On the Topic of Changing the Card Drop Formula

[res7less]

I think your idea about capping at a particular value (eg. 10%) is spectacular. 10% is an example of a compromise between Own's (and a few others') distaste and what a majority of other people want. 10% is never guaranteed, but you shouldn't be grinding for too much longer at that point. Of course, it complicates the distribution, but what can you do? Sorry to ping you again Own, but I figured res7less' idea would be of some interest to you.

Heh, never try to force Own into commenting on anything anyone says. He's always all huddled up in his nice and cozy turtle shell of absurdly high self-esteem, only occasionally descending from the high heavens to teach us common rabble a lesson Thanks for the props, though!

On the topic of large decimals, Res7, It's actually quite the opposite. The more decimal points you have for a decimal value, the more accurate calculations involving that value will be. Of course there is an element of computer error and that is one reason why we don't need to be 100% mathematically rigorous. However, by maximising the number of figures that number has, the more accurate we get.

Huh, that's kinda surprising. The more you know, eh? Thanks for explaining!

While I agree on

I'm 100% in opposition to making drops less likely to happen early on just to ensure that a majority gets them at a specific grind amount.

I don't really see the big deal in

Trying to rig the 'luck' behind the scenes to try and ensure the majority of players gets something at around the same time removes the concept of a rare drop and turns it more into a kill quest with a bit of wiggle room masquerading as luck. You're unnaturally unlikely to get it on your first kill, or first ten, but at kill 50 you have a so-so chance and kill 100 you've got a great chance. Which is a system that only really works in any satisfying way if the player has no idea it actually exists. If they know that the game is secretly fudgeting the numbers the idea and thrill of anything being a rare find vanishes.

Sure, there is some truth to that, but what's wrong with making it a "quest"? The aspect of luck isn't removed entirely, you're only narrowing down the area to be lucky/unlucky in. You can still get lucky early on and you can still get unlucky with higher percentages, just within a smaller area. However, the interesting thing about your statement is that it inadvertently singles out the pivotal point around which the opinions of all the posters seem to differ, namely whether it's more important to create satisfaction or to avoid frustration.

Influencing luck does reduce satisfaction if it's known, but it also salvages the collateral damage for extremely unlucky sods who grind for hours on end without success. And since it appears that you can't have both, the key is probably to find the right balance between those two. Ultimately, I don't think there is an optimal solution, there never is. But at least being aware of the up and downsides might help defining what you want your system to be like and what it's supposed to achieve.

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

Which, in my opinion, is a ridiculous stance to have considering every other RPG in history works this way. Including the Castlevania GBA / DS games, which featured a system identical to SoG's cards. Except they were called Souls and every enemy had one.

Trying to rig the 'luck' behind the scenes to try and ensure the majority of players gets something at around the same time removes the concept of a rare drop and turns it more into a kill quest with a bit of wiggle room masquerading as luck. You're unnaturally unlikely to get it on your first kill, or first ten, but at kill 50 you have a so-so chance and kill 100 you've got a great chance. Which is a system that only really works in any satisfying way if the player has no idea it actually exists. If they know that the game is secretly fudgeting the numbers the idea and thrill of anything being a rare find vanishes.

I'm 100% in opposition to making drops less likely to happen early on just to ensure that a majority gets them at a specific grind amount. The only time RNG should be adjusted favorably or unfavorably (outside things the player can use to manipulate them) is when a threshold has been breached that's genuinely unfair to players time. I'm not sure what exactly that threshold is - 250 kills? 500? 1000? - but you don't need to completely overhaul the system from beginning to end when the only problem exists at the far end for an incredibly small percentage of outliers.

Own, as I said earlier, SoG is not other games. What other games have done is completely irrelevant in terms of what SoG should do for players concerning card drop rates. For all we know, certain aspects of them could have been designed wrong/poorly (could have). What's important is answering the questions that I addressed, which you still have not addressed.

