Guild Wars 2

Gordon Shumway.9418:

I have multiple hundreds of hours logged in the game. I started the hour the game went live. In that time I have received a grand total of ONE exotic drop (not counting the karka chest or zone completion auto-exotics), and that was a few weeks ago. ONE. I have received maybe a handful of rares from dragon chests.

Now please, Anet, try and tell me how that’s possible unless something is going on? It is virtually impossible for me to make money because all I get is junk that doesn’t sell for anything. I will never be able to afford my Norn’s cultural armor and I can’t even fully outfit him in exotic gear as it is because it would use all the little money I have.

This is completely deflating and demotivational in the extreme.

Please fix this.

Yeah same here. I’ve logged in about 300+ hours on this game and just maybe 2 weeks ago I got my first exotic drop (Also not including Karka.) I did not even know it was possible to get exotic drops that’s how bad it is. I doubt anything will change though.

There is a word for what DR is doing to a wide swath of legitimate players:

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

Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

I’d rather have the bots than be denied the ability to be self-sufficient and work toward a precursor.

plasmacutter.2709:

There is a word for what DR is doing to a wide swath of legitimate players:

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

Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

I’d rather have the bots than be denied the ability to be self-sufficient and work toward a precursor.

I think the comparison is a bit over-the-top, that itself being a euphemism considering you are drawing parallels between genuine human catastrophies and loot drops in one game. I am just saying that because it isn’t worth getting the thread locked because we are feeling frustrated (legitimately to a certain extent) over the issue discussed here at hand.

But I do see where you are coming from. I would just hope things stabilize in the near future and we get more options to make some coin (other than dungeons, which is fine by me but definitely boxed-in).

What exactly was the point of implementing DR?

Botters still exist in large numbers. I run into the same botter using a teleport hack all the time on my server. So it can’t be to combat them.

So why would Anet want to discourage people from farming by implementing DR? For a healthy player economy? Is there a way to even define a healthy player economy?

Groovy.6749:

plasmacutter.2709:

There is a word for what DR is doing to a wide swath of legitimate players:

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

Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

I’d rather have the bots than be denied the ability to be self-sufficient and work toward a precursor.

I think the comparison is a bit over-the-top, that itself being a euphemism considering you are drawing parallels between genuine human catastrophies and loot drops in one game. I am just saying that because it isn’t worth getting the thread locked because we are feeling frustrated (legitimately to a certain extent) over the issue discussed here at hand.

But I do see where you are coming from. I would just hope things stabilize in the near future and we get more options to make some coin (other than dungeons, which is fine by me but definitely boxed-in).

I may not wait that long.

I HATE farming and play the following pattern:

Log in – do one or two explorables on main, log to alt, spend 2 hours working to 100% whatever zone the alt is in, log back to main if any dragons or favorite dungeons are called in guild chat.

in the past MONTH, I’ve received 5 items of rare or higher quality, 3 of them only in the 1 hour window following a new build.

My buddies all get 3 ectos an event.

I’m tired of it. There has been no word from ANet on it. The game is fundamentally broken for me when I have no way to work toward the stated goal of a precursor and eventually a legendary, when the waypoint fees are killing what little I have on my toons by 1,000 cuts.

I guess after 25 pages with about 1200 postings and 0 reply, we can conclude that no one at Anet is actually allowed to comment on the issue.

This whole loot and DR-desaster was a business decision and not a concern of the devs.

Just look at it as the way Nexon/Crystin Cox says “hi” to you all and prepare for more of the same to hit the game down the road.

@plasmacutter

I can empathize with you.

I have stopped open world farming quite a while back and now make my coin running dungeons (hello CoE and charged stones/lodestones) and doing my daily ori runs on my 3 alts (which nets me an average of 3g pretty easily) , which is fine as it covers my expenses quite nicely but I do miss getting my loot from just running around the world ( which I thought was the game was all about : DEs, exploring and getting rewarded for it).

I also believe ( I am stressing this, I haven’t got anything to back it up) the issue only affects some players as otherwise that thread/issue would have received way more views than it has(40 thousands IS a lot but when over 2 million people bought the game, it’s just a drop in the ocean), and probably would have been officially acknowledged by ANet. This doesn’t mean the players suffering from the DR are imagining things, just that this might only be affecting a small minority.

