Epic scroll drop rate + grind + rage

[stoolcannon]

Is it just me or have others had horrific luck with scroll drops since the update? Prior to the update I was obtaining 1-2 scrolls a week on average during my normal epic routine (no good scrolls, but scrolls nonetheless) which is to say I'm not a scroll farmer but I would pick them up during normal questing in groups.

Since the update I have gotten 3. I think it's been what 2 months so far? I haven't slowed the rate at which I run epics, I just don't ever seem to get the drops anymore.

To compound my frustration the last 2 nights I've run epics I've been focused on putting together my claw set from Red Fens and we've had 7 scrolls drop, none to me. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if the distribution was relatively equal across the group but the first night one person got 3 in the span of 15 minutes during Into the Deep and then last night the same person got 2 of 3 that dropped over the course of 2 hours running fens quests.

I know some people have argued in the past that DDO is not as grind heavy as other games but I couldn't possibly disagree more. The leveling process is quite easy and relatively grind free but the gear grind is insane. I counted recently and I have 72 epic ingredients and yet don't have a set to create a single item.

I'm still relatively new to the game so i don't have near the raid counts that other people have but I have recently heard horror stories of people with over 100 epic dragons without the shard of the SOS and one person even had close to 100 without getting the SOS itself as an end reward. I personally have over 30 epic dragons across 3 toons and have never seen the seal, shard, scroll or SOS drop for me. I wouldn't expect to have the entire set yet (though I do think 30 runs is certainly paying your dues) but at least one of the components would be a nice "thank you" for my efforts. All in all I've run 100's of epics in carnival, desert, sentinals, von, chrono and I've never once gotten one of the "sought after" scrolls either.

I know Turbine needs to make money and they create the grind to keep us coming back but at some point there needs to be a little more carrot and a little less stick.

I love the game and I keep on pressing the button but lately I've been getting shocked more often than I'm getting a biscuit and at some point I fear I'm gonna stop caring or trying and move on to something else. I don't want that because I love the game, the community and the guild I'm in. I've made good friends and really enjoy running with the folks I run with but I can't help being gear obsessed and wanting to see my characters continue to grow and improve and lately it's just not happening.

[transtemporal]

Drop rate seems to be the same as before for me; i.e. none.

The drop pattern seems very similar to LDS: I'll have a run where I'm getting 3-4 a week then suddenly it'll drop off to nothing for months, then it'll pick up again. I'm probably seeing a pattern where there is none.

[stoolcannon]

Drop rate seems to be the same as before for me; i.e. none.

The drop pattern seems very similar to LDS: I'll have a run where I'm getting 3-4 a week then suddenly it'll drop off to nothing for months, then it'll pick up again. I'm probably seeing a pattern where there is none.

Yeah I suppose I'm seeing the same but **** it's frustrating.

The problem is that once you cap and get to end game you can run all the raids and epics but it gets to a point where you say "ok why am I doing this?". In many cases it might be because the raid is fun, I actually enjoy running TOD and I'm learning to enjoy abbot. However in most cases you're running for the combination of fun + the chance for good loot. Over time, due to the law of diminishing returns that fun is going to slowly peter out and you're going to end up just grinding and grinding and grinding some more to try to get that elusive piece of loot. At that point the passtime becomes work. A player shouldn't have to have a diligent raiding schedule to make sure they are running all the right raids at the right times in order to get to their 20th, 40th run etc in hopes of getting the desireable end reward.

How many people can still say they run Shroud because of how awesomely fun it is? I do enjoy shroud but running it 6x a week across my 3 toons to ensure I can get the ingredients I need gets a little tiresome. Even so in 7 months I've managed to complete 3 greensteel items.

I don't think it should be easy to get what you want but at the same time I think right now it takes too much "work" and not enough play.

If we can't get new high level content to play then I think the reward for playing the content that we do have should be increased.

[Xithos]

I have been seeing the same distribution of epic scrolls. Roughly 100 kills per scroll; sometimes a scroll drops after only 20 mobs and sometimes it takes 200 to get one to drop. I was keeping track for awhile on my Ziggurat epic farming and it was pretty close to the same. Acquiring scrolls organically (running epic quests for completion in a 6 person group) is a god-awful way to acquire scrolls statistically speaking and I wish that it were different.

