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[Amentallica]

What are some very difficult or nearly impossible things to get in some video games? I can't think of anything particularly difficult, but I believe in FFXII, to find the second zodiac spear the player must enter some dungeon repeatedly until a chest appears which has 1/several hundred chance of appearing (I am sure my probability is incorrect but it's something like that). I remember it being a tedious process.

Edit: Also, I'd like to know what the probabilities of getting some of your examples are. Anything out there with a ridiculous probability of 1/100000+?

 

[swazzyswess]

In my experience, the pure Bladestone in Demon's Souls. I've never grinded so much.

 

[super-famicom]

A Legendary or even a good item for the class you actually played as in Diablo 3 (launch window, pre-patches)

 

[Nose Master]

FF11 had some absurd drop rates.

 

[joeblow]

Rolling a perfect 18 for each of the maximum stats allowed in Baldur's Gate when creating a character.

EDIT (per OP's request): The chances of getting three six-sided dice to roll all sixes (an 18) six times in a row for the six stats:
1 in 101,559,956,668,416.

The estimate is that it'll happen once every 3.2 million years if the dice are being re-rolled 24 hours a day until the perfect statline is reached.

 

[Captain Pants]

In my experience, the pure Bladestone in Demon's Souls. I've never grinded so much.

Yup. In over 400 hours, I've only seen 5 or 6 of them.

 

[Levyne]

I got the Pure Bladestone in Demon's souls. Think I got a little lucky.

Outside of the Zodiac Spear in FFXII, I never did manage to get a Grand Armor or Grand Helm to drop, and not for lack of trying. The Danjuro I also remember being a pretty tricky thing to obtain.

Ye gods, there are going to be trophies tied to those sorts of things in the inevitable FFXII remaster, arent there ;_:

 

[ponpo]

Until people figured out duping and started dropping them everywhere! Thanks Thomas.

 

[meptrep]

Knives in CS:GO, I've opened at least 25 or 30 cases and not gotten a single one.

 

[random25]

Goo King Sword, Breath of Fire 3.

It took me a second clean playthrough for that item to drop.

 

[whiteninja]

Jboots in Everquest. Many many weeks camping the desert trying to get a giant that probably spawns like once a month. And there's tons of other camping it too so I had very little chance of ever killing it. By the time I finally got them, they put in AA abilities that could give you a perma boost to speed that actually exceeded the buff from the boots.

 

[Sillution]

FF11 had some absurd drop rates.

This. Plus along the fact that multiple people in the group were always going for the same rare items, it was very hard to get most of them.

 

[Renekton]

TBC Illidan Blades.

You'd get maybe 10 of one side, and 0 of the other.

 

[epmode]

Sinew is pretty tough to come by in Divinity: Original Sin. I'm basically a billion hours in but I've only found enough to craft a single bow string. Random loot can be pretty lousy.

 

[>:)]

Well over 300 runs before I got those damn Sonic Boots... Now the Fuma Gear on the other hand...

 

[Phediuk]

Pink Tail in Final Fantasy 4. 1/64 chance of encountering the enemy that drops it, a 1/20 chance that it drops an item, and if it drops an item, there's a 1/64 chance of it being a Pink Tail.

 

[Zushin]

In my experience, the pure Bladestone in Demon's Souls. I've never grinded so much.

Yup, this.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Original Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast had horrible odds for just the crap rares. Good rares were even worse.

Example: Red Slicer in GC version would 1/573 or 1/701 depending on the enemy. While on original Dreamcast, this would have been a 1/194181. And this is a rather common rare weapon with medium/decent stats. Nowhere near being good enough for that strange rate.. lol

 

[Pau]

I still haven't gotten the Sword of Kings in Earthbound. After 3 hours I just put the game away and I've been to angry to pick it back up.

 

[JazzmanZ]

Getting the Iron Golem soul in Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow.

This lil'bugger takes only 1 hp of damage per hit, even if you're at an insanely high level, and his Soul is super rare.

 

[Hasemo]

Tons of rare items and cards in Ragnarok Online had a 0.01% drop chance.
All bosses were out in the open so you had to not only beat the RNG but also tons of other players farming them. Fun times.

 

[Firehead]

FF11 had some absurd drop rates.

Was gonna post this. And a good chunk of the drops were pretty much mandatory for the specific job/subjob you're going with. Fuck you, Leaping Lizzy, Valkurm Emperor and Jaggedy-Eared Jack!

