Dev Post BryantWood Posted January 17 Dev Post Posted January 17 (edited) Hey players! Upcoming in patch 7.6d, we will be adding a new system that changes the way loot is given out in SWTOR, aimed at reducing the horrible Curse of Bad Luck. What is it? Our Bad Luck Prevention system allows us to track the rewards obtained from boss drops or chests and gives us the ability to modify drop chances based on how many times players didn’t receive the protected items. How does it work? When you collect loot from sources we check the incoming item to see if it is one of the bad luck protected items. If it is not, we increase our counter that you have completed a run and not received the protected item. After a set number of attempts, we make sure one of the protected items is rewarded. Where will it be used? This system does not automatically apply to all loot in SWTOR, it has to be hooked up to each specific loot case. With the upcoming patch we are going to be applying the bad luck prevention to augment schematics obtained from the Relentless Replication Lair Boss. Here’s how bad luck prevention will be applied: On Story Mode, players are guaranteed to see an augment schematic after 12 runs if it has not dropped. On Veteran Mode, players are guaranteed to see an augment schematic after 7 runs if it has not dropped. The regular drop chances for the augment schematics aren’t going to change with the introduction of bad luck prevention, and we expect most players to obtain a schematic before the 12th and 7th runs respectively. This system is to ensure players don’t run into situations where the schematics don’t drop after many attempts. Also note that these instances of bad luck prevention are completely separate from each other. Your runs of Story Mode will not impact your drop chances or bad luck prevention from Veteran Mode, and vice versa. Is the system tracked per character or per account? The Bad Luck Prevention system is tracked per character. Each individual character will have their own tracking counter. Does the counter reset after I receive the item? When the protected item is received the tracking counter will reset. This will happen if you naturally loot the item or if you reach the bad luck prevention limit. So your 2nd, 3rd, and 10th drop will all be protected by bad luck prevention. What about <insert your favorite item or piece of content here>? As mentioned above, bad luck prevention has to be applied to each item or group of items separately. We will be monitoring the system and collecting your feedback to make sure it continues to work as intended before we start rolling it out to more loot in SWTOR. Because this additional tracking can have an impact on game performance we won’t be applying it to every source of loot, but will start with a focus on unique drops from Operations and Flashpoints. Gotta jet! I have a big collection of lucky charms and tea leaves to clean out, I won’t be needing them anymore! Edited January 18 by BryantWood Added answers to additional questions 11 4 1
RikuvonDrake Posted January 17 Posted January 17 (edited) Hi, thank you for sharing details about the upcoming loot changes! I had a question regarding the bad luck prevention system: will this system track progress individually per character, across the legacy/server, or account-wide? Clarifying this would help us understand how it will impact collecting items, especially for those who play multiple characters. Edited January 17 by RikuvonDrake 2
hillerbees Posted January 17 Posted January 17 Is this another thing that players in the main don't care too much about? I feel Broadsword are, once again, deploying resources in the wrong area rather than entertaining customers in a productive way. Maybe I don't appreciate what is being done but its certainly not something that is going to make me sub more. (I'm a long time player and weary of lack of things happening - not throwing the towel in but definately hanging it up from time to time) 2
Jerba Posted January 17 Posted January 17 (edited) Great idea, especially once it is applied to rare Master Mode mounts. My question is: Once a character has received the item, will the counter reset, so we get bad luck prevention again for the second schematic drop? Edited January 17 by Jerba
Nefaras Posted January 17 Posted January 17 You are really, really, really addressing something like this before addressing the elephant in the room, which is the character appearance changes? 14 6 2
The_Hightower Posted January 17 Posted January 17 37 minutes ago, RikuvonDrake said: Hi, thank you for sharing details about the upcoming loot changes! I had a question regarding the bad luck prevention system: will this system track progress individually per character, across the legacy/server, or account-wide? Clarifying this would help us understand how it will impact collecting items, especially for those who play multiple characters. Would also appreciate clarification in this regard. 2
wursta Posted January 17 Posted January 17 51 minutes ago, hillerbees said: Is this another thing that players in the main don't care too much about? Its not something that fixes story based content like most (including myself) care about. But it is something that needs fixing and has needed fixing for some time. There are many MM FP's mounts, ops rewards, the Geonosian companion from the Queens Lair, the new augment schematics, etc. that some folks just have "bad luck" getting. The items ARE in-game just very rare to the point its hard for everyone who wants one especially when some players have crap RNG every time. It's been a much needed fix since I started playing in late 2013. Although it doesn't fix the largest of problems we as players face, its a step forward and in the right direction so I am happy!! 5
Darthjantom Posted January 17 Posted January 17 2 minutes ago, wursta said: Its not something that fixes story based content like most (including myself) care about. But it is something that needs fixing and has needed fixing for some time. There are many MM FP's mounts, ops rewards, the Geonosian companion from the Queens Lair, the new augment schematics, etc. that some folks just have "bad luck" getting. The items ARE in-game just very rare to the point its hard for everyone who wants one especially when some players have crap RNG every time. It's been a much needed fix since I started playing in late 2013. Although it doesn't fix the largest of problems we as players face, its a step forward and in the right direction so I am happy!! Indeed this sounds like a good start to fixing this issue of a whole bunch of drops being way way too rare in drop rate already. The extreme rareity of some drops is something I have commented on here on the forums in the past myself as well. Hopefully they can start adding this to other and older content with rare-ish drops too eventually. There are still Uprisings mounts I have never seen drop even once to a groupmember. Or indeed drops like the Geonosian Companion etc.
