Guild Wars 2

As GW1 had a confirmed anti-farm code (reduced (value) of drops in an area you farm with a character etc http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anti-farm_code ) I would guess GW2 has something equal.
I experienced it when doing random stuff for about half a year, then returning to world boss runs for weeks. The first week I got about 1 exo per world boss (not counting the daily bonus chest), and later it went back to “if I’m lucky I get a rare”.

Essence Snow.3194:

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?

What?

Your claim, lo these many years and specifically as the original poster of this thread, has been that certain accounts are seeded with better chances in general, without regard for MF buffs, including that granted by use of the luck consumable.

ANet’s statement is in regard to that claim (specifically: it’s not true; all accounts are equal before RNG).

Separately, as an entirely different mechanic, ANet has give us ways to increase our chances of getting better quality loot on average.

I hope that you can see that the two claims aren’t contradictory in the least, unless you want to define the terms in such a fashion that it would make discussion about it impossible.

tl;dr There is zero evidence that any accounts have better chances to get better loot, except in the context of MF buffs.

I agree there is some kind of account luck. I got 30 accounts and they all give vastly different loot experiences

It’s called getting you hooked.
Business 101.

To people saying it’s not possible because it doesn’t make any sense, well this is exactly what happened in GW1. Diminishing returns. Take a break, come back, and you’re up to your eyeballs in valuable loot.

You have to keep one thing in mind: there is such a thing as ‘statistically lucky’ and ‘statistically unlucky’. Some people don’t just SEEM to have all the bad luck, they actually DO have more bad luck then others. And others consume the luck that would have sufficed for 10 others.

In MMO it seems to be the same. In a game like AION, where RNG determined whether you could make Fenris armor or not, some people had 20+ fails (each one involving an excruciating amount of grind) and some had the critical success they needed in 3 attempts or less.

Could this happen on account basis? Could this have something to do with older versus newer accounts? Always possible, but we don’t have all the facts.

I’m one of the statistically unlucky, incidentally. 980 days in game, no precursor. 20+ hours in the Silverwastes and Dry Top this week, no portal.

/bangsheadagainstwall

It doesn’t surprise me. My loot too has drastically diminished and I’m sitting at 12,000 AP at the moment. I was lucky enough to get a precursor but surprise surprise that came shortly after I hit 80, when I had barely any AP. It also came during that karka event when it first appeared.

What some people don’t understand or refuse to believe is in fact RNG can in fact be tweaked on the fly, like per say for a special event. This however, will affect everyone. RNG can also be tweaked based on other factors like how much achievement points and how much gold you have. This isn’t account specific but game wide specific. Those over say 12,000 AP could get a drop in % across the board. Those sitting at 18,000 ap could get a further drop. Likewise, those sitting with say 500g in their bank may suffer a penalty as well.

Back in my WoW days, one of the senior GM’s there admitted to this happening. Accounts receiving penalties based on account specifics like how much gold is linked to the account. It’s not a possibility, it’s a reality. Whether Anet is doing it or not is another thing. I am leaning towards that they do based on my own experience.

My 7th try at flushing random rares down the mystic toilet awarded me Dusk (Sep 23, 2013, ~11pm). Was nice but it was also about the only real valuable drop for me. But that’s randomness. What is not random is diminishing returns as described in my last post and Odyssey’s.

This is 100% true that not all accounts are equal. It was proven with farming candy corn elementals, they have a 100% drop rate, yet some accounts they stopped dropping for after awhile. Other accounts could farm them endlessly without that dropoff. 100% proof that not all accounts are equal.

it’s entirely possible anet purposefully put in a multiplier (something that gave better chances on table) for new accounts.

why would they do this? to keep ‘new’ players more interested in the game. long time players are used to lousy drops but rng would burn out new players. the assumption being that veterans will keep playing regardless but new players need drops to keep playing. could explain the new account disparity.

Diovid.9506:

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.

That is not how life works. You are not by default right simply because you did not change from current viewpoint.

Somebody is right, somebody is wrong, there is no default truth and so the burden of proof lies on everybody or nobody but certainly not in one place. I also never shifted it, I never said you had to proof they where wrong. I simply said that “because Anet says so” does not mean anything.

