Guild Wars 2

So, why is everybody complaining about RNG? I honestly don’t care about skins, and if I get one by chance from Boxes that’s fine.

Only thing that bothers me a bit is the extremely low drop rate of keys for Black Lion Chests, since I would really like to get some Transmutation stones.

Cue kittenstorm in 3…2…

Because of the real world economic crisis which translates to bad feelings in this game. In WoW and GW1 there was a whole lot of randomness involved too, but no one seemed to care as much as today. Farming UW ten times and not getting a single ecto, it happened. Not getting a BDS in dozens of runs was just fuel for the next run, just like the economy was booming at the time.

Currently the world is in a negative cycle, and that reflects on the overall attitude of gamers, regardless of whether they’re actually affected by crisis and/or RNG. The game isn’t noticeably different in RNG aspects from games where RNG wasn’t a problem. As soon as the economy picks up, RNG will no longer be an issue.

marnick.4305:

Because of the real world economic crisis which translates to bad feelings in this game. In WoW and GW1 there was a whole lot of randomness involved too, but no one seemed to care as much as today. Farming UW ten times and not getting a single ecto, it happened. Not getting a BDS in dozens of runs was just fuel for the next run, just like the economy was booming at the time.

Currently the world is in a negative cycle, and that reflects on the overall attitude of gamers, regardless of whether they’re actually affected by crisis and/or RNG. The game isn’t noticeably different in RNG aspects from games where RNG wasn’t a problem. As soon as the economy picks up, RNG will no longer be an issue.

I think he is talking about the event boxes in the gem store.

Because alot of people like skins, and alot of people like to know if they will get the product they want for the money they paid.

I think RNG is fine up to some point.
Giving all mobs a chance to drop a coffer that has a chance of dropping a ticket is totally fine. You can go on and play the game just like before, and if you’re lucky you’ll get a weapon-ticket. Imo that is just awesome.
The problem is that the gemstore should never be RNG-based. People are spending their real money on IG candy and fireworks, which is just insane.
Besides having the Dragon Coffers drop from mobs there should be a way to acquire a weapon that does not involve RNG. Either like the Braham and Rox weapons or like a scavenger-hunt.

Mentalhead.5721:

I honestly don’t care about skins,

ITT: “My opinion is gospel and everyone who likes things I don’t is wrong”.

I’ll say this: Most people are complaining about RNG because most people don’t like the feeling of working hard for a mere chance, for a potential to, maybe, receive what you worked for/achieving your goal.

That’s as far as I’m willing to dignify this with an answer.

Can’t we just have skins that can be bought in TP with gems for a higher price and solve the problem?

Sure, it’s a rip-off, but I guess it’s better than spending 40$ on boxes and getting nothing.

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Mentalhead.5721:

Can’t we just have skins that can be bought in TP with gems for a higher price and solve the problem?

Sure, it’s a rip-off, but I guess it’s better than spending 40$ on boxes and getting nothing.

See, that’s what many of us thought was going to happen when ANet announced the Rich Dragon Coffers. That those of us who didn’t want to buy into the RNG process could just pay ANet more and skip the process. (We didn’t even care if the skins were account bound; I’d have happily paid 1000 gems for a single Rich Dragon Coffer if it had a guaranteed skin.)

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

Fox.3469:

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

I hope you’re not studying law because you’d more than likely be laughed out of court. Is the sale of Pokemon or other collectible cards banned in your country? As much as I dislike the RNG chests, they are very much a digital equivalent of this sort of thing.

Back on topic, I have noticed that it is somewhat fashionable for people to complain about RNG in games. One game I played had people complaining about the RNG nature of combat and how some classes were overly dependent on the RNG gods to do decent DPS. In any part of any game where there is an element of chance affecting the outcome, you are almost guaranteed to find someone complaining about it.

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

marnick.4305:

Because of the real world economic crisis which translates to bad feelings in this game. In WoW and GW1 there was a whole lot of randomness involved too, but no one seemed to care as much as today. Farming UW ten times and not getting a single ecto, it happened. Not getting a BDS in dozens of runs was just fuel for the next run, just like the economy was booming at the time.

Currently the world is in a negative cycle, and that reflects on the overall attitude of gamers, regardless of whether they’re actually affected by crisis and/or RNG. The game isn’t noticeably different in RNG aspects from games where RNG wasn’t a problem. As soon as the economy picks up, RNG will no longer be an issue.

Hey wait just a minute!!!… wait.. actually, that’s pretty sensible.

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You buy gems, you get gems. No gambling involved.

If you weren’t a student and you’d take them to court, you’d be the new Jack Thompson. But in all honesty, I used to say the same things about WoW back when I was a student. It may take a few years but you’ll get over it. They didn’t break laws, at least not the ones you mention.

Vayne.8563:

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

Although true, let’s not start it again Vayne. We had a topic about the legal aspect about gambling inside the game that vanished into thin air….

I believe that nowadays everyone complains about RNG, just because they do. In this game is getting ridiculous epic proportions. Let’s look at some cases:

- In other games how many grinded a dungeon just to get a piece of equipment that still never dropped?
- In other games how many of you crafted items with proc. effect, that never did proc?

These are RNG effects too!

RNG needs to exist in games. As such, there are players who are favored and others that aren’t.

