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@rgutscheradev the dev posted underdark +5 rings drop rate increased 10x

Why was this announced, but the change/reversion to it was not announced? @nitocris83 @mimicking#6533 @rgutscheradev

It's quite obviously been changed back to what it was previously, used to see 1 in the rewards every couple of runs, have not seen any in a month and our guild does demo a few times a day.


There have been some questions about what the increased drop rates of Legendary Rings really means, and I wanted to give some info there. This is a topic I have some history with....

When I first came onto the Neverwinter team about 15 months ago (has it really been that long?!), one of the first things I had to do was make some reward tables for a dungeon (not make the loot itself, which had already been made, but make the random tables that determined how it dropped). I started by looking at the previous set of reward tables, and one of the first things I said was “What’s with these crazy low rates on the Legendary Rings? These should be dropping 10 times as often!” I couldn’t convince people of that, but I did manage to get the drop rate to be 2 times as often. (That was the previous Legendary Ring drop rate increase quoted above from much earlier patch notes.)

The initial drop rate was very small, so twice as often was still very small. But it definitely was an attempt at a real increase --- we’re definitely not trying to trick anyone by increasing stuff by 5% and then writing a patch note claiming “big increase!” or anything like that.

Cut to the more recent round of changes. One of the things people have called out as frustrating is how incredibly rare the rarest things (like the Underdark Rings) still are. So this time we’ve increased them again, by around x5. This is on top of the previous change, so it’s a total of x10. Hopefully this will be enough to be noticeable. But they are still very rare -- that’s because they were so super-rare to begin with.

I know this brings up the question of “why were they so super-rare to begin with?” The easy answer would be to say “boy, those people who picked the initial drop rates were dumb, but we are much smarter!” I don’t think that’s right, though, so I wanted to talk a bit more about what goes into picking drop rates. (Feel free to skip the rest of this post if you aren’t interested in the generalities.)

So why should there ever be super-low drop rates? Well, the original idea of the Legendary Rings was that they were “the thing you don’t have yet”. It’s not much fun to run a dungeon when you have all the unique stuff it drops. You can run it just for numerics (RP and AD), but that’s kind of dull. So it’s good if there’s always a chance of a big win. That means that (even for the most hardcore player) there should be something that can drop that you don’t have yet. But that means there has to be *something* that’s crazy rare (or at some point you’d have everything). The Legendary Rings were meant to play that role. In my opinion, it was overdone. So we’ve raised the rates. But keep in mind the risk whenever we do that: the risk of players saying “there’s nothing in that dungeon I don’t already have, how boring!” (For the Legendary Rings, I think that’s unlikely, because there are so many different kinds, which is part of why raising the drop rate makes sense to me.) So I think there absolutely is a place in the game for extremely rare loot, even if the Legendary Rings weren’t in the ideal spot.

While we’re talking drop rates, another big tension that’s related is the one between sellable and non-sellable stuff. I’ve noticed this has come up a lot in the thread. Some players don’t like the RNG aspect, and want loot to be more predictable. But some players want loot they can sell. If the loot drops fairly often, though, and it’s BoE, then it won’t sell for much. So the really good sellable loot has to be really rare. Dungeon artifacts (like Lostmauth’s Horn of Blasting) have sometimes played this role in the past. This is also a narrow line to walk -- some players really want a chance to get a thing that sells on the Auction House for 100,000 AD, others want the feeling that they can get the things they want directly from drops without having to get really involved in the larger AD economy. I’m sympathetic to both points of view, but I don’t know any way to satisfy both players *with the same item*. What we’ve been going for is a mix: some items that you can earn steadily (say by accumulating a currency and then buying the item in a store), some that you get randomly but they come pretty often (and thus aren’t worth much for resale), and some super-rare things that have a chance to maintain their value (but they can’t drop that often!). Sometimes we can get around these problems by taking something that’s otherwise pretty rare and dropping a bound version of it with a higher chance -- then there’s a higher chance you’ll get one, but the AD value is maintained (the down side here is you can feel bad that you got a 100,000 AD thing but you can’t sell it -- of course, if you could sell it, so could everyone else, and it wouldn’t be worth 100,000 AD anymore!).

