I'm just going to point out that this entire thread is a good example of why rare food shouldn't of been introduced to EQ2. Lots of drama has been created over a minor difference in stats. The other part of my prediction hasn't come true though. I did predict that rare food would become the default, but the ingredients are far more rare than other advanced recipe ingredients. While that might be considered a stroke of genius in some sense, fundamentally it creates a strange gap in harvesting. While the product is extremely rare, what it can produce isn't particularly valuable but it is in very high demand. The vast majority of players won't bother harvesting for the rares. The rarity says the few people that are willing will spend 4-6 hours per food-rare harvesting. The normal rare from the node is considered junk. The gap between availability and use is tremendous. I'd suggest adding a temporary buff item to the crafting vendor. Something that ups the chance of getting expansion-specific ultra rares. Don't make them cheap. Make the price something in the neighborhood of a month's worth of tokens. Make the effect small but noticeable. Something like a 0.5-1% chance. The buff lasting maybe 4-6 hours. This way with some dedication and effort people that really want the rare food can obtain a small amount of it without flooding the market.
No one I've spoken to is happy with the harvesting rate on ToT rare food drop, myself and many other have quit looking for them as (1) they're aren't enough nodes when you're trying to harvest and someone else is only looking for the rare food node, (2) the rare is WAY WAY too hard to harvest. There is absolutely no reason for it to be harder to find than the one in AoM. They are after all used for the same purpose....nourishment.
hmm I can't edit my post O.O only blank sheet pops up? Pls excuse the misuse of they're as it should have been there.
This issue has been on the bug tracker for quite some time... you can vote it up here: https://dgcissuetracker.com/browse/EQII-577
I think we have identified part of the problem is the rare deepstone roots are dropping like crazy off the fungus making it very hard to get the rare food drop. The other part of the problem is with low populations we tend to only have 1 Thalumbra zone open making the fungus resources very limited if there are more than 1-2 players trying to harvest. Now if we could get a Dev to let us know if they are looking into this or not. The upgrade to the food over AoM food is very minor so there is no reasoning for the new ToT rare food to be super rare.
Ok, I'm going to take it that you don't know how the drop tables for harvesting work. Because if you did you would know that the drop rate of Deepstone Roots doesn't affect the drop rate of extremely rare stuff like foundations, spellshards, and victory nuts (or whatever the 2 new food rares are called). From the last time I really dug into parses and took things apart the extremely rare stuff seems to be on the main harvest table. This is the table that produces all of the non-rare events, which takes over 99% of the table. I believe its close to 99.9% but it could be more than that. The "normal" rare drop takes up about 0.0995 of the harvest table. That "normal" rare is the dreaded Deepstone Roots. The remaining 0.0005% is split up between grandmaster components and the ultra-rare food harvests. I believe its an equal chance among the 4 items. (btw, numbers here are approximations, they could be more rare.) So, where is the flood of Deepstone Roots comming from? Rare Harvest Chance. Most people harvest with between 5-8% Rare Harvest Chance. That means out of 100 nodes they should get their Rare Harvest Chance x3 in normal rares. The only rare on the fungus node's Rare Harvest Chance table is Deepstone Roots. If you want to get more of the ultra rares, get more Bonus Harvest. Adding more Rare Harvest Chance only ups the number of "normal rares" you'll get from harvesting.
The rare roots were added a long time ago because there were no rares on food bushes and adding a logical rare was designed to entice more harvesting of food bushes. Harvesters used to avoid bushes which resulted in whole zones full of them. It was a site to behold LOL.
Thanks for schooling me in how rares drop. That still doesn't change the fact that the deepstone roots should not be dropping off fungus and that the rares needed for ToT food should have an increased drop rate......like they did in AoM with stromthorns!
Bonus Chance only lets you get 2 harvests on a single pull. it has nothing to do with rares at all. I don't think the Battleplantain or the Victor But are 'ultra rare' or an a same loot table as like prismatic stuff. I just think it's a situation of there's 3 potential rares, and Deepstone is he one you get most of the time outta the three. they just need to remove the Deepstone Root from the fungus nodes. but even so, my 'bonus chance'/Bountiful Harvest is as high as you can actually get it. I just did a harvesting run, and I got 30 roots, 4 battles, and 2 victors. and that's with every peice of harvesting gear available in game and the pack pegasus. .34% of my hravest was the plantain .17% was victor 2.51% was roots. I imagine if they just removed the roots, it'd work out much better.
