Guild Wars 2

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Fortunately, there are ways around RNG. The Trading Post provides a way for players to trade goods on an open market. If RNG isn’t your thing, you can buy it and skip the whole “random” talk.

Except with ascended weapons. They could have bypassed this whole problem with ascended weapons by making crafted weapons tradable.

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Fortunately, there are ways around RNG. The Trading Post provides a way for players to trade goods on an open market. If RNG isn’t your thing, you can buy it and skip the whole “random” talk.

Except with ascended weapons. They could have bypassed this whole problem with ascended weapons by making crafted weapons tradable.

That’s exactly what they don’t want.
They don’t want players to get their ascended weapons fast and then yell they have nothing to work for. They want to delay it as much as possible as that buys them time to get more trivial, completely frivolous content out, for the MMO locust to devour.

It is a completely flawed design and utterly unsustainable. That’s way they implemented the time gating system. And it seems to be paying off so far, because the MMO locusts do not think. They’re like a mob of zombies racing frantically through the game eating up content. Anet has set up barricades to hold them while they create more meaningless content for them to devour.

Jared.8497:

In general I strongly dislike RNG. I’d rather kill 2,000 of something with a visible incremental (reliable) gain towards a goal than kill half that and just get lucky on one of them to gain the goal.

That’s probably not true for the (vast) majority of people. Then it really starts to feel like a job, like work. When there is random chance it is hidden, and can surprise you at any moment… or at least that’s the thought that keeps you playing.

Draco.2806:

IndigoSundown.5419:

What are the odds that ANet employs at least one person who is conversant with statistics, and that they understand what the system they decided to use means with regard to obtaining anything via RNG?

Considering it’s an extremely basic flaw that has a known solution (my WoW example)…

Actually that’s my point: they should employ someone like this. Or else let them do their job. Or at least look up what it is that a known RPG designer does to make their game “balanced”.

Since you missed my point… here it is again. You’re assuming that “it” is a flaw. My assertion is that it is that way on purpose. Yes, I’m saying that ANet intends RNG to be that way.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Draco.2806:

IndigoSundown.5419:

What are the odds that ANet employs at least one person who is conversant with statistics, and that they understand what the system they decided to use means with regard to obtaining anything via RNG?

Considering it’s an extremely basic flaw that has a known solution (my WoW example)…

Actually that’s my point: they should employ someone like this. Or else let them do their job. Or at least look up what it is that a known RPG designer does to make their game “balanced”.

Since you missed my point… here it is again. You’re assuming that “it” is a flaw. My assertion is that it is that way on purpose. Yes, I’m saying that ANet intends RNG to be that way.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t flawed.

Draco.2806:

Actually, if you read the very beginning of the post, I’m saying it goes against the intent of applying rarity to indivisible items, where using a large chance will keep the rarity of an item certain due to law of averages, whereas using a very law chance will deviate from idea of rarity and into realm of pure luck (which is not the intent of randomized loot/randomized damage).

The probability is only one aspect. As I mentioned, the duration, or the number of trials required to reach the expected value is also a consideration. As you have no idea what either of these is, and has been pointed out elsewhere in the thread, it may very well be working as intended.

Just because you don’t feel it isn’t doesn’t make it so.

Draco.2806:

Well, you’re right, I’m making an assumption that most players do not wish to take part in gambling with rewards distributed at total random.

I assumed that would be insane.

If that’s your idea of a good game, I have nothing to say to that.

Funny, I would have assumed that anyone who would be so arrogant as to presume their own opinions are representative of a majority, while at the same time disregarding any dissenting ones would truly have to be insane or just plain stupid. But that’s just my assumption.

Draco.2806:

Aaaaand we’ve about reached the peak of absurdity. Please don’t go any higher.

Perhaps what’s absurd is the inability to understand, or more importantly cope with uncertainty, no?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Since you missed my point… here it is again. You’re assuming that “it” is a flaw. My assertion is that it is that way on purpose. Yes, I’m saying that ANet intends RNG to be that way.

Can’t put it past them. They’re not exactly altruistic.

OP, that was good.

Remember what happened to final rest, where it wasnt dropping enough or it wasnt dropping from the right boss. Then Anet “fixed” it and it dropped a crazy ton.

Aaaah those great stories of RNG failures

For the average loot drop, I have no problem with RNG. There’s a boat load of items that is in your level range. Magic Find can shift the quality up a tad but I would rather have a variety than the same few items dropped by the same mob type. That would just make some mob types targets of farming.

