Guild Wars 2

3. after a sure amount of times X item not dropping, the drop is guaranteed for the next Y amount.

to explain this, precursors are extremely rare so they could drop 1:1.000.000 exotics, when it still doesn’t drop within the lines, it will drop within the next 500 exotic drops.
something more simple like a black lion key could have a drop scale of 1:40.000 black lion chests, if it still doesn’t drop within the lines it will drop within the next 50 black lion chests.

so in the end, the rarity is still there but after a while the game will take over the drop rate to a much more aggressive degree.

disclaimer: all drop rate examples are not a suggestion, it’s only to point out how the system works

sorudo.9054:

3. after a sure amount of times X item not dropping, the drop is guaranteed for the next Y amount.

to explain this, precursors are extremely rare so they could drop 1:1.000.000 exotics, when it still doesn’t drop within the lines, it will drop within the next 500 exotic drops.
something more simple like a black lion key could have a drop scale of 1:40.000 black lion chests, if it still doesn’t drop within the lines it will drop within the next 50 black lion chests.

so in the end, the rarity is still there but after a while the game will take over the drop rate to a much more aggressive degree.

disclaimer: all drop rate examples are not a suggestion, it’s only to point out how the system works

Yeah, I thought a declining odds system would be neat. If the odds start at 1:1000 then each time you do something that COULD drop the item but doesn’t, they subtract one from your odds for the next roll. Next loot is 1:999 chance, then 1:998 chance, then 1:997 etc. Once you get a drop the odds reset back to the original 1:1000 and start declining again until you get the next one.

That way the system retains the RNG characteristics of the possibility for lucky drops and the anticipation of not knowing exactly which time will be the one that gives you your drop, but at the same time it becomes more deterministic the longer you go without winning the RNG game. After 995 “losses” to the RNG, your odds would be up to 1:5, 1:4, 1:3, 1:2, and finally 1:1 making 1,000 attempts the absolute worst case scenario for event the most horribly RNG cursed player.

Kinda a hybrid where RNG rules at first but then moves steadily toward a deterministic guarantee near the end.

I know “everything is working as intended” but how it’s intended to work isn’t a very attractive system to the players.

Magic Find is supposed to be a boon to the players for RNG and what did you guys do? You added bags that weren’t affected by Magic Find. Not only that but instead of just having our MF go up automatically when we salvaged items, we had to salvage an item and get “luck” in the form of an item that we had to double-click.

Instead of streamlining the system and making it more attractive to the playerbase you opted to set up the illusion of a better Magic Find system and in fact made the odds favor the house more by adding loot that was unaffected by Magic Find.

In a word: Yuck.

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

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

Didnt that kick in after you found some of the things you were farming? Atleast something dropped in GW1

aspirine.6852:

Didnt that kick in after you found some of the things you were farming? Atleast something dropped in GW1

Yes and no. It was never confirmed exactly how it worked (for solid reasons) but it was noted to kick in if you were killing in the same area a proportionally unusual level compared to a baseline set by what was expected an average player would do.

Of course, it’s still not as utterly hilarious as seeing what lengths they went to to try to prevent the UW from being farmed. And still failed, from what I understand.

Iason Evan.3806:

I know “everything is working as intended” but how it’s intended to work isn’t a very attractive system to the players.

Magic Find is supposed to be a boon to the players for RNG and what did you guys do? You added bags that weren’t affected by Magic Find. Not only that but instead of just having our MF go up automatically when we salvaged items, we had to salvage an item and get “luck” in the form of an item that we had to double-click.

Instead of streamlining the system and making it more attractive to the playerbase you opted to set up the illusion of a better Magic Find system and in fact made the odds favor the house more by adding loot that was unaffected by Magic Find.

In a word: Yuck.

I don’t even mind the unaffected bags or the Mystic Forge.

I just really hate all the clicking. I don’t understand why MF is an item we have to click to add to our account. It’s all account bound, what else are we going to do with it? Throw it away and say “NO! I don’t WANT better loot!”???

Pffft.

The current system punishes players if they don’t salvage items, and then punishes them for salvaging by making you sit there and double click forever to improve your chances of loot … and this is a system that’s supposed to have been designed to reward players.

The entire MF system could have been implemented better when it was “overhauled” to be account bound. Why did you not emulate the reward track system for sPvP?

