Drop "rates"?????

This post is out of pure frustration.

I am currently level 20 and grinded the monuments since level 8. Started at highwaymen, went to seph, steel bloom and now on carp... I have seen a total of MAYBE 13 armor/gear drops in the 100+ hours of mob grinding .. I am still in half vendored half donated by my lower level friends gear... I genuinely feel like my account is bugged. I'll grind 3-4 hours to see a drop that's not runes... I'll get off for 2 hours and my friends will get 10+ drops... we are all around the same level.. to furthermore add to this, I have some irl friends that started a few days late and are around level 15 now.. they took the EXACT same leveling route I did and have multiple sets of blue items... my group I been grinding with is almost entirely the same level (19-21 range) and they can only get drops when I'm not online. My only blue items are a growler helm, boots, and necklace.. and they were all donated to me by my friend because he had multiple at lvl 13... today I met a level 14 fighter and he had a heroic growler helm, heroic boots, and everything else was blue... the system makes ZERO sense to me.. the odds of being that "unlucky" are almost mathematically impossible. I am at the point where I feel like I have to start a new account because the only reason I can do higher end content is because my friends half my level have hand-me-downs for me .. I just want to clarify... I'm not losing rolls for items.. we are just getting zero drops other than runes. The ONLY Piece of gear I have that I genuinely seen drop was my Sanctus longbow.. (and my tank need rolled won and gave it to me)

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novercalis

how many players in you're group?

What are the level ranges of each player in said group?

What level mobs are you fighting?

Were you in party frame or raid frame mode?

What level was the "Party leader" at?

tinukeda

At level 12, solo I've had waaaay more drops than that, to the point of giving away or vendoring several pieces.
I've only had to craft 1 piece and I opted to player trade/buy for another. Everything else is dropped.

1Problem

novercalis wrote: »

how many players in you're group?

What are the level ranges of each player in said group?

What level mobs are you fighting?

Were you in party frame or raid frame mode?

What level was the "Party leader" at?

Level range for the party has never been more than 2 levels from lowest to highest,

mobs are always around our level (1-2 levels lower up to 10 levels higher, (rarely) but for the most part within 1-2 levels)

Party frame, this wasn't a "1 off" this has literally been since release last week to now.. easily 40-80 hours both weekends

On our last trip party leader was level 19 (our lowest)

1Problem

tinukeda wrote: »

At level 12, solo I've had waaaay more drops than that, to the point of giving away or vendoring several pieces.
I've only had to craft 1 piece and I opted to player trade/buy for another. Everything else is dropped.

That seems to be the case for most of my friends as well, example: my friend today got a inventory row of blue items (not all useful, but still blue items) farming the ashens next to carp on the island within about an hour and a half... I spent the last about 30 hours pulling an all nighter and did nothing but grind mobs and saw zero drops.. grinded I think 17-20 during that time

sairii

Same
Still in first vendor gear at lvl 12 as cleric.
The highest and last weapon i found was a green copper spell shortbow with 40 magic power... which i still use because not enough money to buy something good.
Most mobs dont even drop anything of value so money income unless you grind professions is also bad.

kadimir

I feel like grouping itself has some strange behaviors when it comes to drops. Sometimes it's RNG but it's usually very odd when certain groups/parties get nothing, slight change and it's like someone turned on the faucet again. No significant changes in party level/composition. One time it was like we were getting drops very rapidly, 2 people left - then barely any drops for a long time - changed out party members and it was back on the menu regularly as soon as they showed up. One thing I also suspect might have been happening last week(didnt test the theory this week) was if you were in a party and the other person was on the other side of the map, you simply wouldnt get the drops they would have gotten, even if it was on free for all. Further reinforced by the fact that one time I had to afk fishing near the spot we were grinding - switched loot to free for all, then low and behold - when I come back I'm like you gonna loot any of this? and he was like loot what, there's not a single piece of loot on the ground - and I had like 4 piles waiting for me.

wrathburn

I have had a similar experience to the OP. I have primarily run two characters; a ranger who I have leveled to 10 almost entirely solo, and a cleric I play in a dedicated trio group with two family members. Both characters reached level 10 by mostly grinding goblins with a few bandits/highwaymen on the side.

By the time my ranger hit level 10, I had green armor pieces in nearly every slot, a combination of white and green jewelry, but my weapons were merchant-bought copper quality.

