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Tartarus amulet drop rates rise since update: Rant

1
AuthorMessage
Defender
May 02, 2015
120
It's 100% true. The same is true for the Morganthe and all her gear.

I know this because I ran both of these a 5 times while test realm was up and dropped lots of fake cowns in the second chance chests. Morganthe had gear dropping left and right, every other drop, if not better. Tartarus was dropping amulets like 20% or 25% of the time. I spent most of my fake crowns on these runs. Two Divines dropped and about 2 to 3 of every other amulet.

I took screen shots and was planning on making a post about how test realm drops there are so much higher than live. But apparently these carried over to live in the update.

The rant:

KI, what the heck? Can you change this obscene update back to the way it was?

Here's the thing:

This makes no sense on your end. The drop rates on both of these dungeons were obscene from their inception. Why would you not have made these changes roughly 2 years ago when they came out? The hardcore players had to grind to a gross degree for this gear - amulets or morganthe gear. You make no money off of this.

Then you incorporated the second chance chests. You make money off of this. This falls in line with what makes sense that you'd do - rates stay but players can drop crowns. It's a win-win in a way: You get some money, players get to grind less.

And now you've increased the drop rates? Now? After so much time has passed with people farming for this insanely rare gear? This is Not okay.

I run with all schools across 3 different accounts. What I've already been through before the update:

Tartarus: I got a couple amulets and the very last time I ran, I was blessed with the rarest drop in the game: Divine.

Morganthe: I got everything on everyone minus 1 athame and 1 ring. Also missing 3 other rings and 1 athame, but didn't care about those.

I got all drops recently, within the last two months. And within these 2 months I've spent ~60k in crowns for Morganthe and ~20k in Tartarus, dropping crowns between 3 and 4 times each run after the chest reset. Add another 20k for when I was farming on just my death in the past.

I feel like I have been robbed in rarity of items, time, and crowns.

I would have probably spent roughly the same in Tartarus because I was farming for the gear, and the gear drops haven't changed. But now I've been cheated out of other amulet drops that I would have gotten with these changes. Like life, which I need.

Morganthe? I would have spent 10k of that 60k, plus extra fights, to get the gear on everyone.

I felt incredible accomplished when I got all amulets from Morganthe (as well as athames and rings) and exponentially accomplished/lucky getting Divine. Now I've been robbed of all that. The Divine I Just got on my fire from hit 2 of the chest feels nothing like the one on my balance.

KI, please change this back. You're insulting your veteran players with your horrendous latency in acceptable drop rates. You engineered these drops as status symbols and massive pvp advantages. You can't just take that away.

Explorer
Sep 04, 2010
65
better late than never?

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Having just finished two days of non-stop farming Cronus and Dimarchaerus for the Alpha/Omega ring and Blade of Felled Titan ... what on earth are you complaining about?

There were no 'second chance' chests for those battles. My Fire slogged through 27 battles with Cronus before finally getting the athame. (Yes, I kept track! I am preparing to battle the Rat and was refining my spell deck with each battle, so I was keeping notes.) Dimarchaerus was a little more cooperative - it only took my Fire 15 battles for the ring, LOL!

If that's an "increased" drop rate I'm glad I missed the 'good old days.'

As for crowns, I didn't spend any. Just one Fire plus one Balance were capable of finishing these battles without resorting to henchmen. Cost to me: nothing but my time and no small amount of patience.

I worked persistently to get them but won't begrudge anyone who wins the ring or athame after just a couple of runs. The 'hardcore' people have moved on to Darkmoor and end Polaris for grinding, not to mention the exalted duels. All that old level 90 gear isn't so status-symbol anymore, now it's just vital for PvE survival. So yeah, I'm glad they increased the drop rate, if 1/27 chances is indeed an increase!

