Quote Originally Posted by Nynja View Post
Yeah, ummm....not quite. I'd say the drop rate is on par to salvage (based on testimonials that people have gone 20+ fights without seeing a body piece on any char, with individual treasure pools I'm allowed to do this calculation 20x18 = 0/360), except you cant pick your item destination. Imagine doing ramparts, and those lovely usu ft 35's drop...but the game says "your whm gets em, no discussion".
Is that what you base your calculations on? Cherry picked-testimonials (check the thread about 11 pairs of fajin boots, then base your math on that) from people on the internet (the most reliable place to find nothing but truth) which you then base merely the drop rate of ONE item divided by the number of players there. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that you attempted to express your frustration in a mathematically quantifiable way, but there are a few fallacies in there.

First of all, how generous a loot system is cannot be based solely on how many loot pools don't contain the desired item. I will attempt to list the factors of what determines how generous a loot system is:
1. Desirability of all items, not just one.
2. Difficulty of the battle and consequences of failure (full wipe in Salvage means no more attempts that day).
3. Average time required to go from not doing the battle (in town, having just finished the same fight previously, gathering pop items, etc) to victory.
4. How frequently the fight can be repeated.
5. Competition/claim rate, if applicable (King Behemoth)
6. Drop rate of desired items.
7. Arverage percentage of needs met per drop (Solo KB and he drops defending ring? 100% of needs met).

I'm probably forgetting a few factors to consider, but that's what I can come up with right now. So comparing it to 35 usu feet, that's just one of the 3 drops you need to finish the desired item. Imagine you need to get 3 drops from VW to make those bodies. Also, Skirmish can choose not to spawn, imagine popping the VW, and it's a low quality mob which can't drop what you want. Also, Salvage can be done only once a day, imagine if you only had that one chance per day in VW. Also, Skirmish (back in the day) required a cell grind before you could reach him, so imagine if you had to fight several lesser VWs before getting to your NM.

I could go on a bit more, but this is tedious to write (and I imagine twice as tedious to read), so I'll just say

TL;DR:
You're oversimplifying things intentionally to exaggerate your point.