Out With Drop Tables! In With Token System.

[Shinamo]

Main issue with token system, would be the likelihood of people finding one map for optimizing token gain vs. time, and destroying the game even faster that way. Because you would see the same dang map over and over.

 

If mission reward based, people would find the spot that combines easiest playthrough and speed run the heck out of it to maximize earnings. Other maps are then harder to get unlocked for newer players, as there isn't as much incentive to help others unlock the maps to get fellow farming buddies on the system bosses.

 

If exploration-based,  then once more people would speed run the easiest and longest maps, skipping combat as much as possible for maximum gain.

 

Both versions would also likely be in the newbie areas, ruining their enjoyment of the game and killing off the future player base.

 

Best bet if a token system is truly needed (not saying I believe so considering in 3 days I've earned 4 frames and a crapload of rare mods and weaponry), scaling enemy affinity earned based off difficulty, and then base the token system on affinity earned would be the way to go. That would reward getting affinity orbs from searching lockers, killing the mobs, and actually playing the map as opposed to ignoring as much as possible to optimize just one aspect of it for maximum gain. And instead of an overhaul, have the tokens act as a boost to the chances of getting a desired item.

 

This would let them still have a use for people who want to speed buy their way through, while also rewarding play all the way forward. For new players they would earn the points as the work to clear the system. When they reach the boss, they will have accrued a decent amount of token for their effort as a bonus. Others would have incentive to help wherever, since they would get the same reward regardless of map. And they won't need to speed-rush and ruin a newbies fun, since getting everything would actually be a benefit.

 

So they reach the boss, and run a few times until they get 2 of the drops. So they use their tokens to buy a boost (either one-time or X number of runs, don't time limit as that would work against play), and when they click on the spot to run again, they get to choose the option to personalize the drop to their desired item. That way it won't screw over someone else farming a different piece. Whether the total % chance is shown is optional.

 

So doesn't screw game play, doesn't bottleneck down to specific spot/system, doesn't minimize play at others detriment, and doesn't ruin existing features of the game; all while adding the desired token system to remove overly repetitive play. Sound like a good idea?

[SwerveSwaggie]

No. We already have to loot for Navs.

[WordsAreEnough]

Main issue with token system, would be the likelihood of people finding one map for optimizing token gain vs. time, and destroying the game even faster that way. Because you would see the same dang map over and over.

 

If mission reward based, people would find the spot that combines easiest playthrough and speed run the heck out of it to maximize earnings. Other maps are then harder to get unlocked for newer players, as there isn't as much incentive to help others unlock the maps to get fellow farming buddies on the system bosses.

 

If exploration-based,  then once more people would speed run the easiest and longest maps, skipping combat as much as possible for maximum gain.

 

Both versions would also likely be in the newbie areas, ruining their enjoyment of the game and killing off the future player base.

 

Best bet if a token system is truly needed (not saying I believe so considering in 3 days I've earned 4 frames and a crapload of rare mods and weaponry), scaling enemy affinity earned based off difficulty, and then base the token system on affinity earned would be the way to go. That would reward getting affinity orbs from searching lockers, killing the mobs, and actually playing the map as opposed to ignoring as much as possible to optimize just one aspect of it for maximum gain. And instead of an overhaul, have the tokens act as a boost to the chances of getting a desired item.

 

This would let them still have a use for people who want to speed buy their way through, while also rewarding play all the way forward. For new players they would earn the points as the work to clear the system. When they reach the boss, they will have accrued a decent amount of token for their effort as a bonus. Others would have incentive to help wherever, since they would get the same reward regardless of map. And they won't need to speed-rush and ruin a newbies fun, since getting everything would actually be a benefit.

 

So they reach the boss, and run a few times until they get 2 of the drops. So they use their tokens to buy a boost (either one-time or X number of runs, don't time limit as that would work against play), and when they click on the spot to run again, they get to choose the option to personalize the drop to their desired item. That way it won't screw over someone else farming a different piece. Whether the total % chance is shown is optional.

 

So doesn't screw game play, doesn't bottleneck down to specific spot/system, doesn't minimize play at others detriment, and doesn't ruin existing features of the game; all while adding the desired token system to remove overly repetitive play. Sound like a good idea?

