Results 1 to 18 of 18

Thread: Another Pocketboss Thread

  1. #1

    Another Pocketboss Thread

    So now that I'm getting a baby soldier all equipped up and ready to go for later levels I thought I'd be a bit more forward-thinking and farm my own symbiants, insomuch that I don't have to raise hundreds of millions to get good QL Artillery symbiants. That of course means farming the pocketboss patterns (and getting eight A patterns for Brutal Rafter before finding a C), getting the Novictum, buying the crystal, having someone assemble it, spawning it and killing it, a process that takes anywhere from 2-3 hours if I'm lucky...


    ... to get five Operative LH Artilleries from Adobe Suzerain and no other symbs. He's able to drop from a list of seven.

    I get that it's a luck-based loot system and there's no real way to "control" it, but why would you ever need a boss to drop quintuple of one symb and nothing else? It's completely frustrating, especially for new subscription players that will inevitably need these symbiants as well and with some slots will have to either camp indefinitely or pay ungodly amounts of credits for single symbs. Is it too unreasonable to ask for much more variation on pocketboss' loot inventories... or at the very least, make pocketboss pattern camping not so utterly terrible that one or two patterns have five to ten times the drop frequency of others in the same blueprint?
    [[ RYUAHN | 220/21 Opifex Trader
    == Proud Member of Core ==
    [[ ALASTROPHE | 220/15 Solitus Martial-Artist

    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    There is literally nothing wrong with {Shutdown Skills} in it's current incarnation. What should be being looked at is the reason why it's needed so much. E.g, the incredible amount of Alpha being thrown around and the fickleness of Evade profs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cratertina View Post
    I walk in to BS... could not perk people... with 3704 AR and 300 AAD drain... NT facerolled me, shade instagibbed me, after a few minutes I just decided not gonna bother.

  2. #2
    Make each PB drop one of each symb it has in its table.
    Create a blueprint Yutto somewhere that gives you a complete pattern of any PB when you give him a combination of any 4 pieces (AAAD, AABC, ABBD etc).

    Solved as far as I'm concerned
    Pricecuts - 220 Trader
    Feel free to contact me via PM or in-game.

    Raggy - 220 Bureaucrat || Raggeh - 220 Fixer | Back as 'Raggys' - Shade for the time being. | Nuclei - 217 Nanotechnician || Nanobiology - 214 Doctor

    Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.

  3. #3
    It it was it is and has forever been, what suggestions could we conjure up to make it better/more fun?

    On a sidenote i'de like to say cheers! It's friday!

    EDIT: Decent suggestion above
    Don't you just hate this kind of ppl
    http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/w...rouscranus.htm

  4. #4
    One of each symb would be a true godsend.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Saetos View Post
    One of each symb would be a true godsend.
    I'm of the mind that something so fundamental to a character, such as symbiants shouldn't be locked behind large portions of RNG. All it does is cause people to become frustrated farming them, frustrated when they see the prices of them and then frustrated when they can't complete a build or use a nano because one of their core symbs is simply unavailable.
    Pricecuts - 220 Trader
    Feel free to contact me via PM or in-game.

    Raggy - 220 Bureaucrat || Raggeh - 220 Fixer | Back as 'Raggys' - Shade for the time being. | Nuclei - 217 Nanotechnician || Nanobiology - 214 Doctor

    Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Saetos View Post
    So now that I'm getting a baby soldier all equipped up and ready to go for later levels I thought I'd be a bit more forward-thinking and farm my own symbiants, insomuch that I don't have to raise hundreds of millions to get good QL Artillery symbiants. That of course means farming the pocketboss patterns (and getting eight A patterns for Brutal Rafter before finding a C), getting the Novictum, buying the crystal, having someone assemble it, spawning it and killing it, a process that takes anywhere from 2-3 hours if I'm lucky...


    ... to get five Operative LH Artilleries from Adobe Suzerain and no other symbs. He's able to drop from a list of seven.

