Guild Wars 2

I would like confirmation from an admin on this. I have received 75+ t3 & 65+ t4 fractal chests from dailies. Keyword: I don’t have HoT (I accomplish bypassing the AR cap for T4 by using my necro with death shroud). 0 Ascended Chests.

According to statistics compiled by KING: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4gdbgw/fractal_and_ascended_drop_did_they_really/d2gk2fh
the chance of getting an ascended armor or weapon chest from doing all 3 T3&T4 dailies is about 25.5%/day (I realize that isn’t correct statistically, but in the long run it is so for many runs you can safely assume that rate).

My drop rate is is 0 for a sample size of approximately 22 days. That is significant, and before you say (well I have HoT, and my drop rate sucks as well), that doesn’t matter. I want confirmation on what precisely not having HoT causes you to NOT receive from fractal chests. Is it Ascended chests? Explain what “Bonus rewards with the Agony Channeler or the Recursive Resourcing mastery” entails precisely please Arenanet. Otherwise people like myself who work really hard (it’s not easy doing fractal 88 with 102 AR, takes skill) will waste hours of their time being frustrated with a lack of information and the gear they were after in the first place.

Please don’t post replies wasting space in this thread about how you have HoT and your drop rate sucks as well. We all know about RNGjesus and it’s not relevant to the purpose of this thread. Thank you.

Abricalio.1584:

My drop rate is is 0 for a sample size of approximately 22 days. That is significant,

Actually, it isn’t technically significant.

Hey i have HoT and my drops are kitten

The only thing what might effect your drops is
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recursive_Resourcing
The wiki says that it only effect junk and junk but who knows

Actually, at a 9.1% chance (from KING research link above) to get an ascendedchest/fractal/day, the chance of not getting an ascended chest after 66 separate events is:
0.909^66 ~= 0.0018 = 0.18% chance or 1 in 543
You may claim that’s not significant, but you’re wrong. I think it warrants attention.

I repeat, posting about your low HoT drop rates is irrelevant. Post if you DON’T have HoT and you do T4 fractal dailies, or if you KNOW (don’t guess) for sure what Agony Channeler or Recursive Resourcing masteries grant in bonus rewards.

without HoT i got 1 weapon + 1 helm box and 4 gold frac skins

Abricalio.1584:

I repeat, posting about your low HoT drop rates is irrelevant. Post if you DON’T have HoT and you do T4 fractal dailies, or if you KNOW (don’t guess) for sure what Agony Channeler or Recursive Resourcing masteries grant in bonus rewards.

Hey, I have HoT and my drop rate of asc boxes is totally fine for me!

According to simulations that I’ve run, using [KING]‘s data, roughly one in 10,000 people earning 75 T4 rewards won’t see even a single ascended weapon|armor box.

The median is around 7 (meaning: half of us will see fewer than one box every 10 T4 rewards or so).

tl;dr the OP’s personal fractal data isn’t enough to suggest whether non-HoT owners are unable to get any ascended weapons/armor.

On the other hand, ANet has said at numerous times that the drop rate from actual chests is determined by the same loot table for everyone, i.e. that once you get the Master’s Chest (from completing T4), it shouldn’t matter if you own HoT or not. In other words, the fact that the OP received Master’s & Expert chests suggests that the loot is the same for HoT and non-HoT owners.

Off topic, how did the OP get their AR up to 120 or so? (I’m curious — there are all sorts of ways to complete T4 fractals with lower AR than recommended; it’s just unusual.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

According to simulations that I’ve run, using [KING]‘s data, roughly one in 10,000 people earning 75 T4 rewards won’t see even a single ascended weapon|armor box.

The median is around 7 (meaning: half of us will see fewer than one box every 10 T4 rewards or so).

tl;dr the OP’s personal fractal data isn’t enough to suggest whether non-HoT owners are unable to get any ascended weapons/armor.

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On the other hand, ANet has said at numerous times that the drop rate from actual chests is determined by the same loot table for everyone, i.e. that once you get the Master’s Chest (from completing T4), it shouldn’t matter if you own HoT or not. In other words, the fact that the OP received Master’s & Expert chests suggests that the loot is the same for HoT and non-HoT owners.

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Off topic, how did the OP get their AR up to 120 or so? (I’m curious — there are all sorts of ways to complete T4 fractals with lower AR than recommended; it’s just unusual.)

1 in 10,000 is enough to check it out, by any rational standard.

EDIT: I think he said he used death shroud to avoid some agony ticks.

Thank you for the great reply Illconceived Was Na. Unfortunately having issue with quoting people (perhaps due to NoScript). To answer your last part first, I got it up to 102 not 120. Full ascended set with 3 infusions, 2 +10 1 +12. That put me 27AR under recommended, that I soaked with shroud (if it’s up) or pray and lifesteal through it, as well as dodging mechanics consistently to keep my hp up.