I don't care about the "concept of a rare drop". Again, cards aren't only a rare drop. Because of how they're tied to the lore, they have a significant difference compared to regular drops (or drops from other games that you keep mentioning). I believe that should be considered, and I believe doing so give a more rewarding feeling. (It could also be explained in-game.) I'm not sure if you read or scanned my comments. But if you read them closely, you would've seen that I'm not interested in removing cards early so that everyone will be more likely to get them later. I want them removed early because getting a card in 10 kills is extremely weird compared to the lore and compared to the crazy buffs you can get from something like a Jumpkin (especially for melee). Then, if that idea was implemented, it would only be fair to more strongly adjust the luck factor to prevent people from grinding for a significant period of time. Of course, "reducing the luck" with G's regular method would achieve that to a degree. But it doesn't solve [what I see as] a problem completely.

What you've considered "thrilling" in various contexts in SoG has always been weird. You like getting in extremely jank situations (though you have frosty), and you suggest that the rarity aspect produces amazing thrills that should just never be removed. While I can somewhat agree with the latter, I believe that much of that feeling pales in comparison to the frustration of grinding for an eternity. Again, I talked about that earlier. There isn't a thrill of "wow that's rare!" There's a sense of "I won't spend 300 hours of my life on that." That isn't enjoying the game, that's being happy your torture is going to last for a shorter time frame.

I really don't think the kill numbers you've proposed are sufficient. And even then, the drop rate alterations that you've suggested don't seem fair with respect to how much grinding has been done. I'm fine with overhauling the system if it addresses the problems I mentioned earlier. If there's another way that legitimately addresses the problems I mentioned earlier, that's fine too. Enemy-specific spawn areas, for instance, could help a few problems -- as well ensuring that every enemy (bloomos, presents, etc.) has an elite form.

 

[Teddy]

We haven't had a final discussion inhouse about this yet, but some random thoughts:

a game where people can get a card in 10 kills [is] poorly designed.

I disagree. I doubt that the average player reacts with "that's a card I won't have to grind for!" when they get a card easily. In fact, I've never heard that once before you said it (though I'm sure a portion of the veterans here with multiple 100 % characters might share your sentiment). Not all players have to grind to beat the game on Normal, and to lock them out of getting cards would in my opinion be worse design-wise.

The sentiment itself (of dreading farming for cards) will also become more rare as a side effect of adjusting the card drop code to make fewer people know the terror and despair of grinding for hours without getting a card!

In general I'm pretty much on Own's side when it comes to not setting some sort of artificial sweet spot for when a card is always given, though I think he probably would be less generous with the drop rate scaling than I would be. But I agree with him that the significant problem with the drop rates is that they are potentially hostile to a player's time. Exactly at what point grinding becomes hostile is a philosophical debate that is perhaps best left in its can, but most of us can probably agree that the risk of someone wasting several hours and still not getting a card is, despite being very low, not low enough.

How I'd make the change after reading this thread is close to res7less approach:

Keep low-kill drop rates as they are now
Have the scaling system kick in after a set number of kills, adding it to the drop rate
Cap it out at a point where the drop rate is fairly significant, like 10-20 %

So, the Echo of Madness has a card drop rate of 1/160.
The drop rate increase might kick in at 80 kills. (80 = 160 * 0.5)
At 240 kills it has scaled up to 15 % (exponentially) (240 = 160 * 1.5)
(Disclaimer: these numbers were extracted from my rear)
(Note: the number after the parentheses are just to show how it would be used with the existing drop rates to fit any base chance)

This would keep the median scenario roughly the same as now, keep the number of lucky cards exactly the same, and make the infinite farming scenario wildly improbable.

But again, Fred and Vilya haven't gotten to give final input on this! They might join the sweet spot bandwagon, or join Own, or quit their jobs and join Scientology when they finally weigh in.

Back to programming, this took way too long, as usual

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

We haven't had a final discussion inhouse about this yet, but some random thoughts:



I disagree. I doubt that the average player reacts with "that's a card I won't have to grind for!" when they get a card easily. In fact, I've never heard that once before you said it (though I'm sure a portion of the veterans here with multiple 100 % characters might share your sentiment). Not all players have to grind to beat the game on Normal, and to lock them out of getting cards would in my opinion be worse design-wise.