 

We're mostly discussing tokens being added for Void missions, not standard gameplay. So this wouldn't have an effect on the star map at all. Even if they were implemented for Bosses as well, it wouldn't have the far reaching affects you're concerned about. As for percent chance boosting, that idea is interesting, but still can have the effect of no reward for all of the work.

[alphaslider]

Just say no to Fokens(intentional misspell).  RNG is good and bad, we have all experinced both its sides.  But as humans we tend to remember the bad stuff more than the good stuff.  I got all my Nekros frame parts in 3 runs exactly.  But it took many a run to get all Ash and Volt parts. 

 

I think in Warframe, its better to go after several different Warframes at once.  If you just defeated Hek BP or BP, move on to say Raptor and see what BP drops from there.  It keeps things fresh and interesting.  Already have all the warframes you want? 

 

Then hitch rides to the Void and just help other players out.  Maybe you will get rewarded with a Prime part you did not want but did not have and could always use later. 

 

Basicly, stop trying to farm one thing over and over, and just mix things up.  You will get everything you want in time if you play it in moderation and maybe it will not feel like a grind.

[Kespertive]

It's pretty much just grinding all over again

[Tei_S]

Token systems just lead to having to grind for tokens. Case and point: Vindictus' Seals of Bravery. 10 (or 15??) per day, for items that have <1% drop rate OR cost 300+ tokens.

 

Token systems solve nothing.

 

But hey, if you WANT to tear down the entire house just because you can't quite reach the top shelf, go ahead.

 

Or, you know, you could just move the shelves.

Edited September 21, 2013 by DroppedaBeat

[BETAOPTICS]

Yeah I think this would the next a bit bigger step to take forward to. Well this among several quality of life changes for the better.

[plznohurtme]

It seems rather rude of you to accuse others of not reading posts when you act as though your own concerns haven't been already discussed with methods to alleviate them already mentioned. Different missions rewarding different tokens and the fact that we don't expect one run of a mission to grant enough tokens to pick up something. Both have been mentioned several times in this post already.

You said I didn't explain how loot distribution needed to be changed when I clearly did so I don't know what to tell you there. You also clearly didn't comprehend the fact that with a token system there will simply be a best way to acquire any token and just require grinding that out it doesn't fix anything. It just makes a mandatory minimum amount of farming and nothing else. I'm sure there are people who like getting little pieces of their reward and taking the exact amount of time that the developer wants them to take experiencing the content, however I do not.

So no, my concerns haven't been met at all, because it's an inherent problem with a token system that I have a problem with.

For your second point. Less items in the list still doesn't affect drop rates. One item can be incredibly common with the rest being incredibly rare. Less isn't always more. Not to mention that even if something has an 80% drop rate there will still be someone out there who never sees it.

You clearly do not understand math in any way shape or form if you're making such broad sweeping statements. Less items in the list does IMMEDIATELY effect drop rates unless they put in a new item that takes up a huge percentage of chance to drop for the sake of nothing. When you go from a 13 item drop table to one that contains 6 items then there will end up being a much higher chance of seeing certain things. There are fewer items to choose from and statistically speaking everything will end up being more common, especially if the drop rates are close to one another, which they should be.

Again it's easy to adjust drop rates when you have 15 missions and only 37 items to put in them. It's simple to make it so that certain things drop on certain missions and adjust drop rates across the board accordingly. They could double the number of items and still have reasonable drop rates simply by limiting the number of places you can acquire any given item.

I don't think the drop rate problems are exclusive to the void, it's a problem throughout the whole entire game and I would like to see them overhaul it now so that as they continue to add more things it doesn't keep being a problem. As it stands right now anything they add will just keep skewing drops because of the sheer number of potential items that you can get at any given time.

I'll reiterate in case anyone missed it: I'd rather see them put in a system that allowed you to turn in duplicates for another piece (predominantly in the case of warframes). For example the person in an above post who claimed to have done 200+ runs just to finish Rhino if you could turn in (just throwing out an arbitrary number) 20 Rhino Systems to get the Rhino Helmet etc would essentially allow for RNG to stay but have a cap on how out of control it could get.

