Thursday, January 8, 2015

How Are Random Stats (and other things) Treating You?

I've kept no secrets with how I feel about the random number generator and how I wish it would just go away and never come back.  This expansion has taken random to a whole new level, effectively moving the game in a direction directly away from what I look for in a game.  I look for consistent focused game play where you work your way toward a goal, not luck of the draw game play where getting to that goal is up to lady luck. 

There are random stats on mission gear, random stats on crafted gear, reroll random stats items, random abilities on followers, random tertiary stats, random warforged gear, random gem slots, and the list goes on, and I hate each and every one of them, some more than others.  But that does not mean I have not had my fair share of luck so far this expansion.  Even when on a lucky streak, I still can not stand random.

How is random treating you this expansion?

As far as random stats go, I never seem to get the stats I am looking for on gear I get from follower missions.  My shaman and my druid are, sadly, the worst off.  Each of them has had at least a dozen chances each to get a neck piece of various item levels where I set my loot specialization to restoration only to find myself, once again, with a piece that has no spirit on it.  How it is possible that I have rolled at least 24 necks with a healer specialization and not a single one of them had spirit on it?

My hunter was never able to get a ring so I finally caved in and made myself one a few weeks ago and then upgraded it from 640 to 655 to 670 and have been trying to get multi strike and critical strike on it for what seems like forever.  I must have rerolled it 30 times if not more already and I can not get that combination of stats.  It just feels like a waste of my time and resources to keep rerolling, so I stopped even trying.  I will never end up with multi strike and critical strike on it, I have learned to accept that as a fact.

Not all my luck with stats on gear has been bad however, I have had a little luck here and there, mostly throw away luck however.  My hunter has not had much luck in the raids with bonus stuff but while gearing it up when the expansion first came out it seemed like every single piece of gear I got from a dungeon had either a gem slot or was warforged and on two occasions it had both.

My rogue has two indestructible daggers, one with a gem slot, and two other indestructible pieces.  What are the odds of one character having 4 pieces of gear with the indestructible stat on it?  My warrior got a 645 weapon from a mission that not only ended up warforged but with a gem slot and leech on it.  The trifecta of bonus rolls on one piece of gear.

So I've had a little luck here and there with stats and bonuses on gear but over all I would have to say my luck has been poor over all.  Most of my luck seems to have come before it mattered (my hunters heroic dungeon gear) or on characters I do not raid on (my warrior and rogue) while the characters I want to raid on like my shaman, druid and hunter, have had no luck what so ever when it comes to stats from the healers not getting spirit gear to my hunter wasting so many materials trying to reroll stats that never want to be there.

One of the biggest luck thing this expansion is the big crate of salvage from your level three salvage yard.  I managed to get lucky on the day I built it with a 665 BoE that ended up going to my druid.  A few weeks passed and I got a second 665 which just so happened to be one of my best in slot pre mythic trinkets for my hunter in the form of the lucky double sided coin.

So even if it took a month, and what had to be thousands of crates, you could call it bad luck to get so few but I call it good luck to get the one I really wanted.  Even with the good luck, as someone pointed out to me, with the amount of level three garrisons that I am running I should be getting a few 665 BoEs a week, even if they are only a 1% drop chance.

I am currently running seven level three garrisons with seven level three salvage yards.  On a week day where I do not get to play as often I log in before work, when I get home, and then before I go to bed which can get me somewhere between 100 and 150 crates a day.  On weekends it is more.  So over the course of a week it is not our of the norm for me to open over 1000 crates now even on a bad week.  With those types of numbers, maybe my friend is right, I should be getting a lot more even if it were a 1% drop chance.

But last week it seemed to all catch up as I managed to get not one, not two but three 665 BoEs over the course of five days.  So I went a long time with only two, then had three in one short span of time.  It seems to fit the random number generator in the game.  Feast or famine.  I have often said that RNG seemed to always be you either win everything or win nothing, this is just another case of that.

Still, even with that burst of luck last week my over all average is poor at best.  But do not tell that to the people that have received not even one 665 yet, like someone in my guild with 5 level three salvage yards that has not even seen one piece yet.  Then there is one guy in trade that claims to get one or two pieces a day, at least.  Being he is forever selling them in trade chat he either is getting that lucky or he is duping them.  Either is possible, but the guy seems to have an endless supply of 665 pieces for sale and he is selling them all day long every day.

