Drop Rates, Datamines, and Digital Extremes (DDD).

[[DE]Rebecca]

Free-to-play is done differently by each developer - and we're a developer that has basically signed ourselves up to all aspects of making free-to-play our own. When we do free to play, we build systems that immediately present players with a choice: time or Platinum. Defeating an RNG god is a privilege many of us have shared. Each year (five and counting) that we add to Warframe's development adds to not only game complexity, but to how Digital Extremes maintains this balance and proposition.

I'll start this post off with a picture (that we'll come back to at the end): Back in November 2016 we colour coded our Sortie Drops to better indicate rarity as seen here:

 

Here we have Rarity colour conventions to set expectations about what you'd be likely to receive when playing a given Sortie. This was an attempt to display the key value that these datamines provided: a value proposition of chance and time investment, and that's not something we want to take away. This is something we've been actively iterating on, but now we have an urgency to do it faster.

But a visual guide isn't as good as numbers; datamining provided those. That's something we lived with and at some times appreciated until the revealed contents were being hacked, sold, and added to the public build.

What happened yesterday (that was discussed on Reddit)  isn't about hiding drop rates for us. We're working on sharing these on our website in a procedural, automatic way (similar to recent Chinese laws, but universally)... but it's not about that. This is about reverse engineering and vectors being opened with the intent to scam trade, forge items, create 3rd party servers and generally leak unfinished content and game internals that can be just as misleading as undisclosed information. Seeing a trade for Primed Streamline take place for thousands of Platinum meant people were about to get caught in the crossfire of tolerated data-mining and malicious use of datamined information. We sought legal counsel when hacking took place and evidence piled up, never before then. We acted to stop the willful and selfish compromising of the game’s code for personal gain. How Digital Extremes decides to share its information is not up to the discretion of lone individuals.

Soon we'll have a webpage that is automated to provide drop information for those who seek it - this screenshot is just proof of concept that we've got something in the works (using real data with effective rarity % in this particular vault!).

We asked you who does it best so we could figure out a quick way (since the urgency is on) to reflect a currently appreciated method of developers giving %'s. Where could we seek wisdom of other developers’ actions to demystify the RNG process and publish drops? The trick is that this behaviour is not strongly or exhaustively exhibited elsewhere in the industry (unless the law demands it in certain regions). There were a few (only one from a game I play), but clearly we have an opportunity here! We want to set a new standard of transparency with our community and give our players further insight into the processes in which they are assigned rewards.

What's next will be the damage stats you can't see (ex. Exalted Weapons) which we may rely on adding to the Wikia (however temporarily) all in the name of empowering our players who value these stats to build as detailed as they want.

Walking the road of free-to-play is something we've been doing alongside our community since day one of Warframe. Each hiccup has led to us being better developers and this is another one of those moments. There is work involved in getting this information up, but stay tuned for the soft launch which we'll announce when it's complete on our end!

=======
EDIT: June 27/17 @ 11:19 AM
Tenno,

The drop table web page is still being finalized, but a Balor Fomorian has appeared! If you're joining the fight to help protect our Relays, this information may be of use to you:  

Time-Sensitive PC Drop Table for the Balor Fomorian
400 ENDO                                            75%
IMPERATOR VANDAL BARREL           11%
IMPERATOR VANDAL RECEIVER        2%
IMPERATOR VANDAL BLUEPRINT     11%

Edited June 27, 2017 by [DE]Taylor
added fomorian drop table

[Buldozers]

You should have provided this info long ago. Codex never showed the drop chances, only rarity and that's why we loved the dataminers.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Buldozers

[Hemmo67]

whaaat c_c

poor hemmo is missing something in me headlibrary .-.

[RivaAurelius]

Still hyped for Harrow ^^

 

[Navarc]

Really glad to hear of the progress you're making towards making the numbers clear. For a lot of people numbers don't mean much but there are those, myself included where numbers and unspecified mechanics really shape the opinion we're going to have on something.

[ENGINEEEEER]

All I wanted. Thanks for listening. 

[Archwizard]

15 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

What happened yesterday (that was discussed on Reddit)  isn't about hiding drop rates for us. We're working on sharing these on our website in a procedural, automatic way (similar to recent Chinese laws, but universally)... but it's not about that. This is about reverse engineering and vectors being opened with the intent to scam trade, forge items, create 3rd party servers and generally leak unfinished content and game internals that can be just as misleading as undisclosed information. Seeing a trade for Primed Streamline take place for thousands of Platinum meant people were about to get caught in the crossfire of tolerated data-mining and malicious use of datamined information. We sought legal counsel when hacking took place and evidence piled up, never before then. We acted to stop the willful and selfish compromising of the game’s code for personal gain. How Digital Extremes decides to share its information is not up to the discretion of lone individuals.