The sentiment itself (of dreading farming for cards) will also become more rare as a side effect of adjusting the card drop code to make fewer people know the terror and despair of grinding for hours without getting a card!

In general I'm pretty much on Own's side when it comes to not setting some sort of artificial sweet spot for when a card is always given, though I think he probably would be less generous with the drop rate scaling than I would be. But I agree with him that the significant problem with the drop rates is that they are potentially hostile to a player's time. Exactly at what point grinding becomes hostile is a philosophical debate that is perhaps best left in its can, but most of us can probably agree that the risk of someone wasting several hours and still not getting a card is, despite being very low, not low enough.

How I'd make the change after reading this thread is close to res7less approach:

Keep low-kill drop rates as they are now
Have the scaling system kick in after a set number of kills, adding it to the drop rate
Cap it out at a point where the drop rate is fairly significant, like 10-20 %

So, the Echo of Madness has a card drop rate of 1/160.
The drop rate increase might kick in at 80 kills. (80 = 160 * 0.5)
At 240 kills it has scaled up to 15 % (exponentially) (240 = 160 * 1.5)
(Disclaimer: these numbers were extracted from my rear)
(Note: the number after the parentheses are just to show how it would be used with the existing drop rates to fit any base chance)

This would keep the median scenario roughly the same as now, keep the number of lucky cards exactly the same, and make the infinite farming scenario wildly improbable.

But again, Fred and Vilya haven't gotten to give final input on this! They might join the sweet spot bandwagon, or join Own, or quit their jobs and join Scientology when they finally weigh in.

Back to programming, this took way too long, as usual

I was just about clarify that statement. rip. #exposed

Sorry to drag you out of your programming world with this. haha.

I didn't mean that statement for any game in general. I made the statement for SoG because I like the idea of getting a card after "battling an enemy enough" (I don't have the exact quote from the Flying Fortress database) -- not that I have an exact definition of "enough enemies" either. Admittedly, the idea for it primarily stems from how cards are explained in the game itself, so the idea isn't necessarily justified. Now that I think about it though, I guess the game also acknowledges a luck factor after you kill the giga slime. :thinking: I didn't consider the newbies who would be locked out of getting cards. That's a pretty significant point.

If I may, I think the highest a base card chance should go is 10%. Once the drop rate becomes 10%, an elite guarantees a card drop (if I understand elites correctly). And it will definitely not take an hour to see an elite of enemy X. That can't be said for enemies like monkeys, presents, bloomos, etc. But I feel like the simple solution to that is to just give them elite forms, if that's acceptable.

 

[Teddy]

Once the drop rate becomes 10%, an elite guarantees a card drop (if I understand elites correctly).

Haha, that's an interesting thing I hadn't considered! Maybe the elite bonus should be applied before the cap in that case, or just allow it to double

So, being a genius, I forgot to write the actual main reason why I don't really like the idea of artificially gravitating drop rates to the center:

It caters to exactly those players that prefers exactly that amount of grind, with every card. Which might be most players, admittedly, but it's still slightly "risky"!

Personal anecdote: I love getting early cards. I know this because I got 100 % in the soul-collecting Castlevanias and getting an early soul gave me a feeling of "oh, neat", and not "phew, dodged a bullet there". If it happens infrequently, I also enjoy having to really farm for something, too.

I'm sure for some people getting a card early on is the best thing in the game. And for some, it seems to be a very "meh" thing. But you'd have to be vastly "unlucky" to get a quick card more than once or twice per play-through, leaving you with a couple of dozen other cards to get in a less lucky time frame.

There's also an idea in design that variation in matters like these is beneficial even when that variation means leaving someone's actually preferred zone, if that makes sense. Like, even if I prefer getting a card after exactly 15 minutes, if every card was had after exactly 15 minutes, I might pick up on that as monotone unconsciously.

