Drop Tables, How Much Longer Will You Ignore Them Sheldon?

[Hybridon]

I've been debating a lot since devstream #36 if I should make this post or not. Why? On that devstream I yet again made a question on drop tables, as seen here:


 

So you are complaining they didn't make the question, despite it being a popular request? No.

 

Please read on. The question ended up being made by Rebecca during the stream:

http://youtu.be/0myu7k4r5X8?t=37m53s

At 37:53 Rebecca starts my first question, that is then completely derailed by Sheldon, about how Gemini Cross was added in a "good way". Yet the core of my question was ignored. Drop tables continue crammed with unnecessary stuff 

and with really low drop chances on certain items.

 

Lets take a look at a few examples:

 

These are a few of the drop tables on enemies. As you can see we have enemies that have many rare mods crammed on them, and enemies that the only rare mod available is a rare ability, that already comes along with your frame when you build it. These tables are what, at least 6 months old, yet they continue to be neglected, and DE acts as if they are "ok"

 

If you take a look around the forums, you will also discover that certain rare mods have something around 1% chance to drop. And we arent talking about game changing mods, we are talking about rare stance mods. Tranquil Cleave for example. Why make a game system that people cant enjoy completely, cause the stance mod is hidden behind a 1% chance to drop. And we have to factor in that its 1% chance, IF THE ENEMY DROPS A MOD:

STEP 1 - Map has to spawn the enemy.

STEP 2 - RNG decides its time to drop a mod.
STEP 3 - RNG decides its the mod you want.

 

Ok, so we have beaten this subject to a horrific extent. Topics and topics on the same subject have been posted. Yet, nothing is done to actually work on the drop tables, and get them clean and simple, so that people can enjoy game mechanics (stances), farm fairly (like actually have a slight chance to get the mod they want), and so forth.

 

So that means you want mods given to you Hybridon? No. I want game mechanics to actually reward you.

A few examples of what should be done:

1) A complete review of the tables:

 

a) If you add a rare mod to a rare enemy (Eletric Crawler, for example), the chance should be high. Because of all the hard work to find the enemy and get it to drop a mod, give us at least a high chance at it dropping.

 

b) Give us alternatives. Dont add a mod only to a single enemy. With the amount of enemies you can repeat the same mod on a few enemies. But still respecting the "fair drop chance" as stated before. By fair, I mean dont add stuff at 1-3% and say the drop tables are good.

 

2) Transmutation:

This has been complained on to high extent also. If you add 4 rares, you should get a rare 100% of the time. Last time I checked we had over 60 rare mods that are obtainable through transmutation. Still we get commons at around 60% of the time, meaning it is a rip off. We lose 4 rares, pay 36k credits, and get an Ammo Drum. Its unacceptable. It isnt working as intended, its just screwing your playerbase.

 

3) Alternate ways of farming:

 

a) Give us ways to track down an enemy type and have him spawn more. A mission type that allows us to do that? People have given the idea of an intel mission, where you can use codex scans on that enemy and enter a mission where you will have higher spawns of that enemy type, based on the intel gathered. You guys can be creative, but give us alternate forms of farming.

b) You guys talked about special Dark Sector missions where X enemy spawns more. Then never again. This is also a good alternative, yet to be explored.

4) Stop hiding the chances:

We are left in the dark about our chances. You guys have done it before, putting a Mag Prime piece at less that 1% chance to drop, and said the drop tables where "ok". Currently it is known that stuff drops at around the same percentage, so stop hiding such info, it makes your playerbase suspicious.

 

5) Ability Mods have to leave:

a) Take them off the drop tables, and you can add them to the market. Just a few number of abilities are actually useful to have duplicates with different ranks. Add them to the market for a low credit price, and then mini-maxers will be happy, and drop tables also.

 

b) Add the possibility to use high ranked mods at lower ranks. Dark Sectors are an example of people wanting that, so that they can have there mods go online quicker. And with so many mods being added, it can clean up the mod UI, I for example have many duplicates in different ranks, and it starts getting messy.

