Throttling in Video Games such as ESO

StarOfElyon

UPPER ECHELON GAMERS has a video that is worth watching. We do need to keep the ESO devs honest so as annoying as it can be to see complaints from us all about almost everything, the teams working on the game need to understand that we are investing time and money into their product and they had better be honest in their business practices and game design, at the very least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFXtXbPCd2o

FlyingSwan

I must say, I don't think I shall ever associate ZOS with the phrase, 'honest business practices'.

Ackwalan

Throttling is already in ESO. I've open 60 murkmire daily reward boxes and have gotten 4 elder argonian motif pages. Three of them were bow and one helm. That is throttling by using a weighted rng.

GabiAlex

You have a specific animation for opening Crown Crates too, but trust me, it can be worse than everything you saw in ESO so far. Don't forget that there are asian MMOs and "free" mobile games that prey on people addiction to get their money.

DaveMoeDee

Inventory management has become that.

JamieAubrey

First of all, WTF is Throtting, sound like a weird sex act like Charizarding ( Don't Google that kids )

DaveMoeDee

GabiAlex wrote: »

You have a specific animation for opening Crown Crates too, but trust me, it can be worse than everything you saw in ESO so far. Don't forget that there are asian MMOs and "free" mobile games that prey on people addiction to get their money.

Talking about addiction becomes very convoluted in these discussion. Remove all the supposed addicts and companies will still do this because most people spending the money aren't addicted. They just want to progress in the game or get something they like and have the money to do so.

idk

After watching the first few minutes of that video it is not clear this thread was created. Zos has not been part of that practice.

In fact, the difference between ESO+ and those who choose to not sub is only 10% XP which is hardly throttling, especially with the 100% XP boosts available to all multiple times a year. The OP just seem to be making something up (as far as ESO is concerned) to create a controversy where there is not one. We have plenty of issues to contend with here and this just does not seem to be one of them.

Maybe I missed something which would be easy considering OP' statement. If this thread is anything other than to complain about what happens in other games pretending that Zos is secretly considering the idea then I expect OP to explain.

Turelus

I can't see how this would currently apply to ESO and I would hope that those in power outside the monetisation side of ESO would step in and stop any acts like this to save the integrity of the game.

I've played numerous P2W and pay to speed up MMO's and although ESO does cut off some QoL features behind the paywall I can't say it's anywhere near reaching what could be considered throttling. If you want a game under the Zenimax company to call out on that I would suggest looking at Fallout 76 as that game feels much more likely to go down that route.

ZOS has tried some bad ideas (crate only motifs) in the past but we've called them on such things and they've turned back (mostly).

Akrasjel

Any examples in ESO ?

StarOfElyon

I'm only saying that we need to keep ESO honest by watching out for the things mentioned in the video. There are areas where I think ESO is getting over financially. Like, I bought a few DLCs before eventually becoming a monthly subscriber. As far as I know, I never received a discounted price for already owning some DLCs, nor was I ever refunded for those purchases. As far as I know, I won't be given a discount on expansions like Elswyr either. It begins to feel like Im really just paying for a craft bag (which is still really helpful).

But the point in the thread is not to say that ESO is guilty yet, but to say that we need to keep the development team honest and that they should be understanding when we give them lots of flak (such as the reaction of many to the racial passive changes).

kypranb14_ESO

I don't believe ESO has throttled progression. The closest example you could use is the craft bag and hoarding materials without it, but even that's a reach.

This video has some good points, none that relate to ESO. Another thing I'd like to say is, him mentioning Tom Clancy's The Division is comedy. While The Division did add Loot Boxes, they were cosmetic only. While some may argue that cosmetic progression is just as important as powering up your character, there is no way it adds an "uncomfortable mandatory grind" to the game.

Back in my day, we couldn't change our avatars nevermind their clothes, etc. (or depending on how far back you want to go, there was no avatar)

ed7878

God I love Boogie. "Hey I noticed you were enjoying arcade mode..."

The problem with all of this is the extent to which player behavior is influenced outside of their awareness. It's easy to notice the difference - at some point, the word "reward" isn't really sufficient, and people start using words like "manipulation" or "behavior modification."