MF should automatically add to your account when you perform activities that reward it. Also, once a player hits a certain level of MF (or the cap if there is one) they can unlock alternate reward paths that’d work like the sPvP system. MF is accumulated toward a player chosen goal of a different account bound bonus – skill point scrolls, level tomes, laurels, weapon and armor skin unlocks, WXP points, Guild influence.

Simplify MF. Reward your players.

I’ve always wondered where my account lies on the RNG field. I’ve always felt that I have comparatively horrible “luck” as compared to literally everyone else I’ve played this game with. Given my GW1 track record of taking 5 years to get a black dye drop while my guildmate got at least 8 every week … well … so far GW2 hasn’t been much better.

I feel RNG is good when it surprises the player, rather than it being relied on as a method of obtaining something.

Quick example, Black Lion skin weapons.

Instead of having scraps subject to RNG, just have every chest contain a scrap so the player knows how many chests and keys they need to buy in order to get.

However, keep the whole ticket as RNG. This way, while players are opening chests, they have the chance to get another ticket as well.

i’d like to see number 2 and 2.5 added. im really starting to want to quit this game, i am definitely on the outskirts of RNG favor. after 2400+hrs, playing since beta, best drop i have gotten was Genesis, worth around 40gold, and teqs weapon box and that was just recently. other than that, its a literal handful of exotics worth less than 5gold… a bunch of rares just because i do the world bosses which are never worth morth than 30-40silver or so… while guildies are pinging pre’s /ascended trinkets/ ascended armor, weapon skins, and high value items i will never see, unless i just outright farm/sell blues/greens/rares/mats and buy it. i have zero hopes for a legendary. There is no surprise happiness when RNG doesn’t ever work in your favor, at least in my case, (aside from the 2 mentioned above in 2400hrs play time.). i had to buy thousands of coffers for a few of the jade weapon skin tickets….

so something mentioned about after x amount of crap drops, your good drop rate increases etc…..

RNG in this game could be weighted a little more favorably toward the player overall. So many things seem unnecessarily rare. Of course, low loot drops and less loot overall is good for the game’s profits since lack of rewards encourage players to buy gems and gold and then purchase items. But still.

Are any changes coming to this soon? The amount of clicks for the magic find during the Ram New Year Fest. was awful. Also, having to win 10 games to be allowed to purchase items that cost money in order to have a chance of getting a little extra coin is awful.

“Here you go guys! Spend some money on a chance to get a little more money than you spent! It’s a lottery with a time sink added before you are allowed to purchase the lottery tickets!”

People play RPGs in part, to do something with a reward at the end of it. Play enjoyable, well-made content, get a reward. A serious question for the player base: Do any players really want to play content in order to be able to buy things that may or may not have a reward? That’s not a very gratifying reward loop.

I would just like offer my 2 penneth :-)

Option 2 sounds very good to me. At least then doing world bosses hundreds and hundreds of times over without a precursor drop is not worthwhile.

A token of sorts similar to dungeon tokens to buy a gift for legendary would be good. 500 pre tokens to exchange for a precursor.

I can live with that :-)

phys.7689:

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.

I would be happy about essence luck and if I am under level 80, getting green gear loot would be awesome.

This is an excellent thread and one that needs more attention. Being on the super unlucky ALWAYS end of this RNG bellcurve I’m almost, after 2 years, at the point of seriously thinking about trying another game. I grind my backside off-4000 hours and I get no good drops-not even the mini at Teq after over 700 attempts (lets not even discuss the ascended weapons chests) and virtually no exotics. Some of us are sick and tired of sucking up ALL the bad RNG while others are pulling 2 precursors at SW in a week and 3 ascended chests in 20 days at Teq. And YES-I know these people personally…..

DavidH.7380:

sorudo.9054:

3. after a sure amount of times X item not dropping, the drop is guaranteed for the next Y amount.

to explain this, precursors are extremely rare so they could drop 1:1.000.000 exotics, when it still doesn’t drop within the lines, it will drop within the next 500 exotic drops.
something more simple like a black lion key could have a drop scale of 1:40.000 black lion chests, if it still doesn’t drop within the lines it will drop within the next 50 black lion chests.

so in the end, the rarity is still there but after a while the game will take over the drop rate to a much more aggressive degree.

disclaimer: all drop rate examples are not a suggestion, it’s only to point out how the system works

Yeah, I thought a declining odds system would be neat. If the odds start at 1:1000 then each time you do something that COULD drop the item but doesn’t, they subtract one from your odds for the next roll. Next loot is 1:999 chance, then 1:998 chance, then 1:997 etc. Once you get a drop the odds reset back to the original 1:1000 and start declining again until you get the next one.

