Warframe - Math and statistics - Quantifying the Grind

[nslay]

1 minute ago, master_of_destiny said:

(probability of a drop) = (assured drop) - [(assured drop) - (drop rate)] ^ (number of runs)

I don't like this explanation.

The probability of getting a mod is p, the probability of not getting a mod is 1-p. Drops are independent events, so the probability of never getting a mod in n runs is the product of 1-p n times.

Probability of never getting the mod in n runs = (1-p)*(1-p)*...*(1-p) = (1-p)^n

The probability of getting 1 or more mods in n runs is the complement of the probability of never getting any mod in n runs.

Probability of getting 1 or more mods in n runs = 1 - (1-p)^n

 

[BahamutKaiser]

You completely missed the crux of my arguement, these long numbers don't represent the actual outcomes, it's not only seeking specific mods or buying it all outright, it's an aggregate of all found and earned sources of acquisitions, and how quickly you can gain them over time.

Your exercise in mathematical abstraction doesn't accurately represent the effort required to acquire anything. I've never even heard of a single person who completed a rare arcane by purely grinding, it's always traded with an occasional supplement of acquisition, and the actual cost of trading whatever you happen to acquire over time can cover those costs way faster than represented. But hey, my WFM account is an open book, you can see how much passive plat accrual is available. 

[0_The_F00l]

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

So....how did DE function in their first few years of operation?

In desperation i believe cause they didnt have any plans beyond saving the studio.

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

I'm asking as someone who experienced that time, and was happy to fork over money for prime access when the game had way less content.  I remember using super jump, being happy with Zephyr because it meant less fiddly wall jumping in the void to get resources, and the utter mess that was the introduction of the first and only decaying resource in the entire game.

I can tell you I forked over money because DE released stuff constantly and it was small.  An operation might be a new game mode, and you might get 3 whole new weapons to experiment with.  I can also tell you that the lives for money system was basically playing the game as an arcade machine, and not bad at the time (despite it being unthinkable now).  I can also state the last time I paid DE was with Hydroid Prime, because since then their releases have not warranted my money.  It's Fallout 76 level bugs, that if they are ever smoothed out take months.  I understand the beta tag, but as you put it multi-layered grinds for content stretching are killing my ability to look past bugs.

i Joined 4 years ago , when the star chart was still made of sectors and Vauban P had just released if i remember right (or was it saryn p?) i spent a significant time solo actually playing stealthily as Mag like it was a stealth game, most of the releases in that time were pleasant and there was still so much to do that you could be forgiven for not getting stuff.

I was very happy when i finally got my equinox cause i always enjoyed things with a duality aspect,

over time as i got all my collections completed i found myself more and more dissatisfied - it is a dilemma not just in gaming but also in life ,

the more you have the less you can gain -  as you start comparing what you gain now to what you have gained over the past. you start forgetting that the things in the past did not appear overnight it took years to get, I am a very patient person and so i do not really have problems with optional items being out of reach , not all can have the same attitude , i am sure.

I am also very pragmatic , just because it exists does not mean i must have it.

Most of the horrible grind is for things that are optional (exceptions exist , especially things like khora , nidus and harrow grinds among others) or tradable

But do not take my willingness to accept it as a promotion for their methods, i do personally dislike it but i understand why it exists (mostly cause DE has dug themselves into a hole with past actions and they keep digging themselves deeper)

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Regarding mechs and the future....it took more than a year (nearly two) to be able to use a secondary gun on a k-drive.  I cannot really suggest that the future is a solution when it comes to DE.  Remember, Railjack was two years of hype....and we're still short on the Command intrinsic tree and only have grineer content despite their recent interviews stating that things have been moved out of priority.  If I loved railjack that would be heart breaking.

We can only wait and see. One thing i hate about DE is their inability to focus and plan on things. They act like a child with ADHD and their parents refuse to acknowledge it,

[nslay]

2 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

You completely missed the crux of my arguement, these long numbers don't represent the actual outcomes, it's not only seeking specific mods or buying it all outright, it's an aggregate of all found and earned sources of acquisitions, and how quickly you can gain them over time.

Your exercise in mathematical abstraction doesn't accurately represent the effort required to acquire anything. I've never even heard of a single person who completed a rare arcane by purely grinding, it's always traded with an occasional supplement of acquisition, and the actual cost of trading whatever you happen to acquire over time can cover those costs way faster than represented. But hey, my WFM account is an open book, you can see how much passive plat accrual is available. 

Yeah sure... everyone actually just waits around for everyone else to magically obtain rare items to sell/trade to them. Nobody really grinds anything but plat.

This is a bit of sarcasm. The reality is that collectively players are grinding at least some of these items for them to be available for trade in the first place. It's irrelevant if they're actively farming them or not. The supply of these is from grinding (intentionally or otherwise). So the numbers are still somewhat relevant even if you're willing to pay exorbitant amounts of plat for something extremely rare to obtain (this approach didn't really work for Primed Chamber before Baro had it, no?).

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

5 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

You completely missed the crux of my arguement, these long numbers don't represent the actual outcomes, it's not only seeking specific mods or buying it all outright, it's an aggregate of all found and earned sources of acquisitions, and how quickly you can gain them over time.

Your exercise in mathematical abstraction doesn't accurately represent the effort required to acquire anything. I've never even heard of a single person who completed a rare arcane by purely grinding, it's always traded with an occasional supplement of acquisition, and the actual cost of trading whatever you happen to acquire over time can cover those costs way faster than represented. But hey, my WFM account is an open book, you can see how much passive plat accrual is available. 

Geezus thank you. And the drop rate is on the wiki, there's no need for a buncha math to make it scary to get people on board. 

