Waseem wrote: »

you did maelstrom arena 1500 times?
thats.... horrible and unhealthy.... thats really bad.

POps75p wrote: »

kasa-obake wrote: »

There's a number of suggestions that people have already put up on forums and tried to convey to you, if only you were willing to listen.

• Make a token system: get tokens after each run, and a certain amount of tokens gives you the right to chose a weapon
• Add Undaunted Plunder to vMSA, or any kind of material reward. It is a Trial, after all. People spend valuable and expensive potions, repair gear, only to be rewarded with nothing. It's one of the biggest gold sinks in game at the moment, along with crafting motifs. And not everyone has gold to sink to begin with.
• Bring back the old trait system: Sharpened - Precise - Defending, which worked, and should not have been changed to begin with.
• Give all vMSA weapons the same probability to drop, instead of one global probability per big weapon type, and then one chance per sub-type.
• Make vMSA weapons tradeable between people who have completed it in a day/week/ever.
• Make vMSA weapons Bind on Equip.
• Add other interesting sets for people to take interest in vMSA again. (Apart from Winterborn, and maybe Hunt on a stamblade with shade, the sets that drop from vMSA are worthless).
• Give the vMSA shield an actual one-piece bonus, instead of the random piece of chopped wood we get and instantly get rid off.
• Give PvP players a similar one-piece/bonus weapon to get through PvP means (amount of Alliance Points perhaps?).
• Indirectly, make jewerly craftable. Right now we're stuck with willpower/agility/endurance or aether/ophidian 3 piece combos. Which means that, should you want to equip a 5-piece bonus set and an undaunted set, you're stuck with a no-set staff (this is mostly viable for PvP though). Making jewerly craftable would give more variety to builds, and less necessity to farm vMSA for players who just don't want to have random weapons equipped.

These all seem like reasonable suggestions, and there were threads made, polls voted upon, and overall a big response from the community about this issue. But, whenever you get your hopes up seing that there is a Z logo next to it and a dev has commented, it's usually to say "this thread has been moved to X category" or "this comment has been edited for profanity/irrelevance".
Come on, team! We know you're here somewhere, doing /lurk on ERP threads. So lets talk for once about what actually matters.

EDITED:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Rich hasn't been arrested. He still silently lurks the forums daily, but word on the street is that you're more likely to get a /lurk out of him with constructive posts.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I normally lurk on the forums pretty regularly – expect to see me out and about a bit more often.

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno this is as constructive as posts can get.


And since I wrote a post the size of a small novel by now, I would like to acknowledge all the contributors to the data, whose names I really cba copying.


Here's to you, team. May you live long and prosper.

nice analysis, and I totally agree. i'm currently 76 about 5 months for my next birthday, that unless VMA kills me, I've run it 10 or so times, and have about 20 plus weapons, and everytime I finish i'm out of breath, and take my blood pressure and it's over 200 every time. not sure how much more I can handle, and no sharpened fire, wish I was 20 again, it would be a piece of cake.

tks and glood luck

Meld777 wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

In this old post I made in a Tempers RNG thread a suggestion to change the kind of RNG for vMA to make it more pallatable

hrothbern wrote: »

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

I really believe the RNG can get 'stuck' which creates the long droughts. A while ago I did a small experiment. I went out and got 200 fish. For the first 100 fillet, I did it all at once and I got 1 roe. For the next 100, I did them in groups of 10 with long periods of breaks (a few hours to a day) in between, and I got 3 roe. Now this was just me, and in order to do a real study you would need many people trying this, but then again, RNG is crappy.

This is a variation of the "gamblers fallacy". In casinos, the roulette tables will have big digital signs next to them listing the last 20 or so numbers to come out. Do you think they are doing that to help the player? Of course not! They want you to look at board and say, "No odd number has come out in a while. I bet one is due! I'm going all in on odd." Or, "14 has come out three times in the last 20 spins. I bet it is more likely to come out than other numbers. I am going to bet that!" Or, "No red number has come out on this table in a while, I am going to go to the other roulette table."

But all of this is random and the randomness is most visible in small sample sets (thus the last 20 spins, not last 20,000 spins).

You can all jump in circles and do rain dances and kiss your "R" key and log in and out and use different crafting stations ... but it is still a completely independent roll each time with no gold temper 19 of 20 times.

Perhaps ZOS should make this "gamblers fallacy" the way to handle the Maelstrom RNG.

