Bag RNG System: Aging Poorly

[Ruwe]

'Let's see if purples drop' is getting old fast.

 

Every guild has a guy who's opened thirty bags and not gotten a single piece of gear out of them. My guildie has been doing PvP dailies and weeklies for a solid month and still doesn't have a mainhand lightsaber that's worth a damn.

 

There's another guy, same class, who is purpled out. These two guys have been running together this entire time; one is geared, the other is shafted.

 

There're a bunch of ways to fix this, but I think that the -best- way (that still remains reasonably easy to do) is to have a quest chain.

 

In progress, they may look like this!

 

Mercenary Warzone Mastery I:

 

DPS-focused Medals in Warzones: 22/36

Healing Medals in Warzones: 5/8

Complete Huttball passes, Ball Handler Kill Assists, Bomb Plants/Disarms, or Terminal Slices: 47/64

 

Sniper Warzone Mastery IV:

 

DPS-focused Medals in Warzones: 27/44

Solo Kill Medals in Warzones: 20/20

Complete Huttball passes, Ball Handler Kill Assists, Bomb Plants/Disarms, or Terminal Slices: 68/75

 

Reward: One piece of PvP tier gear, your choice. Each reptition of the quest, the numbers get a little larger; 38 intead of 36. NO BIG JUMPS. Progression, not sudden, irritating grindwalls.

 

Give people a real objective instead of 'get bag, hope for loot'.

 

And adding passes, plants and slices to this equation means even people who only want to kill will have a -good reason- to complete victory conditions instead of going straight for killing enemies. Don't say 'win games to get bags', say 'do these objectives to get gear'; winning games will progress naturally from people having a good reason to do objectives instead of just fight the enemy.

 

Random bags are not interesting, they're not fun, and they do not drive the player to do anything except -show up- for games. Yes, winning has incentive. No, winning does not have clear goals set before players who do not have the interest to play the gametypes.

 

By far one of the most constructive posts I've seen on the forums in a long time. Addressed an issue and provided a viable and GOOD solution. Bravo!!!

 

I was actually coming onto the forum to make a post about the exact same thing, the broken bag system. I have a bit of gear off of it, but I've opened well into the 40 bag range, I have no chest piece, no main hand, no headpiece, the centurion gear that I've purchased with my comms is at the very best a lateral move for me, in most cases it would be a serious downgrade. My companion is looking good though... has almost as much expertise/stats as I do at this point...... because I have gotten the same pieces of gear over and over.....

 

The bag system is broken. If player A spends 40 hours in WZ's and has 5 pieces of gear and player B spends 40 hours in WZ's and has 2 pieces of gear. That my friends is a broken system.

 

This was a well thought out post with an answer to the broken system and I applaud your efforts!

[dannythefool]

Halfway predictable progress is always a good thing, I can only support this idea.

[JackKerras]

Took me one hour to complete the ilum daily last night. Opened the bag and got my third damn implant. Im done with this game.

 

Yep!

 

You have joined the club with all the folks who have identical shirts for every day of the week.

 

Ill-conceived system is broken and terrible. If the things could be traded at least there could be some kind of secondary market but nooooo, MMORPGs these days don't -get- to have an actual economy.

[Tumba]

Great idea!

[Radiozo]

Its also the only quest I can do since after they added lvl 50 bracket warzones dont exists on ICE Breaker. So one bag every day and a total of ten every week. Gonna take forever.

Come to think about it why bother with it since the PVP is dead anyways.

[Ghingis]

Or, just get to rank 60, which is incredibly easy, then choose what gear you'd like.

[JackKerras]

Or, just get to rank 60, which is incredibly easy, then choose what gear you'd like.

 

...That doesn't actually work?

 

Yay! Three coins in a bag, one bag per day! Three weeks' worth of effort getting Battlemaster bags to buy my Champion main-hand!

 

Also, Dude A does the same thing and gets bunches of Battlemaster gear, while Dude B doesn't get Battlemaster Gear. Dude A is now better! For no reason. Dude B could be a much better player. If that's the case (and Dude B will undoubtedly think it is at any rate) then Dude B will just ragequit.