However this doesn’t really matter whether it affects everyone or just someone, the issue has been raised and vocalized. ANet’s absence of answers on the subject is going to make it hard for the players affected to feel appreciated or valued. It’s common sense, and nobody can genuinely argue otherwise.

No communication on an issue that has been raised for a month is pretty bad. It doesn’t matter whether they turn around and tell us that it’s in our head,accidental or intentional.

Dialogue is crucial when a complaint is being raised. ANet is shooting itself in the foot by not answering its customers. No matter how trivial the issue may or may not be. That’s called customer service.

If you feel that you have been mistreated as a customer, I cannot argue that you haven’t.

Loot rate is still worse since 15th November (yes, I am On-topic!) and DR seems to trigger without any reasonable reasons for some of the legit players.

It hurts.

I play alot, but never really farm. I do events, explore and the like, not just in once place but in many, on varying alts. According to their original statement about the DR I shouldnt be affected by it. That is, it shouldnt affect normal (non-farming) gameplay. Yet, I am affected by it. As a matter of fact, I get crap drops most of the time in the first hour. Heck, getting a green makes me almost feel lucky. Rares? Hardly ever. Exotics? Forgettaboutit! One, one exotic as a drop from a mob ever since I started playing at pre-release (even dungeon, dragon or fotm yields hardly any rares ever or exotics except for a few special cases.. like the karka chest or the champion chests in the labyrinth on halloween before they nerfed it). My luck was bad enough before the 15th nov… if it was bad luck at all.

Farmed Charged Lodestones in Orr fo 4 hours with close to %200 magic find.

0 charged anything.

working as intended

Anet you owe the population a freaking legitimate answer.

Okay, right now I`m afraid like hell that could turn my luck, but I had to share. It seems like my pre-patch drop rate returned to me. It did so right after I petitioned support in-game, describing all that non-loot issue.
I don`t know if these things are connected, I don`t know how long my luck will hold, but I strongly recommend everyone affected to write an in-game petition like I did.

Good luck to us all!

It might not be so much the randomness, but rather the dimnishing returns mechanic that seems to be messed up for some people. Not saying that its been changed, but Im quite sure its not working properly for some people. Not able to test anything right now, going away over christmas but I hope people in this thread will make proper reports in the other thread. Please keep this thread open for discussion and the other thread for the facts.

Then of course there is the veteran/champion loot issue..

Also, I suggest you read through the entire thread. Yes, the entire thread. There are alot of good posts here along with details, thoughts and concerns. Dont just rely on bug reports.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Stephane Lo Presti,

Thank you for the reply. Anyway I think this subject is being treated in a very casual way and only after 1 month, 1210 posts and 40575 views we got some feedback. I would at least have apologized for the long silence about this subject.

Anyway, to be honest, I value much more my personal experience and the experience of hundreds of players reporting the same problem after playing thousands and thousands of hours (all together) than some generic statement. If, like you say, no changes have been made to the loot tables then something is really wrong with this game. Sorry, but I do not believe in poltergeists.

Thank you and best regards,

Red

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

There are lots of posts in this thread showing data. I have replied to your thread showing some of the more “solid” numbers.

Blackwolfe.5649:

I play alot, but never really farm. I do events, explore and the like, not just in once place but in many, on varying alts. According to their original statement about the DR I shouldnt be affected by it. That is, it shouldnt affect normal (non-farming) gameplay. Yet, I am affected by it. As a matter of fact, I get crap drops most of the time in the first hour. Heck, getting a green makes me almost feel lucky. Rares? Hardly ever. Exotics? Forgettaboutit! One, one exotic as a drop from a mob ever since I started playing at pre-release (even dungeon, dragon or fotm yields hardly any rares ever or exotics except for a few special cases.. like the karka chest or the champion chests in the labyrinth on halloween before they nerfed it). My luck was bad enough before the 15th nov… if it was bad luck at all.

Not exactly my story but close enough. I am sick of feeling unrewarded and so I don’t play anywhere near as much; And I will never buy from a cash shop in a game I hardly play.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Thank you Stephane. I have posted a long post in their with some information, but also summing up a number of the issues in this thread and issues reported in other websites. If you can take a moment to read this and pass it onto the relevant team it would be greatly appreciated.

