There has been a lot of talk lately about Loot Boxes. Specifically in Overwatch. I, and many others, have gotten to the point where they no longer bring excitement, but rather than talk about how disappointing they have become I'm going to talk about ways they can become relevant again.
One way I could see myself caring about loot boxes again would be if they could offer me a guarantee. Rather than leveling up and going straight to the loot box to open it, let me gather up multiple boxes and exchange them for guaranteed Purple or Gold loot. It could go something like:
- 1 Box: Normal loot box
- 3 Boxes: Guaranteed one new unlock of any color
- 5 Boxes: Guaranteed one Purple (new or repeat)
- 10 Boxes: Guaranteed one Gold (new or repeat)
I feel like this is more than fair considering how long it can take to get 10 boxes racked up. Plus adding in that the item could be a repeat would mean there would be no guarantee you could get all loot items in a certain number of boxes, unless you want to factor in the amount of gold you earn for repeat gold unlocks allowing you to buy items you want. This gives the player motivation to keep playing and keep earning boxes so they can improve their chances for items they may actually want. New players won't have a need for this option, but they aren't the ones complaining about loot boxes...yet. Players who have gotten to level 100 and up, however, begin to see duplicates at a rate that takes away from the excitement of opening new loot boxes. I remember two weeks ago I was working on my weekly Arcade mode wins and at one point I had 3 boxes to open. Out of 12 items, 11 were repeats and the one new item was a spray. Talk about destroying someone's motivation.
Exactly how I feel
Another method that could incite some motivation would be special loot box events. I'm not talking about special holiday events either. Those just give you the chance to get limited time only items. I'm talking about events that yield more boxes, items, or gold than normal and there are plenty of ways these events could be implemented.
- Double XP (CoD does this all the time, and I have to admit it got me to play more)
- New item guaranteed per box
- Increase gold earned for duplicates and gold
- Increase items earned per box
- Increase the rare item drop rate
These are simple methods and they could be done over a week or a weekend to get players more motivated to play. I know I personally play about 2 nights a week and I tend to only play with friends, but if there was an additional incentive to play I may be willing to play by myself during special events.
If she wasn't my main I would have never done this event
Now one of the things Blizzard has done recently is a special event where you can earn a Gold Genji skin and now a Gold D Va skin. You have to play 10 Heroes of the Storm matches in order to unlock them. While I certainly can understand the push for wanting players to enjoy multiple franchises, many Overwatch players don't play games like HotS. One big reason I personally don't is because I don't own a PC. I do however own a Windows 10 tablet and amazingly enough I was able to run HotS on the lowest settings, though there was a considerable amount of lag during most of the matches. If Blizzard is going to continue this kind of trend to get players to play more of their games, those games should be compatible with their current device. Playing 10 matches of HotS on my tablet was a grueling affair, though I was at least impressed that my tablet could do it at all. All that headache for a cool new skin for my main (D Va is the greatest, FYI) wasn't really worth it and it did nothing to make me want to play HotS more. In fact it just reminded me how much I hate playing PC games and I really hate that it is the only option available right now to get these skins. Now if more of their games were available on my PS4 I wouldn't mind giving them a fair shot on console, but until that is possible don't force me to play games on a separate device just to get a skin I want.
Do you still enjoy loot boxes or have they begun to disappoint you? Let me know what you think and what you would change in the comments. Thanks for reading.