 

The system works!

 

What a joke.

[Radiozo]

Or, just get to rank 60, which is incredibly easy, then choose what gear you'd like.

 

Tell me how im supposed to get to 60 when there is zero warzones spawning and no people that do pvp on Ilum.

[Ghingis]

...That doesn't actually work?

 

Yay! Three coins in a bag, one bag per day! Three weeks' worth of effort getting Battlemaster bags to buy my Champion main-hand!

 

Also, Dude A does the same thing and gets bunches of Battlemaster gear, while Dude B doesn't get Battlemaster Gear. Dude A is now better! For no reason. Dude B could be a much better player. If that's the case (and Dude B will undoubtedly think it is at any rate) then Dude B will just ragequit.

 

The system works!

 

What a joke.

 

Yea, although you get BM commendations, so you can choose what gear you want.

I honestly dont know why people are whining this much, its a luck based system, just like raiding is. Its not like its HARD to attain gear, and if you are better skilled then the other player, the small difference between someone with abit of luck and someone without it, is extremely slim and wont change the outcome. Unless its against a geared Operative.

[Ghingis]

Tell me how im supposed to get to 60 when there is zero warzones spawning and no people that do pvp on Ilum.

 

Thats what you get for camping Ilum with a million people.

[Radiozo]

Yea, although you get BM commendations, so you can choose what gear you want.

I honestly dont know why people are whining this much, its a luck based system, just like raiding is. Its not like its HARD to attain gear, and if you are better skilled then the other player, the small difference between someone with abit of luck and someone without it, is extremely slim and wont change the outcome. Unless its against a geared Operative.

 

It is hard on low pop server where the pvp is non-existant.

[Ghingis]

It is hard on low pop server where the pvp is non-existant.

 

That has nothing to do with how the system works though, thats a server issue that needs to be sorted.

[JackKerras]

Yea, although you get BM commendations, so you can choose what gear you want.

I honestly dont know why people are whining this much, its a luck based system, just like raiding is. Its not like its HARD to attain gear, and if you are better skilled then the other player, the small difference between someone with abit of luck and someone without it, is extremely slim and wont change the outcome. Unless its against a geared Operative.

 

Raiding is only a bit luck based. If you go into a raid with a group, you get gear and someone will be able to use it. Sometimes you get dicked (and I honestly think they should sniff out who has gear already and NOT drop those pieces if no one else needs them) but most times you get some gear for your buddies. Your guild, as a guild, progresses. It's group content and just about every run makes your group more powerful until you're quite close to the end and start getting duplicate drops.

 

Frankly, I think it should ALL be token pieces. Hand tokens for appropriate-tier gear out to the folks who need them, trade 'em in. One token for one piece of gear, a few drops per boss. That way guilds can decide the way their group progresses, helping their DPS if they're missing a check, beefing up their tank if he's too hard to heal, or the like.

 

Luck at the endgame is -bad news-. It leads to folks seeing eight pairs of the same pants drop, or White Lion gear dropping CONSTANTLY in every instance despite the fact that I had never even grouped with a White Lion.

 

Luck is a poor mechanic. Always was, always will be. It should be relegated to Korean F2P games, not used in modern triple-A MMORPGs. Poker is not interesting because of luck, it's interesting because of tells and bluffs. Go is not based on luck. Chess is not based on luck. Games with real lasting power are based on skill and thought and effort.

 

Eliminating luck from the picture and creating an environment where competent play and personal performance has actual merit -is the point-. Better players gear faster. Worse players spend longer gearing. Not 'oh hey check it out my first five bags I got five different tier pieces' while a guildie has opened thirty-five and has seven gloves and twelve implants.

