Episode 4 Drop Table Update

[Mizalie]

Before I even read the rest of your post,

So this is coming from you, who a couple of pages ago when this was 1st going on were complaining about the ep 4 boss being nerfed?

Man, I knew someone would be a jackass and would bring up the "if u don't like it then leave thing" at some point and think it is a valid "end all argument" but I didn't expect it to come from someone who was complaining a short while back as well about pretty much the same thing I'm upset about now. Way to be a hypocrite man, good job.

That was months ago. People learn to accept what they cannot change and, hell, after giving shit a spin, maybe even change their minds as a whole. A lot of people are abrasive to change until they've gotten to experience it for themselves.

 

[Rune]

Oh I'm aware it was months ago (I mean I pretty much pointed out that it was several pages ago), still pointing out that it happened and his reply to me is a huge dick move on him.

 

[falkenjeff]

So this is coming from you, who a couple of pages ago when this was 1st going on were complaining about the ep 4 boss being nerfed?

I was complaining because:

1) The charts hadn't changed for like 6+ months, and then all of a sudden BAM huge rework.

2) Section ID resets were initially limited to 2-3 weeks, so I would actually have to study the charts meticulously at a time where I wasn't even very active or interested in the game. This was eventually changed, and everyone got a "one-time reset" that can be used anytime, forever into the future. So far I have only ID reset one of my characters, and I still have 2 high level characters that have their free reset because I have no idea what I want them to be.

I stopped complaining mostly because of #2 getting fixed.

I also never asked for the episode 1 & 2 charts to be changed (like you did when you mentioned P-wand should be 1/50 instead of 1/205). I also wasn't complaining about "lol the game is too hard and drops are too rare," I was complaining about "why do I need to study the charts again when I'm already used to them and have already put hours into deciding my IDs" and "why was my favorite quest nerfed so hard?" (when I calmed down I also figured out BOVN and MotherGarb+ are decent boss drops, so it's not actually that bad - and again, with ID resets being extended to "forever" instead of "2 weeks" I actually had TIME to calm down).

Another reason I'm not a hypocrite: we were literally using the PSOBB Japan drop charts. We were technically, at the time, a "Vanilla PSOBB Japan server," to the best of our ability (rates for episode 4 were never known, so we had to guess rates). I was complaining about us changing to "less vanilla" - but that's a moot point really, because the episode 4 charts changed multiple times on multiple official servers, so whatever, I guess it's fine that we rebalanced them to something more reasonable here. (Note again: episode 1 & 2 never changed)

Really I'm more than willing to bet that for sure more of the uber rares on this server have been gifts from the server and not the game. Funny how people who want the "vanilla pso experience" I bet aren't complaining about that.

1) SEGA had events too.

2) I have seen at least 3 P-wand banners. There were probably more when I wasn't online.

Also: I'm actually one of the most "pro-vanilla" people here, so the fact that you'd ask for all drops in every episode to be easier and then compare your complaints to mine...... lol.

 

[phantasystarved]

Why is any of this even an issue now, and not a few months ago when the changes took place?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good question. I don't think it's a matter of it being more of an issue now than it was when the changes are made. It's more like, now that the summer event chaos is ending, and we've had a few months extra perspective under this drop chart, some players might see some tweaks that could be suggested.

I really want to say, I know I don't know any of you all personally, but I consider you all my friends anyway because we all love the same game. And in that light, no one should feel intimidated or shamed out of asking a question or making a suggestion. There is room for a nuanced conversation about the drop chart. I understand people's strong feelings about wanting change, or wanting nothing to change, but if we're not constructive in our comments then it all degenerates into a shouting match that does nothing but turn people away and get topics closed.

I've already made my suggestion, for what it's worth. I hope it will be at least considered because buying PoD for your team seems kind of pointless at the moment, but either way, this is the best server around and I'm glad to have developers and mods that really show that they care.

 

[ChiveyX]

I don't understand arguing this, EP4 is being MA spammed so the difficulty of getting drops is not high. Uber rares or god rolls on items is on the player, its not necessary when you have capped ATA w/ a team anyway. Lower rates I don't think are necessary, sense most aren't pass 1/1000 not counting DAR, which is pretty low imo compared to Sega servers. There's a lot of variety in the EP4 drops.

Let's not bite each others heads off now.

 

[ToasterMage]

Hell I'm pretty sure that most of the ubers on here that have been found by others only happened cause of events though such as gifts and easter eggs. Pretty sure more plat badges have dropped this event than pwands as well I'd bet. Really I'm more than willing to bet that for sure more of the uber rares on this server have been gifts from the server and not the game. Funny how people who want the "vanilla pso experience" I bet aren't complaining about that.

its been said many times that easter was a mistake, and there is some talk that plat badges should have been rarer.

