Nice that they announced finally they're doing something about it.
Not nice they don't disclose info, if there's a cap, let the players know there's a cap instead of letting them grind for hours, burn out on the game and go play something else until mod 12.
Same with lanolin, every heroic should drop some sort of currency/seals, you get 8 or 10, turn in for 1 lanolin. That way you know you're making progress instead of doing 10 heroics, getting nothing, and giving up for the day. Extra drops are just bonus and not the only way to get them.
They did tell us they are planning a solution, and hopefully it might be ready later this week maybe but not necessarily, hopefully.
I hope that they offer a little more insight into their solution, possibly releasing an official statement on any hard caps or reset timers. If we're really lucky they might use some of the very good suggestions that have been offered by players.
In the past they have been amenable to fixing mechanics that relied on individual invisible timers separate from the daily reset. They don't make sense and the devs at least somewhat agree.
All that's to say: there's reason to be optimistic. There's also reason to hold on to your stuff and not buy / refine anything until we hear more. And if you're going to get an aneurysm maybe hold off on grinding more than an hour or so a day. I usually do my 100% via 5 dig sites, and stop it at that regardless of how much focus I got.
Remember, patience pays off. And getting the fanciest weps a week early won't make or break your experience. But chasing everything as soon as it's available isn't good for your emotional well-being.
I tend to agree somewhat,, I've never understood the "grind till you get the new fancy shiney" mentality of some players. I've always thought the point of a game is to have fun, and I personally can't see the fun in "grind till you're sick of it".. I've always maintained a "I'll get it when I get it" attitude and until then as long as my old Shiney is still working I don't really NEED the new shiney. This has helped me maintain a fun enjoyment of the game still, and I've been playing since release. And still playing on my original toon I'm nor saying how others play is wrong,,, they are entitled to play however they want,,, I just don't ersonally understand how it could be much fun for them, but hey, to each their own.
On another note, as far as drops of AF go, I'm sitting in 34 right now and have only done a MAX of 9 dig sights per day, trying to hit each one, but have been days that just didn't feel like doing them all, or days I skipped altogether. One day I got 7 and a few other days I got 4. On other days, I've had them drop from treasure map chests and small heroics as well. I could not tell you if these are flukes, glitches or bugs in the code, but they have happened. I also couldn't tell you if others have experienced this or not,, certainly no one has ever said anything if it did happen to them.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
edited March 2017
I have never gotten arcane focus outside of digsites.. not once..
I have never gotten more then 3 in over a 20 hour period..
My drop rate fluctuates.. Ive done 20 in one day on my CW.. got 3.. thats it..
ive done as little as 3 and gotten them..
Ive gone 0 out of 5.. dozens of times.
Ive gotten them after 12 hours..
Ive GOTTEN zero after 24 hours.. even doing up to 8 dig sites.
It is the biggest jumbled up piece of HAMSTER mess they have done since mod 6..
there is no clear set definitions.. and players are left guessing.
EARLY on people ground thousands of thier life away (all together of course)
BECAUSE we didnt know any of this.
Then they took a week to respond back to us when we told them.. "DUDEZ.. something isnt right.. "
So now we are waiting for a answer..
I am hoping this is all cleared up.. they make a simple.. 5 a day cap.. BTA and reset at server time and up the loot chance (unless its just BAD coding forcing me to have REALLY bad drop rates)
I dont think those are outrageous demands.. I would've been "ok" with 3 a day actually.. until they messed this all up.. now we need to have some catch up time.
If they do this.. we can earn our weapons before double rp (which is WHAT i am assuming they were aiming for orginally)
some people do not have all of these issues.. I dont know what causes them.. its like if you screwed up the timer.. you did something to account or something..
Its just a mess.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
edited March 2017
I'm waiting to see what the fix will be like. Now that I'm finally done with MSVA, I'm looking at M11 weapons and see how little Foci I've gotten so far. Now that I have some time to do added digs a second one per day is pretty easy, but that is still more than 2 mos. grind just to make them usable.
No, I don't want to do 20 dig sites a day. Not reasonable.
I've been getting about 2 Arcane Focus per day. I'll have my weapons restored in about 40 days. I think that's reasonable. Every other resource can be farmed as many times as you want, or bought from the AH.