That way the system retains the RNG characteristics of the possibility for lucky drops and the anticipation of not knowing exactly which time will be the one that gives you your drop, but at the same time it becomes more deterministic the longer you go without winning the RNG game. After 995 “losses” to the RNG, your odds would be up to 1:5, 1:4, 1:3, 1:2, and finally 1:1 making 1,000 attempts the absolute worst case scenario for event the most horribly RNG cursed player.

Kinda a hybrid where RNG rules at first but then moves steadily toward a deterministic guarantee near the end.

yes yes yes yes

2.5 has my vote.

Dungeon tokens or any other kind of currency that you can save up in order to buy expensive stuff is a good thing.

I really don’t see how players can like this gambling game called RNG for expensive items like precursors, fractal skins, ..

Why does 1 party member get the fractal tonic (0.1% chance*) and the other 4 party members don’t when they did the exact same “work”?

• https://docs.google.com/a/demmel.be/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

I’ll keep it simple: option 2.5 is best. And thank you for taking the time to discuss alternatives.

I’ll vote for 2.5. Silverwastes is a very good example of a very good reward system IMO.

RNG is fine as long as it’s something complementary, and a way to get extra stuff.

Every single item should have one guaranteed way to get at least one of it, either by skill or by dedication.

One good example of this are the carapace skin boxes. At least one of each is guaranteed to get with a single action. There’s random extra drops, and if you are not lucky with drops, you can dedicate time to gather crests to buy them. Well, excepting the chest one, that for some stupid reason is RNG only. There should be at least a 2000 crest box or something. There should be nothing RNG only.

Even champion boxes should drop some sort of token or something you can gather over time to get one of the exotics, if you can’t never get the one you are looking for no matter how many you open.

So, in short:

1. “Skill” method (e.g.: Story achievements, dungeons, hardcore events). Depending on how hard and time-consuming a task is, you may get just one of the item every time the task is done, or more. There can also be time-gating, so although you get guaranteed rewards, you can’t get too many if you are way faster than other players at doing this (eg.rewards limited to once daily, weekly or even longer periods), so players can’t get too ahead or lock themselves into repeating one thing over others.
2. “Dedication” method. With this you gather either tokens and materials, and eventually get it if you can’t succeed on hard content. You gather ‘consolation prices’ over time. There may also be time-gating for this.
3. RNG. This is just luck, no limits, but it’s random. It can’t exist alone.

All three methods work better when they coexist:

For example, with dungeons:

1. Skill: Do each path once for the first time, you get a weapon box for each path. Do all paths once, you get an armor box once per dungeon. This would be once per account, as a reward for proving you have the skill to complete the dungeon. Once done it’s easier to do it again because you know it, so you won’t get rewarded for that again, unless you do it with a different profession
2. Dedication: The current one. Do the dungeon, you get tokens. Gather tokens, you get stuff.
3. RNG: Dungeons don’t have this for dungeon gear. If dungeons ever get their rewards adjusted to scale with participation, those who have done enough of a path to qualify should have a chance to get also a random weapon or armor box as a bonus, like with rings in fractals.

John Smith.4610:

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

Does DR still exist in the game? And has there been progress to adding another option alongside RNG ? (2.5) as the recent Portal farming, and the many threads about different accounts chances of getting one has shown that the outliers still seem to exist a lot in the game.

From all the options option 2 sounds good if worked correctly, or option 2.5

No new dev posts for 3 months?

Is the hybrid RNG similar to pseudo-random distribution? Where instead of having a constant, lets say 25% for a rare drop, you have ~8.5% chance increasing every time you don’t get that result
P(N) = C x N, C is the constant (~8.5%) and N is the test number

It might not be a popular system as it does take away some of the luck involved with drops but statistically speaking there is a possibility that no matter how times you roll the dice you may never roll a 6.

