Random Loot is a Horrible Motivator

I love this game. I don't want it to die. I am saddened every time I log in and see how few people are actively playing multiplayer. We can't afford to have any more people lose interest in the game, and I believe that the loot system is at the heart of the game's decline.

People need an incentive to keep playing, and honestly random loot is a horrible motivator. Once you've been playing for a decent amount of time, 99% of loot drops are utterly useless. Even after an entire night of intense gaming, oftentimes your inventory isn't any better than when you started. You've effectively made zero progress after investing hours and hours into the game. From an itemization perspective, you might as well have not even played at all that night. You start to question whether you should play tomorrow, and before you know it you've stopped playing entirely.

Slow but steady progress is a far better way to keep people playing. If you know you're guaranteed some kind of advancement after each game you play, you're much more likely to invest the time. Players need a way to aim for specific items that they want. Even if it'll take a long time, as long as they're making a little bit of progress every day, they'll want to keep playing.

I truly believe that a reduction in item randomness would be good for the health of the game. I don't know how this would be implemented, but if it isn't, I guarantee you more and more people will become frustrated with their drops and just stop playing.

 

Actually, randomness in frequency of rewards (random interval of reward) is an excellent motivator, which has been well documented by many psychology studies. This is why gambling, in particular slot machines, can be so addictive - your very next trial may give you a big payoff, so who cares about all the times you get nothing. It's entirely possible to have a lucky streak, too, which is also highly rewarding. Chests in CH, like slots, usually don't have a great payoff. But sometimes they do! And those moments are exciting and fun!

Another result from those studies is that with a fixed ratio reward system (rewards you after doing X actions), which sounds like what you'd prefer, after people get their reward, there is a huge disincentive to play more. You've just reached your goal, and to get the next reward, you have to do another X actions, which is kinda draining. Think of an MMO - after you level up, it takes so much effort to get another level that taking a break sounds a lot better than another huge energy investment.

That said, I think there are definitely people who would agree with you. Almost everyone wants some way to get Randi's to reset more than once a week, for example =P

Also, keep in mind that different players have different incentives for playing. Some people are perfectly happy to play multiplayer games as a test of skill. The SP players are fine to grind away at SP, etc.

 

Unfortunately, when it comes to making multiplayer builds, the random loot drops make it harder to test your skill or demonstrate your creativity. This was a big turnoff for me back when I played Card Hunter*. The ability to trade a mountain of crap for an item I want would have been greatly appreciated. Directly, that is, not waiting for another random loot table to go your way when you refresh the shops.

I don't want to sound too negative; the random loot is a cornerstone of the tabletop RPG experience they're drawing from, and it works out pretty well during the single player campaign. I just don't enjoy how it interacts with availability for builds (even in single player, e.g. quests or "puzzle" scenarios).

*(Now, it's more that I don't have the time. And the Loot Fairy is a great way to pull me back in for a coffee break game now and then!)

 

Well there will be a point where most people will have 100% of all common, uncommon and eventually all rare items. I'm at that point now so only epic and legendaries are worth taking a look at. At this point it feels much more like a slot machine game rather than loot game, since every other non epic non legendary is automatically gold.

I wouldn't say that I gain nothing after an intense night of playing anyway. Most of my items are now directly gold and my collection will grow once a week (Randimar). There are suggestion that randimar should be able to reset more often, or manually paid reset etc... to speed up this long process.

About what rewards means for us, a night of playing like you described may not be as efficient as other method of farming gold, but it wont be as fun. People do come back to this game for reasons other than pure rewards.

In the end, it will be a very, very, very long time until randimar can no longer reliably grow your collection. There will be times where this game fade away, its inevitable, but don't overthinking it.

 

I think that randomness is good. It's supposed to be like opening real-life card packs where you will get random cards. And if you play enough, eventually you are guaranteed everything you want, it just takes time.
I'm simply waiting for balance updates for example to play MP again (they better be good! ). A pair of VPs would do too

 

This is the big thing.

 

Ranked MP is not (only) skill testing.