I completely agree. There is nothing random about this RNG. I believe it collects information like age, ap, or something of this sort and uses it to put you in a certain “tier” for loot. I have near 6k hours, 18k+ AP’s on this account and have a few newer accounts. The loot from this account is always terrible. I’ve received one Ascended Armor chest and never a precursor (except from forge), I can’t remember the last time i looted an exotic off an enemy. My 2nd account, well, Ascended armor chest first time at Tequatl, Dawn precursor off worm. There is something seriously messed up with loot for the older accounts. More proof can be collected from thee beta keys. Definitely not RNG. They players have already been selected and those who enter the zone will find theres. They already said players are selected from those who signed up for the newsletter NOT from those who farm silverwaste. That is just makeup to hide their true colors. If it was truly RNG players wouldn’t have to signup.

Anet makes a remarkable amount of money from the RNG “gambling” part of this game. Do I have numbers as proof? No. What I see as proof is that they are still doing it. They are constantly making changes to the game to optimize their income, yet some aspects of the game have changed very little (gambling).
That being said, it is clear that gambling is a core part of their income model, and as such they probably have spent a lot of their own money into researching the psychology of gambling and how to maximize profits based on peoples weaknesses.
Magic Find is a perfect example of this psychological manipulation. Magic Find (MF) was a pretty bauble that people went after because they perceived a better reward for time put in. Anet capitalized on this in a big way. They made MF a big deal. Integrated it with the account. Created new shinies to help you gain MF (essence of luck), and set a maximum on it (300%) that was at a set distance from the starting point (no RNG involved. Just keep salvaging stuff for luck essence, and you’ll get there.)
The players rejoiced and the overall morale of the community was increased. Then Anet silently started to replace all types of loot that were affected by MF with loot that could not be affected by MF.
Now we are at a point where MF is almost useless except for a few different select spots that Anet may yet change.

This is but one facet of the games they play with the minds of the players. They are not a game company that is focused on making money while making a great game. They are focused on making the greatest amount of money possible with the minimum amount of effort needed (there is a difference between the two. The former is long term investment thinking, the latter is short term “want it now” thinking).
RNG is the core of their game. It affects so many areas of what happens regarding loot and obtaining items. Fed up with it? Just whip out your wallet and pay real cash (see how that works?).

In the long run, this thread will get buried and ignored like the rest, because the majority of players are still pumping enough cash into the game that Anet is meeting its monthly income projections, and that’s the true bottom line. Nothing will change until Anet is hurting for cash, and even then, it’s likely they’ll just throw out more fluff as opposed to fixing a core problem like the overall loot system.

So regardless of fact vs. fiction, you can bet all your gold on nothing changing. They simply don’t care.

Conspiracy theories aside, code breaks, it happens often enough in this game, uttering the mindless mantra that RNG is RNG, doesn’t take this into account. I would be much more comfortable if someone said, ‘hey we will check it out’, or ‘we have checked it out and nothing is wrong’, rather than ’nothing is wrong (and we are cant be bothered to check if it).

The pvp algorithm is public: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm , I don’t know why the Loot one isn’t. If it’s really RNG and doesn’t include special factors, being it public shouldn’t be a problem.

Shadey Dancer.2907:

Conspiracy theories aside, code breaks, it happens often enough in this game, uttering the mindless mantra that RNG is RNG, doesn’t take this into account. I would be much more comfortable if someone said, ‘hey we will check it out’, or ‘we have checked it out and nothing is wrong’, rather than ’nothing is wrong (and we are cant be bothered to check if it).

There is nothing to check until/unless someone can provide evidence that there is a problem. It’s not that they “can’t be bothered” — it’s that there is nothing that anyone has posted here that even suggests that there is a potential problem.

We humans just have really terrible instincts about what constitutes “average” and especially “average luck.”

The original post in this thread states there’s an issue, without providing the least amount of data — the only thing that was posted was the MF numbers and an assertion that the quality of loot differs between the two accounts. There’s no explanation of where the two accounts play or for how long in each area, the number of foes killed, the number of bonus chests opened, the number of champ bags acquired, the level of the characters involved, or anything else that could allow another person to even begin to compare the two “results”, never mind try to replicate the experience.

