RNG or no RNG

Kombinator

So if you were given a decision to alter drop system as you see fit, then which approach would you choose.

2. would mean, that bosses would no longer drop gear set pieces. Instead they would drop some sort of currency, that you can trade for their drop.
3. would mean both. Bosses drop some gear, and small ammount of currency, that can be exchanged for whatever gear you want. So no matter how unlucky your RNG is you can grind out any piece of equipment.
4. would mean, that you can pay gold at the start of the dungeon to increase the droprate of one set piece you want. This gold is lost the moment you pay it, and NPC despawn the moment you or your team kills the first boss. But given enough gold you could guarantee the drop of any set piece. You could only pay for one piece/run.

zvavi

Some kind of safe net could be nice. Problem is, the game is already inventory management online.

Kombinator

zvavi wrote: »

Some kind of safe net could be nice. Problem is, the game is already inventory management online.

The second option would help with that a bit. As bosses would not drop any set item. You might as well leave all stuff there, and gather the currency only, then once you got enough buy the equipment you want.

Ermiq

I actually struggled to choose between option 1 and 3.
To me it's totally fine as it is now and I'm satisfied with current system, but I know a lot of ESO players for whom ESO is their very first MMO feel like the RNG is unbearable. It's not true actually since ESO has one the most tolerable gear drop systems compared to some other MMORPGs, but, well, maybe if it's really that critical for a significant part of the community than probably it would be better for the game to please some of them a bit.
WoW did something similar a long time ago. In Burning Crusade there was a currency earned in dungeons, the currency was used to buy gear from vendors. It didn't hurt the game much, I believe, because a lot of people still call BC-WotLK times the golden era of WoW.

However, it should not be just straight forward grind nor easy to get (e.g. just buying gear for gold). That's what kills MMOs, no matter what people say about it.

zvavi

Kombinator wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Some kind of safe net could be nice. Problem is, the game is already inventory management online.

The second option would help with that a bit. As bosses would not drop any set item. You might as well leave all stuff there, and gather the currency only, then once you got enough buy the equipment you want.

Yes, if you have tokens for all 40+ dungeons it will certainly help with that i mean ye, they can implement it in a way it won't affect inventory, but it might be locked behind eso+ as "crafting materials" just like all the styles.

FierceSam

If the goal is individual (I want my stuff from the least possible runs) the result will be far fewer players running the dungeons, but, hey we will all have the same identical *** in slot gear. Great for me but a truly terrible outcome for the game. We can already see this when, as new players or characters, we watch players who don’t really care about a particular dungeon race through it oblivious to the other members of the group as all they care about is fast XP.

If the goal is to keep dungeons relevant and visited, then you need some kind of mechanism that promises the potential of a reward just enough that it’s an inducement to do the content.

If I’m given all the gear I want at the start of the game, what’s the point? I might as well just play on the PTS where everything is handed to you (and in nice inventory friendly urns too).

CMDR_Un1k0rn

Keep the RNG as is, as it works.

I've been trying for months to get a second dagger from a certain set... I'm not crying though. I just try again.

The only that's needed is the ability to change traits, which we now have.

Kaartinen

I have zero interest in a currency drop system.

Destiny 2 decided to do this with a lot of their rewards, and the result is an absolute ton of varied currencies, and no sense of looting in the game. Everything feels disconnected.

theyancey

I doubt that there will be any changes immediately. The whole industry is facing tax changes. We are too. The IRS is now going after in game digital currencies and plans to tax those as ordinary income. Will ZOS have to issue us 1099s? Do we have to self report and pay? You can see the difficulties ahead. Until there is some industry/government agreement on simplication and fairness I just don't see current models changing much.

Kombinator

zvavi wrote: »

Kombinator wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Some kind of safe net could be nice. Problem is, the game is already inventory management online.

The second option would help with that a bit. As bosses would not drop any set item. You might as well leave all stuff there, and gather the currency only, then once you got enough buy the equipment you want.