You're usually well informed about things around here. Is harvesting a blind spot for you? Without a dev explaining how things actually work all we can do is parce harvests and work backwards to try and figure out how things work. From what I've gathered harvesting works on the "normal/bonus" chart all of the time. If you have "Rare Harvest Chance" you get a percent change of getting a rare every pull from a separate "Rare Harvest Table". That "Rare Harvest Table" doesn't have any of the ultra-rare items on it, just the more normal "rares". It appears that the only place the ultra-rares exist is on the main harvest tables. So anything that lets you get more "normal" pulls gives you a higher chance of getting the ultra-rare items that only exist on that table. Bonus Harvest Chance does that. Having harvesting skill above the minimum required for the node gives you an increasing chance of getting on a harvesting table with a better percentage of rare items. How much better? Nobody knows. Probably double to triple the normal table, but with the low percentages we're talking about here it isn't going to be anything you'd notice without at least a million points of data, and at least 2 controlled cases where you have a population that is at the required skill level (or below for ultra-rares), and a population that is at a set amount above that line. So in other words, we'll never know for sure because nobody has that kind of time and discipline. As for your own numbers...they don't make any sense. Did you take the number of harvests and divide each result by that? The way you should figure it out is divide the number of harvests that resulted in rares by the total number of harvests. Please be aware that it is technically possible to get multiple rares from a single harvest. Also a single harvest can return up to 3 results (the normal, possibly a bonus harvest and possibly one for the bonus harvest chance). You're roots will trend towards your Rare Harvest Chance because its an overwhelming number when compared to the normal table. You're plantain and victor numbers are exceedingly good considering my own experiences. Maybe things have changed, but I doubt it. My expectations put those particular harvests in the 0.001 or less range.
This issue has been reported on the ticket tracker and gives you the opportunity to vote to have this issue resolved. It already has 28 votes on it. https://dgcissuetracker.com/browse/EQII-577?filter=-3
they did it for AoM with just one food/drink rare why aren't they doing it for ToT now with 2 different rares one for food and one for drink
I have read through this thread and find it interesting concerning the drop rate theories. I have a question as to whether this is based on the character and how many nodes are harvested or on the actual node and how many times that node has been harvested. The reason I ask is I go daily to Thalumbra and have a set pattern I run where I know the nodes pop. Some days I can spend a couple of hours and not get any of the new ultra rares and other days like today I hit the first node and got a Victornut. I made the rounds and was on one of the last nodes in my "circle" when a spellshard dropped. This was done in the first run through all the nodes that pop by Maldura.
Ah, the love and abandonment of the RNG. Everything in harvesting is purely random. Every time you click on a node, you have the exact same chance as you did on the last click. And it will be exactly the same on the next click. That is unless you change your gear, AA or prestige points. There are a ton of people that have theories that there is this thing called "character luck" where somehow their fate was set at character generation and somehow the RNG works different from character to character, or account to account. I chalk it up to superstition. Even if it is true, there isn't any way to "prove" it one way or the other. Also there are no set nodes. Everything is "a node from this table spawns in this area" kind of thing. All of these nodes are treated the same by the subroutine that generates all the harvested material. I really can't see there being any coding to make one node "luckier" than others. When it comes down to it, you're back at the same RNG for results.
Well it was an idea. I do believe they need to do something to up the drop rates though, if they can or will. They introduce new raid food and drink, require two ultra rares and it takes hours and hours to get enough to make enough of the items for one's guild for raid.
Ugh...this conversation is still going? Lets be realistic here... Players should be able to create a garden in their homes...based on the size of their home, we should be able to create at least 1 of 3 node types in our homes, and the resources given would be equivalent to our trade skill level... I could go into an in-depth discussion about this, but I believe I have already brought this up in the past...not sure. Took a 1 1/2 year break... To make it short sweet and simple... PoH's of small to medium - up to 3 nodes to match appropriate tradeskill level and profession. PoH's of Large to "store bought" - up to 7 nodes to match appropriate tradeskill level and profession. Guild Halls of small to medium - Up to 12 nodes with 100% bountiful harvest and 50% chance of rare and 20% "ultra rare" harvest. Guild Halls of Large to store bought - up to 30 nodes with 100% bountiful harvest, 75% chance of rare, and 50% chance for "ultra rare". A mechanic that can be utterly abused? Yup. But, you know what? Who harvests for making gear anymore? 90% of the time people use raid or agnostic gears...or get p lvl'd or buy xp vials.
This isn't talking about rares for gear. This is concerning the new food and drink that was recently introduced. Instead of one ultra rare, it now takes two ultra rares to make it. The drop rates are very low. If one is making the food and drink for a large raid guild, it takes weeks to get enough to make food and drink enough for a raid week.
the food/drink aint that much better than old ones like moonson and stormborn suffle to warrant this kinda low drop rate of new ones , please make em more common.
