RNG-itis: a cure without (notably) changing probability

Of course I meant actively playing (killing mobs) and not idly sitting in town;p

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Courageous wrote:

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that would guarantee that player receives at least 1 unique during set amount of time

... solution ...

Leave char logged in while at work, with one of those little mouse twirler programs making the char run in circles. :-P

Pretty soon you'll say, "oh, I meant really playing," and soon thereafter you'll conclude that "random number draw count" is the best way to keep track. And voila. Back to OP. :-P

If by "played" time they calculate the amount of time where there are mobs less than 1 screen away from you, and counting a little buffer after that (so it doesn't penalize people that kill mobs faster), then his suggestion would indeed work wouldn't it?


Meh, I'm not sure about "guaranteed" uniques or orbs or anything.
I'm 100% for letting players work for what they want, and give them rewards as they are doing so to keep them engaged.
Having a guaranteed item like that doesn't seem to follow that, but neither does the complete RNG and little unique drops and stuff there are now


Meh.

Maybe have a new orb that upgrades a white item to a unique, but make it bound-to-account, and ONLY obtainable through shards by vendoring some stuff (dunno what stuff though lol)

I was thinking about buying stash tabs, but I probably won't... at least not today. Why not? Because I realized my motivation for buying more stash was so that I could trade better by holding more items. However, trading is ridiculous in PoE. It's hard to price things because the market lacks transparency and there isn't information widely available. People are suggesting http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/256334 auction house, which of course GGG has already said they won't ever implement.

This seems off-topic, but after reading some threads, I agree with those who think something is off about overboard RNG. Based on my own experience and what others have said, certain elements in the game are excessively randomized with distribution outcomes independent of player effort or ability. Since characters don't have innate skills mechanism, every build is loot dependent to some degree. You need to find the right sockets with the correct links as the foundation, otherwise you can't even create a viable build unless you resort to using some OP skill everyone else runs.

The difficulty in developing a game (and most products) comes from balancing design values versus what the customer wants. The value of having a challenging game where players are required to do difficult tasks is great, but having most crucial events come down to pure chance is unappealing. Allowing players to get creative and customize their builds is awesome, but not letting those builds to progress without luck is frustrating. This is where trading comes to play. People simply aren't crafting much and just trading for gear. The crafting items are being used almost exclusively only as currency.

As someone mentioned earlier, the negative randomization effects are mitigated by longer (infinite) time spans and large economies. For example, if you found something suitable for another build, you could sell it. Eventually, if the devs made trading easier, it would be a partial solution since those who want to play roulette still can do that, and their rejected pieces would get sold.

Tinkering with the crafting system by adding entropy or changing fusing/jeweler orb mechanics as proposed would also work well. To those who say we don't "deserve" this or these changes will "ruin the economy" are misrepresenting. First of all, we don't even have a real economy; we have rich players burning hundreds of orbs on nothing and poor players like myself getting scammed or ripped off.

Personal anecdote: two of my friends have already quit before end-game. Some would say "good riddance, we only want hardcore gamers." Again, I would emphasize that pure RNG has little to do with effort or ability. It's like playing slots. I don't think anyone is suggesting we get rid of RNG entirely (obviously DPS and the like should be randomized), but on for certain key elements, it doesn't make sense to be purely random.

A fair amount of randomness is indeed fun, it is after all responsible for many of the great and exciting moments in PoE. Furthermore, it should be realized that experiences of bad luck are actually required for these moments to have their positive effect. On the other hand it can be very frustrating as well, one can get the feeling of making no progression at all for extended periods of time. This can actually stir people away from the game, especially those with limited playing time.

The main negative aspect of a RNG is something that can be tackled by adding the "entropic-RNG", its a very elegant method in my opinion, and it doesn't have to be applied in every random aspect of the game, but in some cases the Entropic-RNG or a similar process might work better. A good example of such would, in my opinion, be with the Chromatic, Jeweler and Fusion Orbs. These sockets are too essential for basic gameplay to make them that random. For these, I would implement system that would very gradually increase the chance to gain a combination you didn't have before for each successive attempt. This way you can still get lucky, but at least you know that you will have your desired outcome after spending X (that be a very decent amount) of orbs. However, Orbs of Alchemy and drop chances and the like should just stay pure RNG.

