Monitor energy drop rate... or rather the lack thereof

Could we please get the drop rate increased? It takes 60 of them to finish an OP waist, and if I'm lucky on any given day without resetting the instances I am lucky to see 2 of them drop across 4 toons running the duo and alert. Back in Episode 34 (Justice League Dark) we were seeing Demonic Chaos Essences dropping like there was no tomorrow, and we only needed 50 of them just to advance to the next level where we then needed different essences.

Based on the announcement, these are also not included with this bonus catalyst weekend since they are neither "artifact" nor "augment" catalysts... or am I misunderstanding/misreading?

You're probably correct in that the op waist catalysts will not have an increased drop rate this weekend- and I'm sorry to tell you we probably won't ever see an increase in drop rate (or at least a change that's acknowledged- that would be the devs admitting that they were wrong. My best advice would be to broker the catalysts- it's a lot faster, easier, and there's a guaranteed drop rate!

And costs a bare minimum of $20 mil per monitor energy.

Honestly, I'd be annoyed if they did pump them out now. Took me and multiple leaugemates forever to get thru a few characters and are now working on other teammates supply. Just keep grinding or buy from broker.
I've been playing every day since metal 1 launched and I still haven't found Luthor's mangled and trick lapel. That's what, 5 months? Plus multiple leaugemates running multiple toons daily trying to help me. About 6 chances per day and nothing. Would I love for them to increase drop rate? Yeah I'm sick of that solo as are my friends but when I do finally finish the collections, its gonna feel incredible vs some lame accomplishment

Yeah.... what's your point?

Not everyone has that kind of money. If you were to buy enough outright to do it, that's 60 times $20 mil... or $1.2 billion. Are you REALLY trying to promote gold sellers? Or do you want to fix the economy a bit by increasing drop rates on some of these items, even if only for someone with an active membership?

I've gotten quite a few to drop, but over the last week, drop has been terrible. They messed with the drop rate. Over 10-20 toons. 10 running both duo and alert, rest just duo, I was getting 7-10 a day. Got 2 yesterday. Got 5 over the weekend. It's been flukey since friday

Ok, so first no **** not everyone in game has that much money- if they did then the price for monitor energy would increase. They're expensive because they have scarcity and demand.
Second- yes, nice job showing us you can do math. Now let's look at the actual value of the calculation you did... $1.2 billion for all of the monitor energies you would need to get your op belt- but who buys ALL of the catalysts from the broker, especially when that's not even everything you need to level the forge mold? That $1.2 billion figure helps to support the value of the monitor energies being so high if anything. Do you really want to be able to buy all of then you would need for $10 million? To make them less valuable so everyone can buy an op waist?
And finally- nowhere did I ever talk about gold sellers- that's just your inability to figure out how to make money in the game, unwillingness to grind it out and lack of patience naturally leads you as a solution.

Not everyone is going to sit there and open time capsule after time capsule to get rare items. Not everyone is going to spend all kinds of real world money on a random chance that they'll get something worth selling (Booster bundles, stabilizers). So... that leaves one certain way to get to that level of cash. I do my daily grinds. I do all that stuff... but I'm not going to continually sink real world money into what is effectively a lottery or gambling when it comes to trying to find stuff to sell.

They already took one alt-friendly action by making the vendor catalysts go to half price... but they didn't crank up the drop rates for the other items... so even though it won't cost as many marks from the vendor it is still about as unfriendly to alts as the other methods were.

I'm not supporting the drop rates or state of the economy at all, but I just wanted to say that you don't have to spend any money to make cash to buy things you need. (Aside from your sub of course)
Running missions that you know have rare drops that sell for a decent amount, playing the broker game and maybe flipping items, and opening capsules using your free stabilizers are some ways to make money. It wont be quick of course but nothing is quick when taking the grinding option, just become a little patient I guess.
If you want the OP items so badly then you may as well start making money and saving up to buy whatever you need for the next OP item that comes out.

Again- your inability to figure out how to make money in the game. I have about $887 million on my main at the moment and I've never paid for extra stabilizers or bought cash from a gold site- and I'm not even that rich in-game. There are plenty of people with way more cash than me who have earned it as well.

All mine too

Which again requires "luck"... In all the times I've run these old raids I think I've seen the stuff drop once for me, and that was a long time ago. I've watched several friends and leaguemates get the drops several times. The man-bats, for example, dropped for me once since the content dropped... and that's with running it frequently. Same is true for things like "Complex Crime Scene Riddle."

Some people have better luck than others, and my gut is telling me that some accounts are more blessed than others.

No, I have the ability. What I don't have is the luck necessary for those things to happen. I run the stuff for rare drops... and never get it while I watch others in the group receive it. And while I'm happy for them, it's frustrating.

It's supposed to be a grind. Why does everyone want everything handed to them? The game is easy enough. The economy is awful, yeah, but it's an OP item. It's not needed, and should be grindy.

Don't worry too much about the impossible to drop type of items, there are plenty of medium-rare items that you can get and sell for a decent price, it builds up. If everything was guaranteed to drop then they would be worth absolutely nothing. That'd be good for getting things like monitor energy (which in turn they'd make it take maybe 500 monitor energies for the belt), but older items no longer in circulation you'll struggle to earn money to buy those.

So many ways to make in game cash in this game. But I do kind of get mad when I see 80% of the population all of a sudden have over a billion because they took advantage of an economy that was broken by a massive glitch and went unpenalized while honest people who didn't take part are still sitting there with nothing. Basically if you weren't a billionaire prior to the glitch, or if you didn't take advantage of the system while it was broken, you have been left in the dust and have a lot more than a mountain to climb now. I don't even want to guess what it's going to look like when the next TC comes out.

I've gotten over sixty just playing the content four or five days a week between two characters at Metal II CR.. I chose to sell them all until I just recently finished the Damaged Lantern set (so i could buy the feat over and get the gear half off on my lower-level alternates whenever they get up to the content). Now that I'm keeping and using them, I see myself finishing it in a month or so.

The drop rate isn't that bad on my end. I get one to three a day. Just play the game, and you'll get them. Sell what you don't need, and buy what you do, and you'll get them sooner. The OP waist is WAY easier/cheaper than getting the OP necklace. I'm sorry that your drop rates have been bad all the way up until no. Hope your RNG treats you better.

Either I've had a lucky week or they increased the drop rate as I've been getting 3-5 per day between two characters this past week. Probably the former though.

Since we're halfway through the life of the episode and I'm barely a quarter of the way through collecting the Monitor Energy I'm going to need, I simply accepted that this is another OP item that I won't get. It's like all those 0.0001% collections. By the time I could farm enough to get it, the item will no longer be a stat upgrade, and it's simply not worth that much money to buy all the Monitor Energy on the broker for something I will only use for one Episode.

So I'm selling my Monitor Energy on the broker to the 100% completionists who cannot handle having a feat escape their grasp. Made myself about 400mil as soon as I decided to pull the bandage. And with that 400mil, I was able to pick up enough other random tidbits I needed that I got 1.25SP, which was a net gain higher than what the OP feat would have got me.