Drop Rate Announcement

[Easycrow]

Hello Daevas,

We would like to talk to you about an issue we've been getting lots of feedback on lately for Aion: Classic. Specifically, about how certain items are not being included in the droplist or with unexpected drop rates for certain zones and in the open world – to put it broadly: the "drop rate issue." Although this change was applied to all regions including our own, it clearly is not representative of our region’s needs. We have been continually taking your feedback to discuss this issue with HQ and as of this week, we have almost finalized an agreement.  

We stayed silent longer than we would typically do so, because we wanted to have a resolution in place before sharing it with everyone. We are working to finalize the resolution for our region over the next couple weeks, and we will share it with you as soon as it is decided. This is (and has been) our highest priority and will be implemented as quickly as possible.

We know this has taken a heavy toll on the community and want to reassure you all that we have been reading all the messages from Rin and our other Community Managers, as well as the other posts on the forums. Seeing all our incredibly passionate players dealing with such a strong pain point for so long without a resolution is unacceptable to us, and we have been working tirelessly to ensure that our solution will address your needs. We appreciate each and every one of you and we are continually trying to improve our service of the game.

To help the community while we wait for these changes to come to Classic, starting next week we’ll be running the following events:

• Dungeon Delve Returns
• Fantastic Login Bundle Season 2
• Mega Boost Festival
• 200% EXP
• 200% Abyss Points Gained
• 200% Kinah dropped

We look forward to celebrating Aion for many more years, and from us here at NC, we hope we can all come together to create a better tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Aion Producers: Loki, Andrew, and Min.

https://www.aiononline.com/en-us/news/aion-classic-producers-letter-july2022

 

[Valeraa]

3 hours ago, Easycrow said:

We stayed silent longer than we would typically do so, because we wanted to have a resolution in place before sharing it with everyone. We are working to finalize the resolution for our region over the next couple weeks, and we will share it with you as soon as it is decided. This is (and has been) our highest priority and will be implemented as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately this is going to be too little too late for most people.  Especially since it's still not going to be implemented for the "next couple weeks".  Their subs might go up a little if people just add more bots to their roster though since they're most likely not going to introduce any kind of bot enforcement.

[Attestant]

4 hours ago, Easycrow said:

To help the community while we wait for these changes to come to Classic, starting next week we’ll be running the following events:

• Dungeon Delve Returns - I'm assuming it would be like last time. Does barely anything to help considering no one is going to clear a whole instance for a few mildly interesting drops. We need manastones! We need recipes! We need materials! At this point a few more fabled gear drops isn't interesting.
• Fantastic Login Bundle Season 2 - What is this, Broken Crystal Balls? Going to assume it is since nothing was told about it.
• Mega Boost Festival - Absolute rubbish for drop issues, does nothing.
  • 200% EXP - Fine. I could level up a toon maybe. Irrelevant though.
  • 200% Abyss Points Gained - I rather have no AP penalty for dying and it would get the officer players to come out of hiding.
  • 200% Kinah dropped - Change this to +200% drop rate buff otherwise this does absolutely nothing in all areas. Even then doesn't do anything really.

See notes above.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Motgar-KT

[Loadrng]

4 hours ago, Easycrow said:

  

We stayed silent longer than we would typically do so, because we wanted to have a resolution in place before sharing it with everyone. We are working to finalize the resolution for our region over the next couple weeks, and we will share it with you as soon as it is decided. This is (and has been) our highest priority and will be implemented as quickly as possible.

 

That was the dumbest decision ever. Why not just say "hey guys, we are dealing with this and we will fix it asap". How else would we know that you are even reading the reports? For all we know you don't give a rats ass about the players.

Damn you need to get your shit together because classic is going down way faster than retail and I'd say that comunication is one of the biggest issues around here.

[Ontwo]

3 hours ago, Loadrng said:

That was the dumbest decision ever. Why not just say "hey guys, we are dealing with this and we will fix it asap". How else would we know that you are even reading the reports? For all we know you don't give a rats ass about the players.

Damn you need to get your shit together because classic is going down way faster than retail and I'd say that comunication is one of the biggest issues around here.

They probably weren't even considering it until they saw the community getting to the point to where they realized we just weren't putting up with it anymore. A few more weeks of discussion? A zoom call could fix this, reset drop rates back to the way they were at when classic released and they'd be done. 

