Abysmal drop rates, why even bother?

Shara_Wynn · May 28

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

virtus753 · May 28

WiseSky wrote: »

I think in Runescape there are things that are like 1 chance in 10K, lets be glad that is not the norm.

There's a reason my partner stopped playing Runescape and that I never started.

There's always going to be a worse offender out there to find for any issue. Just because a pain point about a particular game isn't the absolute worst in the genre doesn't invalidate feedback or concerns about it.

I do take your point that if something is too easy or quick to get, it can easily feel less meaningful as a reward. Balancing that can be a challenge.

Necrotech_Master · May 28

the drop rate cant be that low, with the avg sell price of those masks going from like 8 mil to like 750k while its dropping lol

after the masks stop dropping the cost will probably go back up again lol

TDVM · May 28

Just buy it for gold or wait until it's on sale in the infinite archive. You've been given the ability to get masks in alternate ways

FlopsyPrince · May 28

Elsonso wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

joe_schmo wrote: »

If you got everything faster you'd be done with the game faster. They make it this way so they can keep you playing forever.

This is a stupid reason to have horrid drop rates. Most people can't dedicate their life to one small part of any game. Make challenges interesting, not just hoping you can "roll 1 out of 100"!

Not really that stupid, actually.

If players could get everything they wanted in a short amount of time, they would either wander off and play something else, or sit around and complain about there being nothing left to do.

Honestly, the answer is to not grind for stuff you don't really want, and as part of that, decide not to really want everything that is available in the game.

If you like doing some activity in the game, or there are multiple reasons to be doing something in the game, do it until it is no longer fun, and then stop. If you get the thing-a-ma-jiggy, great. If you don't, you don't.

I didn't get the whatever-style they were dropping from geysers during that forgettable event that happened earlier this year. I Did the first 6 to get the map marker to change, which is why I picked geysers. I did the next few to fill personal goals, like learning the pattern that the geysers triggered and the pattern of how the mobs appeared. After that, geysers got boring and I stopped. I probably did 20 of them. I don't remember.

The cynic in me expected ZOS to roll out a graphic saying how "successful" that event was and giving the number of geysers that were done as a metric. They didn't, at least not that I saw, but there is still time.

You falsely assume only a few of such things exist.

I have a pile of things to do. I don't even bother with these things since I don't want to waste my time. You might have a point if only a few of these existed, but the game has far more at this point. And it is not just the "top" players that face this. Many other players get impacted, hurting far more that way.

Any MMO will have many grinds, we don't need useless ones.

twev · May 28

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Having the correct motifs to fill a motif style book is necessary to be able to do a fair amount of master writs, because master writs drop that require varied and random motifs, otherwise a great many master writs can not be done.
It may not be an achievement to you, and some others, but to a lot of us - being able to complete and turn in many master writs is an actual in game achievement to earn rewards from the master writs dropped.

Right now - I'm sitting on a lot more acquired master writs that I can not do than I was actually able to turn in during the Explorers event.
Just trying to sort doable master writs from 'not doable' master writs in storage is it's own time consuming nightmare for players that do daily writs every day on a full set of toons with full points in all the crafting skills.

And it's probably going to get worse when the shortened guild trader retention time goes into effect if one doesn't want to engage in constant undercutting to the gold equivalent of 'pennies on the dollar' as a member of a top trader, or just deleting them wholesale and forgoing the XP and other rewards from being able to turn them in properly.
It's one of the reasons to become Master Crafter and playing fully to acquire all the skill points to invest in crafting as well as combat skills.
Otherwise, many players would just stop at low level skill trees with fewer skills acquired, and that means a lot of players would have less reason to play and explore every day keeping the various areas of the game world populated.

Is it a 'choice'?
Yes.
And choosing to play for maximum gain as opposed to trashing a large portion or potential rewards is a choice, too.

I'm sure there are grammatical and syntax errors above, but the more time spent on the forums leaves less time actually in game.

FlopsyPrince · May 28

Jaimeh wrote: »

I ran it about 18 times and didn't drop the page, so in my case the RNG was pretty bad. At least it's not not a very long dungeon, I did it with groups from the finder and the runs were pretty fast. It's just so boring and numbing having to do the same content back to back for ages with no reward, at least if there was a token system we would know there's light at the end of the tunnel A person in one of my runs got the page and said it was their 5th overall so I guess RNG was RNGing. I'll wait for the next time it comes back to the game because prices have already gone up really high in the traders, but I'm with the OP on this one, I wish the rates had been higher.