Would you guys still be this upset if it took you only two weeks to get these weapons restored? If you spent as much time playing as you do complaining about it then it wouldn't be a problem.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
Would you guys still be this upset if it took you only two weeks to get these weapons restored? If you spent as much time playing as you do complaining about it then it wouldn't be a problem.
That's really not the issue for everyone. In fact, if they had come out at the beginning and told us there was a 3/day limit and it reset at some unspecified point in time, people would at least have known what they were getting into - once again, lack of communication spoils things. Personally I do not like daily limits like that. I can play for several hours every day, but that does not apply to everyone.
Back to one of my examples....consider two players, both of which play for 21 hours per week, except one can play for 3 hours every day, gets 3 Arcanic Focus every day and gets his weapons in 29 days. The other one can only log in briefly during weekdays, just enough to complete the main daily quest, but spends the whole weekend playing. He may only get 6 Arcanic Focus per week, so he will spend 3-4 months getting the weapons.
Two players, same effort, but because the implementation forces you to spend an hour or two per day farming dig sites, one of them is much better off than the other.
I have said it before, but I will repeat it - there is already time-gating built in, because of the EoE requirements. There was no reason to add a second layer of time gating and an annoying RNG on top of that. If they just wanted to slow people town, prevent them getting the weapons in 2-3 weeks, they could simply have increased the EoE cost of the weapons and removed the Arcanic Focus altogether.
Would you guys still be this upset if it took you only two weeks to get these weapons restored? If you spent as much time playing as you do complaining about it then it wouldn't be a problem.
That's really not the issue for everyone. In fact, if they had come out at the beginning and told us there was a 3/day limit and it reset at some unspecified point in time, people would at least have known what they were getting into - once again, lack of communication spoils things. Personally I do not like daily limits like that. I can play for several hours every day, but that does not apply to everyone.
Back to one of my examples....consider two players, both of which play for 21 hours per week, except one can play for 3 hours every day, gets 3 Arcanic Focus every day and gets his weapons in 29 days. The other one can only log in briefly during weekdays, just enough to complete the main daily quest, but spends the whole weekend playing. He may only get 6 Arcanic Focus per week, so he will spend 3-4 months getting the weapons.
Two players, same effort, but because the implementation forces you to spend an hour or two per day farming dig sites, one of them is much better off than the other.
I have said it before, but I will repeat it - there is already time-gating built in, because of the EoE requirements. There was no reason to add a second layer of time gating and an annoying RNG on top of that. If they just wanted to slow people town, prevent them getting the weapons in 2-3 weeks, they could simply have increased the EoE cost of the weapons and removed the Arcanic Focus altogether.
You seem to think that because I don't agree that I MUST not understand. I understand your point completely, but the current drop rate/gating/locking doesn't bother me. I play about 2-4 hours per day, and I've collected about 2 AF per day. This is acceptable to me. I am sorry that you are upset that the game doesn't cater to your needs, or that their level of communication isn't what you expected.
You seem to think that by posting your redundant rants every day that the developers will listen. The developers don't care about you, or any of the other player. As long as people are paying for Zen the developers will keep developing.
Dude, have you ever played a game that sent you on an epic quest to get your epic, end game weapons? Weapons that, on that character, might be the last you ever will need. Some might be equal or close, but never better.
THIS IS NOT THAT GAME.
Neverwinter progression is extremely linear and redundant. It keeps us from enjoyimg whatever content they have created for us. It lacks any semblance of "fun."
I play games to have fun, not to grind the same boring content over and over again. Then you throw on top of that a drop rate and apparently bugged component, it's no wonder players are enraged.
Every MMO I've ever played has required a "grind" for the newest stuff. That isn't a new development. Nothing is forcing you to grind Mod 11.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
Dude, have you ever played a game that sent you on an epic quest to get your epic, end game weapons? Weapons that, on that character, might be the last you ever will need. Some might be equal or close, but never better.
THIS IS NOT THAT GAME.
Neverwinter progression is extremely linear and redundant. It keeps us from enjoyimg whatever content they have created for us. It lacks any semblance of "fun."
I play games to have fun, not to grind the same boring content over and over again. Then you throw on top of that a drop rate and apparently bugged component, it's no wonder players are enraged.