[Ghingis]

Raiding is only a bit luck based. If you go into a raid with a group, you get gear and someone will be able to use it. Sometimes you get dicked (and I honestly think they should sniff out who has gear already and NOT drop those pieces if no one else needs them) but most times you get some gear for your buddies. Your guild, as a guild, progresses. It's group content and just about every run makes your group more powerful until you're quite close to the end and start getting duplicate drops.

 

Frankly, I think it should ALL be token pieces. Hand tokens for appropriate-tier gear out to the folks who need them, trade 'em in. One token for one piece of gear, a few drops per boss. That way guilds can decide the way their group progresses, helping their DPS if they're missing a check, beefing up their tank if he's too hard to heal, or the like.

 

Luck at the endgame is -bad news-. It leads to folks seeing eight pairs of the same pants drop, or White Lion gear dropping CONSTANTLY in every instance despite the fact that I had never even grouped with a White Lion.

 

Luck is a poor mechanic. Always was, always will be. It should be relegated to Korean F2P games, not used in modern triple-A MMORPGs. Poker is not interesting because of luck, it's interesting because of tells and bluffs. Go is not based on luck. Chess is not based on luck. Games with real lasting power are based on skill and thought and effort.

 

Eliminating luck from the picture and creating an environment where competent play and personal performance has actual merit -is the point-. Better players gear faster. Worse players spend longer gearing. Not 'oh hey check it out my first five bags I got five different tier pieces' while a guildie has opened thirty-five and has seven gloves and twelve implants.

 

Then they would have to change the system to something like WoW had though, else people would get geared way too fast.

 

And even if you are unlucky in this game, gearing up will still be quicker here then in WoW PvP. I will agree to some extent that the RNG is dumb, but I do not think it needs changing because gearing up is still extremely quick, noone can say otherwise.

[JackKerras]

Then they would have to change the system to something like WoW had though, else people would get geared way too fast.

 

And even if you are unlucky in this game, gearing up will still be quicker here then in WoW PvP. I will agree to some extent that the RNG is dumb, but I do not think it needs changing because gearing up is still extremely quick, noone can say otherwise.

 

Gearing up would still take several weeks in my system. You can set a number of medals yhat requires more hours be spent in PvP; it'd be easy to change my numbers so that 120 DPS Medals were needed, which means that no matter what, you have to hit 300k in PvP for sixty solid games (75k, then 300k, possibly with 5k crit). And your performance in each game would be important; you couldn't just slouch your way through a bunch, win one by good fortune, and get a bag. You'd have to be making a real effort to get your damage up good and high every level if you're a DPS, or healing if you're a healer, or whatever role you choose. The aforementioned example could very well be sixteen hours of gameplay for a single piece; I think -two workdays- worth of time spent making such a specific effort is worth a piece of gear, especially considering there would be -ten- of them.

 

Still, I think the gear should be of lesser importance in terms of getting the pieces; the rank should be what really shows you for what you are, and once you -can- use that kind of gear, access to it should be something you can make positive, simple steps towards. Only 65 gear is available now (right?) but there are a hundred ranks, and as they add new gearsets, the folks who have spent their time and effort ranking up -should- be able to get those gearsets quicker than the ones who have to level up to the new gear before they can begin.

 

That's the thing. Momentum. Making real steps towards real advancement instead of getting a bag and -maybe- it'll have something that's worth a damn in it.

Edited January 20, 2012 by JackKerras

[Ghingis]

Gearing up would still take several weeks in my system. You can set a number of medals yhat requires more hours be spent in PvP; it'd be easy to change my numbers so that 120 DPS Medals were needed, which means that no matter what, you have to hit 300k in PvP for sixty solid games (75k, then 300k, possibly with 5k crit). And your performance in each game would be important; you couldn't just slouch your way through a bunch, win one by good fortune, and get a bag. You'd have to be making a real effort to get your damage up good and high every level if you're a DPS, or healing if you're a healer, or whatever role you choose. The aforementioned example could very well be sixteen hours of gameplay for a single piece; I think -two workdays- worth of time spent making such a specific effort is worth a piece of gear, especially considering there would be -ten- of them.