So once again, while for me I consider 5 pieces in less than 2 months to be extraordinary luck, in the grand scheme of things based on the number of crates I open, I am still working on the short end of the stick.

So I have had a great deal of luck this expansion, when looking at my past history, even if over all it might not seem like such great luck.  But it is all about perception.  And as I perceive it, I am having a lucky expansion thus far.  And guess what?  I still hate RNG and hate the game is turning further and further toward it as a style of game play.

How are random stats and other things treating you?

19 comments:

  1. My problem isn't just that there are random stats, but that there are hundreds of thousands of different random stat pairings. My supple leggings, for example (the only crafted gear I'm still wearing), let's say I'm lucky enough to re-roll them a few times and end up with the "of the savage" crit/multistrike stats, a 1 in 10 chance. There's still the matter of stat distribution, +123-184 Crit and +123-184 Multistrike. And it seems like, even if it's rare, it's possible you can roll a piece with below budget stats. So you might need to reroll, even though you got of the savage, because it doesn't have as many total stats as it could, then you end up with some silly "of the feverflare"... :-/

    From a theorycrafting stand point, it's insanely obnoxious. I can accept that blizzard doesn't want there to be a BiS list, but they're going about accomplishing it the wrong way...

    I'm assuming there won't be any upgades to crafted gear in 6.1/BrF, which will be good. I really want Mythic gear to continue to be the clearly best gear.

    Also, while I'm wishing, I really wish they'd do Mythic gear the same way they do Conquest gear, where honor gear can have silly random gem stats or be WF, but conq can't. I'd like to see mythic gear always have the same value, every time it drops.

    Come to think of it, Blizz's reasoning for being against BiS lists is that they're only applicable to a small percentage of the wow playerbase who actually finish raids, so they'd rather have "fun" with random upgrades since most people never make it to BiS. Well if they only had fixed bonuses for mythic gear, then it would only apply to the small percentage of players who are doing mythics anyway.

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    1. There is also the chance you can get one with one stat, double of the stat but still one stat. I made one piece like that the other day. It has double mastery. Ouch, who the hell needs mail with double mastery? Maybe a shaman healer.

      I think they are doing that with mythic as well as everything else in their effort to try and keep people raiding. So they can keep trying for that best piece with a gem slot, warforged and maybe speed on it or something. The perfect piece.

      For people like me gear is on the bottom of the motivational list. I kill things because I enjoy doing it. If I have to kill it 100s of times to get one decent piece of gear , the fun of killing it does start to go down, even if it is not all about gear. Gear should be a reward, sure, but not the be all end all award, clearing the content is the reward. I downed garrosh on heroic (now mythic) once and only once. Once I killed him my motivation to kill him again was zero, because of how long it took to get there. The fact he has gear for me meant nothing to me. I raid for kills and fun, not gear. I am sure I am not alone, even if I might be in the smaller percentage. But blizzard needs to ditch this "all about the gear" mentality in my opinion. It is ruining the game for me.

      Want to know what would be "fun" in my opinion? Easier raids that I can pug with anyone and get stuff down instead of having to wait for the one night a week my guild raids. I do not need difficulty, I just want to slay internet dragons. Nothing is fun about raiding right now. Pug success rates are dreadfully low. What exactly does blizzard think is fun about that?

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  2. Essentially my take on it is that you're too focused on it.

    Being you play a hunter for the crafted gear you should just look for MS, whatever come with it will do because the gain will be withing the margin of error (sure it adds up, but still) and tbh, I would even prefer a piece with only MS on it :p

    WF/sockets are just bonuses and are overall quite frequent, having 2 of them is where the luck really kicks in.

    In the end what will really matter is how you perform in raid, luck on gear (appart from getting a piece or not) will not be the decisive factor.

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    1. I only have one crafted piece and it is all I ever had. I geared thought the raid first and then filled that one spot I could not find with a piece of crafted gear.

      I get what you are saying however. For my alts it would be a case of just find anything that has my best stat not caring about the second one, and it will be good. Solid suggestion.

      But the problem is me, personally. I am the type of player that if they give me the option to reroll I will keep rerolling until I get it right. I would rather have a system that has one set of stats and that is all it has, then rerolling stats over and over. At least with one single set of stats you know where you stand.

      In the end, as you said, it is about how you do, not what you wear.