Every MMO I've ever played has required a "grind" for the newest stuff. That isn't a new development. Nothing is forcing you to grind Mod 11.
There's grinding, and then there's BS that's not working normally that leaves you feeling like an idiot wondering what's going on. All we want is for this utterly BS arcane focus problem to be fixed so we freakin feel like we're being rewarded for grinding.
Would you guys still be this upset if it took you only two weeks to get these weapons restored? If you spent as much time playing as you do complaining about it then it wouldn't be a problem.
That's really not the issue for everyone. In fact, if they had come out at the beginning and told us there was a 3/day limit and it reset at some unspecified point in time, people would at least have known what they were getting into - once again, lack of communication spoils things. Personally I do not like daily limits like that. I can play for several hours every day, but that does not apply to everyone.
Back to one of my examples....consider two players, both of which play for 21 hours per week, except one can play for 3 hours every day, gets 3 Arcanic Focus every day and gets his weapons in 29 days. The other one can only log in briefly during weekdays, just enough to complete the main daily quest, but spends the whole weekend playing. He may only get 6 Arcanic Focus per week, so he will spend 3-4 months getting the weapons.
Two players, same effort, but because the implementation forces you to spend an hour or two per day farming dig sites, one of them is much better off than the other.
I have said it before, but I will repeat it - there is already time-gating built in, because of the EoE requirements. There was no reason to add a second layer of time gating and an annoying RNG on top of that. If they just wanted to slow people town, prevent them getting the weapons in 2-3 weeks, they could simply have increased the EoE cost of the weapons and removed the Arcanic Focus altogether.
You seem to think that because I don't agree that I MUST not understand. I understand your point completely, but the current drop rate/gating/locking doesn't bother me. I play about 2-4 hours per day, and I've collected about 2 AF per day. This is acceptable to me. I am sorry that you are upset that the game doesn't cater to your needs, or that their level of communication isn't what you expected.
You seem to think that by posting your redundant rants every day that the developers will listen. The developers don't care about you, or any of the other player. As long as people are paying for Zen the developers will keep developing.
I would add that the 'time-gating' is concurrent... you can collect AF at the same time as EoE.
If you collect 3 AF/day, you will have enough to refine both items in 30 days. Whether that is 30 days in a row, or over several months is up to you. If you have the time, great! If you don't, then you must have something in your life more important than playing NW, which is FANTASTIC! (no sarcasm intended there).
This Module came out less then 1 month ago, yet the same 10-20 people have filled this forum with repetitive complaints/insults/negativity, enough to account for 3 months of gameplay. Why continue playing? I don't say that in a negative manner, either.... if there is another thing out there worth your time, and more enjoyable that NW, why hang around here and spout gibberish? On first pass, I would say 1) they DON'T enjoy NW, and just feel better about themselves when they slam others, or 2) they DO enjoy it, but don't want to face the reality of game development in 2017. It ain't tiddlywinks.
The game is the game. Honest feedback will be heard (that DOESN'T mean you have a direct line to the decision makers!) and tripe and claptrap will just pollute this forum for others.
Give a Hoot! Don't Pollute! (TM)
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
There's grinding, and then there's BS that's not working normally that leaves you feeling like an idiot wondering what's going on. All we want is for this utterly BS arcane focus problem to be fixed so we freakin feel like we're being rewarded for grinding.
The Arcane Focus bottleneck was literally put in because players complained in the preview forums that the new weapons could be obtained too quickly.
Hello everyone! So, why did we have the current drop rates and gates? We didn't want these weapons to be available too quickly. This was for preservation on the Relic Weapons' values as well as making sure there were reward benefits in all parts of the Cloaked Ascendancy campaign. We received a lot of feedback on playtest shard about these weapons being too easy to get compared to the Relic Weapons. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have overreacted in our adjustments... This is something we do want to address. ... Thanks again for the feedback. This kind of feedback is crucial for us to make sure we try and give you the best game we can.
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Considering that the bottleneck took into account feedback from players who were peeved about the new sets but apparently disregarded all the feedback from players who were pleased at the prospect of a less grindy, more alt-friendly upgrade path, I would definitely agree that they overreacted. And even if they wanted to make it take somewhat longer, a nearly tenfold increase seems excessive.