IMO the problem that GW2 had about chests was their cash shop dependency, their odds being unknown, their not rewarding failure. The reward distribution was indeed different among players. They pretty fixed a lot with this patch and with the coffers:
1/ They added Coffers and Rich Coffers (Cash Shop and non cash shop chests)
2/ They increased the chance of coffers to drop (It’s better to open 10000 @ 0,0005% for ticket than 10 @ 0,5%. It gives a more evenly distribution as the sampling is way bigger).
3/ Failure can be rewarding. You can buy wings with candy (should be extended to other rare and very rare items)
4/ Odds still could be released, but, with the enormous sampling of coffers, it could be guessed with a fairly decent accuracy!

Still haters gonna hate!

LHound.8964:

Vayne.8563:

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

Although true, let’s not start it again Vayne. We had a topic about the legal aspect about gambling inside the game that vanished into thin air….

I believe that nowadays everyone complains about RNG, just because they do. In this game is getting ridiculous epic proportions. Let’s look at some cases:

- In other games how many grinded a dungeon just to get a piece of equipment that still never dropped?
- In other games how many of you crafted items with proc. effect, that never did proc?

Not to mention that such items were almost required to get to the next gearrating which unlocked the next dungeon. If such an item didn’t drop, you were effectively locked out from a large portion of the game. For RNG based attunements that just meant you couldn’t play Onyxia at all.
In comparison, cosmetic tickets are just that … cosmetics.

Still haters gonna hate!

This.

Because people are terrible at math, and cannot comprehend what the long run is. This is the same type of person that would tell you 200% mf doesn’t matter, because it’s 200% more of a small number.

This is what we get for thinking math is boring at school and falling asleep.

But it’s also the principle that it feels like gambling, and these things aren’t easy to acquire. Most people don’t like leaving things up to chance. The applying of heavy variance to something that requires a lot of in game resources is going to have negative psychological effects on people.

Finally, there seems to be a significant amount of entitled folks who probably don’t even want the skins that are there but are just mad that it’s not accessible to them.

Well, put it in short
People are not complaining about RNG ingame, but about the fact that you pay with real money for an RNG box, that mostly holds nothing in it. But its their own fault for buying it and making the whole RNG box system a profit in the first place, thats what the others are complaining about.

Longer version
From a company stand of point it does not matter if you sell the skins directly from the cash shop or via these RNG boxes. Its the same amount of effort. Its actually more to input the boxes, but thats neglectible.
But people like RNG, because stuff seems rarer and the collecter in the human comes through. So there are people willing to pay hundrets of bucks to get that skin. This way the company makes more money than selling them directly. But at the same time, the community is not very fond, as there are people paying hard earned money to get nothing, while others wont do it and have no other chance to earn the skins at all (DB is different in this aspect).
What I dont understand is that NC-Soft should very well know that people will get kitten ed off and leave the game, while the other option, direct selling, would have kept a lower but steady income.
And there we are again in economics, where short time incomes count the most. For NC-Soft this means, making Nexons stakeholders happy and they will readily fund a new game. The same crowd will play this game again with the same RNG system and so on, while keeping a game healthy will be less profitable.
The problem is not the system. The system works perfectly, it just depends on your point of view. The problem are the people who dont understand it and hate it while at the same time they are actually enabling it to go on.

Therefore the only solution for the customer is to buy with some intelligence. If you dont like the RNG boxes, dont buy them and the system will have to adapt to a more steady one to survive. So actually the people who buy RNG boxes, had no luck and complain about it, are just getting what they wanted.

sternenstaub.8763:

What I dont understand is that NC-Soft should very well know that people will get kitten ed off and leave the game, while the other option, direct selling, would have kept a lower but steady income.

“Leaving the game” is meaningless because there is no subscription fee to lose. An insignificant number of people may temporarily stop playing or boycott the gem store but when there is content added that interests them they will forget about these issues and return to their normal playing/buying habits. The number of people involved will not have any noticeable effect on the financial picture.

On the other hand, the gap between “buy the skins directly” and “buy chances for the skins” is so huge that it is clearly more profitable to continue offering them as they have been. Even a modified version, such as the current dual method where boxes drop in the game and other boxes are sold through the TP gives people a chance to get the skins for free but still preserves their profitability because people without a lot of time to “farm” the game can buy chances.

You’re not likely to see the lottery boxes disappear altogether, so if you don’t want to buy them just kill as many mobs in the game as you can and hope for the best.

I have no idea, most of the games I played had RNG, and GW1 was notorious about drops where people seem to never get particular drops.

A game were evertyhing in the game is handen to you once you login is what some people expect. Isnt that what we call the now-generation.

sternenstaub.8763:

What I dont understand is that NC-Soft should very well know that people will get kitten ed off and leave the game, while the other option, direct selling, would have kept a lower but steady income.

You presume people will leave the game over this. You can’t prove that.

And there we are again in economics, where short time incomes count the most. For NC-Soft this means, making Nexons stakeholders happy and they will readily fund a new game. The same crowd will play this game again with the same RNG system and so on, while keeping a game healthy will be less profitable.

It is quite possible to convince stake holders to support a long term investment over short term gains, especially when MMOs are involved. Major shareholders usually expect long term gain. Given that Nexon is a 15% shareholder (pretty major) and heavily into MMOs, it would surprise me that won’t think of the long term picture.

