Adventurers, tell me, have you ever hunted for an item that proved too elusive? Did that fearful clickie staff never drop from that undead skeleton fiend? Or did the spoils go to a compatriot? Or per chance, did you finally find yourself victorious but the reward was simply not worth the effort?
Recent discussions regarding grind and (boss) loot had me wondering how items, our virtual material possessions, drive us in MMOs. But what happens, how do we feel, when our plans do not turn out how we hoped?
In MMOs of yore, item/loot hunts were time consuming affairs that were not guaranteed of success. Yet despite this, I'm sure many of us continued our attempts.
So stay a while, and share us your stories.
Mine is one of vanity. I never subscribed to FashionQuest, but my Druid in EQ P99 will forever haunt me. She was decked out in SkyShrine armour, that wonderful green hue. But after countless SS runs, I could never secure the leggings. When they would drop, they would go to more needing guild members. That's the way it should work, I harbor no animosity. But eventually I stopped playing her and moved on to another character. She still sits on my character select screen though; a reminder that she has one quest remaining.
Didn't read the thread about grinds, but I definately want some things to be very low drop rates.
No specific stories, but I have grinded certain dungeons, with no other purpose than to get that 1% drop off some boss... a couple hundred times over the years.
I have never seen one drop on one of those hunts, let alone won a roll. Nor do I feel so entitled to think I somehow earned it. To me, that's what makes it so special.
I would absolutely hate if Pantheon separated itself from super low drop rates entirely, or had some fail safe where you collect "100 boss heads", and automatically get rewarded with that 1% drop.
As a matter of fact, "loot tokens" or currency that you turn in for rewards that should otherwise be dropping randomly off bosses is one of my biggest pet peeves... would bring me very close to me quitting the game on the spot if I see it impletmented.
4 years.
It would have been nice if the mechanic was based on the logic puzzle: There are two guards, two doors. One door leads to death (no boss/booby prize), the other to freedom(the boss in this case). One guard always tells the truth, the other guard always tells a lie. The guards know each others disposition. You can only ask one question to one guard, what is the question?- but it wasn't ,it was just a 50/50 RNG.
The Fused Mnemonic of Khati-Shah! (its better if you say it with genuflections like a 3rd century arabian spice trader making a flamboyant formal greeting)
I could not do it alone as the event to get in was pretty neat, a small 1.5-3 group event depending on how tight the players were. it was a mini boss fight, then the team needed to be split, then quickly gather together to the place- where the 50/50 would occur and if it came out right, when the door was opened, the boss would be there in all his insanity and hard-encounter mechanics. Problem was, getting people to help is what took the time.
Because this was when weasle-faced cheese-poppers were clammoring for more private dungeons just for groups and more soloable stuff and made the first inklings towards mercenaries instead of sucking it up and dealing with what was there and learning to fight differently, these were the same people that would wait in a public area for hours just to get the buffs they needed like run speed buffs and would not move unless they got them even to the point of having previously freshly cast buffs fade!. and they had such an impact that they forced devs to create an expansion that looked like it was made of beach cabana's was on rails and hated, and forced devs to crank out expansions every 6 months because by that time the RMT matket was exploding- this was before it became acceptible and BAU (business as usual) . So everyone was busy with their alts and started boxing and even if they were on and you needed help they were like, no, sorry I am with my chanter and cleric alt and we are MQ'ing secretly...4 years.
But I was able to learn the encounter and lead people through it- it took alot of pre-questing just to be able to initiate it but oince that was done it was not bad to start it up again if the 50/50 went the other way. every time it failed I dreaded having to try to get another group or 2 together, after a while you get tired of asking.
But I finally got it! all-all clicky SoW, self cast only. Nice thing is the boss also had decent loot and I could let those that helped, help themselves to all but the lore thing I wanted to finish the quest- it was a book and fit in with my mage and her researching storyline. But by then Weasles McCheesey had made enough noise that regular run speed was almost as fast as SoW, I guess no one showed them when they were young to run diagonally from lions because lions can leap so instead of learning tricks, they cheesed. But SoW was still a tad faster.
I once looted an urn of Druzella in Charasis, Kunark, EQ1. Noone else wanted the urn, so I might as well. This was a quest item eventually leading me to a Chardok faction gated quest giving the spirit wrecked cord. I spent a never ending amounts of hours grinding through droga and nurga to get faction items and afterwards finding npc's on a crazy respawn timer.
The competition for the npc gate blocking was so fierce though and my time so little that I never succeeded finishing the darn quest.
But I somehow learned to like the repetitive grinds and waiting for rare spawn timers. Including key to v, epic quests etc.
I remember in TDS when I was raiding with my guild Triton. When we beat the final boss before it got fixed and dumbed down for the first time. I played so extremely well that day but because I messed up on my rotation I died but got rezzed like 30-45(?) seconds after I came back and tried to pick up on the DPS and if I recall, I might of beat everyone with my Wizard. Another raid event we beat in TDS when we fought 2 Rock statues bosses that required cunning attention. I remember it was EPIC fighting that fight because it was awesome mechanics that probably was where I shined the most.
Lafael said:Adventurers, tell me, have you ever hunted for an item that proved too elusive? Did that fearful clickie staff never drop from that undead skeleton fiend? Or did the spoils go to a compatriot? Or per chance, did you finally find yourself victorious but the reward was simply not worth the effort?
No. I eventually got every item that I wanted for the classes I played in a game. Sure, some took more time than others but I eventually got them all. Everything will drop eventually, even if the drop rate is highly improbable. Any chance that is >0 means, statistically, it could drop every time but it will drop eventually.
What stops people from gaining some item(s) they want is they think the time it takes, for them, is too long. But that's a timeframe that is different for everyone and thus not a usable point of reference to say "this item drops too rarely."
Only in EQ. Literally only in EQ. Every other MMO I have played I got literally everything I wanted.
In EQ there was tons of items I would work for but never get. Hours of groups for various areas. I gave up expecting to get particular items because the odds were just so low. Getting gear in EQ was a pleasant surprise not an expectation. Grinding AAs and farming for drops I wanted overlapped. Time and time again I would walk away with nothing but XP. Other times I would be pleasantly surprised I would obtain such a nice item.
In EQ2 there were avatar drops I eventually got, but it was a slow grind. Damn brawler staff I cannot even remember took so long to get and then the drive to raid avatars was gone. Expectations to show up for your guildies still after things sure, but it was a big motivational hit. With nothing left to improve for your PC you just don't want to play any more. This is where my heart broke. Still though due to the duration I feel like this was an acceptable level of drop rate. It was always exciting to see who would get an awesome item. The normal instanced zones for EQ2 were just the standard MMO treadmill of easy worthless loot, you get literally everything you want if you show up so boring.
Full armor sets obsolete every few months is the name of the game for every other MMO I have played. Easy to get, entirely worthless after a few months. It eliminates my desire to play. Just keep running on the same wheel for the same bosses only now they are harder to match the new season / expansion.