Quote Originally Posted by Pups323 View Post
500 merits per 1 hmp? While that is inline with the other stuff (delve beads) the goblins sell, i can get 1 hmp faster than i can get 500 merits, just saying.
This is FFXI we are talking about, and I gave those numbers precisely as you said, to be in line with the other items offered. Personally, I would rather have 100-250 merits for a HMP, but those goblins are quite greedy. I think this is the point though of the goblins; to provide an alternative path for certain items that can be obtained through getting merits that can be obtained while doing other, more relevant content. If you do the event itself directly though, you'd likely obtain the item or w/e it is faster than building the merits for it.

The point is there is an easy way to add an alternative way to obtain REM upgrade items that isn't nearly as convoluted as trying to adjust the drop rate based upon how many players are participating in a VW fight. A greatly increased drop rate for Riftcinder/Dross/HMP for solo players would just divide the playerbase up, possibly crash the market completely, and/or create a highly competitive atmosphere over who could pop VWNMs first due to the huge incentive for fighting them solo.

We need to be realistic here if the dev team is ever going to take our suggestions seriously.

Other suggestions for increasing supply of Cinder/Dross/HMP would be to add them to VNMs, since those have to be done to farm relevant crafting materials for some of the most valuable hexed armor in the game. Adding REM upgrades to these NMs would help incentive players to kill these NMs more, which would also help out crafters/players who want the hexed armor materials. Or they could also just increase the drop rate for these upgrade items, especially Riftcinder/dross. Having only a 1-4% drop rate for these items with capped red light is absolutely ridiculous.