Guild Wars 2

Just put 25 greens into the mystic forge and didn’t get a single rare. Is anyone else having this problem or should I avoid buying a lotto ticket today?

Some players are just UNLUCKY.

Am I missing something here?
Surely selling those greens to any vendor would have netted you more than enough to buy a level relevant rare of your choice?
Orrian greens are worth at least a silver a piece. That would have been at least 25 silver, and you could probably buy the materials to craft a rare with that much.

Usually I would get 2-3 rares from all that making selling the globs worth more than selling all the greens.

Ah, well that makes sense then.
Huh, didn’t realise the forge could be so profitable!

I have around 125 globs saved up, but if they changed this then it’s not profitable

This is what I did to farm money. I was getting a rare about 1 out of every 3 to 4 mystic forges using 4 random greens. I forged greens probably 50 times.

After the last update, I have only got 1 yellow after about 25 forges.

Not to mention the same farming spots I was receiving yellows about 2-3 per hour, I have yet to receive a single yellow in the past 5 hours farming.

Something was definitly nerfed. This was my money making scheme, and now its non-existent. /cry

globs will keep going down there’s too much and demand is slowly going down
back in the day it was like 20s+ a piece now its 15s a piece

Random number generator is random.

Has anyone gotten good luck from doing this?

With a sample size that small it’s perfectly understandable to have lucky days and unlucky days.

Jestunhi.7429:

With a sample size that small it’s perfectly understandable to have lucky days and unlucky days.

That’s why I brought it to the forum. To get a larger sample size. I’m perfectly happy with getting proven wrong.

OP and others who complain that something has changed: By all accounts, dev reports, and knowledge of random numbers: you are wrong. No offense, but that’s just how random numbers work. If you failed to get a rare 100 times in a row that still wouldn’t mean anything. You were lucky before and now you are unlucky: that is the only truth here. Congrats on making as much money as you have!

arabeth.2361:

OP and others who complain that something has changed: By all accounts, dev reports, and knowledge of random numbers: you are wrong. No offense, but that’s just how random numbers work. If you failed to get a rare 100 times in a row that still wouldn’t mean anything. You were lucky before and now you are unlucky: that is the only truth here. Congrats on making as much money as you have!

Its a bit of a coincidence how a massive amount of players are having a very long bad streak since last weeks patch

but it’s not a coincidence that people complain on the forums. Ask someone “Hey has anyone been dying more recently?” and you’ll get plenty of people affirming, but that doesn’t mean there’s a cause behind it. Happy people generally don’t post on forums Don’t believe me? Read ANY game’s forums.

there is nothing random about something working 20% – 25% of the time everytime then after a patch that same thing now has a 4% success rate. there is no explanation for it.

its not random, something changed. plain and simple.

You can argue it hasn’t changed, but you fail to provide details on your results.

50 greens and 0 rares from it

It appears the “odds” are commonly 20%~ for many, but does sometimes plummet to 10% (or less) on occasion — something that could explain the accusations of diminishing-returns. While the MF may not be subject to DRs, the RNG could have an intentionally fluctuating algorithm (for the so-called “odds”).

Sure, one could argue “that’s just how random numbers work”, which may be true, but computers theoretically cannot calculate random numbers, so that argument does not apply to this issue. For all we know, the RNG algorithm may be designed to limit the “odds”, on occasion, to a mere 1:50.

In comparison, ANet has admitted to implementing “anti-botting” mechanics for loot-drops — after a period of time “farming”, you end-up getting nothing. One could’ve equally argued that it was “just how random numbers work”, but in the end, it’s calculated through computations, and not through natural random occurrence.

If you’d like to say whether something is right/wrong, kindly have a reason to do such. A lot of these posters (including myself) have experienced such, and we know neither one way or another, and would appreciate others’ experiences.

To quote a popular meme: Being RNG is suffering.

Keep at it though. At some point, might get more rares than failures. Things tend to balance out over time.

Catrenna.4298:

You can argue it hasn’t changed, but you fail to provide details on your results.

Seeing as you’re the one claiming to dispute an already well-established value in light of a dev explicitly stating this value has not changed since release, that’s your job.

Please include your methods and all relevant statistical analysis, including hypotheses, significance level and p value.

Welcome to science.

