Guild Wars 2

I’m sure most of you guys saw what happened to Final Rest on the TP last night, and I suspect some of you were in fact responsible for it
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19360
However, I’m starting wonder if we actually will see a change in the supply of Final Rest after the patch. The announcement said that

The current chests will stay lootable once per day per character, but each boss’s guaranteed rare item drop will be moved to a separate chest
Source

This to me implies that they are not changing the general drop tables at all, just making the rare a separate mechanic. And since you can still do Shadow Behemoth for the event chest once per day per character, does this not mean that you will have the same number of shots at getting Final Rest per day as you do right now, since Final Rest should be part of the boss loot table, and not affected by the guaranteed rare?

I think people (myself included) immediately jumped to thinking Final Rest was going to become more scarce because the change that made Final Rest more common came in the same patch as the guaranteed rares, which made them associate the two mechanics as the same change, when in fact they’re not supposed to be linked.

Though, to be fair, I don’t know how many people will keep doing Shadow Behemoth on multiple characters per day after the patch, since you only get the guaranteed reward once per account. Even though Final Rest is dropping with appreciable frequency, it’s still rare enough that I can imagine the expected value of the event chest sans rare is not worth it to some people. So, if you approach it from this perspective, perhaps Final Rest supply will decrease just due to the fact that the chest is being looted fewer times per day.

This will have no effect.

The patch change influences the guaranteed RARE YELLOW drops. Ever since the February patch, I have not got an exotic from the chests. But plenty of rares.
You will still be able to loot the chest daily per character per boss. It’s just the guaranteed rare portion will be moved to a separate chest like the daily.

Yes, I’m inclined to think that the actual probability of Final Rest dropping will not change, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the supply will not change, which was what I was getting at in my last paragraph.

Let’s say that GW2 players with at least one level 80 have an average of 2 level 80s per account. If they all decide that not getting the guaranteed yellow makes doing SB not worth their time, and only do it once per day, then the event chest will be looted about 50% less per day, which will lead to a decrease in Final Rests being generated. (This is an over-simplification and I’m not saying my numbers are anywhere near realistic, just trying to illustrate my logic.)

Of course, the extent that this may happen changes drastically with the actual numbers. What percentage of players have multiple 80s? How many people with multiple 80s will keep doing the event multiple times a day after the patch?

As Elentari mentioned, the probability ‘probably’ won’t change, however there will be less instances where people have the chance of getting it.

A very basic example:

Flipping a coin is 50% to give heads. So if you flip it 10 times, there will most likely be 5 heads. However if you flip it 100 times, there will most likely be 50 heads (give or take a few).

The probability didn’t change, just the ‘supply’ of heads.

i have 4 80s, and i will continue farming the chests on all of them after the patch. that is, unless i notice a decrease in extra rares/exotics. I’m farming for a precursor, and the daily rare is just a bonus.

Except on several occasions now I’ve gotten an exotic and no rare fromthe mega-bosses – meaning that most of those Final Rests came from the fixed good reward slot (especially since Final Rest has never been in the normal chest drops prior to the new fixed good result…). While I wasn’t farming the heck out of SB with my alts, the number of rolls per day on the table definitely goes down as a result of the change.

mcarswell.3768:

i have 4 80s, and i will continue farming the chests on all of them after the patch. that is, unless i notice a decrease in extra rares/exotics. I’m farming for a precursor, and the daily rare is just a bonus.

you will notice a decrease in rares. that’s the point of the update.

i said decrease in extra rares. i’ve been doing 20+ chests a day and i would say at least 1/4 of those have given me 2-3 rares. So if after this update I start getting all greens/blues like it was before, and just the one rare daily, then no i won’t be farming them on multiple toons.

but if I continue to get extra rares and exotics outside of the daily chest, then yes i will farm on alts. At this point it’s just wait and see i guess.

mcarswell.3768:

i said decrease in extra rares. i’ve been doing 20+ chests a day and i would say at least 1/4 of those have given me 2-3 rares. So if after this update I start getting all greens/blues like it was before, and just the one rare daily, then no i won’t be farming them on multiple toons.

but if I continue to get extra rares and exotics outside of the daily chest, then yes i will farm on alts. At this point it’s just wait and see i guess.

What? That’s the exact point of the update

exactly what I said:
as I read the update, each chest will give you reliably blue/green with maybe a rare or exotic here or there (maybe 10% chance at a rare?)
then once a day, you will get an extra 1-3 rares.

Mystic.5934:

exactly what I said:
as I read the update, each chest will give you reliably blue/green with maybe a rare or exotic here or there (maybe 10% chance at a rare?)
then once a day, you will get an extra 1-3 rares.

I think what Mcarswell means is that he is postulating that the quality of loot in each loot slot is an independent roll. In other words, currently we have 1 loot slot that is a guaranteed rare, and 4ish more loot slots where each slot has some chance of giving you a rare or exotic. If they move the guaranteed rare loot slot into a daily account-bound reward but leave the other loot slots as-is, then we will be getting rares out of the event chests with the same frequency as we are getting 2-3 rares right now. The potential rares from the event chest is what Mcarswell is referring to as the “extra” rares. Think of it like a slot machine: right now we have a wheel that is fixed to “cherry” but our other wheels can also turn up cherry; all the patch will do is move the first wheel out of the machine into a box we can only use once per day, but the other wheels are still turning up cherries with the same probability.