But you need MtG style expansion deck stacking for some items especially for Gem store bought items. For the infamous BL Chests, guarantee one common, one uncommon and one rare and the way to do that is to only have a few possibilities for common (say 4), more on uncommon (10) and a lot of items on rare (30).

Gem store dyes, I’m not going to be happy paying gems for a dye that I can buy for less than 20s off the TP or a dye pack that has less than 1g in value for 7 dyes.

Mystic Forge, would be more fun playing if it had slot machine noises. Sounds of coins hitting a tray if the quality improved. Yea, I can reliably double my money using it but parking my butt there for an hour putting in “coins” and pulling the handle is only something to do if I don’t feel like playing the TP. Note neither of these activities is goin’ an adventuring, but I can earn more coin in the time I’m logged in.

Actually I like the idea of the longer you do something, the more chance you have of getting it. But comparing a wolf pelt to a precusor is a misnomer..because a wolf pelt just gets you a standard quest reward.

What you have to ask is that has that other game made it so that raid drops in epic raids work that way. I think no.

And still people laugh at me when I say GW2 is a billion times more grindy than WoW. Clueless dolts… ANet and its players needs to wake up, this game is essentially a korean grind F2P MMO as it stands. There is little difference, I may as well go play Aion or any other free MMO on the market with ridiculous cash shops and RNG everywhere and everything. And before you tell me to quit, I have. My last post was 2 months ago, I came back to see how the game is doing and ANet have done literally nothing.

It’s so sad how a once great company has fallen, like every other… what is that quote?

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain

Mathias.9657:

And still people laugh at me when I say GW2 is a billion times more grindy than WoW. Clueless dolts… ANet and its players needs to wake up, this game is essentially a korean grind F2P MMO as it stands. There is little difference, I may as well go play Aion or any other free MMO on the market with ridiculous cash shops and RNG everywhere and everything. And before you tell me to quit, I have. My last post was 2 months ago, I came back to see how the game is doing and ANet have done literally nothing.

I don’t know. I’ve played Aion. I don’t remember getting best in slot weapons in a week or two. Maybe I’m nuts.

Vayne.8563:

Mathias.9657:

And still people laugh at me when I say GW2 is a billion times more grindy than WoW. Clueless dolts… ANet and its players needs to wake up, this game is essentially a korean grind F2P MMO as it stands. There is little difference, I may as well go play Aion or any other free MMO on the market with ridiculous cash shops and RNG everywhere and everything. And before you tell me to quit, I have. My last post was 2 months ago, I came back to see how the game is doing and ANet have done literally nothing.

I don’t know. I’ve played Aion. I don’t remember getting best in slot weapons in a week or two. Maybe I’m nuts.

Oh no I wasn’t saying that, Aion was grindy as hell, not sure how it is nowadays though. I played it on launch and even leveling was ridiculous. But hey, nice to see my favorite fanboi is still around

Edit: I just got what you’re saying, I thought you were saying Aion wasn’t grindy. We both know what I’m talking about when it comes to GW2 grind though. I’m not gonna go in circles with you.

Draco.2806:

You know what I’m talking about. The Mystic Toilet. T6 mats. Exotic drops. Ascended drops. Even Rare drops. Chest drops. Black Lion chests. Dyes. Precursors. Mystic Clovers. Those silly on-crit effects that only trigger once every blue moon. The list goes on… It shouldn’t happen. It’s a mistake in design.

If you would use proper examples, it wouldn’t undermine your credibility.
1/ Mystic Clovers have a 1/3 chance. That’s not “once in a blue moon”.
2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 10 runs
3/ rare drops are guaranteed every dragon/boss
4/ Precursors HAVE to be extremely rare because they lead to legendary items.
5/ Exotics can be made guaranteed through dungeon runs and crafting with every stat combination you might like.
6/ I might agree with your Dyes and BLC but only because those are cash shop items. Those should be guaranteed too.

You don’t have an argument.

EDIT"made a small mistake. Every 10 runs, not every 1 run.

Mathias.9657:

Vayne.8563:

Mathias.9657:

And still people laugh at me when I say GW2 is a billion times more grindy than WoW. Clueless dolts… ANet and its players needs to wake up, this game is essentially a korean grind F2P MMO as it stands. There is little difference, I may as well go play Aion or any other free MMO on the market with ridiculous cash shops and RNG everywhere and everything. And before you tell me to quit, I have. My last post was 2 months ago, I came back to see how the game is doing and ANet have done literally nothing.

I don’t know. I’ve played Aion. I don’t remember getting best in slot weapons in a week or two. Maybe I’m nuts.

