De, It's Time To Stop Relying On Rng Instead Of Game Design

[Xrylene]

I'll start by saying that if we are ever going to get DE to start focusing on supporting the game properly, and not using RNG band-aids to keep people playing and grinding endlessly, we need as unanimous of a call for change as possible. To that end, we need more threads tackling the RNG, and more founders supporting them. Founders in particular should have some weight in fixing the issues with the game, so it's important that it actually gets used.

 

Now, onto the RNG itself, and why it's a problem that can't be alleviated by messing with drop tables.

 

 

1: No matter what you do, unless you change the system to one where a player gets a guarantee of something after a certain amount of missions, enemies killed, or whatever means is used to obtain blueprints and mods, there will always be people who get lucky and get it on their first try, and people who may never get it at all, especially if they become frustrated over time and quit even trying. People supportive of RNG often cite how they got lucky with something, which makes it fine, or how the low drop rates of things make things "difficult" to obtain, when the reality is due to the very nature of RNG, that "difficulty" is variable, there is no way of knowing if it will take 1, 10, 100, or more runs of something to get it, the only thing that can be said for certain is that a percentage of the population of players would on average get it after x runs. DE seems to think this is acceptable, that so long as a percentage of players get something, that it's fine, when the only reason people keep playing is to get things in the first place. If someone gets lucky and often gets what he wants, he may lose interest because grinding is the only content in this game, and he has nothing left to grind for. if someone never manages to get what they want, they will lose interest in the game because they are just doing the same task over and over again for a reward that will probably just be used to grind something else later. At either end of the spectrum, the game is not fun, and you will lose players and potential profits, losing more potential if those same players give your game a bad name to others who may be interested or who leave with them.

 

 

2. Your game only continues by constantly adding content patches, more things to grind with, and more things to grind for, and as you add them, they dilute your tables further, resulting in more grind for everyone regardless of what they are interested in obtaining, while simultaneously over saturating your game with near duplicates of existing content with minor statistical and visual differences. Let's be honest here, you took the Prime equipment, something that once existed as a minor founder bonus, and turned it into palette swaps with higher stats, and tuned it to act as yet another "grinding instead of content" feature in your game, adding the further layer of the key system, and then called that one of your biggest updates to the game yet. That patch actually irked my friends and I enough that we quit, $100 invested in this game or not, I was not going to accept that total disregard for your playerbase. While I did return, ever since I got back I've been playing primarily to test the waters to see what has changed since then, so that I could give appropriate feedback, and so far you've managed to disappoint me by adding more grinding and RNG into the game

 

 

3. Despite the playerbase being fairly explicit in their hatred of RNG as a means of progression, you still haven't learnt your lesson there, either. Players still have absolute must have mods, such as health, or raw damage, things that shouldn't even be mods at all because they aren't a choice, locked away by RNG, with many important mods unavailable until either later areas, or from rare mobs. With the new damage rework system for example, having access to one of each element has become an essential aspect of gameplay, and yet then there is Contagious Spread, an example of a mod that has a random chance of dropping, from a rare enemy, that seems to only spawn in certain missions, which may or may not exist at any given time due to randomly shifting infestations.

 

 

4. Grind is all you have. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed, that more than anything, the new invasion system caused one particular outcry. Farmers got upset. Farmers lost missions like Palus, Phalan, Cyath, Xini, and more recently, Kappa. People played missions like these over and over again not because they were fun, but because they provide the most reward in the least amount of time with the least frustration. These rewards, with the exception of the experience farming missions, were also tied to RNG, such as void keys, or Banshee's helmet. And people would not need to farm these missions so often, if it weren't for drop rates being horrible in the case of void drop rates, or the Banshee helmet rarity, or if the game wasn't over saturated with redundant equipment that all needs to be leveled(with Forma polarization adding a further grind on top of that to keep people playing). If the RNG and over saturation weren't present, people wouldn't have been upset over the loss of some of the only non-frustrating places that they could play over and over again, because they wouldn't need to repeat the same content over and over again. Of course, this is where the real problem lies, if players weren't grinding survival, defense, and the void, you wouldn't have any content to keep them playing, would you? Which is the entire point of this, you hide lack of content behind RNG and grind in the hopes we players won't notice and will eat it up, maybe even buy some (RNG based) packs or mods packs, or buy your other overpriced items form your market.