"Weighted RNG" is a euphemism for manipulation. Random number generators with weights are not random. So, this is lying.

Some say, rightfully imo, hey, you don't have to play. I agree: people ought to use their power of choice to take care of themselves. However, the you're-free-to-do-what-you-want-just-stop-playing argument breaks down suddenly and immediately when the player doesn't know the numbers are different than what is displayed to them in the UI.

I know a lot about behavior modification because I use it every day at work and I see the opportunities for manipulation throughout the game. My assumption is that those opportunities are being exploited outside our awareness at least to some degree. I also assume - cynically, yes - that the devs would view their not exploiting the opportunity to manipulate as a mistake on their part, not an example of moderated manipulation. I don't judge anyone for it, but I do acknowledge it fully. Pretending it ain't there doesn't solve any problems. The players who say "hey just don't play" are not offering a solution. At some point, you gotta stop saying "Well, it's legal" as though that makes it ethical. Again, no judgement to people doing it, but the thing they are doing is still bad.

The worst-case scenario is devs purposely using behavior mod to instigate or exacerbate addiction. I think this happens but I don't think it's explicit policy or even done on purpose. I think people are just choosing to not acknowledge the addiction piece. Evidence that ZOS was doing that on purpose would be one of the few things that would make me quit the game for reasons other than losing interest.

StarOfElyon

One thing that I tell myself is that I will not be so bound to any game, even ESO, that I feel like they're constantly taking me to the cleaners and yet I still stick around and continue shelling out cash. I think if we're all strong enough to walk away from the game, and the devs know it, that will keep them from trying to squeeze money out of us.

zaria

Akrasjel wrote: »

Any examples in ESO ?

ESO has the tilted loot tables, spell power cure resto staff drops way rarer than bows of that healer set. Has run that dungeons some hundred times. Also none blue jewelry outside the ones from the quest even if mostly farmed in normal.
Plenty of purple is from the vault. Yes mostly ran with pugs so most would keep good drops in a bis set.

This is to keep players farming more. its probably used less in later dungeons as they rather uses motifs as initiative to farm, an much better idea.
Also transmutation and the death of the sharpened or trash meta makes farming gear much easier.

Dwemer motif has an mechanism who limit how fast you can get one page after the previous.

AerionMagnus

Well aware of this issue in ESO. However, compared to most other MMOs, ESO still seems to be quite forgiving - NOT that this should be used as an excuse that throttling in ESO is valid. These disgusting, dishonest and in a way deceptive business practices that one could easily associate with premium/freemium mobile games are a disgrace to gaming.

In the case of ESO, this type of approach has ALWAYS boggled my mind and has seriously affected the way I play this game. I've long stopped supporting the game with ESO Plus and stopped buying the DLCs - if I do buy them, I buy them with gold. If I buy expansions I buy them via websites such as Allkeyshop, where you get the cheapest possible copies. Never in my life will I dedicate any more money to ZOS, so in a nutshell, they get like 10-20€ from me a year.

The way Zenimax pushes their business practices, often even released under the pretense of a "quality of life" or "system" update (looking at you, housing, style parlor and similar), should not be tolerated, but unfortunately is. If not for people in the guilds who make the game bearable, I would've quit this game long ago. Everything is a grind, writing is altogether horrible, there is no challenge in overland content, and veteran modes are tedious rather than skill-based, more often than not, while Cyrodiil is an unbearable lagfest even on high-end machines, and BGs 4v4v4 model is severely flawed from the competitive standpoint.

However, the problem with ESO is that the game is not popular enough to be called out for *** practices, and big, influential internet figures don't care about it. On top of that, these disgusting practices are common in MMOs and people seem to be so used to them that they actually accept them.

Protest with your wallet. Protest by playing things that are actually worth playing and are headed by studios who respect their audiences (namely Larian Studios, CDPR, Obsidian Entertainment). These people are businessmen, they made ESO with one reason and one reason only - to squeeze the wallets of Elder Scrolls fans, and earn as many shekels as possible. Numbers are the only thing they understand, and when they start dwindling, they finally get to work, so that they see a small rise in statistics.

russelmmendoza

What is throtting? FFS?

I know zenibeth is taking advantage of range in drops for eso. Thats that.

