The problem with RNG with mount drops (discussion + feedback)
This is to be a discussion about Blizzard's approach to RNG drops in the World of Warcraft (with rare mount drops, like Time-lost proto drake). Everything here is ultimately my opinion and I want to start a discussion as I am seeing some things that are quite concerning.First, I want to lead off with some details about how I play World of Warcraft. I am a collector who has over 98% of "all the things" collected in this game. I have almost all the achievements, mounts, pets, and other collectables. I personally like something I can work towards as a goal. Insane in the membrane was an extremely long grind that took me near a decade to complete. And I liked it. I like things that take a long time to do in this game, so when I explain my concerns with RNG I want people to know I approach this as someone who has collected pretty much everything in this game with a few exceptions and not just a filthy casual collector.So what is so concerning with RNG? As everyone discusses RNG with loot such as with corruption and titan forging, there is yet another form of RNG that appears to be getting much worse as time goes on.And that is mount drops. There have always been rare mount drops in the game that ultimately are meant to be hard to get, time-lost proto drake comes to mind. And there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when blizzard feels the need to make things harder with each new rare mount.In Wrath of the Lich king, they start with TIME-LOST PROTO DRAKE and create a mount that has a 3-day spawn timer. Forcing many people to afk in the storm peaks just waiting for this mount. Using add-ons like NPC to scan the skies as they afk and alt-tab. (This type of situation is a good goal to work for in Warcraft and I think is fine)In Cataclysm, AEONAXX, similar to time-lost above but rather then just kill him you have to ride the boss in a small little quest where you have to kill him before you get overwhelmed. This can be rough if unexpected, but if you are sitting around for weeks to farm this, then you should know it is coming and will be prepared. (A small change butt still acceptable)With the coming of Mists of Pandaria you no longer have a time-lost like spawn but 4 world bosses with stupid rare mount drop chances. This is one of the first mistakes blizzard makes in two forms. First "sha of anger" is bugged and doesn't even drop the mount for the first couple months until blizzard fixes it; it took some time for the community to realize this was actually happening to report it. And then the idea of a world boss dropping a mount at a .01-.1 percent drop rate was the other mistake. Lets do the math, assuming the best drop rate of .1 percent means you have a 1/1000 drop rate for the mount, you can only farm once per week, meaning this will take 1 character roughly 20 years to farm... TWENTY YEARS. Nothing in any game should ever take this much time. Even assuming I run this on 10 alts that still means it will take 2 years on average to get this mount. So bad was this idea they eventually put the mounts on the black market auction house to make up for their mistake in design.Warlords of Draenor comes around and they still really haven't learned their lesson. They add another world boss mount drop and another time-lost type of mount spawn with POUNDFIST. Though I consider the world boss mount a failure, POUNDFIST on the other hand was a huge success. There was a major change in that anyone tagging the rare would get the mount (unlike with time-lost and aeonaxx). Which made this event wonderful. Instead of camping a mount for weeks on end by yourself in isolation, groups formed to camp the mount and this lead to 40 people sitting in a group and just talking to each other. For better or for worse it was a huge social boon and something that has been only seen with raid fishing in the garrison and legion fisher-friends. This is a type of content I think is lacking and would be a good addition to the game.But then Warlords keeps going with absolutely no content, so blizzard has to keep people occupied. What better then yet another time-lost like mount name VOID TALON OF THE DARK STAR. Though somewhat similar to time-lost it was a step back in many ways. The social aspect of the hunt, as with poundfist, was removed as only one person could get this mount when it spawned. Even worse then the extremely long spawn rates was the fact blizzard changed the spawn to a portal you had to click. This portal could not be detected by add-ons so rather then alt-tabbing for weeks while you hunt it you had to actively watch the screen as you did nothing.... and interacted with no one. This was extremely horrible in terms of fun and was boring. Not to mention it was bugged. The mount portal can only be seen by level 100 characters (most of the time) and I was forced to farm this using class trials to get it (in legion, can't do this in BFA and the bug still exists and class trials are 110). The amount of failures on this mount are appalling, they have turned something that was to be praised into a boring and mindless task that requires way too much attention. This is the type of RNG grind that will push a person away from this game.Come legion Blizzard supposedly learned from this and created LONG-FORGOTTEN HIPPOGRYPH. Though rare the spawn time was