Lol same! I never buy game currency or loot boxes out of principle. I don't key farm either. Sure, it's fun to open the occasional box when you happen to stumble on a key, but I play the game for other reasons.
I appreciate the numbers. I remember key farming 5 an hour . We had specific gear for our runs that were account bound . I miss those days . I suggest to players to unlock, buy or make all the skins. That are 10 gold or less . That way when you get the unlock wardrobes . You get better quality skins. Thank you for this
Yeah. I once did a live opening for my guild. Did 210 keys (before the drop rates were added). I did not get a SINGLE uncommon or greater item the entire time. Made about 150 gold total from the keys and the junk.
Honestly I've only ever seen them as a way to get black lion tickets. I only buy keys to burn off amounts of gems here and there. I'd say the anet lootbox is pretty harmless and very optional
If you don't know that BL chest are a scam than you know now :) There's a reason why its prohibited in Belgium (gov) so we're not able to buy keys, its gambling. (vpn solution is you really want)
First of all, great data analysis and presentation of it! I hope this video grabs some attention. I always had the feeling something is off with that percentages and it's great to see actual proof! Still feel like Anet is milking their customers at the correct spot here. Anets fair buy-once-approach doesn't generate long term income, what they need for constant development. But people who are willing to spend money on skins, which don't effect the gameplay, do generate that long term income - without much impact on the game's experience. That's a good thing imo (although they should be more transparent about it, I totally agree with your points).
These are the only loot boxes I buy. I do it because I want to support the devs and I enjoy a bit of gambling. I don’t go crazy, maybe 25 keys a quarter. Only once have I been completely burned (no cosmetic unlock of any kind) but I always suspect any loot box is predatory. I hope they see this and address it
Black Lion Chest is like playing lottery in real life - you know you will get absolutely noting, that tiny hope makes you still play it from time to time
I mostly so batch openings of chests when keys go on sale to get the utility items like revive orbs and primers. Anything I get beyond that is just bonus to usually be turned into gold. I have noticed though, that the exclusives drop for me much more frequently and with less keys since they moved them to the statuette store. Pretty much the only time I’ve had to buy an exclusive was when I was away from the game for a few months
I played a LOT of games, and i know crooked devs when i see a game, my gaming hobby did abuse my wallet from time to time but gw2 was and is the best game out there. Now, i never farmed those keys because i was never interested. I am the type of player that has 5-6 costumes and i just enjoy the game. This game has the option to farm, transform gold into gems (real money currency), even buy some of the story with gems. Also has the possibility to buy the gems with real money. With gems you buy skins or you buy them from different vendors in game Plus there is a wizard vault which gives you free skins, free ascended gear, all you got to do is the daily quests, oh and free gold so technically this game is free if you are smart enough and don't get stuck into those keys. You can't wear all the skins in the game... just enjoy the game LOL those keys really don't matter
Opened chests regularly until pre EOD and the results were within range of this research. i used to get the featured rare skins like gliders and/or chair within 5-15 keys from saved weekly key farms. Today I used my last 40 keys and didn't even get the featured skins aside from useless dye kits. Double stattuete only proc'd once + a single ticket scrap. I did get an omnomberry node and a glyph but dang the usual useful drops feels so scarce now.
By their own admission, they made the most money from selling mount skins by time Living World 4 came out. Which makes it a mystery why they didn't do the same for skiffs and jade bots. Maybe chairs didn't replicate the same success.
Players spend far more time on their mounts than they do sitting around so it makes sense. Additionally, mount skins have a higher base price point normally and usually aren’t discounted as much when sales come around
You would think all of these companies would abandon the predatory systems and just invest heavily in cosmetics and supporter packs like path of exile. They're almost guaranteed to maintain the goodwill of the players if they are just transparent and honest about their intentions with the cash shop and with balance and content releases
As long as it doesn't say 100%, I tend to stay away from it or get ready to spend at least $100 if I like the item. So far expansions are my biggest purchase in GW2. Great Video BTW
Jade Bots in general need more relevancy, they should have way more skins that are available and those skins should be half the price of a Mount Skin at that being how small they are. Aside from Fishing and Mounts, the other features introduced in prior Expansions aren't particularly relevant outside of their Expansions which is a shame because Jade Bots, Skiffs, Gliding and Bounties should be implemented in the other maps. Rifts they've added to Janthir which is neat but that to I think could use some more spread than the few maps in Core Tyria that has them. All in all that's what would bring more reason to make more skins and reduce the price as more players would be choosing and buying them because I'm not spending however much it was to get a floating cat Jade Bot Skin when I hardly use the thing.
I remember that time when the Chaos Skins were only 1 Ticket on the Vendor, now the chaos spear skin goes for 2000 k Gold , and the next most expensive is the Sword for 300 G
Ha ha ha 'Infusions are overpriced garbage.' I always thought so. Thank you and your helpers for putting that all together. I have never bought a BL key. I do farm for the keys semi-regularly from playing the early part of the personal story for wealthy human. I think it's the fastest one. I like being able to buy something I like, eventually, since I have more time than money. Usually I get farming nodes but I just splurged on the Fortunate Blossom fishing rod.