And that is the flaw of gating with RNG too much. Some get it quickly, likely many of those who like the current system. Others never get it, that is the nature of RNG.

Kind of like failing to pop a chest with an 85% rate 6 or more times in a row....

FlopsyPrince · May 28

VisitHammerfell wrote: »

I got it first run (but not again). Just bad RNG, sorry. The real bad RNG are these Torc of the Last Ayleid King leads. The mask is pretty cheap right now and if you don't wanna buy bc you wanna earn it, that's a choice you make, and not a bug on ZoS' behalf.

It isn't a bug, it is a bad design choice. Those can be different.

Elsonso · May 28

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Maybe that is part of the point. It should be something that feels earned, not something that just randomly wandered by when we happened to be there.

Desiato · May 28

Some people like rare drops. Others like having rare items to trade. They are exciting for some players. For something to be rare, it needs to be difficult to obtain, one way or another.

This is an optional cosmetic item. Not having it does not block meaningful progress. If it's not worth it for you to put in the effort to acquire, then it's not for you.

I'm one of the people who won't be grinding this or paying millions of gold for it.

Players in this forum need to better understand that this a diverse game that appeals to wide range of gamers. Not all things are for all players.

reiverx · May 28

I remember spending several years on and off trying to get a burning spellweave inferno staff.

Shara_Wynn · May 29

twev wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Having the correct motifs to fill a motif style book is necessary to be able to do a fair amount of master writs, because master writs drop that require varied and random motifs, otherwise a great many master writs can not be done.
It may not be an achievement to you, and some others, but to a lot of us - being able to complete and turn in many master writs is an actual in game achievement to earn rewards from the master writs dropped.

Right now - I'm sitting on a lot more acquired master writs that I can not do than I was actually able to turn in during the Explorers event.
Just trying to sort doable master writs from 'not doable' master writs in storage is it's own time consuming nightmare for players that do daily writs every day on a full set of toons with full points in all the crafting skills.

And it's probably going to get worse when the shortened guild trader retention time goes into effect if one doesn't want to engage in constant undercutting to the gold equivalent of 'pennies on the dollar' as a member of a top trader, or just deleting them wholesale and forgoing the XP and other rewards from being able to turn them in properly.
It's one of the reasons to become Master Crafter and playing fully to acquire all the skill points to invest in crafting as well as combat skills.
Otherwise, many players would just stop at low level skill trees with fewer skills acquired, and that means a lot of players would have less reason to play and explore every day keeping the various areas of the game world populated.

Is it a 'choice'?
Yes.
And choosing to play for maximum gain as opposed to trashing a large portion or potential rewards is a choice, too.

I'm sure there are grammatical and syntax errors above, but the more time spent on the forums leaves less time actually in game.

That's nice.

However you doing your master writs has nothing to do with the RNG involved in obtaining a style page from a dungeon.

If the point you were trying to make was that you refuse to ever buy a motif without having 'earned' it. All I have to say is, life is too short for all that jazz. The game has a trading system for a reason...

Shara_Wynn · May 29

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Maybe that is part of the point. It should be something that feels earned, not something that just randomly wandered by when we happened to be there.

What would you consider 'earning' it as involving?

Elsonso · May 29

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Maybe that is part of the point. It should be something that feels earned, not something that just randomly wandered by when we happened to be there.

What would you consider 'earning' it as involving?

Earning requires the feeling that something was accomplished. Random drops do not have that.

For example, this new Anniversary Achievement is something that could be considered an accomplishment that is earned. Sadly, the reward skin is woefully below the mark, basically a pat on the back and a "good job!" for the effort.

Shara_Wynn · May 29

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Maybe that is part of the point. It should be something that feels earned, not something that just randomly wandered by when we happened to be there.

What would you consider 'earning' it as involving?

Earning requires the feeling that something was accomplished. Random drops do not have that.

For example, this new Anniversary Achievement is something that could be considered an accomplishment that is earned. Sadly, the reward skin is woefully below the mark, basically a pat on the back and a "good job!" for the effort.

