Guild Wars 2

Well I think the biggest problem is that all 3 of those options you listed John sound good to me. So it’s probably impossible for me to objectively say which would definitively feel better. It might sound like a crazy waste of resources but the definitive way would be undoubtedly to try all 3 of the mentioned systems and find a way to poll the player-base in game after all 3 have been tested. Or maybe the best two.

P.S. I’d argue that this is the place to talk about precursors though. They are the epitome of bad RNG and bad RNG is like a plague on video games in general, not just MMOs.

Ohoni.6057:

John Smith.4610:

I want to remind everyone that this isn’t a discussion about precursors or specific rewards, that’s a different conversation. This is a discussion of the pro/cons and philosophy behind different forms of RNG implementation.

John, I feel a bit of deja vu here, you seem to keep having to point out that this is not a thread about Precursors. If I might offer a suggestion, the reason why this discussion keeps getting back around to Precursors is because Precursors are the most divisive and frustrating element of RNG in the game, and this is a thread about RNG, so it’d be a bit like having a thread about “politics” and not discussing “who should be president?”

Now, maybe this isn’t the thread for discussing Precursors, fair enough,m but which thread is? In which thread can players discuss Precursor availability (or lack thereof), and expect a developer to read it, consider what they have to say, and respond on the topic, because absolutely no developer discussion on Precursors over the past year and a half or so is getting incredibly frustrating from the outside.

TLDR; If you would like people to stop discussing Precursors in this thread, then start discussing Precursors elsewhere.

Well, let’s see, he keeps saying that because I keep seeing people hung up on Precursors or other singular items instead of the root of why these things are rare – the RNG keeping them so.

Since this topic is about RNG and how to work with it . . . maybe we should be discussing how to both keep these things rare without chance basically being relied upon? Or whether certain things should be as rare as they are currently?

Also, regarding the list of provided options? The first option we somewhat have already through allowing dropped “pick an item” chests. Or, newly, the “Perseverence” buff which can be traded for items (interesting mechanic that) which might be able to fill option 2.

Adding tokens, more of them, seems dangerous. I suggested once before limiting the tokens in scope – one token per region (not per zone). Say Maguuma Jungle gets “Spore Pods” or “Aetheric Batteries” or something else related to Asura/Charr. Shiverpeaks get “Dwarven Trinkets” which are found all over the place. Ascalon can have “Golden Rin Relics” all over again – or “Imperator’s Requisition Chits”. Kryta has “Seraph Tokens”. How do you get these tokens? Complete events, like in the two new areas; scaling up in quantity for how high a tier the event is in the zone you’re in. (A simple repeating event which cycles every five minutes? Not a lot. World Boss? A good bit.)

Now, let there be specified places where you can trade these things in for loot bags or specialized loot containers. Like 50 “Imperator’s Requisition Chits” for a “Charr Equipment Bag” containing one to three Masterwork or better items which have skins related to charr (Steam, Legionaire, Flame). Or you can save 200 for a “Rare Charr Equipment Bag” . . . or 1000 for an “Exotic Charr Equipment Bag”.

How would this help alleviate the issue of the ultra-rare outliers? Simple. After an event where one of these ultra-rares can be found (say, after The Shatterer is destroyed) an NPC will let you trade a stack (250, once per day; maybe coinage as well) for a chest with the same loot table as the event’s finishing chest.

And finally, go back and now with the idea in mind there is a guaranteed selection of gear treasure, revisit loot tables entirely and maybe add in junk trophies which sell better instead of the gear . . . or you can instead trade them to some NPCs which spawn at the end of some event chains as merchants for a solid window of time. Essentially – rethink how you’re rewarding people.

About the Precursors or other high-desirable items? This is simple . . . code them into Collections so you get an item which will unlock purchasing them in your home instance from a new vendor. Give the Collection some attentiveness so it feels like you’re less grabbing a laundry list and more like researching the legends, and boom.

(Oh, and Account Bind all Precursors. The ones on the Trading Post? They can stay there and get sold off or be pulled off and bound to the account. Whatever. Soon as they hit a bag, bound.)

How would this help alleviate the issue of the ultra-rare outliers? Simple. After an event where one of these ultra-rares can be found (say, after The Shatterer is destroyed) an NPC will let you trade a stack (250, once per day; maybe coinage as well) for a chest with the same loot table as the event’s finishing chest.

This would ultimately be better than nothing, although I am generally opposed to gambling mechanics. That is, if I kill a mob, or earn a chest by clearing an event or reaching it, then I don’t mind so much that RNG dictates what I get out of it, but when I have to pay a collected currency to open something, either earned through gameplay or even worse bought using cash, then it really bothers me when the result is random and potentially worth considerably less than the key. This is why I absolutely HATE the current Black Lion Keys set-up, hate it more than any other element in the game. Bandit and Dust Top keys are somewhat similar, but the odds of receiving equal or greater value than the key itself are much higher. Bandit keys you almost make as many badges alone per chest as it costs for a key, and while Zephyr keys will never pay for themselves, so long as you still need to collect stuff that comes from those chests, it’s one of the better ways to spend geodes.

I’d like them to avoid “pay for a spin of the wheel” mechanics as much as possible. Anything you have to pay a currency for should be a sure thing, you get exactly what you pay for, not a chance at something good.

(Oh, and Account Bind all Precursors. The ones on the Trading Post? They can stay there and get sold off or be pulled off and bound to the account. Whatever. Soon as they hit a bag, bound.)

I would agree with this, so long as they do add new, non RNG methods of earning them as well. Much as I loathe the Precursor market, it at least does provide an alternative to RNG that would not otherwise be available in the current system (but could easily be added). I do like the idea of a collection track to earn Precursors, the only thing to be careful of there is that there should not be “stumbling block” items like you have in things like the Treasure Hunter collections, where some of the items needed are also very RNG, and if available at all become very expensive on the market place. If the goal is to remove RNG from the equation, then every tick box for the achievement needs to be a guaranteed reward from completing a task (in some cases for completing it several times).

Number 2.5 appeals to me most. Right now I’m banging my head against the Vinewraith boss for my last coat box and it JUST ISN’T DROPPING! This type of RNG implementation turns a fun boss encounter into a chore.

John Smith.4610:

I want to remind everyone that this isn’t a discussion about precursors or specific rewards, that’s a different conversation. This is a discussion of the pro/cons and philosophy behind different forms of RNG implementation.

The problem people have with the loot in this game isn’t a symptom of RNG mechanisms. Most players don’t care a whit about whether the game’s RNG has a streakbreaking mechanic or whether its only Fake RNG or whatnot. They care that the value of loot is, on average, very low.

Please, based on the actual loot tables and current TP prices for items, calculate the average value dropped by the most difficult content in the game, say Fractal 50 or Triple Wurm.

The reason you get such low values isn’t an RNG implementation problem. It’s a binding problem, and a loot specificity problem.