Rowan Ashcloud

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
Ran it again. Got another Amulet of Divine Influence on my Balance on the fourth roll, making two: A fake one and a real one. Got exalted life on my fire on the second roll. Wee *sarcastic*

Please reverse this KI. Four amulet drops (fire also got a myth mastery on the first fight drop), half of which are Divines, on six total runs and 24 total re rolls. Having Amulet of Divine Influence now means nothing. It would be different if you just increased the gear drop ratio, lessened wand drop chance, etc, etc. Anything would have been better than this. And I would have welcomed something like that perhaps because I didn't get any hades hats at all, which I was hoping for for stitching.

Please turn this back to the way it was. You can't do this to all of your veteran players, be they Tartarus troopers or Morganthe martyrs. It flat out isn't right.

Historian
Nov 28, 2010
614
They have done nothing "to" veteran players. Even if you're right and they improved the chances and you're not just getting lucky, you're the one who chooses to see these items as a "status symbol"; you're the one who chooses to feel cheated because you perceive it's now easier for others to get them. I'm a veteran player, and I feel no sense of betrayal.

I understand what you're saying. I have a friend who paid $100 so that he could own Pulp Fiction on VHS the very first day it was released. Now you can get it on BluRay for $5 in a bargain bin. In hindsight sometimes he regrets it. But he wanted to be the only guy he knew with that movie, and for a few months he was, so he got what he paid for. The investment just didn't provide any permanent long term returns. You invested your time and money into the same sort of idea, and received the same kind of result. If things are different now than they were before, that's just reality. Times change, which is why it's sometimes better to not be so eager to sell yourself on perceptions and hype.

But again, maybe you're just getting lucky. I don't ever buy into the second chance chests anymore because I'd never gotten anything of value from them. But if I'm going to compare my past experience with what you're talking about, I've had wizards run Waterworks and get an entire set of gear in 4 runs. Other wizards I never did complete the set and they ran it over 50 times. Sometimes it's just luck, and sometimes it's lack thereof.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
It's not luck, That much I can promise. Things are dropping left and right at Morganthe too.

As for the pulp fiction reference, that's a pretty different example. I'm sure I'm missing some part because I've never seen it or gotten behind that occult movement, but first off, 99% of everything that can be bought on retail release is guaranteed to depreciate in value. Just like driving a new car off of the lot.

If your friend was trying to ultimately flip that copy, or just wanted to collect it and wanted to feel accomplished having it be worth $100+ sitting in his collection, that involves risk that doesn't exist in this game. There's no resale value to any of this stuff. It's just personal. Especially Divine as it's true usefulness has long expired.

I don't expect many people to agree with me. In fact, I fully expect many to just see it as me complaining.

As for "choosing" to interpret something as one way, I half agree with you/you're only half right. The other half is the half that other parties take advantage of. Putting all of the responsibility on all individuals all of the time in all situations leaves other involved bodies none of the former giving them as much latitude as they want to do whatever they want without any ramifications.

It's like the pet system now: They could do a couple of things to improve it. One idea I've had is just to simply be able to reverse the last pet snack fed at will. Very simple, yet hugely effective to keep pets from failing and maximizing non perfect pets to their full hatching potential. But at this point, they really shouldn't do anything like that because of all of the absurd struggles that players, both competitive and casual, have gone through to get the pets that they want. After years of keeping the system that they've elected, with community feedback included, such horrendous latency of caring and listening to their customers not only suggests a major lack of such, but a willingness to change only when it suits them.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
I've been soloing Tartarus this past week and the drop rate hasn't been higher in my experience. I've gotten very little. There might be an increase in second chance chests, I don't use them. I also have seen no increase in top tier drops for Morganthe. I'm getting none. So yes, I would say it's just luck.

Historian
Nov 28, 2010
614
luckguy93 on Aug 8, 2016 wrote:
It's not luck, That much I can promise. Things are dropping left and right at Morganthe too.

As for the pulp fiction reference, that's a pretty different example. I'm sure I'm missing some part because I've never seen it or gotten behind that occult movement, but first off, 99% of everything that can be bought on retail release is guaranteed to depreciate in value. Just like driving a new car off of the lot.

