War Spoils System: The Quick Fix

I hate reading (TL;DR) - Just read the bold and look at the pretty pictures and you'll get the gist.

The Multiple choice Hotfix

This isn't a solution, just a quick fix. I think a trade or economic system should still be worked towards

So a lot of things have already been suggested, an economic replacement(Lol,Dota), crafting system, trade system. These are all tried and tested systems in other games and i would personally love any of them over a RNG, but doing an entire system revamp would be a lot of time and money for relic.

So here is something i propose that is probably the quickest and easiest to implement on Relics side with minimal coding and UI rework required.

The biggest issue I, and probably most of you reading, is that we have zero control over what we win, it's infuriating to say the least. So this screen will pop up now instead of the current system when you win something.



Pretty self explanatory, 3-5 unlocks pop up, you may select one.

This gives you the player, control over your winnings.

The amount of pop ups doesn't really matter, it could even be organized in a column format of 4 winnings for each faction and you get to select one, this way you can focus on winning things for the faction you like playing the most, second example;




Thoughts?

Having no control over what you win is not a problem if you can buy and trade instead.

Since we're just wishing for stuff I'd opt for that instead because trading offers the most control over what you ultimately get. That, and duplicates would retain their value.

Having no control over what you win is not a problem if you can buy and trade instead.

Since we're just wishing for stuff I'd opt for that instead because trading offers the most control over what you ultimately get. That, and duplicates would retain their value.

The main issue is the time it takes to develop test and eliminate a trade system, or any other system. A trade system is needed for the duplicates, but to ease this frustration for now i think this would be a quick solution.

The main issue is the time it takes to develop test and eliminate a trade system, or any other system. A trade system is needed for the duplicates, but to ease this frustration for now i think this would be a quick solution.

If the system truly is just incomplete, then people will get over their frustrations once it's fully implemented.

No need to quick fix something if the problem is only perceived or very temporary.

This would be a BIG improvement to the existing system!

While I personally would also prefer such a system, as it allows me to get more free content in a shorter time, I do not think it's feasible.

This system was implemented and designed in a way that you'll still have things to unlock in years from now. All these suggestions about a trading system or choosing which reward you get have one side effect - effectively they massively speed up the rate at which you gain new items. That means the "fix" you suggest actually is none. Only if you would decrease the rate at which you get drops (if you have 5 choices it's roughly by factor 3.7 unless I made a major math-fault) the actual timings stay the same. Else it's nothing more than an elaborate way to speed up the drops.

A "fix" for the system would be something that improves the system, yet keeps it's behavior similar. Possibilities would be not to show duplicate drops (same completion rate as now), to get a new drop every X games (would require a system that slows down the drop rate relative to the inverse of the completion) or such a system as you proposed with a slowdown constant.

I think such a system would still be better. Why? It would be less RNG dependent. There would be less people that are super happy with the system, but also less people that are super disappointed with it. With 5 choices and a lower droprate the completion rate is the same, but the extreme cases (never getting new items // always getting new items) are normalized more. The persons who never get new items now have roughly 5 times the chance, while the people who constantly received new items now do so at a slower rate.

an interesting argument was brought to me. that doing these things would drastically increase the drop rate something relic doesn't want to do. so in order to make it work they'd have to make drops even rarer or add a lot of items. (otherwise you'd have all he items to fast negating the dlc structure etc...)

so basically my problem now is that if you are going to have duplicates there needs to be a use for them this is important because it helps keeps player interested in the system they aren't focused on not another dupe and more focused on 2 more and i can get something. or whatever the numbers may be as obviously having like 5 dupes to craft something there just isn't enough content. it also adds a level of interactivity which isn't there now. the more and more i think about the more complex i feel the solution is. so im going to write out a huge essay about what i think needs to happen to properly complete and flesh out there system.

as for this idea you have presented the more i think about i kinda like it but id puprose somthing slightly differnet every time you get a drop have the faction icons you get to choose which faction you get a drop for. idk picking the item takes away the random element alot and the surprise and suspense from the system that i think is very good thing it also adds the ability for the user to fuck up and pick the wrong one after you do it 200 times what do you expect.

I'm OK with duplicates as long as there is the commander rotation or other such events.

The worst problem I see is having my box full of icons and it being totally confusing.

One thing I have thought is that you are allowed to 'flip' an icon once, and it randomly generates a new icon with the same worth. It would help speed things up a bit but then it's not the situation that you can get the things you want too fast that it becomes boring.

I am amazed how many people care about bulletins, skins, faceplates.

Commanders should be purchasable if they have unique units/abilities.

If they are just combination of other commanders abilities, I don't mind them being solely a war spoil item.

There are way to many commanders anyway, and I personally haven't played with 80% of the ones I have

none of this actually increasing the drop rate the whole point is you are suppose to be excited when you get a new drop as you have teh potential to get somthing cool. not another mundane button you have to click at the end of a match.

It increases the drop rate in an abstract view.

I really dislike the current system, because it allows extremes or outliers. Assume every person gets 1000 random drops and you then measure the amount of different drops you will get a normal distribution. There is some value X, let's say it's 500 different items in this case which most people will have. The numbers right next to it, 499 and 501 are the ones which have the second most amount of people in the group. The further you move away from the 500, the less people will be in the group. So there are a few people who might have 100 or 900 useful items. And there might be someone who has one 1 useful item or one who has only useful items - normal distributions. The further you go away from the average, the less likely, but not impossible.

That's why in most computations you do not use random numbers, but pseudorandom numbers. In a slightly more abstract way what they do is the following. There are two groups of actions, A (useful item) or B (duplicate). You have a different chance for each action to happen depending on the size of the group. Let's say we have 600 (equally weighted) items and you already have 100. In a normal system that would mean you have group A with (500/600) and group B with (100/600). Upon choosing a group it then selects a random item out of that group. If it's group A it will remove it from the group and add it to B.
A pseudorandom generator will not start with such numbers, but will have a lower chance for the positive result, so instead of 5/6 and 1/6 it will maybe be 5/10 and 5/10. Then when the negative result happens it will increase the probability of the positive one.
P(A) = 5/10 and P(B) = 5/10 Turn 1
P(A) = 6/10 and P(B) = 4/10 Turn 2
P(A) = 7/10 and P(B) = 3/10 Turn 3
...
P(A) = 10/10 and P(B) = 0/10
At some point it will make the positive result have a 100% chance, so it must happen. Once this happens the base probabilities start in the beginning again (so assume A happened), then it'S
P(A) = 499/1000 and P(B) = 501/1000 Turn 1
...
This basically decreases the chance of constantly having A or B happening and minimizer the outliers.

This is personally what I dislike most about the system. The duplicate drops itself are not great, but that it can be really unfair is something I despise. Adding a use for the duplicates might help to a degree, but this flaw will still be in the system.

Short hand

Has there been any info on the script controlling the drops? Is it just a basic RNG of all items or do they have an algorithm that looks at already owned items? They could even compound it with adding a counter for each drop you receive, the counter could increase the chance of the rare items like commanders so you don't just have a flat .5% chance of winning a commander every time.