Oh no I wasn’t saying that, Aion was grindy as hell, not sure how it is nowadays though. I played it on launch and even leveling was ridiculous. But hey, nice to see my favorite fanboi is still around

Edit: I just got what you’re saying, I thought you were saying Aion wasn’t grindy. We both know what I’m talking about when it comes to GW2 grind though. I’m not gonna go in circles with you.

I’ve played WoW and aion too. In Aion I never got past lvl 30 which was the point where the grind really started killing me. In WoW I never got BiS. I’ve got both in GW2 even though I play less GW2 than I played WoW and Aion back in the day.

GW2 is as grind free as it gets. I sincerely thank calender gating for that. What was your argument again?

marnick.4305:

If you would use proper examples, it wouldn’t undermine your credibility.

What’s with the personal attack?

marnick.4305:

1/ Mystic Clovers have a 1/3 chance. That’s not “once in a blue moon”.

Remember the sample size? What matters isn’t just the chance, but how often you take it. Mystic Clovers are some of the most expensive items in the game, and you need to produce hundreds of them.

marnick.4305:

2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 1 runs

No…

marnick.4305:

3/ rare drops are guaranteed every dragon/boss
5/ Exotics can be made guaranteed through dungeon runs and crafting with every stat combination you might like.[

Yes. They also drop from mobs, which is on a random loot table.

marnick.4305:

4/ Precursors HAVE to be extremely rare because they lead to legendary items.

Pretty much the entirety of the OP is me explaining that “random loot” is simply a way of controlling an item’s rarity, whereas after a certain threshold it deviates from this goal and descends into realm of pure luck.

Oh, here’s something important.

Here’s a link to a tech-savvy guy/gal from another thread discussing how GW2 might use a faulty RNG algorithm altogether. That’d be fun, right?

Draco.2806:

marnick.4305:

If you would use proper examples, it wouldn’t undermine your credibility.

What’s with the personal attack?

marnick.4305:

1/ Mystic Clovers have a 1/3 chance. That’s not “once in a blue moon”.

Remember the sample size? What matters isn’t just the chance, but how often you take it. Mystic Clovers are some of the most expensive items in the game, and you need to produce hundreds of them.

77 isn’t hundreds in my maths. Maybe I’m wrong. Here, have my degree. It’s probably worthless.

marnick.4305:

2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 10 runs

No…

Yes.

marnick.4305:

3/ rare drops are guaranteed every dragon/boss
5/ Exotics can be made guaranteed through dungeon runs and crafting with every stat combination you might like.[

Yes. They also drop from mobs, which is on a random loot table.

So? You can get it guaranteed too. What’s your problem?

marnick.4305:

4/ Precursors HAVE to be extremely rare because they lead to legendary items.

Pretty much the entirety of the OP is me explaining that “random loot” is simply a way of controlling an item’s rarity, whereas after a certain threshold it deviates from this goal and descends into realm of pure luck.

I don’t see the problem.

Mathias.9657:

Vayne.8563:

Mathias.9657:

And still people laugh at me when I say GW2 is a billion times more grindy than WoW. Clueless dolts… ANet and its players needs to wake up, this game is essentially a korean grind F2P MMO as it stands. There is little difference, I may as well go play Aion or any other free MMO on the market with ridiculous cash shops and RNG everywhere and everything. And before you tell me to quit, I have. My last post was 2 months ago, I came back to see how the game is doing and ANet have done literally nothing.

I don’t know. I’ve played Aion. I don’t remember getting best in slot weapons in a week or two. Maybe I’m nuts.

Oh no I wasn’t saying that, Aion was grindy as hell, not sure how it is nowadays though. I played it on launch and even leveling was ridiculous. But hey, nice to see my favorite fanboi is still around

Edit: I just got what you’re saying, I thought you were saying Aion wasn’t grindy. We both know what I’m talking about when it comes to GW2 grind though. I’m not gonna go in circles with you.

To me it’s different, because if I don’t grind, I can still do all the content, except for the highest level fractals.

In Aion it was quite different if you recall.

Teege.4623:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Since you missed my point… here it is again. You’re assuming that “it” is a flaw. My assertion is that it is that way on purpose. Yes, I’m saying that ANet intends RNG to be that way.

Can’t put it past them. They’re not exactly altruistic.

Arena.net is a company. It has employees. These employees have kids. The kids are hungry. Ergo, Arena.net can’t be altruistic.

www.arena.net > can you find the words not for profit anywhere on that website? Don’t be silly.

marnick.4305:

77 isn’t hundreds in my maths. Maybe I’m wrong. Here, have my degree. It’s probably worthless.