I`m not sure bringing those up helps your argument

 

[Melirei]

And does anyone have a link to the old chart that people are going off of, the super old one I can seem to find at PSO world makes me glad no one is using that cause stuff like heaven striker, lame, and so on.

If it is the 2008 drop chart though I can't seem to get it to view for me at all though.
http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=listarticles&secid=43

This is the drop chart Ephinea was based on, it's in Japanese though. Drop rates were not known and were speculated in a similar way as current Ep4 drop chart's rate. Excal/HS/DLS rate was 1/2 (later nerfed to 1/4) on Kondrieu. Limiter rate was 1/64 on Whitill Shambertin. On Girta drops they were 1/393 like current ones, it was designed so that hunt from PoD and hunt from MA4C with good team should have similar rates. If you wanted to know the rates on certain drops, I might still remember them.

To everyone: Every thread so far about game balancing or rate balancing had turned into a drama thread and was locked soon after. We can have our discussion on peaceful terms.

 

[Rune]

Spoiler: I wrote a book and feel like letting people not have to see it if they don't want to

I was complaining because:

1) The charts hadn't changed for like 6+ months, and then all of a sudden BAM huge rework.

2) Section ID resets were initially limited to 2-3 weeks, so I would actually have to study the charts meticulously at a time where I wasn't even very active or interested in the game. This was eventually changed, and everyone got a "one-time reset" that can be used anytime, forever into the future. So far I have only ID reset one of my characters, and I still have 2 high level characters that have their free reset because I have no idea what I want them to be.

Both of the things you were mad about can be pretty easily boiled down to the same thing that I'm complaining about now, in that the drop rates on something are stupid.

I'm sorry if you can't see that...

Blue's gifted limiter was made a lot harder as the change went on, the point of it was to remove an easy to farm option for it and keep alternate ways to get it.

A certain boss in a quest had items taken out to make farming those items harder and help those items keep value and also have alternate ways to get them still.

I also never asked for the episode 1 & 2 charts to be changed (like you did when you mentioned P-wand should be 1/50 instead of 1/205).

Where did I say that pwand should be 1/50 in my 1st post in this topic?

Spoiler: My 1st post in this thread

Well that and to punish blue's limiter for some reason it seems lol.

I'd argue that limiter being what is it on blue right now is a pain, and if u wanted to make it more balanced then the scorpion's limiter rate or something then what should have been done was to improve the scorpion's drop rate of limiter instead of making it harder on astark and giving it a 1/2410 rate. Hell a lot of people don't give a damn about adept at all in end game builds. So I don't see why the thing is that much harder than something like lame in skyly.

I'd also argue that while a vanilla like pso experience with new features and conveniences is fun n all. I do think that a less stupid odds should be one of those things for conveniences.

1/300,000 on some ids from a chaos sorcerer, if it feels like dropping anything at all 35% of the time, for 0001% of the time if it feels like dropping a rare, and finally if that rare feels like not being a pd you'll get a pwand is bloody insane. Even schthack finally figured it out (pwand being 1/8000 from the wizards and 1/50 or so from the rare lily is a good stress reducer, still not fun but I feel 1/50 is a lot easier to reach in a lifetime than 1/200 on average).

Boss rates are stupid as well in ep 1 and 2, why is astro belt from worm in bluefall on the same 1/64 rate as red ring from the other ids that get it from falz?

But I'll admit in my complaining it may be coming on from the fact I'm just very sour limiter has dropped 3 times in rooms by me for someone else who just joined one of my random games and limiter is one of the things I've been hunting and one of the main reasons I made my id blue instead of red for this server. hp in forest isn't even that appealing to me due to the fact that nothing else in the forest is that good unlike with red where there is more than just MSI to farm there.

All I did was point out that another well known server; that in the past had been very big on not changing ep 1 and 2 drops made it so the drops were less stupid and did things like make pwand 1/50 from the one id that gets it from a rare monster. All my point was saying is that another server changed the rates to be less insane and I gave my opinion on them doing that.

Pretty sure I didn't say "pwand should be 1/50!"

I also wasn't complaining about "lol the game is too hard and drops are too rare,"

So, where am I saying the game is too hard again in my post? Here is my post again for easy reference lol:

Spoiler: My 1st post in this thread

Well that and to punish blue's limiter for some reason it seems lol.

I'd argue that limiter being what is it on blue right now is a pain, and if u wanted to make it more balanced then the scorpion's limiter rate or something then what should have been done was to improve the scorpion's drop rate of limiter instead of making it harder on astark and giving it a 1/2410 rate. Hell a lot of people don't give a damn about adept at all in end game builds. So I don't see why the thing is that much harder than something like lame in skyly.

I'd also argue that while a vanilla like pso experience with new features and conveniences is fun n all. I do think that a less stupid odds should be one of those things for conveniences.

