How does ZOS determine what companion gear drops?

Abigail

I highly suspect companion drop RNG is heavily influenced by the player's active companion, and much as everything else in this game, RNG is purposely weighted counter to the companion's current gear. For instance, if the companion is kitted with a sword, board, and heavy armor, the chance of the drop being a heavy armor piece or one-handed weapon will be statistically lower than light or medium armor pieces.

Anecdotally, I can report that the foregoing is absolutely my experience since Blackwood launched. I've been playing a heavy armored Bastian and have had only a couple applicable drops -- I have many duplicates of light armor pieces, restoration staves, and infernal staves. (My Mirri is in medium armor and little medium armor has dropped either.)

What I'm getting at is RNG is highly rigged. Another example is dungeon drops, where a magicka player more often gets heavy or medium armor pieces and if weapons drop at all they're likely melee weapons or bows.

I'm down with RNG, but have no love for developers that fiddle with it to prolong the agony for no better reason than a greater chance of extracting real money from players the longer they play. I highly suspect that's what ZOS has done. It's a strategy very akin to outright extortion. Someone please prove me wrong.

Gundug

I can’t look at the code ZOS uses to determine drops, but don’t drops occur even if your active character has no companion unlocked, or you don’t even own Blackwood? If random drops for companion gear are like everything else in the game, you can get a lot of drops that don’t help you, a lot that do, or a mixed bag. Have you ever seen a series of random numbers generated by a computer program? Computer random is not the same as what humans believe random is.

And my personal experience with my magicka Bastian is mostly light gear with an inferno staff drop, with some stamina oriented drops, and no heavy drops whatsoever.

Alpheu5

Companions can only wear 7 pieces of armor while there are 21 total. They can only use 1 type of weapon while there are 12 weapons to choose from. There's no conspiracy at play here. You have something like a 3% chance of getting a gear piece you want if you ignore traits. What needs to be addressed is the rate at which companion gear actually drops so the already-low roll isn't diluted further with hours and hours of grinding for 1 piece.

Veinblood1965

Abigail wrote: »

I highly suspect companion drop RNG is heavily influenced by the player's active companion, and much as everything else in this game, RNG is purposely weighted counter to the companion's current gear. For instance, if the companion is kitted with a sword, board, and heavy armor, the chance of the drop being a heavy armor piece or one-handed weapon will be statistically lower than light or medium armor pieces.

Anecdotally, I can report that the foregoing is absolutely my experience since Blackwood launched. I've been playing a heavy armored Bastian and have had only a couple applicable drops -- I have many duplicates of light armor pieces, restoration staves, and infernal staves. (My Mirri is in medium armor and little medium armor has dropped either.)

What I'm getting at is RNG is highly rigged. Another example is dungeon drops, where a magicka player more often gets heavy or medium armor pieces and if weapons drop at all they're likely melee weapons or bows.

I'm down with RNG, but have no love for developers that fiddle with it to prolong the agony for no better reason than a greater chance of extracting real money from players the longer they play. I highly suspect that's what ZOS has done. It's a strategy very akin to outright extortion. Someone please prove me wrong.

Basically the same VMA algorithm.

virtus753

Gundug wrote: »

I can’t look at the code ZOS uses to determine drops, but don’t drops occur even if your active character has no companion unlocked, or you don’t even own Blackwood?

The devs pretty clearly stated we would need companions out for companion gear to drop, but I’ve seen reports of getting the gear without the companion. That would suggest to my mind yet another among many bugs with this system.

I would like to know if people without Blackwood are getting drops, though. That seems like a bigger concern for ZOS in terms of marketing.