Mentalhead.5721:

Only thing that bothers me a bit is the extremely low drop rate of keys for Black Lion Chests, since I would really like to get some Transmutation stones.

dun expect them to drop normally in the game ever.
got some people reported never seen a single black lion key drop even after 2000 hours in the game. you will get them faster by creating a human commoner warrior and completing the level 10 personal story quest. at most you will take 50 minutes per run. if fast, maybe 30 – 40 minutes. including loading times, character creation etc.

during halloween event,
there is a small chance to get rare skin from black lion chests

during flame and frost event,
there is a small chance to get a ticket from black lion chests to redeem weapons

this changed, however, starting from the secrets of southsun cove. a new “box” is introduced instead. meet the southsun crates.

in dragon bash, we got dragon coffers.

do you know why? because nc soft anet knows the black lion keys can be farmed via creating the new characters method.

Mentalhead.5721:

Can’t we just have skins that can be bought in TP with gems for a higher price and solve the problem?

Sure, it’s a rip-off, but I guess it’s better than spending 40$ on boxes and getting nothing.

because nc soft realizes that RNG boxes will make more profit.
sad but true.

My guess is: it’s because games like WoW or GW1 were adressed to the previous generation. And even generation raised in ’90 or early ’00 changed since we are all adults now. Someone above said that the economy crisis hit the need of security and guarantee, that as well might be a case.

It’s not only that the randomness was seen as unharmful, but when it was introduced to such extent like in the Diablo franchise people were perceiving it as something great, new and fresh. I remember reviews of the games from the DnD (or should I rather say ADnD) banner, or Fallout – when people really wanted some kind of randomness in their games. Yes, the whole discussion were faced in the exactly opposite direction – to have more RNG because it creates unpredictible results which makes game last longer.

Does GW2 has a lot of RNG? Sure does, I’d rather say that it should have more but not in a field of rewards but in the field of fights and mobs (random skills, random spawn places, dungeons with random map layout etc.). Is it bad? Well – it depends on who do you ask, but I guess since it’s not obligatory it’s not that terrible as people tend to picture it. However I admit that selling an RNG boxes in a cash shop is a nasty and risky habit :P

LHound.8964:

Vayne.8563:

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

Although true, let’s not start it again Vayne. We had a topic about the legal aspect about gambling inside the game that vanished into thin air….

I believe that nowadays everyone complains about RNG, just because they do. In this game is getting ridiculous epic proportions. Let’s look at some cases:

- In other games how many grinded a dungeon just to get a piece of equipment that still never dropped?
- In other games how many of you crafted items with proc. effect, that never did proc?

These are RNG effects too!

RNG needs to exist in games. As such, there are players who are favored and others that aren’t.

Still haters gonna hate!

I don’t quite agree with WoW type comparisons. You definitely could run the same dungeon twenty times or more in WoW for a piece of gear, but you also knew the loot table percentages, and you knew you’d get it eventually.

The ‘shinies’ in WoW were essentially raiding gear and mounts/titles from difficult encounters pre Pandaria/Cataclysm. When I (rarely) saw a player with the Light of Dawn achievement for LK25 man back in WoTLK, I knew that player was likely to be very skilled. I coveted my measly 25 man Kingslayer title for the limited time I had to play back then…in fact I didn’t even do it for the gear, though of course I needed it to progress.

The proper equivalent in WoW is really rare world drops. My mage way back in the day hoped for a long time to get an Eye of Flame…ended up buying one off the AH. Rares like that were very rare. But even those who farmed incessantly knew their drop chances weren’t great. WoW was a great game, once upon a time.

I have three tickets after opening boxes. I’m lucky – loving the pistols my engineer is wielding. But I don’t think the proper comparison is between WoW dungeon/raid gear and GW2 skins. The real issue in my opinion is that there doesn’t appear to be any balance between a ‘skill marker’ and random drop chance. I never see a person in game and think “They must have been skilled to get that item.” Since cosmetic items are essentially the equivalent of WoW shinies, a lot of people want them, but how much skill is involved in getting them? There’s none at all involved in obtaining these dragon skins.

MMOs use plenty of intermittent reinforcement to keep players coming back for more, and though GW2 is my favourite MMO I have to say….I valued the shinies I got in WoW more than these random drops, despite how people like to complain about gear grind, because I knew I’d earned most of them. And I think there’s too much RNG in GW2 right now…for me it’s just a balancing issue.

cygnus.8913:

LHound.8964:

Vayne.8563:

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

Although true, let’s not start it again Vayne. We had a topic about the legal aspect about gambling inside the game that vanished into thin air….

I believe that nowadays everyone complains about RNG, just because they do. In this game is getting ridiculous epic proportions. Let’s look at some cases:

- In other games how many grinded a dungeon just to get a piece of equipment that still never dropped?
- In other games how many of you crafted items with proc. effect, that never did proc?

These are RNG effects too!

RNG needs to exist in games. As such, there are players who are favored and others that aren’t.

Still haters gonna hate!

I don’t quite agree with WoW type comparisons. You definitely could run the same dungeon twenty times or more in WoW for a piece of gear, but you also knew the loot table percentages, and you knew you’d get it eventually.