[W00DSTER]

 

In that same vein you could simply offer more types of tokens than just a singular token. The real problem lies in that even if a certain Void mission only drops ten different items, if something only drops 3% of the time you can still lose out. Already Warframe has different loot tables spread across different bosses and enemy types and each void mission has a different loot table than the others with about 10 (8 to 13) or so items in each. So, your implementation idea IS in effect and yet doesn't really work.

 

You mention a distaste for tokens, but what is about a token system that seems to make you want to do something as drastic as a chargeback? You don't explain why it's so bad.

A token system is not really how I envision this game I think it is way to arcadey. I was really tired when I wrote this but I was thinking they just might need more places for more loot so that all loot drops at the same rate. (like in a list of 10 each item drops at 10% theoretically would only take 10 runs to get 1 of each item)

[Cpl_Facehugger]

You are flat out wrong and it doesn't take a genius to see why.

If you're going to accuse people of being wrong, you should at least have the good grace to be right.

ARPGs have had much larger loot tables and are perfectly sustainable...

ARPGs generally feature either procedurally generated loot (ie diablo, borderlands), or they don't have "find teh rare loots" as the draw of the game. They certainly don't force players to find every single piece of rare loot in order to level up like Warframe does.

it's a matter of getting good balance out of the content that you have. There are relative to the number of missions barely any void rewards and if you take a look at the 10.1.0 loot tables DE appears to have done the only thing they should do which is tighten up the loot tables.

Yes. Right now, we have the following:

Mdef

Def

Cap

Ext

Survival

Each one has a tier that could theoretically have its own loot table. So you can multiply those five missions types by three, giving us fifteen total loot tables.

Right now, it works. It's frustrating, but it works. We've only got less than two dozen prime pieces in total. Thing is, as you add more prime gear, you're going to end up decreasing the chance of finding any particular piece of prime gear. Which leads you into having 30 latron prime stocks but no receivers, to use a situation that's arisen in the past.

Right now there is a huge number of available missions in the game that currently don't have any rewards at all and the ones that do don't have different end mission rewards depending on location. There is a ton of room to fix what is currently in game, but for whatever reason DE has been dragging their feet.

So, what, you're proposing putting prime weapons in random missions? Way to break the lore man.

A token system for me would break the feel of the game completely and quite frankly I would no longer play the game. I said it before in this thread and I'll say it again: It's a bandaid fix for a problem that is easily remedied by making changes to the loot distribution.

The problem with that "easily remedied" fix is that it doesn't scale well. The more prime weapons you add, the more diluted your drop tables become.

[JamnikPucek]

Token/currency systems are the enemy of procedurally generated, action oriented loot-grinding games, which WF is.

 

Are the current tables/system perfect? Probably not, I've yet to really notice it being unfair outside of the recent and not so recent bugs.

 

But I'd much rather have everyone draw cards instead of have a system that favors farming currency.

 

Providing challenging, interesting content that makes you not care about the rolls is the way to go IMO, not a token system or whatever other form of currency grinding.

[birdei]

I'm on my phone so I only read the first page. Someone probably mention this already but to me a token system would be more of a grind. How many items are in the void and out of those how many you want? A lot right? In the end you will be grinding wether for tokens or items. Atleast with the RNG, you could get what you want in less than 5-10 runs. With token, knowing DE be an easy 40+ run for one completed item.

Anyone remember that one event with the corpus void? It will be just like that, mad rush to do the easiest T3 mission. People grinding T3 survival or capture cause it will be fast while 30 min defense missions are left to rot. Then more farming for keys or buying since people will only want to do certain ones.

Edited September 22, 2013 by birdei

[FrostWolf]

and that's no different then how things are now. People playing the missions that reward them the quickest.

 

 

Mission balance is always lopsided.

 

 

Raid/Capture/Exterminate is nowhere neat as valued as Survival, Mobile Defense or Defense.

 

 

Yes you're right some one can just hunt for 50 of X and rush through.... It's not really practical unless you streamline the Void matchmaking system.

[birdei]

and that's no different then how things are now. People playing the missions that reward them the quickest.

 

 

Mission balance is always lopsided.