As for your numbers, are you sure 1 in 10,000 is correct? The odds of getting an ascended chest (weapon or armor) from KING’s research is 9.1% (odds of not 90.9%). 0.909^75=0.00078=0.078%=1 in 1281. Perhaps you only included T4 chests. You should consider kitten, T3 & T4 as T4 only isn’t rewarded. When you do a T4 you get all 4 T1-4 rewards, which totals 9.1%.

As for my personal data, of course you’re correct anything is possible, and perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions and should wait longer. What you said is significant that everyone should get the same loot, except that it says on the chest tooltip itself that it’s different for people with Masteries, so that is incorrect. Every Fractal Chest says this on it: “Bonus rewards with the Agony Channeler or the Recursive Resourcing mastery”, so either they lied (or changed their strategy from what you read), you were mistaken, or they’re lying about this tooltip. As it has been proven that there are differences between having Masteries and not, I tend to think you’re now incorrect. See: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recursive_Resourcing#cite_note-1 (note: this statistic, nor the Agony Channeler or Recursive Resourcing wiki do not in any way disprove my question about ascended chest drop rates, only that it affects infusions in this measured quantity). Still need a direct confirmation from Anet.

Sorry I should say that was a bit confrontational what I said. Thank you for the research and I hope it’s the case that you’re correct and that I am able to get Ascended chests without HoT and just having a string of poor odds.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/No-Ascended-Chests-from-T3-4-w-o-HoT/6170871

Thanks for this data conn.2097. Was that since the April 19, 2016 change to chests to become T1-4? How many T4 & T3 chests did you open approximately?

Only thing that I’m certain about is that the armor box and 2 of the golden weapons dropped after April 19. May be the case for the other items as well, since I haven’t done many fractals in the previous system.

Would estimate on 50-60 of each T3/4 chest since then.

Thank you conn.2097. 50-60 runs with 1 (perhaps 2) armor chests is still below the average by 5-10 times. It could be a world drop if it’s just 1 chest.

I’ve gotten 1-2 weapon skins so I think those are fine, but the ascended chests are still in question I feel at a 9.1% drop rate.

Just got 1 ascended chest of gloves after around 68 T4 runs, will continue to track progress if I get more soon (should if the averages are accurate for non-HoT players)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Doesn’t say anything about fractals specifically but I know for a fact after much observation, that DR definitely exists in fractals. My drop rates are always better for a short amount of time if I leave for a few days and don’t touch the game. If I play too much, too often, my drop rates become garbage and it’s very visible.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Doesn’t say anything about fractals specifically but I know for a fact after much observation, that DR definitely exists in fractals. My drop rates are always better for a short amount of time if I leave for a few days and don’t touch the game. If I play too much, too often, my drop rates become garbage and it’s very visible.

The Article you refer to explicitly states:

There is also no evidence that DR applies to any other sources of loot, including PvP rewards, the Mystic Forge, and opening containers.

which this thread is about.

Note that DR never applies to a timespan of several days. It’s always a matter of hours at most.

Completely disagree with you hornswroggle.

My girlfriend can log in once a month, run 1 to 2 spvp matches, find an ascended box, walk in to fractals and dink around for a couple hours, find an ascended box. Log out and not touch the game for a month, log back in the same thing happens. This has been happening for quite some time now and it never ceases to amaze me.

I log in every day and get dailies usually including but not only: fractals and spvp. I will go MONTHS on end doing this and not find a single ascended box. The first time that I noticed clear and obvious DR for fractals was when I very first got interested in them. I began running fractal 10 over and over with a group of buddies. For the first hour or two the loot was amazing then I noticed that the amount of rares I was getting dropped through the floor. Over the course of time “and I mean maybe a 100 runs or more” even vials of mist essence stopped dropping, along with other things that attribute = wealth. It came to a point where the last 50 runs or so, rendered only a handful of masterwork items. Don’t tell me that’s bad luck considering the rhythm this happened in, which points directly at obvious DR effects. So I decided to leave fractals alone for a day or two and when I came back the same thing was happening, trash drop rates. It wasn’t until I took a week long break and didn’t even touch the game, until I started getting reasonable drop rate again "appearance of rares, exotics and mist essences ".

The reason I posted the response to begin with is because I know there is DR in fractals and I thought that maybe the OP of this thread might be spending too much time in fractals. If this is the case, I suggest logging out and leaving the game alone for a few days to a week. Regardless of how the DR thread says DR works, people who play super casually like my gf, definitely get better drops. I’ve noticed this with every player that I know in real life who plays super casually.

