Fixed an issue where the Vienna Singer ship was not dropping (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, February 10, 2016, 14:18 (3303 days ago) @ dogcow

Aw man, that's one of my favorite name/flavor text combos! Was it not showing up?

It's drop rate was just a lot lower than they wanted it to be.

I don't get how this is a difficult thing to get right. I mean, as a software developer I do understand how bugs or unforeseen behaviors can emerge, but... loot tables just seem so simple, how can you get the drop rates wrong?

I'm not being critical, I'm more just curious. :)

If I had to guess (and this is a HUGE guess) I'd say it is probably a case of appropriate drop rates being misjudged in the design phase. As in, there's no technical mistake, it's just the person(s) in charge of setting drop rates thinking "we want this to be rare, so let's give it a 5% drop rate" and thinking that will "feel" ok to the player base. I understand that being a "loot" game is a big part of Destiny, and Bungie doesn't want drop rates to be too high because then players will quickly get everything they want and have no reason to keep playing... except I don't think that's how it actually works. Not for me, at least.

For example: it took me quite a while to get my first Fatebringer. When it finally did drop for me, I didn't suddenly stop playing VoG, or Destiny in general. I actually started playing the raid (and the rest of the game) MORE because Fatebringer made everything more fun. IMO, people shouldn't need to run a raid 50+ times to get all the raid gear they want. HAVING gear isn't fun. USING it is. But if players need to replay activities an insane number of times to get the gear they want, they're going to be sick of the activities by the time the gear actually drops. Nobody wins.