It's just cosmetic items so they can do whatever they want with these chests as far as I'm concerned. A number of other games I played put essential gear or exclusive gear upgrade components behind paid RNG systems. GW2 is completely different.
Honestly the worst thing about BLCs is that they are just not fun to open. Which is also the best thing because it means I'm never really tempted to buy the keys.
I dont think this is comparable to blizzard in terms of scandals. One word and GW2 can start doing the WoW method of implement subscription and then everyone has to pay. You can get all these things with ingame means. Money is just a shortcut and the people who make the game needs to be payed, there has to be a profit margin for the stock holders. If the game doesnt generate any profit there is no reason to keep it alive. Gambling is gambling no matter the odds or percentage. Its semantics imo. Its the only gambling mechanic in GW2 if you dont count the plasma one if its still a thing. Other games have buy price, season pass and only loot boxes in the reward systems. Blizzards failed moba for example, cant remember the name. Then we have the Diablo immortal thing. A game cant survive without playing to the capitalistic society we live in today so you cant escape it. Fun video though statistics wise and most have been a fun project with people participating and opening all the chests.
Most of the times I had great drops from BLC were when I opened a single key I dropped by doing map completion. Whenever I tried to buy them in bulks I had the most trash stuff dropped. Don't waste your gem on that crap. The only reasonable reason to buy keys is if you want a specific cosmetic from the statuettes...
Yeah I'm glad statues are there. That's honestly the only reason I'll do it. Plus over time the items cost less statues. I'm also happy we can preview rewards.
I was first worried when they didn't make statuettes a guaranteed second drop ever again. Then I noticed I would consistently get the newer exclusive before the older one. The prices of the skiff skin and jadebot makes sense as it is a game feature reskin with loads of unique assets. It is still worrying that they are escalating. I worry for the new sword/chair/glider. This past year I have only acquired 1 exclusive from keys and less than 5 other uncommon drops. These drop rates are similar to the pattern of stealth nerfs to general drops that happened during the shift to make unidentified gear game wide and then removing Magic Find from them shortly after.
few problems i’ve spotted with your numbers. the statutes can still drop in 4 as i got a 4 drop in this years halloween event. also slots 3 and 4 can have any items not only the common items. i get uncommon and rare items all the time in thows two slots. key farming dosnt take an hour aswell it can be done in less then 30min with the lv10 quest (once per character)
Farming the level 10 quest is a good way to get keys, can even be done in 10-15 mins if you're optimized. However, it can only be done once per week for a key, so I went with the more repeatable estimate based on map-comping or gold farming. Regarding your other claims about statuettes and slots 3 and 4, you will need to provide more evidence to support that if you expect me to believe it. You're up against tens of thousands of keys worth of data.
For loot boxes, I'd like to at least give some credit to GW2, these ones are much more tame and available to people than others. To start, you can reasonably get keys for free, from leveling quests (which you can do weekly) and some expansion quest rewards, which is a large change form many others where the ability to try your chances is either limited to pitiful drops from events or locked completely behind a paywall. For every chest, you get at least some currency which you can stack to buy specific Black Lion Chest items, which is also much better than almost all other loot boxes where you can't even have a guarantee that you'll EVER get a specific drop. The common pool is full of either usable items or crafting materials that are unreliable to get (might/magic trophies), which means at least you can get some use out of bad rolls unlike other loot boxes where the commons are all just bad skins. As much as I dislike loot boxes, I'll give them these ones. No loot box is ever going to be a "good" thing, but for a lootpool of (for the most part) one-off cosmetics and some super expensive usable items, the problems with this are pretty tame. I'll give you the numbers, though. Don't lie about numbers. Shouldn't have to say it, but last I checked lying is bad.
Black lion chest, your rate of getting anything worthwhile is WELL KNOWN to be almost infinitesimally small. Nice of you to support the game tho, kudos for that.
Saying "RNG", is hiding a lot of potential differences in probability. It's like saying that dying while hang gliding and dying while playing computer games are both Random, that's what an activity is. When in reality, one is 178,000 times more likely (1 in 560 vs 1 in 100,000,000). Details matter. Thank you kindly.
I'm personally angry that there hasnt been a new double statuette in the "seasonal spot" it seems for over a year. I have 200 keys that I have been holding for along time.
Idk man. I’ve gotten all the exclusives, a few of the permanent contracts and some pretty cool weapon skins and home nodes. I haven’t spent more than like 500 bucks on keys and I’ve played since release so uhhhhh might just be a skill issue
Your mic sounds a bit tinny. I am no audio engineer, but i recon an equalizer could boost the sound quality somewhat, by filtering out some dominant frequencies and amplifying others. Great video anyways, thanks for all the research.
Someone with more know-how than me could probably clean up the recording from my wireless headset mic, but for future vids, I bought a better desk mic XD. Thanks for the feedback and kind words!
it's RNG man we all know it's rigged in every game it's really not a big deal simple solution is don't buy BLK I've never bought keys with money only trading gold for gems and Ive got a permanent hair contract and bank tab.
I appreciate all the work that went into this. I guess I just don't see where the misleading part is, as far as exclusive skins are anyway. According to your data, even with the mount skin in the loot table the percentage is much higher than 3%?