[Thelmallen]

Over time, due to the law of diminishing returns that fun is going to slowly peter out and you're going to end up just grinding and grinding and grinding some more to try to get that elusive piece of loot. At that point the passtime becomes work.

This is a far more eloquent version of what I've been saying for the past few years.

Couldn't agree more but to be honest, I don't know where the happy medium is (if there even is one).

I generally just ignore epics other than an occasional run if the mood strikes me and do more TRing cuz that's a far better pay-off for my time.

[stoolcannon]

I have been seeing the same distribution of epic scrolls. Roughly 100 kills per scroll; sometimes a scroll drops after only 20 mobs and sometimes it takes 200 to get one to drop. I was keeping track for awhile on my Ziggurat epic farming and it was pretty close to the same. Acquiring scrolls organically (running epic quests for completion in a 6 person group) is a god-awful way to acquire scrolls statistically speaking and I wish that it were different.

Yeah I'm starting to think it's solo farm or bust but that's not really my style in DDO. I haven't rolled a single toon designed for solo farming and given that this is supposed to be a game about grouping I shouldn't have to. I wish I'd have just rolled my stinking wizard as a WF when I created him but I didn't want to spend the TP on WF at the time.

[Thelmallen]

Yeah I'm starting to think it's solo farm or bust but that's not really my style in DDO. I haven't rolled a single toon designed for solo farming and given that this is supposed to be a game about grouping I shouldn't have to. I wish I'd have just rolled my stinking wizard as a WF when I created him but I didn't want to spend the TP on WF at the time.

I TR'd my sorc as a WF wizard with the idea that I would use him to solo farm scrolls, etc if the mood struck me.

[stoolcannon]

I TR'd my sorc as a WF wizard with the idea that I would use him to solo farm scrolls, etc if the mood struck me.

Yeah my squishy drow wizard is going to become a WF wizard here shortly. He'll have the same stats after TR due to the wizard past life and that should get me what I need with self healing to be able to solo farm most content.

Looking forward to the month long grind back to 20 just so I can grind some more. lol.

[Samadhi]

1) Wi Flag - if you are not familiar with how Turbine programs loot, look into it, DDO is no different, this has been known for quite a while.

2) Yes, the drop rates are beyond abysmal, and should 100% definitely be addressed. I have and have heard horror stories far worse than what you have listed. /signed on any thread that might possibly give me a reason to start running something other than tower/abbot/olderstuff.

[Aaxeyu]

I know some people have argued in the past that DDO is not as grind heavy as other games but I couldn't possibly disagree more.

In the past, DDO was not as grind heavy as other games. Now it's one of the worst.

[Xithos]

Yeah I'm starting to think it's solo farm or bust but that's not really my style in DDO. I haven't rolled a single toon designed for solo farming and given that this is supposed to be a game about grouping I shouldn't have to. I wish I'd have just rolled my stinking wizard as a WF when I created him but I didn't want to spend the TP on WF at the time.

I feel your pain on this one. The epic loot system is really doing everything it can to take the focus off of grouping and running quests with your guildmates or pugs and forcing you into solo farming if you want your character to improve in terms of gear. I know that if I could exchange all these epic raid tokens that I accumulate by actually playing the game for epic componenets that I would be a happier camper.

[Zigana]

1) Wi Flag - if you are not familiar with how Turbine programs loot, look into it, DDO is no different, this has been known for quite a while.

2) Yes, the drop rates are beyond abysmal, and should 100% definitely be addressed. I have and have heard horror stories far worse than what you have listed. /signed on any thread that might possibly give me a reason to start running something other than tower/abbot/olderstuff.

Okay, this Wi Flag is quite interesting to me. According to a link I came across when searching what it is, it said that the bug had been discovered and fixed back in 2002. Are you saying that this is not the case? It has me thinking about those times when a toon will charge a monster and it will completely ignore it and run for another toon way in the back of the group....over and over again. So, maybe it's not fixed?

How does this affect loot tables though exactly? My guildies can attest to me always remarking that "DDO hates me!" as I have terrible luck with pulling named loot. Most of what I've acquired is not from my own pulling, but from being lucky enough to win rolls or have friends/guildies pass to me as they know I've been looking for it. Curious how Wi Flag factors into that possibility?