The thing is that almost the entire population generates supply for nearly everything. I can drop a dusk or a spark by killing a moa in a field. It doesn’t matter if I want the spark, and it doesn’t matter that the moa was 0 difficulty.

However, only a fraction generate demand for any one product. If I play a thief, I’ll really want that spark, but not personally want the dusk at all.

See the problem here? Instead of making the supply mostly account bound, you made mostly everything tradeable and just knocked down the supply to super low values across the board. Thus, every single player looking to getting a drop of any tradeable item will always see much lower drop rates than appropriate for the value he personally assigns the item, because somebody else assigns the item much less value than he does, and if it’s tradeable then the TP averages everything out.

TL;DR: Market tradeable gear will always, to the people who want to have it, feel like it drops too rarely. Make more loot account bound instead.

That’s a terrible idea. It would end up making supply even rarer (unless you also pair it with cranking supply way up, or introducing token systems for everything), and it would also annoy people on the other side of the fence; players who get a very rare drop, but have no interest at all in the item and now can only destroy it or, under your proposal, merched for gold that they can’t spend on anything because all the desirable stuff is account bound.

Zaxares.5419:

That’s a terrible idea. It would end up making supply even rarer (unless you also pair it with cranking supply way up, or introducing token systems for everything), and it would also annoy people on the other side of the fence; players who get a very rare drop, but have no interest at all in the item and now can only destroy it or, under your proposal, merched for gold that they can’t spend on anything because all the desirable stuff is account bound.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. When I said more account bound loot, I meant yes, you crank drop rates way, way up on the account bound stuff. I’d wager you wouldn’t feel kittenty about only getting to salvage exotics you couldn’t use if you were getting one dropped every two dungeon runs. And I never suggested having “only” account bound loot.

You haven’t refuted the problem statement either. And bringing the issue to light is what i’m going for. There’s always a myriad of possible solutions, but you need to look at the right issues.

I always wondered why some video game designers never reveal the actual designed probability of rare item loot drops, esp in MMOs. If I am not mistaken (I dont play D3), in Diablo 3 rare item loot drops chances are publicly disclosed.

IRL lotteries and gambling chances are also required to be disclosed by law in most countries that do not ban gambling, if I am not mistaken.

just throwing in my opinion here, for what it’s worth:

an RNG is a double edged sword. if you’re lucky, it’s great. if you’re consistently unlucky, it’s the sort of thing that causes people to leave.

in my experience, RNGs are used as to simulate the thousands, if not millions, of little bits of information that can’t possibly be implemented in game. it’s a way of making the game world almost as unpredictable as the real world. it’s not a perfect approximation, but it’s the best we’ve got.

the downside to this is that if luck (or randomness) plays too large a part, the plater ends up feeling like their choices, their abilities, don’t matter. fortunately, GW2 doesn’t put the RNG in to combat a whole lot, which is fair enough.

loot, however, is a tricky point to balance. loot is why people play, by and large. it’s the reward for doing the work. it’s the goal, the aim, and it needs a fine balance. make it too easy, and it’s not fulfilling. make it too hard, and it gets soul destroying.

in short, I think the RNG certainly has it’s place, and it does give that thrill of chance, but for those who don’t like to rely on luck, or those whose luck is abominable, some sort of consistent bottom line, like the tokens idea, is a really big help.

(personal gripe: I don’t feel magic find is as important as it should be – I’ve spent a fair amount of time in dry top, and opened a fair share of the chests there. I’ve had a few rares, a recipe book or two, but not much of the difficult stuff (adventurers helms, fossils, etc) a friend of mine – whose magic find is just over half what mine is, and who spent about a day or two in dry top, managed to find 2 fossils, 3 adventurer’s items, and a number of other such things. I realise there is an element of chance, but having spent a considerable time more in the area, and having nearly twice the magic find, it’s a little disheartening to see other people come along, do a fraction of the work, and get the kind of rewards you know you’ll likely never see.)

Warning The following post discusses precursors and specific rewards. The point of the post still regards RNG in general.

The problem is not scarcity of tradable goods when it comes to RNG. If I wanted a Legendary, I wouldn’t wait for the Precursor to drop, assuming the one I want was the Precursor I’d even get, or flush weapons into the Mystic Forge. I would buy it from someone that had the Precursor drop already by way of the TP.

Gold can be earned very quickly and easily enough that the high price of super rare drops is mitigated. Besides, the rest of the Legendary Gifts are expensive enough to acquire on their own that the Precursor price seems a drop in the bucket. In this instance, RNG governs the economy and is a necessary thing allowing devs to regulate it.

The problem, as I see it, is RNG for non-tradable and time gated items; i.e. Tequatl’s Hoard, Fractal Skins, etc. When there is no other means of acquisition, RNG will always remove fun from the game. For those that get the drop and don’t want it, they get something they can’t sell, salvage or even vendor. For those that want it and don’t get it, RNG crushes hopes with each failed attempt.

“But if these items were easy to come by/available by other means no one would run the event.” Bullkitten!

The dungeons and World Bosses should be fun and challenging enough to draw the crowd. If players are running Tequatl SOLELY for the possibility of Ascended chests then the event is an absolute failure because it is guaranteed to leave more disappointment than pleasure. I’ve run Tequatl for days at a time and seen zero hoards linked after the event.

I know that I am not the only one who would continue to run Tequatl everyday if I could earn my way to the Hoard weapons. I would even run for many more weapons knowing that each time I did so would count toward a new skin. As it stands now, RNG discourages me from considering those weapons on more than one toon. If I ever do get the Hoard drop I want, it’s likely to take me a while to come back just to run for fun.

My solution of choice is 2.5. RNG remains in play, even at its current level but with a light at the end of the tunnel for account bound items. For tradable items, see my first point.

I kinda liked the Token system with RNG system the best

As I mentioned before, I would rather have misses be tracked in the background and when the threshold is reached on the ultra rare item, bam you get one. It’ll still give the illusion of randomness.

Behellagh.1468:

As I mentioned before, I would rather have misses be tracked in the background and when the threshold is reached on the ultra rare item, bam you get one. It’ll still give the illusion of randomness.

Yes!!! Only because I’m an outlier.

My constructive input is simplistic and pithy.

RNG hates my guts.

That is all. Lol!

Khal Drogo.9631:

I always wondered why some video game designers never reveal the actual designed probability of rare item loot drops, esp in MMOs. If I am not mistaken (I dont play D3), in Diablo 3 rare item loot drops chances are publicly disclosed.

IRL lotteries and gambling chances are also required to be disclosed by law in most countries that do not ban gambling, if I am not mistaken.

I suspect that if Anet divulged actual drop rate info here, there’d be no more game two days after it was posted courtesy of the small army of pitchfork-wielding torch-tossers that would siege their offices.

