Guild Wars 2

After returning to the game a few weeks ago, and having done my daily T4 Fractals every day since, I’m becoming increasingly annoyed that I haven’t received one Ascended armor/weapon chest.

I know it has been stated by Anet then the drop rate has increased (I remember it also being stated from changes prior to HoT, and then again during HoT).
I seriously do not feel this is the case though. Never before did I have trouble getting Ascended armor, back when it was just FOTM 50 and 40 daily, I was swimming in armor boxes.

Can you look into increasing the rate, or doing something? It’s pretty absurd that I’ve done the dailies for 3 weeks, and only received a majority of uninfused rings. I know people will state RNG, but if it is working this poorly in reality, surely it’s not efficient.

I have another irking problem – unrelated to the subforum, but the Honorary Rata Novan achievement has bugged. I must have spent an hour or two, closely following a video to get the Mastery point, only to realize after that a few of the Instructors did not spawn, and would not spawn. So I am missing 5 random Instructors, and likely have to go through the video entirely again, since I do not remember which ones were bugged at the time (I simply thought I had completed them previously).

The dailies you did were T4 (75-100)?

Animism.6849:

After returning to the game a few weeks ago, and having done my daily T4 Fractals every day since, I’m becoming increasingly annoyed that I haven’t received one Ascended armor/weapon chest.

I know it has been stated by Anet then the drop rate has increased (I remember it also being stated from changes prior to HoT, and then again during HoT).
I seriously do not feel this is the case though. Never before did I have trouble getting Ascended armor, back when it was just FOTM 50 and 40 daily, I was swimming in armor boxes.

Can you look into increasing the rate, or doing something? It’s pretty absurd that I’ve done the dailies for 3 weeks, and only received a majority of uninfused rings. I know people will state RNG, but if it is working this poorly in reality, surely it’s not efficient.

My guildies and I run fractals almost every night, and almost every night someone in the party gets an ascended chest. I myself have too many to use (will probably be salvaging the contents). I don’t think the drop rate is a problem at all.

And as you’ve said – yes it’s random and “efficiency” is not a feature of randomness

Keep trying!

Yes the T4 fractals.

@ Polarbear, but that shows the inefficiency of the random number generator. If you say you are seeing one every night, and I haven’t seen one in 3 weeks.

It could be another 3 weeks until I see a box, by these rates.
Rather disconcerting.

I haven’t seen one in even longer than that. Roll of the dice is all I can say

Fractals are not there to obtain armor and weapon chest in the first place. It’s a possible reward with a better drop rate than in other content, nothing more nothing less.

If you’re really looking for armor or weapons take the gold and craft it with or without fractal journal pages. It’s more reliable and faster than to hope for a specific drop. Especially for armor it’s not really reasonable because there are 6 different body armor parts and it’s most likely that you won’t get the one(s) you need plus they have a different drop rate themselves.

How about making level 100 have a reduced chance than typical at receiving an Asc. Box from the actual loot chests, which in itself could be repeatable. (I always wished Fractals was repeatable).

I don’t like the prospect of playing Fotm daily for months in attempt to gear up some other characters. The minor amounts of gold I make elsewhere need to be spent on other things.

I would 110% support FOTM 100 specifically dropping Asc. boxes though, that would be awesome.

@ Vinceman. Well I completely disagree. Previously when the maximum scale was level 50, there wasn’t really any doubt that Fractals was in attempt to obtain Ascended gear. The loot otherwise was pretty poor. Nowadays we get a modicum of gold and Legendary collections, but I don’t think that changes the focus of getting the 100g (saving lots of time) Ascended box. Sure, having 5 lots of Ascended boot chests wasn’t amazing, but nowadays that also doesn’t matter much, since you can salvage the waste. The drop rates between them aren’t far apart, also.

So what? 100 gold is 4 or 5 T4 daily runs, with an additional chance to get the ascended armor. You get both, gold and ascended items. If you didn’t get any chest in 21 days, you still got more than 400 gold in that time you can use to craft it.

polarbear wrote that every night, one player of the team sees a chest, not that he gets one every day. And that’s about the rate I experience too, maybe a chest per week. Sometimes two weeks without one, but I also got two chests in a single run.

