Stingy PQ bosses since Tuesday's patch?

These were never dropping like common for me. I've gotten two celestials I couldn't use after about 300 kills. So if its worse now then...ya no thanks.

In the future, PQ BiS loot should be for non-vis slots (i.e. earrings, rings, shoulders, face) but all/all.

This would also prevent raiders having reservations about filling all slots and prevent everyone from ending up with useless loot.

As someone who started day one... I took a break and didn't do CD, POM, or BOL. I came back and would say it was a pretty hard feat to level up from 100 to 120 and gear up to be minimally useful in a heroic as dps. Catching up on the signature lines, crafting, adventure, mounts, familiars etc... I came back at the beginning of this expansion.

Several things I noted. The celestials helped get minimum resolve for Heroics and some potency. Without the ability to get several key blue adornments and some red it is really hard to do the dps for these heroics. At least I felt like I had a shot. There are quite a few characters with 280K pot+. Really don't see how to even come close to that without these PQ drops.

I am not even sure how it was possible these were dropping like common? I have done a lot of PQ (enough to grind scepter and many T7 boxes and the majority of recipes) with seeing minimal drop rate. Now it's going to be worse? If you plan on reducing the drop rate, why not just put them available on the vendor for bazaar coins?

I have seen/heard multiple people from the new guild I joined essentially stop playing because the entry requirements for heroics/gear required are really high. I can't imagine trying to come back to this game now without buying some items. Specifically spell upgrades, familiar, and mount upgrades. You literally couldn't join any heroic groups without it.

My input: Put the drop rate back to where it was. Alternate: place the components on Status Merchant so people will do them again.

I can tell you that when this information was announced on Maj'Dul the players quit doing them. A few went ahead with maybe 2 groups. One had half mercs. In the last two hours or more they are totally empty. Great job on killing pq's and taking one of the extremely few ways for solo players and non raiders to get a chance, even a slim chance, at decent gear. Tell them, while you are at it, that is they want to kill the game, just kill it. This slow death is not fun.

And since DB in their abundance of wisdom decided on this, maybe they can dump the PH for the overland named? Killing the PH a dozen times and still no spawn just isn't going to cut it and this is the way a great many of us get that Overland quest done for the coin for another extremely slim chance at something we won't transmute. Have them spawn like the did in BoL.

Flame away !

My guess would be celestials had about a 5% drop rate prior to this change, if it was lowered to 1% (or lower?) then it would be masochistic to continue doing, especially for those of us who pretty much already got all the wanted drops.

Even if someone wanted to give their luck a try, they would be unlikely to find enough other people to do them again and again and again and again for their 1% chance of getting .. something. Up to now they reminded me of the Dragons events, lots of people logging in, excited to do them. Now, not so much.

At least I got to enjoy them way more than the BOL PQ's which were so 'exciting' people stopped doing them before I even got through sig line lol

I came back to game in middle of BOL after 6 years break and I was such lucky, that I found my guildmates active. Later, while I have seen my mates already bored from BoL, there came SolEye and we continue to have fun. Now in ROS, I did sigline, each of heroics about 2-3 times, we have cleared first raidzone on first try, second also with only last mob left due to resolve requirements, and there is no other way to get gear update other than those easy raidzones in which I am falling asleep. I got two alts on 270k+ potency, but I dont have even chance to use them in group as there are no groups. With PQ drop rate there are not even PQ raids, there is basicslly nothing to do.
Ups I forgot. I can harvest .... with crazy low drop rate.... for items to open last raidzone ....
DB killed game intentionally or just because of crap designer???

I want to know how new and returning players will be able to get into group content without celestials being a viable way of getting enough potency to actually scratch the mobs in group content. You need atleast 2 or 3 celestials to hit the 245k potency mark as a new player plus a few mount bardings and a high level familiar.

I do wonder if they even know what they are doing to the game when they implement wild changes like this and why they think its a fair change now that a lot of people got all the celestials on multiple characters.

