Ancient Cloak of Flames (raid item) off Death Beetle

RNG is a fickle B!@#$

Your wrong. The person who can't find a decent camp (with more then 2 mobs in it), group and doesn't box gets screwed. I'll get mine so I'm not talking about myself. Oh wait you said someone could spend real $ to get this item huh. Sounds like a racket.

The rng is so bad that Sol B had 15 players prime time last night on Bristlebane. Or it could be that the drop rate was adjusted but that's a different thread. Whatevever the case the "fun" isn't as high when HH started. I know I am not taking time off from work anymore to get something that is not likely to drop after investing 65 hours not seeing a cloak drop.

Weekend is here brace for impact!

I feel same way too 2 full days slaying in mass and got zero! I won't bother wasting my time in that hole anymore either.

I've spent enough time to see several cloaks drop, and several rings drop. I guess some might feel miffed when a tank loses a roll for the ring/cloak to a caster or priest when it'd clearly be a huge upgrade to the classes that actually take hits most of the time, but I feel more like it's so rare to actually see them drop that I don't consider a loss if I can't nab a ring before HH revamp ends. And yeah, always jealous of the ones who walk in, kill a mob, and RNG smiles upon them. LOL

rofl

Ah, a Paladin. I guess maybe rolling on that ring is justifed. But I see it as a caster ring and I pass. Sure, I could roll on it and sell it or give it to a toon not in the group. But that'd be wrong.

The drop rate was definitely lowered. Either that or no one is admitting to getting one since the repop. Odd given how everyone joyfully told ooc when they got one, prior to that.

its because now everyone is getting multiple cloaks and remaining hush hush about it so they don't seem like loot hogs, when camp spots are limited and many don't have even one yet. Can't believe how many people form "facts" based on what they do or do not hear in /ooc chat channels.

I'm confused, everyone is getting multiple cloaks and many don't even have one yet. Which is it?

Frankly, if the developers would just state that no change has occurred or yes they dropped the rate would be appreciated so that folks can determine if putting in the time required makes sense. However, if I made an unpopular decision to reduce a drop rate, I would probably do what the developers have done, kept quiet.

Can't wait till zones go down and you find these online for sale on them plat farmer web sites. The ones that seem to be getting these are those that can afford to live online. Grats to all those that manage to get one but don't fall into the buy online. Then again might be in marketplace pretty soon.

It's both, of course. Again, RNG operating as it always has, throughout EQ since the beginning.

To all those having RNG issues getting your items to drop, I suggest taking over a camp right as I leave it, guaranteed to have incredible luck an hour or two later off the very same mobs!

It's not RNG issues imo its just insanely rare. What happened is this: It started out as a reasonable drop rate. Lots of people gained cloaks multiple times. SoE saw this and did not like it, so they nerfed the drop rate. So now it is very rare and some people will camp the zone for 25+ hours and never see one because they either did not camp it while the drop rate was good or did not know about it until after the nerf.

They may not want to admit it, but its obvious they nerfed it. It's the only logical thing to assume when its super easy to get the first cloak and then a week later you get nothing after spending time there every day. I don't buy the rng excuse. Bad luck for a few days is one thing, but long periods of bad luck is just because they made it much rarer than before.

It's a zone-wide drop, so you can kill anything in the zone and have as much of a chance as anyone else. It's also based on more than ooc channels. I mean, large guilds do have quite a few groups out killing 20k mobs in the zone, hoping to score a cloak. First 5 days, quite a few were acquired per 24 hours grinding trash. The past 5 days, quite a lot less.

To put it more accurately: More man hours were spent in the zone grinding trash the past 5 days than the first 5 days. With a lot less cloaks gained in that time. This, combined with drop info from many friends and acquaintances outside the guild who have spent days in the zone, point to a significantly lower drop rate since the zone was re-popped.

Eh, it's all personal perspective. I was in the zone at the time that someone saw eight, and I have seen... one. Last night my time, two people in the zone got cloaks within 20 minutes of each other. I've still only seen one.
Humans expect random numbers to equalize long before they tend to do. We interpret data as patterns that aren't necessarily so.

This is intended to be a chase item, correct? Maybe the intent was to only have "x" number of cloaks/rings per server. Say the intent was 30 per server. The first week before the repop, 20 dropped. They realize they are going to have more cloaks/rings than what they had hoped for, hence the change.

Or after two weeks people are just going insane over this.

They are dropping. Don't go off /ooc. The two I have looted first hand were not announced to the zone. Probably others don't feel the need to call the local news media every time they get a drop.

Hey all I know is that I've spent nearly 45 hours in CMM and know of two ring drops. Yes that's right. Two in approximately 3500 mobs.
The cloak I spent the first 3-4 days farming it. Camping anywhere from 4-8 hours at a time. Then one evening I logged in, killed two mobs and bam there it was.
This is OBSERDLY random.