By the time anyone even got close to farming that much, they could take whatever else they've acquired in game and probably buy 2 energizes. You could actually farm toroids and sell Vox Solaris arcanes over a couple weeks and be done with the whole thing. And scarlet spear just added some excess so they'll be cheaper. I sold R5s for under 500 and others were and still are today. Some sold on trade chat for 300 actually.

[Rebore]

People thought I was crazy for only doing fissures nowadays making plat so I can ( already did when they were like 3k ) buy max arcanes & mech mods. Work smart not hard. I personally do not want to run E hunts hundreds of times or thousands, same with the vaults for the mods an since I only farm plat I can buy anything & everything in the game 🤷‍♂️. To fit ones own I guess. DE has & still shows the lack of empathy of such low drop rates that players legit run hundreds of times & still do not get the item which if you did F you got unlucky compared to the guy that got it in the first run.

[master_of_destiny]

11 minutes ago, Buff00n said:

The first distribution I showed was not for getting 63 of any rare arcane, it was for getting at least 21 of each of the three rare arcanes.  That comes out to be ~500 runs, experimentally.

If you pare that back to just 21 of one rare arcane, then it's this:

The expected average is pretty close to the analytical solution of exactly 420, but the 90th and 99th percentiles are 537 and 565, respectively.  I encourage you to click that link and play with the simulation, it's pretty fun if you nerd out over that kind of thing.

Okay, you are correct that 67 trials puts you in the 97th percentile for at least one success.  But you can't take that and construct a new "meta-trial", treat that as a single trial for getting 21 successes, and expect to get a meaningful number out of that.  That 97% chance of at least one success also includes many scenarios where you have more than one success.  In those 67 trials you can have up to 67 success, but your average is going to be a bit over three.

All this means your chances of hitting 21 total success by 1407 trials are much, much greater than 50%.  They are, in fact, as close to 100% as my simulation can calculate even if I run it millions of times.

It not actually a normal distribution.  It's a Negative Binomial Distribution, which can approach a normal distribution when it has many degrees of freedom.  In the case of the above graph, it has 21 degrees of freedom and is pretty close to normal, but you can tell that it's still somewhat skewed and the mean of 420 is not equal to the median of around 413.

It's easier to see this if you reduce the number of degrees of freedom.  Consider how many runs it takes to just get six Arcane Energizes:

With just six degrees of freedom it's clearly not normally distributed.  In fact, my app is cutting the picture off at the 99.9th percentile.  The tail on the right extends for a very long way, which explains how the occasional very unlucky 1 in 10000 player can go hundreds of runs without getting anything.  It sucks being an outlier, and the Negative Binomial Distribution shows us exactly how much it sucks.

 

So, allow me to run something by you that I was not stating but assuming.  The above math is entirely based around a set of results which are independently determined.  Specifically, there's no server check to determine what rewards you get.  Your model seems to be based around 100% independent rolls, and I don't think this is a fair assumption.

 

In practice, people don't keep grinding eidolons every day constantly.  There are a certain number of rewards requests to the server, and as those rewards requests are filled there is a roll based off of that count.  Basically, I have a 5% chance but it's not a 5% chance for me.  It's a 5% for all rewards requests distributed across the entire server.  As such, instead of the distribution you've developed it will be a multiplicative value of the individual chances.  The way I was taught statistical distributions this lack of an independent and consistent chance will yield results which must be individually calculated due to that factor.

 

In essence, because there's a blind second pool controlling the outcome you cannot form a distribution around the assumption of a constant percentage.  While your numbers are accurate for the assumption of that 5%, they don't influence the secondary distribution of that 5% across an unknown pool of rewards requests.

 

 

 

Maybe I've missed a tick here, but I don't see the accounting for that blind secondary pool.  Please help me to understand how it has been done.  

(As an aside, this is interesting personally because I multiplied the unknown pools to account for the lack of fundamental control.  If you have an alternative please help me understand the mathematical basis so I can be better in the future.)

[uAir]

5 hours ago, C-Core said:

This post is literally the reason I haven't got any good arcanes, even at MR 26 with 3k hours on steam as a mostly F2P player. DE thinks making the good rewards harder to get will make people play more, but for me, it did the opposite. I tried farming arcanes once, and I kept getting the same crappy ones over and over and over and over. What did I do? Stop doing eidolon runs. I wasn't going to go do these semi annoying boss fights just for a CHANCE to get ONE of the many many arcanes I'd need to max out whatever one I wanted. It's an utter joke. The fact that DE think people will want to do this is just absurd, and like you said, an insult to us.

You're doing it wrong. Putting this out there right now but I have probably put over 800 USD into Warframe. Mostly Prime Access.

My friends are mostly F2P players also. I have a clan with 5 people in it and 3 active people only. They all have pretty much the same stuff I do minus the rivens which aren't even needed nor the cosmetics which are also largely unneeded. I have about 1600 hours in. My friends have about 2500 hours each.

Almost everything in this game can be bought for a few hundred plat if not less.
If you want something that is tradeable and its grind is locked behind some RNG then don't try and go get it unless you want to earn it yourself.

Instead...
Run an easy relic grind. Something like Hieracon with Limbos. Go as far as you can and get as many relics as you can.
Spend all of your other time collecting resources or doing a farm for something else you can't easily trade but check the board as much as you can. Help players out, farm for resources, collect some Wisps, do bounties, etcetc.

When Capture fissures come up, run as many of those as you can and get as many prime parts as you can.
Sell the prime parts.
Collect your plat.
Trade for whatever you need or want with plat.

It's that simple. There's no need to rush anything. There's no need to compete with anyone. There's no need to sit there and grind for 18 days trying to get Condition Overload.
Just run 1-2 hours a day for a week or so for prime parts. Sell. Buy the Condition Overload.

