Guild Wars 2

Idk if anyone else has this. I have two accounts. 1) 25k+ AP, head start, 230% mf and 2) 1.8k+ AP, 3 months old, 86% mf.

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. I had always had suspicion that certain players had better drops on average than other. In my guild and ally guilds we know which players will consistently get better drops. It’s so predictable it’s not funny. But, as all that was second hand I couldn’t ever really experience it for myself. Well, now I have.

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

Brace yourselves!…Get out your tinfoil hats!…and Hide behind you significant other! I’m going to claim that out loot code is borked!

With the limitations we have in terms of data, we the players have no clue how things work. We can only base our assumptions on what we experience and see. It’s very easy to say “it’s working as intended”, but really what does that mean? Is it intended that loot be equal? No. Does it mean loot is supposed to be fair? We don’t know. Does it mean that unless its absolutely kittened, it’s good enough? I have my hat on.

Thing is we simply don’t know as players. We are limited to very little evidence. Unfortunately most of the evidence I’ve come across as a player leans towards it being either broken or simply just bad loot algorithms. By that I"ll return to the question above. I cannot say I know it’s working correctly b/c I don’t know what working correctly is. I can however say it’s working poorly or broken since it defies logic.

Flame away………W O A L S p……..

I’ve seen a lot of claims of this across the forums, reddit and in-game friends and map chats, but I’ve yet to see it myself. My wife (she’s had her account since two months after release) and myself (had mine since the end of summer last year) get about the same rates of drops. In fact, there are times when she gets exotics out the bum, but I get almost nothing in the same time frame doing the same content (in this case, SW chest farm, dungeon mob/boss loot and Orr). This happened even when I first began playing, too, and it’s not let up since.

I’m not discrediting your theory, nothing like that! I just find it hard to believe versus my own experience.

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

It is such a big bug though that i can’t believe it was not located for such long time.

Goorman.7916:

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

It is such a big bug though that i can’t believe it was not located for such long time.

That wouldn’t make much sense, though. If what the OP is describing is true (and while applying what you said above to it), that means that the RNG punishes playing for a longer period of time, which would discourage long-term players. I doubt ArenaNet want that.

I too have the same experience. My main account has 6,836 AP and my second account only has 812 AP.

The second account is much luckier in terms of getting golden & exotic loot from the silverwastes bags. I now just farm SW on my second account and split the gold between accounts.

I have a spot that I grind with my lvl 80 a lot, a lot, a lot……
I bought a second account with the intention on taking it to the same exact spot. I could not believe the drops I was getting between lvl 30-60. Same spot gave better returns for my toon at lower lvl. I barely grind this spot now with my lvl 80 and have another toon that I’m not doing anything else with except grind this spot. Takes a while to lvl there and the returns are $$$$. I agree with OP

This makes no sense to me. Why would they put in something like this that makes older accounts LESS lucky? If anything they should make older accounts MORE lucky since they’ve dedicated the play time. In fact, they should make older, more active accounts be more lucky since they literally did spend all that time playing. Having this apply to brand new accounts seems backwards.

Goorman.7916:

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

Why would they make it more complicated than it needs to be by adding any other multiplier than MF, though?

People, you have to realize that for accounts to have better/worse loots there would need to be a value somewhere in the database to “flag” accounts differently. Why would they put that in their game? It makes no sense.

Yeah, we’ve heard a few people saying their 2nd account has better loot than their first one but how many people have 2 accounts and have as crappy loot on both accounts?

Please do not think I’m saying that it’s intentional. I am not.

Essence Snow.3194:

Please do not think I’m saying that it’s intentional. I am not.

I know, sorry if it came across that way. It’s just baffling me a bit that there’s the potential that they’ve done this.

Goorman.7916:

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

It is such a big bug though that i can’t believe it was not located for such long time.

It has been said repeatedly by people that know far more that absolutely no information related to your account is used as a source of information in determining RNG. I dont know what else to tell you people beyond repeating that over and over. Hell, even if they disclosed the code revolving around the RNG, I doubt there’s many people on the forums would understand it. Frankly they’d probably be some of the people who are saying RNG is working fine.

It’s simple, and once you ignore confirmation bias (ie “I never get THE BEST HAXORZ loot therefore I cant remember, or wont admit, the great loot”), that outliers exist are proof of a working RNG system.