If your friend was trying to ultimately flip that copy, or just wanted to collect it and wanted to feel accomplished having it be worth $100+ sitting in his collection, that involves risk that doesn't exist in this game. There's no resale value to any of this stuff. It's just personal. Especially Divine as it's true usefulness has long expired.

I don't expect many people to agree with me. In fact, I fully expect many to just see it as me complaining.

As for "choosing" to interpret something as one way, I half agree with you/you're only half right. The other half is the half that other parties take advantage of. Putting all of the responsibility on all individuals all of the time in all situations leaves other involved bodies none of the former giving them as much latitude as they want to do whatever they want without any ramifications.

It's like the pet system now: They could do a couple of things to improve it. One idea I've had is just to simply be able to reverse the last pet snack fed at will. Very simple, yet hugely effective to keep pets from failing and maximizing non perfect pets to their full hatching potential. But at this point, they really shouldn't do anything like that because of all of the absurd struggles that players, both competitive and casual, have gone through to get the pets that they want. After years of keeping the system that they've elected, with community feedback included, such horrendous latency of caring and listening to their customers not only suggests a major lack of such, but a willingness to change only when it suits them.
You're not missing anything, you've actually said what I was trying to say.

There's no resale value to any of this stuff. It's just personal. Especially Divine as it's true usefulness has long expired.

I agree with you, the difference is that my friend actually has a physical item he could sell. But the similarity is that at the time he purchased it, he saw status symbol value in being the only one he knew that owned that movie. He didn't buy it thinking it would go up in value, he bought it hoping it would always be that expensive for others to purchase.

That seems to be your beef with KI is that they made it easier/cheaper for others to get these items. But the truth is it happens with almost everything. When something first comes out, price it high so that you can make a ton of money off of the people who need the best of everything before everybody else, then drop the price so that unit sales go up. It's just the way things go. It's up to you to make the choices you feel you can live with.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
Freshta on Aug 6, 2016 wrote:
Having just finished two days of non-stop farming Cronus and Dimarchaerus for the Alpha/Omega ring and Blade of Felled Titan ... what on earth are you complaining about?

There were no 'second chance' chests for those battles. My Fire slogged through 27 battles with Cronus before finally getting the athame. (Yes, I kept track! I am preparing to battle the Rat and was refining my spell deck with each battle, so I was keeping notes.) Dimarchaerus was a little more cooperative - it only took my Fire 15 battles for the ring, LOL!

If that's an "increased" drop rate I'm glad I missed the 'good old days.'

As for crowns, I didn't spend any. Just one Fire plus one Balance were capable of finishing these battles without resorting to henchmen. Cost to me: nothing but my time and no small amount of patience.

I worked persistently to get them but won't begrudge anyone who wins the ring or athame after just a couple of runs. The 'hardcore' people have moved on to Darkmoor and end Polaris for grinding, not to mention the exalted duels. All that old level 90 gear isn't so status-symbol anymore, now it's just vital for PvE survival. So yeah, I'm glad they increased the drop rate, if 1/27 chances is indeed an increase!

Rowan Ashcloud
I don't believe that the drop rates have changed on the blade and alpha and omega. I just meant on the amulet drop rates, specifically for hades, but I suppose they may have changed on the side bosses too.

I wish KI would officially respond to this...

Squire
Jul 18, 2009
545
luckguy93 on Aug 17, 2016 wrote:
I don't believe that the drop rates have changed on the blade and alpha and omega. I just meant on the amulet drop rates, specifically for hades, but I suppose they may have changed on the side bosses too.

I wish KI would officially respond to this...
Just fyi, they probably won't respond to a thread labeled "rant"

Survivor
Dec 02, 2014
44
I'm sorry, but are you complaining about increased drop rates? You must literally be the only person to complain about this. I'm sorry, but i'm actually laughing at this post.

Survivor
Aug 07, 2013
21
I have a idea. Let's just take all the items out of the drop tables entirely -- only putting them in once a year. You have 5 days to receive them at all, with a drop rate of 0.0000000000001%. That way we'll *really* discourage people from staying in the game. And the few people who do have stuff can just sit around by themselves and gloat.