 

===========

 

Now, is it still a grind? Yeah, kind of. You still gotta put your work in and do what needs to be done. But what do you want? You want a game where skill ceiling is extremely high and there's zero RNG in any loot and however good you are reflects the time and effort and talent you have in the game instead of the amount of grind you did? Well, go play fighting games.

Otherwise, there's Warframe. It is what it is. >_>

[BahamutKaiser]

15 minutes ago, nslay said:

Yeah sure... everyone actually just waits around for everyone else to magically obtain rare items to sell/trade to them. Nobody really grinds anything but plat.

This is a bit of sarcasm. The reality is that collectively players are grinding at least some of these items for them to be available for trade in the first place. It's irrelevant if they're actively farming them or not. The supply of these is from grinding (intentionally or otherwise). So the numbers are still somewhat relevant even if you're willing to pay exorbitant amounts of plat for something extremely rare to obtain (this approach didn't really work for Primed Chamber before Baro had it, no?).

The numbers are not the problem, it's the assumption that ppl don't get what they want unless they face the individual chance of completing a set instead of collectively sharing what they acquire. 

No amount of staring at numbers will change the reality of sharing in an economy of average gains vs artificially individual chances of getting one thing. There's enough unintentional loot being passively vacuumed to account for 50 or so plat a day on a slow day, if I really wanted an r3 rare arcane, the reality of the grind is a couple of weeks of mindless fodder sales, not mechanical head banging on the same content. I almost never farm Eidolons because I don't like the gameplay, yet I have a variety of r3 arcanes, because the reality of grind in this game isn't direct acquisition. 

[master_of_destiny]

15 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

You completely missed the crux of my arguement, these long numbers don't represent the actual outcomes, it's not only seeking specific mods or buying it all outright, it's an aggregate of all found and earned sources of acquisitions, and how quickly you can gain them over time.

Your exercise in mathematical abstraction doesn't accurately represent the effort required to acquire anything. I've never even heard of a single person who completed a rare arcane by purely grinding, it's always traded with an occasional supplement of acquisition, and the actual cost of trading whatever you happen to acquire over time can cover those costs way faster than represented. But hey, my WFM account is an open book, you can see how much passive plat accrual is available. 

So, stopping for a moment let's review what has been promised in Warframe by DE.  Their promise was that this game was not pay to win, and that you would pay for convenience.  Is that an accurate statement?  Well, when it'll take literally hundreds of hours to get something which substantially improves your performance that's not really meeting the promises.  

 

My exercise in the math is all that can be done.  It's really stupid to look at a small group, and extrapolate the whole world from it.  You might have never heard of someone grinding for a full arcane, but I have.  200+ runs of the Hydrolyst and I had 9 of the 10 required to get Grace.  DE then announced that the count required would be 21....and needing to more than double runs if I got as lucky was soul crushing.  On the same hand, 9/10 Grace with no Energize.  That's why individual results do not matter when extrapolating the average grind.

 

Let's also not be stupid about platinum.  It doesn't have any means of being created in-game.  As such, every unit of it traded represents somebody saying that the grind sucks.  It's not worth playing the game, as it's more work than actually working.  That's a grand admission that warframe is often on the wrong side of the grind equation.  The constant stream of people who "passively" earn platinum is a joke.  You are making a new player have to play less grind, or a veteran gets to skip garbage content like 0.201% drop rates.  That's admitting the fun doesn't exist.

 

So, let's talk about your perspective and my statement as a whole.  You are stating that it's fine to have other people grind for you.  OK.  I'm stating that the grind for specific items is unreasonable, leading to people paying instead of playing.  Both statements are fair.  I want people to understand exactly what those grinds are rather than simply say it's bad.  I want someone to be able to say that a grind sucks because it'll take me 115 runs to complete, not "I don't have the drops."  Everyone has experienced a capricious RNGesus moment, but that doesn't make it a bad grind.  Differentiating those situations is necessary in warframe.  

[nslay]

1 minute ago, BahamutKaiser said:

The numbers are not the problem, it's the assumption that ppl don't get what they want unless they face the individual chance of competing a set instead of collectively sharing what they acquire. 

No amount of staring at numbers will change the reality of sharing in an economy of average gains vs actually individual chances of getting one thing. There's enough unintentional loot being passively vacuumed to account for 50 or so plat a day on a slow day, if I really wanted an r3 rare arcane, the reality of the grind is a couple of weeks of mindless fodder sales, not mechanical head banging on the same content. I almost never farm Eidolons because I don't like the gameplay, yet I have a variety of r3 arcanes, because the reality of grind in this game isn't direct acquisition. 

No amount of grinding junk prime parts and playing eBay simulator will change the fact that these items are obtained by grinding. You want to play with plat? That's fine... the price you pay is reflective of the rarity of these items (you pay for it in some way, there is no free lunch). The numbers in this post (I'm not entirely sure they're right) have an impact on you the platinum trader much like they do me, the grinder.

By the way, the players who part with these are not "sharing." This is not break a piece of mod in half and I give you half and I hold the other half and everyone is happy. This is, I give you the mod and it's gone for me. But hey, thanks for your plat or whatever... There is a finite supply of these mods and they come from players grinding the game.

Also seriously... with Scarlet Spear being a recurring event and Arcanes being completely unnecessary to play the game effectively, there is absolutely no reason (other than lack of patience) not to wait for Scarlet Spear to grind R5 arcanes. I got all mine for free at R5, from the event from casual game play (because the event was like 3 weeks long). That's just my opinion. And for Necramech mods? I don't see the appeal to part with a bunch of plat to have these mods right away. So far I sure do like running those vaults... maybe I will get lucky. Luckily, you just need 1 mod (as opposed to 21). I guess I would be one of those sources of supply for your rare items... if I cared about plat beyond buying slots.