Seeing as you’re the one claiming to dispute an already well-established value

Hmmm…? I’ve seen several topics opened about this very concern in the last 2 weeks, and I believe you may have contributed to some of them as well.

in light of a dev explicitly stating this value has not changed since release

Can you post a link to that information? I’d be interested in reading it. Lindsay did respond to my question by confirming the “odds” had not changed in the Oct. 7 patch, but I really should’ve been less-precise in how I asked.

that’s your job

The OP provided their experience, and while 1:25 isn’t a terribly informative set of information, it was alarming enough for them to post about it, and also contributes a lot more than “Welcome to science”.

Barfoi.9537:

Seeing as you’re the one claiming to dispute an already well-established value

Hmmm…? I’ve seen several topics opened about this very concern in the last 2 weeks, and I believe you may have contributed to some of them as well.

in light of a dev explicitly stating this value has not changed since release

Can you post a link to that information? I’d be interested in reading it. Lindsay did respond to my question by confirming the “odds” had not changed in the Oct. 7 patch, but I really should’ve been less-precise in how I asked.

that’s your job

The OP provided their experience, and while 1:25 isn’t a terribly informative set of information, it was alarming enough for them to post about it, and also contributes a lot more than “Welcome to science”.

Does it contribute to a post full of hyperbole like Mystic Forge nerfed again? When it wasn’t nerfed in the first place because surely Forging 2 Godskull level 65 GS and 2 exotics in increasing your chance to get dusk using that combination wasn’t intentional. So it wasn’t a nerf anyway.

Does it contribute

I find this post informative — especially since I had a similar experience, ankittenrying to follow any relevant experiences.

So it wasn’t a nerf anyway

How do you define “nerf”? In comparison, some professions aren’t “intended” to be unbalanced, so when they’re “fixed”, it’s definitely not labeled a “nerf”, hmm?

EDIT: Apparently, “and am” has a portion censored with “kitten”. :P

Based on the information posted in this thread, we have put 100 greens into the mystic forge and only received 1 rare. We need some more data.

Well I’ll be a “happy person” posting to balance things out. Yesterday, I did 8 combines of lvl 80 rare staffs, and 6 of the 8 resulted in exotics (only one was named).

Today, I did 8 more combines, and got 2 exotics.

Obviously not enough to make any conclusions, but just wanted to point out that this method of gathering data is not accurate at all. I was thrilled to get 6 exotics from only 8 combines, but it never occurred to me that “I should go post this on the forums right away!!!” However, if I had gone 0/40 combines, I’d be much more likely to post it asking for changes to be made.

Shortly after I reached 80, I did what a lot of people do and farmed events in Orr. I pretty consistently received loot, so I have no reason to beleive a DR system was in effect, but I didn’t get my first rare until day 3. Thats right; it took over 2.5 days of farming to get a single rare. My second rare arrived about a week later. So far I think I’ve gotten 5.

Since release, I’ve tossed about 1600 items in the forge. I always do 4 of the same rarity. I have received 0 items of increased rarity; rares have never yielded exotics, greens have never yielded rares, etc.

So the mystic forge and loot system have always worked this way for some of us.

Barfoi.9537:

How do you define “nerf”? In comparison, some professions aren’t “intended” to be unbalanced, so when they’re “fixed”, it’s definitely not labeled a “nerf”, hmm?

Buffs/nerfs are for when you did something intentionally, but it turned out your idea was somewhat less than optimal. Fixes are when you just screwed up and it didn’t even match your initial idea (aka bugs).

Why? You can buy rare for 15s, the odds of green to rare is 20% i just did a few hundred to test, i’m throwing my gold away anyway, i don’t like this economy.

Geeo: you’re right: it IS a coincidence.

Sorry, but that is it exactly: a coincidence. People really want to see patterns in things in which patterns do not exist. It’s human nature. It’s part of a small sample bias that we all have. But it doesn’t make it true.

At this point the case has been made but some people simply do not believe it. And that’s fine: I doubt anyone will say anything to convince you. But the crux of your argument sounds to me like someone saying, “last month it rained every Tuesday. This month, it hasn’t rained on two out of three Tuesdays. The weather has been nerfed!”

arabeth.2361:

But the crux of your argument sounds to me like someone saying, “last month it rained every Tuesday. This month, it hasn’t rained on two out of three Tuesdays. The weather has been nerfed!”