The ‘shinies’ in WoW were essentially raiding gear and mounts/titles from difficult encounters pre Pandaria/Cataclysm. When I (rarely) saw a player with the Light of Dawn achievement for LK25 man back in WoTLK, I knew that player was likely to be very skilled. I coveted my measly 25 man Kingslayer title for the limited time I had to play back then…in fact I didn’t even do it for the gear, though of course I needed it to progress.

The proper equivalent in WoW is really rare world drops. My mage way back in the day hoped for a long time to get an Eye of Flame…ended up buying one off the AH. Rares like that were very rare. But even those who farmed incessantly knew their drop chances weren’t great. WoW was a great game, once upon a time.

I never played WoW, so i can’t compare it to Wow. By the looks of it, you probably never played AION. If you did, in the early’s there was a nasty thing named “Hot Heart of Magic”. That RNG kitten made tons of players quit!

I have three tickets after opening boxes. I’m lucky – loving the pistols my engineer is wielding. But I don’t think the proper comparison is between WoW dungeon/raid gear and GW2 skins. The real issue in my opinion is that there doesn’t appear to be any balance between a ‘skill marker’ and random drop chance. I never see a person in game and think “They must have been skilled to get that item.” Since cosmetic items are essentially the equivalent of WoW shinies, a lot of people want them, but how much skill is involved in getting them? There’s none at all involved in obtaining these dragon skins.

MMOs use plenty of intermittent reinforcement to keep players coming back for more, and though GW2 is my favourite MMO I have to say….I valued the shinies I got in WoW more than these random drops, despite how people like to complain about gear grind, because I knew I’d earned most of them. And I think there’s too much RNG in GW2 right now…for me it’s just a balancing issue.

That is a different thing, and not really about RNG is it? That’s the value of effort in this game. Story for a different thread!

I did play AION, but not for long. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

Effort is required, yes – but I’m talking about skill, which isn’t the same thing. How do you recognise a highly skilled player in GW2 visually? If you can’t readily do that, then hard to obtain cosmetic items are what you’ve got left — and if too many of those items are sort of gambled for, people will get miffed when the odds don’t smile at them. I just think the balance could be a little better – the skins look beautiful, but randomness was involved in getting them, nothing special.

(sorry, replying to another poster and haven’t quite got the hang of chopping up really long posts).

cygnus.8913:

I did play AION, but not for long. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

Effort is required, yes – but I’m talking about skill, which isn’t the same thing. How do you recognise a highly skilled player in GW2 visually?

Dungeon Master is a pretty skill title. Decent rank in either sPVP or WvW points to the same. But lets be frank here. AC Story mode is more difficult than most WoW raids, were it not that in WoW you’re forced together with 40 other kittens to complete easy content, at least one who’s going to make a simple mistake. Agro and trinity are easy concepts to grasp and the resulting gameplay is extremely boring. There’s no excuse for not one-shotting every single boss. And yet wiping is necessary for some crazy reason until 40 people learn over and over again that you shouldn’t overagro. That’s not difficult. Kholer is effectively more difficult than any boss in WoW.

That said, you can’t compare eye of ragnaros (0.01% drop from easy boss) to molten tickets, because eye of ragnaros was the most powerful weapon in the game while molten tickets are entirely cosmetic.

marnick.4305:

cygnus.8913:

I did play AION, but not for long. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

Effort is required, yes – but I’m talking about skill, which isn’t the same thing. How do you recognise a highly skilled player in GW2 visually?

Dungeon Master is a pretty skill title. Decent rank in either sPVP or WvW points to the same. But lets be frank here. AC Story mode is more difficult than most WoW raids, were it not that in WoW you’re forced together with 40 other kittens to complete easy content, at least one who’s going to make a simple mistake. Agro and trinity are easy concepts to grasp and the resulting gameplay is extremely boring. There’s no excuse for not one-shotting every single boss. And yet wiping is necessary for some crazy reason until 40 people learn over and over again that you shouldn’t overagro. That’s not difficult. Kholer is effectively more difficult than any boss in WoW.

That said, you can’t compare eye of ragnaros (0.01% drop from easy boss) to molten tickets, because eye of ragnaros was the most powerful weapon in the game while molten tickets are entirely cosmetic.

Although I know tastes surely differ, to me there is no difference between a game where prestige items are stat based a la WoW, and one where they’re cosmetic items, such as in this game. The only difference is that in WoW, most of what players consider prestige items are accessible via top tier content and reward skill-based play (or used to – I’m talking about WoW before it shot itself in the foot).

In GW2, it looks to me that the balance is off. There’s nowt wrong with RNG or ‘gambling boxes’ as players are calling them, provided that they complement a rich backbone of prestige items that can be gained through effort and skill (I know the legendaries take a ton of effort). It appears to me as if the perception of those unhappy with the way things are at the moment is that too many highly sought after ‘looks’ are not available down this route.

I definitely have to disagree with you on AC. I’m not very skilled at GW2 dungeons and I feign no modesty, but I’ve done AC story mode no problem.

GW2 is a great game, but whatever route you take for prestige, players always want to set themselves apart in some way…hence, I think, the upset over skin drops from boxes. I don’t think it would be as much of an issue if awesome looking stuff could also be obtained over time by being darned good at the game. Surely a good question to ask here is “Why do players want the jade skins so much?” I think it’s because they’re not common and not easy to obtain. Do players feel as if too much of this stuff is walled behind luck?

