.3865" said:

> I am sorry, maybe I am too much rational in my way of thinking, but I don't understand this poll.

>

> This is optional yes? Nobody is forced to it and the skins are not required to play the game. This is a "nice to have" with a lottery on it. As far as I can see, this in not even entirely random since it takes into account if we already have a skin or not, to make sure we don't get double. So at the end, the only thing is that we maybe don't get the one we want on first try, but eventually it will come. There is no harm done. That's just a way to make more money than if we could buy straight the one we want. This is a clever way to get more earnings (certainly a marketing strategy).

> Don't forget we are playing a cost free game. There are no miracles. Money has to come in from one side or the other.

>

> My personal opinion is that one option is missing in this poll: "Anet hope to make money. That's normal."

 

This poll is not my personal manifest. Your option "Anet hope to make money. That's normal." is. If you think it's fine you chose option 1 so your stance is covered here.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

> @Zionka.6897 said:

> I'm in the minority, I like it just how it is. If it wasn't RNG, I'm thinking I'd have to pay more than 400 gems. (like that 2000 gem jackal!) Sure, I have my favorites, but to get a new skin, no matter which it is, I'm glad for the better options for customizing. That alone is worth it to me. I try to be positive on things, and any skin I get will be a better one than what I have. If I could choose between picking for 2000 gems, or RNG for 400, I pick RNG.

 

This argument is flawed. Clearly skins offered in the box are not 2k gems worth considering how little they change compared to basic skin. From every mount we have 1 or 2 skins worth maybe 1000-1200 gems and the rest is just trash filler to exploit your wallet with RNG. Reskins/recolours are worth 200-300 gems max.

[Spurnshadow.3678]

Totally off topic: I find it amazing how many more people are engaged in this poll, like over 1500 voted, as opposed to most WvW or PvP polls wich might get 300 over the course of a couple weeks.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

I'm not going to buy any RNG tickets. RNG-Boxes are the cancer that's spreading through the whole gaming industry.

 

When I first saw the jackal skin I immediately realized: ANet plans to bring all the skins as single purchases on a rotation. Possibly at around 2000 gems per skin. I think that's too much. Up to 1000 gems for a non-rng skin would be ok. 500 gems for the less impressive ones.

[Jaken.6801]

As I am really not a fan of the random feeling prices in the gemshop, as well as the RNG, I really don't like that implementation

[INiiS.2039]

Too bad I can't chose two choices.

Was hesitating between :

 

**Price is fine but I don't like RNG aspect.**

and

**RNG aspect is fine but price is too high.**

 

I would argue that if the item stays like this, Anet should consider adding another one where we can chose a skin, at a higher price point (like, I dunno 700-800 gems like the gliders). OR, if RNG aspect and gambling has to be kept (which is ... kinda sad), lower the price because I certainly won't be paying 150$ to get like 5 skins out of the 30 that really are appealing to me.

[Nikal.4921]

IMO, mount skins should be treated more like glider skins- 400 to 500 gems each, depending on how fancy, for a skin of your choice. I won't touch these gamble skins with a 10 foot pole, nor will I ever pay 2000 gems for a skin. Yesterday, the gem store hit a ridiculous low.

[Tiavor.4016]

I would be OK with both answers/outcomes:

> Price is fine but I don't like RNG aspect.

> RNG aspect is fine but price is too high.

 

--

 

>@Zeivu.3615 said:

>People buy blindboxes all the time in real life: sometimes the item's value is over five bucks each and you can get duplicates.

in RL you can trade those, in a game the dev decides if it is trade-able or not

 

Here is my suggestion: make everything that is RNG based tradable.

[Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489]

Just adding that I'd happily pay 600 gems for each of the 13 skins I want, which would be 7800 gems, but seeing as the chance is I'll pay 6800 gems without unlocking any of those makes me not buy them.. Great job on the skins, they are really cool and well made! Really, really bad transaction model.

 

They could still salvage this by selling each skin for more, like 600 gems each. Those who bought the full RNG package would still have saved 6000 gems if that were to be the case, compared to someone who went and bought all 30 skins for the new price. On a side note, no mount skin is worth 2k gems in my opinion. (And I'm one of the whales, I've spent loads of cash on gems previously).

[phandaria.4891]

RNG is what stopping me from getting some good skins. I hated how Hydra Staff is put behind BLC, I would gladly use gems if it weren't for that.

