Fix the appaling RNG on Alabaster sets

genadine · May 2019

So, most players are not going to see the end of LOMM, most players are not going to get inside of LOMM with any prospect of beating Arcturia (unless she is tuned down)

So the best we the great unwashed can expect is ME until M17. Now at first ME are fun and engaging but we are now far enough into the M16 for most players to know they are a poorly thought out way to gear up.

The RNG on whether you get a boss, then if they will drop anything and then if it is useful as in not blue insta RP fodder is lame, if you are going to make spawning a boss RNG then they should only drop purple, if you are always going to spawn a boss then blue or purple NOT both being detrimental to player advancement.

Then we get the RNG on the turn in again you give us blue inst RP garbage, purple and if the 3 moons have alligned we get Alabaster which is top of the line for most. Then you have to add even more RNG and let it drop you a 2nd, 3rd, 7th Alabaster of the one you already have and not it's partner. This is getting to be a Joke and the joke is on us fools playing this multi RNG joke.

So my suggestion to the @devs is to either once you have an Alabaster code it so you cannot get a duplicate or better still add an NPC or use one of the many pointless standing around in YP to work as an exchange merchant you have main hand and get a dup main you can swap it for your offhand and vice versa, this would make the Alabaster multi RNG debacle be at least a little more friendly.

You are losing players hand over fist you are losing content makers that draw people to the game so how about you do something nice and give us back some enjoyment.

Thanks for reading

regenerde · May 2019

... these weapons should simply be rewarded through the campaign itself, they should just replace one of the gold coin rewards with the weapon set.

I doubt that many players are even considering wasting their ZEN these days on the way overpriced Delver's Expedition Pack to finally get a whole new weapon set, so the Devs might as well give us some solid options for gearing up our characters.

About the rewards from ME's, when we take the time to collect all 9 relics per run, the reward should at the very least be something usefull and not just some HAMSTER, otherwise what's the point in looking for all those relics over and over again?

midnightita · May 2019

Blue gear shouldn't even be in the loot table with 9 relics.

or

we should get a merchant where we can trade 1 weapon for anohter, people are getting multiple copies of the same weapon (me aswell) and we need two.

bloodryche · May 2019

Agree with all of this. Increase the percentage please. I've only gotten my off hand once so far and I've done all 3 ME's every day. If there's no cap to the RNG then who knows if it will ever drop. Why would that even be an option on something like that? Pretty crappy.

b4t1b4t · May 2019

I agree with what is said here. I run this on 3 toons and my main has its offhand my pally has its mainhand my gf has its offhand. Thru last week I got the same parts on my toons more times then i counted and never got the other part to make a full set. However I also look at why the dev team decided to go this way. Think of it like this. If you get the set the first day and the gear the second day then what would be the reason to farm the ME each day? The reason they hide the set behind alot of rng is to make us run it each day until we finally get lucky. Once we do we would not want to run it any longer.
However I will admit the ME for me are getting old and boring. Each day I run them get 9 relics and get nothing I need is a bit disappointing and upsetting.
I do feel that if you have part of the set then you should not be able to get that same part a second time. It is a bit sad knowing I had to convert the offhand for my warlock 3 times because I already had the offhand and never got a mainhand.

andybones65 · May 2019

My cw did 3 runs yesterday, the last 2 I got main and off hand. 😁 RNG FTW

regenerde · May 2019

andybones65 said:
My cw did 3 runs yesterday, the last 2 I got main and off hand. 😁 RNG FTW

Yeah, got my Warlock to level 80 and through the Undermountain campaign, did the "Master the Dephts" and two or three regular MEs later i got the Alabaster Pact Blade and Grimoire from the Undermountain Expedition Reward... now i'm just waiting for the next patchnotes stating that this is a RNG bug and they've fixed it.

Anyway, have to see if those weapons drop now more frequent on my Paladin, i only got the Alabaster Longsword after several ME runs.

