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Developers, PLEASE, increase the drop rate for T4 Cultural collectables!!! I just spent 3 hours farming the first section of Lords of Dust over and over again to get the 5 Polished Ores I need to make a Dexterity shard for an equipment upgrade on one of my toons. Multiply that by the 5 toons I have and the number of required equipment upgrades for each as they level, and the process becomes practically sadistic.
Your 3 hours to get the items needed to craft something vs the minimum 40 runs I did of Raven at the Door to get the Bracers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonulino
Sometimes it takes a while to get the gear you want. Im okay with it. Though maybe 20 runs would have been better...
BTW: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...em-Efficiently
This comment may be handy:
Something else I just noticed is that heroic wheloon (slayers) is giving T4 collectables even though it says it's a level 15 wilderness area when you enter. I'd expect that it's a typo and that heroic wheloon is really L16, since the quests there are all base level 16, but epic wheloon is dropping T5 collectables, so who knows? You can get 14 adventurer packs in just a few minutes, so it's a pretty good farm, especially for T4/5 cultural.
Another option to try is TOEE on Elite and killing Gargoyles (from the final page of that link above).
I farm Baudry's first quest for Research Notebooks almost daily and I know Khyber Prayer Pamphlets are not uncommon. one time I farmed that cabinet about 35 times for 15 Research Notebooks and ended up with about 13 Pamphlets and few of each of that purple prophecy collectables and small Eberrons. I've looted around 75 smalls from that cabinet in the past few months. the ratio seems to be about 15 notebooks to 6 pamphlets for me. its not uncommon for me to do 25-30 runs each day. the fewest runs I ever did was 16.
I actually got a Polished Ore tonight running the first quest in the last part of the Threnal chain, the level 9 quests, killing a Gargoyle at the beginning of the quest. my reaction was, "unicorn"! didn't realize LOD drop Polished Ore. guess I need to check that one out now.
I need to check out how many Polished Ore I have and maybe start listing them on the AS !Quote:
Originally Posted by Qhualor
Lords of Dust is a poor farm for polished ore. Switch to Wheloon Prison backpack runs instead.
I think about listing my T4 Culturals for $$$ Profit and within the hour someone comes along and destroys my devious plan !Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
I agree, rare drops rates on collectables needs to be increased.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonulino
If everything was instant gratification nothing would be rare. I certainly cannot craft everything I want right when I want to - but I dont think it would be good for the game if I could, so thats fine. Either farm or wait till you have the parts through playing normally.
It takes 5 solid minutes (fully 300 seconds) to farm up a single polished ore, so they're still super valuable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasparion
(By my calculations, 1 polished ore is worth 750 cannith essences.)
No one is expecting instant gratification. However farming rare ingredients can take a massive amount of time. When farming rare ingredients takes longer than farming a rare named drop then something is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
Well, you don't need rare ingredients unless you're crafting unbound. In that case, I agree that unbound crafting is a dead system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darius1680
If you mean uncommon, the longest uncommon farm is 7:30 for Tier 3 Lore. Meaning if you need 5 Silver Flame Hymnals, you're looking at 37:30. I'm skeptical you can get a rare named drop in 37 minutes.
Unbound crafting is definitely a dead system. If I had to provide the mats for a high level unbound insightful item, I would have to charge 1,0000 shards for it to justify the cost and time it took to get the mats. That's a shame considering most named items with more power would sell for much less.Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
Also you can't compare the farming time of uncommon ingredients with rare ingredients. There's a huge difference in farming time.
I dont see that anywhere though. Please be specific. Which rare ings are you farming thats taking you 20+ hours (massive amount) for a single (bta) item?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darius1680
When your unbound crafted stuff will be buyout from ASAH for 1500 AS, you will think different. 8)Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
NO.
Drop rates are fine, just because it takes longer for getting X to make Y doesnt validate the request.
Sorry OP, can't get onboard w/ this.
I don't think that tweaking the specific drop rates of individual collectibles is an efficient answer to the problem.
I've always been for adding an NPC collector who would trade you a particular collectible when you give them X number of collectibles of the same type and rarity.
That would mean you would be giving up more collectibles and, in return, receive a specific collectible.
I suspect that some players don't like suggestions for removing some of the egregious, mind-numbing farming from the system because they have more of an abundance of free time on their hands and they benefit from the current system by exchanging some of their abundance of free time by farming out certain collectibles that they can then price-gouge other players for on the shard exchange...
Other than that, I don't see how having the eye-bleeding tedium of 'Enter Quest, Run to Collectible Node, Click, Recall, Reset, Rinse and Repeat many, many times' adds any 'fun value' to the all-level, fundamental crafting system of this game.
