Change to Splitpaw and TS book drops?

[Macibaru]

I am just curious if anyone else is having problems getting TS advanced books from Splitpaw recently. A week or two ago, I was in Upper tunnels (at level 39/40) farming the books for my tradeskillers and a couple guildies that were still missing their level 40 books, and I was getting drops fairly regularly. I was entering from the back door, in Lower tunnels, and killing the 7 or so ghost/blobs by the entrance. I usually got at least 1 chest drop from those seven mobs, and about 1/3-1/4 of those was a TS book of one type or another. The rest either being SS armor/weapons (most common), gold/silver, or an Adept 1 (rare). If I went ahead and cleared the whole zone of all the solo mobs, I would usually end up collecting 10-15 chests, and get about 4 or 5 books. This has been the only way I could collect the books with any regularity (and with 4 TS alts that need them, and a guild full of TS'ers, this is fairly important to me).Over the weekend, I went back, looking for the 43-45 books I was still missing, at 44, and after clearing the zone once, and doing just the ghosts about 5 times. I got much fewer chests than I used to get, 0 books, a couple Adepts, and a whole lot of vendor fodder armor (about 8 or 9 pieces total). I then went and did harclave's to see if that would be any better, and after clearing the entire zone (and getting almost no xp for it), I only ended up with 2 TS advanced books. Other people on the boards have noticed similar results.So my question, ultimately, is with all the patches lately that didn't have any patch notes to them, was there some change to Splitpaw to reduced the amount of books that drop? And, if so, could it be tuned back a bit? Some of these books are exceptionally difficult to find otherwise, and I can't for the life of me see a reason to nerf this, if it has indeed been nerfed. It could have just been bad luck on my part, but I've never gone and not gotten ANY books. At worst, I got two or three of the same ones (woodworker, usually), never have I not gotten ANY before now.<div></div>

[ke'la]

<P>I was working on getting my SP shard for an Alt Sunday Afternoon and got 3 TS books out of Harclaves(only killed the solo MoBs by the first 2 Brazers, the Post buff Gnoll Side, and just enough on the Shroom Side to kill Spore King and the last Named safly). I also did the Solo Arena twice and got 1 book the second time I did that, so I got 4 Total(3 armor and 1 something else) on doing 3 zones. This was with a lvl 28/29(lvled after finnishing harclave) toon doing the Easiest Setting(as I was in it for the shard not the loot).</P> <P>As for not getting XP in harclave, they nerfed the XP(from MoBs) in there along time ago, Instead you get almost all the XP(~18% @ 2<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> from the quest completion... so if your NOT looking for loot(wich BTW was also nerfed along time ago, though its still better then most solo areas 'til DoF) all you have to do is Light the Touches, Touch the Arc then kill Spore King and the last named all the other kills are pritty much time sinks.</P>

[Ebjelen]

<P>Luck has a lot of power in Splitpaw. I've been through some times and gotten chests on nearly every other mob. Then, other times, I get only two chests through the entire upper tunnels part. Strange but true. There may be factors as in most zones such as how many people are doing the zone. With Splitpaw being a private zone, it's hard to tell how many people are in other instances.</P> <P>Try again on a different day and at a different time.</P>

[Macibaru]

The zone I was having the real trouble with was Upper Tunnels. I got a couple of books when I did Harclave's, which is lower than the other 3 or 4 times I did it, but that could have just been good luck those other times, or bad luck now. I could accept that it was just bad luck, if doing what I did only netted me half as many books/chests as I normally see. But to not get ANY, and to have 2 other people tell me the same thing, suggests that they may no longer be dropping at all (or have had their drop rate severely reduced). It COULD, certainly be bad luck, or an inordantly long streak of good luck I was having before, but it just seems odd, to me that I didn't get any.So, can anyone confirm or deny my suspicions? Has anyone seen a book drop in Upper Tunnels in the last week or so? Has anyone had several drop the way I describe that I used to get them? Has anyone seen anything mentioned by a dev about the change? Has anyone seen anything in a patch/update note regarding it?<div></div>

[Selene1]

<div><blockquote><hr>Macibaru wrote:So, can anyone confirm or deny my suspicions? Has anyone seen a book drop in Upper Tunnels in the last week or so? Has anyone had several drop the way I describe that I used to get them? Has anyone seen anything mentioned by a dev about the change? Has anyone seen anything in a patch/update note regarding it?<div></div><hr></blockquote>I can confirm it.i just started upper tunnels and it dropped advanced sage volume 49 on the first bats in the zone. dont know how many more will drop as im posting right after the loot</div>