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Fixing Item Drops
daemonios
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Item drop rates are currently a major issue in the game. I propose two solutions, which could be applied separately or in combination:
1. Introduce a "ceiling" to the number of attempts to get an item, i.e. if after x number of attempts at doing the relevant action you haven't gotten the item, the game "forces" a drop (item characteristics such as weight or traits would remain random, or a separate "ceiling" could be applied to weight and traits). In other words, if an item's drop chance is theoretically 10%, at the 10th attempt without a previous success you are always awarded the drop.
Pros: solves the problem of not getting certain items even after unreasonably high numbers of tries (e.g. dungeon runs); also addresses issues with items that ideally shouldn't be transferable because they're tied to character-based achievements (e.g. rare fish, monster collectibles); doesn't bypass any of the game's mechanics.
Cons: somewhat removes the "OMG I FINALLY GOT IT" feeling from getting that rare item, but this could be mitigated by having a ceiling that is higher than the simple statistical chance of getting an item. Assuming a monster helm drop chance is 10%, on average you should get one every 10 runs. Instead of guaranteeing a drop on the 10th run, the ceiling could be put at 20 runs or whatever is considered the limit for a reasonable number of tries.
2. Make all or most drops Bound on Equip (BoE) rather than Bind on Pickup (BoP).
Pros: solves the problem of some people always getting the short end of the stick when it comes to RNG by allowing them to purchase items from luckier players.
Cons: can lead to loss of perceived value of hard-to-get gear; if drops are still rare enough, high prices may still exclude significant numbers of players; doesn't apply to all kinds of items (e.g. monster collectibles, rare fish); allows people to bypass certain aspects of the game which are currently required to get the items, but on the other hand the items will always have been dropped in the intended conditions.
Discuss.
TL;DR version follows:
1. Introduce a "ceiling" to the number of attempts to get an item, i.e. if after x number of attempts at doing the relevant action you haven't gotten the item, the game "forces" a drop (item characteristics such as weight or traits would remain random, or a separate "ceiling" could be applied to weight and traits). In other words, if an item's drop chance is theoretically 10%, at the 10th attempt without a previous success you are always awarded the drop.
Pros: solves the problem of not getting certain items even after unreasonably high numbers of tries (e.g. dungeon runs); also addresses issues with items that ideally shouldn't be transferable because they're tied to character-based achievements (e.g. rare fish, monster collectibles); doesn't bypass any of the game's mechanics.
Cons: somewhat removes the "OMG I FINALLY GOT IT" feeling from getting that rare item, but this could be mitigated by having a ceiling that is higher than the simple statistical chance of getting an item. Assuming a monster helm drop chance is 10%, on average you should get one every 10 runs. Instead of guaranteeing a drop on the 10th run, the ceiling could be put at 20 runs or whatever is considered the limit for a reasonable number of tries.
2. Make all or most drops Bound on Equip (BoE) rather than Bind on Pickup (BoP).
Pros: solves the problem of some people always getting the short end of the stick when it comes to RNG by allowing them to purchase items from luckier players.
Cons: can lead to loss of perceived value of hard-to-get gear; if drops are still rare enough, high prices may still exclude significant numbers of players; doesn't apply to all kinds of items (e.g. monster collectibles, rare fish); allows people to bypass certain aspects of the game which are currently required to get the items, but on the other hand the items will always have been dropped in the intended conditions.
Discuss.
TL;DR version follows:
Under ideal conditions, a given drop chance should see item drops follow a normal distribution curve:
"Empirical Rule" by Dan Kernler - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Empirical_Rule.PNG#/media/File:Empirical_Rule.PNG
What this means is that the majority of people should see themselves placed around the middle of the curve. Assuming an item has a drop rate of 10%, most people would be able to get it at or around the 10th attempt. However, there is a serious issue here: while there is a "hard bottom" to the number of attempts required to get an item (you can't get it in less than one attempt), there is no hard ceiling for the number of attempts, because each time you try you're only getting a new 10% chance. Imagine this as you rolling a D20 and needing to roll exactly a 10. As much as you roll the die, you might be so unlucky that you never get the 10. This means that, very rarely, someone will never see a given item drop for them. In a game with thousands of players, there will be many someones.
The issue is made worse by the fact that many items are BoP and therefore can't be traded with other players. The lucky few at the beginning of the curve can't counterbalance the bad luck of the unlucky few towards the end of the curve. This would be all well and good if we weren't talking about a game which people play for fun. After too many unsuccessful attempts, some players will become frustrated and leave, or stop doing that part of the content. I, for one, don't think this is desirable.
