Stun guns and rng

Confirmation bias at work. We as humans look for meaningful patterns in everything and often seek out patterns that fit preconceived notions. When we find them, we run with them even if the pattern wasn't actually there to begin with. We want something to be true so we create a way to make it true.

"I want stun guns for my toon but I am not getting them. Because I favorited them, the drop rates must have been lowered, it is the most logical explanation." Erroneous and illogical but oh so many people buy into the pattern.

You're not actually farming stunguns if you've gotten that many zetas in the same time it has taken you to build one.
Reassess your own strategy before you blame someone else.

I'm not exaggerating and I am farming them. I've been doing 5 hard battles per day that purportedly drop stun guns, the other 5 hard battles I do do not have them. The rest of my standard energy goes to a 10-energy stun gun drop battle. I've hoarded all of my currency for the stores to buy stun guns if they appear, and they almost never do. I took intentional note of the timing because I last completed a stun gun on the same day I completed a zeta. And yes, since then I have completed 2 zetas and have only 45/50 towards a stun gun. Disagree with my conclusion if you like, but don't question my premise.

"APX_919;c-2003174" wrote:
Confirmation bias at work. We as humans look for meaningful patterns in everything and often seek out patterns that fit preconceived notions. When we find them, we run with them even if the pattern wasn't actually there to begin with. We want something to be true so we create a way to make it true.

"I want stun guns for my toon but I am not getting them. Because I favorited them, the drop rates must have been lowered, it is the most logical explanation." Erroneous and illogical but oh so many people buy into the pattern.

Yeah, I've heard this one before and I get the concept. But at some point we have to ask the question. I'm posing a hypothesis is all. I don't think it's unreasonable to question the motives and tactics of the developers this way. Yes, they are providing a game we enjoy. Yes, some things are meant to be a struggle. But they also do have a financial interest in not giving us for free what they can charge us for. Shame on us if we accept everything represented to us at face value.

I don't think it has anything to do with having units flagged or not. Stun gun drop rates are 3 meters under our feet. Low and dead.
I've spent the last ~520 energy on Zaalbar (no refresh - meaning 80 energy) and the remaining 440 energy on stun guns. Got 5 pieces. Thats a flat 11 % drop rate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A low ball estimate of the droprate for stun guns farming from normal energy nodes is 20%. That means if you really need one you can farm the 50 salvage in 4 days with free energy + 150 crystals of energy refreshes per day. That's 735 energy per day, so after 4 days you'll have 294 attempts on a 10 energy node giving you 58.8 salvage on average.

So 4 days and 600 crystals. Or immediately and 1270 crystals from shipments if you don't want to divert 4 days worth of energy from other farms. If a team you are currently working on is being severely held up by stun guns you just need to make the admittedly difficult decision to pause your other farms for a few days (or pay of course).

Stun guns in GEC and Shard Shop stores rotate with quite a few other pieces so like the classic logrey example it's not a very low probability event, just a bit of bad luck, if they don't show up for 5 or more days (even when you actually do check at every store refresh). Zetas on the other hand have a very consistent income stream that only varies very slightly depending on TW, GAC and fleet arena results.

You can't do everything even if you spend 1000s and 1000s on the game so prioritise your farms to meet your most pressing goals.

"DarjeloSalas;c-2003233" wrote:
If they are showing up 1-2 a day in the shard shop, go buy a lottery ticket. They are nothing like that frequent for me.

I have runs where that can happen and runs where I go days without any.

"TVF;c-2003239" wrote:

"DarjeloSalas;c-2003233" wrote:
If they are showing up 1-2 a day in the shard shop, go buy a lottery ticket. They are nothing like that frequent for me.

I have runs where that can happen and runs where I go days without any.

That sounds makes it sound like it's random!!!

;)

"EduardoCadav;c-2003249" wrote:

"TVF;c-2003239" wrote:

"DarjeloSalas;c-2003233" wrote:
If they are showing up 1-2 a day in the shard shop, go buy a lottery ticket. They are nothing like that frequent for me.

I have runs where that can happen and runs where I go days without any.

That sounds makes it sound like it's random!!!

;)

I'm told there are also numbers involved and that something generates said numbers, but it might just be anecdotal.

"Gen_Fuzz_E_Gub;d-218228" wrote:
Look, I get that having a gear wall prevents (kind of) people being able to just max out characters and, you know, actually have fun with them. But stun guns have gotten ridiculous. I have built 2 zetas and and am almost done with a third in the same time its taken to not build a single stun gun. They're never showing up in shops, and the drops from even the hard tier battles are nonexistent. I don't know if you Devs are secretly tweaking the drop rate when characters flagged as "favorite" (which I suspect, because I also noticed Sun Fac's fighter almost never shows up in the Galactic War store), but come on already. The items in the stores should at least be on a rotation, and not rng dependent. And stun guns shouhave the same appearance rate as anything else. You introduce events that require us to work up specific characters to a certain level, then make sure we can never achieve those levels because it takes over a month for a single piece of gear. Not cool.

Might I suggest saving crystals and using them on stun guns from shipments. That's how I manage the low drop rate. Sure it leaves less crystals for energy refreshes but that's how resource management works in this game.