Double VMA Loot: Which Weapons Did You Get ?

Hekaterin

~10-12+ runs so far, nothing I need yet... only sharpened so far was 1h tank sword

Shader_Shibes

Managed 1 run last night after work, got defending bow and defending axe. So I'm probably on 20 runs now since event started, that's 40 weapons, out of those, 39 have been vendored or deconned.

covenant_merchant

@Hekaterin

Eweroun

kasa-obake wrote: »

Eweroun wrote: »

kasa-obake wrote: »

Eweroun wrote: »

charged inferno staff and charged lightning staff.... could've been worse ^^

be happy with what you get, sure I want a sharpened one, but already better than nothing

@Eweroun I would but empirically, precise/ charged vmsa < random sharpened staff.
From a PvE perspective, precise isn't that bad on mobs. But who cares about trashwaves, it's the bosses that count. I guess you could use Charged Inferno on a back-bar with Burning Spellweaver and enjoy all the burns, this is what I'm doing atm. But it still has a very limited utility in group dungeons, since Overload + dual wield is still better for vMSA.

I'm a mag templar (and using it on back bar)

kasa-obake wrote: »

However, I'm mainly a PvP player. I don't have a PvE guild, nor am I interested in dungeons/trials/w.e beyond getting achievements, titles, and skins, since I'm an achievement wh*re. So, having gotten my Mageslayer, Dro'Mathra, Boethia's Scythe, Flawless, Overlord, Shatterer, and even Monster Hunter, I thought I was done with it.

And, from a PvP perspective, any trait other than sharpened is useless. The only exception being vDSA destruction staves, which would be viable in Infused, since more magicka = more fun and shields, on the condition that you use Spinner with it, to compensate for the loss of penetration. I ran vDSA a lot. Less than vMSA but nonetheless a substantial amount of times, and the best I got was Precise Inferno.
And Precise is useless against players, who mostly wear Impen, apart from the occasional magicka sorc or ganker.
Additionally, over 3/4 of Cyrodiil are in Heavy Armor, meaning that the penetration from Sharpened by far outclasses any other trait there is.

don't care about PVP

kasa-obake wrote: »

As I've said earlier in some other QQ thread about the bad RNJ, sadistic devs, and overall bore of vMSA, there's a reason why Spriggan, Spinner and all the penetration traits/sets are in high demand. While ZOS did its best (which doesn't mean much all things considered) to improve other traits, sharpened is just way too good.

Sharpened is what I want to get in the end, that true for sure

Hekaterin

@kasa-obake wheres @Kr3do when you need some sad violin </3

covenant_merchant

@Hekaterin He missed his chance

Shader_Shibes

A run this morning resulted in Sharpened 2h Maul and Charged Ice staff. Already have a 2h maul -_-

Brugaz

First run on Tuesday: Charged Bow + Decisive Froststaff
Second run on Wednesday: Sharpened Bow + Infused Sword/Shield

since i wanted that sharpened bow, im fine with my rng

Yuke

48 drops so far.

I got:

16x Restoration
12x S/B
6x Bow
5x 2h Axe
3x 1x Ace
2x Dagger
1x Ice
1x Lightning
1x Fire
1x 2h Sword

All in all 4 times Sharpened. But hey...managed to get my no-death achievement after over a year.

Sad thing is that i only need Lightning Sharp and Ice Sharp Staffs. Not looking good so far as you can see above...

Bandit1215

hehe...

Moltyr

I started logging my drops for those of you who are unfamiliar with the ongoing issues with VMA. Take a look at what I have gotten from it so far:




Of all those runs, I can count on one hand how many useful DPS weapons I have received.

jakeedmundson

LeeroyGankins wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

LeeroyGankins wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

The only thing this event is actually doing....

Proving without a doubt to many people that the drops are not "random" in vMA.

This weighted drop idea is terrible...

Hey ZOS... running the SAME arena dozens - hundreds of times to get 2 or 3 desired weapons isn't "replay value" or "end game content"... make it so we can actually get the items with good traits ... then we can all get back to enjoying the fun parts of the game with our friends instead of being stuck in this solo content hell that pushes so many people to quit.