And VoiD_Glitch had nothing to do with that. All he does is look at information provided client-side - which literally anyone could do just by plunging into the files they download every update - not inject data into accounts or provide the tools necessary to do so. Things that could, say, spoil TennoCon surprises (imagine that timing!), but not break the game.
_{Now instead of unveiling things at Tennocon that were already datamined, you'll be facing a line of customers asking you about your changed stance on datamining and communication.}

I'm sure a company full of programmers and video game designers understand the difference between "hacking" and "datamining", but I think your lawyers need a course on this.

15 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We asked you who does it best so we could figure out a quick way (since the urgency is on) to reflect a currently appreciated method of developers giving %'s. Where could we seek wisdom of other developers’ actions to demystify the RNG process and publish drops? The trick is that this behaviour is not strongly or exhaustively exhibited elsewhere in the industry (unless the law demands it in certain regions). There were a few (only one from a game I play), but clearly we have an opportunity here! We want to set a new standard of transparency with our community and give our players further insight into the processes in which they are assigned rewards.

If you look at a little game like, oh, World of Warcraft, they not only maintain a genial relationship with dataminers, but they openly support such sites and direct people to them as primary information sources, which the publisher doesn't have to waste its own resources on.

Websites like Wowhead and MMO-Champion frequently datamine and discuss information on new releases early on during test phases, and base their business models on disseminating information on stats, locations and drop rates to players. Not only does this hype upcoming content, but it adds to the feedback process - people can see values that may be too strong or weak, and this allows for discussion of adjustments before game-breaking changes are added to the live game. It also allows players to start crafting builds and strategy guides before they get their hands on new content - something Warframe players can otherwise only do with the limited information that gets sieved through devstreams.(Can't even argue this is because WoW is a bigger numbers game than Warframe, since we're talking about drop rates and ability/alt-fire stats here.)

And yes, frequently they even datamine things like dialogue and minor spoilers. People still play the content for themselves, and just as frequently, Blizzard just loads in placeholders on massive spoilers until their scripts are finished.

While exact numbers on drop rates are not usually datamined, these sites are given leeway to spread addons that track such information as players go through the game, allowing rough estimates to be generated over time. Since Warframe doesn't allow addons, and such a method would be inaccurate as more items are added to the same drop tables, an extended search via datamining has been the only viable alternative up to now.

15 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We're working on sharing these on our website in a procedural, automatic way (similar to recent Chinese laws, but universally)... 

Soon we'll have a webpage that is automated to drop provide information for those who seek it - this screenshot is just proof of concept that we've got something in the works (using real data with effective rarity % in this particular vault!).

What's next will be the damage stats you can't see (ex. Exalted Weapons) which we may rely on adding to the Wikia (however temporarily) all in the name of empowering our players who value these stats to build as detailed as they want.

Part of the problem with this is that the in-game resources are decidedly unhelpful when it comes to these kinds of information. Adding these things to a website is just a bandaid fix to this.

Not only do players have to dig around through the Codex for basic information like what planets a relic drops on, but Warframe entries are 90% flavor text that don't tell you the hidden interactions programmed into each ability, like Oberon's dependence on Hallowed Ground, or that you can pop Snow Globes using Freeze, or that you can roll out of Banish. (We asked for synergy and a skill ceiling to these frames, not effects only disseminated through the top X% of players.) The only reason players know about those right now is because we heard it on a devstream or caught the patch notes the day it came out, and continued to spread it via word of mouth.
And god help you if you don't have every enemy scanned, or you'll have no idea where the name-brand weapon parts or mods you need drop. There's a tutorial on how to capture enemies for the Sanctuary, but there isn't one on how to add enemies to the Codex, or even to use consumables.
In fact, I would hazard a guess that most starting players don't know what the heck the Codex is good for because nothing in-game points you to it.

Combined with the use of an arbitrary graph- or color-based system (RIP colorblind peeps), the in-game resources are, frankly, designed to give you the absolute minimum.

Not to mention that an updated Profile video has yet to be released for Oberon, and Limbo's didn't even mention his passive - which, frankly, mitigates my faith in DE's ability to keep players updated with both accurate and thorough information.

Bear in mind, most players don't look at the wiki, or the forums. They will continue flying blind in such a manner until there is an intuitive way to locate this information in-game.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Archwizard

[Xekrin]

9 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

What's next will be the damage stats you can't see (ex. Exalted Weapons) which we may rely on adding to the Wikia (however temporarily)

I hope it is temporary as I would much prefer to see this type of info in the game.  Also things like what the syndicate procs do, the data on things like cloud size on weapons like torid or pox, how their damage works. 

