That Item You Really Want But Cannot Have

So I don't know if this goes for everyone, but I have one particular item on my wishlist I cannot get. Now sure I could add a Vibrant Pain but Epics/Legendaries are cheating. No, I'm talking about a rare, the Vampire's Blade. Now, the silly thing is it's only level 2. And I have an UNGODLY number of rares, epics, and legendaries from levels 1-5. Heck, I believe I have 5+ of a number of rares levels 1-3. And yet for the life of me (ha.ha.ha.) I cannot get a Vampire's Blade. Was curious if anyone else could commiserate with a similar experience of an inability to get a particular Rare, Uncommon, or Common Item.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that having perused the wiki, I have every other level 2 rare, and multiples of nearly all of them

 

For a long time (6-8 weeks), I just couldn't get a second Wand Of Seared Air, which is a common level 18 item. I had as many as eight copies of some other common level 18 items and at least four of all of the others. The only wand I had also came from a bought MP pack, I think, and not from a loot drop.

Then within a week, four of the wands dropped. Vagaries of the randomness gremlins. Also, I had come to realize I don't have the tokens to equip even one of the wands in any of my builds .

The level 17 and 18 commons and uncommons can be a lot rarer than they seem as they don't spawn in any shop. The only way to get them is from a loot drop. The non-rare items of levels 1-16 can usually easily be acquired from the shops by just waiting a couple of weeks.

 

I had the same problem with Locket Of The Gale, an item which I had 4 of in Beta but could NOT get ahold of one...until 3 dropped within a couple days of each other.

 

I've heard of people having extremely bad luck even getting one Bejeweled Shortsword. I personally had heaps of problems getting which is uncommon, I farmed the last few levels every day for ages before I got one.

 

One additional thing which makes it harder to get a particular level 17 or 18 common or uncommon item is that there are so many different level 15-18 * common and uncommon items, currently 195 according to the wiki. Thus you can get a lot of different items from a level 17 adventure without ever getting the one you desire.

* Most of the items dropping from a level 17 adventure are in this range, but even level 13 treasures and a small percentage of level 14 items can drop there, see here and here. According to item drop numbers collected in that thread, dropped items are as a rule within +-3 levels of the adventure level, percentages dropping off sharply the farther you get from the adventure level.

 

Does it ever give you the impression that, like Randimar's, our loot table sort of adjusts itself on a weekly basis? I've experienced this "when it rains, it pours" effect enough that it's shifted from a nagging feeling to a full fledged conspiracy theory for me. I'll see stuff in Randimar's, and if I don't buy it, at least three of them will drop during my adventures that week, and other rares that did the same thing last week won't this week.
Sometimes something rare will just drop for a week straight that I've never seen before and then go away for a month. It would be really interesting to find out that on any given week, a player's available loot table gets selected at random and is a subset of all total available drops.
My suspicious little brain has led me to do some desperate things with this notion, though, because if I see something I really want actually dropping, I usually go back and look for copies for the rest of the week. This week has been staff of the inferno week for me, and I've recently gone from 2 to 5 in a very short time.
It's easily just my imagination, but it's really weird how frequently this happens to me.

 

Probably that's just the selective memory phenomenon of the known confirmation bias quirk of human psychology. People tend to find what they're looking for in random patterns, that's just human nature, nothing more. Our brains have evolved to find patterns very efficiently and they tend to do that even when not necessary (seeing faces in clouds etc.)

Consider this: how much extra effort would go into the creation and debugging of such a system? With the very small team Blue Manchu have, why on earth would they use resources for such shenanigans? Whatever would they gain? Without very strong statistical evidence, I for one would discount such a theory. I'm sure if you logged the relevant numbers we'd be able to see they fall within normal random variability. One just does not notice the overwhelming number of instances where the drops are not clumped, but the few times when they do stick out like a bent Big Stick.

 

It is probably your imagination - humans in general are really bad at eyeballing statistics. We tend to see patterns everywhere, because it has been an evolutionary advantage to do so. Proper randomness never looks random to us.

Edit: Dammit, ninja'd by Jarmo.