1/300,000 on some ids from a chaos sorcerer, if it feels like dropping anything at all 35% of the time, for 0001% of the time if it feels like dropping a rare, and finally if that rare feels like not being a pd you'll get a pwand is bloody insane. Even schthack finally figured it out (pwand being 1/8000 from the wizards and 1/50 or so from the rare lily is a good stress reducer, still not fun but I feel 1/50 is a lot easier to reach in a lifetime than 1/200 on average).

Boss rates are stupid as well in ep 1 and 2, why is astro belt from worm in bluefall on the same 1/64 rate as red ring from the other ids that get it from falz?

But I'll admit in my complaining it may be coming on from the fact I'm just very sour limiter has dropped 3 times in rooms by me for someone else who just joined one of my random games and limiter is one of the things I've been hunting and one of the main reasons I made my id blue instead of red for this server. hp in forest isn't even that appealing to me due to the fact that nothing else in the forest is that good unlike with red where there is more than just MSI to farm there.

Pretty sure I'm not saying this game is "too hard" at all. Hell I had another post on here that said that it doesn't matter if the game is easy to beat at all and it doesn't matter that you don't need the ubers or not. Them being what they are is insane.

I don't think the game is too hard, I do find the game pretty easy to get pissed off at though.

I stand by my point that drops are too rare though, its not an opinion its a pretty known fact that the rates for pretty much everything are sort of bull shit.

I was complaining about "why do I need to study the charts again when I'm already used to them and have already put hours into deciding my IDs" and "why was my favorite quest nerfed so hard?"

Which is pretty much this:

Spoiler: Something I already said

Blue's gifted limiter was made a lot harder as it went on, the point of it was to remove an easy to farm option for it and keep alternate ways to get it.

A certain boss in a quest had items taken out to make farming those items harder and help those items keep value and also have alternate ways to get them still.

Another reason I'm not a hypocrite: we were literally using the PSOBB Japan drop charts. We were technically, at the time, a "Vanilla PSOBB Japan server," to the best of our ability (rates for episode 4 were never known, so we had to guess rates). I was complaining about us changing to "less vanilla" - but that's a moot point really, because the episode 4 charts changed multiple times on multiple official servers, so whatever, I guess it's fine that we rebalanced them to something more reasonable here. (Note again: episode 1 & 2 never changed)

Episode 1 & 2 did change in vanilla's PSO history though. Going off an old version where it is shown that things got less insane in new versions is just sily IMO anyway.

To give an example:
http://www.ign.com/faqs/2004/phantasy-star-online-episode-i-ii-ultimate-rare-item-drop-faq-393635
Don't know how accurate this list is but:
Holy Ray from Dragon: 1/46, rate for holy ray right now: 1/36

Ep 1&2 might not have changed when Ep 4 came out cause Ep 4 came out in 2003 and the game 1st came out in 2000, they had more time to give to ep 1 and 2 in all. Really if you think about it the number of times all episodes were changed was pretty close to the same number.

1) SEGA had events too.

Never said they didn't, just saying they didn't have ubers unless I'm wrong.

Also: I'm actually one of the most "pro-vanilla" people here, so the fact that you'd ask for all drops in every episode to be easier and then compare your complaints to mine...... lol.

You see, its an act like this that gets threads closed cause silly people can't be civil.
Funny thing is if you are so "pro-vanilla" than why are you ok with stuff like having characters like Hucaseal, Ramarl, and Fomar around? Funny how Spread needle has limited range, reduced power, and not being able to be used by Humar. Mille Marteaux not having 800 atp for a mech, what is up with that? RA spells having like 2x more power than SA spells? How come Humar can't use every tech including grants/megid up to level 15 or so? How come Fonewearl has 1750 for a mst stat, that thing should be lower!

Oh my god I could go on.

My original point is:
"I'd also argue that while a vanilla like pso experience with new features and conveniences is fun n all. I do think that a less stupid odds should be one of those things for conveniences."

Its pretty silly how out of everything out there ep 1 and 2 for some reason are some "holy grail" that can't be changed drop wise.

Good question. I don't think it's a matter of it being more of an issue now than it was when the changes are made. It's more like, now that the summer event chaos is ending, and we've had a few months extra perspective under this drop chart, some players might see some tweaks that could be suggested.

I really want to say, I know I don't know any of you all personally, but I consider you all my friends anyway because we all love the same game. And in that light, no one should feel intimidated or shamed out of asking a question or making a suggestion. There is room for a nuanced conversation about the drop chart. I understand people's strong feelings about wanting change, or wanting nothing to change, but if we're not constructive in our comments then it all degenerates into a shouting match that does nothing but turn people away and get topics closed.

I've already made my suggestion, for what it's worth. I hope it will be at least considered because buying PoD for your team seems kind of pointless at the moment, but either way, this is the best server around and I'm glad to have developers and mods that really show that they care.