>>>
BTW:https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...em-Efficiently
<<<
I am well aware of this thread and I consult it whenever I am farming. That is how I got the idea to try Lords of Dust to farm the Polished Ores. The 3 Adventurers' Packs come early in the quest, so you don't have to run very far into it to get the chances at drops of T4 Cultural Collectables. The problem, as the thread points out, is that, unlike other level Cultural collectables, there are no specific monsters that drop treasure bags bearing T4 Cultural collectables. So, you end up farming rubbish piles and adventurers' packs. Because those nodes can drop any T4 collectable, the chance for pulling Cultural ones goes way down. I know in the past I have gotten Chipped Bone Talisman's and Ivory Scorpion Icons (both T4 Cultural) from Gargoyle treasure bags. However, I have never gotten Polished Ores from Gargoyle treasure bags.
I would also point out that none of the collectables I am after are the rare ones. Since I only craft for myself, I only need common and uncommon ones. I don't complain about the drops of rares, because I expect them to be rare. Also, except for the collectables I get hundreds of, I don't sell them. The ones I do sell are for small amounts of plat, so that people who actually want to craft can afford them.
I really don't think this is a hard problem to solve. Just designate a specific monster whose treasure bags drop T4 Cultural collectables. If someone who actually spends time farming for these things has a better suggestion for where to farm them, I would appreciate hearing about it.
I'm so glad I spent years stacking up collectables. 140 polished ore sitting in a bag ;)
What server are you on?
If its not fun for you then dont do it. Just play the game in a fun way and eventually you will have the ings needed. The rinse-repeat strategy fortunately is not the only way to get those ings - unless you want them NOW aka instant gratification.Quote:
Originally Posted by changelingamuck
Personally, I play a mix. I farm some and when it gets too boring I make do with what I have. I havent sold a single ing nor do I expect to.
I wouldn't recommend that thread, as I find many of the farms suggested there to be sub-optimal. For example, Lords of Dust isn't a very good farm for anything; it's more like all its collectables helps justify adding it to a circuit of epic dailies. It's nowhere near the worst of the suggestions in that thread, which for my money has to be Church and the Cult for Tier 3 Lore. Ouch!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonulino
After getting fed up with poor suggestions in that thread I did my own research and testing on efficient farms for all types of collectables, and integrated my results into my own crafting planner. And then, since not everyone wants to download and run programs from anonymous people on the internet, I posted all my farming data to this forum thread.
I've argued many times that devs should do exactly that, and then some. My ideal crafting revamp would be the following:Quote:
I really don't think this is a hard problem to solve. Just designate a specific monster whose treasure bags drop T4 Cultural collectables.
- Remove purifieds from all Unbound crafting recipes, which otherwise stay the same. This includes removing them from the recipes that apply high level ML shards to base items. This change keeps unbound crafting expensive, but not ridiculously so. Plus it lets customers pay the crafter for all the costs of an unbound item.
- Backpacks now only drop cultural collectables (Rubble is unchanged)
- Add treasure bag cultural drops for the following tiers:
- Tier 4: Vine Horrors, Red Musk Zombies, Shadows
- Tier 5: Yuan-ti, Dretch, Driders
- Tier 6: Helmed Horror, Pseudodragon
- Add collectable boxes to store. These boxes open a barter interface letting you choose any one collectable:
- Common Collectable Box: 35 TP, get a stack of 30
- Uncommon Collectable Box: 50 TP, get a stack of 10
- Rare Collectable Box: 65 TP, get a stack of 5
- Reduce ML and collectable tier for many static shards:
- Blindness Immunity lowered to level 1 / costs Tier 1 collectables
- Deathblock raised to level 100 / Tier 3 (Why is it level 1 costing amber vials?!)
- Eternal Faith lowered to level 100 / Tier 3
- Everbright lowered to level 1 / Tier 1
- Ghost Touch lowered to level 1 / Tier 1
- Invulnerability lowered to level 1 / Tier 1
- Keen lowered to level 50 / Tier 2
- Persuasion lowered to level 50 / Tier 2
- Sacred lowered to level 1 / Tier 1
- Silver Flame lowered to level 50 / Tier 2
- Songblade lowered to level 1 / Tier 1
I am such a person and I gave you a better suggestion for where to farm them, including a detailed, printable map and video showing exactly where to go.Quote:
If someone who actually spends time farming for these things has a better suggestion for where to farm them, I would appreciate hearing about it.