[BeckonRed.8457]

I haven't been in game to see it for myself yet, but I think a different RNG method should be implemented. For instance, to have you chose RNG on a specific mount if it doesn't already so at least if you don't care for the bunny or Griffin skin you can choose to randomly get a raptor or jackal skin instead of randomly getting a skin for a mount you don't care for. Maybe even have RNG selectable for two mounts you'd like a skin for.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

After the Halloween skins, and looking at glider prices, I expected ~400 gems/skin, and I'm *completely* ok with that. Not knowing exactly what I'll get, **and** no way of acquiring it without RNG however is **not ok**. I was (and am) strongly against the account bound BLC skins, but a bunch of those were at least made available in a tradeable container, somewhat mitigating the problem.

 

RNG aqusition of skins would be fine *as an in-game reward* but not as a gem store purchase!

[Zaoda.1653]

I don't mind paying 400 gems per mount skin - as long as we get to choose which skins we get to unlock. See, the last time I converted all the gold that took me a very long time trying to earn, to gems, just so I could buy 25 black lion keys - assuming it would be more than enough chance to unlock that new balthazar outfit from it...but no. I hardly made my money back, I didn't get the new balthazar outfit unlock, and ultimately, this lead me to the decision of NEVER buying black lion keys EVER again, for an RNG chance on something I wanted. RNG is the true enemy here. I don't mind paying 400 gems per mount skin, so long as we get to choose the mount skin we spend our gems on, otherwise, I feel as though by going the RNG route, this is putting players off SO much that they'd rather boycott the gemstore, and spend nothing at all, than spend all their gems on the mount skins they want. If I were a business, I'd rather have people spend all their gems by allowing players to buy the skins they want, than to have them spend nothing at all - but that's just my opinion...

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

ANet is well aware of how much money I spend on Gems every month,it isn't chump change.

 

Just to be crystal clear ANet I will never ever in a million years spend any Gems or Gold converted into Gems on these RNG Mount Skins.

 

Further more I will not spend 2000 Gems for an individual mount skin when you eventually put it up as a choice like you did the War Forged Dog.

 

I may be a whale but I do have standards, and if you want me to open my wallet for this then you better rethink this pronto.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

Funny thing I just noticed. While more and more people vote with every hour, voices are spread at the same % range most of the time. No matter if it was 100, 500 or 1500 votes. I think it's pretty telling.

[jdmThor.3806]

> @Kronos.3695 said:

> > @jdmThor.3806 said:

> > > @Kronos.3695 said:

> > > > @jdmThor.3806 said:

> > > > Because one is guaranteed a unique skin for every purchase, I'm completely fine with this. People want to have everything they want too easily. Anet is not even forcing anyone to spend any real money to get all the skins if they don't want to.

> > >

> > > Not at all?

> > > If out of 30 skins I like only one, it will be possibile that due to RNG I'ìll have to spend almost 10k gems instead of 400 to get the one that I want after unlocking the rest.

> > > Is that normal for you?

> >

> > Sure, it's just a skin and not required at all. If you want it, then do what it takes to get it. Pay real money or farm gold in game. Again, you get a unique skin for every purchase. This is already way more generous than a lot of RNG things in other mmos which goes even for things that are needed for gameplay. 10k gems isn't really a lot to complete a collection of 30 mount skins.

>

> Again, NO?

> Probably you have some issue to understand the problem here: I want to buy a skin but to get it I'm not paying his price, but a change to get it as first or last, letting the skin itselft costing between 400 and 12000 gems (if you go for the single tries).

>

> If you're ok with this as you said on another post, It's your problem, because most of the community isn't happy to turn the game in a RNG fest for skins like most of F2P corean MMOs are.

>

> I want a skin? Give a me reasonable price and I can decide if I want to buy it or not, don't lock it behind a ridicoulos RNG box.

 

1. I have no issues understanding something so simple, thanks.

 

2. I'm not the one who has a problem here but you (and the rest of the people complaining) because you want specific skin/s but might have to buy the entire collection to get it/them (if you're not lucky enough).

 

3. Again, 10k gems is not a bad deal at all for 30 mount skins, regardless of whether or not you personally like each one of them.

 

4. I will just say it out loud so there's no confusion: I support the way Anet would generate income from these skins because I find it reasonable.

 

5. This is simply my viewpoint on the matter. If Anet decides to change the way they sell these skins, so be it. It's their call. I'm just saying I am okay with this.