In the case of the Exclusives, you could argue that Anet is "underpromising and overdelivering". However, probability is a zero sum game, if one thing is under reported, another is over-reported. - I showed in the video that the Super rare category is over-reported beyond margin of error. - Also, if you try to make the official disclaimers add up to 100%, you have to assume the rare drops lean heavily to the high end of the 0.3-2.0% range, which would also be over-reported. This is one reason why I feel ANY inaccuracy in the droprates is problematic. There are also psychological factors in making players feel "luckier" than reported rates, something that game devs have been known to do with things like crit-rate, but becomes sketchier when money is involved.
ill never blame anyone for using systems that exist in a game, i will always blame out of touch greedy devs and publishers for creating a disease in any form, however. people blaming folks for falling into predatory traps are just as bad as the traps being placed, and their originators. also, Infusions are overpriced garbage.
Kids, don't gamble. That's the lesson here. (And you don't have to spend a single penny in these black lion chest keys ), i play the game since 2012, buy every manjor expansion to suport the game and some quality of life stuff from the gem store and that's it. Don't wast your money AND time gambling.
BLCs are some of the worst items to spend real money on in the game. They are the stupid tax for whales who come to the game and think that behavior will amount to something here too.
This is true! My estimation was based on repeatable methods such as completing 3-4 maps or buying gems after a goldfarm, and giving a round number for viewers unfamiliar with GW2.
and that why ppl dont open black lion chests. Simple as that xD played this game for years, neever need open this box for nothing xD only open when u get a free key GG
Very nice all this data, but bottom line is it's your own choice to gamble. Also I think some accounts are unlucky and maybe you should look into that. I've been gambling ecto for a month and I notice on 2 accounts I seem to get 10-20 x in a row 25gold and 25 ecto. So a huge loss. Other accounts I don't get that unlucky. Anyway, just don't gamble.
Opened probably 400 chest in my 4 years playing, never bought a single key off the store. They're looking for whales to buy keys, watched a video not long ago on mobile game whales.
the game gives you 100 BLC keys every year? amazing. I get dropped maybe one over the course of a year and maybe a handful for completing 20 maps or so. on top of that one could do the weekly lv10 personal story farm key run. do you do that for lv 30 and lv 60 too or how do you get to 100 keys/year?
@@embreis2257if you do the 1 weekly key run each week thats 52 keys alone. With some random map completion and pushing more levels to get the lvl 40 key sometimes is pretty possible to get even more a year.
@@embreis2257 100 keys a year is really easy to get for free. Once a week you can run a level 10 character through the personal story really quickly and get a free key that way. I keep a character slot free to delete and remake a character every week for that purpose.
Why did you open $50k for looboxes instead of just buying $200 worth of gemstones to gold to buy them from the trading place instead? xD (Edit) Event he "exclusive" Black Lion Exclusives only hole that status for two Black Lion Updates. Afterwards you can purchase them for Statuettes. (Actually... that Demon Mask is probably going to burn my back supply of Statuettes. I normally only open when I get double Statuettes, and they haven't done that for a while so I'm on short supply. xD) I highly doubt anyone actually buys keys outside of gems they gotten from giveaways. Every single key that I've opened has been given to me for 0 gems, has been given to me through giveaways, or how 99.99% of them I've gotten came from, key farming on a new character. xD
Because he's a scientist and if you weren't listening he had help from thousands of other people record a big portion of the data. All that effort so that people like you can think twice before buying loot boxes, you should be grateful tbh
It's funny to see you all defending the company that's willing to advertise new powerful weapons that come with the new expansion but then Nerf it a month literally ripping you off and messing with the attributes that made you want to buy the product in the first place. A company that's willing to put silvers along with platinums in PvP making losing some matches literally unavoidable. As well as shady practices like making new traits are specializations overpowered at lunch so people would want to buy them
Bro, first of all, no one told you to do this, and second, GW/ArenaNet doesn't control your will. You spent $50 grand on keys and expect a 100% chance of getting a super rare item that only has a 0.3% probability. "The problem is you not the game"
if you watched the clip you'd know he didn't do any of this. a number of players did 'map completion' with beta characters and collected data on the BLC drop chances. these players relayed their data back to him.
I dont get it. You are whing about unfair Lootboxes? Its still one of the best if not the best Solution in this business!!!!? btw i got 1 Superrare and i never buy any keys ...
TLDR: Lootboxes are bad. Yea, we've known that for years. I'm so sorry you wasted 50k on this, it's really really a waste of money my dude. You could have bought so many other things with 50k over spending on a system everyone knows and has been telling each other it's bad for years.
He didn't spend any money. It's data based on free keys collected by many players, which would cost that amount if bought from the gemstore. I love people who comment without watching the video (or too incompetent to comprehend information). Also the point isn't that lootboxes are bad. It's about lootboxes being intransparent while mimicking transparency. Based on which skins you want, they are sometimes better than the percentages shown in the preview.
WOW !! So nice your video, but SOOO wrong. A PARADOX. Let me tell you this : My first Black Lion Contract took me just a bit above 750 keys to spawn. In terms of the 25 pack of Black Lion statuettes, i have NEVER (mark this word : NEVER !) have one drop after above more than 800 keys used to open 800 Black Lion chests. NOW, what about that ? What where you saying ? 45 keys for an Exclusive ??? Don't make me laugh ! Stop lieing and misleading people !!! Jerk !!
