RNG as a concept: Discuss

RNG as a concept: Discuss

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Posted by: Daddar.5971

Daddar.5971

Just add an additional ( invisible?) 1% to the account MF buff for every ‘subpar’ drop, and remove the extra MF whenever an ‘over-par’ drop occurs. Basically, just fudge the MF upward until a player is compensated for getting garbage instead of goodies.

‘Elite’ in all 9 professions. I take mediocrity seriously!

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Posted by: Abimes.9726

Abimes.9726

I’m going for #2,5 , it’s simple & strait forward.

You know how much time you’ll have to work, taking out of consideration RNG , and if you are lucky you spend less time doing the stuff. (—> never get dissapointed)

And you know people had to work to get that stuff , not just random looted it at the first run. (DoA system of gw1 was great.)

I feel like it’s more like in real life , if you work hard you get what you wan’t … you are lucky you can get even more.

The down side? It’s less casual frendly.

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Posted by: Clerigo.9475

Clerigo.9475

This is a spinoff of the economy thread to talk about RNG tactics in games in a general form.
Here’s the premise. RNG is evenly distributed on aggregate. On an individual level this means that while almost everyone falls into a reasonable range in the middle, there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all. These individuals become sample cases and spotlights for experiences that maybe shouldn’t exist.

We do need to be very careful about ideas that flatten the experience entirely as that quickly becomes not fun at all.

There are two concepts that have been discussed in the other thread that I’ll briefly summarize.

1. Use a specifically non-random NG. The NRNG functions similarly to a RNG, but has characteristics that either squish the distribution so that outliers exist much less or specifically manipulate a player’s experience for loot in a more complicated way that makes it feel rewarding.

2. Implement measures that counteract low-end outlier behavior inside of game design. This would be a system that is something like: If player hasn’t received a rare drop in X time send them Y tickets for random drops.

2.5: “Add secondary reward mechanisms (ie. token based system) alongside the primary RNG system; allow progress to be made even when you don’t get the result you want.”

Obviously these are hyper-simplified descriptions, but I don’t want this to get too long.

edit: added 2.5

Is it so hard to just reward players for the time they invest in the game??

I have been playing this game for so long and never had a percursor drop.
I have been playing this game for so long and i have 5 ascended boxes drop.

Just keep current RNG system for the kitten cursed Mystic Forge. Any of the other mentioned systems are totally unthinkable for the forge.

Outside of that, yes please, implement a token system so even if i dont get anything from looting, i still have progression towards something.

PLayers should be reward for the TIME they put into the game. I dont care if there are any other factors outisde of that so that casuals can also smile, i dont care, but i want to be rewarded for the time spent playing the game. Just do it.

Please!!!!

“When in doubt, choose change.” Leung
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” Chopra
‘No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world’ Robin Williams

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

Which is what they’re doing with raids from what I have heard. There will be a token system.

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Posted by: Rash.6514

Rash.6514

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.

Thanks for mentioning that.

I honestly believe that for big stuff in the game (like precursors), the correct system would be sure rewards for specific challenges. Like a grind that rewards you based on your skill rather than the time you spent farming something. So, just as an example, the precursor would be given to you if you completed the 5 Gods temple events by yourself (or on a small party). Plus, some sort of Jump Puzzle and then more challenging activities. Quite frankly that is what I am expecting with Raids. So the big stuff in the game (like Legendaries) would be EARNED by you, not awarded to you by chance. But, that’s a different discussion.

As far as RNG systems are concerned, I agree with your second point in the first post. Perhaps a “luck based” token that would temporarily increase the chance of winning something nice and keep all players interested, while still giving them the illusion of being rewarded something nice when they were not expecting. Illusion is a key work here. We do not need to know how your RNG system works. It doesn’t have to be mathematically perfect. As long as we are in the dark, people can still enjoy the “fantastical moment” of being rewarded something when they were not expecting.

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Posted by: Blude.6812

Blude.6812

Which is what they’re doing with raids from what I have heard. There will be a token system.

and for those that don’t care for raids??

as an outlier, Anets’ RNG in it’s current state needs a major overhaul. That being said, nothing is going to change. Anet really doesn’t care about the issue. It’s working as intended even if some get nothing after 3 years of playing.