This, unfortunately, isn't true. If I don't like playing in the heroic level range, I can't simply play the game in a fun way for me and still be able to use the most fundamental crafting system in the game. In order to craft epic level items, I need collectibles that only drop in the heroic level range.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
Likewise, if I don't like playing in the epic level range, I can't simply play the game in a fun way for me and still be able to use the system either. In order to craft heroic level items, I need collectibles that only drop in the epic level range.
This is one of the reasons that I believe it should be possible to trade collectibles for different collectibles of the same type/rarity. I don't believe that a basic, all-level, fundamental crafting system in a game should be funneling people into specific quest level content in order to use it. There's a structural problem there.
TY for the info, and that last line of your post is quote worthy, +1 ellis, *and ty for the planner work.*Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
A fair point indeed. Could you give a specific example though of a piece of gear you want to craft and how that particular piece would take a massive amount of time to farm outside the frame (heroic or epic) that you like to play in? That would probably make it easier to understand and debate than a vague "it takes too long".Quote:
Originally Posted by changelingamuck
Obviously, if you want to craft a full set of items at 7 different ML every single TR because you do new builds every time it will take a long time - but thats hardly a reasonable expectation - so lets stick to a single particular item and how that takes too long :)
Well, what any person thinks is too much of this mindless farming is subjective, of course. So, I don't think it would 'prove' anything to give a specific example.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
I would argue this: the fact that we've been commonly seeing threads started complaining about collectible farming since Cannith crafting was revamped suggests that there's a decently large group of people who are not happy being funneled into this mindless farming activity in order to use the crafting system.
Where did I say it took 20+ hours to farm a single ingredient? Where did I say anything about bta items? Please don't make arbitrary out of text assumptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
So how many Polished Ores do you need for crafting an item? Ive never farmed for any collectibles and checked last night and I have 54. Also looked on the AS and someone was selling 5 for 500 AS (I assume as a joke?).
Many years ago there was a list of collectibles which were useless, useful and very useful. Does such an updated list exist? I often get to 2,000 of something and then just throw them away because they are clogging my bags.
The real issue isn't the drop rates. There are plenty of all of the collectibles sloshing around in people's bags throughout every server to satisfy all of the reasonable demand for same.
The problem is there's no viable medium of exchange. It's so bad on most servers that it's rarely even worth your time to look on the AH. People aren't willing to trade them for platinum and the Shard AH is thinly used as well. Bartering collectibles against each other is often more time consuming than farming them would be. That's the conundrum we're stuck in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
A lot of frustration could be solved by having the end chest of a quest also act like a backpack or whatever, it should drop 1 random collectible or something. That might not help the specific farmers directly, but I am thinking back to the old system with the Essences and the number of people who did not craft and instead sold them cheap on the exchanges kept the whole system in balance, maybe that could help now.
You did write "a massive amount of time". If thats not 20+ hours then our definition of massive differs. You also wrote that it would be more time than getting a rare named item (not just named item, but a rare one). Finally, I didnt write one ing, I wrote enough ings to make one item which you seem to have misinterpreted as one ing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darius1680
Tha bta part you are correct on though - but then I figured we had long since given up on unbound crafting. If you are talking about unbound crafting the matter is different indeed. But then most rare named items are not unbound and you are talking about something several orders better due to being unbound which would suggest taking longer.
Or - you could argue that many want instant gratification being able to craft not just single items but full sets with minor effort. Either interpretation has merit.Quote:
Originally Posted by changelingamuck
Does anyone know if the Ravenloft quest have been added to the crafting planner?
15 Polished Ores to craft 1 item with a Dexterity enchantment. I don't know about the Acid Lore and CHA damaging effect that requires Polished Ore too because I don't craft those. I don't follow the P2WAH, but I would say 500 AS for 5 Polished Ore is probably not a joke considering it requires some real dedicated farming time to get a bunch of Polished Ore. I would pay 4.2 million plat for 15 right now, but it seems those that put them on the AH prefer to have no buy out and end up with 100k after the bidding wars end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasparion
some collectables are easier to get than others, but they aren't considered useless. its more, depends on the player, what they need to craft and what they want to craft. they all can be used for crafting and CC gear is considered generally better than random gear and some named gear.
Can you blame people for not wanting to spend even a moderate amount of time going 'Open Quest Window, Set Difficulty, Enter Quest, Run to Collectible Node, Click on Node, Recall, Re-Enter, Rinse/Repeat' over and over and over?Quote:
Originally Posted by mikarddo
The amount of effort is beside the point, even though I would argue that the amount is excessive in-and-of-itself. The problem is that the effort itself is tedious, mind-numbing, rote repetition. This is a Game, not a Job. Boring mindless repetition is something that is supposed to occur at work, not at play.
