Gem drops

[Pete]

I've been trying to farm some gems to make a few jewels for enchanting, but I've found it to be incredibly slow. After about an hour I had 4 sapphires :/

[Kronen]

you see, i don't think the drop rate in itself is THAT bad, the issue i think is more with the extremely slow respawn rate (even in fel) of the mobs.  i can finish the lap i'm on and do another full lap around the west side of last level of shame and still not see any respawns

any chance that this could be tweaked a little?

[Black Mamba]

tbh i think it is fair that both are true i was doing SHAME + DESPISE and got about 4 rubies an hour.

[King Kong]

we will look into it -

but not for nothing, 1 should work for imbuing. Also keeps the dungeons hopping.

[Black Mamba]

Kon perhaps a risk reward system (i would check shame fel if i knew the drop rates where (much) better) gives another pvp zone and it has about every type of elle (and u cannot insure them which makes hardcore farming much more difficult)

[Pete]

I agree Kon - Imbuing should be difficult because it has a great reward. But people requiring gems for crafting normal items, its time consuming to say the least.

To use the dark sapphire bracelet as an example:

It requires 20 sapphires to craft and at GM tinkering there is a 50% chance to succeed and one failure could mean another 1-2 hours farming again. The bracelet is created with 1-5 properties at an intensity of upto 80% which is nothing compared to 10 properties at 100% intensity.

Awesome things can be made, but its the imbuing side of the game that really makes items powerful.

I feel a separate gem for imbuing would really make it even for the crafters and the imbuers. For example normal gems harvested from elementals, having a higher drop rate (50-80%?) or even put back on the vendors. Then a separate gem with a prefix (eg magical/ shimmering / glistening) which is used for imbuing and has a low drop rate.

I don't want to pretend that I know what I'm talking about too much, because I have no idea how much work this would be for the developers or how feasible it is for you.

[Black Mamba]

pete imbuers are dealing with ens as enough changes as is... i say increase drop rates because we still have to have relics/essence and another material from champs...

[Serpen]

I'm trying like crazy just to get citrine so I can add luck to my suit just so I can have a chance at Doom drops... it's a vicious cycle it is, of course my vote is to increase drops :p

[King Kong]

You all make great points.

Of course I will look into thing, but when a free shard has been online awhile we have to keep things in that seem crappy cause its time consuming but in the long run it creates active players.

Also keeping them decently difficult, it allows younger players for example to hunt ellys in Shame and sell them to older players. That alone creates something to do and a full market.

I know you get frustrated, I was a player for years. I understand your pain.

But sometimes try and look at the big picture and whats best for the longevity of Pandora.

[Serpen]

definitely understand where you are coming from, sometimes it just makes you feel better to gripe about it.

[Black Mamba]

You all make great points.

Of course I will look into thing, but when a free shard has been online awhile we have to keep things in that seem crappy cause its time consuming but in the long run it creates active players.

Also keeping them decently difficult, it allows younger players for example to hunt ellys in Shame and sell them to older players. That alone creates something to do and a full market.

I know you get frustrated, I was a player for years. I understand your pain.

But sometimes try and look at the big picture and whats best for the longevity of Pandora.

aren't u excluding a portion of the picture... i.e. one of the major foundations of the shard? PVP people come to free shards mainly for that effect. (if it hasn't changed in the year i've been gone) i'll give you it gets newbies a good chance at gold but it also give mid length players a distinct disadvantage (this actually doesn't directly effect me due to good guildies) I can see your points their definitely valid... but what is the point if it only means hrs of farming to fail 7x on lrc for ur earrings? (granted really bad luck on my part)

I'll continue to farm ruby and others but it is rather boring and tiresome...

[King Kong]

Well, all I know is I have ran Pandora for well over a year now. People seem to like it.

Going with my gut here. But I do get it, and we are always changing stuff.

[Kronen]

kon, i think i've made it clear i understand the need to have time consuming systems in place for the sake of the vitality of the shard in posts i've made in other threads, and i've also done my best to encourage people to try the new imbuing system before moaning about it.

that said, it genuinely isn't stimulating (and hurts my mouse hand after a while) to run the same circuit of dungeon x hunting elemental y for an hour to get 10 gems to use in conjunction with the 10 of new imbuing mat z i've also spent a good while farming (though farming these is more fun imo), along with perhaps 5 relic fragments, so that i can fail my imbuing attempt and have to rinse/repeat.  it would be more fun if either a) the elementals were difficult to kill or b) 75% of my farming time wasn't actually down time running between spawns because the respawn timers are slow.

with a view to point b), what about speeding up the respawn rate, but lowering the gem drop rate further?  maybe it's just me, but i'd rather be busy when i'm grinding, than have a lot of time spent idling.

or even a new possible pvm event for the pvm room - hundreds of elementals spawning leading up to some souped up boss (paragon slasher of veils?).  so that at least every so often, there's the opportunity to get things a bit faster.

i don't mean to sound unappreciative of the amount of effort you and your staff put in on the server, so i hope you don't take any of this the wrong way.  (indeed, i love the server and want to see it thrive.)  i'm just giving you my perspective on things!

[King Kong]

Ill look into increasing drop rates. More and likely next reboot they will drop twice as much, still basic principal though. i'll adjust the percentile chance

[Black Mamba]

thanks kon.