[Master] - Improving Rare Titans

Take whatever time you need. SG usually isn’t super-fast about responding to ideas.

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@BarryWuzHere Thanks! I really appreciate your thoughts on the subject.

That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure what they really intended. In general, I’ve been less concerned with what their conception of a rare titan was than with the net effect on the game and its players of rare titains as they’re realized.

I agree with you that the challenge is fun. And I genuinely appreciate that. But it seems like they either need to strip the “bonus chance at rare AM” tag entirely, and just make it a pure challenge fight, or fix the loot rolls. At this point, it’s neither fish nor fowl.

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Thank you for the thoughts! Your point about the scaling with stars is well taken, although I’d say that strong alliances need more rare AM than lower level alliances, because 100% of their focus is on 5* heros.

Upthread, @Zephyr1 was expressing some concern that loot tiering fore the 3*/4* AM would openly encourage naked flasking and a no-holds-barred rush for high placing. He’s probably better that I am at expressing that concern.

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I think if you are struggling on regulars then everyone is kind of going to be going uhhh…something out to kill the titan anyway. But that is part of the reason I gave it % chances rather than saying A+ and A get them all. They could fall anywhere, just better odds for those that put more damage in. But a flat rate everywhere works too.

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Also upthread I clarified that my thought on the guaranteed loot was because @Garanwyn had suggested decreasing frequency to balance better loot drops.

If the frequency of rare titans is decently often (like now), then I think % chances are fine — they just need to be radically increased from the current “not even worth it” drop rate.

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Sure, but my explanation didn’t manage to include “naked flasking.” :face_with_monocle:

But yes, my concern was about players on the margins. If loot chances become radically better by moving up one slot to achieve the next tier, friendly competition may not always be so friendly.

When flasking can be used to manipulate that, I become more concerned about behaviors like this:

Yes, but isn’t that the alliance leaders job to curb? I just stopped hitting our current titan for a while because I have put in about 100K more than the next person, its over half way dead and there are a number of people who haven’t had a chance to hit yet. As they get home from work they will put their shots in.

That’s the way we roll. I would guess other alliances actually like it and encourage a more “pack of hungry dogs and one soup bone” strategy. (thought that was a better analogy than “pack of horny dogs and one leg”, but choose whichever you like best).

And the members can find the alliances that align better to their sensibilities.

In a well-organized alliance, yes.

If it’s by choice, I think that’s totally fine.

My concern is incentivizing it as the default behavior for alliances, since most aren’t organized enough or curated enough in member selection to avoid a few players essentially making that choice for the alliance.

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It is a tease now. There’s some chance, but it is obviously very small.

And honestly, my take on this “problem” is that SG is generally very careful and aware of how many chances they provide to get ascension mats, both 3* and 4*. (I’d note that they fairly harshly closed loopholes in how titan chests and titan loot were awarded that gave significant advantages to mercs many months ago.)

So I’m going to assume that SG didn’t mean it to be a significant source, and it isn’t a significant source, and that ■■■■■■■■ about it may be briefly fun, but isn’t productive.

Just like ■■■■■■■■ about my 75 Atlantis summons yielding ONE legendary hero, and that one was a duplicate of the first legendary hero I ever got. (Delilah), and not one of the blue or purple heroes my roster really needed (Damn you, Kageburado!), nor a copy of the current HotM who I would very much like to have before she’s gone even though I don’t have darts for her. Out of 75, I also got two copies of a hero I didn’t have before and wanted: Proteus, and extra copies of 2-3 more 4* heroes that I probably should eat, but will hoard for a while; my hero hoarding habit continues. At least I’ve got a purple hero to feed all those purple trainers I was keeping so I can clear that space too.

Yes, I’m disappointed. And yes, I had noticably worse results than the odds. But the game is structured that this kind of luck can and will happen. And I’ll grumble a little, then move on. I won’t ask SG to change it or compensate me. I won’t ragequit.