 

6) Risk-Reward:

 

As remembered by Somedude1000, risk-reward. The higher the enemy level, the higher chance to get uncommon and rare mods. You have to be rewarded for going higher. Yet, this alone isnt enough. If rare rewards continue at low chances, then this on itself is almost a useless addition.


Guess that sit, for now. I'm not even expecting a DE staff member to actually answer this topic, even though It would be nice. But the current state of drop tables is starting to drive people away from the game. I'm hyped fro the new stuff thats coming with U15 DE, but you have to fix up the old stuff.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Hybridon

[Sitchrea]

^This, This, and all of my This^

[Letter13]

On your points...

 

1) Agreed. Although I imagine a lot of spreadsheets/excel-ing/stuff would be involved, the drop tables do feel wonky and uneven to an extent.

2) Fully agreed.

3) I like this idea.

4) I disagree. Although it's more of my opinion, I actually have no problem with not knowing the % chance of certain drops.

5) While it would be nice to take ability mods off the table, this is a case of "be careful what you wish for." They were added to the table because players wanted them.

[011100110110000101101101]

Following topic.

 

This is a definite issue that MUST be dealt with.

 

Take all of my +1's.

[Hybridon]

On your points...

 

1) Agreed. Although I imagine a lot of spreadsheets/excel-ing/stuff would be involved, the drop tables do feel wonky and uneven to an extent.

2) Fully agreed.

3) I like this idea.

4) I disagree. Although it's more of my opinion, I actually have no problem with not knowing the % chance of certain drops.

5) While it would be nice to take ability mods off the table, this is a case of "be careful what you wish for." They were added to the table because players wanted them.

 

My biggest request on taking them out is because they end up being used to infuriate the player base. When people said add them, it isnt add them all over the place at ridiculously high chances. I dont need 120 Slash Dash mods, it only has 4 ranks. So adding it to the extent of being that common totally neglects the true thing people where asking for.

[Letter13]

My biggest request on taking them out is because they end up being used to infuriate the player base. When people said add them, it isnt add them all over the place at ridiculously high chances. I dont need 120 Slash Dash mods, it only has 4 ranks. So adding it to the extent of being that common totally neglects the true thing people where asking for.

I use them for fusion fodder. I've gotten some nice mods out of fusing skill mods.

[Hybridon]

I use them for fusion fodder. I've gotten some nice mods out of fusing skill mods.

 

Wouldnt it have been better if that common ability was a common fusion core, for example? Taking them off means more cores dropping also.

[taiiat]

aside from the rest(because i'm not in the mood to address it), all we need to do for Warframe Abilities is make them generic 'Common' Uncommon' and 'Rare' Ability pools. this not only means that all Abilities drop equally (yes, the pool would have equal Chances for all Abilities, because they're all worth the same), but there's less entries that the Enemies that drop them need to have.

 

and then we can adjust the rarities of the Common Uncommon and Rare Abilities coming up appropriately.

[Letter13]

Wouldnt it have been better if that common ability was a common fusion core, for example? Taking them off means more cores dropping also.

You can't transmute fusion cores though.

[Hybridon]

You can't transmute fusion cores though.

 

Why transmute if you will end up with an Ammo Drum? :)

[Somedude1000]

DE seems to be spending a lot  of time on new content, which i like, but the older stuff deserves some love too, perhaps even a lot of love. Your suggestions for reviews on how the chance system would be an awesome addition to a future update.

 

A stupid suggestion I once had was, as an alternative, the longer you stay in a game, the higher the chance for enemies to drop rare mods / resurces since they are higher level. Something needs to be done to make players feel rewarded for doing those 60 waves on xini or 40 mins on mimas, and one of the ways i previously thoguht it could be done was to have higher chances for better loot as the enemies scaled up. Is this relevant?

Edited September 26, 2014 by Somedude1000

[Hybridon]

DE seems to be spending a lot  of time on new content, which i like, but the older stuff deserves some love too, perhaps even a lot of love. Your suggestions for reviews on how the chance system would be an awesome addition to a future update.