Too Long/Didn’t Read at the end

I think that it is because RNG is not something that you can actively work on, and this works against the RPG part of the game. Take for example molten weapons, what effort do you have to put to get one? None. In my guild, a guy got 1 ticket on the first BL chest, and he opened it because he got a key, he was not even looking for it. At the same time, another guildie was looking for the backpack, repeating the dungeon every day, and she got nothing. Not even the money to buy one. In this case, RNG is unfair because it doesn’t matter the effort you put into something, you cannot work towards a goal because there are no goals to begin with (Open X number of Chests is not a goal, and you cannot get this done by just playing).

Another example from my guild, I was working on Twilight, and got Dawn from the Mystic Forge in less than 15 tries. Traded it for Dusk, and completed Twilight. I spent less than 200 gold to buildit. Another guildie was also working on his Twilight, throwing everything at the MF, farming all the world chest events, farming Orr… in the end he spent 600 gold on Dusk, plus I don’t know how much on materials… He had to put way more effort than I did, and it took him two more months to complete his legendary.

The problem here is, again, that you cannot work towards a goal, because you don’t know where to get an item (precursor – random drop from anywhere in the world, or random drop from the MF, both with a ridiculously low probability).

I will compare this with GW1, just to have another point of view. There were no precursors in GW1, instead we had green items or very rare weapons. The green items were Best In Slot items and they were mainly dropped by bosses, so if you want one of those items, you have to make your way to the boss and kill him, some were easiers than others, but at least you know how to get them. Other rare weapons were usually found in specific dungeons or elite missions (FoW, Underworld, DoA), for example, if you want an Obsidian Sword, you know that it may drop in the FoW chest. In this case, this had two effects, first is that you know where to go if you want something; second is that you get those items by playing the game, and making yourself a better player because you get to know what you are doing, and you find ways to do it faster and better.

Now go back to GW2, the only thing that we can actively work on, are the dungeon tokens (for armours and weapons), but to be honest, dungeons are only difficult the first time you play them, or not even difficult at all (CoF path 1, I’m looking at you). Anything else requires lots (and lots and lots) of money, or pure luck. And the worst part of this, is that to make money, you don’t even have to play the game… or to be more accurate; and this is purely my opinion, so feel free to disagree; if you want to be rich, you only need to play the market. The people who play the game and go leveling characters, and watching all the story threads, and explore the maps are at a disadvantage to those who only flip items in the market. I did this a few times when I was working on my legendary, I made something around 25 gold by just flipping magic wands during christmas. And honestly, that is just sad.

So in the end…

TL/DR: The problem is not just RNG, but the lack of active goals, or ways to achieve something by playing the game. Apart from dungeon tokens and Ascended Rings, nothing has been added that can be obtained by playing the game.

cygnus.8913:

Although I know tastes surely differ, to me there is no difference between a game where prestige items are stat based a la WoW, and one where they’re cosmetic items, such as in this game. The only difference is that in WoW, most of what players consider prestige items are accessible via top tier content and reward skill-based play (or used to – I’m talking about WoW before it shot itself in the foot).

The top tier content in WoW was only available to a small minority of players. I raided a bit but very soon found out that playing 4 hours consecutively in the evening wasn’t feasible. Because content was locked behind these dungeons, I was effectively removed denied access to 80% of the game, including PVP where I’d be steamrolled by no-lifers. That’s exactly where WoW shot itself in the foot over and over again.

In GW2, it looks to me that the balance is off. There’s nowt wrong with RNG or ‘gambling boxes’ as players are calling them, provided that they complement a rich backbone of prestige items that can be gained through effort and skill (I know the legendaries take a ton of effort). It appears to me as if the perception of those unhappy with the way things are at the moment is that too many highly sought after ‘looks’ are not available down this route.

I tentatively agree. More skins have to be added in non-rng ways, regardless of how expensive they are in gems. I can live with 2000 gems for a molten ticket.

I definitely have to disagree with you on AC. I’m not very skilled at GW2 dungeons and I feign no modesty, but I’ve done AC story mode no problem.

I’ve done Molten Core no problem bar for for the other people wiping our group due to overagro and the insane 4+ hours time requirement that dungeon had, not to mention the kittened prereq quest and hydraxian warlords rep. Had these things been designed a bit more time efficient, MC would have been easy as story mode AC. But those are artificial difficulties.

sternenstaub.8763:

Well, put it in short
People are not complaining about RNG ingame, but about the fact that you pay with real money for an RNG box, that mostly holds nothing in it. But its their own fault for buying it and making the whole RNG box system a profit in the first place, thats what the others are complaining about.

This isn’t quite the problem. The problem is more that people don’t make the disconnect from real life money before the chests come into play.
People enter into a transaction with ANet. They give them money in exchange for Gems. This transaction concludes the involvement of real money. Money has been paid and the consumer gets exactly what they paid for.
The problem lies in people treating the Gems as real life money. Its not. It has no value whatsoever. Any in-game transactions thereafter conducted with those Gems is not dealing with real life money in any way.
Noone can claim to have paid ArenaNet for RNG boxes. Its simply not true. They paid ArenaNet for Gems, and got exactly what they paid for.

marnick.4305:

cygnus.8913:

Although I know tastes surely differ, to me there is no difference between a game where prestige items are stat based a la WoW, and one where they’re cosmetic items, such as in this game. The only difference is that in WoW, most of what players consider prestige items are accessible via top tier content and reward skill-based play (or used to – I’m talking about WoW before it shot itself in the foot).