It’s human behavior to view things as “out to get me” like most people do about the RNG and loot.

Essence Snow.3194:

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. ….

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it.

You don’t have to “buy it” for it to be true. If you record all your drops for a few months and collect similar data for 1,000 other people, we can start to consider the possibility that there’s something going on besides ‘true’ randomness. But if you’re just talking about for a short period of time, then coincidence is sufficient to explain what’s going on. It’s not enough to say “way more exotics” — you have to specify the numbers and what you did for the ecto. If the high-MF account runs mostly dungeons, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, since there are so few chances; the low-MF might be running Orr or the Ulgoth chain and have many times the number of chances.

I compare ecto salvage rates with a few friends, for kicks (not science) and there is frequently a 3-4 week period where one of us has great rates (near 1e/rare on average from mystic kits) while the other has terrible rates (closer to 0.7e/rare). But eventually, it changes.

As human beings, we tend to see patterns even when there aren’t any.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s no way for the OP to be correct about drop rates, only that they don’t have enough evidence to convince ANet that it’s even worth checking into.

tl;dr streaks are common, both lucky and unlucky ones; it’s not that surprising that the low-MF account is sometimes luckier than a high-MF one.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Goorman.7916:

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

It is such a big bug though that i can’t believe it was not located for such long time.

It has been said repeatedly by people that know far more that absolutely no information related to your account is used as a source of information in determining RNG. I dont know what else to tell you people beyond repeating that over and over. Hell, even if they disclosed the code revolving around the RNG, I doubt there’s many people on the forums would understand it. Frankly they’d probably be some of the people who are saying RNG is working fine.

It’s simple, and once you ignore confirmation bias (ie “I never get THE BEST HAXORZ loot therefore I cant remember, or wont admit, the great loot”), that outliers exist are proof of a working RNG system.

It’s human behavior to view things as “out to get me” like most people do about the RNG and loot.

Right. And Freddie Gray broke his own spine.

The point is that most people have such garbage luck with “RNG” that the only logical explanation is that it is somehow skewed against them. The fact that this is the case shows that RNG does not, has not, and will never work. People like rewards for the amount of time and energy the put into the game and it doesn’t matter if they have 5 hours a day or they have 2 kids and a full-time job and can spare barely an hour a day to enjoy the game. In the end, everyone’s time is valuable to them, and if you don’t properly keep them entertained and happy that their efforts are producing “tangible” (virtual) results, then they will migrate to other games that do so.

TLDR; RNG is stupid and people leave games because of it. I have and I have no problems doing so again.

I have a similar experience as the OP.
In January this year I bought a 2nd account and it definitely seems luckier than my main.

On my main, I’ve been playing since head start, almost 7k hours, 17k ap. Never got anything worth mentioning. The most valuable thing i got on this account was an ascended weapon chest from a JP chest maybe a year ago and one of them Karka bows maybe 2 years ago that was worth about 40g at the time.

I’ve done a little of every content, but mostly PVE stuff. Done Teq numerous times, best thing i ever got from it was an exotic spoon…well 2 spoons. I lost count on how many times I’ve done Jormag and other world bosses, never so much as an exotic form them, not to mention, i’ve never seen a precursor.
Since SW and introduction of VW event, I’ve done it maybe 20 times, trying to get 2 coasts. No luck. I only got the one that was guaranteed when u first do the event.

My 2nd account, first time i did tripple trouble, gets an ascended armor chest. First time i did VW i get 2 coasts and on my 2nd run at VW i get the 3rd coat. I won’t even bother mentioning other stuff.

You can draw whatever conclusions u want from this, but the truth is, I’ve given up a long time ago getting anything worthwhile on my main account. I basically log in these days do my dailies if i feel like doing them and that’s about it. I’m tired of the same ol same ol generic greens and blues i get loaded with whenever i do anything in the game, like ruining W bosses or w/ever. My hands hurt form all the salvaging, it’s boring and tiresome.

McNinja.5417:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Goorman.7916:

It is theoretically possible that they use some specific hash of a character data as a seed for random number generation involved in loot drop calculation.

It is such a big bug though that i can’t believe it was not located for such long time.