DakhathKilrathi Posted January 17 Posted January 17 I can't say I bother with the content this is being applied to so far, but it's a great idea and SWTOR is long overdue for something like it. Appreciate the work that's gone into it. 2
Solo-Jo Posted January 17 Posted January 17 2 hours ago, Nefaras said: You are really, really, really addressing something like this before addressing the elephant in the room, which is the character appearance changes? This 1
ThanderSnB Posted January 17 Posted January 17 (edited) Nice to have this finally added even if it's only for these schematics right now. I would like to see this added to Recovered Relics from Tython and Korriban flashpoints. The droprates for these are way too low. Maybe if there is bad luck protection, there will be a way to actually farm them. Right now, the only reliable way to get them is leveling a character to 55 and skipping to the Revan intro story to get 2 from quest rewards. Something like 1 in 10 seems reasonable to me, especially since the equivalent Manaan flashpoint item drops every single run. Edited January 17 by ThanderSnB 4
Spikanor Posted January 17 Posted January 17 (edited) is this new system make things more to easy to get when rare drops like the new schematic's and so need to be hard to get and that bad luck is normal more that some people need to run it a lot of time's before there get one then some other that have what more luck with it getting faster not part of the MMO game all. Edited January 18 by Spikanor
Elvarania Posted January 18 Posted January 18 Please please please can you let us know if this will apply to the Avalanche Tank from Explosive Conflict (and I guess in general to other raid mounts)? I've never seen the tank drop and I've done EC literally hundreds of times specifically for it. It's especially frustrating as it's the only raid mount worth achievement points! Also, can you confirm if this is 'legacy wide' or character specific? 3
TheOneWhoLives Posted January 18 Posted January 18 5 minutes ago, Elvarania said: Please please please can you let us know if this will apply to the Avalanche Tank from Explosive Conflict (and I guess in general to other raid mounts)? I've never seen the tank drop and I've done EC literally hundreds of times specifically for it. It's especially frustrating as it's the only raid mount worth achievement points! Also, can you confirm if this is 'legacy wide' or character specific? They said it needs to be applied to each type of loot drop individually. 7.6d will only apply the loot drop change to the Relentless Replication Lair Boss to start and subsequently rolled out to other types of content once the system is refined enough. Or are you asking if they plan on applying it to Explosive Content after the shakedown is complete?
thevanquished Posted January 18 Posted January 18 If I still had a subscription following the disastrous changes from 7.6 you're pretending were a resounding success, I might care about 7.6d. 6 1 1
AverieDragomir Posted January 18 Posted January 18 4 hours ago, Nefaras said: You are really, really, really addressing something like this before addressing the elephant in the room, which is the character appearance changes? That thread is still ongoing, so it's not something members of the community are taking lying down. Right now they're trying to work out a TL;DR of realistic issues BS can fix, so hopefully that might be a "goes without saying" fix they roll out in the next update.
