I know there is already tons of threads on this, but something needs to change here, as this is super demotivating.
First of all, arcana drop rate is supposed to be 1 in 17, but for a lot of us (check all the threads), this drop rate is closer to 1 in 40 or 1 in 50.
If you are trying to work on progress, by farming traits for cards, and you play for hours at an end without a single drop, then that is horrible game design.
Tons of options have been offered on these boards. A system like the revenge battles in pvp, but then for explore battle rewards. Or a simple counter that keeps track of how many matches ago you had your last arcane, and then just give you one after xx matches, or increase the chance.
Of if you donāt want to influence the actual chance of getting an arcane, then switch to a distribution system where you distribute the available gems over xx matches, which will ensure that if a player played, lets say 170 matches, he will have received 10 arcanes.
Let me make sure to state that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a drop rate of 1 in 17ā¦
But playing for hours without any reward, makes people just want to give up all together.
Nim mentioned fairly recently that they were thinking of adding a pity timer. The context there was more about pulling Mythics from chests, but it had been discussed for explores as well. Even if it was something like a guaranteed arcane if you hadnāt gotten one in your last 30 or 40 explores, that would prevent the kind of discouragement youāre talking about, without dramatically increasing the drop rate.
I really am not asking for a higher drop rate, the drop rate is fine.
Iām merely asking for a more predictable oneā¦
A pity timer would be a great step in the right direction.
But you canāt give that extra arcane to soon, or you will raise the chance of getting one by to much.
And you canāt give it after to many, or you will still have the 1 in 40 drop rate I see a lot now.
But it would still prevent you from not getting anything at all for hours at an end, so in that way itās good
I was thinking the timer would reset every time you get an arcane, so you could still get 3 arcanes in 5 explores if youāre lucky, but never go more than 40 without one.
I understand your point of view but Iāve seen it work both ways as I commented on another thread. My last 150 explores yielded 2 arcane and a celestial (your 1 in 50) but that came after getting 6 in 50 (about 1 in 8). And it wouldnāt be the only time Iāve swept between feast and famine. I just keep it up as much as I can.
Like I said there as well, I know it doesnt help much but just sharing my own experiences since Iāve seen them drop often too.
i think a pity timer would help. I have a guildmate that needed weeks to complete her khorvash cuz she gets 1 shield ts in 3 days (as avarage). bottom line, she still has to finish traiting him. Also is very annoying going like more that 30 explorations and finding only useless minor/major TSs, lie just happened to me. 1 in 17 would be a bliss!
Iāve played this game a long time and know what to expect drop rate wise. I have basically stopped doing āexploresā as the drop rate of Runic, Arcane, and Celestials Traitstones seems identical to PvP to me. Iām personally thinking there was a bug introduced by accident in the last update removing the x2 and x3 multiplier (on X1 for Explore). The developers have said they looked at things and the rate its ānormalā. So maybe theyāll accidentally patch it in the next update.
THREE. I really donāt think a pity timer is necessary for 6% chance at something. As āexploreā was never a frustrating until recently. Unless of course this ābugā or āwhateverā is never fixed then it is ESSENTIAL to add one to the X1.
I bet that lowering the drop rate to like 1:20 (for example) while adding a pity timer to keep the same overall rate of dropping would a) feel a whole lot more fair to the players, and b) not cause a disruption to the in-game economy.
you may not realize it but thats a terrible idea. youād just end up with less arcanes in the long run.
Iām at the point where arcanes are the only stones i need to finish traiting everything so i explore a LOT. Iāll sometimes get 0 in 3hrs, but sometimes i also get 3 back to back. In the end, if you want to minimize the variance in arcanes dropped, you will have to play a lot. Thatās the best way to balance out RNG.
I couldnāt agree more about these bad streaks needing to have some way to be mitigated as they tend to be more impactful and stick with a player longer than the good streaks. Yes, it balances out long term, but if this were your first experience, it would more than likely sour you to the mode or maybe even the game.
The first step, though, would be some large scale data gathering to determine if the drop rate on your particular platform is actually broken or not. My claim of āabout 1 in 17ā on PC/Mobile comes from data gathering spanning months and Iām currently up to 210 recorded arcane drops (thousands of battles). My single biggest bad streak during this time between two arcane drops was 112 consecutive explores with no drop, but there have been several 50+ droughts. There have also been several times where Iāve seen two, or even three consecutive arcane drops. Having a few bad streaks doesnāt mean you donāt still have an overall 1 in 17 drop rate, it just means you havenāt done enough battles to actually trend toward the actual drop rate. And if the problem persists over a large enough sample size, then there is an issue with the drop rate itself, which would be the first thing that needs to be fixed before any pity timers are added.
Based on the data I have gathered so far, having a pity timer at 50 battles done by removing the amount of battles between after 50 between any arcane drops would result in a difference of ~2.5% in the number of average battles at which an arcane is received (less than 100 battles removed in a set of about 3600) and simply adding an extra arcane drop into my data at every 50th at which none was obtained produces almost the same result (5 arcanes added in a set of 210). This percentage is less than the amount that the drop rates tend to vary by for data sets of 10-20 arcanes gathered. Adding a pity timer wonāt substantially affect the āeconomyā, nor will it be necessary to reduce overall drop rates to keep things even. Sometimes, what feels fair is more important than what actually is.
I appreciate your record keeping, insight, and post on this topic. I only logged about half a thousand recent Explore attempts. And Iāve completely stopped at this point. My question is during these āstreaksā did you record a similar simultaneous reduction in Runics and Celestials in addition to the Arcanes?
I know is a very small sample, My small Explore in Khetar showed a āsuspiciousā streak of drops falling at 1/2 Runic, 1/3 Arcane, and Celestials.
Totally agree with you. Feel really deflated after all my hard work for 3-5 hours straight sometimes. It is very frustrating. Something does need to be done about this. As they just seem very very rare , Even though on all the explores they say you have x3 chance of finding them in that area, and all I get are minor ones constantly that doesnāt seem right to me.
Unfortunately, I only recorded arcane drops. I track my stats using the battle counter for hero classes, making a note of the difference in total battles fought every time I get an arcane drop. It is the best way I could think of to gather the data I was actually interested in without significantly increasing the time cost to do so.
Since Iām not counting every single battle as they happen, I also pay attention to what āfeelsā like a really long time between arcane drops when I finally look at the number. I chose the number 50 as a good mark for the pity drop timer as it is usually when Iām approaching that number between drops that it starts to feel like you are wasting your time and it also would not significantly impact the number of arcanes handed out both short and long term. In the 20s, 30s, and even low 40s you can feel like it has been longer than usual but if you have a fast explore team, it doesnāt start to feel hopeless. 50+ is the mark where Iāve noted I personally feel like Iām wasting my time. Iāve only recorded this happening four times (five, if you count the one where I went 112 battles as two). 100+ has only happened once for me and feels like a huge waste of timeā¦ I canāt even imagine for someone that doesnāt have a 40 second clear explore team. Back to back gaps of 30+ can also feel pretty bad, but these are speed bumps that get smoothed out over time. Meanwhile, double and triple back to back drops elicit a feeling of āoh, neatā that fades within the next five minutes.
Yes arcanes drop in streaks for me since April 1st 2016 on console and PC even longer.
Itās common to go 100+ battles doing explore without a single arcane drop. Next day you might log in and do 100 explore battles and get 20 stones.
Unfortunately all platforms of this game suffer from this problem.
Iām on the ps4 .
I search most areas .
I donāt know what the drop should be. I get more minor ones than I ever do arcane and celestial even though it states X2 or x3 chance more than the others
that doesnāt seem right to me.