And, as it turns out, when people do provide such evidence, ANet has been quick to double check and, when necessary, fix anything that broke. (Notably: changes to drop rates for unidentified dyes when those still dropped from plants and ecto-salvage rates.) Sometimes they notice before players (sometimes not).

In the case of this thread, people are perceiving an issue, but that’s not enough for ANet to decide to invest dozens (if not hundreds) of person-hours to investigate whether something is glitched.

tl;dr ANet already reviews data; asking them to delve more deeply requires something more than a few people posting their impressions about the quality of loot.

(If someone truly believes there is an issue, I’d be pleased to help them organize a data collection project sufficient to get ANet’s attention, if there really is something worth investigating. Message me here or in-game and we can discuss. )

I just want to add this :
I started playing gw2 in beta-phase and got several ppl to play it it, some after half a year (my wife i.e.), some just started about dec. 2014.
The person that has the newest account got 5 pre and participated in the beta for HoT.
And the lucky drops decrease with the age of the acc.
feels like the “luck” decreases with the age of the accounts.

Scripts can bug even if it was intended…

Also game has this mechanism
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

BTW i find less number of exotic loot now than 2 years ago :/

Its long been thought that when you create your account that it is tagged for better loot or not, it just cannot be random that some people get amazing drops all the time in this game and others will play for years and not get squat,

Its this extremely broken RnG that has pushed a lot of my friends out of the game, you are just not rewarded for the time you play.

MF is broken also, I have 300 base, 13 from AP and boosts take of over 500% and I get very little in the way of good drops, if its supposed to roll a loot table it doesn’t, I cannot remember the last time I have an Exotic drop from an enemy for me, I do get the occasional rare, yet friends of mine who think MF is a myth and don’t use it, get 2 or 3 exotics a week from normal enemies, and they play a lot less than me.

RnG is broken
Loot is broken
MF is broken

And the only people who don’t agree are the ones who get the drops.

You guys are claiming that the loot code is broken but are not providing the data the supports the claim. I have an account with 15000 AP. I am finding more exotics now than before. This is anecdotal evidence that provides us with no knowledge of the issue at hand. You should have used your accounts and marked every drop you received in the game from the start. For the evidence to be significant, there must be well over 10000 points of data and probably over 1000 exotic drop points of data to significantly say that there is an issue. To just say that there is an issue doesn’t mean an issue really exists as you could making up one. If an account is receiving several hundred exotics more than another during the same time frame than there is an issue.

You also must define what are you referring to as Exotics and drop. Are you referring to an actual drop from a monster or a chest drop as both use different loot tables. Also at what Magic Find % are you working at as obviously the one with more MF should see a slight increase in the number of exotic drops from monsters (MF% does not affect chests). And what kind of exotics are you referring to? Is it weapons and armour or including all types of exotics? As well, FOTM also has a significantly higher rate of exotic drop rate so you can not use the data from it.

Today, I used MF for 22 random rare weapons, I got back 2 exotics. Yesterday, I opened around 250 bags of loot from SW, I got 2 exotics. …There are times when I don’t get any exotic for months. And even though I’ve never won precursor lottery (or that kitten beta access), I don’t think Anet is purposely letting new players having a better loot. It is just RNG and RNG had proved to be unjust to players who really enjoy playing the content and expect some shinny every now and then, and too much rewarding for players who play just to get rich so they can claim things like “this is my 7nd precursor, you just don’t know how to play, you noob”….

Scryeless.1924:

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.

I’ve filled nearly 2 bank tabs up with just ascended ring drops from WvW, few weapons (mostly rabid) and about 9-10 armor boxes…. HOW HAVE YOU ONLY HAD 2 DROPS!!!

Personally I wish I could TP most off my kitten off lol

I hope everyone realizes when you have a system that randomly picks from Drop Table A, then goes to Drop Table a, followed by Table 1a, which is in turn followed by Table A1 you’re bound to get some very strange results…because the system does this every time you open a bag or do any activity that generates a drop…unless it’s set up specifically to give you a certain reward(like Geodes and Silky Sand or Crests and Silky Sand in DT and SW respectively). Only I overly simplified how it works, Anets loot tables are even more complicated….(i.e. white, blues, green, rare, exotic, ascended, precursor..and other things, including junk).

sephiroth.4217:

Scryeless.1924:

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.