Now, I'm an absolute tortoise of a player. I get new stuffs slowly, or skip them completely. I've been getting about 1-2 focus per day, and missed the last couple of days because I was sick. And a day or two at the beginning because it took a few days to get through the module intro. And I lost a day because I had 16000 or so boxes to open, which doesn't exactly take zero time and leaves me with unplayable inventories (2xGems is a cruel, cruel mistress). Anyhoo, I never expect to complete anything quickly, personally.
If it takes using a glitch/bug/exploit to obtain an acceptable drop rate, the base drop rate is not acceptable, which was also true of key-peeking.
And if/when there are a bunch of undisclosed limitations in place, the devs are basically penalizing anyone who was willing to put in the time to grind their whatever as fast as they could.
I also don't think they should be using RNG+timegate+bound concurrently. It's really harsh on players with no luck.
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Im just starting to believe the entire issue was a personal timer.. they will not for unknown reasons give us a clue about.. however.. IM 100% opposed to personal timers..
this entire mess appears to be thier fault.. for putting them on personal timers to start with.
I still think they cost "a bit too much" but whatever..
They really dropped the ball here.. and totally screwed up, so im very interested in what this "fix" is..
still no news of course.. im sure its something lame.. they like to do el lamo things..
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
edited March 2017
I find it remarkable that they nerfed the weapons AND added a grind to appease a precious few. The grind for Twisted was nowhere near this contorted--and the Fire Weapon was GIVEN to you at the end of Spinward. Even the SOMI weapons were handed to you to use or not--your choice.
So far on preview- 5 Focus from the weekly. But, no change in restoration mats needed.
So if you've already done your weekly quests you're screwed lol, and knowing Cryptic they won't reset the weekly quest timer because that would make sense.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited March 2017
That's technically more than I've been getting, without any RNG to it whatsoever. Question is whether you can still grind for more, I guess.
Edit: So, assuming you can no longer obtain focus as a drop at all, and you were starting fresh after this patch, and not feeling pressured by the date of the next 2xRP (there will *always* be a next time, and they could easily schedule one if they wanted to be kind), is ~4.5 weeks unreasonable for obtaining a major upgrade item? I don't really think so. Particularly since the next next weapons upgrade will likely only launch after yet another tier of accessories and then armor again.
(And yes, I would need to refer to how many days of dailies it took for the Runic Pieces for Relic weapons to compare because I don't recall at all.)
Second edit: 20 days for Runic Pieces. Probably balanced out by the bound marks.
Nice, 19 guaranteed focus a week for doing dailies and weekly. That's about 5 weeks to get the weapons. And if you can still get an extra 3 to drop by going balls to the wall on the dig sites, you can get the weapons in under 3 weeks.
Personal timers, RNG... dang, they have should started like this, a bound currency, x1 or whatever per day, as reward. Farm digs for reagents and make them not bound so, or you farm them yourself, or buy if you don't have enough time.
Just a question for all those with issues getting AF from dig sites.... are you discarding your Dig Site Passes as soon as you get in the Dig Site?
55 AF from dig sites, and yes...I do discard the passes, but that has nothing to do with AFs, but rather the speculation that duplicate or expiring dig site passes are the reason for the dig site lockout problem.
And you know how? Get a peek at the code, or tested it yourself?
If its the latter, thats why I was asking... I was in what you would call my 'daily timer', got 1 AF, then started discarding the passes for space reasons (which I hadn't done before) and went 10 in a row without an AF. Not definitive by any means, just posing the question.
LMAO,, that would be hilarious if it was tied to the discarding of passes,,, may be why i'm sitting on so many focus now,, because i'm a chronic MMO horder who HAS to pick up everything and constantly have bags full of usueless HAMSTER that i forget to discard,, lol
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
And you know how? Get a peek at the code, or tested it yourself?
I think you misunderstood me. I said "I do discard the passes, but that has nothing to do with AFs" - that is, the reason I personally discard the passes has nothing to do with AFs.
