[ANSWERED] vMSA Double Loot - Trying to Prove that the RNJesus is skewed

Moltyr

I think I got ya beat...





Though we all know someone who has cleared it 300+ times and not had useful weapons drop....so I guess in that light I can't complain.

covenant_merchant

@Moltyr yeah I plan on doing the same recap at the end of the event. Do you mind if I add your data too? More samples - more fun. And more chances to prove that the loot is rigged.

On that note, update:

16th RUN (and Flawless Conqueror on an alt)

Moltyr

kasa-obake wrote: »

@Moltyr yeah I plan on doing the same recap at the end of the event. Do you mind if I add your data too? More samples - more fun. And more chances to prove that the loot is rigged. ]

Here is an easier data set to interpret!

covenant_merchant

@Moltyr Thanks! And yeah the sharpened staves drop is real

covenant_merchant

CONCLUSION (NOT EVEN HALF-WAY THROUGH THE EVENT, SO WHAT? SUE ME)

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 started crying after 1 run 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 @ZOS_Finn 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.





In more simplistic terms and if you're too lazy to read despite the gifs and the fancy charts:
The RNJesus isn't rigged. All traits have roughly the same probability to drop. The items however, do not. You have a way smaller probability to drop 2h and staves, which is what interests many people, than bows and restoration staves.
ZOS just gave different chances to drop for the items, the better the item - the lesser the chance.
Whether it was an oversight or a deliberate attempt to make the grind lengthier that they hoped players wouldn't notice, I do not know.
@ZOS_RichLambert has yet to comment or acknowledge this in any way, even if it's to call bull**** on it.

jakeedmundson

kasa-obake wrote: »

CONCLUSION (NOT EVEN HALF-WAY THROUGH THE EVENT, SO WHAT? SUE ME)

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 started crying after 1 run 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 @ZOS_Finn 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.





In more simplistic terms and if you're too lazy to read despite the gifs and the fancy charts:
The RNJesus isn't rigged. All traits have roughly the same probability to drop. The items however, do not. You have a way smaller probability to drop 2h and staves, which is what interests many people, than bows and restoration staves.
ZOS just gave different chances to drop for the items, the better the item - the lesser the chance.
Whether it was an oversight or a deliberate attempt to make the grind lengthier that they hoped players wouldn't notice, I do not know.
@ZOS_RichLambert has yet to comment or acknowledge this in any way, even if it's to call bull**** on it.

If this doesn't get enough attention to promote a positive change... then nothing will.

This is well done. So we can see that traits are reasonably distributed (around the 13% mark) but the weapon types confirmed a lot. I felt like i was crazy and from all the comment arguing on here... i thought i was SUPER unlucky. i ran vma twice a day every day this week.... ALL i had drop were resto staffs, bows, and shields (sometimes it was doubles of each).... that is literally it for 8+ runs this week alone.

Please change how these drop zos. At least give us SOMETHING to hope for...

CultOfMMO

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn

Please for the love of god at least comment on your thoughts about this issue, if you cannot even provide simple justification for such a seemingly unreasonable design, then it is only clear you have zero regard for the community.

The problem with vMA is the absolute lack of progression. If I didn't get anything in 200 runs, as most people have not, I really might as well have only done 1 run. Is a definitive finish line really too much to ask?

Preyfar

CultOfMMO wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn

Please for the love of god at least comment on your thoughts about this issue, if you cannot even provide simple justification for such a seemingly unreasonable design, then it is only clear you have zero regard for the community.

The problem with vMA is the absolute lack of progression. If I didn't get anything in 200 runs, as most people have not, I really might as well have only done 1 run. Is a definitive finish line really too much to ask?

I've posted about every time it comes up, and will continue to do so. Why is Charged even in the loot table for VMA? It has *zero* effect on Maelstrom weapons.

Preyfar

I started keeping every VMA weapon after a few runs. So far, I've gotten:

Axe - Precise, Infused, Defending
Dagger - Powered, Decisive
Bow - Powered
Sword - Decisive, Infused
Mace - Decisive
Greatsword - Defending, Charged, Infused
Ice Staff - Precise, Nirnhoned
Inferno Staff - Sharpened, Precise, Powered, Charged
Resto Staff - Sharpened, Precise, Charged, Defending (2X)

There's probably 4 or so other runs I didn't keep gear for before I started keeping everything to track. I was deconning the charged crap since it has zero value.

