Randomness vs determination

[judgementofantonidas]

Then do not watch the herbalist re-stock the Auction House and actually do something.

But is such hard work waiting for them to run out and pick the herbs for my pots.

[RedGamer030]

But is such hard work waiting for them to run out and pick the herbs for my pots.

You are dismissed, troll.


[infracted]

[The Stormbringer]

Because running something a thousand times and still not getting the drop you want is soooo much fun, eh Blizz?

On a more serious note, DETERMINATION trumps all.

[judgementofantonidas]

Because running something a thousand times and still not getting the drop you want is soooo much fun, eh Blizz?

On a more serious note, DETERMINATION trumps all.

at least you see the power of trump.

[Tharkkun]

Depends on the time frame. I mean you'll max out with rng as well but ultimately any system of determinism depends on the design behind it. The difference between what the developers think is interesting and I don't is (for one) choice.

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A schedule= You mean I can plan ahead and pick out what I want ahead of time. Yea that sounds much more exciting than here you go here's some shit. We don't know what it is and we're not gonna guarantee it's good but how exciting!. Look as was pointed out the developers ADDED the artifact weapon as a means of determinsitic progression at end game. It's good, it's what the game needs but they didn't need to add this layer on top of gear. They just needed to return to the the old valor systems buying tier from a vendor.

Yes, PVE has always had progression as part of their game. PVP on the other hand has it's progression added to the honor talents instead. Your items only change your PVP power slightly due to ilevel so it no longer matters what PVP items you earn now. So a scheduled path really doesn't fit now. Everyone would buy the cheapest items first and your weapon would always be last. Unlike before where you had to choose between set bonuses, trinkets, items that could be enchanted, etc.

[Glorious Leader]

Yes, PVE has always had progression as part of their game. PVP on the other hand has it's progression added to the honor talents instead.

Which is a good point that just occurred to me as well. They got rid of currency for gear cause grinds are awful then they went ahead and added a talent grind... k... then they went ahead and said well we didnt add any new bgs and only 2 new arenas cause we spent all this time fucking around with the underlying systems REALLY GUYS REALLY if you just fucked off with this rng bs you could have kept making more content. It's dumb, they add more layers for no reason completely contradicting themselves.

[Tharkkun]

Random raid drops were bad as well - in vanilla. With the amount of items dropped and bonus rolls on top of that it's way less relevant and hardly comparable.

Bullcrap it's clearly intended to be farmed how else would it make content more appealing over a longer time.

Gear is intended to be farmed. But at the same time those who believe they can actually farm items reliably with a .1% drop rate are insane. Too many people have expectations that they should end each tier with full warforged + sockets and anything less is Blizzard stringing them along.

It does add some replay value so people will stay subscribed but for myself after killing a boss 15 times it doesn't matter if there's a chance for a golden marmot egg to drop. I'm not doing it anymore.

[PrairieChicken]

You are missing the point. They are not adding RNG. The system is the same as it was in Warlords, except you have a small extra chance of getting better loot from older content that you wouldn't have had before.

That bonus loot (so called Titanforged) is NOT mandatory. You don't have to farm it and it's not intended that you can farm it. It's a small possible bonus, that's all. You can ignore it, and the game works as it always, or you might get lucky in which case you are like "Cool, I got geared faster!"

The only way your argument works is if they made it HARDER to gear up through normal methods than previous expansions, but they haven't. So what are you talking about with "stacking RNG on RNG"? They haven't.

Whuch is a problem because it shows they are still sticking with raid or die phulosophy. All the titanforged crap are merely to mask this fact, yes you can get it upgraded to mythic (dismissing the fact that you miss out tiers and trinkets) but they are such low chance that they are hardly worth the effort/time. And no they said titanforged are there to make old contents relevant so it is there to be farmed (on paper)

[Leih]

Whuch is a problem because it shows they are still sticking with raid or die phulosophy. All the titanforged crap are merely to mask this fact, yes you can get it upgraded to mythic (dismissing the fact that you miss out tiers and trinkets) but they are such low chance that they are hardly worth the effort/time.

Well this is a different argument entirely. I won't really go into whether Legion deals with the so-called "raid or die" problem, as that's a little beyond the scope of this topic or what I'm discussing. I just think that claiming Titanforged makes the whole game suddenly into a forced RNG slot-machine is very false.

