Could we try honesty next time?

[Randomonium]

From Shattered Empire patch notes:

 

• Increased the amount of Frozen Stingers available from Avalanche Den, Lair of the Frozen Fang, and Awakened Necropolis.

 

This is, for the most part a lie.  It makes it sound as if runs in these dungeons will simply reward more of an item required in ridiculous amounts to advance in the game.  Most runs will not be rewarded any differently than before.  It is still very common to run 6 man versions of any of the mentioned dungeons and not get a single stinger.  As many players who don't have high gear and AP are forced to run this version they are at a disadvantage, but not by much, as the 4 mans which used to regularly give more than 1-3 stingers a run now commonly only give 2-3.  Frozen Fang is the most accessible of the 3 and after the last couple of maintenances, starting with the treasure trove announcement, has had its loot table hacked to where it almost never awards more than 3 stingers.  In running a few at a time I noticed the change but after running 10 in a row and not once having more than 3 drop it change is pretty obvious.  Yeti and AN 4 mans fair a bit better where it is more common to get 5-9 stingers and more rarely 10 or more, but so is putting together a party that ends up wiping and disbanding.

 

The loot tables do seem to have gotten a stealth nerf since the above statement making it untrue.  Right now, disregarding all my accessories I need 290 stingers just to upgrade my weapon to the next level.  Doing dungeons seems to not be the method of gaining these favored by NCWest.  I'm sure you can all guess what their favored method now is based on when the nerf went in, and again when it was made even worse.  With so many people talking about how P2W this game has become, could we please just put it back to the way it was right after the announcement was made?  That way folks who want to grind for their upgrades can, and those who wish to pay for shortcuts through gambling on RNG boxes also can.  The game will then remain P2W, but a non P2W path will also be available.

 

A note to those who think it's great to spend money on boxes and get great rewards.  I'm sure it is great, but as someone who could open a hundred boxes and get trash rewards in every one, we need an alternate method for players who simply want to play the game to advance.  Please also do not spam this thread about how you get great payouts on every run and I am totally wrong.  That isn't true even for the luckiest of you so just don't.

[Nattia]

I think I'm seeing an increase of 1 stinger per day, which almost nothing. 4man lair has really sad stinger drops :( I did it twice today, and on my last run we were bidding for only one stinger at the end...

[H2H]

Is this why i'm seeing more afk's in dungeons? Because players are starting to think the rewards are not worth the effort?

[Syanonn]

See far more stacks of 3-8 stingers drop in both 4 and 6 man content.

But yes, far more AFKs compared to before, even in premades.

People with 500+AP joins 6 man to get carried while not participating in fights, or even had a person made that a group to AFK after picking up lycan quest.

[Andrewgr]

I have never once encountered an AFK in a dungeon.

 

I just got done a short while ago with a 4 man Lair run that dropped 16 stingers.

 

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

[H2H]

42 minutes ago, Andrewgr said:

I have never once encountered an AFK in a dungeon.

I just got done a short while ago with a 4 man Lair run that dropped 16 stingers.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

^Can somebody spare some change? apparently its time to pay for the "troll"-bridge.

 

Good for you. And of course you realize that every player has the EXACT same experiences as you do. Because all the servers have EXACTLY all the same players, EXACTLY alike. As a matter of fact, when you're not logged in they shut all the servers down, in order to maintain the EXACT likeness to your experiences.

 

Sarcasm provided by H2H - smh*

[Lunakitty]

5 hours ago, Nattia said:

I think I'm seeing an increase of 1 stinger per day, which almost nothing. 4man lair has really sad stinger drops :( I did it twice today, and on my last run we were bidding for only one stinger at the end...

That's some bad luck. I did today 4-man lair and we got 13 stingers as drop. I think the drops are really poor but sometimes you might get lucky. It depends on the dungeon and mode and RNG luck I guess. For example I ran Yeti today with friends alot of times and we got only 2-3 per run which was a bit demotivating. But still the chance to drop more is making us do it more since sometimes you do hit the jackpot of 11+ stingers.

 

I haven't seen AFKs in the dungeons in a long long while which I find odd. Maybe I was lucky with my F8 runs since all our team members did fight.