[stoolcannon]

I don't know that the "Wi Flag" bug from 8 years ago has any impact at all on current issues all it does is call to light the fact they have made errors in the past. I need look no further than the 4th attack in my Horc attack routine to see they are capable of making errors.

What I do think is that they (Turbine) are using behavioral manipulation to get us to keep coming back for more by meting out just enough to tantalize us into coming back thinking "next time will be the one!". It's no different than any other addiction and is especially comparable to slot machines or other forms of gambling based on chance. We give it one more pull thinking this time is going to be the jackpot. We personally don't win very often but others around us win so we know that it's going to spit out the prizes. Right? But, like any Casino if you give away the entire reward on the first day your patrons will have their fill and not return. DDO is no different. We hit the 10 dollar win on the slots regularly enough but only 1 person in a million hits the ultimate payout and by that time everyone else has dropped in millions and millions of dollars.

In this case the dollars we are dropping are on subscription fees and Turbine points. We keep paying and they keep giving us just enough of a taste to keep coming back again and again and again.

It's a fine line though, too little carrot and the horse won't pull. I think Turbine is walking dangerously close to that right now. They are with me at least. I work enough in my day job and once the game becomes a job I'm done and I'm taking my whopping 10 dollars a month with me. As a single person I don't count for much but if others start to trickle out then maybe they'll make a change.

Now I'm going to go login to DDO and grind some more because hey, next time is gonna be the one, I just know it.

[Irinis]

1) Wi Flag - if you are not familiar with how Turbine programs loot, look into it, DDO is no different, this has been known for quite a while.

2) Yes, the drop rates are beyond abysmal, and should 100% definitely be addressed. I have and have heard horror stories far worse than what you have listed. /signed on any thread that might possibly give me a reason to start running something other than tower/abbot/olderstuff.

Yup. Is the Wi Flag based on account name or character index somehow though? Some characters seem to do better than others with named loot and such but allllllll my characters have only ever seen arrowhead NOT bauble drop for them from weapons shipment, even on different servers, which seems to point to an account basis somehow. Admittedly a small sampling, I need to grind the second account some higher level characters and test more.

[stoolcannon]

Yup. Is the Wi Flag based on account name or character index somehow though? Some characters seem to do better than others with named loot and such but allllllll my characters have only ever seen arrowhead NOT bauble drop for them from weapons shipment, even on different servers, which seems to point to an account basis somehow. Admittedly a small sampling, I need to grind the second account some higher level characters and test more.

Funny after I read this I hopped on a different toon for epics and got a scroll drop. Now I'm wondering if Dingal has the epic curse.

[Polarkin]

If you got the epic curse you are not the only one.

I recently ran Von1(5x a day for 16 days), Von2(5x a day for 16 days) and Von4(2x a day for 16 days) and saw a grand total of 2 scrolls and 3 seals.

I finally gave up when I found a seller who would sell me the scroll i was after for 3x what it was worth

[Irinis]

I farmed evon1 for scrolls solo 5 times on my wiz and nada. 6th time, went in with a group and got one scroll. (A **** one lol.) Must have been at least 240 kills. I hear reports from others that they get scrolls at about 1 every 120-140 kills, so it looks like my personal droprate is less than half of "normal" drop rates. But my other characters have only once seen a scroll drop for them in all the epics I've done since the change in the drop mechanism. All the scrolls I have I won rolls for or traded for, and I don't have that much to trade with to start off.

It really does seem that the accounts/characters that are "lucky" are ALWAYS so. We all have that friend who gets bloodstones and firestorm greaves and then gets more bloodstones and greaves... always on the same character.

For me, characters that have won the lottery on MyDDO once or more seem to also be luckier ingame.

The only character I've ever pulled a bloodstone on was also the first lottery winner on my account.

[stoolcannon]

My grind rage has dissipated somewhat after pulling an SOS on my two DPS toons in back to back Edragons.

[voodoogroves]

My grind rage has dissipated somewhat after pulling an SOS on my two DPS toons in back to back Edragons.

Glad to hear. Of course, now I hate you :-)


Personally, I've just decided to TR some toons and only do token raiding/epics for a bit. Running Shadow Crypt 10 times for XP is more fun than running Eye of the Titan a bajillion for no gain.