It's time for Shard/Seal trade-ins for Ebberon epics

[Dolphious]

As I approach my 100th into the deep without a single gloves of the claw shard (mostly on EH, but several dozen pre-u14, and some EN while I was in really gimpy destines; some with guildies that would have passed it to me, but mostly solo or in pugs where everyone is probably looking for the same shard) I'm feeling ragequit levels of frustration coming on. Not only do I not have that shard after nearly 100 runs, but I'm no closer to having it than I was on run #1.

If the plan was to re-do and update the old gear, then that's dandy, but my understanding is that the gear isn't going to be updated, so everything that I get that's not claw related from that quest is completely pointless. The current system is balanced around the idea that while you might not get "the item" you're looking for, you're going to get a variety of useful stuff along the way. Now there's just 2 items anyone really wants, and the drop rates are insanely low.

The 3:1 trade in for sands scrolls is honestly probably too generous. I'm fine with 10:1, 20:1, or at this point 50:1 (I would trade 50 random fens shards at this point for a gloves shard without thinking twice at this point, and I've definitely got that many). There needs to be some kind of fail-safe for god-awful bad luck.

I know this has been brought up before, but it's really time to make it happen. This game doesn't come out with new content *that* quickly, you need to do something to make the old epics desirable to run to some extent. Please, please make this happen.

[Miow]

That being said you won't need to run old content at all if you can just trade in what you have .

[scoobmx]

/signed

I'm somewhere between 500 and 1000 runs of the harbor series without a Bow of the Silver Flame seal.

I still remember (and not fondly) of the 2200 runs of EVON quests I had to do for the seal of the Belt of the Mroranon. That took me almost a full year of grinding.

[Aldieb]

5 months for seal of Epic Envenomed Cloak and I've seen only one..
2 months for seal of Doublecross Bow.. never saw it..

I feel sad..

[Dolphious]

That being said you won't need to run old content at all if you can just trade in what you have .

It's probably true that if I could trade 10:1, or maybe even 20:1, I would probably never run into the deep again, but that's just because I've run it an insane number of times already. If I wanted a second claw set I would still have to run the seal quests, as I don't have 20-40 extra seals to trade in.

And there are plenty of other old epic items I would like also that I don't have that many extra shards/seals. In fact I could see myself farming for a number of specific items if I knew I would make progress towards them, but at this point I'm pretty much ready to throw my hands up and forget about all of it. It was one thing when you got "other good stuff" while you were farming for that "one great item," but with just getting piles of junk along the way it's maddening.

Taking 20+ runs to get a seal/shard you want is still no joke, and people would still need to run those old epics a lot to get a piece of gear. 10:1 trade in would still mean there's a lot of grind for one item (you get a shard maybe 2/3 of the time on epic hard, and seals even less often, maybe 1/5, so to get 10 of each would take about 65 runs of various quests). It's just some kind of fail-safe so you get a sense of progress.

[Dolphious]

/signed

I'm somewhere between 500 and 1000 runs of the harbor series without a Bow of the Silver Flame seal.

I still remember (and not fondly) of the 2200 runs of EVON quests I had to do for the seal of the Belt of the Mroranon. That took me almost a full year of grinding.

Ug, I feel your pain man. That's what I'm talking about. I get that grind is part of the game, but there comes a point...

[scoobmx]

Ug, I feel your pain man. That's what I'm talking about. I get that grind is part of the game, but there comes a point...

In another thread I had made a suggestion that I think was largely ignored (maybe it wasn't really a suggestion as much as just analysis), but here goes again.

Hypothesis: It would be beneficial in quests where a low drop-rate item that is sought after potentially drops in many different chests (such as seals in certain quest series as well as named loot in Caught in the Web) for said item to be condensed down to dropping only in 1 chest with a drop-rate that equals the sum of the drop-rates of all the chests it could have dropped in.

