Farming for Glass Phials...

[Bonulino]

...puts me in a foul mood!

[TDarkchylde]

It's extremely annoying, yeah. What's worse is that Phials are used for two high-quality/heavily desired recipes (Constitution and Good Effect), so you're always going to go back for more and the drop rate can be positively atrocious. I've had spells where I've hit the same four collectibles in the beginning of Desecrated Temple of Vol about 40 times and never seen a single Phial drop.

[changelingamuck]

Don't get me started on how 'collectible farming' is now 'a thing' required for regularly doing cannith crafting in this game.

We need a trade-in vendor to exchange collectibles with for other collectibles of the same rarity/type, but different tiers (even if it's at a disadvantaged return on the trade, e.g. 3 collectibles traded for 1 received in return).

Personally, I log in to the game probably about 75% less often since the crafting revamp because I just dread the amount of 'chore work' there is to do now. If they'd gone through with making the character banks work like the disorganized shared bank UI and I also had to make documents listing all of the items each of my characters have by the order in which I equip them at each level, I wouldn't have even stuck around for the Ravenloft expansion. And I have unreasonable amounts of love for the Ravenloft setting.

If I wanted to do tedious, repetitive chores, I would clean my house.

[Jomee]

Don't get me started on how 'collectible farming' is now 'a thing' required for regularly doing cannith crafting in this game.

Maybe this could somehow get the devs attention. I hate crafting anything due to the low amount of collectables you get in a quest compared to the ridiculous amount used per recipe. However, I would love it if they added getting random collectables from the items you dissolve.

[Phoenicis]

Maybe this could somehow get the devs attention. I hate crafting anything due to the low amount of collectables you get in a quest compared to the ridiculous amount used per recipe. However, I would love it if they added getting random collectables from the items you dissolve.

Good idea, though IMHO a very rare chance for a shard of one of the effects might make more sense...

[changelingamuck]

Maybe this could somehow get the devs attention. I hate crafting anything due to the low amount of collectables you get in a quest compared to the ridiculous amount used per recipe. However, I would love it if they added getting random collectables from the items you dissolve.

I wouldn't be against that idea per se. But I believe a key part of the problem is having no way to bypass the randomness of collectible drops; so I prefer a trade-in solution along the lines of this:

We need a trade-in vendor to exchange collectibles with for other collectibles of the same rarity/type, but different tiers (even if it's at a disadvantaged return on the trade, e.g. 3 collectibles traded for 1 received in return).

It's paying more collectibles in order to bypass the randomness and get a specific one while also providing a method of bypassing the quest level range restriction...

But yeah, I would take just about any solution that reduced time spent in that wonderful 'mini-game' of collectible farming.

[Dragavon]

It's extremely annoying, yeah. What's worse is that Phials are used for two high-quality/heavily desired recipes (Constitution and Good Effect), so you're always going to go back for more and the drop rate can be positively atrocious. I've had spells where I've hit the same four collectibles in the beginning of Desecrated Temple of Vol about 40 times and never seen a single Phial drop.

Then you are doing it in the wrong place.

Go try Enemy Within in House Jorasco. I promise you you will not hate so much after some runs there. 10 nodes that can all drop glass phials in 3-4 minutes.

[TDarkchylde]

Then you are doing it in the wrong place.

Go try Enemy Within in House Jorasco. I promise you you will not hate so much after some runs there. 10 nodes that can all drop glass phials in 3-4 minutes.

Feels more like 5-6 minutes, and that's just to get to the first room with the collectables, plus fights. Whereas it takes me maybe one minute to make the run between the two trapped wings in Vol using my heroic-capped pure Monk, and there's no fights if I'm careful.

[ValariusK]

Ran Enemy within on R1 last night and pulled 3 glass phials, way more than I'd done in the past. Wondering if the drop frequency on them has been corrected (should be about 1/3 of the uncommons you get there). Maybe I'll also do an elite run this life on it.

There really needs to be a set of widely agreed-upon ratios for trading collectibles. E.G.
Glass phials are the most valuable
Ornate charms, Archaic logbooks are about half that valuable
Most other stuff is about half again that valuable
Things super easy to farm are half again that valuable (e.g. tier 4,5,6 naturals, re: breaking the ranks)

Obviously we can't have a market in plat, and I rarely see glass phials even for AS, and lets face it, the AS market is way way too lossy. Bartering without shared estimates of value is a PITA every time.

