PVE: The amount of RNG needs to go...

#1 - March 8, 2013, 1:28 p.m.

Hello and welcome raiders of all kinds, be it raid finder, normal or heroic.
I was raiding most of T13 and T14 heroic-level, in a 10-man guild. As well as reading reports on MMO-C for new T15 drops.

What's the point of this thread - we got way too much RNG in PVE raid content now, outside of LFR that is which is whole different story. We have 2 difficulty levels, we have thunderforged affix, we have large loot tables (every boss 20+ items, Ra-den 47!!!!!!) and from what I've read this tier also has VARIABLE TIER TOKEN DROP! Some 10-man guilds didn't received their tier tokens from kills, whilst other got BOTH slots occupied by tier. Now this is randomness taken to the extreme and this really needs to stop. I got few proposals for reducing the RNG in raids, I don't want to completely rule it out (like PVP point system now) but this tier has simply too much of it, the concept of "BIS" is pretty much non-existant.
Heroic raiders have it at its worst as they need to beat the number god twice.

-Fixed tier token drops again. RNG on an item you need to drop 3-5 times for your guild (or 6-10 for 25-man) is really unacceptable.
-Normal raids drop Normal quality items (522). Rates unchanged, 2 in 10m, 6 in 25m.
-Heroic raids drop Normal quality items (522) AND an reagent that is used to exchange your Normal item for Heroic one. Item rates unchanged, reagent rates - 1 per boss in 10m, 3 per boss in 25m
-Heroic Raids will drop only Tier Tokens that are already Heroic grade. All other drops are Normal, which then can be made Heroic with the reagent.
-Successful coin rolls on Heroic kills will still give you random Heroic-grade item from boss loot table, ready to use right away.

So this loot system has Normal grade gear as baseline gear set, while HC is just reagent that boosts item level - the way it should be. No more disenchanting heroic progression loot because no one can use that. The speed of HC gearing is potentially slower VS. current Heroic Raid drop system but it's steady over whole patch and likely to actually overtake current one, cutting edge raiders coming out in full BIS gear at the tier's end, like it should be.

It is no way perfect, this can cause drama with guilds decking tanks in BIS before anyone else etc. but it is much better than never seeing a loot piece drop during whole patch or disenchanting both drops from FIRST heroic kill because your 10man doesn't have agility leather mainspec or whatever.

#6 - March 8, 2013, 4:10 p.m.

HI Esubane,

I completely understand and share some of your concerns, there is such a thing as too much RNG, but there is also the opposite.
I hope that we’re still sitting somewhere in between, where a good balance of RNG lies.
We’re trying this new approach, let’s give it a shot and see what happens, if we find that the extra RNG becomes too frustrating instead of fun and engaging we can always adapt it in the future, much like we did with the item upgrades, when we decided to remove them (the idea looked really interesting, but we think that at least for major patches with new content it could cause more harm than good).

We’re also expecting that thunderforged items might help revitalize 25man raids as they’re more likely to drop there than in 10man.
I’m very curious to see how players are going to react to all these changes in the next few months, and you can be sure that devs will as well.
We all share the same interests as you, we want the game to be as compelling and entertaining as it possibly can be. We’re also players here, so we have a very similar (if not equal) perspective of the game and we experience it exactly in the same way that you do, so don’t worry too much about it, but please do keep providing this kind of constructive feedback as that will help to speed up changes or at least shift our attention towards where it’s required.