Passive Hunts and your Cosmetics

[CTB]

It's a poll because I'm curious what others think. Not a suggestion!

It seems that the view behind the curtain with hearts is that future additions, as well as a few current drops, are undesirable as drops due to being passive hunts. There are two issues with this line of thought: why are passive hunts bad, and what qualifies them as passive to begin with?

A passive hunt is essentially a drop that you want to see while hunting for another item. I can't see this as a bad thing with the current drop system or economy.

Economics? Can't see the problem. Some of the best items in the game have multiple passive hunts (Vjaya, Vise, DoB) yet these items remain valuable. Considering the cosmetics are consumed they would not be in danger of being severely devalued. The rates can be balanced to consider the area and frequency of appearance.

Balance? Well...section IDs are still pretty uneven in a lot of areas. Hell, some areas are still just undesirable in general. Eventually you will run into a point where this is harder to figure out which is why exchange quests can't be axed. Worth noting that passive hunts practically save some areas like Greenil Spaceship's Musashi/Guld combo.

Game play? Leads to the other issue: defining something as a passive hunt. The idea of 'passive hunts' has inherent flaws. Consider Purplenum Caves. You want a Psycho Wand, and it's a pain in the ass. Thankfully (not really, few vulmers) Vise drops here so it is a passive hunt.

But wait.

What about Purplenum card? There are a good chunk of Nano Dragons. Now that I think about it, decent number of Slimes I can split too. Nice amount of Assassins. Is every item in Cave MA4C now a passive hunt because Psycho Wand drops in Cave?

I (think) I understand the semantics behind it, but seems easy to twist.

I'm not really too hot on exchange quests but you can only modify the drop charts so much. Area specific exchange items that are independent of IDs could bring some extra life to neglected areas and a smol boost to the economy. Perhaps items that function for a few items exclusively to this exchange quest. You might consider this part a suggestion, but you are mistaken, it is me thinking aloud about how COOL something would be.

I'm curious as to your (yes, YOU!) opinion on passive hunts, so please provide your two cents.

 

[Ryan]

I'm not really too hot on exchange quests but you can only modify the drop charts so much.

This is kind of the crux of the whole thing. Eventually, we'd run out of places to put things – the drop charts are pretty stuffed as is! I personally like the idea of all the things you need just... dropping, as it feels the most in line with the "spirit" of PSO, but that's the reality.

 

[Miku]

What qualifies something as a "passive hunt" is really just supply and demand. E.g. if you do a quest a ton of times and get 999 Justies and 3 heaven strikers, guess which one is worth more?

 

[Lantana]

This is kind of the crux of the whole thing. Eventually, we'd run out of places to put things – the drop charts are pretty stuffed as is! I personally like the idea of all the things you need just... dropping, as it feels the most in line with the "spirit" of PSO, but that's the reality.

I always thought it would be cool to have a "rotation" for the cosmetics once/if there are a ton more.

For example, Del-D (E2) drops Heart of Suppressed Gun, It would be interesting if instead of being that specific heart it could rotate with the rbr rotation.
Week 1: HoSG
Week 2: (insert cosmetic)
Week 3: (insert cosmetic)
Week 4: (insert cosmetic)

I don't know how hard this would be to implement, just an idea! (and the server staff wouldn't have to worry about dishing out section ID changes)

 

[Loug]

There are bosses/mini bosses that could use some better stuff, barba ray, vol opt, gol dragon and epsilon for example only have a handful of good or unique drops.

 

[Eistee]

PD sinks are always good, in my opinion.

I also don't really see the problem with "passive hunts".

 

[Ade]

Shambertin drops Dragon Scale on literally all 10 IDs. Changing a few of the weaker Ep4 IDs to have other Shamb drops would add some value.

 

[Matt]

Passive hunts are not necessarily bad, it depends what the target item is, and what the passive item is.

For example, anything that is passively obtained while hunting Lame or Heaven Striker will always be found primarily through that hunt, no matter how bad the hunt is. This reduces the scope of other IDs because you're better just hunting the better item and getting the other item along the way, as the value of the passive item will be severely reduced that it isn't worth hunting directly. This could be directly observed with Redria's Heaven Striker and Slicer of Fanatic drop before it was changed.

Is every item in Cave MA4C now a passive hunt because Psycho Wand drops in Cave?

To answer this specifically: Yes.

For a passive hunt to be acceptable when up against a very popular item, it needs to be something like the commons you mentioned which are incredibly rare since you need 50H+ for them to really be worth it, instead of being something you need "only" 30H on. Another exception are items which are always in demand, such as V101 units.

 

[CTB]

150+ views and less than 15 votes? If you didn't vote I hope you find NOTHING this anniversary!

 

[Microwave]

Honestly, I don't think doing just one of the three is as clear cut as it would seem. All of them can be implemented and it does mix-up and adds variety the idea of earning cosmetics which is secondary IMO.
Now hear me out, for instance what do you do to earn enemy part weapons? You do quests then convert parts you find in-game into weapons. So why not a quest say that is say a group quest. But let's say an event but ideally just a normal quest and you see montague sitting in pioneer 2, you talk to him and if you have an item that drops and an enemy part or weapon, ideally one of the lesser pre-ult enemy parts/weapon and like in claire's deal he gives you the option to imbune his enemy weapon with the characteristics of the other weapon I kind of want to say with a chance of failure but I know I hate that with adding hit to weapons so I'm gonna say this item that you need to do this with has a low drop-rate chance and putting into consideration of what Ade said with Shambertin and ep4 let's say we call this a refined or flawless photon crystal (kind of looks like a lizard also if you squint hard enough) which magically makes this work.
For an example you have jizai but you have this item that drops in-game and g-assassin's saber. montague comments about how much of a genius he is again for old time's sake but then notices what you have your enemy weapon and comments how he can imbune his enemy weapon with that of another weapon but he'll need that flawless photon crystal. You bring it to him and he does it and now your jizai actually looks interesting for once and Daylight Scar can take on the look of S-Berill's Hands #1, same can be done with the other weapons also or really any enemy parts really I suppose and that would be a way to add a great deal of cosmetics in one update and most importantly it gives a reason to maybe not quit PoD at the boss if it's shambertin and purpose to lesser enemy weapons.
Anyways that's just something I thought up, no idea how hard it would be to implement this, or if it's worth it but hey it's an idea and something different I guess.

 

[Mommy Rem]

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the more useless Ult drops being changed to cosmetic items (e.g., does Ult Green really need all those Justy drops?), but an exchange quest could be a good option for less-coveted cosmetics. I'm holding out for a Yas7k skin for Spread Needle lol.

 

[redria7]

Given that some skins are already drops, setting up exchanges brings up the question of why one skin is worth 99pd and a super rare drop and why another is much easier to get (assuming I am interpreting exchange correctly).

I am of the mind that it would be really cool to be able to sacrifice any item for a skin of that item that could be applied to other applicable items. This is primarily aimed at things like mags…

For example, once you get a mag to level 200, it would be nice to be able to take that mag and exchange it for a mag cell of that type that could be used on a level 50 mag. These would have the standard 50% triple invincible triggers. Then every aesthetic mag is viable, with the added benefit that you could raise mags to convert to cells to sell on the market!

 

[PrettyLights]

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the more useless Ult drops being changed to cosmetic items (e.g., does Ult Green really need all those Justy drops?), but an exchange quest could be a good option for less-coveted cosmetics. I'm holding out for a Yas7k skin for Spread Needle lol.

Plenty of opportunity here. 7k also a fire idea.