VMA Loot Tables Are Weighted

d8rmir

Old, but people here still don't understand what "random" means.

idk

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

In before ZOS response with a graphic stating that drops are balanced when pulled from server statistics.

Lol. You mean more charts whipped up to defend their system that lacks date and time stamps, and looks like it was made by an elementary school kid via MS Paint? Yeah, I would love to see that. ZOS is known for showing these horrible graphs that lacks critical detail in an attempt to prove a point. They've done it on ESO Live (it was hilarious), and they did it in another 1 of my threads where I said the undaunted chests were rigged.

Would certainly be better than your completely poor job at trying to say it is weighted. Someone needs to take a statistics class so they understand the OP in this thread demonstrates absolutely nothing.

ArpamiesFin

I have a feeling that the weapons drop in categories:
-resto
-bow
-s&b
-destro
-1h (axe,dagger)
-2h
I did the arena before the event 38 times, a small sample size yes but here is what i got: 5 restos, 8 bows, 7 s&b, 8 destro, 6 1h and 4 2h.
In my case seems to be working as intended, i got pretty much 50% of resto,bow and s&b and 50% of destro,1h and 2h.

Rune_Relic

The reason for duplicates is ZOS is using a much bigger cluster of numbers to represent a very small pool of items in comparison.

That means many larger RNG numbers are actually part of a group of numbers for any single item.
So when you get a cluster of random numbers in a near range...they are rounded down if you like... to the same one item.
Thus most of the RNG numbers are irrelevant or superfluous ....you're dealing with ranges.

The RNG may generate 10,000,000,000 different numbers.
The algroithm ZOS uses could limit a pool size to 100.
So 1 ~ 100,000,000 = item 1
100,000,001 ~ 200,000,000 = item 2
.....

Now if the RNG size was 100 numbers.
And the pool size was 100 items.
Then you would get a different item on every turn until all 100 items had been issued.
The sequence would then repeat unless the seed value was different.
ie 100 numbers mixed up in a different sequence.

Someone used the national lottery as an example the other day...even if the logic and parallel was flawed.
Instead of 1-49 balls being picked out by 1 person for 1 lottery.
Removing 1 ball leaves 48 balls to pick from next
Removing 2 balls leaves 47 balls pick from next
...you could continue until you have picked out all 49 balls and placed them in a sequence (the seed key)
Here you have 49 ball sequence mixed up....each pattern identified by a different seed.
[Note that the RNG sequence is reset after 6 balls instead of 49 with the lottery]

A more direct comparison with ESO would be...
Multiple people accessing those 49 balls at the same time.
Multiple lotteries taking place with those 49 balls.
All players and lotteries having an adverse effect on the probabilities of the other.
Because some of those 49 balls have been removed out of the list by others.
A tainted RNG pool if you like.

Random number generators are very useful in developing Monte Carlo-method simulations, as debugging is facilitated by the ability to run the same sequence of random numbers again by starting from the same random seed. They are also used in cryptography – so long as the seed is secret. Sender and receiver can generate the same set of numbers automatically to use as keys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation

Afafrenferr

Whether or not the loot table is weighted is irrelevant... it still sucks, weighted or not. The reward you normally get is either a mastic or a grain solvent. A token system with a mildly steep cost would really make me happy. It gives me a goal. Right now we're all just stuck in limbo not knowing when we'll get out. Groundhog Day isn't that much fun to be honest.

Eleusian

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

In before ZOS response with a graphic stating that drops are balanced when pulled from server statistics.

Lol. You mean more charts whipped up to defend their system that lacks date and time stamps, and looks like it was made by an elementary school kid via MS Paint? Yeah, I would love to see that. ZOS is known for showing these horrible graphs that lacks critical detail in an attempt to prove a point. They've done it on ESO Live (it was hilarious), and they did it in another 1 of my threads where I said the undaunted chests were rigged.

Love those generic charts. They could all be bogus and it's not like they have to disclose any actual data. And the fact they defended the chests but maintain silence on Maelstrom drops says it all.
I really think I'm done there have all but sharpened dagger but can live with the precise. Game has so much content why do they insist on littering the loot pools with so many bad traites they created just to water down loot lists. They make all the gear knowing what people will want and are willing to grind for. Keeping us on the hampster wheel till we quit or move on unsatisfied

Armitas

Alanar wrote: »

Bow - 1/6
Restoration Staff - 1/6

This is what I get the overwhelming majority of the time, even on spellweave my other nightmare. YOUR RNG IS NOT WORKING.

They have said that the majority of the player base lasts about~ a month and half. If you guys are trying to force people to stay longer through RNG you are mad because when these people finally leave over this garbage, they are not coming back.

Ch4mpTW

Run #8
- Restoration Staff (Nirnhoned)
- Dagger (Powered)

4th restoration staff, but no destructions staves anywhere to be seen. Hmmmmm... Lol.

Armitas

When you enter VMA instead of going through the red portal head to the side and up the stairs. There are 4 dice on the tables up there as a troll, guarantee they are weighted.

But honestly it doesn't even matter if the RNG is working because the thing with RNG is that it includes mathematical misery. Mathematical misery should not exist in any modern AAA game, it is a stupid archaic system from the stone age and only used by people who don't care about the edges of their playerbase.

Meld777

The weirdest thing to me is that there are probably more than a hundred threads on vMA RNG, people unsubbing, complaining, quitting the game, even that huge guild in Black Desert where I also got invited that consists of people quitting ESO over vMA drop rates. Yet, there isn't a single comment from ZOS's side. At least I haven't found a single one.

SanTii.92

Wow, this thread again? Reported, can't you even find a new topic to spout nonsense about?

