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Thread: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

  1. #1

    Default Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    I've dug, and googled, and searched for posts and information regarding this topic, and I have read several past/closed discussions about it.

    I've spoken with a few folks ingame about this also. (Regnaw has been IMMENSELY helpful, btw - thank you, Ren!)

    What's irking me is that the [bleeping] things just aren't dropping for me. I've been killing *lots* of 'upper tier' (18-22) undead, pygmies/ogres, and skulks (among other semi-intelligent types when/wherever I find them).

    I'm seeing all kinds of hoard loot, (other) formulae, techs, 'oddity' pieces, tech components, crystals, and refurbished weapons and armor. I'm seeing the invisible chain and plate (helmet and mask) forms drop now and again (and from the formulatron in Dalimond) - but I haven't looted any others but the 'Beginner Chainmail Bracer' formula (which I've looted three of) out of all these kills.

    I bought the forms I do have scribed (about 2/3 of the beginner platemail, and a little less than 1/2 of the chainmail, sets) from the consigner in Bristugo, so I have to assume that they are dropping (or at least that they have dropped) for someone - they just aren't dropping for me.

    (/rant off)


    If anyone on Order has or finds extras of these formulae (off the top of my head I'm not exactly sure of which ones I still need), I'd be happy to pay or trade for any that I don't have yet.

    (I'll worry about procuring Journeyman and higher plate- and chainmail forms when they're scribable for me, and if/when I determine that they're as hard to come by as the Beginner forms have been.)

    Thanks,

    Sigmound Shoebuckle

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Is it possible the Beginner Formulas that Sigmound is seeking are (at least for the most part) in the high end of T2 loot tables and not in the high end of T1 loot tables? (both T1 and T2 are Beginner Formulas). IF so it would seem that a new player unassisted must wait to the high 30's to obtain formulas for Padded Cloth, Leather and Chainmail and Platemail Formulas; and must reach the high level 30's in order to loot those Formulas.

    Knossos

  3. #3

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Chainmail and Platemail are split across T1 and T2 because of the skill requirements. The cut-off varies based upon product, but is roughly in the 110 to 130 range typically. Below 110 to 130 you'll want to hunt upper-tier T1, above 110 to 130 you'll want to hunt T2.

    There is one other complication you'll run into and that is the fact that there are a LOT of formulas that can drop. On the Tier1 formula table there are over 150 items while on the T2 there are over 110. That means that your respective chance of getting the specific formula you are looking for (assuming a formula drops) is between 0.6% and 0.9%.

    Interestingly enough your chance of getting a specific formula of Beginner level is actually higher from the Formulatron. Your odds there are 1.4% for a specific Beginner level formula. This is because they are sub-divided into categories so you can try for Beginner Armor as opposed to all Beginner. Means there are fewer than 80 formulas to draw from for Beginner Armor.
    "Alea iacta est" -- Julius Caesar

    Toot shouted, voice shrill, "In the name of the Pizza Lord! Charge!" (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files)

    "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spends it whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein

  4. #4

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    I have noticed the same with padded armor.. Seems like I find more dragon forms than biped some hunts. I dread when I swap to battle Mage and need plate.

    Also on order, so will try to coordinate with you, maybe we can swap pieces.

    Yildar (order)

  5. #5

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by AmonGwareth View Post
    (...)
    Interestingly enough your chance of getting a specific formula of Beginner level is actually higher from the Formulatron. Your odds there are 1.4% for a specific Beginner level formula. This is because they are sub-divided into categories so you can try for Beginner Armor as opposed to all Beginner. Means there are fewer than 80 formulas to draw from for Beginner Armor.
    This assumes that the Formulatrons can drop any/all of the formulae needed to craft the various Beginner armor sets.

    Do they?

    Is it possible eventually get all of what I need if I sink enough coin into the effort?

    I'm asking because I've read information (from wiki and/or buried in ancient posts here, I'm sure) to the contrary.

    (@Yildar: yes - that reminds me - I also still need Beginner Padded Boots.)

    I just finished beating on pygmie gatherers, warriors, and elites (at the Crystal Tears) for several hours. Lots and LOTS different kinds of loot. None of the armor forms I'm lacking though.

    It seems to me that, by the time I'll be able to loot the forms I need, I'll be ready to wear stuff from the next tier.

    What would be the point, then?

    Why put so much time and effort into crafting your own gear when, by the time you're capable of looting the forms you need to make it, you've outgrown the gear you wanted/needed to craft in the first place?


    /sigh

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    I could be dealing in rumors and if so I apologize; however, from what I am led to believe, to obtain a full set of drop only Beginner forms for padded cloth, leather, chainmail and platemail could run into Gold (or perhaps Golds) price range. This would likely be unreacheable for an otherwise capable young crafter.

