As someone who has enforced absences from the game due to work I can assure you that I have never noticed this phenomenon not even back when I was raiding more regularly.
I think that the misconception comes because when you haven’t played for a long time then a lot of the early gear is going to be an upgrade as you are behind the curve so that even thought the amount of loot is the same the chances of it being of a higher ilvl than you are currently equipped is higher. Once you’ve been playing again for a while then you’re back in the position that the loot that you get is the same ilvl as currently equipped and therefore less noticeable.
WOW is no diff than any other game, they have algorithms that are within the game to give you the RNG for gear.
However, due to the removal of TF/WF, the gear is nothing like it was in BFA. I think many kept playing BFA due to the fact we had TF/WF so they could do a WQ and see how the gear rolled. In SL as TF/WF is removed there is no real incentive for people who depend on gear from WQ’s to keep playing as you see what level of gear you will get.
I will admit I was surprised that I received a piece of gear from doing a calling yesterday on my horde BM hunter alt, that was about 17% higher than the piece that character had. But it upgraded and there it was.
I am not trying to shill for Blizz or anything, but it seems like one of these crazy conspiracy theories that would be very difficult to hide, and even implement. You would assume in a company with 100s of developers and programmers, someone would notice such a loot drop system, and say something about it, while working there or even after leaving Blizz.
RNG is just RNG, you only find it annoying when it doesn’t give you what you want, and ignore it in general.
Also looking at the patent itself it is more about how players are matched by the matchmaking system so that more junior players are faced against players with weapons/gear that is much better than theirs and thus preying on the desire to buy better gear to be able to compete.
This is nothing like the loot system in WoW unless PvP loot is now random drops a la PvE loot.
After the case in the first patch of Legion when hardcore players had to prove it with evidence before Blizzard admitted they had good luck protection mechanism for legendary drops, I kinda lost trust in the rng element of the system.
If my other characters had received loot (10+) in my example, I could just put it down to catching up. But it felt particularly egregious as the paladin was the only one that got anything. And two separate pieces of loot too (yes, I have bonus rolled the same piece of loot from a world boss before).
Ordinarily I would put this down to just perception. But my perception of it is growing and it reminds me of the phrase, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get me.” Especially when this happened back in Legion:
Why do you have to speculate about some mysterious and obscure retention mechanics, when the retention mechanics and withholding RNG loot until you come back are so damn obvious?
They do not need to manipulate you with loot and I’ll tell you why - because loot is already waiting for you on the next reset. Just come back next week, loot is there for you. No matter what content you do - pvp, raid, m+ - you have unclaimed prizes! Come back next week to claim your prize!
The patent you’re referring to has nothing to do with what you’re talking about. All games kinda tailor their drop rates around maximizing your play. There’s really no magic, the main problem we’re having right now is that M+ exists and master looter doesn’t.
I have received the 2H token on my pala multiple times. I had the Denathrius token twice (once from the vault, once from drop), I had some other weapon token and I have a mythic 226 2h weapon token. I may be misremembering, but I have personally looted so many weapon tokens xD
Like I said. It’s just RNG, and if you have a good streak of loot you enjoy it, but if you don’t get the stuff you want you notice it and start making all kinds of theories.
Same way people get addicted to gambling/slot games. Just because you win 2-3 games in a row, you get the false sense that you will win the 4th game as well, based on your perception of how the last one went.
I had the 2h weap token drop on my second denathrius hc kill, and the 226 vault weapon from my second week of finishing 14s+ and getting 226 vault rewards.
I might as well not get ANY weapons in 9.1. Would that be because of any hidden mechanics? No, it’s just the way chances work in the universe, not just wow.
There is some guys out there that got Invincible / Ashes drop on their first kill. Others on their 300th kill. They have the exact same chances either way.
If folks think that game industries - consumerism-based companies - don’t use any psychological pressure at all, and that everything is random… it’s impressive naivete.
From personal experience I can’t really say I had the theory in the OP apply to me. I got my better loot in the middle of the time between launch and my unsubscribing. Then I stopped getting shoulder pieces entirely (I think my current ones are still 200 ILevel). Then I unsubscribed, and when I had game-time gifted to me any drops were good because 0.5 Mythic+ gear is upgradeable. I’ve stopped getting anything of value even though I barely log on.
There are companies, that worked out what you described. Kinda targeted advertising, but next level. I seen interview with one of those companies owners and he said they made huge deals with gaming companies.
I would be surprised if blizz don’t have something like that, as it’s all about to squeeze out extra tokens.
Early in 9.0 when raid drop rates were really low it was actually not that uncommon to go for a very long streak of 0 loot. Posted drop rate was 3 items per 20 players per boss (that’s a confirmed blue post from that time) so if it was unbiased without any bad luck protection it would result in 85% chance to not get anything each boss. This boils down to quite high percentages for cumulative bouts of no loot:
-44,3% chance to get 0 loot after 5 boss kills
-19,6% chance to get 0 loot after 10 boss kills (that’s a full clear!)
-3,8% chance to get 0 loot after 20 boss kills (that’s 2 full clears)
-0,15% chance to get 0 loot after 40 boss kills (that’s 4 full clears)
While 0,15% may seem very low, it’s actually quite high if you think how unlucky is that (4 full raid clears with nothing but gold and anima). Roughly 1 in 750 players experienced this or worse, and WoW is played by hundreds of thousands of people (at least those that raid).
Theoretically it’s possible to never get loot, even in 100 raid clears. But eventually the stacked odds become so low that it exceeds current human population on Earth, therefore we treat them as 0% odds in practice (even though odds are never actually 0)