Ertosi

A very timely post considering the upcoming racial changes yet only 1 Race Change Token being offered per account which easily falls under the "systems designed to nudge players to the cash store" definition in the vid.

Sanctum74

If anything it's the opposite with eso. With XP events every few weeks, daily rewards with free xp scrolls, alliance points, free gold, and transmutation stones it's now easier than ever to level up and get the gear you want.

DaveMoeDee

ed7878 wrote: »

...
"Weighted RNG" is a euphemism for manipulation. Random number generators with weights are not random. So, this is lying.
...

Where did you get this idea? Are you just making this up? You can't just make up math rules, or make up your own definitions like this.

Gamers already expect that different drops have different levels or rarity. That is the definition of what weighted is. There is nothing wrong with that. You are saying that gold purple zone set jewelry should drop at the same rate as green or blue or it isn't random. That just isn't true.

"Weights" do not make it not random. Random doesn't mean that everything has equal change. Sure, there should be an equal change that the random number generation could produce any of the value in its range of value. But there is no requirement that those numbers need to be evenly distributed among among all possible loot.

If there is a reward table like the Wheel of Fortune where there are 24 possible slots to pick where one is 2 are bankrupt, 3 are $500, that is weighted. That has nothing to do with whether or not it is random. It is random if they use random number generation to pick an item from the list.

The idea that weighting is a problem is silly and simplistic. Are you saying table A is random but table B is not random (where a random # between 1 and 10 is used to pick drop)?

A
1 - 8gold
2 - 9g
3 - 10g
4 - 11g
5 - 12g
6 - 99g
7 - 100g
8 - 101g
9 - 500g
10 - 1000g

B
1 - 10gold
2 - 10g
3 - 10g
4 - 10g
5 - 10g
6 - 100g
7 - 100g
8 - 100g
9 - 500g
10 - 1000g

These two tables are both random, but the latter is weighted. Both have the exact same expected return. For some reason, you are okay with A but consider B to be lying. What was the lie?

And, no, "weighted RNG" is not a euphemism for manipulation. There is nothing to manipulate. The weighting itself is the assignement of the values from the RNG to in-game entities. Before that assignment happens, there is nothing to manipulate.

Weighted RNG can happen with physical items. Imagine rolling 5-sided die with 4 triangle sides and one square side. It is a weighed die, but rolling it is still a random number generation. If some playing DnD hits it they roll 7 numbers on a 20-sided die but misses if they roll any of the other 13, that is still a random event.

eklhaftb16_ESO

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

Gamers already expect that different drops have different levels or rarity. That is the definition of what weighted is. There is nothing wrong with that. You are saying that gold purple zone set jewelry should drop at the same rate as green or blue or it isn't random. That just isn't true.

Nobody said anything about purple items and green items to have the same chance of drop, though. The complaint was about some purple items having different chance than other purple items.

For example, a Psijic Vault Crate drop statistics. 17439 crates, that's big enough a sample for our purpose.
Only 2566 of those 17439 crates ever saw a Legendary reward, that's less than 15%. Here is the list of Legendary drops and their occurrence (courtesy https://www.crowncrates.com spreadsheets):

Banner, Nocturnal - 123 / 17439 crates (0.71%)
Black Senche-Lion - 98 / 17439 crates (0.56%)
Dwarven Spider - 113 / 17439 crates (0.65%)
Falkreath Thane - 123 / 17439 crates (0.71%)
Grand Gold Coast Experience Scroll - 829 / 17439 crates (4.75%)
Instant All Research, Major - 63 / 17439 crates (0.36%)
Nocturnal, Mistress of Shadows - 116 / 17439 crates (0.67%)
Psijic Flame Gauntlets - 119 / 17439 crates (0.68%)
Psijic Frost Gauntlets - 138 / 17439 crates (0.79%)
Psijic Shock Gauntlets - 128 / 17439 crates (0.73%)
Sapiarchic Discorporation Lens - 103 / 17439 crates (0.59%)
Skein Scorpion - 118 / 17439 crates (0.68%)
Skein Shalk - 130 / 17439 crates (0.75%)
Skein Spider - 131 / 17439 crates (0.75%)
Skein Wasp - 106 / 17439 crates (0.61%)
Skyfire Guar - 121 / 17439 crates (0.69%)
Tapestry, Nocturnal - 124 / 17439 crates (0.71%)

Noticed anything interesting? Let's look again:

Grand Gold Coast Experience Scroll - 829 / 17439 crates (4.75%)

Meanwhile, all the other items have the chance of less than 1%. So, even if you manage to get a Legendary reward, the drop table is still "crooked" towards giving you a shoddy consumable instead of a collectible you probably wanted.
Purple rewards also have one item that has a suspiciously higher drop rate - and surprise, it's ALSO a shoddy consumable.