Do you think they (ZOS) should just get rid of RNG altogether then? I guess you still have to 'earn' most rare drops even if there is RNG involved. You still have to go to said area and kill said mob in order to get a chance of said drop. Some just have to 'earn' it more than others. Which then becomes more about RNG than it does about earning.

When it gets to 20, 40 or 60 runs with no drop, and then someone else get's their drop on their first run, that isn't fun for the first person, but the second person has still 'earned' the reward. The content was still completed.

I personally don't have an issue with getting rid of RNG. So I agree with you in that respect.

However, my main point was in response to someone saying that they wouldn't buy the style page from a guild trader because they prefer to 'earn' it. Meaning if someone buys a rare style page using gold that that they have 'earned' doing other activities in the game, that they somehow haven't 'earned' that style page.

I mean if I buy a loaf of bread in a supermarket with money that I 'earned' in my job, have I not 'earned' that loaf of bread, because I didn't sow the wheat, crop it, mill it, make the dough and bake the bread?

I guess I just don't get this puritan mindset. I do get that some people feel this way about the game. I think that is a bit like gatekeeping myself. If the game didn't want items to be traded, they wouldn't have facilitated a trade system and would make these items 'bind on pick up'. I am sure there are many farmers in the game who would take issue with that.

I get that this isn't specifically your point but it was mine

Elsonso · May 29

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Do you think they (ZOS) should just get rid of RNG altogether then? I guess you still have to 'earn' most rare drops even if there is RNG involved. You still have to go to said area and kill said mob in order to get a chance of said drop. Some just have to 'earn' it more than others. Which then becomes more about RNG than it does about earning.

When it gets to 20, 40 or 60 runs with no drop, and then someone else get's their drop on their first run, that isn't fun for the first person, but the second person has still 'earned' the reward. The content was still completed.

I personally don't have an issue with getting rid of RNG. So I agree with you in that respect.

However, my main point was in response to someone saying that they wouldn't buy the style page from a guild trader because they prefer to 'earn' it. Meaning if someone buys a rare style page using gold that that they have 'earned' doing other activities in the game, that they somehow haven't 'earned' that style page.

I mean if I buy a loaf of bread in a supermarket with money that I 'earned' in my job, have I not 'earned' that loaf of bread, because I didn't sow the wheat, crop it, mill it, make the dough and bake the bread?

I guess I just don't get this puritan mindset. I do get that some people feel this way about the game. I think that is a bit like gatekeeping myself. If the game didn't want items to be traded, they wouldn't have facilitated a trade system and would make these items 'bind on pick up'. I am sure there are many farmers in the game who would take issue with that.

I get that this isn't specifically your point but it was mine

I think that _every_ item, with rare exception, should be able to be sold. The concept of "bound" should be for special or rare conditions.

Trading allows players to share in effort. I may go out and farm something for sale, while another person farms and sells something else. We can share in that combined effort, each of us doing part of the work in the overall exchange. I don't have to do everything in the game myself.

Ramber · May 29

Thats why i sugges to never waste time farming these, its a MASSIVE waste of time. you can run dozens of times and not get a drop then see someone get one while doing it when its the pledge only to run it over and over right after and never see one.

HatchetHaro · May 30

Luthivar wrote: »

HatchetHaro wrote: »

Just as an addendum, the profit in value you get from completing max level writs on 20 characters is about 1.25mil gold per day. That value mostly consists of materials you get back in the form of surveys.

So basically, buying and levelling another 7 chars, checking skyshards, doing pledges and group dungeons and then doing writs for at least 1,5h per day plus collecting surveys is your recipe against the unbearable ingame grind. Casual players don't have 20 chars, even the 13 I already have, are too many and only half of them actively played. Well, ESO isn't for casual players anymore, thanks for underlining that point.

OT: On which server are you playing on to make 1.25 mil a day, even with 20 chars? Did 15x7 myself today (only accepted the quests yesterday as I don't want to spend my sundays playing videogames). Got 150k gold due to the event, could get another 200k from golden mats and got 6 (!) surveys. Was really lucky today when it comes to master writs, could sell 300 vouchers for 150k. Usually I only get golden jewelry writs and some purples. Still, nowhere in the range of 1.25 mil.
My original calculation was based on doing crafting dailies on 6 chars (30 mins for an undoudbtedly boring and braindead activity), without the event (30k gold per day, 100-120k including golden mats). If you're playing each day of the month, which obviously most people can't afford to do, 3 mil for a style page would still be around 1 month of grind. For a single style page. Congrats, if you do so, I won't. Simply can't and don't want to.