I’ve filled nearly 2 bank tabs up with just ascended ring drops from WvW, few weapons (mostly rabid) and about 9-10 armor boxes…. HOW HAVE YOU ONLY HAD 2 DROPS!!!

That’s kind of the point of the topic. Some of it will have to do with preferred play-styles, but some of it is luck. Personally, I’ve gotten one ring drop in WvW, a Teq’s Hoard and 1 armor piece from a WvW level up (iirc).

One forumite posted (a few weeks ago) the results of opening nearly 12K champion bags. He had one Ascended item out of the (iirc) 11,800 bags. The drop rate with a huge sample (bigger than some polls use to predict election results) is something like .0008475.

Obviously, more attempts gives one more chances, but the rate is very low.

Played Wvw consistently for over a year and then took an 8 months off, came back into it and VERY FIRST drop was an ascended weapon chest (only one I ever got). Been playing weeks since then and I’ve got maybe 2 exotics worth 1g or less and the rest rares.

I do believe there is some sort of ‘diminishing drops’ system in effect, which maybe the champ bags are supposed to help make up for? Idk.

Essence Snow.3194:

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.

If you are unwilling to listen to the reasons why this happens, then what possible discussion were you hoping to have? “Agree with me or don’t post”?

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……..

Actually this is nothing new. I’ve noticed this myself and it’s been reported for years now. It’s most noticeable when you run with the same people doing the same content each week in a guild and that guy, you know the one, that has less mf than you do gets all the loot all the time while you’re using all kinds of boosts and it doesn’t make a difference and you’re lucky you don’t get stuck with permaDR during your runs. yeah…that. It works poorly, there are far better systems out there than cutting people off entirely from their drops.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Essence Snow.3194:

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?

What?

Your claim, lo these many years and specifically as the original poster of this thread, has been that certain accounts are seeded with better chances in general, without regard for MF buffs, including that granted by use of the luck consumable.

ANet’s statement is in regard to that claim (specifically: it’s not true; all accounts are equal before RNG).

Separately, as an entirely different mechanic, ANet has give us ways to increase our chances of getting better quality loot on average.

I hope that you can see that the two claims aren’t contradictory in the least, unless you want to define the terms in such a fashion that it would make discussion about it impossible.

tl;dr There is zero evidence that any accounts have better chances to get better loot, except in the context of MF buffs.

What?

I don’t understand what’s hard to understand about it. Our loot is dependent on several variables. RNG interacts with those variables to produce an outcome/drop. Every single drop is effected by those variables. They cannot be separated in this context because if they were there simply wouldn’t be a working algorithm. By that alone….we know that all accounts are not equal when it comes to loot. Remember loot is not rng alone. The algorithm includes account variables that we know make accounts different to produce loot. This is not my point. This is simply addressing that statement (<that’s the key word) on account equality factors.

So one simply cannot separate the variables. It would be like saying two turkey sandwiches have no difference in taste even though one has lettuce and tomato. They are obviously going to taste different regardless of one that may or may not have dark meat when the other has light.

tl;dr (well not really but its fun anyhow) There is zero evidence that any accounts don’t have better chances to get better loot, with or without the context of MF buffs.

Sorin.4310:

Essence Snow.3194:

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.

If you are unwilling to listen to the reasons why this happens, then what possible discussion were you hoping to have? “Agree with me or don’t post”?

Not in the slightest. I am more than willing to discuss the matter when valid points are made. No one making the claim that “rng is rng” has given any decent reasoning to why that is a valid counter point as of yet. If you would like to, I’d be more than happy to read though it and consider how it applies.

So to expand on this a little bit more. The conversation of it typically goes:

a)“I think our loot system is borked”
b)“Nope, rng is rng”
a)“Huh?”
b)“Rng will have some lucky and some unlucky by default”
a)“So, what does that have to do with the loot system being borked?”
b)“Any outcome can be explained as random”
a)“That might explain outcomes, but it doesn’t address whether the system is borked”
b)“It makes evidence redundant, therefor denies the possibility of a broken system”
a)“Uhmm ya, that sounds more like a cop out”
b)“Nope rng is rng”

Thought I’d throw my 2 cents in here. I run fractals all the time. Like 2000+ runs. If I take a break for a week or two and come back I usually end up getting better drops the first day. If I instant level a charater to 80 and take him in I always get better drops. Every time I’ve instant leveled a charater to 80 I’m getting exotics and twice as many rares coming out of the end of the shard chests. I also am more likely to get a skin or weapon/armor chest. I mostly do them for fun but if I was smart I would take breaks from it for weeks to reset whatever happens :-/

Sure this could be RNG and I’ve only instant levels charaters like 5 times so my sample is terribly small.

