There was old talk of a patent by Activision to try and boost sales essentially via psychological methods such as jealousy via in-game matchmaking processes: ‘US patent 9789406’ (3rd link google, or 1st link).
What if secretive subtle looting systems are in the game?
I would call it the, ‘Here’s some loot, but we’ll try and not scratch your itch.’ system. It obviously wouldn’t be obvious. But rather gently alter odds based on your character’s BiS’s and items iLvl’s.
Based on their previous patent, game ownership, business tactics, simple psychology and legality, nothing is stopping them from doing something like this secretively on their own game. Is there? We wouldn’t know. All we could ever do is wonder.
Is there life on another planet? Does Bobby Kotick eat children? Does God exist? Is Sylvanass redeemable? We will probably never know the answer to these questions (except the last one, ofc she isn’t). Honestly with what is going on with the gaming industry I wouldn’t be surprised if loot drops were affected by something more than a % chance, but this is something we will probably never know. Excuse me now as I return to my mount farming hamster wheel.
I heard Bobby Kotick, J. Allen Brack, Ion Hazzikostas and Jeff Bezos all sit together every evening and decide which players to give their BiS gear and which not to give their BiS gear.
If you shill for them, you get much better gear, clearly, while if you ever post something they dislike on the forums, they put a negative mark on your account so you never get those items you want.
It’s not very well hidden either, they’re being quite blatant about it.
The solution is simple. Just put some tinfoil inbetween your USB port and your keyboards USB cable, whenever you plug it in, so they can’t track what you write. Your loot will increase drastically. I’ve tried it and got my Phial of Putrefaction on 226 next week. It just works.
I can only talk abou great vault
When i was doing my progresion with shaman at the start i was doing 10 dungeons for 3 items
Many times i had there 3 different items
but more times i encoutered 3 same items those items were boots or belt or cloak
And it’s the same as a BFA chest there were times i had upgrade
but more times i was like wtf 3 weeks in a row BELT
I don’t believe that this is not CODED somehow into the game
I believe that blizzard is doing this on purpose so you do dungeons all over again every week
They even said on blizzcon that Great vault will be not like chest
and here we are it’s same thing cause people were mad about same items every week
now 3 choices with 3 same items
I’m increasingly convinced that the less you play, the more useful the loot you get is…
If you’re playing 20 hours/week, doing a ton of dungeons; the game doesn’t need to treat you good to keep you, so you get irrelevant drops. Just another way Blizz avoid us maxing out before the end of a season, in case we get bored and quit.
OTOH, start raid-logging for 3 weeks, and watch your vault quality suddenly get real good.
It wouldn’t be hard for Blizz to have a list of “BiS” gear for every spec, and do a quick scan of your character to see which ones you’ve never looted and make sure one of those this week. Don’t you feel like playing more again, now that you have something nice? Tempt you with one teeny tiny wafer thin M+?
Back when titan forging existed, count the number of times the first item you loot after reset forged. It was so reliable for me that I stopped doing anything that might drop an item until after raid night, so’s not to waste my “weekly” TF on low ilvl gear.
TLDR, I’m pretty sure there is already an algorithm behind loot. It would absolutely make sense to avoid over-rewarding hardcore players, while giving optimal drops to players who seem to be on the brink of leaving in the hopes of tempting them back. But it will not, cannot be officially confirmed or discussed because players would be in uproar about it (and rightly so).
If that system existed then i must have been blocked on it during Ny’alotha. By far the patch where i was literally obliterated gear drop wise.
As for the patent there are two ways to utilize it. Use it yourself and risk the wrath of your playerbase as a result as they will find out and having companies that use this very mechanic in their f2p p2w games to pay up to activision as an additional income.
I have felt/noticed this too. Things landing on your lap with less play time. Almost feels handed out on a silver platter, like a; “here you go, have your BiS ilvl 200 trinket, you not played in a few days”. Then when play time gets long and tough, the useful loot goes very thin. As if a cog has slipped into place and put you on the skinner box mode. Nothing at all is stopping them from doing this sort of thing. That patent makes it blatantly obvious they’re willing to do that sort of thing. I knew these companies had that potential anyway. I’m not oblivious to the extent companies will go to, to increase revenue, unlike most brand loyalists - aka; dumb people - in reality.
Massively. Well said. This is exactly it with them. I’ve noticed it greatly. It pays to become aware of such tactics or evidence of such tactics rather than sitting around going “awhh” to poor loot all the time - ignoring those hunches for the ‘glory’ of brand loyalty. The levels of self-blindness people commit to, to such possibilities due to brand loyalty or limited understanding of a business’s manoeuvring potentials is staggering in today’s world. So many dumb and ignorant types. The data mining industry is gigantic now. Hordes of people buying Amazon Alexa’s - a consumer indoor microphone for the Amazon data collecting centres.
But yes, I have greatly noticed that pattern where long play times and consecutive days leads to thin loot and me vendoring lots of utterly pointless drops.
Come back after a while, it’s like it’s my birthday. So it has felt.
Yes definitely, that is how they will do it. It’s very easy to implement. The concepts are very simple and work brilliantly. Icy veins and wowhead are treasure troves for these systems.
Regarding a intimate connection between wowhead and activision-blizzard. Fanbyte owns wowhead. Fanbyte is owned by Tencent.
Tencent, a Shenzen based conglomerate you may recognize from “having an economic stake in almost every game
Now Tencent have a 5% stake in Activision Blizzard. Tencent was accused to be behind the hong-kong hearthstone player being refused his prize for his demonstrations to China:
" Many gamers also accused Chinese tech giant Tencent which owns a 5% stake in Activision Blizzard, of forcing the decision. Blizzard eventually backed down, agreed to return the prize money to Chung, and reduced his suspension. In a statement, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack admitted that the company “reacted too quickly” to Chung’s remarks."
That’s where it gets freaky. Tencent own fanbyte, aka, wowhead. Tencent also have the potential to sway activision-blizzard or be closer together than we think - the hearthstone spectacle makes you consider this strongly.
Nothing stopping wowhead (tencent) from having a AI or algorithm, feeding these BiS or other pursued items into a looting system.
I believe the stake being only 5% is to be on the down low but public and official enough to both work closely together.
Such looting outlooks are becoming a thing in WoW. You hear sometimes from people; “you got loot in the first boss, you won’t get loot now”. Of course that isn’t a strict rule but it’s an element that could potentially alter the odds in this supposed looting system.
Bang on. Exactly. Makes massive sense. Keep the timid/casual hopeful, playing and paying, keep the hardcore thirsty. And yes of course, if that was public, massive uproar.
It all points to a strong case or plausibility in my books. The well known patent by Activision is the cherry on the top.
I can’t believe how many consumers fail to understand basic psychological manipulation. Hence why the data mining industry is prolific.
I cannot say for wow though i never had any luck whatsoever I do not mind or whine i just call it honestly like it is/was, all i have had was either tcg items from my real money or hard won and grinded pvp gear that didn’t made any difference and never was envied by anyone it makes quite a lot of unluck for a /played of 3 years just on that char.
However there are gatcha game where i can continuously go on round max or twenty two and have none of the new banner characters and some of the streamers always get every new char in like one or a few roll it is very strange happening always every month for the same players.