Dev Post BryantWood Posted January 18 Author Dev Post Posted January 18 Hey everyone, Jumping back in to add clarification to some questions that have popped up! I'll update the original post as well. Is the system tracked per character or per account? The Bad Luck Prevention system is tracked per character. Each individual character will have their own tracking counter. Does the counter reset after I receive the item? When the protected item is received the tracking counter will reset. This will happen if you naturally loot the item or if you reach the bad luck prevention limit. So your 2nd, 3rd, and 10th drop will all be protected by bad luck prevention. 2 5
eabevella Posted January 18 Posted January 18 (edited) Hey what about that thread with almost 2k replies? You know, about the "character downgrade"? Edit: I mean, who care? Most if not all the people who "need" the new schematics aka hardcore raiders have already finished grinding it. And those who haven't get the schematics at this point don't have an urgent need to them. Plus it's not like you change the loot into guaranteed drop or into some token where we can pick the type of schematic we need so what's the point? Edited January 18 by eabevella 9 2
tephramancy Posted January 18 Posted January 18 Of all the things that have been broken since 7.6, *this* is what you're focussing on? It's such a shame that the players are being ignored on the character modernization issue. This is not a priority for the vast majority of players. Please just address what you messed up! This is pure misdirection and it's really insulting. We are all grown ups here, if you're not going to fix the problems you caused with modernization, just be straight with us. 9 1
AverieDragomir Posted January 18 Posted January 18 5 hours ago, BryantWood said: Hey everyone, Jumping back in to add clarification to some questions that have popped up! I'll update the original post as well. Is the system tracked per character or per account? The Bad Luck Prevention system is tracked per character. Each individual character will have their own tracking counter. Does the counter reset after I receive the item? When the protected item is received the tracking counter will reset. This will happen if you naturally loot the item or if you reach the bad luck prevention limit. So your 2nd, 3rd, and 10th drop will all be protected by bad luck prevention. I think what players really want clarification on is the character modernisation. There are some concerns there that need to be addressed and problems that need to be fixed- it would go a long way in building trust with the community if you did so. 6 1
Seraseven Posted January 18 Posted January 18 Please apply this to the Avalanche Heavy Tank mount from EC as soon as possible. 3
Spikanor Posted January 18 Posted January 18 @BryantWood can you maybe explane what more why we need something like the bad luck prevention to get the rare drops when normal in any other MMO bad and good luck are normal things that sometime's players need to run things a lot more before there get a rare drop then some other players that get sometime's lucky with a rare drop is less runs then other players. then why not increase the drop rate a little for the new augment schematics drops then add something what make's the rare drops not rare anymore since you get it at some point with this new system. 1
Jyroshi Posted January 18 Posted January 18 Hi, in my opinion that sounds like a good idea in general but not thouht to the end. But to get one other point out of the way first: I think this should NOT be added to every kind of "special drop". For sure there are a lot of mounts in the game so i see no need to add this e.g. for special mounts in OPs (the RNG factor is part of the game here and an incentive to run something again if you miss the desired item). A different story it is with items/schematics for the item progression system like with XRR-53 now. I think instead of simply counting the instances of bad luck (per character) it would be more usefull to adjust/increase the drop chance every time (yes more complicated formula but also more helpful). By counting per character you dont realy take into acount that we have weekly lockouts (except of story mode where the schematics are not meaningful anyway), so basically the system means an garantueed drop every 6-7 weeks - and sorry, but that doesnt help anyone, especially right now where you have multiple schematics and still dont know which of them will drop. It would be a different story in counting this per legacy, at least running the same content with different chars would be usefull then. So apologize, I dont mean to sound rude, but maybe fix the "issue" here simply be increasing the general drop chance by a few % (problem solved) and spend the time for something different. 1
Tsillah Posted January 18 Posted January 18 2 hours ago, Spikanor said: @BryantWood can you maybe explane what more why we need something like the bad luck prevention to get the rare drops when normal in any other MMO bad and good luck are normal things that sometime's players need to run things a lot more before there get a rare drop then some other players that get sometime's lucky with a rare drop is less runs then other players. then why not increase the drop rate a little for the new augment schematics drops then add something what make's the rare drops not rare anymore since you get it at some point with this new system. Yeah, this means that players are guaranteed a drop as long as they repeat it 12 or 7 times. So this will affect the market value on the GTN as well. Tough luck for those who already bought them via the GTN I suppose. Last night I ran EV in HM. I got 3 blue belts. Now that's something that's worth addressing. Not stuff that you can sell on the GTN. 1
Recommended Posts