Kymeric

I don't always wear a tinfoil hat, but when I do, I think this video and the story is more interesting.

Trei, on 17 May 2013 - 03:10 AM, said:

Let me ask you - have you bought the boxes?

The fact is that the boxes are desirable because of the skins, not because of the boosts. Take away the skins from the boxes and do you think people would still buy them enough to warrant their inclusion in the game for profit? Almost certainly not.

If we can all agree that the boxes are only desirable because of the rare skins, then we can say that the "prize" is the rare skin. Getting anything else is losing. It doesn't matter if they put in boosts that are worth 5,000 gems - if no one wants the boosts, then those boosts are worthless. Remember, the price of anything is what we are willing to pay for it. Prices aren't arbitrary numbers that are made up by companies - they are numbers that are reasonable enough to make people want to pay for the item associated with it.

So, while it may be true that some people will get 10 boxes just for the fun of opening them - that is not what ANet is banking on. The whole reason we can assume that this is more profitable than selling skins outright is because people will go to great lengths to (aka spend lots of money) to open the boxes until they get what they want - which is the weapon skin.

And, this is gambling, and it is exploiting the players by appealing to psychological impulses that are the same kind of impulses that we associate with addiction - which is a disease.

Strawberry Nubcake, on 16 May 2013 - 07:59 PM, said:

FYI, even evil EA has changed thier DLC structure based on the way people viewed them, so there is hope that this type of outcry will show ANet how silly and crappy this stuff is.

People are free to make choices. In lots of ways, vendors are free to supply the goods chosen. So far as I know, no laws are being broken here.

But there's a catch...a person looks at the populace surrounding them, and identifies a pathological tendency or need. The person identifies that supplying that need will generate a good return, and so goes into business selling the desired good or service. The person identifies that the damage is directly done by the user, to the user, and thus refuses ethical responsibility. I'm certain you can think of tag names for this type of business enterprise; some are illegal, some legal, some straddle the line.

So, is the bookie responsible for the hungry children in Jed Gamblingaddict's house? Not directly. But the question still hangs: is it a good thing for the bookie be enabling Jed's problem, for profit?

If the bookie isn't breaking the law, fine, let's remain civil to him, but I will think less of him for exploiting a common weakness in his neighbor, when his intelligence and industry could be directed to earning profit in a way that is not exploitative or injurious. Pandering is not a social good, and it is not ethically blameless, even if it is legally so.

So the plethora of MMO companies doing this cash-for-a-chance biz are allowed to do it, I suppose; I just don't have to admire them for it, and it makes me more inclined to reduce or remove any trade I give them.

It's funny: I never thought I'd miss the subscription model.

dannywolt, on 16 May 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

Yet there aren't. The only way to get these skins like all previous incarnations is to simply gamble. Again, why is this gamble preferably to having these skins in-game for completing the content related to this living story? You were defending the lock boxes as a means of artificially scarcity were you not? I was saying we don't need artificially scarcity for cash shop items nor do you need artificially scarcity in an mmo to make it worth playing. That is evident by the fact that games have survived on few skins being hard to be obtain rift being one of those games.

Yes, to be honest I firmly believe those who need "prestige items" to enjoy a game are few and far between. It's just like real life you can spot those types of people because they buy absurdly expensive and useless items to show off how awesome or rich they are. How many of us really give a shit? I certainly don't pay enough attention to it. As I said the idea of scarcity was created to encourage people to buy items that are less valuable at higher prices. The "prestige" is merely a side effect of that marketing tool. Plenty of places use it, but let's be honest here it's not actually necessary. Most of us would buy the item regardless of the attached scarcity or "I'm special club" because there are other motivating factors to buying something. Most people don't fall for this trap and the ones that do fall for it are often addicted to impulse buying and gambling. Obviously this isn't a practice I support.

I think for some people the message in the OP is the wrong approach. I see these RNG boxes as content... content that any individual is more then happy to pay for at a fair price. Just look at costumes in GW. Add to that free costumes and masks from annual events.

The issue is that the person who's paying for that content, actually expects to get what they pay for. The idea of paying for content that you may or may not get is absurd and gaming companies need to do away with this sort of BS. I'm betting if people knew they were guaranteed to get what they wanted then you'd probably have higher sales of that item. Game devs could care less about prestige. Sure it makes the company more money but I can tell you personally that it's going to hurt the bottom line of the game and then the developer itself in the long run.

Proof of that? I never bought GW2. And I know I'm not alone on that.

Azure Skye, on 16 May 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

Did you even read this thread at all? You do realize these are actually a gambling mechanic taking advantage of those people who are susceptible to this tactic? It can and has been proven to be actually addicting. We should ALL be voicing our disgust of companies blatantly taking advantage of people using these psychological tactics. It's easy to say don't buy them, but when it bleeds over into my game I'm sure as shit going to tell anet to ♥♥♥♥ off. You should be too. Just being silent and not buying it isn't going to send the message that this is wrong.

dannywolt, on 16 May 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

So because a few people you know said something you think that means the majority of the population gives a shit? My husband is going for a legendary almost done. It hasn't stopped him. Three of my friends are also starting on theirs....hmm I wonder what that means. Have you ever considered that they don't want one because they don't want to do the grind? That's the most common reason I hear for not doing it and it's why I won't either. The skin doesn't matter to me.

Besides we aren't talking about in-game skins. We are talking about cash shop skins. Completely different. Seriously, have you ever played a F2P game? One with cash shop skins? How about GW1? By the end of GW1 just about everyone I saw in town was wearing a skin that someone else in that same town was wearing. Guess what? No one gave a shit. It didn't stop anyone from obtaining those skins. It didn't stop me either. I don't care how "rare" a skin is I care if I look good. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Heck in rift there weren't many skins to get to make you unique when they dropped their costume system....and yet people still worked to find skins that they liked regardless if everyone and their mother had it.