Not anymore the RNG of a random dice, a RNG without memory
But the RNG of a deck of cards, a RNG with a memory,
ensuring you always get that Ace of Spades after 52 draws.
The seeding of the RNG is only how the deck is shuffled, which detemines WHEN you get your desired weapon.


Implementing that:
The current way the percentages between the kind of weapons is organised is a bit clumsy:
From 6 kinds of weapons, each kind of weapons has a 1:6 chance and is then divided by the nr of weapons of that kind.
So Destro is 1:6 and because there are 3 Destro staffs, each has a 1:18 chance.
With 8 traits this would cause a deck of 144 "cards".
Not nice, but you have the certainty that you have it after 144 runs.

AND.... the more runs you did without your wished for weapon/trait.... the more chance you get it the next run !!!


Here below the TLTR that describes the numbers.
The clumsy factor that comes in is caused by the one-hand weapons:
The six kinds are:

1. Destro for 1:6 & 3 kinds => 1:18 for each Destro type
2. Bow for 1:6 & only 1 kind => 1:6 for Bow
3. Two-handed 1:6 & 3 kinds => 1:18 for each Two-handed type
4. Resto for 1:6 & only 1 kind => 1:6 for Resto
5. One-handed DW 1:6 & 2 kinds => 1:12 for each DW type
6. One-handed S&B 1:6 & 2 kinds => 1:12 for each S&B type

The common denominator of the first 4 listed weapons is 18 => a deck of 144 cards would cover all permutations.
The One-handed line is causing the clumsy issue, because it forces to 36 as common denominator. Causing a much too big deck of cards of 288.
This could easily be solved if ZOS would reduce the chance of the One-handed S&B to 1:9. Causing a 1:18 for each S&B type.
AND the One-handed DW would be increased to 1:4.5. Causing a 1:9 for each DW type, which fits very well by the need to have TWO weapons for your Dual wielding.
By this 18 is the common denominator for all weapons.

So... all in all a deck of 144 "cards" is technically very well possible

giving the Maelstrom RNG a memory... ensuring that your chances to get your weapon INCREASE after each failed run.

Welcome to Black Desert's bad luck protection system. What your post misses though is a toggle option. What if I want 2 Sharpened Infernos or 6 Powered Bows? Or what if I just like to gamble? That's why "bad luck protection" should be a toggleable. Works very well in Black Desert.

In any case, I don't see ZOS implement it. Whatever they implement has to be very simple and low-cost. They are already low on resources. How are they gonna pay for further changes that don't bring them any money? Now a "bad luck protection" for 5k Crowns sounds more realistic. But there must be a better solution that is easy, fair and can be implemented quickly without introducing 50 new bugs.

There are hundreds of vMA RNG threads out there without a single ZOS response. All we have is a real life comment by @ZOS_RichLambert that he is aware of the fact there are "few that get screwed," but he wants us to "farm the *** out of it." That's it. No plans to change anything.

If you want ZOS to change something, you have to convince them that it's important. Obviously, this issue is not important to them. And a solution looking like "burn money here without any return" will not sound awesome to them.

Wollust wrote: »

kasa-obake wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Meld777 wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

In this old post I made in a Tempers RNG thread a suggestion to change the kind of RNG for vMA to make it more pallatable

hrothbern wrote: »

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

I really believe the RNG can get 'stuck' which creates the long droughts. A while ago I did a small experiment. I went out and got 200 fish. For the first 100 fillet, I did it all at once and I got 1 roe. For the next 100, I did them in groups of 10 with long periods of breaks (a few hours to a day) in between, and I got 3 roe. Now this was just me, and in order to do a real study you would need many people trying this, but then again, RNG is crappy.

This is a variation of the "gamblers fallacy". In casinos, the roulette tables will have big digital signs next to them listing the last 20 or so numbers to come out. Do you think they are doing that to help the player? Of course not! They want you to look at board and say, "No odd number has come out in a while. I bet one is due! I'm going all in on odd." Or, "14 has come out three times in the last 20 spins. I bet it is more likely to come out than other numbers. I am going to bet that!" Or, "No red number has come out on this table in a while, I am going to go to the other roulette table."

But all of this is random and the randomness is most visible in small sample sets (thus the last 20 spins, not last 20,000 spins).

You can all jump in circles and do rain dances and kiss your "R" key and log in and out and use different crafting stations ... but it is still a completely independent roll each time with no gold temper 19 of 20 times.

