A compelling argument to increase ED map sword drop rate

Nostrom

Dalayan Adventurer
Getting this sword is literally the worst thing ever. The game has enough grinds and this takes far too long.

Now that there are no fishers and the drop rate has been nerfed from good farming spots... are we supposed to mindlessly fish for days to get the skill and then the maps? What is the point this? It seems like a mindless grind that takes much more work and time than refuge, or even FoF to complete (obviously luck based).

Can we make this easier somehow?

Blah blah, rant rant rant.

:mad:
 
I've done nearly 3 vah's by farming OP trash for ED maps, and it's not fun.

Congestion aside, you get a map maybe once every 3-4 clears of drakes. Given the extreme rarity of the sword, you're gonna have to do this on average (based on my experience) about 8 times just to get a sword. ED maps in general just have an absurd drop rate from really limited zones. Aside from lore-sake, I don't see why these swords couldn't drop from Crumblings / Well-Illustrated maps.
 
Crumbling I'd at least buy the argument of being in ikisith zones so it wouldn't make sense but why not well-illustrated? They're in the same spots and it'd provide a different outlet rather than killing OP trash on timer to get the last 75% of the vah quest done.
 
I would mention a quote from someone that could sum this up, but I wont. only a few people who know who im talking about and what the quote is.
 
I know the quote....

Honestly, I assume nobody really ever does crumbling maps anymore, and that alone is enough to put swords on them. Instant content revival.
 
I've done nearly 3 edmaps by farming OP trash for ED maps, and it's not fun.
Must be nice having an option to farm maps with 2-4 characters. Back when i first completed my vah I had to steal maps from a guild that raided for literal years and get another guild that could use the loot to kill them so I had a chance at a sword.
 
Increase the odds on ED maps, so it has the highest of all the maps to drop the Sword, but also add it to Crumbling and Well-Illustrated maps, just a at around the rarity that ED currently has.

This would increase the ways of getting it (as a side bonus, give more incentive to do Crumbling and Well-Illustrated maps) , but still make ED the main source, with the RNG being more forgiving (on EDs).
 
I came to this thread to see a compelling argument as off why ED maps and/or the vah sword drop rate of them should be increased. Unfortunately, all I got to see so far was some incoherent rant in the lines of "my content is contested and I'm too lazy for the alternate route" and some circlejerking. Voted 0/10, would not want to read again.
 
I came to this thread to see a compelling argument as off why ED maps and/or the vah sword drop rate of them should be increased. Unfortunately, all I got to see so far was some incoherent rant in the lines of "my content is contested and I'm too lazy for the alternate route" and some circlejerking. Voted 0/10, would not want to read again.

What he meant to say was:

"This game has evolved in many ways over the years but the drop in population has had an unfortunate effect on the economy and ED maps in particular stand out because the smaller player base means a fraction of the ED maps are entering the game while the demand remains rather high because every character eventually needs to farm multiple ED maps to gain a quest piece. So while the availability of ED maps continues to fall it creates an artificial barrier to quest progression that we the player base would like solutions to, to which I propose the following:

1. Create a new source of ED maps
2. Let the quest item needed drop from higher tier maps that are more readily available / their loot is still useful"
 
Make edmap sword purchasable with like 5? or so t3 bounty tokens. That would encourage people to do bounties more often so then the newer guys would have an easier time finding people willing to help them do them. 5 might be a bit much though since it takes so long to do bounties but it would at least offer an alternate method of getting a sword.
 
How about making tmaps have a rare chance to drop another tmap one step higher so like ve can drop easy , easy can drop mod , mod can drop difficult , difficult can drop VD, VD can drop ED. this might encourage more interaction with the lesser geared/newer players as its pretty easy to get normal geared players from lfg to grind out those maps trying to upgrade and get edmaps via that route and could revive the tmap economy a bit.
 
Make edmap sword purchasable with like 5? or so t3 bounty tokens. That would encourage people to do bounties more often so then the newer guys would have an easier time finding people willing to help them do them. 5 might be a bit much though since it takes so long to do bounties but it would at least offer an alternate method of getting a sword.

