Sharpened Stygian Inferno Staff availability

stylepolice · March 2017

Dear @ZOS_GinaBruno , before telling me the boilerplate: "It's RNG, it's working as intended" please read the stats.

I have been trying to get the Sharpened Stygian Inferno Staff since two weeks.
For that I have been farming:
ca. 250 Public Dungeon Bosses in Coldharbour
ca. 80 World Bosses in Coldharbour
ca. 2300 Open World Chests (with Treasure Hunter CP Perk)
ca. 150 Treasure Chests (with Treasure Maps)
ca. 300 Coldharbour AP Boxes (1.5 Million AP)

for a total of ca 3.100 attempts.
To give you some perspective, I leveled Barrier from 0 to IV Replenishing Barrier just from opening chests. I deconstruct almost everything, but I kept one full "Blessed" set of Impenetrable, Divines and Sturdy. I also own 4 Sharpened Stygian Bows, 6 or 7 Sharpened Stygian Mauls, and Swords, Axes, Daggers, Bows and Resto Staffs from the three sets.

During all the farming I got < 3 > Inferno Staffs. 1 Infused, 1 Powered and 1 Defending. The droprate for Inferno Staffs is 1 in 1000 chances. With 8 traits to choose from it means the chance for a Sharpened Stygian Inferno Staff dropping is 1 in 8.000.

Even if I manage to pick a Treasure Chest every minute on average (which is hard to do when others also try to get a chance) this would account to 130 hours or 3 full time job weeks to get one staff. It also totally breaks any kind of immersion produced by the incredibly nice graphics and work that went into the detailed world environment. Instead I find myself calculating how I could improve my farm/hour speed.

(And no, there has not been 1 staff on sale during the last 2 weeks, and even though i kept spamming zone with the request and offering a good price I received zero offers.)

My question now is: Is this really "working as intended"? Because if yes, then your understanding of "fun" and "game" is totally different from mine and I could just stop trying.

t3hdubzy · March 2017

RnG means you could never get it no matter how hard you try.

stylepolice · March 2017

But you heard about probability, statistics and confidence before, have you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability is a good place to start if not.

When I thought this will only take about 300 or 400 runs I made notes from the Public Dungeon Bosses for about 80 runs.

Total Runs: 80
No drop at all (even though enough time passed between kills): 22
Prisoners: 23
Blessed: 21
Stygian: 14

Armor Pieces:
Hands: 27
Shoulder: 15
Shield: 2

Armor-Traits:
Reinforced: 7
Sturdy: 6
Well Fitted: 5
Training: 5
Prosperous: 4
Divines: 6
Impenetrable: 5
Infused: 6

Weapons: 14
Maul: 2
Greatsword: 0
Greataxe: 0
Dagger: 1
Sword: 0
Mace: 0
Axe: 0
Inferno Staff: 2
Ice Staff: 1
Lightning Staff: 0
Restoration Staff: 3
Bow: 5

Weapon Traits:
Powered: 4
Decisive: 4
Precise: 2
Defending: 1
Sharpened: 0
Training: 3

Nestor · March 2017

ZOS needs to Nerf Sharpened

stylepolice · March 2017

I can neither confirm nor deny whether sharpened needs a nerf - because I can not get that f*cking staff in the first place...

brandonv516 · March 2017

But it's stygian...meaning BoE. For the hundreds of runs it took you, it only took me 5 traders to find it for 100k. That 100k did not take that long to earn.

Basically, go capitalize on someone else's RNG. Now if we were talking about BSW or VMA there is no purchase option.

Lexxypwns · March 2017

brandonv516 wrote: »

But it's stygian...meaning BoE. For the hundreds of runs it took you, it only took me 5 traders to find it for 100k. That 100k did not take that long to earn.

Basically, go capitalize on someone else's RNG. Now if we were talking about BSW or VMA there is no purchase option.

BSW grind is disgusting. VMA is worse...

Rittings · March 2017

This is why I think we need a "token" system - in dungeons, and in open world content.

