This one stings...

Q. Do you guys intend to improve mystery boxes in a way that we don't end up having multiple copies of the same item? Multiple portal effects of the sae portal for example is pretty obsolete.

A. If we made this change, they would have to be massively more expensive than they currently are. Is this a tradeoff you would prefer?

This one really stings because I can't tell if Chris is deliberately being glib or just out to lunch.

I play a mobile MOBA called Vainglory. They have adopted the same boxes (they call them chests) that GGG employs to generate their revenue. The boxes contain hero skins, a chance to unlock heroes, opals (currency only available through the chests), glory (in-game currency available simply through playing), ICE (premiums currency available via purchase or through rare in-game rewards).

The contents of the chests are presented as cards.

If you unlock a hero you already have, you get 20 opals instead. If you unlock a skin you already own, you get 20-30 opals depending on the tier of the skin.

What GGG could do is default some of the contents of a mystery box to give skin transfers, fireworks, or some meager MTX that is worth a few points on anything that is completely redundant (portals for example). Some players may be fine with getting duplicate weapons or armors as they can at least be used. But to have a stash tab filled with 4 identical portal effects understandably makes any player feel cheated.

They could go one step further and offer players a choice too. 5 skin transfers or you can keep your duplicate boots. Moreover, they could go above and beyond and offer a part of a key. 5 parts and you get another chance at a new box. This would would actually go a long way to keep people trying for more. People have long posted the contents of their spoils and all of these posts have numerous duplicates that none of the players were particularly happy with. With the new system, they could melt 5 of those duplicates and get another shot at a new box.

There are many ways to not screw the player and for GGG to still get their revenue.

I'm sure they'll tell you that all those changes would require obscene amounts of work coding and for what, they wouldn't generate any revenue. So let's keep screwing the people that actually support you I guess.

Not for nothing, but seriously the answer to that question just doesn't sit well with me. We were promised a complete revamp of the MTX stash and nothing has been done there and it's almost Q2 of 2017.

Here's the thing......DON'T FUCKING BUY THEM

Practically everything will be available for purchase at a later date, but no, you want to try get sets on the cheap and QQ because the inevitable duplicates you get waste your money? get fucking real.

Good. You're doing exactly what Chris wanted to achieve with that question. Spark conversation. Because actually for GGG it is important to know what their playerbase want so that they can monetize their game better. No glibness there. Just a genuine question.

On topic:
Yes, I would love to be able to trade in some of the box rewards for something like skin transfers. Maybe just 1 per MTX you trade in. But again, this would probably mean more expensive boxes.

They do know what MTX were in which boxes. So they could make a kind of vendor recipe, where you drop a certain number of MTX in and get a new box in return. This would also allow them to control what number of which items are needed for one new box to keep the relative value stable.

You could also add a step with the 'special currency' in between that turns MTX into "Legacy Orbs", "Carnage Orbs" or some such and you can trade those for a new box.

By restricting the resale to their respective Mystery Boxes, you prevent the loophole of people buying boxes in an attempt to gain 'cheap' coins and gaming the MTX shop.

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Chris wrote:

Q. Do you guys intend to improve mystery boxes in a way that we don't end up having multiple copies of the same item? Multiple portal effects of the sae portal for example is pretty obsolete.

A. If we made this change, they would have to be massively more expensive than they currently are. Is this a tradeoff you would prefer?

i don't understand chris' reasoning either, mtx boxes were the nail in the coffin of "mtx as signs of support".

means: the average player can't see the support i gave ggg based on the mtx my character wears because literally everything could have been gotten by gambling for a few cent and being lucky.

eventually it doesn't really make sense to have different mtx prices anymore, the only reason to have different prices is for players to feel dumb when having spent the full price on expensive stuff when it get's on sale later on.

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Bardharr wrote:

Good. You're doing exactly what Chris wanted to achieve with that question. Spark conversation. Because actually for GGG it is important to know what their playerbase want so that they can monetize their game better. No glibness there. Just a genuine question.

On topic:
Yes, I would love to be able to trade in some of the box rewards for something like skin transfers. Maybe just 1 per MTX you trade in. But again, this would probably mean more expensive boxes.

I don't see why the boxes would have to increase with price. What Chris is probably thinking is that if no one got doubles, they'd just have to buy a lot less boxes to get what they want. What I propose is to just make a check of your MTX inventory on the back end. You wouldn't even need to add anything to the existing UI.

Player buys box. The box rolls an item. Before it is revealed, the system checks if the item already exists. If the item is x, y, or z (where x y z are variables for duolicates deemed totally redundant) the system rerolls from a category of lesser MTX or just issues the player a part of a key, or orb or whatever. I'm not suggesting that every box hold a new item or another box. That would hurt GGGs sales of course. What I'm suggesting is to be creative in not giving out duplicates for certain things.

I fail to see how that would cause the roof to fall on GGG... if anything they may net more from people who have 4 orbs and need one more for another box. Hell they could just give a user back 5 points. You would have got another pair of boots, so here's 5 points back. Use those points for whatever. They still got your money for the points. That would actually free up needing to make orbs or keys or anything. They already upped the price of the boxes where they used to be 25 but are now 30.

The point is outside of violating the laws of nature, there is always a solution.

i don't even get why people are so furious about multiple items of the same type (except it's portals), they're great to make your precious items an characters immortal (so they can't be deleted).

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I'm sure they'll tell you that all those changes would require obscene amounts of work coding

Did you seriously just tell us what Chris would say in response to a question, after literally quoting him answering that question without using the argument you suggest he would?

He's open to the idea. Read what you quoted in your own post. He literally asked for input.

I'm not trying to bash that app you play, but the cost of some app isn't going to resemble GGG's expenses for Path of Exile - app devs can very much afford to be more generous because they need a much smaller amount of money to break even / make a profit.

GGG's boxes are designed to be a fun way of enticing someone to spend their last couple of hundred points where the risk of duplicates is low and the risk of unusable duplicates (e.g. portal MTX) is vanishingly small. If you're buying so many boxes that you feel the need to discuss what happens if you end up with five (six?) copies of portal MTX, well...

All Chris said was that if they improved the value proposition of the boxes, they might need to change the price. That isn't unreasonable. It sounds very much like you want to game the system to be always guaranteed a profit, and that's not something GGG will be comfortable with.

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We were promised a complete revamp of the MTX stash and nothing has been done there

We were promised last year they'd change the system in 3.0.0.

That hasn't happened yet.

Here's a solution... make boxes get more and more expensive as you buy them, but make items more even in distribution.

Nothing in the OP (or anything anyone else has said) contradicts the premise that Chris started with. If x, then y.

If you want protection against random, then the boxes will be more expensive. Period. Everything else is talking past that specific point.

They could do any of a thousand things to make you feel better about buying the boxes. And the cost would go up.