Trade deal "curious item" drop is ridiculously low.

[THP]

was looking forward to a new global event .....NOW.... i dont want to even try this... i cant imagine doing 2-3-4 hours of suppose fun gaming time to get not even a crap deco reward...whats happened to the days of the treasures of tokuna etc etc... they WERE FUN

 

[Promathia]

was looking forward to a new global event .....NOW.... i dont want to even try this... i cant imagine doing 2-3-4 hours of suppose fun gaming time to get not even a crap deco reward...whats happened to the days of the treasures of tokuna etc etc... they WERE FUN

You realize the global event has 4 more parts yet to be activated right?

 

[TheGrimReefer]

It seems to have slowed down a lot. I was pulling 3-4 per hour or so and now I'm luck to pull 1 in an hour. Of course the 1 I do get is one I have 4 of. I have yet to receive Rolled Map, Goblet, Folded Stole, or Scourge but have multiple of others.

 

[ShriNayne]

I have done this every day since it started, dozens of runs, and I still only have 2 items. Sometimes I get ambushed half a dozen times on one run, but still nothing. Between the low drop rate and my spawn being stolen by other players, usually tamers, since when the spawn lands in the guard zone I can't get my RC out, I'm really starting to lose the will to keep doing this.

 

[MalagAste]

Things I have found while trying to do this event:

1. Doesn't matter if you have luck or not drop rate is still abysmal.
2. Doesn't matter if you take someone with full loyalty that gets 5 line items to take or a newb doing 1 liners... drop rate is still abysmal.
3. Seems whenever I fail ie: I die or quit the quest for whatever reason *(have to eat or go to work or bed or server down) getting ambushers to spawn next trip is near impossible and can take over an HOUR or more... Or won't spawn at all in 2 hours until I've successfully turned in a trade.
4. Be in a clear area LARGE enough for that stupid flaming cart to spawn... walk where there are larger clear areas NOT near any housing, server lines, guard zones or dungeon entrances... etc... Clear open wood... you get FAR more to spawn this way.
5. Seems when you get up to where the "payout" is somewhere close to 200k the ambushers quit spawning and it's time to turn it in... somewhere around 9 Ambushes...
6. Demonic Amulets are the bulk of the "drops"... followed closely by phylacteries (Though I don't seem to get those just amulets).
7. You can't use barding skills at all on the mobs... which sucks.
8. You can go HOURS without getting a drop at all.
9. If you keep walking after the stuff spawns it seems to draw everything nearby into it's spawn "point"... and that moves with you 2 or 3 times. This also includes gathering in other mobs already in the area like corpsers, reapers and even the occasional NPC or wandering healer...

All the clothes and such is not really a drop, nor are the blue hatchets and there are also blue staves as well... This also includes that cool looking bear mask that is green and black... not a drop... just interesting clothes they wear.

 

[Zalan]

I've gotten 2 drops in 3hrs in Gargoyle land. I recommend leaving the crate empty in case you die. At least you won't res with items in your pack from the trade order. After 9 spawns fill up the trade order and turn it in.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Promathia is right.. a lot of folks used to complain they did not get an item during an arc to have a "keepsake" of it. These pieces could easily be that. Most likely just little clues to let us know the mobs ambushing are into some freaky crap...

 

[ShriNayne]

I've been on 3-liners since last night, still nothing.

 

[Tina Small]

Promathia is right.. a lot of folks used to complain they did not get an item during an arc to have a "keepsake" of it. These pieces could easily be that. Most likely just little clues to let us know the mobs ambushing are into some freaky crap...

It's difficult to believe someone who tells you the items are worthless when that person has also posted that they are playing the game afk to get the items. Why put your account at risk in the first place, by playing afk, and then compound that risk by describing it on a public forum, if the items have little to no worth?

 

[Larisa]

How I see this part of the Arc? A way to help the cities because the citizens are afraid to run trades in fear of getting ambushed.....coffers are drying up, cities are in desperate need of supplies and WE are the ones to help....the items we find? Curious....what do they mean? We don't know....the detailed descriptions have me thinking that we MAY need them...but we don't know...right now I am in RP mode....help the cities fill their coffers and make the citizens happy and get lots of resources and pinks in the process

 

[GarthGrey]

Did 5 liners on LA...not a single item...1 of the trade routes I was ambushed 6 times..each one had 5 attackers.....30 total in just that one route...

 

[Prince Erik]

Just a little???

