Add some true form of loot forgiveness

#1

The forge was designed as a way of loot forgiveness, but the problem comes when you need the super rare items to make the super rare items

It also really doesn’t help that they still haven’t released all the blueprints yet either

Want a crown? have to run the dungeon
Unlucky? sucks to suck

I’ve been grinding some whites for nearing 8 years, and I still don’t have them

*** IF YOU ARE UNLUCKY THIS GAME WILL NOT BE FUN ***
That’s what I’ve learned the hard way, as the unlucky player

It took me 2 years to get my first sword of the colossus, and once I got it O3 has been out so its a slap in the face

The game could really benefit from some form of actual loot forgiveness

As in if you don’t get a white to drop the chance of that specific white dropping is increased very slightly
This still encourages grinding, but at some point you will be guaranteed to get the drop

For example, lets say I’m grinding a tablet (have been for ~8 years still no luck)
lets assume that its drop rate is 1/2000 (0.05%). Every time you complete an avatar with no luck, that drop rate will increase by 0.01% so the next time its a 0.06%, and then the next its 0.07%
(These numbers are just for example)

These numbers will add up over time until the chance is good enough that the white will finally drop.
Once it drops the drop rate will reset back to its original value

These rates only effect that specific white so if I’ve only been grinding tablet, tablet is the only white with a boosted drop rate.

Let me know what you think

What do you believe are some issues with RotMG?
One More Time (Updated)
#2

I agree. Item Forge was supposed to be a way to help mitigate some of the sting of being unlucky, but the implementation has been terrible. Exclusive blueprints, nonexistent blueprints, blueprints dropping seemingly randomly and from arbitrary locations, and creating new metas of farming loot that don’t even involve running the dungeon that the damn item drops from! It amazes me how DECA could take such a good idea and butcher it. Really disappointed with how it has turned out.

#3

Yo I have the similar idea to that. Well almost same as yours.

Mines is a piggybank mechanism but with a multipler.

Using your example, the 1/2000 for a Tablet, I imagine:

Note: The “x-1” in this equation is how many time you secured SB on the boss after the 1st time.

The “0.1” is the multiplier as an event white.

(1/2000)(1+(0.1(x-1)))

Assume you secured your SB 100 times, we would have 0.525% of chance getting a Tablet.

#4

The flaw with boosting loot drop rates like that is to keep it balanced you have to reduce them overall.

E.g. if the tablet has a 0.05% chance of dropping now, as you suggest. But it increases by 0.01% every time you don’t get one. That means after 5 Avatars your chance is doubled. After 10 it’s tripled. After 95 the chance is 20x more, or 1%

Suppose it’s capped at 1%. That means most people will have a drop rate of 1%. Suddenly Tablets are 20x as common. That won’t do, so the base drop rate will have to be cut, by say a factor of 20.

These are all hypothetical calculations, but whatever the numbers the logic is the same. If you add a pity timer so your chance increases over time, you have to make the drop rate worse to stop the pity timer making the item too common.

Anyway, they’ve come up with a better solution, the Forge, which lets you use your good luck getting some UTs to fix bad luck getting others. The only problem is as you identify not everything can be Forged. They need to release more blueprints, and hopefully have a plan to. It’s getting pretty tedious seeing the same ones over and over again.

#5

Here’s the problem with the forge, What if you are unlucky with every single item in the game? What am I supposed to do then? Its not fun having to run 300+ dungeons to get 1 item I’d probably lose within the next month

The numbers I used in the example, are purely that example. They could easily be scaled down for a more balanced loot drop rate.

To be honest, there is a problem with having an item that strong be too common, but grinding 8 years for one item and still not getting it is insanity.

The blueprint system is also heavily flawed, because they also require RNG to acquire. Its even worse for unlucky people.

“Oh we made this system to help with the garbage luck people have, lets make them RNG drops”. Bruh, so now i’m also locked out of the system designed to help me not be locked out of items

#6

Two interesting points there but ones I think have good answers. First, it’s the nature of the RNG that you are lucky with some things, unlucky with others. This is what a lot of people found pre-Forge, and the Forge was proposed many times as a solution. Play often enough and you will get lots of white bags. Often they are ones you can’t use, and now instead of dropping them or feeding them you can use them in the Forge.

As for ‘fun’, how about doing 1000+ events for an incredibly rare white, only to lose it through your own stupidity the same day ! But that’s what makes the game worth playing:

You don’t start the game with your tricked-out char, knowing that if you get in trouble you just reload and try again, as happens in most single player games and many multiplayer games. You play ROTMG with the full knowledge that if that your char dies you lose the gear you’re carrying, as well as a backpack, adventurer’s belt + any dyes/cloths you’ve applied. That makes deaths meaningful, as it should be in a perma-death game.