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Posted by: curtegg.5216

curtegg.5216

Rng should be set up two ways. First tiered based upon player gameplay time vs the present magic find % as an example (substitute desired gameplay duration time):
1) <1000 hrs – RNG as is
2) <2000 hrs – all drops go up one level (blues become greens, greens/rares, rares/exotics)
3) <3000 hrs – drops go up another level

The second part is that the collection system influences the loot drop to avoid redundant drops.

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

Which is what they’re doing with raids from what I have heard. There will be a token system.

and for those that don’t care for raids??

as an outlier, Anets’ RNG in it’s current state needs a major overhaul. That being said, nothing is going to change. Anet really doesn’t care about the issue. It’s working as intended even if some get nothing after 3 years of playing.

Time isn’t an indicator of whether some should or should not get something when you don’t consider the probability of getting that something. Precursors haves very low drop rate. It’s feasible that a player may not ever see a precursor across 10 years. There are other factors to consider such as pkay time and exactly what the player does when actively playing.

There’s really no need to put in a token system for the older content as there’s no need. Precursors can now be crafted and fractal weapons can be bought with pristine relics. All when HoT comes out. RNG is still a necessary component in MMO’s which likely will not change.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

GW2’s problem, I think, is that there simply isn’t enough of subjective value that drops anywhere so any given solution is still going to feel less satisfactory.

I mean think about it. How many cool skins just drop ? Not all that many. In stead of squishing the distribution to fix meager loot tables, you could simply add more loot to the tables. Gear drops in a wide variety of stats, but unlike more stat-centric games, the stats on your drops in GW2 are not compelling variance in the loot.

Add on top of that the crafting-centric economy of the game which enables players to easily obtain the exact stats and rarity levels they need with no real struggle aside from time spent acquiring currency, and you realize that it isn’t RNG that’s the problem. It’s the meager loot tables that don’t reflect the primary reward mechanism of the game.

Your loot table may have 70 items in it, the only variance that players actually care about are the skins they don’t need the stats, and they don’t need the rarity.

On top of that, the vast majority of variance is in weapon skins, which account for a very small portion of a given player’s cosmetic appearance, and are, again, in competition with BLC skins that are often designed specifically to be more desirable.

On top of that, due to the extremely large array of weapons in GW2, and the way the game ties them mechanically to weapon skills, players generally have very little use or desire for more than three weapon types on a given character, compared to armor skins which players have use for six slots, and there are only three cosmetic weights.

The problem is that the primary reward mechanism of the game is cosmetics, and the loot tables are primarily populated with statistical variants and an overabundance or weapons that people can’t use because of the 1-5 slot system.

I’ll repeat my original point:

The loot tables are the problem, not the RNG. They are loaded with loot that is not cosmetically compelling in a game built around cosmetics as the primary reward driver.

Attempting to “fix RNG” isn’t really addressing the primary problem with loot in GW2. Your tables have so little of use or interest to players that all of the variation in drops is meaningless in the first place. Designing more dropped armor skins would go a long way toward fixing the perception of loot, as armor is the most universally desired reward when viewed from the vantage point of “players are looting to acquire skins”

I realize it’s harder to add armor than weapons due to the difference in races, but it’s worth the payoff. It’s a crying shame that the only drop I’ve been genuinely excited about since I started playing the game was a silverwastes box.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

(edited by PopeUrban.2578)

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

Rng should be set up two ways. First tiered based upon player gameplay time vs the present magic find % as an example (substitute desired gameplay duration time):
1) <1000 hrs – RNG as is
2) <2000 hrs – all drops go up one level (blues become greens, greens/rares, rares/exotics)
3) <3000 hrs – drops go up another level

The second part is that the collection system influences the loot drop to avoid redundant drops.

So all a new player needs to do is not log off their computer ever? In 125 days, they’ve hit the cap.

What happens when all of those players get to the cap making those drop worthless? What if Anet prefers some drops to be rare so they just make them even more rarer to compensate for those using your suggested system.