Let's say, for instance, you have a similar thing to WGT and ICP - 150 opens a random chest... but for 500 you can choose your item you need with random trait - for 1000 you can choose the item AND trait. Still farming required, but after many fruitless hours, you can purchase with all the farmed tokens...

Apply to ALL dungeons...

Open-world tokens? These could be obtained by trading in items you do not want of the sets that dropped in that area. Or, you could have a chance of getting a token for those when you deconstruct a set item from that area.

Farming still required - but the idea that you are striving towards something, rather than hoping to get lucky, means you have more incentive to continue - and more incentive to play

t3hdubzy · April 2017

Rittings wrote: »

This is why I think we need a "token" system - in dungeons, and in open world content.

Let's say, for instance, you have a similar thing to WGT and ICP - 150 opens a random chest... but for 500 you can choose your item you need with random trait - for 1000 you can choose the item AND trait. Still farming required, but after many fruitless hours, you can purchase with all the farmed tokens...

Apply to ALL dungeons...

Open-world tokens? These could be obtained by trading in items you do not want of the sets that dropped in that area. Or, you could have a chance of getting a token for those when you deconstruct a set item from that area.

Farming still required - but the idea that you are striving towards something, rather than hoping to get lucky, means you have more incentive to continue - and more incentive to play

I like the idea of turning in the junk for tokens, but again, i dont want to grind more than say an 8 hour shift to get one item.

I think that items should be given at the completion of content, and those items should be worth something.

Are you telling me i just slayed the greatest beast in all the land for 5 gold and a piece to deconstruct?

Maybe a combination of say tokens drop and 1 gold quality item with ideal traits.

One person gets the ideal item, the rest get tokens.

Id be in favor of making dungeons more difficult to go this route.

t3hdubzy · April 2017

Nestor wrote: »

ZOS needs to Nerf Sharpened

Not a good fix. Ive grinded dungeons and failed to get 1 piece of armor from the set i want. The weapons in general sometimes are difficult to get of any trait

stylepolice · April 2017

brandonv516 wrote: »

But it's stygian...meaning BoE. For the hundreds of runs it took you, it only took me 5 traders to find it for 100k. That 100k did not take that long to earn.

Basically, go capitalize on someone else's RNG. Now if we were talking about BSW or VMA there is no purchase option.

Cool, sell it to me for 200k? Because I ran the circle Rawl Kha, Mournhold, Wayrest, Craglorn, Elden Root daily and had an auto-refreshing search with Tamriel Trade Center and got 0 results in 2 weeks.

UppGRAYxDD · April 2017

I agree with OP, it's alittle disheartening when u spend hours upon hours to get nothing...I gave up on getting a sharp 1h of Stygian after weeks of grinding. Almost 2 months later I finally found one on a trader, so happy hunting and may rngesus bless you...

Mystrius_Archaion · April 2017

stylepolice wrote: »

Dear @ZOS_GinaBruno , before telling me the boilerplate: "It's RNG, it's working as intended" please read the stats.

I have been trying to get the Sharpened Stygian Inferno Staff since two weeks.
For that I have been farming:
ca. 250 Public Dungeon Bosses in Coldharbour
ca. 80 World Bosses in Coldharbour
ca. 2300 Open World Chests (with Treasure Hunter CP Perk)
ca. 150 Treasure Chests (with Treasure Maps)
ca. 300 Coldharbour AP Boxes (1.5 Million AP)

for a total of ca 3.100 attempts.

How the hell do you do all that in 2 weeks?
The world bosses and dungeon bosses have a minimum 4 minute timer between loot or they give no loot, if they respawn on time, which would mean 250+80 bosses at 4 minutes each, not including travel time, is 22 hours total.
The treasure maps for those 150 chests do not stack and you get only 5 for the zone so that means 30 visits back and forth to buy them from somewhere or multiple accounts full of characters you stocked up on them and have to log into to mail/trade.
I don't even want to think about how long 2300 open world chests would take with the other players you compete with and their odd respawn timer/rules I haven't figured out for any zone yet.

Did you sleep? Are you ok?

