Guild Wars 2

Just something I’ve noticed with most people I speak to.

Those who purchase gems are always the guys who get nothing from MF, whereas people who never purchase gems are swimming in precursors.

It would make sense for anet to reduce your internal ‘luck’ or precursor drop chance based on how likely they think you are to purchase gems instead.. but do you think they would stoop that low?

Obviously this isn’t fact, duh. I’m looking for additional anecdotes.

Personally I buy gems every payday as a monthly treat and I’ve had a precursor drop and plenty of Exo’s. Just my personal experience. Do you see this variance in ppl with the same lvl of luck percentage?

No, that is not true and it for you to even consider it to be a possibility is kind of sad.

huggles.5271:

No, that is not true and it for you to even consider it to be a possibility is kind of sad.

Not really sure why you would think that. Companies spend a lot of time and effort figuring out how to make the most money from certain types of people.

The problem is that this is all anecdotal evidence based on individual perception and nothing more. If you think you have something here, start collecting data. You will need a lot.

I think it’s mostly a case of confirmation bias.

I know plenty of people who spend lots of gems and have gotten very lucky in-game, while I have also seen people with not spending gems and terrible luck.

You’ll need a lot more than ‘most people I spoke to said…’ to be able to make a convincing argument.

Several months ago there was a post that said the exact opposite, that all his friends who bought gems had much higher luck.

You don’t have a big enough sample size to have accurate findings.

I don’t think Anet is dumb enough to put that into the game. Could you imagine the backlash if it was discovered? The credibility of their entire company would be instantly destroyed.

fadeaway.2807:

Just something I’ve noticed with most people I speak to.

Those who purchase gems are always the guys who get nothing from MF, whereas people who never purchase gems are swimming in precursors.

It would make sense for anet to reduce your internal ‘luck’ or precursor drop chance based on how likely they think you are to purchase gems instead.. but do you think they would stoop that low?

Evidence? I doubt you can prove that.

Gizmo.9178:

Evidence? I doubt you can prove that.

Anecdotal. To be added to by people in this thread.
Unless people like yourself provide comments with no use.

I consider myself to have slightly better than average luck. Ive had one precursor from the forge. I loot exotics every once in awhile. I’ve never spent actual money on the gem store.

I’ve never gotten a single precursor as a drop, not even from the magic toilet, and I’ve played well in excess of 2000 hours. I’ve only ever traded gold for gems.

Personally, I would think the happier customers would be more likely to support the game, rather than the opposite. There are surely lots of threads about quitting because people feel their ‘luck’ in-game is bad.

Just something I’ve noticed with most people I speak to.

Those who purchase gems seem to have no affect on thier luck from MF, whereas people who never purchase gems are getting the same amount of precursors one would expect from RNG.

It would not make sense for anet to reduce your internal ‘luck’ or precursor drop chance based on how likely they think you are to purchase gems instead.. but do you think some one might think up a crazy conspiracy theory about how they would stoop that low?

This thread is worthy of “Tinfoil hat of the day” award. There’s no reason to give specific people lower luck, when they can just carpet bomb everyone with lower luck and accomplish the same thing.

You say tin-foil hat, but I work for a financial company which uses tactics just like this to make a lot of money. Being able to predict who will drop cash on the gem-store when they don’t get the drops they want is incredibly powerful, and if I were in charge at anet I would fully expect us to be using that sort of analytics.

fadeaway.2807:

Gizmo.9178:

Evidence? I doubt you can prove that.

Anecdotal. To be added to by people in this thread.
Unless people like yourself provide comments with no use.

As it has been already mentioned, this forum saw a ton of similar, anecdotal evidence “proving” something completely opposite. And all of it suffered from the same problem as your case – too low sample for any meaningful conclusions.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Several months ago there was a post that said the exact opposite, that all his friends who bought gems had much higher luck.

You don’t have a big enough sample size to have accurate findings.

I was thinking of that same thread when I read this one, lol.

For me, I can say that I buy gems regularly AND I regularly get named exoctics to drop. Makes my guildies so jealous, ahahaha!
It’s only on one character I play though. I’m very superstitious so I’ll only do temples and champ trains with that one character.

Sure, and if you hold down A+B the pokeball will always close.

I can count the number of times I’ve gotten a usable drop, or one that sold for more than 1.5 gold, on one hand, with room left over for counting to 4. I haven’t bought gems with cash in well over a year.

