I know that has already been a lot posted in several threads about grinding or farming varrious commodities. I'm not her to flame the idea. It is something that will unquestionably be with us from now on. That said the one thing I DO SEE as a very negative item is the "loot sharing" or availability of the commodity we are trying to farm.
Even if is simply stuff like energy points that can be spent in the Exchange (or AH) one must stop game play and spend some time farming items to sell either to a vendor OR place in the exchange. The probability is that there are several other players in the same instance at the same time. This, of course means that what little loot there is, (and trust me it IS LITTLE) gets split at least 2 to as many as 4 ways (on average).
Last night I tried a little experiment. I went to the Alpha Centuri Sector block ( current grade: Lt Commander , ship: Federation escort, difficulty setting: advanced ). After completing an entire mission group set ( 8 ) ON MY OWN (no one else was in the instance at anytime ) the TOTAL drops received were: 1 engineering console level 2 and one engine battery. That was it.
If we had the difficulty slider set to nornmal I could understand it a bit ..
BTW it should be noted: the only ships we took out were BOP and Magiai escorts ...
IMHO this is not only typical of the way things use to be ... but with the new economy comming will be considerably much worse. The system as it now stands is simply too inconsistent with insufficient reward.
I might add this: a large number of folks are concerned about farming / grinding .. as well they should be as things stand now. The only way to have any kind of equity to this matter is for the ability to farm MATS and or other required items needed in this game to be more consistant.
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