#7

Just want to point out this is basically impossible

lets test this idea mathematically.

Lets define “unlucky with item x” to be the scenario where you have ran so many dungeons that the total chance of getting of getting a white from it is 50%, then, you are “lucky” if you get the drop before reaching this chance, and “unlucky” if you get the drop after this chance. Hence, for each item, the probability of being unlucky is (about) 0.5, and the probability of being lucky is (about) 0.5.

to give an example of how many dungeons you need to run, lets take an item with a 0.5% per dungeon drop rate, the probability of not getting it is 0.995, so to be unlucky, we have to run n dungeons successfully, where the total probability of getting no drop is 0.5. this means

0.995^n =0.5
n log(0.995) = log (0.5)
n = log(0.5)/log(0.995)
n ~= 138

(this has nothing to do with the above argument, it just points out a specific example of how many dungeons you need to run is a specific case, and n can be found for a given drop rate per dungeon or so.)

Right, then what we do is find how many endgame whites there are. I’ll be taking “endgame” on the forge materials they drop- if they drop all three types of materials they can be used to craft other “endgame” content.

Using the notes on the forge page is correct (see the tiers and default items), and checking how many blueprints there are, i come to the number of 36 endgame items that can be forged and 87 endgame items that can be dismantled.

the probability of being unlucky with all 87 items is 0.5^87, which is basically 0

The point is, the chance of being unlucky with all the drops are non-existant. Unfortunately, this also means the chance of being unlucky with one single drop and not being able to get it, even after 8 or so years, is incredibly high.

thw main issue, as you have pointed out, is in fact, the blueprint system being heavily rng-dependant. Since you cannot dismantle blueprints for other blueprints, the idea takes us back to where we started. Fortunately, for players that only wish to see a constant supply of powerful UTs available to them, they could use equipment from the superior and paramount blueprint selections, and others they happened to unlock by chance.

For those whishing to get every item possible, the blueprints are not particularly solving the issue, and one has to resort to rng. At the same time though, if you do have a completionest mindset, one could argue its fair game just to run the dungeons over and over until you get the blueprints, as in true completionest fasion. That means we really just need to see more of the blueprints available as drops.

As for your loot forgiveness mechanic, I would have to do a little more thinking to figure out exactly how it would affect the loot once the values have been scaled accordingly. I’ll try to remember to post on here again some point later once I’ve scaled things out and thought it through more.

#8

I think the amount of luck involved in getting rare and powerful items takes away a lot from this game, personally. It really doesn’t support the concept that these items are a reward for completing a challenge, insdead forcing you to repeatedly roll some stupid die over and over again until you get what you want. You could be some noob barely stumbling your way though a LH for the fist time, only to get lucky and get a white. Or you could be an experienced player that has completly mastered this difficult dungeon and done it hundreds of times, but you STILL haven’t got your hands on that colo sword. That I can see, there are three main ways to fix this:

  1. Item forge
    We all know what this is. A system that essentailly allows players to “transfer” some of the good luck they have had getting some items into other items that they haven’t been so lucky with.

  2. Make the game harder, but more common drops
    What if LH was 3 times more dangerous, but gave a guarenteed white every time? This sounds extreme, but kinda amounts to the same thing as what we have now. You will need many attempts to complete it, due to its difficulty, but eventually you will be rewarded with your item. The only difference is that this actually rewards skillful gameplay (accomplishing the difficult task of completing the dungeon), instead of just doing something moderately difficult a bunch of times. Being good at the game would actually result in getting more loot. Shocking.

  3. This idea
    By essentially adding an “insurance” system, you make sure that you can never get screwed over by bad luck too badly. The only problem i can see is, as Skandling mentioned, eventually the drop rates get really high for all items. However, this could be fixed by having the “pity timer” for a certain drop reset every time you get that drop.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on this. I like the idea, considering that i’ve always felt that the item forge has some flaws (several of which were mentioned above).

Edit: also IK the second option is probably not viable, which is why i like this idea. The numbers on the second idea are also not anything diefinite. the point is that completing the dungeon is a challenge, and the items are the reward, that’s all.

#9

So the pity chance resets every time you get the drop because otherwise it would be flat out busted, We could also add a system that causes the chance to drop back to normal after a while so if you were grinding for an item and take a long break you don’t keep your pity chance

This would help ensure that not all items have boosted drop rates at once, unless you are somehow grinding every dungeon at once

Could also cap the chance so its not too insane (lets say we cap it at 3x drop rate)

How about this for a revised system

After 50 runs the chance hits 2x, and after 100 it maxes at 3. That seems reasonable to me, but its up for debate

These amount of runs could be easily changed, as in for an event white it could be 200 runs to hit 2x, and then 400 for 3x then its capped

The amount of failed runs required can be easily changed depending on how common you want the item, but making it overly insane ruins the point of the system

This way the item rarity is only ever maxed at 3x which won’t boost item rates too significantly, and after lets say 3 days item chances reset. So you have to actively keep trying atleast once every 3 days to keep your chance

#10

But for rare items, where the normal chance is 1/1000, 1/2000, active players will spend most of the time hunting for that item with a 3x chance. In effect a 3x loot drop boost for active players. Which unless you want 3x of those items in the world would necessitate making the base drop rate much worse.