Proof: Pulling loot in DDO follows a Bernoulli process, where for each chest that drops a given item, you have probability p of obtaining when you open it, as it calls a random number generator on the loot table. For n chests each having probability p of dropping this item, the chance of pulling exactly one of this item is:

C(n,1)*p*(1-p)^(n-1)

Where C(n,k) = n!/(k!*(n-k)!) and this follows the binomial distribution. The mean, representing the average number of said item dropping in one run through, is n*p. The variance is n*p*(1-p). Comparing 2 cases where we keep the mean n*p constant, but change the number of chests n, we can show that the more chests there are, the higher variance loot drops are:

1 chest with rate p: mean is p and variance is p*(1-p)
2 chests with rate p/2 for each: mean is again p but variance is p*(1-p/2)
Continuing: since n*p is constant, the only part of variance that changes is the (1-p) factor, which continues to increase.

So the higher number of chests there are, keeping the mean drop rate constant, the more the game punishes unlucky people and rewards lucky people.

For reference, in a realistic case, you wouldn't mind pulling multiples either, so the probability of pulling AT LEAST one of said item would be:

1 - n*Integral(t^(n-1),t,0,1-p)

[jejeba86]

Well, that would be a dream...
Sense of accomplishment.

[Meretrix]

They should just make generic epic seal, epic srolls and epic shards and just make them a bit rarer.

[Dolphious]

They should just make generic epic seal, epic srolls and epic shards and just make them a bit rarer.

Sure, there are probably dozens of ways to approach it. I was just thinking that a trade-in vendor would probably be a pretty easy thing to implement from a manpower perspective to patch things up for if/when they ever get around to a more comprehensive change.

[moo_cow]

/not signed

People use to run it once a day on a toon to farm out seals and shards and they got them just fine, now you have the opportunity to run it 7/8 times in 1 day. That's more than enough to try and get your epic ingredients, especially from Epic deeps, it can be run in 5 -6 minutes.

Most people I see have 2-4 toons at minimum and it shouldn't be that hard to run it 14 times in 2 days every week.

[Sonos]

/signed for trade in or side chests.

Also would not mind seeing a shard list for 20th completions for things like von6 etc.

[SSFWEl]

/not signed
..... especially from Epic deeps, it can be run in 5 -6 minutes.

Just swimming to west, then back to east, then from north to north, then from north to demon, then falling to demon, takes about 5-6 min. So you are doing all the fighting in zero time? Very, very, impressive. Can you tell your secret?

[psteen1]

Agree that the shard/seal/scroll system needs redoing. The items lack the power comparatively to what they used to have- they are not the end all be all anymore and therefore should not require the effort that is due such an item.

[Sonos]

/not signed

People use to run it once a day on a toon to farm out seals and shards and they got them just fine, now you have the opportunity to run it 7/8 times in 1 day. That's more than enough to try and get your epic ingredients, especially from Epic deeps, it can be run in 5 -6 minutes.

Most people I see have 2-4 toons at minimum and it shouldn't be that hard to run it 14 times in 2 days every week.

I see your point. I do. I have the claw set miraculously pre-U14. However, it took almost a year and most items are trumped by even random loot. In other words, these are level 20 items. PDK gloves and claw gloves, while certainly different, have a disparity that is astronomical in acquiring them.

[Dolphious]

/not signed

People use to run it once a day on a toon to farm out seals and shards and they got them just fine, now you have the opportunity to run it 7/8 times in 1 day. That's more than enough to try and get your epic ingredients, especially from Epic deeps, it can be run in 5 -6 minutes.

Most people I see have 2-4 toons at minimum and it shouldn't be that hard to run it 14 times in 2 days every week.

You can't run it 7/8 times a day, you can run it 8/week, which is exactly the same number of times you could run it in a week before u14. Sure you can more conveniently time it now, but that's more than outweighed by the general lack of interest compared to when it was cutting edge gear (I've done 6 straight runs with a "Deeps EH, all welcome, IP" LFM up without a single hit the whole time). And shard drop rate isn't 100% on EH the way it was on OE, so the faster completion time hurts as much as it helps (running EH you get 5-6 shards a week compared to 8 pre-u14).

