75 réponses à ce sujet

[TheThirdRace]

After playing ME3MP and DAMP, I feel like the RNG system is simply wasted.

Give me an in-game store where I can buy specific items with gold. Set the price to something fair and I'll spend a good chunk of real life money on it to save myself some time. And I'm not alone. I'll play the damn game over 500 hours allright, I just don't want to spend my time hoping I get a reward for my efforts...

The current DAMP system is abysmal, the duplicates, the absence of progression and the RNG makes it about the worst combination you can get. No matter how much time you play this game, you're never 100% sure to be rewarded for your efforts. It's like a core mechanic of all games, effort translates to reward... It's amazing they're still supporting this.

The ME3MP system wasn't perfect but much better. The only problem with it was the RNG, but at least duplicates served their purpose and once you maxed a weapon/item you'd never get it again.

There are some noteworthy benefits from using a simple in-game store with no RNG at all:

• RNG is simply just frustrating. Why would you want to infuriate your customer? How do you expect them to behave themselves on your forums if all they have is anger toward your company?
• With a fair price (gold per time spent on the game), you'll get a pretty good influx of cash from normal people that wouldn't spend a dime on RNG.
• When they design an item, they'll have to actually make it worth it, otherwise we'll just skip it in the store.
• Overall balance on skills and enemies should be much better because if one thing is better/easier than the others, then people will flock to the items associated with it, leaving all the other choices unprofitable.
   

There are some caveats to using such a store system (non RNG)

• It will reduce the revenue from "Whales", people that spend thousands of real dollars on the game, but I'm pretty sure that it can be compensated by normal people spending on the game if the price is fair. Whales are just as frustrated as we are with the RNG, they just have more cash to burn than us. Less frustration is always good... especially from what could be argued your most "loyal" fan base.
• Developers will actually have to work on balance, they'll have to create items that are worth it. In simple words, they'll have to work... which shouldn't be a bad thing if you think about it.

I know it's a pipe dream, EA/Bioware will never allow this, but you can't blame a man to dream

[Drasca]

Pink? 

 

It means he's more elite than you

[Sidney]

After playing ME3MP and DAMP, I feel like the RNG system is simply wasted.

The ME3MP system wasn't perfect but much better. The only problem with it was the RNG, but at least duplicates served their purpose and once you maxed a weapon/item you'd never get It:

The problem in DAMP compared to ME3MP is the one and done problem that you discuss. There is no need to for anything else once you have the best weapon in each class -- unless you are just grinding weapon challenges.

Still another problem is that all the weapons are more or less the same - minor exception with the 2H and Daggers where there is AOE. By contrast there was a lot of distinction between the Geth Plasma SMG, Locust and Hurricane just among the SMGs both in terms of weight or play style.

[Cryos_Feron]

After playing ME3MP and DAMP, I feel like the RNG system is simply wasted.

Give me an in-game store where I can buy specific items with gold. Set the price to something fair and I'll spend a good chunk of real life money on it to save myself some time. And I'm not alone. I'll play the damn game over 500 hours allright, I just don't want to spend my time hoping I get a reward for my efforts...

The current DAMP system is abysmal, the duplicates, the absence of progression and the RNG makes it about the worst combination you can get. No matter how much time you play this game, you're never 100% sure to be rewarded for your efforts. It's like a core mechanic of all games, effort translates to reward... It's amazing they're still supporting this.

The ME3MP system wasn't perfect but much better. The only problem with it was the RNG, but at least duplicates served their purpose and once you maxed a weapon/item you'd never get it again.

There are some noteworthy benefits from using a simple in-game store with no RNG at all:

• RNG is simply just frustrating. Why would you want to infuriate your customer? How do you expect them to behave themselves on your forums if all they have is anger toward your company?
• With a fair price (gold per time spent on the game), you'll get a pretty good influx of cash from normal people that wouldn't spend a dime on RNG.
• When they design an item, they'll have to actually make it worth it, otherwise we'll just skip it in the store.
• Overall balance on skills and enemies should be much better because if one thing is better/easier than the others, then people will flock to the items associated with it, leaving all the other choices unprofitable.

