Siberys Dragonshard Fail

[Samadhi]

The drop rate on the high end varieties of these needs to be adjusted; period.

Prior to the addition of Exceptional/Flawless dragonshards; I had 23 Siberys shards amongst my menagerie. Like any good follower, I started collecting every single fragment that dropped, and have been religiously crunching them once a week in the hopes of someday reaching a Flawless dragonshard, and evaluating the mechanic then. I estimate that I open approximately 320 end game chests a week, not counting end rewards. At 9 weeks in, subtracting the week I leveled my FvS, that is 8*320 => 2560 chests where I have kept every single siberys fragment on up through the higher stacks.

In this time period, I have not seen one single Flawless shard drop to anyone in group with me or elsewhere. Once ever, I saw an exceptional shard drop.

Including the shards I started with, my total is: 4 Exceptionals, 4 Sibs, 9 Imperfect, 4 Flawed, 596 fragments.

So after over two months of what I would consider heavy gaming, I have less than half of a Flawless dragonshard, and have not seen a single one drop anywhere.

Is this working as intended?

/gameover

[Visty]

WAI, yes

turbine wants you to use the store

[Strakeln]

They need to reduce the crunching amounts by two orders of magnitude. 1 million tiny fragments to respec one feat is beyond ludicrous.

Possibly the most annoying part of this is that they made it so collectible things like altars now spit these out - sometimes in concert with other items, sometimes alone. It's friggin annoying, because they only stack to 1000 in a bag, meaning I am often left with a stack of 30-500 siberys or khyber shard fragments floating *somewhere* in my bag.

[Shamurai]

I totally agree, I already used my free feat respec and am trying to 'de gimp' a little but yeah... in 5 weeks playing I'm no where neeeeear enough shards to make even one feat exchange let alone the 2 or three I need to set myself right (okay well 2 feat excchanges should do it but still) and I click everything.. I pick up all the purple bags and click all the nodes.

[Sir_Chonas]

got 2 flawlesses from collecting a moderate amount over the course of a month. 6/10ths of the way to a third.

[Shamurai]

got 2 flawlesses from collecting a moderate amount over the course of a month. 6/10ths of the way to a third.

Dang I'm looking for love in all the wrong places then.

[Sir_Chonas]

What level are you? You're also probably not as poor as me/ break 20+ breakables every single quest and take whatever they drop regardless of what it is lol.

[RobbinB]

This is another prime example of where Turbine is either completely inept or simply unwilling to try to strike a reasonable balance in a game mechanic.

There's always problems hitting a good balance when a new mechanic is added to a game. This is exactly what happened when sib dragonshards were introduced. The drop rate was initially actually too high, as it was much easier to crunch the fragments down to make a shard then to simply wait on pulling a shard in a chest. The problem was the crafting altars were taking 1000 fragments and crunching them down 100 at a time, and each "crunch" was sloooowwww to boot. This led to a series of complaints, since taking 20 minutes to convert fragments to a shard is just boring.

So Turbine says "Hey, great news. We'll let you crunch the fragments down in groups of 1000 at a time". So I'm thinking "Hmm... Maybe Turbine isn't as dense as I thought. They are actually responding to valid complaints with a logical and easily introduced solution."

Now don't get me wrong. I can see that there might have been discussions along the lines of "Hey, doesn't that make conversion to a dragonshard and corresponding feat respec to easy? And with F2P coming, maybe we wanna introduce a mechanic whereby we can actually make some money from respecs, which we can't do if the materials needed are easily acquired?"

So the basic idea of introducing the 5 levels of shard/fragment is an ok one. But any understanding of the basic math behind it shows that its completely unbalanced with respect to "crunching" time needed - that it simply takes way too many fragments to get to a feat respec. (Even if you have the 1 million fragments and even with the new faster crunching of the initial fragments, it now takes longer time-wise to get to your shard equivalent of a free respec...personally I view that as a slap in the face to everyone who initially complained that crunching fragments was too slow.)