Will try to start recording drop rates etc if this will help you guys out, please understand it can be awkward to record these sort of details as a player though.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Can you possibly explain how we can provide the data to you and compare it to prior to November 15th since we could not possibly predict there would be a change?
And if that isn’t possible, what precisely do you mean by “Concrete Data”? Please explain the “EXACT” process and data you are looking for so it is no longer “PERCEIVED”!

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

And, again the word “perceived”. I find that just so insulting.

I wish I had kept spreadsheets containing concrete data of all loot I recieved prior to Nov 15. I wish I had loot, zones, hours of play. How was I know that on Nov 15 some action was taken, knowingly or not, that would suddenly drop the return on our time to such a pathetic level?

If your tests are not showing anything, I “perceive” an issue far deeper than I feared.

I apologize to those posters in this thread for being so angry at this moment. Three weeks ago I tried to be the voice of reason, posting more than once about keeping on topic, civil to each other, etc. I want just want this fixed so badly. I loved this game; but every day that goes by it becomes harder and harder to accept what has happened to it.

I am giving myself a Christmas present and removing myself from this thread until next week.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

With all due respect and adressing each of the isues I have with this statement

1. It took an awfuly long time and quite a bit of attention to no longer be able to ignore the biggest elephant in the room

2. Concrete data? Are you kidding me, even as respectful as some of the hypothosis in math are in this thread, you KNOW no one can provide data on your drop system in any meaningful way as to proove anything.

3. Given 2, isnt the perception that players don’t feel lilke they are being rewarded enough in game when, essentially, pre lost shores they felt that at least, barring expected exploits, loot WAS better.

I am not trying to sound smarmy but really?

Do we have to shorten the entire content from this and all the other threads?
Do we really have to do this?

O.o

Thanks for communicating, but you really should read it by yourself. There are so much data and hints included, yeah sometimes they may sound just perceivable for you.
But there was something happening to the loot rate/ DR with the 15th November patch, if you intended to do so or not.

The entire thread is going to show you what we noticed, immediately after the patch hit. Read it.
If you then think it is still perceived, tell us again. Be sure, you’ll lost a lot of legit and honest players (and also paying customers) who wanted to play a fun and rewarding gw2 (like before 15th Nov patch) and wanted to help you out with providing data as accurate as they can.
Please bear in mind: You cannot demand concrete data, we are players, not your database.

I still like you and I am convinced you will do your best to fix it. Whatever “it” is, may it be decreased loot rates or may it be a messed up DR.

Thanks.

Not trying to troll or something…been posting like everyone else since the start about the fact that is the absolutely abysmal drop rates, but “Percieved”? That’s an outright insult to all your fans, lol! We love the game, that’s why we’ve been keeping this thread alive hoping to get it sorted out for the masses or we’d have left long back. We want to keep this game alive!

Nevertheless, its nice to have finally gotten your attention however! Hope this gets resolved soon.

Navi.7142:

Please bear in mind: You cannot demand concrete data, we are players, not your database.

True, I don’t keep a record of my drops, I don’t sit playing GW2 with a notepad and pen noting all my drops or the lack therof while making graphs and charts. I’m a gamer not an employee. All I can say for sure is that atm the drops are rubbish and rewards for time spent are making it harder to want to login. And trust me, I want to login.

I dont know whether something is “broken” or not with Anet’s RNG or their DR system, all i know is i have put a considerable amount of time into this game and in all that time playing i have recieved exactly 1 exotic as a loot drop and at most 5 or 6 rares as a loot drop. If this is “working as intended” then i think your system and philosophy is flawed.
This is just my opinion, and i still intend to continue playing this game as i havent given up on it just yet, but i do hope that the rewards and satifaction of my time spent playing it can outpace my frustrations at feeling left behind.

When I brought this up the other day there was at least one other posting saying I was being unreasonable and that I had an “entitlement” problem…I suppose everyone else in this thread is feeling entitled too.

Entitled to some dang answers.

“and yet it moves”
(Eppur si muove)

by Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his belief that the earth moves around the sun.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

I pee’d a little before clicking on the thread.

Painting of Galileo Galilei desperatly grabbing the only exotic he got after playing many hours…

I have over 1400 hours logged on this game and have never gotten an exotic drop from any mob other than the Karka event final boss.

I’ve seen “prove it” written by the people who have all the evidence, so many times here.

