RNG Layers for items

Wicked Feedback
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Hello there,

I’m an old gamer, spending years in Lineage 2, various other MMOs like 3a, Elden Ring, and many more. My latest venture is into New World MMO with 3,000 hours invested.

While I lack experience in ARPGs and haven’t played games like Diablo or Path of Exile, I want to share that the excessive layers of RNG on items can be demotivating. It feels like too much gambling and farming, creating a tiresome cycle.

When you obtain an item, its stats are randomized, like 77-90 armor, for instance. Enchanting it introduces even more RNG, potentially rendering the item unusable. Alternatively, using gems adds another layer of frustration, with a pool of 5-15 possibilities per slot. Players tend to pursue min-maxing, especially in anticipation of PvP or when comparing stats with others.

A similar issue was faced in New World with crafting perks. They addressed it by introducing items that guarantee specific perks when selected, removing the gambling aspect. While farming increased, players eventually obtained the desired items.

Regarding gems and enchanting being permanent, this could discourage players early on when items and gems are scarce. Allowing the removal of enchantments would mitigate this issue. For instance, if an item is mistakenly enchanted, players should have the option to revert it, albeit at a cost.

Implementing a gold gate for subsequent enchants could balance the system, making each enchantment progressively more expensive. The current situation can be frustrating—I once mistakenly enchanted my Cerim leggings, rendering them unusable with poor stats and losing the gem stats as well. This significantly dampened my motivation to continue playing.

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I agree with the overall sentiment of rng being very volatile. Altough some people may still preffer it in its’ current state.

I have a feeling this speaks more towards the SC and HC part of the playerbase, as I’d assume your general player, the one whose top priorty is to just finish the game won’t bother trying to have the best roll on an item, and be happy with most rolls as long as they are somewhat positive. (This is an assumption, I could be completely wrong).

The “lazy” test

After 40 hours I was beginning to play the game a bit more carelessly (not paying attention to the game as much as I used to, casual chatting with my mates on discord) meaning I invested my stats clumsily but had just enough going for me to get through to a few good weapons and items, with little to no concern on the enchant rolls that I’d get, as long as they weren’t obsenely degrading to my progress, and I still made it through the story quite fine, once I hit that level 15-16 mark I finished the story and that was it. Granted I knew the bosses already, but they were still pretty tough to beat regradless.

The flip-side

However, on my first run and the second thereafter I was trying for two different classes with the “min-max” approach, trying to really understand the inner workings of the system. And I confirm that enchating felt either extremely rewarding or severely punishing to go along with.
One-off items that you find on the road, that have huge potential are better off not being enchanted but slowly upgraded and gemmed the default way, as only having a single chance on enchating them, felt like a 1/100 gamble.

Crafted/Bought/Looted Weapons and Armor

For the purpose of transparency let’s only focus on weapons here.
The primary stats of a weapon:

  • Damage
  • Stamina Cost per attack
  • Focus gain per attack
  • Poise Damage

With the exception to poise damage, the first three get their dice rolled on pick-up, purchase, and even upon CRAFT with the offset being +/-10-25% of the standard stat value, depending on the type of the weapon (those are my estimations).
Getting the stats rolled on pick-up/looting I can get behind, right? You’re rolling the dice just for getting the item itself, fine, might aswell roll them for the stats while you’re at it.

On purchase however - that sort of starts getting a bit questionable.
When you select a certain weapon for purchase - It shows you the standard expected value the item should have.
Sure I don’t mind an offset of +/-10% on the stats here and there, but buying 7 of the same sword off of the smith:

  • 3 of those have -20% margins on the stats,
  • 2 of them having -25%,
  • 1 having approximately the default stats,
  • 1 that has a +10% on stats roll.
    I just invested 600% more of the intial value of an item to get a +10% bonus off purchase, that ends up feeling very underwhelming

This is one case of course, but I had multiple occasions where I’d buy 10x of the same item, to get a few that were above or equaled the advertised value of the weapon so that I could use those few, to roll them yet again on the enchanting rng table.

But it doesn’t stop there!
Crafting weapons/armor is no exception to this either! You go out there to collect the materials (some require sheer luck to get) to craft a certain item, for which you had to get the recipe in the first place. And the same stats are being rolled on with the same marginal offsets, that is just bizzare and frankly has a huge pontential to frustrate any player. It feels like crafitng should be almost rng free.

That’s my expose on the topic of rng.

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