Even if they up the drop rate of the better fragments, its still problematic because it means what's the point of crunching the fragments. You might as well wait for exceptional and flawless fragments to fall as loot (For me, the whole inventory limited space problem is also a factor in my decision not to collect the fragments, but don't get me started on that...)

Another solution would have been (is it too late?) to have the regular sib dragonshard needed for the feat respec up to lvl 16 (which is where everyone was at when Mod 9 dropped) and then make the exceptional shard good up to lvl 20. The flawless could then be reserved for something in the future, something non-routine and rare, like true reincarnation.

[The_Ick]

Agreed. They need to increase the drop rate and they need to make that fragments stack to atleast 100k if not 1mil. It is just flat out to cumbersome...

[Adarin]

reroll






10chars

[Memnir]

I think it's intentional in order to make buying them from the store more appealing.

I used to ignore these in the chests - but I'm now picking up every one I see. While I'm usually pretty careful with my builds, it's good to have some in reserve. Got two flawless in my bank now, and working towards more.

Just because they made crafting them slow and annoying does not mean I'm gonna scurry to the store. Even if that what the Devs have in mind.

[Shamurai]

What level are you? You're also probably not as poor as me/ break 20+ breakables every single quest and take whatever they drop regardless of what it is lol.


My main (and only money maker) is a Lvl 13 Paladin... whos spending curve was greatly mitigated by some kind Thelanis Benefactors.. Im pretty set with gear basically so my costs come from keeping a good stock of Restore and cure condtion pots, plus haste and healing pots and some wands... My excess Sorc stuff goes to my Sorc and Cleric stuff to my cleric almost all the rest goes to AH or my son and his friends.. which seems to be growing steadily LOL.. I have ...like 20K plat at any given time my highest was lik 250K plat when I sold a nice pile of collectibles (which reminds me I have some Eberron shards 3 small and one large I need to sell to suppliment my costs)... I'd call that poor LOL.

[redraider]

/signed

The OP is dead on here. It should take work to do a respec, but 1,000,000 small shards to make a flawless? I play a lot and keep everything and am nowhere near getting a flawless made.

[Sir_Chonas]

10000 -> 1000->100->10->1

Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Flawless S shards

Compared with

10000->100->8

Frag->tiny->average Kshards (which are worthless)

Dropping at a rate of 500 per chest level 15 and above (plus through gianthold) it only takes 20 chests w/ shards.

It's really really not that bad.

My definition of poor is not having people twink you, maximum of 30k platinum . . . ever(which was only because of a tome sale). . . when I hit level 16 right b4 my reroll

[wamjratl1]

3 capped toons (until most recent mod) and I have never NOT picked any and all shards from chests since the day they started dropping. Yet I do not have enough to craft an exceptional or flawless... That is reeeeeedonculous.

[Strakeln]

10000 -> 1000->100->10->1

Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Flawless S shards

Compared with

10000->100->8

Frag->tiny->average Kshards (which are worthless)

Dropping at a rate of 500 per chest level 15 and above (plus through gianthold) it only takes 20 chests w/ shards.

It's really really not that bad.

My definition of poor is not having people twink you, maximum of 30k platinum . . . ever(which was only because of a tome sale). . . when I hit level 16 right b4 my reroll
You're a bit off there, homie. Okay, not really, you're way the hell off. Off by 100x...

1,000,000 -> 10,000 -> 1,000 -> 100 -> 1
Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Exceptional -> Flawless

The first crunch is 100:1, and you missed a step.

So take your "really really not that bad" and do it 100x, then tell me you feel the same way.

[DANTEIL]

1,000,000 -> 10,000 -> 1,000 -> 100 -> 1
Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Exceptional -> Flawless

I couldn't believe this and had to figure it out myself. I found this information on the DDOwiki: http://ddowiki.com/page/Siberys_Dragonshard

So,

100 Fragments -> 1 Flawed
10 Flawed -> 1 Imperfect (=1000 fragments)
10 Imperfect -> 1 [regular] Siberys Dragonshard (=10,000 fragments)
10 Regular -> 1 Exceptional (=100,000 fragments)
10 Exceptional -> 1 Flawless (=1,000,000 fragments)

Is that right? Yikes! At low levels it's not that bad (at 4th level, I have crunched enough fragments to make 3 Flawed and almost have enough for a 4th), but the order of magnitude increase at each step should be matched by an order of magnitude drop rate, I agree...