Essence Snow.3194:

Sariel V.7024:

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Rare skins are just as farmable in this game as they were in its predecessor. It ranges the whole gamut of can’t-give-it-away common all the way up to consign-your-life-away impossible to find.

Uhmm yeah…gonna have to call you out on this. I had over 16k hours in gw1 and was a moderator for gwguru ventari’s corner (the buy/sell section).
The reason the super expensive r7s in gw1 were so pricy is b/c they were no longer available as drops in the game. There were only a few of them floating around after being patched out. Those weapons/minis/etc…mainly got traded back and forth between the same players. In other words the high end traders basically traded them amongst themselves. The farmable skins aka mid ranged were very much directly farmable and it showed. UWsc for eternals, SoOsc for bds, FoWsc+vssc for vs, Frostmawsc for silverwings, etc etc…In gw1 there were very specific farms for certain items that had relatively expected returns.

What do we have in gw2? A few world boss skins (final rest, jormag’s breath, etc) that are time gated and are pure crapshoots?

I wasn’t talking about r7s. I’m talking about r9s with inscription slots and damage range at max – what people generally considered as perfect. Anything else was trash, unless it was something like the BDS.

As for GW2, all exotic skins (approximately 200 weapons) that aren’t precursors or forge-exclusive are tied to specific regions, enemies, or types of enemies. Just like in its predecessor. You don’t feel like researching what drops from who/where? Not my problem and beside the point You don’t think those items are ‘farmable’? Not my problem and beside the point The essence here is that they are acquired in the same manner as they were in GW1. The problem is players don’t have patience.

Copestetic.5174:

Sariel V.7024:

There is no effective difference between the system you describe and GW2’s as it currently stands.

You’re out of your mind. If I took a week off and no-lifed GW1 FoWSC, I’d walk away with at minimum, Chaos Gloves with it being more likely that you could afford a Tormented Shield, a high req. Voltaic Spear and a nice Black finish to all of your crap.

Whaaaaaaatever. I no-lifed GW for several years, and I’ll be kitten ed if I ever came close to having enough to afford even one of those things. I still can’t get my obsidian armor. Which puts me in the same spot you claim to be in GW2 right now.

So then your argument probably becomes I didn’t waste my time doing the right things. Which again applies to you in your position in GW2.

Copestetic.5174:

[

Run specific content for skins? Maybe if you’re counting Tormented weapons, or throwing yourself at a boss over and over again in the hopes of getting its green. Just try to get a max rare Storm Bow, or Chaos Axe, or Golden Phoenix Sword, or even a max Katana or Tetsubo. Even Elemental Swords were hyperrare until someone figured out a boss you could farm for them. And Guild Wars Guru auction prices for dungeon skins were just as bad as Legendaries are today.

Uh, Underworld, FoW, Urgoz, Bogroots, Slavers…All ( and many more ) had specific drops that could only be got there, the Zaishen Chest, or from Hall of Heroes chest. Keeping these items locked behind content kept the demand high.

[/quote]

And you utterly missed the point of that paragraph. Try reading it again. Certain skins couldn’t be farmed by ‘traditional’ means.

My main point still stands. NO. EFFECTIVE. DIFFERENCE.

Not sure if this questions has already been asked but here it is anyways.
2 part question:
1. How do you determine what is a reasonable drop rate for an item?
Example lets say the Minipet Gwynefyrdd

2. Do you think items with insane RNG (personal def. anything that requires more than 100k attempts) should be trade-able?

A long time ago I invented a random-generator that modifies the chance by taking success and failure into account, here is, how it works:

First You set up the initial chance p[i], that the event succeeds:

p[i] = initial chance to succeed

Then You calculate, how many attempts it will averagely need to succeed:

n[a] = number of average attempts to succeed = p[i]^-1

Later we will need an attempt counter n[c]:

n[c] = current attempt counter

And of course the current chance to succeed:

p[c] = current chance to succeed

Now You start with your attempts:

First step is to set up the current chance to succeed out of the initial chance and the attempt counter.
Therefor You do the same as in interest-calculations when You calculate compund interest:

set p[c] = p[i]*(1+p[i])^n[c]

With this formula you will get exponentially increasing chances when n[c] is growing

But this does not yet take into account weather the event succeeds or fails, but the following does:

If the event succeeds, You lower the attempt counter by the number of average attempts to succeed:

set n[c] = n[c]-n[a]

So You get to n[c] = 0, when You have an success after n[a] tries.

Now the only thing left is, to raise the attempt counter by 1:

set n[c] = n[c]+1

Here is the short version of all this (where the looting is the event, and the "drop" is the success

p[i] = initial chance to drop
n[c] = current attempt counter
n[a] = number of average attempts per drop
p[c] = current chance to drop

set p[i] = [insert chance here]
set n[a] = p[i]^-1
set n[c] = 0

ask for drop

set p[c] = p[i]*(1+p[i])^n[c]

ask for success

if success:
-> set n[c] = n[c]-n[a]
->drop item

set n[c] = n[c]+1

Let’s calculate this with a drop chance of 1%=0.01

set p[i] = 0.01
set n[a] = p[i]^-1 = 100
set n[c] = 0

ask for drop

set p[c] = 0.01*(1+0.01)^0

ask for success

if success:
-> set n[c] = n[c]-100
->drop item

set n[c] = n[c]+1

If You do not get the drop, n[c] will be 1, and in Your next Attempt Your chance to drop would be p[c] = 0,01*(1+0.01)^1=0.0101=1.01%
If You get the drop, n[c] will be -99, and in Your next Attempt Your chance to drop would be p[c] = 0.01*(1+0.01)^-99=0.0037...=0,37...%

Or after 100 attempts without success p[c] would be 0.027...=2.7...% in attempt nr. 101

And after 462 attempts without success You will have a 99.19...% chance in the 463rd attempt

At 0.1% Chance (1 drop per 1,000) You will need 6991 attempts to get 99.979...% in the next attempt

So the advantage of this system is, that you will definitely get your drop after a large number of fails, but when You get more drops than usual, the chance will get lower and therefor You will get less drops of that item in future. Its just a bit closer to the theory ppl have, that "with a 1% chance i will get definitely 1 drop after 100 attempts", for You get your drop in any case after 464 attempts (well, still bit more than 100, but better than 5,000 tries without)

I calculated this with a little Java tool I wrote and got some interesting results:

With different chances like 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% and so on, my system approximates the total drops way faster to the averagely expected drops, while minimizing runaways on both ends of the scala, AND doesnt effect the relative amount of drops when going for the Law of large numbers. (tested with 1 million iterations)

I know only 2 situations where it could cause problems:
1st tt is with high chances like 20%, for you have a 103% chance in the 10th try without success... but at this drop rates you dont need a system to correct the runaways. Or
And 2nd with multiple chances adding up to 100%, like you get a weapon and it looks, which color you get: 1% exo, 9% yellow, 15% green, 25% blue and 50% white. In this case You will need to calculate one chance after the other like: 1% chance for exo, if you fail exo, you roll for yellow, if you get yellow it stops, but if you fail yellow, roll for green and so on...