 

A stupid suggestion I once had was, as an alternative, the longer you stay in a game, the higher the chance for enemies to drop rare mods / resurces since they are higher level. Something needs to be done to make players feel rewarded for doing those 60 waves on xini or 40 mins on mimas, and one of the ways i previously thoguht it could be done was to have higher chances for better loot as the enemies scaled up. Is this relevant?

 

Yes, I forgot to add that, cause its so many small things that could be added.

 

But still, adding that wouldnt fix anything if mods continue at 1% chance to drop.

 

I didnt even start on void drop tables, cause if DE wants to use market tactics to sell Prime Access, then best of luck. Just from what Ive heard, they are not getting the amount of money they could from people that refuse to pay, because of said tactics.

[Dogoframe]

Why transmute if you will end up with an Ammo Drum? :)

Transmuting is a gamble. As much as I agree with all your points vehemently Hybridon, gamblers go for all or nothing all the time.

 

I wish you the best of luck dealing with this subject. Worrying about this Beta Test enough to *try* to discuss them here gave me a severe headache, and 2 warnings for the exact same subjects, Livestreams and drop tables. You handle the forums much better than I do, hopefully your thread isnt ignored like your question was.

[Wurdyburd]

I totally agree with all of your points. To add to them a little:

Sheldon was once given the task to balance the drop tables [though it was later clarified only the void drop tables]. He procrastinated on it for weeks, kept promising the player base that he was working on it, it'll get done soon. Until THIS was released: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/182179-void-master-void-faster/#entry2123087

----------------------------------------------

So here’s my summary of what you said to me:

1. Too many keys as rewards, Sheldon!
2. I’m still not able to get that piece or BP I want in spite of all your so called work.

And here’s my solutions:

1. Reduce keys. (wow. That simple, eh?) I took a ton of the keys out of the tables and limited them to T1/Derelict mission rewards.
2. I did another pass at the distribution across the void, but the more I looked the more I wanted to do…

…Prime Trading.  
BOOM.gif

That’s right, Prime Trading.
This means that you will be able to trade “Prime Blueprints” and “Prime Parts” with other players. Have 5 Ember Prime Chassis but no Helmets – find someone in the other situation and make a swap. Simple as that, using the same trading that you know and love from mod and key trading.

----------------------------------------------

His ultimate solution to the problem of drop tables was to make them tradeable, overhype it, and do nothing to fix the tables at all. On top of that, there's your deflected question on the devstream. There's also the issue of keys as rewards. This post was made on U12.2, in February. And we're still complaining about oversaturation of keys in the drop table today. The more that happens, or doesn't happen for that matter, the more I think that Sheldon is either lazy, or inept. I desperately want him to prove me wrong.

 

On the subject of encrypting the drop tables:

The community was genuinely frustrated when DE first locked drop chances etc behind a wall of code. But it's okay!, DE said. We plan to have information like that in the Codex *accompanied by angel choir and trumpet fanfare*. Just you wait and see!
We waited.

We saw.

We were ultimately disappointed.

In all the time that we've had access to the codex, DE has done little to nothing with it. Sure it was useful when they were bandying about with Damage 2.0 and swapping resistances on us every update/hotfix [i remember when Infested were weak to impact and resisted slash and fire], but that's not good enough. It's used as a tool to deliver background lore, when DE decides to grace us with it, and that's not good enough either.

Whether it be the Codex or Mastery Rank or the Dojo, DE needs to go back to it's old content and make it worth something. I can already tell that Archwings are going to be a major point of hype and Shiny Things™ as Sylaenius said, and 3 months from release they're going to be gathering dust along with every other underdeveloped system in the game.

But don't worry guys! We'll be able to drive tanks or something! Won't that be wonderful.

[Hybridon]

Transmuting is a gamble. As much as I agree with all your points vehemently Hybridon, gamblers go for all or nothing all the time.

 

I wish you the best of luck dealing with this subject. Worrying about this Beta Test enough to *try* to discuss them here gave me a severe headache, and 2 warnings for the exact same subjects, Livestreams and drop tables. You handle the forums much better than I do, hopefully your thread isnt ignored like your question was.