Edit: I did the daily three ME runs with my Paladin - no Alabaster weapon. I might try getting another character through the campaign to see if they perhaps tied the weapon drops to the first few rewards. At this point nothing would really surprise me anymore...

iandarksword · May 2019

It's very lopsided. Some people have multiple pieces of the set, while others have absolutely nothing and have been running ME's everyday since they became available weeks ago. There should be a "run X amount of ME's get the off-hand, run Y amount and get the main hand" variable involved. I try not to get too frustrated over it though, they'll be obsolete by Mod 18 anyway.

zimxero · May 2019

Umm. I've run ME about 50 times and gotten 3 alabaster weapons plus 1 alabaster offhand. RNG is not really the problem, its the patience. Personally I think a better alternative would be:

Increase Seal of the UnderMountain currency cap to 5,000. Increase the pricing & add items:

Basic Gears & the (omitted) Shirt & Pants: 1000 each
10,000 rAD booster: 2000 each
1 companion upgrade token: 2000 each
Alabaster Offhand: 3000
Alabaster Mainhand: 4000
25 Seals of the Deep: 5000

spittfyre72 · May 2019

I wouldn't normally complain about stuff like this because in past campaigns, I have been able to acquire upgrades of some kind. However, I have been doing ME's on my main every day since the campaign has been released and I haven't even gotten the offhand Alabaster. I have resigned myself to purchasing the Mountaineer set off the Trade Bar store once it finally becomes available, and that feels a bit frustrating because that doesn't feel like I've "earned" it. I have gathered 1200 Seals of the Mountain over and over again, and I've had to spend them on rings to give to alts, and it would have been nice to use them on a weapon set instead. I've considered even using the ebony weapons, but my current weapon bonus, and the fact that they don't have the extra enchantment slots makes that seem ridiculous.

OK, I have vented. Thank you.

feanor70118 · May 2019

zimxero#8085 said:
Umm. I've run ME about 50 times and gotten 3 alabaster weapons plus 1 alabaster offhand. RNG is not really the problem, its the patience.

No, what you have just said is that you've gotten lucky with the RNG while most people have not, so RNG is the problem, just not for you.

murtagh · May 2019

It's not about patience, I've run over 100 ME between 2 warlocks and gotten 4 MH and 0 OH. I have dubbed Obaya Uday the princess of disappointment and would like to personally slaughter both the red feather and blackened jaw clans so I never have to see another piece of their gear.

Suggestions:
- Improve the drop chance and make the MH and OH 1 time drops per character
- Allow a trade in of one for the other.
- Make them tradable. I know 2 people right now who would trade me an OH for one of the 4 MH that I have.

One more idea, put the mountaineer set in the trade bar store or remove it from the collections page since we can not have it without paying a ridiculous amount for the delver's pack.

silence1x · May 2019

This reminds me of the Black Ice arms in Mod 3 - lots of people ran HEs in IWD for months never to get a drop (including me). By the time I got one, it was no longer needed as newer gear had come out. My fighter got both the MH and OH during week 1 of the mod release. Cleric - OH the next week. Nothing since even though I've run MEs daily on Cleric, not even duplicates.

I wonder if they have a hidden DPS requirement?

(only partially kidding).

wylonus · May 2019

just got 4th sword, got 2 yesterday, back to back, still missing off-hand.

wylonus · May 2019

same, 5 weeks since launched.
still no shield for my fighter, and my warlock got both within 3 days.

aelinaz · May 2019

RNG is a not problem if you are one of the lucky ones. So far I have been running 5 toons thru the MES since the start with no positive results. I have now kinda given up ,. just doing to get currency as I know that the alabastor set is not within the the scope. Kind of a joke. It has limited my advancement I suppose and I wonder if that is the idea. To discourage and frustrate. If so SUCCESSFUL. Hoping Mod 17 will not use RNG this way. Keep the gambling to lockboxes and dungeon chests!

bloodryche · May 2019

Just finished another round of 3X ME with no main hand Alabaster weapon. Seen every other drop at least 10 times

b4t1b4t · May 2019

The rng may not be the issue but truth be told it would have made better sense if they put a block on what piece you got so that you did not receive that same piece a second time.
Now dont get me wrong the watcher set as it is is to a point fine and still should be a block on the piece that you get but for the alabaster set something really should be done with it.
Like I said in another thread I understand the reason for the rng and how they set it all up but to a point its a bit frustrating and upsetting to get the same piece back to back each day and not get the full set.

