Smoking Ephemera Drop Rate is ABSURD

[Shalath]

I bought 5 beacons and got the ephemera on my 3rd one. It's just RNG. As an example I've been farming Neo S12 relics since the weekend and I think I've gotten 1 yet the rest of my clan are have had Wukong for days.

[Tora.Prime]

The real question here is: why you and your friends buy beacons for the most common field-boss in the enterie game? i mean, stalker appear ALWAYS, is probably the special enemy most killed.
btw, i got 3 smoking ephemera and i wasn't even looking for it

[CuChulainnWD]

5 minutes ago, Tora.Prime said:

The real question here is: why you and your friends buy beacons for the most common field-boss in the enterie game? i mean, stalker appear ALWAYS, is probably the special enemy most killed.
btw, i got 3 smoking ephemera and i wasn't even looking for it

You got lucky. I purchased 8 beacons, and ended up using 4 of them, and 3 from a friend. We got the Ephemera. That said, The Smoking Ephemera has got nothing on the ESO Ephemera, Blazing Step, drop chance of 1%. That is something to complain about. The rest of them all sit at 5%, and were all obtainable after roughly 10 runs.

Edited July 16, 2019 by CuChulainnWD

[DCaedus]

laughs in 3 smoking body ephemeras

[BlackRoseAngel]

On 2019-06-01 at 4:49 AM, Xeryla said:

Me and my squad has used FORTY (40) TOTAL STALKER BEACONS and not even one Smoking Ephemera dropped.

Honestly its disappointing. all those times farming for ducats and waiting for baro to bring stalker beacon is WASTED.

My feedback? Just slap in a LOOT BOX (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT) THAT CONTAINS EPHEMERAS. It's a lot more better to spend on instead of farming that certain Ephemera and wasting time on it.

I've spent enough time farming for it and GOD knows if that drop chance is really 5%.

This drop chance is so low just to keep players on playing the game and farming for that single item.

Weapons locked behind that oh so low drop chance sure ill accept that, but for a  cosmetic item? no, its not even fun anymore, thinking about few months waiting for it and also force spawning stalker just hoping it will drop.

I don't know how the devs can say straight to the face of the community that a cosmetic drop is RNG base. again, its disappointing. early years cosmetics are behind alerts, events, plat pay wall. I can go with that. but behind RNG? NO. DE lost their magic on that. they forgot players are happy on the old cosmetic drop methods.

and now to add salt, they removed nightwave and new players cant even acquire nitain extracts and cosmetics JUST TO BE INLINE WITH THE DAMM CONSOLE PLAYERS

So to Sum up my rant and "SUGGESTION"

I'D RATHER PAY FOR A COSMETIC RATHER THAN TO FARM FOR IT WASTING TIME AND EXPECTING RNG TO DROP IT WITH GODFORSAKEN 5% DROP CHANCE JUST TO KEEP ME PLAYING THE GAME

I got one by sheer luck.

Now the Ash Systems you need to build the damn thing won't drop.

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 2019-06-01 at 12:49 PM, Xeryla said:

FORTY (40) TOTAL STALKER BEACONS

Interesting.

5% Drop chance is calculated at 45 runs to have a 95% chance of gaining the drop and 90 runs to have a 99% chance of gaining it. Once. There is never a guaranteed point, due to RNG having no guarantee.

One of the most common misconceptions about drop chance is taking the percentage for granted:

• A 5% drop chance does not mean every 20th repetition.
• A 5% drop chance does not mean 5 of 100 tries is a success.
• A 5% drop chance only means that over a large enough sample size or number of tries - tens of thousands - roughly 5% of those tries will lead to success.

And because randomness is involved it is possible that with a 5% drop chance you fail 950 times before you succeed the next 50 times.

So... no, I don't think you've spent long enough grinding for this item.

You may have had enough, and that's fair. You may have put in your limit. But by mathematics, your limit is not enough grind.

