That’s a farce. Even the hardcore players opening 100+ chests of rank 100 treasure chests daily aren’t getting that. When you make up stories, make them remotely believable.
2 Likes
Half a dozen in just 6. But for just doing dailies and a few dungeons it’s a very high number. But RNG can be weird. I started with legendary + 1 mythic. And did a lot of wiping to get skirmishes to X and dungeons to X. I opened a lot of chests (400+ I think, mostly 90-100 of all types) and I got a mythic in about 1% of the cases. So far I got a divine bone sickle, a sacred bone sickle, an exalted jeweled orb, an exalted elven bow, dream hold walkers (fae touched). Kinda getting tired of weapons 
Reading other comments, I feel rather lucky. Especially the damage output of the elven bow makes life a lot easier.
Ever since they did the update I have got 22 mythic gear and a lot of legendary , 3 of those are exalted but I think you need to open about 100 chest to get one piece.
I believe they are telling the truth. That is the thing about RNG, some people get nearly no mythic items while others get a lot.
From level 35-76 what I have seen in my second account is that you could get legendry mythic and divine mythic maybe a sacred. So what I mean is a person who has a low level doesn’t have to play level 100 to get something big. You could play a lower level and get a divine and use it while you are able to get something better. So what matters here is you need to have a lot of keys and use food.
== Odds of getting a mythic item ==
From reading a bunch of replies/tests, I get the impression that 1% mythic drop is - on average over time - about the expected drop rate of a mythic item for 100-level chests. Lower chests also (apparently - I’ve not seen any drop yet, after all) drop mythic, presumably at less than 1%.
So let us assume that, on average, 1 item per 100 chests is the best-case expected return, farming 100-level chests.
If you’re a new player and anything mythic is cool, then that’s not bad. Because you’re still figuring things out and you’re pleased with whatever the RNG tosses you.
.
== CASE STUDY: A mid-level player ==
Now let’s take the case of a mid-game player. You’ve figured out your desired gear setups, and there are 2 pieces from a particular set that you want to get.
So you farm that dungeon. Since you can’t autofarm at a high level, you have to play actively, and it takes you, on average, 7 minutes to successfully farm that dungeon. (That’s about what it takes me, including failed attempts or restarts. I can survive 1-3 hits from an enemy… so I have to spend most of my time making sure I keep the enemy stunned until I’m buffed up enough to survive more hits.)
So, you have a 1/100 chance of getting a mythic. That’s, on average, 700 minutes of play for one mythic.
Ah, but there’s only 2 particular items you’re looking for. Meaning only 1/3 of the time will that mythic be what you want. So it’s not 700 minutes, it’s 2100 minutes on average.
(Of course, the probabilities are a bit more complicated – e.g. after 1400 minutes, i.e. 2 mythics, there’s a 55% chance you’ll have gotten one of the pieces you want. There’s also a chance that you could get 10 mythic drops - 7000 minutes – and still not get anything you were hunting. But we can use the simpler calculation to represent the expected results over all the different possibilities.)
2100 minutes to get one of those two pieces. But now you want the other … and that’s only 1 of 6 possible mythic drops. You’re looking for both pieces after all.
So now you grind for the next one – 700 minutes per mythic (on average) and 1/6 chance it’s what you want, so 4200 minutes to get it on averge. (Could be quicker, could be longer, depending on your luck.)
That’s a total of 2100+4200 = 6300 minutes to get the 2 desired items from the set. That’s ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE HOURS. … If you play this casual game as a full time job (40 hours a week), that’s over THIRTEEN DAYS OF FULL TIME GRINDING, just to get the two items you want from that set/dungeon.
And most customers aren’t full-time-PQ3 players. So it’s going to take them longer than 2 work weeks! If we define a “casual” player as someone playing 10 hours a week, that’s TWO-AND-A-HALF-MONTHS of grinding game play to get just 2 desired items from one dungeon.
How about if you want 3 particular items from the dungeon? … 1400+2100+4200 = 7700 minutes = expect nearly 130 hours on average.
And that’s just one gear set out of the (at present) 27.
