Guild Wars 2

I regularly do FoTM with a static group and we have all managed to get to around Level 42. We often do levels 18, 28 and 38 and 42 for the Dailies, for several weeks now. Myself and the other 4 I run with have noticed we seem to get 95% of the time alot better loot and more rares the lower the level of FoTM that we do. Our droprate and loot from levels 38-42 is incredibly poor nearly all the time compared to our level 18-28 runs. I know the loot is random but its been like this for all of us nearly all the time. Is this just a mere coincidence out of all the runs everyone does in the game or do any other people seem to notice this too ? Very curious. Thanks.

Lots of people have noticed that lower level fractals appear to drop the same or better loot than higher level fractals. That includes me.

Official response is.. it’s just RNG.

Of course it is. RNG as in Really No Gratitude(towards players)

Yeah also getting crap loot from high level fractals… I’m lucky when I even get a single rare now. Lower levels definitely award better loot when I run them on my alts. Could be a level scaling issue, could also be due to some system that reduces loot if you repeat the same activity on a single character.

With my Guardian I only run fractals and that seems to affect drop rates negatively. When I switch to an alt that I normally only use for farming, fractal drops seem to increase again (like 4-5 rares and sometimes even exotics).

I guess that’s the kittenty thing about those DR systems… You can only guess what involves DR and what is bad RNG luck. Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t seem to have a clue either and on top of that the system often bugs too… DR for me is the number one reason this game feels unrewarding; RNG is one thing, but RNG that has been tampered with is just appalling.

I used to make money out of fractals 40+ now I actually lose money because I make very little from the poor drops and have to foot the bill for food/consumables. Considering quitting fracts entirely.. unless u want skins (also very poor rng there), theyre not worth the time of day.

Morrar.1764:

Yeah also getting crap loot from high level fractals… I’m lucky when I even get a single rare now. Lower levels definitely award better loot when I run them on my alts. Could be a level scaling issue, could also be due to some system that reduces loot if you repeat the same activity on a single character.

With my Guardian I only run fractals and that seems to affect drop rates negatively. When I switch to an alt that I normally only use for farming, fractal drops seem to increase again (like 4-5 rares and sometimes even exotics).

I guess that’s the kittenty thing about those DR systems… You can only guess what involves DR and what is bad RNG luck. Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t seem to have a clue either and on top of that the system often bugs too… DR for me is the number one reason this game feels unrewarding; RNG is one thing, but RNG that has been tampered with is just appalling.

Actually noticed the same thing, I usually run on my guardian, in fact at one point I was doing 5 or more runs a day for many weeks on the guardian to cover dailies and help friends out. The drops while I do this on my guard are awful. I just started getting alts up, I now have a mesmer and ranger at 20, they seem to be getting a better deal, with around 2-3 rares per char per 20 daily. My guard who is running a 40, 30 and 20 daily will be lucky to see one rare, often times 0 rares in each run. Whether this is just really bad luck on my part or some sort of DR I do not know.

Yeah the game isn’t all that alt friendly. Probably a result from code protecting against parking characters at major events (especially since that’s the best way to get loot now, bar farming COF:1). ANet only gave contradictory remarks with regards to that issue…

Which in my opinion is another huge problem; it’s entirely unclear how DR works and what it does or doesn’t affect. ANet hides behind “we can’t tell because then the botters will know too”, but that’s just bollocks. Bots don’t farm events, dungeons or fractals, they teleport to nodes or grind mobs on the map. Besides, botters have so much data they can detect DR patterns within a day.

In the end, DR is just a way of keeping player rewards in check and to slow grinding. Apparently ANet want rewards based on RNG rather than effort. It’s a shame, but hey there are far more rewarding games out there. Just switch to the next MMO if you don’t like playing the casino game.

More and more people are confirming this too, I think Im just gonna leave Fractals aside for the time being. Its just not worth the time and effort now to do them, and end up with so little to no reward on the higher level ones compared to the lower ones.

doned lvl 38 yesterday (ascalon, swamp and dredge) 2 yellow in total and 1 of them was a pile of putrid essence

I can confirm this, although I’m uncertain what caused it. It was right after patch, when I started progressing through mid 30’s. And it includes chests, especially the end one. I used to always (with NO exception) get at very least 1 rare from it, often up to 3-4. Now I might get a rare ~50% of the time.

My last few runs in the 30+ range have also been worse than I remembered a few weeks ago…

Either we’re all cursed with bad RNG, we’re deluded by world boss chests, or it’s a glitch.

Just finish fotm lvl34 an hour ago. Final chest give me 4 greens. No cores. No lodestones. No even one rare. Just 4 $df#hk* greens (and one super coin bag…).
This is just weird. First time in all my fotm runs (like 250+) that i get so poor reward. Maybe anet are improving the drops to arah style (bunch of blues yay!).

ANet want you to chase the new content.

Back when they wanted us to run FotM, the drops at high fractal level were better. Pre-patch, from 30-36 (probably 10 runs), I could count on a 1-3 rares from the 3 fractals, and another 1-2 from Maw. I realize that this is anectodal evidence, but that’s all anyone has.

Now they seem to want us in open world. Loot drops have been adjusted. Dragon chests and guild events > high level FotM, and ascended items (the only way to progress in FotM sigh) can only be gotten from open world dailies and guild events.

