Villian's Fortune Parchment - Why does it refuse to drop?
I would like to set the tone for this post early on. I have done Dynamis for a long time, back in the old days in alliances, and after the changes to the zones. I am well aware of how the Attestation NM changed so you are required to kill Fomor to get a parchment to spawn the NM at a tower.In the past, I have built Ragnarok (and helped my dad get his Bravura) in the new Dynamis, and although we recognized the drop rates were not brilliant, we were able to get two or three NM killed per run, which we accepted. I understand that drop rates are random, and players will get unlucky sometimes. Today I went into Dynamis - Beaucedine with my dad to help him out with his Annihilator trial. I was dreading going in, because I knew the drop rates could be appalling. After killing the time extensions, we repeatedly killed THF, MNK and NIN Fomors. I was playing an ilvl 119 THF with max Treasure Hunter, my dad was on RNG, averaging an ilvl of 109. We saw a duo fighting Fomors, so we formed an alliance with them, assuming they were doing what we were. After a little while, we noticed how they were killing other Fomor and were not after the same NM we were, so we disbanded.
As Quilly was doing the Gun Trial (2691), we were required to kill Mildaunegeux five times. We never expected to get all five done in one run, but two or three would have been nice. I was told after the run that parchments only drop by staggering mobs, however, I see no proof of this, and when we did the Ragnarok/Bravura trials, we usually fought WS mobs like Paladins and Warriors. They rarely staggered, and we got parchments regardless of staggers. I have been under the impression that Treasure Hunter effects drops like Parchments, Nightmare pops, Odious pops, Relic Equipment, (etc.) while staggers guaranteed more currency drops. I am no slouch on THF. I take pride in killing fast, especially in old content like Dynamis. We were constantly killing MNK THF and NIN at the tower, up the ramp (near the Quad/Yags) and the two NIN at the frozen lake. During the first 45 minutes, we got one of each other parchment from other Fomor that would link with the Fomor we were targeting. We were not trying for these, but we received them anyway, rather quickly with minimal effort. No lie whatsoever, we killed nonstop for almost two hours and saw no Villain's Parchment. As you can imagine, going that long without a pop item in a time restricted zone where you can only enter once a day, is rather frustrating. I was just helping out, as my dad could not solo the NM on RNG (he had tried the previous day after getting a pop item on his own) so I went along to offer assistance.
You would assume that you would get at least one parchment in the first hour or so, especially if two ilvl 109+ players are non stop killing, but nope. In the last five minutes of the run, we got some luck, two Villain's parchments dropped almost back-to-back. I couldn't believe it. We had spent all that time trying to get one, and two dropped right at the very end. Now you may be thinking, we just got unlucky. We probably did, but I called a GM anyway to see if something was wrong. After the GM checked over the data, he confirmed that we had done a lot during the run and they would look into it. What gets me the most? The fact that you have to kill this NM five times, and killing the NM "should" be the hard part. I would gladly fight the NM five times then try and make five Villain's Parchments drop. Shouldn't the NM itself be the hard part, not getting the pop item? It appears that getting the pop item is the true trial. You see, I wouldn't dread doing the Animated Weapons trial, because although you have to kill the Animated Weapon ten times, the drop rate isn't that bad. Two Xarcabard runs are usually enough to get it done. My father is extremely frustrated, as this is his second Beaucedine run in as many days, and is still 0/5. The first run was failed simply because his RNG wasn't strong enough to solo the NM, but when you have a full ilvl 119 THF there, you would expect the NM to go down quite easily.
However, even with a full ilvl 119 THF there, the NM wasn't the true challenge, getting the pop item was. Either it is broken or we were extremely unlucky. Even if it's not broken, I still think that the pop item shouldn't be as rare as it is, as the Fomor NM are the real trials, not the pop item. Square Enix has done a lot lately to make content easier and more accessible to all. They have done a great job at giving us options to upgrade equipment like Artifact and Relic, and you can upgrade straight from NQ to 109 if you like. It costs more, but at least you have that option. With trials such as these, you don't have any other option. I really do stress, I do not want SE to just hand pop items out to us (because they already do a great job at giving us free items) and hold our hands through the trial, but I wouldn't mind if these items drop rates were reviewed. I talked to other players about this, and one person told me that they got one traitor's parchment in a full two hours using THF with full treasure hunter. They went in the next day on DRG and got four of them. I don't understand that logic. All I know is that it is incredibly frustrating to fight nonstop for a full two hours, and come so close to going away with nothing to show for it. I had another player offer us help by bringing their THF along. I politely declined, and informed them that my THF should already do the job rather well. I was full timing TH gear, staggering as many Fomor as I could, we could not have done anymore.
I have had bad luck in this game before. Some NM drop rates are amazingly ridiculous. Sometimes you need drops like these, so when it does drop, you get the excited feeling. In this instance, we were trying to do a Relic Weapon trial which should not be so excessive. My dad is trying to get his Annihilator up to 119 so he can participate more in endgame content (his other jobs are not so endgame friendly), SE wants us to get 119 equipment like this so we can participate in these events, but it shouldn't take this much effort. Didn't we already do the hard part by getting the Relic Weapon in the first place? I have ranted for long enough. I just wanted to share our experiences from today. This is not fun. This is the kind of thing that puts players off for sure. I hate wasting my time, my dad hates wasting time, and I hope we don't end up doing another two hour run to see (almost) nothing drop for us.