And yes, RNG can be completely unfair especially considering the chance is per container and per boss a percentage chance, not linked and not per your character. It's a server side code so there is no weighting at all so the likelihood of you never ever seeing it is much higher than you think.
You're better off finding that staff on a guild trader.
FYI, you can get it in any quality and improve it all the way to gold. Don't look for only purple. I made that mistake before.

Mystrius_Archaion · April 2017

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

Almost 2 months later I finally found one on a trader, so happy hunting and may rngesus bless you...

OMG! I love that phrase. I'll have to use that from now on whenever somebody is counting on the "Royal Nightmare Grinder".

And yes, count your lucky stars the item is BoE and can be traded.

Mystrius_Archaion · April 2017

Rittings wrote: »

This is why I think we need a "token" system - in dungeons, and in open world content.

Nope. We need crafted items to at least be on par with open world BoE drops since they're the same BoE status and anything really special and meant to be insane grind should be, and mostly is, BoP.

The only times I know of them making any pass on the crafted sets for balance has been to either homogenize them for One Tamriel or to nerf them. They really really need a buff for sets that are clearly inferior to an easy to get dropped option.

stylepolice · April 2017

Another hour of farming later I can upgrade the number of Stygian Inferno Staffs by 1 -> Training trait. yay!

stylepolice · April 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

How the hell do you do all that in 2 weeks?
The world bosses and dungeon bosses have a minimum 4 minute timer between loot or they give no loot, if they respawn on time, which would mean 250+80 bosses at 4 minutes each, not including travel time, is 22 hours total.
The treasure maps for those 150 chests do not stack and you get only 5 for the zone so that means 30 visits back and forth to buy them from somewhere or multiple accounts full of characters you stocked up on them and have to log into to mail/trade.
I don't even want to think about how long 2300 open world chests would take with the other players you compete with and their odd respawn timer/rules I haven't figured out for any zone yet.

Did you sleep? Are you ok?

After the first casual runs I optimized quite a bit

Yes, treasure maps dont stack in your inventory, but you can have as much in your Inbox as you like. So I usually do one purchase run, ending up with ca. 30-50 bought maps. I then take one of them, e.g. Treasure Map VI which is at the north end. Open the chest, take the next VI, ride a bit away and back, open chest, ...
Once you figured out how far to ride it only takes about 30s for one round.

The Public Dungeon Bosses spawn in a rather predictable way, so by using endless-cloak as magblade I need 5 minutes for 5 bosses.

And regarding world bosses, my treasure chest run takes me past 2 boss mob locations - so I just kill them once in a while on my way past when I want to give the chests a chance to "regenerate".

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

And yes, RNG can be completely unfair especially considering the chance is per container and per boss a percentage chance, not linked and not per your character. It's a server side code so there is no weighting at all so the likelihood of you never ever seeing it is much higher than you think.
You're better off finding that staff on a guild trader.
FYI, you can get it in any quality and improve it all the way to gold. Don't look for only purple. I made that mistake before.

I have to admit I even thought about writing a small addon that does the statistics on what drops in what traits, because it looks as either:
- drop chances are not same for all items, or
- the RNG lacks randomness
- the implementation is faulty.

I would really love to throw some Regression Analysis on the drop statistics...

Draxys · April 2017

They should release stats on weapon drops like they did for undaunted sets when people were claiming the traits drop chances were not balanced. The system is still broken, but they were in fact telling the truth about the traits being evenly dropped over all players.

I would be interested to see their data on good weapon drops, or even weapon drops in general- because it certainly seems like the chance for good weapon drops is intentionally far lower.

Mystrius_Archaion · April 2017

stylepolice wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

And yes, RNG can be completely unfair especially considering the chance is per container and per boss a percentage chance, not linked and not per your character. It's a server side code so there is no weighting at all so the likelihood of you never ever seeing it is much higher than you think.
You're better off finding that staff on a guild trader.
FYI, you can get it in any quality and improve it all the way to gold. Don't look for only purple. I made that mistake before.

I have to admit I even thought about writing a small addon that does the statistics on what drops in what traits, because it looks as either:
- drop chances are not same for all items, or
- the RNG lacks randomness
- the implementation is faulty.