It has been said repeatedly by people that know far more that absolutely no information related to your account is used as a source of information in determining RNG. I dont know what else to tell you people beyond repeating that over and over. Hell, even if they disclosed the code revolving around the RNG, I doubt there’s many people on the forums would understand it. Frankly they’d probably be some of the people who are saying RNG is working fine.

It’s simple, and once you ignore confirmation bias (ie “I never get THE BEST HAXORZ loot therefore I cant remember, or wont admit, the great loot”), that outliers exist are proof of a working RNG system.

It’s human behavior to view things as “out to get me” like most people do about the RNG and loot.

Right. And Freddie Gray broke his own spine.

The point is that most people have such garbage luck with “RNG” that the only logical explanation is that it is somehow skewed against them. The fact that this is the case shows that RNG does not, has not, and will never work. People like rewards for the amount of time and energy the put into the game and it doesn’t matter if they have 5 hours a day or they have 2 kids and a full-time job and can spare barely an hour a day to enjoy the game. In the end, everyone’s time is valuable to them, and if you don’t properly keep them entertained and happy that their efforts are producing “tangible” (virtual) results, then they will migrate to other games that do so.

TLDR; RNG is stupid and people leave games because of it. I have and I have no problems doing so again.

RNG and MMOs always go together. Heck, I remember back in Everquest where if I wanted to make an epic weapon I had to go do a raid to kill a drain our something, hope rng made the item drop, and then had to win the loot roll against the 3-4 other classes that needed the item for theirs as well. Running dungeons in wow was similar as well: hope something good drops, then hope you won the die roll, unless they changed something since I quit. GW2 is nice in that there is a guaranteed, non-rmg way to get almost every bit of gear you need(if perhaps not in the skin you want) short of legendary precursors (yet, although they are essentially replicated with craftable ascended for the time being)

That said, people need to remember that RNG stands for RANDOM number generator. Each number can be anything. Flip a fair coin 1000 times and you will ultimately get some long runs of heads consecutively. Have millions of accounts farm, and some will have lucky steaks while others have cold. Given the lucky and the average won’t usually complain, you find that your sampling is heavily biased and there is no logical reason to assume loot is bonked.

Tl;dr RNG is industry standard loot distribution for MMOs, and they need to start teaching proper probability/statistics in school.

it’s true, this has been known for a long time, if you are destined for richness , your account will get all the goodies. if you ain’t, tough luck pal.

There’s just no way to turn this into a constructive discussion. ANET has come out and stated that there’s nothing to the rumors of “lucky” or “unlucky” accounts. Whether you choose to believe that or not- whether it’s even true or not, there is literally nothing we, as players, can do.

This isn’t like leaving feedback. It’s an issue of “either this theory is true or false, and I am not buying that it is false, therefore it is true.” That’s not a point at which discussion can even happen.

Pretty much what Guhracie said. Anet have stated there are no special accounts,lucky accounts etc etc. if anyone chooses to disbelieve, they can…doesnt change the fact though

I have seen this time and time again in game with friends and guildies. I have known people that would get ascended box drops every other week consistantly. Meanwhile since ascended items were released I have picked up 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

Wether it’s true or not, there’s something very wrong either way.
If the rng is so bad people in large numbers feel like they’re being cheated by the rng then there’s something wrong with player statisfaction. The other scenario, well that’s just flat out bad.

True story:

Apple had to change the RNG for shuffle on their iPod as people were complaining it was broken. Many times songs repeated and so on. The truth is it was truly random. Apple had to change the RNG to appear more random to us.

If you play this game since launch you could have ended up without looting an exotic even once and nothing would be wrong with the RNG.

Our brains are pattern-seekers and they are wired to overdo it.
The only way to find patterns in the RNG of GW2 is to use a scientific method. Everything else is just superstition.

As a software engineer I can say it is very will possible they they have a system like in places that causes this. While could could simply put a specific drop-rate to a specific item you could for example to also design a system / algorithm that does try to optimize the drop-rate per player in a way it would (on paper, I personally don’t think a system like this would have the effect you would hope) be best for Anet. For example, an algorithm could try to find out how many drops (or what average drop-rate) you would need to keep playing while still being low enough for you to spend cash in the cash-shop.

This could however mean that the algorithm ‘comes to the conclusion’ that for one player it’s optimal to have higher drop-rates / drops then for another player.

