Guild Wars 2

Iehova.9518:

Rajani Isa.6294:

Random is Random is the obvious answer, I would think.

And then you realize you cannot have truly random numbers in a deterministic system such as a computer.

Technically correct. Practically irrelevant. True random is only believed to exist in quantum mechanics, yet the dependancy on newtonian physics isn’t a dealbreaker for real casinos.

I spent most of my day yesterday killing Risen. Got plenty of bones, a fair amount Ancient. Only got a handful of Rare’s, and got only ONE rune, and NO ecto from my Master salvaging. I also Master salvaged four older lower level items to try and get runes and sigils, and did not get even one. Very bad luck yesterday, felt like I was using crude salvage instead of Master.

Seems an awful lot like farming to me since it takes 5 ecto for one inscription. I worked most of the day and didn’t get even one. I don’t mind that it’s harder to craft exotics, but RNG to get rare drops combined with another layer of RNG to get ecto’s is just plain lame.

This drop rate appears to be totally random with a simple low percentage. Twice I got an ecto using basic salvage kit on a level 64 rare. Then when I used black lion salvage kit on level 74 or better rares five times, I got only one ecto.

Iehova.9518:

Rajani Isa.6294:

Random is Random is the obvious answer, I would think.

And then you realize you cannot have truly random numbers in a deterministic system such as a computer.

Aaaaand ‘WHOOOOOSH’ goes the sound of someone who completely missed the point.

curtegg.5216:

This drop rate appears to be totally random with a simple low percentage. Twice I got an ecto using basic salvage kit on a level 64 rare. Then when I used black lion salvage kit on level 74 or better rares five times, I got only one ecto.

As has been stated many times, you cannot work out the drop rate based on these small sample sizes.

5 tries with a black lion salvage kit? Even if that were a large enough sample size to work it out you would have a very limited range of results (there are only 6 possible results meaning it can only be 0/5 = 0%, 1/5 = 20%, 2/5 = 40%, 3/5 = 60%, 4/5 = 80% or 5/5 =100%).

The only people who have access to the volume of data required are ANet themselves, assuming they track such things.

A lot of people are publishing test results for salvaging ecto, using various different types of kits. There are tens of thousands of results (sometimes 1,000s from a single individual). So far, it seems that the type of kit doesn’t impact the chance of ecto, while the level of the item does.

There’s no evidence of DR or changes to the drop rates over time.

There’s enough data out there to convince me that I can use basic or mystic kits for ecto and reserve the BL kits for saving runes. I’m also not going to worry about getting 0 ecto from 20 salvages; that would be very unlucky, but with this many players in the game, many of us will see somewhat aberrant results. I’m not happy when it’s me, but that’s how RNG works.

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

Is it too much if i asked here is there any nerf on rare(yellow) drop rates?

tyu.9470:

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

Is it too much if i asked here is there any nerf on rare(yellow) drop rates?

NO dude! I ran cursed shore last night and I got 14 rares in like 2 hours. Best I ever had no MF gear or nothing. Most of the time I run I don’t that many rares. Its % chance you don’t control it you might have hit a bad luck spot then you hit good spot it moves.

inb4 but but but but but last night I did cursed for 30 minutes and didnt get a rare.

Yes because 2 hours of sample is enough to make a judgement. Please understand some people dont care for information like that. I was simply hoping maybe i get lucky and he posts no or yes on that question as well nothing more.

For your information i farm 7 hours per day, no life yes but at least i have a good sense of average drop rates and a good sample to test it week to week.

i am too late to type inb4 but but i played this game for 5 mins and i know the average since 5 mins dismiss all luck! sadly.

Still getting the same amount of ecto when I salvage. From the time I started playing the game till now, my ecto salvage is still the same, usually only 1-2 doesn’t give me ecto. Sometimes can get 2-3 ectos from each rares I salvage.

As for rare drops, got 2 in a row just now on a character with less than 5% magic find.

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

John, with all due respect, what you mean is “there was no deliberate adjustment to ecto drop from salvaging”. As a member of ANet team you should be well aware of the fact that in a system so big, and so intertwined, a change you make somewhere else that seems unrelated might in principle be related.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

Practically irrelevant.

Absolutely relevant if a bad PRNG with a low period is used.