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  3. Last weekend I re-rolled the stats on my legs on my hunter 44 times (I kept a tally) before I saw MS or Crit on them. I settled for a Mastery/MS combo. I was so sick of seeing the Haste/Versatility combo. I wish I had kept track of how many times I rolled that combo of stats, just to work out the statistics. Personally, I'm a little put-off by the randomness. I might enjoy it a little more if the re-roll mechanic allowed you to target a single stat. The second stat could still be completely random.

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    1. Ouch, not even one or the other, that really sucks. Sorry to hear that.

      I am not happy with the randomness either. I do like your idea that you should be able to choose at least one of the stats, which would help some.

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  4. I agree with the first anon, I really only focus on the first stat and it relieves a lot of my anxiety. If I get my prime stat on a upgrade I call it a win. my secondary stat after multistrike slides around so much anyway depending on my Ilevel its just too much to worry about.

    Also I don't know how you handle 7 garrisons doing to is about all I can handle be careful on burning yourself out!

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    1. I barely handle it. I log in each day, do them all, not even the mine, and then maybe I have time for a daily or two and my night is over. garrisons just take too much time for someone with a lot of alts.

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  5. Well, I have only 2 Level 3 Salvage Yards, but have had them for several weeks now, well over 1000 crates, and not one 665 BoE. Not one.

    Of 4 alts that I have followers on and send on missions ( 3 with 20 followers, one has only a few), not one mission that offers the retraining certificate. Not one. Ever.

    Have not had the heart to even try rerolling secondary stats. To be honest, I don'understand why Blizz declared reforging to be evil evil evil, but it's apparently OK as long as you have no control over the outcome. *Scratches head*

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    1. My main has never gotten a retraining mission but I have a level 93 that current has 5 in its bags. Random sucks sometimes.

      Reforging should come back and this rerolling thing removed. I was against reforging being removed in the first place, and even more so now. It made no sense when they said it and makes less now. I am right there scratching my head with you.

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  6. Let me see what random stat items do I have:
    Multistrike-Mastery (Garrison neck)
    Crit-Haste (Crafted mail legs)
    Crit-Mastery Socketed (Garrison boots)

    I guess those are the only ones I still have.

    If I upgrade the crafted mail legs to 670, I might try rerolling them a couple times to try and get Multistrike, but I don't know that it'll matter much.

    I did get several dungeon items that were socketed and/or warforged as well, but I've replaced all those now.

    I got a 665 BoE while questing that I sold to pay for some other BoEs. Nothing really good from crates so far, but I only have one garrison.

    I just snagged a Lucky Double-Sided Coin for 20k last night off the AH. It's normally going for 40-60k on my server.

    Plus that other 665 BoE I got for 3k over the weekend. So my luck has been in sniping the AH... (special thanks to TSM) rather than in drops/stat rolls. Got a TCG mount for half price the other day as well...

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    1. Wow, the double sided coin for 20K is a huge win. Congrats on that one. They are still over 60K on my server too. Heck, at that price I would have bought one just to resell it. Getting a 665 for 3K is another steal. Seems like your luck is circling different areas than mine is so far. But a win is a win and those are wins.

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  7. I learned early and often that it's basically impossible to get the stat pairing (or solo stat, as with multistrike for my monk) so I stopped worrying about it. I've stopped worrying about stats in generally, really, I'll certainly equip an upgrade if I get one but if a piece comes in with versatility and mastery... I run the piece with versatility and mastery. Most of the gear I'm wearing right now came from missions... "free" gear. Hard to then complain that they aren't optimal. It also gives me reason to look forward to right-clicking the next token for that slot that I get.

    I'm kind of baffled by the claim of a 1% drop rate on 665 BoEs from crates... I've had 4 toons at 100 with L3 Salvage Yards for at least a month each. I run as many missions as possible each day. I open a lot of crates, although certainly not 1000 a week...

    To this point, ZERO 665 BoEs. I'm not complaining, mind you, it's just a thing that's happening.

    Ah well. @Fiannor, it could be worse. :)

    I'm generally enjoying the expansion so far, although probably less than any other that I've played... I'm spending too much time in my garrison even though I'm mostly skipping things like the mine and garden and most of my profession building work orders (is there any point to work orders for profession buildings other than tailoring for bags? Is there a significantly enough market for ANYTHING else to be worth talking about? If so, I'm not seeing it...).

