So I've only been playing this game for a few days now - basically since it was released for android. And while I like the overall concept and design of the game, there's a bunch of things that really drive me nuts.

When I watch early youtube videos of the game play or read feedback about it, I see players picking up rare and legendary items left and right, all within half a day of wasteland exploring. And when they open lunchboxes, they get one rare dweller after another.

Yet when I opened the 10 or so free lunchboxes which I got so far, I only get 500 caps and a damned rusty sawed off shotgun. I've had dozens of dwellers return from the wastelands, and all I have to show for it, is a collection of BB-guns and other useless junk. I'm closing in on 80 dwellers and I still don't have a single rare weapon, and only 3 or so rare dresses. What the heck Bethesda? How do you explain such an abysmal bad luck?

Do I happen to be the unluckiest person in the history of probability or did you actually reduce the droprates for high-tier items to nigh-zero for the android release? Well, I've seen people complaining about their "badluck" regarding item drops since the update hit them, so I guess you did lower the drop rates after all. Was it because the iphone players didn't spend enough cash on the game? How come that piece of information didn't make it into the update notes? I guess such an insolent cashgrab doesn't sell well, heh?

There are several other issues with the game, but that certainly is the worst, so I'll skip the rest. Games like this one create entertaining value soley through grinding for better loot. If you kill that experience by reducing the drop rates to basically nothing, the you kill the game along with it.

Negativity, if it makes you feel better, the only rare weapons my vault dwellers ever bring back are Hardened BB Guns... Seriously, waste a rare roll on a BB Gun. :/

However if you rush the missions you will eventually get lucky with weapons. I got a rusty shotgun (meh), Smuggler's End (Ok, getting somewhere), Hardened Sniper Rifle(Nice!), and an Alien Blaster (Now we're talking) in my current vault. However this was over 2 days, and about 2 dozen lunch boxes.

That's what I was thinking when I started with the game. But on top of those abysmal drop rates, the objectives get more ridiculous by the day. "extinguish 15 fires". Or "pick up 25 weapons". Unless there is an alternative way of picking up weapons other than endless exploring, I don't see how you could rush that. Or regarding the fires: I actually don't remember the last time a fire broke out in my vault. Radroaches? Yes, plenty of those. Mole rats? Constantly. And I had like 5 or 6 Death Claw attacks only today. But fires really are a rare sight. Of course I tried to provoke fires by rushing rooms. After the 5th 'failure' in a row producing a mole rat attack I gave up.

Weapon collection isn't as bad if you train an explorer with luck. Luck factors in the loot they will find and how much of it. The higher the level of luck the better the loot. Problem is that the game never tells you this and you will only find this out if another player tells you it.

I'll give you a hint on how to rush the fires... Rush the same easy room over and over and over. Sure when you start repeat failing the people in the room will get upset, but it's just one room full of people and they'll get over it. That's how I rush it.

I will admit that Collect X weapons are hard to rush, but usually I already have someone on the way home with a ton of BB Guns, 32s, etc. to fulfill the requirement as I often have 4-5 explorers at once.

I just got my first two rusty laser pistols though from exploration, so there's that (Best common item) Still it's coming back with 2 Hardened BB Guns (The only Blue BB Gun which means it's "rare")

Also note that about every 6 hours your chance to get rare on random item drops (hourly drops) goes up by 1%, and your chance to get legendary goes up by .1%. Try to send your guys out as long as possible for the best chance at rare items. (It takes 25 days to reach a 100% chance per drop for rare but every minute adds to your chance)

ExiledAlchemist: Actually luck only factors into how many caps they find and whether or not they get an item drop. It has no effect on the quality of the item that is dropped. That is simply based on time or whether the special event gives normal, rare, or legendary items.

Edit: Go to page 7 of this for more info on how drops work in the wastes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nai09D_aM2syl3iPP5hkveDcOUwhsoUDR6s1lwC0e8c/htmlview?usp=docslist_api&sle=true#

I think the game does tell you that somewhere (maybe one of the hints when starting the app?) - though I might be wrong on this. Either way, as Chthon pointed out, luck most likely only affects bottle caps, but not so much items.

