Agreed that it sometimes doesn't seem random. The best example I have is that whenever I open an event box near the impressario in Auridon, I'll often receive the same style page I got the day before. It happened enough times (during different events) that I noticed it. I've since stopped opening boxes in Auridon.

But yeah, the RNG in this game is brutal and sometimes feels rigged. It's worse than any game I've ever played, and I've been playing computer games for almost as long as you have (40+ years at this point).

I don’t think much of it is true random rolls. Just look at something like the stickerbook, there are more weapons than armor but the weapons always drop last. There has to be some probability assigned to each type to get what I have experienced.

Furnishing plans suffer from a super low drop rate that is hard to manifest. The container loot table is filled with trash like ash, lockpicks, and white gear. I think it probably rolls for furnishing plan drop and then rolls for base game or zone plan, and the probability of base game is higher than zone plan so that is what you get 90% of the time or more.

EDIT: even if it did roll twice for furnishing plans, once for base game and once for zone plan, it would still favor the base game plans.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t think much of it is true random rolls. Just look at something like the stickerbook, there are more weapons than armor but the weapons always drop last. There has to be some probability assigned to each type to get what I have experienced.

This is because different types of monsters drop different items.

For example, in overland:

Delves: belts and boots
Public Dungeons: Shoulders, Gloves and Weapons (bosses)
World Bosses: Head, Chest, Legs and Weapons
^ this was a general rule before, I can't say for certain it applies to every zone, but I know it's still generally true from recent experience.

The same goes for dungeons and (conventional) trials with minibosses, bosses and final bosses having different loot tables. Final bosses only drop jewelry, weapons and shields. The mini-trials have different loot rules.

On top of that, I think account ids factor into seeding because it's pretty common to repeatedly get the same drop from the same kind of encounter if they're not added to a collection. I haven't studied this at all, it's just a guess. There could be other reasons for that.

On the greater topic:

I don't think the rng is that bad in terms of percentages, but it can seem that way because of the sheer number of rng drops in the game necessarily means that we sometimes fall into outlier territory.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t think much of it is true random rolls. Just look at something like the stickerbook, there are more weapons than armor but the weapons always drop last. There has to be some probability assigned to each type to get what I have experienced.

Furnishing plans suffer from a super low drop rate that is hard to manifest. The container loot table is filled with trash like ash, lockpicks, and white gear. I think it probably rolls for furnishing plan drop and then rolls for base game or zone plan, and the probability of base game is higher than zone plan so that is what you get 90% of the time or more.

EDIT: even if it did roll twice for furnishing plans, once for base game and once for zone plan, it would still favor the base game plans.

Don’t curated weapons always only drop from the final boss while all the other bosses only drop armor? And to make it worse, some of those bosses are limited to what type of armor they drop, like only hands and feet, etc? I think we always get our armor pieces full in our sticker books long before we can fill up the weapons.

And I agree, RNG can be awful.

Desiato wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t think much of it is true random rolls. Just look at something like the stickerbook, there are more weapons than armor but the weapons always drop last. There has to be some probability assigned to each type to get what I have experienced.

This is because different types of monsters drop different items.

For example, in overland:

Delves: belts and boots
<snipped for brevity>

Add to that, IA's class sets drop armor on Odd number arcs, and Weapons/Jewelry/Shield on Even number arcs.

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t think much of it is true random rolls. Just look at something like the stickerbook, there are more weapons than armor but the weapons always drop last. There has to be some probability assigned to each type to get what I have experienced.

Furnishing plans suffer from a super low drop rate that is hard to manifest. The container loot table is filled with trash like ash, lockpicks, and white gear. I think it probably rolls for furnishing plan drop and then rolls for base game or zone plan, and the probability of base game is higher than zone plan so that is what you get 90% of the time or more.

EDIT: even if it did roll twice for furnishing plans, once for base game and once for zone plan, it would still favor the base game plans.

Don’t curated weapons always only drop from the final boss while all the other bosses only drop armor? And to make it worse, some of those bosses are limited to what type of armor they drop, like only hands and feet, etc? I think we always get our armor pieces full in our sticker books long before we can fill up the weapons.

And I agree, RNG can be awful.

Yes the final boss is always weapons & jewelry, with the only exception being treasure chests which are not curated and can drop anything from that dungeon.

Oh right, sorry things have been hectic and I picked a bad example. I knew this of course but momentarily forgot due to distraction.

The RNG for antiquity leads (and furnishing plans) are beyond horrendous. And locking an RNG behind another RNG (treasure maps) puts these leads pretty much out of reach of 99.9% of players. Even when I was playing a few hours every day, I had no chance of getting those ones.

I think ZOS needs to come to terms with the fact that we're no longer playing the way we did in 2020. Players don't have 8 hours a day to grind in their game, and we should be able to achieve what we want with the couple of hours we do have.

Versalium wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

A better example would be lead drops. If you don't own a certain zone or expansion, the leads for that zone drop from the sky like raindrops in a thunderstorm. But as soon as you buy it the leads become very hard to get.

I'm on a base game and I swear I'm getting too many of those leads, like every day at least 3 or 4, purple and yellow. And I don't even do anything special for it. Maybe it should be like this but I feel like ZOS is really pushing me to buy that western skyrim dlc. If your theory is correct, then I'll stop finding these leads the moment I buy the dlc. But I won't buy it to find out

The leads for the first codex do drop, it's the leads for the second or third that don't.

preevious wrote: »

Actually, this game is rather friendly, with the drops. It's quite easy to get what you need.