(edited by Ayrilana.1396)

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Posted by: Lobo Dela Noche.5127

Lobo Dela Noche.5127

IMO dungeons, fractals, world bosses and raids should all have tokens. As that is an easy way to guarantee players are rewarded for their time and effort. I would still have random drops so that players get the “OMG awesome lookie what I got feeling”. That seams like to me the easiest way to keep the loot anything anywhere from anything mentality going but still add the feeling of working towards something with out it being all about gold which is what so many dislike.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

The problem is since we level to 80 so darn quick most of the items on the drop tables become worthless to use on your character and are only of use as salvage, forge fodder and occasionally something you can sell on the TP. And once players get their ascended gear, even exotics become “trash” drops.

How do you reward someone who has everything they need? Short of handing out precursors like candy on Halloween?

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

Bit of a bump to say something I feel is important…

Thank you.

With Legendary collections and map rewards, we’re finally getting something that this thread was created to address. Certainty.

So, a big thanks to Mr. Smith and the dev teams for taking some big, potentially scary, steps in adjusting rewards.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: sanctuary.1068

sanctuary.1068

Anything will be better than the current. Only valuable item i ever got was worth 80 g. Got that item after 2.5 years of playing. Everything else has been max 1-3 g if it was an exotic. All my g came from dungeon runs bc i got that certain 1-2 g from every path and now you nerf it….gg >.>

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Posted by: Bitoku Kishi.8346

Bitoku Kishi.8346

So how does the current RNG work? I can see certain patterns that suggest there isn’t just a flat RNG going on, such as:

1. I’ve noticed is that new players or players that haven’t played for a while seem to have a better initial drop rate upon (re)starting to play.
2. I’ve noticed that when running instanced things in a team (ie. Dungeons and Fractals), the whole team will sometimes seem to have better or worse drop rate as a whole than on other runs. For Fractals in particular, it seems like if anyone gets one of the “high rewards” (ascended weapon/armor or fractal skin), then at least one other person in the team likely will as well.
3. Additionally, it seems that if you haven’t done a particular instance for quite a while, there seems like a higher chance of getting better drops (ie more Rares/Exotics) from it upon first doing it again.

These don’t seem like anything guaranteed, but just some patterns I’ve personally noticed regarding RNG since playing from launch.

(edited by Bitoku Kishi.8346)

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Just add an additional ( invisible?) 1% to the account MF buff for every ‘subpar’ drop, and remove the extra MF whenever an ‘over-par’ drop occurs. Basically, just fudge the MF upward until a player is compensated for getting garbage instead of goodies.

Given the nature of averages wouldn’t it simply even out naturally? If you have an unlucky streak you’re due for better luck soon since you’ll either progress or regress to the mean. I had Silverwaste runs where I’d only obtain 3 ectos for an entire run and I typically receive more in T6 mats than I spend in gold on the bags. One time I even got two powerful bloods three times in a row! They have a decent droprate from the bags and at this rate I can naturally save up materials for the Stygian blade.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Just add an additional ( invisible?) 1% to the account MF buff for every ‘subpar’ drop, and remove the extra MF whenever an ‘over-par’ drop occurs. Basically, just fudge the MF upward until a player is compensated for getting garbage instead of goodies.

Given the nature of averages wouldn’t it simply even out naturally? If you have an unlucky streak you’re due for better luck soon since you’ll either progress or regress to the mean. I had Silverwaste runs where I’d only obtain 3 ectos for an entire run and I typically receive more in T6 mats than I spend in gold on the bags. One time I even got two powerful bloods three times in a row! They have a decent droprate from the bags and at this rate I can naturally save up materials for the Stygian blade.

No, that’s the gambler’s fallacy. While the law of large numbers will converge the results of numerous trials onto the average, a run of “bad” luck doesn’t alter the chances the next roll would be better.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: TorsoReaper.8530

TorsoReaper.8530

RNG should be used as little as possible because it doesn’t form a sense of progression. Dungeon Tokens are an ideal system of progression because:

A) A player knows exactly how close they are to their goal
B) The player can CHOOSE the reward they want

I would much rather have far far out token goals than have a RNG goal where the drop chance is unknown. Without a sense of progression I’ll just go play something else. RNG is the exact reason I stopped playing Warframe.

Speaking of warframe, please don’t let your game turn into this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXn5dK4gYwA

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Posted by: DarksunG.9537

DarksunG.9537

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.