Apherius

hey !

FIRST RUN :

Maesltrom inferno staff in sharpned
Maesltrom mace in sharpened
Maesltrom shield in wellfited

i'm very lucky with sharpned

nick_dean14

This is a really well put together thread, nice work.

If you're still collecting data, I've just finished my first run since the start of the event and got a powered bow and a charged resto staff. My only other clear was pre-event and I got a sharpened bow.

Artis

kasa-obake wrote: »

Mhhh a sample of 4 doesn't prove anything apart from potential to rage, true. Which is why I plan on updating it with every run. As for traits, all traits are equal, but some traits are more equal than others, paraphrasing Orwell.
Empirically, Sharpened is the best for PvE end-game, unless, as I said previously, the boss is fully debuffed. Then Precise is good.
For PvP, Sharpened is Best in Slot. Crit doesn't mean much, given that most players wear impen, and Defending, while good for tanking I suppose, makes you loose a lot of damage. There's a reason why Spriggan and Spinner are so popular at the moment; Sharpened is way too good to pass up.

As far as restoration staves are concerned, Precise > Powered. But then again, vMSA restoration staves are only marginally useful on DPS characters. Healers would prefer vDSA staves for a more interesting bonus, or aether/spell power cure staves with 1 Kena pauldron since more spell damage = more heals.

I could go on and on, but some traits are just inferior and overall useless. Charged and Powered on destro staves? It's garbage

And that's a whole different problem. You want sharpened or whatever trait. But why would you expect that the drop rate of sharpened will be equal to the drop rate of everything else combined? Of course not. Every trait-type combo has the same drop rate. You know that in advance. You make a decision to still run vMA, so don't blame anyone. You are not entitled to a specific type-trait combo just because you ran a dungeon a few times. You do get a reward for running it. If you don't like it - well that's tough for you I guess.

ostrapz

@artis if you run vma 30 times with only 1 weapon in mind you should have it by then. And this "reward you get for running it" is so bad 9/10 that most people leave thisome "reward " in the chest. Completing the hardest content in the game should be rewarded with the best weapon in the game accordingly, not just an extra purple mat to go forgotten In the craft bag

covenant_merchant

@Artis did you even bother reading the rest of the thread ?

Artis wrote: »

Every trait-type combo has the same drop rate. You know that in advance.

No, no it hasn't... I even made freaking pie charts for one-track ponies like you.
What else would you want from vMSA apart from sharpened weapons? Maybe a defending restoration staff, or precise, w/e.

Artis wrote: »

You are not entitled to a specific type-trait combo just because you ran a dungeon a few times. You do get a reward for running it. If you don't like it - well that's tough for you I guess.

Yes, yes you are entitled. You complete one of the supposedly most difficult PvE contents in-game and you get no reward. The idea that a Powered Inferno Staff and 164 gold is a good reward is ridiculous.

I do not expect a sharpened staff to drop instantly. I expect fair chances to get one, which isn't the case here. I expect the hardest end-game content to bring me rewards befitting its difficulty and the time spent on it. And Charged Greatswords aren't part of it.

And players weren't crying after the first run, no. They started crying after many fruitless runs that only serve as a gold sink and rage fuel.

Read what I wrote. 510 runs and concrete evidence that, while the trait drops are similar, the item drops aren't.

@nick_dean14 Thank you! Yeah, I'm still collecting. If 510 runs won't make ZOS interested, maybe 2k or something will.

Lukums1

My list so far will post pictures on my twitch stream later but generally seen from my videos anyway.

1. Resto staff - defending
2. Resto staff - precise
3. Resto staff - powered (yay finally)
4. Resto staff - sharpen
5. axe - sharpen
6. axe - precise
7. dagger - powered
8. dagger - sharpen
9. dagger - pricise
10. dagger - defending
11. dagger - precise
12. flame staff - precise
13. flame staff - precise
14. flame staff - defending
15. flame staff - powered
16. electric staff - precise
17. electric staff - sharpen
18. sword and board x 8 nuff said
19. bow sharpen
20. bow sharpen
21. bow precise
22. bow defending
23. bow pricise


So far - I don't need anything or want anything just showing that the RNG ISN'T too bad.