I had a problem where I was perma-locked out of dig sites, and there is some speculation that this perma-locking might be triggered by some interaction between passes you buy, passes you pick up from treasure chests and passes "expiring" in inventory. After I started discarding passes right away, I have stopped seeing the perma-locking - I cannot say for certain whether it helps, but it does not seem to hurt.
Having said that, I do consider it highly doubtful that presence or absense of passes has anything to do with AFs. I got them regularly when I had passes in my inventory - I get them regularly now that I don't have the passes ... but only until I have reached my daily limit, of course.
Comments
Not nice they don't disclose info, if there's a cap, let the players know there's a cap instead of letting them grind for hours, burn out on the game and go play something else until mod 12.
Same with lanolin, every heroic should drop some sort of currency/seals, you get 8 or 10, turn in for 1 lanolin. That way you know you're making progress instead of doing 10 heroics, getting nothing, and giving up for the day. Extra drops are just bonus and not the only way to get them.
I hope that they offer a little more insight into their solution, possibly releasing an official statement on any hard caps or reset timers. If we're really lucky they might use some of the very good suggestions that have been offered by players.
In the past they have been amenable to fixing mechanics that relied on individual invisible timers separate from the daily reset. They don't make sense and the devs at least somewhat agree.
All that's to say: there's reason to be optimistic. There's also reason to hold on to your stuff and not buy / refine anything until we hear more. And if you're going to get an aneurysm maybe hold off on grinding more than an hour or so a day. I usually do my 100% via 5 dig sites, and stop it at that regardless of how much focus I got.
Remember, patience pays off. And getting the fanciest weps a week early won't make or break your experience. But chasing everything as soon as it's available isn't good for your emotional well-being.
I'm nor saying how others play is wrong,,, they are entitled to play however they want,,, I just don't ersonally understand how it could be much fun for them, but hey, to each their own.
On another note, as far as drops of AF go, I'm sitting in 34 right now and have only done a MAX of 9 dig sights per day, trying to hit each one, but have been days that just didn't feel like doing them all, or days I skipped altogether. One day I got 7 and a few other days I got 4. On other days, I've had them drop from treasure map chests and small heroics as well. I could not tell you if these are flukes, glitches or bugs in the code, but they have happened. I also couldn't tell you if others have experienced this or not,, certainly no one has ever said anything if it did happen to them.
I have never gotten more then 3 in over a 20 hour period..
My drop rate fluctuates.. Ive done 20 in one day on my CW.. got 3.. thats it..
ive done as little as 3 and gotten them..
Ive gone 0 out of 5.. dozens of times.
Ive gotten them after 12 hours..
Ive GOTTEN zero after 24 hours.. even doing up to 8 dig sites.
It is the biggest jumbled up piece of HAMSTER mess they have done since mod 6..
there is no clear set definitions.. and players are left guessing.
EARLY on people ground thousands of thier life away (all together of course)
BECAUSE we didnt know any of this.
Then they took a week to respond back to us when we told them.. "DUDEZ.. something isnt right.. "
So now we are waiting for a answer..
I am hoping this is all cleared up.. they make a simple.. 5 a day cap.. BTA and reset at server time and up the loot chance (unless its just BAD coding forcing me to have REALLY bad drop rates)
I dont think those are outrageous demands.. I would've been "ok" with 3 a day actually.. until they messed this all up.. now we need to have some catch up time.
If they do this.. we can earn our weapons before double rp (which is WHAT i am assuming they were aiming for orginally)
some people do not have all of these issues.. I dont know what causes them.. its like if you screwed up the timer.. you did something to account or something..
Its just a mess.
No, I don't want to do 20 dig sites a day. Not reasonable.
Would you guys still be this upset if it took you only two weeks to get these weapons restored? If you spent as much time playing as you do complaining about it then it wouldn't be a problem.
Back to one of my examples....consider two players, both of which play for 21 hours per week, except one can play for 3 hours every day, gets 3 Arcanic Focus every day and gets his weapons in 29 days. The other one can only log in briefly during weekdays, just enough to complete the main daily quest, but spends the whole weekend playing. He may only get 6 Arcanic Focus per week, so he will spend 3-4 months getting the weapons.
Two players, same effort, but because the implementation forces you to spend an hour or two per day farming dig sites, one of them is much better off than the other.