Fair point. Could be delivered in a way that didn’t make you out to be a jerk though.

On that second point, I see no reason to talk to you further.

Hello there
Please stay respectful and polite towards each other. Thank you for your understanding.

What makes it worse is DR. So not only is their main system never going to reach the law of averages and pan out, but it artificially cut players off from better loot at the point to which these drops would normally start falling off mobs for many a player, so it worsened the issue for many of us. Thus the severe shortage of T6 materials before the introduction of the laurel system, and the continuing shortage of certain items still to this day like silver doubloons. They really don’t care so long as people keep sending them money, I personally haven’t seen them give a care about the issues unless it’s happening to certain types of players like dungeoneers or WvW. Anything open world is pretty much ignored entirely.

Draco.2806:

Oh, here’s something important.

Here’s a link to a tech-savvy guy/gal from another thread discussing how GW2 might use a faulty RNG algorithm altogether. That’d be fun, wouldn’kitten

I’m with him and the OP on these issues. WoW was like this in the vanilla days. I was there prior to hunters ever having pets added to the game and there was talk about this happening in dungeons from the players. People were angry and this wasn’t happening to them in games like SWG or EQ so they were talking of leaving WoW. Imagine if the people playing this game didn’t settle for less and demanded en masse that they fixed the issue? I don’t think that’ll happen because mmo gamers today simply throw their money at anything anymore giving the devs a false sense of players being happy about what they are doing.

marnick.4305:

marnick.4305:

2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 10 runs

No…

Yes.

??? Ascended items are guaranteed to drop every 10 runs?

Runs of what?

Source?

tigirius.9014:

What makes it worse is DR…

Oh great. That’s the fourth even worse flaw I didn’t think of when writing the OP. That’s just great.

My hunch is, ANet rely on metrics (i.e. data collection) rather than player feedback, and that’s a mistake because they’re probably looking at collective data of all players combined, rather than individual outliers.

tigirius.9014:

I don’t think that’ll happen because mmo gamers today simply throw their money at anything anymore giving the devs a false sense of players being happy about what they are doing.

/sadface

tigirius.9014:

I don’t think that’ll happen because mmo gamers today simply throw their money at anything anymore giving the devs a false sense of players being happy about what they are doing.

And therein lies our problem.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

marnick.4305:

marnick.4305:

2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 10 runs

No…

Yes.

??? Ascended items are guaranteed to drop every 10 runs?

Runs of what?

Source?

Every ten runs in FotM10 which isn’t difficult at all.

Source: wiki.guildwars2.com >pristine fractal relics

Mourningcry.9428:

Draco.2806:

The Law of Large Numbers is not subject to personal opinion. It exists.

Likewise for the rest.

The LLN doesn’t delcare ANet’s implementation wrong, bad or a mistake. You did.

ANet’s implementation will, no doubt, confrom to the LLN. How could it not? Your issue is you don’t like what the expected return is, or how how long it would take to realize it.

Draco.2806:

So what happens when you want your loot to drop after killing lots and lots and lots of things? Or if you want your on-crit effect to only trigger for 0,1 of its effectiveness? Well, what happens is that it now takes few centuries for the numbers to average out. You’ve successfully introduced gambling where there should be none. Well-done!

Opinion. It may very well be intended. And again, some of us may feel ok with this and that it should be there.

Draco.2806:

You know what I’m talking about. The Mystic Toilet. T6 mats. Exotic drops. Ascended drops. Even Rare drops. Chest drops. Black Lion chests. Dyes. Precursors. Mystic Clovers. Those silly on-crit effects that only trigger once every blue moon. The list goes on… It shouldn’t happen. It’s a mistake in design.

Opinion. You think it shouldn’t happen, you think it’s a mistake in design. Some do think it should happen, some don’t think it’s a mistake.

Draco.2806:

But you know what the punchline is? No, really? Remember WoW? Its developers know about this. They’ve seen no end to unlucky players being unable to collect 6 Wolf Pelts in the beginning zone for a month straight. And they fixed it. In WoW, the longer you go without collecting a random reward, the higher your chance that you’ll get it next time. So while an extremely lucky player can still get 10 Epic Loots from a Big Boss, there’s no situation where someone will slay it ten times over and walk away without a single Epic Sword of Rat-Slaying.

You think this is a solution. Some may consider it a weak implementation to cater to an entitled audience.

Words of a true grinder. I can appreciate that you don’t want those countless of hours of “work” you’ve put into this game suddenly become worthless.

