Availability of HMPs, Riftcinders, Riftdross

[Stompa]

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?

Here's the official response from Page 13 (I think) of this thread ;

Voidwatch drops are placed into individual loot pools, and drops increase greatly with more participants.

This explains how I was able to finish my HMP by going with my VW LS and alliance farming with 100% procs and 12~ people.

I have had far worse luck on solo drop rates.

However, even when I went with my friend's VW Static LS, we would often see the same person get five pouches in a 6-pop run, while another person was getting zero pouches in the same 6 pops.

So the problem remains, even if being in an alliance increases the overall drop rates, those drops can still randomly go to the one guy who was AFK most of the time, while the people who are spamming multi-weapon swapouts can be getting zero drops.

[Gwydion]

Here's the official response from Page 13 (I think) of this thread ;



This explains how I was able to finish my HMP by going with my VW LS and alliance farming with 100% procs and 12~ people.

I have had far worse luck on solo drop rates.

However, even when I went with my friend's VW Static LS, we would often see the same person get five pouches in a 6-pop run, while another person was getting zero pouches in the same 6 pops.

So the problem remains, even if being in an alliance increases the overall drop rates, those drops can still randomly go to the one guy who was AFK most of the time, while the people who are spamming multi-weapon swapouts can be getting zero drops.

How funny/sad would it be if the official response is just poorly translated. "The drops increase greatly with more participants" could mean that 6 players receive 6 individual pools and 18 players get 18 pools....but the drop rate is unchanged. (This sounds entirely possible to me!).

[Catmato]

How funny/sad would it be if the official response is just poorly translated. "The drops increase greatly with more participants" could mean that 6 players receive 6 individual pools and 18 players get 18 pools....but the drop rate is unchanged. (This sounds entirely possible to me!).

That's what I assumed it meant. Bringing 17 more people increases the drop rate 17 times. Hopefully a rep can give us some clarification.

[BurnNotice]

I kind of tested this theory already. I know the official response was stated that drops increase drastically with more participants, but it seems that there is some kind of variable that represents a number of quality upgrade items to be distribute per kill. For example, this past weekend, I was in an alliance of 18 people and it seems that only up to four people at a time will see the quality items, whereas the remain participants will receive craft items and/or crystal petrifacts. However, I have experienced and so have others during this campaign, that the lower the participants (in this case we had no more than 7 people) the better the rotation on quality items. Adversely, soloing it does lower the chances of getting a quality item, regardless of how fast we kill the NM. In addition, Heavy Metal Pouches produces a random number of heavy metals. This shouldn't be happening since its already an uncommon item with less than 6% droprate.

No matter how you slice it, the distribution of the quality items is truly unbalanced simply because the quality items is being rotated based upon the number of participants. I truly hope I am wrong about this, but until we can get an official response to how this works and what real adjustments can be made, I will have to assume this theory is fact.

Also, this only proves that the direct labor rate variance (which is the measure of difference between the actual cost of direct labor and the standard cost of direct labor utilized during a period) is unbalance and unfair compare to building Relics, Mythics/Ergon, and Aeonic Weapons. If a Dev rep is reading this response, it is much more time consuming to do an Empyrean Weapon than its counterparts. Creation of empyrean weapons at this juncture of the game brings a great amount of stress, being perceived as a deterrent due to its availability of quality items and repugnant drop rate, and has literally taken away the enjoyment of creating one in this game...for some, it takes away the enjoyment of the game in it's entirety.

[BurnNotice]

How funny/sad would it be if the official response is just poorly translated. "The drops increase greatly with more participants" could mean that 6 players receive 6 individual pools and 18 players get 18 pools....but the drop rate is unchanged. (This sounds entirely possible to me!).

I hope they will clarify this soon.

[BurnNotice]

Well folks, killed Aello 50 times tonight and not a single pouch. Party members were between 2~5. Only a 3 people seen 1~3 pouches total out of 50 kills. Myself and one other got 0 out of 50 kills. Wasted almost 3 hours. Just my feedback.

[Rydal]

Something else I want to bring up, unless you spam Ambuscade, have tons of extra gil, or are sitting on literally thousands of voidstones, it is almost impossible to solo farm VW for HMP in any reasonable amount of time. This is a multi-layer issue and I'm breaking it down because the update earlier this month did not do anything to change VW really because even with the campaign (which ends this weekend), the drops are terrible so imagine how it will be when it ends (pretty much back to square one).

1. Voidstone accumulation. This is mainly an issue for new/returning players that have only started VW out in the past year or so. The amount of voidstones they can accumulate is finite and abysmally low compared to the task at hand, making it impossible to have enough voidstones to spawn 1500 VWNMs, much less spawn enough NMs to actually get it to drop HMP/rift. Even if the drops were 100%, 1500 NM spawns is a task enough, given that you have to wait days, weeks, months to have enough stones to participate in the content. Now, you may say "you can buy voiddust and get as many stones as you need you idiot". Yes, I thought of that too. However...

2. Voiddust is not added to NPC stock despite the recent QOL update. Now this may not sound like a big deal. You run out of stones, you use your unused conquest points, allied notes, etc in order to buy ONE VOIDDUST AT A TIME (hint: make it so we can buy more than one at a time and also increase the stack to 99). But eventually you buy a few stacks. Now you've lost precious inventory in order to give the NPC hundreds of voiddust to obtain stones to spam the NMs without going back to town every 10-20 minutes. But wait... What's this? The Galka in Bastok Markets is saying that my Voidstone stock is full... He won't accept my Voiddust into his stock... ?! So now I have wasted all my inventory and the only way to make use of them is to switch back to the old way, making the QOL change completely null and void.

3. Empyrean weapon creation is more of a time/gil-sink than all other legendary weapons except *maybe* Ergon. It's ridiculous, it excludes people that don't have the stones saved up or the gil to buy the currency outright. All other weapons are soloable and given the general shift of this game, Empyrean weapons should be as well.

I don't understand why HMP and rift items aren't guaranteed drops from VW. 1500 NM fights for an empyrean (not to mention all the other trials leading up to the 90 weapon which are ALL NMs) compared to the multiple easy fodder mobs or easier NMs and plentiful currency Relic and Mythic weapons have for their base weapons and the trivial, yet time consuming trials to get them to 99.

[Olor]

Hey just curious folks can anyone tell me how the "not having to refill stones" things works? I wasn't able to find that by googling...

[Vanfrano]

Hey just curious folks can anyone tell me how the "not having to refill stones" things works? I wasn't able to find that by googling...

Examining a planar rift while in possession of a voidstone key item will enable voidstones to be consumed directly from the stock held by the Voidwatch Officer.

Setting This Option

1. Speak to the Voidwatch Officer and select “Ask a bunch of questions.”
2. Choose “Voidstone consumption” from the list of responses.
3. When prompted, select “stock.”

[detlef]

Also in the Version Update notes.