[EllisDee37]

There really needs to be a set of widely agreed-upon ratios for trading collectibles. E.G.
Glass phials are the most valuable
Ornate charms, Archaic logbooks are about half that valuable
Most other stuff is about half again that valuable
Things super easy to farm are half again that valuable (e.g. tier 4,5,6 naturals, re: breaking the ranks)

Obviously we can't have a market in plat, and I rarely see glass phials even for AS, and lets face it, the AS market is way way too lossy. Bartering without shared estimates of value is a PITA every time.

I've been thinking about exactly that kind of thing the past couple weeks.

I'd like to do something similar to what Jimmy Johnson did for NFL draft picks. Unfortunately there isn't really a history of collectable trades to base the values on. So instead I'll try to come up with a formula based on expected farming rate and recipes used.

I suspect Ornate Charms will end up the most valuable by a mile, but I haven't yet finished off my collectable farmer so I'm not yet ready to gather "official" expected farming rates. The idea will be to figure out how fast each farm is using an optimized collectable farmer to get the best case scenario for each type, multiplying the percentage chance for that specific collectable to drop. Not just the nodes; the actual collectable. So, like, if you could farm 10 arcane tier 3 nodes in 5:00 flat, the Glass Phial rate would be 10 * 0.2 (uncommon rate) / 3 (# of uncommons) = 0.67 glass phials per 5:00 run of hitting 10 arcane nodes.

A relative value between collectables is really what I'm looking for, but if there was desire to then apply a generic currency to them you're right that plat wouldn't work. Essences are the most logical currency, I think.

My optimized collectable farmer will be ready to go in 2-3 days, so I'll begin work proper sometime next week, likely. Once values are established, I can include them in my Cannith Crafting Builder Lite for easy reference.

EDIT: I'd love more data on the exact distribution of Any dispensers for use in the formula. I even created a thread for just that.

[ValariusK]

I've been thinking about exactly that kind of thing the past couple weeks.

I'd like to do something similar to what Jimmy Johnson did for NFL draft picks. Unfortunately there isn't really a history of collectable trades to base the values on. So instead I'll try to come up with a formula based on expected farming rate and recipes used.

I suspect Ornate Charms will end up the most valuable by a mile, but I haven't yet finished off my collectable farmer so I'm not yet ready to gather "official" expected farming rates. The idea will be to figure out how fast each farm is using an optimized collectable farmer to get the best case scenario for each type, multiplying the percentage chance for that specific collectable to drop. Not just the nodes; the actual collectable. So, like, if you could farm 10 arcane tier 3 nodes in 5:00 flat, the Glass Phial rate would be 10 * 0.2 (uncommon rate) / 3 (# of uncommons) = 0.67 glass phials per 5:00 run of hitting 10 arcane nodes.

A relative value between collectables is really what I'm looking for, but if there was desire to then apply a generic currency to them you're right that plat wouldn't work. Essences are the most logical currency, I think.

My optimized collectable farmer will be ready to go in 2-3 days, so I'll begin work proper sometime next week, likely. Once values are established, I can include them in my Cannith Crafting Builder Lite for easy reference.

EDIT: I'd love more data on the exact distribution of Any dispensers for use in the formula. I even created a thread for just that.

Ornate charms seem to be produced reasonably frequently just as a byproduct of leveling. There are lots of pull chances for them, for instance, in a bog-standard Two Toed Tobias run on EH. What drives up their value is how many get used in popular recipes. Glass phials are just painful though, and Constitution is something you typically want on a lot of things (I've mostly been putting it on armor in a Constitution/Heal Amp/Parrying mix). Brass Censers/pouches of bone fragments seem to be typically in surplus.

[EllisDee37]

Ornate charms seem to be produced reasonably frequently just as a byproduct of leveling. There are lots of pull chances for them, for instance, in a bog-standard Two Toed Tobias run on EH. What drives up their value is how many get used in popular recipes. Glass phials are just painful though, and Constitution is something you typically want on a lot of things (I've mostly been putting it on armor in a Constitution/Heal Amp/Parrying mix). Brass Censers/pouches of bone fragments seem to be typically in surplus.

Glass Phials frequently drop during heroic leveling if you run all content once on elite (or reaper) for bravery, but your point about there being Ornate Charm drops in an epic daily is well taken.

In terms of dedicated farming, I'm pretty sure that I can farm way more Glass Phials than I can Ornate Charms in the same amount of time. (EDIT: Actually, looking at my numbers, this claim is doubtful.)

[Aelonwy]

Don't get me started on how 'collectible farming' is now 'a thing' required for regularly doing cannith crafting in this game.

If I wanted to do tedious, repetitive chores, I would clean my house.

Gahhh!!! You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to changelingamuck again. Will you please stop being sensible AND funny?!

[changelingamuck]

Will you please stop being sensible AND funny?!