 

Actually, I can take a crack at answering this.
Consider the post not too long ago about how the cards on the pumpkin bomb were changed at the last minute because they were afraid of introducing a questionably overpowered card in such a way that it would saturate the game too much.

Keeping in mind that it may be advantageous to the game to create a system that helps homogenize card availability, or slightly limit the scarcity of cards/items that have become too popular, then it would be advantageous to build a system that can alter loot appearance to suit the current situation. In fact, it would probably be really smart of them to do so. I'm not saying it's being done here, just that I've seen the idea used before.
At any rate, don't trouble yourself with trying too hard to discount my theory. I plainly admitted it's on the level of suspicious conspiracy theory that's easily just my imagination. I like game mechanics so I try hard to try and detect them when they're present, and the teasing notion that something weird is going on is part of what makes things fun with RNG. You find folks who are convinced that the best loot only drops at midnight, or that it's better for female characters, or whatever, and a funny story gets started.

Edit: Sorry Zelink, This was supposed to be my attempt at commiserating with you. I really just want another Dependable Mail, and it's been driving me up the wall that I only have one. I believe it dropped for me on the very first day I played.

 

Sure, I got that tone from your original post, mine was more to try to nip this particular urban legend in the bud. I know from previous experience how insidious such things can get if not carefully pruned. I don't want the fate of Puzzle Quest or Cyanide's Blood Bowl for Card Hunter (the fairness of the RNG forever questioned).

I think you're really reaching with your crack answer, though. From Jon's post does not follow a system for non-randomizing the loot drops of the players. There is no spoon. I don't think it would be smart to create such a system, it would be really dumb. Having a fair loot system is at least one half of the longevity of a loot chase game. When, not if, the players found out it's controlled they would leave in droves and salt the gaming earth for Blue Manchu forever. Not going to happen. Smiley.

 

I do think this is a confirmation bias thing, but hey, here's my anecdote—never seen a slippery shield until two days ago when it appeared in Randimar's. Since I bought it, I've had two drop from chests

 

I relish my Slippery Shield, and it took me ages to get it.

Though I'm super bitter about your sig Flaxative. It's a permanent forum reminder of the item I started this thread about

 

I have three of them—but don't be bitter. They have allowed me to be a true champion of the vampire priest strategy

 

Are they really that great? I have one in Randimar's right now but Loner seems like it could do a lot of damage in SP. If it is more a MP thing I can leave it in the shop to rot.

 

Vampiric Cards+Buffs=seldom dying

 

Loner is usually good in SP. It can be harsh on levels where you're being swarmed by goblins/kobolds, but aside from those you're almost never going to die from it unless you leave yourself open to it (i.e. ending a turn at 4-6 hp). It's a lot harder to control in MP, actually. It can be a lot harder to mitigate its effects if it comes up in the endgame. I've lost games to it—but I've won so many more games just by having my priest's deck be 60% impactful drains. The blade is good. It needs support—like zelink551 said, buffs make those drains a lot better, so you want to carry in some frenzy effects. Talented Healer also turns your drains into a combo. Giving your vampire good movement abilities (like Slippery or step attacks on the other weapon) also helps. I'd definitely buy the sword for 100g if you're ever planning on trying out a vamp build

 

I can corroborate what Flaxative is saying. I've been playing with vampire priests a lot lately. I have two Vampire Blades and for about a week I played with a single priest who used both so had 4 Loners in his deck. He died once from it in about 8 hours of play time. There were many times he COULD have died but you have to use your movement to get away some times. Since then I've been doing an all Priest vampire party and needless to say I'm barely able to outfit them properly. Thus, my Vampire Blades are spread out between 2 characters. Even then I've only died from Loner once. It was about mid-battle and he was down to 3 health and Loner popped him. I still won though. By the way, Mass Frenzy plus vampire priests = a LOT of fun. I hope you get one soon zelink551!

*Note my sig. My experiences are SP only.

 

LOLOLOLOL whew, I was gonna say, my experiments with multiple vampires in PvP were disastrous, how the heck do you do it???

 

I still use Hand of Melvelous often just so I can keep my priests up and running and save heals for Warriors.

 

Basically the exact same thing happened to me; Except the two shields that dropped from chests dropped in the same chest.