In essence anyone without a few celestials are now stuck until they do something to either heroics or the reward rate of celestials, which could take weeks...

Before it was changed it felt like a Celestial was a pretty rare drop - but we could see over the course of a day a guild member looting something good and people did join in PQs.

Now its just killed the urge to do PQs which in turn kills grouping and that is sposed to be the essence of the game - very sad they made this change.

It has become noticeably harder to get a full PQ raid going. More often than not the last few days I've been doing PQs with maybe two and a half groups that have resulted in just burning endless adds for 30 minutes before the boss finally keels over from boredom. This is exacerbated by people getting frustrated and bailing over the course of the fight.

There needs to be sufficient motivation for all players across the spectrum to do these PQs for them to work. I think the PQ concept is one of the best things this game has. I've been a fan of them ever since Storm Gorge in DoV. They can bring together people from all over the server, regardless of gear and playstyle, and provide at least some of the broader social aspect that the game has lost as everything has become instanced and guilds have segregated into their respective guild halls. For this to work, there needs to be something for everyone, even the folks who already have most of the best stuff already.

Yet another case of returning players being left even further behind.

Keep the RNG system in place, but please for the love of god, add a PQ currency, and sell the rewards on a merchant for X amount of that currency. If i do 50 PQs, give me the chance to buy an item. That'd be equivalent to a 2% chance, at least I know if I do 50 PQs I'm guaranteed an item.

That group should be able to do a zone like Quarry with that setup/stats. If not, the issue is likely the buttons aren't being pressed well, or other basic concepts of the game as not being done right.

Just a thought from someone literally just coming back....

The point being it is unlikely someone returning is going to get near 245k potency without the celestial boost or spending a ton of RL cash to buy up mount levels and familiar levels. I just took my main 100-120 through sig lines/solos and have a few celestials and barely have 244K in one month. True, there are a few more white adorn I could use to boost (2-3k more).

What did it take? A significant investment of cash to get familiars and mounts upgraded. They add a huge portion of Potency and without upgrading to get barding slots you literally are so far behind...what is the point?

It used to be, expansion comes out, new play comes back, do sig line, do crafting, run solos and gear up to heroic, and then you could start raiding.

Now its all the above, plus mounts, familiars, ascension upgrades all of which are locked behind artificial timers (huge). There are certain key adornments you can't get the currency as it doesn't drop.. or the other ones are locked behind raids no one cares do think about doing. Those are just to get at least thought of to join heroics.

The PQ and former drop rate at least gave some of us a shot at getting up to Heroic...and maybe....a shot at getting raid geared enough eventually.

This change completely slaugthered chat on Halls of Fate.

Not only did no one do heroics before this change, now no one is doing PQs either. How are you supposed to do heroic content now unless you expect someone to carry your butt?

Can't believe this company sometimes... Sorry so upset about the state of the game currently.

At least this. This is a good suggestion.
I have to say though that I too am extremely upset, and cancelled. Life's too short to spend time so futilely. I know I probably am not allowed to say it here, and this is purely self-serving excitement, but I just discovered I still, after all these years, can log into a Game starting with R, it's still around and so are my chars there! Even my awesomely decorated dimensions! Anyway. Hopefully this PQ matter will be addressed.

As always, appreciate the feedback. However, if you're reading other responses to this thread (and I know you are), let me add an unbiased observation. First of all, whoever of the devs told you the celestials were dropping at the same rate as commons only reinforces the opinion that some of the devs have no understanding of their own game. I ran the PQs relentlessly on three of my toons, often doing them every time they showed up---as did hundreds of the player base. That is, until the patch on Tuesday, which changed everything. It didn't take the player base long to figure out something was odd. When I stopped doing them on Friday, I had one toon with no celestials, one with one, and one toon who had three. I never saw any of the vaunted celestials weapons. We're talking about six weeks (since launch) of daily running PQs once the sig line was completed. When you're squeezing in 10-15 PQs a day for six weeks and those are your results, I think we can all agree categorically the rate was never as high as common loot. I mean, seriously, think about that for a second. If they were, we'd all have all of them and we'd have had them three weeks after the launch. That said, the rate they actually dropped for us was an actual incentive to do PQs.