Well now I’m done. Hope I did not confuse you with using some words that might not really fit, cause my school english is not the best and iI had to look up some words.

what do You think about this system? I would love to see this in any game, where drops or other "events" are done with random generator.

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

If they increased the drops rates to how people want them, those highly valuable items people want would eventually no different than the blues, greens, and rares that people common toss aside and consider “utter crap” drops. If everyone had easy access to everything, like you would in a single player game, how long before people get bored and stop playing?

Unlike many other games, GW2 also has a loot system where everyone gets loot and the rolls for what they get is done individually. You don’t have it where in some games people form a raid and then have to decide who gets what using a DKP system. Doing all of the content is also infinity easier than in other games and you get so much more opportunities for loot.

These are just a few of the reasons why we have what we have in this game. Would many people still be doing Silverwastes if everything had a near 100% drop rate? Even at a 50%, a large percentage of people would have all of the drops. What reason would they have to continue playing that particular content?

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

What about it?

11180 Champ bags drop, 405 rare and 58 exotic items. 4% rare, 1/2% exotic seems about right for items classified as rare and exotic.

Any item under exotic was salvaged into mats and EoL. Hence the 350K of EoL and 14.5K of fine T5 and T6 mats, 21.5K of common T5 and T6, on top of the 378 ectos from the rare item salvage.

Core and lodestone drop rates of roughly 10% and 1% seem fine as well.

What do you all want from a single champ drop? Multiple gold? Endless piles of exotics? A precursor every other time? Bree was right. Everyone is now trained to expect only big loot for rewards when you’re playing “end content”.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/14/working-as-intended-endgame-is-the-worst-thing-that-ever-happen/

At the same time a lot of people will avoid Silverwastes because it’s not worth the effort.

RNG with low chance is the opposite of rewarding effort. The randomness will create inequality. Perhaps some people find that they don’t need real life in a fantasy game they are trying to enjoy.

Reliability, even when the road traveled is long, can motivate people.

This game is made for farming it seems. Just farm farm farm. But because there are guys like this who farm 14000 bags, they need to keep the drop rate low so they don’t flood the market even more.

That means the farming is not very interesting for a lot of players. It’s an issue created by the type of activities put in the game and a lazy reward system.

You simply have to be willing to do something mind numbly stupid for a long time. So in essence you reward people with a small chance of something as long as they are willing to blow a bunch of brain cells for it. Putting in a lot of work just to have a chance on a reward with a very small win chance….what a horrible concept.

I do not know if I should be impressed by people who manage this or just stand there with a look of shock in my eyes that people can actually bring themselves to do this.

Ayrilana.1396:

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

If they increased the drops rates to how people want them, those highly valuable items people want would eventually no different than the blues, greens, and rares that people common toss aside and consider “utter crap” drops. If everyone had easy access to everything, like you would in a single player game, how long before people get bored and stop playing?

Unlike many other games, GW2 also has a loot system where everyone gets loot and the rolls for what they get is done individually. You don’t have it where in some games people form a raid and then have to decide who gets what using a DKP system. Doing all of the content is also infinity easier than in other games and you get so much more opportunities for loot.

These are just a few of the reasons why we have what we have in this game. Would many people still be doing Silverwastes if everything had a near 100% drop rate? Even at a 50%, a large percentage of people would have all of the drops. What reason would they have to continue playing that particular content?

Well if you played gw1 you would know what Anet did right in the past. The drops there were hard, but fair. This game just has no loot, there is noway in hell you can say that playing for more than 2 years and not a single good drop is good for any game.

I haven’t read a lot of this thread. It’s far too long, and I just don’t have time to read all of it, so I apologise if I’m retreading old ground.

Here’s what I would suggest. If there is a specific type of reward going to be added to the game, like the Carapace body armor chests, I would have little to no RNG. If specific content is being done for almost no other reason than a specific carrot, then there should be a reasonable expectation that it can be achieved.

As far as random gear drops from enemies, I’d just leave it as an RNG. A probability table for fine, masterwork, rare and exotic gear keeps the respective equipment at least close to their respective values. If we’re talking precursors specifically, let the probabilities fall as they will, and the new collection systems should help to mitigate this.

Ayrilana.1396:

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

If they increased the drops rates to how people want them, those highly valuable items people want would eventually no different than the blues, greens, and rares that people common toss aside and consider “utter crap” drops. If everyone had easy access to everything, like you would in a single player game, how long before people get bored and stop playing?

Unlike many other games, GW2 also has a loot system where everyone gets loot and the rolls for what they get is done individually. You don’t have it where in some games people form a raid and then have to decide who gets what using a DKP system. Doing all of the content is also infinity easier than in other games and you get so much more opportunities for loot.

These are just a few of the reasons why we have what we have in this game. Would many people still be doing Silverwastes if everything had a near 100% drop rate? Even at a 50%, a large percentage of people would have all of the drops. What reason would they have to continue playing that particular content?

thing is the loot system isnt really working well to encourage play. They give you too much stuff too randomly, and they dont have much high value things you can get via drop (that you will realistically ever see)

the fact that the player could gather that many bags, is a testimony to an over saturation of crap.
then consider, that after gathering all this crap. how much of it was personally usefull to the user? if the user isnt into crafting, something like what 1%?
this is why people say the loot sucks, because its 99% not of use or interest to them. Its just fodder for the TP machine.

Blue, green loot should be more rare. I want them as rare as yellow loot.

Instead, I want more gray loot. More variety of gray loot and more expensive gray loot. One gray loot could be sold for 2 silver. Also, reduce crafting mat cost too.

Why?

• I can sell them to the vendor much more easily.
• I can make a profit of selling crafted weapons/armors to players because there is low free supply of looted weapons and armor.
• I don’t have to get RSI from salvaging items.
• I don’t get RSI from consuming essences.
• Leather mats become profitable.
• Getting Blue and Green loot becomes cool.

The only way better drops would work is account bounding them, otherwise the value of those items would collapse. Otherwise players will continue the grind to get those highly sought after items and flood the market with ones that don’t want. You will end up with players buying precursors for 100g, less than a full set of T3 cultural armor and soon legendary weapons won’t be so legendary. They will be common place.

In both cases the improved availability means more players get to reach reach their long range goal and “win” and then leave. Players are needed even in a F2P game. It’s counterproductive to let them “win”, at least all of them.

And that’s the problem with expansions, look at WoW. Players return, max out their level, raid until they get BIS gear, and then leave. It’s called churn and it’s been a fact of life for MMOs for nearly 10 years. That’s why F2P work because it sucks in players who had “won” at their last MMO and waiting for the next bit of content. That’s why SOE have their All Access subscription to try to keep churning players in the “family”.