 

Its a gamble, yet when you gamble with commons and uncommons, you never get a rare, so why does that happen when gambling with rares?

 

You pay high, use mods that are hard to get, and then get slapped in the face. When transmutation first came out, it always netted a rare. Then they removed the rare abilities, but lets be honest, the rare abilities crammed the transmutation as much as it is now (with all the new rares, stances, etc), and you oculd reuse them for another chance at... A GUARANTEED RARE.

 

DE just slaps us more and more on this subject.

[Sylaenius]

Did one of the mods really just delete my post in here because I dared to state that drop tables are encrypted so nobody can point out they're rigged to make DE more money? Really?

[Drasiel]

aside from the rest(because i'm not in the mood to address it), all we need to do for Warframe Abilities is make them generic 'Common' Uncommon' and 'Rare' Ability pools. this not only means that all Abilities drop equally (yes, the pool would have equal Chances for all Abilities, because they're all worth the same), but there's less entries that the Enemies that drop them need to have.

 

and then we can adjust the rarities of the Common Uncommon and Rare Abilities coming up appropriately.

 

An interesting suggestion. I rather like it. This would help alleviate some of the dilution in mod tables caused by abilities. If this was also done with both kubrow and sentinel ability mods respectively that would be even better (because let's be honest, there will be more kubrows and there will be more sentinels and the tables will get even worse). The only other thing I would like to see added to this idea is that ability mods be removed from all bosses completely. Although that is just a personal annoyance.

[Grulos]

Finally another of these threads.

DE can't let this drop chance mess unattended!

[Somedude1000]

Yes, I forgot to add that, cause its so many small things that could be added.

 

But still, adding that wouldnt fix anything if mods continue at 1% chance to drop.

 

I didnt even start on void drop tables, cause if DE wants to use market tactics to sell Prime Access, then best of luck. Just from what Ive heard, they are not getting the amount of money they could from people that refuse to pay, because of said tactics.

 

I guess so, pretty sure many players buy prime access simply to skip frustration. I've bought plat a few time,s but I refuse to obtain prime acccess as long as theres some chance to obtain the primes in game F2P style using the time and currency i've invested so far, but not knowing the chances of grinding fot hose things makes me severely depressed, especially because they're so close but so far away...

 

One of my biggest mistakes could simply be playing only warframe and no other game at this point of time, the longer im unable to get soemthing, the more frustrated I get, and each day i feel more inclined to purchase prime access although I don't want to, the fact that I have to run many runs to obtain the item is pushing me to the edge of considering it. And yet, it's still an uncertainty. I could run a hundred runs on solo not knowing whether theres even a 1 / 100 chance for me to obtain said item, this eventually feels like playing the same game over and over even if i do enjoy it. 

 

Perhaps I'm simply being cynical, but that makes warframe not enjoyable to the point where its not a game i would recommend to anyone i know IRL

 

Did one of the mods really just delete my post in here because I dared to state that drop tables are encrypted so nobody can point out they're rigged to make DE more money? Really?

 

Well, they probably thought it was too assumptioney to merit any discussion value. The mods aren't all bad. The last time drop tables screwed up, Ced23Ric  stepped up to talk about it IIRC. And we all know what happened next...

[Grulos]

I guess so, pretty sure many players buy prime access simply to skip frustration. I've bought plat a few time,s but I refuse to obtain prime acccess as long as theres some chance to obtain the primes in game F2P style using the time and currency i've invested so far, but not knowing the chances of grinding fot hose things makes me severely depressed, especially because they're so close but so far away...

 

One of my biggest mistakes could simply be playing only warframe and no other game at this point of time, the longer im unable to get soemthing, the more frustrated I get, and each day i feel more inclined to purchase prime access although I don't want to, the fact that I have to run many runs to obtain the item is pushing me to the edge of considering it. And yet, it's still an uncertainty. I could run a hundred runs on solo not knowing whether theres even a 1 / 100 chance for me to obtain said item, this eventually feels like playing the same game over and over even if i do enjoy it. 

