Randomness vs determination

[ThunderTaco]

If that is so, why do they still have problems giving us content when it's needed? Somewhere something must be off!

Yes, because I like to repeat myself too : "Players consume content faster than devs can create it". Let's say a "content" patch (new art, new zones, new bosses, new dungeons, craft updates, pvp updates, it's a nice patch) takes 6 month to be created, the players will consume it in between 1 week and 3 months for the majority. Of course these numbers are not exact and invented, but it's to understand the point. That's why they have gating systems like lockouts, ids, to make the content last longer.

[quras]

So I was pretty tempted to open this by shouting something like no you fucking morons grinding currency is more exciting than rolling the dice 50 million fucking times "over the long term" but let's save that rant for another time. Theirs a benefit for the developers end to rng in character progression, it extends the life of content and potentially masks long and unpleasant grinds. Having said that I think that's incredible poor motivation to offer players. The greater motivation is the reward you can see. They seem to think that deterministic reward schemes are boring in the long term but isn't that basically what lvling is? And isn't that was people come back for every expansion?

I very much agree. The greater motivation (at least for me) is knowing what I'm going to get for my game "effort" and time.

Get the gear or item and then getting random stats is a no go for me. I get why blizzard wants to do it. They want to add in a diablo-like gear grind for the same item multiple times till get you damn lucky enough to get a that same gear with high stats. Thats not for me in a game like warcraft or any MMO.

I much prefer the determined reward for my time and effort. Not more randomness and there is no amount of bad luck programming on blizzard end that will fix that and push it into the players favor.

So I got to skip this.

[Deleted]

Yes, because I like to repeat myself too : "Players consume content faster than devs can create it". Let's say a "content" patch (new art, new zones, new bosses, new dungeons, craft updates, pvp updates, it's a nice patch) takes 6 month to be created, the players will consume it in between 1 week and 3 months for the majority. Of course these numbers are not exact and invented, but it's to understand the point. That's why they have gating systems like lockouts, ids, to make the content last longer.

Well then they need to shrink the content patches so the development time is closer to the consume time. And some gating is okay, but RNG is not gating! It's complete horseshit.

[Leih]

I very much agree. The greater motivation (at least for me) is knowing what I'm going to get for my game "effort" and time.

Get the gear or item and then getting random stats is a no go for me. I get why blizzard wants to do it. They want to add in a diablo-like gear grind for the same item multiple times till get you damn lucky enough to get a that same gear with high stats. Thats not for me in a game like warcraft or any MMO.

I much prefer the determined reward for my time and effort. Not more randomness and there is no amount of bad luck programming on blizzard end that will fix that and push it into the players favor.

So I got to skip this.

But you're looking at this whole thing from the wrong direction.

It's only a long diablo-like grind if you're completely unwilling to ever do harder content and all you want to do is solo grind world quests and normal mode 5-mans the entire expansion.

The intention is, like it has always been, you farm one level of content for some basic gear, you get geared for the next thing, you move up, you progress, you get better gear. The only thing the +5 ilvls bonus rolls does is add the chance that you might get lucky and get something better earlier for free OR you will have the chance of getting something useful when you do content you would normally overgear.

It's not the goal to farm these RNG multiple upgrade titanforged items. That's not the point in the system. They're just a bonus to the way things ALWAYS worked.

[ThunderTaco]

Well then they need to shrink the content patches so the development time is closer to the consume time. And some gating is okay, but RNG is not gating! It's complete horseshit.

Well I don't really agree with that but that's actually possible. RNG is a well known form of gating and it has been in WoW since day 1.

[Deleted]

Well I don't really agree with that but that's actually possible. RNG is a well known form of gating and it has been in WoW since day 1.

NOT THE THE EXTEND IT IS IN NOW! ffs... I give up! You mindless defender of Blizzard have bested me with you endless stupidity.

[Cynep]

And WHY is x amount "too much" - that is what I am asking, but nobody can answer.
WHY - a simple question.
I only get replies along the lines of "because I say so".
That is not an answer.