Perhaps ZOS should make this "gamblers fallacy" the way to handle the Maelstrom RNG.

Not anymore the RNG of a random dice, a RNG without memory
But the RNG of a deck of cards, a RNG with a memory,
ensuring you always get that Ace of Spades after 52 draws.
The seeding of the RNG is only how the deck is shuffled, which detemines WHEN you get your desired weapon.


Implementing that:
The current way the percentages between the kind of weapons is organised is a bit clumsy:
From 6 kinds of weapons, each kind of weapons has a 1:6 chance and is then divided by the nr of weapons of that kind.
So Destro is 1:6 and because there are 3 Destro staffs, each has a 1:18 chance.
With 8 traits this would cause a deck of 144 "cards".
Not nice, but you have the certainty that you have it after 144 runs.

AND.... the more runs you did without your wished for weapon/trait.... the more chance you get it the next run !!!


Here below the TLTR that describes the numbers.
The clumsy factor that comes in is caused by the one-hand weapons:
The six kinds are:

1. Destro for 1:6 & 3 kinds => 1:18 for each Destro type
2. Bow for 1:6 & only 1 kind => 1:6 for Bow
3. Two-handed 1:6 & 3 kinds => 1:18 for each Two-handed type
4. Resto for 1:6 & only 1 kind => 1:6 for Resto
5. One-handed DW 1:6 & 2 kinds => 1:12 for each DW type
6. One-handed S&B 1:6 & 2 kinds => 1:12 for each S&B type

The common denominator of the first 4 listed weapons is 18 => a deck of 144 cards would cover all permutations.
The One-handed line is causing the clumsy issue, because it forces to 36 as common denominator. Causing a much too big deck of cards of 288.
This could easily be solved if ZOS would reduce the chance of the One-handed S&B to 1:9. Causing a 1:18 for each S&B type.
AND the One-handed DW would be increased to 1:4.5. Causing a 1:9 for each DW type, which fits very well by the need to have TWO weapons for your Dual wielding.
By this 18 is the common denominator for all weapons.

So... all in all a deck of 144 "cards" is technically very well possible

giving the Maelstrom RNG a memory... ensuring that your chances to get your weapon INCREASE after each failed run.

Welcome to Black Desert's bad luck protection system. What your post misses though is a toggle option. What if I want 2 Sharpened Infernos or 6 Powered Bows? Or what if I just like to gamble? That's why "bad luck protection" should be a toggleable. Works very well in Black Desert.

In any case, I don't see ZOS implement it. Whatever they implement has to be very simple and low-cost. They are already low on resources. How are they gonna pay for further changes that don't bring them any money? Now a "bad luck protection" for 5k Crowns sounds more realistic. But there must be a better solution that is easy, fair and can be implemented quickly without introducing 50 new bugs.

There are hundreds of vMA RNG threads out there without a single ZOS response. All we have is a real life comment by @ZOS_RichLambert that he is aware of the fact there are "few that get screwed," but he wants us to "farm the *** out of it." That's it. No plans to change anything.

If you want ZOS to change something, you have to convince them that it's important. Obviously, this issue is not important to them. And a solution looking like "burn money here without any return" will not sound awesome to them.

What makes you think ZoS is low on resources? I can't find any financial statements except a breakdown of revenue on Thomson Reuters, and revenue has increased a lot since the release of the game. That doesn't say anything about the company's profitability, but as I can't find any statements as a financial analyst, I doubt you can know that

Edit: just found a statement of affiliated companies in the recent annual report of ProsiebenSat1Media SE (funny because I watch their channels quite often), a German TV channel company who has a stake in Zenimax Media Inc., that Zenimax Media Inc. made a loss of 76 million in 2014 and 80 million in 2015 (in €). Total equity of Zenimax is set at 657 million, so we get a Return on Equity of around -11%, which would mean that their equity is gone in around 7 years, taking the two recent losses into account. But that is the parent company of Zenimax Online Studios, so it doesn't say anything about the game and financial performance of ZoS itself.

That's actually insightful. I'll try and look for financial statements about ZoS itself. For all the stupid QQ threads about ZOS getting rich off crown crates, it's nice to have an actual researched comment.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Everyone keeps complaining or posting drop rates but your only helping make the case that ZOS wants ppl who are mostly solo focused to have something to do so yeah the ideal drops are very low.

Maybe it's working as intended. This is like asking for ideal drop rates on trials.

Uhm no it's to keep ppl playing not to give u ideal loot after a few runs.