I just grouped with two players that both had 3 slots filled with Ethereal Weapons. Funny I have not seen one drop in any group and I have been taking 5 swings a day at it. One of he players just rolled the 85 last month and out DPS'd my 10 yo raid character..
1) The ethereals weapons aren't that big an upgrade. Like 1.5cb/pot and 5 dmg rating over a HQ weapon. Even the ethereal jewellery isn't all that compared to your standard gear. A bit better yes, but not massive especially compared to standard base stats. 2) Your character age means nothing. All characters in MMOs are only as good as the newest xpacs gear.
I like the idea of accumulated heirloom tokens. But I have 10+ 95 toons I run daily Seriously though, they should be very rare, but... I have run at least five quests and sometimes 10 a day since the start and have not gotten bumpkus from an ethereal chest yet. I have gotten to the point where I think they are imaginary and the DM must be handing them out. It sure seems like the same peeps are getting them.
Agree....the number generator appears to be kind for some folk and mean to others...I'm one of those who rarely wins anything on random rolls (even shiney's are rarely won by me unless no one else needs it) and in all my heroics runs I've never seen an etheral drop so I've accepted the fact that I'll never have one...but that doesn't change the fact that the random generator on my account seems broken.
I didn't get loot can you please fix what's obviously broken? I should get everything I want all the time. P.S., also I saw a pig fly across the moon last night, maybe if Duck mount doesn't work we can have Flying Pigs?
"I didn't get loot" is actually very far from "I've never seen it drop in any group, or know anyone that has seen it drop in group." That's drop, not get. It appears to be a 'chance' in the quest, but obviously I cannot verify that since it's never happened. While random works, maybe there should be a counter that after so many times you get 1, then it's completely random. So people get to see 1. Call it "Priming the pump", or "Customer Service".
I dont know how RNG is coded but I feel your pain. Sometime though I get thing good like rare harvests when it bonus weekend so I believe SOE can adjust the drop rates pretty easy on there end. What I like to see is a RNG that can increase you chances the more we grind stuff so our odds increase as we grind stuff because when your on a bad RNG it can make you leave the game in frustration.
Oh god...get ready for some uneasy explanation about how things aren't broken, and that all RNG's are "legit". I'll just say this...no, they're not...remember the excuses from EQ1 days? Nuff Said.
Another RNG bothers me alot is getting charms from Age's end x2 hm. I ran it about 6 or 7 times and not a single charm and some my guildies who are in the same raids got already few moving them to alts. I want to ask devs. Seriously? Why RNG favors some and never work for others?
Sony has the numbers. They can see RNG is broken. They know it has always been broken. They can see the same people winning ethereals all the time. We can see the same people selling them on the broker every single day. It has never been any different. There are lots of rumours why it's broken and none of them stack up. Only SOE knows the reason. Why haven't they fixed it? I Haven't a clue. I guess it's an unintended consequence in their favour because it keeps us all scrabbling in the dirt for something that we are unlikely to ever get. I get that they should be rare. But they are not rare. The SAME people are picking them up day after day. That's not rare, that's picking favourites. Even if those favourites are picked at random.
EQ2's RNG is horrendous. Its not even SOE wide, DCUO and EQ1's distribution of 'random' items seem much more reasonable. One thing that's undeniable is 'rare' things aren't nearly as rare at release compared to later on.I can easily recall it all the way back to skyshrine and mythicals, ethereals, all the way to current ethereals and x2 charms. When the content comes out they drop like candy. After some time they become more scarce with reports few and far between reporting them still dropping. and no, its not a perception of people 'showing off' items when they first come out making it appear they are everywhere compared to later on when its not such a big deal. This leads me to believe it bases the drop rate on percentage of frequency as well as there being a delay in the adjustment of frequency. The more people trying to get something to drop, the less it drops down to the individual. 5% when only a handful of people are doing something is going to be seem quite frequent compared to a large chunk of the entire population trying to trigger that 5%. I also fear it does this game wide opposed to the much more appropriate server/shard/realm wide if not down to each individual. Kind of like this but game wide opposed to the individual. Lots drop at first to get the community motivated then it ramps down for the bulk of time people are 'farming.' Even if all of this is wrong there is something definitely 'quirky' about EQ2's RNG compared to other MMO's. And its terrible. Either they lack some regulating/normalizing code other games employ, use a different one or use nothing at all. Unfortunately I think this is all something deep within the system they rather not discuss publicly much like exactly how they calculate gear/ability scores, how they truly intend the speed of progression through content or the specific methods they use to determine what things get fixed/tweaked. 'Trade secrets' for lack of a better term.
Doing away with it entirely is silly but it does need some serious adjustment. Compared to pretty much every other system I have seen for loot, RNG or otherwise, EQ2's RNG is the worst by far. Unless the rate is relatively high using EQ2's entirely for loot or part of it is a non-starter. A large portion of animosity towards the FDT system is due to it using EQ2's special version of RNG. If its a standard or typical one my only other guess is they are using it improperly. Such as using it for very low drop rates when they should be accommodated by some normalizing code or not using those low of rates with it at all. Maybe it should be cranked up but with something to 'cap' drops so you can't be swimming in them if you get lucky instead of making it extremely low so there's very little chance of things dropping more often than they want.
A long time ago, I played a MUD which performed a check of online players, and the more people who had a given item reduced the chance for it to drop for other players. This system favored people who can play during off-peak hours (like myself), and be a significant penalty to those who can only play during prime time. The alternative of checking all player files (online and offline) is no better, as offline hoarders could screw over active players, and a rise in the player base would suck for everyone. So even though I was among the minority of people who benefited from this code (due to off peak play times), I called it for how it was, terrible game design. PlayerA being punished because other people (online or offline) have a particular item, is fail. They should get their fair chance at a drop. So while something like it could be done, to be done right it would be complicated, be adjusted per server, and be actively maintained over time, all of which I doubt SOE staff are lining up to do on their own free time.
Does it mean that some of us never will see a charm drop in x2 ever? More and more of them getting into a game thus the drop rate goes smaller and smaller? It really makes me sad. At least completing EM we got a reward but with CM it's just an amuzement and not in a good way.
It means that many will never see one drop. Just as many have never seen an ethereal drop anywhere. But that appears to be 'working as intended'. I would swear a dev at one time posted that there is indeed a 'Rate of Entry' for items, and that it self adjusts, which explains the drops a lot at first and less and less later. This also provides the 'excitement' as the raiders are getting tons of good stuff right away, motivating others to go and try but by then the well is dry. I can't find the link now though.
I don't like the idea, but i'm more inclined to think something like this is already in than not. The closest I ever got to getting actual item drop information is when I complained at a SOE LIve it took over two months of PK killing to get a single bow to drop. All they said is the drop chance shouldn't be any different than the rest. So even if the code for item drops is relatively basic its still a problem. Again, I can speculate all day as to what it might be since there seems to be very little info. One thing is for sure though, whatever code they use for RNG/item drop rates is a problem.