    I get that it's a luck-based loot system and there's no real way to "control" it, but why would you ever need a boss to drop quintuple of one symb and nothing else? It's completely frustrating, especially for new subscription players that will inevitably need these symbiants as well and with some slots will have to either camp indefinitely or pay ungodly amounts of credits for single symbs. Is it too unreasonable to ask for much more variation on pocketboss' loot inventories... or at the very least, make pocketboss pattern camping not so utterly terrible that one or two patterns have five to ten times the drop frequency of others in the same blueprint?
    I think what's being missed here is the original intent of the PBs.

    They were not designed to be done by one person farming symbiants, they were designed for a group of people therefore it's probably more intended that 4-5 of the same item drop as it makes group distribution easier.

    Imagine doing a 180 pb and an left, right wrist, leg, left arm, and brain drop with a group. Who gets to take home the brain?

    I imagine if there were to change what drops to one of each with the idea that only one person is doing it, then they need to drop a lot less stuff.
    Lords of Silence : AO Division Leader

    www.clanlos.net

  7. #7
    In all my years of playing AO I have never, ever heard of people doing this. And when you then realize that this would then involve an absolutely tremendous amount of time of farming multiple blueprints, multiple Novictum clumps, to *maybe* get what everyone needs... if that was the intent then it was a sore miscalculation in regards to getting items people need to function into their Shadowlevels without gettin left behind.

    It's literally just the Inf key PBs and Wistful Apparition that I've seen people team for, because the former have mutual benfefits and the latter has a cavalcade of abilities that require cooperation.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    Create a blueprint Yutto somewhere that gives you a complete pattern of any PB when you give him a combination of any 4 pieces (AAAD, AABC, ABBD etc).
    They already have an NPC for that (Clear Thought Three), except it's any 3 pieces and an item and only works for the Min-Ji Liu pattern.
    I don't see why it couldn't be expanded to include any pattern.

    220s "Wakizaka", "Sneakygank", "Wakimango", "Wakisolja", "Tardersauce", "Bushwaki", "Midgetgank", "Bugfixxx", "Ramsbottom", "Paskadoc"
    200s Chrisd, Malema, Delbaeth
    TL5s Youfail, Bugfixx, Riothamus, Johndee

    Proud President of Haven | TL5 PvP


  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Wakizaka View Post
    They already have an NPC for that (Clear Thought Three), except it's any 3 pieces and an item and only works for the Min-Ji Liu pattern.
    I don't see why it couldn't be expanded to include any pattern.
    We also have an NPC that trades Wills/Advents*, so yes, they should bring in an NPC for pattern-pieces as well. But I personally would like to keep the ratio of 3 random pieces versus 1 piece you need. Else it just gets way too easy.
    *(Not actually on topic, but can this NPC please also trade Glyphs maybe? Or does he already? Haven't visited him in quite a long time.)

    Another thing: Each PB should have their own bosses. Meaning, for example Alatyr and Zoetic Oak share the same 3 bosses and that just makes it even more tedious. Especially when one or two bosses decide to not respawn.

    PB farming/building/spawning is a serious lifetime killer with little chance to bring a good result and it has to stop. There needs to be some sort of change out of the many possibilities there are.
    Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Saetos View Post
    In all my years of playing AO I have never, ever heard of people doing this. And when you then realize that this would then involve an absolutely tremendous amount of time of farming multiple blueprints, multiple Novictum clumps, to *maybe* get what everyone needs... if that was the intent then it was a sore miscalculation in regards to getting items people need to function into their Shadowlevels without gettin left behind.

    It's literally just the Inf key PBs and Wistful Apparition that I've seen people team for, because the former have mutual benfefits and the latter has a cavalcade of abilities that require cooperation.
    Not too long ago casting a PB would bring you to 1 health. Do you know why that is? It was an effort to thwart people from doing them alone. Today, at least for the PBs I've done lately, they have removed that effect.