The top tier content in WoW was only available to a small minority of players. I raided a bit but very soon found out that playing 4 hours consecutively in the evening wasn’t feasible. Because content was locked behind these dungeons, I was effectively removed denied access to 80% of the game, including PVP where I’d be steamrolled by no-lifers. That’s exactly where WoW shot itself in the foot over and over again.

In GW2, it looks to me that the balance is off. There’s nowt wrong with RNG or ‘gambling boxes’ as players are calling them, provided that they complement a rich backbone of prestige items that can be gained through effort and skill (I know the legendaries take a ton of effort). It appears to me as if the perception of those unhappy with the way things are at the moment is that too many highly sought after ‘looks’ are not available down this route.

I tentatively agree. More skins have to be added in non-rng ways, regardless of how expensive they are in gems. I can live with 2000 gems for a molten ticket.

I definitely have to disagree with you on AC. I’m not very skilled at GW2 dungeons and I feign no modesty, but I’ve done AC story mode no problem.

I’ve done Molten Core no problem bar for for the other people wiping our group due to overagro and the insane 4+ hours time requirement that dungeon had, not to mention the kittened prereq quest and hydraxian warlords rep. Had these things been designed a bit more time efficient, MC would have been easy as story mode AC. But those are artificial difficulties.

If anything, raiding became more accessible after The Burning Crusade. In my final year of Uni, I only raided sparsely, but still did well. I think a lot of GW2 stuff requires many hours of play regardless, though a lot of gold certainly helps…not a huge fan of DR either, which seems to hit me when I’m not actually ‘farming’. I agree that for some time, raiding was inaccessible to most players. I think they got the balance right in WoTLK, and the game went downhill for me after that. But it did get a lot of things right – no dev would turn down WoW’s success even akittens lowest point.

Some of the most fun I’m having at the moment is flipping stuff on the TP and making teeny profits, but I do enjoy the Dragon event a lot, as does my b/f. I personally love getting the coffers and trying my luck, but I can sort of see where the criticisms are coming from. All it needs is a little more balance on the PvE progression side imo and everybody wins — people have more incentive to log on for the regular content, so they’ll be more likely to buy stuff in the gem store when the ‘chance on open’ items arrive. Not to say you won’t still get complaints, but that’s more of a dual route – and people with the ‘PvE’ shinies will still want the boxed ones anyway, especially if they’re gorgeous, like my dragon flintlocks.

MrRuin.9740:

Noone can claim to have paid ArenaNet for RNG boxes. Its simply not true. They paid ArenaNet for Gems, and got exactly what they paid for.

Seriously, if someone buys gems for real money, to buy RNG items in the shop, he paid real money for the boxes. It is not how you name it, it is the intention of the user paying the real money which counts.

The problem of the RNG rage is: Anet sets the drop chance of things many people want to have so low, that some of them pay money for a greater chance to get the stuff. In my eyes Anet baits the people out of their money with the hope for greater chances. I don’t care about the minimal chance to get a drop in those chests, but they should offer the skins/wings and stuff for a real amount of gems like the picks and axes instead of more RNG stuff. Make it expensive, I wouldn’t care but it is far more fair for people paying Anets bills with it.

I wouldn’t buy a single gem ever for a RNG item or consumable, but there are enough people fall for such traps every time again.

I am anit-rng, I hate it with every fiber of my being but that s because of how I am. I am not a gambler, I don’t buy lottery tickets (unless it is to fund the local hospital), I don’t play poker night with the guys, and I don’t spend my hard earned money on some stupid in game RNG boxes. If you are one of those people who has spent a substantial amount of real cash to get coffers and are disappointed because you got no skin, you will not get any sympathy from me, especially when Anet won’t tell you to odds in the first place.

I like to earn what I have and not depend on some random chance to get hit by the RNG lightning bolt. I know some people that have given several thousand rares to the mystic thief and have never gotten a precursor when another has gotten 2 in 16 tries. I am one of the lucky ones, I get really loot on a regular basis and it kitten es me off to know that the others playing with me, doing the exact same thing I am doing, are not getting equivalent loot. RNG is a kitten and I wish the wouldn’t revolve the entire in game reward system around it.

There is also the fact that it isn’t really random but a mathematical equation that gives the appearance of being random.

cygnus.8913:

If anything, raiding became more accessible after The Burning Crusade. In my final year of Uni, I only raided sparsely, but still did well. I think a lot of GW2 stuff requires many hours of play regardless, though a lot of gold certainly helps…not a huge fan of DR either, which seems to hit me when I’m not actually ‘farming’. I agree that for some time, raiding was inaccessible to most players. I think they got the balance right in WoTLK, and the game went downhill for me after that. But it did get a lot of things right – no dev would turn down WoW’s success even akittens lowest point.