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

Actually MF doesn’t have much impact at all on good drops. You can look at the wiki but basically it’s only good for rares and higher tier material drops. If getting a precursor is 1/10000, then 200% magic find increases that to 3/10000. That doesn’t make much of a difference. Rares are probably closer to 1/30. And 200% magic find increases that to 3/30 which is a decent increase.

I’d also like to hear about DR. Honestly there’s no point in things like Magic find if we get hit with DR.

I personally loath RNG when it is the only system in place. I understand that the excitement of finally getting what you wanted to drop is fun, but that means the outlier players that never get that drop lose out on that fun… or the exact opposite when there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You run fractals 4 times a day for over two years and never get you weapon skin. You sit there 1000+ gold in on the mystic forge wishing you bought out someone else’s RNG luck on the AH. You paid $10 on special dye packs and get 1s worth of commons for your money.

I’m fine with kitten items: things that took you 1000 hours to get, for being the best at something, from being the first player to do something, etc… those are things that I could get if I put that effort in. But when I click “forge” for the six-hundredth time, get nothing and know that the 601st click is the same infinitismly small chance as the first 600, how is that fun or hopeful? Am I to gain hope by the fact that my guildmate just combines rare swords 17 times and got 3 Zaps? There needs to be hope for the low-end outlier examples – to know that by playing the game they actually can eventually get what they want. I quit the game for almost two years because I’m one of those examples.

Of the possible solutions, it probably would be a mix of 1 and 2.5. Fractal skins, tonics, queen bees, etc all already exist in a system that has tokens. By the time someone reaches the outlier example, they can purchase it. Mystic forge, black lion kits, dye kits, and other things that fall outside of a specific environment should have some system that closes out. RNG should exist in MMOs, but “never” should never part of the equation for a player.

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

You do realize how that only influences drops off of mobs, not off of World Bosses, not from opening chests. Even if it does improve the system, it still falls way short. There are players who have been logging regularly since open beta who have seen zero drops of worth. No rare skins, no precursors, not even Ascended chests off of bosses. Pretty sad to put in so much time and never see the rewards you’d like, especially when doing harder content. This isn’t real life, this is a game. The majority of items should be attainable through skill and effort over time.

Well, speaking as an outlier on the extremely unlucky side, I can only confirm that this effects everything in game, and is quite depressing. Completing loot dependent collections is a nightmare. I’ve never seen a precursor drop in 3 years of play (since closed beta). Beta portals? Not happening. And so on.

So what CAN be done about this?

For one, do away with the extreme grinds for collections. Either increase the drop rate for boss events that drop collection parts, or make it so that 4 of the lesser variants of the desired item (e.g. blue signets of Rhendak) can be converted to 1 account bound exotic version.

Precursors and other high-end loot … I see several ways of changing this apart from the quest path introduced in HOT. Accounts are already flagged for things like gold find, magic find, etc. Why not add a bar for ‘precursor find’, ‘ascended find’ and ‘really rare exotic find’ that increases the chance to loot one as a function of time actually spent playing (a metric you’re already tracking anyway). With the bar resetting to zero the second you actually loot something belonging to that category.

It would also help if Ascended loot wasn’t bound to a specific stat on looting. Having an inventory full of rings and armor and weapons with completely undesirable stats isn’t exactly lucky, it’s more a pain, especially since these items cannot be salvaged.

Incidentally, speaking on loot: while your intention with giving people more e.g. leather loot if they’re on a medium armor class character is no doubt sympathetic for new players, it is anything BUT for those desiring to level armor crafting. It makes it a lot harder to get the required fabrics if your preferred character wears medium or heavy armor. Especially since medium and heavy armor both require fabrics to make, same as light armor.

John Smith.4610:

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.

edit: added 2.5

Just swap the lucky accounts with the unlucky ones.

Prototypemind.4026:

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

You do realize how that only influences drops off of mobs, not off of World Bosses, not from opening chests. Even if it does improve the system, it still falls way short. There are players who have been logging regularly since open beta who have seen zero drops of worth. No rare skins, no precursors, not even Ascended chests off of bosses.