 

Perhaps I'm simply being cynical, but that makes warframe not enjoyable to the point where its not a game i would recommend to anyone i know IRL

 

 

Well, they probably thought it was too assumptioney to merit any discussion value. The mods aren't all bad. The last time drop tables screwed up, Ced23Ric  stepped up to talk about it IIRC. And we all know what happened next...

Doesn't that removing of posts and Ced23Ric's incident speak heavily against DE and their way of doing things?

Especially drop tables.

 

Evading questions, evading fixes!

[Hybridon]

Finally another of these threads.

DE can't let this drop chance mess unattended!

 

If more people actually took the time to put in many of these every day, it would be attended. Most people are too lazy to voice out there opinion on the subject. I debated over the last month about doing this topic or no... but the last Prime release made me reach my limit on the subject.

[Sylaenius]

 

 

If more people actually took the time to put in many of these every day, it would be attended. Most people are too lazy to voice out there opinion on the subject. I debated over the last month about doing this topic or no... but the last Prime release made me reach my limit on the subject.

 

Well, I think it's mostly the mass deflection and flippant attitude most questions get on livestreams. Who wants to ask a question or give feedback to get handwaved. Most people feel DE is just gonna do whatever and we can deal with it or find a new game.

[Dogoframe]

Its a gamble, yet when you gamble with commons and uncommons, you never get a rare, so why does that happen when gambling with rares?

 

You pay high, use mods that are hard to get, and then get slapped in the face. When transmutation first came out, it always netted a rare. Then they removed the rare abilities, but lets be honest, the rare abilities crammed the transmutation as much as it is now (with all the new rares, stances, etc), and you oculd reuse them for another chance at... A GUARANTEED RARE.

 

DE just slaps us more and more on this subject.

 

I never said I find it fair or correct Hybridon =) Just saying that no matter what the odds against are, people who like (or just dont mind, or have piles of Rare Ability MODs and millions of credits like a lot of us Beta Testers)  gambling WILL do so.

 

I feel MUCH less slapped in the face by Transmutation than, say, coming back from extraction when a friend types "rare" on chat and Marks a MOD on the map, only to add another Vortex to the pile. Or when MODs considered "rare" like Maglev suddenly start dropping like candy. Or like a very well put, well thought, relevant and absolutely crucial question like yours gets the "Oh lookie, new stance is uncommon!"* treatment on Livestream.

 

Edit: *And it should really be Common, since MOAs drop as many Gemini Crosses as they drop Fatal Attraction.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Dogoframe

[Hybridon]

I never said I find it fair or correct Hybridon =) Just saying that no matter what the odds against are, people who like (or just dont mind, or have piles of Rare Ability MODs and millions of credits like a lot of us Beta Testers) gambling WILL do so.

I feel MUCH less slapped in the face by Transmutation than, say, coming back from extraction when a friend types "rare" on chat and Marks a MOD on the map, only to add another Vortex to the pile. Or when MODs considered "rare" like Maglev suddenly start dropping like candy. Or like a very well put, well thought, relevant and absolutely crucial question like yours gets the "Oh lookie, new stance is uncommon!"* treatment on Livestream.

Edit: *And it should really be Common, since MOAs drop as many Gemini Crosses as they drop Fatal Attraction.

I get that, no worries mate :)

Just like to discuss more on the subject, as it is in a crucial state, and has been for the last months. Tbh, On devstream 10 or 12 I asked about dilution and drop tables, look how far we have come and yet no real change on the subject.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Hybridon

[Dogoframe]

I get that, no worries mate :)

Just like to discuss more on the subject, as it is in a crucial state, and has been for the last months. Tbh, On devstream 10 or 12 I asked about dilution and drop tables, look how far we have come and yet no real change on the subject.

 

I dont think there is much DE CAN change without revamping the whole system. As VegetableBasket once reminded me, 2 thirds of ALL possible drops are either Warframe or Sentinel abilities. The very system (as it is in the Beta Test) relies on them, without them, basically there is no drop system for MODs to speak of.