100% guarantee why they want a few weeks to work this or come to a resolve is because absolutely nothing has been done prior to them saying "oh crap lets write a community letter." 200% kinah drop rate, what good is that? There's nothing that drops kinah.

[Jake-DN]

1 hour ago, Ontwo said:

They probably weren't even considering it until they saw the community getting to the point to where they realized we just weren't putting up with it anymore. A few more weeks of discussion? A zoom call could fix this, reset drop rates back to the way they were at when classic released and they'd be done. 

100% guarantee why they want a few weeks to work this or come to a resolve is because absolutely nothing has been done prior to them saying "oh crap lets write a community letter." 200% kinah drop rate, what good is that? There's nothing that drops kinah.

I mean the Jotun hat chest in Lower Udas is gonna give you like 4m-5m a pop or so now.

[marikazan-KT]

@Lokiand team

While its good you have responded,the fact remains that you guys literally ignored the ENTIRE community before 2.0 hit,and now have caused immense damage too the game.

We pay for a sub for a 14 year old game all items should be relatively easily obtainable ingame.

Making players pay for Stigmas on top of a sub is a disgusting business model.

Gearing why bother purchasing gear when attack 5s are going for over 1million each attack 4s around 5ook each and virtually no supply only whales can afford that.

Events are extremely lacking and offer little incentive.

Quna shop has had loads of suggestions and still nothing useful gets added just more candies.

Finally your communication to the players is really dismal and you still seem too treat the na market with contempt and think players are going to tolerate poor service a second time round.

The fixes take far too long too implement and the game bleeds players,how can P.server manage a game better with only 1-2 people moderating it than a multinational company with a office in the na region?

Every thread in forums talks about how slow you are to fix real issues and your lack of communication with the players,these things need so much improvement and doing the same mistakes with a 14 year game shows your not learning from retail at all.

[Attestant]

I personally think they should also rework how much AP you obtain from Rank 9 ~ Governor so it isn't so classist and lower AP penalty for everyone dramatically. When I see a Rank 9 I just want them to nyerk off because they aren't worth anything to kill and they will only risk me losing a bunch of AP. They don't fix that after this, we gonna have population issues still because no one would want to PvP.

[Jake-DN]

12 minutes ago, Motgar-KT said:

I personally think they should also rework how much AP you obtain from Rank 9 ~ Governor so it isn't so classist and lower AP penalty for everyone dramatically. When I see a Rank 9 I just want them to nyerk off because they aren't worth anything to kill and they will only risk me losing a bunch of AP. They don't fix that after this, we gonna have population issues still because no one would want to PvP.

 

Or you can pvp to pvp and not care about rank. It's not until ~5 star that it becomes an issue, and unless you're hoarding rank, just go derank and have some fun. 

AP itself is handed so freely right now. 

[Easycrow]

Reading between the lines, and this one specifically:

Quote

We have been continually taking your feedback to discuss this issue with HQ and as of this week, we have almost finalized an agreement.  

This is probably the single thing that's kept any real change from happening. A massive disconnect between the people with the raging dumpster fire in front of them vs. the people above in the penthouse of the apartment complex eating caviar. Imagine shouting up to them from the street about this mess, they wouldn't even hear you let alone care. 

Let them eat cake. Or perhaps, let them eat Quna.

[Attestant]

Jake is confused and in the wrong forums.

Also:

3 hours ago, Easycrow said:

Let them eat cake. Or perhaps, let them eat Quna.

Marie Antoinette never actually said that by the way.

[Cyfur]

Anyone else think the drop rates are terrible again since the 2.4 update?

 

[Kaldronic]

Drops are horrible, I watched an old Youtube video of people doing Esoterrace just to remind myself of the instance, and they got more Balic mats in their single run then I've seen drop in total since 2.0 launched.

Its hard to overstate how bad NCSoft has nerfed drop rates.

 

It still costs north of 1 billion just to get Master Weaponsmithing... months after 2.0 launched... it's insane.

If you wanted to review the run I watched, with balaur mats dropping

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Kaldronic
words

[Cyfur]

I have done some tests and I am now certain that  the drop rate now is far worse than it was before the 2.4update.

 

[Conman]

I bet you they got the new patch with the old droprates again... I'd not be surprised. It has happened in retail.