    I'm spending 1-2 hours a night on garrisons without doing everything. That's a hell of a lot more time than I used to spend doing my daily profession cooldown rotation on a lot fewer toons and with a HELL of a lot less in the way of results... I'm making gold this expansion, I think, but I'm having trouble figuring out where the hell it's coming from. Is it possible that I'm making more off missions than professions? I'd say it's possible.

    I'm not running much, my toons generally have a nearly-full set of 615 and 630 gear waiting when they hit 100 from follower missions so there isn't much need to run heroics. I'm raiding a bit but only a bit, it's still early enough in the expansion that gear is iffy and it's hard to field a full group of capable enough players.

    There's zero need to farm anything outside of the garrison aside for trees and even those aren't necessary once you have a few scavenger followers.

    I've enjoyed questing... I like the weekly garrison missions (not the invasions, the quest lines... the invasions suck)... I both like and dislike the ability to gear up alts without ever leaving your garrison... I kind of like missions although since finally giving in and installing an add-on I'm mostly just enjoying winning them, I can't take much credit for putting the teams together...

    The dungeons and raids have been fine, I'm just not spending enough time in them.

    I've generally liked the class changes for all the classes, I can't point at any being worse for me although prot warriors still have too many buttons. That's not worse, though, just more of the same.

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    1. I wouldn't mind the lack of flying so much if half the trees I'm hunting for are on a ledge above my head that'll take me 5 minutes to get to. Hey Blizz... if you want to design environments with multiple levels, DON'T REMOVE FLYING. Every time I'm in that situation I'm just reminded all over again that there's a good chance I'll be having the same issue 2 years from now. Morons. If I could actually get where I want to go I'd likely be over it by now. Also, is it too much to ask that when there's a cave in a big-ass mountain that the map show roughly where on the mountain the cave is?

      I suppose my main issue so far is that it feels like 90% of my game time could be played on a tablet. It feels ... disposable. Right now I'm still on the leveling/gearing (including followers) treadmill but I'm having a hard time predicting how things will go once I hit the "good enough" plateau.

      Time will tell. Might not be too long, either.

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    2. Maybe it is way less than 1%, perhaps 0.01% would be more accurate, but if that was the case I would be insanely lucky, and that does not fit me. I did manage to get my 6th 665 this weekend however.

      I am thinking I might know a way to skew it some. Not sure if it is just a coincidence, but I save them up and open a lot at once. Now that they added stacking it should be easier. I usually open them in bunches of 20 at least.

      Engineering for pets is a decent one too, but with everyone having access to it I am not sure if they will hold any value compared to other engineering pets.

      The gold is coming from missions and crates. My priest, who was at 108K leveled to 100 and was down to something like 80K and then never leaves the garrison just broke 100 again this weekend. So she is back to where she started almost. Over the course of the expansion I can see her sitting at 250K-300K or more having never left her garrison. Assuming I do not use her, which I intend to sooner or later. But yes, you actually do make that much from salvage crates and follower missions. My shaman made 1971 gold from one collection of missions yesterday alone. Admittedly I had all the good ones at once, but that shows you what can be made.

      I agree, nothing is more annoying than running up to something, be it a dig site, an ore, herb, tree, and seeing it is on a ledge, around a mountain , etc. I really miss flight during these points. And more so when I remember something I wanted to do the second I get on a flight path. If I had flying it would be no big deal, but not I am flying someone out of the way and want to go back to do what I forgot about. Blizzard is wasting my time. I am not a fan of wasting time and even less of a fan when someone else wastes my time. We need flying back. It is a convenience only and not really needed, but I want that convenience back.

      The entire expansion is disposable. I am really hoping they can stick to their one year outlook. I am liking the expansion, but at the same time I can not wait for it to be over.

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  8. yeah, I know - always late on your postings with my readings and leaving tidbits of inefficacious goat droppings.

    I like haste and mastery, Not sure about all the others. So what are the different stats that people are considering the best?

    -roo

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    1. Multi strike and critical strike are best for SV and the other way around for MM, so those two stats work well for both and it is what I am using now.

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    2. what about Beast Master? That's all I play. Tried the lonewolf MM, I suck at it. I tried SV, not sure which but I sucked at that. I go back to BM and I can at least live.

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    3. Multistrike is best for BM as well, mastery is second.

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