I think the RNG as is, stands in contrast to the current trading and vending system.
a situation where a player will be hopelessly stuck because of bad gear and the lack of currency to buy/trade/roll/augment better gear - isn't just possible, but far to common to my taste.
this game is very gear-dependent for some classes (like pure-melee Marauder), and it just kills all hope of proceeding with a character, should the above situation happen.

a good solution would be to introduce a secondary gold-like currency with high RNG drop-chance (but small quantities) to the game, thereby allowing two ways of payment for items at the vendor.

alternatively, there can be an overall increase of value to the vending system, a substantial increase of inventory, or both.
the current situation where a white item is worth 1/5 of a worthless Knowledge Scroll (Portal Scrolls are the lowest possible currency, and they are worth 3 KS each. that's 15 whites for 1 scroll), and a blue one 1/20 of a low-quality orb - just doesn't seem fair.
filling your inventory with white and blue items for trade, then using a Portal Scroll that's worth 3X more than those items is absurd. and that happens a lot. especially at low levels.

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This way you can still get lucky, but at least you know that you will have your desired outcome after spending X (that be a very decent amount) of orbs. However, Orbs of Alchemy and drop chances and the like should just stay pure RNG.

Yes, Baelrog;

The proposal was always intended for rare things and not common things.

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Baelrog wrote:

A fair amount of randomness is indeed fun, it is after all responsible for many of the great and exciting moments in PoE. Furthermore, it should be realized that experiences of bad luck are actually required for these moments to have their positive effect. On the other hand it can be very frustrating as well, one can get the feeling of making no progression at all for extended periods of time. This can actually stir people away from the game, especially those with limited playing time.

The main negative aspect of a RNG is something that can be tackled by adding the "entropic-RNG", its a very elegant method in my opinion, and it doesn't have to be applied in every random aspect of the game, but in some cases the Entropic-RNG or a similar process might work better. A good example of such would, in my opinion, be with the Chromatic, Jeweler and Fusion Orbs. These sockets are too essential for basic gameplay to make them that random. For these, I would implement system that would very gradually increase the chance to gain a combination you didn't have before for each successive attempt. This way you can still get lucky, but at least you know that you will have your desired outcome after spending X (that be a very decent amount) of orbs. However, Orbs of Alchemy and drop chances and the like should just stay pure RNG.

+1

I have been saying this for months, RNG should not effect your skill build (at all). At the minimum, entropy like system should be put into links/sockets

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deteego wrote:

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Baelrog wrote:

A fair amount of randomness is indeed fun, it is after all responsible for many of the great and exciting moments in PoE. Furthermore, it should be realized that experiences of bad luck are actually required for these moments to have their positive effect. On the other hand it can be very frustrating as well, one can get the feeling of making no progression at all for extended periods of time. This can actually stir people away from the game, especially those with limited playing time.

The main negative aspect of a RNG is something that can be tackled by adding the "entropic-RNG", its a very elegant method in my opinion, and it doesn't have to be applied in every random aspect of the game, but in some cases the Entropic-RNG or a similar process might work better. A good example of such would, in my opinion, be with the Chromatic, Jeweler and Fusion Orbs. These sockets are too essential for basic gameplay to make them that random. For these, I would implement system that would very gradually increase the chance to gain a combination you didn't have before for each successive attempt. This way you can still get lucky, but at least you know that you will have your desired outcome after spending X (that be a very decent amount) of orbs. However, Orbs of Alchemy and drop chances and the like should just stay pure RNG.

+1

I have been saying this for months, RNG should not effect your skill build (at all). At the minimum, entropy like system should be put into links/sockets

Agreed.

