I think we should separate RNG from other sorts of grinding. As I said before, some ‘grind’ is necessary to get players out of their bases. Farming stone, iron, and wood is a grind, but one that we can agree isn’t terribly bad.
Let’s be honest, we KNOW how much we need to do to build a structure (unless we’re building aimlessly, which some of us do). But we know how much material we need and how much stone, fiber, resin, wood, iron, brimstone, and tar we’ll need to make that happen. Which makes it more or less accessible.
RNG is a whole other ballgame.
I’ve done play throughs where I’ve found named craftsman at level 9 and had to have a buddy kite them while I built some stuff to get 10 so I could put a wheel of pain down. And then I’ve farmed for a few days getting a named armorer. Its weird and not fun when it isn’t going in your favor. And chances are, it won’t.
Siptah is a whole other level of RNG where you could literally not see a specific recipe in thousands of hours.
But let’s put Raskhaul’s numbers into perceptive. In 2000 minutes (or about 33 hours and 20 minutes) you have a 50% chance of finding what you need. In 66 hours and 40 minutes you have a 75% chance. A 25% chance of taking nearly 70 hours of play time to get the priest you want.
By the way, I think his numbers are overestimating. So it could be worse. But I haven’t exactly checked the Zath spawns.
I said a while back that the thrall tier system needed a rework. Basically a normalization of thralls. So all Tier 1s are equal to all Tier 1s and same for Tier 2 and 3 and 4 (their stats would differ based on tribe to give variety and specialization). In return for doing this, the areas you obtain these thralls are set.
For example, you wouldn’t find 3s and 4s in any noob areas. You’d only be able to find them in harder areas. And you’d need to be really prepared to face their camps. T4s would have a greater chance to spawn (maybe 1-5 or even better, or in some cases set spawns), but their difficulty would be much higher.
Not only would the areas be harder due to better fighters and more chances of groups of them. But the environment would require specialized gear as well. Grabbing a T4 Heirs of the North would likely require some of the best cold resist. Where T4 Darfari would require wearing some of the best heat resist.
What this does is allows us to have a natural progression through the Tiers. We don’t try for a jackpot of easy Lemurians with only 300hp each where we can easily take them at level 10. We gotta hit up some T1s to make some gear good enough for the T2s and so forth. Since a T3 with 1000hp and doing 80 damage a hit with a one handed weapon and buddies would clean your clock… or not if you’re crazy enough. Risk vs reward is a thing after all.
Since this would require a bit of a revamp of camps, might as well give the religions their own areas. So we’re not hunting through mitra priests to get a rando zath.
RNG on recipes could be replaced or supplemented by a mechanic where you spend more resources to get the recipe you want. Like say you want a specific pattern from the Library of Esoterics. Instead of getting a random broken bottle dagger recipe for the 10th time, you could spend 5 fragments to get the one you’re looking for.
Instead of 50 eldarium for a weapon recipe that’s random, you could spend 500 for the one you want. Things of that nature.
Still have effort, still have work. And well its still a grind, but you have an achievable goal, you can measure your progress. You know what you need to do to move forward. Its all in the players’ hands.