Really small sample sizes can be misleading. The bottom line is that the chances of getting a good drop in GW2 are somewhere between poor and not-going-to-happen. Somewhere in there, you’ll find some people who got lucky. Finding a common denominator other than “got lucky” is unlikely.

I buy $10 a month in gems, and by doing meta events and occasional magnificent chest runs, I’ve had about 40 exotics drop since launch.

Your idea is unproven by facts OP.

At the peak of my gem purchases, about $100 a month, I got a precursor drop about half an hour after my character hit L80 and I went to my first Scarlet invasion. I was using 0% magic find. I would say my luck then was pretty good because I got a lot of other good drops. If anything it seems worse now that I have not bought gems in several months and my magic find is 90%. I don’t really think there is a connection I chalk it up to RNG. To find any valid connection there would need to be a sample of at the very least a few hundred players.

No gem purchased with real money, low ammount of exos and no precoursor, I think I am doing something wrong then….

#Tin Foil Hats.

lol! People come up with any excuse they can come up with, don’t they?

I haven’t bought a single gem since the release of the game, and I still have yet to see a drop that’s more expensive than 2 gold on the TP.

The so called “Account tag” where certain accounts are tagged with better MF than other accounts is certainly plausible though. Accounts with good luck continue to have great luck while accounts with bad luck continue to have terrible luck.

I’ve bought Gems and converted them to gold in the past and I’ve also gotten a precursor from the Mystic Forge after putting approximately forty rare pistols into it. I have never gotten anything worthy of note from mobs though, I have had the occasional Exotic drop from a mob but it’s never been worth more than 2g. Compare that to my wife who’s first ever unidentified dye drop was white, her second was abyssal black.. I probably should be playing on her account just for the RNG seed.

A lot of people only spend what they normally would for a subscription, $10US=800 gems=50g/month. Freeing up the time that would normally be spent “farming” gold in the game so they can actually play the game how they want to play it.

I dunno but if you stop playing for a long period of time like 6 months+ or something. When you come back you have a MF boost and almost always find something amazing. This has happened to like 4 of my rl friends. XD They play again for first time in decades and find something that has never dropped for me and never will.

People born in November have the lowest chance of getting good drops, regardless if they buy gems or not. This isn’t even just a theory, it’s a proven fact.

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

People born in November have the lowest chance of getting good drops, regardless if they buy gems or not. This isn’t even just a theory, it’s a proven fact.

I can validate that. I have 4 friends that were born in March that get about 1 precursor a month drop from mobs. I have 2 friends born in November and they actually lose money when they kill mobs, about 4 silver a kill. The numbers don’t lie.

Edit: That reminded me. My precursor drop did happen during my birth month for real.

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

People born in November have the lowest chance of getting good drops, regardless if they buy gems or not. This isn’t even just a theory, it’s a proven fact.

Unless you are left-handed and were born on a Thursday, then every drop is at least rare quality.

fadeaway.2807:

Gizmo.9178:

Evidence? I doubt you can prove that.

Anecdotal. To be added to by people in this thread.
Unless people like yourself provide comments with no use.

This seems like an almost textbook example of when anecdotal evidence is, specifically, terrible and misleading. It’s useful for questions like “Can ______ drop from _?” or “Has anyone else ever had ______ happen to them?” but as a way of measuring the effect of Magic Find, anecdotes are a bad way to go.

Is there a sale on tin foil hats going on that I don’t know about?

You only get Piles of Vile Essence if your birth sign is Cancer.

Fact.

Julie Yann.5379:

Is there a sale on tin foil hats going on that I don’t know about?

Yes, but only for the players with the hidden lucky flag set on their accounts.

I’m more inclined to believe that ANet lowers your drop rate the more you post negative feedback on the forums.

bravoart.5308:

I’m more inclined to believe that ANet lowers your drop rate the more you post negative feedback on the forums.

Ahah! I have anecdotal evidence to dispute this. I posted quite favorably about the game at and after launch. My posts have gotten more critical over time. My drops, on the other hand, have remained consistently bad.

Never dispute RNG. It will only end up with troll threads.

And exactly what does anet gain from doing this? Some of these conspiracies are ridiculous

I wake up each morning and the sun comes up. Conclusion: the sun comes up because I wake up each morning.

Correlation does not imply causation — assuming there is a correlation, which is doubtful.

