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Battle Worn Rod: What we need Cryptic to tell players
Hi All,
So I realise Cryptic do not want players to make progress through content so quickly that they dont have time to develop new content and also a challenge makes it more interesting for players. That being said the story of the Rods (Stewart excepted) is a information and guidance desert for most players
The broken rod was hidden within legacy skill nodes, I mean logically who would of thought to look there! One person did as far as I can make out and the news spread to the community. I also note that it was neccessary to adjust the drop rate so players could get it before they claimed their retirement pensions which in the UK is 65
Then there is the battle-worn rod, more of the same (So no lessons learned from the broken rod experience) I saw no guidance as to where it drops, again it seems pretty certain now the battle-worn rod drops from insurgency bosses when they appear. Is that the only source of this rod? Could it perhaps be dropped from the pockets of Velveteen pants + 2 if you make enough of them?
As with the broken rod the drop rate seems to be incredibly low some people have sealed over 100 insurgency instances and killed countless bosses with no rod drops. Overall in the approx month since the BeL content launched I have heard of only one player that they has got it. So again it would be nice with all of these types of items to have an idea of the expected drop rate so they can feedback on whether the game is performing as intended. Even if its pure RNG I cant believe the apparent drop rates players are experiencing.
So I hope Cryptic will look into this and perhaps respond with some useful information, yeah a pipedream I know but no harm in asking
So I realise Cryptic do not want players to make progress through content so quickly that they dont have time to develop new content and also a challenge makes it more interesting for players. That being said the story of the Rods (Stewart excepted) is a information and guidance desert for most players
The broken rod was hidden within legacy skill nodes, I mean logically who would of thought to look there! One person did as far as I can make out and the news spread to the community. I also note that it was neccessary to adjust the drop rate so players could get it before they claimed their retirement pensions which in the UK is 65
Then there is the battle-worn rod, more of the same (So no lessons learned from the broken rod experience) I saw no guidance as to where it drops, again it seems pretty certain now the battle-worn rod drops from insurgency bosses when they appear. Is that the only source of this rod? Could it perhaps be dropped from the pockets of Velveteen pants + 2 if you make enough of them?
As with the broken rod the drop rate seems to be incredibly low some people have sealed over 100 insurgency instances and killed countless bosses with no rod drops. Overall in the approx month since the BeL content launched I have heard of only one player that they has got it. So again it would be nice with all of these types of items to have an idea of the expected drop rate so they can feedback on whether the game is performing as intended. Even if its pure RNG I cant believe the apparent drop rates players are experiencing.
So I hope Cryptic will look into this and perhaps respond with some useful information, yeah a pipedream I know but no harm in asking
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Over the past week I've been testing this extensively, accumulating 300+ Insurgencies across 3 characters at differing stages of Marshall/Forger's Box level.
- Infused Forger's / Turcopolier's Adamantine Amulet (DPS)
- Burning Forger's / Turcopolier's Adamantine Amulet (DPS)
- Burning Forger's / Under-Marshal Adamantine Amulet (DPS)
The past few days has allowed for better testing due to the change in Insurgencies, unsure whether this was intentional or not due to the other associated issues with it. Insurgencies, depending on the server activity can last 45m towards 2 hours in the current state. Side issues with this is,
- Insurgency instances can stop spawning enemies forcing the player to switch (this has gotten progressively worse over the 3 days, with more instances becoming null)
- Insurgencies don't "end" correctly, nearing completion of an instance, instead of the percentage bar ending the instance and progressing to the next one, enemies just keep spawning, repeatedly. We've probably had one of those instances where it's literally insane.
- Insurgencies with seemingly no/little boss spawns. This is probably not so much a bug as it's wild rng but probably worth looking into.
Some of this and below we could speculate that there's more to it, a hidden mechanic or something we are over-looking, akin to the skill nodes, even that needed adjusting in the end.
Back to the point,
I personally have not gotten the battle worn metal rod, at all, on any test subject. At this point it's been verified 100% it drops from Insurgency bosses and an extremely low rate (or/in addition to, an unknown mechanic). Speculatively, it appears DPS characters seem to have had better luck, leaning into the aforementioned theories.