    Knossos

  7. #7

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by Knossos View Post
    I could be dealing in rumors and if so I apologize; however, from what I am led to believe, to obtain a full set of drop only Beginner forms for padded cloth, leather, chainmail and platemail could run into Gold (or perhaps Golds) price range. This would likely be unreacheable for an otherwise capable young crafter.

    Knossos
    I wouldn't be surprised to learn that what you're saying is closer to being true than not, Knossos.

    If so, does this not mean that any effort to be self-sufficient - in terms of being able to craft one's own level-appropriate armor - would ultimately be a futile one?

    I don't want people just handing me things - I don't contend that these forms should be purchasable from Trainers - but the chances of obtaining them as drops needs to be somewhere within the realm of reality. Right now, that's just not the case.

    I also don't want to wear/use gear that someone else has crafted for me. I don't roll that way - much as I do appreciate such kind and supportive gestures on the part of other players, that is - I just want to be able to make my own stuff (and then still be able to get some use out of it when I do).

  8. #8

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    This assumes that the Formulatrons can drop any/all of the formulae needed to craft the various Beginner armor sets.

    Do they?


    Yes, any formula that drop as loot (barring quest or epic) that are not on the vendors are available from the Formulatrons. Likewise with the Techatrons.

    It seems to me that, by the time I'll be able to loot the forms I need, I'll be ready to wear stuff from the next tier.


    Yes, that likely would happen if you attempted to loot or purchase from a vendor every formula you needed for every school (Adventure and Crafting).
    "Alea iacta est" -- Julius Caesar

    Toot shouted, voice shrill, "In the name of the Pizza Lord! Charge!" (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files)

    "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spends it whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein

  9. #9
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    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    I do not have enough direct facts to confirm futility as you may suspect, nor can I offer any proof of the current form drop model being responsible for attrition rate of new players, but I do have some suspicions along this line. Supporting this suspicion are such factors as the substantial contribution of crafted items on the NT consigner placed by veteran players (this is double edged sword of "crutching" the lack of low level crafters to make coin in the face of competition from veteran placed items - but providing support of items that low level crafters cannot build on their own for lack of forms that are drop only). The developers have the metrics of new player attrition - but regretabbly the population of the Order Shard veterans does not allow meaningful perspective of field experience to be considered by the developers.

    I sincerely wish I had better suggestions for these issues.

    Knossos

  10. #10

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Sadly, you're stuck in this cycle of futility and annoyance.

    To be self sufficent you need two things: craft schools equal, preferably above your current teir adventure, and formulae for to supply both adventure/craft.
    For the formulae you need to hunt things...you can't hunt them because you lack the very formulae you need to hunt down.

    Essentially, you're going to need help whether you like it or not.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    It would be nice if they added a nifty feature they had in SWTOR, you could reverse engineer an item crafted by someone else and had a 10 or 20% chance of being able to learn said item.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by AmonGwareth View Post
    Yes, that likely would happen if you attempted to loot or purchase from a vendor every formula you needed for every school (Adventure and Crafting).
    Let's not cloud the issue: this thread is about (and only about) the availability of chainmail and platemail formulae. These are the bottleneck in my character's development, and not anything else.

    I've leveled up in 4 different adventure schools (to 22-24) trying to get those forms to drop, and during that time I've acquired (or seen) just about everything else that drops - spell and weapon forms, techs, comps, crystals, and much more (Confectioner, Jeweler, Tinkerer, and Resource forms, broken items galore, etc). I now typically see many days pass between finding those I haven't already scribed (or set aside for future use). I have pretty much everything I need to gear up for the next tier except the formulae to craft my toon's armor.

    Oh - and I actually find this kind of amusing - among all the blighted gear I've looted (during this same span of time, dropped by level 15-18 Fiyakki on Isle of the Drowned)? I've picked up formulae for pieces like the (Blighted) Platemail Chestguards, while the highest level monster in the region (The Ancient Mummy, a named) is dropping (primarily) Refurbished gear and garbage body drops for What's His Name the Oddities Broker.

    (And while I'm still on my soapbox: Why do some Refurbished armor pieces [I'm thinking the Belts] have a higher armor value than their player crafted counterparts?)

    I've made my point and I think I'm just about done here. I don't pay to play Istaria, so it's (arguably) not my place to raise issues like these. But if there's anyone in the crowd who still wonders why Istaria is now a mere ghost of its former (vibrant, growing) self, you might want to take a closer look at stuff like this for clues that lead to (at least part of) the answer to that.