 

[bobawesome]

Well over 300 runs before I got those damn Sonic Boots... Now the Fuma Gear on the other hand...

Ah yes, there was a reason I quit playing that game...

 

[N4Us]

I still haven't gotten the Sword of Kings in Earthbound. After 3 hours I just put the game away and I've been to angry to pick it back up.

I've had times where it took me forever.... and one playthrough where I got it on the first battle in that area, haha

 

[ohkay]

TBC Illidan Blades.

You'd get maybe 10 of one side, and 0 of the other.

Heh, I got the main hand my first black temple raid, but never the offhand

 

[Gazoinks]

Pure Bladestone from Demon's is a good one.

This isn't numerically that low, but my own personal impossible drop is the Balder Side Sword in Dark Souls. I played that game for over 100 hours. I grinded for it. I still have yet to actually get one.

 

[Battousaii]

FFX dodge lightning bullshit 200 times bullshit....Man was that frustrating

 

[Uncle Rupee]

This lil'bugger takes only 1 hp of damage per hit, even if you're at an insanely high level, and his Soul is super rare.

Soul collecting in the portable Castlevanias is one of the most annoying implementations of random item drops in any game. Some of the monsters only exist in one room in the entire game, and to get them to respawn you have to exit the room and re-enter each and every time you kill it. On top of that the drop rate is very low.

At least in your example I think there is a weapon or spell combination that will give you the ability to hit the enemy several times in a row (lightning I think), allowing you to whittle down its HP much more quickly, and you can equip an ability or item that will increase the drop rate slightly. But it's still a major pain.

 

[ponpo]

Well over 300 runs before I got those damn Sonic Boots... Now the Fuma Gear on the other hand...

Ah yes, there was a reason I quit playing that game...

Off topic but is Harmony of Despair worth playing if I want to mostly play alone? Even if I wanted to play online, is the current playerbase big?

 

[super-famicom]

I still haven't gotten the Sword of Kings in Earthbound. After 3 hours I just put the game away and I've been to angry to pick it back up.

I didn't have much trouble getting the Sword, but Gutsy Bat? Impossible. It didn't help that the strategy guide had an error and told us the wrong Kraken type dropped it. I didn't need it to beat the game though.

 

[BumbleChump]

Phoenix Wright in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.

His evidence gathering is dependent on the team composition of your opponent, so if you happen to get matched against a team that's really bad for your evidence, you will die every single round before you have a chance to get 3 good pieces of evidence. It's freaking difficult to get items when there's stuff flying all over the place too!

 

[Dr Amazon MD]

Off topic but is Harmony of Despair worth playing if I want to mostly play alone? Even if I wanted to play online, is the current playerbase big?

Miser rings are the hardest drop to get in Castlevania HoD if my friend is to be believed. I don't know the actual rate though.

There's still quite a few that play it on Xbox Live, lots of which are Japanese, but I've never had a problem finding a group.

 

[XJF]

What are some very difficult or nearly impossible things to get in some video games? I can't think of anything particularly difficult, but I believe in FFXII, to find the second zodiac spear the player must enter some dungeon repeatedly until a chest appears which has 1/several hundred chance of appearing (I am sure my probability is incorrect but it's something like that). I remember it being a tedious process.

The odds of getting the second Zodiac Spear (without RNG manipulation) are 1/1000. There's a 1/10 chance the chest spawns. Then IF it spawns there's a 1/10 chance it's NOT gil. Then if it's NOT gil, there's only a 1/10 chance it's the Spear.

FFX dodge lightning bullshit 200 times bullshit....Man was that frustrating

I didn't find this too difficult. There's a crater that when you approach it it forces a lightning bolt, evade and repeat. Easily doable in 10 minutes. I'm sure Levyne will back me up on this lol

 

[Dsyndrome]

I didn't have much trouble getting the Sword, but Gutsy Bat? Impossible. It didn't help that the strategy guide had an error and told us the wrong Kraken type dropped it. I didn't need it to beat the game though.

Both have a 1/128 chance of appearing, didn't even bother with either when I found that out.

 

[zoukka]

I remember my friend grinding for days and weeks for some items in PSO. It was madness.

 

[Syf]

The Exar Kun Mural drop in Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind. It was a decorative piece for a house or ship, and it only dropped from the last boss in the EK instance. Super low drop rate; don't know the exact probability but it was the lowest I've encountered as only a few of them ever dropped in the game. On my server that thing was worth over a billion credits. I ran full instance groups nearly every night for years and only saw it drop once.