My cleric on the other hand had nearly no mob-dropped loot at all. My only armor pieces were the starting chest, legs, and boots. I did acquire a couple of pieces of white jewelry, and just like my ranger, I never managed to loot a mob-dropped weapon.

There is something off with mob-dropped equipment, especially when leveling in a group from 1 to 10. Beyond that, I think the equipment drop rate needs to be increased. It is frustrating to reach level 10 and still have most of your equipment slots empty and running around with starter gear.

rollox

I wonder if there are certain times or events which loot drops more frequently. Seen where I could go all day, 10 hours and not get a good loot drops.

Then suddenly end up in a new location, kill a skeleton and a blue sword drops. Decide to keep killing the skeletons and a blue bow drops. It definitely comes in waves.

I am curious to know if either the devs have their finger on the dual. And decide it's loot heaven for the next hour. Or if somehow these coincided, which is purely speculative, that these bountiful times did seem to coincide with times that Steven was interacting with the player base on the server.

In general, beside the blue example above, both were blue sanctus spell sword and blue sanctus spellbow. My character is a fighter, so no use to me.

I have gotten maybe three good drops for my character. A nice blue medium head at level six. A good blue earrings at level 8. And just yesterday a green heavy armor bracers at level 11. All the rest of my stuff is either vendor or crafted.

I did spend a day making cotton and farming mats at level 10 to crafting a full set of armor and jewelry. So I thought maybe I had above average gear for my level.

It seems that it may be close to how this is intended, to get some drops along the way, but most of the adventuring gear probably should come from crafting .instead of boss farms

daveywavey

1Problem wrote: »

This post is out of pure frustration.

I am currently level 20 and grinded the monuments since level 8. Started at highwaymen, went to seph, steel bloom and now on carp... I have seen a total of MAYBE 13 armor/gear drops in the 100+ hours of mob grinding .. I am still in half vendored half donated by my lower level friends gear... I genuinely feel like my account is bugged. I'll grind 3-4 hours to see a drop that's not runes... I'll get off for 2 hours and my friends will get 10+ drops... we are all around the same level.. to furthermore add to this, I have some irl friends that started a few days late and are around level 15 now.. they took the EXACT same leveling route I did and have multiple sets of blue items... my group I been grinding with is almost entirely the same level (19-21 range) and they can only get drops when I'm not online. My only blue items are a growler helm, boots, and necklace.. and they were all donated to me by my friend because he had multiple at lvl 13... today I met a level 14 fighter and he had a heroic growler helm, heroic boots, and everything else was blue... the system makes ZERO sense to me.. the odds of being that "unlucky" are almost mathematically impossible. I am at the point where I feel like I have to start a new account because the only reason I can do higher end content is because my friends half my level have hand-me-downs for me .. I just want to clarify... I'm not losing rolls for items.. we are just getting zero drops other than runes. The ONLY Piece of gear I have that I genuinely seen drop was my Sanctus longbow.. (and my tank need rolled won and gave it to me)

Log a bug ticket for it.

SmileGurney

The drop rates are low and afaik are static, there is no "pity system" which would increase the chance of a drop for players who had no drop in longer time. I'm not going to be concerned, IF the crafting system is balanced and pointlessly grindy.

What I do no like atm, even if this is just a result of placeholder systems, are the level range for drop, vendor and crafted gear. Levelling is pretty slow, we know that. Where is incremental gear? Gear for level 12, 15, 17 etc.

Xeeg

ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »

The drop rates are low and afaik are static, there is no "pity system" which would increase the chance of a drop for players who had no drop in longer time. I'm not going to be concerned, IF the crafting system is balanced and pointlessly grindy.

What I do no like atm, even if this is just a result of placeholder systems, are the level range for drop, vendor and crafted gear. Levelling is pretty slow, we know that. Where is incremental gear? Gear for level 12, 15, 17 etc.

I think the idea is to make all the gear at the 10 level breaks so that they have some longevity to them. If you spend the time to craft a bunch of level 10 gear it will actually last a while, kinda thing. I prefer this route and would prefer it over mobs dropping gear. Mobs dropping gear kinda bypasses all the other game systems.

Caeryl

ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »

The drop rates are low and afaik are static, there is no "pity system" which would increase the chance of a drop for players who had no drop in longer time. I'm not going to be concerned, IF the crafting system is balanced and pointlessly grindy.

What I do no like atm, even if this is just a result of placeholder systems, are the level range for drop, vendor and crafted gear. Levelling is pretty slow, we know that. Where is incremental gear? Gear for level 12, 15, 17 etc.