And no they said titanforged are there to make old contents relevant so it is there to be farmed (on paper)

It keeps old content relevant - yes - in that if you do old content you are not completely wasting your time.

You're misreading "relevant" as "current farm content" when what they actually meant, given the context, was that you might have a chance to get relevant rewards from doing older content. It's not the intention to make you farm it endlessly and ignore newer stuff - in fact that's WHY the chance is so low, if it was higher, you'd do the easy old content instead of the new content because path of least resistance always wins, right?

[Gilgameshh]

I think most of us DO love RNG to some extent. We love not seeing a boss drop what we need and the finally getting it; that's RNG.

That being said, I think they've gone too far. I don't want to have to RNG farm legendary items. I don't want loot in difficult end-game content to have a chance to be warforged/titanforged/socketed. I want to be able to say that I'm "done gearing" in a certain tier of content. I've already put in the insane amount of time getting the gear, so why do I have to feel like there's always an upgrade? I don't want to feel that way.

I want to be able to compare myself to people of the same spec. In an ideal scenario, which granted does not happen often, I can compare myself to someone who is doing higher DPS (for example). This is especially true when comparing yourself to someone in the same raid. Because the differences in gear become so drastic due to RNG upgraded loot, it becomes increasingly difficult to compare two people.

I don't mind if people doing world content or dungeons get a small chance for a mythic piece. I DO mind that raiding adds more RNG to loot than ever before and I don't think it's necessary at all.

[PrairieChicken]

Well this is a different argument entirely. I won't really go into whether Legion deals with the so-called "raid or die" problem, as that's a little beyond the scope of this topic or what I'm discussing. I just think that claiming Titanforged makes the whole game suddenly into a forced RNG slot-machine is very false.



It keeps old content relevant - yes - in that if you do old content you are not completely wasting your time.

You're misreading "relevant" as "current farm content" when what they actually meant, given the context, was that you might have a chance to get relevant rewards from doing older content. It's not the intention to make you farm it endlessly and ignore newer stuff - in fact that's WHY the chance is so low, if it was higher, you'd do the easy old content instead of the new content because path of least resistance always wins, right?

Well it is very relevant, for most players the primary way of gearing up would be through lottery. They just excluded mythic raiders from it by slapping a cap. So yes for majority (90%+) the game will be a big giant slot machine.

[Relapses]

Ion talked about this in his dev meeting a few weeks ago. It boils down to how RNG and deterministic rewards effect the gaming playerbase. Deterministic rewards are great in some ways since it allows players to realistically plan out gear paths and reward structures. But they also have the latent side effect of negating the need to do obsolete content since it eliminates the necessity of doing things which the player may deem "below them." Shifting away from a deterministic reward structure and adding the element of RNG offers opportunity for players at all gear levels to occasionally find rewards from all content instead of simply the content which is most likely to offer the best rewards. Effectively, they're opening more doors for players to feel incentive in doing all content at any gear level.

That said, I suppose we'll see how the scope of this philosophy pans out as Legion moves along. Blizzard has been wrong in their design philosophies in the past (see: Garrisons) and this could be a step in the wrong direction. I see a lot of people saying they'll feel compelled to do ludicrous amounts of dungeon grinding since the rewards for dungeons have a possibility to be on par with those from raids and unlike raids have a lesser diminishing return (weekly lockouts vs. virtually unlimited keystone fragments). For the 1% of players who feel this is a necessity, I can very well see it being an issue. (Especially with RNG so heavily impacting the outcome of their endeavors.) But for the 99% of players whom this doesn't effect, it means they may find that the Mythic raider who previously had no driving desire to "help" their Heroic dungeon farm suddenly having a somewhat vested interest in the content.

[Alydael]

To me, the real problem is that whatever algorithm wow is using to "randomly" generate the reward is totally broken. I have gotten the same trinket from my garrison BR mission every other week. The odds against that, if it was truly random is astronomical. My friend gets the same pair of pants almost every week. There is something wrong with their random algorithm. I was told by a programmer that you can never truly have a completely random algorithm on a computer, maybe that is part of it, but it seems to go beyond that even.

