Hello, I would like to talk about these shrouded in infamy rings and their drop rate. I guess not only I am frustrated from farming them - 150 keys wasted, still nothing. Is low drop chance (around 1% for both, 0,1% in reality) really a problem? Not at all.
True problem is that grinding with such droprates is completely unfun, tedious process. Well, it’s not even unfun - it’s suffering after some time. They are dropping from Alkamos in SoT - reaching him require going through half of Broken Hills and 5 levels of same looking catacombs (additionaly old design, not really interesting). Locations doesn’t change at all so after 100, 150, 200 runs (some guy on the forum dropped it after 460 if I remember correctly) it is going to be horrible expierience. I can’t even imagine how people without near perfect build without oathkeeper class for double charging feel.
Yes, we can go halfass and use some replacement but it’s not solution for a long time. Items without detailed drop location can be found in future playing SR, crucible or even many campgain places. I give up going over and over and over and over and over through broken hills and 5 levels SoT ignoring every monster except boss? I will NEVER get them then.
Come on, we are in 2019 and GD is not Diablo 2 (which used to be bot fiesta, didn’t know player who enjoyed doing 10000 manual mef runs). Even making them transmutable wouldn’t be solution, it would still require going hundreds of these boring runs - 6-7 min charging to Alkamos, killing him, repeat. GD stash and trading stashed items is not solution either.
Mr Zantai, other players - could you share your opinion?
Tl;dr - do something with alkamos rings drop rate/methods of farming them, don’t let us suffer.
I have almost 300 runs without Purple ring.There are many players,that get them in 20-30 tries.That’s the nature of RNG.And speaking of Alkamos rings blue,get the job done for Infiltrator too,cause Aura of Censure already have damage reduction and blue rings have better OA and freeze resistance.
300 runs and still nothing? Jesus Christ. Well, RNG is spirit of ARPG games but alkamos rings are another thing than some random purple items (I wrote about it above). We have to do countless boring SoT runs or we can’t even count on dropping them. Most items will drop anyway after some time, RNG process can be beautiful in this case.
GD is mostly solo self found game, shattered realms, crucible and rerolling set items are introduced so let make it enjoyable in more cases.
Malawiglenn - if this thread is popping up each month then it’s mean there is really a problem, right?
Well I have dual Decree of Malmouth,so RNGesus takes,but also gives About the thread,I think it’s pretty common,cause a lot of people farm SoT and rarely get them.
A lot of people farm SoT but be realistic - how many of them have fun going 6 levels through same location hundreds of time? We are not in 2000 anymore, respectable titles made more enjoyable forms of farmings (maps in PoE, SR/crucible in GD, GRs in Diablo 3, even TQ got Tartarus now). Prospect of farming Alkamos (charging for 7 min only to kill one boss in few seconds, ignoring everything because killing trashes is not effecient) is not fun, there is no challange, there is no even satisfaction at all.
I wouldn’t say a word if we could go from the gate of SoT in 3 level but this long marathon…
This is why I dislike old-school generic rng and think it to be very outdated. But it just happens to be the current GD system and not much can be done.
I actually got both sets of blue and purple fairly quickly. Yet I’ve never used them in a build as it wasn’t my goal. I don’t note this to make you feel bad, but to make a point.
Such things I did want… various amulets (non-set), I have never found after many, many grinds. And some other Boss MI’s took me way over the average runs (300 to get Sharzul WE, etc).
So hopefully this old style of pure rng design will evolve in future gaming. I’m a fan of providing alternate means for really really bad rng. Especially since everyone has different build tastes and there needs to be a better way to tailor that for each player.
The new set transmutation in FG is a big step towards this.
Even if the drop chances were increased, people will still complain (but fewer would).
Even if we had rift gate outside skeleton key door people will complain about going through several similar levels of the dungeon.
People will always complain about RNG drops.
From 1:50k to 1:100 is still a good way to go, when you compared with Diablo 2.
Yes, people will always complain (that’s our nature) but at least now it’s really reasonable. RNG is RNG but process to activate this RNG machine is another thing. In 2019 most of us have another expectations and this Alkamos farming adventure is in fact completely outdated.
I compared it with Diablo 2 to make a look how it worked. People used to bot and trading on d2jsp buying forum golds for real money. I knew guys who bought 20 keys to use 20 open diablo games with 20 bots to farm because even in “the old times” it was such frustrating process. And there wasn’t even any other option if you wanted to compete in pvp in higher level.
Except some freaks no one enjoys running one boring locations, that’s fact.