There are some caveats to using such a store system (non RNG)

• It will reduce the revenue from "Whales", people that spend thousands of real dollars on the game, but I'm pretty sure that it can be compensated by normal people spending on the game if the price is fair. Whales are just as frustrated as we are with the RNG, they just have more cash to burn than us. Less frustration is always good... especially from what could be argued your most "loyal" fan base.
• Developers will actually have to work on balance, they'll have to create items that are worth it. In simple words, they'll have to work... which shouldn't be a bad thing if you think about it.

I know it's a pipe dream, EA/Bioware will never allow this, but you can't blame a man to dream

I agree with most what you said.

however, just imagine what would happen if we had a DIRECT shop system:

Sulivan for 10 USD
some other level 19 2-hander for 6 USD

what would you buy?

you would buy the Sulivan and be done for now and forever.

in ME I had thousands of item-progressions.
in DAI we currently are having approx. 2-4 ;-))

but with the shop we'd only have 1

[Silversmurf]

It was a very strange weekend.  

 

Our group of 4 played Friday night, Saturday most of the day and All Sunday evening.

 

I got 2 purples that both turned into runes lol  .....one got a purple that turned into a rune....and the other two got no purples.  Didn't get crafting materials anymore from chests, are they gone too now?  (I know, I know, RNG is RNG but that was a lot of games x 4 players)  I prefer gold at this point instead of crafting materials anyway.  It was just something we noticed.

 

I do believe Drasca is correct in the drop chance as I have seen it myself the first week but boy that was a real run of bad luck if nothing has been changed.

 

Also, LOL at 50000 dragons.  Not going to happen if it takes 2 days to get 8000

[T_elic]

Give me an in-game store where I can buy specific items with gold. Set the price to something fair and I'll spend a good chunk of real life money on it to save myself some time. And I'm not alone. I'll play the damn game over 500 hours allright, I just don't want to spend my time hoping I get a reward for my efforts...

 

While i don't have anything against the RNG system, i do agree with this. I think if you'd let people buy selected weapons for a fair price people would still spend a lot of money on stuff. And people who would otherwise never spend real money on stuff because they don't want to spend money on RNG chests(people like me) might now actually spend some real money on it as well(to get that final weapon upgrade in ME3 for instance).

[TormDK]

Silversmurf - it was all platforms combined, and the challenge runs untill wednesday.

[Stinja]

I know, I know, RNG is RNG but that was a lot of games x 4 players ... Also, LOL at 50000 dragons.  Not going to happen if it takes 2 days to get 8000

 

I'm seriously getting disillusioned with it all.  At this point, my best hope of getting a Dragon two-hander is hoping other people grind out the 50,000 kills   I wonder if the "fix" for PS4 broke something compared to PC drop rate...

 

Oh well Witcher 3 is imminent for SP, and i'm really getting into Helldivers again for 4-player co-op.

[Nameless_Wanderer]

I think the problem with the loot issue is not so much RNG but one of variety. Games that follow this kind of loot model (read: toil for hours to get better gear via world drops) have much bigger loot tables. The Diablo franchise and pretty much any/every MMORPG out there adheres to this. Yeah, you will be grinding for hours, but in your pursuit for that godly item, you are likely to be uncovering at least some side-grades or other ‘end game’ items that you can utilize to change up your build.

 

The problem with DAMP is that there are only a handful of end game items – and the dragon loot that has been added is (while hard to obtain for many of us) limited. For those players who already got those, they’ve hit the progression wall again. Another problem is that you only have limited item boxes  - weapon, armor, necklace and rings. That in itself does not give a huge amount of options for changing up loot.

