DaiKahn wrote: »

Skjoldur wrote: »

Even in a few months it's a horrible activity. Picking flowers in the same zone for such a long time instead of playing and enjoying the game is just bad. I would have preferred nice questlines, yes, but I would have been okay with something that I could do from time to time while actually playing

I'm hoping you saw my response to Tsar_Gekkou on this similar point, but I'll happily repeat it here just in case:

"For me, yes, if I didn't get it today, I will try again tomorrow; I'm in no hurry as this is a long-term game for me. I also spice it up by doing other things in-game instead of being so hyper-focused on one thing that it agitates me because I'm only doing that one thing and not getting satisfaction"

This is key with many of the things in this game and others; people get hyper-focused on something they really want, get disappointed others are getting it and/or they aren't, then it goes downhill from there. It's similar to burnout. Step away for even just a bit to let your mind and feeling rest Go do some dungeons, mix with friends, help new players in your Guild or in chat. Just something to help ease that frustration or dislike

Had they put the lead in all water plants in all zones, that would have been an immense improvement

That would certainly ease the annoyance for many, but why do you think ZoS made the lead only available from certain things in Shadowfen? There are many views out there on this, mine included in the post you responded to

Here's the thing with the "I'll get it when I get it" approach. People have been camping spawn points for water plants for days without getting a lead so how long will it take to get when you just spend the odd half hour every now and then?

Let me use the BSW inferno as an example. I've been playing since console release so that's a lot of runs of CoA pledges over the years. Add in a day every now and then when I've specifically farmed for it. And do you know how many have dropped? Not. A. Single. One. That includes for any of my group members when I've had friends helping me. I still don't have one after 6 years of trying.

There is a very real possibility that if you don't grind for some of these leads for days/weeks/months
on end you will never get it!

How is this good game design?

DaiKahn wrote: »

Disagree. I like you have to actually work for things, if you actually want them

I don't think people oppose the work, but the fact that it often is not fun, for eg., camping a node for hours on end in Shadowfen, waiting for the handful off adds to spawn to kill them (for the pet) and they don't even drop loot most of the time etc. Most players who complain about certain leads being absurd to drop, are also players who have invested huge amount of time, effort and work to the game, whether it's achievements, scores, character progression etc., but farming nodes for hours is not scintillating gameplay, no matter how people like to spin it. If they had to lock lead behind stuff like that, they could at least adjust the drop rate, because RNG for some players is really bad (it took me a 10 hr session, for the shadowfen lead, and almost 20 in total, and pressing one button every few minutes is not work, it's the game forcing you to spend hours online for their own statistics, and yes, you don't have to get the mythics yada yada, but for veterans, completionists, end-gamers, you do, that's the thing).

Have to argee.
i play game mostly solo and except bad memories about Bad Man's Hollow (the mobs there are heavily contested)
i also remember 11 runs of DC2 (for one of the wolfies' leads) not because it was hard, but because of the frigging netch boss taking me five waves to kill using all of my damage boosts and ballista ulti, because of rare small 10 seconds vulnerability windows.

now dragonstar arena. my friends claim they do it in 40 minutes, i am slow and my gear is not top notch, so like 90 minutes per attempt (yes, it is soloable and the most boring of all arenas).
not sure i will manage to solo Mazzatun, but game-makers left me no other options, so i ll try to git gud. At least, challenge.

Shadowfen water plants are (imho) is a huge mistake, as non-shared nodes make players really toxic and the drop chance is low (got it in 4 x 1.5 hours sessions of roaming location at 4am..5am GMT at PC EU and still there were hundreds of frustrated players standing on top of the said plants).

Game is still about spending time with fun. I can not imagine how running Bad Man Hollows for several days or standing on top of Shadowfen plant could make player happier. Not the best game design decisions - to put it mildly.

cyberjanet wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

most rewards which drop based on RNG aren't designed to be obtained right away

When RNG is involved, I may as well give up before I start.

I remember back in Guild Wars days, a friend took me to to a fabulous farming route for some crafting material, I forget what. He got 300. I got two.

Nothing has changed. I do have to wonder if there is some hidden code in my username that suppresses drops.