One possible fix for this, which is generating quite a bit of heat in the forums, is to offer certain items for in-game currency (in the case of monster sets, this means AP or gold). I think this is not the best solution because:
- It doesn't address the underlying issue, which is that of RNG and drop rates;
- It impoverishes the game by letting people ignore the parts of the game where you would originally get the items;
- It won't fix the problem for large portions of the player base since, as has been announced, the prices will be extremely high (it has yet to be seen exactly how high).
Alternatively, I would propose one of two solutions, or possibly a mix of both.
The first solution would be introducing a ceiling to the number of attempts at getting an item. To use the monster sets as an example, let's assume helms have a 10% chance of dropping. This means that each time you run the dungeon, you get a 10% chance of getting the helm. Some people will get it on their first try, the majority will get the helm at or around the 10th run, but others might be running the dungeon 100 times with no luck. This is frustrating and unfair, since the amount of work put in should have some bearing on the outcome, and it might make players give up on that content or even the game.
The ceiling concept would consist of a check done server-side to see how many runs a player had made without a given item dropping. Say a player had run veteran White Gold Tower 9 times and gotten no helm. At the 10th try, the server would "force" a helm drop for that player, while leaving the helm's weight and trait random (or not; separate ceilings could be applied to weight and trait, so that there would be an absolute maximum number of runs you'd have to do before getting the specific item/weight/trait combination you're after). This would roughly translate to "never less than 10% chance of getting the helm for the total of your runs", instead of "10% chance each and every run".
The numbers could be juggled around, for instance: a base 10% chance (a drop for every 10th run, on average) with a ceiling of 20 runs, i.e. on your 20th run you would definitely get the helm if you hadn't looted it before, or to put it in other words, a base 10% chance per run with a minimum of 5% chance for the total of your runs.
I believe this would be the best fix for the drop rate issue, since all it would do is ensure that players will never have to face inordinate numbers of unsuccessful attempts. All other mechanics (location of drops, item characteristics, etc.) would remain exactly the same. Furthermore, this could be used for items other than weapons/armour, namely rare fish or monster collectibles. I know I've killed my fair share of ogres and to this day I haven't seen a nose shackle. Also, for some of the blue fish I got, I had over 20 of each of the green fish from the same water type/zone and went through countless stacks of bait. If there were a ceiling in place, I could know that whatever happens I wouldn't have to kill more than, for instance, 1000 ogres for the collectible, or use more than, say, 3 stacks of bait to catch all 3 fish from a given water type in a given zone.
The second solution would be to make items BoE rather than BoP. This change would allow luckier players to put up the items for sale in guild stores, thus providing a mechanism for unlucky ones to obtain the items. However, this solution does have some drawbacks:
- Firstly, it could mean that the market would be flooded with supposedly rare gear, reducing the perceived value of said rare items. For me, this isn't that strong an argument - I personally wouldn't feel affected if someone just bought an item that took me a few good tries to get.
- Secondly, assuming that ZOS wanted to keep some degree of rarity for certain items and thus reduced the drop rate accordingly, this might translate to high prices that would leave out large portions of the player base, and would therefore in the end not be a solution to the problem.
- Thirdly, I believe this would only apply to certain items such as weapons and armour, certain crafting materials which are currently inexplicably account-bound, but not others such as monster collectibles or rare fish, which are connected with character-based achievements and wouldn't make much sense to allow trading.
- Lastly, by allowing trading in certain items, some players would be able to bypass certain aspects of the game, e.g. obtain monster sets without running the dungeons. I would still say, in defense of this solution, that contrary to the NPC monster set vendor, at least someone would always have to run the dungeons in order to get the drop.
Of course, the solutions presented above are not mutually exclusive. For instance, ZOS might make certain items BoE which are currently BoP, while keeping others whose rarity it wants to preserve BoP. For the latter items, they could introduce the "ceiling" concept in order to prevent too large a deviation from the "normal" drop rate.
On a last note, none of what I've written is new. Players have suggested both changes several times before. I just wanted to try and present the problem and possible solutions in a (hopefully) clear manner, in the middle of all the arguments that are going on about the upcoming NPC monster set vendor.
"Empirical Rule" by Dan Kernler - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Empirical_Rule.PNG#/media/File:Empirical_Rule.PNG
What this means is that the majority of people should see themselves placed around the middle of the curve. Assuming an item has a drop rate of 10%, most people would be able to get it at or around the 10th attempt. However, there is a serious issue here: while there is a "hard bottom" to the number of attempts required to get an item (you can't get it in less than one attempt), there is no hard ceiling for the number of attempts, because each time you try you're only getting a new 10% chance. Imagine this as you rolling a D20 and needing to roll exactly a 10. As much as you roll the die, you might be so unlucky that you never get the 10. This means that, very rarely, someone will never see a given item drop for them. In a game with thousands of players, there will be many someones.