Best of luck to everyone on their runs.

Lukumms

Artis

kasa-obake wrote: »

@Artis did you even bother reading the rest of the thread ?

Artis wrote: »

Every trait-type combo has the same drop rate. You know that in advance.

No, no it hasn't... I even made freaking pie charts for one-track ponies like you.
What else would you want from vMSA apart from sharpened weapons? Maybe a defending restoration staff, or precise, w/e.

Artis wrote: »

You are not entitled to a specific type-trait combo just because you ran a dungeon a few times. You do get a reward for running it. If you don't like it - well that's tough for you I guess.

Yes, yes you are entitled. You complete one of the supposedly most difficult PvE contents in-game and you get no reward. The idea that a Powered Inferno Staff and 164 gold is a good reward is ridiculous.

I do not expect a sharpened staff to drop instantly. I expect fair chances to get one, which isn't the case here. I expect the hardest end-game content to bring me rewards befitting its difficulty and the time spent on it. And Charged Greatswords aren't part of it.

And players weren't crying after the first run, no. They started crying after many fruitless runs that only serve as a gold sink and rage fuel.

Read what I wrote. 510 runs and concrete evidence that, while the trait drops are similar, the item drops aren't.

@nick_dean14 Thank you! Yeah, I'm still collecting. If 510 runs won't make ZOS interested, maybe 2k or something will.

Your pie-chart shows that except for sharpened trait (which is the most common) and bow and resto - everything else is roughly equal. Moreover, you can't say that I'm wrong,because your sample is far from reaching infinity - and that's where outcomes are supposed to become equal. Pick up a statistics book, maybe? 510 trials is nothing, get data for millions of them, which I'm sure ZOS has and which I'm sure shows that everything works as intended.

Yeah no, you aren't entitled to a specific item. And look, the trait you're looking for is the most common one. And the item you're looking for is somewhere in the middle - not even close to the rarest ones.

If they are crying - they should take a break or do something else. Specific master weapons are supposed to be rare. Not everyone is supposed to have them. You run vma for fun and maybe get a specific weapon, but either way you do get a weapon - maybe not in the exact trait you want, but that's your problem - shouldn't expect a certain master weapon. They are supposed to be rare. You aren't supposed to "farm" it and expect to have it.

Everyone is in the same conditions. If VMA is not fun for you - don't run it and make another build. If it is - run it and maybe you will get a weapon that's supposed to be rare. The runs aren't fruitless. You do get rewards. You know in advance which sets drop there and that a SPECIFIC weapon has pretty low drop rate. You do get those sets and master weapons with SOME traits. These are your rewards. If you don't think they are worth your time and gold - don' t run VMA simple as that. There are plenty of people who find it fun and rewards worth the effort.

Also, let's not forget, that deconstructing nirnhoned weapons gives nirncrux sometimes, so that's 15k gold. Also, you can run basic potions and get Major buff from gear or skills and then suddenly vma is no longer a gold sink. It's only a gold sink if you care to get really high scores. But it should be such in this case. If you just run it to farm gear, then no - it's not a gold sink.

ostrapz wrote: »

@artis if you run vma 30 times with only 1 weapon in mind you should have it by then. And this "reward you get for running it" is so bad 9/10 that most people leave thisome "reward " in the chest. Completing the hardest content in the game should be rewarded with the best weapon in the game accordingly, not just an extra purple mat to go forgotten In the craft bag

No you shouldn't. They are supposed to be rare. They aren't supposed to be farmed and had for everyone who can complete the dungeon. Then everyone in endgame would've had them. The point was to introduce an item that is rare and meaningful (affects combat, not just cosmetics). Read what they said about it back in vDSA days.

covenant_merchant

@Artis
I guess we just have different opinions about it all. I do not ask for vMSA sharpened staves to drop with every run, I ask for them to have equal chances to drop.

Artis wrote: »

Specific master weapons are supposed to be rare. Not everyone is supposed to have them.

That's the thing, most of the people do have them now that vMSA has been made easy. Not nerfed per se, but all the new gear available has made vMSA accessible to players who couldn't have done it otherwise. Just today I ran vCoA II with a stam dk dps who had a maelstrom bow - sharpened. The guy didn't even pull 15k dps... and was mostly spamming snipe. When asked about how he did vMSA then, turned out he wore viper + black rose + velidreth, took all the sigils, and got it done after awhile.