They could even increase or decrease drop-rates based on how positive / negative you are on the forum.. everything is possible.

Now be clear I don’t say a system like this is in place, I just say it could be and could result in better loot for other players.

I personally can’t say I really notice a big difference between account of people know… or better said.. I did, but could not compare it with how much they grinded vs other people. Not to mention that some people link any good drop they get while other don’t.

I personally don’t get a lot of good drops and could blame that on some account0bug or that they lower my drop-rate because I leave a lot critical feedback on the forums. But fact is that I don’t grind a lot and if you don’t grind you don’t get much in this game. So that might be a better reason as to why I get less good drops then somebody else.

So I have no reason to believe there is a system in place that increases or decreases drop-rates for some account but I also can’t say there isn’t. I simply don’t know, but know both could be true.

However, I did notice many times that when you are near the Mystic Toilet suddenly multiple people link the same precursor. Assuming they link it because it just dropped for them, this would be very rare to happen with the more basic RNG-system where an item simply has one drop-rate. Because I have seen that multiple times I do think there RNG-system is a little more complex.

That would also be more in line with how Anet designs everything. Being it the annoying invisible walls everything, to fixing bugs where they lose a little control it all shows they really want to have a lot of control over what happens in there game. They seem to have truly dynamic / sandbox system as it would take away some control out of their hands. (something I btw think is very good for a game, it means thing can happen that even the developer didn’t think of what can results in great content.. but whatever).

Knowing they want to be in full control over everything and having seen those strange similar drops I also do expect them to having something more complex in place then the average rng per item. As the normal rng system would give them less control how many items are in the game (and who gets them).

It could then also be true that there is a bug in that system that results in some people getting better drops then other people.

Again, I don’t say that is the case but it can be true and you can’t simply ignore the possibility.

Hidori.3472:

True story:

Apple had to change the RNG for shuffle on their iPod as people were complaining it was broken. Many times songs repeated and so on. The truth is it was truly random. Apple had to change the RNG to appear more random to us.

If you play this game since launch you could have ended up without looting an exotic even once and nothing would be wrong with the RNG.

Our brains are pattern-seekers and they are wired to overdo it.
The only way to find patterns in the RNG of GW2 is to use a scientific method. Everything else is just superstition.

That is then some bad design. When you design a shuffle system you of course do not make it completely random as that would indeed results in songs being playing 3 times in a row. Obviously that is something you don’t want completely random.

But did people say it was not random or did they complain they would hear songs to many times shortly after each other. That is a big difference.

Devata.6589:

Again, I don’t say that is the case but it can be true and you can’t simply ignore the possibility.

Except as others have noted, Anet has stated that this isn’t true. That, combined with the fact that there are psychological mechanisms that could explain the experience, means that you have to come up with more than just ‘it is a possibility’ to seriously consider it. We would need raw data and lots of it, then we need to do statistical analyses. Until that time I consider people to be paranoid.

I appreciate that people really truly believe that there is some predetermined account luck.

Personally I’d have to see a lot of data to be convinced… even so, there are so many factors to consider when it comes to drop-rate that it would be difficult to create a sterile and replicatable environment.

As has already been mentioned, I think most of the experiences here boil down to cognitive bias and other psychological effects.

There’s something wrong.

One thing is randomness, and another thing is having single player in your guild getting exotics and ascended on half the things they do and everyone else never getting a thing at all even when they play 2-3 times more than the lucky guy.

ANet may say ‘lucky accounts’ do not exist, but I think what they are saying is actually ‘lucky accounts are not supposed to exist’, but in reality there’s some sort of bug or some borked code making it be like that as an unintended side-effect.

Whether that’s happening because of the code or as a mere result of randomness doesn’t matter. It should not happen because it only frustrates players. The luckier a single player gets the more disheartened the other player will get about their experience as they do the same or more and get less, making gameplay feel unrewarding and frustrating.

In any case, the loot generation system needs to be changed from a simpler random one to a ‘weighted randomness’ one that increases the chances of something rare over time and resets the next rare drop is generated, so it eventually gives you something decent if nothing decent ever drops for you, and/or a ‘consolation price’ system that gives some sort of token that can be exchanged for something better when nothing rare ever drops.