1. MF does not affect champ bags, world bosses, chests, and most self-replenishing mobs connected to events (who drop nothing). It seems like the majority of players are farming champions, world bosses, chests, and events. They find MF meaningless? You don’t say…. maybe they should investigate what’s defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

2. What most whining players quantify as good luck is not the same thing as the game quantifies as good luck.

3. I find the assertion that any player that has been a regular player since Beta having had zero good drops to be absurd. Proving this would require more than their own anecdotal recall, which is highly biased to favor things that have ridiculous value on the trade post. There is more to having good luck than hitting the lottery.

MURKATRON.8425:

John Smith.4610:

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.

edit: added 2.5

Just swap the lucky accounts with the unlucky ones.

No such thing as a lucky or unlucky account (as in everyone has an equal chance of being one or the other and this likelihood is not tied to anything hidden attributes pertaining to your account)

Broom.2561:

Completing loot dependent collections is a nightmare.

This. I realize those collections are optional, and that the items are usually available on the trading post, but the uber-rare exotics aren’t much different than precursors at that point. We’re going to start needing collections to finish other collections, just to get in the realm of something that feels fair.

When we get gold, it should be a tool to bypass an amount of relative nuisance and impatience. It should not be a number to hoard for one once-in-a-year glorious burst of success, nor should it be a number used to recursively gain more number so that the former statement can be achieved.
That’s not even intended as a dig on TP barons or other players’ forms of gold-accrual, because studying the trading post or organizing dungeon runs is work, and that seems like an acceptable risk/skill vs reward layout.

I’m not against these kinds of items dropping in the way that we are (unfortunately) used to, but the desire for alternate methods of acquisition extends beyond precursors. There should be the long-but-definite path to every unique reward, more toward the sentence “doing this task (skillfully or enough times) should yield this reward.”

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

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

That’s even worse. That means that not only did they not learn from mmo historical fact but they also didn’t learn from their history of their own first game! Smh

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.

NWO, WoW, STO, D3, Eve, LOTRO have all disclosed their drop rates.

Further people keep saying use the 2.5 option but here’s the thing, even if they did that guess what people, regular players, ie customers who bought the game, will continue to be affected negatively by DR. So until they remove DR it doesn’t matter how many ways they improve the loot system for rewards they’ll still have the problem of critical items needed for crafting just simply not showing up in your bags, they’ll continue to have the disappearing chest trick.

And now since they are using the industry standard for thwarting gold sellers, this would be a really good time to shine by removing DR entirely since that was the reason they added it in the first place.

2.5 isn’t going to solve anything so long as you’re being kept from the loot you’d normally get.

2.5 would fix the RNG only Account bound items that you only get one shot a day with.
Fixing the following items would help greatly with problems of RNG induced burn out.
Fractal weapons and tonic
Teq and Wurm ascended chests
Dungeon recipees
Beta Portals
RNG burn out doesn’t leave a Rosey Recollection feeling because it is usually ends with you failing to get your item. I can personally testify that I am burned out from fractals only because they failed to get the fractal dagger. And that it after months of grinding it (16/19 weapons). The only way to get me back there is fix it’s loot.

Ayrilana.1396:

MURKATRON.8425:

John Smith.4610:

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.

edit: added 2.5

Just swap the lucky accounts with the unlucky ones.

No such thing as a lucky or unlucky account (as in everyone has an equal chance of being one or the other and this likelihood is not tied to anything hidden attributes pertaining to your account)

I’m sorry are you unable to read? I even linked the quote from anet.

" there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all."

Highly rewarded= Lucky account
Not rewarded at all= Unlucky account

That is why i suggested swapping these “outliers” around so the unlucky ones know what its like to actually get stuff and are not so frustrated that they leave the game as many already have. The lucky ones have had enough loot already.

If you think everyone has an equal chance to get good loot you are either incredibly naive or you don’t play the game much.

Except they are talking the results of what is a normal distribution generates. They, ANet didn’t decide “well this guy is unlucky and this one is” it’s just the way it came out. X% of players will be lucky, Y% will be unlucky. Who they are is left to the same Gods of chance as the each attempt to win that drop from a player’s perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution

Binomial Distribution says for example that in 200 attempts with a 1% chance, 13.4% of the time you will get lose every single time. 100 players each doing 200 attempts means on average 13 or so players will get nothing. There is nothing that determines who those 13 players are, they are just the result of this style of item distribution. Just like the 14 player who will get 4 or more of those items in those 200 attempts. It’s a function of the math, not predestination, not some factor they can tune.