How is this rare item supposed to be meaningful if it's purely based on luck and uneven chances to drop? I'm still counting the loots. At 1018 now, and the distribution still looks the same : every 2h weapon, be it maul or ice staff has a 1/16 chance to drop compared to 1/6 for bow or restoration staff.


If vMSA is supposed to be "end-game difficult" content then, as I said earlier, make it worth it. Don't try to pass useless pieces of trash gear as "end-game" reward.

If vMSA is just your regular 1 hour run available for any random who has taken the effort to equip some proc sets, then make rewards indeed commonplace. Or give an alternative for PvP players.

Again, there's a number of reasonable suggestions that have been put out to deal with the issue of vMSA weapons and their drop rates. They aren't sought out because they're meaningful, or somehow a testimony of your skill. They are sought out because they are literally the only 1 piece/bonus thing out there, along with vDSA ones (but vDSA takes longer to complete and actually requires more skill and group coordination, making it even more of a bother for anyone not interested in end-game PvE beyond the titles and achievements).

While it is often proved untrue, on paper, dedication is supposed to bring rewards. Again, the fact that you consider Powered Destruction staves being "rewards" and not insulting crap thrown at your face by uncaring devs is a bit weird, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

If you do not need vMSA weapons, if you aren't interested in running it, or if you too are a sniping DPS pulling 15k+ who lucked out on getting "meaningful" and "rare" items and now thinks he's God, then please don't waste your time writing huge paragraphs (though kuddos on your grammar and eloquence; most people lack that here), and go complain about something else. There are always things to complain about, after all. But don't go raining on my parade and defending vMSA's current state and system because you got your stuff already, or don't care enough to do it.

Artis

kasa-obake wrote: »

@Artis
I guess we just have different opinions about it all. I do not ask for vMSA sharpened staves to drop with every run, I ask for them to have equal chances to drop.

If it's not the case I agree it should be fixed. I'm just not convinced it doesn't work that way, would be cool to see data from ZOS since they probably have it for ALL the drops.

If it doesn't feel rewarding or a gold sink, as I said, don't use expensive pots if it's just about farm. Other than that, yes they should probably add Undaunted Plunder to vma too, since it's a trial. That would keep weapons "rare" and have some rewards for everyone. Then again, now taht you can buy flowers for TV stones, pots should become cheaper.

I think all of you have a wrong approach here. Instead of humbly asking to please reconsider, you demand and complain as if you are entitled to something. No one will support you then. WE all farmed vma and had the same conditions. Some of us just ran it for fun and then got weapons. SOme of us still didn't get them. But most of us DON'T complain on forums or demand anything. No one owes us anything. We know the rules and it's our choice to play or not.

covenant_merchant

Well what can I say, I am a spoiled and entitled ***. And I make little pretense of being anything else. Though I do make the effort of running content enough times before crying about it.
While I disagree with people complaining after 1 run or 30, 200 is already a number that begins warranting exasperation.

I run with normal potions. Again, being a PvP player, I have 13k gold in total to my name despite a long list of credentials and PvE achievements that supposedly matter. Nonetheless, even these regular potions cost AP/gold, as does repairing armor.
Though that will change soon enough with the addition of apothecary satchels.

I ran vMSA a lot. And in the past week since the event started, even with the only nirn I deconstructed, I ended up losing more money than anything else. And I'm so tired of living so close to sharpened staves that they become a permanent blur in the corner of my eye.

At any rate, sorry if I seem scathing or tried to deride you personally, but running it 4 more times today and getting charged and decisive loot almost brought me to tears.
I don't subscribe to the Lich hype for sorcs. Whether it's just me or not, but I really feel like I sustain more with seducer/amberplasm/kagrenac. As such, my build choices are limited. 5 seducer + 2 monster sets require you to have a no-set or vMSA staff.
In the meantime, I work with golden shadowdancer x4, but it's subpar and I do feel the loss of damage.