I completely agree with this.

ZOS need to come clean with exactly how RNG works in game. I see so many people who seem to get leads dropped in a reasonable time, only to have to really grind myself for everything eg:

2000+ fish = 1 Perfect Roe.
100+ runs of Arx = 0 inferno staffs
8 hours in Bad Mans Hollows for the Pale Order lead.
6 hours and well over 400 kills in Bal Foyen for the kilt lead to drop.
lost count of the hours spent harvesting nodes for the other kilt lead - so far today harvested 105 nodes in Shadowfen (yes I'm actually counting now), and nothing.

Is there some code under my username that dictates my consistent appalling luck? Statistically speaking luck should even it's self out over the long term - but I suspect something else must be going on here...

Dyngrin wrote: »

Working (spending a lot of time) for a Mythic item is understandable. But as soon as you add probability (RNG), the work can become absurd. For instance, does ESO know (if my math is correct):

If you have a 10% chance of getting only part of a Mythic item, you have a 50% chance of not getting it 6 times in a row.

If you have a 5% chance, you have a 50% chance for 13 times in a row, and a 25% chance for a whopping 27 times in a row.

Any low % chance in practice could possibly take hundreds of attempts (in theory, an infinite number).

So even if the 5% chance seems reasonable (imo it doesn't), does having to complete a 10 stage arena 13 times in a row to just have a 50/50 chance of getting only part of a Mythic item seem reasonable!?

--Dyn

It's actually much worse than that...You have a 10% each time to your run it, that does not mean that in 10 runs your are going to get it. You can run it 100 times and not get it, because that 10% doesn't compound. Statistically, you should probably get 1 after 10 runs, but the reality is, you very well may not. It's been a long time since I took statistics, but depending on how they structure the loot table but clustering could make this nightmarishly difficult.

lillybit wrote: »

DaiKahn wrote: »

Skjoldur wrote: »

Even in a few months it's a horrible activity. Picking flowers in the same zone for such a long time instead of playing and enjoying the game is just bad. I would have preferred nice questlines, yes, but I would have been okay with something that I could do from time to time while actually playing

I'm hoping you saw my response to Tsar_Gekkou on this similar point, but I'll happily repeat it here just in case:

"For me, yes, if I didn't get it today, I will try again tomorrow; I'm in no hurry as this is a long-term game for me. I also spice it up by doing other things in-game instead of being so hyper-focused on one thing that it agitates me because I'm only doing that one thing and not getting satisfaction"

This is key with many of the things in this game and others; people get hyper-focused on something they really want, get disappointed others are getting it and/or they aren't, then it goes downhill from there. It's similar to burnout. Step away for even just a bit to let your mind and feeling rest Go do some dungeons, mix with friends, help new players in your Guild or in chat. Just something to help ease that frustration or dislike

Had they put the lead in all water plants in all zones, that would have been an immense improvement

That would certainly ease the annoyance for many, but why do you think ZoS made the lead only available from certain things in Shadowfen? There are many views out there on this, mine included in the post you responded to

Here's the thing with the "I'll get it when I get it" approach. People have been camping spawn points for water plants for days without getting a lead so how long will it take to get when you just spend the odd half hour every now and then?

Let me use the BSW inferno as an example. I've been playing since console release so that's a lot of runs of CoA pledges over the years. Add in a day every now and then when I've specifically farmed for it. And do you know how many have dropped? Not. A. Single. One. That includes for any of my group members when I've had friends helping me. I still don't have one after 6 years of trying.

There is a very real possibility that if you don't grind for some of these leads for days/weeks/months
on end you will never get it!

How is this good game design?

They drop much more poorly from CoA 1 than 2 fyi.

Supertonicbaker wrote: »

There’s a difference between getting players to revisit old content and getting players to hate, not only the content, but also the area/zone/trial and even mentioning it’s name.

Indeed. My husband has stopped playing the game altogether because he just can't get leads without grinding, or being expected to do content beyond his playing skills or interests. He really loves the antiquities, and the crafting, but sees no point in having to work to do stuff rather than play. We're retired now. Work is over.