[master_of_destiny]

So let's tackle the stupidity of "just trade for it."

 

Platinum is a digital currency.  It cannot be generated in-game, and the small infusions by DE via give-aways are pretty much negligible for the purposes of an economy.  As such the input valve is either prime access of direct purchase.  The output valve is any platinum purchase to DE.  This means that every single unit of platinum available on the market is directly created with real money.

 

Let's also consider that basic resources cost platinum.  If you want warframes, companions, weapons, etc..., you'll need to get platinum to buy slots.  This soaks platinum out of the market.  So, if you want the content somebody has to buy in.  The excuse of "but I'm playing free" is fundamentally stupid because it means that somebody else is paying for you.  DE is a business, so somebody is paying.  Be it a whale, or your once yearly purchase of a prime access to have enough currency to keep up with the new stuff.  

 

So, what about player to player trades?  Well, somebody decided to give the grind up.  They are giving someone else the platinum for their time grinding.  Alternatively, they're paying for somebody else getting a stupid rare roll on things like rivens, which can be devalued by DE on a whim.  Again, not really a sustainable economy so much as a means to say fractional percentage drops are really not fun.   The content isn't worth playing, so I'll get someone else to do it for me.  This really puts to light the "passive platinum earning" as entirely dependent upon fresh blood to either want to buy through long grind, and players willing to grind at insane drop rates to avoid paying.

What are you worth?  Is it minimum wage?  Is it $20 an hour?  Well, if you're grinding it's virtually nothing.  That's an issue with any game, and one that has to be measured.  People complaining about the drops generally cannot differentiate between their experience and statistical chances, which is how we get a platinum market.  I support wanting to fix bad drop instances, but things like Isolation Vaults and Eidolons aren't fixing that.  They're allowing justification of miserable grind, and obfuscation of that with layers of it to be able to maintain that none of it is bad enough on its own.

 

 

Platinum is not the panacea for bad drop rates.  It's a placebo for bad economic models.  If you support that, fine.  It'll be the slow death of this game by bleeding players who constantly see no reward to the grind.  Regarding costing....arcanes were at one point insanely expensive.  Even at 1/3 of what I quoted the payout is tripled.  That's a whopping $4 an hour rounded up.  Minimum wage in most US states exceeds $8.  Best case scenario you're grinding for less than half of what flipping a burger pays.  Never mind that I didn't include the time gating of the day-night cycle.  Never mind that you have to capture and the Eidolons often bug out.  Nope.  This can all be solved by WoW level gold farming bots who can simply allow us to skip the grind for real money.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

So, stopping for a moment let's review what has been promised in Warframe by DE.  Their promise was that this game was not pay to win, and that you would pay for convenience.  Is that an accurate statement?  Well, when it'll take literally hundreds of hours to get something which substantially improves your performance that's not really meeting the promises.  Why? Did they specify a timeline in hours? Or did you just make that up because the grind personally isn't acceptable to you, therefore "breaking the promise"? A broken promise would be "You'll definitely have an Arcane energize after 100 hours in the game." So did they say this? Yes or no?

 

 

My exercise in the math is all that can be done.  It's really stupid to look at a small group, and extrapolate the whole world from it.  You might have never heard of someone grinding for a full arcane, but I have.  200+ runs of the Hydrolyst and I had 9 of the 10 required to get Grace.  DE then announced that the count required would be 21....and needing to more than double runs if I got as lucky was soul crushing.  On the same hand, 9/10 Grace with no Energize.  That's why individual results do not matter when extrapolating the average grind. 

I remember seeing many people admit double stacking 2 R3 Energize was OP and the change was warranted. It's bad luck you were close to a full Grace but it wasn't against you personally. It already happened whether you had the grace or not. It was their decision and they made it, and they didn't do it just because they saw you were 9/10 on grace. I believe you got an armor boost out of the change anyway.

Let's also not be stupid about platinum.  It doesn't have any means of being created in-game.  As such, every unit of it traded represents somebody saying that the grind sucks.  It's not worth playing the game, as it's more work than actually working.  That's a grand admission that warframe is often on the wrong side of the grind equation.  The constant stream of people who "passively" earn platinum is a joke.  You are making a new player have to play less grind, or a veteran gets to skip garbage content like 0.201% drop rates.  That's admitting the fun doesn't exist.

No one is expected to grind for everything in the game, it's impossible. Farming certain things and playing the game for fun and using some plat to supplement areas you don't want to bother with is standard for many online games. And I also Bought plat to support the game because it is fun and I like it. There's no subscription fee...Where's your data claiming that I bought plat because the grind sucked? You're clearly omniscient and know why everyone buys plat now? 

New players have no business going after Arcanes right off the bat. So that's irrelevant. New players need slots and weapons and frames and forma and to learn how to not die. 

So, let's talk about your perspective and my statement as a whole.  You are stating that it's fine to have other people grind for you.  OK.  I'm stating that the grind for specific items is unreasonable, leading to people paying instead of playing.  Both statements are fair.  I want people to understand exactly what those grinds are rather than simply say it's bad.  I want someone to be able to say that a grind sucks because it'll take me 115 runs to complete, not "I don't have the drops."  Everyone has experienced a capricious RNGesus moment, but that doesn't make it a bad grind.  Differentiating those situations is necessary in warframe.  

Replies in bold.

[Buff00n]

49 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

because there's a blind second pool controlling the outcome

Over the years there has been a lot of conspiracy theories about some hidden second layer of RNG seeding, pooling, etc.  With the exception of one very obvious issue which was fixed way back in 2013, there has never been any evidence to show that the effective drop rates are anything other than what they publish.  In fact, there are some countries where Warframe is available that require drop rates to be published, and they further require that those numbers must reflect the actual probability in game.  At this point, there's no reason to expect otherwise, or invent hidden layers.  They're just not there.