Casinos are irrelevant.

I think the devs could put somewhere where exactly the DR affects, it would be nice to know because many people wonder if doing X will be nerfed for some reason by DR.
Thank you!

Bad luck bro. I just salvaged 40 rares and got around 100 ecto (and yes, I’m really lucky, I know that). So…. not sure if there’s a fix or DR or whatever.

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

This is all I needed to hear. Thanks.

Apparently the RNG fairy still hates me though.

Danicco.3568:

They reduced something, that’s for sure.

Either the Ectos you get per salvage was nerfed, or the number of rare items dropping randomly.

You don’t need to do any math specific stuff, just check the TP.
Just like the Dye incident, without ever telling anyone, people noticed the large supply of dyes and the demand wasn’t as high, so prices dropped fast.

If ectos prices raised 5~6s in a couple of days it’s pretty sure something was done. Now’s a good time to sell yours if you had some stocked.

Bots got banned. Less supply, prices go up. Simples.

That alone accounts for the increase in price. Also, if people payed attention, they’d realise that it’s not just ecto prices that have gone up.

That’s like looking on the TP, seeing that all prices have gone up, and saying EVERYTHING has had it’s drop rate reduced.

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

Does salvage kit quality affect the probability to get an ecto?

Iehova.9518:

John Smith.4610:

Just to be clear again. There is no DR for salvaging. There’s no stealth nerf on ectos.

Does salvage kit quality affect the probability to get an ecto?

Master and Black Lion salvage kits will give you the best chance of getting ectos.

Kratic.8763:

Master and Black Lion salvage kits will give you the best chance of getting ectos.

I would greatly appreciate a backup to this statement, whether in empiric form or in the form of a red confirm/deny.

no stealth nerf= the game data supports no change in the overall probability of the event, intentional or unintentional. John is one of the very few people who has access to a statistically relevant data set. He has also bee quite straight forward with us on matters of the economy and has nothing to gain by misleading us (that is unless he is using us a subjects for research… I know I would in his position. I’m just a little jealous of potential for experimentation he has).

I had a few exotics, only 1 got me an ecto (2 of them). (salvaged with Black Lion Kits)
I also had some rares. Most of them gave me an ecto, or multiples. Seems like rares are better sources for ectos than exotics are. (salvaged with second highest merchant kit)

For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen any real change in the number of Ectos I salvage in the last day, week, or month.

Usual is 1 ecto per rare, sometimes 2, sometimes 0, occasionally 3.

From my own experience (which is all I can attest to), I don’t think anything has changed.

Milennin.4825:

I had a few exotics, only 1 got me an ecto (2 of them). (salvaged with Black Lion Kits)
I also had some rares. Most of them gave me an ecto, or multiples. Seems like rares are better sources for ectos than exotics are. (salvaged with second highest merchant kit)

Really hard to make a call like that on a few tries.

Hi,

Reading this the first few times helped me understand that there was no DR (DROP RATE) on ectos hence it made no difference whether one used a Basic Salvage Kit or a Black Lion Salvage Kit.

However, reading it again based on another guild member’s post I have realised that there are two concepts of DR being discussed here – DROP RATE and DIMINISHING RETURNS.

So here’s my question, can anyone, preferably a dev, confirm which DR it is? Whether there are no DROP RATES on ectos (meaning that using a Basic Salvage Kit is equivalent in terms of the chances of obtaining ectos as using a Black Lion Salvage Kit) or whether there are no DIMINISHING RETURNS on ectos (meaning that there IS a difference when using Black Lion Salvage Kits as you would obtain more ectos but due to the DIMINISHING RETURNS you’d obtain less if you salvaged a large amount of items at a time)

I apologise for the necro but this has been bugging me a lot.

Thanks.

It might not be a nerf but there’s definitely something happening. The last four rares i salvaged had 0 Ectos and I was using the black lion store salvage kits. There’s an equally needed response for the lack of drops off of mobs with magic find gear on because those Rares took an entire month to get in open world. It’s ridiculous to try to farm for the mats needed for the crafted sets anymore.

All I’m saying is something is wrong. Those of us who are gathcraftsplorers should not be penalized for our gameplay style when this game was originally supposed to allow for farming.