 

[SixMachine]

Getting the Iron Golem soul in Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow.

This lil'bugger takes only 1 hp of damage per hit, even if you're at an insanely high level, and his Soul is super rare.

Killer Carpet kills him in one hit. The only way I found that out is because my cousin ran around on my file hitting everything with it because he thought it was funny whipping someone with it like a wet towel.

edit: Then again I don't think killer carpet was in DOS iirc, but I don't remember this guy being hard to farm.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Some of the mounts in World of WarCraft, between player competition, drop rates, raid lockouts and the like put you at some terrible odds.

Time-Lost Proto Drake is probably the most sought after, or was at one point. I'd imagine it's gotten back to being the hardest after cross-realm was added.

 

[Zippedpinhead]

Sword of kings in earthbound

1/255 chance of dropping from 1/6 different enemy encounters in the Stonehenge dungeon. Luckily enemies are on screen so you can just search out the star man type ( which limits the different enemy encounters to two I believe). It being poo's only weapon means that I farm one EVERY single time I play through the game... Totally worth it each time, but such a pain...

 

[Mentok]

In my experience, the pure Bladestone in Demon's Souls. I've never grinded so much.

First post nails it. Took me a while to get it, then when I finally did I felt so satisfied....for about 10 seconds. Then I questioned what I'm doing with my life that I could run the same section for about 3 hours straight to get 1 item.

Similarly, the Channeler's Trident in DS has a pretty low drop rate.

Trying to get the entire Mad Warrior set and Berserker Blade in DS2 can take a LONG time I'm sure as the phantom is a rare appearance with a rare drop rate (1 item per drop). EDIT: Just checked, and there's roughly a 0.13% chance of him spawning and dropping an item. Now do that for the helmet, chest piece, gauntlets, leggings and blade.

 

[Professor Lich]

These jerks right here.

Took hours to get them all.

 

[super-famicom]

Sword of kings in earthbound

1/255 chance of dropping from 1/6 different enemy encounters in the Stonehenge dungeon. Luckily enemies are on screen so you can just search out the star man type ( which limits the different enemy encounters to two I believe). It being poo's only weapon means that I farm one EVERY single time I play through the game... Totally worth it each time, but such a pain...

I thought it only dropped from Starman Supers (the gold Starman). And the odds were 1/128, not 1/255.

 

[Bog]

Original Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast had horrible odds for just the crap rares. Good rares were even worse.

Example: Red Slicer in GC version would 1/573 or 1/701 depending on the enemy. While on original Dreamcast, this would have been a 1/194181. And this is a rather common rare weapon with medium/decent stats. Nowhere near being good enough for that strange rate.. lol

That's why you had to play with people who had the rares, wait for them to die, then take their weapons and deny it.

 

[Desty]

Getting the Iron Golem soul in Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow.

This lil'bugger takes only 1 hp of damage per hit, even if you're at an insanely high level, and his Soul is super rare.

Hm, I thought there was an item (cake?) that you could use which would take 1 hp of damage away from him if he stands on it. Since he moves so slow it takes a chunk of his health away. Maybe I am misremembering since it has been a few years since I played it.

 

[Aurongel]

The Zodiac Spear and Tournesol take the cake for me.

12 hours (real amount) of grinding for that fucking sword.

 

[360pages]

The fiends in SMT4. Each have a appear rate of 1/256, each are super hard boss fights even on normal each are needed to fuse one with another and you have to find the spot yourself.

Did I mention you need to grind one of them if you want max stats in the game?

 

[Levyne]

I didn't find this too difficult. There's a crater that when you approach it it forces a lightning bolt, evade and repeat. Easily doable in 10 minutes. I'm sure Levyne will back me up on this lol

Thank goodness for that crater,

 

[illadelph]

why even bother with most of this shit, the developers are assholes for some of this stuff

 

[ethanny2]

The fiends in SMT4. Each have a appear rate of 1/256, each are super hard boss fights even on normal each are needed to fuse one with another and you have to find the spot yourself.

Did I mention you need to grind one of them if you want max stats in the game?

Oh god I just gave up after 4 of them. Also sucks that you cannot make Trumpeter until you have all three fiends

 

[MasterCheeze]

I just grinded out for Poo's Sword of Kings the other day. Even though Earthbound lets you auto-win battles if you're strong enough, it was still an hour and a half or so ordeal.