The matter
One of the main reason why not many people open lockboxes its because people feel they going to lose more than the would win opening one of them, and this come thanks to the lack of "which item you will get" by opening them, not only that, since there some useless accesories (like headbands, maidheadbands) people feel its better to throw the Lockbox to Auction House thus filling lockbox with many lockbox nobody wants.
Devs decided to throw a new lockbox that will come with the names of the metal, but this dont change the fact (despite what people says) that even if the "lockbox" now its called titanium lockbox, and have the warranty to give you a new "accesories" you still get the same old lame accesories which then again people instead opening them, they just throw it again to AH.
In short: theres no way to tell what you can get from a lockbox, and since its hard to get back at least a bit of your 750 Ce for the key people prefeer not to risk themselves and just fill the lockbox the AH like if those were just junk.
thread objective
to make lockbox a bit worth to open, in other words: make the players interesting to get them or at least opening them.
how to do it
the 2 problems are:
A)Players dont know what they going to get
B) there just hard to recover at least a small portion of the energy wasted for the key needed for the lockbox.
Solution for problem A
Solution for A its related to Lockbox, while the new "titanium" lockbox are different to lockboxes, the only difference its that now in the "pool prize" of accesories are added just a few ones, some players claim that theres a chance of 50:50 to get new accesories, but that not its the point of this thread. the reason why titanium lockboxes suffer the same fate as normal lockbox its that: you dont know if you going to get rebreather or maidheadband and people with their bad luck dislike this and sell them to AH.
To fix this problem, lets split all the lockboxes in crate series, what this mean? crate series mean that we can get different iron lockboxes but with a number of serie. each lockbox number series will contain a limited amount of accesories.For example:
Iron LockBox #001
Description: a Lockbox that contain unique accesories! this lockbox series may contain:
Wing
Scarf
Flower
headband
Maid headband
With this on mind players know what items they probably would get and this would help them to decided if open them or not open the lockbox. players now will believe they have better chances to geta good accesories since they now know what its inside, also this a plus because this would help to make some lockboxes more valuables than other, and players would likely to spent keys on a especific lockbox to get the accesories they want. this is what i was expecting on the new lockbox. but sadly wasnt what i was expecting. if we going to split the accesories in many lockbox series the idea to split them its: awesome accesory, nice accesory, regular accesory, bad accesory. the idea to split it like this its to not make a lockbox the only one that will be only opened.
the color of the accesories still its determined by the RGN as well the accesory you would get from the box. but hey now at least you know what probably its inside.
Solution for Problem B
Now problem B its that players dont like to lose 750 energy because they cannot get back at least a part of what they lose from opening the box this can be achieve in 2 ways:
>>> Option 1 <<<
Option 1 its related to make accesories crafteable. but wait a minute, havent forumers suggested that? yes but with materials, while i would like to agree that we can craft accesories with materials... we can craft them mixing accesories to make 1. but how this going to help with the problem B?. if we make accesories crafteable using accesories that we get in lockbox. then this going to help that even bad accesories like headbands and maidbands have a small demand because players will use them to craft at least a new accesories with them.
How we going to craft them? we can make new accesories by mixing (for example) at least 5 accesories that belong to the same slot (example amount), the NPC for this option could be Bechamel and what i mean to craft its like this:
front helm slot + front helm slot + front helm slot + front helm slot + front helm slot + some cr = random slot accesory (or random front helm slot)
If we make accesories to be crafted using accesories that belong to the same slot, we going to make even ugly accesories to have some demand because well now that if a player got a lame accesory at least they can save them to make a new one and since he is going to buy other lames accesories to have at least another chance to get something better.
and now since lames accesories like headbands and maidheadbands will have some kind of demand their price will raise because now players get them either because they want it (i doubt it) or because they want to use them for new accesories. so in the end players will buy keys for lockbox because they know now at least if they get a lame accesory they will have a small part of the money wasted on the key in their hands because now bad accessories can be used for another accesory.
NOTE: Crafteable accesories only apply to Lockbox accesories, this dont apply to Promo accesories or event accesories.
<<< Option 2 >>>
Option 2 its like Option 1 but this its a bit expanded and the one i would like the most, and while its true that Option 2 will sound a lot like Option 1 i just wanted to put the most important part of Option 1 there. ok now lets start with Option2.
Its related to supply depot and mixed with lockbox series along with a bit spice of option1. and this probably will not like many people, but i feel this worth a shot anyway.
Lets make some changes: first lets add most of the accesories that you can get from lockbox on supply depot. Why? now that some accesories have a fixed price in supply depot. now you can have a base price to sell them in the market. it just kinda sad that you open supply depot only to find that the accesory section only have ticket of removal of accesories that have the same icons as accesories, while some people sell them in AH for people who really want a ticket of accesory removal, others use it to "fool" players to buy them thinking those are accesories (while its so obvious to tell those arent accesories, there are some... People who only see the icon without read or pass the mouse over there thinking those are accesory and buy them...
the first step to do its to change the icon of those accesories ticket removal to actual tickets (like the one of wepaon unbind) and move them to tickets section.