Thanks John for the quick reply. However that still begs the question of whether quality of salvage kits affect the chances of obtaining ectos.

Simply put, does a Black Lion Salvage Kit warrant you a higher chance (50% as advertised) of obtaining ectos or are ectos not considered in the “rare material” spectrum at all and hence you’d have the same chance of obtaining ectos regardless of quality of salvage kit (e.g. crude vs black lion)?

Thanks again for the clarification, John.

I thought it’s just me until I read this. I can confirm that I got fewer ectos with black lion kit. Out of 6 rares, I get about 1 ecto. I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all, because I used to salvage alot with black lion kit with good results. Maybe there is an unintended bug happening after the patch.

I get very few ectos, compared to the people I usually play with who get like 10 ectos a day and I feel lucky when I manage to get 3 ectos a day, doing the same dungeons/fractals together with same salvage kits.

How about putting ectos on the item mall.. like 4-5 ectos per 100 gems. I think everyone can be happy about this. You can either salvage forever to get your ectos or spent $$$ for it. ArenaNet makes money, you get your exotic/legendary. Everyone happy.

I’m so tired of all this gambling. There is a reason the real thing is illegal in alot of countries and states. goes against everything my sunday school teacher tought me.

LoomyZA.7041:

I’m so tired of all this gambling. There is a reason the real thing is illegal in alot of countries and states. goes against everything my sunday school teacher tought me.

Take it easy, it’s a game.
Yesterday after 1 hour in a dungeon i salvaged the only rare item i had… it gave me 1 elder wood log… i laughed about it and moved on

Twomix.5384:

How about putting ectos on the item mall.. like 4-5 ectos per 100 gems. I think everyone can be happy about this. You can either salvage forever to get your ectos or spent $$$ for it. ArenaNet makes money, you get your exotic/legendary. Everyone happy.

That would effectively be gold selling unless ectos were made account bound.

Well as the OP I feel like the (apparently non-existent)nerf expired with lost shores, I keep getting far more ectos than the patch before lost shore happened.

Unless one is salvaging 1,000s of items, it’s not possible to observe a nerf to the salvage rates for ecto. Your mileage will vary from other people’s and even from your own, from week to week.

I haven’t noticed any decrease in the drop rate of ectos from salvaging.

But I HAVE noticed the completely abysmal drop rate of Rares from the Cursed Shore. Over the past week I’ve gotten less than 25% of the normal amount of rares than before the Nov. 15th patch went live. I’m pretty sure it’s bugged. I still get champion mobs like the Abomination at the end of the Plinx chain not dropping loot.

Ecto nerf? This may have been true prior to the lost shores update..

But as of right now I’m finding I’m getting more ectos from salvages so I would say they have upped the ecto rate from salvaging if anything.

Due to the frequency of this sort of post, I tried to release some data on this here, in case you don’t just want to take ANet at their word (understandable):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/PSA-There-has-been-no-Ecto-Nerf/first#post845053

Those are my salvage rates for a single day.

I could release them for a week, or even a month, but my results have been consistent, which is roughly 0.875 ectoplasms per salvage with the Mystic Kit. I have almost 10,000 salvages in my database to date.

If you do insist that it has been nerfed, then we must arrive at this conclusion:
That ectoplasm salvage rates vary across accounts, or from player to player.
A conclusion like this would be highly unusual to say the least. Does anyone have a large volume of sample data that contradicts what I have? Gut feelings and guesses have a great deal of observer bias. I would suggest to any of you to just objectively track your next 200 salvages of 70+ rares, and see if you really are far off from 0.875.

So I had to give this a little test after reading this thread. I salvaged 50 lvl 76-80 rare weapons with a Master salvage kits. I received 35 ecto’s. My rng obviously bad luck and still a very small sample size.

The real concern here should be the 25% chance for rare materials on Master Salvage Kit’s. Out of the 50 random weapons salvaged I got no rare materials, all mithril and elder wood logs. Now someone may need to correct me on what I think rare materials are because I was expecting some Orichalcum and Ancient wood logs in this qty 50 of rare salvages.

To me the(casual player) this seems like a salvaging bug with rare material and who knows without working as a programmer for anet if they are messing with ecto’s no matter the qty we salvage.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

Technically correct. Practically irrelevant. True random is only believed to exist in quantum mechanics, yet the dependancy on newtonian physics isn’t a dealbreaker for real casinos.