Yes, if you have tokens for all 40+ dungeons it will certainly help with that i mean ye, they can implement it in a way it won't affect inventory, but it might be locked behind eso+ as "crafting materials" just like all the styles.

40 different token is still just 40 slot. Counter to the several hundred individual items you can get. But yeah i used "currency" because that has a special place in ESO.

Kombinator

FierceSam wrote: »

If the goal is individual (I want my stuff from the least possible runs) the result will be far fewer players running the dungeons, but, hey we will all have the same identical *** in slot gear. Great for me but a truly terrible outcome for the game. We can already see this when, as new players or characters, we watch players who don’t really care about a particular dungeon race through it oblivious to the other members of the group as all they care about is fast XP.

If the goal is to keep dungeons relevant and visited, then you need some kind of mechanism that promises the potential of a reward just enough that it’s an inducement to do the content.

If I’m given all the gear I want at the start of the game, what’s the point? I might as well just play on the PTS where everything is handed to you (and in nice inventory friendly urns too).

Well if 3. case has a large enough difference, then both sides are satisfied. For example let's say, that each dungeon's last boss gives 1 dungeon, vet. dungeon, or trial/vet. trial token. Each set piece costs 100 token, and 2-handed weapons cost 200. So it wouldn't worth to farm some early game easy dungeon to get a later game set, because 1200 run would take to get a full gear. That many runs would very likely get you a full gear from RNG as well. But there is no guarantee.

theyancey wrote: »

I doubt that there will be any changes immediately. The whole industry is facing tax changes. We are too. The IRS is now going after in game digital currencies and plans to tax those as ordinary income. Will ZOS have to issue us 1099s? Do we have to self report and pay? You can see the difficulties ahead. Until there is some industry/government agreement on simplication and fairness I just don't see current models changing much.

It's mostly simple discussion, and data gathering. Not a large petition to change. I'm just curious how others feel about this situation. I personally HATE rng. You have a goal, you work for it, and you don't see the progress. Even worse, that there is no guarantee, that you will win. Ever. In theory you can have 2 million run on a dungeon, and still not get an item you looking for.

MEBengalsFan2001

Kombinator wrote: »

So if you were given a decision to alter drop system as you see fit, then which approach would you choose.

2. would mean, that bosses would no longer drop gear set pieces. Instead they would drop some sort of currency, that you can trade for their drop.
3. would mean both. Bosses drop some gear, and small ammount of currency, that can be exchanged for whatever gear you want. So no matter how unlucky your RNG is you can grind out any piece of equipment.
4. would mean, that you can pay gold at the start of the dungeon to increase the droprate of one set piece you want. This gold is lost the moment you pay it, and NPC despawn the moment you or your team kills the first boss. But given enough gold you could guarantee the drop of any set piece. You could only pay for one piece/run.

I would add another RNG set to the system. It would encourage more players to run PVE dungeons.

I wouldn't alter the drops system. Instead I would add another way to acquire more gear. I think that each time you run an undaunted quest you not only get a key for the shoulders but also a coin. With every 10 coins you can pick from the standard pieces of gear and you can pick which of the armor types you want; however all overland sets would be added to these chest but these sets would have the wording Perfect added to the front of them. This improves these sets with one additional bonus not found on the overland sets. These sets are also bound to account on pick up. To reduce some of the RNG since these are bound on pick up; players are also able to select the traits.

Using the Necro set as an example; it also boost Magika Recovery by 129 with the 5th piece. It would be called Perfect Necro...

To me more is better, not less.

phermitgb

For the longest time, I've wished that MMO's in general would do away with the "random chance of a particular thing dropping" crap, and instead, craft some sort of system that explained why you were constantly re-visiting a dungeon while still allowing some degree of progress.

As such, I think I'd prefer a system that had several key items that figured in a dungeon that players could eventually acquire. Players would run the dungeon multiple times. Each time they ran the dungeon, they'd make progress toward building any one or more of the items. Maybe some of the lootables in the boss arena include a few key components, or blueprints, that would help you design the weapon you've been having used against you. Possibly even just an experience system. Every time you battle the boss, you learn a little bit more about the weapon they're using, or the armor you're trying to defeat. Call it lore, or reverse engineering, or whatever. Design the objects to take 10 or 15 of these "items" to complete the object. Include 3, 4, or 5 different objects in the dungeon that could be acquired.