Also like to point out how that article ambiguously says: there is no evidence that DR effects other loot but it doesn’t say that it does not effect other loot

Also like to point out that for every 10 black lion chests I open on a very active account, I might find 1 or 2 ticket scraps if that. Where as my casual friends open a BL chest and find hairstyle kits and usually always a ticket scrap if not a full ticket. And concerning the achievement chests, the same thing happens in conjunction with ascended drops.

I don’t know if the DR thread detailing how it works is just outdated, if there are bugs in the system or if we are being misled but there is definitely differences in RNGesus’ favoritism between casual players and avid frequent players.

tbh, you really need the masteries if you want anything good

I don’t play casually and cannot confirm DR in fractals, not a single %.

Subjective impressions are subjective. Nuff said.

I have all central tyria masteries.
DR definitely exists in fractals though.
Wish I had a recorded video of those end rewards over and over to show you.

If you don’t believe this, go repeat run 10 or 40 over and over.
Watch what happens.

I did, couldn’t reproduce your results, sorry.

No you didn’t ^^

I have a full fractal group who had stopped doing this for the same reasons, who would come in here and vouch the same DR that we all noticed.

Don’t be a troll to prove a point.

Yes, I did. ^^

I am running fractals only with 1 char. Grinded Lvl 10, 40 and others and all I met was Anet’s lousy RNG but no concrete DR. And I can bring more than 10 people that would agree to my point as well.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

I have a full fractal group who had stopped doing this for the same reasons, who would come in here and vouch the same DR that we all noticed.

Running 10 or 40 over and over again is different from opening 120 chests at once. It counts as a repeated activity and therefore, no one should be surprised there might be DR associated with it. As with any DR, you can break it by doing something else for 30 minutes (give or take) or swapping toons — accordingly, I think y’all were hasty to decide to stop doing fractals.
--————————————
Regardless, this thread is about whether the lack of Ascended Chests from tons of T4 fractal rewards represents bad luck or something wrong with the loot tables. That has nothing to do with running 10/40, which aren’t eligible for T4 rewards in the first place.

I want to reiterate: my simulations are evidence that people are suffering bad luck. 1:10k chance sounds slim (because: it is), but given how many of us run fractals, it doesn’t surprise me that someone is getting luck that bad. Those of us with average luck stopped keeping track; those with great luck tend also to stop tracking (and are hesitant to share for various reasons), so of course, reports on the forums/reddit will tend to show the worst luck.

And to answer other questions: yes, I’m sure of the results. I was using KING’s data (I ran a couple of sanity checks, to ensure that the simulation’s averages matched KING’s and that the overall results were random). KING has published new data since, so I might post updated summaries.

BTW: anyone who has excel or a spreadsheet with an RNG tool can set up their own simulation. Whisper or mail me, if you want help setting it up. There’s no reason anyone should trust my results without trying to replicate them.

I just assumed the bad box drops were associated with DR. From what other people are saying however, they may have turned fractal box drop rate down and never mentioned it in patch notes.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

I just assumed the bad box drops were associated with DR. From what other people are saying however, they may have turned fractal box drop rate down and never mentioned it in patch notes.

Again, it can’t be DR — that doesn’t apply to opening boxes.

And the evidence doesn’t support a lower drop rate for Ascended Gear for running T4 or T3. The rate for the master boxes is somewhat lower, but T4 gets four sets of boxes (i.e. not just master) and T3 gets three sets (i.e. not just expert), so the net rate people get for running T4 is notably better now and the net rate for running T3 is somewhat better.

Some people are going to be unlucky and some people will be incredibly unlucky.

As humans, we tend to misunderstand luck: we think of average results as bad and below average as really bad, when, of course, a lot of us will end up with just below average/average.

I’m not suggesting that 10k:1 is anything other than extremely bad luck. I am saying, however, that more than a few players are going to have luck that bad for a short period of time. That’s because there are just tons of us playing the game.

Well I’m one of them then.
About 19,000 APS, been playing since day 1, run t4 every day
Haven’t seen an ascended box in probably about 3 or 4 months now
And that’s neither from fractals, spvp, or wvw

I’m also a player that has never found a precursor
And I will never again waste time flushing things down the mystic toilet
Never worked out well for me

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Well I’m one of them then.
About 19,000 APS, been playing since day 1, run t4 every day
Haven’t seen an ascended box in probably about 3 or 4 months now
And that’s neither from fractals, spvp, or wvw

I’m also a player that has never found a precursor
And I will never again waste time flushing things down the mystic toilet
Never worked out well for me

I don’t understand what your AP count has to do with luck. The chances of getting ascended items and precursors are very, very low and there aren’t that many ways of increasing your chances. Running T4 dailies is one method, but you haven’t said what it is you so in SPvP or WvW (in the extreme, if you prefer to sentry, you can play tons of hours without hardly any chances to get any drops, never mind rare ones).

