To begin, the previous post dealt mostly with the What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been achievement. In all fairness, Blizzard addressed several of the previous issues. The Valentines achievements are wildly easier, added to the fact that the holiday is a full week now instead of 4 days.
So why return to this topic? Well, it all has to do with a pet. In Heroic Magister’s Terrace there is a pet that drops from the last boss, Kael’Thas. It is a little Phoenix. Having a phoenix tattoo on my back and being a huge mini-pet collector, this seemed to be a perfect fit. So I went to farm it. Now HMgT is a level 70 heroic, but for a level 80, in decent gear, it should be doable. In fact, my guild leader, on his druid, was soloing it. So surely I could dual box it right?
Wrong. The trash has all of these wild damage abilities and healers. They hit like a truck and always come in packs of 4 or more. After a great deal of trial and error I managed to figure out how to dual box it on my Priest and Death Knight, then swap out the priest right at the end for my warlock (the toon I wanted the pet on). Of course, this would take upward of an hour to complete, be exceedingly painful, and have multiple deaths along the way.
In a true show of “Joyia” luck, I got 2 Orb of the Sin’dori, that has a 1% drop, and no phoenix, which has an 8% drop. And continued running the instance every day for 3 weeks, to no avail. I would complain in guild chat about how much the instance sucked along with my luck. So a few people decided to try their luck. And wouldn’t you know… 3 people all got the phoenix on their FIRST run.
I was never mad at the people, it’s not their fault. But I was enraged at the game. Here I was, spending an hour every day for 3 weeks, running old stale content, trying to get an item that does not in any way improve my character, and other players could just waltz in and get it handed to them.
Someone responded that I should expect it. It is after an MMO, and designed to take up our time. The issue, from my point of view, is not that it takes time. Clearly I was willing to spend upward of 25 hours attempting to get this pet. The problem is, my sinking time into it does not bring me any closer to the goal. And there are much better ways to solve this problem.
First, I would like to say, it isn’t the same as a piece of loot. If I run HPoS 30 times trying to get a Nevermelting Ice Crystal, that’s fine. It’s current content. Also, there are about 5 other trinkets I can get much easier. I am directing my problem and corrections at rare flavor drops, specifically mounts and pets.
Solution 1: Progressive Random.
This is probably the best solution. It answers all the issues, without losing the original intent, and is currently implemented in the game. Progressive Random is used on quest items. It says if the item has a 10% drop, then the first time you kill the mob, you have a 10% chance. But you didn’t get it. Okay, the next time you kill the mob, you actually have a 15% chance. The longer you go without getting it, the better your chances are of getting it. Once you get one however, it resets your drop chance back to the original percentage.
Why is this the perfect answer? Well, first off, it works the way an uninformed player assumes random works. It also retains an element of luck. It can be scaled based on how many tries you really want the person to have to go through to get it. Finally, to the informed player it gives them a time frame. I know if I run it 100 times, I will get the phoenix on or BEFORE I make my 100th run. I know at the absolute WORST I am 1/4th of the way there. I now have a concrete goal to work towards, as to a nebulous “eventually”. The resetting of the drop chance prevents it from being “gamed” to have someone selling their involvement in a group as a random drop “buff”.
There are other solutions:
Buff the drop with each patch after the addition of the instance, or after the trivialization of the instance.
Allow the pets/mounts to be purchased with in game gold after a certain length of time (gold sink).
Allow them to be purchased with real money.
And so on… but really, the first option seems to be the best. At this point in WoW, there is a sufficient amount of content (achievements alone fill this void) that such “bloated” time sinks like random drops on non-combat pets and rare mounts seems archaic. As an added benefit, the “re-roll” punishment becomes far less. (This refers to the concept that re-rolling a character causes you to lose all the progress on non-leveling/gear acquisitions you have made, like how people hate switching mains when one of their older toons has the Amani War Bear, or the Scarab Lord title. It is considered a “punishment” for trying something new.)
Random isn’t fun, especially when it seems like the dice are stacked against you. Allowing people variant ways of playing and variant ways of winning, also means allowing variant ways of succeeding at personal goals. This means allowing them to “win” at something they want to do, without forcing them to do it in a way that isn’t fun at all to them. Again, I really just feel this applies to things that only have one method of acquisition, or don’t change the inherent game balance, as mini-pets and mounts. Gear, skills, talents, all seem to be, if not well balanced, but at least well enough.