And I am sure they looked into this extensively, to help deal with RNG. But they came up with the Forge instead, a much better system which lets you compensate for your poor luck how you please. It’s still a work in progress, with a poor UI and a need to release more blueprints. But it’s probably the best way to fix the RNG issue without making UTs much too common.

#11

Fine, want to back the forge so hard? Then sell every single blueprint in the nexus. Its garbage locking the forge system behind rng when its designed to help with that.

I don’t care if you make the better items cost upwards of 15k or even 30k fame or higher if you want. But that way you can do a consistent grind to guarantee the blueprint, because making blueprints rng drops rare enough to the point where you are lucky to get a blue print is bs which is why the forge right now is a horrible system, because it rewards the lucky players

That or guarantee the blueprint after a set amount of completes of that boss

Secondly the problem with the forge which I tried to point out earlier but everyone ignored, is it required the rare items to make the rare items. I don’t get any god damn rare items so how is the forge supposed to fix that

I understand that they don’t want people forging 400 crings into tablets or o3 whites but what am I supposed to do if I don’t get anything

#12

I am sure they have plans to release new blueprints. According to the Wiki page a large number are already in the game, just not yet available from anywhere.

I would not be surprised if they don’t just drop in game. Maybe another campaign will unlock some, or there will be tinkerer quests for some. But that is good, if it both gives us access to them and makes campaign/tinkerer rewards more worthwhile and varied.

They do need to fix the design though. A big long list which loads in stages is bad UI. You can search but only if you know the precise name, and some of them are harder to remember or spell than others.

#13

100% agreee. The whole “it’s mathematically impossible” to be that unlucky arguement doesn’t work either. Forge was made BECAUSE Some people end up with 20 event whites but not a single Oreo. It was made to exchange those items into what you want. If everything worked as the math predicts, then we wouldn’t even need forge in the first place. But guess what? Just because it’s mathematically unlikely to happen doesn’t mean it won’t. Why let the few unlucky people suffer? Give them a safety net so that they can enjoy the game too

#14

Wyy the hell do people complain about ut forge. It’s a great system. Some of the whites on there I would have never gotten if it didn’t exist. Also the plenwalker has good feed power. Just imagine once again or remember what it was like before ut forge. The bps aren’t that rare. I did like 10 mbcs in my life and got a bp even though it’s lucky but now I don’t have to do those anymore to make the bplate. Maybe blueprints should be unlocked with completions. For eample in shatts if you have 50 completes you get the bracer bp. Then 100 completes you get whatever the archmage drops and finally 150 completes = crown bp. Maybe make that + having rng drops

#15

I didn’t really have a problem with item forge before reading this thread, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. I mean, sure it fixes the problem it’s supposed to fix (that you will get unlucky with some items, and never get them, and get lucky with others). But it has problems. Heck, not only does it have problems, it creates NEW problems.

It’s big and unwieldy, requiring a new npc/UI in the vault, blueprints, forgefire, ore values for all the UTs in the game, sulphur, etc, etc. Not exactly elegant. It costs about 3 items to forge 1 item of about the same value, which seems… wrong. Like, why shouldn’t it just be 1-1? Why am I not getting what I’m paying for? Just seems arbitrary and unfair. And then there’s blueprints.

On the one hand, for items like divinity, the blueprint is a rare drop from the same boss that rarely drops divinity. Which i suppose helps a little, but it isn’t even a sure fix. You could easily just get unlucky with both.

On the other hand, for most of the rest of the items in the game, the blueprints can just be bought in the nexus for fame. Which fixes the problem just fine, except that it creates a new problem in that it DESTROYS the fundamental concept of items being rewards for beating/mastering some boss/dungeon. Sure, you still need to get UTs to forge your other UTs with, but that doesn’t really matter here. Pyra, for example, is supposed to be a reward for defeating Bes, but with item forge, you don’t ever have to set foot in a tomb. Even if you get all the non-purchasable endgame blueprints (divinity, jugg, etc.), you still run into this problem. You could theoretically just grind halls to get your O3 whites. It’s just not how it’s supposed to work, that’s all.