    Call it a miscalculation or whatever you want, it doesn't change the fact that the intent was originally for grouping and thats why you see the drop patterns you do.

    Besides, I'm ok with it. Just had 5 brains drop from one pb.
    Lords of Silence : AO Division Leader

    www.clanlos.net

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by AlmightyZeus View Post
    Not too long ago casting a PB would bring you to 1 health. Do you know why that is? It was an effort to thwart people from doing them alone. Today, at least for the PBs I've done lately, they have removed that effect.
    It's now a universal thing - pretty much because no one was doing them in a team.

    Call it a miscalculation or whatever you want, it doesn't change the fact that the intent was originally for grouping and thats why you see the drop patterns you do.
    That makes no sense at all. Whether in a team or alone, it should not take four, five, six cycles of respawning bosses to get one C, and in the process find 8-10 As. That's not adapting to a team measure, that's just bad coding and bad thinking.

    Besides, I'm ok with it. Just had 5 brains drop from one pb.
    Sure, from a monetary/business standpoint, being able to get things like that is great (I got three Enduring RA Artilleries from Bagaspati, which was pretty swanky - they go for about 20-30m a pop), but for actually getting symbs for your characters it's not the greatest of ideas. Considering how long the process tends to be, if the dice aren't in your favor at that time then you've effectively wasted hours of your time on symbs that may potentially be worthless, both monetarily and as regular equipment for the characters you want to farm for (see the Operative LH Artilleries I posted above - Adobe Suzerain only drops one Operative and then the rest are Surviving (150)+.).
    [[ RYUAHN | 220/21 Opifex Trader
    == Proud Member of Core ==
    [[ ALASTROPHE | 220/15 Solitus Martial-Artist

    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    There is literally nothing wrong with {Shutdown Skills} in it's current incarnation. What should be being looked at is the reason why it's needed so much. E.g, the incredible amount of Alpha being thrown around and the fickleness of Evade profs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cratertina View Post
    I walk in to BS... could not perk people... with 3704 AR and 300 AAD drain... NT facerolled me, shade instagibbed me, after a few minutes I just decided not gonna bother.

  12. #12
    Original intent is irrelevant, what needs to be considered in the game in its current state and going forward.

    Raggy's suggestions are perfect and I don't see any reason the PBs shouldn't work that way.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Litestrider View Post
    Original intent is irrelevant, what needs to be considered in the game in its current state and going forward.

    Raggy's suggestions are perfect and I don't see any reason the PBs shouldn't work that way.
    Ditto. All that matters is now, & the future. Most SL content takes WAY TOO LONG to do. It's not challenging, it's tedious.

    The older style of MMO, make your players waste their whole life trying to get geared to what is considered BASIC MINIMUM to compete in either pvp or pvm is not applicable to gamer tastes anymore. I just want to run around exploring and killing, and get 60-75% of the little squiggly items I need for the gear which will provide me a satisfying power progression.

    Barring certain exceptions, why can't component pieces/upgrades of PB etc drop 100%. you still had to go farm them, you still have to TS them, you still have to spend hours preparing, you still have to win the fight....

    Good example: Pen ice golem. 6 molars drop 100%? It's still work, but the reward is guaranteed.

    It's a game, we want the rewards for taking certain actions. That's why we play. IRL is full of ambiguous rewards and you frequently get JACK ALL. please don't make games like that too... @.@
    "'Techs are your friend! Everyone uses Nano!" - Zaenix
    "Wushu Ninjagirl, smackin mobs like beef slappin on wet pavement" - Rosmarin
    "Never trust a hive-mind" - Sittinpretty (ex-OT mind control subject)

  14. #14
    Agree with op, raggy and the two posters above me. I know funcom doesn't seem to think a person who desires a decent equipped toon has a right to a life with family friends etc but its just miserly. Sort it out funcom.