IMO it blows... and it's a steaming pile of manure...

and if I were to rate this event so far I'd give it a -4... First off it's the same thing we been doing for the last few years if you supported City Treasury which I have being a Governor felt the need to do 100's of trade deals over the years... secondly the stealing stuff and it not being returned, buggy beginning holding it up for 2 full days, excessively LOW drop rate with NO real reason for it at all excepting @Kyronix and his craptastic love of grinds, and the souped up burning, flaming gargoyles on steriods that can shoot fireballs from hell from 2 screens away..., as well as the fact it can't be done or gotten in FEL (that's right you heard right I'm not to happy it can't be done in fel)... the way that even if you are great and have maxed out your trade runs to the top level that doesn't have any effect on the abysmal drop rate, and the sadder fact that this is just the beginning of what is sure to be MORE grinding.... I just want to head/desk. Seriously IT'S THE FREAKING 20TH ANNIVERSARY @Kyronix! IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE OVERTHETOP FUN!!!!!! NOT DULLSVILLE....

Well, consider that the 20th anniversary should be the epitome of the last 20 years of experiences encapsulated into a single event arc. If that's the case, then I think this event arc NAILS it.... changing how UO works after all this time probably wasn't going to be in the cards.

 

[Lady Kyo]

I don't know that I've ever posted to complain about anything in this game but after at least 40 hours of doing trade deals and getting 8 "curious items", it's pretty frustrating. I'm walking between trade deals and getting a decent number of spawns but the tightwad beasties aren't giving up anything special. Is this even being looked into because I know I'm not the only one who is disenchanted.

I don't know what happened, but I actually submitted a bug report because I have been doing trade quests for over 6 months now and do 5 line items. Sometimes I get no ambushers and get crap rewards from the trade minister and I DO walk to each city, I do not take the moongates. If I get ambushed, I have not yet gotten any "unique items" in the loot and still get a crap reward (132 dragon scales or 172 boards). So, I did submit a bug report on this that the reward is way to low and cheap for 5 line item runs and the "loot" is nonexistent after several days or running them.

 

[Zero]

I just logged on LA to hear one of the no lifers say they have gotten 520 items. That's all I've got to say on that.

If you do have a life, maybe not be jealous of people who only have some pixels. Specially based on hearsay.

 

[ShriNayne]

I've noticed something odd, I'm only getting drops on Brigand corpses. Still only had 4 items but every one came from a Brigand! Two drops in 5 hours solid trade quests seems a bit mean.

 

[SlayerofBunnys]

Spent about an hour in Ter Mur with both an unfilled order and an unfilled order.. did not see any more ambushers than I do in Tram nor did I see any increased drops. In fact I did not receive any drops in the hour I was there.

Also, heard about amushers spawning in Ilsh.. have spent 45 minutes there and have not gotten a single ambusher spawn..

I remember when the trades first came out I took a trade to Ilsh because I thought it was the only place to buy whatever the request was (I was mistaken). An ambush popped not far from the moongate with 3 of the 4 being paragons. Wasn't pretty and I never made THAT mistake again.

 

[Mama Faith]

I do think that Larisa has the right attitude about it and I started the new trade deals with that in mind. I am on a small shard and all of my governor friends' coffers were draining so adding to their treasuries is still enjoyable. I just wanted to know if others are having the same problem with doing the long walks (I don't run) and getting attacked at least 7 times/trade deal and no drops. Does luck play into it? RNG? the paths we take? how quickly we kill them? It's not in me to complain just to be complaining. Maybe I was asking too much but I just wanted to see a short post by one of the Devs saying, "Don't worry about the drops. It'll all come together in the end". Dye my hair blond and call me, "Miss Pollyanna".

 

[Uvtha]

But you DID join in on the storyline. Collecting all the items isn't part of the storyline. You found out that 1. Trade routes are being ambushed and 2. The people doing the ambushes are carrying some weird ritual stuff. That's it, that's the storyline right now. Its just the precursor to the meat of the storyline to come. Part 2 is supposed to come out on the 23rd.



*** This reminds of the prepatch to the Legion expansion in WoW. The cities had Doomsayers which showed up, they handed out pamphlets. There was an achievement to getting all the pamphlets, but it was completely random + you could only get one like every 20 minutes. There were also mobs which spawned randomly in the city, with a lengthy respawn timer, which had a chance to drop a toy. It was grindy as hell, and some people who grinded it out Im sure made gold selling those toys later. But that was as much the "Storyline" as this is. Its just a forshadowing of future stuff to come.

While I think the drop rate is a bit too low, I have to agree. You don't have to collect every last item that appears. Get a few, and call it good, and wait for the next part of the story. Or obsess, play 12 hours a day and stress yourself out when you still don't get them all.