There are a lot of stats that are simply left out of the game and forces players to datamine or mostly just guess and experiment which isn't really playing, its discovering info that should be there from the start.

---

Do not forget vaulted relics getting labled in game, that'd be great too.

[Kylo.]

Sounds good to me.

[-Kyle-]

You know what would be awesome? Just an idea ... On the screen you choose the relic drop, could have the ducats value of each piece, this could help who is farming prime items just for Baro.

[Skaleek]

9 minutes ago, Buldozers said:

You should really add colors for fissure rewards so we don't have to memorize all the items ducat price value.

They did a while ago.

[Buff00n]

[-NTB-Cris0407]

Thanks DE.

First time I like to say GOOD JOB.

(Except lore quests they are always awesome :-) )

BUT I like to know 1 thing.

Spoiler

What does the fox say?

 

[Kylo.]

It's good that you will show Spy rewards too, we couldn't actually see that before.

[pauli133]

As someone who has invested untold hours maintaining tables on the wiki, I vigorously welcome DE's participation in making sure that the information disseminated to players is accurate and accessible. Openness with players means that more time can be spent actually playing the game, which is to everyone's benefit.

I'm hoping that increasing the amount of information conveyed to players (oh god, are we actually talking about this really happening?) will involve reviewing and standardizing how information is displayed in the game client. Because right now, there are no standards at all. I've made feedback threads to this effect (see here and here), but it's obviously not been a priority.

My suggestion/request: it's 2017, and I know that the impulse will likely be to make the presentation of data as slick as possible. It is my hope that whatever data is presented will also be made available in a simple text format, for those of use who tend to process it for manipulation elsewhere (the wiki, a spreadsheet, etc). I hate having to key data that I could be copying-and-pasting instead.

Edited June 22, 2017 by pauli133

[ZiG.y]

10 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Soon we'll have a webpage that is automated to drop provide information for those who seek it - this screenshot is just proof of concept that we've got something in the works (using real data with effective rarity % in this particular vault!).

Any plan to also add this detailed drop information directly into the game, like the codex? While a webpage with this information would be a nice quick fix I would prefer having access to this information in the game.

[Buldozers]

6 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

They did a while ago.

Cool. Then I can finally farm fissures without headaches.

[Pegasy]

Any plans of making all this data available as json or something thats easily machine readable so the community can make their own viewers for it (websites, discord bots etc). This will most likely happen sooner or later anyway (see trials leaderboard vs 3rd party sites that track them). It would be nice to keep that in mind when designing that site / service. 

Edited June 22, 2017 by Pegasy

[Exterminator]

Hoping Riven Dispositions'll be up on that site, too, but I guess that's somewhat unlikely, huh.

Regardless, just showing us 5 levels of different strength for such an RNG-reliant system as Rivens... sure feels insufficient.

And, as some suggested, it wouldn't be too difficult to ask the dataminers to only release the content that's already in-game. Post-Umbra, I guess, but asking can't hurt.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Exterminator

[(PSN)Axlethegamer]

I think in my opinion you should apologize to void sense he was not responsible for the story leaks and such at least that's what I think idk 

[God_is_a_Cat_Girl]

18 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

What's next will be the damage stats you can't see (ex. Exalted Weapons) which we may rely on adding to the Wikia (however temporarily) all in the name of empowering our players who value these stats to build as detailed as they want.

Wish we could just move forward and acknowledge that there's so many weapon exclusive or weapon only mods that doesn't work with exalted that we could start working on having proper modding for those weapons.

[Kylo.]

2 minutes ago, Exterminator said:

Hoping Riven Dispositions'll be up on that site, too, but I guess that's somewhat unlikely, huh.

Regardless, just showing us 5 levels of different strength for such an RNG-reliant system as Rivens... sure feels insufficient.

They really should show us the real number for riven disposition.

[UvBenServed]

Neat. Considering how many stats/mechanics/etc aren't explicitly stated, I would expect this sort of thing to take a while to get up and running. I, for one, am willing to be patient. However, I'd like to offer a bit of advice:

Prioritize anything and everything that's coming in the Harrow update and Brute Force unvaulting

Or just throw all the relevant information into the patch notes. Either way works for me.

[Abdo_Ych]

i love u Rebecca ♥

[Trichouette]

21 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

 

Neat that means we'll finally be able to see how ridiculous the loot tables and their related loot rate are.

Like having relics in spy mission at rot C and next mission you get a rare mod that you got a hundred times already, or even worse, a little bit of endo.

It's nice that you finally share something that has been asked for a billion time, better now than never, but if you really take a look at these loot table you can see many problems. (like some mission looting less relics than others for example or having a little bit of endo here and there)