[voltyvoltyyy]

I have killed the stalker a total of 3 times on this acc and got the emphara 

dude its just luck

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

I know that Stalker can be a pain to farm because I had to buy the War from the pack it comes in because he wouldn't drop it.  I now have like 3 War BPs or something stupid like that.  What I've found to work well is just always take the time to help out any newbie asking for assistance with an assassinate.  Maybe run some randomly.  Farm some frames for Helminth if you're not done with that.  When I was farming for the ephemera I did so mostly passively, just pissing him off constantly and letting him show up when he wanted to while I was farming other things.  Multitasking it and letting it drop when it wanted to drop rather than buying beacons was a much better experience.  

Farming certain things in this game, like some ephemera and regular Ash are best done in a "it drop when it drops" kind of way.  Hang around the sort of content that has what you need and you'll get it eventually.  If it wasn't a cosmetic I'd say it was an issue, but it's honestly kind of disappointing anyway.

[(PSN)TYRDOK]

On 2019-06-01 at 8:52 AM, (XBOX)SilverSurferGuy said:

I’ve been farming the stalker for two years to get the hate...

I understand completely.

I've been farming stalker, and beacon farming for over a year now.

 

So far the BP's I've gotten from stalker are:

• Dread -->  Over 200
• Broken War --> 16
• War --> 15
• Scimitar Engines --> 13
• Smoking Body Ephemera --> 12
• Despair --> 12

 

It's also worse for any player that's completed the second dream quest to try and get Despair or Hate.

Blueprint's only drop about 50% of the time Stalker is killed, (per DE's Drop table chart), so these drop chance numbers are only for the times when a blueprint drops.

 

Per DE's Drop tables:

Drop Chance from Stalker / Hunhow  -- (Quest Not Completed)

• Dread --> 75.88%
• Despair --> 11.06% 
• Hate --> 11.06%
• Scimitar Engines --> 2.011%

Drop Chance from Shadow Stalker -- (Quest Completed)

• Dread --> 75.88%
• Despair --> 5.53% 
• Hate --> 5.53%
• Broken War --> 5.53%
• War --> 5.53%
• Scimitar Engines --> 2.011%

[xcrimsonlegendx]

Is it that rare? I have seven extra blueprints after crafting mine and I never actually sought to find it.

[BDMblue]

You’ll get this one just playing and it’s kinda lame.

[PhiThagRaid]

11 hours ago, BDMblue said:

You’ll get this one just playing and it’s kinda lame.

Yep, just kill a lot of bosses and he'll keep on spawning.(I think normal and SP bosses are counted as different bosses by stalker, I obtained a lot of marks from doing SP). I agree that the smoke is lame, I find Vengeful Flame to be a direct upgrade to this.

[Venus-Venera]

Am 1.6.2019 um 13:49 schrieb Xeryla:

Me and my squad has used FORTY (40) TOTAL STALKER BEACONS and not even one Smoking Ephemera dropped.

Honestly its disappointing. all those times farming for ducats and waiting for baro to bring stalker beacon is WASTED.

My feedback? Just slap in a LOOT BOX (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT) THAT CONTAINS EPHEMERAS. It's a lot more better to spend on instead of farming that certain Ephemera and wasting time on it.

I've spent enough time farming for it and GOD knows if that drop chance is really 5%.

This drop chance is so low just to keep players on playing the game and farming for that single item.

Weapons locked behind that oh so low drop chance sure ill accept that, but for a  cosmetic item? no, its not even fun anymore, thinking about few months waiting for it and also force spawning stalker just hoping it will drop.

I don't know how the devs can say straight to the face of the community that a cosmetic drop is RNG base. again, its disappointing. early years cosmetics are behind alerts, events, plat pay wall. I can go with that. but behind RNG? NO. DE lost their magic on that. they forgot players are happy on the old cosmetic drop methods.

and now to add salt, they removed nightwave and new players cant even acquire nitain extracts and cosmetics JUST TO BE INLINE WITH THE DAMM CONSOLE PLAYERS

So to Sum up my rant and "SUGGESTION"

I'D RATHER PAY FOR A COSMETIC RATHER THAN TO FARM FOR IT WASTING TIME AND EXPECTING RNG TO DROP IT WITH GODFORSAKEN 5% DROP CHANCE JUST TO KEEP ME PLAYING THE GAME

Yes. the drop chances are underground. that applies to many other items. or how can it be that I've been playing since 2013 and still haven't had "war bp" ...?

