2.5: “Add secondary reward mechanisms (ie. token based system) alongside the primary RNG system; allow progress to be made even when you don’t get the result you want.”
Obviously these are hyper-simplified descriptions, but I don’t want this to get too long.
edit: added 2.5
So much this! I hadn’t had too many problems with RNG during the span of the game’s life, until Halloween 2014. With the introduction of the new mini Gwynefyrdd. I spent all my time grinding trick or treat bags and spending my hard earned gold buying more trick or treat bags. I spent way more gold than I should have trying to get that ghost wolf, but no dice. I was quite upset once the holiday was over and I still had not gotten it. If Gwynefyrdd had been made tradable, I could have bought it off the TP eventually. If the Halloween vendor had Gwynefyrdd available to trade for corn cobs, like its feline counterpart, then I would have been set. If Gwynefyrdd was a reward for a Halloween reward track, I would have PvPed for days until I earned it. Out of all the bags I opened the only thing I received worth mentioning was the cat mini, which was rather silly to include it in the loot table since it was so cheaply available through the corn cob vendor.
I had a similar experience when Dry Top came out with the Ambrite weapons. I wanted those weapons so badly! I grinded keys and opened chests for weeks without a single fossil dropping. Meanwhile friends who had barely spent any time in the map were finding fossils within opening 10 chests. Needless to say I was getting quite exasperated once I figured I was in the 60+ range of opened chests and still had not found a fossil. Finally, somewhere around chest 80 or so I managed to snag a fossil. I quickly made an axe out of it and called it quits after that. I felt no need to put myself through that again, even though I would have liked to get the rest of those weapons.
The new Rimed Rimmed Aquabreather was done perfectly! It has a chance to drop from RNG Wintersday gifts, or as a reward from the PvP reward track! Everybody wins. I never PvP, but that reward was enough of a cookie to get me into the PvP lobby. I actually had fun! So much fun, that after I finished the Wintersday reward track, I did the Balthazar reward track, and now I am doing the Silverwastes reward track.
Personally, I hate to gamble. I have never bought a lottery ticket, and I have never placed a bet. I was raised with the impression that if one wanted to gamble, they might as well flush their money down the toilet or watch it burn in the fire because that’s basically what they’re doing. I was raised to work for what I want, and to earn it. I worked in retail for a year before finding a much better job, but in that short year, I watched dozens of co-workers waste hundreds of dollars on non-winning lottery tickets. They’d blow $10-20 a pay check to buy a scratch off ticket (we were paid weekly). Excitedly, they’d rush to the break room and start scratching away while I ate my lunch, quietly observing. Their expression would turn from anxious and excited, to disappointed and hollow every time. Nobody ever won anything. By the end of the year, they all spent $500-$1,000 each in useless tickets. It adds up pretty quickly.
Because of my experience in real life and in video games, I have a strong dislike for RNG. I don’t mind it being in the game, just as long as there is another way to get the reward other than through RNG. Whether it’s a PvP reward track, a quest, a collection achievement, a gem store item, a jumping puzzle, a boss – as long as it is something I can progress through to get the reward, I am completely ok with whatever you guys throw at us. However, if the only way to get the reward is through RNG, with an incredibly small chance, then I feel defeated before I even try. Even trying feels like going through a meat grinder since I know I won’t get the item. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy after the hundredth try, and I still have nothing to show for it. This just leaves me feeling frustrated.