  15. #15
    Anyone remember when Symbs used to be UNIQUE? Ridiculous times.

    But yes please, use mechanics similar to the Scheol Yutto guy where you hand him a Pattern Essence and any 3 Empath bits to get a whole one. But ofc you have to have any 4 pieces of whatever it is. Or I suppose it could be upped to 5 if that's considered to be 'too easy'? Put this Yutto out in Inferno if you must. I imagine it'd be a far simpler solution than going through and evening out the drop rate % of each of the 4 pattern parts for each pb.

    I do lots of PBs for fun as I travel around SL and swat whatever dynas I happen to be near. But I intensely dislike specifically camping and farming one pb to get a rare drop I need. That kills the fun of it.

    Ophiuchus : 220/30/80 HAHA etc
    Nahuatl
    :: 220/30/80 Melee 4lyfe
    Khurkh :: 220/30/80 healtankpew
    Transcendence
    Msanthropic
    : 210/26/60 nanostab
    Spidershiva :: 165/23/42 kite? eh?
    Silentmotion
    : 150/20/42 tankthink
    The Union

  16. #16
    Kinda related :
    It would be very nice if some of the Bosses which are supposed to drop Patterns would do that more often or on a 100 % Chance .
    Srahir , Anya and Breaker Tevo Patterns are the mayor Pains to camp because it feels like 1 Pattern in 3 Kills to me .
    While in Scheol we have Croaker-Bosses which drop mostly 2 Patterns for Marem and Iumin all the Time , not really complaining about that but its kinda confusing.
    Last edited by Dollcet; Mar 18th, 2015 at 10:14:21. Reason: bAd EnGrIsH ;)
    MA 4 Life ... No matter how hard you try, you can't put us down.
    -----
    I dislike Multiboxes , Makros , Programmable Keyboards , Multiple Actions to 1Key-Binds << all of them simply do not fit my Idea of Gaming-Skills/Competition-Ethics .
    -----
    Dear Developers for Future scaling of Items & Nanorequiments please consider that :
    -there are Players below 220
    -there are Players without Towers
    -there are Players without full Org-Benefits
    -there are free Players

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Dollcet View Post
    Kinda related :
    It would be very nice if some of the Bosses which are supposed to drop Patterns would do that more often or on a 100 % Chance .
    Srahir , Anya and Breaker Tevo Patterns are the mayor Pains to camp because it feels like 1 Pattern in 3 Kills to me .
    While in Scheol we have Croaker-Bosses which drop mostly 2 Patterns for Marem and Iumin all the Time , not really complaining about that but its kinda confusing.
    Can't forget Bellowing and Thunderous Chimera...

    You're better off killing the trash mobs than the dynas to farm those 2 patterns. I considered myself lucky coming up with 2 full patterns after killing every Dyna and trash mob there 3 times... =/
    Vinkera - Soli NT - 426k DPM - Setup
    Robbey - Soli Crat

    Lone anarchists - Tower of Babil

    Celez - Soli Doc
    Loaloa - Soli Enf
    Wondershot - Nano Soldier
    Robzor - Soli Engi
    Proserpexa - Opi Agent

    Trying out civilization - Storm

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Dollcet View Post
    Kinda related :
    It would be very nice if some of the Bosses which are supposed to drop Patterns would do that more often or on a 100 % Chance .
    Srahir , Anya and Breaker Tevo Patterns are the mayor Pains to camp because it feels like 1 Pattern in 3 Kills to me .
    While in Scheol we have Croaker-Bosses which drop mostly 2 Patterns for Marem and Iumin all the Time , not really complaining about that but its kinda confusing.
    To go along with this, make each pattern part a 25% chance to drop. Maybe I just have the worst luck in the universe, but I'm absolutely sure at this point that some patterns are significantly more rare than others. It's extremely frustrating to have 3/4 of the pattern 9 times over before I finally find the fourth part and get ONE pocketboss.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •