Red will be the mist that clouds your eyes,
Crimson beauty that spells your demise!
You know how it happens in every game... the call, that ever so alluring call of Epic Lewt.
The game: Batheo
The place: Dispute of Golden Apple
The problem: A harem of nubile Nymphs equipped with gear such as High Hopes, Caged Desire & Claire's Whip taunt players with the chance at their first piece of red equipment.
The culprit: Sword of Ares Fragments
The Nymph Legion is a necessary step to completing the Dispute of Golden Apple in order to open the next zone, Roaring Sea. It is composed of 11 units comprising the prior ladies in the zone. The rewards are 600 Laurels and the chance of a fragment drop.
It is this fragment that causes the problem. The Sword of Ares is the first red drop that players are likely to see (with the exception of those who invest heavily in Commissions). But instead of the full Sword, you are rewarded with 1 of 10 fragments. Once a player has obtained a fragment they are thus induced into trying for all 10 fragments. Because of this, players will try to run the Nymph Legion as frequently as they can.
While all this may seem quite harmless, indeed players justify it as "I'm just running it for the Laurels." the danger is quite acute. Mathematically, the fragment has an approximate 1 in 10 chance of dropping. A 1 in 10 chance of a drop is actually fairly good odds... indeed it is no different from the other 'Low Odds' drops. What players fail to factor is that only ONE of the players who took part in defeating the Nymph Legion gets the drop. Assuming you run with the full 8, you will on average need to run the Nymph Legion 800 times for a half chance at completing the Sword of Ares.
800 times is a 'mere' 800 divs which being 800 hours is 'only 33 days' .
... and this is where it starts to get more insidious. Believing that red loot is within their reach, players will begin to run the Nymphs whenever quota is available... and this is the part they forget... QUOTA.
You can only run Nymphs 8 times before the quota needs to be refilled, and it is refilled thrice daily for a total of 24 runs. This may seem to still follow the idea of 'only 33 days' but players often forget that they have to compete with other players for that quota. This competition will drive players to launch as quickly as possible to 'grab' their share of the quota before others can. Indeed many will favor running with as few as possible in order the maximize the chance that they will get a drop. (If you run with 4 players, your chance of getting a fragment is improved from 1 in 80 to 1 in 40. Twice as good! ) This rush to launch with as few as possible adds greatly to the risk of failure. With 11 units to defeat the minimum you can launch with is 4 players but if even a single player fails to kill the maximum streak of 3, the Nymph Legion ends in failure as defeating the last Nymph without any reserve results in a win for the defending legion... which in this case is the Nymphs.
As more and more players gather fragments, more and more will begin to compete for the limited quota. This results in a spiral where ever more players are caught by the Nymphs. Having 3,4 or even 6+ fragments, they can no longer afford to quit the race to complete their red weapon and thus become devoted to farming the Nymphs every chance they get even when they reach the higher levels of 60 to 80. At 60, the Nymph Legion gives only 400 laurels... by 80, a mere 60.
What started off as a single fragment becomes an expensive collectors desire to 'complete' their collection even as the costs escalate. This results in lost divs (from failed attempts at Nymphs) and slower progress (meaning you get the more powerful heroes and items from the later zones slower).
If you really want to farm laurels... do the smart thing, run the Prometheus Legion instead. It gives 600 laurels just like the Nymph Legion does but you only need to defeat 10 units and those units are lower level and less deadly than the Nymphs. So not only are you more likely to succeed, you take less faculty loss from the fight AND the item drop from Prometheus (same 1 in 10) can be sold for more.
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