Essences Drop Rate

[Crowsfoot]

Current Knowledge/Opinions:As we all know essence drop rates have significantly decreased from the debute of the event. The effect being that gem prices have slightly risen and you can no longer gather enough essences to craft 1-3 gems every hour.

I, for one, thought the previous drop rate was healthy. Gems, due to their minimal individual stat increase, should be about as expensive as a locked crate or less since gems can be used by anyone, unlike locks, it would seem rational to have many more essences drop than locks.

The Major Flaw with the Debute of Crafting:
All mob drops were increased.
*This caused, as a result, more epics to drop. Therefore, the odds of rerolling an epic were much higher (this is why archons and locks were dropping like crazy).

Possible Solutions:

1) Decrease the amount of essences required for gems.

Positives: Solves the issue of low essence drop rates making gems overly difficult to harvest.

Negatives: Plat sales from essences will decrease (this is entirely from STG's point of view).

2) Slightly (I stress slightly) increase item drop rates and make essences a rare, as opposed to an epic, item.

Positives: Slighlty more archon rings will drop, and essences will surely drop more often. Overall gold dropped from normal game play increases (this benefits low level players and elite runners the most).

Negatives: Locks will drop more often, further diminishing their value. There may still be a lower essence drop rate than desirable.

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Feel free to post your own suggestions.

[Rare]

I agree. With the number of gems needed to get a superior bond and the fact that even epic items can be upgraded, the essence should have a higher drop rate.

[Worship]

With the very recent patch, the essences have already gone down in drop rate. I'm not sure they reroll to locks still (awaiting a response from a mod), but you know that they are only 6k ea now and dropping in price still. This is soon making it to where locks are not necessary to farm for money. I farmed 11 yesterday (I open 1 and sell 10), and in 2 days the price went from the neutral 10k to 6k. The essences should stay how they are in terms of crafting and looting. And also, locks shouldn't reroll from essence, because it drops lots of money making techniques. That's that.

[keikali]

This nerf to the essence drop rate is pretty bad compared to before which is a reasonable drop rate given the fact you have to have at least 10 of each essence to craft them. And then you would have to wait 8 hours if you aren't using plat to finish up the gem.

[Frohnatur]

Also what I noticed:

Before the patch the drops of essences where more inclined toward your class. Means: Mages dropped more glacier than blood and fire, Warriors more blood than glacier and fire and so on.

Funny thing now: after the patch its exactly the other way around: Mages drop more fire and blood than glacier and so forth.

I dont really mind, since I have 3 chars, each one of every class. So that the drop rate of the different types doesnt really bother me. But it surely will have an effect on the economy (more gems in rotation=lower prices).

I talked to my guildies, everybody is experiencing the same.


But what is with those one-char players?

My question is: Is this intentional, STS, Devs?

[Kakashis]

Yes the decrease in essence drops is noticeable now. I did 5 runs and not even one. Almost makes it not worth while to farm anymore. Oh well, nothing good lasts forever

[Fauksuras]

I'm no programming expert but I would expect there should be a way to make essences alone drop more often? Or maybe simply introduce a map where they exclusively drop.

The side effect of crates is one thing but also all the crap that is picked up, during my essence farming the last two days I simply avoided using my pet at all due to all the crap picked up.

[Lovingly]

yussss keep lowering it.


jkz

[Daddyblu]

i like to lower it ... so it will give more value

[rivet]

It's either:
1. Lower drop rate of essence to complete 10 essences (This I think would be boring) or
2. Increase required essences to 100 with a normal drop rate
3. Add an auxiliary gem which can affect enemies only for PVE (curse, poison, bleed, stun, etc)

Effect:
1. Gems' value would not decrease significantly.
2. Diversity of Gems can never be wrong.

[VanRah]

This:

I agree. With the number of gems needed to get a superior bond and the fact that even epic items can be upgraded, the essence should have a higher drop rate.

n this:

This nerf to the essence drop rate is pretty bad compared to before which is a reasonable drop rate given the fact you have to have at least 10 of each essence to craft them. And then you would have to wait 8 hours if you aren't using plat to finish up the gem.

[aarrgggggg]

Think about it we will have to regem almost all the gems over and over to try for superior bond. They need to be easy to find so we can do just that otherwise people will lose interest in geming anything other than just their personal gear if essences are too hard to find. The wait times itself for upgrading is already a deterrent from geming items add to that a low drop rate of essence and it will be a scarcely used system which i do not think would be good for anyone.This update is clearly intended to keep people logging on more often, between the bards update and crafting update. STS wants people to do their daily bards quest everyday and farm essences everyday, high drop rates on essences will do just that make them too low and people will not farm essences and therefore not craft or upgrade. As far as the value of gems in cs they will never be too high because u can buy one gem for 10 plat, 10 plat converts to 10k if u bought gold using plat so therefore u cannot expect gems to be extremely valuable in cs. Keep the essences flowing at a healthy drop rate and all will be well in the land of arlor

[Instanthumor]

I'm no programming expert but I would expect there should be a way to make essences alone drop more often? Or maybe simply introduce a map where they exclusively drop.

Yes, like take Palm Rock Island for an example.

[Daddyblu]

did you guys tried to farm today?

did not essence drop rate is lowered?

[VanRah]

I already couldn't find enough gems to craft when the crafting n upgarde system became available in AL...now it's practically impossible to craft gems -.-

[Rare]

i like to lower it ... so it will give more value

Lets say it takes just 15 resockets of a gem to get a superior bond.

That:

30+150+150+(150)=330 (480) essences

Nevermind the time it takes to upgrade. Also factor in that you need specific types. Not just any essence.

By the time the items are upgraded the legendary items will be obsolete.

[j3peaz]

Had crafting been introduced last year with the games debut the drop rate wouldn't be a problem. What I'm saying is crafting has only been out for a couple days. How can we say not being able make a gem every couple hours isn't enough. A lot of people have some sort of end game armor and will be Gemming them up and before long most of their gear will gemmed and working towards superior bonds. Many people will be selling gems so those looking to upgrade will have the oppertunity. Just give it some time to smooth out, a couple days is hard to give good feedback

[Saribeau]

this is dumb. im not farming. im just doing free offers and buying them with plat. if it takes an hour to get 10 essenses of a type, not worth my time.

[asimauara]

They need to lower the amount of loot in the areas I reroll off crates and other objects still! Not mobs inanimate objects!

[KingMartin]

this is dumb. im not farming. im just doing free offers and buying them with plat. if it takes an hour to get 10 essenses of a type, not worth my time.

It takes probably more time to find them now.