Others have answered, but I'll answer once again, in different words.

BECAUSE when a non-insane person is presented with x amount of impossibility (with x threshold being individual for each human), that non-insane person will give up, and will stop banging their head against the wall, and will do something else, something that can be actually done.

In yet different words, people play roulette with what, 1/36 chance of winning? Keep winnings the same (WoW does that), but only give 1/360 chance of winning. How many will still play? Now lower the chance to 1/3600. How many will still play? This is what's happening in WoW. You're pretty much guaranteed an imperfect item, but getting a perfect set is impossible, so non-insane people won't even bother trying to obtain that perfect set and will quit after getting the imperfect set on week one.

[Deleted]

Well then they need to shrink the content patches so the development time is closer to the consume time. And some gating is okay, but RNG is not gating! It's complete horseshit.

Ghostcrawler in his twits talked extensively about that question. Once he talked about MMO as a cycle, new content player come consume and move on until next content, because there is almost no other way. Recently he twitted again on a similar topic :

https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...41759129919488
https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...41856437755904

The whole discussion is pretty interesting, and you'll probably realise that it's harder than "start working earlier"

In the various answers there is Holinka, Lore and Olivia Grace who are all importants actors of WoW or WoW community.

[melodramocracy]

So I was pretty tempted to open this by shouting something like no you fucking morons grinding currency is more exciting than rolling the dice 50 million fucking times "over the long term" but let's save that rant for another time. Theirs a benefit for the developers end to rng in character progression, it extends the life of content and potentially masks long and unpleasant grinds. Having said that I think that's incredible poor motivation to offer players. The greater motivation is the reward you can see. They seem to think that deterministic reward schemes are boring in the long term but isn't that basically what lvling is? And isn't that was people come back for every expansion?

If you actually enjoy the process of playing the game, how the reward is delivered (grind vs rng) doesn't really matter. Lots of players here don't actually enjoy the act of playing WoW, which is why debates about the various reward methods come into play so often.... and / or why there are so many complaints about whether some activity is 'worth' doing or not.

[Cynep]

And now Blizzard have decided for all of us that gambling is the only thing that's fun. If you don't agree you're wrong.

There's a reason why carrot on a stick is a thing. When the reward is just within reach and you know you want it you'll get so much more motivated the closer you get. When they dangle a mystery bag on a stick that most of the time contains compost rather than a carrot you'll probably not chase it at once you realize that the bag will probably never contain a carrot.

I think they are 100% wrong in this regard and it has really killed off all excitement I had about character progression in WoW. I'll probably experience most of the content once and then play another MMORPG full time that actually uses currencies.

Maybe a bad analogy but I hope you get the point.

Yes, you're right. When there's no carrot to chase, you won't even move from the spot because there's no point. You'll just unsub and migrate to a better game.

I don't want WoW to become a game that only addicted gamblers play, because in that case I'll have to find another game.

[Deleted]

Though the gear you get from pvp is totally RNG, does it make a difference to the pvp community that you can target key pieces by completing world quests or running Mythic 5-man content? I believe Blizzard is thinking that if PvP gear was a currency and you could grind it out.. and it was the same quality of questing/dungeon content.. then people would not do quest or dungeons because they could just grind BG's and buy the gear.. thus making that content useless, like we saw in WoD. You also don't want to make the PvP gear worse than that content because then the PvP community will feel slighted and again forced (forced being the key word) to do other content in order to PvP. I don't know the answer and these are just my thoughts, so I am more curious what others think.

I think pvp players will get pvp gear as a secondary bonus because either way they will have to grind pvp talents. Going into pve for better gear would only delay your talent progression which would set you back more than what the gear could offer in terms of pvp strength. i.e. having smoke beats having ~5% better stats.

[Cynep]

Let the subscription numbers talk once legion launches because blizzard outright refuses to listen to feedback regarding anything.

I'd prefer Blizzard to come to their senses before it becomes too late and Legion loses another half of their player base.