Or not.

If this is true, this is a terrific thing. The barrier to entry for PvP and even to be competitive with other wizards when trying to team up is very high and very discouraging. I have absolutely stopped farming, which means I'm not stepping foot in the arena, which means I'm not playing any more. And guess what? At this rate when my subscriptions come up for renewal (I have 4 of them), I won't be renewing. If I can gear up finally and get into tours? Well then, that's a different story.

Survivor
Nov 18, 2009
44
I'm sorry, are my eyes deceiving me? Someone is complaining about drop rates being increased? Are you okay? I have spent plenty of my time farming for items for all of my characters, and I would never wish upon anyone else to have to go through that trouble just because it "isn't fair" to me. That's just unacceptable to me and, not surprisingly, I do not agree with the original poster at all.

I am genuinely grateful that KI has increased some drop rates. This opens up possibilities for many players who have given up on farming because yeah, it really wasn't worth it before. People will still feel plenty accomplished getting these drops, and I couldn't care less if I had to spend all those hours farming back then when I could have just waited until now. That was a different time, it was the past, and changing the drop rates back wouldn't benefit anyone.

Survivor
Mar 06, 2012
1
This complaining is what makes Ki regret being nice.
Do you really think ranting & complaining will make them change it back? If anything they'd probably just make it worse than it was when you farmed or put crowns in chests.

Not everyone can farm that hard for 1 item or put crowns they don't even have in chests for some more luck. Some people spend way more time farming & doing more runs for items than you claim you have, and some of those people still don't have the items they want.

This may not help you now cause you already spent your time/crowns getting what you wanted, but it helps those fellow players who spent just as much time or even more time than you & still haven't gotten what they want.

I hope your little rant here doesn't ruin what a lot of other players are actually really appreciative about.
Thank you Ki for the boost in drop rates I may actually be able to get the 1 item I need for my life that I've bee trying for since Morganthe was released with 0 luck since then.

Historian
Jun 19, 2010
657
ROFL - wait, let me get this straight, you're complaining about drop rates!?!

I appreciate your concerns, but I've been playing since Beta, and I appreciate and welcome better drop rates; as do many players. I received all my drops helping other players, so I never really farmed Tartarus or the Gladiator. However, I did farm Loremaster for years, to obtain or craft all of her spells. But I certainly didn't complain when I obtained her three newest spells drops because she gave them all to me in less than a week. I was grateful and said thanks.

Geographer
Mar 12, 2013
923
Whoever is responsible for this increase in drop rates, give that person a huge raise!

After 18 months of persistent farming, sometimes with only 2 of us, at Morganthe, I finally got my myth amulet. Finally got the balance athame with the big outgoing heal boost. I could not believe it. My buddy who has been farming on and off on his one storm wizard since KR went live, has finally gotten his first ever storm item, after getting a total of 6 amulets for other schools and no storm ones. He can now move on to questing, tournaments, and Polaris, which are a lot more fun than fighting the same boss over and over and over and over again!

Yes, he was absolutely not going to bother with Polaris at all because he couldn't get geared up properly to survive.

Those of us who put in our time at Tartarus (1000+ runs and counting) basically put our lives on hold while we farmed there. That's not fun. That's akin to spending time in detention. We looked out the window and saw other wizards questing and doing pvp and having fun. Here we were, in the dark, serving out our sentence.

Thanks for finally giving us the keys to our freedom and letting us move on.

This gesture isn't wasted. I am helping others with Galleries at the kiosk so they too can have a chance to move forward. (Nobody wants to team up for that and Spirit Plane - but those are far more trouble for the under-geared wizard!)