The idea something needs to be scarce to be wanted and valued by a customer is a MARKETING tool it's not actually true. If it was I doubt so many people would be buying iphones, ipads, or ipods. Diamonds are artificially scarce IRL. The reason they are? To make more money. To make diamonds seem more valuable when otherwise they wouldn't be as costly since they are a dime a dozen. It's an excuse to charge you more. It has nothing to do with making you feel super special or warm and fuzzy. The same reason for the skins in these lock boxes it's all to make more money. They don't give a shit about artificially scarcity because most people don't care and they know it. If people did then no one would want the raiding gear that you could get from the beginning raids because just about everyone can get it...and yet in wow people still farm the old raids for the gear. No one would ride the sparkly pony because everyone can just buy it outright....and yet before I left wow just about everyone was riding that sparkly pony.

Furthermore, you know the best way to create "artificially scarcity" in a game? Have a lot of skins available to the population. The more skins available the more likely people will spread their choices out. There ya go done. By the by my entire argument was that there is no reason for cash shop skins to be scarce. You can have scarcity with unique looking gear that is gotten in-game...exactly what is wrong with that may I ask? Make the legendary weapons impossible to get for 99.9% of the base see if I care, but cash shop skins shouldn't be some rare exotic thing. That's ridic.

Lordkrall, on 16 May 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

I'm done with the continued persistence to change the subject of this thread to what is and is not gambling.

There is no definition that states that gambling doesn't exist if you happen to get rewarded with items that have less value than the amount you gambled, regardless of whether that is in game gold or not.

If you gamble 50 gold on the boxes to get a skin and you come away with 25 gold worth of Karka Shells, you still lost. And it is still gambling.

You don't need to walk away with nothing to constitute losing, that is a false premise.

Lordkrall, on 16 May 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

You get items that are digital goods and cost the company nothing to mass produce.  They are a salve so  you do not feel wholly cheated by the transaction.  Even the value of what you get from those boxes is diminished because the market gets flooded from the sudden generation of similar items from other players buying and losing.

It's very much how like if you go to a casino, you get complimentary items, which are real world goods, so you do not feel wholly cheated if you lose your money at the table.  With a casino, even if you lose money at the table, unless your goal was to come out ahead (which anyone will tell you is an expectation lacking in sense) you still have the experience.  Have you ever actually been gambling?

How does that compare to being tossed items you could have gotten farming, at no financial expense to yourself?  Especially since you're being thrown items whose values are consistently going down due to fact that the market is flooded with them?

Lordkrall, on 16 May 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

Wrong. You get comps. You get free drinks. You get LOTS of things at a casino even when you lose.

But, until someone points out a good source for the definition of gambling that this doesn't fall in to - we really need to steer clear of the semantics debate.

Kudos to Anet if that is what it means. NCsoft is a terrible company and Nexon is even worse than them. I believe Anets reputation has been mostly ruined, and I would love to blame it on someone else.

Kymeric, on 16 May 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

If you switch areas, you still run into the same issue: you do 3 hearts in area 1, switch to area 2 and that allows you to access that area's heart 3 instantly. But after you complete heart 3, you can only do heart 4 because you don't have enough XP to do heart 6 or 10.
I absolutely agree with your view on more lvl 80 content, but I also feel that the content currently available could be put to better use: we don't need 5 lvl 1-15 areas, I'd rather have half those areas turned into lvl 1-7 content and then other half into lvl 7-15 content. While you would need to do more maps, you would also get more level-appropriate content in a single map that way allowing you to skip stuff or simply do it out of order: something that you basically can not do now.

I disagree with the OP.  Granted, i don't have a toon over lvl 20 yet, but i have completed 1 area.  With all the places to explore and this drop-dead gorgeous art, i honestly don't think i'll ever complain about there being a grind.  This game....Its a living work of art.  I thought WoW was the pinnacle of creativity in MMOs, but i was wrong...so wrong.

Anyhow, maybe i'll agree as i hit the leveling cap, but for right now, this whole game is just a new adventure for me and i love it.

Dasryn, on 07 May 2013 - 05:22 AM, said:

There's a false equivalence here. Yes, there are 25 dungeons, but if the one you enjoy running isn't the one that gives you the piece(s) you want... well, you're kittened then, aren't you?

For any particular dungeon item, there are 3 paths that will get you any closer to it (4 for Arah), not 25. Any other dungeon will not get you a single token closer, and most items (let alone complete armour sets, and let's face it, while you can mix and match sets most sets are designed to work best with themselves) are going to require you to repeat them.

The issue is that the reward system forces you to go through very specific channels to get particular items. As I've said before, if tokens were, in some way, interchangeable, that would go a long way towards addressing the problem - a player could then play a range of dungeons and convert that into what they want, instead of hitting the same paths of the same dungeon multiple times. Having an armour set require twenty runs of a dungeon, though, is setting up a lot of potential for grindy feeling.

As I said earlier in this thread, I've come to the attitude myself that dungeon stuff is not worth grinding to get - essentially doing exactly what Trei is saying and 'breaking the conditioning' - but that does not mean that the problem does not magically go away.

To make another comparison: Let's say there was one profession in a game that was indisputably the worst profession. For a lot of players, this is doing nothing to harm their experience - in fact, it may actually improve their experience as coming across someone who's stubborn or ignorant enough to keep using it in PvP represents an easy kill. The only people for whom it represents a problem are those that like the concept and.or playstyle of the profession and thus would like to play it. Should we give up on balancing it because players who do not care about that profession aren't hurt by its underpoweredness?

Just because a problem doesn't directly affect you does not mean it is not there, or that it should not be addressed.