I feel guild wars monetization is kind of predatory. If you play f2p they lock you out of mounts all elite specializations, other weapons, mastery's, and even auction house. Games need to make money to operate that is fine but why force the player into paying just to have a mount or a different weapon? I have never seen a game do that before. I don't really enjoy the story in the game so why force me into playing it just so i can get standard stuff you unlock in other games simplying by leveling to X level.
The monetization is bad, but not for those reasons, you make it sound like those things are in the Gem Store and you have to buy each separately, but you get all those in a nice, cheap expansion pack, $30 bucks and you get 3-4 maps with a lot of content to do, 9 Elite Specs, 9 Weapons, 15-20 Masteries, lots of achievements, new skins, items, and the "unique feature" of that specific expansion on top of that (mounts, gliders, fishing, etc), that's a pretty good deal in my opinion, it can get pricier depending on where you live (xpacks are $170 in my country, kinda expensive tbh, and that's with regional pricing already aplied), but that's not Anet's fault so there's not much they can do. The problem with the monetization lies in the Gem Store, 99% of the mount and glider skins are there, (Wizard's Vault was a step in the right direction, but it will take a while to "catch up), the whole Build Templates fiasco, etc, at least you can convert in game gold to gems, but some stuff is still bad. Overall the model is pretty good, base game is free, there's no sub, you only need to buy expansions and qol stuff if you want.
@@GamblingDedicated That doesn't answer why they paywall you out of weapons even if you have payed for other expansions. Or why they pay wall you out of the most basic form of travel in a game. Doesn't make sense to force players into doing story for basic forms of travel.
@@CorwynGC yeah but wow is overall a better game. 10x the amount of content. A flushed out end game. Within those 2 months of spending 30 you can play through all the game and gear out and be done with the content if you play regularly. But lets take a game similar to gw2 like albion online. Same kind of weapon based system mounts cost in game currency weapons cost in game currency no story required to unlock full content. Elder scroll online works similarly to gw2 weapon based system. Except you don't need expansions to use different weapons or mounts. Buy one expansion you get access to every previous expansion. Yeah they offer eso plus If you want more story content but it is not required.
99,9% of gamblers quit before their big win keep that in mind
😂 That big win is most of the money they gambled away and have 1% of getting back. We can't have a winner without a boatload of losers
this is the biggest copium mechanism. DO NOT GAMBLE
Played since the game came out. Never bought a key. Never turned gems into gold. Idk why I even watched this, honestly.
Lol same! I never buy game currency or loot boxes out of principle. I don't key farm either. Sure, it's fun to open the occasional box when you happen to stumble on a key, but I play the game for other reasons.
no idea what this dude is talking about I swear we play different games lmao
A subconscious desire to check then.
Idk how anet is afloat tbh
@@micks4522 shop skins
I appreciate the numbers. I remember key farming 5 an hour . We had specific gear for our runs that were account bound . I miss those days . I suggest to players to unlock, buy or make all the skins. That are 10 gold or less . That way when you get the unlock wardrobes . You get better quality skins. Thank you for this
I don't bother with Black Lion Chests. They NEVER have anything worthwhile.
The most I do is the weekly lvl 10 key. (when I feel like it)
Yeah. I once did a live opening for my guild. Did 210 keys (before the drop rates were added). I did not get a SINGLE uncommon or greater item the entire time. Made about 150 gold total from the keys and the junk.
Honestly I've only ever seen them as a way to get black lion tickets. I only buy keys to burn off amounts of gems here and there.
I'd say the anet lootbox is pretty harmless and very optional
Infinite extractor
Then again i got one key from map explo in dragonfall.used it immediatly And popped a bank contract
this needs to be heared, love gw2 but i cant ignore this, ty for the information, suscribed
If you don't know that BL chest are a scam than you know now :)
There's a reason why its prohibited in Belgium (gov) so we're not able to buy keys, its gambling. (vpn solution is you really want)
Is it only in Belgium where you can't buy them?
pastoor 😂😂😂😂
already spent 100$ and an other time about 70$ to get exclusives but didn't... nowadays I only go for the statuettes and just ignore my chests drops.
First of all, great data analysis and presentation of it! I hope this video grabs some attention.
I always had the feeling something is off with that percentages and it's great to see actual proof!
Still feel like Anet is milking their customers at the correct spot here. Anets fair buy-once-approach doesn't generate long term income, what they need for constant development. But people who are willing to spend money on skins, which don't effect the gameplay, do generate that long term income - without much impact on the game's experience.
That's a good thing imo (although they should be more transparent about it, I totally agree with your points).
Lesson: Don't gamble. Easy.
Echo gambling teaches this lesson well
These are the only loot boxes I buy. I do it because I want to support the devs and I enjoy a bit of gambling. I don’t go crazy, maybe 25 keys a quarter. Only once have I been completely burned (no cosmetic unlock of any kind) but I always suspect any loot box is predatory. I hope they see this and address it
Black Lion Chest is like playing lottery in real life - you know you will get absolutely noting, that tiny hope makes you still play it from time to time
I mostly so batch openings of chests when keys go on sale to get the utility items like revive orbs and primers. Anything I get beyond that is just bonus to usually be turned into gold.