Hi John,
As far as RNG, I think it’s very important to understand what Ensign.2189 said: “There is nothing in between. Exotics are cheap and easy; precursors are enormously rare. Everything that’s not a precursor is garbage to be recycled. "

This is extremely important. There are no mounts that drop, there are almost no new exciting skins added to the game regularly, there are no neat toys that drop, you almost never, ever get ascended items. This is one of the reasons people view drops in games like WoW ok. They are constantly making new interesting things that drop in the game. GW2 is very very very stingy on putting new drops like this in the game. Even now we’re hearing that HoT will have 2 new armor sets in the new maps. I’m not quite sure why rewards are something GW2 struggles with when things like this happen. That number is a tiny fraction of what would be normal. So we’re left with misdirection & trying to make mats seem interesting by making flashy boxes & ui changes. Grinding for 100s of hrs in Cursed shore to get an extremely rare Charged Lodestone isn’t fun because you need 250 & when you get one you can’t equip, activate, or even see it. It’s a mat. & Mats make horrible drops. There is no rewarding feeling getting 1 of 250 rare mats. You just put it in the back of your mind & slog forward. So regardless of how lucky the metrics show someone is, it doesn’t make it fun & GW2’s drop system needs to understand that.

The 2nd extremely important RNG note is that RNG needs to go away completely from purchased items. The BL Keys are gambling, there are no 2 ways about it. The only reason it’s legal in GW2 is because of a loophole created years ago to make gambling legal, pure & simple. Un-fun RNG is bad in-game but it’s insulting when it includes actual money. Especially, when the reason new skins that would make drops in-game much more fun & interesting are now exclusively hidden behind gambling. This issue is not divorce-able from the poor RNG experience in-game.

essentially: not adding new, fun drops to the game is what makes RNG un-fun. It won’t really matter how good your luck is if the “lucky drop” you got was just another mat you need to grind. The drops need to be fun, new & interesting. & as long as you shift all the fun, interesting drops to the store, the game will continue to feel unrewarding. I understand this will probably be waved off as “well, we can’t sacrifice income” but I honestly think it’s the only actual solution to the RNG experience. Otherwise it will be a vapid chase after ui methods to fool people into thinking mats are fun. If you make it so people get an exo every week to help break streaks, it’s still not going to be more fun because an exo is just more mats. the game needs new skins, toys & fun stuff on a regular basis.

(edited by DarksunG.9537)

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Posted by: Naurgalen.2374

Naurgalen.2374

I agree, while RNG tuning is something important, DROPS are equally or more important. People should learn a thing or 2 from diablo 3: a drop / loot based game that learned the hard way the loot importance (they almost remade all the looting, with class based loot, legendarys droping more, taking out the market, legendary items being FAR more interesting visually and gameplay wise etc…).

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Posted by: XYLUM.7286

XYLUM.7286

I think a fair and rewarding solution could be as simple as:

Reroll all RNG at specified intervals. weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

In this scenario everyone gets a chance to eventually feel the thrill of being RNG-sus as well as eventually feeling the disheartening disappointment of seeing only blues and greens for days on end.

Combine that with something like an internal fail-safe that insures that after so many consecutive rerolls at average, or below average, a RNG modifier is added, cumulatively, until the RNG in question hits a certain threshold, with the same mechanics in place on the opposite end, thus guaranteeing that everyone does eventually experience both ends of the spectrum.

Something along those lines would be WAY better then the current system of some people getting almost constant great drops, and then some getting pretty much all garbage drops… then everyone else.

I’d imagine the outliers with the short end of the stick probably gave up on GW2 awhile back. I have fairly decent luck, relative to GW2 anyways… and there are times when I feel like my efforts are largely unrewarding, the experience for those on the lowest of the low end must be pretty depressing and frustrating.

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Posted by: Frostfang.5109

Frostfang.5109

Lascax makes a very good poin on page 3.

When u deal with RNG, no matter in what way, u must not forget the huge time and effort people have put in into increasing their Magic Find. If this stops to count all of a sudden and all, all of a sudden becomes equally lucky regardless of their MF, then me and lots of ppl out there will probably be Incredibly disapointed over the time, effort and gold whasted.

Plz don’t forget about the Magic Find. It has to continue to matter regardless of what u do to RNG!