Anecdotally, I have been collecting data for a long time.  For example:

Spoiler

And nothing I have seen indicates drops being anything other than an independent variable.

 

49 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

(As an aside, this is interesting personally because I multiplied the unknown pools to account for the lack of fundamental control.  If you have an alternative please help me understand the mathematical basis so I can be better in the future.)

Like I said, when dealing with the Negative Binomial Distribution you're far better off thinking about the expected average rather than then median.  If you want to know the expected average number of trials for getting a single item with probability P then there is an easy analytic solution: 1/P.  

However, if you want to know the median or any other percentile, or if you want to know statistics for obtaining more than one of a drop, or for multiple drops from the same table, then I'm pretty sure there are no feasible analytic solutions for any of those.  A simulation is your best option.  That's why I built one.

 

34 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

every unit of it traded represents somebody saying that the grind sucks

I wanted to stay out of the economic side of this discussion, but frustration with grind is not the only reason to buy plat.  Believe it or not, some people actually buy prime access, vault packs, and other stuff mainly to support the game.  I'm one of them.  That being said, I almost never use my plat to directly bypass a frustrating grind. 

What I have done is trade items for other items.  If I get too many Arcane Graces, then maybe I can trade some for Arcane Barriers.  Unfortunately that only works with items of roughly equal value, and Arcane Energize is probably not equal to the other two.  Still, there has to be an exchange rate.  Two Graces per Energize?  Three Barriers?  At a certain level, everything that is tradable qualifies as currency.  

That anecdote turned out confusing and I'm not sure where I was going.  Sorry.

[nslay]

2 minutes ago, Buff00n said:

I wanted to stay out of the economic side of this discussion, but frustration with grind is not the only reason to buy plat.  Believe it or not, some people actually buy prime access, vault packs, and other stuff mainly to support the game.  I'm one of them.  That being said, I almost never use my plat to directly bypass a frustrating grind.  That anecdote turned out confusing, never mind.

I'm the same way. Though... if I had a plat for every time a poster wrote that we're enjoying Warframe the wrong way and we should just play boring fissures and sell junk prime parts to bypass the game... That isn't to say those posters are wrong in how they play. It's more like they shouldn't be telling other players how they should play Warframe.

[master_of_destiny]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Replies in bold.

Why? Did they specify a timeline in hours? Or did you just make that up because the grind personally isn't acceptable to you, therefore "breaking the promise"? A broken promise would be "You'll definitely have an Arcane energize after 100 hours in the game." So did they say this? Yes or no?

 

I remember seeing many people admit double stacking 2 R3 Energize was OP and the change was warranted. It's bad luck you were close to a full Grace but it wasn't against you personally. It already happened whether you had the grace or not. It was their decision and they made it, and they didn't do it just because they saw you were 9/10 on grace. I believe you got an armor boost out of the change anyway.

 

No one is expected to grind for everything in the game, it's impossible. Farming certain things and playing the game for fun and using some plat to supplement areas you don't want to bother with is standard for many online games. And I also Bought plat to support the game because it is fun and I like it. There's no subscription fee...Where's your data claiming that I bought plat because the grind sucked? You're clearly omniscient and know why everyone buys plat now? 

New players have no business going after Arcanes right off the bat. So that's irrelevant. New players need slots and weapons and frames and forma and to learn how to not die. 

 

In order:

The point specified was that everything in the game was obtainable during play.  Looking at the 99.9% statistics for 21 arcane drops, you could literally grind Eidolons all day every day and 3+ years later not have all of them.  This is not really acceptable.  Not by my metrics, but by the logic DE has exhibited in the past.  The example in question, Kubrows could get random skin patterns and colors.  DE stopped this as being too much of a gamble, because they could then be sold for platinum.  Sound familiar?  Yes, arcanes are a gamble and can be sold for platinum.

 

I don't really care about the "fix" to double stacking arcanes.  This was a problem DE created with the ability to double stack.  Their "fix" was to actually nerf some arcanes (Guardian), to more than double their required cost, to install timers, and to limit you to one per frame.  This was for the intended goal of balance, but it also increased the grind to get any one arcane by more than double.  They even had to increase base armor on frames because of certain builds requiring double stacking stuff for basic survivability.  The short here is that DE dug a deep hole, made it worse, and then their magical fix was to deal with it by shuffling things to Scarlet Spear.  That....didn't work well for a lot of people.

 

Shenanigans.  State any instance where DE has stated that we are expected to engage in the platinum economy with other players to avoid their content.  The only instances I've ever managed to find were off-hand remarks that people could trade for things with platinum.  To extrapolate that this is then an assumption is bold.  Boldness which means they are making an intentionally broken economy.  That should not be lauded or accepted.  To counter your example, I've never purchased goods from other players.  If it can be earned I will do so, and therefore have little problem buying the slots with the platinum I paid for.

 

You seem to be missing the point.  You either buy platinum to get things required in the game (slots), or you grind to get it from somebody who did buy platinum to avoid the crushing grind.  Either way, real money was spent.  Justifying it as acceptable because it's expected is really selling your value as negligible.  People don't just trade platinum for nothing, they trade it for an item that had to be earned.  If earning it is devoid of value then you have none.  Consider me sappy, but I expect my value to be higher than that.