Don't want to whine about not getting that style page, and I most probably won't. I just would like the ESO staff to reflect over the extremely low - and time-limited on top - drop rates and their effect on player motivation, in general. Right before I take another break just before a chapter release, which I even bought already.

I'm not saying you should max out crafting on 20 characters to be able to get the gold; I'm just saying that it's certainly a very easy option to get lots of gold (at least in value) relatively painlessly once they're set up just so you can buy those style pages. Doing the writs themselves is also a mostly-automated setup if you have Dolgubon's Lazy Writ Crafter and the inventory space to store multiple days' worth of crafted gear from Aldanga's Lazier Writ Precrafter.

You can passively level all of your toons' crafting up by dumping any gear you don't need into your bank and deconning them on your alts. You'll also gain crafting experience just by, well, crafting and turning in the daily writs, even at low crafting levels. At this point, you'd only need to grind up Alchemy, Provisioning, and acquire a total of 52 skill points (easily obtainable just by getting to level 50) to be able to complete max level writs on each character. Once you've set up your 13 characters to be able to do max-level crafting writs, you'd be able to pull in about 800k gold (in value) per day.

Should you decide to get your toons crafting-ready, here's @tmbrinks ' data on writ rewards. It is an extremely comprehensive spreadsheet, and I hope you find it as useful as I have!

Synapsis123 · May 30

Maybe you're bugged? My group 3 manned it and we all got it first run.

HatchetHaro · May 30

Synapsis123 wrote: »

Maybe you're bugged? My group 3 manned it and we all got it first run.

Assuming that you're not trying to troll and rub it in people's faces, you guys just got really lucky.

Kidgangster101 · May 30

Luthivar wrote: »

Dear ZOS,
i am seriously annoyed from the devastatingly low drop rates in your game. Currently having bad luck with the Zaudrus' Mask style page, after 20 runs, even with the corresponding achievement, I lost hope of finding it. 20 runs means about 7 hours of mindless farming, doing the same content over and over again. How can this be considered fun? What makes it even worse is the time limit of one week.

And that's just one symptom of the main problem in this game, at least in PVE: It does not feel rewarding. Extremely low drop rates for purple furnishing plans, increasing amount of units needed for chapter collectibles (pets), low drop rates on some leads (only those from bosses and dailies seem fine), low availability of dragon's breath, furnishing mats, etc. The grind totally keeps me from doing the fun stuff like questing, as it leaves me disappointed, demotivated and finally leads to me closing the game. Even levelling several skill lines on alts is bound to an unbearable grind.

Why does ESO have to be the love-hate relationship it became during the last years? Why does it have to keep it players busy - or better spoken: distracted - with boring activities, heavily connected to it's weaker parts like the clunky combat system or movement (where even mounts can't jump over the smallest pebbles)?

I agree and I've said it time and time again there should be a token you get for completing the dungeon. You can trade the token on for things that drop in the dungeon. Not at a 1 to 1 ratio but base it off what boss or point in the dungeon it can drop. Maybe stuff that drops off the 1st boss is worth like 5 tokens meaning you did it 5 times because tokens are earned upon completion. Then maybe that motif that drops from final spot is worth 20-25 tokens so people feel like they are being rewarded for their run.

I proposed this system back in the day when I beat VMA at least 100 times and still never got a staff to drop which was super frustrating and I hated doing it but needed the staff so I just kept hanging my head against a wall and by the time I got it I was so burned out i took a month away from the game lol.

But still this system forces players to replay content but it makes you feel like you are at least working towards your goal of getting what you want just my two cents.

Necrotech_Master · May 30

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Luthivar wrote: »

Dear ZOS,
i am seriously annoyed from the devastatingly low drop rates in your game. Currently having bad luck with the Zaudrus' Mask style page, after 20 runs, even with the corresponding achievement, I lost hope of finding it. 20 runs means about 7 hours of mindless farming, doing the same content over and over again. How can this be considered fun? What makes it even worse is the time limit of one week.

