Roaring Dragon Chest - gone too soon?

[Vallune.8150]

The Black Lion Chest was updated to the Roaring Dragon Chest on 8th January. This has now been changed to the Fortune's Favor Chest just two weeks later.

(Normal cycle for change/update is around 4 weeks, sometimes longer. The contents have never been changed after so little time before.)

 

I know a lot of people won't be bothered either way, but as someone who takes an interest in the limited availability of Black Lion skins, this annoys me.

Maybe a heads up would have been nice?

 

 

[LucianDK.8615]

You didnt even preview the Black Lion Chest of today. The Roaring Dragon glider is still in there.

[Vallune.8150]

I did and I am aware of this, sorry I should of been more explicit.

I am talking about the "Roaring Dragon Chest" in general, as the name they gave to overall chest contents, not specifically the "Roaring Dragon Glider".

 

Things that have left the chest with the update happening 2 weeks earlier than expected include Spectral skins, Pact Fleet Skins, the Iron Beast Greatsword skin.

 

Sure, no major dramas, I was expecting 4 weeks to play with this chest and got two, missed some stuff I was interested in, hence the annoyance.

Just suggesting that a "Hey guys, grab this quick as this chest is only around for two weeks" in the patch notes on Jan 8th would have been appreciated.

[OutOfOrder.3719]

No question, the Roaring Dragon chest was much more valuable/profitable with Spectral and Pact Fleet weapons dropping.

 

Crimson Lion and Dragon Jade are almost not worth using your hard earned Black lion keys for.

 

I sincerely hope you obtained the Roaring Dragon glider 2 weeks ago. It looks like the drop rate from 145 keys only yielded 8 rares/uncommon items.

 

It looks like it takes on average 18 keys to obtain 1 uncommon/rare drop. Yikes! Probably the worst drop rate I have seen in a long time.

[Khisanth.2948]

The Iron Beast greatsword has been in there for two different chests already so that isn't very surprising either.

[Vallune.8150]

Not surprising that unique rare drops like the Iron Beast Greatsword are in the chests for two cycles and then are taken out, agreed, we knew that would happen based on how items have cycled out of chest historically. But that wasn't my point.

 

What was surprising was that the second chest cycle finished after only 2 weeks with no prior warning, meaning that the IBG was only for 6 weeks rather than 8 (and Spectral / Pact Fleet weapons were only available for 2 weeks rather than an expected 4.)

Historically, this has never happened before. Chest refresh is usually 4 weeks, sometimes a little longer, but it has never been slashed in half like this.

[Glider.5792]

> @"Vallune.8150" said:

> Not surprising that unique rare drops like the Iron Beast Greatsword are in the chests for two cycles and then are taken out, agreed, we knew that would happen based on how items have cycled out of chest historically. But that wasn't my point.

>

> What was surprising was that the second chest cycle finished after only 2 weeks with no prior warning, meaning that the IBG was only for 6 weeks rather than 8 (and Spectral / Pact Fleet weapons were only available for 2 weeks rather than an expected 4.)

> Historically, this has never happened before. Chest refresh is usually 4 weeks, sometimes a little longer, but it has never been slashed in half like this.

 

Yeah, this kind of got me offguard. I luckily got all of those skins on day 1, since they're the cheapest after patch. In one way i like getting chests updated, since i realy like opening them. On the other hand, i want to have some time and prepare myself with gold/keys to actualy be able to buy the keys (i open 50-75 of every new chest) and 2 week timespan is waaay too little to prepare myself for that.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Keep in mind that BL Chests almost always change with the _major_ releases. If 2 major releases are close together (2 weeks), then the Chest contents will be updated.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Vallune.8150" said:

> (Normal cycle for change/update is around 4 weeks, sometimes longer. The contents have never been changed after so little time before.)

The shortest previous gap was 21 days (that happened as recently as the Sixth Anniversary).

 

Of the 20 'seasons' of BL chests I've tracked, there were 4 that lasted less than four weeks and five lasting longer than 7. Some of the numbers are off, because included in that group are a couple of patches the went out late as well as 1-2 festivals that were extended. (My data isn't up-to-date; there have been about 23 seasons.)

 

14 days is definitely exception, but not completely unexpected, under the circumstances.

 

I don't really see any particular reason ANet ought to be married to a pattern. I think more frequent swaps is better for the vast majority of people. For ANet, it probably means increased revenue, since keys are popular. For folks converting gems to gold, it helps keep the exchange rate high (with people converting gold to gems to keys). For folks interested in the drops, more variation is also good. It also helps key exclusive dye & bl weapon skins prices modest (since there's more of those that drop, thus increasing the supply).

 

Of course, there are subsets of the community that will be unhappy about this (the OP is not alone). But I think even for them, this can be a good thing because it also provides more opportunities for the BL statuette offerings to change, for the BL Exclusives Chest to return (with new choices), and for things to recycle into the chests themselves.

 

tl;dr this might be the shortest cycle, but it's not entirely inconsistent.

Besides that, I haven't seen a convincing argument as to why there should be restrictions on how long between BL Chest Seasons.