The RNG Brickwall

[Neji]

Here's the thing, there's a very real and known psychological response to RNG elements in games. Yes, there's a throttle but ultimately without it the game becomes a static RPG and you finish getting your gear and unsub until next patch/expansion. That isn't a good business model for Blizzard or any company with a subscription based game. They dangle the carrot and you and I chase. Hopefully we get it but if not we keep going. If you tire of the chase you can always take a break but making posts complaining about the chase when that is literally the entire point of the game seems silly.

Been doing this for a decade now. The core, fundamental idea behind the game has remained the same, sure the throttle has shifted back and forth but RNG is ever present and generally a good (albeit frustrating) thing. This is coming from someone in the 0 legendary club with 10 days to go before I can equip a second. Stings a bit but all I can do is laugh it off and keep trying.

[Ripitgood]

Not that i care too much for raids nowadays, but if this is true, then there is truly a very bad design around this, specially because of how different is the impact on your toon performance if you have certain legendaries or you have other ones.
Unless everyone has all the legendaries when nighthold goes live, the system is gonna be a mess, you can not design a raid based on a RNG drop that is as low as it is at the moment, unless of course the algorithm works like 100 times higher drop chance in 7.1, and even higher in 7.2

But if they do that and everyone gets their legendaries, what will they do about legendaries for the rest of the expansion? will they ad more, will they let legendaries roll the "ancient" trait as in D3?
As it is now, legendaries is the main bait for people to engage in the game content, so they better be carefull about all this.

I agree and disagree.
I don't mind content being gated behind other goals. However, I have long since not appreciate those goals requiring upwards of two weeks gameplay (the average for players to get a legendary) and like you said not even a good one or the one they need, just one.

Obviously we'll have to see, maybe "most" was the wrong word. Maybe more like "assuming some have them" is a better statement. I just remember reading it.

[Peppered]

Some guaranteed goals.

I personally liked farming currency in order to purchase some items.

Yes, so much THIS.

I hate that Blizz lost sight of the value of emblem/badge gear. It's one of the few things I wish Legion could've done more elegantly. Vendor gear thats earned from a currency gives you something to work towards every week. Every week, you just know that you're gonna make some progress towards some gear brick wall that might be keeping you from entering a raid.

[Jewsco]

RNG is a facet is every single day of your life. You bought 200 Powerball tickets but the guy making a mid 6 figure salary just bought 1 ticket and won the jackpot. How is that fair? It isn't. Grow up.

You do all the right things like working out, eating right, etc but you come down with brain cancer @ the tender age of 25. Is that fair? Nope.

Does it suck? Yup.

If the concept of random offends you or bothers you then might I suggest not playing any game ever at all? Seriously, there isn't a game on the planet that doesn't have an element of randomness - whether it comes from a live opponent or some computer code/AI/whatever. You're better off with another hobby like collecting rocks or something. Of course there's always the other option of whining about it on an internet message board and then telling everyone that you're going to take your ball and go home.

Are you trolling or are you serious here? Yes rng can be a part of everyday life and even other games.
But did you not notice that they added more rng than ever before to the game? When has learning profession skills and leveling them up both depend on rng? Have you tried cooking at all this expansion and how noomi can and does give you nothing but burnt food for days at a time? Was it like that before? Did it need to be added? Cool that professions have quest chains I like that part and for like skinning I had to solo old raids to skin bosses to learn new skills is fine.
What isn't fine is to trigger that quest line is random rng skinning a random mob.
Do you see the difference? It be fine if I had to skin 1000 or more mobs to get it at least one has a goal to shoot for and not rng.
Take a look at the rat mount that is good design get 20,000 sightless eyes and get it see it is a goal to strive for.
Now look at the fox mount. First off it comes from the nightfallen baggie from thier set of dailies. So right there is rng as that daily is up at best 2 times a week. Next it has a chance to drop from that baggie. So now it is double rng'd. That is bad design.

Do you get it now?

- - - Updated - - -

Here's the thing, there's a very real and known psychological response to RNG elements in games. Yes, there's a throttle but ultimately without it the game becomes a static RPG and you finish getting your gear and unsub until next patch/expansion. That isn't a good business model for Blizzard or any company with a subscription based game. They dangle the carrot and you and I chase. Hopefully we get it but if not we keep going. If you tire of the chase you can always take a break but making posts complaining about the chase when that is literally the entire point of the game seems silly.