I used to be in the weeklies a lot awhile ago, back when the trait drops were just sharpened - precise - defending, and vMSA actually felt like a challenge. That was also when I had best in slot gear and could afford spell power potions, but w/e. So yeah, I do feel slighted by that stupid RNG and the uneven item drop probabilities.
I don't care if ZOS calls *** on my work in recording the loots. I just want them to answer with data of their own, if possible, to hold them accountable and blame it all on bad luck instead.
In the meantime, I'll believe what I see, and that is that staves and 2h weapons drop less than the rest.

[EDIT : Also, I understand that this reads as a whole lot of "I want", but isn't that what human nature is all about? Seeking its own self-interest.
I feel concerned about this vMSA loot issue, as such I'm actively seeking to even the odds. If I had gotten my vMSA sharpened destros, I would have gone on complaining about procs, destro ultis and other PvP related issues, and let someone else keep up raising awareness for the item drops. But as I said earlier, yes I'm entitled, and with good reason.
At least I make an effort not to insult ZOS or write crap in caps. I genuinely wanted to believe that the loot distribution was fair, but from what I see with every run and every additional data, it ain't.]

Lukums1

kasa-obake wrote: »

Well what can I say, I am a spoiled and entitled ***. And I make little pretense of being anything else. Though I do make the effort of running content enough times before crying about it.
While I disagree with people complaining after 1 run or 30, 200 is already a number that begins warranting exasperation.

I run with normal potions. Again, being a PvP player, I have 13k gold in total to my name despite a long list of credentials and PvE achievements that supposedly matter. Nonetheless, even these regular potions cost AP/gold, as does repairing armor.
Though that will change soon enough with the addition of apothecary satchels.

I ran vMSA a lot. And in the past week since the event started, even with the only nirn I deconstructed, I ended up losing more money than anything else. And I'm so tired of living so close to sharpened staves that they become a permanent blur in the corner of my eye.

At any rate, sorry if I seem scathing or tried to deride you personally, but running it 4 more times today and getting charged and decisive loot almost brought me to tears.
I don't subscribe to the Lich hype for sorcs. Whether it's just me or not, but I really feel like I sustain more with seducer/amberplasm/kagrenac. As such, my build choices are limited. 5 seducer + 2 monster sets require you to have a no-set or vMSA staff.
In the meantime, I work with golden shadowdancer x4, but it's subpar and I do feel the loss of damage.

I used to be in the weeklies a lot awhile ago, back when the trait drops were just sharpened - precise - defending, and vMSA actually felt like a challenge. That was also when I had best in slot gear and could afford spell power potions, but w/e. So yeah, I do feel slighted by that stupid RNG and the uneven item drop probabilities.
I don't care if ZOS calls *** on my work in recording the loots. I just want them to answer with data of their own, if possible, to hold them accountable and blame it all on bad luck instead.
In the meantime, I'll believe what I see, and that is that staves and 2h weapons drop less than the rest.

[EDIT : Also, I understand that this reads as a whole lot of "I want", but isn't that what human nature is all about? Seeking its own self-interest.
I feel concerned about this vMSA loot issue, as such I'm actively seeking to even the odds. If I had gotten my vMSA sharpened destros, I would have gone on complaining about procs, destro ultis and other PvP related issues, and let someone else keep up raising awareness for the item drops. But as I said earlier, yes I'm entitled, and with good reason.
At least I make an effort not to insult ZOS or write crap in caps. I genuinely wanted to believe that the loot distribution was fair, but from what I see with every run and every additional data, it ain't.]

Even though I have everything sharpend x3 over ( yes I keep backups ) I don't know why.

You're 100% correct.

This event has shown me 1 thing.

10 + Axes ( with good traits )
15 + Daggers ( with good triats )
1 2h - *** trait
1 Flame Staff *** triat
1 Electric Staff *** triat
12 + Bows
9 + sword and board

That's a *** ton of runs for 2 days ish.

No (real good staffs) or 2hs I can see why people can annoyed.

I can't stress enough though to make use of the event while we have it.

nick_dean14

Dagger - Infused
Shield - Infused
1h-Sword - Nirnhoned

Qbiken

kasa-obake wrote: »

CONCLUSION (NOT EVEN HALF-WAY THROUGH THE EVENT, SO WHAT? SUE ME)

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 started crying after 1 run 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 @ZOS_Finn 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.