Or make it so you could purchase all maps with bounty tokens.

Could also have the Vah supply maps that lead to a chests that only contains plat/gems and a sword chance.
 
Maps dropping more maps and being able to purchase maps with bounty tokens are two really good ideas. Would love to see them put in.
 
Or make it so you could purchase all maps with bounty tokens.

Could also have the Vah supply maps that lead to a chests that only contains plat/gems and a sword chance.

I kinda like this. Made me think of something like..

Vah daily bounties that go through Mira.. sort of a continuation of black rose assassinations. Could even do it the TMAP route where everyone can activate 1 a day, but limit to like 2-3 successes per person a day so you don't just recycle retired toons and farm 20 back to back.

Edit: or just have these assassinations give tokens that redeem ED maps yada yada run-on thoughts.
 
Or add a 100% drop chance of a coin from ED maps that you can turn 10 into a sword.

Or a higher number if needed.
 
I came to this thread to see a compelling argument as off why ED maps and/or the vah sword drop rate of them should be increased. Unfortunately, all I got to see so far was some incoherent rant in the lines of "my content is contested and I'm too lazy for the alternate route" and some circlejerking. Voted 0/10, would not want to read again.

Amazingly the title worked as a lure. If you need to hear why this should be reworked you are really not paying enough attention.

1. There is no "fishing economy" anymore so you cannot just buy maps. This in itself marks a need for an alternate way to get a sword, or a boost to drop rates(?). If an economy really existed here you'd see people rise to meet the demand, but sadly the ED map rate is too low to make it worthwhile.

2. Prison is killed pretty much on spawn for archaic frags and ED maps which are an extremely low drop rate. You might see a map once every 6 clears. This forces players into an almost endless cycle of killing low teir raid trash, which already needs to be done in other raid zones for: Archaic, Ancients, Combine, Faction Augs, Other Vah pieces, Clickies... etc, etc, etc. Yes, we get it, its "ever-quest" but having this same old mindless grind at every point in the game gets stupid really fast.

What is the benefit the staff sees in keeping the drop rate on ED maps so low or not adding the sword to anything else? The staff has put in a wonderful effort to reduce some of the major pain points that currently exist, however the difficulty of a single drop for no other reason rather than to make the Vah take more time to complete is uninspired and one of the most bafflingly lazy quest designs. Maybe back in the day when t6-8 was real hard frickin' content and killed constantly this was viable, and its silly to summon up a few people to farm t6 garbage, get people together for a map, and not get a sword to drop (in total at least 4+ hours of work for over 3 people).

I'd like to throw out the "at this point in SoD, with all this content, we should be reducing some of the grind that is entailed with newer players getting up to the t10-t11 mark" conversation, but I think thats obvious.
 
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I think we could turn this into a general "Let help Tmaps" thread but I will try to stay mostly on topic. Incoming long winded post:

1: Since 2.5's launch, the 10% increase in price has kinda edged out the profit in a map. If you are selling them just barely above vendor price, once completed the maps seem to make you break even or take a small loss. Before 2.5 I would do maps I fished instead of vendor them because there was an ok profit margin above what I was getting from vendor/listsold, exp and some newbs could get some gear. As it stands now I am largely vendoring my my maps from a lack of buyers, lack of people doing maps in general and the fact that its the safe bet for cash. I wouldnt mind seeing the cash drop boosted a little to keep it in line with where it was in 2.0.

1b: I know that Vah sword was put on crumbling maps for a heart beat and then ripped away from them just as quick. I don't think that crumbling maps is a bad place for them. I know it doesn't fit with the lore but it does fit within the difficulty and rarity. Crumbling maps drop from stronger targets than ED maps, can't be fished and would be somewhat difficult to farm due to its level range drop/vs being a zone drop and the fact that they are not trade-able would help keep intact the "rare" feeling we are trying to evoke. It helps that they drop from the raid zones that people who are working on Vah are likely to be in and also, Crumbling maps could just use a little love. They drop like 100 plat which seems WAY off from other maps and their loot is good but sometimes situational (good sword that only procs out doors, good BP that fills your limited inventory with water, amazing deck of cards that never drops). At least up the cash on these if not put a small chance for the ED Vah sword.