Are you afraid we won't run the content if you just give us a good chance of getting the right weapons?... here's an idea... change the traits again in an update... people will go back into vMA and re-farm those weapons (as long as drop rates are reasonable)

that being said.... i ran it 2 and 2/3 times last night (went to bed at stage 6 on my 3rd run)

1st run - gotta love the double resto drops...
precise resto staff (my second one of these)
charged resto staff

2nd run
infused sword and shield (my Nth one of these)
nirnhoned inferno (not a terrible drop but its not something i need)

No it proves without a doubt that many people don't know statistics....

With a 1% chance to get the exact weapon and trait, there's a 36% chance that after 100 runs , you do not get your desired weapon. 13% chance to not get it after 200 runs. In other words, it's NOT 100 runs to get your sharpen dagger or whatever else you look for.

And that's one weapon.

If you knew any statistics, you'd know that if the drop tables were in fact "rigged", you are going to be farming hell of a lot more than few hundred runs......

It's insane to me that people try to defend this ridiculous concept of drop rates.

My first 5 runs went like this....and it didn't get any better down the road either. There are plenty more bows.
1. infused two handed axe
2. nirnhoned bow
3. defending bow
4. defending bow
5. nirnhoned bow
i remember this clearly because of how angry it made me at the time.
lets just stop there at my 5th run and analyze that ....1.04% chance.

If i'm wrong... feel free to correct my numbers... always possible to be thinking about this incorrectly.

Now, similar to rolling a die... but instead of 1/6 lets do 1/96 or 1.04% chance (that's 12 items that can drop each with 8 traits possible... 12 x 8 = 96 possibilities) of getting a bow in defending. (If it is evenly random)

That makes my 3rd and 4th run a pretty rough statistical improbability... 1.04% x 1.04% = 0.0108% chance... literally a 10th of one percent.... ok, lets chalk that up to bad "luck" due to rng... it could happen.

Now lets just look at the chance of getting a bow, regardless of trait... that's 1/12 items right? 8.3% chance each run of having a bow drop... then getting that to drop 4 times straight? Go ahead... roll a 100 sided die and let me know when you roll 37.... four times in a row. i'll wait.
8.3%^4 = That is a staggering 0.0048% chance... that even excludes the same traits.... i must just be lucky... right?

Again, feel free to correct me on my math but this seems pretty straight forward...

And since this isn't uncommon... I feel it is safe to think that there are weights tied to certain drops and traits.
I know for a fact i'm not the only one that sees many, many, many bows... shields.... and resto staffs, not to mention never seeing anything in sharpened yet. Not just from the forums...but friends i play this with have the same issues.

Thoughts? Corrections?

That's not the right math for repeat drops.

If you simply multiply 1.04% by 1.04% for getting two defending bow, which is 0.0108%, what prevents you from doing the same calculation for any other drops? (Because that drop would "reset" and be part of a different line at that point. The 1.04% chance would still be that... 1.04% chance. We were figuring out how to get the EXACT same item multiple times in a row) What if you got, for drop 3 and drop 4, a sharpen axe and a sharpen bow? Or a charged maul and a powered resto? Isn't that still 1.04% by 1.04%? (No, it doesn't work that way.)So you'd say getting any 2 non-repeat weapons is still 0.0108%, a statistical improbability.

The probability of NOT getting a repeat weapon in 5 drops is calculated as such

(100/100)*(99/100)*(98/100).....*(95/100) = 0.86 = 86%

Which means you have a 100% -89%= 14% chance to get a repeat weapon in 5 drops.


Why? Because First weapon can be anything, so the probability is set to 100%. The next weapon can only be 1 of the remaining 99, so it's 99/100. Third one is one of remaining 98 possibilities, and so on.

um... nope. sorry it is absolutely clear to most people that zos' die is weighted to land on a certain number.

EDIT: This conclusion is being made by comparing my shield, resto and bow drops to my destro, 1 handed weapon drops and 2 handed weapon drops.

My shields, restos and bows literally out number the other sets 3 (or 4) to 1 right now. And this event has brought many people out to show their drops.... which are similar to my results.

Zedrian

After many many death and frustration with my Magicka Sorcerer, I got: 1 Nirnhoned restoration staff and 1 Mace Charged. A shield in divines. Yay!