Yeah, I noticed this too and found if baffling for how long my character was under level 10. I was expecting a more traditional RPG approach that depended on allocated stats as qualifiers for wearing gear, not 'level 10' as the sole qualifier.

I get that it's still placeholder, but not being able to adjust the level of a crafted gear piece seems like a huge miss even at this stage.

kadimir

On a side note, pretty sure the level brackets for gear is modelled after lineage II, https://l2wiki.lineage2splendor.com/classic/Armor_Sets/

this was actually cool, because high enchanted C grade for instance would get your quite far - and was a sign of wealth if you were wearing B/A/S grade. It also changed what soul shots you had to use.

ColdSteel

I agree 100%. I leveled 3 characters to level 10 to see what class fit me and how the first 10-level experience would be for a new player, and I was shocked at how minimal the gear drops were. Every one of my classes I play had 1/2 the gear needed by the time I got to level 10. Most of the drops I received were out of class-specific, to say tank, mage, or ranger. Out of desperation on my 3rd level 10 grind, I started down the armor crafting profession to get my helmet, gloves, and bracers so I had a full armor set. Without grouping up and grinding 3-star mobs for hours, it was pointless to expect to find the most common essential gear quickly. I feel that gear progression should be more accessible at lower levels and that the increase in rarity drops percentage later in a progression-phased approach. Once I joined a group and ground two and 3-star mobs, I started finding gear. Most of which was off class. Quests in the game need to cater to the basic standard starting tear of gear up to some green, maybe blue gear rewards. From a solo standpoint, the game is 80% catered to being in a guild or high mob grind group. From a gear perspective, currently, the game punishes a solo player. I know this will change and will go through many iterations in the future. Just my observations. I was frustrated to see that only one path to gear was present: a group of grind-specific 2- and 3-star mobs for hours.

1Problem

I don't think level 12 is a per say "bad level" to not be fully geared at.. but I'm talking at LEVEL 20 I shouldn't be struggling that bad... to put that in to perspective with a group of 5-6 people you get about 3k xp per kill at Seph... level 15-20 is roughly 7 million xp... (mind you I'm not far off 21 either) just off rough math that tells you I've been dry FOR OVER 2500 KILLS when the "confirmed" drop rates were up to 4%.. I know chances don't add up to exact probabilities. But I should have seen a MINIMUM 25 drops just over this weekend.

nanfoodle

I'm not happy with the drop rates as well. Only at lvl 18 did I get a green drop of better that had int on it. I'm playing a Bard that always looks for teams first. So it's not like I have not had opportunity. It just does not feel good. I get gear has deep meaning but I think it's tuned too far in that direction.

My wife's Cleric is in the same place. We always play together so she also had opportunity. Still yet to get her a drop she is excited for.

nanfoodle

Good video on the subject. Done from solo perspective he has been running as an experience. Whole series on it down to loot struggles.

https://youtu.be/ttjsvUapuYg?si=UkGHBRda8Inkrtxt

Azherae

This 'cannot' be fixed because statistics.

Not sure that me just saying that is any help really, but still has to be said.

1Problem wrote: »

I don't think level 12 is a per say "bad level" to not be fully geared at.. but I'm talking at LEVEL 20 I shouldn't be struggling that bad... to put that in to perspective with a group of 5-6 people you get about 3k xp per kill at Seph... level 15-20 is roughly 7 million xp... (mind you I'm not far off 21 either) just off rough math that tells you I've been dry FOR OVER 2500 KILLS when the "confirmed" drop rates were up to 4%.. I know chances don't add up to exact probabilities. But I should have seen a MINIMUM 25 drops just over this weekend.

The average person will get drops.

The outliers will get way more drops, or very few drops. All you ever have to do to make statistics/droprates/probability feel like it makes no sense (or perfect sense, depending on your mindset) is go over 2k or so datapoints.

All of the 'sensible' droprates that are set to make people feel things are fair when they read them, are terrible at actually delivering on that experience for everyone... I'd say it's impossible, but chances are it wouldn't be the same for everyone.

Endowed

PVE, including loot drops, is crap in AoC as it stands.

It's a gather/craft drivin PvP game.

Orym

I think the drop rates are good. Its fun when you get a good item.
But what increases and decreases drop rates/rarity is not completely clear, wich can make it frustrating whan you realise you have been playing in a super non-optimized way for drops.

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