Madcap Introduction
Posted by qwynt on 2009/02/05
So I figured I would kick this shindig off by throwing out a solid first post!
My first topic of conversation is going to be about tokens, and why they make sense in a world of end-game instances.
First, let’s use the Dark Promise chestpiece from Warhammer Online as an example. This item drops off N’kari, the last boss of Lost Vale (WARDB Link: http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=421010#dropped-by). This is basically the best chest piece you can get form PvE dungeon crawling until you PvE raid the King (Tchar’zanek in this case as this is from a Shadow Warrior).
Interestingly enough, the drop rate is listed as .66% but I have a feeling the raw data is flawed because it’s collecting from Order and Destruction, but players tend to take things like this as they are posted (which is one problem I have with database sites).
Lets look at the overall picture. Basically if you are an Order player you have a 1 in 11 chance of having your class chest piece drop because N’Kari only drops one chest piece. This is about a 9% chance for you to get your chestpiece each time you run Lost Vale. So lets say you do 11 runs and on the 11th you get your chest piece.
Let’s say the dungeon has a 5-day reset timer.
55 days to get one piece of gear, and that’s not factoring in bad luck as the loot dropping is random.
To me, what makes infinitely more sense is to base this off tokens. If this piece required 5 N’Kari kills, it would take the player 25 days to achieve this reward. This is a more guaranteed way a player can work and progress towards a goal without worrying about drop rates and hoping that he is the only member of his class to show up at that dungeon.
So far I haven’t heard too many negatives towards token systems, I personally feel the catch is to create a system that rewards the player for success in a dungeon, but doesn’t just throw loot at the player (when it comes to set pieces anyway, bosses should still drop other good items players can roll on, or use DKP on, or whatever).