 

Still, I think the gear should be of lesser importance in terms of getting the pieces; the rank should be what really shows you for what you are, and once you -can- use that kind of gear, access to it should be something you can make positive, simple steps towards. Only 65 gear is available now (right?) but there are a hundred ranks, and as they add new gearsets, the folks who have spent their time and effort ranking up -should- be able to get those gearsets quicker than the ones who have to level up to the new gear before they can begin.

 

That's the thing. Momentum. Making real steps towards real advancement instead of getting a bag and -maybe- it'll have something that's worth a damn in it.

 

I can already see why this system you posted will not work.

Everyone would just run around and not go for any objectives at all, just try to get their medals.

 

Especially the people at valor rank 60+, I would personally never touch an objective til I have the 5k hit medal and the 300k damage medal.

 

Would just ruin WZ's even more.

[JackKerras]

I can already see why this system you posted will not work.

Everyone would just run around and not go for any objectives at all, just try to get their medals.

 

Especially the people at valor rank 60+, I would personally never touch an objective til I have the 5k hit medal and the 300k damage medal.

 

Would just ruin WZ's even more.

 

Bull.

 

Everyone does that anyway.

 

And I specifically laid out in the plan I had earlier that one of the major contributors (in fact the largest numerical requirement in the quest info I posted) would be -doing the objectives- in PvP, NOT getting the medals. DPS medals would be in there, and I -only included them- because it would be a simple, low-programming-impact way to encourage DPS classes to DPS. It is perfectly viable to hit 300k damage -while- defending a point or running after a huttball carrier or hunting down the enemy's carrier.

 

If I had my druthers, the entire medal system would be reworked, but that's asking for a lot more manhours of effort. Hell, if I had my druthers, the entire progression curve from 10 to 49 in PvP would be drastically different and more rewarding.

 

I put together the plan that I did because it takes one intern a full workday, maybe two, to script these quests and put them in place. It doesn't need the lead designer. It doesn't even need a senior or regular-old designer. If I knew the language they script their quests in, I could type it up in Notepad and -email- it to them, and I am a long and crooked step from being an actual coder.

 

This being a light, temporary relief from the fury of opening 30 bags with no gear is the point. This being a way to encourage people to play the classes they roll and participate meaningfully in PvP is part of the point, but this is -definitely- a quick fix, not a lasting system overhaul.

Edited January 20, 2012 by JackKerras

[Darth_Vampirius]

Great ideas, OP. I am going to flag this for sticky and give it a good rating!

[JackKerras]

Great ideas, OP. I am going to flag this for sticky and give it a good rating!

 

Thanks much, I appreciate that! Getting a sticky with this thing would be awesome; the more attention, the better!

[Kognos]

You have my vote. Only valor lvl 47 but at least 35-40 bags in and still no set piece but the centurion legs i bought. Double weapons, triple implants and ears, triple offhand all a big let down.

 

I can't help but think the bag system was designed to be painful, they emergency fixed ilum to make sure it sucked too. Don't get me wrong i love the game but if they keep chasing people off with bad design decisions there won't be anyone left to play with or against.

[JackKerras]

You have my vote. Only valor lvl 47 but at least 35-40 bags in and still no set piece but the centurion legs i bought. Double weapons, triple implants and ears, triple offhand all a big let down.

 

I can't help but think the bag system was designed to be painful, they emergency fixed ilum to make sure it sucked too. Don't get me wrong i love the game but if they keep chasing people off with bad design decisions there won't be anyone left to play with or against.

 

I'm glad you feel that way.

 

It really is time that MMO developers started turning their focus away from random loot drops and towards the kinds of progression systems that reward players for doing what they should be doing.

 

I mean, heck, there are some neat achievements and things in Call of Duty that make you play VERY differently in order to get them, and one of the main reasons the CoD or Battlefield series has such incredible sticking power is that a person attempting to kill another person with a claymore that they explode with weapons fire through a wall takes some vastly specific effort... and it changes up the way they play! Those little changes are hugely good for the health of the game; going around and trying to pull six-gun headshots for a while because you're bored of your MP5 is one of those things that makes a game really compelling.