You just have bad luck these days I guess. Maybe his week you’ll get 3 chests.

Animism.6849:

How about making level 100 have a reduced chance than typical at receiving an Asc. Box from the actual loot chests, which in itself could be repeatable. (I always wished Fractals was repeatable).

I don’t like the prospect of playing Fotm daily for months in attempt to gear up some other characters. The minor amounts of gold I make elsewhere need to be spent on other things.

1. Allowing to repeat fractals + getting the usual reward would result into ppl picking the fastest ones. We already had this situation in the past with “Fractals of the Swamp”. It was disgusting, cheap and boring.

2. I repeat, fractals are not build for obtaining ascended armor or weapons. That is not what they stand for! Asc things are a reward and since we don’t have better drop rates in other content the majority of people are running fractals. Take the gold – it’s at least 10g+ per day – and craft the stuff you need.

Animism.6849:

I would 110% support FOTM 100 specifically dropping Asc. boxes though, that would be awesome.

No, 100 is too easy to hand out an asc box every day/daily. Either with power comps or the “lazy” method with necros this fractal is done faster than several others.

Animism.6849:

The drop rates between them aren’t far apart, also.

Ah, that’s why I have and still get countless of gloves and shoulders while chests are rare as ….

Vinceman.4572:

Animism.6849:

How about making level 100 have a reduced chance than typical at receiving an Asc. Box from the actual loot chests, which in itself could be repeatable. (I always wished Fractals was repeatable).

I don’t like the prospect of playing Fotm daily for months in attempt to gear up some other characters. The minor amounts of gold I make elsewhere need to be spent on other things.

1. Allowing to repeat fractals + getting the usual reward would result into ppl picking the fastest ones. We already had this situation in the past with “Fractals of the Swamp”. It was disgusting, cheap and boring.

2. I repeat, fractals are not build for obtaining ascended armor or weapons. That is not what they stand for! Asc things are a reward and since we don’t have better drop rates in other content the majority of people are running fractals. Take the gold – it’s at least 10g+ per day – and craft the stuff you need.

Animism.6849:

I would 110% support FOTM 100 specifically dropping Asc. boxes though, that would be awesome.

No, 100 is too easy to hand out an asc box every day/daily. Either with power comps or the “lazy” method with necros this fractal is done faster than several others.

Animism.6849:

The drop rates between them aren’t far apart, also.

Ah, that’s why I have and still get countless of gloves and shoulders while chests are rare as ….

So.. you are trying to discredit the idea of at least changing the RNG, by… complaining about the RNG?

Animism.6849:

So.. you are trying to discredit the idea of at least changing the RNG, by… complaining about the RNG?

No, the only thing I don’t like in the current system is that I cannot choose my armor parts from the chest on the contrary to the weapon chest.
The drop rate is fine for me as it has been for the last 1.5 years (since fix) – sometimes you win sometimes the other one gets the chest.

I’ve made a number of posts on the topic, the short of which is: three weeks of daily T4 triples isn’t long enough to say the rate is absurd. Some people are going to be unlucky for three weeks.

Keep a list of all your asc weapon/armor drops for another six weeks.

Yes there’s a separate issue about the distribution of the drops. Evidence suggests that the drop rates of the armor pieces isn’t even, but even if it was, the rates are low enough that everyone is likely to end up with duplicates before they complete a full set. That’s got nothing to do with the OP’s point, so it’s worth its own thread.

Animism.6849:

Yes the T4 fractals.

@ Polarbear, but that shows the inefficiency of the random number generator. If you say you are seeing one every night, and I haven’t seen one in 3 weeks.

It could be another 3 weeks until I see a box, by these rates.
Rather disconcerting.

I believe it does not show inefficiency, but rather fits in perfectly with the concept of randomness! There is no predicting when you will get one, and no guarantee how many you might get or even if you ever will get one.

Still, I would keep trying – as my own experience leads me to believe that the drop rate is not terribly low.