I didn’t hit DR a single time in GW2, it’s almost impossible unless you’re a bot, lobotomized or exploiting. It takes at least an hour of farming one location before you can notice it and I simply have too much of a life to force myself into doing that. I vary my content and never hit DR.

As for WoW’s success … Justin Bieber is extremely popular, even at his current low point. Doesn’t imply that Radiohead should even give him a second glance.

Not to say you won’t still get complaints, but that’s more of a dual route – and people with the ‘PvE’ shinies will still want the boxed ones anyway, especially if they’re gorgeous, like my dragon flintlocks.

Can’t please everyone. I personally see people with ticket weapons as avid supporters of the game. There’s not many and I thank them for doing what those cheapskates don’t.

Grileenor.1497:

Seriously, if someone buys gems for real money, to buy RNG items in the shop, he paid real money for the boxes. It is not how you name it, it is the intention of the user paying the real money which counts.

It may be a tactic to get people to buy gems. It may be the purpose that people buy gems for. I don’t argue that. But the fact remains, the real life money transaction is complete when the player receives their gems. This is why there’s no legal precedent. It’s not a point of view or a defense of Anet cashshop and RNG practices, it’s just a fact that you pay money for gems and you receive gems. That is the complete real money transaction and it does not include RNG gambling chests.
If you directly paid money for the boxes, then that would be a different story.

marnick.4305:

cygnus.8913:

If anything, raiding became more accessible after The Burning Crusade. In my final year of Uni, I only raided sparsely, but still did well. I think a lot of GW2 stuff requires many hours of play regardless, though a lot of gold certainly helps…not a huge fan of DR either, which seems to hit me when I’m not actually ‘farming’. I agree that for some time, raiding was inaccessible to most players. I think they got the balance right in WoTLK, and the game went downhill for me after that. But it did get a lot of things right – no dev would turn down WoW’s success even akittens lowest point.

I didn’t hit DR a single time in GW2, it’s almost impossible unless you’re a bot, lobotomized or exploiting. It takes at least an hour of farming one location before you can notice it and I simply have too much of a life to force myself into doing that. I vary my content and never hit DR.

As for WoW’s success … Justin Bieber is extremely popular, even at his current low point. Doesn’t imply that Radiohead should even give him a second glance.

Not to say you won’t still get complaints, but that’s more of a dual route – and people with the ‘PvE’ shinies will still want the boxed ones anyway, especially if they’re gorgeous, like my dragon flintlocks.

Can’t please everyone. I personally see people with ticket weapons as avid supporters of the game. There’s not many and I thank them for doing what those cheapskates don’t.

Great Post.

If you want the weapon skin and are willing to throw cash down to try you’re chance in the RNG, then you get what you paid for: Chance. Just because you throw down big cash doesn’t entitle you to a weapon when it comes to RNG chests. You’re paying for the chest and the chance, not the item you want. If you buy a weapon skin, then you are entitled to that weapon skin.

Because enabling people to gamble for real money leaves a bad taste in my mouth?
Take a guildie of mine that we had to persuade not to throw money on rich coffers – he opened close to 2000 regular coffers already and didn’t get a ticket. The man is so desperate that he would probably throw a few hundred into the gem store just to get it. Yet chances are he wouldn’t. He would only get depression. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair to add an item into a gem store that you only have a chance of getting. If one has to pay real money it’s only fair that there should be no RNG involved.

marnick.4305:

cygnus.8913:

If anything, raiding became more accessible after The Burning Crusade. In my final year of Uni, I only raided sparsely, but still did well. I think a lot of GW2 stuff requires many hours of play regardless, though a lot of gold certainly helps…not a huge fan of DR either, which seems to hit me when I’m not actually ‘farming’. I agree that for some time, raiding was inaccessible to most players. I think they got the balance right in WoTLK, and the game went downhill for me after that. But it did get a lot of things right – no dev would turn down WoW’s success even akittens lowest point.

I didn’t hit DR a single time in GW2, it’s almost impossible unless you’re a bot, lobotomized or exploiting. It takes at least an hour of farming one location before you can notice it and I simply have too much of a life to force myself into doing that. I vary my content and never hit DR.

As for WoW’s success … Justin Bieber is extremely popular, even at his current low point. Doesn’t imply that Radiohead should even give him a second glance.

Not to say you won’t still get complaints, but that’s more of a dual route – and people with the ‘PvE’ shinies will still want the boxed ones anyway, especially if they’re gorgeous, like my dragon flintlocks.

Can’t please everyone. I personally see people with ticket weapons as avid supporters of the game. There’s not many and I thank them for doing what those cheapskates don’t.

I’d like to know how DR works more specifically, because you can be in an area for half an hour without farming. Is it account wide and to that area only, or to any other areas you go to?

Implied in your statement is that people not buying chests with cash (gems) aren’t avid supporters of the game. I’ve bought one out of curiosity, though I know the chances sucked. But I’ve also spent about £200 on gems since the game launched for tools, bag slots, bank tabs, toon slots, and to convert into gold- just not on boxes.

You can be a die hard supporter of this game (no question that I am) and still refuse to buy RNG boxes.

Vayne.8563:

You can be a die hard supporter of this game (no question that I am) and still refuse to buy RNG boxes.

