So let's talk about that RNG

Magdalina · December 2015

Who here thinks ESO RNG works as intended(which is, well...actually generating random numbers)? ...does anyone even really think it at that point?

Something reminded me about this so gonna make a thread I've wanted to for a while. Now granted, I know it is possible to flip coins 50 times in a row and get the very same side all 50 times. It is possible, just extremely unlikely...and the rate at which this "unlikely" seems to happen in ESO is a bit too much to my taste.

I used to have a friend playing ESO(he's still a friend, just not playing currently) who was like the RNG god himself. An infused/divines helm in EVERY run, an infused/divines shoulder in EVERY chest. Being a DK, light infused Valkyn shoulder in very first chest he opened.

Another friend of mine ran vet EH over 300 times(not exaggerating) when Undaunted sets came out to try out Bogdan's set, he didn't get a helmet once. He still doesn't have it afaik.

Took me several hundred vet DC runs to get the head in heavy and of course it was well-fitted. Still don't have another heavy, gotten over a dozen medium though, plenty of them infused.

Been trying to get Glass motif lately...you know how you get random chapter when you put 10 fragments together? How does 3(or was it 4? I think a total of 4 but 3 in a row) bow chapters sound to you?

I remember a certain dungeon run that seemed to bug out on RNG completely - my character got TWO Restoration Staves of Thorn that run. TWO in one run. You know how insanely rare they are? I've only ever gotten one in all my time here(since launch) outside of that one run. Another team member has also gotten that staff that very run, off the very boss one of mine came from. It's possible, but just way too unlikely for RNG to seriously flip that way.

I know that writing really good - really random - random numbers generators is one of hardest tasks possible, but the one ESO seems to be using seems just bad. It's obviously using some far from random stat to determine the end result, my bet'd be either something character-related or perhaps something between character and action's time etc...I'm not sure but it's obvious at this point some people's RNG just works better than others', simple as that.

So...thoughts? Ideas? Your own crazy RNG stories?

Turelus · December 2015

Malubeth never dropped in heavy for me, actively farmed it.

Valkyn Skoria dropped in light infused second run of CoA.

This is the sad story of my RNG.

whsprwind · December 2015

Hi mag

There's been plenty of discussions on this topic but the devs had never given any insight on the loot system so it can be assumed it probably won't ever change

My own RNG story though i have noticed that RNG can vary alot by characters. Not sure what it is exactly - class, attributre, race or maybe even /played. Some characters are just "luckier"

For my main DK tank i've opened exactly 44 gold chests to get 3 shoulders and two were sturdy and well fitted. At least 20 coa runs for zero helms. On the other hand she seems to have amazing luck with recipes and motifs

My pledge alt has much better luck:
Skoria light impen on first ever coa run
4 nerienth hats in all weights
Skoria shoulders
Bloodspawn shoulders and helm
After returning recently for orsinium
Skoria hat infused on first run.
More WP and agility drops
Much more laurels

Now that i have the vet pledge achievement on my main i've stopped running pledges completely. Just waitin on the kena shoulders from my alt lol

hamburgerler76 · December 2015

I can understand this thread completely so I have had an idea for a build using spindleclutch dungeon set the health stealing beam one. And since undaunted pledges has come out I have done 2 a day I always complete them and I have never gotten the shoulder to that set I have all but given up on it

Jura23 · December 2015

I have no problem with RNG at all. Good thing about ESO is that you can craft so many sets that you dont depend on RNG if you dont want to. If I find something cool, good. If I dont, whatever.

Knootewoot · December 2015

My experience with RNG and I play since beta-early acess

I never looted a purple recipe
I never looted a purple or yellow motif
I never found creature collectibles until recently as I found 1 from a mammoth
I never caught one freakin'collection fish except one which was bugged and didn't appear in my collections
I never got a head or shoulder piece by doing pledges. I already gave up doing them and now wait for the PvP vendor to sell them

They only thing that works for me is that by doing dailies is Wrothgar is that I loot almost everytime divined Briar's heart armor or trinimac valor. Mostly even V16. But sadly they are bound and I don't want to tuse them so I just deconstruct them and sell the jewels

So for me RNG probably means: Rarely or Never Generated

Magdalina · December 2015

whsprwind wrote: »

Hi mag
<stuff>

*Mag -___-
And hi Amurrrro!:D Nice seeing you here hehe.

Also, woot, I'm a 5 star poster now!^__^

Spearshard · December 2015

Rng, can never tell if something is wrong or if it really is random. But I agree, seems like something is "off". The loot tables really seem.to favor certain trends with certain.characters. my main constantly get mephala and warden shoulders from gold chests. And I swear they made maelstrom jewlery impossible to find. I've gotten one winterborn ring in the about 45 runs and it was like I won the lottery. Earn your stuff blah blah, after a point though it stops being "earning" and just f me I'm getting tired of doing the same thing. I want to get back to having fun.

Magdalina · December 2015

Spearshard wrote: »

Rng, can never tell if something is wrong or if it really is random. But I agree, seems like something is "off". The loot tables really seem.to favor certain trends with certain.characters. my main constantly get mephala and warden shoulders from gold chests. And I swear they made maelstrom jewlery impossible to find. I've gotten one winterborn ring in the about 45 runs and it was like I won the lottery. Earn your stuff blah blah, after a point though it stops being "earning" and just f me I'm getting tired of doing the same thing. I want to get back to having fun.

After like a hundred goldkeys since IC patch I still have to see Warden shoulders lol. Can't say I'm looking for them but 100 keys...does make you wonder.
And my only Kena is still heavy well-fitted, and this one I am looking for in better armor type/trait>_<

Got Maw of Infernal shoulder in v16 in all armor types and traits possible though>.>

Spearshard · December 2015

Magdalina wrote: »

Spearshard wrote: »

Rng, can never tell if something is wrong or if it really is random. But I agree, seems like something is "off". The loot tables really seem.to favor certain trends with certain.characters. my main constantly get mephala and warden shoulders from gold chests. And I swear they made maelstrom jewlery impossible to find. I've gotten one winterborn ring in the about 45 runs and it was like I won the lottery. Earn your stuff blah blah, after a point though it stops being "earning" and just f me I'm getting tired of doing the same thing. I want to get back to having fun.

After like a hundred goldkeys since IC patch I still have to see Warden shoulders lol. Can't say I'm looking for them but 100 keys...does make you wonder.
And my only Kena is still heavy well-fitted, and this one I am looking for in better armor type/trait>_<

Got Maw of Infernal shoulder in v16 in all armor types and traits possible though>.>

Problem is, they went too conservative on the drops, they're too diluted. That's the problem in maelstrom. It's rng just to get a set piece or trash. Then rng on what set, then rng on weight and trait(for the gold keys). Blasted rediculous. Only good thing about the maelstrom sets is their weight is fixed. No chance at getting heavy winterborn pieces. At least that's nice. Jewlery has to have a seriously low chance to drop, I've gotten about 7 complete armor sets of each set from maelstrom, but that ring and necklace elude me >. <

Magdalina · December 2015

What I keep hearing about MSA jewelry drop is kinda sad. My rng is bad enough on its own, if there's also a low droprate to add to it...I so wanted Permafrost 5 pc with jewelry to try health regen tanking>.>

Draxys · December 2015

RNG system is complete crap.

Magdalina wrote: »

What I keep hearing about MSA jewelry drop is kinda sad. My rng is bad enough on its own, if there's also a low droprate to add to it...I so wanted Permafrost 5 pc with jewelry to try health regen tanking>.>

Off topic, but if you want to try health regen tanking, an orgnums scales build can give you 2.4-2.7 passive health regen and 4k completely buffed. No being a slave to RNG necessary

Magdalina · December 2015

@Draxys, exactly...that's why I want 5 Orgnum's+5 Permafrost=3 If I could only get 3 Permafrost jewelry I'd also be able to fit 2 Undaunted in there. EG maybe? EG is always good.

Spearshard · December 2015

Magdalina wrote: »

@Draxys, exactly...that's why I want 5 Orgnum's+5 Permafrost=3 If I could only get 3 Permafrost jewelry I'd also be able to fit 2 Undaunted in there. EG maybe? EG is always good.