I hope you catch the irony here.

marnick.4305:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

marnick.4305:

marnick.4305:

2/ Ascended items are kinda rare but have a guaranteed once every 10 runs

No…

Yes.

??? Ascended items are guaranteed to drop every 10 runs?

Runs of what?

Source?

Every ten runs in FotM10 which isn’t difficult at all.

Source: wiki.guildwars2.com >pristine fractal relics

What are you talking about?

Pristine fractal relics =/= ascended item. Also they are not a drop.

Also if you do 10 lvl 10 runs in one day you still get only 1 relic.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Pristine fractal relics =/= ascended item. Also they are not a drop.

Also if you do 10 lvl 10 runs in one day you still get only 1 relic.

1/ But it’s a guaranteed ascended item. So you’re not just left to the RNG gods. Getting an ascended item is deterministic.
2/ it’s not possible for a human to do 10 runs in any given day. Your argument is irrelevant.

Tom Gore.4035:

Words of a true grinder. I can appreciate that you don’t want those countless of hours of “work” you’ve put into this game suddenly become worthless.

I hope you catch the irony here.

Actually, I’m far from it… pretty casual actually. Even more so recently. Never done the FG loop, never farmed COF P1 in excess, barely got in enough Invasions to get the achieve, have only managed to get a handful of monthiles done, no world completion… you get the idea.

But I remember the days of EQ, and if you think RNG is bad here, I would love to see Anet put in a fail condition for the MF and give a non-trivial chance for the MF to spit back a Unidentifiable Object every now and then. Imagine the outcry…

Just because I appreciate a little uncertainty, doesn’t make me a “grinder”. I appreciate the idea that each of my chances at the MF, for each loot drop, I have the same shot at getting something nice as the guy that has been grinding away for hours. Yes, I may not get as many chances, which is their reward for his efforts, but each of those is just as good as any of theirs.

I’d like to see the unique skins drop as crafting recipes instead of items. That way the players who get them to drop can make more of them and bring the prices down to a more reasonable level.

Mourningcry.9428:

I appreciate the idea that each of my chances at the MF, for each loot drop, I have the same shot at getting something nice as the guy that has been grinding away for hours. Yes, I may not get as many chances, which is their reward for his efforts, but each of those is just as good as any of theirs.

Hm. The solution to RNG problem wouldn’t affect that though. I was talking about bringing the outliers (“unlucky”) players on the level field with what designers expect to be “average”, which is what they use to determine rarity of the loot in the first place.

Also – and this is a bit counter-intuitive – that wouldn’t work. Random is random. No one has the “same chances” in a random environment. It’s just luck of the draw.

(And “luck of the draw” is terrible game design.)

mtpelion.4562:

I’d like to see the unique skins drop as crafting recipes instead of items. That way the players who get them to drop can make more of them and bring the prices down to a more reasonable level.

That’d be neat.

Draco.2806:

Hm. The solution to RNG problem wouldn’t affect that though. I was talking about bringing the outliers (“unlucky”) players on the level field with what designers expect to be “average”, which is what they use to determine rarity of the loot in the first place.

Also – and this is a bit counter-intuitive – that wouldn’t work. Random is random. No one has the “same chances” in a random environment. It’s just luck of the draw.

(And “luck of the draw” is terrible game design.)

\

Can you elaborate on what you mean by what I bolded? How are the percentages different for the each event?

Mourningcry.9428:

Can you elaborate on what you mean by what I bolded? How are the percentages different for the each event?

They’re not. But that doesn’t mean it’s “fair”.

Even though you might have the same “chance” (i.e. 1 in 1,000) as the other guy, you don’t actually have “the same chances” in a random environment, in the sense that you do not get the same outcome, or even close to the same outcome.

You may think that having the same “chances” no matter what would put someone who grinds for hours and hours on the same footing as someone who logs out occasionally, but it really doesn’t. That grinder could very well be getting a thousandfold more epic loot than you. Or they could be getting nothing at all.

It’s just luck of the draw. It’s unfair by definition.

In fact, if you want to offer players “same chances”, you’ll want to follow some of the basics described in OP. Without proper thresholds, intended controls of an item’s rarity become a competing force aimed towards pure random, at which point designer’s original intentions towards rarity, time gating, rewards, and fairness of loot and combat fly out of the window.

Draco.2806:

They’re not. But that doesn’t mean it’s “fair”.

Even though you might have the same “chance” (i.e. 1 in 1,000) as the other guy, you don’t actually have “the same chances” in a random environment, in the sense that you do not get the same outcome, or even close to the same outcome.