 

I disagree with what you said, but I think you have the right idea. Confused... don't worry I am too!
Random loot is an incentive to keep coming back, BUT it is not as satisfying as grinding that you know will reach a goal. Then when you reach the plateau that most competitive players are at in MP the random loot feels pointless. Add to that the lack of an ability to control obtaining desired items (VIBRANT PAIN for example) and you are left only playing for glory which then becomes tough when you get to the poin that you know you can only get to just so high of a rating without a critical piece that you are looking for (LIKE A FREAKIN BLAZING SHORTSWORD).
Add to that the frustration of the sell-buy gold ratio for items and the tedium of selling 500 gp worth of commons and uncommons is only worth it if you are desperate for gold.
I don't think randomness would be an issue if there wasn't such a chasm between the best epic/legendary items and the unplayable ones. Like my last purple chest I got a legendary drop, but when it was the Human Skill with Adv. Battlefield training and weak parry I closed my browser.

BUT I would say the Loot Fairy and gold leagues have me farming and playing leagues (where I got the purple chest) with most of the time I have to actually play as opposed to ranked matches which I would love to be better at (I am now ready to accept advice I got a while ago and go WW/WWE).

 

Hope you had a decent price for your soul :/

 

Hey it's a lease not a sale... granted I know I won't get it back in the condition I lent it in, but these are the breaks!

 

I'm happy with it

 

I will say that leagues have helped speed up epic/legend collecting, which is great. But I still don't think it's enough. Even if we don't get randimar's resets or item crafting, I'd at the very least like to see a system to get a hold of items we don't have... maybe a "black market" where you can buy/trade for an item you don't have? Basically anything to instill a sense of "progress" to collecting. If useless epics/legends aren't going to be made better, it'd at least be a slight consolation if by getting one you could say "well at least I checked that one off".

(edit: To illustrate my point, immediately after writing this I found Trained Tactics in my loot fairy chest. Terrible! But it wouldn't be so bad if I knew it meant my chances of getting other legends was increased...)

 

I've just left a game with exactly the same grinding system the OP desires It's called Card Monsters, and it was pretty addictive, so I've even spent a lot of money on it. But my time is more important that my money now, and I cannot grind all day long to become a bit closer to my goal. So I can afford only the games that can be played when I want and not more than 1-2 hours per day.
Card Hunter has a lot of flaws, but it's such game. I guess if the MP purple chest would be weekly instead of daily, it would be much more popular, and people would play MP much more.
As for the legendary hunt, that's complicate. If the players would get everything they want, the game would become "pay to win" or "grind to win", which isn't better. I think the best way would be a "random slot system", which I'll try to describe now. The chance of getting a legendary should depend on the total number of legendaries you already have: the less you have, the more the chance. This would allow the new players to amass the legendaries quickly and encourage the mature players to have several accounts per player But ultimately, this would make every account more or less unique: for instance, this acc has two Vibrant Pains, so it's a warrior acc, while another acc may be a Firestorm acc. If a player doesn't like his set of legendaries, he can always sell them to get the new ones.

 

Well after three matches last night I dropped it. I got pimp slapped AND it just wasn't fun especially because Koi is my least favorite board EVER!
I wish I could get my record on different maps all time I dont have the time to manually go through my history.
I am sure Koi would be my worst record. Not sure what it is I just dont do well there. I guess I like room to battle.

 

Though this would kill "the collector" motivation.

 

Maybe it should be the longer you go without getting an Epic or Legendary the chance goes up slightly each time to a cap.

From a SP-only perspective I'm happy with the place the game is in now when it comes to loot drops. The Loot Fairy gives me a greater chance to get something nice. I may still be annoyed that I get a duplicate or something bad, but the next day is another chance! Obviously, I don't know anything about MP and will refrain from commenting on that side.

 

I like the random loot, normally it would have to make you do with what you have. Unfortunatly, so many of the cards are downright unplayable in mp that evrebody uses a very limited pool of items.

 

How many players are really collecting here? I haven't seen a single answer "I'll buy it just for my collection" in the "Rate my Randimar's rarities" thread. Most players need the items to build strong chars.

 

Those players who are collectors don't have a reason to post on the Rate my Ranidmar's thread, they're collectors! If they have the gold, and don't have the item, they buy it. No advice needed. I can actually think of multiple players just off the top of my head that are collectors to some capacity or another.

 

The fact that the larger percentage of items one has, the harder and harder it becomes to get new unique items means that it would be a bad idea to make it so that the percentage of drops actually goes down as you gain items. As the system already stands, the newer you are to the game the faster you advance relative to more established players.

Edit:

@Stexe is currently running an experiment to see how high he can level an account using only rares and below. I'm not sure where he's gotten to at the moment, but the fact is that it's not usually access to items that prevents players from getting to a reasonably high level.