Been doing this for a decade now. The core, fundamental idea behind the game has remained the same, sure the throttle has shifted back and forth but RNG is ever present and generally a good (albeit frustrating) thing. This is coming from someone in the 0 legendary club with 10 days to go before I can equip a second. Stings a bit but all I can do is laugh it off and keep trying.

They don't need to make everything rng to make us chase the carrot though.
They can add grinds. I much rather grind and earn anything then luck rng into it all.
Because with good luck rng one can have it all already as some have 4 or more legendaries.
So rng failed there.

[realitycheck]

The issue that many are refusing to acknowledge is not that legendaries are based on RNG, but that so many consider them mandatory in order to be competitive. Some players even feel that they are entitled to these legendaries by virtue of paying for the game just the same as everyone else.

In both cases, those people are wrong. Legendaries are not required to be competitive. As long as you pick an appropriate gearing strategy, and maintain an item level that is within a few points of those you reguarly play with, you will stay competitive. Having a legendary doesn't change that. All a legendary does is give you a small boost. Granted, some are more powerful than others, but overall, the difference isn't all that great.

Having a legendary or not isn't going to award you some special access to content, or ban you from it. Blizzard themselves have stated that Emerald Nightmare is not tuned on the premise of players having legendaries. Nighthold, however, might see some tuning around legendaries. We are three or four months away from Nighthold at the least, however. For anyone, whom is actively playing at least once per week, getting a legendary before Nighthold should be a non-issue, based on the bad luck protection that Blizzard has implemented.

Some are complaining that other players already have 2 or even 3 legendaries. So what? Unless it is someone you are playing with on a regular basis, and they get cherrypicked for dungeons and raids over you due to their legendaries, you really shouldn't care at all. Them having a legendary doesn't impact your ability to enjoy the game. At all. If you are repeatedly benched in favor of someone else, then take it as a sign for you to move on and find other people to play with, as they have no respects for your WoW needs.

Lastly, to those who complain that, just by merit of paying the monthly subscription fee, they should get legendaries: You will get them in time. The bad luck protection will ensure it. It might be tomorrow, or it might be in four months from now, but you will get a legendary, possibly two. Your chances of finding one will increase based on how often you play, what you do while playing, and your own persistence. Adopting a bad attitude and raging about it isn't going to change anything. Paying for something doesn't equal putting in the effort. Without effort, no rewards.

Or do you also expect to lose 30 lbs, get fit, and have all the girls drool over your good looks, simply by virtue of paying for a gym membership, but barely using it, if at all? Didn't think so.

If you are a casual, that's fine for you. If you are a mythic raider, then yeah, legendaries can help you or get you out of raid. Like I said earlier, currently I am getting benched cause the other warlock has the best destro legendary and I just can't beat him in anyway. Saying legendaries don't make a gap is just being clueless. Having 30% more cleave as a Destro Lock, 2 Timewraps as Mage and so on.... you say that this is a minor difference? Lol, mate. Lol.

[Neji]

Are you trolling or are you serious here? Yes rng can be a part of everyday life and even other games.
But did you not notice that they added more rng than ever before to the game? When has learning profession skills and leveling them up both depend on rng? Have you tried cooking at all this expansion and how noomi can and does give you nothing but burnt food for days at a time? Was it like that before? Did it need to be added? Cool that professions have quest chains I like that part and for like skinning I had to solo old raids to skin bosses to learn new skills is fine.
What isn't fine is to trigger that quest line is random rng skinning a random mob.
Do you see the difference? It be fine if I had to skin 1000 or more mobs to get it at least one has a goal to shoot for and not rng.
Take a look at the rat mount that is good design get 20,000 sightless eyes and get it see it is a goal to strive for.
Now look at the fox mount. First off it comes from the nightfallen baggie from thier set of dailies. So right there is rng as that daily is up at best 2 times a week. Next it has a chance to drop from that baggie. So now it is double rng'd. That is bad design.

Do you get it now?

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They don't need to make everything rng to make us chase the carrot though.
They can add grinds. I much rather grind and earn anything then luck rng into it all.
Because with good luck rng one can have it all already as some have 4 or more legendaries.
So rng failed there.

