One of them still hasn't! But yes it would still be better than our rates on Hullpiercer and certain jewelery pieces. Also brawler 1 hander from Pirate Kings still to be discod on Splitpaw!
A simple way to implement this would be to use drop "schedules" instead of RNG rolls. Schedule 1: Item 1 -> Item 2 -> Item 3 Schedule 2: Item 1 -> Item 3 -> Item 2 Schedule 3: Item 2 -> Item 1 -> Item 3 ect. You wouldn't even have to include every possible schedule because players wouldn't know the difference. When the first item drops, the server randomly chooses one of the schedules and completes it, then randomly picks another schedule. To make the drops feel more random (I like random ), you could interlace two schedules. For example, if the server randomly selected schedule 1 and 2, you'd see two Item 1's in a row, but you'd still be assured to get 2 of each item after 6 kills. Of course, it would still possible for one guild to get all the Item 1's and none of the Item 3's on the server...
Unfortunately with that and tracking things down to players/guilds, be it what I suggested or item rotations is I am fairly certain they do not have the data sets in place to track such things and since we are dealing with item drops it introduces unique secondary problems that would have to be addressed. The problem with players being the deciding factor is which player gets 'picked' and even with normalized RNG it would still take a lot of repetitions before it even got close to evened out which is the problem we have now. If its based on the players whose history get priority and how do you prevent manipulation? Basing it on the guild would be nice but again I don't think they have anything in place for tracking what guilds get what loot. It tends to just track players and include their guild tag after the fact. All though they did put in the achievement system for kills so it doesn't seem like it would be terribly hard to track the loot players got in the guild. This could be manipulated though, ie Guild gets a rare piece of loot so now they know they definitely won't see it for a while. So the guild just start filling the raid with a different guild tag that has not gotten that rare piece of loot by just having several members leave the current guild and get tagged by another. However we do know for a fact they can track things on a server scale because of the avatars, item discoveries, current and past revealed census data. I am just re-purposing it. this also prevents any kind of exploit or manipulation of loot drops that would be practical.
Or we could leave things as is and let RNG just be RNG instead of reinventing the wheel based on player perception.
You say that like changing things based on player perception is unreasonable when its literally why they change and make EVERYTHING.
I've heard lots and lots of people saying they get too many leather drops.. SoE even changed it so all leather drops even less due to this feedback. My raid was always short on druid gear... now it's even worse.. and we're still getting way more brawler stuff then we want. Not one of our druids have been able to get even a full set of EM gear, despite us having moved on to some HM content. Perception of RNG is definitely localized and global changes to appease one set of perceptions will skew others.
Yeah, but this normalizes them on all fronts. So if you were getting an unusually high amount of something you would get less and if you are getting an unusually low amount you will get more. People getting roughly the correct quantities that line up with the 'weight' of items will continue to do so. Basically the only way this is a 'lose' if you are intensely lucky and everything you want is dropping like candy, which it shouldn't be anyway.
Would love to see a Dev's input on this as they're some valid points and suggestions being brought up in regards to RNG, in particular, loot distribution.
No. There's a difference between smart loot which looks at raid make-up and loot that is needed and what is being asked for itt. I think most everyone appreciates random and understands that smart loot would gear people too quickly and shorten the length of time content stays relevant. The issue is finding a solution to prevent the extreme rng streaks that occur too frequently with the current system.
I was very purposeful in comparing this to the avatar spawn system. Not only that it makes it easier to understand but most if not all criticism are tied to the avatar system as well. One thing, good or bad, that is said about one is inherently said about the other. Full smart loot would be WAY over the top and partial smart loot would still be subjected to the same old terrible RNG. Someone getting lucky on smart loot rolls just a few times would even cause problems with aging content too fast. This system would put loot on a random rotation. You wouldn't know what loot you are getting next, however educated guesses could be made. You would be able to look forward and know within a small margin of error how many of each item will drop in say a month or 2 months or X amount of kills. For example if something had a 12% overall drop rate you would be able to guess that it will drop within 8-10 kills. For raids this is about a month or more of raiding still, hardly instant or 'smart loot.' If something has dropped and then you killed the encounter 2 more times you could guess it might not drop for another 6-8 kills, but it could drop within 4 kills too. And this is all only if you even know the overall drop rate. Ultimately the goal is to put a limit on how many times something can or can not drop within a certain time frame. Statistically streaks could occur but it would be a rare anomaly rather than resented expectation.
1 thing is, if it is put in on a Server wide drop rate then it will only help on the End Game Drops only and not on all drops. It would need to be made to be a per Guild/Raid/group in order for it to work on all content. I like the idea, but i dont want it to only apply to the End Game Raiders Only.
The scenario I just laid would only work like that if only one guild was killing a piece of content, yes but i think you are underestimating how much of an improvement this would be and not aware this would be a blanket change for all loot drops everywhere that aren't already governed by some other system. In fact content that is ran by more people would see the biggest improvement, not the smallest. Any loot on the server that isn't governed by some sort of smart loot will see an increase in consistency of literally 1600% (one server instead of across 16). And this would be cutting out more soloers than groupers and more groupers than raiders. Going down to raid/group/player would require much more additional player data as well as system to determine who's history will be used. More work for the database and servers which all know is bad news on EQ2. There are social conflicts as well such as people would be wanting others in groups who haven't seen a certain piece of loot lately so it has a higher chance of dropping. It also puts too much control of what will drop in the hands of the individual players. Raids and groups are rarely static and going by guild opens up for exploitation since changing guilds is extremely easy. I have no doubt solutions could be made to solve all these potential problems but the amount of work required to do so would be much more than implementing it server wide.
A weekly shuffling of the loot tables would be easier to code, and work just as well if not better. My bet is that the computer RNG tends to work on a bell curve and that is why people notice things dropping more others. The items in the middle numbers of the loot table tend to show up more. Of course only $OE can truly tell you.
Our raid item distribution next expansion should reduce the impact of streaky rolls with armor patterns, armor upgrade components, and generally smaller loot tables. For mobs with larger loot tables, we're also considering using vendors that would allow players to trade several items they don't need from a particular raid encounter for one item they do need from that encounter. We prefer this system to the others proposed in this thread because it would have a more reliable effect at the guild/alliance level, it would be much easier to implement, and it doesn't really compromise any of the benefits of the RNG system. However, it would certainly add potential for loot drama. Is that something raid leaders could deal with?
It It would play havoc with DKP system - but rather be able to pretty much get what I want in X amount of runs than never see in a whole expac.. With a little thought and compromise I think it will work
unless you plan on making all Current Raid Content Obsolete we still need you to address the items that are currently dropping. I understand SG and DC should still be used, as well as the 2 new raid zones from GU 67. this still leaves items that are dropping that will not be dropping in ways that will work for players. I know you dont like going back and changing loot or loot systems from stull that is Live, but i think we need yall to go through the "Relevant" raid content and give it the same treatment at the next GU's Loot. this is IF you want it to be raided AT ALL.
Honestly if it gave something similar to hand in 5 Spell-Piercers for 1 brawler 1h from pirates it'd probably be worth it. The difficulty and drama would come if there was a way to change in lesser items for better items (or vice versa) or if the trade in wasn't significantly detrimental in the amount of items you'd end up with. 5 for 1 would likely be fine, because if a main needs the item that drops in the box it'd probably be worth it to just let them have it. If it was 2 for 1 then you'd see some contention that could create a bit of drama.