Survivor
May 17, 2009
46
I'm confused by your logic. Increasing the drop rate of items in no way harms you at all. Sure, you can say that people can now easily get things that used to give the people who farmed for it distinct advantages. The thing is, those items no longer give distinct advantages, most people would agree the Rasputin amulets outshine the Morganthe amulets, and I think everyone agrees that Malistaire gear outclasses Hades gear. So that invalidates your key argument. This update is by no means "insulting to veterans" if anything, we should be happy people can get items that they used to could not, and it's not like you didn't get any benefits from those items, for a good three years you and others who slogged through the farming process had nice gear with nice benefits that very few others had, but now that there is better gear, who cares if people can get items that USED to be the best of the best. Anyways, I'd like to thank KI for this update as I think it's a great way to get people back into the game to start farming for those last pieces of gear before Mirage comes out!

~ Jacob_Caller

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
Didn't really expect anyone to agree with me, but that's fine.

A big part of this rant: I had gotten all of this stuff within less than two months. This on top of the pets with critical and block talents that I just finished before the update, where said talents have pretty much become worthless for pvp (which I was making them for in the future).

It's a bunch of things I committed a lot of time and money to recently, about as recently as recent can get, and then this update comes out, invalidating 90% of everything I put into it.

It's a trust thing.

Idk. None of this matters anymore. Have fun having at me, everyone.

Survivor
Sep 10, 2009
20
luckguy93 on Aug 22, 2016 wrote:
Didn't really expect anyone to agree with me, but that's fine.

A big part of this rant: I had gotten all of this stuff within less than two months. This on top of the pets with critical and block talents that I just finished before the update, where said talents have pretty much become worthless for pvp (which I was making them for in the future).

It's a bunch of things I committed a lot of time and money to recently, about as recently as recent can get, and then this update comes out, invalidating 90% of everything I put into it.

It's a trust thing.

Idk. None of this matters anymore. Have fun having at me, everyone.
It's perfectly reasonable to be upset as it is unfair why players now can get gear much more easily than you did. The day they increase the drop rate for Rasputin amulets is the day I will be royally annoyed.

Survivor
Dec 02, 2014
44
luckguy93 on Aug 22, 2016 wrote:
Didn't really expect anyone to agree with me, but that's fine.

A big part of this rant: I had gotten all of this stuff within less than two months. This on top of the pets with critical and block talents that I just finished before the update, where said talents have pretty much become worthless for pvp (which I was making them for in the future).

It's a bunch of things I committed a lot of time and money to recently, about as recently as recent can get, and then this update comes out, invalidating 90% of everything I put into it.

It's a trust thing.

Idk. None of this matters anymore. Have fun having at me, everyone.
Lol, victim card.

But seriously, no one is going at you. Everyone is just pointing out the fact that you ranting/complaining about increased drops is insane. Don't take it personally.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
HiddenIntelligence on Aug 22, 2016 wrote:
It's perfectly reasonable to be upset as it is unfair why players now can get gear much more easily than you did. The day they increase the drop rate for Rasputin amulets is the day I will be royally annoyed.
Rasputin is a ridiculous fight. Three tiers of gear And you can get off school gear? Honestly, it doesn't even feel like your school gear has a decent chance of dropping - that it is just all totally random, both the tier and the school.

This is what I mean, though: As of right now, the drop system for Rasputin is absurd. KI has designed it this way. Should they in the future decide to change the drops to be, honestly, what they should have always been, is that not quite the double insult? Like... where is the explanation to a) the grotesque drop rates and the off school gear and b) the horrible lateness of an appropriate change?

That's all I'm saying here. I'm not saying "boohoo, I worked harder for mine so everyone else should too." I'm saying "If you're going to design something to be so hard to acquire, then own up to it. Because that's what you elected to design at the beginning in addition to keeping it the way it was for a significant extension of time."

To just say outright "thanks for the drop increase" goes in tandem with something along the lines of accepting the old system as "Oh yeah, that was totally fine and acceptable for the longest time." Because the reality is that it wasn't. But the community had to accept it because it was just the way it was. There are just many ways that I would design this game differently.

Idk. Idk what I'm saying anymore. lol.