Ive also had the same thought for a long time now.Not that i have alt accounts,but when i compare the loot to other people i play with on a daily base with around the same MF,theyre getting ascended gear,trinkets ,exotics,rares..I always end up with greens/blues..worthless junk and the occasional exotic.Im not buying this RNG thing either.Ive always said my account is cursed.

i complete alot of pvp reward tracks and do a decent amount of WvW, and i open my chests on 80s in WvW. i have over 100 magic find and i don’t even get one exotic most weeks. the last one i got was a speargun, stingray or something. i got that over a week ago.

i’ve had this account since beta and have never got anything of note (gold worth wise, i got my decent share of ascended gear 1 weapon box, 3 armor, and a bunch of rings).

Anyone that is going to claim that there is something causing different accounts to be luckier has never written a line of code in their life. No programmer or engineer is going to go over-design something which, by definition, needs to hit a RNG and check its value against a table.

The only reason anything about an account could matter is if it was used as the seed for the RNG, which was stated above. Programmatically, that’s also stupid. Why make a database hit for something that happens thousands of times a minute? If time is used for it, it would be Unix time, which has NOTHING to do with account life.

On the infinitesimal chance that an account attribute is used, then the devs would have to go out of their way to design a hash algorithm that maps old account dates (assuming that’s your theory) to losing values. That makes no sense, as it would be A) a horrible hashing algorithm, as it’s predictable and B) no one writes their own hashing algorith.

Additionally, RNGs are always used with a variable input, so it’s not going to be some static “flag” on your account.

TL;DR: Programmers are naturally lazy, so your theories are dumb. ITT: Clustering illusion, poor understanding of technology and people that have never taken a basic statistics course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

-If you think your account is cursed, every time somebody else pings a piece of good loot, you will see this as evidence that your account is cursed (even though account loot is mutually exclusive).
-You will also see such evidence disproportionately to real-life. For example, you may think a player obtains good loot more frequently than what is real, or you might “wash over” the times that you’ve obtained good loot.

MrWubzy.3587:

That wouldn’t make much sense, though. If what the OP is describing is true (and while applying what you said above to it), that means that the RNG punishes playing for a longer period of time, which would discourage long-term players. I doubt ArenaNet want that.

When it comes to favoring new over old players, devs will usually focus more on new. The longer a player plays, means they are already hooked or are close to burnout, without streamlining new content burnouts are generally unavoidable(even with new content). Keeping new players playing however, is much more important.

It wouldn’t be a surprise nor do I think its uncommon in MMOs to increase “RNG favor” for newer players to get them hooked on the game, then subtly bring it down to a standard level.

Now if GW2 does this is doubtful, but wouldn’t be surprising.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

I appreciate that people really truly believe that there is some predetermined account luck.

Personally I’d have to see a lot of data to be convinced… even so, there are so many factors to consider when it comes to drop-rate that it would be difficult to create a sterile and replicatable environment.

As has already been mentioned, I think most of the experiences here boil down to cognitive bias and other psychological effects.

I am not picking a side here only explaining it can work those ways so it’s not completely far fetch to believe that some account can get better loot because of how the game works. Some people seem to think that is impossible and you would be a tin foiled had type to even believe this would be the case.

However looking at your statement. To believe it’s the case you would want a lot of data (thats pretty much impossible to get) however to believe it’s not the case Anet’s word is just fine. Isen’t that a little strange as well?

It’s not like they never before said things weren’t true and turned out to be true after-all.

I’m not discrediting the idea that there may be a bug in the game, causing an effect like this.

I think it’s much more likely that people are being fooled by their own expectations. I also think that the lack of trust towards A-net doesn’t help, either. I think many try to externalise their bad experiences with bugs and poor game design- something that could make sense considering we experience them frequently.

I’ve been playing since beta. I made my main on launch. my guild was created in under 2 minutes after launch.

So I guess I’ve got about as old of an account as can exist here. Those who have older accounts have them by matters of seconds.

My drops have been rather constant, though I don’t really have a farming mentality so I don’t measure things like my ‘exotics-per-hour’ rate or whatever…

I’ve never been active on the giant zerg trains or boss trains. Ending up on them only when one passes me by or is a daily, and sticking with it for as much as 2 bosses at most (I find it extremely boring to sit there and wait for a boss to spawn, and even more boring to be part of a massive zerg steamrolling open content).

I do dungeons when the mood strikes. I used to do them constantly.