For ME, I would find this a much more enjoyable system. As long as the dungeon is fun, I don't mind running it multiple times. Every time I run it, I make a set amount of progress toward a thing. Numbers for how many objects it takes to build the item could vary depending on your crafting system, and expectations for how many of your characters want the objects, or the full set. Ratchet it down to 5 to 10 if you're expecting that every person playing your game is going to want a full set of 5 for all 8 of their characters, or whatever.

Point is, a set amount of progress (the randomization seems like a horrible way of incentivizing people - some people get super lucky early on and lose any real reason to re-do the dungeons, other people get rng-screwed and resent the dungeon, the game, the designers, and possibly leave the game because of it after some time. Using RNG to drop sought-after items seems like 2 different ways to pull players out of the dungeon running loop, which seems counter-productive to the design of dungeons that are supposed to encourage group play as a fundamental part of your game.

Nestor

If you make getting the Shiny Stuff easier, what are you going to do after you get your stuff?











Probably realize that you still need to work on your rotation and weaving...😁

Kombinator

Nestor wrote: »

If you make getting the Shiny Stuff easier, what are you going to do after you get your stuff?











Probably realize that you still need to work on your rotation and weaving...😁

Not necessarily easier. Or at least not much. If we go with a 100, or 200 run to guaranteed set piece, then it would only a slight difference, but at least it would give you a progress. Let's pretend, that you only need ONE item from a set piece. All other stuff already got, but you need that one resto staff for the full healer. You already got the destro staff of the same set so getting the resto of the other gear would require even more changes.

In current system you need to run the same dungeon over, and over again never knowing when you get it. It could be 10 run, or it could be a 1000.

With my system you would need maximum 200 run. No matter how much RNG hates you. You would see the progress of gathering the tokens, and the end of the tunnel.

MEBengalsFan2001

This is why running with a group of friends improves your odds of getting the gear you need for your build. This helps players get what they need quicker, especially in dungeons. Since I am only playing support roles within my group of friends I trade my stamina or magika DPS gear away for healer and tank gear. It benefits them and me as we get what we need and it improves everyone odd.

I even do this with delvs with them. We were doing the delvs to get two of them the rings for the mother sorrow set. I got four purple rings in an hour and two of them were happy they ran with me as I was able to give them that. Later on they repaid the favor by giving me two pieces of gear I was hoping to get.

Play together to get more of what you need. This is a MMO after all; if you don't play with other people your ability to get what you want decreases significantly. Join a guild and make friends and soon enough you will be running dungeons and swapping gear.

rpa

Either have a correctly implemented rng or just give player a choice to pick one of the possible drops.

If some days no X drops and other day X drops like hail it may be just luck and confirmation bias but it also might be a sign it's either a bug (like seeding a prng with date every time when random numbers are needed instead of seeding it once and storing the state) or actually not random by design.

If I need to farm difficult content for 100 times to have a 50% change to get X or just grind it 200 times to get X, then X most likely is not for me.

FierceSam

One other major disadvantage of putting even a vague ‘currency’ value on dropped loot is that it would inevitably lead to players demanding gold for trading any items they found.

At present most groups I run with, if someone says they’re looking for something and you don’t want it yourself, you give it to them. Less friendly players might demand some gold for it, but they’re outcast pretty quickly. Once items have a set value more players will insist on being paid and farming will become a less friendly part of the game.

For those who think this won’t happen, consider the use of loot sniffer add ons, where I will be aggressively whispered about loot I don’t even know I’ve picked up before I’ve even looked at it. That’s pretty rancid behaviour. Monetising it won’t make it any better.

Dusk_Coven

RNG is a negative way of extending gameplay. The more they manipulate its use to keep people playing, the more people will complain about it over time. That's when those activities start to be called "grind".
If you don't like vMA and you're on your 20th, 50th, 100th run trying to get that weapon you want... that's bad RNG grind at work. Not only are you grinding content, but you are grinding just one piece of content and ignoring the rest of the game. Your time and effort input is all out of proportion to the reward.