I remember a game where raids were for 24 payers with 4-5 drops. 4-5drops in total, not per player, meaning that at least 19 players would get nothing. And they were not curated. And drops were all linked to classes. And loot for classes not present could drop as well. A real nightmare.

Here, you can farm your gear easily. The worst being the weapon, but you are pretty much garantee to drop the weapon you need by running the content a measly 10 times.

And don't get me wrong, that's great ! Gearing up shouldn't be a chore.

Now, I suppose there are rare cosmetics or furniture that are hard to get .. but at least some things should be rare. What would the point be, if everything was ripe for pick up?

Gear drops are fine. Since they introduced curated drops, it's been awesome. Needing 20-30 runs of a dungeon is honestly almost trivial compared to the impossibility of getting antiquity furnishings or furnishing plans. I do not think that we should grind for literal years to get furnishings.

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

I am a seasoned gamer playing video games since the era of C64 and hands down ESO has one of the worst RNG of any video game that I have ever played. The "R" in RNG is not really standing for "random". I am more and more convinced that what pretends to be "random" is actually deterministic with a certain randomized bandwidth around the deterministic number.

Best example is tales of tribute. Not only do the cards in the tavern have patron phases where cards for a certain patron come up together or chained one after the other, also the cards that one gets in one's hand from the draw pile is not really random. At the beginning one has one card per patron. When you buy one the probability that the two patron cards are in your hand simultaneously in one of the next turns looks significantly higher than 50%. And this observation is not one made over a couple of matches but over weeks.

I am quite sure that also the furniture plan drop is more deterministic than really random.

Then you never played Archeage.

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Every aRPG and MMORPG I have ever played has (or had, for the ones that no longer exist, e.g. Marvel Heroes) terrible RNG; it just comes with the territory.
ESO is no different (better or worse) than any other game of the loot collection variety.

I dunno.... it always feels worse in ESO. Maybe it's because the reward is so mediocre?

preevious wrote: »

Actually, this game is rather friendly, with the drops. It's quite easy to get what you need.

(...)
Here, you can farm your gear easily. The worst being the weapon, but you are pretty much garantee to drop the weapon you need by running the content a measly 10 times.

For dungeons, the worst case is actually 45 runs until you're guaranteed to get the weapon you're looking for because the final boss also drops the two jewelry pieces and the shield in addition to the twelve weapons - from three different sets.

joergino wrote: »

preevious wrote: »

Actually, this game is rather friendly, with the drops. It's quite easy to get what you need.

(...)
Here, you can farm your gear easily. The worst being the weapon, but you are pretty much garantee to drop the weapon you need by running the content a measly 10 times.

For dungeons, the worst case is actually 45 runs until you're guaranteed to get the weapon you're looking for because the final boss also drops the two jewelry pieces and the shield in addition to the twelve weapons - from three different sets.

For bis weapons its people who collect all but the one biz weapon in an dungeon or trial and sell weapon runs.

Normally, I might disagree, but my experience is actually pretty much the same as everybody else. The RNG does not seem very random at all.

For example, after spending the last six years playing Elder Scrolls Online, one day in Cyrodiil while mining, which we all do pretty regularly, I suddenly got an achievement!

I checked to see what the achievement was and was shocked that it took SIX years of fairly common, everyday mining to get this is ACHIEVEMENT, which I didn't even know existed!

"Hroldan Hammer Mining is a customized action that alters the mining animation and audio. It is obtainable as a rare drop from mining ore nodes in any zone, or purchased from Rolis Hlaalu for 50 Writ Vouchers."

(I don't actually know when it became available from Rolis Hlaalu. It was not really on my radar and had not much interest in it I suppose.)

I like the animation and I use it all the time now. But SIX ESO+ years of playing the game doing mining and other harvesting on a regular basis and finally I get this so-called rare drop?

So, I am guessing that "rare drop" can also equal the chances of being struck by lightning.

My own story about RNG and this game, is that these past 2 days, I got 25 attempts to get the lead in Graven Deep for the Esoteric Environment Greaves, and still no lead.
I made solo runs till the first secret boss, 10 min to wait in between runs xO. I shall stop now.

Devs in this game and pretty much in every game out there, don't know that with average luck and RNG, loots will NEVER statistically appear FOR a given number of players. It is math.

SO yeah, as far as loot or leads are concerned, they should be buyable with a currency and not only comes with RNG. And not buyable every 6 months, like it is today for legendary leads.

Frayton wrote: »

ESO's horrible RNG actually makes me just give up on ESO and play another game for awhile.

It feels bad spending so much time and effort just trying for a drop that never drops. Ugh.

Yeah, I'm most likely to consider uninstalling when I've been trying for something (usually a lead) for a while and it's just not happening. I always have an SP game on the go in addition to playing ESO, which also reminds me of how games can be really fun. They don't have to be slogfests. That's why I wonder, when a lead hasn't dropped for me after so many tries, why I keep playing ESO when I could be using all my gaming time to play something enjoyable.

I get the grind with MMOs, but the RNG doesn't have to be so stingy. When stuff is dropping for me, I tend to play more, not less. I tend to do things that feel good, not frustrating or bad. It's not rocket science.