FLuFFyxMuFFiN

My honest opinion is that vMA weapons should only drop in the most desired traits. It is already hard enough as it is and a huge chunk of the player base can't even complete it. Shouldn't the player feel more rewarded for their completion instead of feel like they were just slapped in the face with a slaughterfish when they finally get the weapon they wanted only to find out it is charged instead of sharpened? I know I will be severely disappointed if and when that happens to me.

Moltyr

Yep. These are only my most recent drops:

ZOS_PeterT

We have moved this thread to Dungeons, Trials & Arenas

Junipus

Pretty sure if OP spent as much time running more runs of vMA as he does complaining about it on here that he'd have all the missing items and can finally be at peace.

jakeedmundson

Junipus wrote: »

Pretty sure if OP spent as much time running more runs of vMA as he does complaining about it on here that he'd have all the missing items and can finally be at peace.

Right... because the 4 minutes he spent writing this post is equal to the 100 hours he should have spent in vMA hoping for that 1 drop...

covenant_merchant

ZOS_PeterT wrote: »

We have moved this thread to Dungeons, Trials & Arenas

@ZOS_PeterT thank you for that precious input

Moltyr

kasa-obake wrote: »

ZOS_PeterT wrote: »

We have moved this thread to Dungeons, Trials & Arenas

@ZOS_PeterT thank you for that precious input

You can tell they really do care about the majority of their customers.






























tehe

Junipus

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Junipus wrote: »

Pretty sure if OP spent as much time running more runs of vMA as he does complaining about it on here that he'd have all the missing items and can finally be at peace.

Right... because the 4 minutes he spent writing this post is equal to the 100 hours he should have spent in vMA hoping for that 1 drop...

And the dozens of other posts on dozens of other threads, along with everyone else complaining about the same thing.

You can all complain as much as you want but ZOS won't do anything. Others get their ideal drops so it's not as if there's no drops at all. Everyone has different RNG and so it implies nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed.

Token systems and other suggestions won't really help people to improve their skills or abilities with the changes. Why bother improving your awareness, resource management and reaction times when you can *** around in each stage knowing you only have to do it 5-10-20 times before you get what you want and leave?

I'm still chasing BiS melee weapons but running it dozens of times with continuous improvement helped make me a better player and able to manage my buffs and resources better and improve my awareness within other content.

P3ZZL3

SodanTok

kasa-obake wrote: »

ZOS_PeterT wrote: »

We have moved this thread to Dungeons, Trials & Arenas

@ZOS_PeterT thank you for that precious input

Why do you need input from mod is beyond me.

But then again, i dont understand what input you need from anyone from ZoS.
Title "vma loot tables are weighted", answer "they are not"

jakeedmundson

Junipus wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

Junipus wrote: »

Pretty sure if OP spent as much time running more runs of vMA as he does complaining about it on here that he'd have all the missing items and can finally be at peace.

Right... because the 4 minutes he spent writing this post is equal to the 100 hours he should have spent in vMA hoping for that 1 drop...

And the dozens of other posts on dozens of other threads, along with everyone else complaining about the same thing.

You can all complain as much as you want but ZOS won't do anything. Others get their ideal drops so it's not as if there's no drops at all. Everyone has different RNG and so it implies nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed.

Token systems and other suggestions won't really help people to improve their skills or abilities with the changes. Why bother improving your awareness, resource management and reaction times when you can *** around in each stage knowing you only have to do it 5-10-20 times before you get what you want and leave?

I'm still chasing BiS melee weapons but running it dozens of times with continuous improvement helped make me a better player and able to manage my buffs and resources better and improve my awareness within other content.

See bold..... tell that to the pvp crowd then because i guess it hasn't been working for them.

also... you honestly think that doing this horrible arena 50 -300 times is GOOD because it helps your resource management and reaction time?? good god...

There is literally NO reason to have such a diluted, randomized mess for rewards in one of the most difficult trials in the game. It shouldn't be easier to get flawless runs in there than it is to get a sharpened weapon... or even ONE weapon you're searching for...i went in to get a sharpened lightning staff... guess what i've NOT found yet after dozens of drops?... one... single... lightning staff - regardless of trait and only one weapon in sharpened. You don't see a problem in working your ass off for nothing? That is INSANELY stupid and it is pushing players away. This is the only content in the game that does not give out reasonable rewards or at least a way to EARN the reward.

Only a small percentage of the player base can even complete this arena... and of that small percentage, a smaller percentage actually finds the items they are looking for... especially after the DB update when they added all these crap traits.

MLRPZ

Over 500 weapons looted (including Weekly rewards), still no sharpened daggers...

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 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.

Nichts

Here is my loot from the arena:




(Started running in february 2016)

Nichts

kasa-obake wrote: »

• Make vMSA weapons tradeable between people who have completed it in a day/week/ever.

I suggest:
You can trade only weapons with the same trait:
Sharpened Bow against sharpened staff.

So you actually need to complete it several times, but still have a decent chance to get what you want.

Skinzz

I never recieved a resto staff my first 24 runs. Now, I recieved 6 restos in a row either defending or decisive. Something is definitely not right.

Waseem

so many players demanding a trait rework/change or token system for maelstrom since it first appeared a YEAR ago..
Zenimax comment? nothing
ignorance
thats RNG for you and live it

CreepyPahuska

Well... last time they listened their community complaints, it resulted in the Dark Brotherhood patch and the nerf of the whole game to the ground (and below), so I'm glad they don't do that everyday...

Armitas

Nichts wrote: »

Here is my loot from the arena:




(Started running in february 2016)

Yep Bows and resto. I have the exact same experience. I bet you they have known about it for a while now if it wasn't outright intentional. How many people just wasted their weekend because of the double loot thinking they were playing a fair system?

Care to comment ZOS? Does it bother you that so many have wasted so much time doing things they hate because they trusted you to provide a fair system?