I have noticed though, that the exclusives drop for me much more frequently and with less keys since they moved them to the statuette store. Pretty much the only time I’ve had to buy an exclusive was when I was away from the game for a few months
I played a LOT of games, and i know crooked devs when i see a game, my gaming hobby did abuse my wallet from time to time but gw2 was and is the best game out there.
Now, i never farmed those keys because i was never interested. I am the type of player that has 5-6 costumes and i just enjoy the game.
This game has the option to farm, transform gold into gems (real money currency), even buy some of the story with gems. Also has the possibility to buy the gems with real money. With gems you buy skins or you buy them from different vendors in game
Plus there is a wizard vault which gives you free skins, free ascended gear, all you got to do is the daily quests, oh and free gold so technically this game is free if you are smart enough and don't get stuck into those keys. You can't wear all the skins in the game... just enjoy the game LOL
those keys really don't matter
Can't see the angry comments through my exclusive demon mask (don't ask how many keys I used)
I thought you were schaffrillas and I was like HOLY DAMN SCHAFFRILLAS PLAYS GUILD WARS 2?!
Opened chests regularly until pre EOD and the results were within range of this research. i used to get the featured rare skins like gliders and/or chair within 5-15 keys from saved weekly key farms.
Today I used my last 40 keys and didn't even get the featured skins aside from useless dye kits. Double stattuete only proc'd once + a single ticket scrap. I did get an omnomberry node and a glyph but dang the usual useful drops feels so scarce now.
God I hope they make a lot of bucks this way. Anet sits on a really cool game and is notoriously bad at making money from it.
By their own admission, they made the most money from selling mount skins by time Living World 4 came out. Which makes it a mystery why they didn't do the same for skiffs and jade bots. Maybe chairs didn't replicate the same success.
@@elocfreidon we all love the chairs but yeah, visually in the population you can see they didn't overly sell.
Players spend far more time on their mounts than they do sitting around so it makes sense. Additionally, mount skins have a higher base price point normally and usually aren’t discounted as much when sales come around
Would not give them a dime as long as ncsoft is involved. Of course If they don’t make enough profit they will just shut down a game without a care.
You would think all of these companies would abandon the predatory systems and just invest heavily in cosmetics and supporter packs like path of exile. They're almost guaranteed to maintain the goodwill of the players if they are just transparent and honest about their intentions with the cash shop and with balance and content releases
I get my free black lion key each week and save them up til there is an item i want. Ive never bought a key yet
I'm sure it's what the vast majority do, anything super amazing I will have the statues saved up to buy when it hits the vendor.
As long as it doesn't say 100%, I tend to stay away from it or get ready to spend at least $100 if I like the item.
So far expansions are my biggest purchase in GW2.
Great Video BTW
Jade Bots in general need more relevancy, they should have way more skins that are available and those skins should be half the price of a Mount Skin at that being how small they are. Aside from Fishing and Mounts, the other features introduced in prior Expansions aren't particularly relevant outside of their Expansions which is a shame because Jade Bots, Skiffs, Gliding and Bounties should be implemented in the other maps. Rifts they've added to Janthir which is neat but that to I think could use some more spread than the few maps in Core Tyria that has them. All in all that's what would bring more reason to make more skins and reduce the price as more players would be choosing and buying them because I'm not spending however much it was to get a floating cat Jade Bot Skin when I hardly use the thing.
Well... that explains the slow down in lvl 10 farming for home instance items with statuettes...
I remember that time when the Chaos Skins were only 1 Ticket on the Vendor, now the chaos spear skin goes for 2000 k Gold , and the next most expensive is the Sword for 300 G
Managed to grab the Chaos skin tho
The Wardrobe unlocker its a very rare item? '-'
I got one in my second chest, the first day after starting the game
Ha ha ha 'Infusions are overpriced garbage.' I always thought so. Thank you and your helpers for putting that all together. I have never bought a BL key. I do farm for the keys semi-regularly from playing the early part of the personal story for wealthy human. I think it's the fastest one. I like being able to buy something I like, eventually, since I have more time than money. Usually I get farming nodes but I just splurged on the Fortunate Blossom fishing rod.
It's just cosmetic items so they can do whatever they want with these chests as far as I'm concerned. A number of other games I played put essential gear or exclusive gear upgrade components behind paid RNG systems. GW2 is completely different.
Honestly the worst thing about BLCs is that they are just not fun to open. Which is also the best thing because it means I'm never really tempted to buy the keys.
I never knew how lucky i am watching this lmao
I dont think this is comparable to blizzard in terms of scandals. One word and GW2 can start doing the WoW method of implement subscription and then everyone has to pay. You can get all these things with ingame means. Money is just a shortcut and the people who make the game needs to be payed, there has to be a profit margin for the stock holders. If the game doesnt generate any profit there is no reason to keep it alive. Gambling is gambling no matter the odds or percentage. Its semantics imo. Its the only gambling mechanic in GW2 if you dont count the plasma one if its still a thing. Other games have buy price, season pass and only loot boxes in the reward systems. Blizzards failed moba for example, cant remember the name. Then we have the Diablo immortal thing. A game cant survive without playing to the capitalistic society we live in today so you cant escape it. Fun video though statistics wise and most have been a fun project with people participating and opening all the chests.
