It's time to change drop methods

boombazookajd · August 2018

No doubt, like many of the topics on these forums, this is likely a dead horse but, it's time for ZOS to adapt the method of obtaining gear. Not all drops mind you, RNG should still play a factor on most drops in dungeons but as far as vMA and Undaunted chests go, it's time for a change.

Many players do not have the time to do 3 dungeons on vet, in HM for 6 keys across multiple toons or to run vMA 50 times for an inferno staff. No doubt vMA is hard, and it should remain as such, but the cruel grind from back in the day has left a scar on the current situation. Yes, transmutation stations have reduced the grind for traits, absolutely but the old drop method was a system that should have never been in place anyway. This game should have had transmutation stations from the get go, or close to it.

A new token system would be greatly appreciated by a very large majority of the player base. vMA clears should earn you x amount of tokens, increased by your score, flawless, etc... Undaunted Dailies should earn you x amount of tokens, increased by Vet dungeons and on HM. These in turn can then be accrued until you can CHOOSE what shoulder you want. Waiting for the ONE weekend where the shoulder MIGHT show up in Cyrodil is not a viable solution. For instance, my two vet runs today netted me:

2 Stormfist epaulets

Put Infused and Impen shoulders in their respective chests, charge a certain amount of tokens for them, and allow players to grind for the tokens with the assurance that their time and effort is going to result in them being able to complete their build. This doesn't harm the game, the economy, or result in players being handed equipment.

This is a pure win-win-win (Thanks Michael Scott). 2h changes were a horse well beaten and this should be the next QoL update that ZOS implements to bring MMO's more into line with current society, not the methods of a bygone era of MMO's.

Thank you for your time.

GreenHere · August 2018

I like the idea of some kind of token system just for the sense of working toward something, versus "it statistically HAS to drop eventually, right? ... Right?

"

I don't expect to be able to get what I want on the first try, or even the tenth necessarily. But I was well and truly annoyed that it took upwards of 40 vMA runs to get my first Lightning Staff. Would like to see something that gave more of a feeling of progression, rather than just playing the numbers game.

weg0 · August 2018

+1000, the game is fun guys. Have some confidence in your creation.

Playing the game is fun, playing with randoms has been a great way to earn cp and meet new players, playing for leaderboard scores and helping guildies with no-death and speed achievements... there are so many things to do that give replay value, we don’t need gear grind to be one of them. Totally outdated mmo trope.

Either a token system or removing BoP from game will do more for this game long term than perpetuating the stupid rng gear grind.

Jamdarius · August 2018

I agree on vMA, but community was asking for it before transmutation came back to play. TBH what I do not understand is making sets in perfect and non perfect versions. If let's say somebody cannot do vet trial cause he is 2 low cp or simply cannot find group to do it on vet it makes a huge wall between those who spam it and those who can't. Let us keep playing game with the usual lesser quality of upgrade in nTrials/Dungs cause it makes players to be divided even more than we already have thx to vMA being 2 hard for many players (actually know quite a lot who never came back to game cause of vMA). What ZOS/Zeni is creating is making players that manage to pull vet feel more rewarded but at the same time the player base suffer cause players who cannot do something or get it perfect quit often. I always thought that ESO was more casual friendly, guess I was wrong.

As for the undaunted I disagree, we got transmutation system for it, monster shoulders are often available on cyrodil vendor, and nobody says u need to do it on vet, normals are quite fast and easy to he point u can solo them and still get a key (but for sake of faster run it is easier to go with group).

idk · August 2018

The OP is clearly done from his own personal perspective.

1. Zos has made it so much easier to get the shoulders, weapons, pretty much anything with being able to change traits. (OP acknowledges this)

Case in point, vMA weapons used to have the odds of about 1 in 100 to get the weapon you want. Now it is more like 1 in 10.

2. Token systems for vMA weapons have been proposed and discussed at length before trait change. Essentially the idea was with 100 tokens or more one could get the vMA weapon of choice. Essentially now it would be about 10-15 tokens or 10-15 vMA clears.

That is a token system I can support. One would know how many clears are needed to get what they want and it is simple enough for all to understand.

Edit: for vMA it was mentioned by someone named Code to add imperfect vMA weapons to normal and perfect weapons from vMA only with a non-sigil no-save run. That was a good idea I think.

[Edited for non-constructive commentary]

DanteYoda · August 2018

Yeah the game is aimed at casuals but the loot is aimed at the hardcore niche..