ANet with the LS tried to keep players from leaving for long stretches by putting out new, yes temporary in LS1, stuff every two weeks. It’s all a way to keep players from getting hooked on something else. And that’s also true with these long term crafting goals of ascended or legendary gear. It’s all to keep players who are self motivated to acquire these items.

aspirine.6852:

Well if you played gw1 you would know what Anet did right in the past. The drops there were hard, but fair. This game just has no loot, there is noway in hell you can say that playing for more than 2 years and not a single good drop is good for any game.

How many players stopped playing after they got all of the loot that they wanted? The majority of what you played for in that game was for titles. This game has a ton of loot and even more so than the first. If you increase the drop rates to level that people want, what you consider a good drop down will eventually fade to being considered junk as I’ve already said.

phys.7689:

thing is the loot system isnt really working well to encourage play. They give you too much stuff too randomly, and they dont have much high value things you can get via drop (that you will realistically ever see)

the fact that the player could gather that many bags, is a testimony to an over saturation of crap.
then consider, that after gathering all this crap. how much of it was personally usefull to the user? if the user isnt into crafting, something like what 1%?
this is why people say the loot sucks, because its 99% not of use or interest to them. Its just fodder for the TP machine.

How would that be any different for the stuff that people do currently want if the drop rates for them were increased to the level that they desire? Those items would lose value and that loot system wouldn’t encourage players to play as well.

Players can sell the loot that they don’t want. Would you prefer to not get the “junk” drops period? Anet already is improving the loot system by adding a sort of progress to obtaining them through the collection system like they did with luminescent and eventually precursors. People still complained about the little RNG that was there because they wanted it all now rather than later.

I’m almost tempted to suggest that a server be created where players that want zero RNG can go flock to. It would be completely isolated and nothing obtained from that server could be transferred to the existing servers. This includes the characters. How quickly, do you think, it would take before players got everything and would be bored?

There is a time for RNG and a time for fixed results. I’d much rather have fixed results. Now, naiasonod said it best in the grind thread. This is a game, not a job. I shouldn’t have to work at it like a job just to be able to get what I’m wanting to get.

Now with that being said, while I don’t want to work for it, I do want to play for it. I don’t want it just handed to me for doing something arbitrary or for simply logging in.

Now I’m going to combine three elements that already exists as an example of how it can be solved.

Dungeons: You form a party, enter an instanced area where you play your way through and fight a boss at the end (as well as mini bosses along the way).

World Bosses: Epic level bosses in the open world where lots of people come together to fight it.

Map Event Chains: Open world events where people can show up to complete. You must complete one event in order to unlock the next.

Now to combine them.

The first event is not really open. You enter it like a personal/living story instance by clicking on the green map marker. When you click on it, you are thrown into an instance with up to 39 other people (Just using a 40man cap for example purposes, number can be anything set by ANet). You complete an “event” that feels a little more like a dungeon than the current events. Your group makes their way through. Much like the Cursed Shore event chains, the mobs will spawn on the party as they advance. The party has aggro the moment the enemy spawns and there is no losing aggro. You have to fight and kill the spawns as you advance, or else you will have every spawned mob on your group at the end boss and become overwhelmed. At the end, is a mini boss which your group must beat to complete the instance. Upon completing, and leaving, you return to the open world map but at the location you exited (not entered).

These events should, even with 40 players, take ~1h to get through. Once you make it through, this unlocks the next segment of the chain for your character. You can come back to this next segment at anytime. These segments may or may not be time gated. As in, after completing one, you have to wait 23 hours before you can start the next. I say 23 instead of 23 on the premise that it takes an hour to complete. If you can’t get on till 5pm local time and only have two hours to play, with each one taking 1h to complete, it would have to be a 23h cd in order to be able to start the next one at 5pm the next day.

After 5 or 6 events (so 5 or 6 hours of play, and possibly 5 or 6 days), you unlock the final instance. This final instance is simply a boss fight. An epic level boss fight. In fact, the existing world bosses. Part of what makes the boss fights so easy is the number of players that are present. Not just the mechanics. Any mechanic ANet implements can be overwhelmed by numbers. So limiting the number of players in each instance, as well as tweaking the mechanics a bit, which make for a challenging, if not timely, fight. The final reward is an ascended item. Which may or may not be one you don’t need. At least if you are guaranteed to get one, your chances of getting one you can use is greatly increased. Limit it to one drop per day, account wide.

The idea is that it should take as much time through this method to outfit your character as it does through crafting. More options to get the BiS gear with each option taking the same amount of time. Fits into ANet’s own no grind philosophy by their own definition of what grind is. With the number of world bosses available, imagine if you had to fight each one for each piece.

Deamhan.9538:

There is a time for RNG and a time for fixed results. I’d much rather have fixed results. Now, naiasonod said it best in the grind thread. This is a game, not a job. I shouldn’t have to work at it like a job just to be able to get what I’m wanting to get.

adding PvE reward tracks like the PvP tracks would do a LOT of good. I think the reason they don’t have them implemented is A) that is THE incentive to suffer through sPvP and B ) the already little played dungeons would get worse. I think they should do it anyway and at the same time buff dungeon rewards for groups of five and scale it down (based on number of players) to slightly below current rewards for groups of 1-4 (yes, scaling dungeons.)

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

And from this post of John’s:
2500 salvages is nowhere near enough salvages to be certain about anything, but it is enough to make me query the datasets for enough salvages to be sure (say 100,000,000 or so)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ecto-Salvage-nerfed/page/2#post4712488

If John thinks you need 100,000,000 ectos for a reasonable sample size in this game we can infer that 14000 bags are nowhere close to a reasonable sample size. Therefore no reasonable conclusion can be made about drop rates. All you can get out of it is a confirmation bias that you’re right.

Also, if you want John to talk about it I’d suggest taking a less combatative approach and try to make it a discussion instead of the start of a flame war.

Ayrilana.1396:

aspirine.6852:

Well if you played gw1 you would know what Anet did right in the past. The drops there were hard, but fair. This game just has no loot, there is noway in hell you can say that playing for more than 2 years and not a single good drop is good for any game.

How many players stopped playing after they got all of the loot that they wanted? The majority of what you played for in that game was for titles. This game has a ton of loot and even more so than the first. If you increase the drop rates to level that people want, what you consider a good drop down will eventually fade to being considered junk as I’ve already said.

phys.7689:

thing is the loot system isnt really working well to encourage play. They give you too much stuff too randomly, and they dont have much high value things you can get via drop (that you will realistically ever see)

the fact that the player could gather that many bags, is a testimony to an over saturation of crap.
then consider, that after gathering all this crap. how much of it was personally usefull to the user? if the user isnt into crafting, something like what 1%?
this is why people say the loot sucks, because its 99% not of use or interest to them. Its just fodder for the TP machine.

