Ngreth -> Explanation needed for the change in drop rates on Tradeskill items

I would like to hear the explanation for the change in drop rates to make trade skill items nearly ultra rare in older expansions.

It's safe to assume the silent change occurred to make the artisan prize harder to complete, but it really makes the journey to 350 skill a burden.

For an example, I spent 2-3 hours clearing Plane of Fire 4 times (track had less then 20targets after each round), looted nearly 1400 phosphorous powders, 90 fire mephit blood, 183 bricks of molten ore, 30 obsidianwood bow staffs... but ONLY 5 magma crystals and 1 Obsidianwood sap.

Not since the Artisan prize has been introduced have I gone to plane of fire and came away with such horrific results.

People working the 350skills will need 24 saps and nearly 35 magma crystals. Even if the random loot generator was not in my favor, it's still looking like 15+ hours of clearing plane of fire. This is just 1 zone from PoP era for a total of 25 combines. Each zone in PoP has similar combines. I can't comment on the drop rates there, but I expect the saps / stones to produce similar results from what I have seen so far.

Lots of people, including myself, like the artisan prize, some also like the challenge to get 350 in all trade skills, but doing stupid crap like changing drop rates is why people grow to hate the game.

Why was the change made?

My jboots are slower too.

It wasn't changed, they've always been that way.

Some TS mats are definitely rarer than others, rng can be your best friend or your worst enemy. You don't get much bang for your buck regarding the number of recipes for the PoP armor considering the rarity and number required for those recipes. I completed mine last month so i feel your pain regarding the amount of time required to raise TS's to 350 and I can definitely confirm that there were certain ts mats from each PoP zone that required additional farming. Also, I think you may need more than that as the magma crystals are used for both tailoring and smithing. Good luck!

Not to mention, Draught of the Craftsman went from 1000 to 1750 station cash.

Lots of confirmation bias undoubtedly influenced by your coexisting paranoia that the devs nerfed something for no reason other than 'screw you that's why', small sample size (yes, when you're dealing with uncommon / rare drops), poor knowledge of basic probability, and lack of patience.

Welcome to TS. Kill more stuff.

Unfortunately, you are wrong.

These PoP drops were never this rare before they had an current use with the artisan prize or 350 skill. I don't know when the change was made, last year, maybe two years ago... I don't know, but I can assure you that these PoP saps were never this rare for the 10+ years after PoP release.

You don't think that price change is related to people needing EOK progression for some of the ROS stuff i do.

They were rare. You just didn't care and ignored them.

The price change is irrelevant. Just go do the stuff. There is even a 2nd path for those who's TS skills are low.

Apparently you are just not paying attention. It is not just in pop zones but across the board that the drop rate for tradeskill materials is way down. I have farmed sirens grotto for low-mid lvl skilling materials for a long time, since the artisan prize came out the drop rate has fallen way way off. I went from seeing decent amounts of several different hide/silk/ore selections per clear to a mere handful. This is not just one zone but across the board, the drop rate on all tradeskil materials has been reduced a lot.

The ENTIRE changelog for Magma Crystals then Obsidianwood Sap (I only changed the dev names)
The last time anything was even touched was 2006, and it looks like it was when some sort of change in data structure required a touch of the DB, though nothing was actually changed at that time
tt is the treasure table (chance for the list of items to drop) and it is the items table, the list of items that can drop.
These drops have not been touched. It's not worth our time to reduce the drop rates across the board, it's a monumental task.

TIMESTAMP USER_NAME TRANSACTION_TYPE TABLE_NAME PK_VALUE MODIFIED_FIELD OLD_DATA NEW_DATA
30-Aug-02 <DEV1> INSERT tt 98067
30-Aug-02 <DEV1> INSERT it 98067
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_4_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_5_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_6_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_7_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_8_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_9_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_10_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_11_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_12_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_13_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_14_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_15_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_16_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_17_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_18_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_19_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_20_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_21_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_22_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_23_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_24_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_25_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_26_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_27_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_28_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_29_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98067 ITEM_30_NUM -1 -1
TIMESTAMP USER_NAME TRANSACTION_TYPE TABLE_NAME PK_VALUE MODIFIED_FIELD OLD_DATA NEW_DATA
17-Sep-02 <DEV2> INSERT tt 98113
17-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE tt 98113 item_die_size 1 2
17-Oct-02 <DEV2> UPDATE tt 98113 item_frequency 45 40
03-Dec-02 <DEV3> UPDATE tt 98113 item_list_id 98113 981130
03-Dec-02 <DEV3> UPDATE tt 98113 item_list_id 981130 98113
17-Sep-02 <DEV2> INSERT it 98113
18-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_2_NUM -1 15
18-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_1_PERCENT 100 85
18-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_2_PERCENT 0 10
18-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_1_PERCENT 85 90
18-Sep-02 <DEV2> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_2_NUM 15 29495
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_3_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_4_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_5_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_6_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_7_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_8_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_9_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_10_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_11_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_12_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_13_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_14_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_15_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_16_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_17_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_18_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_19_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_20_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_21_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_22_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_23_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_24_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_25_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_26_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_27_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_28_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_29_NUM -1 -1
16-Jun-06 <DEV1> UPDATE it 98113 ITEM_30_NUM -1 -1