And that's just one symptom of the main problem in this game, at least in PVE: It does not feel rewarding. Extremely low drop rates for purple furnishing plans, increasing amount of units needed for chapter collectibles (pets), low drop rates on some leads (only those from bosses and dailies seem fine), low availability of dragon's breath, furnishing mats, etc. The grind totally keeps me from doing the fun stuff like questing, as it leaves me disappointed, demotivated and finally leads to me closing the game. Even levelling several skill lines on alts is bound to an unbearable grind.

Why does ESO have to be the love-hate relationship it became during the last years? Why does it have to keep it players busy - or better spoken: distracted - with boring activities, heavily connected to it's weaker parts like the clunky combat system or movement (where even mounts can't jump over the smallest pebbles)?

I agree and I've said it time and time again there should be a token you get for completing the dungeon. You can trade the token on for things that drop in the dungeon. Not at a 1 to 1 ratio but base it off what boss or point in the dungeon it can drop. Maybe stuff that drops off the 1st boss is worth like 5 tokens meaning you did it 5 times because tokens are earned upon completion. Then maybe that motif that drops from final spot is worth 20-25 tokens so people feel like they are being rewarded for their run.

I proposed this system back in the day when I beat VMA at least 100 times and still never got a staff to drop which was super frustrating and I hated doing it but needed the staff so I just kept hanging my head against a wall and by the time I got it I was so burned out i took a month away from the game lol.

But still this system forces players to replay content but it makes you feel like you are at least working towards your goal of getting what you want just my two cents.

they already alleviated a lot of the issue with most drops because of curation, at least on the gear side of things

they do also have a "token" system as well, its called the undaunted keys from the pledges, which let you get items that do not drop in the dungeons (monster shoulders, both normal gear and the style pages)

the monster head style pages ive never bothered farming because of the drop rate, but with the introduction of the archive vendor that sells them, i see no need to bother farming for them anymore either

moderatelyfatman · May 31

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

twev wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Just buy it then? It's tradable.

Not a particularly satisfying procedure for players who prefer to play/earn achievements rather than buy achievements.

It's not an achievement. It's a style page. Obtaining it has very little to do with 'earning' it and everything to do with RNG.

Maybe that is part of the point. It should be something that feels earned, not something that just randomly wandered by when we happened to be there.

What would you consider 'earning' it as involving?

Earning requires the feeling that something was accomplished. Random drops do not have that.

For example, this new Anniversary Achievement is something that could be considered an accomplishment that is earned. Sadly, the reward skin is woefully below the mark, basically a pat on the back and a "good job!" for the effort.

Do you think they (ZOS) should just get rid of RNG altogether then? I guess you still have to 'earn' most rare drops even if there is RNG involved. You still have to go to said area and kill said mob in order to get a chance of said drop. Some just have to 'earn' it more than others. Which then becomes more about RNG than it does about earning.

When it gets to 20, 40 or 60 runs with no drop, and then someone else get's their drop on their first run, that isn't fun for the first person, but the second person has still 'earned' the reward. The content was still completed.

I personally don't have an issue with getting rid of RNG. So I agree with you in that respect.

However, my main point was in response to someone saying that they wouldn't buy the style page from a guild trader because they prefer to 'earn' it. Meaning if someone buys a rare style page using gold that that they have 'earned' doing other activities in the game, that they somehow haven't 'earned' that style page.

I mean if I buy a loaf of bread in a supermarket with money that I 'earned' in my job, have I not 'earned' that loaf of bread, because I didn't sow the wheat, crop it, mill it, make the dough and bake the bread?

I guess I just don't get this puritan mindset. I do get that some people feel this way about the game. I think that is a bit like gatekeeping myself. If the game didn't want items to be traded, they wouldn't have facilitated a trade system and would make these items 'bind on pick up'. I am sure there are many farmers in the game who would take issue with that.

I get that this isn't specifically your point but it was mine

I think the stickerbook is an example of getting grinding just right. The ideal item may or may not drop but each failure should get you 1 small step closer to your prize.
Maybe make it for sale from the Undaunted vendors for 150 keys as well? This will allow you to grind through Undaunted pledges as an alternative to running a vet dlc HM dungeon over and over again.