Where the misunderstanding is happening is that you seem to be postulating a different loot mechanic, where you make a roll to see how many rares you get, and then the chest fills in the rest of the slots with blues and greens. And so you are expecting that they will be moving the “number of rares” roll into the daily reward mechanic, and then the game rolls a different random number to decide what your total chest loot is.

From my reading of the initial announcement and subsequent dev posts in other forums, I’m leaning towards Mcarswell’s model, because there are repeated assurances that the chests will still have the same chance at exotics after the patch, which to me implies that they are not going to change the loot tables at all and leave the probabilities for each regular loot slot as-is.

Elentari.9156:

I think what Mcarswell means is that he is postulating that the quality of loot in each loot slot is an independent roll. In other words, currently we have 1 loot slot that is a guaranteed rare, and 4ish more loot slots where each slot has some chance of giving you a rare or exotic. If they move the guaranteed rare loot slot into a daily account-bound reward but leave the other loot slots as-is, then we will be getting rares out of the event chests with the same frequency as we are getting 2-3 rares right now. The potential rares from the event chest is what Mcarswell is referring to as the “extra” rares. Think of it like a slot machine: right now we have a wheel that is fixed to “cherry” but our other wheels can also turn up cherry; all the patch will do is move the first wheel out of the machine into a box we can only use once per day, but the other wheels are still turning up cherries with the same probability.

Where the misunderstanding is happening is that you seem to be postulating a different loot mechanic, where you make a roll to see how many rares you get, and then the chest fills in the rest of the slots with blues and greens. And so you are expecting that they will be moving the “number of rares” roll into the daily reward mechanic, and then the game rolls a different random number to decide what your total chest loot is.

From my reading of the initial announcement and subsequent dev posts in other forums, I’m leaning towards Mcarswell’s model, because there are repeated assurances that the chests will still have the same chance at exotics after the patch, which to me implies that they are not going to change the loot tables at all and leave the probabilities for each regular loot slot as-is.

Exceptionally well-summed, Elentari. You’ve captured one of the two key concerns in a nutshell.

The other relates back to the reported behaviour of getting a single exotic from a boss chest, and (possibly related) the apparent increase in frequency of exotics in general.

The “single exotic” could have happened one of two ways:

1) The “guaranteed rare” is not guaranteed, but rather “very high probability”, and it did not fire. However, one of the other item rolls resulted in an exotic, possibly aided by a higher exotic probability following the patch.

2) The “guaranteed rare” is not guaranteed to be a rare, but rather, a “rare or better”. In other words, it participates in the same “whaddya’ get” roll as any other item, with the exception that anything below “rare” gets bumped up to the minimum (76 rare or what have you…)

If #1 happened, there will be no change by moving the “bonus item” out of the chest and into a wiggly little box on your screen. If, however, #2 is what occurred, and if it occurred as a side-effect of an improved loot table on the chest, then moving it out (and setting it to be a “guaranteed rare”) will in fact result in a lower overall quality of loot, since there will be one less item that could have been an exotic (but could not have been worse than a rare).

Of course, if they make it “rare or better” in the once-per-day-per-account box (hint hint ANet, think “improved chance of precursor”…), then this could be a very welcome change.

I realize the intent behind hiding game systems (aside from ‘immersion’, etc) is ostensibly to reduce the “min-maxing” that invariably will occur once a system is understood, but in cases like this a little transparency on how the loot rolls are made can (at worst) set players’ minds at ease, and (at best) allow players to provide more accurate reports when the mechanics in-practice do not match the mechanics intended by the developers (see the recent loot-tagging change for one such example).

I don’t pay attention to all the speculation talks regarding Final Rest. So when I got it yesterday, I just filled someone’s Buy Order for 15 gold. I’m happy, they’re happy, and I go back to farming the SB for more.

Kashaar.1529:

The “single exotic” could have happened one of two ways:

1) The “guaranteed rare” is not guaranteed, but rather “very high probability”, and it did not fire. However, one of the other item rolls resulted in an exotic, possibly aided by a higher exotic probability following the patch.

2) The “guaranteed rare” is not guaranteed to be a rare, but rather, a “rare or better”. In other words, it participates in the same “whaddya’ get” roll as any other item, with the exception that anything below “rare” gets bumped up to the minimum (76 rare or what have you…)

Looks like your #2 scenario is the correct one:

I am honestly surprised that there is still some confusion about this upcoming change. So let me try to clarify it once more:

Current:
- You get one guaranteed rare (or better) per event per day per character from the event chest. Everything else in the event chest is based on normal drop chance, so there is a chance to get rares (or better) as well.
After the change:
- You get one guaranteed rare (or better) per event per day per account from an extra chest that will be displayed like the chest for the dailies. Everything else in the event chest is based on normal drop chance, so there is a chance to get rares (or better) as well.

Source

So this means that even though the loot table isn’t technically changing, the overall probability of getting exotics that only drop from one event (such as Final Rest) will go down for repeat event attendance. As for total player attendance and thus the “number of coin flips” effect on supply, I think the fact that the “guarenteed rare” isn’t just a rare but a “rare or better” will heavily incentivize players away from repeat farming events, and so supply for Final Rest will probably go down due to that as well.

As for rares in general, and random exotics, I imagine the supply will remain about the same. Much of this will depend on how easily people can get around to the heretofore lesser-known events. In theory, it’s entirely possible after the patch to still spend all your game time farming guaranteed rare+ chests because there seems to be at least one in almost every zone. If they fix Orr events, one could easily get 20 daily chests a day.