drastically decreased (to 12 hours). It also required you to find 5 crystals which required some effort and skill. This was lots of fun as you raced against others in the zone to collect the mount. Rare at first but as time went on everyone had it and the race was easier eventually allowing most people to get it. This, along with Poundfist are some of the better designs in the game.Then we get to BFA. There are two mounts in mechagon that drop off the harvestor and rustfeather. I think these farms are fine. The bosses spawn in the same location every 30 min to 1-hour with a little less then 1% drop rate. With some alts and effort this is something you can farm and can be obtained.But then comes one of the worst mounts blizzard has created, SOUNDLESS. This horrible mount brings back the low spawn times of something like a time-lost proto drake but on top of that it adds the low percentage drop rate of the world boss mounts. This rare spawns every 8 hours with a .03% drop rate (roughly). That means if you actively farm this mount you will get 2 chances a day assuming you sleep. And only after 2 years of farming this mount 16 hours a day can you actually get this mount on average. On top of all that it has a random spawn location all over the map forcing people to actively look for the mount rather then just afking and alt-tabbing like with the mechagon mounts. Even as a collector with 20 alts and an army of knowledge at my back this mount drop is essentially the equivalent of winning the lottery. Some may say time-lost is similar, but time-lost is like participating in a workplace lottery with 50 people; chances are good you will win. But SOUNDLESS is like the actual lottery where your chances are mostly non-existent.Blizzard created this mount to keep players like me playing the game when there is no content in warcraft. It is a wall we are never meant to get over and if we do somehow find a way to get over it, then blizzard just makes a new one that is worse.There are so many cases of amazing content in rare mount drops that I think should be used and added to the game. Poundfist, Long-lost hippogryph, and even time-lost/aeonaxx.But rather then look at mounts that are a reachable goal or a social experience, blizzard merely concentrates on bypassing our solutions and making something harder to get to the point it is almost unobtainable. My idea of poorly designed mounts include the following:MoP/WoD world boss mount dropsSoundless rare spawnVoid Talon of the Dark star portalI create this post not to whine and make all things easier, but to make things hard in a way where we can obtain the goal in a "reasonable" amount of time an effort. I should not have to dump 110% of knowledge and effort and still only get a RNG's shot in he** to get the mount.Not to mention I don't just want to whine, I want to offer solutions. So lets run through some ideas.MoP/WoD world boss mount drops:Change the drop rate of the mount to 1-5%. Even at 1% this would mean a 1 out of 100 drop rate meaning one character can farm this on average every two years. With 10 alts this would still take 10 weeks. This is much more reasonable then the 20 years we currently have with 1 character.Soundless:(This one actually has many options, and only 1 has to be done to make it fine)Increase the drop rate to 1-5%Remove the random spawn location, allow people to stand in one spot and camp for 2 years...Make the mount spawn every 30 min - 1 hour similar to Mechagon mounts.As I said before, only one of the three options would fix this rare to a point of being tolerated. As it stands right now it is merely a point of frustration similar to titanforging, a goal most people can never obtain.And finally Void Talon of the dark star:I think this one is beyond hope at this point. As it is already extremely buggy (only level 100 characters can see it some of the time), blizzard needs to just make this spawn every 30 minutes. This shouldn't be rare and someone camping it should be able to know if it is up or if they are bugged. Fix the bug or make it easier to get.But I say all this as I see a very dangerous situation with the new mount Mollie for 8.3https://ift.tt/2MxCGc9 is a mount being added to the world boss in Voldun and in short blizzard could be making yet another mistake. Could you imagine a world boss with a .01% drop rate, but even worse it only spawns once every 6 weeks. That means it would take 120 years with one single character to farm this mount on average. I don't want to see this happen and I don't think anyone else wants to as well.But this is still PTR, we don't know it's drop rate, and we can do something before it goes live. Show your concern and voice your opinion. Don't let blizzard add a mount drop that is pretty much impossible to farm and to obtain. If this mount is a 5% drop rate then it should be fine. But if it is another .01% drop rate then why should we even attempt it? I play this game to collect and to reach obtainable goals, even if somewhat hard. But camping a single world boss every 6 weeks for the next 120 years is not appealing to me or I hope anyone at all.Lets do our part and end artificial walls in collecting and bring back obtainable accomplishments.Let me know what you think and here your feedback. Are these drop rates too bad? Are you ok with some of the really bad ones like Soundless? What is your limit?