I genuinely wish they'd add mount skins to the wardrobe unlocks. ;-;
Most of the times I had great drops from BLC were when I opened a single key I dropped by doing map completion. Whenever I tried to buy them in bulks I had the most trash stuff dropped. Don't waste your gem on that crap. The only reasonable reason to buy keys is if you want a specific cosmetic from the statuettes...
Yeah I'm glad statues are there. That's honestly the only reason I'll do it. Plus over time the items cost less statues. I'm also happy we can preview rewards.
Ive got better stuff from free and dropped keys than the bought ones. Every other gem key was for getting statues.
I was first worried when they didn't make statuettes a guaranteed second drop ever again. Then I noticed I would consistently get the newer exclusive before the older one.
The prices of the skiff skin and jadebot makes sense as it is a game feature reskin with loads of unique assets. It is still worrying that they are escalating. I worry for the new sword/chair/glider.
This past year I have only acquired 1 exclusive from keys and less than 5 other uncommon drops. These drop rates are similar to the pattern of stealth nerfs to general drops that happened during the shift to make unidentified gear game wide and then removing Magic Find from them shortly after.
few problems i’ve spotted with your numbers. the statutes can still drop in 4 as i got a 4 drop in this years halloween event.
also slots 3 and 4 can have any items not only the common items. i get uncommon and rare items all the time in thows two slots. key farming dosnt take an hour aswell it can be done in less then 30min with the lv10 quest (once per character)
Farming the level 10 quest is a good way to get keys, can even be done in 10-15 mins if you're optimized. However, it can only be done once per week for a key, so I went with the more repeatable estimate based on map-comping or gold farming.
Regarding your other claims about statuettes and slots 3 and 4, you will need to provide more evidence to support that if you expect me to believe it. You're up against tens of thousands of keys worth of data.
I had 2 rxtra black lion statues drop about 2 weeks ago of writing this. I opened it with a key i got from world exploration.
I'm okay with people gambling for rare cosmetics
I got 2 contracts in under 200 Keys, hair and Bank lol
For loot boxes, I'd like to at least give some credit to GW2, these ones are much more tame and available to people than others. To start, you can reasonably get keys for free, from leveling quests (which you can do weekly) and some expansion quest rewards, which is a large change form many others where the ability to try your chances is either limited to pitiful drops from events or locked completely behind a paywall. For every chest, you get at least some currency which you can stack to buy specific Black Lion Chest items, which is also much better than almost all other loot boxes where you can't even have a guarantee that you'll EVER get a specific drop. The common pool is full of either usable items or crafting materials that are unreliable to get (might/magic trophies), which means at least you can get some use out of bad rolls unlike other loot boxes where the commons are all just bad skins.
As much as I dislike loot boxes, I'll give them these ones. No loot box is ever going to be a "good" thing, but for a lootpool of (for the most part) one-off cosmetics and some super expensive usable items, the problems with this are pretty tame. I'll give you the numbers, though. Don't lie about numbers. Shouldn't have to say it, but last I checked lying is bad.
Black lion chest, your rate of getting anything worthwhile is WELL KNOWN to be almost infinitesimally small. Nice of you to support the game tho, kudos for that.
This is an excellent video covering BLCs. I personally dont purchase keys.
I got a party skiff from a chest I randomly opened. Got a few skins. usually just junk.
so basicly its RNG no matter what, thats what a loot box is.
Saying "RNG", is hiding a lot of potential differences in probability. It's like saying that dying while hang gliding and dying while playing computer games are both Random, that's what an activity is. When in reality, one is 178,000 times more likely (1 in 560 vs 1 in 100,000,000). Details matter.
Thank you kindly.
Statistics and probability play a huge role on 'RNG' boxes. It's not that simple
I'm personally angry that there hasnt been a new double statuette in the "seasonal spot" it seems for over a year. I have 200 keys that I have been holding for along time.
Idk man. I’ve gotten all the exclusives, a few of the permanent contracts and some pretty cool weapon skins and home nodes. I haven’t spent more than like 500 bucks on keys and I’ve played since release so uhhhhh might just be a skill issue
Your mic sounds a bit tinny. I am no audio engineer, but i recon an equalizer could boost the sound quality somewhat, by filtering out some dominant frequencies and amplifying others. Great video anyways, thanks for all the research.
Someone with more know-how than me could probably clean up the recording from my wireless headset mic, but for future vids, I bought a better desk mic XD. Thanks for the feedback and kind words!
One of the lucky got skysteel pack from 3-5 keys i had laying around in the bank
ive opened maybe 150 chests in my 12 years of playing and it dropped permanent tp express two times xDD
What is your luck, friend?!
I don't get drops at all on my account so why would I ever buy keys ,lol. 11 years in game. The only precursors I have ever gotten are ones I forged.
I got a bunch of Keys and chests but never used them.
Well I never bought the keys but you get some keys ingame here and there
it's RNG man we all know it's rigged in every game it's really not a big deal simple solution is don't buy BLK I've never bought keys with money only trading gold for gems and Ive got a permanent hair contract and bank tab.
I appreciate all the work that went into this. I guess I just don't see where the misleading part is, as far as exclusive skins are anyway. According to your data, even with the mount skin in the loot table the percentage is much higher than 3%?