Server-wide rod drop - Definitely not the case, I've seen it for myself where multiples (3) have dropped across a single Insurgency period. You could expand this to per instance and that I can't verify but would deem highly unlikely and certainly not intentional otherwise that's a bug.
First boss per Insurgence only As you also said, definitely not the case, many will be able to verify this.
Most damage / killing blow This seems to be the favorable theory at the moment, when coupled with DPS being more speculatively successful and previous damage / last hit issues previously with Insurgencies when charging amulet by absorbing Magic. This was one of the main things I've been testing, not 100% conclusive but,
Landing killing blow - This does not guarantee a rod drop, this will be obvious, if the killing blow is what initiates the rng for a chance to drop, I couldn't say for certain as I don't have a rod. Having spoken to some who have, they are certain they did not land a killing blow.
Most Damage - Similar to above. Having been in this position 50+ times (which sadly isn't near enough for any sort of verification) I still see no rod, again if damage is coupled with rng, then well.. that's rng for you. This is specifically on the boss, I also ran attempts on most damage done within the Insurgency itself, as well as no/little damage, again inconclusive as still no rod.
You could mix and match the above and even throw in a "first blow", either way we're not really going to know without co-operative and extensive testing (which probably won't happen, but I would love ot think there's perhaps a guild or an alliance out there that has been testing this by populating an instance and enabling the right conditions).
RNG Obviously plays a major factor, I understand devs had said they are investigating whether it's too low so would be nice to get an answer as to what it currently is. I have no issues with RNG as long as we can have it said that it's working as intended. Even (the fact) if it's rng in rng, is it all working as intended? Are boss spawns 100% rng? After all my testing there's nothing to show that boss spawns are nothing more than rng, I would love to think there's a wild card here, a missing mechanic we are simply over-looking (again). If there is, don't tell us what it is, just that it exists (:
Chances are, this will be "fixed" or made easier shortly, but would be great to hear exactly where it went wrong and why. I get the feeling the latter will see it moved into a Insurgency completion with a higher drop rate, like previous rod from HE.
Other than a bug or making a really bad attempt to extend the episode I don't understand the logic? This isn't a BIS item we are talking about.
spending that amount of time to get..well nothing at all, is completely ridiculous.
when we spend $$$ in game to 'support the game' - what do we get back- apart from shafted at every turn?
it really isnt good enough.
i really am feeling like jacking this all in and finding somewhere else to lay my money down, where i can at least get some actual enjoyment for my money.
Anyhow, now it is working as it should have done originally, and people can focus on trying to get that last rod from lockboxes...with 5 attempts per day, that will take a bit of time.
Even with the changes, yesterday I did 10 instances and only got 3 bosses... so RNG over RNG. The bosses should appear 100% you know the feeling of wasting the time to not even get the chance for the rod?
Is very sad that they have to make this kind of things to keep players engaged. Engaged and frustrated. The content should be fun, not frustrating. Every RNG should have a top. Lets say, 20 insurgencies -> guaranteed rod. This is mandatory in my opinion.
The problem is that they tell that learned of things like alabaster weapons but they dont.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
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Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
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Have they changed the playing style of DC Healing because it's boring, and is this fun? Being forced to farm hours and hours for a stupid rod.
The average age of the game is all people who work, cannot have such a low rate as to be dropped, people are getting tired of making insurrections.
just now did 10 insurgencies and got 1 boss that didnt drop
it isnt even grind to get something its just pointless grind now
at least in ddo after every 20 raids you can buy 1 piece of raid gear
here if your rng luck is non existant you are finished
However, I can ultimately assume that the 100-200+ insurgencies with no battle-worn rod drop can be correlated to the fact that Rage of Bel has been broken in some egregious fashion since launch. Between the insurgencies failing to populate in multiple instances (and being patched, and breaking not even 48 hours after that) and the chance of insurgencies failing to reward players properly, it's been disheartening for many to even do this content.
And I wonder why those two ultimately game-breaking bugs (i consider bugs where you cannot continue quests that depend on the insurgencies functioning correctly as game-breaking) even made it to live, when the announcement in Preview Bug reports is that "QA will review all issues found and reported on preview."
Instead, all I've seen is passive-aggression in replies to bug reports ("I'm sorry the quest objectives did not meet your expectations" isn't a good reply) or just radio silence.