 

 

Raid/Capture/Exterminate is nowhere neat as valued as Survival, Mobile Defense or Defense.

 

 

Yes you're right some one can just hunt for 50 of X and rush through.... It's not really practical unless you streamline the Void matchmaking system.

 

Dont different void missions have somewhat different rewards in them? So with a token system, do people want ALL void drops in a pile to choose from or keep it as now?

[plznohurtme]

If you're going to accuse people of being wrong, you should at least have the good grace to be right.

Thing is your assumption is based on literally nothing changing and them adding infinite drops. They could more than double the drop table from where it is currently and as long as they balanced the loot tables it'd still be better than everything prior to the 10.1.0 update.

 

ARPGs generally feature either procedurally generated loot (ie diablo, borderlands), or they don't have "find teh rare loots" as the draw of the game. They certainly don't force players to find every single piece of rare loot in order to level up like Warframe does.

I'm not sure what ARPGs you play but most of them that aren't Borderlands have uniques etc which are specific items that people do farm (Diablo 3 doesn't count, sigh bad set/uniques).

It's also a good thing there's no point in leveling up in Warframe past what is it rank 8? If you're someone who is totally OCD about getting max rank you probably shouldn't be playing any loot/level based game in the first place.

 

Yes. Right now, we have the following:

Mdef

Def

Cap

Ext

Survival

Each one has a tier that could theoretically have its own loot table. So you can multiply those five missions types by three, giving us fifteen total loot tables.

Right now, it works. It's frustrating, but it works. We've only got less than two dozen prime pieces in total. Thing is, as you add more prime gear, you're going to end up decreasing the chance of finding any particular piece of prime gear. Which leads you into having 30 latron prime stocks but no receivers, to use a situation that's arisen in the past.

Up until 10.1.0 the loot system was broken as all get out, it was barely functional in the first iteration of the Void. Having a high percentage chance of getting the same item in multiple tiers is ridiculous, let alone multiple mission types. It isn't until they get up to somewhere around 75 or so items that the current Void would start to be a problem. There's also the opportunity to add perhaps blueprints (at a lower drop percentage obviously) into Golem's loot table since right now he guarantee drops Nekros parts.

 

So, what, you're proposing putting prime weapons in random missions? Way to break the lore man.

No that part was more about general loot overhaul which the game massively needs, apologies if it seemed like I meant primes should be shotgunned everywhere across the solar system.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they were going to introduce a different type of mod weapon since we now have Prime, Vandal and Wraith it wouldn't be too shocking to see something that drops in perhaps higher level planets specifically. This would open up the world to "better" weapons that wouldn't be limited to Void drops to make sense within the lore established for the game.

 

The problem with that "easily remedied" fix is that it doesn't scale well. The more prime weapons you add, the more diluted your drop tables become.

It does actually scale perfectly well with the rate at which things are being added to the game. We've had 1 Warframe, 7 weapons and 3 void mission types added in four months and the most recent weapons pretty much finish covering every type in the game. We have also had 1 new planet and the Derelict Void added to the game during the same time. I think we'd all be remiss to believe that there will not be anything further added to the game beyond the upcoming Corpus planet/location. It's also highly unlikely that they will just keep dumping new things into the Void without expanding upon the mission types. We have 10-11 mission types in game right now and I'd expect to see the new mission types they've been talking about adapted to the Void at the very least.

The RNG system isn't inherently flawed, but they way that they have been doing it up until now certainly is. If you look at the change in the loot tables in 10.1.0 it's apparent that at least someone understands that the only way to make it work. Hopefully they keep this up when approaching the addition of anything to the loot tables anywhere within the game and we won't see them arbitrarily tossing things in (which is exactly what it's felt like each time they have).

Edited September 22, 2013 by plznohurtme

[WordsAreEnough]

You said I didn't explain how loot distribution needed to be changed when I clearly did so I don't know what to tell you there. You also clearly didn't comprehend the fact that with a token system there will simply be a best way to acquire any token and just require grinding that out it doesn't fix anything. It just makes a mandatory minimum amount of farming and nothing else. I'm sure there are people who like getting little pieces of their reward and taking the exact amount of time that the developer wants them to take experiencing the content, however I do not.