Agreed. I think the issue most people are having is the ability of not being able to get them unless they get the right chance from RNG. I think the best way to solve this is the option to allow selling of tickets. This gives everyone the option to get the item, but still puts a variance in where you have to have value/chance to get the item.

cygnus.8913:

Implied in your statement is that people not buying chests with cash (gems) aren’t avid supporters of the game. I’ve bought one out of curiosity, though I know the chances sucked. But I’ve also spent about £200 on gems since the game launched for tools, bag slots, bank tabs, toon slots, and to convert into gold- just not on boxes.

I have to excuse myself because that’s not what I meant. I respect people who support the game, and one of the ways that clearly shows is through ticket weapons.

In the end, I would be far more happy with tickets on sale for 2000 gems, but at least I can make the choice to not want any.

The problem with rng is this…

Player A loads up the game, kills the first mob they see, and get’s a chest. They open the chest and get a skin ticket.

Player B loads up the game, kills hundreds of mobs, gets multiple stacks of 250 chests, and gets nothing but candy, fireworks, and food buffs.

With the objective being to acquire said skin ticket, did the effort put forth reflect the reward? Absolutely not.

If you look at the achievements, they could’ve very easily made one that was…

Open 1000 chests in total broken up into 5 tiers.

V = 500
IV = 250
III = 125
II = 62
I = 33

Upon completing the fifth tier the player is awarded a chest containing a skin ticket. They can maintain the possibility of more tickets dropping from the chests as it is now.

At least the shatter wings are a guarantee for completing achievements. Although some of these achievements were not thought through at all.

Dragon Ball (oh man, put this one up there with the “I choose you” said by rangers along with some other things seen in game and I wonder if ANet is actually capable of original thought), you have the achievement for games played and games won. They are the same quantity. Hello, go in to play and quit if there is a strong possibility of losing. You actually save yourself time by not playing losing matches to the end and you get both achievements done at the same time.

A more realistic approach would’ve been to have the number of games won at half, with the idea that you have a 50/50 chance of winning (either your team wins or the other team wins).

As for the races. 50 kittening silver? Is ANet that delusional that they think we are all farmers with 100+ gold? Get kittening real here. If I’m betting 50 silver then I fully expect an option to take those stupid ticket things you get and directly exchange it for in game currency. If each Moa (aka Chocobo) has an equal chance of winning and there are 5, then my odds are 1 in 5. If I bet 50 silver and win, then I expect the tickets I get exchange for 2g 50s.

I’m just glad that I find the skins to be rather ugly. I think the shatter wings would suit my asura mesmer and so I’m going for that but I think in the future, unless this is thought out better, I won’t waste my time with it.

Oh, I’ve done the candy achievements by getting the candies out of the chests. I’ve also did the hologram achievement. I would guess that I have opened around 750 chests and the rarest thing I got was that mini, after they down graded it from rare to masterwork.

Deamhan.9538:

As for the races. 50 kittening silver? Is ANet that delusional that they think we are all farmers with 100+ gold? Get kittening real here. If I’m betting 50 silver then I fully expect an option to take those stupid ticket things you get and directly exchange it for in game currency. If each Moa (aka Chocobo) has an equal chance of winning and there are 5, then my odds are 1 in 5. If I bet 50 silver and win, then I expect the tickets I get exchange for 2g 50s.

The races are an intended gold sink.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/dragonbash/Surprising-Moa-Racing-stats/first#post2211384

Mentalhead.5721:

So, why is everybody complaining about RNG? I honestly don’t care about skins, and if I get one by chance from Boxes that’s fine.

Only thing that bothers me a bit is the extremely low drop rate of keys for Black Lion Chests, since I would really like to get some Transmutation stones.

YOU don’t care about skins. The people who are complaining DO care about skins.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

Well, i guess ppl don’t understant very well the racing mini-game.

Each individual Moa has indeed a 20% chance of 1st place, 20% on 2nd and 20% on 3rd place.
1st place rewards 140 silver;
2nd place rewards 60 silver;
3rd place rewards 20 silver;

So, you have 40% of chance of having profit, and 60% of loosing less than 30 silver. I believe it’s good odds, because statistically the “house” always have to win (gold sink needed to remove gold from the system).

Another case, where players blame the system for their bad luck…

pricer.5091:

YOU don’t care about skins. The people who are complaining DO care about skins.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

And still, it’s only skins. Nothing obligatory to have, nothing to create so much hassle about as we can see at the forums. If they were linked to better stats then we would have a major issue to deal with. But cosmetics?

And what about an idea of RNG for gems? Nasty, indeed. But hey – someone is buying them so some people are just OK with them. I’d even say majority of buyers if they’re still in sale, event after event. Why is this concept so hard to grasp

cygnus.8913:

I’d like to know how DR works more specifically, because you can be in an area for half an hour without farming. Is it account wide and to that area only, or to any other areas you go to?

I have noticed DR setting after 15-20 min. I don’t know where the 30 min or 1 hour came from I see people referring to all the time.

This has occurred at different times while completing slayer achievements. If I see I am a few kills (less than 100) short of a slayer achievement, I will go to an area where I know the particular creature spawns.

After 15 min of working the area. there is always noticeable shift in both the quality and quantity of loot, regardless of the map level or the number of creature I have killed up to that point.

I have done this enough times to notice the pattern.