And that’s only grinding for gear items. Doesn’t count time doing anything else in the game if you want to.
.
Yes, I could grind a lower level dungeon faster … but with a corresponding reduction in good-drop chance.
Say I could do a level 50 dungeon in 2 minutes, but with a three -fold reduction in drop chance. Then the two changes cancel out. I dont have a sense of what chance lower-level chests have of dropping mythic, but that’s probably a fair ballpark.
IE a reasonable working hypothesis is that the faster time to do a worse chest is offset by a corresponding reduction in mythic chance. So the calculations should be about right for that case too.
.
== THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ==
This is why the advance-only-by-random-drops has sabotaged the ability of players – particularly the non-end-gamers – to get the loadouts they’ve figured out they want.
This is why I maintain that it now takes LONGER to upgrade a particular item, despite the fact that you can get a mythic “instantaneously” rather than having to slowly improve an item over time.
Because the probability of getting a particular item is SO LOW that, odds are, you’d have gotten it quicker under the old system. Even needing all those glyphs and relics.
And, meanwhile, it’s just constant discouragement as you fail, over and over, to get the desired items from the random drop. No sense of making slow, reliable, measurable improvement.
.
Which means frustrated customers giving up or even quitting … much less likely to spend $ than those making progress who feel good about the game and want to speed up their advancement.
Certainly, they won’t get as “involved” or “invested” in their gear advancement as they did back when they had the sense of “agency” and “consistent progress” that the old upgrading mechanism allowed.
.
== WHAT ABOUT LOOT TICKETS? … Let’s do those calculations ==
Indeed, they’ll probably do what I have, which is to basically give up on advancing their gear, and only do auto-play and loot tickets. Autoplay will be at a low enough level that the chances of a mythic drop are negligible. And they’ll have a very limited number of dungeon loot tickets to use.
So, yes, with loot tickets, sure, I can “win” a level-100 chest faster than that 7 minutes. But if my crafter produces, say, only 2 dungeon loot tickets a day (she’s at level 45, and I think that’s about what I get as a ‘casual’ player who will log in 4-6x a day to check my tavern) then that’s only “saving” me about 15 minutes of grinding a day, or less than 2 hours a week.
So, yeah, I could try (in the example above) to get those 2 items from dungeons only using loot tickets. Then my expected time-to-completion for just ONE of the 27 dungeons – if I spend all my loot tickets on it – is SIXTY WEEKS (900 attempts, on average, with 15 dungeon loot tickets per week.)
That’s over a year to get 2 desired items out of a single dungeon using the loot tickets I’m generating.
That is not going to inspire me to spend lots of money trying to speed things up.
That’s going to make me GIVE UP and NOT CARE ANY MORE … and, in fact, greet the arrival of a mythic, when it does show up as a random drop out of the blue, not with exitement but with an apathetic, “yeah, that’s nice, but so what … I’ll still never get a significant amount of my gear upgraded. Ho hum.”
A very different response than I had when getting to a mythic was the reward I’d been consistently working towards, and devoting resources and game-play time to, and it felt like something I’d earned through time-and-money spent working towards that goal… not something just finally tossed my way by the capricious RNG gods.
.
== CONCLUSIONS ==
So, again, for both customer-retention, customer-happiness, and financial-income reasons, the devs would be well advised to return the ability to upgrade chosen gear to mythic.
That’ll increase the likelihood that new customers become long-term customers, since they find the game more psychologically rewarding, and it’ll increase the frequency at which long-term customers spend $ on the game, because they’re more invested in gear development and see spending money on that as a reasonable/reliable expense.
There’s enough gear to get, and enough different challenges, that restoring that ability isn’t going to suddenly make those customers “max out” and stop spending.
4 Likes
The drop rate I have calculated is around 0.8%, so I agree with that number.
2 Likes
Its much higher than that, possibly as high as it was getting an epic before or close to it at least.
Much lower than that for me. And for many others who have tested it. Your experience seems atypical.
That’s 1% or 0.8% over all level 100 chests, mind – not over just diamond. I.e. it’s what to expect from chests you get grinding by active play or loot tickets.