 

 

So what do you do DE? Will you continue to do the same thing? Would you continue if your players stopped supporting your game? What would it take to take this skeleton of a game, with spells and swords(which both need work as well by the way), guns and parkour, and actually bring out it's potential? I supported a game that had fun concepts, because I wanted to see them taken further. This game has gradually strayed further and further from that, and now I'm starting to wonder if the time and money spent were wasted on a bunch of developers who don't even play their own game.

 

Edit: Oh, and just saying, but Nekros? Almost no one would bother even using him if his ability to reroll the RNG weren't present. You literally have a Warframe that people only bring because he gives players a second shot at some of the RNG in the game. Even Ember is a better design than he is, and she's pretty terrible.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Xrylene

[General_Krull]

What makes you think founders have more sway than other users? I agree with rng being horrible by the way.

[Sidathe]

I don't have answers to all your questions, so I'll give it a shot...but I did take particular issue with your mentioning of palette swap.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston_Prime

 

Totally a palette swap.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_swap

 

Totally.

 

Anyway, RNG is a method of delivering Content. They need to pace this out, of course (The game isn't that difficult), and well. Yeah. 100 runs would still &!$$ people off. 10 runs would &!$$ people off. There's no actual way to win that particular fight without being magic. Orrrr...make it so, in 100 runs, you could get X, but only if you killed 20 Y (Or whatever, really) in Z seconds. If you do not, you do not obtain said item. Next, the costs to build the items would have to be ramped up because, again, half the journey is getting those things. Might as well make them cost nothing but credits. An excessive amount of credits.

 

Now you have to review each and every mission and determine if any of them serve a purpose anymore. Then check each Warframe to make sure people with only two aren't gimped in some way. And finally, figure out a way to make resource drops reliable. That, or repeat the "Kill bears with melee to the face," only you don't get as many as you currently do. There's also the whole issue of making it obvious to players that doing something increasingly specific will get them something.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Sidathe

[Brahmastra]

DE: "tldr and we don't care"

 

But yes rng is terribad and Nekros is only used for his third ability, maybe his second also.

[CaptainPeanut]

I've been playing this game for months. I love this game. I loved it's concept for fast action space ninjas. I ground the hell out of the missions for parts and XP.

And now there's nothing. There isn't a story that makes me feel like a part of this game's universe. There's no true end-game to challenge me that isn't just the same enemies with more health. There's no content that I can truly get with reliability with the diluted drop tables and dissatisfying RNG.

All there is is grind. And I'm tired of it. I supported this game because I think it's great, and I still have hope that it can be even more amazing. But the RNG-based rewards and lack of AI complexity and story just make the grind all the more noticeable and tedious.

I truly hope you guys fix your content, because I want to continue enjoying it. But right now, I'm not.

Edit: But this is just my opinion.

 

Edit 2:  The grammar.

Edited December 28, 2013 by CaptainPeanut

[Xrylene]

What makes you think founders have more sway than other users? I agree with rng being horrible by the way.

 

It's not that I think they do, but that I think they should. In particular, the design council exists for founders who spent a significant amount on the game, a place where we supposedly get a say in how this game evolves, and yet we can't even create our own topics there, and generally get little say in what topics do exist there. With how they talk about founders being integral to their success, I think it would be wise to pay head to them if they don't like the direction the game they invested in is going, don't you? Not trying to imply that that non-founders should not be listened to, just that when founders start getting upset, they should probably take notice that something is off. Which is why I encourage other founders to rub their nose into the issue, essentially.

[General_Krull]

I don't have answers to all your questions, so I'll give it a shot...but I did take particular issue with your mentioning of palette swap.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston_Prime

 

Totally a palette swap.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_swap

 

Totally.

