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Disappointed by the dev comments on RNG Loot from the livestream Q/A
Leonerdo
Member
First, a heads-up: This is a rant thread, but it's just my opinion. I feel strongly about it, but that doesn't mean I am correct, nor does it mean that this one small thing will ruin the game for me. I want to use some harsh language to get my point across, but at the end of the day, it's just an opinion. And it's based on like 40 seconds of unscripted talk anyways, I could be misinterpreting something. Feel free to flame me, but try not to make it personal, because I'm not. Anyways, Link to the question/answer,, let's get started.
In the Q/A, someone asked about quests that require a bunch of random drops to turn in. And Steven + Margaret disappointed me with almost every sentence after that.
First off, the question was clearly in regards to a specific questing experience. It can be found in many MMOs, but WoW-classic is an easy example. For this type of quest, you need 10 bear hearts or whatever, the drop rate is low, there's several people fighting over the same mobs, and there just aren't enough to go around (bad mob density/respawn rate). The issue there is that you might make 0 progress in several minutes, due to the multiple layers of scarcity combined with bad luck.
The easy answer here would have been "Those are poorly-tuned quests. We won't do that."
The best answer would be "We have requirements and QA processes for quest design to prevent stuff like that from happening. If it's possible for a quest to be soft-locked (either by poor drop-rate tuning and bad luck, or any other issue), we'll fix it ASAP, ideally before it gets released."
The answer we got was a hand-wavy allusion to "scarcity" and "dopamine." Not only does this completely miss the question being asked, but...
The philosophy behind it is honestly gross. Like as long as you get the required item(s) eventually, it will all be worth it, right? Even if it takes 10 times longer than you thought and 5 times longer than is reasonable? The struggle always makes the triumph worthwhile?
Steven (and Margaret) proceeded to double down on this though. He continued even beyond the topic of questing, to talk about how super-rare loot (I assume from world bosses and raids) represents a difficult and meaningful achievement. I disagree.
RNG-based rare drops (in questing, raids, or any context) aren't a good measure of achievement or dedication. They are a measure of luck or insanity. People who get lucky get to enjoy being ahead of the curve for a short while. People who have average luck get to be frustrated by an unpredictable grind, and MAYBE get a feeling of triumph IF their efforts randomly matched up with their expectations. And unlucky people just get to be mad, and MAYBE if they just keep grinding grinding grinding grinding grinding, eventually they can feel relieved.
Moreover, I see RNG rarity as a lazy tool for designers. The purpose is to create scarcity/grinds and inspire feelings of achievement/progress once you get The Thing, right? (And to keep people playing/paying for longer, but whatever, that's for a different discussion.) It takes more work to implement, but you can get the same feelings with more deterministic methods:
If you just want people to grind something roughly X times for Y big reward, you can put a progress bar on it. Or drop crafting materials specific to Y. Take the "roughly" out of it and allow players to feel straightforward progress along the way.
If you want a certain items to be rare, so that it's a unique experience to own them... actually hard-limit the amount of them that can drop/spawn. There have been plenty of discussions on this forum about "Legendaries" and their systems. Most of the ideas don't rely on RNG to limit scarcity, but rather large-scale achievements, hardcore world-bosses/raids, PvP (or rather GvG or Node v Node), and exploration/puzzle-solving.
If you want something to simply be difficult to acquire -- a challenge reward -- then actually make it challenging and not just a long-ass grind. Bonus objectives during raids, iron-man challenges, top 1% rewards in PvP or on leaderboards, etc.
Aight, that's all I got. RNG drops only make sense in Rogue-like game-modes that depend on it for variety. And they COULD make sense in RPGs if the randomness determined WHAT you got, rather than if you got anything to begin with. But that requires every possible drop to be useful, and for at least one drop to be guaranteed (even if that's just a big chunk of gold). But getting the only BiS item from a boss that 1,000 people killed over the last month, just because you're a lottery winner, is bullshit.
Anyways, I look forwards to being horribly mistaken about how much RNG Intrepid has planned. Cheers to any follow-up discussion that isn't toxic.
I'll be back in 6 months for another ill-advised rant.
In the Q/A, someone asked about quests that require a bunch of random drops to turn in. And Steven + Margaret disappointed me with almost every sentence after that.
First off, the question was clearly in regards to a specific questing experience. It can be found in many MMOs, but WoW-classic is an easy example. For this type of quest, you need 10 bear hearts or whatever, the drop rate is low, there's several people fighting over the same mobs, and there just aren't enough to go around (bad mob density/respawn rate). The issue there is that you might make 0 progress in several minutes, due to the multiple layers of scarcity combined with bad luck.