Ty for being awesome man.

its been said many times that easter was a mistake, and there is some talk that plat badges should have been rarer.

I`m not sure bringing those up helps your argument

The point in my argument was they were used at all in the 1st place and they totally aren't vanilla cause I'm pretty sure Sega never had them in events (but I could be wrong). I'm aware that easter's rate was a mistake.

Personally I like em though.

 

[anime]

ummmmm

Funny thing is if you are so "pro-vanilla" than why are you ok with stuff like having characters like Hucaseal, Ramarl, and Fomar around? Funny how Spread needle has limited range, reduced power, and not being able to be used by Humar. Mille Marteaux not having 800 atp for a mech, what is up with that? RA spells having like 2x more power than SA spells? How come Humar can't use every tech including grants/megid up to level 15 or so? How come Fonewearl has 1750 for a mst stat, that thing should be lower!
Oh my god I could go on.

w o w p e d a n t r y
I think you know he means vanilla PSOBB

I stand by my point that drops are too rare though, its not an opinion its a pretty known fact that the rates for pretty much everything are sort of bull shit.

that's an opinion!

anyway dank book would read again
I understand your concerns and maybe PSO(or Ephinea PSO) isn't the game for you. It's definitely centered around rare drops. I don't think that will change anytime soon, and expecting something cool from every few runs will only make you frustrated.

I treat it as more of a social game with occasional Sealed J-Swords myself.

 

[Rune]

ummmmm

w o w p e d a n t r y
I think you know he means vanilla PSOBB

And even if he does I already explained how it doesn't matter, PSO 1st came out in 2000, it had a full 3 years of changes before BB came along, so of course not much would have been changed with it and even in the end we don't know the final drop rates anyway. And again the number of times it changed chances are was close to the number of fine tuning the other 2 episodes got yet the only one getting looked at is ep. 4 here.

that's an opinion!

Yeah I know, was sort of just being a bit of an ass here on purpose.

I understand your concerns and maybe PSO(or Ephinea PSO) isn't the game for you. It's definitely centered around rare drops. I don't think that will change anytime soon, and expecting something cool from every few runs will only make you frustrated.

Been playing PSO since GC and had a taste of it on Dreamcast, its a taste that drops on and off. And again there is a lot I like about a vanilla server that isn't making over powered items and so on (the fact that they fix things makes me hopeful for some other stuff as well).
Just don't see why the drop chart is considered untouchable when it never was when the game was active.

 

[falkenjeff]

Just don't see why the drop chart is considered untouchable when it never was when the game was active.

Because that's what the majority of the server wants. The ones who read the FAQ before they joined.

And as far as episode 4 is concerned, it has already been fine tuned and balanced. It's done.

Also, obligatory:

 

[Rune]

Funny how u keep acting like no one would read the FAQ, join, but still disagree on some things after being here for a bit man.

Plenty of people besides me feel the same way, they just don't want to bring it up cause some select few like for example here bite their heads off over it.

 

[Kyu]

To everyone: Every thread so far about game balancing or rate balancing had turned into a drama thread and was locked soon after.

Even threads about mere suggestions that won't even get implemented suffered this, anyways inb4 the lock.

We can have our discussion on peaceful terms.

You would think but sadly it's very unlikely here (at least in my opinion).

 

[Retty]

This is good toilet reading material.

 

[Mizalie]

This is good toilet reading material.

Agreed, I love reading shit posts while on my shit post.

 

[Matt]

The drops aren't even that stupid. They're supposed to be rare so you have goals to shoot for over a long period of time, even if the game is old, and certain IDs are better at certain hunts. For reference by the way, the Purplenum Psycho Wand isn't even the best rate, Bluefull and Oran are much better, Purplenum is just easier to stumble across while randomly playing. This is also the thing with Bluefull Astarks -- the rate might seem really hard (although 1/2,400 is easy if you play regularly...), but it's very easy to just stumble across it as you randomly play.

To me it sounds like you are salty you are not finding what you want, and therefore want it to be easier so you have all the shinies like your friends too, under the guise that things are "unrealistically hard". Sorry bucko, not happening; I am very well aware other games with rare drop systems have much nicer rates, but there are reasons for that, that either being they are designed to finish quickly, or they're constantly updating so expecting people to hunt something for 5 months is not very realistic when they'd be moving onto another piece of content later on.

E1&2 are untouchable (other than boss drops, because they changed with PSOBB) because that's just how it is.

I'm personally a big fan of "chocolate", actually, which is a term used to refer to tweaks to the game that make sense without changing any core mechanics, but at the same time the majority of people who play PSO would rather just have it as they always wanted it.

Locked because zzz. It seems like nobody can discuss anything without talking in extremes or s l i p p e r y s l o p e, so I'm not sure why you guys keep having these discussions.