I would really love to throw some Regression Analysis on the drop statistics...

I did such an analysis for World of Warcraft once. It wasn't pretty.

The thing about the drops is all their odds of occurring are coded on the server. So the only way to guarantee you get a drop in the expected number of attempts is to be the only one making any attempts in all cases where the attempt can occur.
Here is a quick summary that should explain how messed up it is:
1) The zone itself is the main factor in what loot you get. So any copies of that zone on the server will reduce your chances by half for a second zone and 66% for a 3rd and down and down for however many copies based on population(thanks to megaserver architecture), but let's assume one zone.
2) The amount of players doing the same actions will decrease the odds by the amount of players, even if they aren't after the same thing. Say there are 24 other players doing things in the zone which could get them the staff. That brings your odds down to 1/25 or 4%.
3) Each different boss or treasure chest likely has its own chance calculated on the server to have that loot. So the above 4% chance for every 1 of 30 chests or so would be 1/30th of 1/25th or 1/750th chance now.
4) Assuming equal chance for any of the 3 zone sets to drop and equal chance for each item slot to drop and equal chance of any particular trait to drop....likely the odds of that are just 1/45th for a particular item type such as inferno staff and even lower considering they likely drop in at least 7 traits and not including non-set items....

The odds are quickly and easily down to 1 in 236250 even without any odds weighting to make certain things have artificially higher odds than others(like simple lock chests having lower odds than advanced and master chests).

You're actually very unlikely to even see a stygian inferno staff, let alone one with sharpened trait.

stylepolice · April 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

You're actually very unlikely to even see a stygian inferno staff, let alone one with sharpened trait.

The numbers would really be interesting, especially with data visualization techniques of today.

At least on the last part I say, that I already had 4 Stygian Inferno Staffs dropping, 1 Infused, 1 Powered (especially pointless with the named drop from the dungeon boss), 1 Training and 1 Defending.

mook-eb16_ESO · April 2017

Actually I opened some boxes from the pvp merchant and got one today, but the set is so bugged it doesn't work properly.

stylepolice · April 2017

Congratulations!

I switched from farming to trying to kill Sister Friede on my lvl 60 dex build without summons.

Curragraigue · April 2017

Take WB out they drop chest, legs and head. Take out overland simple and intermediate chests they have a very low drop of set items.

What you should have done was focused on public dungeon boss farming if you were serious about getting the weapon. 250 is not enough to be complaining about RNG.

waterfairy · April 2017

stylepolice wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

But it's stygian...meaning BoE. For the hundreds of runs it took you, it only took me 5 traders to find it for 100k. That 100k did not take that long to earn.

Basically, go capitalize on someone else's RNG. Now if we were talking about BSW or VMA there is no purchase option.

Cool, sell it to me for 200k? Because I ran the circle Rawl Kha, Mournhold, Wayrest, Craglorn, Elden Root daily and had an auto-refreshing search with Tamriel Trade Center and got 0 results in 2 weeks.

Did you try asking in coldharbour zone chat during peak hours? I did that in the public dungeon (which has it's own zone) asking for a stygian staff and a guy whispered me 6 different staffs.

Jitterbug · April 2017

Jebus... someone actually linked a wiki page to math theory? Some people...
This is obviously broken AF. 1/8000 and that is if they are even weighted evenly, which I doubt.
The soundest advice is seriously to give up... never mind the forsaken min/max - play happy in stead!
And yes, either nerf sharpened, or even better make infused, charged, and precise way stronger

Qbiken · April 2017

I have a sharp lightningstaff in my inventory (not sure what to do with it though). But the way you´ve been tracking every drop is the way to go in order to prove stuff.

Nestor wrote: »

ZOS needs to Nerf Sharpened

Someone take the community ambasador title of this persons avatar pls.......

mook-eb16_ESO · April 2017

just read on the PTS patch notes that stygian is being nerfed to 20% damage from sneak. so considering this set has stamnia bonus I doubt it will be much use anyway.