- - - Updated - - -

If you actually enjoy the process of playing the game, how the reward is delivered (grind vs rng) doesn't really matter. Lots of players here don't actually enjoy the act of playing WoW, which is why debates about the various reward methods come into play so often.... and / or why there are so many complaints about whether some activity is 'worth' doing or not.

I do enjoy the process of playing the game, I also have a guild to keep together and a roster to maintain and to motivate to come online and play past the first kill. When people know that their efforts are futile, they don't come back.

[Jaylock]

So I was pretty tempted to open this by shouting something like no you fucking morons grinding currency is more exciting than rolling the dice 50 million fucking times "over the long term" but let's save that rant for another time. Theirs a benefit for the developers end to rng in character progression, it extends the life of content and potentially masks long and unpleasant grinds. Having said that I think that's incredible poor motivation to offer players. The greater motivation is the reward you can see. They seem to think that deterministic reward schemes are boring in the long term but isn't that basically what lvling is? And isn't that was people come back for every expansion?

The simple solution to this pointless rant is to, i dunno, ***GASP*** join a guild!!!?

1) Join a guild

2) Do content with guild

3) Kill stuff

4) Get loot

5)???

6) Profit.

[ThunderTaco]

NOT THE THE EXTEND IT IS IN NOW! ffs... I give up! You mindless defender of Blizzard have bested me with you endless stupidity.

Well I'm not trying to defend Blizzard choices, I don't think everything is perfect. But I think it's easier to get gear and even BiS gear now than it was in Vanilla or BC.

Remember when bosses dropped 2 class specific tier items for 40 people ?

[melodramocracy]

When people know that their efforts are futile, they don't come back.

Understood... but aren't those same individuals just as likely to lose interest once they get their reward?

[Cynep]

This Quora answer sums it up nicely https://www.quora.com/Why-are-variab...ards-addictive

I also want to answer this.

Many people have better thinking capacity than mice, and can differentiate fun variable rewards and demoralizingly impossible odds. I am one of these people, and I keep company with my equals, there are many of us. WoW always had RNG loot, but until the arrival of thunderforged drops, it was fun variable rewards; after that fun started to go farther and farther away. You've looted a shitty item, yay! A good item exists but enjoy your piece of feces, better luck next time! People just clear and quit, and as the predictable result, the guild crumbles.

[Ealyssa]

1)gear is pretty much pointless in PVP (no, your 2% delta in first season won't make you win or loose, your skill will)
2)gear is unified, their is no more PVP gear (in fact their is no gear in PVP at all, only your ilvl scale your stats). Randomising the pvp gear was pretty much a necessity or PVP would be the best way to gear your character.

[Kraenen]

I disagree. Theirs casinos for people who want to gamble. People want progress in their rpgs. Not open box garbage open next box garbage open 3rd box garbage and on and on and on.

This is wrong. It's well established that variable ratio reinforcement is more effective at encouraging behavior than fixed ratio reinforcement.

[Cynep]

Understood... but aren't those same individuals just as likely to lose interest once they get their reward?

Hard question; yes, at least some of them are. But now they stay to get their reward, and if there's no achievable reward they'll quit a few months earlier.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Can't grind chance man.

The likelyhood of grinding that .009% is almost a definitive impossibility.

It simply never happens.(EDIT: Gotta add because certain S#upids will take it literally. I'm talking about the mass majority, for whom, it literally never happens)

Grinding currency is an option, grinding chance/luck is just plain stupid and again as pointed a dozen times, follows the companies goal of skinner boxing it furhter and further.

Frankly though, Idk who they are trying to get to fall for it because majority of the players have quit but whatever, there are too many loose ends in that statement to start arguing about it but in my eyes, fucking with peoples loot like that, turns more people off, than on. More specifically the people with their logic in the right place.

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Breaking down walls, now idk man. I wouldn't bother personally. You won't persuade some randoms in the interwebs, in a galaxy far far away.

Yeah internet is built on the walls we all have put up.