[dandeloreon]

I think the drop rate is good as it is now. The suggestion I have is to complete story-line quests in the codex.

Spoiler

I believe completing either the Second Dream or the War Within may help with gaining access to the stalker variant that drops the Smoking Ephemera Blueprints. The normal stalker does not drop the Smoking Ephemera blueprint, but the Shadow Stalker does.

 

[Hobie-wan]

4 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

Yes. the drop chances are underground. that applies to many other items. or how can it be that I've been playing since 2013 and still haven't had "war bp" ...?

If you're keeping Stalker upset with you at all times by occasionally smacking bosses around and playing missions that he can invade, you must be having some terrible luck.

[Yamazuki]

10 hours ago, Hobie-wan said:

If you're keeping Stalker upset with you at all times by occasionally smacking bosses around and playing missions that he can invade, you must be having some terrible luck.

The drop rate is low enough to where you could defeat him hundreds of times and you won't get them. It took me a while, even with beacon spam, to get Hate on one account, my others don't have it. Even though the ephemera is a more recent drop, due to the higher chance, I already have several of those despite it being worthless.

Other drops have lower rates but aren't as much of an issue simply due to being able to slaughter many of them in the thousands during the same period.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Yamazuki
typo

[Venus-Venera]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb Hobie-wan:

If you're keeping Stalker upset with you at all times by occasionally smacking bosses around and playing missions that he can invade, you must be having some terrible luck.

that has nothing to do with luck (or whatever it means)!
many just don't understand that a certain chance doesn't mean that EVER there will be a GUARANTEED drop!

that's the point!
and there are enough games where the chance increases after every kill and eventually reaches 100% ... there are other possible solutions

[Venus-Venera]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Yamazuki:

The drop rate is low enough to where you could defeat him hundreds of times and you won't get them. It took me a while, even with beacon spam, to gate Hate on one account, my others don't have it. Even though the ephemera is a more recent drop, due to the higher chance, I already have several of those despite it being worthless.

Other drops have lower rates but aren't as much of an issue simply due to being able to slaughter many of them in the thousands during the same period.

that's the way it is.
for me it's actually not a problem either. I do not need it. if it drop, ok. but I would never farm any items specifically from him in my life. that just doesn't work. Especially because I have all the other items from him and also got other drops from other mobs with extremely low chances.

I just wish that there would really be other alternatives, as suggested by the man above. because 500-1k plat is a matter of days for me or a week at most.

[b3rzz]

happened to pass by this post, just to add: 

after about 1100h ingame hours, i did drop war for the first time last week. 

hate took me about 700h 

smoking... im not sure but around 700h for the first one and i have dropped 4 at least so far.

[Hobie-wan]

14 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

that has nothing to do with luck (or whatever it means)!
many just don't understand that a certain chance doesn't mean that EVER there will be a GUARANTEED drop!

Where did I claim it was guaranteed? Luck being a vague way to say you've been on the good side of statistical chances. All I said there was if you're ensuring visits from Stalker by always having him mad at you (or beacons if desperate) and have been playing the game for some time, it would indeed suck if one hadn't had it drop.

I myself spent a year really trying to get the Bwar and War parts to drop so I could make a War from scratch because I'm stubborn. I didn't want to buy the bundle and I didn't want to use my Bwar from the quest. It finally happened, then within 4 months or so, I had enough parts to make 2 more. Things can be funny like that.

[b3rzz]

but it really makes you think if thats how things really work when you have to farm for something specifc

pathocyst is a good example 33% for the parts, yet i kinda followed the average: 8 BPs, 1link and 2 blades. (and my 3 last runs were blade>bp>blade) 

all praise the RNGesus XD

[doom5456]

I literally got the smoking ephemera and when I failed the mission (in lua spy mission, that mission is impossible for me to complete) I FRICKEN lost it