Move to the fourth hunting ground? Loot lock stays the same
✍️ Alice・愛麗沙
Gem farmers do not move; resource farmers do. One more hunting ground does not add one more loot-lock allowance — Taiwan’s August measurements point to an account-level counter, so four maps split the same pool. The three reasons Cloud Wasteland is worth visiting have nothing to do with gems: the area-5 silver vein, 4 guaranteed key boxes from the Hard-or-above ward, and first kills on two new area bosses. For gems and emblem runes, Ice Gorge Very Hard is still the spot. Korean readers know the mechanism under its Korean name, fatigue.
Loot lock: the invisible cap, unchanged
One-sentence version: one more map is not one more allowance — resource farmers move, gem farmers stay.
One pool.
“Loot lock” is the name Taiwanese players gave a mechanism: after a certain number of area-boss kills in a hunting ground, nothing drops any more. The official side never named it; Korea calls it fatigue. Three points from the August Bahamut thread:
- Per map × difficulty, the pre-lock drop count is finite; players logged 7–10.
- After the lock, paid entries drop nothing either.
- Several players suspect the counter is account-level — switching characters does not reset it.
The third decides the question. If the counter is account-level, Cloud Wasteland is not “one more pool” but “one more entrance to the same pool”. Every area-boss fight there spends allowance you would otherwise spend in Ice Gorge.
The notice announced no change to this mechanism. There is no reason to assume one.
| Rule | Confidence | Where |
|---|---|---|
| The counter is per map × difficulty: once one boss in a difficulty is farmed to the lock, the other bosses in that difficulty drop nothing either; another map or difficulty is a separate counter. | Confident | 1F 07-31 · 7F 08-18 |
| 3 hunting grounds × 3 difficulties (Normal / Hard / Very Hard) = 9 independent counters. | Confident | 1F 07-31 · 7F 08-18 · Nexon TW guide 3474909 |
| The lock stops every zone-boss drop — materials, gems, runes (emblem runes included) and gold. Regular mobs keep dropping materials. | Confident | 4F reply 08-03 · B10 · B37 · B13 · B14 · B43 · B21 · B24 |
| The quota per counter is not shown in-game. The OP feels it is about 7 (7/7); 阿天 saw sometimes 10, sometimes 7 and suspects it counts drop amount rather than kills; 西斯歐 estimated about 5 per counter. | Unconfirmed | B23 08-10 · B25 08-10 · B9 07-31 |
| About a day after the lock it opens again, but re-locks after one kill — so the daily refill is roughly 1 per counter. The floor-7 sweep reached the same reading: 1 reward chance per map per difficulty per day, 9 in all. | Moderate | 1F update 8/1 · 7F 08-18 |
| Unused chances accumulate, so you can clear every few days; the 10 drops from the Normal-difficulty ratman in Wolf Forest on 18 Aug look like accumulation. Nobody measured the cap. | Moderate | 1F update 8/2 · 7F 08-18 |
| Monday does not reset this counter (unlike the black-hole weekly reset at 06:00 Monday). | Moderate | 3F 08-02 → 3F reply 08-03 |
| Free entry is enough to farm zone bosses; no silver-coin main quest is needed. | Moderate | B38 → B39 08-15 |
| After the lock, paying silver coins to enter and running 4 times the same day still gave no emblem runes (other loot yes) — paid entry does not bypass the lock. | Unconfirmed | B41 08-16 (unconfirmed) |
| After the lock, completing one zone quest restores normal mob drops, but boss drops stay locked. | Unconfirmed | B19 → B21 08-09 |
| AFK at the boss spawn: boss gold locks too; what is left is the gold from the two mobs next to it. | Unconfirmed | B35 → B37 08-15 |
| OP, 14 Aug: farming only the boss nearest the entrance, gem drops looked uneven and each boss seemed to drop a different gem (table below) — but the same update adds that it feels like every gem can drop and it is luck. Another player concluded gems are random and green emblem runes are plentiful. | Unconfirmed | 1F update 8/14 · 6F 08-14 · B34 08-14 |
⚠️ A sample, not a rate: one thread, 5 players, 18 days. Only two days (13 and 18 Aug) carry actual counts, and nobody counted per gem type. Every line below says who said it, on which floor, on which day. Citation format: nF = floor n of the thread, Bn = comment n under floor 1.Zones
Are Cloud Wasteland’s area bosses worth fighting?
Yes — for the first-kill fights. Korea records two: the rough thorn scorpion in area 5, the wilderness hunter goblin in area 9. Each boss’s pre-lock drops are ones you have not eaten yet; that is pure gain. After the lock, the difference from Ice Gorge is only level: Normal 61, Hard 65. Ice Gorge Very Hard drops a tier higher, and Cloud Wasteland Very Hard at suggested level 74 is not for you at this stage. So the most efficient gem spot has not moved: Ice Gorge Very Hard.
Three reasons to move
The area-5 silver vein. The only one in the game — see the table in the nine-area article. Mining has nothing to do with loot lock; mine as much as you like.
The ward: 4 key boxes on Hard or above. Korea records the Cloud Wasteland ward boss on Hard or above paying 4 mystic dice key boxes guaranteed. Taiwan’s weekly ward cap is unpublished; Korea’s is 7. 7 × 4 = 28 boxes a week if a server follows Korea’s rule. The older maps’ wards have no such guaranteed number. This is the hardest reason for resource farmers to relocate. One more hole map. The daily hole count does not change, but Ice Gorge’s level slots are 61/63/64 and Cloud Wasteland’s are unrecorded. One more map adds a candidate position, not a count.
The easy miscalculation
“4 maps × 3 difficulties = 12 lock allowances.” That assumes the counter is independent per map and difficulty. Player measurements point the other way: account-level. Until someone proves independence, use the conservative assumption — your total allowance did not grow.
Conversely, if you fight 10 area bosses in Cloud Wasteland and then still get drops in Ice Gorge, that is evidence of independent counters. The experiment is cheap; report it if you run it.
What to do now
- Gem farmers: stay in Ice Gorge Very Hard; in Cloud Wasteland, only the two area bosses’ first kills.
- Resource farmers: stand in Cloud Wasteland Hard on the hour for the 4-box ward; mine area 5 in between.
- Nobody builds combat power for Cloud Wasteland Very Hard.
What would overturn this: account-level loot lock is a player inference, not an official rule — if per-map independence is measured, the “same pool” premise vanishes and Cloud Wasteland becomes pure gain; the 4-box ward is a Korean number, and the in-game ward reward wins on any server.