Kima & Co

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Posted by: Atharian.7092

Atharian.7092

I always have and will continue to hate RNG. First of all, I can never measure my progress or say “I’ve come that much closer to my legendary today” simply because I have no way of actually knowing that… I constantly feel like I’m never getting the stuff that my friends are getting, and I really hate that feeling. I loathe the current precursor system.

(edited by Atharian.7092)

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Posted by: Clerigo.9475

Clerigo.9475

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.

Sorry John, i didnt saw this quote from you….8 months ago…boy oh boy am i a late fisherman.

So, as it stands, for me, any form of RNG is an abomination one needs to get rid off.

We are in 2015 and still this horror construct plagues most video games out there, and what awes me the most is that i have played games with dynamic generated or token generated rewards/item progression back in 1850.

Yes, i have played games where you loot to upgrade a specific item.
Yes, i have played games where the reward is a mere token that you then use to buy what you wish.
Yes, i have played games where loot tables make sense, and not just a legendary something dropping from a bunny eating a carrot, and a pile of salt and a pickle drops from a world boss.

Is this a GW2 issue? OFC not, Its in almost 90% of games of this genre you play.

Fact is, every loot and reward mechanism should act as a true trigger for progression.

What is a progression trigger? Its a mechanism that allows you to advance further in the path towards a defined objective or purpose. I dont know the name in english so i try to explain.

You are given an X item. That X item may be of your interest and so you continue your journey of looting across the virtual space and you are given with again an X item, an Y item and a token. With that token you can chose to combine both X and Y item or upgrade your previous X item or use that token in a virtual store to advance other areas of your interest. This will branch to a hundred possible combinations making for a continued sense of progression.

I have seen this in rpg games like Phantom Dust ( Phantom Dust had no loot system, but rather a true progression system) and Disgaea and i never felt so good looting stuff. Maybe Borderlands was the last game i played with a system i liked.

Maybe one day ANet makes an impact by breaking all rules and pushing a system like this into GW2. Now that would be crazy.

“When in doubt, choose change.” Leung
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” Chopra
‘No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world’ Robin Williams

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

I always have and will continue to hate RNG. First of all, I can never measure my progress or say “I’ve come that much closer to my legendary today” simply because I have no way of actually knowing that… I constantly feel like I’m never getting the stuff that my friends are getting, and I really hate that feeling. I loathe the current precursor system.

It goes beyond precursors as well. Any of the other unique exotics are most often drop-only, and their prices are absurd on the trading post, but they’re part of a collection. They don’t have mystic forge recipes, either.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Ragion.2831

Ragion.2831

Most of the time i find that a lot of these questions like what kind of content and how hard, price, or in this case how to handle RNG can often be answered by the creators themselves.

I assume you guys at Anet play video games or at the very least play GW2, so would you prefer to be at the mercy of some Math. random code or would you prefer to always reap the benefits of your efforts? Nobody like rewards completely based on luck so what are we left with?

I would say multiple reward systems for big items like legendary and ascended pieces then you can have certain items only available in parts of the game like skins. This will encourage players to play through the entire game (as long as the content itself is fun) instead of them focusing on certain parts because the rewards are better/guranteed

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Posted by: Daendur.2357

Daendur.2357

I did not read every suggestion, so I maybe can say something that is alreay been said.
I think that since any reward come from a specific behaviour (bosses, dungeons, mystic forge, fractals etc etc) each one of those behaviours should have a sort of “repeated magic find” that will increase time after time.
So each time you’ll do something you will have more magic find for that specific action and each time you receive a reward your bonus in magic find will drop.
Doing that you will not flat the experience, since you cannot predict when something beautyful will happen, but you will close the gap between lucky and less lucky ppl.

Black Thunders [BT] – Gandara

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Posted by: skullmount.1758

skullmount.1758

Can’t wait to see how much ridiculous RNG they put in again this Halloween…

Darkhaven server
Please give us a keyring…

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Posted by: Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

Can’t wait to see how much ridiculous RNG they put in again this Halloween…

Hey, heeey, it might not be redonk RNG.

…Could be 100 candy corn cobs (at 1000 pieces each) for whatever rewards we’re getting.

Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632

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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

All I can say is the RNG in GW2 has always been a little flakey. It gets “stuck” on certain things, or at least it used to, at least on my account. Back in the days after they nerfed the world bosses/temples and dungeons in to the ground, after they nerfed open world and event drops in to the ground (R.I.P. Orr), but before they implemented champion chests and world boss/temple rewards, loot was truly a bleak thing. Rare drops were exceedingly rare and exotics, well, exotics dropped so infrequently as to not even be mentioned…perhaps one every month or two. But I noticed a pattern with the rare drops. When I received a rare, most of the time, probably 7 times out of 10, I would receive a second rare drop usually within minutes and it always had something in common with the first. Say you first received a “Carrion Flame Greatsword of Corruption”. The second may be carrion, or corruption, or a flame GS, but there was ALWAYS something common between the two. The frequency was high enough that I was always surprised when it didn’t happen.

The forge also exhibits a similar behavior of getting stuck. Every time I’ve played the forge, which admittedly is only 3 times, it exhibited the same behavior. I don’t play the forge much, it’s essentially a slot machine and I hate gambling.

I recorded the forge results the second time it happened. At the time, there was a large thread analyzing the loot/rewards system and I did it as a test, but the last time I played the forge, last winter I believe, the results for exotic rewards were similar (7 items two groups of 3 identical or similar items, but there was one outlier in that case, a named piece). For a system that is supposed to be random, it just seems to get stuck, at least for my account.

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries using 4 rare staffs. Granted, my account has always been notoriously unlucky, often seeing 100+ porous bones per hour, when Orr used to be a good place to farm. (Penitent/Shelter/Plinx/Jofast) Admittedly I haven’t really played since last winter (Summer is a no gaming time for me), but I do tend to keep up on the release notes and have never seen anything to indicate anything with the RNG is different.

(edited by Leamas.5803)

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

All I can say is the RNG in GW2 has always been a little flakey. It gets “stuck” on certain things, or at least it used to, at least on my account.
snipped for brevity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

The RNG is in fact random, and we’ve been told multiple times that the seed values it uses don’t use any character or account relevant data.

Basically, because the human brain is wired to look for patterns, you chose to see a pattern when a series of random events produced something like a pattern.

The RNG didn’t get stuck. it just happenned to roll a bunch of staves randomly, you saw those staves and mistakenly interpreted them as a pattern since you, unlike the RNG system, recognize that they have a relationship to one another.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: Daddar.5971

Daddar.5971

RNG = Really Not Good. Nobody likes it. It’s actually DEmotivating in the extreme. If we must have RNG, then let increased magic find raise the chances for very rare token drops, with 20 tokens tradeable for the precursor of the player’s choice.

‘Elite’ in all 9 professions. I take mediocrity seriously!

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Posted by: Xbon.9086

Xbon.9086

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.

Hi John,
As far as RNG, I think it’s very important to understand what Ensign.2189 said: “There is nothing in between. Exotics are cheap and easy; precursors are enormously rare. Everything that’s not a precursor is garbage to be recycled. "

This is extremely important. There are no mounts that drop, there are almost no new exciting skins added to the game regularly, there are no neat toys that drop, you almost never, ever get ascended items. This is one of the reasons people view drops in games like WoW ok. They are constantly making new interesting things that drop in the game. GW2 is very very very stingy on putting new drops like this in the game. Even now we’re hearing that HoT will have 2 new armor sets in the new maps. I’m not quite sure why rewards are something GW2 struggles with when things like this happen. That number is a tiny fraction of what would be normal. So we’re left with misdirection & trying to make mats seem interesting by making flashy boxes & ui changes. Grinding for 100s of hrs in Cursed shore to get an extremely rare Charged Lodestone isn’t fun because you need 250 & when you get one you can’t equip, activate, or even see it. It’s a mat. & Mats make horrible drops. There is no rewarding feeling getting 1 of 250 rare mats. You just put it in the back of your mind & slog forward. So regardless of how lucky the metrics show someone is, it doesn’t make it fun & GW2’s drop system needs to understand that.