The issue is made worse by the fact that many items are BoP and therefore can't be traded with other players. The lucky few at the beginning of the curve can't counterbalance the bad luck of the unlucky few towards the end of the curve. This would be all well and good if we weren't talking about a game which people play for fun. After too many unsuccessful attempts, some players will become frustrated and leave, or stop doing that part of the content. I, for one, don't think this is desirable.
One possible fix for this, which is generating quite a bit of heat in the forums, is to offer certain items for in-game currency (in the case of monster sets, this means AP or gold). I think this is not the best solution because:
- It doesn't address the underlying issue, which is that of RNG and drop rates;
- It impoverishes the game by letting people ignore the parts of the game where you would originally get the items;
- It won't fix the problem for large portions of the player base since, as has been announced, the prices will be extremely high (it has yet to be seen exactly how high).
Alternatively, I would propose one of two solutions, or possibly a mix of both.
The first solution would be introducing a ceiling to the number of attempts at getting an item. To use the monster sets as an example, let's assume helms have a 10% chance of dropping. This means that each time you run the dungeon, you get a 10% chance of getting the helm. Some people will get it on their first try, the majority will get the helm at or around the 10th run, but others might be running the dungeon 100 times with no luck. This is frustrating and unfair, since the amount of work put in should have some bearing on the outcome, and it might make players give up on that content or even the game.
The ceiling concept would consist of a check done server-side to see how many runs a player had made without a given item dropping. Say a player had run veteran White Gold Tower 9 times and gotten no helm. At the 10th try, the server would "force" a helm drop for that player, while leaving the helm's weight and trait random (or not; separate ceilings could be applied to weight and trait, so that there would be an absolute maximum number of runs you'd have to do before getting the specific item/weight/trait combination you're after). This would roughly translate to "never less than 10% chance of getting the helm for the total of your runs", instead of "10% chance each and every run".
The numbers could be juggled around, for instance: a base 10% chance (a drop for every 10th run, on average) with a ceiling of 20 runs, i.e. on your 20th run you would definitely get the helm if you hadn't looted it before, or to put it in other words, a base 10% chance per run with a minimum of 5% chance for the total of your runs.
I believe this would be the best fix for the drop rate issue, since all it would do is ensure that players will never have to face inordinate numbers of unsuccessful attempts. All other mechanics (location of drops, item characteristics, etc.) would remain exactly the same. Furthermore, this could be used for items other than weapons/armour, namely rare fish or monster collectibles. I know I've killed my fair share of ogres and to this day I haven't seen a nose shackle. Also, for some of the blue fish I got, I had over 20 of each of the green fish from the same water type/zone and went through countless stacks of bait. If there were a ceiling in place, I could know that whatever happens I wouldn't have to kill more than, for instance, 1000 ogres for the collectible, or use more than, say, 3 stacks of bait to catch all 3 fish from a given water type in a given zone.
The second solution would be to make items BoE rather than BoP. This change would allow luckier players to put up the items for sale in guild stores, thus providing a mechanism for unlucky ones to obtain the items. However, this solution does have some drawbacks:
- Firstly, it could mean that the market would be flooded with supposedly rare gear, reducing the perceived value of said rare items. For me, this isn't that strong an argument - I personally wouldn't feel affected if someone just bought an item that took me a few good tries to get.
- Secondly, assuming that ZOS wanted to keep some degree of rarity for certain items and thus reduced the drop rate accordingly, this might translate to high prices that would leave out large portions of the player base, and would therefore in the end not be a solution to the problem.
- Thirdly, I believe this would only apply to certain items such as weapons and armour, certain crafting materials which are currently inexplicably account-bound, but not others such as monster collectibles or rare fish, which are connected with character-based achievements and wouldn't make much sense to allow trading.
- Lastly, by allowing trading in certain items, some players would be able to bypass certain aspects of the game, e.g. obtain monster sets without running the dungeons. I would still say, in defense of this solution, that contrary to the NPC monster set vendor, at least someone would always have to run the dungeons in order to get the drop.
Of course, the solutions presented above are not mutually exclusive. For instance, ZOS might make certain items BoE which are currently BoP, while keeping others whose rarity it wants to preserve BoP. For the latter items, they could introduce the "ceiling" concept in order to prevent too large a deviation from the "normal" drop rate.
On a last note, none of what I've written is new. Players have suggested both changes several times before. I just wanted to try and present the problem and possible solutions in a (hopefully) clear manner, in the middle of all the arguments that are going on about the upcoming NPC monster set vendor.
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