Also, if it's possible to get a quick card, that is a notable event. And a relatively unlucky card is also a notable event, and these two events puts the rest "proper" cards in a better perspective that leaves us with a more interesting "story".

I didn't mean that statement for any game in general. I made the statement for SoG because I like the idea of getting a card after "battling an enemy enough" (I don't have the exact quote from the Flying Fortress database) -- not that I have an exact definition of "enough enemies" either. Admittedly, the idea for it primarily stems from how cards are explained in the game itself, so the idea isn't necessarily justified. Now that I think about it though, I guess the game also acknowledges a luck factor after you kill the giga slime. :thinking:

It's true about the Flying Fortress screen mentioning speculation that the cards are based on an understanding of the enemy, or something similar! I do think it's phrased in a way that makes it rather speculative, though. But as you say, the slime killed in the arena is a pretty early card, so maybe it's more complicated!

(This is why I'm so silent on Discord, because when I crawl out from my cave and get some human interaction I just can't get enough!)

 

[XxX_MLG Noob_XxX]

So, being a genius, I forgot to write the actual main reason why I don't really like the idea of artificially gravitating drop rates to the center:

It caters to exactly those players that prefers exactly that amount of grind, with every card. Which might be most players, admittedly, but it's still slightly "risky"!

Personal anecdote: I love getting early cards. I know this because I got 100 % in the soul-collecting Castlevanias and getting an early soul gave me a feeling of "oh, neat", and not "phew, dodged a bullet there". If it happens infrequently, I also enjoy having to really farm for something, too.

I'm sure for some people getting a card early on is the best thing in the game. And for some, it seems to be a very "meh" thing. But you'd have to be vastly "unlucky" to get a quick card more than once or twice per play-through, leaving you with a couple of dozen other cards to get in a less lucky time frame.

There's also an idea in design that variation in matters like these is beneficial even when that variation means leaving someone's actually preferred zone, if that makes sense. Like, even if I prefer getting a card after exactly 15 minutes, if every card was had after exactly 15 minutes, I might pick up on that as monotone unconsciously.

In case anyone thought otherwise, I do enjoy farming for things as well, especially when crafting is involved. I imagine most people do. And I don't have a problem with variation either. That's what makes the discussion difficult. I'm for rare cards and fun grinding, but I feel for the people ranting on the "Cards" section of the SoG Wikia (and I've had personal experiences). I think, as has been said, the main problem is ensuring that a temporal black hole never exists for anyone. Designing around a mean seemed like a simple option, but maybe something else exists. There's the enemy spawn thing that G mentioned quite some time ago.

I guess I can concede the "phew dodged a bullet" point because I forgot that the feeling is virtually impossible for a new player. That is, if the pain exists, it would be for someone doing 100% playthroughs repeatedly and remembering the long grind time.

Card drop adjustment with elites in mind sounds like a whole 'nother headache. There are a lot of paths to take, so I'll comment on that at a different time. xD

Curious questions that I don't know has been considered: Where did the drop rates come from? Did they come from a perspective of, "A player should be rewarded after they kill this many" or a perspective of, "A player should be required to grind, but not this long" or something else? I realize a lot of discussion when it comes to card drops leap on the average suggested by the drop rate, but were the drop rates intentionally chosen with those specific averages in mind?

(This is why I'm so silent on Discord, because when I crawl out from my cave and get some human interaction I just can't get enough!)

loooooooooooooooool. Hopefully we don't distract you too much. You could always stop time when sending replies so that you never lose any time.

 

[The G-Meister]

A quick note - the categories of minimal and a little weighting as specified in section 5 both have little effect on the beginning drop rates. The graphs of p(x) against x (I think in 4.2.1 A?) should give you scale on that one. If you're happy to change the mean a little by making drop rates constant before it, I'm sure changing the chance a little at the cost of a more accurate mean isn't that much of a problem. Even if it is, try knocking the mean down just a little, and the weighted distribution will bunk the chance up a tad. Go generate some test distributions with the tool if you want something more hands-on with the numbers you already use