And while a really good group that splits up three ways (to get the priestess fight started fast) could complete in 5-6 mins, that's a completely nonsense time for solo farming. It takes me about half an hour to solo on epic hard, and that's with using one shrine the whole time, and a decent kill speed. You can't base reasonable completion times for farming old content based on 6 hardcore zergers with the best gear and skills. It's a half hour quest, not a 5 minute quest.

[moo_cow]

You can't run it 7/8 times a day, you can run it 8/week, which is exactly the same number of times you could run it in a week before u14. Sure you can more conveniently time it now, but that's more than outweighed by the general lack of interest compared to when it was cutting edge gear (I've done 6 straight runs with a "Deeps EH, all welcome, IP" LFM up without a single hit the whole time). And shard drop rate isn't 100% on EH the way it was on OE, so the faster completion time hurts as much as it helps (running EH you get 5-6 shards a week compared to 8 pre-u14).

And while a really good group that splits up three ways (to get the priestess fight started fast) could complete in 5-6 mins, that's a completely nonsense time for solo farming. It takes me about half an hour to solo on epic hard, and that's with using one shrine the whole time, and a decent kill speed. You can't base reasonable completion times for farming old content based on 6 hardcore zergers with the best gear and skills. It's a half hour quest, not a 5 minute quest.

Sorry but I retyped it out before I had it saying 7/8 a day every week, and if you have more than 1 character u can run it on, than well you do the math.

As for farming seals and shards by urself, don't, put up an lfm saying that a specific item is reserved for so and so or do it with guildy's. It's done so often anyways.

As for the timing of the quest a lot of people use to finish it in the 5-9 minute time areas (if you split up), and the quest is even easier now. So find a pug or run with some guildy's, its not that hard

[DarkForte]

Sorry but I retyped it out before I had it saying 7/8 a day every week, and if you have more than 1 character u can run it on, than well you do the math.

As for farming seals and shards by urself, don't, put up an lfm saying that a specific item is reserved for so and so or do it with guildy's. It's done so often anyways.

As for the timing of the quest a lot of people use to finish it in the 5-9 minute time areas (if you split up), and the quest is even easier now. So find a pug or run with some guildy's, its not that hard

I won't even bother with this. Take your own advice, start from nothing right now, and measure how long it takes you to get the two claw shards. See you in a few months, after you give up.

[moo_cow]

I won't even bother with this. Take your own advice, start from nothing right now, and measure how long it takes you to get the two claw shards. See you in a few months, after you give up.

If people don't want to run quests for certain gear than they don't have to, it's as simple as that. I'm not saying drop rates are perfect but I don't see a reason to make things easier for people because a few people can't get what they need or it takes a long time to get.

P.S : I took my advice a little while ago and got myself 2 claw sets, thanks though.

[knockcocker]

If people don't want to run quests for certain gear than they don't have to, it's as simple as that. I'm not saying drop rates are perfect but I don't see a reason to make things easier for people because a few people can't get what they need or it takes a long time to get.

P.S : I took my advice a little while ago and got myself 2 claw sets, thanks though.

Easier? what are you talking about? What's hard about running the same quest over and
over again until you're lucky enough to get the item you're looking for? Sounds like
work to me, not a game.

Look, when 10% of people were playing Epic level quests I think this kind of mechanic
was acceptable as the majority of those 10% had that mentality anyway. Now this
restriction is gone, the majority playing this content don't have that mentality and
are just getting frustrated. Prior to MotU I don't recall seeing any threads like this (not
saying there were not any) - they seem to crop up quite frequently now. To save
time I'll just link to the post I made in the last one I saw:

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...44&postcount=2

Nobody is asking for an 'easy button' - just a way to reduce grind and utilize
shards/seals that are useless to them. We don't all have 10 L20+ alts also waiting on
Eberron Epic gear.