Secondly, this is an inherent problem the player base deals with--which is the game changing decision tree that apparently some of the devs use to make decisions impacting the player base. Based on past decisions of which this is only one example, there are two modalities in play---feast or famine. The last six weeks has been a bit of a feast with the celestials. Since the change, there's actually zero incentive to run them. And on Maj'dul, like AOE1 has already stated, it's a ghost town.

Now that we're into the "adjusted" rate, we're on the other side of the current model which is "famine." Put simply no one was seeing the celestials, which is why the PQs immediately dried up and disappeared. To equate the "famine" drop rate with an example we'd all get, I'll use this: I have a better chance of being eaten by a great white shark in my bathtub than I do of seeing a celestial drop in a PQ. Frankly, I'm not wasting my time. I can tell you the supposedly "upped drop rate" for the balanzite crystals compares equally. I know people who harvest relentlessly for four hours a day with all the +bountiful harvesting gear and +shadow prospecting and have 3. Others like myself who only harvest for 2-3 hours a day have zero.

My point in this TL; DR post is clear. I'm coming to the conclusion, as have many others in this game who have already left, that there's a prevailing disconnect from some of the devs and the player base. I don't proclaim to be a developer, but I do have some understanding of human psychology. People log in to have FUN. They don't log in to feel disenfranchised, they don't log in to feel obstacles put into their way at every twist and turn. They want to be rewarded for the amount of work and money they put into the game. There's a wide diversity player base here cutting across many demographic profiles. Some of the devs need to grasp that not every one's uneducated or unintelligent.

You have a tough job, Dream and I get that. YOU are appreciated. We appreciate all that you do. This message is not aimed at you at all. Nor am I mad, upset or otherwise distracted. I'm suggesting that some clarity of communication needs to take place because the player base isn't stupid. Devs want to make changes and alter some things--I get that. But there's a huge difference between "altering" vs. eliminating something. Try fine tuning it as an alternative. As the old phrase goes: "if the only tool you have (or know how to use) is a hammer, the whole world is a nail." I'd suggest some of the changes that have taken place needed a scalpel, not a 20 lb. sledgehammer to bludgeon it to death.

Any rate, thanks for "listening." And I apologize for this long post, I know you have lots going on. But a short "fix it" post wasn't going to get the job done.

The PQ change is real and very sneaky, heavy handed and disappointing. Your bleeding players in an environment that is target rich for retaining paying customers (world wide pandemic). A once in a lifetime op for a company to actually gain loyal customers in an aging product. Unbelievable disconnect from existing player base.

Sustained revenue is going to be much stronger over the next decade than quick RNG ripoff scams designed to suck a player in until they get buyers remorse and become a life long hater/basher of your product.

P.S Heroic group content should not = Heroic effort to find/create/beg for a group to complete content that you pay for.

The PQ change was probably brought about from this train of thought: "raid or BiS gear for raiders only."

Moving forward, I can see a return to the 'Brilliant Earring of Alliance' model (1-5 nonvis all/all chase pieces) from Chaos Descending Wind/Water PQs which was actually quite the happy medium.

I harvest usually doing all 3 Bol and 4 RoS harvest quest on generally at least 2 toons every day, sometimes more. That means I harvest EVERY type node. I have not once, found one of those balanzite crystals and I shadow harvest as well. So we see how plentiful those are so expect the devs to nuke them soon.

*sarcasm intended*

PQ rare drop chance will be increased a tad next hotfix, but not of the level they were mistakenly set to originally.

Any chance of any rough numbers? e.g they were previously 5%, now they are 0.5%, we'll put them at 2%...

Would be kind of nice to have some honest numbers considering this was a ninja nerf as well...