I’m going to quote you on this in the future. I hope you don’t mind.

Ok there was 100% a nerf, used 92 75 to 80 rares, not a single exotic out of it (all just staves was like 30~ times forging em, last one was the cleric air staff).

Moonpuncher.7250:

but it’s not a coincidence that people complain on the forums. Ask someone “Hey has anyone been dying more recently?” and you’ll get plenty of people affirming, but that doesn’t mean there’s a cause behind it. Happy people generally don’t post on forums Don’t believe me? Read ANY game’s forums.

I actually didn’t see anyone complaining. I saw someone asking a question to figure out whether they were just having a bad luck streak or if something got tweaked. By the way, to blow holes in your theory, I’m a happy person. Quite happy with the game. I come to the forums because I enjoy reading about other peoples experiences, offering help where I can, and just learning about what other people have discovered, or what the devs are saying about the current state, or future of the game.

Browsing around these forums I see the number of happy people enjoying the game, and positive attitudes far outweigh the negative. Perhaps I’m just not looking hard enough though.

On the OP, it’s possible that there was a stealth nerf, or an unintentional bug introduced. If either is the case, I haven’t seen any official posts on the subject as of yet. Maybe shoot one of the forum mods like Gaile a PM and ask her to take a peek at this thread to shed some light?

It’s pretty obvious the MF upgrade rates have been changed at least once. You would actually make money from it by putting in greens or rares and getting an upgraded item.

Now it’s not as risk free to make money and that’s probably what Anet originally intended with the MF.

Now it’s not as risk free to make money

I had posted something similar on an older post — if it were 100% profitable (in the long-run), it would indeed defeat the purpose of “gambling”. Whether or not this was “fixed” recently is beyond our knowledge, however, but it’s interesting reading the results others are having.

Sorry, but that is it exactly: a coincidence

What information do you rely upon to be positive that nothing has changed? I’m not sure one-way-or-another myself, and I’m not ignorant enough to blindly make a decision, either.

Buffs/nerfs are for when you did something intentionally, but it turned out your idea was somewhat less than optimal. Fixes are when you just screwed up and it didn’t even match your initial idea (aka bugs).

By your definition, couldn’t you then say the initial RNG algorithm was “less than optimal”, and needed to be adjusted? Semantics can be quite ambiguous — especially for computer/gaming jargon — and be valid either way for many. It’s important to realize that.

I did 8 combines of lvl 80 rare staffs, and 6 of the 8 resulted in exotics (only one was named).

Nice! I think the MF generally yields promising results (from what I’ve read thus far), but sometimes, you’ll hit a significant failure streak — a streak that might be implemented to ruin any previous profits (unless you’ve gotten precursors). Alas, one could call these streaks as “bad luck”, but it’s “bad luck” that’s based on a calculation.

At least you got something, I put 4 greens into the forge yesterday and got nothing.

Out of curiosity, is anyone paying attention to their WvWvW score when using the Mystic Forge in this fashion? One of the WvWvW bonuses is % increase to crafting critical success, which I imagine would have a rather big impact on your results

Dargron.3895:

Out of curiosity, is anyone paying attention to their WvWvW score when using the Mystic Forge in this fashion? One of the WvWvW bonuses is % increase to crafting critical success, which I imagine would have a rather big impact on your results

The wvw buffs only work in wvw don’t they?

Putting 21 greens into the mystic forge. I’ll let you know how many rares I receive.

I received 1 rare from 6 mystic forge attempts. Lower than what I used to get.

Catrenna, 6 attempts is too few to determine if the rate is now lower than it used to be. That would be a typical result whether the true rate is 10%, 20%, or even 33%.

Catrenna.4298:

I received 1 rare from 6 mystic forge attempts. Lower than what I used to get.

But if you received 2 rares from 6 forges – that would be higher than u used to get(and higer than player-claimed average). That is why small samples cannot be used in any kind of discussion about changes in chances. Do 1000 combines (4000 items), record them and come back here <- that would be useful information for next “after patch mf nerf” research.

I’ve been putting in green lvl 80 swords lately, but I’ve had at least 4 instances now where I get a lvl 80 blue back. Is that supposed to happen? I thought the worst you got was the worst item you put in so in my case another green lvl 80 sword.