I have said it before, but I will repeat it - there is already time-gating built in, because of the EoE requirements. There was no reason to add a second layer of time gating and an annoying RNG on top of that. If they just wanted to slow people town, prevent them getting the weapons in 2-3 weeks, they could simply have increased the EoE cost of the weapons and removed the Arcanic Focus altogether.
You seem to think that because I don't agree that I MUST not understand. I understand your point completely, but the current drop rate/gating/locking doesn't bother me. I play about 2-4 hours per day, and I've collected about 2 AF per day. This is acceptable to me. I am sorry that you are upset that the game doesn't cater to your needs, or that their level of communication isn't what you expected.
You seem to think that by posting your redundant rants every day that the developers will listen. The developers don't care about you, or any of the other player. As long as people are paying for Zen the developers will keep developing.
If you collect 3 AF/day, you will have enough to refine both items in 30 days. Whether that is 30 days in a row, or over several months is up to you. If you have the time, great! If you don't, then you must have something in your life more important than playing NW, which is FANTASTIC! (no sarcasm intended there).
This Module came out less then 1 month ago, yet the same 10-20 people have filled this forum with repetitive complaints/insults/negativity, enough to account for 3 months of gameplay. Why continue playing? I don't say that in a negative manner, either.... if there is another thing out there worth your time, and more enjoyable that NW, why hang around here and spout gibberish? On first pass, I would say 1) they DON'T enjoy NW, and just feel better about themselves when they slam others, or 2) they DO enjoy it, but don't want to face the reality of game development in 2017. It ain't tiddlywinks.
The game is the game. Honest feedback will be heard (that DOESN'T mean you have a direct line to the decision makers!) and tripe and claptrap will just pollute this forum for others.
Give a Hoot! Don't Pollute! (TM)
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Now, I'm an absolute tortoise of a player. I get new stuffs slowly, or skip them completely. I've been getting about 1-2 focus per day, and missed the last couple of days because I was sick. And a day or two at the beginning because it took a few days to get through the module intro. And I lost a day because I had 16000 or so boxes to open, which doesn't exactly take zero time and leaves me with unplayable inventories (2xGems is a cruel, cruel mistress). Anyhoo, I never expect to complete anything quickly, personally.
If it takes using a glitch/bug/exploit to obtain an acceptable drop rate, the base drop rate is not acceptable, which was also true of key-peeking.
And if/when there are a bunch of undisclosed limitations in place, the devs are basically penalizing anyone who was willing to put in the time to grind their whatever as fast as they could.
I also don't think they should be using RNG+timegate+bound concurrently. It's really harsh on players with no luck.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
this entire mess appears to be thier fault.. for putting them on personal timers to start with.
I still think they cost "a bit too much" but whatever..
They really dropped the ball here.. and totally screwed up, so im very interested in what this "fix" is..
still no news of course.. im sure its something lame.. they like to do el lamo things..
Edit:
So, assuming you can no longer obtain focus as a drop at all, and you were starting fresh after this patch, and not feeling pressured by the date of the next 2xRP (there will *always* be a next time, and they could easily schedule one if they wanted to be kind), is ~4.5 weeks unreasonable for obtaining a major upgrade item? I don't really think so. Particularly since the next next weapons upgrade will likely only launch after yet another tier of accessories and then armor again.
(And yes, I would need to refer to how many days of dailies it took for the Runic Pieces for Relic weapons to compare because I don't recall at all.)
Second edit:
20 days for Runic Pieces. Probably balanced out by the bound marks.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
If its the latter, thats why I was asking... I was in what you would call my 'daily timer', got 1 AF, then started discarding the passes for space reasons (which I hadn't done before) and went 10 in a row without an AF. Not definitive by any means, just posing the question.
I had a problem where I was perma-locked out of dig sites, and there is some speculation that this perma-locking might be triggered by some interaction between passes you buy, passes you pick up from treasure chests and passes "expiring" in inventory. After I started discarding passes right away, I have stopped seeing the perma-locking - I cannot say for certain whether it helps, but it does not seem to hurt.
Having said that, I do consider it highly doubtful that presence or absense of passes has anything to do with AFs. I got them regularly when I had passes in my inventory - I get them regularly now that I don't have the passes ... but only until I have reached my daily limit, of course.