I also recall a thread of people comparing DR on the one dude in Diessa (can’t recall his name ATM) and how long it seems for DR to wear off. This is actually somewhat testable. People would farm him together and stop getting drops at various times. But interestingly some people could go do an couple events in anther zone and start getting drops again. Others had to do significantly more events/dungeons ect to get rid of DR.

Apparently DR is character bound. Which isn’t what this thread is discussing so much but if you only use a couple different main toons this might account for having high DR on all of them. Or maybe DR affects your account faster than it does for others accounts. Or maybe newer charaters have different DR (like my old ele has the wrong size ground target circles for staff, but my new one has the correct size). who knows. Anyway just thought I’d add something. I do agree tho the RNG is not pure RNG and I think DR affects certain charaters/accounts differently.

Essence Snow.3194:

Not in the slightest. I am more than willing to discuss the matter when valid points are made. No one making the claim that “rng is rng” has given any decent reasoning to why that is a valid counter point as of yet. If you would like to, I’d be more than happy to read though it and consider how it applies.

So to expand on this a little bit more. The conversation of it typically goes:

a)“I think our loot system is borked”
b)“Nope, rng is rng”
a)“Huh?”
b)“Rng will have some lucky and some unlucky by default”
a)“So, what does that have to do with the loot system being borked?”
b)“Any outcome can be explained as random”
a)“That might explain outcomes, but it doesn’t address whether the system is borked”
b)“It makes evidence redundant, therefor denies the possibility of a broken system”
a)“Uhmm ya, that sounds more like a cop out”
b)“Nope rng is rng”

You are making “a” seem a bit less aggressively oblivious in this scenario, and aren’t having a bunch of random people chiming in with their opinions pushed in as facts for why the RNG.

In this case, how exactly is the RNG being determined to be wrong? At best, strictly time taken. At worst, generic confirmation bias. For the first one, it ignores the fact that much of this game’s RNG is based on absolutely tiny percentages, and that the system isn’t broken just because a “law of averages” isn’t upheld specifically on their account. Take 500% Magic Find as an example for an exceptionally high MF. The Rare Drop chance is probably in the realm of 1% for a standard enemy, with a high likelihood of being lower due to additional factors. Now your Magic Find moves that up to the solid 5% of a Rare Drop, a fairly small percentage all of the same. Now, after 14 kills at that rate you’ll have finally breached the “Rare Drop” rates 50% point (you’ll have roughly a 51% chance of having a “rare” item, whatever that item happens to be from that enemy).

The relevant thing here being “So how does yours stack up?” Now this isn’t a simple “Well I just killed X enemies, which raised that chance to >90%!”, but is an all inclusive history of an extremely extended period. Periods of abnormality can happen. As an example, for about two months I got extremely low salvage rates on my Ectos. I probably averaged about .2 Ectos per rare if I was being generous on the numbers. However, that dry period was strictly that: a period where I didn’t get much. My averages otherwise were only moved towards the actual salvage rate, as my luck for the rest of the time I’ve been playing has been absolutely fantastic for them.

This all leads into the mythical Exotic chance, which is likely to be in the realm of .1% or lower (likely lower, but I’m being pretty optimistic for the sake of easier math). Now lets take your “massive” Magic Find buff and make it a bit better. You now have a .5% chance of getting an Exotic from a drop. That means, after 139 kills you finally have gotten to a >50% of getting a drop. And that’s 139 kills from enemies that even have a standard loot table. Many enemies that are fought from a higher level are from events that don’t even give loot. In an hour you might have fought only a couple dozen of “real” enemies in that regard, and have gotten all of your rewards from the modified drop tables that the events like to give (ie. the ones that give bonus chests that have guaranteed Rares). Things like the Silverwastes are basically trash for getting Exotics in that regard, as you are basically putting all of your eggs in the chests, which strip away your Magic Find bonus and give you a grand total of one roll on said Exotic. And while the chance of getting an Exotic at all is probably higher, it’s still going to take you considerably more time to catch up to a person just killing random mobs.