@Chthon: I've checked that google sheet before. There's certainly some valuable information in there, but some information is definitely outdated. Bethesda changed several things with the update. And I'm starting to think that the droprates for rare items is one of the changes. well, maybe frustration is skewing my perspective... Soon, another 4 of my dwellers are about to end their exploration (each between 18 to 20 hours) and still I get mostly garbage.

I'm just annoyed that the lunch box's guaranteed legendary card not only can be a 500 caps card, but a rare weapon, not a legendary weapon. That is very misleading.

Edit: Oh wait, it says rare card or better. Still some of the rare weapons don't deserve the title, and 500 caps is borderline worthless after a certain point. I have a dweller that returns with 3000 caps every trip into the wastes.

just opened another box. guess what, got another 500 caps. if this doesn't change soon, i'm done with the game.

These 500 caps cards are big nonsense, especially if they turn up with the 4th card (which i consider as the card with the chance of rare or legendary loot). The first 4 lunchboxes tend to be the most important for your vault. 4 good items or characters will give you a rocksolid base to start from, while a few 100 caps just make you spent money, but never compensate for a rare character or weapon, not talking of a legendary one... 500 caps in the late game won′t stop a deathclaw, not even ressurect a dead dweller. But a legendary or rare weapon can make a difference, even become the backbone of your first line of defense.

Agreed Vaderan. Unless there is a way in the game to turn caps into good equipment or a good dweller (Hiring mercenaries for defense, or trading for weapons with a trader) 500 caps is a booby prize as a rare card.

I'm confused, how do you rush missions? You're referring to exploring the wasteland right? How do you rush that?

Most missions don't involve the wastelands. If you get a bunch of "Collect X resource" in a row, or "Equip X Dwellers," these can easily be rushed to get to longer missions. The 12 hours one of course cannot be rushed, and I wasn't trying to imply that.

Even the Get X dwellers pregnant can be rushed.

Loot in this game has a wide range of variance, and unfortunately with things that are hugely RNG, there is the chance that you get the allmighty random number generator shaft, Im at a 200 person vault, 30 lv 50 explorers with maxed stats and 90% of the time they bring back junk, ocassionally a usable rare, same thing with the lunchboxes, ive had more than my share of annoying 500 cap 4th cards so theres no rhyme or reason to it in that reguard.

The only thing I can confirm as a constant, is that as my vault grew, more dwellers, higher level etc, the standard of quality improved for both common and rare weapons, by that I mean as one point I was getting mostly hunting rifles, then later mostly sawed off shotguns, now my standard of weapon is up to higher tier sniper rifles, railway rifles, combat shotguns, and flamethrowers, so loot does improve with time and growth.

Keep at it, keep sending those explorers out, keep completing challenges, and hope you get something good, legendaries are very rare, but you need to have patience.

Luck... Just gotta love it or hate it. So far, the rarest thing I have is a Fat Man and a special suit that increases a dweller's luck by 7. So I sent a dweller out with said weapon and suit... He's been going for 6+ hours and hadn't used one of his many stimpaks... So I think I'm pretty good on rare items right now. Just gotta get more.

But ye'h. It's just luck. Bethesda may have nerfed the chances for rare stuff...

This is reassuring to me. I'm glad to hear it. If they did something like this to the lunchbox caps (500-5000 caps depending on number of dwellers, average level, etc), removed the limit, and gave us more things to spend them on, I'd be happy.

Truer words have not been spoken.

This is what I've been trying to tell people.

The success of the vault is dependant on the first 4-5 lunchbox pulls. Especially for new players.

An experienced player getting weapons and characters will be able to go for the long haul.

New players getting caps will spend them on upgrades, then not have the weapons to actually fend off the higher leveled incidents they bring on.

The 500 caps rewards are garbage. And in the beginning they doom a vault to inevitable failure.

I won't be paying for a lunchbox unless they are removed as a possibility. It's like buying a box of nails from the hardware store only to find half of them are screws.

Who is with me?

+1, I'm always annoyed by this. However after this kind of lunchbox i sometimes get both rare AND legendary cards in the following one, for example a rare dweller(with a good piece of equipment) + a legendary weapon.

I've actually succeeded without getting much from lunchboxes. In my first few, the only good item I got was a Combat Shotgun. The rest were mostly just caps.