You may think that having the same “chances” no matter what would put someone who grinds for hours and hours on the same footing as someone who logs out occasionally, but it really doesn’t. That grinder could very well be getting a thousandfold more epic loot than you. Or they could be getting nothing at all.

It’s just luck of the draw. It’s unfair by definition.

In fact, if you want to offer players “same chances”, you’ll want to follow some of the basics described in OP. Without proper thresholds, intended controls of an item’s rarity become a competing force aimed towards pure random, at which point designer’s original intentions towards rarity, time gating, rewards, and fairness of loot and combat fly out of the window.

I had a feeling this is what you were getting at. And,
I think it’s a matter of perspective.

You’re basing the fairness on the outcome, rather than the process.

I would argue that it’s a fair process as it’s going to get. Each event yields the same chance at any given outcome for any number of events. Of course the outcome of each event is going to vary drastically.

I’m not concerned with the outcome as long as the process treats each event equally. Which, as you agree, it is as the probability for each individual event is equal.

Your premise comes down to the inevitability that a certain outcome will eventually happen and that makes the proccess fair, correct? I don’t agree with this, and don’t believe that there is any need for inevitability.

Suffice to say, I think we’ll have to remain opposed based on this.

Draco.2806:

Mourningcry.9428:

Can you elaborate on what you mean by what I bolded? How are the percentages different for the each event?

They’re not. But that doesn’t mean it’s “fair”.

Even though you might have the same “chance” (i.e. 1 in 1,000) as the other guy, you don’t actually have “the same chances” in a random environment, in the sense that you do not get the same outcome, or even close to the same outcome.

You may think that having the same “chances” no matter what would put someone who grinds for hours and hours on the same footing as someone who logs out occasionally, but it really doesn’t. That grinder could very well be getting a thousandfold more epic loot than you. Or they could be getting nothing at all.

It’s just luck of the draw. It’s unfair by definition.

In fact, if you want to offer players “same chances”, you’ll want to follow some of the basics described in OP. Without proper thresholds, intended controls of an item’s rarity become a competing force aimed towards pure random, at which point designer’s original intentions towards rarity, time gating, rewards, and fairness of loot and combat fly out of the window.

The problem here is that you have two paths. One is the “randomness” of the drops, which say you have x% chance to get across the board. Magic Find can help alter the equation, but the base line % is the same for everyone, thus is fair. The other path is basically saying that you’re guaranteed to get “specific rare item” for doing a certain event X times.

By suggesting there be some guarantees in getting an item, you throw the idea of rarity out the window. Then you turn the game into a pure grind fest, because the grind then guarantees an outcome. On the same thought, by adding “thresholds” to RNG, you basically eliminate RNG.

Mourningcry.9428:

I’m not concerned with the outcome as long as the process treats each event equally.

Why though?

On a side-note, that’s not actually possible. You said so yourself: the more attempts you go through (grind tons of mobs, for example), the better your chances. That’s just how it works.

Mourningcry.9428:

I don’t agree with this, and don’t believe that there is any need for inevitability.

A game is not a game without rules.

Mourningcry.9428:

Your premise comes down to the inevitability that a certain outcome will happen and that makes the proccess fair, correct?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Magic Find can help alter the equation, but the base line % is the same for everyone, thus is fair.

As I said, it’s a bit hard to wrap your mind around, because you see “You have the same chances!” and logically that means “It’s fair, because it’s the same.” But it’s not. It’s simply random.

Random luck is the very opposite of fairness.

Is it fair when a millionaire finds a bunch of cash lying on the road? Is it fair when a good person gets into a car accident? Is it fair when you get rewarded for doing something terrible or stupid? Is it fair when a criminal gets away scoff-free? Is it fair if your house burns down?

There’s also something called a Gambler’s Fallacy: “I’ve already played for so long, so my chances have got to be improving by now.” It’s perfectly logical – again – because the Law of Large Numbers says: the more you try, the closer you get to the average, right? But it’s not true. Your chances to “win” on your thousandth attempt are the same as on your first.

What’s worse is that those are some of the least counter-intuitive things in statistics.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

By suggesting there be some guarantees in getting an item, you throw the idea of rarity out the window.

The other way around, actually.

By assigning the chances too low to resolve in a reasonable amount of attempts, you destroy the intended rarity of an item and assign its rarity value to almost pure random.

Sure the item will maintain “some” rarity, but not the intended one. You don’t just assign weapon damage to a random number, do you? It has to be more or less precise. Otherwise it just won’t work in practice.

Loot is no different. You need precision in its distribution.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Then you turn the game into a pure grind fest, because the grind then guarantees an outcome.