The math can tell it will likely happen, it doesn’t who it will happen to. So no, you can’t simply “switch” them.

Sariel V.7024:

Prototypemind.4026:

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

You do realize how that only influences drops off of mobs, not off of World Bosses, not from opening chests. Even if it does improve the system, it still falls way short. There are players who have been logging regularly since open beta who have seen zero drops of worth. No rare skins, no precursors, not even Ascended chests off of bosses.

3. I find the assertion that any player that has been a regular player since Beta having had zero good drops to be absurd. Proving this would require more than their own anecdotal recall, which is highly biased to favor things that have ridiculous value on the trade post. There is more to having good luck than hitting the lottery.

Want a list? I have played since the april closed beta, have been in live for 3000+ hours, and I can remember all my ‘good’ drops…. they are that scarce. They’re also all still in my bank.
- I have never looted a precursor; I have never gotten a precursor from the Mystic Fountain in over 600 attempts.
- On average I loot 1 exotic item per week (discounting the map completion rewards). The average price is about 2.5 gold. I have never looted an exotic worth more than 12 gold. (The 12 gold one was a warhammer. I tried to sell it on the TP and suddenly the price dropped below 10 gold… it never sold).
- I have looted 3 ascended armor chests, none with any of the META build stats.
- I have looted 4 ascended weapon chests, again, none with META build stats.
- I have looted ‘midnight blue’ back when you could still loot dyes.
- I have gotten a handfull of ascended rings in PVP and WVW (all with worthless stats).

So you tell me….

I don’t like dungeons and fractals, so the only dungeon I’ve completed was Arah storyline (hate it with a passion). Maybe engaging in those activities would up the chance, but then again, I’d be doing something REALLY I don’t like doing. While others engaging in the exact same activities as me DO get great drops, including precursors.

Behellagh.1468:

Except they are talking the results of what is a normal distribution generates. They, ANet didn’t decide “well this guy is unlucky and this one is” it’s just the way it came out. X% of players will be lucky, Y% will be unlucky. Who they are is left to the same Gods of chance as the each attempt to win that drop from a player’s perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution

Binomial Distribution says for example that in 200 attempts with a 1% chance, 13.4% of the time you will get lose every single time. 100 players each doing 200 attempts means on average 13 or so players will get nothing. There is nothing that determines who those 13 players are, they are just the result of this style of item distribution. Just like the 14 player who will get 4 or more of those items in those 200 attempts. It’s a function of the math, not predestination, not some factor they can tune.

The math can tell it will likely happen, it doesn’t who it will happen to. So no, you can’t simply “switch” them.

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

It’s also a known thing that tiny, tiny bugs can have REALLY major results. One space too many in the code can bug an entire feature.

I will start off by saying no I did not read every single page of this thread. I read enough of the first page to get the main idea of what the discussion is about.

Now my 2 cents, for what it’s worth. I have seen people quit games over RNG. They try and try to get something, to accomplish something in game and they fail, repeatedly. This happens enough times and people get frustrated and give up.

Case in point. I am using another game for an example but RNG is RNG no matter the game. In this other game there was a set of armor that everyone wanted. But it was very hard to get. First piece was pretty easy then each piece after got harder and harder. To get the pants, the 4th piece, you had to craft something. Not only craft it but the craft had to proc. The mats needed were somewhat expensive and could be difficult to get.

Once you had all of these mats you would attempt the part. If you succeeded then great, on to the next piece, if not then off you go gathering more mats. I know of people who would try this multiple times over. Some people wouldn’t even try to get the set, as good as it was because it was such a headache. Some would try 30, 50 or more times and keep failing.

Then the devs decided to make a change. This craft required one mat that was the hardest to get. You needed 100 of a particular drop that only certain mobs dropped. The change they made was this. If your attempt at crafting the needed piece failed then you could trade 5 non-procs for 100 of that difficult to get mat. It made failing not so painful any more.

They have since simplified it even more but I honestly think they have made it to easy to get now. They probably did it because the max level has been raised and the set is now somewhat obsolete.