The 2nd extremely important RNG note is that RNG needs to go away completely from purchased items. The BL Keys are gambling, there are no 2 ways about it. The only reason it’s legal in GW2 is because of a loophole created years ago to make gambling legal, pure & simple. Un-fun RNG is bad in-game but it’s insulting when it includes actual money. Especially, when the reason new skins that would make drops in-game much more fun & interesting are now exclusively hidden behind gambling. This issue is not divorce-able from the poor RNG experience in-game.

essentially: not adding new, fun drops to the game is what makes RNG un-fun. It won’t really matter how good your luck is if the “lucky drop” you got was just another mat you need to grind. The drops need to be fun, new & interesting. & as long as you shift all the fun, interesting drops to the store, the game will continue to feel unrewarding. I understand this will probably be waved off as “well, we can’t sacrifice income” but I honestly think it’s the only actual solution to the RNG experience. Otherwise it will be a vapid chase after ui methods to fool people into thinking mats are fun. If you make it so people get an exo every week to help break streaks, it’s still not going to be more fun because an exo is just more mats. the game needs new skins, toys & fun stuff on a regular basis.

+1 to the first point -1 to the second, gambling like this is perfectly fine, it’s a way to support the game an infinite # of ways since if you bought out all the other gem shop items there’d be nothing left to get, boosters are pretty useless end game, and there’s only so many account upgrades, other companies use this gambling, valve is notable for it, key to chest gambling on an item that could be incredibly rare, with mostly trash is how it’s always been for things like this, though I wish they’d increase the drop rate of those perm contracts.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

+1 to the first point -1 to the second, gambling like this is perfectly fine, it’s a way to support the game an infinite # of ways since if you bought out all the other gem shop items there’d be nothing left to get, boosters are pretty useless end game, and there’s only so many account upgrades, other companies use this gambling, valve is notable for it, key to chest gambling on an item that could be incredibly rare, with mostly trash is how it’s always been for things like this, though I wish they’d increase the drop rate of those perm contracts.

Except they won’t and you mentioned the reason why. It’s an account upgrade and not only that it eliminates the need to ever buy those one charge gem shop items. It would be like dropping an unlimited black lion chest key or an unlimited transmutation charge. While an awesome drop it cuts off a potential income source.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Paul.4081

Paul.4081

Disclaimer: I base my answers on math.
This comment is mainly to show how most of the RNG-hater focus way to much on the RNG as being used in GW2, forgetting that is can also be used in a good way. It has really become a blind hate where the focus has moved to the unrealistic low chance something might never drop instead of the mathematical numbers of runs a RNG item would take you to drop based on a given drop-rate.

(…)

I like your post. But let me ask you one thing: How does your RNG concept works? It is like “if I dont get it I will be more likely to get it next time”?

It simply works like this.

You create an account. You are assigned at this point a blessed or cursed one. The end.

(edited by Paul.4081)

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Posted by: Rezzet.3614

Rezzet.3614

i’d go with number 2 because the reason people hate rng is that no matter how much time and effort they invest in doing content they arent rewarded wich then starts making them feel as if they were instead punished for working hard .

number 2 seems to reward players for actually investing time and effort into content rather than just being lucky .

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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

All I can say is the RNG in GW2 has always been a little flakey. It gets “stuck” on certain things, or at least it used to, at least on my account.
snipped for brevity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

The RNG is in fact random, and we’ve been told multiple times that the seed values it uses don’t use any character or account relevant data.

Basically, because the human brain is wired to look for patterns, you chose to see a pattern when a series of random events produced something like a pattern.

Yes, of course there are streaks, good and bad. It’s easy for someone who believes it’s there to see clustering in bad behavior, but when it presents itself in supposedly very rare good behavior it becomes much more obvious. If a point is reached that a streak or behavior becomes predictable, it’s no longer random. I never said they used player information to seed the RNG, only that this is what was observed on my account over the course of many months.

The RNG didn’t get stuck. it just happenned to roll a bunch of staves randomly, you saw those staves and mistakenly interpreted them as a pattern since you, unlike the RNG system, recognize that they have a relationship to one another.

Perhaps, but I’d be willing to bet if I were to do the same thing tomorrow, I’d get similar results. Like I said, I typically play the forge only about once a year with items I’ve looted or crafted and all 3 times the result had the same type of grouping. I don’t like slot machines, which the forge essentially is, because it promotes gambling.

(edited by Leamas.5803)