I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on exceptional drop rates. I think it's where it needs to be, but I'm wrong once in a while So what do you think?

It's quite decent, they're very rare as supposed to. Up the top end drop rate for normal items slightly though, at 70 I'm stuck farming instead of progressing.

I think a little farming would be acceptable. Especially the first go around into nightmare and hell. After all it's supposed to be a challenge, so some farming would be required, but I don't want to be absurd. Successive characters will be twinked, of course, so it will be much easier for them to progress.

I'm considering increasing the rate slightly, but nothing radical.

I had a 103chain in lower guk, would have been higher but I had to peeeee and ghoul lord(bastard) mugged me while I was mid stream, and I got one exceptional item off of the froglok king : ). I had a 20-30 mob chain in permafrost but didn't get any. Hard for me to comment as not all the mobs are 49+. However, merchants sell exceptional items now with no level requirement. I can buy a 7/24 blue piercer (no lvl req) for like 700 gold on Dwolin (50 pal). Was this intended? I feel like its OK to have merchants sell them but perhaps all exceptional items have a base lvl req of 40 (or whatever is realistic to kill a 49 mob). Otherwise, in the case you implement an AH, a high level can flood the market with no level requirement blues/yellows that are way superior to anything else obtainable pre-exceptional.

Oh, well, yeah. You can find exceptional items at the vendor, but the key difference is they don't sell exceptional uniques. Big difference. Exceptional item is a "base item" modification.

Though, I'm glad you brought it up. The vendor sells rare/magic exceptional items at a higher rate than you'd normally find them. It just depends on your level. I should probably apply the same probability logic to the merchant.

I agree with Drete on the current drop rate. It should be rather rare, and currently it feels about right. It is always good to have those great moments when you find that amazingly rare item. Brings back memories of EQ.

On a separate note, do exception items only enhance the AC/Damage of a weapon? If they are to be the ideal and rare finds, it might be good to have them include a percentage boost to item stats as well.

Exceptional and Elite quality just indicates that the key base stats of the item, damage and armor, are significantly enhanced. When you get an exceptional elite that means you basically got a "double rare" and hit a jackpot. The stats are just much higher overall.

If you find an exceptional rare (yellow), it's possible that it's decent, but you're really looking for unique exceptionals. There's a chance of a random good roll on a rare from time to time though. Exceptional rares do have a good chance for decent random rolls, too, though.