Vehicle Air items of 14.8 - too rare or not dropping at all

[porter]

I posted a reply in quite another thread that made me think about an actual suggestion.

Problem: The patch notes for 14.8. promised there would be items adding Vehicle Air skill dropping now. It sounded like at least some of those items would actually be possible for a regular gamer to obtain. It was after all an obvious reply to several disgusted threads concerning the lowest possible level Stiletto and the VA requirements of one.

Ring of Flying seems extremely rare. I have been unable to fix an Unfinished Ring of Flying and have heard of only one real one so far. The Boots of Violent Motion are apparently almost as rare and mainly of level much over 200 that is generally (almost) impossible for anyone to wear before Shadow Lands (and you can not fly your Stiletto there...) The Anti Gravity unit requires you to kill a relatively tough mob that is sought for other loot as well (and never dropped the item while I was with a team killing it, not that many times I admit, but also the item has a high TL requirement and low VA bonus so it is maybe the least appealing of them).

None of the other VA items that appeared in the 14.8. database have been found or at least I have not heard of any of them.

These items are way too rare or non-existing considering that:

a) they are toys, not game balance altering über armour pieces nor weapons, but little items that may help someone to equip (for example) a Stiletto a few levels (or 1 title level) earlier than they otherwise could
b) they were mentioned in the patch notes as if they were a real option for someone, not as rare as Grid Armor - I feel that is false marketing of a product (as if we were sold a SL expansion that may contain access to shadowlands, perhaps a tiny hole in the ground or maybe a tree, somewhere, or not...)

It may be fun at first to try and find a Ring of Flying or Chirop Exoskeleton Wing Mesh or whatever, but it is no longer fun when you have travelled the planet over and killed every bird in sight for thousands of times without a single drop - and no confirmation if this is even the method to find one. (Yes, it is easy to see you have actually killed thousands of birds when they give you 1 XP each and the save terminal helpfully announces to you "Character stored, 1800 XP saved, you seem to have a feather stuck on your helmet and there is something white clinging to your visor..." Now, this did not actually happen to me, but a friend.)

Solution: Make some of these things drop every now and then and not only once in a million kills. Confirm that they actually exist, or which ones do. Give another hint towards figuring out how to make the ring unless it is a finished drop only.

I do not need any of these items myself, not any more. I am just one of the people who do like to explore and find things out but do not like to explore fruitlessly for hours and days on end without any indication there is an actual reward for all the work.

[FireC]

Bump.

[Succubi]

This is one instance I find my barter armor helpful

[____________LtBurlap]

ya know... for once i hope they DONT tell us where they are. every time they come out with a new database everyone scouers it to find the best items and then demand that FC tell them where they can be found.

GO LOOK!


not every item should be handed to you on a silver plater, eventually somone will find one of these items and tell others how to get it and so on, but just up and demanding that FC take all the exploration out of the game is simply beyond me. As it is, most people have their entire game planed out, "at lvl X i can get into ql Y implants and equip that new Z weapon that i get from killing mob Q". where is the exploration that was so much fun in the early days?

[porter]

Originally posted by LtBurlap

GO LOOK!

...

where is the exploration that was so much fun in the early days?

Obviously you did not read my post fully. Sorry, I write too long. I said I do like to explore, but that point about killing literally thousands of little critters with no indication that'll ever produce anything useful was no joke. That is no longer fun.

I did not ask anyone to tell me where to go kill a single mob for The Ring, I asked for some confirmation if it is actually possible to find one or make one - and a little bit increased drop rate to make it a bit more realistic for someone to actually get one.

For the literally impaired and short in attention span this may or may not help, I repeat what I originally suggested, exactly:

"Make some of these things drop every now and then and not only once in a million kills. Confirm that they actually exist, or which ones do. Give another hint towards figuring out how to make the ring unless it is a finished drop only."


Since that probably did not work, spelling it out for LtBurlap:

Confirm which of these VA items exist. Make them drop a bit more often. If the VA ring can be made, give us another tip how (or that it can be made).

There. You made me angry, I hope I made myself clear this time.

[____________LtBurlap]

you were perfictly clear the first time. if you dont think the method you are using is working then try something else, if youre not sure they are actually in game then either go look, or ask someone ingame. you dont need confermation that they are ingame to go looking do you? or is your time so precious that you cant go and experiment. In the early days NO ONE had nearly as much cool loot as the average twink does today, seeing an agent with a Stigma was seeing an agent worthy of praise, or seeing your first Yalm or tank armor or whatever... Nowadays everyone and their cat knows exactly who drops what, what trade skills are needed to make X and what skills are needed in the process, spawn times, and all kinds of items that wont be in game for several patches if ever.