This right here is what seems to detract from the game significantly. It's great that they listened to us after IC and gave more variety in the jewlery sets, but they still won't budge on BoP, and keep it behind so much rng that it exhausting to get. And to make matters worse, with no caps, I'm concerned that to try out new creative sets you lost spell power, and fall behind the meta of, stack as much as you can. These sets really need to be BoP or increase their drops so we don't feel let down by not getting them, or that they underperform.

Tryxus · December 2015

RNG sux

'nuff said

PBpsy · December 2015

I have been randomly getting a crap load of well fitted Warden and EG shoulders for months trying to get any damn Kena or V16 Nerien'eth shoulders at around 2 gold runs a day.

Oldmanlawlor · December 2015

The only thing that's bugging me, is every day I run the pledge and I NEVER get a heavy armour drop from the undaunted set.

Otherwise, I'm as happy as a pig in poop with TESO!

Iccotak · January 2018

Grinding Crypt of Hearts I & II to get one ring.
Kill Me.

Runefang · January 2018

I've only done vMA once. Got a sharpened lightning staff.

randomkeyhits · January 2018

RNG is working normally, correctly and 100% as expected. With the usual proviso of seeding and entropy sources in computing. Developers don't touch RNG because they never, ever have to.

What you are looking at are the loot tables the RNG is applied to. Biased loot tables are a staple in MMO games.

Take VMA as an example there may be two rolls, one for which weapon and one for which trait. The trait table may have even chances but it could easily have 25% defending, 25% training but 5% sharpened and 5% precise. I don't know that it actually is done this way but its a common technique.

Another common technique is to have different loot tables depending on some easy to identify criteria. Here I'll use treasure chests. There may be three tables, one for high magicka players, one for high stamina and one for high health. The difference is that the high magicka one has lower chances for light gear, high stam has low chance for medium gear and high health has low chance for heavy gear.

The problem is knowing what RNG is being applied to, is it even spread or not? The simple fact RNG is involved can make it difficult to know for sure. I'm pretty sure that some things like motif pages in the base game have some form of cool-down before you can get another which obscures things even more.

For myself I always assume that biased loot tables are in use and that I shouldn't expect to get what I want, not in any short time frame anyway. Makes the pain of the grind a bit more bearable to have really low expectations......

Ch4mpTW · January 2018

I’ve created many threads regarding RNG in this game in the past, and my unfortunately bad experiences with it. But, moments which stand out to me were: How long it took for me to get a Molag Kena head piece (then it dropped in well-fitted, which was trash before the trait was changed), how long it took for me to get a staff of any kind in VMA (which ended up being a restoration staff in sharpened lol), how long it took to get a lightning and inferno staff from VMA (I still don’t have a precise or sharpened inferno, and had to transmute for my sharpened lightning), and how long it took to get a shield of Alteration Mastery (it required over well-over a million AP for a single shield to appear for me in 1 of those bags, and then it was in the divines trait).

Heka Cain · January 2018

No...I don't want to!

Horowonnoe · January 2018

Holy necro!

Vahrokh · January 2018

RNG is the small issue that squeaks loud.

What's wrong is that RNG is overlaid to a loot system that is engineered to be diluted and unfair.

Diluted: As the game goes ahead, more and more items get added to the same reward chests. The more the combinations, the excruciantly harder is to get what you need. Some years ago, an asian MMORPG became famous because of the IRL consequences on people due to some 2% drop chance on a famous weapon. In ESO? The chance to just get a trivial shoulder off a chest can be lower than that!
Unfair: A real, neutral RNG would give you the identical chance to get your item. You flip a coin and you have your 50% fair chance. Not so ESO. You flip a coin but it lands on a "grid", where you have a distribution of traits that is not even. So, even if you are so lucky to get your desired monster set shoulder (or head, when you loot the boss), it is way easier for you to get one of the useless traits than the typically 2 (1 for PvE and 1 for PvP) you want to use. Therefore, good luck getting your Divindes or Impen item, the loot table is artificially bloated with "well fitted", "prosperous" etc. pointless traits.

Ilithyania · January 2018

Transmute system made RNG less of a pain tbh

Magdalina · January 2018

o: you people seem fond on reviving my years old threads lately

But, yes. RNG still sucks, although transmutation makes it suck less at least lol.