[Slink]

It is extremely hard to collect enough of these to respec a feat at current cap of 20.

I have been saving shards for at least the last 10-14 months and still do not have enough to respec one feat.

On the other hand, if the drop rate of Heart of Wood is not terribly low I can see how a reincarnate would outweigh the viability of collecting shards anyways.

Welcome to the new DDO grind.

Reincarnate + lower XP + higher base stats = I'm still on the fence..

[Alavatar]

You're a bit off there, homie. Okay, not really, you're way the hell off. Off by 100x...

1,000,000 -> 10,000 -> 1,000 -> 100 -> 10 -> 1
Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Regular -> Exceptional -> Flawless

The first crunch is 100:1, and you missed a step.

So take your "really really not that bad" and do it 100x, then tell me you feel the same way.

Missed a step, which I added, but ultimately the number of fragments is correct. :D

[Sir_Chonas]

You're a bit off there, homie. Okay, not really, you're way the hell off. Off by 100x...

1,000,000 -> 10,000 -> 1,000 -> 100 -> 1
Fragments -> Flawed -> Imperfect -> Exceptional -> Flawless

The first crunch is 100:1, and you missed a step.

So take your "really really not that bad" and do it 100x, then tell me you feel the same way.

Well I recently sold 2 flawless on the AH because they were so easy to get and I don't need nearly that many for respecs yet (but do need money), so I still don't think it's that bad. Just crunch when you hit 100 s and 1000 K and you should be fine. It only takes like 30 seconds at the altar, and 2 minutes from anywhere in the game to get there.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but the fact that there were several others sitting on the AH and I had to post mine 2x to be sold seems to suggest that people are getting them.

Not to mention that the larger shards eventually start dropping.

Edit: then again I have never actually picked up any weapons worth using, only 1 armor worth using, and 1 +1 tome from all the hundreds of quests I've done. . . so maybe I just take my luck in the forms of stupid worthless cluttering garbage.

[Strakeln]

Well I recently sold 2 flawless on the AH because they were so easy to get and I don't need nearly that many for respecs yet (but do need money), so I still don't think it's that bad. Just crunch when you hit 100 s and 1000 K and you should be fine. It only takes like 30 seconds at the altar, and 2 minutes from anywhere in the game to get there.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but the fact that there were several others sitting on the AH and I had to post mine 2x to be sold seems to suggest that people are getting them.

Not to mention that the larger shards eventually start dropping.

Edit: then again I have never actually picked up any weapons worth using, only 1 armor worth using, and 1 +1 tome from all the hundreds of quests I've done. . . so maybe I just take my luck in the forms of stupid worthless cluttering garbage.
That's a funny thing about the human mind, when we reach a number that is larger than anything we can relate it to, we lose perspective on just how large it is. Fill in the blanks with numbers you feel are realistic then plug them in to the following formula to help relate the amount of time you will spend collecting fragments to respec one feat:

1 out of every _X_ chests drops an average of _Y_ fragments. You loot an average of _Z_ chests per day. It will take you _Result_ days of collecting and crunching to respec one feat at levels 16-20.

Result = (1,000,000 * X) / (Z * Y)

So if 1 out of every 5 chests drops 500 fragments for you and you loot 20 chests per day, it will take you 500 days before you have enough to respec one feat. Adjust the numbers as you see fit.

As far as things dropping out of collectibles and in chests, I've run a lot of high level quests lately... and have yet to see any of the highest two tiers drop. The other tiers that dropped were far and few between. So at best it might shave 10-20% of the time it takes to collect enough fragments for you.

[Strakeln]

Missed a step, which I added, but ultimately the number of fragments is correct. :D
I knew something was messed up, but didn't have any more time to search for it... thanks :D

[Zengar]

Post deleted.