 

The Helminth is a system for experienced players.  MR 8, with 10% of available content at time of introduction.  If that's an experienced player, then my definition is inaccurate.  My experience of a new player is basically MR 14 and below, where you've not burnt out on grind and are still new enough to want to spend money.  These new players are willing to spend some money on platinum, to buy direct power.  If that's unacceptable and "they shouldn't be seeking arcanes" then you really have nothing but contempt for newer players in my book.  If your definition is MR 6 for new players, then I can see.  What is your qualifier?  I know at MR 10 I could have used arcanes, and that was year ago.  If I were to restart today it'd be nearly vital to get some decent arcanes simply to cope with shenanigans on arbitrations.  Nothing quite like being able to avoid radiation proc team killing, is there?  I wouldn't be looking to buy grace, energize, and the like but only because the cost is well beyond what would be reasonable to pay.

[DoomFruit]

1 hour ago, BahamutKaiser said:

Your exercise in mathematical abstraction doesn't accurately represent the effort required to acquire anything. I've never even heard of a single person who completed a rare arcane by purely grinding, it's always traded with an occasional supplement of acquisition, and the actual cost of trading whatever you happen to acquire over time can cover those costs way faster than represented. But hey, my WFM account is an open book, you can see how much passive plat accrual is available. 

Well, let me be your first. I have never once paid for arcanes. Almost all of mine come from doing raids. In fact, I've even sold a few sets of arcane grace (back when a "set" was 10x). I never managed to get any more than 6x arcane energise, but I had 2 full arcane grace sets on different cosmetics (back when they were attached to scarves or helmets as opposed to being installable items) along with some spares which were enough to merge into one of the new 21x max rank arcanes.

I do not have complete versions of all the arcanes out now, but that's because I do not like eidolon fights and I don't care enough about energise to farm up another 15 to complete it.

[ApocNizmith]

 

7 hours ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Welcome to online games, it's gonna be like this mostly anywhere you go. PC gets Plat discounts. Console gets 370p for 20 bucks or a Prime unvaulting for 150 with 4k plat. There's your Energize, guardian and whatever else you want. 

This is a business and not a charity. Online games are about patience and building over time. If you need something immediately, they offer that option. A one time purchase and you never have to touch the content ever again. 

Prime access plat is account bound right? At least if I remember right. IDK I never bought one but had won one from a giveaway and it was account bound so I could only buy boosters and what not with it.

[Ogger]

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

This amount to less than a dollar per day of grind, which is an hourly compensation rate of 1.22 USD per hour of grind.  You can literally work a minimum wage job and buy prime access and it values your time orders of magnitude greater than the game does.

Well yes but actually no.

It's not a loose, loose, loose, win drop table but a loose, undesired win, undesired win, win drop table. 

Even if you get something you do not need or that is worth significantly less you will be able to sell it (if tradeable) and slowly be able to progress towards your desired item. Well in the end of the day earning money, buying ingame currency and buying your desired items will be more efficient because well that's what's best for the developers.

But where is the fun in that ? :)

 

[Ogger]

18 minutes ago, ApocNizmith said:

 

Prime access plat is account bound right? At least if I remember right. IDK I never bought one but had won one from a giveaway and it was account bound so I could only buy boosters and what not with it.

No it isn't.

Just any plat won from giveaways is "account bound".

[master_of_destiny]

20 minutes ago, Buff00n said:

Over the years there has been a lot of conspiracy theories about some hidden second layer of RNG seeding, pooling, etc.  With the exception of one very obvious issue which was fixed way back in 2013, there has never been any evidence to show that the effective drop rates are anything other than what they publish.  In fact, there are some countries where Warframe is available that require drop rates to be published, and they further require that those numbers must reflect the actual probability in game.  At this point, there's no reason to expect otherwise, or invent hidden layers.  They're just not there.

Anecdotally, I have been collecting data for a long time.  For example:

  Reveal hidden contents

And nothing I have seen indicates drops being anything other than an independent variable.

 

Like I said, when dealing with the Negative Binomial Distribution you're far better off thinking about the expected average rather than then median.  If you want to know the expected average number of trials for getting a single item with probability P then there is an easy analytic solution: 1/P.  

However, if you want to know the median or any other percentile, or if you want to know statistics for obtaining more than one of a drop, or for multiple drops from the same table, then I'm pretty sure there are no feasible analytic solutions for any of those.  A simulation is your best option.  That's why I built one.

 

I wanted to stay out of the economic side of this discussion, but frustration with grind is not the only reason to buy plat.  Believe it or not, some people actually buy prime access, vault packs, and other stuff mainly to support the game.  I'm one of them.  That being said, I almost never use my plat to directly bypass a frustrating grind. 

What I have done is trade items for other items.  If I get too many Arcane Graces, then maybe I can trade some for Arcane Barriers.  Unfortunately that only works with items of roughly equal value, and Arcane Energize is probably not equal to the other two.  Still, there has to be an exchange rate.  Two Graces per Energize?  Three Barriers?  At a certain level, everything that is tradable qualifies as currency.  

That anecdote turned out confusing and I'm not sure where I was going.  Sorry.

 

I'm not accusing DE of being dishonest in the drop chances.  I could easily suggest lots of human error here, as exemplified in the recent Scintillant issue.  My point was that the requirement for gambling does not require that they demonstrate the likelihood of an individual client's result, but the overall accurate percentages.  Gambling terminology is kind of fun that way, and this is how you have multiple locations having slot machines with a linked pool and require constant call outs to a master server for rolls.  The binomial distribution assumes that 5% as a constant, which it is not when the population for the roll fluctuates with each individual roll. 

 

So, in effect there's 1000 rolls.  This would mean 50 people get the drop on average.  Fine.  Now you enter into a second instance of the drop, with 800 new members of the population.  You don't have the exact same population, therefore you cannot account for the variation.  A binomial distribution has to have a consistent chance, and therefore a consistent population to occur based off of the server generating a fixed percentage drop.  In my calculation the population shifting is accounted for with each individual chance being multiplied to factor out any shift in the population.  