1 Like
I can attest that in the 2+ weeks it’s been I’ve gotten 5 mythics and definitely have opened well over 500 chests. That’s moreover without farming for specific mythics; these are just random mythics I’ve gotten in that time.
Someone in the same kingdom as me has gotten 1 in the same time, with playtime very similar to mine if not even more intense. RNG is definitely a factor because there is no stacking modifier for time between ‘good’ drops; the probability stays the same and it becomes a grumpy statistics problem but boils down to in 100 chests opened, a 63% (approximate) chance of getting a mythic. However, that chance is per player. So if you’re unlucky and RNG is against you? You can still be sucking wind. Since Higuro calculates it at .8% instead of 1% I’ll round down and say you’ve got 6/10 of a chance, or 3 in 5 odds, of getting a mythic somewhere in 100 chests.
And, of course, as many of us have experienced, the RNG can still be a kick in the pants and you can still go well over 100 chests without that, especially if you’re opening chests with lower drop rates such as gold on down…
2 Likes
Probably because your battle scrolls aren’t all level 50. Also other things factor in such as tickets and keys. Not thrilled about having to stop farming/cycling chests now though.
And this whole discussion is predicated - to an extent - on “either or”.
So what if the new system is prefered by some high-end players (who may be the only ones getting good drop rates).
So what if it gives comparable results by some calculations (I think faulty ones, but who knows).
.
Why not do both?
Keep the new drop system, but allow spending aether to improve chosen gear from honed version of one level to improved, unhoned version of next.
.
There is no doubt that some players are frustrated and quitting because this ability was needlessly stripped away.
So return it and make the game
- More appealing
- To more customers
- And thus more profitable
.
We can go back and forth comparing estimates of drop rates and time-to-specific-mythic … but, really, thats just arguing about how best to arrange deck furniture on the Titanic.
The SOLUTION to the obvious problem is simple: restore a path to upgrading chosen gear
3 Likes
Nobody has said officially that they have gotten drastically fewer mythics at a lower level chest. Personally, I have gotten them at both low chests and level 100 chests.
For myself, I have gotten 7 mythics and 3x that in legendaries, within probably about 500-ish chests (plus any I have salvaged, which have been a couple). Some of which I will use, and some of which will sit in my inventory until I need to try and cobble something together for VS which is not my jam.
I am still trying to chase the weapon in the color I want at the rarity I want, but some of that is a mix on what I am choosing to clear in my time. I am choosing to spend my tickets on the season dungeon, or a dungeon where I am chasing spells. A majority of my time in the last week was spend on gathering up dungeon clear tickets and skirmish tickets which will help speed things along in the future.
You choose where you want to spend your time. One doesn’t have to always do the dailies (I personally skip the VS which honestly does bite me in the end of the day but its no fun for me).
As an aside, I feel like your time that you have assigned to these runs are a bit inflated. If you are taking that much time, or actively playing - then bump down the difficulty. Get the chest faster, bank it to open and move on to something else. You might be surprised that good. things come from lower chests.
Been a while since you were mid-level I guess? 
I can beat 100-level dungeons if I keep the first opponent stunned while I make matches to buff up my defense – so that, for the next 2 enemies, if they get in a hit or two, I can survive.
Cost of that is having spells that are focused on keeping the enemy stunned and debuffed, not doing damage. With lower-level weapons and crit chances, I don’t do a lot of damage from skulls, though I do some.
Point is, that makes winning a 100-level dungeon for me about 4-5 min. It’s a fairly sure thing, once I get in that first stun (and if I’m careful not to kill an enemy at the wrong time!) but it’s slow. Add to that the cost of restarting to get a good start board, or having bad luck early on and getting one-shotted by a crit or 2 strong attacks.
I’ve tried higher-damage builds at the expense of stuns, and tried crit builds to do more weapon damage at the expense of buffs, but that just gets me killed a lot more frequently.
So, no, 7 minutes per level-100-dungeon win isn’t at all inflated. May even be a bit conservative.
I think perhaps it’s been a while since you’ve been fighting 100-level dungeons as a mid-rank player and forgotten just what a challenge it is … And I know there are plenty who have even more trouble - and take longer- than I do.