So no, my concerns haven't been met at all, because it's an inherent problem with a token system that I have a problem with.

You clearly do not understand math in any way shape or form if you're making such broad sweeping statements. Less items in the list does IMMEDIATELY effect drop rates unless they put in a new item that takes up a huge percentage of chance to drop for the sake of nothing. When you go from a 13 item drop table to one that contains 6 items then there will end up being a much higher chance of seeing certain things. There are fewer items to choose from and statistically speaking everything will end up being more common, especially if the drop rates are close to one another, which they should be.

Again it's easy to adjust drop rates when you have 15 missions and only 37 items to put in them. It's simple to make it so that certain things drop on certain missions and adjust drop rates across the board accordingly. They could double the number of items and still have reasonable drop rates simply by limiting the number of places you can acquire any given item.

I don't think the drop rate problems are exclusive to the void, it's a problem throughout the whole entire game and I would like to see them overhaul it now so that as they continue to add more things it doesn't keep being a problem. As it stands right now anything they add will just keep skewing drops because of the sheer number of potential items that you can get at any given time.

I'll reiterate in case anyone missed it: I'd rather see them put in a system that allowed you to turn in duplicates for another piece (predominantly in the case of warframes). For example the person in an above post who claimed to have done 200+ runs just to finish Rhino if you could turn in (just throwing out an arbitrary number) 20 Rhino Systems to get the Rhino Helmet etc would essentially allow for RNG to stay but have a cap on how out of control it could get.

 

All of this is conjecture on your part assuming that things are going to be implemented in the best way for RNG (and we've seen that they've already failed at this twice) and the worst way for Tokens. The problem with RNG and the one I keep mentioning that you keep ignoring is that statistically it's possible for someone to never see something no matter what it's drop rate is. Also, your final suggestion at the end there. It's a token system.

Edited September 22, 2013 by WordsAreEnough

[Blatantfool]

 I am in favor of adopting some sort of safety net to prevent the grind for simple goals like Warframes from repeating for too long.

 

 However I am still unconvinced that a token system is the right solution.

[Lunarez]

Both RNG and token have their own good aspects those can't be denied. So why not make it half-way?

 

We can have both token and RNG systems in the game. Here is my idea.

 

- Playing void will net you tokens 100% of the time

- There are also chances that you'll get Blueprints of prime weapons along side tokens, which is not guarantee. (Should have around 5-20% for a total chance of every blueprint in a run. The chance got differed along with mission tier)

- Parts can only be purchased by tokens.

- Tokens may also can be used to purchase some sort of [mission type] blueprint box in an expensive price, which will randomly generate blueprint of that mission type.

[Genuinetheo]

So you want the addiction that gambling breeds instead of the challenge and achievement of a game. You would prefer having no control over whether or not your hard work is rewarded. You want to put in time and effort and know that it's entirely possible, even likely, that you aren't going to get what you're after. You want to be lucky, you don't want to achieve. Achievements involve effort and skill, not simply hitting the right number without any control over how that happened.

 

First of all, I never said anything about gambling. Confuse me not, for I was making a (weak) analogy to what the token system would do to Void drops--which essentially means the whole game is catered to wipe everyone's asses because their too stubborn to pour time and effort into it. I never said that people don't deserve to have what they desire, but they shouldn't be so needy and want it right this second.

 

We have all played enough video games to know that the effort you put in is the rewards that come out. Are there people who are really unlucky? Sure. But over exaggerating the problem does not make the solution any more appealing. I find it hard to believe that someone has kept track of 250 consecutive dry runs without any blueprints they needed--this is called coloring, or hyperbole.

 

There's a big margin between constructive feedback and destructive feedback. Guess where hyperbole fits in. 

[WordsAreEnough]

First of all, I never said anything about gambling. Confuse me not, for I was making a (weak) analogy to what the token system would do to Void drops--which essentially means the whole game is catered to wipe everyone's asses because their too stubborn to pour time and effort into it. I never said that people don't deserve to have what they desire, but they shouldn't be so needy and want it right this second.