 

Anyway, RNG is a method of delivering Content. They need to pace this out, of course (The game isn't that difficult), and well. Yeah. 100 runs would still &!$$ people off. 10 runs would &!$$ people off. There's no actual way to win that particular fight without being magic. Orrrr...make it so, in 100 runs, you could get X, but only if you killed 20 Y (Or whatever, really) in Z seconds. If you do not, you do not obtain said item. Next, the costs to build the items would have to be ramped up because, again, half the journey is getting those things. Might as well make them cost nothing but credits. An excessive amount of credits.

 

Now you have to review each and every mission and determine if any of them serve a purpose anymore. Then check each Warframe to make sure people with only two aren't gimped in some way. And finally, figure out a way to make resource drops reliable. That, or repeat the "Kill bears with melee to the face," only you don't get as many as you currently do. There's also the whole issue of making it obvious to players that doing something increasingly specific will get them something.

Rng is not content, grind is not content. Why do people think it is? I bet you think it's content to spend 30 minutes clicking fusion cores so you can max a rank 10 rare mod.

[Xrylene]

Rng is not content, grind is not content. Why do people think it is? I bet you think it's content to spend 30 minutes clicking fusion cores so you can max a rank 10 rare mod.

 

We live in an era of games like Farmville, WoW(and it's millions of clones) and cookie clicker. Grind and RNG are all games seem to be becoming these days.

[Sidathe]

Rng is not content, grind is not content. Why do people think it is? I bet you think it's content to spend 30 minutes clicking fusion cores so you can max a rank 10 rare mod.

Sure, why not. Absolutely didn't post method of delivering content in that tiny wall of text. Totally didn't. Not one bit.

[Kipp-vas-Xerinae]

Yeah rng is really bad these days (where is my Contagious Spread?). I remember that at some point certain void keys drops by faction, and now you go to T3 survival and you can still get T2 key (what the hek?), and btw if you want farm some prime gear you will be standing behind double rng wall, so good luck...

[General_Krull]

Sure, why not. Absolutely didn't post method of delivering content in that tiny wall of text. Totally didn't. Not one bit.

No, not real engaging content. It was all grind.

[Leorion]

I don't have answers to all your questions, so I'll give it a shot...but I did take particular issue with your mentioning of palette swap.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Burston_Prime

 

Totally a palette swap.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_swap

 

Totally.

 

Anyway, RNG is a method of delivering Content. They need to pace this out, of course (The game isn't that difficult), and well. Yeah. 100 runs would still &!$$ people off. 10 runs would &!$$ people off. There's no actual way to win that particular fight without being magic. Orrrr...make it so, in 100 runs, you could get X, but only if you killed 20 Y (Or whatever, really) in Z seconds. If you do not, you do not obtain said item. Next, the costs to build the items would have to be ramped up because, again, half the journey is getting those things. Might as well make them cost nothing but credits. An excessive amount of credits.

 

Now you have to review each and every mission and determine if any of them serve a purpose anymore. Then check each Warframe to make sure people with only two aren't gimped in some way. And finally, figure out a way to make resource drops reliable. That, or repeat the "Kill bears with melee to the face," only you don't get as many as you currently do. There's also the whole issue of making it obvious to players that doing something increasingly specific will get them something.

 

Gambling pisses people off. Not knowing if the effort you put into a mission will give you a reward you need pisses people off. 100 runs is batS#&$ insane! More credits?! Are you DE in disguise? 

 

Anyway, I agree with you (OP) wholeheartedly. Sadly, Founders are just the badge, we don't have any say in pretty much anything beside design and I doubt our words are worth more than anyone else's. 

[se05239]

I don't recall how many times I have gotten a common 3 fusion core as a 30+ minute reward in OD Survival.

RNG is a freaking borked and it needs to go. It only cause frustration and problem.

 

And yeah, as mentioned, we Founders don't have any kind of power to shape Warframe.

We just got a shiny badge.

Edited December 28, 2013 by se05239

[Sidathe]

Gambling &!$$es people off. Not knowing if the effort you put into a mission will give you a reward you need &!$$es people off. 100 runs is batS#&$ insane! More credits?! Are you DE in disguise? 

 

Anyway, I agree with you (OP) wholeheartedly. Sadly, Founders are just the badge, we don't have any say in pretty much anything beside design and I doubt our words are worth more than anyone else's. 

