Ultimate Drop Table Rebalance

[Matt]

Like V1/2, I'm interested in looking at the ultimate drop tables for GameCube/Xbox to see if the overall experience can be improved. This thread is to collect opinions on a possible rebalance for GameCube/Xbox.

Preface

For V1/2, the changes were to make the drop rates more realistic for players so they could actually find a variety of items, but the actual drop tables themselves were actually solid, as all IDs are good in every area, while the rates made it statistically unlikely for players to actually find anything.

For GameCube/Xbox, I personally believe that all the drop rates are actually fine. Playing through Episode I & II grants you a wide variety of items to use without too much effort, while still having rarer items for players to chase, along with the hit % attribute hunt for those who really want to go on crazy hunts.

However, unlike V1/2, the actual item distribution amongst areas and IDs is extremely bad. Many areas have no drops of note on certain IDs, while certain IDs are just far and away better for a rounded experience of having worthwhile content to play. I would like to look into fixing that specific issue.

Please keep the following in mind:

• There will be no relaxations on drop rates. The aim of this rebalance is not to make things easier, but encourage variety of play.
• "Iconic drops" will be left alone, the less changes that can be done, the better. For example, Sealed J-Sword will not gain any extra drop locations - you must hunt it on Skyly from Gi Gue.
• No drops will be added that create new possibilities. For example, Soul Eater will never drop as it's not meant to ever have hit %. While I understand that other servers have normalised a lot of changes like this, it won't be happening here.

This is the current document I have which lists items which people actually hunt in various areas. This is done from my own knowledge - please advise if some of these drops are not value adds, or if I have missed other value adds.

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Click here to expand this

If you want to see the full drop table, I would recommend looking at Ephinea's classic drop table.

Here are my current questions/thoughts:

• There are some nice items such as Monkey King Bar from Merikle, but with this being so rare as an enemy, I am not sure if it's a value add.
• TP materials should probably drop similarly to Luck materials (this has already been done - Ultimate difficulty will drop TP materials as a common item)
• Should the "hit % issue" in Episode 2 be corrected? That is, all IDs have 1% chance at hit, whereas Yellowboze has 3%. For comparison, all of Episode 1 has 5% hit rate
• I think it's worth adding "meta" items into Ultimate that currently don't drop to help pad out the tables and not force people into lower difficulties too. Off the top of my head, these are M&A60 Vise, Vjaya, and Musashi, but there could be more?
• God/Battle should probably be available on all IDs. Should I put them in the same locations as Redria, or spread them out? The idea is half get from Hildelt, half get from Gibbles, Redria gets both.

Let me know what you think and what you'd like to see, taking the above into account!

[Matt]

My first thought here was just to copy drops across to other IDs - for example, perhaps put Monkey King Bar in Seabed on 2-3 other IDs.

I'm not sure if there's enough items for me to do this though without basically every ID getting every item, and I might have to start putting things in new locations entirely, although the hope is that I don't make any easier hunting methods, just different.

[guggy]

I do think giving drops that are present on other IDs to weaker ones would be a good change. I also strongly believe Episode 2 being given a universal % instead of the arbitrary Yellowboze boost would be better. I'd have to sit down and personally think about changes that I think I'd give to weaker drops...

btw add NUG to a few IDs please and thank you :3c gigue launcher is hideous

[Matt]

Hmm, I dunno if I wanna give the "ubers" any extra sources, will have to think about that one. It's kind of hard to decide what to do here because it feels like there simply aren't enough items to properly rebalance these tables.

Could go full V2, which basically makes a bunch of enemies have the same item on every ID, but I feel like that would be too much of a change - I want to be conservative and still keep the "feel" of the game, just buff the weaker IDs.

[Matt]

I don't know if this is the best idea, but what if I made the rates for Psycho Wand and Heaven Punisher realistic on all IDs? Maybe I should also do this for other items too which have multiple sources but one that is far and away the best.

This means the following would become "viable" hunts:

Psycho Wand

• Viridia Delbter
• Greenill Gran Sorcerer (E1)
• Skyly Gran Sorcerer (E1)
• Pinkal Sinow Zele
• Redria Gran Sorcerer (E1)
• Yellowboze Bulclaw
• Whitill Del Lily

Already viable: Viridia Delbiter, Purplenum Mil Lily, Oran Gibbles

Heaven Punisher

• Viridia Sinow Red
• Greenill Delbiter
• Redria Sinow Zele
• Pinkal Sinow Red
• Oran Delbiter
• Yellowboze Crimson Assassin
• Whitill Sinow Blue

Already viable: Skyly Sinow Spigell, Bluefull Hildetorr, Purplenum Mericarol

[guggy]

I would prefer none of these fuckoff obscene rates being unusable any more. I'm all for it

[EvilMag]

I do agree with God/Battle being on every ID. I suggest having all IDs drop from Hildeit. It's one of the essentials and having it early on can be nice. Plus you have the Lumi Field and other drops you can move else where if you choose to do it. (Lumi is okay as an earlygame armor in Ult, the others its up to you on that)

[Luka]

The hit% definitely needs to be addressed for Ep2. Ep2 has some great items but I feel you are too skewed into playing certain ID class combinations if you want any chance at getting your desired item. I just made a skyly raml and because of how the drop charts look I'll probably be grinding her until 80 solely on Episode 1 until I go full time Gi Gue hunting.

[Matt]

Reminder that if you want a better drop table to help me out here because I am TERRIBLE at decision making.

Thoughts are overrated.

[Matt]

The drop tables now support adding specific items with specific parameters (for example, level 30 technique disks could drop, or weapons with a certain amount of hit %, or specific mags with specific stats and photon blasts). Some of these would definitely be cool to add - specifically unobtainable mags with PBs, although I would personally want to make sure their stats follow what would be considered legal without external tools, so no 0/0/0/0 mags with 3 PBs!

What cool mags are worth dropping that are annoying otherwise? I have ELENOR, RoboChao, and Chao on my list.