Risk, Reward, Probability and Difficulty

[Renen]

Currently lots of people dislike the fact that there's an RNG element in drops. Many have reported that they done a specific fight (ifrit) many times and not gotten any reward.

So why not implement a following system:

Option 1: Increase the probability of the desired item dropping, and also, increase the probability of the person getting a negative buff should they fail. Make it on a sliding scale.
Example:
Currently you have a 5% chance to get a weapon drop from ifrit.
Increase that chance to 60% and in return, the player has an 80% chance to receive one of the following debuffs (all unremovable):

1) Slow'd by 25% for an hour.
2) Poisoned to take damage in combat for an hour.
3) All actions 10% less effective for an hour.
etc.

Can have different buffs, and can allow player to adjust both percentages.

Option 2:
Allow players to "buff" the boss in exchange for increased drop rate.
Example:

1) Increase hp by 5% for 2% drop rate increase
2) Increase Damage by 5% for 5% drop rate increase
3) Decrease time allotted to win by 5 min for 5% increase
etc.

Thoughts?

[rina_inverse]

*pull a couch*
*grab popcorn*

People wont stop whining

*sit down and eat popcorn*

[Renen]

*pull a couch*
*grab popcorn*

People wont stop whining

*sit down and eat popcorn*

Lol rina.
What do you think about idea itself tho?

[Kirito]

Just got to admit, this is a perfect title... it could definitely get a dev to look at it...

[Shougun]

I think your debuff [option 1] idea could work for a particular dungeon or something that has fitting with debuffs/diseases and such, but I think players might get annoyed at trying to do any dungeon content and then unable to successful do content in general afterwards because of it. Thus secluding it to a singular event should probably work for a way of increasing drop rates at greater risk (as well as really making the dungeon unique if it was fitting like I said "diseases" or something).

The second option is like a difficulty slider, thats always been an effective tool . I just hope that the devs will consider AI patterns and not just do flat rate buffs like hp + X %.

One of my suggestions:

RNG over a large data set = amount of attempts SE would like a player to take before getting the reward.

I.E. 50% drop, expect players to try twice (its a bit generalized math but close enough).

Instead of using RNG for certain drops it can easily be turned into a token system, something SE has already had planned [100% token drop rate on failure to loot rare item]. Unfortunately the awesome drops are not turned into a token system, you can only buy lesser drops with the tokens.

I think one of the reasons they didnt do a token system for the harder drops is because often when the rates are converted to a fixed number you will find they had planned for some people to do it many hundreds of times (and you just got lucky). So they dont want you to realize how "big" the grind actually is. That and there is a psychological effect to chances that some people find addicting.

Its why I like promoting the progressive percentage system. Pick a general % you want. Now pick lower then that and start players on it, as they fail the run increase the % at a growing rate until they succeed, restart %. Never will your run be useless even if you didn't get anything, you will always be more likely to win than the last time.

You can make the reward a token that can be switched out for a particular item. So rather then 100 tokens = item, re-denominate for the fact tokens are now rare. (You can just use 100% tokens on rare items and ignore a chance system but like I said players might be disheartened to see some gear costs 500 runs - to hide that you can use the progressive %'s I suggested which rewards effort but is still a bit on chance as well).

[rina_inverse]

By "buffing the boss" you will make the battle drag, and yet theres no guarantee that youll get it
By "debuffing yourself" you will make the post/pre battle drag, and yet theres no guarantee that youll get it

waste of time I say

EDIT
best solution IMO is to cancel any waiting time between battle
more battles, more chances

[Renen]

About buffing i kind of agree... However you can only use the "less time to kill boss" buff for example.

As for debuffs I disagree. You can have a normal battle, and a one with debuffs.
For all those people who can already beat the battle with eyes closed, they can add the debuffs option.
For those who are in a pug and are unsure, they can opt to have chance of debuffs at 0

[shane239]

I think we should see what their new system has to offer first off fully before throwing out solutions although yours sir is defiantly interesting!

[rina_inverse]

Rather than giving yourself a handicap, it better to make harder battle
giving yourself a handicap only give you a reason if you make the party wipe

[HiirNoivl]

Ooooo break it down! I'll dish my take on this subject

Risk: Risk involves more than just maybe not getting something, it also involves losing. Call me casual, but I feel kinda crummy playing for hours and feeling like I've gotten nothing out of it. Imagine feeling like you've gotten done Less-than-nothing. So if you're going to risk something the reward has got to be worth it. That's why I'm not too thrilled with these rumors going around about weakening the rewards of multiple melds on materia... If I'm going to blow 100s of mils of gil, I want to have the reward that goes along with it please. Now if we dumb down the reward we need to dumb down the risk as well. Gotta keep that in balance....

Reward: Rewards can be anything gil, materia, mats, exp, CGI cutscenes, any sort of happy progress is a reward. Rewards need to scale with risk and difficulty or else you won't feel it. That's why the level up graphic needs to be flashy. If I'm grinding all the way to max level, Id better see fireworks, strobe lights and like a red carpeted choir singing my praises in the tune of the FF fanfare when I get there.

Probability: When I see probability, I just think meh... time sink. Whatever it is, you're going to end up doing it more than once so you'd better get real comfortable. You're gonna be there for a while. I don't really have a problem with this, but it tends to be the best stuff that has the lowest probability. In 1.0 there was no way to really improve probability on ANYTHING. So you had to speedrun spam stuff so you could increase your probability by sheer number of runs. I hope we get to change this in ARR somehow. To give us at least the illusion of some sort of progress. Token systems allow you to progress outside of RNG, but I think we'll still be speed running dungeons at some point in ARR, the mechanic is just too convenient.

Difficulty: Here's where it gets dicey. Difficult battles, difficult dungeons, difficult puzzles are necessary for some people. Its not about hardcore or casual, but some people actually enjoy losing 100x before a win. It makes that win sweet for them, gives them community cred, and the satisfaction and memories are long lasting. Its that lovely pay out. But then you have to contend with the people who don't have the patience or skill to lose 100x but they STILL want that same drop or loot or whatever. SE, if you want to put up some difficult stuff, and make the drops and pay out worth it, be prepared to deal with some consistent, persistent, never ending belly aching. And the rest of the community will have to deal with it too.