[dev1007] Voidwatch: Obtaining Spoils

[saevel]

You actually have less then 1% chance of a body dropping. Our shell did a ton of T4's and we always get 400%+ (so capped for anyone who traded) on red / blue lights, and a grand total of 2 bodys (same person both times, who didn't even trade cells) so far. 18 people at 20+ runs = 360 loot pools, 2 bodies 2/360 = 0.0055 * 100 = 0.55% drop rate.

Think about that, half a percent drop rate. It's designed as a time sink only, your supposed to bash yourself against these fights over and over again for the next 6 months, then they release next update and more VWNM. You bash yourself against those for another 6 months before they have to come up with "something" for you to do. It's a delaying tactic to give them another year to come up with a real end game system.

[Creelo]

Would love an update from the community reps/dev team on this Voidwatch matter. :/

Players are obviously upset with the system, yet their discontent is largely ignored...

[detlef]

These are the ticket posts made by Camate (search Dev Tracker to find them). The first indicates that they have a number of 5-6 tickets in mind to redeem for an item. He then clarifies that you need to have the item in your possession to get a ticket. So put it all together and if you want that Coruscanti or Mekira body, 5-6 people will have to get tickets for that item. And you'll have to get those tickets. Good luck!

Howdy!

I bring some news regarding the Voidwatch loot system, which I think you all will appreciate quite a bit.

The development team has been well aware of all of your frustrations when you friend hears you receive an item that they have been after for some time, but you are unable to pass it to them and have no choice but to toss it.

They have been looking into adjustments to the reward system extremely carefully to preserve the benefit of each person receiving a personal reward when participating, instead of having to lot against others. As a result, they are thinking about implementing the below type of system.

• In the event that a rare/ex item drops to you when you already possess the item, it will be possible to exchange that item for a ticket (name pending)
• Once you obtain a certain amount of these tickets, it will be possible to exchange them for their respective rare/ex item. (*edited at 3PM 2/2/2012)
  *There will be different types of tickets for different items and you will need to collect the respective ticket for the item you would like.
  *The required number of tickets is still being looked into and there is a possibility of change, but currently we estimate it to be about 5~6.
• Tickets will be tradable and sellable.

The development team feels that this will not destroy the meaning of having personal rewards, and though the drop rate balance will not be changed, even if you continue to have bad luck obtaining the item you wish, by collecting the tickets from your friends you will eventually be able to obtain the item.

Since there are a lot of rewards items, meaning a large amount of tickets to be created, we will start off by looking into implementing the hard to get items first. Please understand that it will take some time before this is all implemented.

Hey everyone.

I followed up with the development team to get an answer as to whether or not you need to already possess the rare/ex item to obtain a ticket. They said that you will in fact need to have the item in your possession and they are not planning to make it so you can give a ticket to someone else when you could obtain the actual item.

Also, to clarify the original post; each piece of gear will have their own ticket (and I've amended the original post for clarity). I've also seen questions about "will this apply to Heavy Metal Plates, too?" and the answer is no, this is currently planned for equipment pieces only.

[Tamoa]

In the same amount of T3 jeuno/zilart and T4 sandy/bastok/windy vwnm fights, I have seen one friend get 4 different bodies, another got 3 ace's mail on 2 characters, neither can equip it. Me, I got nothing. It really is very very discouraging.

[Elanabelle]

Hello! Community Developer Rep? Do you see a consistent trend here in the last dozen or so comments?

Care to respond? Would be appreciated.

[Kristal]

Hello! Community Developer Rep? Do you see a consistent trend here in the last dozen or so comments?

Care to respond? Would be appreciated.

He already responded.

What really should be done, is to analyze the actual droprate on items and their distribution.
If the same very rare(1%) EX item always drops to the same person consistently on x runs, there might be a problem with said distribution, but we'd need hard numbers for a considerable number of fights, not the eyeball numbers and teasetalk that's going on right now. (/p Oh look, another (enter rare item) I don't need. )

[Alderin]

As much as I agree how nice it would be to be able to give your friends the 15x body pieces you have got in the chest when your friend hasn't seen one - I agree with SE's decision to be quite honest.

Lets add up how much loot gets dropped in voidwatch per fight shall we? Capped lights drop (5? or 6?) items (lets go with 5). Multiply that by 18 people is about 90 things. Although these "things" might just be synth mats - you might get lucky with a body or 2 here and there, to a lucky person - however Voidwatch rewards far exceed any other event in the game in this respect - due to the sheer quantity of items that drop.

Just cap your lights - and keep on grinding. Gear isn't meant to be given to you on a silver platter in this game.

[Camate]

I didn't forget about you guys! I’ve been discussing all of your concerns and comments with the team regarding the Voidwatch drop system, and it has taken some time to reach a final conclusion.

It was decided that there will not be any fundamental changes to the drop system to make it possible to add item drops to the treasure pool, as the team does not believe this is not where the main crux of the problem lies.

However! The development team will be making adjustments in the future to reduce the overall length of each battle. In addition, when they add more chapters to the Voidwatch system, and introduce even stronger monsters, the drop rates for these tougher challenges will be increased beyond what is currently in place.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

It was decided that there will not be any fundamental changes to the drop system to make it possible to add item drops to the treasure pool, as the team does not believe this is not where the main crux of the problem lies.

No it's not where the problem lies, but it is the simplest fix.

[Quetzacoatl]

I didn't forget about you guys! I’ve been discussing all of your concerns and comments with the team regarding the Voidwatch drop system, and it has taken some time to reach a final conclusion.

It was decided that there will not be any fundamental changes to the drop system to make it possible to add item drops to the treasure pool, as the team does not believe this is not where the main crux of the problem lies.

However! The development team will be making adjustments in the future to reduce the overall length of each battle. In addition, when they add more chapters to the Voidwatch system, and introduce even stronger monsters, the drop rates for these tougher challenges will be increased beyond what is currently in place.

[SIZE="6"]. . .[/SIZE]

SO...The Development Team insists that we keep getting crap drops, which even cannot be ADDED TO SPOILS...but they're going to make the fights shorter, thus, reducing the amount of time to proc enemy weaknesses, which leaves very little time for DDs to deal damage, resulting in make the fights THAT MUCH HARDER!? Oh, and we have to wait for the predictable "expansion of this content to raise the drop rates/lower NM respawn times so that they don't lose players!" Not to mention, players getting the same drop they have had before, while other players have yet to see their own good drops, will inhibit group progress even further to artificially increase the game's time sink!

That's it. I'm done. I'm done making suggestions and feedback. I've lost faith in the development team when it comes to making ANY reasonable changes. This is truly outrageous. I guess I'll spend my last time as a test server applicant to test out what I should use for my upcoming Almace for my RDM and BLU, and expand upon my Torcleaver sets.

Camate, I humbly respect your efforts in playing the messenger. I just think whatever Square is thinking is just flat-out wrong. How is it that "add to spoils" could not make things for Voidwatch any better? Whatever the answer is, we probably won't ever know, now that the conclusion is final.