(Moderators, this is just a timely example; please don’t move this reply to the ridiculous complaints topic! :rofl:)

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I disagree with that idea.

Current titan loot is distributed such that the difference between loot grades is normally microscopic.

If your titan is one of those sizes where some grades bump you into Tier IX (3 mat rolls) or Tier XIV or XV (I keep forgetting which one gets you4 mat rolls) , the difference is small instead of microscopic.

Or if you really don’t belong in that alliance hitting that size titans, and you get a D grade, there is a significant dropoff there.

This makes titan killing a team project. You can still be a lone big bad wolf doing a titan kill for your alliance … but the loot improvement is so small that all you really get for it is bragging rights. (Consider how many people still chat about how A / A+ loot is “jinxed” I don’t believe it is true … but neither is the opposite … the difference is so small that it is hard to measure.)

I think that’s the way titan killing incentives SHOULD work.

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I vote for that too. Those titans are TRASH, fake ad. They are hard as hell, we spend itens and freaking flasks on they and the chances of dropping a freaking item is unknow. that’s bs and most of the times we don’t receive anything good. At least the A and B rank hitters should 100% receive it.

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This seems to me like a perfectly reasonable position to take. Speaking as another of the people who’s often on the “explaining” side of the odds rather than the “complaining about” side of the odds, I tend to take the long view too.

The difference with the summons for me, though, is the odds are published,and the activity is explicitly outside the normal flow of game play. The in-game-play summons (TC20) has about twice the odds of the pay portal. And that makes sense to me.

I’m at peace with SG keeping the flow rate of rare AM at a point where they still make a good profit. I just think they got this one wrong. Anyway, thank you again for your insights. As always, greatly appreciated.

To be fair, they didn’t used to be, and I assume that the frequent complaining/suggesting that they should be may have helped.

That, and things like the Alchemy Lab, give me hope that with enough encouragement and support, these discussions aren’t idle brief amusement for us, and can actually be productive.

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And I AM making an assumption, as I don’t talk with SG staff other than occasionally @'ing somebody like Petri, Mhaltu, or Sara in a forum post.

I’d also note that SG does explicitly provide odds of gem purchased items, but this is relatively new, and something I don’t think they would have done had it not been forced by external rules. (I’m thinking that Apple and/or Google require it to let them collect money, but I’m not certain.) I would note that other game mechanics which aren’t related to gem purchases don’t have odds disclosed, and all that SG has said about them is that they haven’t been changed without disclosing it in the release notes.

So we really are guessing on the odds.

SG could well have intended something different than this result … or they might not have thought about the consequences, and just done it without much thought. If that is the case, I think they’ve had a good chance to notice it here!

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I summarized for concision and punch. Personally, I’m always at least wearing pajamas when I flask though :sunglasses:

I can see where you and @General_Confusion are coming from. It’s definitely helped crisp up my thinking around some of the core issues, where I had been a lot fuzzier than I thought initially.

What I’ve come to ultimately is that I’m pretty attached to the idea of at least some number guaranteed drops, but that they really need to be randomly distributed to encourage teamwork. The regular drops that come alongside the AM are tiered, and that should still encourage people to give their best effort. But I really want the AM to feel like a team reward, rather than an individual reward for people who just happen to be hitting the titain together.

At any rate, the discussion so far has been very intereting and super helpful to me. Thank you both!

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:heart:

Especially:

20 minutes until more :heart: available

I agree… thanks to express what I feel and think about the rare titans. I hope that they will get improvements soon.

Great idea. Just finished #1 attacker on r last special titan…again… in our alliance and yet again didn’t get the rings and time before no darts for this guy. :tired_face:

Thanks! I think a lot of us find it super frustrating. I’m hopeful they’ll revisit them at some point.

Off topic but u and @Hrairoo with ur new profile picks r tripping me out. Especially that the robot is still going strong for her and literally how everytime I c that now I can’t help but laugh at myself for being such a dork!

PS
I did vote too

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