The short of it is that the server still has a consistent 5% drop.  You vary the population coming across that 5%, which is not accounted for in a binomial distribution.  I don't know of any way to account for this other than to segregate the instances and deal with them as individual events which can be accumulated.  

 

 

How does this work with your data?  Well, a sample size of one is pretty much a non-starter for any statistical data.  Let's ignore that.  Let's also ignore that the data shown is instanced in such a way as to not be data but a chart which needs interpretation to roughly determine the percentage chances.  Having done this, you're still indicating a significant enough deviation from the Sortie rewards table to raise questions about accuracy.  How much?  Ayatans and rivens should basically be at a dead heat (27.9% versus 28.0%) but in your data indicate significantly more than a few percentage difference in rewards.  We really don't have enough data here to talk about anything....so it's a nice picture.  

 

 

Regarding the economy....let me state again that I purchased platinum in the past not to avoid grind.  I didn't do it to buy a riven, or even to get the latest insane grind mod.  I purchased it to reward DE for releasing a good game.  My point has been to address platinum as a trade commodity between players.  Every single unit of platinum trade player to player is absolutely about avoiding bad grind.

What do I think is acceptable platinum purchases?  Well, slots support DE.  Cosmetics by DE are a fantastic expenditure if you want.  I hate trading platinum with other players, because it's about avoiding grind.  This is coming from someone who will often find a newer player, ask them in game to stick around after a match, and pump them full of rare mods so that they can avoid the grind.  Hey new player, having trouble finding the medallions?  Do you have animal instinct?  No, well stick around after the match and I'll hook you up.  One vitality and 6 rare mods later and I've saved someone bunches of grind for no personal gain.  That's what trade should be, not 1200 platinum for a mech mod because the drop chance is 0.201%.  

If it's unclear, I want platinum to all disappear back to DE.  I'm entirely happy with a barter economy, but platinum is a necessary evil because the people grinding out hours upon hours to get the bad stuff already have everything I could offer...assuming of course that I'm not the one grinding.  That points towards a painful unbalance of grind to payment for real money.

[master_of_destiny]

24 minutes ago, ApocNizmith said:

 

Prime access plat is account bound right? At least if I remember right. IDK I never bought one but had won one from a giveaway and it was account bound so I could only buy boosters and what not with it.

I cannot speak to consoles.  I can speak to PC.  The account bound platinum is what you initially get, and anything won.  This includes prizes and the like, but not directly purchased platinum or platinum purchased as part of a pack (prime access or otherwise).

 

7 minutes ago, OggerAZ said:

Well yes but actually no.

It's not a loose, loose, loose, win drop table but a loose, undesired win, undesired win, win drop table. 

Even if you get something you do not need or that is worth significantly less you will be able to sell it (if tradeable) and slowly be able to progress towards your desired item. Well in the end of the day earning money, buying ingame currency and buying your desired items will be more efficient because well that's what's best for the developers.

But where is the fun in that ? :)

 

 

It's only worth what you can sell it for.

 

Case in point, Maiming Strike was once worth a lot.  It's now basically worth about as much as prime junk.  Arcanes were worth a lot more, then Scarlet Spear tanked the economy.  Basically, any artificially valued currency is only worth whatever someone else values.

 

Regarding supporting DE...the only time you do this is when you buy the platinum to begin with.  It can be traded in game infinitely amongst players.  It only disappears when you buy something from DE.  As such the player to player economy only supports the developer when any individual is forced to buy platinum without trading for it.  Otherwise, technically platinum from 2015 is still widely being circulated and DE doesn't see a penny of support from it today.  

 

I would very much like to purchase a prime access pack, but cannot justify it.  For 80 USD I could buy any game on the market new, and have money left over.  It would likely only offer 20-40 hours of gameplay, but that's more value than the next buggy months of warframe.  It's more consistent that a yearly release.  It's going to give me what is on the cover, unlike the space ninja looter shooter that is asking me to fish and mine.  It's just...I want warframe to be a success.  To do it, it needs to shed so many bad practices.  Until that happens I cannot justify ever giving DE money, so if content grind sucks it's just something I won't do.  That's where steel path is for me now, along with conclave.  I don't want mechs to be even more on that pile.

[Ogger]

14 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

For 80 USD I could buy any game on the market new, and have money left over.

You are saying that spending money on warframe is not worth it but you also aknowledge that earning money and spending it on wf is worth your time more than grinding out the game?

Why do you even play the game if neither playing the game nor spending money on it to "skip" the parts you do not like is worth it?

I don't think there is much of an issue other than the gameplay having issues. I don't mind replaying missions over and over again as long as the gameplay is entertaining enough to.. well.. keep me entertained.

19 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Case in point, Maiming Strike was once worth a lot.  It's now basically worth about as much as prime junk.

I think this POV is what ruins some players perception of their time investment in this game. As there is a direct link from time spent to platinum worth a lot of players become unhappy with what they grinded for because DE seemingly do their decisions in disregard of the market.

I mean I #*!%ing owned 30 maiming strikes and then DE decided to make the acolytes return every few months which already made the worth fall from 300-1000pl to 100-200pl. But now it's worth less than 10p because DE didn't thought of anything else to put inside HoD. The nerf from "most op mod in the game" to "why even bother using it" hurt it's worth too.

So at the end of the day I concluded to just play what I have fun playing and ignore or buy content locked behind stuff I don't have fun playing. I mean that's why I never touched fortuna and railjack once and probably never will.

[master_of_destiny]

1 minute ago, OggerAZ said:

You are saying that spending money on warframe is not worth it but you also aknowledge that earning money and spending it on wf is worth your time more than grinding out the game?