How would that be any different for the stuff that people do currently want if the drop rates for them were increased to the level that they desire? Those items would lose value and that loot system wouldn’t encourage players to play as well.

Players can sell the loot that they don’t want. Would you prefer to not get the “junk” drops period? Anet already is improving the loot system by adding a sort of progress to obtaining them through the collection system like they did with luminescent and eventually precursors. People still complained about the little RNG that was there because they wanted it all now rather than later.

I’m almost tempted to suggest that a server be created where players that want zero RNG can go flock to. It would be completely isolated and nothing obtained from that server could be transferred to the existing servers. This includes the characters. How quickly, do you think, it would take before players got everything and would be bored?

the answer isnt really to increase drop rates overall. Its a complex balance that would probably be more about decreasing drop rates, unifying currencies, rewarding tokens more accurately based on task, most drops takeable to market created through intent. Specific drop types from certain content.

It probably will never be changed, but its really poor, not just in terms of rewardingness feeling, but also in terms of inventory organization item/glut.

Ayrilana.1396:

aspirine.6852:

Well Anet, how about you discuss this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-opened-13985-bags/first#post4755387

How do you even try to explain this utter crap what you call drops.

If they increased the drops rates to how people want them, those highly valuable items people want would eventually no different than the blues, greens, and rares that people common toss aside and consider “utter crap” drops. If everyone had easy access to everything, like you would in a single player game, how long before people get bored and stop playing?

Unlike many other games, GW2 also has a loot system where everyone gets loot and the rolls for what they get is done individually. You don’t have it where in some games people form a raid and then have to decide who gets what using a DKP system. Doing all of the content is also infinity easier than in other games and you get so much more opportunities for loot.

These are just a few of the reasons why we have what we have in this game. Would many people still be doing Silverwastes if everything had a near 100% drop rate? Even at a 50%, a large percentage of people would have all of the drops. What reason would they have to continue playing that particular content?

Actually I’m going to have to call you out on that misconception. You see in GW1 there were goals you could actually achieve. You could actually do certain things to ge tgear you wanted. You could actually do the things to improve your character skills. There were direct rewards for said actions and there was none of this endless grind because the loot system has a double RNG standard. One is the typical algorithm designed to make it more difficult to get things, the other is an algorithm specifically designed to prevent you from getting things after killing a set number of mobs, it’s called DR.

From my research, GW1 never had DR. It didn’t cause whole accounts to suddenly stop allowing drops as we’ve seen here for years on this game now. It’s never made whole chests disappear from dungeon runs as we’ve seen here in GW2.

Also, it’s a complete overstatement to try to make it seem like people want these drops to be 100% that’s not what people are asking for, people are asking for reasonable. This system is so far off course from reasonable you might as well be playing a chinese lottery game, it is that bad! And as we’ve all seen these types of loot systems never produce popular results when it comes to large numbers in AAA titles so until they fix it, Anet will not be getting the benefits of large numbers of players or their income because people are going to get tired of it Expansion or not!

I can tell you that if the loot system isn’t fixed when the HoT is launched I will not be spending my money on it because it’s a waste of time. I play games because I like feeling rewarded for my time in games, it’s not rewarding to get zilch from the game when playing.

Touche Amore.2083:

Easy, each time you don’t get a drop fitting into a category rare/precursor/asc drop, etc, your chance of getting said drop is improved each time until you ultimately GET THE DROP. At which point the timer resets.

Rambodacious.7495:

Hope seems to be an inherent quality of us humans. I suppose that’s why gambling is so prevalent – everyone wants to be the lucky one. However, as you pointed out, in a truly random system, like GW2, there are “losers,” through no real fault of their own.

By allowing people to build up some kind of resource to eventually get what they’ve been denied, you allow the luck/hope element to still provide the thrill of the hunt, while diminishing the justifiable frustration that would arise from a player killing Boss XYZ 1000 times and walking away empty-handed.

I like the idea presented in the first quote for the reasons given in the second. I think it retains the thrill of and the hope for getting a lucky streak, while also minimizing the possibility and effects of getting an unlucky streak.

The other options would be my second choices, but I think there is more risk of reducing drops to a pure pre-determined numbers grind along the lines of, “I’ve killed 92 world bosses so far, so 8 more more and I’ll get a ticket for or have enough tokens to buy X.”

DavidH.7380:

Touche Amore.2083:

Easy, each time you don’t get a drop fitting into a category rare/precursor/asc drop, etc, your chance of getting said drop is improved each time until you ultimately GET THE DROP. At which point the timer resets.

Rambodacious.7495:

Hope seems to be an inherent quality of us humans. I suppose that’s why gambling is so prevalent – everyone wants to be the lucky one. However, as you pointed out, in a truly random system, like GW2, there are “losers,” through no real fault of their own.

By allowing people to build up some kind of resource to eventually get what they’ve been denied, you allow the luck/hope element to still provide the thrill of the hunt, while diminishing the justifiable frustration that would arise from a player killing Boss XYZ 1000 times and walking away empty-handed.

I like the idea presented in the first quote for the reasons given in the second. I think it retains the thrill of and the hope for getting a lucky streak, while also minimizing the possibility and effects of getting an unlucky streak.

The other options would be my second choices, but I think there is more risk of reducing drops to a pure pre-determined numbers grind along the lines of, “I’ve killed 92 world bosses so far, so 8 more more and I’ll get a ticket for or have enough tokens to buy X.”

I think the numbers being finite are superior.

Let me tell you a story about an expansion called Cata. As a hunter and a shaman getting gear in the lobby instance game was important and there were extremely few choices for extremely few gameplay styles. I was forced to participate in instanced dungeons with complete strangers most of which had the personalities of rocks in a mudslide. After running the same dungeon (the only one with any kind of upgrade to the shoulders I was wearing) 50 times I finally gave up and went online to see if others had the same issue. Sure enough, at the time this particular game had a terrible bug when it came to those exact same shoulders. The suggested solution? Play PVP until you got enough points to buy second rate shoulders ones with a high enough gear score to get me into the only other progression that existed in that game at the time, raiding, so I could see the content locked behind this type of gameplay.

That was two expansions ago. Since I’ve joined back with that game, I’m happy to say everything regarding progression is spread out across crafting, instancing, a new easy type of raiding called LFR, and a currency you collect from doing dailies.

I am absolutely much happier because as a player I have multiple choices in the matter for the same level of gear. I am no longer locked behind a seemingly unreachable goal should I choose to play LFR raiding to see the content, and instancing is no longer a requirement to progress, I’ve yet to step into a dungeon which I totally thought this title would be!