 

[GarthGrey]

There is plenty wrong when part of the population reports quite a few drops, while others reporting 0. That's not random, thats wrong.

 

[Slayvite]

Whatever the next part brings.........god i hope it's nothing to do with Liches........i HATE liches!!!!!!!

 

[Riyana]

Whatever the next part brings.........god i hope it's nothing to do with Liches........i HATE liches!!!!!!!

Nearly 20 years into UO, that lich laugh still makes me think I'm about to die.

 

[outcry]

5 drops so far and way over 300 quest done so it is one drop every 60 ambushes for me....... So not worth it

 

[ShriNayne]

Same here, I have a mortal terror of liches...these ones are especially nasty, then they laugh at you!

 

[Yadd of Legends]

What if we need to activate some kind of altar or portal with one of each item, but it only needs to be activated once for the entire shard - ?

 

[Khaelor]

Nearly 20 years into UO, that lich laugh still makes me think I'm about to die.

I tell people I play with I have a PTSD flashback every time I hear a lich laugh.

I feel the stress hormones being released and prepare for my death.

 

[King Greg]

They should of just of made these a reward from turning in a trade... 5% For 1 liner, 25% For 5 Liner.

This is dumb.

 

[MalagAste]

Wasn't liches for me... was that strange demonic babble of the Gargoyle... I still remember being in the woods outside Britain hearing some odd voice say something I couldn't understand and then the screen flashed and the world turned shades of black and white... I had no idea what it was.

 

[Prince Erik]

I still get angry hearing a HIND bleet since that's the first thing that killed my first newbie character 20 years ago.. For many years I made sure every darn hind I ran across died a quick death to the point that guildmates thought I was mentally unbalanced.

Oh and don't get me started on orc mages... grrr!

 

[Mama Faith]

Mine is reapers and dryads. Killing the dryads is soooooo worth losing karma. Calm me, will you!

 

[Basara]

There is plenty wrong when part of the population reports quite a few drops, while others reporting 0. That's not random, thats wrong.

That's explainable by one thing.

We're STILL using the broken, streaky, RNG of old. The one where you can fail 8 50/50 shots (like smelting valorite, for example) in a row, more times than a fair RNG should allow. Or miss 6 times in a row with a 90% hit chance, or get hit 6 times out of 10 by something with a 10% hit chance. I've seen all of these, FAR more common than basic probability should allow (and as a former Math Teaching major that had to drop out of college due to health as a senior, I calculated how out of whack they were back when I still could remember how to do the calculations).

Draconi was the first dev to seriously listen to complaints about the RNG, and found what the others couldn't. The RNG is prone to streaks, but since the streaks are EQUALLY LIKELY to occur at any point in the RNG curve, they balance out to where they cannot be seen by the standard "we'll run X million samples to look for outliers" type tests. Only by examining many, much shorter, runs (hundreds of samples) do you see the streaks.

He was testing a replacement RNG on his own time, and hadn't brought it in for official testing, when he and most of his coworkers were laid off post-KR.

 

[Basara]

Other factors affecting the drop types:

Commonality of the category types

Phylactery Type - Undead: Spectres, mummies, skeletal warriors, liches.
Demonic Amulet - Demon: Imp, Gargoyle, burning gargoyles (multiple types), Demons *
Gorget - Reptile?: Drakes, Snakes (not had any of these drop, so can't confirm)
Repond - Not got a drop off of Ogres, trolls or orcs yet.

*Do Hell hounds fall into the Demonic Amulet category? I've not heard one way or the other

All the remaining items are off humans, and may be off specific subtypes of humans (by dress)
That's 8 different items off humans which average about 2 humans per ambush (but can be as low as 0, or as high as 4 of the 5, that I've seen)

There's where the drop imbalance would seem to be. Too many demons and undead, too many other items spread across too few humans.

 

[Larisa]

Well today the RNG seems to hate me...as usual

Done 2 trades:

Ambush 1:
Wraith
Lich
Deamon
Giant Serpent
Brigand

Ambush 2:
2 Brigands
Skeletal Knight

Ambush 3:
3 Liches
Wraith
Hell Hound

Ambush 4:
2 Brigands
Mummy

Ambush 5:
4 Brigands
Imp

Ambush 6:
Lich
Hell Hound
Fiery Gargoyle
Wraith

Second Trade:
Ambush 1:
Gargoyle
Imp
2 Brigands

Ambush 2:
Drake
Imp
Brigand

Ambush 3:
Hell Hound
Giant Serpent
Gargoyle
Flaming Gargoyle
Lich

Ambush 4:
Flaming Gargoyle
Brigand

Ambush 5:
Skeletal Knight
2 Brigands
Flaming Gargoyle

43 Kills, no drops...YET! ~Sighs~

 

[Uriah Heep]

wanted to see a short post by one of the Devs

You must really have Faith, to even dream of such a thing

 

[Larisa]

Well I guess it helps to complain a bit

3rd Trade, 28 Ambushers Killed, 2 drops, Trapped Soul and Amulet...Still need Folded Stole, Goblet and Wand!! ARGH! lol

 

[Dot_Warner]

The brigand fort needs the human drops on them ASAP.