Recently we’ve been pushing a bit more towards more stuff that more people can have (hence things like the increased chances on some drops with these changes), but of course the flip side of that is potentially less value for those who want to farm and sell. But overall we still want a mix of these strategies, even if the exact mix shifts over time.

We don’t always manage these tensions (bound, unbound, rare, common) as well as we should. (For example, I think we’ve frequently had a shortage of the sort of inbetween loot -- not so rare that you never see it, but rare enough that it still feels like a win -- loot that can be fun to get even if it doesn’t sell for a ton.) And sometimes we just need to plain make more loot (this is something I’ve been trying to push for, but of course those resources compete with other things like class balance or building new dungeons). But I wanted to give some insight into why some things are more or less rare, or why some things are bound or unbound, and what some of the issues are that we’re thinking about when we make loot and decide how and when to drop it.
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Comments

  • lowenduslowendus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 322 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    I said I'll give it a shot and bought legendary keys via AD exchange.

    Got utter HAMSTER from ESOT, ELOL, CN and cemented the notion it ain't worth it and was happy I didn't spend real cash on those.

    Even with the crafted keys I got the usual trash loot I used to get pre key change.

    Edit: I had a total of around 15keys (crafted and legendary) I think from which I only got trash blue loot.

    I seriously don't understand how they expect people to spend money on those, still gushing out trash loot.

    It's a disgrace, not for the loot, but for the Nuclear Scientist that came up with this monetization idea.
  • darthpotaterdarthpotater Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,261 Arc User
    Not only +5 rings they reverted all the drop chances a week after they key change.
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  • santralafaxsantralafax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,896 Arc User
    You actually got +5 rings to trade??? I don't want to hear about it.... +5 rings are a myth.
  • asterotgasterotg Member Posts: 1,742 Arc User
    I geared up an GF out of spite, after I was rewarded with +5 rising defense, +5 rising deflect and 2x+5 orcus on my CW.
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  • fizgigtiznalkie#4436 fizgigtiznalkie Member Posts: 372 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    This is why the community is always so up in arms, you tell us things, and roll out changes with no patch notes and ghost, silent for weeks until there's such a backlash you have to say something.

    Just come out and say the drops are too high, we're rolling them back a bit but they'll still be better than before by XX%. Mystery solved. You can say we've upped drops 10x and then remove it without comment.
  • edited March 2017
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  • fizgigtiznalkie#4436 fizgigtiznalkie Member Posts: 372 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    My solution is even simpler, make it a 20 pack instead of a 5 pack of legendary dragon keys for the same price.
    Post edited by fizgigtiznalkie#4436 on
  • rgutscheradevrgutscheradev Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 188 Cryptic Developer
    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).
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  • xaluhnxxaluhnx Member Posts: 40 Arc User
    I ageee 100% @defiantone99 My observation is based off a Full Guild and almost full Alliance, The first week the key changes were rolled out Guild and Alliance chat was going Crazy with people posting rewards mounts, companions etc then soon after it all died down, I personally never felt an increase at all as I didnt get any drops other then junk I guess my RNG is shot all to hell lol, But now It seems as the drop rates are the same as before the key changes.

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  • enyo1989enyo1989 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 10 Arc User
    After the first week of key change the droprate goes down... The last weeks i did ~250 edemo runs without any legendary ring.
    I just stopped running edemo/ndemo because its frustrating to hope for a good loot or ring.
    The only "spezial" loot i got was an green horse and an symbol of fire, both bound to account.
  • vteasyvteasy Member Posts: 708 Arc User
    double check those numbers, something is way off with drop rates.
  • sobacsobac Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 442 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    I think they didn't reverted it. It was 0.001% drop before and now it's, indeed, 10x more frequent - 0.01%, so WAI :D
    Joking aside, after this change i got two +5 rings more: brutality and sudden LS. But RNG suck in everything else for me, after 200+ CN runs, i only have 1 (one) sudden precision +4 (and four +3). And from 8 out of 10 final chests, i still get +1/+2 rings, so... :|
  • mightyerikssonmightyeriksson Member Posts: 842 Arc User

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).