Fortunately, I got a good purple warlock build in place before 3.0 dropped and destroyed my ability to intelligently upgrade my kit.
Could do that, but at a reduction of good-drop chances. All the higher-than-epic drops I’ve gotten have been from level 100 chests, and I’ve rarely gotten even an epic from the lower stuff.
Now, if someone does the experiment (e.g. opening 100 level-75 chests) and finds that they give mythics at, say, 90% of the rate that level-100s do … then, yes, the math will support farming those instead, because the reduced time-to-win isn’t completely nullified by the reduced chance-of-good-drop.
Without that data, though, if I play actively (which I do rarely now – mainly only if there’s a good reward to one of the challenges), I’ll maximize my chances of getting something good from the chest.
.
And this is all still irrelevant to the basic observation:
Restoring the ability to upgrade gear to mythic (while keeping the rest of 3.0 in place) would make the game more attractive and more enjoyable for more customers and thus be more profitable.
Everybody wins.
2 Likes
I think its interesting you say that im not mid-level.
I am absolutely mid-level, skewing possibly a bit towards mid-early end after the update. I have said in posts that I came into the new system with 45/45/50, only two mythics and was incredibly frustrated and stuck. Until the update I didnt beat beyond a level 5 anything on my own.
I am now 46/50/50 - mostly because I had the weapon glyphs to get up on the weapon end of thing, 50 only yesterday after I finished the quest pass. I think the armor glyphs wont come any time soon and I will have to assume that a fix is in the works for that with 3.1 or 3.2. I asked my guild leader for a build, and I just leaned into it. My spells were very basic level, and over the new update ive gotten them to epic. They arent the best yet, but its at least at a point where I can beat a level 100 in a few minutes (4-ish) if I actively play and do the Dragon defense, and even hit the bonus boxes sometimes.
If I dont want to use a dungeon ticket, and I want to actively play then a level 100 might take me 4-ish minutes, maybe less, maybe a little more. Most times I choose to just auto a level 7-8 because its faster and I am looking to fill my chest slots. And again, you can get a mythic or legendary out of a smaller level chest.
I would much rather have the current system of “hey I got a good drop, and it was nice because I didnt get punched in a face with a dungeon that made me irritated or took WAY too long to complete” rather than an upgrade path that relies on gathering multiple items at a extremely rare drop rate to take them up. This would not be easily solved by substituting in aether, as it is a resource that is far too “easy” to get relatively speaking.
You’re ahead of me.
I came in at 45/45/45 and NO mythics … nor any glyphs to improve my scrolls.
I’m still at 45/45/45 (with little likelihood to improve much any time soon), 80% epic gear, and 20% legendary gear.
I did, finally, get one mythic today from a 100-level-diamond-chest I got from a loot ticket. First mythic from probably 200 (maybe more) level 100 chests … and first drop that’s any improvement to any of my gear.
Naturally, it’s in the least useful color, and a piece I only use in a handful of my builds, but it’s a bit of an improvement to those builds regardless.
Not the piece I’d have chosen to upgrade if I’d had the choice. More like somewhere in the lowest 20% of my “upgrade” list – and I have a fairly big list!
.
No one has ever suggested otherwise. The question is return-on-investment.
If it takes you 4 minutes to do level 100 chests and 2 minutes to do level 70 chests, but you’re 3x as likely to get a high-end drop (mythic or leg) out of the former, then you’ve reduced your reward-on-time-invested by 50%.
Without knowing the actual statistics, of course, we’re just guessing.
.
For me, I’ll go for the maximal chance with the 100-level chest if I’m actively playing.
Although, frankly, because even in the rare chance I get a mythic, it’s more likely than not to be something I neither want nor can use with my current heroes and builds … well, it’s not worth my time and effort.
I was willing to put in the grind when I was guaranteed a return in the form of being able to level up the specific gear I’d tried and selected at lower levels and wanted to improve.
But to sacrifice time, effort and money into some random drop I have no control over? … Not worth it.
So I don’t do much active play any more.
Which certainly reduces my investment in the game or my incentive to spend any money on it.
.