This isn’t even technically correct. Hardware RNG is ubiquitous these days in computing.

majorkong.9073:

This isn’t even technically correct. Hardware RNG is ubiquitous these days in computing.

Do you even know how RNG works?

Mart.2710:

Thanks John for the quick reply. However that still begs the question of whether quality of salvage kits affect the chances of obtaining ectos.

Simply put, does a Black Lion Salvage Kit warrant you a higher chance (50% as advertised) of obtaining ectos or are ectos not considered in the “rare material” spectrum at all and hence you’d have the same chance of obtaining ectos regardless of quality of salvage kit (e.g. crude vs black lion)?

Thanks again for the clarification, John.

My question still stands. Is there anyone who would be able to provide clarification on this?

Iehova.9518:

majorkong.9073:

This isn’t even technically correct. Hardware RNG is ubiquitous these days in computing.

Do you even know how RNG works?

Yes. Do you?

For instance, this hardware RNG ships in every Intel Ivy Bridge processor

http://www.cryptography.com/public/pdf/Intel_TRNG_Report_20120312.pdf

Mart.2710:

Mart.2710:

Thanks John for the quick reply. However that still begs the question of whether quality of salvage kits affect the chances of obtaining ectos.

Simply put, does a Black Lion Salvage Kit warrant you a higher chance (50% as advertised) of obtaining ectos or are ectos not considered in the “rare material” spectrum at all and hence you’d have the same chance of obtaining ectos regardless of quality of salvage kit (e.g. crude vs black lion)?

Thanks again for the clarification, John.

My question still stands. Is there anyone who would be able to provide clarification on this?

I apologise for the necro, but I’d really like some clarification on this matter please.

Mart.2710:

Mart.2710:

Mart.2710:

Thanks John for the quick reply. However that still begs the question of whether quality of salvage kits affect the chances of obtaining ectos.

Simply put, does a Black Lion Salvage Kit warrant you a higher chance (50% as advertised) of obtaining ectos or are ectos not considered in the “rare material” spectrum at all and hence you’d have the same chance of obtaining ectos regardless of quality of salvage kit (e.g. crude vs black lion)?

Thanks again for the clarification, John.

My question still stands. Is there anyone who would be able to provide clarification on this?

I apologise for the necro, but I’d really like some clarification on this matter please.

I don’t think you’ll get it. That sounds like classified info. If there is no advantage, then people would buy less gems and buy less black lion kits.

you people seem to have a real hard time grasping the meaning of “random”

I doubt anyone has any hard statistics on the BL kits because they are significantly more expensive than masters kits and are best reserved for times when you want to guarantee you salvage a valuable sigil or a rune.

Masters kits seems to be around 90% or a bit higher.

Out of my last 5000 salvages (this week), here are the yields (all master kits):

921
898
929
888
924

The thing is, the groups of 25 are incredibly “streaky” – and all over the place from low single digits to as much as 40. The amazing part though is how, over time, it generally evens out.

If you do salvage in volume, my advice is to do it without watching because it can challenge your mental integrity at times

Have you ever considered using a Journyman’s kit instead of a Master’s to test the concept? I don’t salvage 1,000 items at a time, but it would seem that the question could be answered by stepping down the chain instead of up to the Black Lion kit, if someone were willing to risk the ROI that would come if it turns out to be that the kit actually does affect the ecto output. People like me don’t have the money to take the risk in testing, but perhaps some of the major traders would be willing, since in the long term using green or even blue kits would be far more economical than using master’s.

Aye.8392:

Have you ever considered using a Journyman’s kit instead of a Master’s to test the concept? I don’t salvage 1,000 items at a time, but it would seem that the question could be answered by stepping down the chain instead of up to the Black Lion kit, if someone were willing to risk the ROI that would come if it turns out to be that the kit actually does affect the ecto output. People like me don’t have the money to take the risk in testing, but perhaps some of the major traders would be willing, since in the long term using green or even blue kits would be far more economical than using master’s.

I dont think that experiment is worth it. Master kit pays off if you just get 1 more ecto on average per 25 salvages.