I'm Harvey. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. And it's an idea, or at least an example. How would you go about it without making it too easy, too long, and point out that doing specific stuff will actually get you things without bashing the player's face in with a running microwave?

[habitq]

+206 OP

 

But i do love getting my common 3 cores when i've survivd for 50 minutes in ODS. ( I was being sarcastic thre if you didn't notice )

[OriVerda]

True RNG sucks. I despite it as much as the next guy and there are suggestions on what to replace it with but do we all remember the shock Damage 2.0 gave us? What could such a drastic change deliver us if they did change RNG into something else?

 

If they replace it with something and suddenly most things in the game become pretty more common what will we do after we have it all? The only thing keeping me going is my urge to have 100% completion (excluding Forma and potato on everything). 

 

But I wouldn't mind it if they threw me a bone every now and then either and I didn't have to be driven insane by the RNG.

[kubbi]

Grinding doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be fun but it must be under control. In warframe its far out of control and its all that it has. Just grind.

I want more lore damnit! Where do tenno come from? Where do they live? How they they come to be in the current state they're in? (With their frames) whats the deeper thought behind the void and derelicts?

[Figasebe]

sign under every word

[Kyrinova]

DE take notes

[nintega]

I'm not a Founder, though I have spent a decent bit of money on Plat, and actually planned to spend more as soon as I got a 75% coupon, which has never happened once to me before. And there's a perfect example: right when you log in, you have to take RNG for a spin, which at this point is just a huge buzz kill to me every time I log on, so much that I haven't even seriously played in days.

 

Recently, just a bit before Oberon was released, I went around, farmed for every Warframe I didn't own, which was a lot of them, then built them. Now, I have every Warframe in the game, except for three of the Primes, one being Excalibur, but I don't really mind that. Recently I started working on Mag Prime, which was a *@##$ to do.

 

I've been playing this game for maybe half a year, and I was quick with my advancement. At first, I was full of wonder and excitement at the huge amount of content I thought I saw, all the guns and swords and missions and classes. But I hit that ceiling pretty quick, that point where you have a lot of that stuff done. My star chart is complete, I've got every Warframe, and I have a ton of weapons. So now, I'm just kind of sitting around, picking up alerts when I'm conveniently around for them, and waiting for the next update, because I'm not the type to grind for no good reason.

 

The main focus of the game shouldn't be items. The Borderlands series is a good example of a game where loot is a huge feature. And those games are awesome, but not because of how diverse the items are. Because it has fun gameplay, a good story, an appealing art style, and interesting characters. A game can't work properly on items alone, at least, not a game like Warframe. DE needs a wake up call, because as it is, they seem all too content just making more frames and weapons, and on occasion, more nesting grounds for RNG and farming. I'll admit, I do still find the parkour and shooting and hitting to be somewhat enjoyable, but when all of that is focused onto a grind, it's not at all enjoyable. But until DE can come up with some legitimate content, Warframe's gonna lose its appeal to a ton of players eventually.

 

Let's make sure we keep this thread going for a while. if it lasts a long time, and gets a lot of replies, maybe DE will take a look, who knows?

[crysis]

i hope DE sees this. RNG needs to go..

[ss4chris]

OP: Its timeto stop making threads like this. its getting old. I hate rng but i adapt deal with it.

Edited December 28, 2013 by ss4chris

[Habataki]

Well, I gotta admit I have no love for RNG, but this kind of threads keep piling up for who know how long.

 

No disrespect intended, but if DE gonna give a f*** about this problem or have any better idea, they'd have done it long ago.

[Egg_Chen]

Totally agree, but also believe the drop tables are not helping either.

 

Credit rewards, really?

That's when you know it's diluted by design, not by accident.

[HackShield]

well RNG is only the biggest problem over all but i personally think they should Stop this Patch Chaos with the ps4 lunch we got slapped with patch after patch and so on but the hotfixes were only a split filler not really a hotfix i demand de should stop to hold on and and repair there game if sony want updates say them STFU you still get a big cummunity on pc BUT if you stay and , i think, its sony`s wipe that force you or idk what so ever you loosing everything!

 

the game need a rebalance and fixes and not more weapons frames or remade planets with bugs over bugs where we gonna lose the play fun