 

We have all played enough video games to know that the effort you put in is the rewards that come out. Are there people who are really unlucky? Sure. But over exaggerating the problem does not make the solution any more appealing. I find it hard to believe that someone has kept track of 250 consecutive dry runs without any blueprints they needed--this is called coloring, or hyperbole.

 

There's a big margin between constructive feedback and destructive feedback. Guess where hyperbole fits in. 

 

Then I suppose you should stop with the assumptions and hyperbole. A token system does not automatically mean that it won't take time and effort to get something. That's where your assumptions come in. Your hyperbole is in thinking that anyone is expecting something "right this second".

 

 

Both RNG and token have their own good aspects those can't be denied. So why not make it half-way?

 

We can have both token and RNG systems in the game. Here is my idea.

 

- Playing void will net you tokens 100% of the time

- There are also chances that you'll get Blueprints of prime weapons along side tokens, which is not guarantee. (Should have around 5-20% for a total chance of every blueprint in a run. The chance got differed along with mission tier)

- Parts can only be purchased by tokens.

- Tokens may also can be used to purchase some sort of [mission type] blueprint box in an expensive price, which will randomly generate blueprint of that mission type.

 

Interesting idea, though I'm unsure why you would want such an expensive item that more than likely doesn't get the buyer what they want. Perhaps a cheaper random box and a more expensive price for specific blueprints? The problem I'd like to see solved is getting rid of the possibility for someone to never see something.

[Genuinetheo]

Then I suppose you should stop with the assumptions and hyperbole. A token system does not automatically mean that it won't take time and effort to get something. That's where your assumptions come in. Your hyperbole is in thinking that anyone is expecting something "right this second".

 

I was under the impression that players were complaining about not being able to get the blueprints they wanted. If you want a system that takes time and effort you already got one. 

[Lunarez]

Interesting idea, though I'm unsure why you would want such an expensive item that more than likely doesn't get the buyer what they want. Perhaps a cheaper random box and a more expensive price for specific blueprints? The problem I'd like to see solved is getting rid of the possibility for someone to never see something.

 

 

Well, in that case, the BP should have a bit kind of huge token price, like same as total of 3 parts, because if it's too cheap it gonna make the random boxes and farming BP in void somewhat worthless.

And if the boxes are going to be cheaper, they'll be need to be clustered with 5-6 blueprint in its reward table. So acquiring the box won't make you get specific BP easier. (and the price can be around 15-20% tokens of BPs)

Edited September 22, 2013 by Lunarez

[WordsAreEnough]

I was under the impression that players were complaining about not being able to get the blueprints they wanted. If you want a system that takes time and effort you already got one. 

 

The problem with RNG is in the R. Randomness creates a situation where time and effort is irrelevant to success. People can walk off with their items without any real work or never see the item they want to get after several nights of dedication. Such is the natural flaw of randomness.

[plznohurtme]

All of this is conjecture on your part assuming that things are going to be implemented in the best way for RNG (and we've seen that they've already failed at this twice) and the worst way for Tokens. The problem with RNG and the one I keep mentioning that you keep ignoring is that statistically it's possible for someone to never see something no matter what it's drop rate is. Also, your final suggestion at the end there. It's a token system.

Actually if you had been paying attention at all you'd have seen that with 10.1.0 they made a big move in the right direction as far as Void RNG is concerned. As for RNG yes... even though it's insanely unlikely it is possible that someone might not get something.

No my final suggestion isn't a token system it's RNG with with a safety net to prevent that one in a million failure. The token systems everyone has been talking about in this thread including your own implications are for replacing RNG with a token system and to me that is completely unacceptable for the nature of the game. Not to mention an unnecessary revamp of the system when there are better ways to handle it.

I am in favor of adopting some sort of safety net to prevent the grind for simple goals like Warframes from repeating for too long.

 

 However I am still unconvinced that a token system is the right solution.

Exactly how I feel, except I'm 100% certain a token system isn't the right solution.

[Blatantfool]

Exactly how I feel, except I'm 100% certain a token system isn't the right solution.

 

 I'm not going to totally rule out this sort of thing in a solution. Just because I'm not able to think of something that sounds both effective and interesting myself certainly doesn't rule out someone else managing to make it work.

 

 But yeah, the token thing isn't doing it for me.