Why do you even play the game if neither playing the game nor spending money on it to "skip" the parts you do not like is worth it?

I don't think there is much of an issue other than the gameplay having issues. I don't mind replaying missions over and over again as long as the gameplay is entertaining enough to.. well.. keep me entertained.

I think this POV is what ruins some players perception of their time investment in this game. As there is a direct link from time spent to platinum worth a lot of players become unhappy with what they grinded for because DE seemingly do their decisions in disregard of the market.

I mean I #*!%ing owned 30 maiming strikes and then DE decided to make the acolytes return every few months which already made the worth fall from 300-1000pl to 100-200pl. But now it's worth less than 10p because DE didn't thought of anything else to put inside HoD. The nerf from "most op mod in the game" to "why even bother using it" hurt it's worth too.

So at the end of the day I concluded to just play what I have fun playing and ignore or buy content locked behind stuff I don't have fun playing. I mean that's why I never touched fortuna and railjack once and probably never will.

Just no.

 

My point is that DE is not releasing this game in a vacuum.  They aren't the only game on the market, and as such their asking price of 80 USD has to be justified by something more than the tag line of "a 205 USD value."  I know that Doom Eternal is going to provide me demon killing for a number of hours, and after that time I can maybe purchase DLC to extend it further.  It's also going to run on my system without massive technical issues, like regularly clipping out of the world.

I did the grind for focus without buying affinity boosters and lenses.  I did it because despite being months of grind it was valuable.  I hate Eidolons because after months of grind I still had no idea of when I would get the rewards.  I had nothing but RNGesus to pray to, and cheetah blood to rub on a d-20 for luck.  That's hyperbole, but the point is that it's not great to be on the bad end of random loot drops and does not feel rewarding.

 

The point of citing maiming strike and the like is that nothing in this game is of constant value if traded between players.  It's always 20 platinum for a warframe slot.  It's always a constant price for the Xiphos....another fractional percentage drop item which is a miserable grind.  

My point here is that nothing is a constant unless DE makes it so.  Rivens, meta mods, pick your poison.  Circling back to the original point, trading platinum for arcanes is not a solution to a bad economy, but the admission that said bad economy is acceptable to DE.  That's a depressing state to be in.  DE should fix this, or they shouldn't be surprised that people don't want to invest in their game.  Paying for the next 70+ hour grind is just....frustrating.

[Buff00n]

15 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

I'm not accusing DE of being dishonest in the drop chances.  I could easily suggest lots of human error here, as exemplified in the recent Scintillant issue.  My point was that the requirement for gambling does not require that they demonstrate the likelihood of an individual client's result, but the overall accurate percentages.  Gambling terminology is kind of fun that way, and this is how you have multiple locations having slot machines with a linked pool and require constant call outs to a master server for rolls.  The binomial distribution assumes that 5% as a constant, which it is not when the population for the roll fluctuates with each individual roll. 

So, in effect there's 1000 rolls.  This would mean 50 people get the drop on average.  Fine.  Now you enter into a second instance of the drop, with 800 new members of the population.  You don't have the exact same population, therefore you cannot account for the variation.  A binomial distribution has to have a consistent chance, and therefore a consistent population to occur based off of the server generating a fixed percentage drop.  In my calculation the population shifting is accounted for with each individual chance being multiplied to factor out any shift in the population.  

The short of it is that the server still has a consistent 5% drop.  You vary the population coming across that 5%, which is not accounted for in a binomial distribution.  I don't know of any way to account for this other than to segregate the instances and deal with them as individual events which can be accumulated.  

When a squad kills the Hydrolyst, that is a single event that has a 5% chance to reward an Arcane Energize to each member of that squad.  One event = one drop.  There's no coordination with some "population".  It doesn't matter how many other squads are currently doing an Eidolon run.  It doesn't matter what region the squad is in.  It doesn't matter what is happening anywhere else in the Warframe ecosystem.  One event = one drop = one roll with a 5% chance.  A random number N between 0 and 1 is generated just for that squad, and if 0<N<0.05 (for example), then that squad gets an Arcane Energize.  The "population" doesn't matter.  Each squad gets its own event, its own randomly generated number, and its own drop.

I don't know how many other ways I can say it.  I honestly don't understand why you're adding complexity where none exists.

This statement in particular I'm really struggling to understand:

15 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

The short of it is that the server still has a consistent 5% drop.  You vary the population coming across that 5%

Okay, but 5% of what in this case?  If it's not 5% of the population itself, then what is the 5% measuring?  If there is some set amount of an item that can drop that is independent of the population, then the drop rate cannot always be 5% and the drop tables would be straight-up lies. 

When an item is defined as having "a 5% drop rate", what exactly do you think that means?

 

23 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Ayatans and rivens should basically be at a dead heat (27.9% versus 28.0%) but in your data indicate significantly more than a few percentage difference in rewards.

Since you asked: In the early days of Sorties the drop rate for Ayatans was much higher than Rivens, something like twice as much but they were't publishing drop rates at that time.  Over the years they have been adjusted, and when the drop rates were first published around U21 they were 28% Ayatan vs 24.9% Riven.  Since then the Riven drop rate has increased as more Riven types were added.  My results are within expected tolerances considering this variation and the fact that it's still a pretty limited statistical sample.

If you would prefer another anecdote: It took me exactly 99 runs of EOS to obtain all the parts for the Braton Vandal and Lato Vandal, which was shockingly close to the expected average of 103 runs. 

Even my relic notes show I average about 3 radshares per rare prime part going back to when relics were first a thing with Nekros Prime, matching the expected average of 2.91.

There's no reason to suspect anything other than a simple binomial process to RNG.  I have yet to see compelling evidence to the contrary.  There are plenty of things in the official drop tables to be concerned about without inventing new ones.