In the case of the Exclusives, you could argue that Anet is "underpromising and overdelivering". However, probability is a zero sum game, if one thing is under reported, another is over-reported.
- I showed in the video that the Super rare category is over-reported beyond margin of error.
- Also, if you try to make the official disclaimers add up to 100%, you have to assume the rare drops lean heavily to the high end of the 0.3-2.0% range, which would also be over-reported.
This is one reason why I feel ANY inaccuracy in the droprates is problematic. There are also psychological factors in making players feel "luckier" than reported rates, something that game devs have been known to do with things like crit-rate, but becomes sketchier when money is involved.
I’ve never looted an exclusive wardrobe unlock.
I have one and didn't event know it was one until now lol
Thought your mic was a special effect for an intro or something 🤣
Talking about companies doing good social and charity work, and then showing WoTC, Blizzard, and Netflix is a horrible joke.
ill never blame anyone for using systems that exist in a game, i will always blame out of touch greedy devs and publishers for creating a disease in any form, however. people blaming folks for falling into predatory traps are just as bad as the traps being placed, and their originators.
also, Infusions are overpriced garbage.
Im sorry but didnt understand why 1hr equals 1 key. Is there any possible farm besides level 10 story chapter?
you can either complete maps for a 30% chance of getting a key, or just farm gold to convert to gems.
Kids, don't gamble. That's the lesson here. (And you don't have to spend a single penny in these black lion chest keys ), i play the game since 2012, buy every manjor expansion to suport the game and some quality of life stuff from the gem store and that's it. Don't wast your money AND time gambling.
Good. I can make more room in my vault by destroying them 😊
BLCs are some of the worst items to spend real money on in the game. They are the stupid tax for whales who come to the game and think that behavior will amount to something here too.
will this be another maplestory lootbox story
Probably not, KR has much stricter regulations than NA/EU regions, and I'm not a lawyer XD
You're sassy as shit dude!
But also, thank you. I never liked statuettes. Now I play OSRS... with drop rates ranging from 1/5 to 1/11,000 :/
It only takes a max of 15 minutes to get 1 BL Key using the weekly key farm.
This is true! My estimation was based on repeatable methods such as completing 3-4 maps or buying gems after a goldfarm, and giving a round number for viewers unfamiliar with GW2.
and that why ppl dont open black lion chests. Simple as that xD
played this game for years, neever need open this box for nothing xD
only open when u get a free key GG
interesting video, since launch i have bought exactly 0 keys tho so whatever. if u buy keys.. get scammed by yourself i guess
Who buys keys for real 😂
Very nice all this data, but bottom line is it's your own choice to gamble. Also I think some accounts are unlucky and maybe you should look into that. I've been gambling ecto for a month and I notice on 2 accounts I seem to get 10-20 x in a row 25gold and 25 ecto. So a huge loss. Other accounts I don't get that unlucky. Anyway, just don't gamble.
They also use the loot boxes to make low level maps and story look populated for the first 4 guaranteed keys and some of the easy map keys.
Dont gable ? IMPOSIBLE
Hi schaffr- hmmm 🧐
Opened probably 400 chest in my 4 years playing, never bought a single key off the store.
They're looking for whales to buy keys, watched a video not long ago on mobile game whales.
the game gives you 100 BLC keys every year? amazing. I get dropped maybe one over the course of a year and maybe a handful for completing 20 maps or so. on top of that one could do the weekly lv10 personal story farm key run. do you do that for lv 30 and lv 60 too or how do you get to 100 keys/year?
@@embreis2257if you do the 1 weekly key run each week thats 52 keys alone. With some random map completion and pushing more levels to get the lvl 40 key sometimes is pretty possible to get even more a year.
@@embreis2257 100 keys a year is really easy to get for free. Once a week you can run a level 10 character through the personal story really quickly and get a free key that way. I keep a character slot free to delete and remake a character every week for that purpose.
Sigh... thanks anet....
This guy sounds really hot. Also, he knows what he is talking about.
Took me three stacks of 25 keys to get that shinysword did they change drop rate to be harder ?
Why did you open $50k for looboxes instead of just buying $200 worth of gemstones to gold to buy them from the trading place instead? xD
(Edit) Event he "exclusive" Black Lion Exclusives only hole that status for two Black Lion Updates. Afterwards you can purchase them for Statuettes. (Actually... that Demon Mask is probably going to burn my back supply of Statuettes. I normally only open when I get double Statuettes, and they haven't done that for a while so I'm on short supply. xD)
I highly doubt anyone actually buys keys outside of gems they gotten from giveaways. Every single key that I've opened has been given to me for 0 gems, has been given to me through giveaways, or how 99.99% of them I've gotten came from, key farming on a new character. xD
I buy keys in bulk when they’re on sale so I don’t have to do a key farm that accumulates keys at a slower rate than I get chests
Because he's a scientist and if you weren't listening he had help from thousands of other people record a big portion of the data. All that effort so that people like you can think twice before buying loot boxes, you should be grateful tbh
The actual video starts at 12:30
When you've never played an actual predatory game like ESO, you complain about stuff like this lol
You're assuming droprates are not different between farmed and bought keys. Do this again spending actual money, or your data/title is rubbish.