Maybe you would.
Many people don’t prefer it. Many people have complained about it and quit.
I, for one, certainly despise the current advance-only-by-random-drops gacha game that PQ3 has become.
Heck, I’d rather have the previous system back in its entirety rather than what we have now. I’d accept a slower progression to mythic-level gear in exchange for having the certainty of advancing that gacha doesn’t give, and for being able to selectively and intelligently advance the gear I want.
Nor did that require getting “punched in the face” by way-too-hard-for-me dungeons. I figured out the gear I wanted (by experimenting with a bunch of builds at low level), then got it at uncommon level in the right color, then gathered and spent resources on leveling it up. I didn’t have to play “get punched in the face” level dungeons to get the shards, runes, glyphs or relics I needed to progress all the way up to mythic.
.
But, again, the main point: WHY THE EFF NOT HAVE BOTH?!!
Why not keep the current 3.0 drop and gear system but add the option of upgrading fully honed items up to the next quality tier by spending aether
EVERYBODY BENEFITS THAT WAY
The game would become appealing to the “I like grinding for random drops” as well as the “I like grinding to improve my selected gear” crowds – regardless of who is “right” about the relative time it takes.
And the company would get more customers, happier customers and therefore more income.
There’s no downside.
1 Like
You’re ahead of me. I came in at 45/45/45 and NO mythics … nor any glyphs to improve my scrolls.
Ive been playing since probably July. Its just slow. A lot slower now (I find the glyphs needed to be a little out of control) but can only assume that there will be a fix for it at some point. The dev team likely keeps very detailed metrics on how fast people can level them, and if there is a huge drop in that, its quite likely there will be adjustments/compensation. If there is the expectation that new players should play every class, they will have to make some sort of adjustments because otherwise people will get overwhelmed and bounce. Fact of life
If it takes you 4 minutes to do level 100 chests and 2 minutes to do level 70 chests, but you’re 3x as likely to get a high-end drop (mythic or leg) out of the former, then you’ve reduced your reward-on-time-invested by 50%.
Without knowing the actual statistics, of course, we’re just guessing.
Its true, you are guessing. Yet you keep acting like its gospel that you 100% get better chests if you do it the hard way thats a better return on your time investment. Its not known. Just enjoy the game on the level you are on and roll with it. Figure out where small improvements can be made if you have a desired build/spells or only do the dungeons where you get whatever you are after. Simple as that.
I, for one, certainly despise the current advance-only-by-random-drops gacha game that PQ3 has become.
Its always been random in dungeon chests, one of X number of items from the set. (At least for as long as I have been playing). Sure you might have to play off color if you get something and it might not be perfectly ideal until you can change the color at a different follower level (which I do not have) but that doesnt hinder the enjoyment of what it is, or its set bonus.
The skirmish chests rewards are really weird and all over the place. I don’t love them, but I understand their place to some degree. I will typically salvage those if I dont have the food to open them, or the keys to burn and wait on just dungeon chests.
Just wanna jump in real quick and remind everyone that everyone has valuable opinions - everyone has different experiences and progress.
Let’s please not let a valuable constructive thread become a quote fight
4 Likes
I am comparing “random” meaning that you can only advance by random drops … to the “non-random” of being able to intelligently and selectively improve the gear you have in hand.
Yes, it may be random to get the gear, but, before, once you got it, in any quality level, you could improve it up towards mythic. THAT wasn’t random.
As for color… I simply upgraded gear I wanted to level 15, got a random color assigned, and then salvaged the gear if it wasn’t the a color I wanted/needed.
Took a while, but I managed to get most pieces in the colors I wanted that way, and WAY before I ever got any followers up to 50. (I still don’t have any followers who can change gear color … though Toragon is getting close, after 10 months or so of play!)
3 Likes
Not to worry Jeto, I think I am done engaging.
Ill end with if a person is willing to lean into this new system, and get some advice on builds/spells one might have a better time overall and do more damage. It seems like it might be a touch slow, but I hope that will be addressed come 3.1 or 3.2
I personally am looking forward to seeing what comes, as this gear rework entirely revitalized my like for the game.
1 Like