To address your responses above.

1. No I'm not trolling. I'm merely pointing out the obvious. You ask if I noticed if they added more RNG to which I respond, did you actually read my post? I clearly state that RNG is on a throttle for the game and sometimes there's lots of it and sometimes there's very little. I contend that during times of very little RNG and things become ultra easy to obtain you get people who get their goods then just quit/unsub for periods of time or whine about the lack of content/shit to do. This isn't good for Blizzard. Did they go overboard this time a bit too hard on the RNG? Maybe... but none of this should be foreign or new to anyone.

Don't like the chase? Adios. Have fun doing something else.

2. Not everyone wants hard grinds. If you told me I had to run 4000 mythic+ dungeons before I got my legendary I'd be a lot saltier than I would be if you told me I had a random chance of it dropping from a run. I'll roll those dice and hope I get it long before I have to run the same dungeon 4000 times. If I start getting near the end where I don't feel like I want to run anymore and I haven't gotten that item I wanted - oh well. Time to move on with my life. You know what it isn't time for? Crying on random, non-Blizzard message boards.

Claiming RNG has failed is a stupid thing to say. You can claim its frustrating but to say its "failed" shows a clear misunderstanding of what the word random means. I see shit like this all the time, someone comes in claiming, "Oh but I herb'd X number of nodes! I should have had it by now!. Noooope. Each individual herbing action has a X% chance and simply herbing more doesn't mean that % goes up with each new herb node you collect.

This is pretty similar to the gamblers fallacy where someone thinks that if the last 5 numbers on the roulette wheel came up red that now black has a higher chance of coming up.

[threads]

that's what happens when you turn your game into diablo 3. every season people play a ton the first week until they have full gear then realize getting everything ancient with high stats takes too long and the mass-quitting begins.

[Jewsco]

To address your responses above.

1. No I'm not trolling. I'm merely pointing out the obvious. You ask if I noticed if they added more RNG to which I respond, did you actually read my post? I clearly state that RNG is on a throttle for the game and sometimes there's lots of it and sometimes there's very little. I contend that during times of very little RNG and things become ultra easy to obtain you get people who get their goods then just quit/unsub for periods of time or whine about the lack of content/shit to do. This isn't good for Blizzard. Did they go overboard this time a bit too hard on the RNG? Maybe... but none of this should be foreign or new to anyone.

Don't like the chase? Adios. Have fun doing something else.

2. Not everyone wants hard grinds. If you told me I had to run 4000 mythic+ dungeons before I got my legendary I'd be a lot saltier than I would be if you told me I had a random chance of it dropping from a run. I'll roll those dice and hope I get it long before I have to run the same dungeon 4000 times. If I start getting near the end where I don't feel like I want to run anymore and I haven't gotten that item I wanted - oh well. Time to move on with my life. You know what it isn't time for? Crying on random, non-Blizzard message boards.

Claiming RNG has failed is a stupid thing to say. You can claim its frustrating but to say its "failed" shows a clear misunderstanding of what the word random means. I see shit like this all the time, someone comes in claiming, "Oh but I herb'd X number of nodes! I should have had it by now!. Noooope. Each individual herbing action has a X% chance and simply herbing more doesn't mean that % goes up with each new herb node you collect.

This is pretty similar to the gamblers fallacy where someone thinks that if the last 5 numbers on the roulette wheel came up red that now black has a higher chance of coming up.

You seem to think rng is the only way to go which is wrong. I'll start with your example. They could mix rng and a fixed amount.
So if you do 4000 mythics you are guaranteed a legendary but rng can get you one or more before then.
See how it has a set goal and rng and if unlucky worth pushing thru towards the fixed goal?

They have done it in game before. Have you ever done the easter holiday? One gets the mount by collecting 500 chocolate eggs but with lucky rng one can get it before they get to 500.
See how that is better design? Rng with and a fail safe.
Do you get it now? Nothing has to be pure rng that is bad and lazy design

[Zenfoldor]

I was thinking about this last night and I think I have a way to keep RNG but also keep people happy.

Built into the game you have RNG protection already. However, this is not a good method of gameplay because to the player it is all still RNG. Even if you have a 1/2 chance of getting a legendary, or other upgrade like a professions rank, you may wait weeks until it actually drops.