 

If high AP people really want stingers I suppose they should switch to Sogun's Lament. I heard from a clan mate that their team dropped 43 stingers in one 4-man run.

[Randomonium]

19 minutes ago, Lunakitty said:

 

if high AP people really want stingers I suppose they should switch to Sogun's Lament. I heard from a clan mate that their team dropped 43 stingers in one 4-man run.

43?  Now we know where all the stingers went.  They seem to have been funneled into the content for ppl who already have a high enough gear score already.  Such is life, the rich get richer and everyone else just gets screwed.  Nice work NCWest, glad accessibility is as high on your list as monetization.

 

As for AFKs well I only see them in blue dungeons and report em all as bots.  sometimes you see someone in a purple dungeon not pulling their weight but not much you can do there but put em on ignore so you can avoid em next time.  4 mans luckily you just don't see that crap at all.

[876605_1452550437]

Considering I just got 40 stingers in a 4man sura I think the increase drop is real. 

[Zuzu]

Already been getting stacks of 10+ stingers from 4man Yeti, Necro and Lair.

A lot better than what it used to be but it's still luck based which everyone keeps forgetting.

So if they don't get a lot then it must not be working, in their book.

[Randomonium]

23 minutes ago, Zuzu said:

Already been getting stacks of 10+ stingers from 4man Yeti, Necro and Lair.

A lot better than what it used to be but it's still luck based which everyone keeps forgetting.

So if they don't get a lot then it must not be working, in their book.

You misunderstand.  I know that sometimes you do hit the "jackpot" and get a decent stack of them.  The problem is that we need hundreds and hundreds of these things.  They need to drop like 10 of them minimum in every 4 man and 5 in every 6 man.  Not 2 min in a 4 man and zero in a 6.  So yes it's not working.  Take that white knight stuff elsewhere if you plz.

[Nattia]

The increase was supposed to happen in Asura, Necro and Lair, not just Asura...

[vita]

8 runs of purple dungeon which includes Asura, Lair, Necro and mostly Yeti, total stingers was 120.

 

It's just random as usual, the loots for 1-2 stingers is still there and these are common, the loots of higher amount of stingers are on the rare side. So there was an increase, just not what most players expected it to be.

[MDGeist]

they increased the rate, but didnt increase the amount ...

 

Content gating is so often used in mmos nowadays its just sick.

What I mean?

 

Drops are gated. So they set a rate of drops the whole server/region can get in a certain amount of time. (can be daily, weekly, monthly, hourly, changed at will during events etc)

As an example.

Imagine a droprate of stingers of 50%. Total amount per day on the server is 1000 which is reached easily.

Now they increase it to 100%.

 

Ppl will start to notice:

 - sometimes they get a lot

 - followed by a longer streak of nothing

 

In the end, the amount didnt change (see Market for sales, no increase at ALL for Stingers), but depending on WHEN you play, you could be lucky and get more of the amount the devs set for it while others in return wont see anything.

 

 

Please note that with such a system its actually impossible to determine the real droprate, as it could change in some hours again...

 

Ways to "counter" it? Play at different hours... Depending on reset time, early in the mornings can give you more until limit is reached...

[JoannaRamira]

So in short.. we won't see any price drop for stingers D:

[KzE]

Just make :

 

6man : 10 to 30

4man : 20 to 40

 

+ double amount for quest

[Nattia]

there is no honesty in business :( stingers are extremely expensive on my server now, even more than pre-"change".

 

going for 2.5 gold for 1 stinger atm. it's impossible to progress for a casual.

[Ketsura]

I remember I saw a picture of Korea drop.

 

Almost 40 stingers from a single Yeti.

 

If we get 3 we are already lucky.

[Nattia]

it's like they are moving resources to the cash shop...

[Randomonium]

I gotta wonder, are they running low on stingers in back?  Ran 17 Yeti 4 mans today.  The best drop i got was 3 with almost every single one being 2.  For a four man.  I was cramming trying to get enough to finish my weap upgrade and ended up spending all day getting nowhere near where I needed to be.  Several folks in the guild had the same experience, one did 20 runs o.0 reported 2 stingers every single run.  What. The. Hell. NC? Poor show guys as it seems you did something very bad to the loot table with the last update.  We complain you aren't dropping enough (except for sometimes in 4 man sogun) so you make things worse?  Yadda RNG blah bad luck.  Save it.  I'm pissed.