Good luck!

I’d say on average i get at least one box every 2 weeks which is plenty fair

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Zenith.7301:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

That is a popular feedback item regarding future fractal rewards that is on my list of potential proposals.

Great to hear! ;>

Zenith.7301:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

Guardian rn is a beast dawg

zealex.9410:

Zenith.7301:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

Guardian rn is a beast dawg

Yeah, but guardian bores me to tears ;(

Zenith.7301:

zealex.9410:

Zenith.7301:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

Guardian rn is a beast dawg

Yeah, but guardian bores me to tears ;(

Power engi is decent as well so is power thief power mesmer and ele.

Maybe you can find something interesting here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/2-months-w-o-an-asc-chest-drop-from-T4-fracs

Honestly, outside of Challenge Modes for 99/100, as long as you meet the AR requirements you can bring just about any kind of build into T4 Fractals and still complete it. I run with non-meta builds all the time, PUG daily, and I’ve never failed to complete my T4 dailies. If you need some extra help, chug the potions.

Now, as for the main topic, you sometimes get on “bad streaks”. I haven’t seen an Ascended chest myself in over a week now, but there was a time a month or so ago when I got like 6 in a single week. The thing to note is that certain chests (namely, Chest/Legging/Helm boxes) only drop from the higher tier Fractals. You won’t get Chest boxes from, say, T2 or T3 fractals, I believe. This might explain why some types of boxes seem more difficult to come across than others.

Zaxares.5419:

The thing to note is that certain chests (namely, Chest/Legging/Helm boxes) only drop from the higher tier Fractals. You won’t get Chest boxes from, say, T2 or T3 fractals, I believe. This might explain why some types of boxes seem more difficult to come across than others.

I haven’t seen evidence that supports this. Most of the >500 T4 run data groups and summarize all armor pieces together.

The drop rates are low enough that it’s hard to spot patterns in our limited data. In one set of [KING] data, of 545 T4 fractal instances, 16 armor boxes dropped from master chests and 15 from expert. If the odds are even, then we’d see ~2.5 parts per tier. It’s not hard to imagine a slightly unlucky streak in which you get no torso armors and 4+ of each of the others. It could take another 1000 fractals or more before things evened up.

As an example, this vid shows someone opening chests from 250 T4 runs. They got only 4 armor drops, so it’s hardly a surprise that there aren’t any torso pieces. (Warning: it’s a frustrating video for gathering any data. The mouse-over for the three lower tiers only comes at ~6 minute mark and doesn’t distinguish which tier dropped what.)

tl;dr drop rates are too low to establish clear patterns of distribution, without collating results from 1000s of runs.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Zenith.7301:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

The drop rates are pretty dang high for ascended gear, but RNG is by definition, random. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the algorithm, and our algorithm has a good distribution anyways.

The better question is why is viper/HoT stats accessories still not available through fractals, especially when you’ve made balance changes that have kicked power builds out of relevance?

That is a popular feedback item regarding future fractal rewards that is on my list of potential proposals.

Will restrictions be in place so that those that do not own expansions that specific stat sets come from cannot select those stats (e.g. Must own HoT to choose vipers)?

Here are my figures about drop rates :

I’ve run 466 daily T4 fractals since 19/04/16 patch, that’s about 5592 chests (466X12).

Got :

Weapons : 29
Gloves : 13
Helmets : 12
Boots : 16
Shoulders : 15
Chests : 3
Legs : 4

I think gloves, helmets, boots and shoulder have roughly the same drop rate. Chests and legs are much rarer since you need to do an average of 116-120 T4 daily run to get em.

Of course talking about RNG, u can have a full set in 6 days…

I’ve run almost 500 fractals and I’ve gotten less than 10 amor/weapon boxes (in total). RNGejsus pls xD

Doombringer BG.3740:

I’ve run almost 500 fractals and I’ve gotten less than 10 amor/weapon boxes (in total). RNGejsus pls xD

500 T4 fractals?

10/500 is a 2% drop rate, which is much lower than the rough average of 10-12% for all ascended gear. If your rate is that low, I’d start keeping track (easiest way is to save your chests for a month or three and count the chests as you open each tier). If you’re still seeing rates that low, I’d submit a support ticket.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

… the rough average of 10-12% for all ascended gear…

Average drop rate for ascended boxes (weapons+armor) is about 20% (confirmed by KING) for a full daily T4 run.