As for what is better: random or grinding a currency..... tough call because they both actually suck and are not "epic" at all. It would be better if the game someone tracked your adventures behind the scenes and gave you an appropriate reward when you overcame a challenge that was relevant to your journey through the game..
I understand why that is difficult to do and all the problems inherent in it but it was all I could come up with thinking about it for a few minutes.

[Kokolums]

IMO if RNG vs determination is a huge factor for you, you are probably playing the game for the wrong reasons. You should play an MMO because you like to socialize with other people, or compete with other people, or because you find the skills and spells very rewarding.

What is the point of leveling? After working hard all week, it can be really rewarding to just log in on your level 35 character and blast things with your abilities. Oh, and I picked up some levels along the way, nice!

My favorite memories in this game has never been about drops. Its been about the fun people I've met. Blizzard lost sight of that a long time ago.

[Echo of Soul]

IMO if RNG vs determination is a huge factor for you, you are probably playing the game for the wrong reasons. You should play an MMO because you like to socialize with other people, or compete with other people, or because you find the skills and spells very rewarding.

If that's the case we can take out gear of the game completely. It would make balancing classes an tuning encounters a lot easier that's for sure.

[Relapses]

If that's the case we can take out gear of the game completely. It would make balancing classes an tuning encounters a lot easier that's for sure.

Then they can remove DPS meters. And raids. And bosses. In fact, they'll just replace the entire game with a Warcraft-themed version of Cookie Clicker. Genius!

[Damaind]

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.

Assuming the boxes will be garbage? Have a little faith, they did say that the chances of getting the same slot after getting that slot the first time is greatly reduced. Also the boxes have extra goodies in them... when you win something in PvP you get a piece of gear AND a box(box having Marks of Honor and other goodies and what not)

[PrairieChicken]

Assuming the boxes will be garbage? Have a little faith, they did say that the chances of getting the same slot after getting that slot the first time is greatly reduced. Also the boxes have extra goodies in them... when you win something in PvP you get a piece of gear AND a box(box having Marks of Honor and other goodies and what not)

When you have lotteries yes most of the boxes will be junk or nearly crap. You do not get jackpot after jackpot, do you?

[cFortyfive]

Yep they're twirling those evil malicious moustaches soooo hard right now, rolling up your money and smoking it like a cigar!
I won't argue with you much longer, it seems to be a fundamental belief that they are making changes because they hate their customers.

Not sure if you just forgot your pills or didn't tighten the tinfoil enough.

Gear is intended to be farmed. But at the same time those who believe they can actually farm items reliably with a .1% drop rate are insane. Too many people have expectations that they should end each tier with full warforged + sockets and anything less is Blizzard stringing them along.
It does add some replay value so people will stay subscribed but for myself after killing a boss 15 times it doesn't matter if there's a chance for a golden marmot egg to drop. I'm not doing it anymore.

Good for you and me I suppose since I am not going to grind my ass off in content you can do asleep either but people for whatever reason still play their diablos. Not sure how much sense it makes to discuss specific droprates but claiming that system wasn't put in place to keep people farming is just silly.

[Leih]

Not sure if you just forgot your pills or didn't tighten the tinfoil enough.

That's ok, it's difficult to see past your own nose when you're determined to hate something without actually understanding it. It's actually pretty common though.

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Well it is very relevant, for most players the primary way of gearing up would be through lottery. They just excluded mythic raiders from it by slapping a cap. So yes for majority (90%+) the game will be a big giant slot machine.

No it isn't, unless they are determined to farm endlessly for better gear without ever advancing through the content. If they wanna do that, that's fine, they can do. But that's a new option that was never available before. You're not forced to sit and farm normal hoping for mythic gear and never advance.

If you only ever did normal mode raids in the past, you didn't get Mythic gear. Now there is a chance you might get some Mythic stuff. It's a low chance, but it's more chance than you had before... I don't see how that's a BAD thing for a casual player, who before would have had a hard cap on the gear they can get.

It's not the primary intended way to gear, that's still doing your gear-relevant content like it's ALWAYS been... but if you're stubbornly refusing to play the content you are geared for, then sure you can farm easy stuff and hope for the lottery... but that's your choice to make, and it's a choice that wasn't there before, so it's not like suddenly you're forced to. You can just play the game like you always played it.