Similarly, for the mystic forge, the odds are still very tiny, so using it once or even a hundred times w/o a fancy drop isn’t an indication of good luck or bad; it’s to be expected.

Mostly, this game is setup so that the drop rates are low enough that rare things are really notable when we finally get one, which makes us value them more (if they dropped too often, we’d stop caring — e.g. those of us who run daily fractals aren’t impressed by getting uninfused, ascended rings; they are really just a dime a dozen).

Consequently, I play stuff that I find fun for its own sake and that way, I’m never too disappointed by low drop rates. Put another way, if I played the game for the drops, I’d have stopped playing 4 years ago.

Abricalio.1584:

We all know about RNGjesus

.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Abricalio.1584:

We all know about RNGjesus

.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:
“And the evidence doesn’t support a lower drop rate for Ascended Gear for running T4 or T3. The rate for the master boxes is somewhat lower, but T4 gets four sets of boxes (i.e. not just master) and T3 gets three sets (i.e. not just expert), so the net rate people get for running T4 is notably better now and the net rate for running T3 is somewhat better.
Some people are going to be unlucky and some people will be incredibly unlucky”

I do not agree with this, and the following data will show why:
From KING data:
1. Before HoT: 2918 lvl 50 chests opened = 346 armors
2558 lvl 40 chests opened = 177 armors
2. After 19.04 update: 598 Master chests = 17 armors
598 Expert chests = 16 armors.
Now, in my opinion you don’t need to run high lvl simulations or to build a very precise mathematic model to be able to interpret the drop you have in a game. Don’t forget this game is played even by kids – such method denies them the right to know what drop they have. Still, even the kids can appreciate the drop – because the simpler methods works well: gather data – compare results.
To go back to KING and his tables: Considering the drop rate as relatively constant, if from 598 Master chests we had 17 armors, that means that from 2918 Master chests we can have around: 85 armors. Similar, if from 598 Expert chest we had 16 armors, from 2558 we can have around 78.
Compare 346 armors before with 85 now. And compare 177 before with 78 now.
The “luck” factor is excluded here, because the opened chests were captured and opened by different players with different luck. Conclusion: the drop rate was drastically lowered.
But, if someone insists that the luck has a role here, that means that a LOT of players are “unlucky” now. This is a different way to say that they have a low drop rate.
So, to answer to the OP: The ascendant drop rate has nothing to do with owning the HoT.The drop rate is miserable and is equally low (without any discrimination) for all the players (regardless of owning or not owning HoT).

Cristalyan.5728:

…
To go back to KING and his tables: Considering the drop rate as relatively constant, if from 598 Master chests we had 17 armors, that means that from 2918 Master chests we can have around: 85 armors. Similar, if from 598 Expert chest we had 16 armors, from 2558 we can have around 78.
…

you are comparing chest to chest but not run to run which is the proper comparison because you get more chests now

Pre-Oct 23

lvl 50 chest: 4.2% weapon, 11.9% armor

post April 19

T4 chest: 1.5% weapon 2.8% armor
T3 chest: .7% weapon 1.7% armor
T2 chest: .2% weapon .8% armor
T1 chest: 0% weapon .5% armor

To get the actual chance of each per run, you take the chance of not getting anything from each box(you get 3 of each) and, multiply them all together and subtract from 1. So, for weapon its 1 – ((.985)^3) * ((.993)^3) *((.998)^3) *((1)^3) which comes out to 6.99% for a weapon. Do the same for armor and you get 18.65% for armor on a given full T4 run. Now, thats using their numbers, I dont think thats the rate I have been getting, but that is what the KING data actually suggests for a full T4 clear.

OP here, bought HoT 6 days ago (with the amazon sale last weekend), got 2 armor chests in the last 4 days (the days after which I had the masteries), which exactly matches the expected drop rate and exceeds it slightly. You may say coincidence, but I say confirmation. So I’m going to go ahead and say if you don’t have the masteries, you will get world boss drop table chances for ascended, ie extremely kittenty. I have to say I’m upset that it wasn’t listed better, as I spent months farming fractals expecting I would get ascended, which I wanted for WvW. Clarify this better Anet that it’s gated behind HoT.

Would appreciate it if Anet fixed the tooltips to say “increased chance of Ascended armor/weapon chests with ….” on fractal chest rewards.

“So, to answer to the OP: The ascendant drop rate has nothing to do with owning the HoT.”

I disagree, and I suspect ascended chests were gated behind masteries along with the rate changes on April 19th 2016.