In more simplistic terms and if you're too lazy to read despite the gifs and the fancy charts:
The RNJesus isn't rigged. All traits have roughly the same probability to drop. The items however, do not. You have a way smaller probability to drop 2h and staves, which is what interests many people, than bows and restoration staves.
ZOS just gave different chances to drop for the items, the better the item - the lesser the chance.
Whether it was an oversight or a deliberate attempt to make the grind lengthier that they hoped players wouldn't notice, I do not know.
@ZOS_RichLambert has yet to comment or acknowledge this in any way, even if it's to call bull**** on it.

Amazing work you´ve put into this .

Waseem

Maelstrom Arena is designed with a system to make you run it hundreds of times if you're going for specific weapon with spefic traits.
those who get what they want in few runs are just lucky, but in general, the charged/decisive and *** traits are there to make you run it again, because you are not considered a human who get bored, you are a number in a world run by statistics. so the more you run maelstrom, the more successful maelstrom arena appears on paper because in the end, its there and you are doing it regardless

nick_dean14

Just got a defending Bow and decisive Resto staff.

so 5 out of my 8 drops have been either bow or resto's, and all 8 have been entirely useless to me

bubbygink

Using statistics of people who came to forums to post about how unlucky they've been with drops is not a good set of data to break down the actual drop rates. Obviously people who got unlucky and are disgruntled enough about it to come post are going to have bad drops. You won't hear from the guy who got super lucky and got all BiS weapons on 20 runs. You won't hear from the guy who got about what he expected - i.e. a nice sharpened drop every 6-7 runs. But you better believe the dude who ran it 100 times without a weapon drop he desires is going to come on forums and complain.

I agree that RNG is a problem because it does create a system were some lucky soul can get every item they need in a tenth of the time as another. But simply throwing together data from a select set of complainers or people who had strange luck with RNG is in no way a reliable indicator of what the drop chances actually are. The only real way to put together a reliable data set would be to get a group of 10-20 people to all run it 50-100 times or so and record every single drop to ensure randomness of the sample and a large enough sample size (1000+ or so).

Bottom line is that you can't just throw together a bunch of different posts where people say what drop they got and use that to show that the RNG system is not balanced.

jakeedmundson

bubbygink wrote: »

Using statistics of people who came to forums to post about how unlucky they've been with drops is not a good set of data to break down the actual drop rates. Obviously people who got unlucky and are disgruntled enough about it to come post are going to have bad drops. You won't hear from the guy who got super lucky and got all BiS weapons on 20 runs. You won't hear from the guy who got about what he expected - i.e. a nice sharpened drop every 6-7 runs. But you better believe the dude who ran it 100 times without a weapon drop he desires is going to come on forums and complain.

I agree that RNG is a problem because it does create a system were some lucky soul can get every item they need in a tenth of the time as another. But simply throwing together data from a select set of complainers or people who had strange luck with RNG is in no way a reliable indicator of what the drop chances actually are. The only real way to put together a reliable data set would be to get a group of 10-20 people to all run it 50-100 times or so and record every single drop to ensure randomness of the sample and a large enough sample size (1000+ or so).

Bottom line is that you can't just throw together a bunch of different posts where people say what drop they got and use that to show that the RNG system is not balanced.

Not everyone comes on here just to complain... people do it to keep up with what is going on in the game.
Why are you here?... you're complaining?

Many of the people that post their drops were here BEFORE the double drop event. Now they're just posting their drops because people made a thread about it. Aside from asking everyone in zone chat in game... this is the best way we can put together any data.

If you think its wrong... then persuade ZOS to tell us otherwise. I think their silence says enough.

Joy_Division

I'm glad I did all my run before they "fixed" the traits and made them all available of the loot tables.

Back in the day, if you got a weapon, it was sharpened, precise, or defending. I got multiple sharpened staves relatively quick.

nick_dean14

Another clear, this time one of the drops was nearly useful....nearly

Ice Staff - Sharpened
Dagger - Powered

Danksta

1st clear and I got a sharpened weapon, but of course it was a resto.

battle axe- infused
resto- sharpened

nick_dean14

Probably going to be my last chance before the event ends, I'll try and get one more done, but this time I got...

Sword - Defending
Shield - Infused
Resto - Charged