Finally, while saying “RNG is RNG” isn’t a good enough as an argument to say that the RNG isn’t broken in any stretch of the imagination, saying “I think our system is borked” is likewise just as worthless and doesn’t deserve any better than the earlier “counter-argument”. Even more relevant, though, is that the burden of proof is on the accusing party, meaning that you cannot be simply asking questions, but must prove your stance as legitimate in the first place. A while back the Ecto salvage rate got broken, and it was proven to be broken. That gave the argument merit, and it was quickly fixed by ANet after proof was given. So if you want resolution, or even to have a valid stance in the first place: bring something to the table. Show that the RNG is broken. Show that over a large period of time that the drops have clearly not been remotely distributed evenly. When you get a person who just has joined and has gotten crazy lucky (such as a level 16 I helped get Tequatl’s Hoard + several additional Exotics from a single chest on his second day of playing) that it wasn’t just a small blip in the statistics (like it turned into over the several months since he has continued playing).

I used to play Asheron’s Call way back in the day. I wish had the luck in this game that I had there sheesh. If i did I’d be getting an Exotic daily, Precursor 1 to 2 times a week and skins out both sides of my cheeks.

For years, Turbine insisted that there was no truth to players perceptions about loot and RNG idiosyncrasies, yet the rumors about an account based loot flag persisted. Fast forward years later towards the end of AC’s life cycle and lo and behold it was stated that there was indeed this fickle little thing called such…

I believe nothing, the truth is out there!

The implications of this thread are very frustrating and really just kitten me off. I’m one of those players who’s been playing for about two years and never seen a precursor drop. I’m willing to believe that there is some sophisticated system for DR that may be character-bound, which is kind of idiotic really. I might try farming with different characters and see how my drops change.

Mal.1670:

The implications of this thread are very frustrating and really just kitten me off. I’m one of those players who’s been playing for about two years and never seen a precursor drop. I’m willing to believe that there is some sophisticated system for DR that may be character-bound, which is kind of idiotic really. I might try farming with different characters and see how my drops change.

Yes there is…. The thing is we have no idea how long DR sticks to us and it seems to stick longer to some people than others. It would be great to have some type of DR percent that we can see. Use other characters it might help.

No matter which MMO we play, over the last 15 years, my brother always gets lots of rare drops, ( example: he has over a billion credits in Anarchy Online from rares) Me? Nothing, nada, zip. I hate him

The RNG gods favor some above others….

Most people in this thread should be in an illuminati anonymous meeting group.

I think what people are perceiving as unlucky accounts and lucky accounts is just a massive case of diminished returns.

I used to be a really active farmer, I would farm frostgorge and dungeons for hours daily back when it was the thing (and I would alternate between 8 characters to do so) and got no ascended chest for months, and months of regular playing. Now, I hardly do any dungeons and have only farmed a tiny bit in the silverwastes (only using about 4 characters now) and in the same amount of months I have gotten four ascended chests drop.

I’ve also noticed that my friends who are less active are always the ones who get better loot. So, basically play more = less loot. Which makes sense. If people will play your game because they want to farm for money and items, why give them any? Keep them farming, keep them playing.

Aguri.2896:

I think what people are perceiving as unlucky accounts and lucky accounts is just a massive case of diminished returns.

I used to be a really active farmer, I would farm frostgorge and dungeons for hours daily back when it was the thing (and I would alternate between 8 characters to do so) and got no ascended chest for months, and months of regular playing. Now, I hardly do any dungeons and have only farmed a tiny bit in the silverwastes (only using about 4 characters now) and in the same amount of months I have gotten four ascended chests drop.

I’ve also noticed that my friends who are less active are always the ones who get better loot. So, basically play less = more loot. Which makes sense. If people will play your game because they want to farm for money and items, why give them any? Keep them farming, keep them playing.

yep, this is what i noticed too after 2.5 years.

Get you Tinfoil Hats on m8s we’re in for a bumpy ride along conspiracy road.

