Years of Farming, Feels Bad When It Drops

I would like to preface this discussion with the idea that this is a subjective experience. Everyone experiences things differently, has different likes/dislikes, and values different things.

I have been farming old content for transmog and mounts for more than a decade - since around the time it became reasonable to solo older raids. It has occurred where I have run an old raid and gotten what I wanted within a month or two, which is fine. The vast majority, however, I have just had really bad luck.

I’m not here to complain about how drop chance works - it’s fairly simple to understand that 1% or 0.1% does not improve each time I roll the dice. What I want to call out is a lack of progression. Running Icecrown for the 800th time, my hope is long gone, and the sensation I got when I (finally) got Ashes of A’lar wasn’t elation at getting an amazing mount, it was relief that I would never have to take any of my characters through that raid ever again.

It no longer feels like I am working toward a thing, it feels like each week I roll some dice and lament my bad luck. I resent the drops I -do- get, because I no longer enjoy it as an accomplishment. I didn’t “work” for it, I didn’t “earn” it. It was just dropped on my lap after an internal RNG came up with a 0.1 result.

I propose the idea of a system of currency, not unlike our timewalking coins, with corresponding vendors. Depending on what difficulty setting the raid is completed on, you get more or less coins. The vendor could offer the cosmetic items which may be farmed for - mounts, transmog sets, toys, pets - at a cost of the coins in line with a reasonable amount of time investment. The percent chance of the items could remain, as is; this would not impact that system as it isn’t going to be offering only the mount or only the transmog.

For folks concerned about current content and their notion of prestige, particularly as it pertains to, say, the Mythic only mount(s), those could simply be added to the vendor later, or have a price (and corresponding drop rate on that difficulty for the coins) which would make the math line up with giving that window of prestige.

At the end of the day, there’s no bad luck protection for old content, and it feels bad to feel like if I don’t go and run Icecrown each week, I will have missed my chance to roll the die which will never give me Invincible. Why can we not set up some way to make actual progress towards these things?

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Doesn’t FF14 have a currency type system that allows you to purchase boss drops once you’ve collected enough? Blizz should implement that.

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It feels good to me when it drops. Like scream out loud and dance like Elaine from Seinfeld good. :woman_shrugging:t2: Making it easier would make it less exciting imo.

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While I do firmly believe in random generated currency to offset terrible and punishing RNG grinds I don’t know how I feel about it for boss drops. I know what you mean about being over the hill and just being sick of running a place to the point where you are happier to be done with it than actually happy with the shiny you just “earned”.

That being said certain things could use currency boosts (islands). Maybe something like the MoP world bosses have a 1% - 10% chance to drop a special currency and at X pieces you can buy the mount since those drop rates are terrible. Or a system to buy up to three bonus rolls per kill since RNG slot machine is so popular…

Not sure what the answer is. Some much better bad luck protection to keep people sane would be nice.

I don’t understand why you care so much about these mounts. If grinding them isn’t fun then just choose not to do it.

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I think the 100th kill (of that boss) on a single char the system should override to the rarest possible loot on that loot list. This way NO one will ever have to farm for more then 2 years no matter their luck type.

Rare is good, but at a certain point enough is enough.

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Then why do you still do it? Logic would state that if you don’t enjoy the activity, or the reward for said activity, there is no reason you should be doing it anymore.

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For the EX trials yes. After the trial has been around for a bit (a couple/few patch cycles), they add a vendor to sell the stuff. Ie the mount will cost 99 totems (which is 99 kills… 1 totem per kill). So basically if you just have colossally bad luck… at least you don’t have to run it more than 99 times.

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I actually feel you on this, i had to run Wintergrasps instance some 400-500ish times to get my rogue gloves and amazingly enough when i took my 5th rogue (my leveling void elf toon) in it dropped the very first time i took him into it and it didn’t feel like an accomplishment completely it was a mix of accomplishment after years of trying and elation at getting it, so i understand where you are coming from.

Having said all that, i don’t think it would be fair to all those that have gone before and had the RNG gods smile or frown on them that had to do the “work” to get it, no one is forcing anyone to do this and it would feel wrong to implement a work around to have these things drop. It is exactly because of the low drop rates that people take note of it when you have it, if there was a work around…then that would be gone as it would be easy for everyone to get everything over time and that just feels wrong to me.

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I disagree.

I’m farming old content too and I want the feeling of loot (We can’t have in BFA).