Near 500 daily runs since 19/04/16 patch means 1 T4 run everyday since then and 6000 dailies chests.

On an another hand, near 500 dailies chests means 41 daily T4 runs and 10 boxes would be a 24% drop rate.

Red Daing.7804:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

… the rough average of 10-12% for all ascended gear…

Average drop rate for ascended boxes (weapons+armor) is about 20% (confirmed by KING) for a full daily T4 run.

Near 500 daily runs since 19/04/16 patch means 1 T4 run everyday since then and 6000 dailies chests.

On an another hand, near 500 dailies chests means 41 daily T4 runs and 10 boxes would be a 24% drop rate.

KING data

• That’s 58 armor + weapon per 627 T4 runs (all chests combined).
• That’s a drop rate of 9.25%.

The other rates you’re looking at refer to something other than “per T4”, e.g. “a full run of three T4”.

Since the quote to which I was responding mentioned a specific number of fractal runs, the apples:apples comparison is with single runs, not triplets.

The context repeated:

I’ve run almost 500 fractals and I’ve gotten less than 10 amor/weapon boxes (in total). RNGejsus pls xD

KING’s data, for running 500 T4 fractals, would be in the 40-60 range, so only 10 ascended boxes is far, far, far below what we’d expect.

There are lots of possible reasons for the difference: human nature (we remember bad luck better than good and ‘average’ luck hardly at all), RNG, record keeping, a drop rate change, and a misunderstanding of “500 fractals” (maybe that’s T3 or maybe they meant 500 fractal chests, which would be more like 125 T4 runs, for which 10 ascended boxes is just fine).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

….
Since the quote to which I was responding mentioned a specific number of fractal runs, the apples:apples comparison is with single runs, not triplets.

Since the quote to which you were responding was an answer to my own datas based on full dailies T4 runs (ie 3 T4 everyday and 12 chests a day), my own following post was made in order to show the base used in Doombringer post wasnt probably the same as mine.

And if you consider a full daily T4 run, you still have around 20% chance to get an ascended box as shown by both datas (mine and KINGS).

Red Daing.7804:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

….
Since the quote to which I was responding mentioned a specific number of fractal runs, the apples:apples comparison is with single runs, not triplets.

Since the quote to which you were responding was an answer to my own datas based on full dailies T4 runs (ie 3 T4 everyday and 12 chests a day), my own following post was made in order to show the base used in Doombringer post wasnt probably the same as mine.

And if you consider a full daily T4 run, you still have around 20% chance to get an ascended box as shown by both datas (mine and KINGS).

Yes but are you sure he was talking about tripple runs or was it 500 chests so 125 daily runs.

Linken.6345:

Yes but are you sure he was talking about tripple runs or was it 500 chests so 125 daily runs.

Probably not and that was the point of my posts.

And if we talk about daily T4 runs (ie 3 T4 and 12 chests), 500 chests means 41 daily runs.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

In terms of data for RNG samples, 500, while it seems like a lot, is still a very very small sample size. Its entirely possible to have even worse luck than you had.

Does this imply that the loot system is true random based? Meaning that a new player has an equally high chance of dropping chests/precursors as a veteran when they log in?

If so, seems rather unfair to me. How about a pseudo random distribution to level the playing field more (more time spent = higher chance of dropping loot/ascended gear box ). When you drop it, the drop chance is reset. So for example:

Players X,Y,Z doing all 500 t4 fractals, system “guarantees”(=99.99%) 10(?) ascended gear boxes for each player.

And in current(?) system:

Players X,Y,Z doing all 500 t4 fractals, system dropping 6 to player X,10 to player Y, 14 to player Z.

Side note: Anet being vague about drop rates in general makes people speculate and (sometimes) complain more.