[Samadhi]

That's a funny thing about the human mind, when we reach a number that is larger than anything we can relate it to, we lose perspective on just how large it is. Fill in the blanks with numbers you feel are realistic then plug them in to the following formula to help relate the amount of time you will spend collecting fragments to respec one feat:

1 out of every _X_ chests drops an average of _Y_ fragments. You loot an average of _Z_ chests per day. It will take you _Result_ days of collecting and crunching to respec one feat at levels 16-20.

Result = (1,000,000 * X) / (Z * Y)

So if 1 out of every 5 chests drops 500 fragments for you and you loot 20 chests per day, it will take you 500 days before you have enough to respec one feat. Adjust the numbers as you see fit.

As far as things dropping out of collectibles and in chests, I've run a lot of high level quests lately... and have yet to see any of the highest two tiers drop. The other tiers that dropped were far and few between. So at best it might shave 10-20% of the time it takes to collect enough fragments for you.

No matter how you slice it - its just not worth it BEFORE time spent is involved IMO (post-testing).

Drop rates on the bigger ones needs to be more appropriate. That is all.

[Tourette]

can u even get a flawless in the store?

[elraido]

I can't loot anything ever....i.e. 30 runs on mindsunder only to pull the docent and two robes. But the one thing I loot is those stupid shards like you wouldn't believe. Maybe I should start putting them on the A.H. But really ask anyone in my guild my loot pulling ability, or lack of.

[Pyromaniac]

Flawless appear to have been removed from the store this week, sigh.

[dasein18]

WAI, yes

turbine wants you to use the store

Yes .. super obvious change to the feat exchange to make buying the feat exchange a better deal. Boo to turbine for being so obvious in forcing us to us Turbine Points on something we could have just obtained in game ourselves.

[Elsbet]

Yes .. super obvious change to the feat exchange to make buying the feat exchange a better deal. Boo to turbine for being so obvious in forcing us to us Turbine Points on something we could have just obtained in game ourselves.

Yeah... God forbid a business adopt a strategy to make money. What was Turbine thinking?

[Yargore]

got 2 flawlesses from collecting a moderate amount over the course of a month. 6/10ths of the way to a third.

I doubt that.

[WeaselKing]

Flawless appear to have been removed from the store this week, sigh.

Nope just checked, its still there, maybe you were on a toon level 16 or below?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I think the real problem is the flawless, the drop rate for exceptional and flawless just don't make it possible to do a L17+ respec. I think if they just left it at exceptional for all the higher leels and droped flawless the drop and crunch rates would be fine and yet it would still be difficult enough to get free ones many people would pay for them.


can u even get a flawless in the store?

Yes, its like 120 points if I recall correctly, so $1.20-$2.00 depending how you buy your points.

[Krag]

Yeah... God forbid a business adopt a strategy to make money. What was Turbine thinking?

We love it because it's DDO.

[Murderface]

WAI, yes

turbine wants you to use the store
alot of my points spent are on those

[dasein18]

Yeah... God forbid a business adopt a strategy to make money. What was Turbine thinking?

Uh no kidding. Does not mean I have to like what or how they changed it.

When your phone company gets rid of an unlimited text plan and makes you pay for each text.. at a higher rate do you just say.. Good for them for trying to make money?

[Elsbet]

Uh no kidding. Does not mean I have to like what or how they changed it.

When your phone company gets rid of an unlimited text plan and makes you pay for each text.. at a higher rate do you just say.. Good for them for trying to make money?

Nope, I say buh-bye for a company that offers an unlimited text plan, but I don't begrudge any business doing anything legal to increase revenue. It keeps people employed.

[Hendrik]

I can't loot anything ever....i.e. 30 runs on mindsunder only to pull the docent and two robes. But the one thing I loot is those stupid shards like you wouldn't believe. Maybe I should start putting them on the A.H. But really ask anyone in my guild my loot pulling ability, or lack of.

Hehe.

The whole Guild thanks you though. Abundant supply of Exceptionals is a wondrous thing...