And do you think trading and GDstashing is uncommon in GD? Look how many views the GDstash thread has, almost 2 millions!
All farming is supposed to be trivial, that is how I label gameplay as “farming” if it can be done in your sleep and you get good loot for spent time, its farming. Like sometimes I just wanna play without thinking so much and still have chance to get decent/good loot like cruci 100-150 or SR 55-56 or something.
Before I finally made a build that could farm SR and Crucible reliably, I used to farm SoT for purples. The rates aren’t too bad, it’s quite easy and I got around 7 Soulrends by the time I was done. I have a set of purple rings and a spare after around 150 runs, and several sets of the blue rings.
Interestingly, the blue rings completion bonus (stat-wise) is much better than the purple ones if you aren’t playing a Nightblade - 5% OA and freeze duration reduction vs some random +3 skills. Even the base stats are similar - the notable differences being a couple more Nightblade skills and the pierce to cold conversion.
While I agree that it’s a pain to farm a specific dungeon that many times (and perhaps some sort of bad luck mechanic could be implemented), the blue rings are genuinely sufficient in most builds.
Also i didn’t say GD stashing is uncommon, i used it too for testing builds for crucible/SR but i prefer to playing legit. Trading in moddable game is… not really what could satysfaing me, especially a lot of these items are stashed and prices are very low. I have thousands of items/all recipes and I would feel strange buying items - it’s also aspect i hate in every ARPG (quit PoE because of it, it was cancer experience, in D2 i used bots like everyone).
Yes, farming is supossed to be trivial but it’s horrible experience to do that this way (worst dungeon, 6 levels, over and over and over) when we have crucible and SR. If it’s not enough - farming SoT for alkamos is even without any fight except boss if you don’t want to waste 10 more minutes. It’s just clicking charge/mobile skill till you get to the boss.
It is more common to make complain threads than praise threads.
Not sure why someone would GDstash items and then trade…
I never botted in D2, and now I play it Single Player and have Tyraels Might and Zod rune
Can’t the Purple MI’s drop in SR and Crucible? I can swear I dropped Anasteria helm in Crucible…
I mean, you can say the same thing about double rare MI’s as with Purple Alkamos rings - “Impossible” for a human being to get. Imagine getting Alkamos rings drop chances to say 5% each. Then what is next step? Increasing drop chances of rare and double rare affixes? Some items are still gonna be “impossible” and used in builds posted on forums etc.
Tell me what happens to your build if you don’t have the alkamos rings, do you spontaneously combust after clicking on a scrap pile, does Ulgrim not serve you soup? What is wrong with items that aren’t rained down like candy to each and everyone?
My suggestion (never farmed anything too hard in GD, had enough of that in D2, most of my legit gear came from trading on these forums):
Make it possible for Alkamos rings to transmute into each other
Add them into a drop pool of Crucible 150-170 and Shards 65+. Very small chance but still. It’s ridiculous that infinitely harder farming routes like Crucible 150-170 or SR 65+ can’t drop them yet excruciatingly boring and unchallenging SoT can.
I would also suggest for buffing conversion on those rings. For such rare rings used only in very specific builds conversion is very small.
Malw, Xervous read carefully please. I wrote my points about examples like that.
I have no problem with GD drop rates (for random items could be even lower tbh), i have problem with outdated farming method which is just boring and doing hundreds SoT runs for two rings is torture for majority of the players - and please, do not tell me about “survey”, I will NEVER EVER belive that MOST playerbase (not some minority examples) have fun farming like that with current resources like Crucible/SR/many campaign maps. It’s against human nature and mentality.
Also this “you can use another items/what about rare MIs etc” point is not really something that convinces me. I wrote about it above too - most items i can get in “healthy way”, so I have nothing against lower drop rates. I can get them eventually, if I give up with this SoT suffering I will not get these rings in “legit and SSF” way. Also they are BiS for some builds and for people who like to min max/speedrun crucible/push SR highest as possible they can be mandatory. Optional? Not really, whole game is optional, hair won’t grow on your tongue if you stop playing computer games.
@mad_lee made very good point - add them for higher shards/waves, drop rate can be low but at least there will be some perspective to get them without going crazy. They can’t drop anywhere outside SoT currently.
crucible and sr can drop MI from nemesis. so its just plain unbelievable that alkamos purple ring isn’t dropping from cruc & sr. even though if the alkamos purple drop rate stay the same in cruc sr, it will compete with the loot drop rates of MANY rares (and it might make alkamos purple drop rate in cruc & sr even worse).
About the thread,I think it’s pretty common,cause a lot of people farm SoT and rarely get them.