Well, I appreciate the attempt at playing devil’s advocate, but it’s undermined by the fact that you couldn’t resist countering your own argument.
I think the RNG exists to put a brake on the supply…I mean look at OD what even favorable chances do to a market and it’s not better if you make stuff guaranteed.
And even if you treat it like something you do twice and than never again that doesn’T make for amazing content. Like you spend resources on something interested people spend two times and than never again. Something I found a shame with the kyat castle. Like the rewards are so low that running any other action/sabotage mission is a better investment of time.
The systems aren’t necessarily balanced with the current population figures in mind. If the design were aimed at a larger pool of players then it makes more sense, it’s just that the current conditions are really optimal for anyone.
The RNG option is still better for the trading market, as there’s the chance that people will get multiple drops that they don’t need rather than only running it twice. The number of people contributing to the market is higher this way.
@Leogrim I think the RNG exists to artificially inflate play time, but that’s just me. Even if there were some consideration made specifically for the market, why should that matter? Plenty of other museum items are worth basically nothing on the AH. Unless, you’re making the argument that it’s important for the market to have some items going for ridiculously high prices to entice people to buy aurum to exchange for MoF. Then, yeah, I can see Funcom using that rationale.
As for only doing the mission twice, yes, that would be a bad design. You know what else is a bad design? Spending resources on content that some people can’t do at all due to bad RNG. And by your logic, people are only going to continue to do the new mission until they get both drops anyway. So that extends the number of attempts to 5 or so instead of just 2.
Imagine if the new mission were repeatable, either on the standard cooldown like most missions or once per day like DA, and the scaling and rewards were similar to the faction rank missions. Then they could put the museum items as a random drop from the two bosses. People would have a reason to run the new content repeatedly and Funcom could still have their precious RNG. It wouldn’t inflate play time all that much, but it also wouldn’t piss off nearly as many people. I just hope Funcom learn their lesson with this one and don’t try it again with future content (assuming there is any).
@AWOL So you’re taking the opposite stance as Leogrim and saying the RNG on the items makes them more prevalent in the market? That might be true if the items dropped at the same rate, which I don’t believe is the case. If one drops more often than the other, these same people who would only run it twice, would still only run it until they get both the items they need. The market for the common item would get flooded, but the market for the rarer item would not.
Which is why I’d like to see some more data on the museum item drop rates. I’ve gotten 3 cells in a row, and everyone I’ve talked to in game has received more cells than blades. Are there people out there getting more blades to drop than cells? If so, why is the market heavily skewed in one direction?
Also, why wouldn’t Funcom balance things for the current population? Are they naive enough to think there’s going to be a massive growth in the player-base? It just seems like a bad idea to base your decisions on a possible future that all the numbers point to being unreasonable.
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The price of museum items was pretty high when the supply was low, but as more people filled their museums the demand dropped off. Putting in a new anything is going to have a spike in prices - elaborate imbuer fragments for example.
I’m not going to defend the RNG of the box, I think it’s a bad idea. There have been various alternative options for how it could have been introduced discussed, and it’ll just turn into an increasingly bitter circle.
In a way, yes, the RNG will increase the prevalence of them in the market. Say someone gets two blades, they’re going to sell one. If you’ve got multiple Cells, I’m guessing you probably didn’t hang on to more than one. Say there are 10 players getting kills (illustrative numbers). 4 of them get a blade and a cell straight away, but the other 6 get multiples. That’s 6 items entering the market that wouldn’t be otherwise (assuming each person keeps one). In the next RNG round, maybe half of those get the missing item, and 3 get duplicates, so up to 9 now on the market. Even if 2 of the 10 are up for farming to sell, that’s still more action on the market than if there were guaranteed drops.
In terms of drop rates, it’s hard to say. It’s possible that because people are more easily able to use the blade (only needing superior centerpiece) that blade numbers are under-reported. I know a lot of people on the lookout for a blade, many of whom aren’t running the mission yet. Cells on the other hand are lower in demand as there are fewer waiting to paragon the center, so whilst they may command a higher price (I’ve no idea), there’s seemingly more of them around, and more people are likely to mention having multiple cells because it’s harder to shift them (and thus more irritating).
The low population could be confusing the numbers, making outliers harder to identify. Once again, our sample size makes it really hard to tell the quality of the data.
The decision to make the rewards RNG may have also been taken a year ago for all we know. Planning out future releases can go a long time ahead, and we’ve no way of knowing at what point the decision was made. I’m not sure if any museum drop is non-RNG, so it could simply be following the existing format. Making changes late in the development timetable may not have been an obvious choice before release - they’re only now starting to get data about the number of successful runs etc, and it’s possible (though unlikely imo) that the drop rates could be adjusted.