yperkeimenos · May 2019

Let me make this clear : The Devs/PWE/Cryptic know very well that the playerbase suffers from stockholm syndrome and no matter how bad the abuse gets , they'll never leave. Sure they'll complain and whine but when the next abuse comes they'll just suck it up and take it all in. So answer me this , why should the Devs invest time and effort to produce good content knowing full well that the whales, who are too hooked up to quit, will pay and keep on paying no matter what. Obviously they're making money otherwise they wouldn't be doing the things they do. Believe me when i say, the moment you start voting with your wallet and stop paying for bad content then you'll see a huge 180 degrees turn about in the direction the game takes. There's no better waking call than falling revenue.

regenerde · May 2019

Well, i think the last time i spend money here was for the 10$ account-wide Simril companion... they haven't given me a good reason for spending more money here since then.

zyek88 · May 2019

Alabaster RNG wouldn't be so bad if the Mountaineer set was actually in the Tarm store like the tooltip says it is.

That would give something obtainable but not amazing with ease for less dedicated players letting them come in to the new mod feeling less left behind. Emphasis on less, this is only one problem.

If a competitive option is available putting slightly better gear behind RNG or hard content is fine with me. Rewards for more hardcore players with stuff for more casual players. Win/win.

If the Mountaineer set is never intended to go to the Tarmalune Store then the Alabaster set needs to be removed from RNG. Campaign store + chance for it to drop OR remove chance to drop and put it in the Seals of the Mountain shop would be great options.

callumf · May 2019

No Alabaster for me after 70+ runs.

Its like getting the +5 Ring of Brutality a few years ago.

I preferred the River District method, it may have been a grind but it was a guaranteed BiS weapon for the time.

aslan3775 · May 2019

RNG is part of D&D culture--you roll you dice, you get your result. The difference is that good DMs have a back up plan for characters who always roll poorly. It happens.

Keep the RNG--but have a back up plan.

I am not a personal fan of having everything in the seal vendor store. It makes for a poor 'DM' when all magic is available for a price.

Here is a thought for a back up plan.

Rule #1: No blue drops with 9 relics.

Rule #2: Set a counter for all pieces of equipment, just like the new enchant process. Each toon generates a count when a 9 relic run is completed.

Rule #3: Set a max run for each piece of equipment. (suggestion: rings lowest, followed by head, arm, and feet, then body and finally OH and MH weapons--similar to seal purchases. Don't set the number the same for any piece, or it will screw up the next rule) It may not be necessary to have counts for anything other than weapons.

Rule #4: Create a short quest line for obtaining the piece if RNG is not kind. In other words, if you hit your limit for the piece and you have not received it yet, the Princess from Chult says "I appreciate your mapping skills, but the only reward that I can give you is not enough for an adventurer such as you. However, my brother in (insert a location for the quest) will properly reward you if you provide him with this promissory note from me." When you arrive at the brother's location, he has a few small tasks or you can turn in some of the excess purple stuff to offset the costs and obtain the correct piece.

A different set of tasks for each piece would be nice--keeping with a story line.

To me, that would be more fun that amassing seals and just buying it. But it limits the frustration of RNG.

cherryman1 · May 2019

They are still trying to sell their over priced pack of weapons in the zen store. They probably didn't get enough people to purchase it so they are holding everyone hostage to that item in the meanwhile. What they don't realize is that without those weapons they are also stopping players from going to LoMM which is where they are pushing players to go... All that does is drive players to leave the game. You have to give them an option that isn't blow your entire entertainment budget for a couple months to do the content they are pushing people into. Not having the new weapons is like a 20% reduction in damage and the first boss is a damage check. People that see what weapons your using and see an old set aren't going to bring you into the instance or will harass you as your in that instance until they get everyone to kick you or you to leave. This is one of the issues and why many players are complaining about scaling since they are then forced into older content which is scaled and not fun to do for players who feel gated out of content by RNG.

They might want to reconsider not adding any new weapon sets in the next mod since they are holding the current set hostage in mod 16. This will just make the player base angry since they will see that the only way for them to get the weapons was to pay a huge amount of money and if they are only able to get them right before the new mod and they are invalidated your going to see another backlash of negative comments. They need to make it so that there is a 4 month window of not releasing new weapon sets from the time they make them accessible in the trade bar store to avoid this backlash. This is just a good PR move since the under mountain set still gets replaced by all of the other sets.

Fix the appaling RNG on Alabaster sets

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