The easy answer here would have been "Those are poorly-tuned quests. We won't do that."
The best answer would be "We have requirements and QA processes for quest design to prevent stuff like that from happening. If it's possible for a quest to be soft-locked (either by poor drop-rate tuning and bad luck, or any other issue), we'll fix it ASAP, ideally before it gets released."
The answer we got was a hand-wavy allusion to "scarcity" and "dopamine." Not only does this completely miss the question being asked, but...
The philosophy behind it is honestly gross. Like as long as you get the required item(s) eventually, it will all be worth it, right? Even if it takes 10 times longer than you thought and 5 times longer than is reasonable? The struggle always makes the triumph worthwhile?
Steven (and Margaret) proceeded to double down on this though. He continued even beyond the topic of questing, to talk about how super-rare loot (I assume from world bosses and raids) represents a difficult and meaningful achievement. I disagree.
RNG-based rare drops (in questing, raids, or any context) aren't a good measure of achievement or dedication. They are a measure of luck or insanity. People who get lucky get to enjoy being ahead of the curve for a short while. People who have average luck get to be frustrated by an unpredictable grind, and MAYBE get a feeling of triumph IF their efforts randomly matched up with their expectations. And unlucky people just get to be mad, and MAYBE if they just keep grinding grinding grinding grinding grinding, eventually they can feel relieved.
Moreover, I see RNG rarity as a lazy tool for designers. The purpose is to create scarcity/grinds and inspire feelings of achievement/progress once you get The Thing, right? (And to keep people playing/paying for longer, but whatever, that's for a different discussion.) It takes more work to implement, but you can get the same feelings with more deterministic methods:
If you just want people to grind something roughly X times for Y big reward, you can put a progress bar on it. Or drop crafting materials specific to Y. Take the "roughly" out of it and allow players to feel straightforward progress along the way.
If you want a certain items to be rare, so that it's a unique experience to own them... actually hard-limit the amount of them that can drop/spawn. There have been plenty of discussions on this forum about "Legendaries" and their systems. Most of the ideas don't rely on RNG to limit scarcity, but rather large-scale achievements, hardcore world-bosses/raids, PvP (or rather GvG or Node v Node), and exploration/puzzle-solving.
If you want something to simply be difficult to acquire -- a challenge reward -- then actually make it challenging and not just a long-ass grind. Bonus objectives during raids, iron-man challenges, top 1% rewards in PvP or on leaderboards, etc.
Aight, that's all I got. RNG drops only make sense in Rogue-like game-modes that depend on it for variety. And they COULD make sense in RPGs if the randomness determined WHAT you got, rather than if you got anything to begin with. But that requires every possible drop to be useful, and for at least one drop to be guaranteed (even if that's just a big chunk of gold). But getting the only BiS item from a boss that 1,000 people killed over the last month, just because you're a lottery winner, is bullshit.
Anyways, I look forwards to being horribly mistaken about how much RNG Intrepid has planned. Cheers to any follow-up discussion that isn't toxic.
I'll be back in 6 months for another ill-advised rant. 1
Comments
You aren't mistaken about rng loot, you simply disagree with that kind of design, while some of us like it
Your solution about leaderboards sounds like its catered to only people who play a lot leaving no one else a chance to get any of those items.
Another issue is you only want a certain amount of those items in circulation so does that mean its dead content once that boss no longer drops anything? Or will devs have to constantly be making things to keep up with people that are trying to collect everything?
I feel like you are looking at things from a collector perspective wanting to know a item and how to get it and for it to be guaranteed so long as you do whatever it takes. And doing it in such a way it isn't considered grindy (so pretty much easy for all players to get).
Like i said before gear chase is part of mmorpgs, I will agree it should be fair so people can make improvements and i feel we will get that. Since crafting is going to be a big thing and getting parts of rare mats will allow you to sell / trade to get closer to the item you are seeking to make.
Though a lot is still unknown so I need to see / play the game to have a better judgement.
It can go too far. A common quest item that I need 8 of shouldn't be a 1% drop. But having to hunt for it is ok, and as Nikr said, it's satisfying in it's own way.
- Grinding for gear or other rewards.
- RNG.
- Not being able to clear all achievements or “beat the game”.
The answer we got was, monsters have rare loot tables and it's cool when you get that rare drop. Doesn't feel like they answered the actual question and were just talking about random loot drops from mobs such as items or materials.