Ironic, don’t you think? What does the game look right now exactly? Is there no grind? Where do most players spend their time in the world?

But yes, you’re right, it’s an inevitable outcome of such a system. It’s an inevitable outcome of having a known reward for a known task. The ultimate outcome is that you can actually do it.

If you simply remove the outliers from the graph, then yes, people “grinding” will receive more of a reward than anyone else (just like they do now). That’s perfectly logical. But, the key question is, whom would that hurt exactly?..

Draco.2806:

Why though?

On a side-note, that’s not actually possible. You said so yourself: the more attempts you go through (grind tons of mobs, for example), the better your chances. That’s just how it works.

No, I never claimed that at all. I just said the rate of events changes. He gets more attempts; but each event has the same changes.

As to, why? It’s simple – I’m content with an equal shot. Simple as that. And if each event offers the same shot as every other event, then that’s good enough for me.

Draco.2806:

A game is not a game without rules.

The rules of probability are sufficient. One could argue that in an environment of inevitability, there’s no point in playing because the outcome is already known. It’s just a question of time before it arrives. What fun is there in that? What’s left to “game”?

Draco.2806:

As I said, it’s a bit hard to wrap your mind around, because you see “You have the same chances!” and logically that means “It’s fair, because it’s the same.” But it’s not. It’s simply random.

Random luck is the very opposite of fairness, isn’kitten
…

Is it fair when a millionaire finds a bunch of cash lying on the road? Is it fair when a good person gets into a car accident? Is it fair when you get rewarded for doing something terrible or stupid? Is it fair when a criminal gets away scoff-free? Is it fair if your house burns down?

With examples like that, it appears you’re looking to achieve some sort of karmic, ethical, or judegemental balance to the game. Life isn’t fair, and while it may be nice if it were, GW2 doesn’t need to be fair in that sense either.

Edit: Which is the beautiful quality of RNG. It doesn’t care who the player is, what they’ve done, or for how long they’ve done it. However they got it, they got a chance at loot. And they’ve got the same shot at it as anyone else at another other time ever had. Doesn’t get much more pure than that.

Draco.2806:

There’s also something called a Gambler’s Fallacy: “I’ve already played for so long, so my chances have got to be improving by now.” It’s perfectly logical – again – because the Law of Large Numbers says: the more you try, the closer you get to the average, right? But it’s not true. Your chances to “win” on your thousandth attempt are the same as on your first.

What’s worse is that those are some of the least counter-intuitive things in statistics.

As mentioned above, I don’t think anyone ever claimed it was otherwise.

Mourningcry.9428:

No, I never claimed that at all. I just said the rate of events changes. He gets more attempts; but each event has the same changes.

And the more attempts they get, the better chances (and more loot) they get. There’s no way to avoid that.

Mourningcry.9428:

As to, why? It’s simple – I’m content with an equal shot.

Well, that irrational considering what I’ve just explained, but okay. It’s personal taste. People like different things.

I don’t think most people like it though. More importantly, a game designer should never be content with their original design going awry.

Mourningcry.9428:

The rules of probability are sufficient.

Game design must have deterministic rules: “Action produces result”, not “Action produces result or no result and you don’t know why and there’s no way to change it.”

That’s not how rules work. Rules aren’t random.

Mourningcry.9428:

One could argue that in an environment of inevitability, there’s no point in playing because the outcome is already known.

Playing for the sake of achieving an outcome in a purely virtual world is the most irrational thing you can possibly do.

Games are art, and entertainment. Not a job or a task. They’re played for fun, and fun in games comes from being tested against a set of rules. That’s what games are.

Throwing a dice for the sake of rolling a six isn’t that entertaining, and it’s a known waste of time.

Mourningcry.9428:

It sounds as if you’re implying that effort should yield reward.

Uh…

Yes?

Mourningcry.9428:

Simply put, whatever level of effort you may deem as a rewardable effort may seem utterly trivial and undeserving of any reward to another.

Yep.

One of the original promises of GW2 is that it would have content to satisfy all kinds of players: where hardcore dungeon runners would receive huge rewards for doing hard stuff, and where ordinary players would still get their own.

The answer to different expectations of players is to have a gradation of difficulty in your game.

Not to frustrate both parties by making their effort not matter.

Mourningcry.9428:

Which is the beautiful quality of RNG. It doesn’t care who the player is, what they’ve done, or for how long they’ve done it.

Neither does a bolt of lighting to your head.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Math and statistics, on the other hand, are objective. What matters in the game is that they do the task they’re supposed to, and random probability in reward calculations is meant to solve a practical problem of dividing an indivisible item.