 

That said, what this game needs is more variety in things to just "collect". End game weapons with differing effects, unique armor skins (with better stats), more powerful runes or different runes that act as special abilities, epic potions that confer a longer buff (fire resist for the entire party for 5 mins, for example), rings that can be upgraded, blessings of Andraste, which can be used to provide a small buff for an entire zone or map etc.

 

As others have suggested, maybe tokens or something that you can collect off dragons, which can then be traded in the store screen for purple items (like the Warcraft model of collecting badges from heroic dungeons). It wouldn’t even matter if you would need 20-30 of these for a single purchase – the act of obtaining them provides meaningful progression.

 

There should be more weapons that are specific to types of builds – but have these end game too. There are actually some interesting lower level purples but they are pretty much wasted as people will always want to use the better end game items.

 

I’m always against using real-world money (pay to win) for items, as I’d rather earn it in game and then have that sense of achievement. I just think the in-game loot needs more variety really. But until then, I'll keep hunting for that darn Bow of the Dragon... 

[Silversmurf]

Silversmurf - it was all platforms combined

 

Ooooooooooo....

 

In that case we should make it.

 

Didn't realise was all platforms.... D'OH     I knew it was Wednesday though.

 

[Silversmurf]

 and i'm really getting into Helldivers again for 4-player co-op.

 

Yeah, I saw you on Helldivers yesterday.

 

Is it worth getting?

[Stinja]

I like Helldivers.  But then i'm strange...

 

Yeah it's good.  Very fun, very crazy, requires actual team work, requires actual skill.  No RNG levelling/loot.  Cross-buy, cross-play, so goof for mates on multiple platforms.  Netcode is very solid.

 

All from a team of 3 developers, and looking at some of their feature list vs DAMP makes me wonder why Bioware can't do similar (obviously Helldivers was built as a MP game, not a SP add on, limited isometric view etc)

[Johnsen1972]

Pink? 

 

pink is the color for epic items

[TormDK]

Johnsen, you must be colour blind - epics are purple

[TheThirdRace]

I agree with most what you said.

however, just imagine what would happen if we had a DIRECT shop system:

Sulivan for 10 USD
some other level 19 2-hander for 6 USD

what would you buy?

you would buy the Sulivan and be done for now and forever.

in ME I had thousands of item-progressions.
in DAI we currently are having approx. 2-4 ;-))

but with the shop we'd only have 1

Oh it wouldn't work well in DAMP at all because there's no progression in loot like ME3MP had.

Instead of going for a full leveled Sulivan from the start, you could have got it at level 1 and be able to upgrade it to level 2, then 3, up to level 23 if needed. ME3MP had this kind of system in place and it worked for 1 good reason: Most of the weapons were perfectly viable at level 1. This means that the only "required" thing was to actually get the weapon once, after that it was just gravy on top of it...

The real frustration from ME3MP was that sometimes the store wouldn't give you that freaking level 1 weapon you wanted. A store would easily allow you to unlock that elusive level 1, then you could either buy the other levels, grind them in-game or a combination of the two. The good thing would be that it's optional, people that wanna spend hundreds of dollars could, people that don't mind spending 20$ to unlock 20 weapons wouldn't feel so trolled...
 
The key here is "fair price". You need to make it accessible, something you don't think twice before spending on it. The first thing you mentioned is real money, but I think that's the problem. It has to be in in-game gold. Real money should only reflect a value in gold and that value should be determined by hours played.

Let's say the system is based on maxing your manifest around 200 hours on the highest difficulty and a game last 25 minutes. That means you play an average of 2 matches per hour, about 10 minutes in the menus, loading sessions and such. Let's say we value each hour at 2$. This means each match should net you about 1$ in gold value.

Now all you need to do is to fill those 200 hours with items at 1$ per level (10 to 20 levels each -> 10$ to 20$), 3$ per level for ultra-rares (10 to 20 levels each -> 30$ to 60$) and a flat 5$ for one-time unlocks like characters.