Imo, it COULD be RNG but no way.. I do lower level fractals from time to time to either help someone out, or a level 2 fotm for the lulz in zerker gear and I do notice more rares when i do a 10 or under vs my 16+ Dailys.

Yesterday I ran Fractals level 18, 28 and 38 again. As always better loot the lower the level. Lvl 38 I got 2 rares, 1 of them a spine back junk piece. Level 28 I got 4 rares and 1 Core. Level 18 I got 1 exotic, 4 rares, 1 Onyx Loadstone and 1 Core.

Why why why do I keep doing anything other than level 18 ? :P

Did you run the different levels on the same character?

I also noticed better drops on lower levels, but I also often run the lower levels with different characters…

Not sure what’s going on, but something seems a bit fishy here. Would be nice to get some official response, but I guess that won’t happen…

i think the loot table is not quite right..done frac28 with no rares at all, from mob or chest..kinda weird because at least before this i get 1 core or putrid essence (meh..) per run..kinda snap me off.
why dont Anet put at least 1 rare in every chest? or at least core or something more valuable than greens and blues..
loots on fractal should be improved..

I hate to say it, but I’m gonna guess bad RNG, combined with loot tables that don’t have such high chances as we are now used to with world boss chests.

It does feel like I’ve had worse luck in fractal loot lately (I haven’t seen an 8 rare run since the patch, which I used to see quite frequently), but the fractal level range of folks with issues here just seems to inconsistent enough to call it bad RNG in general, as opposed to lower FotM level dropping better loot than higher FotM levels.

I think its an issue where we spend upwards of 1-2 hours in fractals for a measly chance at a lode or two cores with 1 exo and 3 rares mixed in.

When we all first started fractals we were amazed with the loot it got, whether or not it was statistically relevant. As we get larger sample sizes via more runs it evens out. We remember the awesome runs where people got 3-4 exos, precursors, or 4 lodestones. But we forget the countless sub 1 gold runs (even f26-28 the team i go with get on average 60s with a few earning 30s and other earning 2g). Chances are as we get less and less loot we do less and less runs, leading to lackluster drops.

I agree with others sentiments that F26+ is not worth doing unless you want rings / fractal skins.

I HATE FOTM LOOt….the end

What I personally have noticed in FotM is that the frequency of rares from the end chests was lowered in the Jan patch that fixed reconnecting. More interestingly, this patch also fixed the rare weapons from chests not being named.

Before Jan, you would always get [Trident] out of a chest, but after the update, they were properly named with the skin they used. With this fix, I’ve noticed less rares from chests, but no big change in rare drops from mobs.

I can’t prove anything really, but considering that my groups no longer joke about that Rare Trident that always came out of the Jellyfish Fractal (no seriously we got a rare trident more often than not), something has noticeably changed in the drop rates.

This might mean that the drop rates are at their proper values, while they were too high before the patch. It is also possible that the drop rates were unintentionally changed when the item names were fixed.
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On the issue of higher levels not being better for loot, I’ve never noticed an increase in value with an increase in difficulty before or after the Jan patch.

Ya idk loot table been REALLY Weird past 2 weeks.. im currently in high 30’s and get maybe 1-2 yellows a run… lower lvl’s like 20’s lowest 18 i get 4-5 yellows a run..? wtF?

I’ve given up on FotM runs, the loot is not worth the time and effort for me.

FoTM – Loot Tables Working as Intended ?
Yes: a 1-2-3h grind for a few rares and almost 0 t6 mats
a good choice !
cof p1 is 100 times better :P

Point being : Anet clearly did not intend on fractals being your grind-for-money-dungeon. Its a way to get ascended gear, one of the many. Play it if you want that gear or the challenge of progression. Dont complain about loot, it would be OP and weapon skins would mean less if it was max loot. Meanwhile, Ill be laughing at people who love dredge “for the loot” while D-Cores are at 20s. Ill be farming CoF. Enjoy your hour long run for 50s.

JJBigs.8456:

Point being : Anet clearly did not intend on fractals being your grind-for-money-dungeon. Its a way to get ascended gear, one of the many. Play it if you want that gear or the challenge of progression. Dont complain about loot, it would be OP and weapon skins would mean less if it was max loot. Meanwhile, Ill be laughing at people who love dredge “for the loot” while D-Cores are at 20s. Ill be farming CoF. Enjoy your hour long run for 50s.

Is this really necessary? You just love sticking your fingers in open wounds don’t you?

Since my disgust with the gimping of the stealth kit I haven’t bothered with high level fractals. And I can confirm when I did play from the mid 20s to 30 really really bad rng most times.

JJBigs.8456:

Meanwhile, Ill be laughing at people who love dredge “for the loot” while D-Cores are at 20s. Ill be farming CoF. Enjoy your hour long run for 50s.

Yeah, well, rumor is your beloved CoF farm is getting nerfed come the next patch, so enjoy that little bit of karma.

The loots tables are very erratic.

One week its Christmas and the next week you’re getting nothing. I don’t think this is manual overrides; this has to be an algorithm that monitors certain variables and adjusts the loot tables when certain conditions are met. I don’t think this is account wide, this is most probably game wide.