No, maybe "weighted" isn't the right term to use here. More fitting would be to call it a "carnival scam".

Ackwalan

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

ed7878 wrote: »

...
"Weighted RNG" is a euphemism for manipulation. Random number generators with weights are not random. So, this is lying.
...

Where did you get this idea? Are you just making this up? You can't just make up math rules, or make up your own definitions like this.

Gamers already expect that different drops have different levels or rarity. That is the definition of what weighted is. There is nothing wrong with that. You are saying that gold purple zone set jewelry should drop at the same rate as green or blue or it isn't random. That just isn't true.

"Weights" do not make it not random. Random doesn't mean that everything has equal change. Sure, there should be an equal change that the random number generation could produce any of the value in its range of value. But there is no requirement that those numbers need to be evenly distributed among among all possible loot.

If there is a reward table like the Wheel of Fortune where there are 24 possible slots to pick where one is 2 are bankrupt, 3 are $500, that is weighted. That has nothing to do with whether or not it is random. It is random if they use random number generation to pick an item from the list.

The idea that weighting is a problem is silly and simplistic. Are you saying table A is random but table B is not random (where a random # between 1 and 10 is used to pick drop)?

A
1 - 8gold
2 - 9g
3 - 10g
4 - 11g
5 - 12g
6 - 99g
7 - 100g
8 - 101g
9 - 500g
10 - 1000g

B
1 - 10gold
2 - 10g
3 - 10g
4 - 10g
5 - 10g
6 - 100g
7 - 100g
8 - 100g
9 - 500g
10 - 1000g

These two tables are both random, but the latter is weighted. Both have the exact same expected return. For some reason, you are okay with A but consider B to be lying. What was the lie?

And, no, "weighted RNG" is not a euphemism for manipulation. There is nothing to manipulate. The weighting itself is the assignement of the values from the RNG to in-game entities. Before that assignment happens, there is nothing to manipulate.

Weighted RNG can happen with physical items. Imagine rolling 5-sided die with 4 triangle sides and one square side. It is a weighed die, but rolling it is still a random number generation. If some playing DnD hits it they roll 7 numbers on a 20-sided die but misses if they roll any of the other 13, that is still a random event.

A program can't generate a random result, even your example of the 'wheel of fortune" can't generate a random result. Some RNG programs use a "time stamp" to try and generate the appearance of a random result. The problem with that type of program in a loot table, is that if you play at same time of day each day, your random result will be obviously slanted. That is just one example, I don't know which RNG ZOS uses, but at the end of the day, no program can generate a true random result.

Turelus

StarOfElyon wrote: »

In the case of ESO, this type of approach has ALWAYS boggled my mind and has seriously affected the way I play this game. I've long stopped supporting the game with ESO Plus and stopped buying the DLCs - if I do buy them, I buy them with gold. If I buy expansions I buy them via websites such as Allkeyshop, where you get the cheapest possible copies. Never in my life will I dedicate any more money to ZOS, so in a nutshell, they get like 10-20€ from me a year.

You're aware all of those purchases still support ZOS in the same way.
Buying a DLC with gold means someone still paid for it, may nothave been your personal money but it was paid for, so you're supporting the game still.

clocksstoppe

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

ed7878 wrote: »

...
"Weighted RNG" is a euphemism for manipulation. Random number generators with weights are not random. So, this is lying.
...

Where did you get this idea? Are you just making this up? You can't just make up math rules, or make up your own definitions like this.

WOOOOSH there buddy. What he meant is that the system has logic of the kind "if players grinded for this drop X hours today, reduce value by Y" for each weight before rolling.