1% drop rates... a thought expriment.

[Welsper59]

And why apply the same 1% drop rate to MOUNTS of all things? SE said there will be something special if you have all the primal horses... Who's the awful person who actually has all of them so far? I've done TONS of EX primals, and I only have 1... I've only even SEEN the mount drop once, EVER. Believe me when I say I'm not amused that I got Enbarr instead of a Mirror of the Whorl. Good game, SE. Good game.

MMORPGs tend to have things that are based on exclusivity. To give value/worth to something. Usually, this is either pertaining to something extremely valuable (like the end-all, be-all armor/weapon of a class/job) or something that is meant to be a status symbol (like a mount).

If you choose to not believe that, that's fine, but you're just playing the fool in doing so. In what way would something actually be considered a status symbol if it were a guaranteed thing like a progression related reward? Perfect example would be the first relic weapon. There's nothing about them that screams value besides stats. It doesn't have anything, as far as status symbolism, due to the fact it's a streamlined acquisition reward. Likewise, if it were a equal likelihood drop with a guaranteed chance from a pool (like CT/Coil loot), there's really nothing that gives the item value. Rather than fighting the odds, you're just waiting your turn.

Maybe items that come with some sort of bragging rights isn't your thing, but there are many players that can appreciate these small feel-good rewards. For them, what better option than to let it simply be something vanity based like a mount? You could argue the mirrors are in the same boat, but as you pointed out, you could just go after T7 for the tomestone instead. And technically, you should probably do that anyway, since that will lead to upgrading your Weathered weapon eventually. Farming Levi Ex for mirror weapons, if the drop rate was high, devalues the Coil weapons to a state of nothing (generally speaking). And Coil is the actual endgame progression raid, unlike Levi Ex for mirrors. It makes no sense to devalue it for something that you can just farm endlessly everyday.

[Tiggy]

Please contrast this with Turn 7 (Second Coil Turn 2). Sure, it's much more difficult, and you can only complete it once a week, but I imagine you will get the Unidentified Allagan Tomestone from Turn 7 waaay before you ever luck out and get a mirror.

In my raid group we've done hundreds of runs between us with not a single mirror. We've gotten all 8 of us weathered weapons already. Coil weapons should not be easier to obtain than the levi weapon. It's pretty insane.

[Marxam]

This is the main reason why mmo's and gaming in general seems to be dying out. Alot of the hardcore are now grown up with jobs, family, etc. and they expect us to take more than 100 hours a week just to get one item? Its also why I never believe developers when they say "I play the game too". Really? If you're playing the game where do you find the time? and most likely you are not end-game grinding like the hardcore so you have no idea of the time that needs to be invested regardless of luck or not. I want to play this game but the grind far out weighs the time needed for said items.

Perhaps the Japanese are not familiar with the term "Work smarter, not harder"

/endrant

Now that that's out of the way, yeah 1% drops sucks especially when you have to need against 7 other people.

[Destinova]

To bad its a 1% drop rate on each encounter and does not build up. So all these gotta run it this many times to get above a % chance isn't correct. Its really just a roll of the dice each time.

[Demus]

Do we really need another mirror/mount whine topic? The mirror is replaceable by upgrading your relic or doing SCoB (and CT2 soon). The mount is vanity. None of those things are necessary for progression. They're extras. You don't have to have them.

These abysmal drops rates are never implemented on items that aren't replaceable/sidegrades/vanity.

[Edli]

I've beat Levi once and I've never been there again. With that drop rate the thought of farming it doesn't even cross my mind. Same with mounts. I'll go there only to experience the fight again or help a fc member.

After playing many mmos in the past you eventually understand that extremely long grinds are just not worth it.

[saber_alter]

*pulls out everything happens for a reason card*

some people will get lucky, others will not.


i saw two baby opo-opo drops in relatively close proximity to eachother this week. i got one, and not the other. RNG is something we simply have to live with if we want to get the cool shiny stuff for minimum effort (yes, levi EX is the absolute minimum. followed by weathered masterworks, then animus. come 2.3 weathered will become the Path-of-Least-Resistance due to their inclusion in Syrcus tower.)

[FelisC]

To bad its a 1% drop rate on each encounter and does not build up. So all these gotta run it this many times to get above a % chance isn't correct. Its really just a roll of the dice each time.

People that don't understand probability make me sad

[Worm]

Well I mean the whole "you should see one 100 roll after 100 rolls of a hundred sided die" isn't even right to begin with. That would mean the die never repeats a digit, which is obviously ridiculous. So even in a determinate world where we always seen 100 after a sufficient number of rolls the number would be higher than 100.

Obviously the more times you roll the die the less likely it becomes you never see 100. I think probability would be best not being discussed. I'm no Statistics Wizard, but watching people trying to make various arguments with what is a fundamentally flawed understanding of statistics and probability just makes my skin crawl.

[Giantbane]

I wanted to express in simple math how awful a 1% drop rate is in this game.

So, at 1% drop rate, we wouldn't expect to see a mirror until we'd beaten Levi EX 100 times.

Problem is, that's not how RNG works.

At a 1% drop rate, we won't see a mirror until we've beaten Levi EX 100 times on average.

With a 1% drop rate, you have a ~0.6% (6/1000) chance to never see a mirror in 500 kills. And that's not even including the fact that you have to roll against the rest of the team.

6/1000 may seem very small, but there are a lot more than 1000 people who are killing Levi X. So it's very likely that some players are going to get screwed like this, and they have no control over this whatsoever other than choosing not to participate.

The problem with 1% drop rates isn't that it will take a long time to see your drop, it's that the results of what players experience vary wildly from one player to the next due to something they have absolutely no control over.