Just want to add to the thread once more to stress the nature of RNG.

Did fractals yesterday, walked away with 2 armor boxes. The day before was a weapon chest.

Welcome to the world of RNG

You can have a 99.9% chance of something happening, and NEVER see it for the next three years.

Maybe if Pristine relics could be used to buy ascended chests flat out? Or implement another currency exclusively for that purpose. Would allow you to make daily progress towards getting ascended items if your luck is bad. Sometimes I’m getting like a chest every day for a while, but other times you can go weeks without one. Yes, RNG is RNG but there’s no hurt in supplementing it.

Kingteranas.7508:

Maybe if Pristine relics could be used to buy ascended chests flat out? Or implement another currency exclusively for that purpose. Would allow you to make daily progress towards getting ascended items if your luck is bad. Sometimes I’m getting like a chest every day for a while, but other times you can go weeks without one. Yes, RNG is RNG but there’s no hurt in supplementing it.

Such a system already exist

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/BLING-9009

I just got three ascended and Leaf of Kudzu from one fractal run. Seems legit.

Walkure.9056:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

In terms of data for RNG samples, 500, while it seems like a lot, is still a very very small sample size. Its entirely possible to have even worse luck than you had.

Does this imply that the loot system is true random based? Meaning that a new player has an equally high chance of dropping chests/precursors as a veteran when they log in?

If so, seems rather unfair to me. How about a pseudo random distribution to level the playing field more (more time spent = higher chance of dropping loot/ascended gear box ). When you drop it, the drop chance is reset. So for example:

Players X,Y,Z doing all 500 t4 fractals, system “guarantees”(=99.99%) 10(?) ascended gear boxes for each player.

And in current(?) system:

Players X,Y,Z doing all 500 t4 fractals, system dropping 6 to player X,10 to player Y, 14 to player Z.

Side note: Anet being vague about drop rates in general makes people speculate and (sometimes) complain more.

Or even a pity timer, something another game company is famous for. What that does is setting a threshold for fails so after a certain number is reached you do get the reward.

It would really make more sense tbh than have this huge discrepancies between players experiences.

TexZero.7910:

Kingteranas.7508:

Maybe if Pristine relics could be used to buy ascended chests flat out? Or implement another currency exclusively for that purpose. Would allow you to make daily progress towards getting ascended items if your luck is bad. Sometimes I’m getting like a chest every day for a while, but other times you can go weeks without one. Yes, RNG is RNG but there’s no hurt in supplementing it.

Such a system already exist

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/BLING-9009

I mean not really lol, you still have to do crafting in addition to doing daily recs and some fractal relics. So you’re still ending up spending a good amount of gold. I’m talking about like you do ur t4s u get a special currency and maybe if u do them for like a week you can just buy a ascended chest flat out.

Kingteranas.7508:

TexZero.7910:

Kingteranas.7508:

Maybe if Pristine relics could be used to buy ascended chests flat out? Or implement another currency exclusively for that purpose. Would allow you to make daily progress towards getting ascended items if your luck is bad. Sometimes I’m getting like a chest every day for a while, but other times you can go weeks without one. Yes, RNG is RNG but there’s no hurt in supplementing it.

Such a system already exist

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/BLING-9009

I mean not really lol, you still have to do crafting in addition to doing daily recs and some fractal relics. So you’re still ending up spending a good amount of gold. I’m talking about like you do ur t4s u get a special currency and maybe if u do them for like a week you can just buy a ascended chest flat out.

with the amount of liquid gold you get doing fractals you can just buy yourself the crafting required and make your own.

I fail to see why yet another fallback plan is needed here.

does every armor box have equal chance to drop?( all 6 pieces) I rarely get ascended chest pieces or leggings.

Trinnitty.8256:

does every armor box have equal chance to drop?( all 6 pieces) I rarely get ascended chest pieces or leggings.

That’s by design, there was a dev post about that ages ago.

It’s intent is to get people not to be entirely dependent on “luck” as a means of armor progression. They want you to either Craft or do some other content with guaranteed ascended rewards.