And I'm not playing any victim card. I'm playing the "This is how this change is making me feel and that I'm hoping some people might understand or that others feel similar/understood, but for those who miss this outreach, I will choose to not loose sleep over" card.

Survivor
Nov 18, 2009
44
luckguy93 on Aug 22, 2016 wrote:
Didn't really expect anyone to agree with me, but that's fine.

A big part of this rant: I had gotten all of this stuff within less than two months. This on top of the pets with critical and block talents that I just finished before the update, where said talents have pretty much become worthless for pvp (which I was making them for in the future).

It's a bunch of things I committed a lot of time and money to recently, about as recently as recent can get, and then this update comes out, invalidating 90% of everything I put into it.

It's a trust thing.

Idk. None of this matters anymore. Have fun having at me, everyone.
Sorry if I came across as aggressive, but the last thing I want is for your rant to give KI the wrong idea about this update and for them to change back the drop rates. I see where you are coming from and I recognize your frustration, but this change to the drop rates benefits many many players and is making the majority of us happy. I'm sorry that you had to put so much time into farming for those items, and I know the feeling of having useless block pets now, but really that's just the nature of this game. KI is constantly going to be making changes, and luckily this was a very positive one.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
XxZexionxX on Aug 23, 2016 wrote:
Sorry if I came across as aggressive, but the last thing I want is for your rant to give KI the wrong idea about this update and for them to change back the drop rates. I see where you are coming from and I recognize your frustration, but this change to the drop rates benefits many many players and is making the majority of us happy. I'm sorry that you had to put so much time into farming for those items, and I know the feeling of having useless block pets now, but really that's just the nature of this game. KI is constantly going to be making changes, and luckily this was a very positive one.
Thanks for the civility and empathy. Much appreciated.

Historian
Nov 28, 2010
614
luckguy93 on Aug 23, 2016 wrote:
Rasputin is a ridiculous fight. Three tiers of gear And you can get off school gear? Honestly, it doesn't even feel like your school gear has a decent chance of dropping - that it is just all totally random, both the tier and the school.

This is what I mean, though: As of right now, the drop system for Rasputin is absurd. KI has designed it this way. Should they in the future decide to change the drops to be, honestly, what they should have always been, is that not quite the double insult? Like... where is the explanation to a) the grotesque drop rates and the off school gear and b) the horrible lateness of an appropriate change?

That's all I'm saying here. I'm not saying "boohoo, I worked harder for mine so everyone else should too." I'm saying "If you're going to design something to be so hard to acquire, then own up to it. Because that's what you elected to design at the beginning in addition to keeping it the way it was for a significant extension of time."

To just say outright "thanks for the drop increase" goes in tandem with something along the lines of accepting the old system as "Oh yeah, that was totally fine and acceptable for the longest time." Because the reality is that it wasn't. But the community had to accept it because it was just the way it was. There are just many ways that I would design this game differently.

Idk. Idk what I'm saying anymore. lol.

And I'm not playing any victim card. I'm playing the "This is how this change is making me feel and that I'm hoping some people might understand or that others feel similar/understood, but for those who miss this outreach, I will choose to not loose sleep over" card.
Explanation; a) to keep people who have finished the game busy farming for a long, long time until the next world is complete, and b) they changed the drop rates on items that are past their prime (you even said yourself some of the items in question are obsolete) because at this point they understand most people have moved on.

Survivor
Jan 02, 2010
42
luckguy93 on Aug 23, 2016 wrote:
Thanks for the civility and empathy. Much appreciated.
Lol those items are valuable, and we all worked hard to get them. But now there are much better items. Amulet of divine influence is pretty useless now at level 110. Or even 100. Unless your a death wizard, which even them may still be useless, then there's no need or point to get this amulet. I've never cared for it. In fact, I got both Morgane AND tier 1 rat amulet yet I am using a myth mastery from omen to diversify my play.

Also, imagine you had 6 wizards and you haven't gotten morgantges amulet on those other wizards. Wouldn't you wish the rates be increased to get them on the rest of wizards?

1