I find a single dungeon run will fill my bags up with look and loot boxes. I’ll get an exotic about 1/3 of the time. World bosses seem about similar.

This is either about the same or slightly higher than it used to be.

My account’s richest ever moment was recently when I hit 40g. Which didn’t last because I bought some gems…

I’ve had a WoW account since 2006 by the way – I’ve had a similar pattern there. I always had about a third of the gold of the people I knew, if not less.

I’d wager people who think the system punishes old or punishes new or punishes people named ‘fred’ or whatever… are thinking in anecdotes and too small of a sample size.

But I brought up my WoW example to make a point. If there is any factor in this that is relevant – its playstyle.

As for the people with two accounts. That’s either just random chance, or the toons are being played differently.

Devata.6589:

However looking at your statement. To believe it’s the case you would want a lot of data (thats pretty much impossible to get) however to believe it’s not the case Anet’s word is just fine. Isen’t that a little strange as well?

It’s not like they never before said things weren’t true and turned out to be true after-all.

That’s shifting the burden of proof though. The people claiming that there are cursed accounts and lucky accounts made the claim before the opposite was claimed, so the burden of proof lies with them.

I’ll add mine to the list here. I have two accounts. First one gets loot that is “meh”. Get an exotic once in a while. Have had ascended chests drop, etc. But overall I feel like I get nowhere. Especially with BLC’s and salvaging exotics for dark matter.

My 2nd account? Not been around very long, but it has gotten stellar drops from black lion chests, and better drops running around in world. Salvaging stuff goes well also.

One difference I’m seeing among the examples given is that the younger accounts seem to always get the better loot, and those younger accounts don’t have nearly as high a level of MF.

Wondering if the problem is MF.

MrWubzy.3587:

This makes no sense to me. Why would they put in something like this that makes older accounts LESS lucky? If anything they should make older accounts MORE lucky since they’ve dedicated the play time. In fact, they should make older, more active accounts be more lucky since they literally did spend all that time playing. Having this apply to brand new accounts seems backwards.

Think about it. The game goes on sale like all the time. People claim they get better loot on alt accounts. Eventually that theroy catches on, and soon others are buying alt accounts for $10 a pop. Do you see the pattern here?

On topic though, I believe op is right. I have been trying to get incinerator since day one. My friend just started gathering his materials and map completion about 2-3 months ago. He got everything he needed except the pre. Then he threw 4daggers in the toilet and got spark. He now has a legendary he worked 2-3 months for. Vs me who’s worked on it since day one. Tell me what’s wrong with that. Tell me why I shouldn’t be salty.

RNG is a myth. Magic find is a myth. This game is seriously like real life. You’re born lucky, or lucky to be born. In this case, some accounts have a higher chance at getting better things. There’s also something severely wrong when all you get is two green Krytan daggers in one chest and carrion spear guns which I always seem to get when doing things like fractals. Or world bosses.

people can say all that junk that it’s working just fine. But those very people probably have 1-2 legedaries and a bunch of gold already cause they don’t need to search any more.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lucky_and_Unlucky I think they forgot to turn it off in gw2.

Zackie.8923:

it’s true, this has been known for a long time, if you are destined for richness , your account will get all the goodies. if you ain’t, tough luck pal.

No, it’s not true. It’s been tin-foil-hatted for a long time. There’s absolutely no evidence that accounts are destined for richness or poverty.

On the contrary, all the evidence there is shows that some people get lucky sometimes, some people get lucky often, and some people hardly ever get lucky, but this changes over time. The evidence also shows that people are notoriously poor about keeping track of how lucky they are …or aren’t.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Zackie.8923:

it’s true, this has been known for a long time, if you are destined for richness , your account will get all the goodies. if you ain’t, tough luck pal.

No, it’s not true. It’s been tin-foil-hatted for a long time. There’s absolutely no evidence that accounts are destined for richness or poverty.

On the contrary, all the evidence there is shows that some people get lucky sometimes, some people get lucky often, and some people hardly ever get lucky, but this changes over time. The evidence also shows that people are notoriously poor about keeping track of how lucky they are …or aren’t.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lucky_and_Unlucky
I wonder if they could bring this back then.