The initial version of Cannith crafting didn't come with this new 'mini-game' of collectible farming in order to get regular use out of it. You just played the game, any quests, any levels, doing whatever and you accumulated materials to craft fairly regularly without going out of your way to have the 'fun' of repetitively clicking for a lottery reward. Yes, I know that you're thinking, 'The new Cannith crafted items are actually worth crafting though'. Well, the old Cannith crafted items were worth crafting too when the system was first introduced. And I'd rather be able to craft worse items without eye-bleed farming than better items with eye-bleed farming that doesn't involve actually playing the game.
It genuinely, absolutely mystifies me how anyone could see this collectible farming as a 'fun new addition'. You find running to collectible nodes and clicking on them FUN and think that most people would enjoy that??? If you think that, then there's no point to having this conversation because neither of us will ever agree with the other. And I don't enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing itself either, so.
Besides, we're guilty of de-railing this thread (or at least I'm guilty of it since I think I started the de-rail, which is my bad).
5, not 15. (Polished Ore is Uncommon.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Qhualor
I haven't added Ravenloft farming spots to mine yet because I don't own Ravenloft. Ramzes doesn't appear to have added Ravenloft farming locations to his online planner either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darius1680
I would argue that the intended design of the game is to run from 1 to 30. If you intentionally only run epics or only run heroics, you are skipping part of the game they intend you to run and thus missing out on collectables you're intended to have. Think of the tedium of collectable farming as the cost of playing the game in a way not intended.Quote:
The amount of effort is beside the point, even though I would argue that the amount is excessive in-and-of-itself. The problem is that the effort itself is tedious, mind-numbing, rote repetition. This is a Game, not a Job. Boring mindless repetition is something that is supposed to occur at work, not at play.
This is flat-out not true. Collectables used to come from specific locations, so if you didn't do those quests, you were screwed. (Not just specific levels, specific adventure packs.)Quote:
The initial version of Cannith crafting didn't come with this new 'mini-game' of collectible farming in order to get regular use out of it. You just played the game, any quests, any levels, doing whatever and you accumulated materials to craft fairly regularly without going out of your way to have the 'fun' of repetitively clicking for a lottery reward.
For example, glittering and luminescent dusts were used in the old system, and if you didn't like (and thus skipped) necro packs entirely, well, you were just SoL. Or how about fragrant drowshood? Hope you ran Tangleroot every life!
You have some serious rose-colored glasses for the old system. And no, when it was first introduced, it did not offer anything for epic players.
EDIT: My join is accurate (Feb 2011) and if yours is too (Mar 2011) then we both join just before the first cannith crafting was introduced. My memory of the first introduction was that leveling up for a new player was prohibitive, so I just did without many of the crafted items I would have liked to make. With the new system it's easy to level but the finished items require more collectables, such that you end up going without many of the crafted items you would have liked to make. Seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other.
If you think the old Cannith system didn't have grind, I challenge you to go to heroic Temple of Vol and ransack it over and over and over again (a process which does not take hours, but WEEKS) to get the Locus Of Vol in order to stick Vampirism onto a weapon.
I don't play the game that way. That was an example of one way in which players are unnaturally funneled by the new Cannith crafting design into entering certain levels of content in order to have Cannith crafting materials, regardless of their preferences for play. There are other possible examples like people who only have one character--that character is obviously only going to be in one level range, but need collectibles from all level ranges in order to craft. I'm sure that you or so-and-so or what's her name are going to take issue with that example for some reason too. But I'm not spending more time out of my life exhaustively listing every scenario like this in order to "prove" someone else's opinion "wrong" who is never going to change their perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
There's a saying, "not being able to see the forest for the trees".Quote:
Originally Posted by Matuse
This is nitpicking. The way in which collectibles were originally used in the old system isn't anywhere close to how they're embedded in the current system; so there wasn't this design-inducement into this extent of mindless collectible grinding. Yes, some individuals went out of their way to farm certain collectibles for the few uses that they had back then; but that was an exception to the design of the crafting system. I'm not going to draft DDO message board postings like I'm writing a legal brief. I think most people wouldn't get hung up on exceptional cases and treat leaving them out like it's a crucial flaw in an argument.