    A question:

    Are there any external modifiers besides just the actual, same for all players, loot-table that determines your reward?

    As in: how much damage/healing you do (not to be confused with Gold/Silver/Bronze rank), how many times you have run said dungeon, weekly resets, Zen-purchases and so on...
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  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).

    everyone I've talked to in game agrees that the rate went right back down again. at first every edemo run someone was pulling a plus 5. then after a week or so no one was... it's referred to as a ninja nerf pretty universally.
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    Absolutely - Everyone I know noticed the jump and then back to normal with drop rates.

    Everyone is of the opinion that the changes were reverted after about a week - needless to say most people assumed this was a deliberate move and that the one good week was to soften the blow of the chest key changes.

    It's good to hear this wasn't the case but it does warrant investigation on the dev side.
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  • fizgigtiznalkie#4436 fizgigtiznalkie Member Posts: 372 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    @rgutscheradev yes, the new notification system makes it obvious if anyone in the ten man reg demo got a ring, i ran 100+ thrones to get the chest for my tank and saw zero +5s the entire month.

    First two weeks after the changes I saw a couple of +5s a week in demo, castle never and skirmishes and also got a couple (sudden precision, ambush and vanishing presence). Recently, I've heard of someone in my guild getting a +5 orcus and that's it, I've seen nothing in my runs.
  • reg1981reg1981 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,435 Arc User

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).

    @rgutscheradev I noticed this as well. I leave reward notify on for even small rewards and the drop of +5s has stopped. I run a pile of demo runs and I haven't seen a +5 drop for a group member in a while. Now with MSVA, the drop rate seems to be where it needs to be other than the rings being character bound and giving me the wrong rings for my class :)
  • fizgigtiznalkie#4436 fizgigtiznalkie Member Posts: 372 Arc User
    I would agree with that, I've gotten 4 greater ostorian rings myself since I've seen my last +5 underdark for ANYBODY. See one in the rewards every couple MSVAs and every dozen or so FBIs.
  • qexoticqexotic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 841 Arc User
    edited March 2017

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).

    No offense @rgutscheradev, but there never was a 10x increase in the drop rate. This was discussed at length on the previous 33 page thread discussing the chest key change:

    http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/12932714

    You made a statement in yet another thread about how some changes had happened:

    http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/comment/12921260

    And to save everyone doing a lot of searching and scrolling through lists of comments here is the relevant quote from what @rgutscheradev posted back then:

    "When I first came onto the Neverwinter team about 15 months ago (has it really been that long?!), one of the first things I had to do was make some reward tables for a dungeon (not make the loot itself, which had already been made, but make the random tables that determined how it dropped). I started by looking at the previous set of reward tables, and one of the first things I said was “What’s with these crazy low rates on the Legendary Rings? These should be dropping 10 times as often!” I couldn’t convince people of that, but I did manage to get the drop rate to be 2 times as often. (That was the previous Legendary Ring drop rate increase quoted above from much earlier patch notes.)

    The initial drop rate was very small, so twice as often was still very small. But it definitely was an attempt at a real increase --- we’re definitely not trying to trick anyone by increasing stuff by 5% and then writing a patch note claiming “big increase!” or anything like that.