What works better is positive extension of gameplay. For example, SWTOR's quest structure has so many permutations that you can basically keep replaying a single class story over and over several times. People who are into story make lots of alts to try different choices. And as the story continues to develop, the choices-matter style of storytelling just increases in replayability.
There, they don't need to keep people grinding so much with RNG because people are focussed on re-playing the game content. That core demographic is staying anyway. And with some people having a staggering amount of alts, too much RNG there is not feasible for them. They expressed this and SWTOR responded. There's barely any gear grind over there, only for the most exclusive items.

There's a place for RNG. Light RNG to keep things interesting and unpredictable, or keep not-strictly-necessary things rare and exclusive. But it's easy to tell when a game is trying to extend its lifespan with RNG because at some point your effort versus reward becomes too skewed to be worthwhile. That's when the complaints start to mount.

daemonios

None of the above. Bosses would drop small amounts of crafting/upgrading materials and you would need a master crafter - yourself or another player - to craft, upgrade and enchant top level gear. But then it wouldn't be ESO, where the motto has become "start the game, get some level 10 gear and get right up there with the people who've been playing for 5 years".

Kombinator

daemonios wrote: »

None of the above. Bosses would drop small amounts of crafting/upgrading materials and you would need a master crafter - yourself or another player - to craft, upgrade and enchant top level gear. But then it wouldn't be ESO, where the motto has become "start the game, get some level 10 gear and get right up there with the people who've been playing for 5 years".

Well if we consider Skyrim as base, then that would be definitely the way. But some level 10 gear will hardly make you equal of a top player in gear. Even if you got a bunch of epic there are still champion levels, skillpoints, attributes, and the legendary equipment. Along with optimized enchants, and traits.

The tricky part is the set bonus. Like which set bonus are the strongest? Can you be a top player using purely crafted equipment? Are you forced to grind trials for top gear, or you can upgrade the lesser ones for nearly same effect?

Kombinator

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

This is why running with a group of friends improves your odds of getting the gear you need for your build. This helps players get what they need quicker, especially in dungeons. Since I am only playing support roles within my group of friends I trade my stamina or magika DPS gear away for healer and tank gear. It benefits them and me as we get what we need and it improves everyone odd.

I even do this with delvs with them. We were doing the delvs to get two of them the rings for the mother sorrow set. I got four purple rings in an hour and two of them were happy they ran with me as I was able to give them that. Later on they repaid the favor by giving me two pieces of gear I was hoping to get.

Play together to get more of what you need. This is a MMO after all; if you don't play with other people your ability to get what you want decreases significantly. Join a guild and make friends and soon enough you will be running dungeons and swapping gear.

And how many runs it takes until your friends will say to go elsewhere? Let's pretend, that you got a bad luck, and it takes 74 Frostvault run to get that item you need. How long it would take with your friends to get it? Or more like how long it would take until they say. F**** this i have other stuff to do.

idk

Nestor wrote: »

If you make getting the Shiny Stuff easier, what are you going to do after you get your stuff?











Probably realize that you still need to work on your rotation and weaving...😁

LOL.

To the point of the thread though, RNG is part of pretty much most MMORPGs and Zos has been adamant about not wanting a token system.

Starlock

There are good and bad types of randomness in a role-playing game.

In the context of computer RPGs specifically, good randomness is used as a tool to help generate content in a way that seems like it came from a more active, living world. For example, when generating items in a merchant, what they have in stock will be somewhat randomized to mimic an active market. Other times, encounters in the game world may be somewhat randomized to add unpredictable dynamics to exploration especially in open world RPGs.

Unfortunately, many computer RPGs fall into the trap of bad randomness. Making the character feel like your own is a critical element of all RPGs, as is some form of character progression. Randomizing anything closely associated with your character's identity and progression is typically bad because it hinders player choice. For example, randomizing gear can be a big problem when characters need specific types of gear for a certain archetype/class or play style.

