About the rates of certain item-granting equipment/cards
Originally posted by Kergal
Doing some extensive testing, I've found that the drop rate of the Jeweled Sword and Blazer Card are way too low for the server's rates, but also that perhaps Myst Case Card should be nerfed.
Having killed 8247 monsters, the drop rate of Gift Boxes was 1.31% and the drop rate for OBB was 0.46%. This is consistent with the script found on RMS, which rates them at 0.3% and 0.1% respectively, multiplied by 5, the server's rates. However, the drop rate from the Jeweled Sword was 0.97% and the drop rate from the Blazer Card was 0.93% (though this last one was done with a smaller sample of 747 monsters killed, as I only recently obtained it). This leads me to believe that these two are NOT being affected by the server's rates, which makes Jeweled Sword bad, and Blazer Card just trash.
Blazer Card already gives mediocre items at a very bad rate. Making it not affected by server rates simply makes it utterly pointless to use, so I'd request having its drop rate match the x5. Regarding the Jeweled Sword, I was told some time ago that the drop rates were set as such due to balance reasons, but I have to argue that if anything, Myst Case Card ends up being insanely better and potentially much more broken than the Jeweled Sword could ever be.
First of all, the most expensive item you can get from the Jeweled Sword are 3carat Diamonds, which by themselves are insanely rare (from my testing, less than 0.1%, though probably you can check in the emulator itself the actual rate) and sell for 34100 with OC, but most of what you're gonna get are items that sell for 3720 with overcharge.
In comparison, Gift Boxes can quite as easily give jewels as well (and I'd argue most of what you get are those), but also much more expensive items, such as Dolls (with prices ranging from 2k to 9k without OC), Crystal Mirror, Witherless Rose (exact same price as 3carat Diamond), Gold, and even Santa Poring Cards, which I've consistently sold for around 500k. From the Gift Boxes I got from testing, I got 4 Santa Porings, and it only takes one of them to outprice all of the 3carat Diamonds I ever got with the Jeweled Sword. Hell, those 4 Santa Porings by themselves outprice all of the jewels I got in the testing multiplied by 5.
Now, when you compare those two, Myst Case Card can be used by literally anybody at any level, you just need to compound it into a slotted headgear and you're good to go. On the other hand, the Jeweled Sword is both class limited and level limited, but most importantly, you're giving up the most crucial slot you have, the weapon slot, to use a subpar weapon. When using a Cubic headgear, you can still use any weapon you want, making you still extremely effective in combat against anything, whereas the Jeweled Sword quite literally gimps you into using a mediocre-attack, uncarded and non-elemental weapon (unless you endow it).
If balance is the reason the Jeweled Sword was nerfed, then either buff it to the rates it should have, or nerf the Myst Case Card, because honestly the way I see it, the latter ends up being a lot more broken.
I apologise if this whole thing was hard to read, long walls of text aren't my forte. At any rate, I'd request the rates to be looked over, because as they stand right now they don't make sense. Personally, I'd go for consistency: either make all the items x5 to match the rates, or kick them all back to x1.