Revert or find a new 'middle ground' for bait drop rates

I think the nerf was waaay too much

 

Kinda agree & disagree , I've only been using Genesis on my Bishop & important thing to note is Single target skill will get more Bait
An hour of grind + 2 BPQ 'should' be enough point for a raffle . (Depends on Ice Box RNG)

The tweak I prefer to see is making Ice Box give consistent Bait , buffing the chance to get Bait & possibly lowering the number of Bait to (3) from (5) , there's changes like this in the past

 

It's really hard to find a middle ground, as there is a mixture of player base in the server. If you are familiar and do casually read through some of the posts in this forum, some players prefer things challenging and difficult but at the cost at losing casual players interest as you have described.

Edited: spelling

 

would love if the gm's could do more testing on drop rates before actually releasing events to prevent more back lash

 

Let me remind people: bad luck is not a bug. Kedrick has stated when you turn in bait directly that fishing is slightly more profitable and staff have no reason to lie about this. If you want to take the chance to gamble and fish then that's up to the individual user, but since fishing is rng based some people will be unlucky and some people will be more lucky.

Over the long term, fishing will always be slightly more profitable than turning in bait directly. That's up to each player if they want to do that.

 

"Long term" data when we're 2 days into the event

 

The EV seems closer to 2.25 points per bait.

The drop rates after the nerf have been abysmal though... I'm getting about 60% of what I was getting before. Please consider buffing it at least a little! A little birdie tells me that a triple mage farmer at ulu1 makes about ~70 bait per hour.

That means:

• >12 hours to get all 4 chairs
• >31 hours to get 50 APR
• >23 hours to get 25 raffles

I know players don't have to aim for all of this, but these are numbers for sweaty-sweaty players--the number of hours needed for not-so-sweaty players to get even a fraction of the rewards is probably horrendous.

 

Were casual players accomplishing both 50 APRs and 25 raffles in the previous event? I thought people ultimately had to make a decision between the two.

I'm glad they listened to community feedback and brought back viability of farming for those who prefer that type of content. However, some people were posting screenshots of having 'finished' the event within the first two days with previous rates. The above numbers don't seem too far off from last event's expectations.

Unfortunately there really is no middle ground for sweaty and casuals, and balancing around the sweaties will always serve to punish the casuals.
Personally, I think the trend of 'optimal' farming for event points in certain maps is hurting the server and contributing to burnout. Sweaties will sweat and will always find the next optimal path, but normalizing this type of optimized playstyle through balance changes will only turn more people away.

 

I feel like for most players, they're mostly driven to farm raffles and APR (for their next main) but less chairs (if it's attractive enough and if any future value).

Maybe, just maybe if the coin system were to take effect before the next event with raffles, ws/cs could possibly be removed from raffle (reduce some needs of farming event currency, less FOMO i guess) by then and it could be less attractive (assuming Face/Shoe/Ring remain) to most people and prevent unnecessary over farming and the event currency/points in future could be seen as something more towards side bonuses during grinds instead.

 

I mean who's saying you have to do anything? In the previous event, casual players had to pick between APRs, raffles, and event equips, and only sweatier players that ran multiple accounts set stretch goals to achieve beyond that. In this event, casual players see the cap and assume that they should be working towards the cap when previously they couldn't - by intended design. Therein lies the problem that if a cap is established, people will assume they are supposed to take it to completion.

Here lies another problem. You don't have to farm at these maps at all, and by doing so, you're pigeonholing yourself into only one type of content - the event. I'm guessing it's fairly easy to reach the 50 APR cap by card hunting or grinding your character casually, and by the end of it, you'll have progressed your character in addition to having partaken in the event bonuses. Had you just spent all your time at BL5 or HHG, you would have just gained a slight edge on drop rates, but you would have progressed your character in no other way.

To bring it back to Joot's point, 50 hours to achieve both 50 APRs and 25 raffles on one account is actually really good, imo. It's more than what was offered in the anniversary event to an individual account, and 50 hours implies 1-2 hours of playing daily, which isn't unreasonable. In fact, I'm surprised the easy access to raffles continued after the Halloween 2020 event. In all events prior, it was much more difficult and time consuming to collect enough event coins to purchase a raffle. The numbers above indicate that you can expect 1 raffle pull for less than an hour of farming. That's a better rate than the CWKPQ exchange.

 

I agree that the rewards cap may be having this negative psychological effect where casual players are feeling like they *have* to hit the cap in order to properly "complete" the event. In my opinion, for just a single character, 25 raffles and 50 APRs is already a huge reward. The # of hours per raffle can be somewhat misleading because you're probably getting other rewards such as EXP, meso, gach, and other items while farming for bait/boxes. I think it's better to think of the event rewards as bonus on top of what you would normally get from farming or training, unless you're really dead set on maxing out and collecting literally every reward possible, in which case you're not a casual player anymore and the high number of hours required seems justified.

 

I’d enjoy a small drop increase just because I want an excuse to hoe in the FM more. Farming on this first day, I did feel like the hoe:grind ratio was a little too high, but now it really feels like I have to really sweat out a grind session to get a satisfying amount of hoeing. For this reason alone, I agree there should be a better middle ground.

 

Less-than-decent drop rate is one thing. Being forced to farm the boxes and baits is a major issue for me.

All the previous event had good feedbacks on the various ways of gaining points, bossing/pq/event quest/farming, and now we are back to only farming.
Like it or not, hhg here we go again.

 

Haven't farmed in hhg a single time this event and I'm well over 1500 points in. You don't have to restrict yourself to the obvious farm maps that offer little to no other gain.