[JoyI3oy]

 

26 minutes ago, Randomonium said:

I gotta wonder, are they running low on stingers in back?  Ran 17 Yeti 4 mans today.  The best drop i got was 3 with almost every single one being 2.  For a four man.  I was cramming trying to get enough to finish my weap upgrade and ended up spending all day getting nowhere near where I needed to be.  Several folks in the guild had the same experience, one did 20 runs o.0 reported 2 stingers every single run.  What. The. Hell. NC? Poor show guys as it seems you did something very bad to the loot table with the last update.  We complain you aren't dropping enough (except for sometimes in 4 man sogun) so you make things worse?  Yadda RNG blah bad luck.  Save it.  I'm pissed.

Can we get an official word on this please, exactly as randomonium stated kept running yeti4 constantly stringers are barely seen if they did drop its from 1-4 range and out of 20-30 runs maybe 10-14 one drops, its ridiculous the prices are increasing for these stringers and the event nebula items is causing more damage than without the event itself. Same goes for asura 4M bundles of stringers are like a rare drops. 

 

Can u guys actually increase the number the next update u guys do and double or even tripple the daily rewards of stringers we need 500+ stringers for just a single upgrade on weapon we are getting 2-3 stringers per dungeon run, no one wants to mindlessly spend several hours doing the same shit over and over.

 

How could u guys even justify the drop rate and mats required for evolution!! Such practices only burden the players! this is just a stupid game not life!! it should be entertaining rather than stressful, if this continues more and more players will leave the game and as of now already this game is alt-unfriendly and New players cant even survive past infernal weapon and quit, this game is going to die soon!!

 

Aggressive content releases should be coupled with ease of attaining mats and reduced costs than other regions yet we are hindered with shitty drop rates than other regions and abysmal difference between casual and hardcore player!! Hope u guys forget about excessive greed and make the game enjoyable again!! 

 

Peace~  

[IskraXIII]

There is some true what NCS said, they increased drop before the new event was made, just after that drops from 4-man dung was rly poor like they didnt increased (smt it happens that it gives more than +6 stingers). 

[Randomonium]

Mostly I wonder if it is an accident where an update they applied perhaps reverted to the old overly stingy drops, or if they truly hate the players so much they actually did this on purpose.

 

If on purpose it may be to keep players from getting more than one upgrade jump out of the event?  I dunno what the reasoning is but it's affecting everyone just trying to get their mats together for all upgrades.  For the sake of player sanity, stop worrying about the few players that might get more than one upgrade and worry about the massive number of players negatively impacted by this change.

[AuroraNox]

1 hour ago, Randomonium said:

Mostly I wonder if it is an accident where an update they applied perhaps reverted to the old overly stingy drops, or if they truly hate the players so much they actually did this on purpose.

If on purpose it may be to keep players from getting more than one upgrade jump out of the event?  I dunno what the reasoning is but it's affecting everyone just trying to get their mats together for all upgrades.  For the sake of player sanity, stop worrying about the few players that might get more than one upgrade and worry about the massive number of players negatively impacted by this change.

I'm fairly certain the reason that stingers drop in such low amounts is so they can sell more RNG-boxes with stingers in them. It's really just economics 101, supply and demand.

 

NCSoft controls both the supply AND the demand, by way of the stinger drop rate, and the number of stingers required to upgrade your equipment. They're artificially creating a market for a worthless product, and then forcing you to buy into it if you want to keep pace with everyone else. It's freemium gaming at it's worst... just like those silly smartphone apps where you're wasting money on tokens or coins that let you build stuff faster on your little digital farm/city/spaceship/whatever.

 

It's really just a few shady practices short of being a scam, which is a line NCSoft does not seem afraid to cross - like when they make you pay real money for gem hammers through ridiculously low drop rates and then steal away your gem slots after an upgrade, without announcing it to you when you bought the hammers. (I know they gave us 4 hammers back, but I would need 5 to get back to the number of slots I had before, so in my book that's still a scam).

[Velrofica]

RNGseus by your side god bless you.