Gotta say i could not believe doing my first world boss with 5 other customers and all that dropped were green garbage.. Guess how many world bosses i did since, that is right Zero...

Delves mostly pointless loot.. No undaunted keys from daily delves, public dungeons are full of grind farmers getting exp because loot is next to useless in open world.. Even Dolmens drop 99% crap..

Yay fun, quest for story then quit imo..

weg0 · August 2018

Let’s face it: skill and rotation are so much more important than gear. Gear should be easy to obtain, and somewhat costly to improve. The time investment should be in mastering the corresponding play style.

erlewine · August 2018

the game wouldn't be very fun if everything was just handed to you without any effort.

LadyLethalla · August 2018

I agree with OP; RNGesus somehow always knows what I'm trying to get and is very very careful not to give it to me.
However, as someone who has completed VMA well over a dozen times but still struggles with it I would not want to have to complete it 10-15 times before I could choose one weapon.

AbysmalGhul · August 2018

I'm all for a token system. Don't get me wrong, I like the hunt for better items , but when you have 50 pieces of Darkstride sitting in your inventory, but not a single piece of Necropotence....something's rigged.

Cously · August 2018

Token system seems the best approach. Or at least a removal from the amount of shoulders you can get a day. Overland sets are ok as they are since it moves the economy.

Merlin13KAGL · August 2018

So, guaranteed shoulder of choice after 5 HM clears? That's a bit much. If you're willing to do the work for 5 HM's, you're willing to do the work for keys. You're probably not even getting the helm you want in 5 clears, anyway.

It's not like it's hard to obtain keys, and yes, you'll have a shortage at first. Eventually you can have well more than you'll use, including drops for new content. I was sitting on 800+ when I stopped doing pledges regularly unless someone asked.

Using those, you will eventually get a shoulder and you can use the Transmute crystals to change to best trait if you choose. Even if you get wrong weight, it will still complete the set until you get the one you're actually after.

It's really not hard to acquire these things and it doesn't take anywhere close to the no-lifer commitment you're trying to make it out as. Even if you just do the two non-DLC's, it's a relatively easy four keys per day, per character. In the same time as your 5 HM clears, you could have 10 keys between three characters.

It's really not that bad. (If you really want an idea how not bad it is, there used to only be a chance at a shoulder drop when you opened a chest. At least now a drop is guaranteed.)

The goal is for you to repeat the content. I'd say the balance they have right now is about right.

boombazookajd · August 2018

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

So, guaranteed shoulder of choice after 5 HM clears? That's a bit much. If you're willing to do the work for 5 HM's, you're willing to do the work for keys. You're probably not even getting the helm you want in 5 clears, anyway.

Something is wrong if you don't get the helm you need in 5 clears, especially if you have a guild. I've never had an issue getting the helm I need.

And how does someone having access to items without a hours (days in this case) of needless dailies hurt the game?

Is it surprising that this method of obtaining ANYTHING isn't repeated ANYWHERE in life? Why is it in a video game? Because its an outdated method that remains from the earliest MMO's.

ESO can do better and can lead the industry. There are indeed Master's students out there writing thesis papers on the effects of RNG drops and grinds on players.

Again, I'm not asking to have the shoulders handed over, and 5 runs on HM does sound easy but its not. Let's look at an undaunted daily set:

You get Fungal Grotto 1 (Easy on HM)
CoA2 (this wouldn't be possible for the players who don't have a lot of keys, i.e. lower CP.)
Fang Lair

So for the average player this change is aimed at (because those of you who have an excess of keys and shoulders can probably clear this content anyway) you're getting 10 tokens from the FG1 HM, 5 for vet CoA2, and you do Fang Lair on normal.

That 17 tokens out of 50. About halfway there. That's not unreasonable, given the time that some of the dungeons take.

generalmyrick · August 2018

sounds cool, i am FOR this!

way to go OP.

ZOS_Mika · August 2018

We have recently removed some unnecessary and non-constructive back and forth. Please keep this discussion civil. Thank you.

Royaji · August 2018

boombazookajd wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

So, guaranteed shoulder of choice after 5 HM clears? That's a bit much. If you're willing to do the work for 5 HM's, you're willing to do the work for keys. You're probably not even getting the helm you want in 5 clears, anyway.

Something is wrong if you don't get the helm you need in 5 clears, especially if you have a guild. I've never had an issue getting the helm I need.

And how does someone having access to items without a hours (days in this case) of needless dailies hurt the game?