Junipus

Ran 8 times since the event started and have only gotten a precise Axe as anything close to BiS from those runs.

However the actual drop rate overall is likely to be the same across the board. The only reason it seems biased towards charged, defending, nirnhoned etc etc is because those getting their BiS or close to drops aren't on here complaining about the RNG. Also those who don't care about the RNG aren't on here complaining about it.

This means that only those who don't get the good drops are here complaining and self-fueling the hatred and theories.

Hamiltonmath

I finally got a sharpened weapon, but it was resto! D'oh! I'm going to run it again tonight though and then a lot of my 3 day weekend

Kholty22

1 bow defending
1 dagger sharpened
1dagger nirn
Battle axe sharpened
Battle axe charged
Lightning staff precise

FLuFFyxMuFFiN

3rd run gave me another precise bow and a defending mace/well-fitted shield

TheHsN

12 ***..inngggg....... run 36 trash.....

150+ run just one sharpened bow....

bulshittttt RNG

FIX THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

covenant_merchant

Okay so, I've taken all the loot I got from vMSA, the loot of the people who posted there (only took those who mentioned trait + item for every run and ignored quotes + double posts) bringing the total to 510 drops. It's not much but still more than the people who QQ for 10 runs (and I should know, I'm already crying after 10 runs since the event started).

At any rate, here are the results:


And here's some pie charts to help you visualize better:

As you can see, Sharpened is actually the trait that dropped the most out of 510 items. But they all seem pretty equivalent. No reason to cry so far about rigged rng, right ?

However let's take a look at the items themselves:

See ? While the trait drops are pretty similar, the items themselves do not have the same chance to drop, which goes in line with what @Alanar was saying earlier in the thread.

Alanar wrote: »

I've tracked 48 VMA drops, and I can confirm that the 12 weapons do not drop evenly (p < 0.02).

And among these unevenly distributed loots, we have this:


@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno Would you please reconsider having all two-handed weapons for instance with one unique chance to drop instead of 1 chance per exact weapon type?

Just give every weapon a probability to drop of 1/12, and then 1/8 chance to get one particular trait. That would give a sharpened fire staff a 1/96 probability to drop, same as a infused battle-axe, same as a powered dagger... You get my point.

Right now however, we have this unfair mess:

Alanar wrote: »

. So your chances of getting a specific weapon are:

Bow - 1/6
Restoration Staff - 1/6

Dagger - 1/12
Sword - 1/12
Mace - 1/12
Axe - 1/12

Greatsword - 1/18
Battle Axe - 1/18
Maul - 1/18
Lightning Staff - 1/18
Frost Staff - 1/18
Fire Staff - 1/18

So if you're hunting a sharpened fire staff, you have a 1/18 chance of getting a fire staff at all, and a 1/8 chance of getting sharpened, for a total chance of 1/144 on each drop.

Of course, what would be even more reasonable, is to remove useless traits from the vMSA loot table at all. I understand that you've tried to improve them and make them more competitive. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that it didn't work. Sharpened by far outmatches any other trait on any offensive weapon, be it in PvP or PvE.

I don't know if you'll read this; I mean I guess you're tagged in a whole bunch of comments from butthurt kids, but this is actually a bit more serious than "omg another charged resto. Give me my BiS gear, I deserve it".

You've listened to people complaining about RESTORATION STAVES OF RED MOUNTAIN out of all things. How can you blatantly ignore vMSA drops and a major chunk of end-game PvE content?

We do not have Arcane Rings of the Vicious Ophidian dropping in 12-men Trials, after all. So why should we deal with Powered destruction staves.. I know I'm comparing "smart loot" types with weapon traits here, but the end result is the same. You wouldn't wear an Arcane ring of the Vicious Ophidian to do end-game PvE, and you wouldn't use a Powered Fire staff either.

PvP players are even worse off, since they do not even have a PvP equivalent to vDSA - vMSA weapons. There's no 1-slot/bonus weapon available to you through PvP. Or at all actually. Just these 1/144 chance to drop vMSA weapons.