Neural.1824:

I’ll add mine to the list here. I have two accounts. First one gets loot that is “meh”. Get an exotic once in a while. Have had ascended chests drop, etc. But overall I feel like I get nowhere. Especially with BLC’s and salvaging exotics for dark matter.

My 2nd account? Not been around very long, but it has gotten stellar drops from black lion chests, and better drops running around in world. Salvaging stuff goes well also.

One difference I’m seeing among the examples given is that the younger accounts seem to always get the better loot, and those younger accounts don’t have nearly as high a level of MF.

Wondering if the problem is MF.

• MF doesn’t affect drops from salvaging nor from the Black Lion login reward.
• Try keeping track of what you are killing on both accounts and exactly what is dropping. It’s not enough to say one account is getting ‘better’ drops; the context is critical.

My other account has had 3 dusks drops, two tooth of frostfangs and the hunter drop for it. My main account? Not a single precursor.

The OP might be onto something….

What’s an exotic? Oh, wait. That’s the item tier I can get by crafting or buying on the TP or cashing in dungeon tokens, Karma or badges! They drop?

ik, ik

JackSpacer.4320:

My other account has had 3 dusks drops, two tooth of frostfangs and the hunter drop for it. My main account? Not a single precursor.

The OP might be onto something….

Give me a frostfang

Ive noticed something similiar too, with the account i bought for my boyfriend to play with when hes not playing WOT. Hes already getting incredible drops and he hasnt even played that long..

My account? best thing ive gotten is a mini tequatl.

To address “Anet said there is nothing to do with our accounts and rng”:

We know magic find is supposed to increase our chances at better quality loot. There’s an account based variable that contradicts that statement.

There have also been multiple bugs (wvw bonus bug, fractal reward level bug. etc), that have also effected some accounts and not others.

How is it possible that our loot has nothing to do with our accounts when there have been multiple instances to show otherwise?

dexer.2173:

Its already confirmed that luck-Accounts exist!

I know someone (under 5k total hours played) who got 30+ precursors from >> ONLY DROPS <<

If i would tell u how much Pres he got from the Mystic Toilet… u just wont belive it…

Even if that’s true, how exactly is that proof? Streaks can happen due to chance.

I have only one account, and I can make it produce 2 different loot experiences.
One week I will do dungeons, farm materials, generally play like most people with bad luck describe their playtime on these forums. My drops decay to junk quickly and stay in that realm
The next week I will play my way, and almost instantly my loot will improve. Every time. and they do not degenerate.
Change the way you play. This game rewards diversity and limited repetitive actions.

Trust me if you want, don’t if you do not want to. I know what works.

The discussion of younger account is spot on, as the longer you repeat repetitive actions, the further your drops degenerate to junk, and the longer it takes to recover. I can go 3 weeks in forum described play, and it will take 4-5 days for my drops to recover.
My hints, use one character per day, cycle through all your characters before returning to the first. Start and end in a city ALWAYS. Maximize power for solo play, secondary stats have no effect on drops. Never kill more than 30 of any one enemy, or within any particular map area. Run to another area and kill another type of enemy, then return if needed. To farm something, IE Charged Lodestones, go to where they drop once a day, and vanquish the enemies ONE TIME THROUGH, (use the hint above). I farmed Charged Lodestones near the Temple of Dwayna, over a hundred, in just over a month.
If you do certain things every day ad naseum, do them in a different order, change up the process you use. Random activity is key.

This is of course IMHO. Take it as you will.

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk if anyone else has this. I have two accounts. 1) 25k+ AP, head start, 230% mf and 2) 1.8k+ AP, 3 months old, 86% mf.

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. I had always had suspicion that certain players had better drops on average than other. In my guild and ally guilds we know which players will consistently get better drops. It’s so predictable it’s not funny. But, as all that was second hand I couldn’t ever really experience it for myself. Well, now I have.

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

Brace yourselves!…Get out your tinfoil hats!…and Hide behind you significant other! I’m going to claim that out loot code is borked!

With the limitations we have in terms of data, we the players have no clue how things work. We can only base our assumptions on what we experience and see. It’s very easy to say “it’s working as intended”, but really what does that mean? Is it intended that loot be equal? No. Does it mean loot is supposed to be fair? We don’t know. Does it mean that unless its absolutely kittened, it’s good enough? I have my hat on.