I came at this from a different angle, thinking a marketplace would help facilitate players trading for needed gear so the RNG is slightly better distributed, but GGG are perhaps busy fixing technical issues and creating new skills. Maybe they're only listening to people who already wasted huge stacks of orbs and are addicted to gambling.

There are so many approaches to this: If you don't like upgrades (like armorer, whetstones, GCP), then use entropic-RNG for socket orbs. If you don't want to mess with crafting to keep the currency tight, fix trading and see what happens.

This is such an easy problem to tackle as it would only take a few blocks of code to introduce entropy-like effects to certain (jeweler, fusing) orb rolls, so if the devs haven't listened in months, then they have other ideas. Have they explained why rolling linked sockets with pure RNG should be essential for skills? Have they commented on the relative price of fusings in relation to how many it takes to get a desired outcome?

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jeois wrote:

Agreed.

I came at this from a different angle, thinking a marketplace would help facilitate players trading for needed gear so the RNG is slightly better distributed, but GGG are perhaps busy fixing technical issues and creating new skills. Maybe they're only listening to people who already wasted huge stacks of orbs and are addicted to gambling.

There are so many approaches to this: If you don't like upgrades (like armorer, whetstones, GCP), then use entropic-RNG for socket orbs. If you don't want to mess with crafting to keep the currency tight, fix trading and see what happens.

This is such an easy problem to tackle as it would only take a few blocks of code to introduce entropy-like effects to certain (jeweler, fusing) orb rolls, so if the devs haven't listened in months, then they have other ideas. Have they explained why rolling linked sockets with pure RNG should be essential for skills? Have they commented on the relative price of fusings in relation to how many it takes to get a desired outcome?

In my opinion, if you have to resort to trading to fix ur issues, its an issue with the game

GGG have already stated that they dont want a Diablo style AH/RMAH (which I agree with). If they want this to work however, they need to make loot more valuable and certain orbs less RNG prone (so you know, you can actually do shit with your loot).

If that doesn't happen, than this game will turn into D3 where you end up spending farming currency and getting stuff of an AH style system instead of looking for loot in game. The fact that the game doesn't have gold is irrelevant, a common orb will be chosen by nature as a form of currency (most likely chaos or alch) and that will be used as "gold"

Its already starting to turn out that ways anyways, orbs are just the gold of PoE, there is very little bartering that goes on. All the orbs have an exchange rate that people trade with

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deteego wrote:

In my opinion, if you have to resort to trading to fix ur issues, its an issue with the game

GGG have already stated that they dont want a Diablo style AH/RMAH (which I agree with). If they want this to work however, they need to make loot more valuable and certain orbs less RNG prone (so you know, you can actually do shit with your loot).

If that doesn't happen, than this game will turn into D3 where you end up spending farming currency and getting stuff of an AH style system instead of looking for loot in game. The fact that the game doesn't have gold is irrelevant, a common orb will be chosen by nature as a form of currency (most likely chaos or alch) and that will be used as "gold"

Its already starting to turn out that ways anyways, orbs are just the gold of PoE, there is very little bartering that goes on

Of course, I rather loot gear by grinding instead of buying with orbs, but this is a multiplayer game where I grind solo most of the time, so it's the marginal interaction aspect I'm missing. I have items someone needs, but I can't unload them without spamming chat, and people most likely won't ever see it anyway. I need better gear, which I haven't been able to acquire by farming zones (where you get diminishing returns on the RNG of drops as you level), and crafting with orbs is what this long thread is all about, so that's not an efficient option.

Therefore, my solution is to try to trade because the price of an orb is highly disproportionate to the orb's value in enhancing items. Depending on the currency item, this difference in orb value is anywhere from negligible to insane.

Then it doesn't take a financial genius to see that the rational choice is to make a trade rather than play the lottery under the current market conditions, so you're right in that the currency sink isn't working because of RNG. I know GGG won't implement AH, but in my opinion, some of the drawbacks of AH-like trading have already taken hold without any of the benefits. In making the RNG so pure/tough on crafting, the economy is broken because they designed the monetary system around crafting.