Though, seriously. There’s notion, and opinion; and then there’s facts. I have yet to see any facts backed by evidence here. The only evidence anyone provides is their notions and hearsay.

GW2 uses an RNG system. This system is completely random, and every roll happens server side to prevent cheating. Your MF only gives you a better chance at rolling in rarer categories in the loot tables you roll on when killing mobs, opening lost bandit chests, or opening PvP reward chests. When you have rolled for amount of loot / loot tables /categories (affected by MF), then you roll for actual loot and this process is not at all affected by MF.

The reason you might feel more lucky on some account compared another is pure happenstance. In fact this is more likely a notion, a psychological phenomena, than realistic (both your accounts are almost equally as lucky).

If there is indeed a bug affecting some accounts (and there might be), then you can only hope it is found and fixed, but the likelihood of such a bug is so minuscule it doesn’t warrant speculating.

I have more than two accounts, and I have not noticed any particular difference between any of them. I have never had a precursor drop anywhere (always bought them). Though I have had my share of ascended chests, fractal skins, rare exotics, lodestones, and so on.

If RNG has a large enough sample size then you will see people in either end of the “luck” distribution. Some will never be lucky, some will be lots of lucky. When a guild mate seems to constantly be lucky that guild mate might belong to the “luckier” part of the distribution. While someone else in your guild might belong to the “less lucky” part of the distribution.

If you head over to the RNG discussion on this forum you can see, and contribute with, some ideas on how to reduce/counter/reward the lower side of the distribution.

I believe ANet would want to have the distribution skewed so that the average player is “lucky”, still some will always fall below the average player in RNG and you want to concern yourselves with how to help these people feel better about the game.

Semi-RNG would be always the best:

• You try some boss and the game tries RNG to give you an item.
• If you didn’t get the item, the next time that you try you got a 1% more to get it.
• If you still fail to get that item, you got a 1% more the next time.

With that kind of algorithm, nothing would had to be repeated more than 100 times for an specific loot. I’m not saying that it’s perfect and I made up the %, but you get the idea of how RNG can still reward played time.