So, let's make up a formula like the game uses.

X = Legendary drop chance
Y = Days played since last drop chance

X = (.0001)*Y

So the more days you play, the better your odds of getting a legendary. After a lot of days, the chance is much greater.

This is the same system used right now, except the actual variables are unknown. However, over time your chance to loot increases, and resets once you actually get the item.

So how to fix the RNG complaints? You SHOW the percentage chance to the player via a drop protection window in the currency tab. You don't show the actual number, you relate the numbers to a color, red for low, yellow for medium, green for high chance at the drop(apply this marker to all hoverable items affected by RNG).

Now you are still in RNG and nothing about the game has changed, but you also see that you are progressing. You can tell your characters progress by looking at what color your new drop cons. If it is green, get ready.

A very small and easy change, that would make a big difference in character progression.

[Alvito]

So? Just because a "hidden" appearance is RNG then it is bad? How many hidden appearances are their per artifact? How many appearences are their that are not tied to RNG. That is what I am getting at. You are cherry picking things that are RNG and arguing as if they exist in a vaccum. Instead of as if they existed as a different approach to the standard. It was the same thing with the mount. You said Legion only added one non-pvp mount at launch which is a flat out lie. You are just focusing on things that are RNG and ignoring everything else because it shoots holes in your argument of TOO MUCH RNG.

By the way prestige is also heavily influenced by RNG just as much as anything else. You need PvP gear to compete which is tied to RNG. You need to get the honor/prestige which is tied to RNG because you face random opponents and can't predict how each opponent will react. But you won't see that because you are putting blinders on to only see the things that support your stance.

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But if you remove legendary and add in Trinket, or higher item level gear, and you will get the same such situations. This isn't something new to WoW with Legion. People just are using Legendaries for a focal point of guild dynamics that they don't like and have always existed. Many of those people though were not a victim of it so they didn't care until now.

Rarely do trinkets have the same impact and they can be farmed in a much more consistent way. Legendary item drops are extremely random. Getting them much less which one you get. Things are going to be even worse at the end of the week when people can start equiping their 2nd one.

[Deleted]

I contend that during times of very little RNG and things become ultra easy to obtain you get people who get their goods then just quit/unsub for periods of time or whine about the lack of content/shit to do.

I really don't see why not having RNG (or less than the RNG shitfest we have in legion) means stuff would have to be easier to get. Unless you dumb down the content so much (like in legion) and only relly on RNG to keep players from progressing (which is terrible korean level F2P mmorpg design).

[Deleted]

I hate the RNG with the Hidden Prot Pala artifact skin from Withered army training.

Ive done it EVERY day since i hit 110 a few days after Legion release

Im:

- Exalted
- Get 700+ score every single time except the first few times
- Gotten all extra loot and cleared the entire place all times almost
- Gotten all upgrades, all pets and toys.

still i see people with low scores that get it on their first try... at least some hidden appearances have a clear path on how to get it.

mine is just shit luck.

[mireigi]

If you are a casual, that's fine for you. If you are a mythic raider, then yeah, legendaries can help you or get you out of raid. Like I said earlier, currently I am getting benched cause the other warlock has the best destro legendary and I just can't beat him in anyway. Saying legendaries don't make a gap is just being clueless. Having 30% more cleave as a Destro Lock, 2 Timewraps as Mage and so on.... you say that this is a minor difference? Lol, mate. Lol.

Having 30% more Cleave as Destro Lock, or having 2 Time Warps as Mage, etc, is a big thing, I agree. If you re-read my post you'll see that I state that "some are more poweful than others". The majority of legendaries are bad for end-game raiders, or, not bad, just not really worth much. Getting the correct legendary will of course help a great deal. Still though, getting a legendary, even the best one, doesn't do as much for you as getting the correct gear to support it. Once you reach that point, however, as you describe, then it gets bad. But for the vast majority of players, which are the ones complaining tbh, it doesn't really matter too much.

[Deleted]

LEGION is good. RNG is a bit too much since gear is too important. The difference between a lucky and an unlucky person who have done the exact same content is too big if the lucky person god avg ilvl 865 and got a legendary and the unlucky person is at 855 and got no legendary. The difference could be 15-20% depending on the legendary.