I’m not saying that I would agree and support any of these theories btw, but I can see how different design decisions could be made that don’t always seem to make good sense to end users.
LOL yes that was deleted now. Meant for another forum topic and somehow ended up in here.
@AWOL Yeah, I doubt anything is going to change at this point. But I think it’s still important to point out the flaws in the system and offer suggestions for improvement just in case anyone in power is listening. The RNG might never be fixed for the peculiar box, but maybe future content will be saved from it.
Again, it’s just anecdotal evidence, but there’s currently 4 depleted cells on the AH between 240k and 280k, and only one blade listed at 780k. It’s possible that the market on blades was higher since it’s needed first, but I don’t think that alone would account for the huge difference in availability and price. If anything, blades should become more abundant and cheaper at this point as the demand for them would have gone down compared to the cells. The official drop rates would be near impossible to prove, but based on the evidence I’ve seen so far, I’m leaning towards the drop rates being unbalanced.
Slow and steady continues to not find the Peculiar Box… 70 days in and I haven’t had it drop once. I finished all but one of the 120 odd missions I hadn’t repeated in SWL yet, took my time cause I don’t like doing them and not gaining SP/AP. So, if it ever does drop, I just need to go do Choose Your Own (by far my least favorite mission in the game) and I can go try it…
I think next I’ll repeat the Kaidan story just to mark them finished on the minimap cause that’s sorta silly.
Also I’ve found 2 epic glyphs from green bags in the same time…
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I did not repeat most of the issue 10 missions and the box dropped for me.
I think its time they knocked RNG on it’s head and just added a box somewhere to buy instead…
I mean, at this point - we would have traded the box if we could have. So i personally think that it would probably be for the best that they unbound the box so that the RNG doesn’t kill what enjoyment is left.
@Onevia Any luck yet for you at all?
It’s highly annoying that someone like me has a box that i can’t even trade to someone who needs it.
Because, i and many others don’t need/want through either 0 interest in museum or have already had/got one.
And just in case there are any forum lurking entities that dislike this discussion
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Nope, still getting my ~10 green boxes a day with only green items in them. I decided to focus on a more attainable goal ie. as many Zmeu as I’d killed in the original TSW (currently at 11/13k) cause at least when I grind at that, I know I’m getting closer.
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They could make a Peculiar Box a reward for completing one of the complete X thousand missions achievements. That way the primary source would still be RNG, but you’d be guaranteed to get one after a certain amount of time invested.
Your dedication to Zmeu eradication is admirable Onevia 
after all, they breed like rodents! 
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Are lair-missions and timed event-missions required for the peculiar box to drop?
No
There’s no known restriction on the drop other than it being excessively rare. But, since they didn’t actually announce that, it’s just an assumption. People have gotten them on New England-level noobs though so it’s not like “all unseens” or anything.
To use the drop you need to complete the regional achievements (which give you a Guise per area, need most missions, all rare bosses, and storyline) and you can check in the achievement UI how you’re progressing.
In all the time since it became available after daily gaming as a patron with 3 alts # of mysteirous boxes I have seen: zero.
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Have a member in my cabal who has been trying since day one to get Peculiar Box. Success rate: Zero.
C’mon guys, it’s been out for exactly FIVE MONTHS now and there are people who log in and play EVERY DAY and don’t get ANY boxes. The mission is a nightmare. Unless you are EXTREMELY overgeared or a baby 50, you’re going to waste a couple hours of your life when you first go into this fight.
Can we just put it in a cache already and be done with these crooked RNG numbers and random shenanigans? We already know cache RNG is awful, and we accept that. Putting a random item in the game that barely drops for anyone, wasting your life going through a corridor of trash and then playing hide-and-seek with a ticked-off BattleBot is not my idea of a good time. Especially when you can’t choose between the Blade or the Energy Cell.
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No matter how much you overgear the boss will balance toward it (It’s more your highest IP ever achieved but not sure for how many people that matters) which actually is in my book detrimental past some point as you suddendly start glancing again.
So everyone is in the same boat or at least close to with the fight the first time. After that one normally has the fight mostly figured out.
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As Leogrim already said, you cannot overgear the Tank Commander, the fight difficulty is based on your highest reached IP.
You can level up your gear in a rational way, with a grain of salt, and have an easier fight then someone who randomly levels pieces of gear here and there.
I am also under the impression that by the end of the curve, close to max IP, it gets much steep and harder and every few IP points things change quite a bit. At some point you need a 2nd accurate glyph in order to avoid glancing.
Going back to the OP, I got 2 peculiar boxes in a week after like 2 months from the release of the quest, then nothing.
Which is a bit stupid, given the mechanics of the fight might see people want to use their not actually best weapon for skill selection. IP always was a lazy “mechanic” and this is where it really fails miserably.