If we keep ultra-rares numbers at a 1:4 ratio (1 UR for every 4 commons = 5 items), launch with a total of 15 items and 10 characters, that means we could unlock everything for either 68$ (10 x 5$/character + 12 x 1$/common + 3 x 2$/ultra-rare) or 34 hours of playtime. To max everything at level 20, you would need to either pay 470$ (10 x 5$/character + 12 x 1$/common x 20 levels + 3 x 2$/ultra-rare x 20 levels) or play 235 hours. Those are far from being unreasonable numbers.

And this is with a very low amount of items. Adding 2 or 3 items a month shouldn't be a problem and would keep a steady stream of revenue while adding new things for players to work toward. Making items cost such a low value is key in getting a lot of people to pay you extra money just because they want to unlock that specific item right now. People will gladly pay 1$ or 2$ to avoid waiting or work for it. The low cost allows you to perceive it as if it was "nothing" but it adds up nicely at the end of the month...

Progression shouldn't be based only on items either. One thing DAMP really failed at is to base its challenge system almost completely on promotions only. When you finish a challenge in DAMP, it's over, there's no do over so all that's left is grinding promotions. In ME3MP, you could redo the challenges, I did the Biotic God challenge 64 times! That kept me going much more than any item. Not so much in DAMP and it's a real shame because the current system only shows how "diversified" you played and how many promotions you got, it has nothing to do with how much you played or excelled at the game.

See, it's possible to have a store and a progression system that doesn't necessarily punish players. It's even easy to do so, yet companies still believe all they need is to shove RNG down our throats and pray the "whales" spend enough money to give them a nice profit margin. I would honestly spend over 50$ in real cash if I was rewarded for it, maybe more if I spent that much time in game...

[Cryos_Feron]

yes, bioware shot themselves in the foot.

if they wanted to make the least money possible,
as well as frustrate the biggest number of players,
they would have implemented the exact same shop system they are having now.

respectively: had at the start.

pleeease acknowledge this, for the sake of ME4

I sound like a smart-ass. but it's not me, 6 months of this forum can actually say something.

[Spectr61]

1/10 drop rate?

Hard numbers from P runs last weekend;

2/50; and the 2 was a duplicate, of course. 2 Staffs of the Dragon.

[visssss]

I keep getting only staffs, staffs and more staffs. Maul is a dream...

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

12 staff of dragons and counting....

[Texasmotiv]

12 staff of dragons and counting....

You could build a teepee. Maybe even a wigwam.

[Jebbadiah Jenkins]

12 staff of dragons and counting....

 

Yeah the duplicates are harsh.

 

The only item that I actually need a duplicate on, I've gotten 0 of.

 

6 or 7 bows (I salvaged a few so I lost count), 1 maul, 1 Greatsword, 2 staffs, 0 shield, 0 longsword, 0 daggers

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

13 staff of dragons and counting now, it was nice the first time around but really rng?????

13 staff of dragons

9 bow of dragons

5 dagger of dragons

1 shield of the dragon

0 maul of the dragon

0 great sword of the dragon

0 longsword of the dragon

The frustration on my face due to dddddddddddduplicates from rng=priceless

[OutlawJT]

40+ perilous dragon kills and so far I've only gotten a single dragon weapon. Why you gotta hate on me RNG? Why you gotta hate?

[yarpenthemad21]

25 items of dragon. I don't know how many runs.
still no hammer.
but 10 of them was staves.
why rng gods?

[mmmidnight]

I really don't understand why they insist on staying with such a terrible RNG based reward/loot system.

There are so many different paths they could have taken.

Someone suggested dragon tokens per kill to be able to buy items directly from the store, which I think is an incredible improvement on the current system.

Achievement rewards and items available in the store for a substantial amount of gold, could also lessen the blow of opening 4-5 hundred thousand gold's worth of chests with nothing of any kind of value.

In all of the games of my entire gaming life, this game has hands down the absolute worst loot system of them all. I am 39 years old and have been playing games since Atari 2600.