My best item is ilvl 860 (other than the artifact weapon of course) and I have done multiple +7+6 etc. mythics+ dungeons. In 9 out of 10 times I get something that needs to be disenchanted, because it is an ilvl 850~ item with bad stats on a slot where I have something similar.

In the long run it won't matter. RNG is RNG. It means I could log in now and get 2 legendaries in one dungeon and a 895 trinket from a world Quest.

I would still love some sort of system that allows you to protect from being super unlucky. I know some people said there is some sort of system but I most definitively can't feel it.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Yes, so much THIS.

I hate that Blizz lost sight of the value of emblem/badge gear. It's one of the few things I wish Legion could've done more elegantly. Vendor gear thats earned from a currency gives you something to work towards every week. Every week, you just know that you're gonna make some progress towards some gear brick wall that might be keeping you from entering a raid.

It's there, with stuff like the order set gear.
IMO the problem is that players are seeing these RNG systems as a "system of gearing" and not what it is - a bonus. In a right mind, players shouldn't feel like part of their progression is "farm and hope."
I don't like saying that they're not thinking about this the right way, but they're not thinking about this the right way. Social media and forums where people can gloat (or lie) about their Titanforged/legendary luck skew the perceptions of what 'luck' and 'bonus' means. They're taking this in as a vacuum and what comes out is the negative rhetoric and the talking points.

[Jewsco]

LEGION is good. RNG is a bit too much since gear is too important. The difference between a lucky and an unlucky person who have done the exact same content is too big if the lucky person god avg ilvl 865 and got a legendary and the unlucky person is at 855 and got no legendary. The difference could be 15-20% depending on the legendary.

My best item is ilvl 860 (other than the artifact weapon of course) and I have done multiple +7+6 etc. mythics+ dungeons. In 9 out of 10 times I get something that needs to be disenchanted, because it is an ilvl 850~ item with bad stats on a slot where I have something similar.

In the long run it won't matter. RNG is RNG. It means I could log in now and get 2 legendaries in one dungeon and a 895 trinket from a world Quest.

I would still love some sort of system that allows you to protect from being super unlucky. I know some people said there is some sort of system but I most definitively can't feel it.

Blizz claims the unlucky protection whenever they get grilled on having to much rng in game. Yet they have never given any proof of it nor I have ever seen it personally. The same few people that I have played with for years are always lucky while the rest of us get next to nothing.
They even claimed the coin we used last expansion wouldn't give you the same item repeatidly and when you won something it would rotate on the boss's loot table. When my coin won it never did that for me on isktar I got the same back piece every time even on heroic and mythic.
I call bs to thier supposed luck protection

[goblingirl]

I finally had a small break in the RNG today. It's been two weeks since I last got an item worth equipping or a break in any of the other RNG around professions and quest items like the fox.

I finally got the rank 3 dreamleaf quest today. I won't tell you how many herbs I have picked in the last month. I'll say I've made two million gold selling them and let you figure it out.

Hey, a rank 3 herb, it's something after a very boring and frustrating two weeks.

[DesMephisto]

2016 and still believing the bad luck protection maymay without being presented with a single shred of evidence it even exists at all...please.

One NORMAL raid gave 3 legendaries, three days ago FIVE people in guild got legendaries from mythic+, two days ago FOUR people got legendaries from mythic+/Em caches. This shit is real =|

[kary]

It's there, with stuff like the order set gear.
IMO the problem is that players are seeing these RNG systems as a "system of gearing" and not what it is - a bonus. In a right mind, players shouldn't feel like part of their progression is "farm and hope."
I don't like saying that they're not thinking about this the right way, but they're not thinking about this the right way. Social media and forums where people can gloat (or lie) about their Titanforged/legendary luck skew the perceptions of what 'luck' and 'bonus' means. They're taking this in as a vacuum and what comes out is the negative rhetoric and the talking points.

They'll say that 840 gear is too low and not rewarding enough.


Oh and there's an epic at exalted for every armor type from the wq factions. But yeah that "won't be enough"

[Deleted]

But "only raids and daily bag" have just as much RNG as everything else. WoW has always had RNG its what created the drive to keep going. Instead of doing X until you get Y then stopping.

Complete BS, WoW had RNG but not in moderation now we are moving from little RNG to max RNG on top of RNG.