What gives.....

Ok, most of the time, whenever the servers go down for the weekly updates, most updates aren't either detailed as in what's been added/removed/changed, or better yet, no details are given what-so-ever.

Lately, it seems that there has been a rather large reduction in the amount of drops in Life Stones. I don't recall ever seeing an 'official' update mentioning that little gem, but that's the typical NCNA treatment we've all grown to know and love/hate.

Now, I know the answer is almost certainly "NO", but I'm bored and have to ask out of sheer curiosity, just curious on the matter: IF you REDUCED the drop rate on Life Stones, is there any chance that you've actually INCREASED the success rate on getting something worthwhile out of a Life Stone?

Or (and I think this is the most likely scenario), You Reduced the rate of stones drops and the Success ratio (when actually get a SKILL-irrelevant of type) is still just as [censored]?

Is this from personal observation from hunting and not getting any from drops or because you dont see as many for sell in town?

If it's the second I would just remind you of what happend in the last week and would say that alot of items are no longer in circulation on all servers.

I only play 2-3 hours a night which isn't much for some points of view, But I have only gotten 2 life stones from drops since the were introduced into the game. I imagine the drop rate is the same and you are just going through a unlucky period. I know I have them I have been unlucky for 5 chronicles now.

Is this from personal observation from hunting and not getting any from drops or because you dont see as many for sell in town?

Both, actually and not some dead or dying server like Erica or Gustin, etc.

For example: between levels 40-50, I've gotten at least a dozen stones. For the next 20 levels, I get nothing. Before that, on my main, I'd sometimes get 2-3 stones per day. Now, nothing. This only been the case this month though.

Now, just as an observation: consider the fast pace of a Nuker or Archer xping, surely, there should be at least one stone that would drop on either my sub or my main class.

Server transfers: yeah, there have been a LOT of people transfering that might re-gear and re-augment, however, the ODDS of a 76+ running around and buying the whole market's worth of say lvl 46 regular stones is very low. They might buy out all 76, 70, 67, 64 & 61 stones to try and get a descent augment, but I realy don't see lvl 46's go out. Especially since the server transfered people only have 700kk at max to bring with them on transfer.

I'm not talking about no clan or names like acbreagge4w with shops selling hundreds of stones etc. I'm talking that prior to this month, there have been tons of regular player (clanned players of various grades) selling stones but now they all gone, or the ones that are there, sell one stone ie: 76 Regular Life stone @ 15kk+.

This is on Bartz by the way and not some dead or dying server such as Erica or Gustin.

As is, I've personaly gone a Month w/o a single stone drop, and many other people in my ally also said they've not had one drop for weeks on end.

i think one possibility is that the cause is the lowering of max level of mobs on the "old" leveling places from 80 to 78.

i think one possibility is that the cause is the lowering of max level of mobs on the "old" leveling places from 80 to 78.

How would that affect in any way mobs in areas such as VoS, FoD, BS and other 1x hp, under lvl 75 areas?

Only had 2 ls on my bd main (one just recently), when i aoe'd pavel with my bh i had a time where i got 5 stones in 2 buffrounds, you could compare it to full drops, some people get em all the time, others can get to s grade and never get one.

Only had 2 ls on my bd main (one just recently), when i aoe'd pavel with my bh i had a time where i got 5 stones in 2 buffrounds, you could compare it to full drops, some people get em all the time, others can get to s grade and never get one.

Right, I understand that my drop luck might be sucking at the time, however, that doesn't explain the dissapereance of most of the other non-bot player shops out there in giran selling the things.....

with as many people playing, and many more that have transfered, surely for example there would be more than 1-2 lvl 76 regular stones for sale?

I mean come on, there use to be a time(1-2 months back and before) when people treated the lvl 46 regular life stones as pices of crap and were sold between 50-150k. now recently a regular lvl 46 stone selling for 2kk? something's wrong and it's not in the patch notes....

luckyly there's a thread on these Gen section about FIXING the Drop rate that NC so diligently reads over and tryes to fix eh?

Umm seriously when was the last time you remember NCsoft NA commenting on the drop tables? That's right, never.

But generally yah, life stones do drop more rarely in Ct1 compared to IL

Its definately lowered. I remember when I would exp fotd with my nuker and get one per 2-3 hours.
Yesterday I was aoeing. Got me 8% on 77 with another 4 people in party and we didnt get any ls.

And number of mobs at pavel ruins seems to be reduced/changed, yesterday i went there to lvl my dorf and i have found less mobs of 2 types and more mobs of 1 type ( the worse type of course).

Pavel ruins are specific with spawns, it's not permanent. There seem to be some sort of "flow" in spawns. One while there were this mobs, another that ones dominating. And one day I spoiled 14 EACs per hunting session, other day same time same place like 2.

at lower lvls I see that I get a ton of lifestones....but when I get on my 76 soultaker and go xp at silenos ..some days I get 3 lifestones in 2 hours...other days I get nothing. So, in my opinion, it seems lifestones drop more at lower levels.

I have gone through so many life stones, and the best thing I got was a 20% rez... Others got wm10 or celestial shield their first time. I guess I'm just unlucky, but I am pretty sick of seeing +50cp, or +0.1 hp recovery or some other crap :). It's all about luck.

In regards to the drop rate, I have no complaints. At level 46 I would get 3 per day(mid and normal), at level 67 I get 1 per day, or none. That's how it should be. Higher level, lower drop rates... HOWEVER, it wouldn't hurt raising the luck or whatever a bit more for higher grade stones. I mean common, +50cp and +0.1 hp recovery from a mid grade 67 is messed up. And it happened 4 times with similar results...

Both, actually and not some dead or dying server like Erica ....

Now, for some reason I've always kind of liked you...but if you hate on my server I'm going to have to growl at you or something!

edit

Oh..but I have to agree with you on the cut in drop rate. I've definitely noticed it since the end of the last event....

I haven't seen any life stones since around the piggy event. And I hunt a lot of doom knights which are supposed to drop them (and use to at a fairly decent rate)

Go pole in GoE if you want low lvl stones galore.

low level stones are not useful except high/top grade which can be sold overpriced. :)

They are if you're only looking for +crit.

i doubt it. i think it's better improve your char after lvl 76 when it becomes some kind of pvp argument. improvement of pve looks like waste of resources for me, especially 75 and lower lvl pve.

+Crit is for PVP too. Especially for a class like Destroyer...

what pvp do you mean under lvl 76? :)

You can be lvl 80 and still die in a few hits from Frenzy.

I love my +40 crit on on soul bow - makes leveling a lot faster and cheeper in the long run... and in PvP, the crit rate is nice...

You can be lvl 80 and still die in a few hits from Frenzy.

this is obvious and does not change anything.

Hence why +crit is good in PVP. And the +crit from a lvl 49 stone is the exact same as from a lvl 80 stone, its +crit. Only difference is, I can go pole with my dwarf and get a [censored] of lvl 49-58 stones, or I can go hunt with my main and sell all the 76-80 stones for a nice profit. Both will yield the same +crit stats anyway.