Availability of HMPs, Riftcinders, Riftdross

[Catmato]

Also, considering that Ambuscade offers unique prizes (capes at the moment) to spend Hallmarks on

Capes are not the unique reward; they're the permanent reward. See: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...292#post576288

[BurnNotice]

I was reminded to ask this question or two: Why not permanently make HMP pouches give 15? Even better, why not make pouches give between 15~50?

[Diavolo]

To quote Byrth's posts from another forum:

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With 9 Heavy Metal Plates per pouch average, 6% chance of pouch drops, that works out to 0.54 plates per Zilart VW T3 kill.
Kaggen/Pil/Akvan are 0.35 plates/kill and drop crafting materials for armor upgrades.
Morta/Bismarck are 0.13 plates/kill but also drop Rift items 6% of the time and crafting materials

It takes roughly 3500 Voidstones to farm a 99 Empyrean. At 2 voidstone recharges/day, that's 4.8 years worth of voidstones on one character. Clears (before the voidwatch time reducing KIs), a little squandering here and there, and you're up near 5 years worth of voidstone recharges.

Voidwatch has been out since May of 2011. Congrats to anyone who has been saving up stones since then because you can finally solo a level 99 Empyrean without buying anything or making a second account.
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How can you look at those numbers, then look at the state of the game today, and not see how ridiculously unbalanced the quest for 99 Empyrean weapons is?

[Rydal]

Capes are not the unique reward; they're the permanent reward. See: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...292#post576288

Unique meaning you can't obtain them outside of Ambuscade, not unique as in they are a temporary reward. We also don't know if or when there will be other unique rewards that we can obtain from Ambuscade so spending Hallmarks on HMP and rift items, while consistent and about equal to VW during the campaign, it isn't a fix to the issue.

[BurnNotice]

Tonight, killed Aello 36 times and not a single HMP pouch. So much time wasted.

[Diavolo]

Tonight, killed Aello 36 times and not a single HMP pouch. So much time wasted.

It's not much better when you finally get that one pouch to drop in the 50 or so battles you've fought through and it only gives you 3 plates. Random number generators on top of random number generators... it's demoralizing sometimes.

[camaroz]

I just wanted to note that on Saturday and Sunday a total of 18 hours was spent killing Qilin. A total of 28 pouches for 2 days is absolutely demoralizing and this needs to be addressed even with lights capped. I do thank you for the key item so I didn't have to leave however that is not the answer to this problem.

[Olor]

Is it just me or do drops seem even worse solo even with capped lights? Or does at least being in a group help with the numbing tedium?

[detlef]

I think pouch rate is 6% or something like that so if you do it a lot you'll experience many, many streaks of hopelessness.

[Raydeus]

(Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.)