On the RNG System of the vMA Weapons

Joysheeped · May 2016

I know there are some similar posts on this topic but I wish again to stress how bad the current RNG system is (and it will only get worse as the DB patch comes as there are going to be more useless traits).

Summarized suggestions are at the end.

I want to share a story of my friend.

She has 4 flawless titles, she did it on all 4 classes and she got her flawless title on her stam DK (just to show how good she is). She does vMA every day. She does weekly on her characters every week. She loves stam builds and her stam DK so all she wants are a precise dagger, a precise axe and a precise bow. And up to now, she only has a sharpened bow and 2 sharpened axes. And yes, she has yet to get a SINGLE dagger.

So after these mindless vMA farming (together with the many vCoA and vFG adventures without a SINGLE medium divines helm) she wants to give up, give up this game.

Yes, I know if she wants to quit this game, it is her own decision, but it clearly shows a problem of this game -- there is NOTHING to save you when the RNG is messed up.

And yes I agree that you don't need absolute perfect gears even for clearing contents like vMoL, but we are talking about the very end game content where optimizing your characters' performances is one of the very important reasons (or the only reason for some) to keep us alive and active. From my point of view the current vMA system FAILS to reward people for their accomplishments and FAILS to reward people for their time and effort invested. As a result, instead of optimizing, players are caged in the unending farming prison of vMA. In my opinion, this is NOT fun; this is NOT enjoyable; this is just PLAIN WRONG. Games are made to have fun, not to torture people.

RNG is crucial to games like MMOs. I do not doubt it. But there should also be an accompanying system which comes to play when extreme RNG occurs. To be honest, NOTHING important should be based on RNG ONLY unless you are willing to gamble your players' experience. A possible saving system I can think of is trading a number of tokens (e.g. some useless vMA weapons) for one vMA weapon you can choose the trait and the weapon type of it. Maybe you need 10, maybe you need 50, maybe you need 100. Give us an EXACT number. Yes I know lives are full of uncertainties, but this is a game, people play to enjoy and to have fun. Please make this game a better game.

And in case this thread is too long, by saying "Please make this game a better game", please

Create an accompanying token system which can cover the many unfortunate events bring up by the RNG system such as trading a number of a kind of items (monster sets with monster sets, vMA weapons with vMA weapons) with one specify item from that kind you can choose from, even if the number of items required to trade for the one you want is large (details can be varied from kind to kind but please create such system for each kind)
Reconsider the loot table such as removing useless traits like Prosperous from appearing on helms or any end-game items (please, Prosperous is clearly a trash trait and Impenetrable would probably saves you more money especially in PVE areas where gold don't drop much as such vMA)
Reconsider the Nirnhoned trait (on weapons at least) as Sharpened is more useful than Nirnhoned in the coming DB DLC as of now
Test your patch yourselves more carefully as (3) shows the opposite (unless you want to tell us you don't care Nirnhoned is worse than the simple Sharpened even the trait stone of Nirnhoned is much more difficult to obtain)
Read the players' feedback more carefully
Play the game yourselves or at least imagine how things go wrong when players give you feedback

Thank you so much for reading.

InfaM · May 2016

I totally agree with that post , and I think that every people that has been rewarded with useless weapons out of their hundred VMA runs will agree too,

Joysheeped wrote: »

As a result, instead of optimizing, players are caged in the unending farming prison of vMA. In my opinion, this is NOT fun; this is NOT enjoyable; this is just PLAIN WRONG. Games are made to have fun, not to torture people.

Very accurate description of the current situation with VMA RNG, for my part I'm on 100+ runs , even created a thread with screenshots of all rewards from those runs and none of those items from the final chest are any of the 3 maelstrom weapon I desire, so 100+ hours for nothing , 100+ hours in VMA is not harmless and yet I'm still using a nirhorned crafted weapon...

So I can really understand your friend wanting to quit the game as I'm very close to do it myself when I see that chaining successfull runs in VMA rewards nothing but undesired items with no guarantee to see the desired weapons one day...that VMA RNG is nothing but a scam, and well nobody wants to play to be scammed.

Cuyler · May 2016

/signed

Joysheeped wrote: »

So after these mindless vMA farming (together with the many vCoA and vFG adventures without a SINGLE medium divines helm) she wants to give up, give up this game.

...you are willing to gamble your players' experience.

I see this happening more and more these days (I've been here awhile) and it appears it will only be worse next patch. It's becoming extremely evident how out-of-touch Wrobel is with his audience. During the last ESO live he joked about RNG in PvP bags. If ZOS paid any attention to the responses in the twitch channel, you'd of seen an outcry of ppl in disagreement.

RNG is like gambling, and as everyone knows gambling can create unhealthy addictions. Especially when someone keeps believing, "the next one" is going to be the "big win" that makes it all worth it. But in most circumstances, the addicted gambler simply spends away their life savings (or time), ruins relationships and continues down an extremely unhealthy path of delusion with the very real possibility that"big win" will never materialize.

Is that the kind of experience you at ZOS, Wrobel want for your customers? Your customers gambling their lives away with endless grinds that require unhealthy amounts of time and effort to attain items in your game?

Or is it simply your intent that certain ppl are not meant to have certain items even though they put in 1000x more effort than another? @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel

Now I'm not headhunting here, I'm not asking for anyone to lose their job over this.....I'd simply like the games business model to not rely on retaining customers through unhealthy addictions to the gambler's fallacy, and be sustainable based on fun and rewarding content to play. AKA, token system.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · May 2016

Bravo, yes it is a stale topic, but I encourage people to keep making them. The loots system is the fatal flaw of an otherwise brilliant game. While I dont think people should get everything on their first run, I do think (as you so eloquently stated) that there should be an end in sight. If 100 runs is what it takes for a guaranteed drop, great, let us know and we the players can make the decision. As it stands now, its a total joke. One of the best DPS I know cant get a Staff. It not only sucks for him, but for his raid team. I know other people that got them on their first run and they sit in a bank because the play stam.

Here is what I want to know. Is it simply laziness on the part of the developers? Do they simply not care? It cant be a lack of knowledge unless they simply dont read their own forums.

Or is this intentional? This would basically mean that they don't care about their costumer base and they have such little faith in their own product that this is the only way to ensure people keep playing. If this is the case, just let us know so those of us hanging on by a thread can leave already.