Because of their loot system here and DR dungeons seem to be the only place I can actually receive any drops that are worth anything and even then after fighting a certain set number of mobs DR starts in, I deal with that along with the growing nasty nature of pug groups when I’ve tried to play this title because it’s seemingly stuck in the 2004 mentality of “group only content or else” which isn’t healthy. It wasn’t healthy for Cata it’s not healthy today there needs to be more choices for loot, more for progression, and these goals need to be finite they don’t need to have lottery chances.

tigirius.9014:

DavidH.7380:

Touche Amore.2083:

Easy, each time you don’t get a drop fitting into a category rare/precursor/asc drop, etc, your chance of getting said drop is improved each time until you ultimately GET THE DROP. At which point the timer resets.

Rambodacious.7495:

Hope seems to be an inherent quality of us humans. I suppose that’s why gambling is so prevalent – everyone wants to be the lucky one. However, as you pointed out, in a truly random system, like GW2, there are “losers,” through no real fault of their own.

By allowing people to build up some kind of resource to eventually get what they’ve been denied, you allow the luck/hope element to still provide the thrill of the hunt, while diminishing the justifiable frustration that would arise from a player killing Boss XYZ 1000 times and walking away empty-handed.

I like the idea presented in the first quote for the reasons given in the second. I think it retains the thrill of and the hope for getting a lucky streak, while also minimizing the possibility and effects of getting an unlucky streak.

The other options would be my second choices, but I think there is more risk of reducing drops to a pure pre-determined numbers grind along the lines of, “I’ve killed 92 world bosses so far, so 8 more more and I’ll get a ticket for or have enough tokens to buy X.”

I think the numbers being finite are superior.

Let me tell you a story about an expansion called Cata. As a hunter and a shaman getting gear in the lobby instance game was important and there were extremely few choices for extremely few gameplay styles. I was forced to participate in instanced dungeons with complete strangers most of which had the personalities of rocks in a mudslide. After running the same dungeon (the only one with any kind of upgrade to the shoulders I was wearing) 50 times I finally gave up and went online to see if others had the same issue. Sure enough, at the time this particular game had a terrible bug when it came to those exact same shoulders. The suggested solution? Play PVP until you got enough points to buy second rate shoulders ones with a high enough gear score to get me into the only other progression that existed in that game at the time, raiding, so I could see the content locked behind this type of gameplay.

That was two expansions ago. Since I’ve joined back with that game, I’m happy to say everything regarding progression is spread out across crafting, instancing, a new easy type of raiding called LFR, and a currency you collect from doing dailies.

I am absolutely much happier because as a player I have multiple choices in the matter for the same level of gear. I am no longer locked behind a seemingly unreachable goal should I choose to play LFR raiding to see the content, and instancing is no longer a requirement to progress, I’ve yet to step into a dungeon which I totally thought this title would be!

Because of their loot system here and DR dungeons seem to be the only place I can actually receive any drops that are worth anything and even then after fighting a certain set number of mobs DR starts in, I deal with that along with the growing nasty nature of pug groups when I’ve tried to play this title because it’s seemingly stuck in the 2004 mentality of “group only content or else” which isn’t healthy. It wasn’t healthy for Cata it’s not healthy today there needs to be more choices for loot, more for progression, and these goals need to be finite they don’t need to have lottery chances.

I don’t doubt this is true for you, but there are plenty of other people who are equally adamant and vocal about the discouragement they feel with tokenized or deterministic loot systems. For them, the kill X boss Y times for Z reward just makes the entire thing feel dull and grindy, even if it is significantly fewer times than the average random chance alternative. The “will it drop this time or not” gamble is what motivates them to keep coming back and trying again.

A hybrid could potentially have the best of both systems. The RNG could preserve the “will it drop this time” suspense while the history modifier pushes your odds closer and closer to a guaranteed drop every time you try and don’t get it. The potential for getting a lucky drop is preserved along with the suspense of not knowing exactly when it will drop, but the odds of running very far past the expected number of attempts due to bad luck could be very small and much closer to a tokenized / deterministic alternative.

For example:

Imagine a drop with a 1:25 probability. After 100 attempts you statistically should have 4 drops, but you might have 8 or you might have 0…. pure RNG is, well, random.

If you drop a token instead and exchange a box containing an item for 25 tokens, then after 100 attempts you will have exactly 4 items. Everything is completely predetermined and there is no possibility to be either lucky or unlucky.

I imagine a system where instead you have a 1:(base – failures) probability to get an item. If the base is 33, then your first attempt has a 1:33 probability to drop the item. The 20th attempt has a 1:13 probability and the 30th attempt has a 1:3 probability. Should you be horribly unlucky with the RNG and you make it all the way to the 33rd attempt without the item dropping, you would have a 1:1 chance which makes it a guaranteed drop. Once the item drops the failures counter resets to 0 and you start over from the base probability for your next attempt. After 100 attempts I don’t know exactly how many drops you would get, but it would be at least 3 and you would never go more than 33 attempts between drops.

I think this kind of system could be a good compromise that preserves the unpredictability and possibility of getting lucky from the RNG while adding the guarantee of rewards that is the appeal of tokenized systems. At first it is mostly random but as you get closer to the limit is becomes increasingly more deterministic.

It would be a fascinating test if players could choose a track before starting an event that had unique, account bound rewards.

Take my sticking point, Tequatl and his Hoard. Anyone that shows up for Tequatl could select in the event panel whether they would like to participate in a token/guaranteed loot track for X number of particapations, or in the RNG track/you take your chances and open the chest. When the event ends both groups get the same amount of gold but the token track gets no chest, just a number in their track or a token.

I’d be very interested what percentage of players would select which option and at what level of grind the RNG track would win out. I.E. run Teq 30 times for guaranteed reward, definitely; 50 times, maybe; 100 times, I’ll take my chances with RNG.

Make it an option that can be changed at any time during the event and before looting the boss chest.

DavidH.7380:

I think this kind of system could be a good compromise that preserves the unpredictability and possibility of getting lucky from the RNG while adding the guarantee of rewards that is the appeal of tokenized systems. At first it is mostly random but as you get closer to the limit is becomes increasingly more deterministic.

The problem with this system is that the big reward may be on an RNG table of possible items. Once you reach the 1:1 and get the drop you’ve been waiting for, there still remains the possibility that it’s not the drop you’re waiting for.

As an example; after running Tequatl for two months everyday, often twice a day, I finally got an Ascended Chest this Friday night only for it to be a Leftpaw’s Weapon chest. I can make Leftpaw weapons. I can’t make the Sunless weapons.

For account bound, unique drops, I still advocate a straight token system.

Okay, i have NOT read 18 pages but i´ll just say my – probably already said by someone else – opinion.

I´d rather farm 200 token/whatever and be sure to have an item X after an amount of time instead of having the chance to get X after the first try or, if i´m unlucky, not at all after 1000 tries.

Somebody told me a comment I posted in the “No-grind philosophy” would be interesting for here. I explain how I would make the reward system and also how I would implement the RNG part. I figured I would copy the comment here so you guys can get some idea’s from it.