In contrast, this system is very simple and elegant, fixing the problem with just one simple mechanic. If you have reached the point where your drop chance is huge, then that INHERANTLY means that you have been getting unlucky, and you’re about due for another drop, whatever that one is. And, a key point, once you get that item, your drop chance for that item resets, back to normal until you get another unlucky streak. I like it.

#16

1st point: I mean some dudes who h8s Forge pretend that the Blacksmith is just another decoration in the Vault.

2nd point: Because if the exchange value is 1-1, we can forge desired UT’s en masse with little/no efforts. And just to get something desired without spamming a particular dungeon is really overpowered itself.

3rd point: Ah yes, blueprint…

1st point: Blueprint sold in Nexus for fame is actually useful rather. It does allow players to get cheap/moderate whites like DBow, Devastation without having to spam armies of UDL/Parasites to get the respective whites. Secondly, it allows players to have another use of their fame.

2nd point: Not saying you are wrong, except that you can get the same reward with a lot less efforts as you mentioned the Tomb-Pyra scenario. I may have forged Fallen couple times, but I am still w8ing to get my 1st actual one from Daichi himself or from Quest/Event chests. Basically, getting wanted UT’s does bring satisfaction, but not as much as getting it from the actual enemies themselves.

3rd point: Oh you are talking about spamming Cult for the EZ materials and sac’ing them for the O3 whites. I could use your 1:1 exchange ratio, only if sac’ing (my way to say sacrifice) the different UT’s from the same dungeons.

Exactly.

#17

I hate the forge mainly because of its poor implementation

You say blueprints aren’t rare because of an experience you had

Ok then by my experiences blueprints are super rare

This is why ALL blueprints need to be a fame purchase, or a guaranteed drop after x amount of runs

Secondly, why does everyone keep ignoring this
You need the legendary tier whites to make other legendary tier whites.
What do I do if I don’t get legendary tier whites? How does the forge solve that problem huh?
I get like 1 legendary tier white every two months and I need 3 minimum to make the other items
4 for even rarer stuff

How is the game fun having to grind 6 months to 8 months just to forge 1 item? How is that system fun?

Also grinding 8 years for an item still not having it drop, they come out with the forge but then the blueprint is also an rng drop? you’re kidding right

Again I understand that they don’t want to make it so you can forge a crap load of garbage ut rings into legendary tier items, but there has to be a better system for loot forgiveness than the forge

#18

Forge is a whole mess of worms, isnt it. Both sides have it right, the additional rng sucks and can be just as unfair, but its still better than what we had before, not to mention once it gets off the ground its solid. So as any local idiot would do, I give a possible solution thats no better than gasoline on the fire: Blueprint Forging.

Blueprints are kinda bogus and don’t really solve enough issues. Alternatively, making them too easy to aquire brings its own set of problems, namely power creep and absolution of the grind. So, rather than a meek difference in your next forging, excess blueprints can be converted to a (sticky, wont need to hold on to mounds of blueprints) currency, the rarer the better, and following a similar “tier” structure. Take enough of these new blueprint materials and a pile of marks (say, 10 while allowing them to stick in the forge) to get a blueprint of an item.

Sure, there is still rng in getting any blueprints, which sucks, and sure, nexus blueprints would probably need to be made exceptions or weakened as to not be blatantly op, but itd still make improvements without being absurd either way, because what is realm without some cucking from rng, eh? Anyway, thats the local idiot’s take, feel free to tear it apart or stick your own spin to it.

#19

Just run fungals and crystals. Also that 8 years could be longer. You might end up getting a bp. At least there is a forge system. Half of the uts I would probs never have rn. Ik it’s tuff not having the bp but I think it is better than nothing.

#20

I’m actually ok with being forced to use legendary materials to make legendary gear. Blueprints should be a form of bad luck protection, but people shouldn’t rely on it to pump out whatever gear they want. I’m excited for whites from hard dungeons (like crystal cavern) partially because I know I can use it in the forge. If legendary gear could be forged with lower tier items then I think the blueprint system will have surpassed the standard gameplay loop.

The main problem with blueprints is how rare they are. Some event whites (jugg, tablet, conflict) have blueprints, but those blueprints are just as rare as the UTs themselves. This is totally pointless, because the people who have gotten unlucky in 8 years of play are just given a very slight additional chance to get the equivalent of the item.

It’s interesting that many people, including myself, value a jugg blueprint over a jugg. Why is this? Because jugg is 60 legendary materials to craft. By having the blueprint, a new, focused path is provided for a player that wants the item. But this is repeatable! Instead of getting a jugg every 8 years, you’re free to grind fungal caverns for materials that can be converted to many many juggs. This isn’t a bad thing, honestly. Grinding for any 4 endgame whites is far more compelling than rolling the dice hundreds of times on event gods that randomly spawn and have an abysmal drop rate. Just make blueprints more common so they serve their purpose.