And I would say that you have some serious rose-colored glasses for the new system. I haven't discussed my overall feelings about the old system comprehensively; I didn't love everything about it and I like a lot of things about the new system. However, I consider the level-range restricted basis of the collectible ingredients to be a large problem for the reasons that I described. Ultimately, this is a matter of opinion. You disagree with me and you're allowed to feel that way. I disagree with you and I'm allowed to feel that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20141115043100
And by the same token, the barrier for entry (ie: leveling up your crafting ability) isn't anywhere close to how it was in the old system. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by changelingamuck
What if the new system required no collectables to make your effects shards, but leveling it up cost three times the amount of all collectables you've ever spent in the new system so far. Would it be better, worse, or the same?
Thats a very valid point and one I can agree with. It would be better indeed if it was somehow possible to get the ings needed at different levels of play.Quote:
Originally Posted by changelingamuck
However, it could be difficult setting up such a system without either a) making it even easier crafting (I consider it very easy having crafted maybe 50 great items with less effort than it took me to level up in the old system not even capping) or b) making it significantly harder to get the particular ingredient you want at a particular time (which is quite easy if indeed boring right now).
An example of a) would be a trade-in vendor where you could trade "worthless" ingrediences for "valuable" ones even at a 3:1 rate. An example of b) would be making everything just drop randomly at any level meaning you could not focus on getting a particular part.
yep, I was wrong. they are so hard for me to get and so long until I can actually craft a dex item I must have mixed them up with the sour darkcaps.Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
How about limiting the number of collectibles needed for crafting an item to 5.
The number of collectibles used was different, but collectibles were still required.Quote:
This is nitpicking. The way in which collectibles were originally used in the old system isn't anywhere close to how they're embedded in the current system
Sticking in highly rare items (not collectibles) for some of the desired effects was quite a lot worse. I particularly enjoyed their first pass at it where in order to make a Halfling Bane shard you needed to sacrifice raid loot from the least run raid in the game's history.
Did you know that Fragrant Drowshood mushrooms were selling on the auction house for 100,000 platinum EACH?
And then of course there was the whole essences thing. So many different kinds of essences from so many different items. Do I melt down the suffix or the prefix on this item? Uh oh, it's crafting session time and I just ran out of Greater Chaos essences but I still have thousands of others and no gap recipe...so much for that booster potion!
Getting collectibles is only a chore if you make it a chore. From day 1 I've collected collectibles, it's something I've always found enjoyable even when there was nothing really to do with them. But I never farmed for them even for the highly valued Stone Of Change recipe items. Then I stopped playing for a while and just came back at the beginning of the year. My collection of L21+ collectibles is woefully pathetic because I only ran a handful of quests at that level range before I reincarnated. I still got enough of them to plug in an insightful deadly on a level 11 trinket, and that's having a grand total of all L21+ collectibles that added up to less than my stockpile of polished stones.
You're making a mountain range out of a half-dug molehill.
+1. Anything that reduces bank space needed is a good idea.A way to exchange ingredients would be needed but that doesn't require rocket science.Quote:
Originally Posted by archest
Thank you for the suggestions. I will give them a try.Quote:
Originally Posted by EllisDee37
Look on this thread: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...lectable-Farms
Scroll down to:
CULTURAL TIER 4 (Quest level 16 to 20)
Common: Chipped Bone Talisman
Uncommon: Ivory Scorpion Icon, Polished Ore
Rare: Elemental Ingot, Tear of Vulkoor
Wheloon Prison (Heroic) Video
0:30 to farm one Cultural (16 Any in 4:00)
Need: Invisibility
Fight: Nothing
Notes: 20 backpacks (Anyx20) and 3 cabinets (Arcanex3) all over the map. 17 of the backpacks line up in an efficient farming path, and skipping the the one in the bookstore is more efficient still. See this forum thread for map.
While I was maxing out slayers and rares I did the map to the collectables plus some of the cabinets and picked up 100+ Polished ores.
I'm not sure where I gave the impression that I had some comprehensive love for everything about the old Cannith crafting system by criticizing a specific aspect of the new system. I'm not writing flowery poetic odes to old Cannith crafting and weeping lamentful tears over its loss. The fact that every single aspect of the old system wasn't perfect is beside the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matuse
Yeah and I bought them. And again, this is beside the point. Special ingredient requirements for the old system were an oddball exception on specific recipes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matuse
I've written enough about this already. You don't think that the points I've made are valid and I think that they are. I understand that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matuse
Yeah, I understand that you think that. And I don't agree. I think that your perspective on the level-range restriction of collectible drops lacks nuance and, perhaps, lacks an understanding of and respect for the play-styles of others. And I'm pretty sure that you don't agree with that. This conversation isn't going to go anywhere productive at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matuse
I will be listing some on the Argo AH this evening. I could use some more AS as I burned through re-rolls for Ravenloft gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Qhualor