[Cyfur]

I did a couple of tests.

I ran Kromede's Trail 5 times in a row, with a L37 toon, normally I would have to empty stuff out of inventory before the last boss to make room.

That didn't happen, after 5 KT runs; killing all mobs, inventory was only just over half full.

Then I did a Taloc run, at L51 and it didn't even half fill inventory and I did a full clear looting all mobs.

In short, the drop rate is terrible, kinah burn is also too high, the cost of skill books, manastones, forget about enchant stones, there are hardly any on the brokers. Those things will be linked to the bad drop rate.

Bots all over the place in Theo and Inggison, my gut feel is there are more bots online at any given time than actual players.

Nothing I put on the brokers sold after 3 days yet I was the lowest price.

I also notices the EXP from campaign quests in Theo was about 2x that of the Inggison campaign quests, yet you need more EXP per level. A deliberate EXP nerf to make you burn up more subscription time.

In short, it's a mess.

Lucky I only bought a 3 day daeva pass.

 

[Nsn]

The 2.4 update over-wrote our custom drop table for NA and sent us back to the KR drop table

[Loadrng]

10 hours ago, Nsn said:

The 2.4 update over-wrote our custom drop table for NA and sent us back to the KR drop table

This is most likely the case...

[Neferupito]

lmao.

[Thraceian]

The drop rate was fixed for NA, kind of like it is right now NCSoft?   less than 300 subs and  0 open world drops.   Good job NCSoft, killed your own game yet again.  I wonder what Korean HQ mentality is.  Let's nerf our own game, destroy its content,  delete important changes, milk players for $ $ $ as much as possible then be in shock as to why we're losing players.  Korean HQ needs to be made aware the Western market doesn't work like the Korean market, where more $ $ $ dump from players = more gear. Players do not want that, the majority of players anyway.  They want a game where they can pay a sub, pay for skins or new content, but not pay for things that should drop in the game.    Manastones?  Should only come from the game, not from NCSoft's cash shop.  Enchantment stones? Should only come from the game, not from NCSoft's cash shop.  Reset scrolls? shouldn't exist.   The only commotion of things NCSoft should make money out of should be the subscription,  in-game skins, and new ingame content.   Every single company on the planet that has any remote level  of success, much higher than NCSoft's success anyway, exponentially higher, follows this pattern.  Instead of angering your player-base  more and more and turning them against you to the point where you drive the game to have less than 300 players left, maybe actually learning from past mistakes and stopping itemization of objects that should be available in the game?  Terrible management and response from HQ & Dev-Ops.  I'm surprised NCSoft hasn't been sued into the ground by now, considering all the gambling mechanics they purport upon their player-base.

[Squid]

Quote

Korean HQ needs to be made aware the Western market doesn't work like the Korean market, where more $ $ $ dump from players = more gear. 

This is what pisses me off about NCsoft the most. Aion 4.0 for NA launch was the best design in any game i have played. BDO and pearl abyss are currently replicating that same design philosophy and the west is just continuing to praise.

Unfortunately if you listen to the to NCsofts public conference calls you will understand that NCsoft are under to much pressure to replicate their mobile success. That along with their 2024 projection they genuinely believe their next big success is about to be T&L coming up.

The west is the least of their concerns right now because if they fail to meet expectations with T&L there is a high chance they will end up in free fall. The time to listen to the western Audience was 6+ years ago now. The West is their worst performing region YoY outside launches of new GW2 content.

Then you have the biggest problem with the Western audience, They are so sour. Dead games can come back from the brink if the players actually care about the game but the players care about themselves and only themselves when it comes to Aion's western audience.

Take AoE 2 that game went from people believing the game will be be gone to having tournaments sponsored by red bull. AoE 2 for multiplayer had ALOT of issues but the community behind it made it amazing. Aion's community can not replicate this because 95% of the player base hack/cheat/exploit in someway/RMT or all of the above.

No one in Aion wants to participate in a PvP tournaments despite PvP being the best feature Aion has to offer because so many people will cheat in them in some way or another so it can not even do PvP tournaments that are community hosted.

Anyways i ranted enough, At the end of the day NCAmerica have treated us the same way NCwest did so there is 0 point caring.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Squid

[Heathen]

@Wissp and NCSOFT really, really hate their player base in the US. 

 

DROP FIX WHEN??????????