Tired of getting undead and demons 90% of the time.

 

[Great DC]

People that run multiple accounts at once with trade orders get ambushed a lot due all of them carrying chests. This quest just feeds them like em events feed them. If your not running 5+ accounts at once your just a unimportant customer in their eyes. Im running just one client and have gotten 20+ drops but like most people its all amulets and trapped souls. Would have been nicer if they just added quests that you did and got the item specific to that quest.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

People that run multiple accounts at once with trade orders get ambushed a lot due all of them carrying chests. This quest just feeds them like em events feed them.

Had not been commenting on that situation but have seen it first hand. As soon as one ambush clears another one hits and they all jump on it at once.... smh

 

[Great DC]

it doesn't even have to be illegally done. You can just run the accounts and have your chars auto follow with dbl clicking and just control one sampire to kill it all. extra accounts just mean more ambushers which in turn means more drops.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

True.. but if they are all in party and you have 5-8 different characters and they all attack it (which is being done).. all the chars get a roll at the drop instead of just one roll if you kill it on a Samp etc. .. and it only takes one char to loot the item(s).

 

[Dot_Warner]

UO must be singlehandedly keeping the KVM switch manufacturers from going bankrupt...

 

[Uriah Heep]

 

[Laura_Gold]

So hey.

I get about one ambusher item per hour.
If I were in the Black Horn basement instead, I could get two Minax items per hour.

For the duration of this trade mission omeletstorm I will not be re-stocking my Minax items vendor. I will instead offer to trade two Minax items for one ambusher item, and that's my covfefe for today.

 

[Marquis de Sade 209]

This is set up to benefit people that don;t even complete trade orders i have been running back and forth between minoc and vesper, no intention of completing trade order and am finally getting drops. The rewards aren't worth the effort more than half the time though, so this is better. It's sad that we have to do it this way to get drops.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Well... on a positive note... Part 2 should start tomorrow

 

[Great DC]

Well... on a positive note... Part 2 should start tomorrow

Then get turned off, then start again Thursday, then off again, then start again Friday........ LOLOLOL

 

[Larisa]

I finish my trade orders cus it's a super easy way to get pinks and fill the city coffers...on Origin that's a HUGE deal! lol

 

[skett]

I think I have spent more time playing UO than I have in the last 3+ years and I still haven't collected them all yet...

I think I'm ready for anther long break already....

 

[Promathia]

It's difficult to believe someone who tells you the items are worthless when that person has also posted that they are playing the game afk to get the items. Why put your account at risk in the first place, by playing afk, and then compound that risk by describing it on a public forum, if the items have little to no worth?

Standing still waiting for Ambushes to proc while watching youtube doesn't = being completely AFK putting my account at risk. Ambushes spawn? I play my character, kill the mobs myself, loot myself.

Also, I never said they wouldn't have worth. I'm a collector, of course I'm betting on them being nice to own in the future. What I AM saying is I don't believe they have any impact on the event arc.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Standing still waiting for Ambushes to proc while watching youtube doesn't = being completely AFK putting my account at risk. Ambushes spawn? I play my character, kill the mobs myself, loot myself.

Also, I never said they wouldn't have worth. I'm a collector, of course I'm betting on them being nice to own in the future. What I AM saying is I don't believe they have any impact on the event arc.

I've also noticed you can be ambushed standing still. It makes we wonder whether your chances of being ambushed are just as good standing still as walking? If so, why bother walking (except to actually deliver the order)? What do you think?

 

[Pawain]

Standing still waiting for Ambushes to proc while watching youtube doesn't = being completely AFK putting my account at risk. Ambushes spawn? I play my character, kill the mobs myself, loot myself.

Also, I never said they wouldn't have worth. I'm a collector, of course I'm betting on them being nice to own in the future. What I AM saying is I don't believe they have any impact on the event arc.

Your playstyle proves the drop rate is ridiculously low. Or you wouldn't have time to do that.