 

MMO developers take very little from other genres' ideas and bring them into the fold very infrequently. They're interesting, and the right people thinking the right things could make an MMO that does a good job and is fun to play into one that people will play again and again for many, many years, and have a varied, interesting, fun time throughout.

 

I mean, Hell. Look at what Reach did with their mission systems. Short term, one-day missions that required you to go out and do something for a hefty little bonus. Nothing like that in MMOs. Repeatable dailies are never that interesting and they perpetually become a chore rather than a fresh change from the usual; even little things like 'jump from rock to rock in this stream on Dromund Kaas without getting wet' would have people flying to Dromund Kaas in droves just to do that silly little objective.

 

So much neat stuff could go on!

 

But. For now, we really need to unbreak the silly idea that passes for PvP progression in this game. Then we can think about working neat new ideas retrofitted from Uncharted 3 or Battlefield or CoD or Reach into the works.

[nesaie]

Luck is a poor mechanic. Always was, always will be. It should be relegated to Korean F2P games, not used in modern triple-A MMORPGs. Poker is not interesting because of luck, it's interesting because of tells and bluffs. Go is not based on luck. Chess is not based on luck. Games with real lasting power are based on skill and thought and effort.

 

This is exactly it. BioWare should read the above paragraph and truly, truly understand this point. Random generators may help player retention in the short term. However, it is grossly demoralizing.

 

The result? The luck mechanic rapidly snowballs into a significant disincentive to play.

 

It's scorched earth strategy. The luck mechanic might work for the first month. It might even work in the second and third months. But those players that have been burned by it will never return. The communities they once established will never reform. You're salting the earth, BioWare.

Edited January 20, 2012 by nesaie

[JackKerras]

This is exactly it. BioWare should read the above paragraph and truly, truly understand this point. Random generators may help player retention in the short term. However, it is grossly demoralizing.

 

The result? The luck mechanic rapidly snowballs into a significant disincentive to play.

 

It's scorched earth strategy. The luck mechanic might work for the first month. It might even work in the second and third months. But those players that have been burned by it will never return. The communities they once established will never reform. You're salting the earth, BioWare.

 

Indeed.

 

The best games in the history of gaming do not need luck to win. Some include it but rarely is a fun, long-lasting game's progress based entirely upon it. Most have an element of skill that really outclasses the dice; those dice are just there so that, as in life, the outcome of a conflict is not perfectly certain.

 

Even in thoroughly modern progression-system-heavy games, you need very little luck. It takes time, it takes effort, sometimes very specific effort, but it does not take luck. Luck gets you bonuses sometimes; sometimes, when you throw a grenade or drop a Death from Above, you'll tag somebody out of stealth. That's where luck belongs. That's a good luck bonus. Sometimes you throw a knife over a house while you're FRAPSing; then you get a classic YouTube kill that people talk about for a few days. That's a good place for luck.

 

A bad place for luck is pulling your fifth pair of pants out of a ridiculous bag that you can only earn one of in a given day.

[JackKerras]

Halfway predictable progress is always a good thing, I can only support this idea.

 

As well you ought!

 

Randomized progress is a poor way to run a modern game.

 

One last little bump here before I go to bed; I will undoubtedly bump again in the morning. See you folks then!

[Dominickz]

rank 60, just about 61. battle master belt + battle master chest, centurion helm and gloves, rest is champion assassin stalker set.

 

0/6 battle master commendations out of 6 bags from when 1.1 hit

 

guildy with whom I do all my dailies with is 4/6 battle master commendations out of 6 bags

 

don't forget they increased cost of battle master weapons

 

guess what he got the day before the patch hit? his battle master main-hand weapon token

 

effectively worth 3 tokens right now that he doesn't have to acquire

 

Sure its a little bit of rage on my part for complaining but honestly how has this ****** system even come out of beta?

Edited January 20, 2012 by Dominickz