Also, just my opinion, but, I think the loot tables need a tweak, or two, j/s

Yeah the RNG system is meh. Wouldn’t work for this game but I liked FF11 loot system where you rolled to obtain drops in your party or “raid” was nice. The drop rates weren’t the best but how the community worked the loot system was great. Most guilds had a point system where your attendance made points and getting a item made you lose some points. The person with the most points would get the item and everyone else would pass on it. If you had tied points with someone else you both rolled. But this allowed for people who put the most time into the game to get the sought out items even though the drops were RNG. Would be nice to have something like this but I think it couldn’t work with the game design.

MURKATRON.8425:

Ayrilana.1396:

No such thing as a lucky or unlucky account (as in everyone has an equal chance of being one or the other and this likelihood is not tied to anything hidden attributes pertaining to your account)

I’m sorry are you unable to read? I even linked the quote from anet.

" there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all."

Highly rewarded= Lucky account
Not rewarded at all= Unlucky account

That is why i suggested swapping these “outliers” around so the unlucky ones know what its like to actually get stuff and are not so frustrated that they leave the game as many already have. The lucky ones have had enough loot already.

If you think everyone has an equal chance to get good loot you are either incredibly naive or you don’t play the game much.

Please check Behellagh’s post for the explanation on why I said what I had said.

Broom.2561:

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

No, it is not known. The only thing i can think of you might had in mind is the “computer rng is not a true rng” articles that are often brought up, in which case i can only tell you this – people that bring them up do not understand what they have read, and do not know in what way it is relevant to the discussed topic. And in what way it isn’t.

Broom.2561:

Behellagh.1468:

Except they are talking the results of what is a normal distribution generates. They, ANet didn’t decide “well this guy is unlucky and this one is” it’s just the way it came out. X% of players will be lucky, Y% will be unlucky. Who they are is left to the same Gods of chance as the each attempt to win that drop from a player’s perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution

Binomial Distribution says for example that in 200 attempts with a 1% chance, 13.4% of the time you will get lose every single time. 100 players each doing 200 attempts means on average 13 or so players will get nothing. There is nothing that determines who those 13 players are, they are just the result of this style of item distribution. Just like the 14 player who will get 4 or more of those items in those 200 attempts. It’s a function of the math, not predestination, not some factor they can tune.

The math can tell it will likely happen, it doesn’t who it will happen to. So no, you can’t simply “switch” them.

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

It’s also a known thing that tiny, tiny bugs can have REALLY major results. One space too many in the code can bug an entire feature.

It’s not a “known thing”. Current PRNGs for all intensive and statistical purposes are random. They are evenly uniform in distribution, the first and second order deltas (the difference between two consecutive random numbers and the difference between those values) are evenly uniform. There are slews of additional statistical tests that it’s passed that makes it indistinguishable from a true random source (usually radioactive decay). It makes no difference that it’s a known sequence of numbers because it doesn’t matter to us. The PRNG being used repeats every 4 × 10^6001 numbers. If you call the PRNG 1000 times a second it will take greater then the duration of the known universe to repeat.

Behellagh.1468:

It makes no difference that it’s a known sequence of numbers because it doesn’t matter to us. The PRNG being used repeats every 4 × 10^6001 numbers. If you call the PRNG 1000 times a second it will take greater then the duration of the known universe to repeat.

Well, there’s the problem then. If you were offline when you were supposed to get your precursor, you have to play another 150 billion years before it comes around again.

Saw my post on this topic with option 1 :O I changed my mind! 2.5 all the way!
There must be a non-rng way to get things along with rng so play time put in feels rewarding not wasted.

2. Idea directly supports low-end players who never get anything (just like me… and I am 100% sure that I am in top 10 Most Unluckiest Player List).

2,5. Idea, supports everyone…but it wouldnt resolve issue with low-end players, since high-end players would just keep being lucky.

I would say that If both 2. and 2,5. Idea was implemented, it should somehow give hope for low-end players.

tolunart.2095:

Behellagh.1468:

It makes no difference that it’s a known sequence of numbers because it doesn’t matter to us. The PRNG being used repeats every 4 × 10^6001 numbers. If you call the PRNG 1000 times a second it will take greater then the duration of the known universe to repeat.

Well, there’s the problem then. If you were offline when you were supposed to get your precursor, you have to play another 150 billion years before it comes around again.

Sequence of numbers, not the numbers themselves. And you could say the same about any form of rng – what if you missed your lottery win because you didn’t buy a ticket last week?

