Description: Add maximum limit to event items (presents, etc). For example if limit is 50 presents, for first present its like 5% drop rate (for casual players and busy people be able to participate without sacrificing IRL work), then 2 to 25 1% drop rate, 26 to 50 0,1 or even 0,01% drop rate.
Why: The drop rate should be easy enough in first place for casual players, then grindy enough for hardcore players to incentivize their hardwork. That way everyone wins and no need to punish casual players because some hardcore players grind too hard and make the event items too many (not valuable)
How: coding etc (IT stuff is not my forte sorry) But I could see its doable as in gacha games.
Pros:
First point: benefit both casual and hardcore players
Second point: reduce burden of recalculating and remanaging drop rates etc
Third point: keep event item value to be rare enough but still engaging to all players
Cons:
First: if max limit is too low, might punish hardcore players too much.
Second point: there might be players crazy enough that want more items but hit the max cap and could add more dissatisfactions.
Third point: need more adjustment in the beginning and kinda semi permanent for the max cap.
I did consider doing something like this before, and I did notice similar things done in other games, but I never liked this design. It also comes with its own issues depending how its implemented.
If it’s a global cap (only X rewards can be obtained easily), that obviously would be terrible. You’d have a few get them very easily very fast. If it’s a local cap, (only X rewards can be obtained easily per player), you get to the case where players get the first presents fast, then basically have nothing to do.
So, let’s suppose I add it and add a per player cap (since it’s the only that’s more fair):
I have to decide how many rewards should be obtained throughout the whole event by each player, and that is not really how I make this kind of events. This isn’t something I decide for these random chance events, at most I have an idea of how many rewards I want to be obtained in a specific time frame.
I have to decide on a droprate for the easy rewards. And this one is actually more challenging than the one I set now. Make it too easy, and people get the rewards in one day or something, and then can just forget about the event. Some sure would continue farming, but they would know for certain they’re not supposed to be getting more after this, so why bother. Fixing that issue is also a pain, because I’d have to increase the amount of easy rewards if I want people who already got them to keep having something to do during the event. Make it too hard, and you get no change from the system now. So what I’d have to do is figure out how many rewards the average player can get within the given time frame, which I try to keep long enough so more players can enjoy the event without feeling time pressured.
I have to decide the droprate for the hard rewards. Do I want them to be somewhat obtainable, or to be basically unobtainable unless you grind a lot? People do tend to find new ways to grind things, so this is basically the same thing I do now. But then, I might as well just add a button at spawn to give people the easy rewards and continue as usual, but that’s not fun.
If I do it like the system you suggested with multiple steps, well, that’s a whole other matter and I really don’t wanna get into that because there’s too many varying factors to be able to set steps like those and keep them as such throughout the whole event.
Another issue is the way the droprates are computed. I didn’t use a flat droprate for the Halloween and Christmas events because the rewards are custom based on the mobs you kill. A flat droprate would mean you get hundreds of presents from zombies and such just to get a handful from the rarer mobs, so I rely on the mobheads droprates. To do this, I use a multiplier to the mobhead droprate, usually 10 or 20 times the droprate. I could try to use the multiplier as this step based droprate, but that increases the complexity of the rates a lot more.
And finally, I do enjoy players finding out more efficient ways of getting the rewards. And unless they obtained way too many rewards, those extra items are their reward for being ingenious and getting more involved with the server, rather than just grinding the same stuff all the time. Limiting the rewards to a cap is not only a lot more work for me that’s more difficult to balance, it also feels artificial and limits how much players can engage with the event. I don’t want to limit that, I want them to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.
I am aware that the current system is not ideal though, and I’ve been tinkering with ideas on how to improve it. My main goal is to make it so mob farms are automatically balanced with areas where mobs are killed less so that you can get the same amount of special drops from a mob farm and random mobs you kill in the wild.
What about diminishing rate? For example for first one its 1%, then steadily going down to 0,1% then 0,01% to prevent too much even items (as you said before diminish its rarity value etc).
I was thinking of how to provide access to the presents for everyone, pro/newbie, big/small fac, rich/poor. But yeah if its luck based then your method is the best