Thing is we simply don’t know as players. We are limited to very little evidence. Unfortunately most of the evidence I’ve come across as a player leans towards it being either broken or simply just bad loot algorithms. By that I"ll return to the question above. I cannot say I know it’s working correctly b/c I don’t know what working correctly is. I can however say it’s working poorly or broken since it defies logic.

Flame away………W O A L S p……..

This is why I KEEP TELLING YOU ALL, NOTHING IN COMPUTERS ARE RANDOM!!!

NOTHING….

RNG is an illusion make by clever programmers. Developers know this…

Dante.1763:

JackSpacer.4320:

My other account has had 3 dusks drops, two tooth of frostfangs and the hunter drop for it. My main account? Not a single precursor.

The OP might be onto something….

Give me a frostfang

Ive noticed something similiar too, with the account i bought for my boyfriend to play with when hes not playing WOT. Hes already getting incredible drops and he hasnt even played that long..

My account? best thing ive gotten is a mini tequatl.

My friend abandoned his old account when he noticed his new one was getting all sorts of crazy loot drops. Not precursors mind you, but exotics from every single champion kill? Yeah, he’s already done with his collections, has less then 2k AP on the account. My 8k+ account? Yeah, I have had like 4 collection items drop. Ever.

So when Anet says there isn’t a problem and it’s “completely random” seems a bit misleading. My new account shouldn’t be making thousands of gold from doing practically nothing. I worked my kitten off on my main account, but it has THE kittentiest RNG. I’m thinking about just sticking to my new account because having a vet account is pretty pointless in this game. More so when you have kitten RNG on it.

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk if anyone else has this. I have two accounts. 1) 25k+ AP, head start, 230% mf and 2) 1.8k+ AP, 3 months old, 86% mf.

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. I had always had suspicion that certain players had better drops on average than other. In my guild and ally guilds we know which players will consistently get better drops. It’s so predictable it’s not funny. But, as all that was second hand I couldn’t ever really experience it for myself. Well, now I have.

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

Brace yourselves!…Get out your tinfoil hats!…and Hide behind you significant other! I’m going to claim that out loot code is borked!

With the limitations we have in terms of data, we the players have no clue how things work. We can only base our assumptions on what we experience and see. It’s very easy to say “it’s working as intended”, but really what does that mean? Is it intended that loot be equal? No. Does it mean loot is supposed to be fair? We don’t know. Does it mean that unless its absolutely kittened, it’s good enough? I have my hat on.

Thing is we simply don’t know as players. We are limited to very little evidence. Unfortunately most of the evidence I’ve come across as a player leans towards it being either broken or simply just bad loot algorithms. By that I"ll return to the question above. I cannot say I know it’s working correctly b/c I don’t know what working correctly is. I can however say it’s working poorly or broken since it defies logic.

Flame away………W O A L S p……..

Boy I gotta say I agree. I played this game avidly for months on two separate instances: at launch and since Feb or so of this year. Neither of those times have I gotten any drops worth over 8g. However, I see people playing less than me in a lesser variety of events etc, consistently get better drops.

I’m at the point where I do not enjoy the loot in this game at all. All the stuff that is worth anything is so random there is no fun in searching knowing you’re trying in vain. I see people who only log in to do Teq every once and a while get Precursors. I do believe them when they say it’s working as intended because I believe the game is meant to be unfair. Certain players are meant to get loot to put up for sale and the unlucky ones are meant to farm gold to keep the market going.

GW2 is not a perfect game, its a great game but it has alot of flaws. One of those is that the loot experience is absolutely terrible. Dungeons mean next to nothing, WvW means next to nothing, farming world bosses means next to nothing. Many people would like you to think that a large part of the enjoyment of MMORPG’s isn’t the satisfaction of getting good loot. Most on these forums will try to tell you that in an effort to belittle the a notion and sentiment that has pretty much been the cornerstone of any good RPG since their inception.

To Arenanet I just have to ask: Are you prioritizing the fun factor each of your players has? Or is all that matters the metrics and numbers of the TP that will cause people to buy gems and sell them or the items they get with them so they can finally progress past full exotics?

They really dropped the ball, loot and the satisfaction of getting good loot is nonexistent for all but the approx less than 1% of the game’s population who are “lucky” enough to win the RNG lottery. GW2 is simply abysmal in this regard.