It’s also used to introduce unpredictability to give an illusion of complexity where there is none. But each goal must not cancel out the other.

Mourningcry.9428:

As mentioned above, I don’t think anyone ever claimed it was otherwise.

Got it.

Justdeifyme.9387:

But… MONEY?!?!?!

Le Gems… please buy them!

But there is no reward for skill in this game, and the RNG system that they think is working so perfect is imo, and like I just said, imo, is a total joke, I have seen people get 2, 3, precursors in a day, and have heard of someone that has even gotten 6 in a week, I have almost 3.8k hours in , I have not been playing since launch, I play a lot, and in those hours have yet to get a drop worth more then 10g, I have 2 legendaries, have made 4, but I have bought all the precursors, I have stuck over 1000 rares into the forge for nothing and have seen people put just 4 rares into the forge and get a precursor back, do it again and they get the same, this system that Anet uses is flawed and they know it they just don’t want to have to rework it or implement another. To much work I guess, just like guild halls and the clipping issues with charrs. I don’t know. Just plain laziness if you ask me, never would of had issues like this with Blizzard.

Draco.2806:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

By suggesting there be some guarantees in getting an item, you throw the idea of rarity out the window.

The other way around, actually.

By assigning the chances too low to resolve in a reasonable amount of attempts, you destroy the intended rarity of an item and assign its rarity value to almost pure random.

Sure the item will maintain “some” rarity, but not the intended one. You don’t just assign weapon damage to a random number, do you? It has to be more or less precise. Otherwise it just won’t work in practice.

Loot is no different. You need precision in its distribution.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Then you turn the game into a pure grind fest, because the grind then guarantees an outcome.

Ironic, don’t you think? What does the game look right now exactly? Is there no grind? Where do most players spend their time in the world?

But yes, you’re right, it’s an inevitable outcome of such a system. It’s an inevitable outcome of having a known reward for a known task. The ultimate outcome is that you can actually do it.

If you simply remove the outliers from the graph, then yes, people “grinding” will receive more of a reward than anyone else (just like they do now). That’s perfectly logical. But, the key question is, whom would that hurt exactly?..

1) Loot is different than weapon damage. With weapons, the min/max damage is based on level + rarity. With loot, rarity is based on rarity. There is no minimum or maximum chances to obtain said loot, nor should there be. It’s a flat “x percentage roll on the loot table”. That is fair, since everyone has the same chance to get a rare item. “Fairness” in distribution is another way of saying “guaranteed chance to get”.

2) Grind does exist, as it does in all MMOs. The thing here is that Anet says they “don’t want to make grindy games”. They’ve actually succeed in that, since their intention was to not “force grind” on players. We can enjoy the game completely without ever having to grind. But for players who make the conscious choice to grind, that option is available. And circling back to the debate at hand, by putting in systems that say “get this item for doing something x-times”, you force the grind on players.

Thus none of this will ever happen. RNG is RNG. If you want to better RNG, increase your Magic Find to the max 300%. Or to avoid RNG altogether, buy items on the Trading Post from players who are lucky with RNG.

Lucky with RNG? There shouldn’t be any Luck when it comes to RNG. If certain players are getting “lucky” then the system is flawed. Plain and simple.

There is no luck in random.

Rama.6439:

Lucky with RNG? There shouldn’t be any Luck when it comes to RNG. If certain players are getting “lucky” then the system is flawed. Plain and simple.

There is no luck in random.

especially not computer generated random because thats controlled. getting lucky should be confined to daft punk and not in gw2

for example one person in my guild has pulled 3 precursors with just random rares from world events. others have spent 400g and havent gotten one still

Rama.6439:

Lucky with RNG? There shouldn’t be any Luck when it comes to RNG. If certain players are getting “lucky” then the system is flawed. Plain and simple.

There is no luck in random.

But the perception of “luck” is real.

RNG is slowly but surely killing the game. The more I see people kill Teq and get absolutely nothing in return for their time the more I come to realize just how disillusioned the playerbase is with the game. Some folks have played since day one and still not managed to get lucky once. They’ve poured THOUSANDS of hours into the product with absolutely nothing to show for it because of RNG.

Sure, there are a few lucky souls out there who gets to feel a little bit extra special thanks to lucking out but in the end will they be able to support the game on their shoulders? I think we all know the answer to that question. RNG needs to be greatly dimished and players need to feel like they’re actually progressing. That’s the bottom line here.

Probably out of the scope of this thread, but Engineer’s RNG skills…facepalm