I've gotten a lot of great loot from Trading chests. Sorry to see so many salty players. Sour grapes I guess.
Poor rich kids
Imagine being mad about rng on a gacha system where you can farm and get almost everything for free just playing the game. LOL
It's funny to see you all defending the company that's willing to advertise new powerful weapons that come with the new expansion but then Nerf it a month literally ripping you off and messing with the attributes that made you want to buy the product in the first place. A company that's willing to put silvers along with platinums in PvP making losing some matches literally unavoidable. As well as shady practices like making new traits are specializations overpowered at lunch so people would want to buy them
Yes, it is a fraud. I've seen it for myself. A thousand times better to spend that gold or gems on upgrading the account directly.
Who cares.. are you an addict don’t gamble. Just buy them
lol oh yeah 8000IQ dude, you just solved gambling addiction worldwide /s
GTFO
@@murdendev u exposed how gambling works u are very smart fr fr
Just buy them? The items that can only be acquired through loot boxes?
So much complaining - if you don't like it, don't use it. The transparency crisis that seems to bother people... get over it.
Bro, first of all, no one told you to do this, and second, GW/ArenaNet doesn't control your will. You spent $50 grand on keys and expect a 100% chance of getting a super rare item that only has a 0.3% probability. "The problem is you not the game"
if you watched the clip you'd know he didn't do any of this. a number of players did 'map completion' with beta characters and collected data on the BLC drop chances. these players relayed their data back to him.
I dont get it. You are whing about unfair Lootboxes?
Its still one of the best if not the best Solution in this business!!!!?
btw i got 1 Superrare and i never buy any keys ...
spend 50k on a new mic bro
TLDR: Lootboxes are bad.
Yea, we've known that for years. I'm so sorry you wasted 50k on this, it's really really a waste of money my dude. You could have bought so many other things with 50k over spending on a system everyone knows and has been telling each other it's bad for years.
He didn't spend any money. It's data based on free keys collected by many players, which would cost that amount if bought from the gemstore.
I love people who comment without watching the video (or too incompetent to comprehend information).
Also the point isn't that lootboxes are bad. It's about lootboxes being intransparent while mimicking transparency. Based on which skins you want, they are sometimes better than the percentages shown in the preview.
bro didnt even watch the video lmao
WOW !! So nice your video, but SOOO wrong. A PARADOX. Let me tell you this : My first Black Lion Contract took me just a bit above 750 keys to spawn. In terms of the 25 pack of Black Lion statuettes, i have NEVER (mark this word : NEVER !) have one drop after above more than 800 keys used to open 800 Black Lion chests. NOW, what about that ? What where you saying ? 45 keys for an Exclusive ??? Don't make me laugh ! Stop lieing and misleading people !!! Jerk !!
I feel guild wars monetization is kind of predatory. If you play f2p they lock you out of mounts all elite specializations, other weapons, mastery's, and even auction house. Games need to make money to operate that is fine but why force the player into paying just to have a mount or a different weapon? I have never seen a game do that before. I don't really enjoy the story in the game so why force me into playing it just so i can get standard stuff you unlock in other games simplying by leveling to X level.
Because the game is not free to play, that is a free trial.
The monetization is bad, but not for those reasons, you make it sound like those things are in the Gem Store and you have to buy each separately, but you get all those in a nice, cheap expansion pack, $30 bucks and you get 3-4 maps with a lot of content to do, 9 Elite Specs, 9 Weapons, 15-20 Masteries, lots of achievements, new skins, items, and the "unique feature" of that specific expansion on top of that (mounts, gliders, fishing, etc), that's a pretty good deal in my opinion, it can get pricier depending on where you live (xpacks are $170 in my country, kinda expensive tbh, and that's with regional pricing already aplied), but that's not Anet's fault so there's not much they can do.
The problem with the monetization lies in the Gem Store, 99% of the mount and glider skins are there, (Wizard's Vault was a step in the right direction, but it will take a while to "catch up), the whole Build Templates fiasco, etc, at least you can convert in game gold to gems, but some stuff is still bad.
Overall the model is pretty good, base game is free, there's no sub, you only need to buy expansions and qol stuff if you want.
@@GamblingDedicated That doesn't answer why they paywall you out of weapons even if you have payed for other expansions. Or why they pay wall you out of the most basic form of travel in a game. Doesn't make sense to force players into doing story for basic forms of travel.
@@guixanyr You can't use a mount in WoW without paying the same $30. Every two months.
Thank you kindly.
@@CorwynGC yeah but wow is overall a better game. 10x the amount of content. A flushed out end game. Within those 2 months of spending 30 you can play through all the game and gear out and be done with the content if you play regularly.
But lets take a game similar to gw2 like albion online. Same kind of weapon based system mounts cost in game currency weapons cost in game currency no story required to unlock full content. Elder scroll online works similarly to gw2 weapon based system. Except you don't need expansions to use different weapons or mounts. Buy one expansion you get access to every previous expansion. Yeah they offer eso plus If you want more story content but it is not required.
even if you got the 5th (potentially good) item every single time they value still isnt there
"Value" is always a question of perception. If people spend money to get that 5th drop, they got their value from the chest.