The way gear is handled in ESO is very much at odds with their overarching design philosophy of "play your way." There should be little to no RNG involved at all in gearing out your character given how much gear needs to match up with your class and play style in this game. A crafting-based system like @phermitgb mentions is what should have been designed. This could be done in a way that retains grind (which I'm told is a staple of MMOs, and frankly, screw that - it's bad game design and an abomination) but gives far more control to the player in terms of outcome.

If you want an example of a very well-done gear crafting system in an RPG, this one is pretty much the best I've encountered:

https://youtu.be/w975vvAuhnE

It wouldn't actually be that hard to develop a crafting system like this in ESO as a major base game update. Most of the parts we would need are already there. That said, I don't see this happening at this point on ESO's development. The best we can do is cross our fingers that a system like this will be used in a possible ESO2..

DTStormfox

VOTE: Keep it on current RNG style.

It is part of the grind and surprise.

MEBengalsFan2001

Kombinator wrote: »

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

This is why running with a group of friends improves your odds of getting the gear you need for your build. This helps players get what they need quicker, especially in dungeons. Since I am only playing support roles within my group of friends I trade my stamina or magika DPS gear away for healer and tank gear. It benefits them and me as we get what we need and it improves everyone odd.

I even do this with delvs with them. We were doing the delvs to get two of them the rings for the mother sorrow set. I got four purple rings in an hour and two of them were happy they ran with me as I was able to give them that. Later on they repaid the favor by giving me two pieces of gear I was hoping to get.

Play together to get more of what you need. This is a MMO after all; if you don't play with other people your ability to get what you want decreases significantly. Join a guild and make friends and soon enough you will be running dungeons and swapping gear.

And how many runs it takes until your friends will say to go elsewhere? Let's pretend, that you got a bad luck, and it takes 74 Frostvault run to get that item you need. How long it would take with your friends to get it? Or more like how long it would take until they say. F**** this i have other stuff to do.

Grinding out for specific gear can be draining and cause fatigue. I try not to do this. Instead when I run the daily undaunted dungeons if there is a specific gear piece I need from a set I let my friends know. If they happen to get it and give it to me great. I may help a friend out for an hour or so at most. Usually after one hour of grinding for specific gear I get fatigue from grinding and stop doing so and pursue other in game activities I find more enjoyable, such as questing.

If you join a active guild you maybe able to use that guild to help with the grinding of a specific set.

MattT1988

I wouldn’t mind a token system working alongside the random drops we have now. It shouldn’t take potentially 1000 runs of City of Ash to get a Burning Spellweave Inferno for example. That isn’t fun. RNG isn’t fun, it makes the experience less rewarding, who wants to not be rewarded for spending their time in and completing dungeons? Or you could work something in with the crafting system.

Lumenn

3 would be ok, except even if ZO$ ever DID something like this(highly unlikely) it would be one "coin" per dungeon run, 2 for vet and cost 10000000000 coins for a chance between two drops, or you can buy "special" coins for 10k crowns to guarantee.....

Langdon64

I think they should just raise the probability numbers for drops. Even for non-dungeon stuff. The Telvanni furnishing plans are a nightmare to farm.

Kittytravel

Problem with currency systems is once a majority of your player base gets too far you end up with empty dungeons and obnoxiously long queue's.

WoW WOTLK is a great example of this as when the final three dungeons released before ICC (FoS, PoS, and HoR) those were all that was getting ran outside of the few daily dungeon groups from Dalaran that really didn't matter all that much. The community got so far that the older dungeons were no longer being ran at all. This current system encourages people to queue for both Vet and Normal to farm for items they want and pretty frequently and I feel that's a good incentive to keep it.

This is even more true because of ESO's shared leveling system that other MMO's don't have; a game like this where progress is very much permanent compared to other games it's best to leave it pure RNG.

kargen27

The transmute system is for the most part option number two. Sure you still gotta get the piece to transmute but you have a much better chance of getting exactly what you want now than you did before we could transmute.