I did start a thread on ideas of how to make these non-combat skills more valued. If you have ideas, please contribute in the hope that ZoS will look at them seriously.

Just do like I do - Don't do them.
When gameplay that I don't enjoy comes out, well...I stop buying and playing into that segment of content.

Harpooner's kilt, what's that?...Death dealer's fete?...Is that a party?

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

It's actually much worse than that...You have a 10% each time to your run it, that does not mean that in 10 runs your are going to get it. You can run it 100 times and not get it, because that 10% doesn't compound. Statistically, you should probably get 1 after 10 runs, but the reality is, you very well may not. It's been a long time since I took statistics, but depending on how they structure the loot table but clustering could make this nightmarishly difficult.

I would also point to the Law of Large Numbers to further illustrate the point.

I wish they'd just stop calling it RNG ... there's nothing random about it. ZOS has their thumbs on the scale all over the place, anyone playing for more than a couple weeks can see that. Creating weightings that we can't see or even guess at is annoying at best.

Why do so many players assume that RNG means that every item ought to have the same RNG value, and that every RNG item ought to drop with reasonable and predictable regularity?

Does anyone actually believe that having a 1 out of 10 chance to get some item or lead means that they should have to get a desired drop within 10 attempts, and that this would make the game satisfying in the long term?

The game has been designed to make some items more rare and in so doing coerce players to continue playing the same locations many times. Imagine how long an average player would continue to play a game where all desired items could be within a specific maximum number of runs, and how dead certain areas would become once everyone got a guaranteed desired item from the dungeon or trial.

Imagine how boring the game would be if a player knew that they only had to run a zone or area 15 times to get a certain outcome of getting all 14 pages in any specific motif.

I doubt many players would play more than 6 months after getting bored with constant success over time. RNG is designed to be uncertain, and some parts of a set are designed to be much harder to get to make the complete set time consuming.

AuraStorm43 wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Why do so many players assume that RNG means that every item ought to have the same RNG value, and that every RNG item ought to drop with reasonable and predictable regularity?

(snip for brevity.)

It shouldn’t take months to get leads, drop rates are way too low for many and it needs to be fixed

I will absolutely grant your point that it shouldn't take months for a player to get a lead or an item.

otoh, many players are claiming they farmed for hours for rare leads and items, and *that* was too long, while other players were getting the lead quickly.
I'm not sure there are ways to easily correct that without causing the mayhem of a huge number of players suddenly getting items that are supposed to be rare within minutes every time.

Game devs in general have a really hard time striking that balance to keep everyone happy without making every acquisition boringly mundane. There are always numerous threads about players wanting to level mount abilities to a single purchase or being able to feed a mount 60 times for each enhancement within hours instead of over the course of time.

RNG isn't ever 'perfect', and usually not even great, but one of the objects of the game is to keep players wanting stuff and coming back for another 'maybe I'll get it this time' try rather than everyone getting everything within hours or a day of attempting, every time, or even most of the time.

I was just trying to throw perspective into my response, not imply that all is well with every aspect.

twev wrote: »

Imagine how boring the game would be if a player knew that they only had to run a zone or area 15 times to get a certain outcome of getting all 14 pages in any specific motif.

Player, meet the curated stickerbook. Now you can farm a dungeon, delve, or world boss and never have to go back to them.

schindler wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Imagine how boring the game would be if a player knew that they only had to run a zone or area 15 times to get a certain outcome of getting all 14 pages in any specific motif.

Motif's are another story, 'cause once you get them that's it and you've achieved what you've set out to do.

With leads, for mythic items at least, you "need" them to do other things. Or the vMA Weapons, which thankfully is a thing of the past now.

You don't farm for the sake of having them collected, but to progress in other areas.

Just as a data point (I'm not trying to argue) some of us collect motifs as a way to improve chances for master crafting writ drops as part of an economics aspect in the game, for example.
It's not the same as your valid example for leads, but it is comparable.

I'm one who collects leads for personal use for furnishings, tho I'm sure there are others, as another example, tho neither are in the same category as the leads/items that other ppl need to become more competitive in the game.