For the record, yes, this will be long, and no, there’s no tl;dr.
I think it’s no secret that the southsun event has left a bad taste in quite a few people’s mouths. If most people seem to dislike RNG (based on the feedback I’m seeing in the forums and in-game, and on the fact that, even before this event, one of the most common complaints was RNG – the precursor drops), especially low odds RNG, then very low odds RNG within low odds RNG is just atrocious.
However, all the recent farming this recent patch made me (us?) do has, in my view, further emphasized a far more problematic core issue with this game: End game, as it is right now, suffers from inconsistent and paradoxical design… Borderline schizophrenic.
“Farm!”
“Don’t farm!”
“You MUST farm!”
“No wait, you CAN’T farm!”
“FARM FOREVER!”
“NEVER!”
As it is your end game incorporates at the same time both elements that reward or force you to grind, and elements that actively discourage or outright punish grinding.
You want to make a legendary? Well son, I hope you have your farming overalls on because between an extremely long shopping list and very low availability of some of the items you have to farm a lot if you hope to acquire one within a life time.
Want a full dungeon set? I hope you enjoy doing that dungeon to death and back! By the time you’re halfway through your set you’ll be so sick of dungeons in general, and the one you’re forced to farm in particular, that you’ll never want to touch dungeons again! I know I’d rather play piano with a hammer on my knees before I do Crucible of Eternity again!
You want a Sclerite Weapon? I hope you took some vacations, because between the two ridiculously low RNGs, you’ll either get extremely lucky or you’re going to be there for a while… Like, ever. Personally I’ve been farming the island every day, more hours than a normal person should, I even bought MF gear specifically for it. I’ve gotten over 50 crates, over 10 mini reed riders, more Settlers items than I can count, 2 Mini Farens, a southsun Shark Axe skin, an acquabreather skin, and 0 weapon claim tickets. I’m currently unemployed, I can do this kitten almost all day and I’m hardly unlucky with crate drops, and even that is not enough…
And you can’t even say that this is an attempt to get people to buy gems… you can’t buy the skins either ways, you can only buy boxes, and the chances of getting what everyone wants out of the kittening boxes (the weapon claim tickets) are horrible either ways. Might as well play the real world lottery then… The chances are horrid either ways, but the latter at least stands to make you a real millionaire.
You want one of the mystic forge made exotics? Farm, farm, farm! Most of them require 250 stacks of very rare items like Lodestones, often of more than 1 very rare material…
(Part 1, char limit)
(edited by ProxyDamage.9826)