The whole thing with the Custom rings brings my entire point into sharp focus. People found these things in the database and demanded to know where to find them, FC said that they were ingame but did anyone stop demanding to know exactly who dropped it and where... no, they just kept anoying the devs untill they eventually said that you couldnt get them by killing anyone but rather by *gasp* roleplaying. This enraged the twinking playerbase because they now would have to take time out of their leveling to attend events. Did you think that these VA rings could be the same?


Personally nothing would make me happyer then a encoded database so people cant get sneak peaks at items that may or may not ever be implimented.

[kaghelion]

Rubi-ka is far to large for anyone to cover the whole place.
Since a lot of drops are quite rare(NS, GA) and others only drop from certain mobs(mole rings) you'd have to kill each mob close to million times.
And if (some of) these items are only handed out by GMs you could spend years killing mobs all over RK without ever finding them.

Fixers also remember Russian Good-Day, a dual-wieldable SMG, that the devs (or GMs, don't remember who said what) said "were in the game" but no player could find one or make one drop until a few patches later.

[porter]

I now have confirmation from one player that a Ring of Flying did in fact drop from a bird. I also have seen a pair of Boots of Violent Motion - and tried them on to see how they look Also I believe the Anti Grav thingy actually does exist and is the only one of these that needs some finishing after it departs from the mob.

I still have no idea if the other VA items drop, thought to let you know those 3 do, at least. [edit: 1 case of Flutter Cuffs has been found in mission. Not by me.]

Quoting from above: "go look, or ask someone ingame" - yes, I have done a lot of that, looked for the items and asked about them in game and on several threads in these forums. Until very recently none of this had produced any indication that the ring actually existed. I did not demand exact details, LtBurlap, I think I made it clear and Kaghelion did see my point: if the drop rate of an item is so low that nobody seems to find one in weeks or months after a patch where it is not only included in the DB but also is mentioned in the patch notes, then it is a valid concern for me to ask for some confirmation if this item actually does exist. Perhaps someone made a minor typo when setting the loot tables up and there is a smaller than intended drop rate as a result. If nobody complains, perhaps nobody will notice the item is missing.

Another quote: "is your time so precious that you cant go and experiment" - you did not really read either of my posts now did you? Think about the fact that a friend of mine did indeed kill thousands of birds looking for the ring - I did not count mine. The description made us think that is how it might be found. Think for a moment, now. Did the friend spend 5 minutes or several hours, maybe days doing that monotonous, boring, 1xp per mob killing? Additionally a sizable portion of those stupid animals die underground and can not be looted... So yes, time has been spent, loads of it, not only shooting birds, e.g. I bought practically every trade skill tool I did not yet have and tried everything I could think of to modify a failed ring of flying without success. But if all that time was spent in vain, if it was later found out that the item was never in game, I'd feel a bit cheated. Much of that time could have been spent exploring areas not yet familiar.

I do not mind there being lots of items in DB that do not exist in game LtBurlap, but the patch notes this time did specifically mention items (notice the plural) that add to VA skill.

And no, I actually did not think the ring might be given out by green named guys and gals so I did not try to spawn one That was a good suggestion though LtBurlap.

Anyway, this thread is turning increasinly non suggestion like so I think maybe I should close it.

My last words on the subject, perhaps, is "please make these toys drop a little bit more often (the ring and cuffs at least seem ridiculously rare)".

Um, of course it is possible that people who see no need for the VA skill find these all the time and sell them to shops

[_______________Nikki]

If you like to explore and/or investigate, go ahead and do it. whether it means killing 1000s of grays or simply asking newbs if they've seen XXX... or making a friend with a dev and getting him drunk 'n stuff.

or.

let someone else do it for you. wait a month or two and someone will put up a guide

too rare? that's for funcom to decide. maybe they WANTED these items to be rare!

not dropping at all? there are plenty of items in the DB that don't even exist.

[porter]

Originally posted by Nikki
...
too rare? that's for funcom to decide. maybe they WANTED these items to be rare!
...

I did not think you needed to up your post count by this message. All of your points have been addressed above already. But, I repeat once again, they explicitly mentioned these in patch notes in a way that seemed to indicate they are not (all) ultra rare. If they are intentionally rare, OK, I'll live, but I did start getting the impression the Ring especially might be even more rare than FC originally wanted.