You want your customers to enjoy the game, right? (Well, you probably want them to pay and consume more, but lets just pretend for a second that you do have good intentions at heart). Not everyone enjoys the PvE aspect of the game. And even fewer people enjoy spending more or less one hour doing the same arenas over and over and over and over again simply to be rewarded unusable loot that cannot even be sold to make some profit (52 gold, really?).

Being severely limited in your choice of builds because there simply is no alternative to these 1-piece/bonus weapons is disheartening. And there's a number of suggestions that people have already put up on forums and tried to convey to you, if only you were willing to listen.

• Make a token system: get tokens after each run, and a certain amount of tokens gives you the right to chose a weapon
• Add Undaunted Plunder to vMSA, or any kind of material reward. It is a Trial, after all. People spend valuable and expensive potions, repair gear, only to be rewarded with nothing. It's one of the biggest gold sinks in game at the moment, along with crafting motifs. And not everyone has gold to sink to begin with.
• Bring back the old trait system: Sharpened - Precise - Defending, which worked, and should not have been changed to begin with.
• Give all vMSA weapons the same probability to drop, instead of one global probability per big weapon type, and then one chance per sub-type.
• Make vMSA weapons tradeable between people who have completed it in a day/week/ever.
• Make vMSA weapons Bind on Equip.
• Add other interesting sets for people to take interest in vMSA again. (Apart from Winterborn, and maybe Hunt on a stamblade with shade, the sets that drop from vMSA are worthless).
• Give the vMSA shield an actual one-piece bonus, instead of the random piece of chopped wood we get and instantly get rid off.
• Give PvP players a similar one-piece/bonus weapon to get through PvP means (amount of Alliance Points perhaps?).
• Indirectly, make jewerly craftable. Right now we're stuck with willpower/agility/endurance or aether/ophidian 3 piece combos. Which means that, should you want to equip a 5-piece bonus set and an undaunted set, you're stuck with a no-set staff (this is mostly viable for PvP though). Making jewerly craftable would give more variety to builds, and less necessity to farm vMSA for players who just don't want to have random weapons equipped.

These all seem like reasonable suggestions, and there were threads made, polls voted upon, and overall a big response from the community about this issue. But, whenever you get your hopes up seing that there is a Z logo next to it and a dev has commented, it's usually to say "this thread has been moved to X category" or "this comment has been edited for profanity/irrelevance".
Come on, team! We know you're here somewhere, doing /lurk on ERP threads. So lets talk for once about what actually matters.

EDITED:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Rich hasn't been arrested. He still silently lurks the forums daily, but word on the street is that you're more likely to get a /lurk out of him with constructive posts.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I normally lurk on the forums pretty regularly – expect to see me out and about a bit more often.

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno this is as constructive as posts can get.

DRXHarbinger

Well said.

Ajaxduo

Sharpened Daggers x2 on the first run. ;p

Moltyr

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

This is the part where you take a screenshot of whatever BS chart you have and say: "This is the exact drop rate for everything rabble rabble!"



The more you treat your players like crap, the more toxic it's going to get around here. Just saying.

alexkdd99

Wow thought I just got lucky. Seen 2 inferno staves and both turned out to be defending and decisive.

This crap is ridiculous. I have gotten a sharpened weapon almost every run except for when it is double inferno.

covenant_merchant

@Moltyr they don't really treat players like crap though. They usually just don't reply, be it for reports, blatant issues, bugs and exploits or other stuff. While I meant the whole "/lurk on ERP threads" jokingly, there's sadly a part of truth in that.

I mean, apart from vMSA issues atm, I'm glad @ZOS_GinaBruno said there'll be a fix for the whole Viper procing mess, but they still haven't acknowledged that Eye of Storm (Destro Ulti PvP morph) becomes invisible when you're in mist form or cloak.
the fact that it's supposedly overpowered and all (which goes along with all the broken, insane damage stam proc sets they implemented I guess), the point is - it's invisible, and being exploited by 3/4 of Cyrodiil. I mean when two guild groups encounter each other in the wild, you can bet there'll be mist form + cloak + destro ulti dump involved, and you can't really avoid what you can't see. Same with any bomber or kamikaze sorc, really.
I know when I'm alone watching zergs fight, I just throw my Eye of Lightning, streak through, do like 1 pulsar - and bam mist form ftw and enjoy all the implosion procs.

But yeah it is broken and one of these things that needs to be officially acknowledged. Come to think of it, there are so many things wrong with the game beyond vMSA drop rates, and while it is true for any other game I guess, @ZOSRichLambert you need to understand that what triggers people is not the issues themselves, but your lack of prioritization and acknowledgement.
I understand that you're busy, and I'd like to think that you're doing your best, but seriously, a one-liner like "you've been heard, we're aware and working on it" would be enough to calm down many people.
If you have time to post memes on "ZOS remaning silent" threads and make 9-hour maintenances to fix RESTORATION STAVES OF RED MOUNTAIN drops, surely you have enough time to read this.

(Again I cannot emphasize how much this RESTORATION STAVES OF RED MOUNTAIN issue triggers me. Out of all things, they decide to fix smart loot on that, while we still get useless traits and useless gear like "Ice Staff of Burning Spellweaver").

mb10

Ive just had THREE inferno staffs in a row.

Defending
Defending
Charged


lol.

SublimeSparo

Just got double defending 1h axes, and an infused bow, Decisive resto.
Meh *** rngstrom borena

Malthorne

Finally!!

Moltyr

Made some "progress" today @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert you guys should have been there. Good times were had. Tons of 1h/shield to go around.

LeeroyGankins

jakeedmundson wrote: »

LeeroyGankins wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

LeeroyGankins wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

The only thing this event is actually doing....

Proving without a doubt to many people that the drops are not "random" in vMA.

This weighted drop idea is terrible...

Hey ZOS... running the SAME arena dozens - hundreds of times to get 2 or 3 desired weapons isn't "replay value" or "end game content"... make it so we can actually get the items with good traits ... then we can all get back to enjoying the fun parts of the game with our friends instead of being stuck in this solo content hell that pushes so many people to quit.

Are you afraid we won't run the content if you just give us a good chance of getting the right weapons?... here's an idea... change the traits again in an update... people will go back into vMA and re-farm those weapons (as long as drop rates are reasonable)

that being said.... i ran it 2 and 2/3 times last night (went to bed at stage 6 on my 3rd run)

1st run - gotta love the double resto drops...
precise resto staff (my second one of these)
charged resto staff

2nd run
infused sword and shield (my Nth one of these)
nirnhoned inferno (not a terrible drop but its not something i need)

No it proves without a doubt that many people don't know statistics....

With a 1% chance to get the exact weapon and trait, there's a 36% chance that after 100 runs , you do not get your desired weapon. 13% chance to not get it after 200 runs. In other words, it's NOT 100 runs to get your sharpen dagger or whatever else you look for.

And that's one weapon.

If you knew any statistics, you'd know that if the drop tables were in fact "rigged", you are going to be farming hell of a lot more than few hundred runs......

It's insane to me that people try to defend this ridiculous concept of drop rates.

My first 5 runs went like this....and it didn't get any better down the road either. There are plenty more bows.
1. infused two handed axe
2. nirnhoned bow
3. defending bow
4. defending bow
5. nirnhoned bow
i remember this clearly because of how angry it made me at the time.
lets just stop there at my 5th run and analyze that ....1.04% chance.

If i'm wrong... feel free to correct my numbers... always possible to be thinking about this incorrectly.

Now, similar to rolling a die... but instead of 1/6 lets do 1/96 or 1.04% chance (that's 12 items that can drop each with 8 traits possible... 12 x 8 = 96 possibilities) of getting a bow in defending. (If it is evenly random)

That makes my 3rd and 4th run a pretty rough statistical improbability... 1.04% x 1.04% = 0.0108% chance... literally a 10th of one percent.... ok, lets chalk that up to bad "luck" due to rng... it could happen.

Now lets just look at the chance of getting a bow, regardless of trait... that's 1/12 items right? 8.3% chance each run of having a bow drop... then getting that to drop 4 times straight? Go ahead... roll a 100 sided die and let me know when you roll 37.... four times in a row. i'll wait.
8.3%^4 = That is a staggering 0.0048% chance... that even excludes the same traits.... i must just be lucky... right?

Again, feel free to correct me on my math but this seems pretty straight forward...

And since this isn't uncommon... I feel it is safe to think that there are weights tied to certain drops and traits.
I know for a fact i'm not the only one that sees many, many, many bows... shields.... and resto staffs, not to mention never seeing anything in sharpened yet. Not just from the forums...but friends i play this with have the same issues.

Thoughts? Corrections?

That's not the right math for repeat drops.

If you simply multiply 1.04% by 1.04% for getting two defending bow, which is 0.0108%, what prevents you from doing the same calculation for any other drops? (Because that drop would "reset" and be part of a different line at that point. The 1.04% chance would still be that... 1.04% chance. We were figuring out how to get the EXACT same item multiple times in a row) What if you got, for drop 3 and drop 4, a sharpen axe and a sharpen bow? Or a charged maul and a powered resto? Isn't that still 1.04% by 1.04%? (No, it doesn't work that way.)So you'd say getting any 2 non-repeat weapons is still 0.0108%, a statistical improbability.

The probability of NOT getting a repeat weapon in 5 drops is calculated as such

(100/100)*(99/100)*(98/100).....*(95/100) = 0.86 = 86%

Which means you have a 100% -89%= 14% chance to get a repeat weapon in 5 drops.


Why? Because First weapon can be anything, so the probability is set to 100%. The next weapon can only be 1 of the remaining 99, so it's 99/100. Third one is one of remaining 98 possibilities, and so on.

um... nope. sorry, that's exactly the right math.... you can do your own research on the math of rolling a single die and landing on the same number multiple times (even a quick google search would work)... these drops are exactly the same concept IF they are equal chances of dropping.

but it is absolutely clear to most people that zos' die is weighted to land on a certain number.

EDIT: This conclusion is being made by comparing my shield, resto and bow drops to my destro, 1 handed weapon drops and 2 handed weapon drops.

My shields, restos and bows literally out number the other sets 3 (or 4) to 1 right now. And this event has brought many people out to show their drops.... which are similar to my results.

If you draw 10 cards, what is the probability that you don't draw any repeats?

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1308718/you-have-to-draw-10-cards-what-is-the-probability-you-will-not-drawn-any-repeat

If you don't believe me then see this scenario demonstrated with card draws.

I just substituted 52 cards with 100 weapon combos, and 10 drops with 5. I used the exact same formula.

In short, if you draw cards 10 times from a deck of 52, you have only a 40% chance of not getting repeats.

This is contrary to your logic, which dictates that if you saw the Diamond of Ace twice, that deck is probably rigged, as 1/52 * 1/52 is 1 in more than 2000.

I hope you don't think you are correct while multiple people on a dedicated math forum is wrong..........





I hope you can learn from the link first and now I'll attempt to explain why your dice analogy is wrong.

You can roll numbers 1-6: so each number has 1/6 probability
You roll the dice twice only, to keep things simple
What's the probability that you roll 1 and 1?
1/6 * 1/6 = 1/36
What's the probability that you roll 1 and 6?
1/6 * 1/6 = 1/36

Because there are 36 permutations, any single permutation has a chance of 1/36, repeat or non-repeat.

Therefore 1/36 does not tell you the chance of getting any repeat rolls. 1/36 is the probability of getting exactly a 1 after a 1.
But we also can also get a 2 after a 2. So the chance of getting ANY repeat roll is NOT 1/36.

How to calculate the chance of getting any repeat rolls in 2 attempts?

Using the formula from the link above, we first calculate the chance of NOT getting repeats rolls.

(6/6) * (5/6) = 5/6 = 83%
This is because for first roll you can roll anything, and for the second roll you must roll one of the 5 remaining numbers.

So the chance of getting a repeat roll (be it a second 1, a second 2, ...or a second 6) is

100% - 83% = 17%

tl;dr If you roll a dice twice, you have a 17% chance of getting ANY repeats (two 1s, two 3s, ...two 6s)

With your logic, you would only see repeat rolls of any kind 1/36 of the time, which is definitely wrong.


As to the disparity in weapon categories, it is possible that shield and bows are dropped more because they are their own category. Meanwhile fire destro is so hard because ice, fire, and lightning are lumped together in one category and therefore have 1/3 chance of bow.

LeeroyGankins

.