Right now my focus are (On my paladin) :

  • Finish T1 : I’m 7/8. Missing belt (Yes I know I can buy it for 100g, but I want to loot it)
  • Finish T2 : 4/8
  • Thunderfury
  • Sulfiras

Right now I’m only at 9 cleans of MC/BWL. I skip any week I don’t feel like running it.

I’m fairly certain, one day (Maybe in couple of years) I’ll get them.

On the fun side, people talking about how MC is easy in classic and how BWL will be cleared in 2 weeks, but after 9 full clears, I didn’t even get one of 2 (t1 or t2) full sets for ONE paladin. Gearing will be fun in classic

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Threads like this might hold more weight if there wasn’t so much embellishment about the number of attempts made.

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Nope. There is a thread on this forum currently that says why this would be a bad idea.

If something becomes unfun then you should just stop doing it and let the people who enjoy the hunt keep on doing things.

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There’s no sense of progression, which is the problem. I don’t mind running the dungeon or raid a ton of times. The action itself is not boring. I don’t have a fundamental issue with mass murdering NPCs every week.

There’s no prestige in this grind. The folks that “came before” and did the “work” can still own that story. They can lord their “l33tness” over having gotten it the hard way, or the lucky way, over the rest of us peasants. They can show their AOTC and Cutting Edge achievements in Trade Chat all they like.

I’m not proposing a freebie. I’m not proposing that all mounts and gear be dropped every single time you kill the boss. I’m proposing a fallback system. A bad luck protection system. You can still cruise around Boralus or Zuldazar on your Mythic Jaina mount that you earned for being a top-tier raider, and you won’t see me riding one the next week. But I don’t want to be farming that mount, still, on patch 13.2.5 because of bad luck.

Why can’t this be a happy medium? I’m not proposing the removal of any existing system. Heck, I’d be happy with if it it -only- applied to tiers of content from old expansions. I would be absolutely over the moon for that. Maybe you get it your first try, but at worst, you know you’ll be able to get it if you clear that content every week for 6 months.

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It is a COLLECTION. There isn’t supposed to be a sense of progression in those terms. If you find one mount too hard to get you can just add an easier one to your collection.

Geez you have plenty of mounts to work on getting. Just switch up what you are doing you don’t have to bang your head on the wall for one particular mount.

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Seriously, if it’s that painful why the heck are you doing it? If you decide to do something that is not essential game play, then that my friend is 100% on you.

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Yes for some things, its generally 100 totems that the boss drops meaning you had to kill the boss on its highest difficulty 100 times for that mount. The vendor also sells the gear for lesser amounts of totems (like 4-5 for a piece), minions (pets), music rolls, and crafting material which the boss drops.

A similar implementation with the currency/token would be a nice touch (so long as its BoP so you cant funnel it to alts). And the currency drops from the final boss of the raid which can only be looted once a week per character.
Lets use MoP’s Mythic Siege of Ogrimar for an example. The mount costs 100 currency, shoulders cost 50 (would been 50 weeks worth of runs), 5 per individual piece of raid gear (that aren’t purely cosmetic cosmetic) and 10 for battle pets.

Basically its bad luck protection you will eventually get the desired item, like a mount in 100 runs, to spend with the currency. If that item happens to drop before hand you can spend the currency on another item etc.

There is no element of difficulty in the content I am talking about. When I go to kill Lich King, I hit him maybe 4 times and then I tab out of the game for 4 minutes while he does his RP.

Difficulty doesn’t apply to the drop rate, either. It’s still just a dice roll.

I feel somewhat the same. To me is even a bigger issue that I can never explain without sounding like im QQing.

I genuinely am ok with things being rare, hard to obtain, random and also time-sensitive.
What stings is when things still play out against all the effort you put. My biggest example is the Zulian Tiger.
I ran every single raid lock out from the very first time it was soloable/duo. For years I did, and never even saw it drop. Ever. Yet, despite this effort I put into it, I have to shut it when others flaunt it around claiming they got it in drop # whatever. And they feel part of this elitist club, that really is more about luck rather than effort. It is a bit disappointing.

Now I honestly don’t know what the best solution is, but clearly I see it as a faulty system, or at the very least a bit unfair. It is what it is, I know but I feel it could improve going forward.

Thats why I would recommend FFXIV’s totem system for EX mode trials, the mount is on a vendor for 100 totems (bit excessive but number could change to like 50) meaning if you don’t get that tiger after 100 lockouts you will have 100 totems which you can exchange for the mount. If it was a raid that would mean you have, on 1 single character, killed the final boss 100 times to get that mount.

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So what, that is your choice to leave it till now to do.

The difficulty appears to be in your case patience.