Warden Tower Shield

[Ozric]

Anyone out there get lucky enough for Sophia Dryden to drop her shield? I've killed her many, many times now without success.

[Craftian]

The drop is extremely rare so the best thing to do is just keep at it. It might take 40-50 attempts before it finally happens, so good luck. If you want it that badly though, you can also spawn it in via the console.

[LilG]

It took me 5 attempts to get that shield, the other enemy Gaxkang I lost count how many times I tried to get the Fade Wall shield off him.

[Ozric]

Cheers for the replies. I've killed her maybe 30 times? I'll just keep at it until it appears. I guess I could use the console but I never have so far in this game. Gaxkang is someone I haven't come across yet though. I'll post here when I get Dryden to cough up : )

[Ozric]

Ok she finally dropped it

[LilG]

Nice one, Gaxkang is an optional boss that you can fight later on in the story, he drops a good shield for a tank.

[Ozric]

Well I had to reformat this PC for reasons various so I ended up starting over on a new character. I saved the appropriate folder and tried to import my saves into a new installation but there were problems so I started afresh. She dropped the shield after only eleven tries this time. I still didn't meet Gaxkang yet but I'm certain it's going to be fun : )

[Zeetarb]

Dunno why they went with a random loot structure like this for a game like this; especially for an item so key to the set as that. Just seems cruel.

[LilG]

Random loot drops have been a common thing in RPGs for years.

[Zeetarb]

Originally posted by LilG:

Random loot drops have been a common thing in RPGs for years.

For iconic DLC set pieces with a very low chance of pickup in a completely unreplayable scenario with only one chance to drop it? That's less common generally and just irritating in general in a single player game where it requires reloads and grinding doesn't fit the setting.

[Ozric]

Well the first thing I'll do is at least get the boss's name correct....Gaxkang. I'm even going to edit my previous posts. Maybe I should get out more.

I got the Unbound quest to initiate and sure enough, met Gaxkang. He /she /it dropped Fade Wall on my seventh attempt, so, not so bad.

The shield is cool but only really in the same league as Howe's shield or Duncan's shield from the Warden's vault.

Zeetarb...you make a valuable point, but is not reloading at least similar to grinding? How far does one go to get the piece or weapon that they really want? I remember grinding for a whole week to get a certain weapon in Shaiya, back in the day when the game was not a laughable catastrophe. The reloads I undertook in this game took far, far less time. I guess I could gripe that there is a massive chance that I would have never even heard of the Warden Tower Shield unless I stumbled across it via the wiki, or that I would've never even been aware of the Fade Wall unless LilG had mentioned it. Makes for replayability? It could be seen as cruel also. Maybe like the totally unreachable medi-pack that the devs put into one of the early Tomb Raider games. I forget which exact one. You could plainly see it atop a pillar but there was absolutely no way to get it. I'm sure that one caused many a gamer to seek a lie down in a darkened room twenty years ago.

[LilG]

Not everyone enjoys having to grind for rare drops, it's understandable. It can get really frustrating when you really want the rare item that an enemy or boss drops & you're spending hours upon hours trying & hoping it will drop. It can seem cruel but luckily most RPGs let you reload a previous save or add a way to improve the drop rates.

The drop rates for DAO don't seem that bad to me,maybe I was just lucky to get the shield etc.

The worst drop rate in an RPG for me was the rare tail items in Final Fantasy 4 with a drop rate of 0.8% >.> Gave up on trying.