Astralporing.1957:

Broom.2561:

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

No, it is not known. The only thing i can think of you might had in mind is the “computer rng is not a true rng” articles that are often brought up, in which case i can only tell you this – people that bring them up do not understand what they have read, and do not know in what way it is relevant to the discussed topic. And in what way it isn’t.

Loot distribution is based on algorithms. Algorithms are based on if-then formulas, loot tables (a database) and a lot of math. In other words, there are dependencies in these algorithms, and any outcome is weighed. And unless you have a REALLY basic code, with no external factors, that means ‘random’ never really is random.

Astralporing.1957:

tolunart.2095:

Behellagh.1468:

It makes no difference that it’s a known sequence of numbers because it doesn’t matter to us. The PRNG being used repeats every 4 × 10^6001 numbers. If you call the PRNG 1000 times a second it will take greater then the duration of the known universe to repeat.

Well, there’s the problem then. If you were offline when you were supposed to get your precursor, you have to play another 150 billion years before it comes around again.

Sequence of numbers, not the numbers themselves. And you could say the same about any form of rng – what if you missed your lottery win because you didn’t buy a ticket last week?

Joke.

Broom.2561:

Astralporing.1957:

Broom.2561:

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

No, it is not known. The only thing i can think of you might had in mind is the “computer rng is not a true rng” articles that are often brought up, in which case i can only tell you this – people that bring them up do not understand what they have read, and do not know in what way it is relevant to the discussed topic. And in what way it isn’t.

Loot distribution is based on algorithms. Algorithms are based on if-then formulas, loot tables (a database) and a lot of math. In other words, there are dependencies in these algorithms, and any outcome is weighed. And unless you have a REALLY basic code, with no external factors, that means ‘random’ never really is random.

Sigh,

ok, here is how it works:

a RNG (no matter whether True or Pseudo, please don’t start with BS like "there is no real random in computers) typically creates a bit stream of random bit settings. This stream can be interpreted as the mantissa of a (double precision) floating point number, thus the RNG creates floating point numbers between 0 and 1. And, statistically speaking, their distribution is white noise. This means that if you fetch gazillions of numbers from the RNG and mark them on a scale from 0 to 1, you end up with a straight line showing that any number is between 0 and 1 is equally likely to be drawn (remember, this is only true on a veeeeeery large sample base, like billions of draws).

Now you create the “loot table” of a mob. That might be like this (figures are only examples):

• the mob might drop equipment and, independently from this, it might drop crafting mats
• the chance of not getting any equipment at all is 50%
• the chance of something blue is 30%
• the chance of something green is 12%
• the chance of something yellow is 7%
• the chance of something orange is 1%
  For the crafting material a similar table is created.

• Now, when the mob is dead, for anyone who has tagged the mob, 2 random numbers are drawn from the RNG (there is quite likely only one RNG for all random sources on that map, no “reserved” RNG for a player; therefore even a PRNG generate true random output, because it is completely unpredictable in which order numbers are drawn from the random pool).

• If the number drawn for the equipment drop is less than .5, the player gets nothing
• If the number is between .5 and .8, the player gets a blue item
• If the number is between .8 and .92, the player gets a green item
• If the number is between .92 and .99, the player gets a yellow item
• If the number is between .99 and 1, the player gets an orange item

Which item concretely may be up to another random draw.

Can you see that you can have “algorithms” and “random” at the same time, since “draw a random number” is part of an “algorithm”?

Just make it so one person cant play 2 months and get 3 pre drops while another player players for almost 3 years and gets nothing.

Thats the part people are upset about.

I seriously don’t know what “people” are upset about, since I don’t know them all.

I know what I’m upset about.

Having meager loot for market stability reasons.

I don’t care for market. I play this game for enjoyment. I feel good if I do something and get rewarded nicely. If I have to “work” for something, no problem. I wanted ascended armor for my wvw warrior, I worked for it, I have it.

But the way the normal loot is distributed in this game is unrewarding. Good loot (i.e. something to enjoy) is extremely rare AND on top of that it is random. Which means that it turns me down to do something over and over again knowing that it is not through how well I play but simply through chances in a numbers game that I might feel rewarded.

I think more bosses/events should have loot reserved to them exclusively (like that staff with the gargoyle on top, that IIRC is only dropped at shadow behemoth) and then there should be a more reliable way of receiving loot, like it is done with dungeon tokens.