Guild Wars 2

In the official news about the 2014 Feature Patch , ANet said:

The Mystic Forge is going to get a lot of changes this year. To kick things off, we’re adjusting the way Zommoros distributes rare and exotic rewards a bit, allowing for more variation in output. This is just a stepping stone to further changes that will make the Mystic Forge a much better experience in the future. Please note: the rate of precursors will not be affected.

The Official Patch notes have only one line about the forge (other than notes about Unidentified Dyes and removing PvP recipes):

Some Mystic Forge recipes have been updated to provide a wider range of results.

Does anyone have any data that helps the rest of us understand what has changed? I’d be happy to update this post as people reply, so that we can gather all the data together and compare notes.

Anecdotally, it seems that Zommoros is still offering a 20% to upgrade items, e.g. flush 4,000 rares (1,000 flushes) and you should “expect” to get 200 exotics. That seems to hold true for fine and masterwork dyes, minor & major runes/sigils, and gear (masterwork and rare — I haven’t tried forging exotics or any armor).

The only hard data I’ve seen published was a single post on Reddit, which similarly showed that the upgrade rates have remained the same, but sometimes four L80 rares can “upgrade” into L7x exotics (instead of the expected L80s). There’s little financial hit compared to pre-patch for two reasons:

1. The sub-L80 items tend to sell at a similar premium to their L80 counterparts (due to either skins or upgrades or both).
2. The poster saw a lot more named weapons than I’ve seen in previous posts.

Summary of the Data (from over 1,200 rare GS reportedly flushed)

• Common skins: 42.8% = Iron Greatswords (L7x): 21.4% & Pearl (L80): 21.4%
• Semi-common skins (Orrian/Legion/Tribal): 4.2% = L7x: 1.4% & L80: 2.8%
• Uncommon skins (Ceremonial/Etched): 24.3% = L7x: 12.9% & L80: 11.4%
• Named weapons: 27.1%
• Precursor: 1.4%

Previous pre-patch posts I’ve seen about combining large number of greatswords show similar numbers: about 40-50% common skins, 15-20% semi-common, 13-18% uncommon, 14-18% named, and 0.5% precursor. The biggest difference is the one person finding a lot more named weapons at the expense of semi-common skins.

tl;dr Do we have any data on what has changed about the mystic forge, aside from L80 rares upgrading to L7x exotics (and perhaps more named weapons dropping)?

edit #1: fixed typo, per Serapheles note below (thanks)

(Minor error, 20% of 1000 is 200)

The chance of getting a l7x item is the only change I’ve noticed, though I don’t have a significant sample size. I’m curious if they reduced the chance of getting karma items, or made certain items forgable (that were not previously).

serapheles.5409:

(Minor error, 20% of 1000 is 200)

The chance of getting a l7x item is the only change I’ve noticed, though I don’t have a significant sample size. I’m curious if they reduced the chance of getting karma items, or made certain items forgable (that were not previously).

Fixed the typo — thanks for that.

I didn’t collect specific data on karma/soulbound items, but I’m still getting both from the relevant source materials, i.e. 4x major runes might return a soulbound major or superior rune and low-level blues/greens might return low-level gear found in the wild only at karma vendors. tl;dr no change in Zommy’s qualitative behavior in that regard.

Flushing 4x level 80 exotic armors got me a level 75 exotic – that’s the lowest output I’ve seen so far and somewhat notable since most talk I’ve seen is of the weapons. Armors are affected the same way :/

I suspect the rune and sigil probabilities have been tweaked. 2 Superior Divinity and 2 Superior Nightmare runes out of ~230 major rune flushes? Divinity has certainly taken a price hit… Shrug could just be luck though, we’ll see. My post-patch sample sizes are still too small I haven’t even started on some of the charts yet.

I have flushed a handful of oddball categories looking for stuff (gemstones, clovers, sigils, runes, dyes, specific karma items, etc.) – The death of the magic “sum of levels = 300+” guaranteeing a max level if the output is exotic is the only change that I’m certain of so far.

It looks like the MF is working as intended as it is giving a wider array of outputs, but that just means that you have a higher risk of getting crap. I usually throw a hundred or so weapons into the MF lottery, but I’ve been selling/holding onto mats until they make a statement about the MF.

I know that the precursor reward was around 1% (I know a little less) but if the output now can give 75+ exos, the % has to be lower.

Ken DeBoer.9268:

It looks like the MF is working as intended as it is giving a wider array of outputs, but that just means that you have a higher risk of getting crap. I usually throw a hundred or so weapons into the MF lottery, but I’ve been selling/holding onto mats until they make a statement about the MF.

Yes, I believe it to be “working as intended.” My question is: what was intended and do we have some data about how it is now working?

Ken DeBoer.9268:

I know that the precursor reward was around 1% (I know a little less) but if the output now can give 75+ exos, the % has to be lower.

The % for precursors doesn’t have to change. And the data we have so far shows that the L7x outputs are lowering the chances of L80s with similar common skins, e.g. for greatswords, the pearl (crafted) skin chances are equal with the Iron skins and their combined total is similar to pre-patch rates for the pearl skins alone.

Zdain.2169:

Flushing 4x level 80 exotic armors got me a level 75 exotic …

…The death of the magic “sum of levels = 300+” guaranteeing a max level if the output is exotic is the only change that I’m certain of so far.

Yeah, I’m surprised that tweak wasn’t announced in the patch notes. I don’t know that it’s financially worse (at least, not at the moment), but it’s surprising. It also makes it hard to know whether anything else was adjusted.

Prior to the patch, we had good data supporting that the chance of an upgrade (e.g. master -> rare) was 20%, but we had little data on the distribution of the results. If that changed, I’m not sure we could demonstrate it easily. Perhaps before the patch, dye drops from the forge were equally likely and now (perhaps) some dyes drop more frequently. Pre-patch, we know that sigils and runes didn’t drop in equal numbers, but if the ratios changed, we’d also have trouble showing that.

Ken DeBoer.9268:

It looks like the MF is working as intended as it is giving a wider array of outputs, but that just means that you have a higher risk of getting crap. I usually throw a hundred or so weapons into the MF lottery, but I’ve been selling/holding onto mats until they make a statement about the MF.

I know that the precursor reward was around 1% (I know a little less) but if the output now can give 75+ exos, the % has to be lower.

Just to let you know, it doesn’t HAVE to be lower. It depends where the code for the 75+ exotic came from. If the precursor is first in the code:

rng = rand (1000000)
if (rng < PRECURSOR_RATE) then
{
output a precursor
goto end
}
else
if (rng< ……

etc.

There have been two other threads on this. Unfortunately both have disappeared somewhere in the depths of the unsearchable forums. Some of us have hoped that the down leveling of our hard earned exotics is a bug. Even though deep down we know it’s probably a nerf. Either way none of the threads have garnered a mention from a developer. I see they respond to a thread about the value of gold ore not being equal to actual gold in the game, but we haven’t heard any official word on this that I am aware of. Although I for one would like to know so I can continue on the road for my second legendary before I burn any more gold than is absolutely necessary in the forge if this is a bug.

The point of this thread is to collect data, so we can find out what has changed. If it’s substantially for the worse, we can use that data to recommend changes (or a revert to the old behavior). If it’s for the better, we can use it to help people understand what’s new.

@LordEnki: down-leveled exotics aren’t necessarily worth less. On the whole, I’ve found them sometimes more valuable than pearl skins (which are cheaper because of high supply due to leveling crafts) and sometimes they have high-value sigils. There’s not enough data to determine if the current outputs are worth less, on average, then the old outputs.