Just sayin’

If it’s not happening, it should be. There’s a lot of money to be made by denying cash spenders things they want. No tin foil hat required to see that. But then part of my job irl is to identify target customers like this.

Majic.4801:

I wake up each morning and the sun comes up. Conclusion: the sun comes up because I wake up each morning.

Correlation does not imply causation — assuming there is a correlation, which is doubtful.

Just sayin’

:)

There’s the classic true story about a small town in Russia where a lot of citizens were getting sick and many were dying from small pox (long before innoculations). Doctors came to town as more people got sick and died. Before the doctors arrived, people were pretty healthy. Therefore, the villagers deduced, the doctors were the reason people in the small town were sick and dying. So they killed all the doctors.

fadeaway.2807:

Just something I’ve noticed with most people I speak to.

Those who purchase gems are always the guys who get nothing from MF, whereas people who never purchase gems are swimming in precursors.

It would make sense for anet to reduce your internal ‘luck’ or precursor drop chance based on how likely they think you are to purchase gems instead.. but do you think they would stoop that low?

Obviously this isn’t fact, duh. I’m looking for additional anecdotes.

PS: Anecdote:

I’ve spent over 2k on this game. No, not on a legendary or any component thereof. Legendaries need to be account bound so they cannot be sold on the TP.

Before somebody goes “wow”, that includes 5 games (family) and 46 character slots for me.

MF is fine. Drops are fine.

No, I don’t own a legendary and don’t ever plan to. I don’t like how they look.

Good luck to those of you who are still trying.

PS: I did have an Abyss dye drop on my birthday. I suppose you could call that suspicious.

I’m here to swim upstream of your theory.

I purchased a rather modest amount of gems at game release to help get me started with alt’s, and that is all I’ve ever bought. I haven’t transacted with the cash shop besides using those gems for endless tools or stuff that helps me in game.

My luck at the MF has been crap, to say the least. 4k+ hours played in this game, zero precursors either forged or found as drops. I’ll be glad when they implement the precursor solution, whenever that happens, so I don’t have to waste a cent more on the forge.

I hear tinfoil hats are on special in the gem store.

PS: I’m with goldenwing, legendaries should always have been acct-bound and NEVER been able to sell on the TP.

fadeaway.2807:

If it’s not happening, it should be. There’s a lot of money to be made by denying cash spenders things they want.

And even more to be lost. Because once such a pattern leaks out (and if there are patterns, they always leak out eventually), people will stop buying in gemshop at all.

I am sorry, you may be working in a financial company, but you obviosuly don’t understand statistics and probability even in the slightest.

I just bought 120 rare greatswords to gamble the mystic forge. I got like 5 rares total.
I have never bought gems using real money.

Basing all of this(or anything) off of a percentage of an unknown number is lunacy.

To ever be able to prove this you’d have to at the very least get a large group of people (definitely over 100, ideally 1000 at least) to record All the drops they get – including when they got them and All the gems they buy and when they buy them.

You’d also have to get them to keep a complete report of their activities in game – how long they played for, what exactly they did, how long they spent on each activity etc. to allow for other factors – someone farming champs for an hour has a much, much higher chance of getting good drops (or any drops) than someone standing around chatting in LA for example. But if they’re in the same guild and the farming pings a newly acquired precursor you can bet the afker would complain that they must have bad luck on their account because they never get anything.

You also have to bear in mind that the game’s perception of an items value is very different to a players because it’s based entirely on the type and rarity. When determining drops the game engine doesn’t know or care what an item is worth on the TP – an exotic worth 2g is considered just as valuable as one worth 200g and (if it could express an opinion) the engine would expect you to be just as happy with either.

Funny thing is that I’ve always thought the opposite, who buys gems get some kind of increased MF for some time…well, I came to think this after some situations, probably just normal RNG, where right after buying gems I get Abyss from a random dye in Plains of Ashford on a low alt…next time I buy gems, I get 3 Celestial dyes dropped in 2 days…friend of mine, next day after buying some gems gets from a JP chest an Ascended box…I think it’s just RNG that trolls though…

Fishing for anecdotes is the pinnacle of scientific inquiry.

Suggesting link between the purchase of gems and the drop rates of rare items lacks any concept of rationality, especially without any evidence other than “most people I speak to.” Any individual correlation between gems and drop rates is a mere coincidence, and any thought of a relationship should be immediately discarded due to absurdity.