2: ED maps being fish-able during a time when Kero had a fisher in each ocean at all hours of the day and there were 2-5 more active fishers at any given moment was very reasonable. ED maps were plentiful enough that several vendors could afford to sell them at 13k and feel like they had made money. As it stands now I see people willing to pay 25k easy for the ED maps and think "Fucked if I am selling the 1 ED map i've caught that low, I need it." I have been fishing for awhile. At one point before 2.5 I had 3 250 fishers, one always in SoS, one always in PoAir and a floater bound in one of the oceans so I could have 2 fishers going while I did homework (haven't been in college for like 5 years, so that should give you an idea). I have done a lot of fishing and only caught 2 maps. I know fishers who have done it longer and gotten as much, I know fishers who have done it less and gotten more, its part time invested and part luck. I think the rate for an ED map is like 1 in 20,000, at 5 casts a minute you should theoretically get 1 ED map every 60 hours of fishing. Again, 7 fishers probably putting at least 20hrs in a week is in theory 2-3 new maps in the system a week. I have been home off work for the last 2 weeks and because of a shoulder injury about all I can do is fish and mine. Other than me I have irregularly seen 1 other fisher, I know there is 1 more who hasn't been playing recently. If you assume they are fishing 20hrs, I am fishing ~40hrs and my guildmate who is not currently playing does about 30hrs (not unusual for them) youre looking at 1 to 1.5 new maps a week at best (and again, I am not selling and neither is my guildie).

This is artificially inflating the difficulty of that section of the Vah. It was meant to be rare but its rarity has increased considerably with the loss of players from when the quest was designed to where we stand today. I like to suggest players look within for answers but I don't think the answer to this is "fishing drive!". The problem is, this simply isn't fun. Until about a year ago I didn't even know about the place to farm ED maps in prison and even after knowing about it grinding it out for the maps was not fun. Fishing up the maps is not fun and possibly a terrible way to get maps. I think increasing the rate of fished ED maps wouldn't be the worst decision in the world but a large bump to it would be bad. I don't think that decreasing the rarity of the sword out of the ED map would be bad but a large increase would take something from the quest. Personally, I think a little here and a little there will relieve some of the pressure. Like moving ED maps from 1 in 20000 to 1 in 17500 and decreasing rarity of the sword from 1 in 16 (what I have heard) to 1 in 12. Something that gives us better odds but wont cause us to have to revisit this if the population balloons up to 500 again.

I am always a fan of extending the bounty system. Bounties have long been one of my favorite parts about this game along with Tmap hunting but I hesitate to put the burden of the Vah on Bounty shoulders. I suggested that Ancients and Relics be made available through the Bounty system and I think it would work and be good for the server for many of the same reasons that putting ED maps on bounties might also be beneficial. Bounties are just good for low to mid tier players and is a strong and consistent way for new players to increase their power regularly and having more people doing them and taking new players with them is just good for business. However, the maps would have to be put up there for an outrageous price to keep from stepping on grinding and fishing's toes and I doubt even at outrageous prices that it wouldn't become the regular way people earned maps (because of how frustrating getting ED maps is).

Just spit balling here but the famous Pirate in SoS. What if you could trade them 1 S-VD map every week in exchange for 1 ED map? What if I were to be so bold as to say trading 1 or 2 crumbling maps to her once a week in exchange for an ED map might also be fair? Trading the S-VD maps keeps fishing as a way to earn ED maps if not a little more frequently and could revitalize maps on listsold. Gives Crumbling a way to be involved in the ED map hunt by turning them in for a lesser map just gives people a reason to give two shits about them (seen a lot of crumblings rot because no one wanted to waste the bank space).

I like questing and I like that its challenging, so I don't want a hand out here but and hand up would be nice.
 
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