Now that we move accesories removal tickets to their right section. we can add the lockbox accesories to supply depot at fixed prices. now that "bad accesories" like headbands or maidheadbands have a fixed price, players wouldnt feel that bad to risk to open a lockbox because now at least if they get those accesories they can sell it for a less price than supply depot to recover a small part of they cr / ce wasted on the key, this not only help the players, also helps OOO, how? players will buy energy to get the accesory they want from supply depot. sounds fancy and dandy without bad sides right? here come the bad side.
The bad side of purchasing accesory from Supply depot. its that they cannot be removed from your armor once you use them, and the only way to get rid of them its to destorying them. so Lockbox accesories can be the only ones removed with tickets removal that sells supply depot, with this in mind this add a small value to the accesory, at this point probably most readers thinks "but thats pointless... because if the supply depot accesory worth less than the removal accesory ticket, i just better buy it from supply depot rather to buy the ticket to removed it if i want it on another armor" and its true. but remember i said about mixing option 2 with option 1 and the crate series? here come the next part:
Now that we have supply depot with the lockbox accesories, and lockbox accesories. we need to make better lockbox accesories in some sense and here how we can make them better to make players try to open lockbox more often:
We going to mix option 1 with option2, this mean we going to have again crafteable accesories. with this on mind then we CANNOT USE supply depot accesories for crafting. those cannot be used in anyway for crafting, so thats a cons for supply depot accesories. so if we want to craft accesories we going to use the ones that we get in lockboxes.
Now to add more value to lockbox, we going to add rarer versions of the accesories in the lockbox. what this mean? this mean that i can get a military mecha wing from supply depot. but the lockbox also would contain a military mecha wing and A RARE version of a military mechawing. which can include particle efffect.
for example:
Shocking military mecha wing! which have small shock effects around the mecha wing (its an example they can be new effects to make them more attractive to those fashionist knights).
so then now our lockbox will be like this:
Iron LockBox #001
Description: a Lockbox that contain unique accesories! this lockbox series may contain:
Wing
Scarf
Flower
headband
Maid headband
Or a super rare item!!
we dont going to tell the player what item its. but will be one rare version of the accesories listed on the box. we also can add reskins of weapons there to make even more valuable to open a lockbox (for example a Dark leviathan skin) with this also the art team have reason to add more reskin on small updates without making a big promo. also if we think the amount of colors and type of accesories we have, if we add rare effects on each kind of color and type of accesories, this make a big mass of rare accesories to get for the player, which mean in a long run: players opening a lot of lockboxes for a nice amount of time.
and thats the reason why i prefeer option 2 for problem B, because it let the player to buy accesories from supply depot, or get rare versions of accesories and rare skins of weapons from lockbox.
What are the advantages?
-Lockbox now have some values thanks to the crate series
-People now will have more motivation to open a lockbox because now they know what its inside
-People now will like to open the lockbox thanks to the crafting system, since now even they get a bad accesory they know they will have some small fee of the key in return because the fixed price on supply depot for the accesory there (if we used option 2) and because now accesory, even if they are the ugly ones, have demand because can be use on crafting (the ones from lockbox)
-People opening more Lockbbox mean more people buying key which mean its money that OOOgets.
Sorry for the long wall text but its the idea i have and i wanted to share to te devs. mi vision was only aimed for the devs. and while i know how suggestion forums could be. i honestly dont mind if people dislike the idea (which i can understand) but i dont going to mind to argue with them because well forums have a lot of drama and honestly lockbox system need a rework to make it more valuable and if my suggestion its not the best way to do it well at least i tried but i find it reasonable this one. but i wont mind to accept some changes or construtive critics
if you like it thats fine :)
if not its okay too.
Thanks for the time to read the suggestion!
tl;dr
For opening boxes to be a continuous exercise, then the contents need to be sunk somehow.
OOO chose the 'destroy when you're bored of it' method - not the 'gotta collect 'em all!' method. How players consume accessories defines the two. I think the inability to swap your accessories around at will is the core of the problem.
I believe that if people don't want to destroy old things in order to make way for new things, then chances are they are less likely to acquire new things. If true, then that is the opposite outcome of what destroying accessories was supposed to achieve - to make room for more accessories.
Allowing players to swap accessories around at will (but not with each other) would certainly promote the collect 'em all mentality, but perhaps they genuinely believed that we would want to keep re-buying the exact same accessory over and over again. Granted, the sink is not infinite, but having some people sinking some common items is better most people sinking none.
Does anyone out there really re-buy their barrel bellies on a regular basis? Or have you chosen not to own any barrels at all because you would rather use that front slot for something rarer? How many barrel bellies do you see anyone wearing anyway?