Bare in mind it was all in the context of the conversation going on in that thread.

—

There are two premises that are basically required to start with. That is that we have to take the cash-shop out of the picture here. It’s simple, every item put in there adds another item you can only grind gold for. The other would be addition of traditional quest. It could go without and I might have a little bias here as I think they should be added also outside of this discussion for other reasons but especially quest chains simply are very good ways to reward items and also give more meaning to those items.

I would use the 3 systems I talked about before. Direct reward for completing, rng and tokens you earn along the way.

Content, being it a dungeon, a boss, a JP or whatever could and in some cases should (a simple mob should not) reward a (or more) good item simply for completing it.

You can make this more interesting by adding multiple difficulty levels. Every level could add a different reward or like I said before an upgraded version. First you get a stone hammer skin, second difficulty you get the same hammer but the head is silver and with the hardest level it gets a nice glow over it. Preferably it’s always one item but you unlock an effect that you can also turn of independently if you want to. If somebody does not like the glow you do not want to punish him by giving the glow because he completed the highest level.

Secondly you also put some rng in there. All within limits, and that really depends on the content. Just killing a mob where there are plenty of you can give lower drop-rates then a dungeon you can only do once a day. It can also be multiple items but then usually different things. So not two different hammer skins but a mini or a skin and a dye or a mount (mount in GW2 being a glider skin, that could be a little dragon having you in it’s claws I guess).

This is a farm but again should be within limits. For a dungeon I would say 1 to 5 % but really this is something you need to see using statistics you collect in the game. It should be low enough to make it a rare drop but easy enough to prevent a boring grind.

Some items should be account-bound, other should not be, the once that are not should be rare enough to not flood the TP.

Then there is also a token system linked to that content. The items rewarding should not be among the most desirable. More of the type ‘nice to have’ or maybe just one part of them somebody might want. So people should have no real reason to farm them. I think most dungeon tokens in GW2 are a good example.
The amount of tokens you need to buy everything you can with them (like a full set of armor) is based on the drop-rate of the rng items. You calculate at what number of runs the person has a 50% drop chance in total for it to drop. Just before you reach this you should have earned all the required tokens.

All the items should be in style / connected to the content that rewards them.

Next to that there should be plenty of quest-chains that give nice rewards telling you not only about the NPC’s you meet but also a story about the items you eventually get. Recipe’s for crafts are also earned in these ways while the grind for the mats should be an fairly easy task. It’s getting the recipe’s that sends you all over the world and is the hard part.

Lastly some exceptions to the things above might be made. Like a few items with an extremely low drop rate or that do require an extremely high number of tokens (or other currency) are oke just to create some of those extremely rare items.
Still if tokens or mats are what you need don’t simply make it extremely hard to get them (like you need 250 but after an hour of farming mobs that there are only a few of, you still have zero) simply making the farm doable but the number high.
These items should really be a few exceptions but they might be in there simply to create a few of those ‘woow’ items.

Oow and how do you pay this without the cash-shop. By releasing more regular expansions once a year max 1,5 year.
The only items you ‘hand out for free’ would be something like hairstyles at a barber.

RNG isnt bad in itself, but it should be used very carefully.
The TP also helps dealing with bad luck and unwanted RNG results so RNG should be limited to tradeable items.

Example of good RNG: Exotic item drops are fine because even if you get a bad exotic you can always sell or salvage it and use it to further whatever goal you currently have.

Even if the item isnt optimal for you, you ultimately gain something from being lucky.

Example of bad RNG: Ascended chests. Those are incredibly bad because you can end up getting a chest that you dont need. It doesn’t matter why you dont need it. You cant really sell the chest or its content (unless you sell a weapon to an NPC for 1g…) so despite getting supremely lucky you end up with basically nothing because you cant compensate the problems of the RNG system with trading or salvaging.

I also greatly prefer token based systems with planable results to luck based system where you pray for a good drop.

RNG is necessary to gate drops so that players always have a carrot to chase since content will be burned through faster than it can be coded but in your OP you stated that there are accounts which are statistical outliers (very lucky and very unlucky), you’re doing nothing to improve the game for players like myself until you address the flawed RNG. Being perpetually unlucky in a game is not fun.

Having statistical outliers is RNG working as intended. It’s random, which means as long as something isn’t impossible can happen, doesn’t matter how unlikely it is. But it doesn’t make the RNG flawed or broken.
I got Dusk after about 1 year, in my 7th try in the mystic toilet where I was just randomly tossing in some rares (not even greatswords, and because earlier the pres didn’t have their own icons I nearly salvaged Dusk). Haven’t gotten any pre before or after. Playing for 3000h now and my next most valuable drop was ~30g.
It’s meh sometimes but well it’s random.

The divide between the ‘haves and have-nots’ in the game is atrocious. I posted a topic a while ago that it took me a full year to somehow scrape up 400g , playing six hours a day when a lot of my guildmates were making that in a casual week’s play off of drops alone. That’s not me being a ‘statistical outlier’ that’s a broken account.

The loot system needs a drastic overhaul to restore at least some semblance of equality and fairness to it. For the record, I’d take the track rewards for pve events any day. Ever if it took 20 attempts to gain a Teq’s hoard reward, It’d be better than the only 2 exotics I’ve seen from Teq since he was buffed even though I farm him practically every day.

Why do you really need more gold than that? What exactly are you after which requires that much? Aside from Precursors and permanent contracts.

Honestly, my weigh in on this? The method you use for the Silverwastes, regarding the armor boxes and most things becoming available for Bandit Crests? I like it. I’d like to see something like this for other regions. Knowing that eventually you will have worked towards something you want? Sure.

. . . now if only the Coat was available there.

PLEASE LOWER THE DROP RATES OF GREEN AND BLUE!

Instead, add more valuable gray items and more salvage bundles.

• Let me save inventory space. I need it for switching gears.
• Make crafted gear be more valuable.
• Make it more easy to salvage and sell everything.
• Let blue and green gear as drops be something to be happy about.

runeblade.7514:

PLEASE LOWER THE DROP RATES OF GREEN AND BLUE!

Instead, add more valuable gray items and more salvage bundles.

• Let me save inventory space. I need it for switching gears.
• Make crafted gear be more valuable.
• Make it more easy to salvage and sell everything.
• Let blue and green gear as drops be something to be happy about.

based on their utility, you will probably never be happy about blues and greens.

tigirius.9014:

From my research, GW1 never had DR.

Seems you didn’t look very far…

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anti-farm_code

one particular aspect:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/ArenaNet:Developer_updates/20070420

Sariel V.7024:

tigirius.9014:

From my research, GW1 never had DR.

Seems you didn’t look very far…

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anti-farm_code

This is imo still a thing in GW2, I paused a while farming world bosses for a few months, came back and was showered with rares and exos, and after about three days it returned to a normal rate.