    I've heard tell of something in the works on the Blight shard that's supposed to address the client-side crash issues, and I've been waiting to see if it'll give me a reason to pony up the cash and subscribe. Dealing with frustrating headaches in the game (like this one) isn't, in the mean time, nudging me in that particular direction.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by Azath View Post
    Sadly, you're stuck in this cycle of futility and annoyance.

    To be self sufficent you need two things: craft schools equal, preferably above your current teir adventure, and formulae for to supply both adventure/craft.
    For the formulae you need to hunt things...you can't hunt them because you lack the very formulae you need to hunt down.

    Essentially, you're going to need help whether you like it or not.
    I believe in keeping my characters' craft school (or tradeskill) levels far above those of adventuring schools (or classes), and my current character has a craft rating that is (and consistently kept) at least 20 points above his adventure rating.

    I don't mind putting in whatever personal time and effort is necessary in raising my crafting skills and abilities - but when formulae for a beginning tier's armor (the formulae) drops (ONLY) from mobs in a higher tier, that's just insane.

    What this is beginning to look like is a prelude to a discussion about the age-old (and much trodden-upon) topic of styles of game play - no thanks.
    Last edited by Shoebuckle; November 14th, 2013 at 12:55 PM. Reason: to correct a text formatting error

  14. #14

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Do not use the formula trons, those are way too expensive.

    You will have far better luck asking in marketplace to buy formulas, and checking the new trismus consigner which remains very well stocked on Chaos. And as Amon said, you need to be hunting t2 for some of these. (Also, on Chaos someone has been advertising they put techs and formulas on the Aughundell consigner, check there too).

    For crafting gear, the first few sets of gear you may need some help crafting. And if you want to loot these formulas yourself, you would need adventure level higher than craft level. You mentioned you play in the reverse of this, which means at least for now, someone will have to craft most of your gear.

    There's also the techniques to apply to gear, many of those are drop also. Another player who has been playing longer will likely have a wider selection.

    Ask for help.

    If you refuse to ask for help and plan to craft everything yourself, then use refurbished and blighted gear to fill in the holes for adventure gear. Or craft cloth or scalemail to use temporarily. Techniques can be left off or a lower tier version of the tech can be used, which makes the comps cheaper too. I played a healer toon from 80 to 100 in gear with t3 techniques on it, and did just fine. T3 comps are cheaper, easier to get, and only takes half as many compared to t5.
    Craft gear isn't 100% needed, if you just keep leveling craft, eventually you have enough skill from the school itself. Crafting the gear you plan to wear doesn't matter as much. As long as you meet the minimum skill for the item, you can craft gear without necessarily having "craft gear" on. The point where gear is absolutely needed isn't until t6/level 100 where it is too inefficient to craft resources and construction units below optimal skill.

    Just keep leveling craft schools. One your craft school hits the 40's, you will want to be on the lookout for the journeyman forumula's, which can craft the beginner items as well as the journeyman (tiers 1 thru 4). At this point you can even delete some (but not all, so watch out) beginner formula's. Journeyman will cover level 1 thru 79. Expert starts at 80.

    One last thing to mention, if you get a craft school high enough, 91 to 100, you can wear padded ironsilk (t5 gear) in any adventure school. So you level 20 warrior could be in t5 cloth, with t5 techniques applied, and it would be better gear to wear than t1/t2 platemail. Even once hitting say level 50 warrior where the armor values might be catching up to t5 padded cloth amounts, the t5 techniques would likely still outperform t3 platemail. Get to level 100 in craft, and you can also be wearing t5 health jewelry, also triple teched with t5 techs, in any adventure school, even a level 1. Cloth, padded cloth, and jewelry are equippable from either adventure -or- craft levels, whichever is higher. T6 jewlery and weapons are adventure level restricted, so skip those for now.
    Last edited by Guaran; November 14th, 2013 at 02:15 PM.

  15. #15
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    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    In that all craft schools receive 7 armor use per level the highest level craft-only supported cloth gear is silk (T4) and not ironsilk (T5). Padded silk is armor use 710 and only a Dwarf could wear it (10pct armor use racial bonus).