Essence Snow.3194:

~~~ snip ~~~

You do realize that bring up the same debunked discussions over and over won’t change the answers that have been given, right? Allow me to help you out:

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

I am inclined to agree. It has been far too reliably observable by too many players to not warrant suspicion.

Seriously, again, this isn’t a thing.

John Smith.4610:

At the heart, there’s 3 basic options:
1. Mostly RNG
2. No RNG
3. Hyrbid RNG (where most games are)

starter concepts for cons of each system:

1. Many players can feel like they have “bad luck”, in fact players with standard to pretty good luck are still likely to feel bad because of how humans interpret data.

2. A completely predictable experience lacks moments when something fantastic happens.

3. You run the risk of getting the cons of both systems without very precise design

An important question may be to ask if a model is still a good concept and a great implementation just needs to be focused on or if the model doesn’t work fundamentally.

John Smith.4610:

Absolutely it does not use anything to do with a user.

LOL I love the ole “well Anet says that doesn’t exist” excuse, what company in their right mind would admit that there are lucky and unlucky accounts? None! I believe something is borked, as I having the same experience as the OP, my new account see’s a massive difference in loot drops, so much better in fact I rarely play my old one anymore. I remember the first Xmas after launch, there was a patch that caused major RnG issues. Anet said at the time the usual “its your fault”, “theres nothing wrong with our loot system”,“not enough data” blah blah blah, meanwhile many of were only getting gray items for well over a month while others were flourishing in loot, few months later Anet admitted there was an issue and fixed it. I believe there is still something very borked with the coding, RnG is nt RnG.

One of my friends barley plays, cares even less about digital ‘stuff’ then I do, guess what; he does Tequattle once and gets the green ascended bow on his ranger. that account is from the 75% sale about a year ago. If you think this is the only good drop he had I’m gonna have to disappoint. My memory is kitten but lest say we curse at his luck once in a while. I’f thers an exotic drop in said chest you can bet your money he’ll get it sooner rather than later.

I don’t understand why people link AP , AP doesn’t say anything, but he has 40% Magic find. Witch is peanuts, so I’m pretty sure by now MF is a placebo anyway.

I’v gotten to the point of not expecting good loot, I see about 2 exotics a month and they never are worth that much, 3 gold tops. I seriously dislike the GW2 RNG but on the flip side, unlike certain other MMO’s I’m not paying to be in the RNG lottery this time.

I think the most useful discussion is how we can change the system for the better, instead of arguing over the obvious account luck factor.

Overhaul the loot system to be semi-random. There should be streak breakers in place to prevent extreme outcomes. No one should get 5 precursor drops in a week, and no one should go 3 years of heavy play without a single drop. Games are supposed to be balanced and fun, true RNG is neither balanced nor fun.

These threads will never stop until the loot system is overhauled to be semi-random.

MrWubzy.3587:

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.

you should probably view it the other way around, they make new players fell more rewarded while they balance the economy by reducing drops to the older players which they gonna keep playing anyway, thats just wrong no matter how you see it

I too have witnessed the newer accounts getting better drops than those of us who started our accounts with the start of the game. I have a couple of RL friends who have recently purchased the game. One of them has done Tequatl fewer times than I have. She has received 5 ascended chests from the Tequatl runs. I’ve received -0- ascended chests. I run dungeons, fractals, boss chests on a daily basis and still, no ascended drops. It’s frustrating and discouraging really that all these people who have obtained newer accounts are getting the better drops. I’m not the only one who has witnessed this in the guild I’m in. We’ve all noticed the difference in the newer vs older account drop rate.

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

The very people who say everything is fine are probably the very people who have a legendary and get good loot on a daily basis. This isn’t something just made up. Again there is something seriously wrong when all you get is the same 2 green krytan torches/daggers and carrion spear guns in one chest. Two items. The same. One chest.

I think what someone should do is get video proof of a young account vs an old. Do a side by side comparison, same area, same level same world boss. Even do be the same race. RNG is broken, there’s no doubt about it. The only way we can prove it is if a unbiased person, truthfully does this video to show RNG is or is not broken. It’s the only real logical way of obtaining some kind of truth.

For those who say it’s not broken, sorry. There’s to many cases for this to be coincidence. If it was a “tin foil” conspiracy, so many people wouldn’t be agreeing to it. But they are, which makes a valid case.

It always amazes me the level of denial people deal with. If in fact in real life you were only taking home $200 a month for a job you worked 60 hours a week to try to reach your goal, some of these people’s arguments would be the equivalent of being told that “the burden of proof that you only get $200 a month is on you” “you should have learned how to work better and then maybe just maybe you might get noticed or something” and my personal favorite “you’re $200 is all in your imagination and you need to go check your wallet again because what you’re saying you’re getting and what you’re really getting isn’t the same because I saw a penny”.

Those arguments have been used as logical fallacies for years now, you can’t escape from the facts, and the facts point to their use of a system that is A: not typical of most MMO’s B: is using an age old system called DR that has been responsible for all kinds of unusual circumstances and has been so terrible an experience for players that it’s been responsible for shutting down whole companies because smarter players left the games that implemented DR historically in situations in which the subscription models were the only method of paying for MMOs.

Some people need to look at MMO development history and stop using logical fallacy arguments and no the burden of proof isn’t on the people making the claims that has been overused and there have been thousands of posts when the population was higher about their experiences with direct postings of their daily weekly and monthly inventories, so that argument is also dead.

There’s a point when you can’t keep repeating the same thing over and over to defend the honor of your favorite product and you have to look at the reality of it when new players come along and report the same findings that have been reported by other new players all along.

Garth Thurgen.1380:

snip.

Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I’ll make my response rather simple for the sake of brevity.

Why must there be a burden of proof? Is it not enough that the game is known for poor loot? That so many players have issue? I think that requiring those in a game that feel there is an issue such as this that impacts the “fun” they might be having to meticulously gather data (which is most likely not fun) is sort of absurd. Anet is in the business of fun. They should be concerned when there is something that is such magnitude effecting that business. Making players who feel their fun is diminished, diminish it further to address their concerns……sounds strange to me.

That aside…The other things I wanted to quickly note is that most of my and other players with the same concerns “observational data” has been over long periods of time. This is not one week. These are consistencies, that have become predictable. Sort of like house odds. Do they know they will win all the time? Nope. But, they do know they will win over time…and boy do they.