    Cut to the more recent round of changes. One of the things people have called out as frustrating is how incredibly rare the rarest things (like the Underdark Rings) still are. So this time we’ve increased them again, by around x5. This is on top of the previous change, so it’s a total of x10. Hopefully this will be enough to be noticeable. But they are still very rare -- that’s because they were so super-rare to begin with. "

    So to repeat what I said in that thread: the drop rate was doubled a long time ago and then increased by around 5x in the more recent changes. While that is a 10x increase in total, it came in two stages with a significant break in between (the 2x increase was over a year ago according to @rgutscheradev), so no full 10x increase all in one go. My guess would be that things have reverted to the state that existed after the initial 2x increase which was barely noticable to most players.





  • btairbornebtairborne Member Posts: 352 Arc User
    I think the problem is the Devs increased the rate from something like .2% to 2% and think that's a fair drop rate.
  • nickjdowenickjdowe Member Posts: 158 Arc User

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).


    "Should still be..." That sounds really shady. I farmed the hell out of Dread Legion/ Master of the Hunt skirmishes for 2 weeks straight, roughly 6 hours a day. Trust me when I say the drop rates were rolled back on console (Xbox). The drop rate on Energon companions alone was the dead give away. The other huge red flag was the adjustment to the drop rates on superior marks in MSVA. The first week SM dropped like candy, tons of people got their weapons to Legendary, fast forward a week and you'd be lucky to see 1 Superior Mark every 20-30 runs. Multiply each run x3 Legendary keys because face it, it's not feasible to farm enough SoMi content required to make 20-30 runs x3 keys/1xSM drop possible. So either the decision to roll back drop rates was above your pay grade or you are flat out lying. This isn't conspiracy this is reality and the majority of the community had noticed the changes almost immediately.
  • edited March 2017
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  • urabaskurabask Member Posts: 2,923 Arc User
    edited March 2017
    nickjdowe said:

    Nothing got reverted. The drop rates should still be at the new (10x higher) rate unless there's a bug.

    Are other people seeing this? That is, did other people see the rate go up, and then go down again?

    Keep in mind that these are very small numbers, and so it's hard to get good probability estimates from casual observation. Which is why I'm definitely interested to know if other people have seen the same thing (so that there's more data).


    "Should still be..." That sounds really shady.
    I farmed the hell out of Dread Legion/ Master of the Hunt skirmishes for 2 weeks straight, roughly 6 hours a day. Trust me when I say the drop rates were rolled back on console (Xbox). The drop rate on Energon companions alone was the dead give away. The other huge red flag was the adjustment to the drop rates on superior marks in MSVA. The first week SM dropped like candy, tons of people got their weapons to Legendary, fast forward a week and you'd be lucky to see 1 Superior Mark every 20-30 runs. Multiply each run x3 Legendary keys because face it, it's not feasible to farm enough SoMi content required to make 20-30 runs x3 keys/1xSM drop possible. So either the decision to roll back drop rates was above your pay grade or you are flat out lying. This isn't conspiracy this is reality and the majority of the community had noticed the changes almost immediately.
    And this is why devs avoid talking about drop rates. Players always have anecdotal evidence and always twist anything they say.

    IMO there might have been some sort of change to the random drops from chests (e.g. mounts, comps, artifacts) but 1 superior mark per 20-30 runs of msva was the norm prior to mod 11.
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  • nameexpirednameexpired Member Posts: 1,282 Arc User
    My experience (which obviously is only a small window) also point in the direction that the first week after they key-fix there dropped more +5 rings than after. Until the patch that followed.
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  • darthpotaterdarthpotater Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,261 Arc User
    @rgutscheradev intentional or not, the rollback was and is obvious. And frustrating.

    New Spellplague could be the start of something good ... but again dissapointing. Trash loot we dont deserve. Think about this:

    We play to have fun. Running and completing a dungeon is fun. More if is hard. Good loot is fun, progressing your character is fun. The trash loot frustrates everything.

    There are lots of things you can put in the guaranteed loot table only to make the run worth it. We have to spend money in keys!! How is that hard to put a good guaranteed reward plus a chance to get something epic!
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