    Knossos

  16. #16

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    I don't mind putting in whatever personal time and effort is necessary in raising my crafting skills and abilities - but when formulae for a beginning tier's armor (the formulae) drops (ONLY) from mobs in a higher tier, that's just insane.
    You are mistaken. Formulas drop from the Tiers that they are related to. Beginner formula are both Tier 1 AND Tier 2 which means that the lower-half of the formulas (in terms of skill requirements) drop from Tier1 monsters, while the upper-half drop from Tier2 monsters. That distribution makes sense both in terms of distribution and also as a way of reducing the number of formulas the game pulls from on the loot tables for each tier. If you had all beginner available from both Tier1 and Tier2 monsters then your odds of getting a specific formula would be VERY low indeed, much lower than they currently are. AND, it would make Tier2 monsters worthless to hunt for formulas since you could get every formula from a Tier1 monster.
    "Alea iacta est" -- Julius Caesar

    Toot shouted, voice shrill, "In the name of the Pizza Lord! Charge!" (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files)

    "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spends it whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein

  17. #17

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by AmonGwareth View Post
    You are mistaken. Formulas drop from the Tiers that they are related to. Beginner formula are both Tier 1 AND Tier 2 which means that the lower-half of the formulas (in terms of skill requirements) drop from Tier1 monsters, while the upper-half drop from Tier2 monsters. That distribution makes sense both in terms of distribution and also as a way of reducing the number of formulas the game pulls from on the loot tables for each tier. If you had all beginner available from both Tier1 and Tier2 monsters then your odds of getting a specific formula would be VERY low indeed, much lower than they currently are. AND, it would make Tier2 monsters worthless to hunt for formulas since you could get every formula from a Tier1 monster.

    If what you're saying is true, then how/why was I able (recently) to loot the Beginner Blighted Platemail Chest formula from a Fyakki (in its teens) on Isle of the Drowned? That Blighted piece has the same skill requirement to craft as its un-blighted platemail counterpart. Higher (iirc), if you count what's needed for the blight core component.

    If you're going to use the required skill level to craft an item as means to determine what type and level monsters drop the formulae for it, then you might at least try to be a bit more consistent about it.

    The level requirement for equipping the (bronze) platemail made from the beginner armor forms we're discussing is 11. No one should be expected to kill level 30+ monster to get the formula to make that piece of armor, period.

    It was you who pointed out how varied the loot tables are - i.e. how many different items are in them.

    If that is the case, then why would any tier ever need to be reduced to being "worthless" in terms of the loot it's dropping?

    For the sake of making beginner armor formulae more accessible to the people who actually need them?

    (With all the other stuff that's floating around out there? Really?)

    I call BS on that.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    If what you're saying is true, then how/why was I able (recently) to loot the Beginner Blighted Platemail Chest formula from a Fyakki (in its teens) on Isle of the Drowned? That Blighted piece has the same skill requirement to craft as its un-blighted platemail counterpart. Higher (iirc), if you count what's needed for the blight core component.
    Blighted formulas are on a different loot table and have a different distribution than non-Blighted formulas.

    Thank you for your feedback, but at this time we won't be changing how formulas drop. Ultimately at the end of the day this is a multiplayer game and is geared towards that. If you choose to solo then you do so willingly accepting that you may not be able to be optimal at all times.
    "Alea iacta est" -- Julius Caesar

    Toot shouted, voice shrill, "In the name of the Pizza Lord! Charge!" (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files)

    "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spends it whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein

  19. #19

    Default Re: Beginner Chainmail and Platemail formula Drops

    Quote Originally Posted by AmonGwareth View Post
    (...) Thank you for your feedback, but at this time we won't be changing how formulas drop. Ultimately at the end of the day this is a multiplayer game and is geared towards that. If you choose to solo then you do so willingly accepting that you may not be able to be optimal at all times.
    Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns regarding this issue.

    This wasn't feedback. It was a rant. I started it as a rant in this forum (instead of 'suggestions' or 'talk to the team,' and it then being moved to rants, as I've seen done with this very topic in the past) because I was fairly confident from the beginning that you would stick to your guns on this subject, no matter what I had to say (and I'm not surprised to discover that I was right about that).

    Your final argument - laying this issue at the feet of my solo style of play - is the ultimate in weaksauce cop outs, in my opinion - especially considering that these armor formulae (unlike all other loot that's been a part of this discussion) were Once Upon a Time purchasable from Armorer trainers. I remember this, because I played the game at that time.

    I have gratefully accepted the (very graciously offered) help of other members of the community in acquiring these armor formulae (as well as some other game resources), and I will gladly continue to do so. I also want to thank all those who actually take the time to put their stuff on consigners, because that's been a very BIG help as well.

    My thanks to the other members of the community who took the time to offer their insights and kind suggestions in this thread.

    I am now looting some padded, chainmail, platemail, and leather forms (it's funny and ironic because they didn't start dropping until after I started this thread - really!), and I have a bunch of extras (helmets, masks, wrist pieces, and belts mostly) that I'm hanging onto in case anyone is interested in trading, or just needs something I've got.

    Thanks again.

    Sigmound

    (Order)

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