QOL: a proposal for fixing the grind on rare items

I have a quality of life suggestion.

The situation:
This is a game. It's supposed to be fun. There are some really cool items in the game that you can get, but you have to work for it. For example, the Heart of Vrul, the Envy Bow, the BMC ring, dragon heads, rare fish, etc.

The problem:
In order to get these items, you have to farm them, and kill the same creatures over and over and over again. Sometimes hundreds of times, spending hours, and even days before you get the lucky drop. This isn't fun.

I get the dev perspective that you don't want to flood the world with every new item. But from the user perspective, nobody wants to spend 20 hours killing trolls just to get a ring.

How can this be fixed so that both the devs and the players are happy?

A possible solution:
One solution that makes sense to me is to have a multiplier in your favor. The longer you farm something, the higher your chances of getting it. Perhaps it starts out at a 1% drop chance. When you farm it, the RNG kicks in, and you may or may not get it. Probably not. But that's ok, because a little piece of data is stored which says, "ok, they've farmed it once, let's give them a .1% bump next time they try". Next time you have a 1.1% chance. Then a 1.2% chance, 1.3% chance, etc. Eventually you'll get the item, at which point the bonus bump goes back to 0 for that item for that player.

It keeps items hard to get, but not so insanely hard that players give up in frustration. It just means that someone who's willing to put in a little time will be guaranteed to eventually get what they want, which is fun for the player, and thus good for the game.

 

UO did the same thing after a certain number of kills the % eventually hits a reasonable number and they drop.

This works B U T . . . .

There needs to be a mechanic that prevents this from just guaranteeing it after one is dropped. NOT the counter just starts over.

The issue is then how do you use this to reward a player, a time or two but not just leave it so "Farmers" just know they do it so many time then get one and repeat.

Some action that marks players accounts as "Drop Received" then goes back to RNG system is what is needed. This ensures at least a player can and will get one, then if they want to grind it out for more go for it. I would also however Lower the % chance after the first Drop and possibly even initiate a counter so that after 5 - 10 drops the % chance is 1/2ed again.

 

Weins might know more about the MMO actions of other games, so correct me if this is completely exploitable...

The accomplishment of killing that "thing" for the first time should be the reward. It was really, really hard to get strong enough for 2 of us to kill a troll the first time. By my sense of "fun" I should be getting reward on the first kill. Diminished returns after that, and even more diminished after farming ad nauseam.

Now, mechanics to prevent elite groups from "helping" a brand new account get this great drop? Not sure. The point is, working forever to get to a point where you finally achieve victory only to get 10gp is a supreme letdown. I've stopped playing for awhile because I cannot get over this farm, farm, farm mode of trying to get anything.

Achievement based initial reward, that is what I would prefer. And one that is not just going to be exploited (the tough part).

 

Is there a list that shows which mobs drop xxxx artifact? In offline mode it is tough to get a fleet flute to drop. I have a BMc ring and the mouse ring.