Is it surprising that this method of obtaining ANYTHING isn't repeated ANYWHERE in life? Why is it in a video game? Because its an outdated method that remains from the earliest MMO's.

ESO can do better and can lead the industry. There are indeed Master's students out there writing thesis papers on the effects of RNG drops and grinds on players.

If you are running with a guild and trading you will indeed get the helmet you need in 5 or so runs. Although in this case 5 runs are 20 drop events so you have to compare it to the same amount of loot events for shoulders.

You are missing a major point of RNG drops. They are intended to make you replay content. Because no developer in the world is able to create content faster than players consume it. I remember times when I was farming for my monster sets. I had an incentive to run pledges. Now? I can't even be bothered to do a FG1 pledge. Because there is no reward in them for me. And the content itself became stale after my 3rd run.

The dangling carrot is a powerful tool to keep players... well, playing. Shoulder of your choice in 3 days? And then what? Go to the forums and complain about not having enough content! I've seen this happen in games with too light RNG. Maybe for you personally this psychological trick doesn't work that way but lots of MMO players are affected by it.

Token system should protect you from getting very unlucky with RNG. Not let you get all the drops you want under 3 days.

boombazookajd · August 2018

@Royaji Good point!

Danikat · August 2018

I like the idea of a token system for rare drops. Of course it should be done in such a way that it still requires a similar amount of runs for most people, it just limits the maximum number needed for those who are unlucky.

Say for example ZoS expects the majority of players to get the weapon they want from vMA after 15 clears (I have no idea if that's the case, it's a random number). They could set it so that 20 clears will guarantee you enough tokens to buy one, and maybe award extra tokens for clearing it faster/otherwise performing better than average as an added incentive to really put effort into it. So you're still having to earn it by doing exactly what people do now - it's just that there's a clear limit to how many attempts it will take and a sense of progressing towards it instead of repeatedly rolling for a drop that it feels like you may never get.

An alternative would be to let us trade drops to an NPC for other possible drops from the same place. For example trade any 3 or 5 (or however many ZOS thinks is appropriate) Maelstrom weapons to choose one from the set. It achievements the same thing - it shows you've completed the content required to get the item you want multiple times, it just means if you're repeatedly unlucky the RNG aspect is removed.

West1389 · August 2018

I agree with a lot of you on this. I was just talking about this yesterday, how my luck is so bad. This feels like a job and is not fun anymore. I know some say its mmo and grind is part of it. Which is ok dont mind the grind, but what are we working towards. We hope to get the drop after 50 runs. Then we get the drop only to have better gear come out, and guess what back to the RNG.

I like the token idea, this gives us something to shoot for. You feel like you are making progress, and knowing if i do this I definitely can get that. Not the how many times is this going to take before I just forget about it.

My cousin has great luck plays the game did the VMA for the event has 3 inferno staffs. Ran it 6x how many of you ran it 50 and still cant get it? I have been doing pledges over and over trying to get shoulders I need to only get 4 of the same ones. I just said forget it, I play less and less every day. This became more of a chore.

boombazookajd · August 2018

West1389 wrote: »

This became more of a chore.

I actually refer to playing ESO as my "chores" when my gf asks what I am up to. Undaunted pledges are something I have to endure, rather than be excited to take part in.

How would you feel if you did your chores as a kid, and your parents gave you a box that MIGHT have a $10 in it, but most likely had a fruit roll up, an apple, or worse, a pair of underwear.

That's how I feel when I go to an Undaunted chest and get a 20th set of Nerieneth's epaulets, like I just got a pair of new underwear.

It's one thing to work for your stuff, sure but when your hard work pays off in a garbage reward more than it rewards you with something useful, it's rather annoying.

West1389 · August 2018

boombazookajd wrote: »

West1389 wrote: »

This became more of a chore.

I actually refer to playing ESO as my "chores" when my gf asks what I am up to. Undaunted pledges are something I have to endure, rather than be excited to take part in.

How would you feel if you did your chores as a kid, and your parents gave you a box that MIGHT have a $10 in it, but most likely had a fruit roll up, an apple, or worse, a pair of underwear.

That's how I feel when I go to an Undaunted chest and get a 20th set of Nerieneth's epaulets, like I just got a pair of new underwear.

It's one thing to work for your stuff, sure but when your hard work pays off in a garbage reward more than it rewards you with something useful, it's rather annoying.

This has to be one of the best examples of how we feel. Also made me laugh, I think back if I was a kid and this happened. I would not do my chores any longer just to get underwear.