They can easily change the loot rates back, then say “write your loot rates down and tell us what you get”. It’s like going to trial with unscrupulous opposing counsel.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I’ve seen “prove it” written by the people who have all the evidence, so many times here.

They can easily change the loot rates back, then say “write your loot rates down and tell us what you get”. It’s like going to trial with unscrupulous opposing counsel.

Exactly like Galileo Galilei…

This is why I haven’t played in a week.

This thread in itself is proof something is wrong.

After playing MMOs for 15 years this is the first time I’ve seen an issue like this being handled so badly. It’s also one of the very few instances of loot drops being one of the biggest issues in a game that requires loot drops.

Back to Fallout 3. Odd that I’m having more fun on a game I’ve beaten before. Maybe GW2 finally killed MMOs for me and I can have a life again.

I have to get this off my chest. This thread is a compilation of most of the drop rate complaints and findings (as best as end users can give) in this forum and we’re supposed to make another one? If you guys aren’t going to bother picking through this one then why should I believe you’ll pick through the new thread that will no doubt explode with replies? Pardon me for taking this with a brick of salt.

I have not posted on this topic until now… I waited patiently for an answer from Anet. As each day passed without any answer I grew to realize that this is the new normal.

When we do get an answer it is another delaying tactic. Make another thread? Sorry no. All the info is here in this thread.

The loot drop rate is TERRIBLE. The game is meant to be rewarding to play. If you are trying to drive me away from your game then fine but I will take my money with me.

Legionius.3641:

This is why I haven’t played in a week.

This thread in itself is proof something is wrong.

After playing MMOs for 15 years this is the first time I’ve seen an issue like this being handled so badly. It’s also one of the very few instances of loot drops being one of the biggest issues in a game that requires loot drops.

Back to Fallout 3. Odd that I’m having more fun on a game I’ve beaten before. Maybe GW2 finally killed MMOs for me and I can have a life again.

Indeed. I once loved mmos , especially gw 1 , I paid anet more than 150€ in total (‘o.O) for their addons etc, though gw has really disappointed me with their newest product… the idea of having a role playing game in a multiplayer based world sounds great like a mmo should constitute, but sadly most mmo are all the same and just boring, repetetive and grindy. gw couldn’t rework anything of the classic mmo standards… it’s ridiculous for what they have announced earlier…. replayable zones- no? same loots for everybody- no? massive rng system integrated deep down in the heart of the game- yes! quantitive content- no? bugs – yes! differing wealth within players through wasted economy – yes! what were they once saying with “it’s done when it’s done” <— biggest joke ever, instead they’re not fixing their game’s issues and prioritize hurling alleged new “content”, like it was the case with recently added but by far most empty and saddest zone from the game: southern cove or whats up with those those two other holiday events i wont even start talking about..
sadly gw2 is one of those korean, grind games telling this after 1000+hours of playtime since release. if you spend your time in this game you’ll from what it suffers: from a release that was made far too early cause it was thrown 3/4 finished to the market…
it might really be the better solution to quit mmos and return in 10years when developers returned to creativity and honesty.. before all im disappointed with arenanet and their way of communitcating with us, the players and kind of rejecting to fix their game how it is supposed to be.. instead i guess there a bunch of totally silly lead designer making this game bader than it needs to be.

edit: ridicously how the moderator “Stephane Lo Presti” seems to be suprised about strange loot behaviour, i love this hypocrisy, loled hard when i read the first answer on the new topic.. veterans and champions do drop loot? never xd

RedBaron.6058:

Stephane Lo Presti,

Thank you for the reply. Anyway I think this subject is being treated in a very casual way and only after 1 month, 1210 posts and 40575 views we got some feedback. I would at least have apologized for the long silence about this subject.

I agree with you.

As I’ve written in the other thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first#post1062965 this issue was originally raised in the AMA, on 26th November.

At that time, it was to be looked into “tomorrow” (aka. 27th November).

I am puzzled as to why these questions, the same as concerns raised by players at the AMA on 26th November, are being re-asked, and that with a 25 page thread full of impressions and information right here.

Yes, it’s a bit to wade through, yes, there may be a few not-so-useful posts here, but I have a suspicion that the number of players reporting information in this thread would give a reasonable enough impression to warrant the investigation that was promised to at least begin on 27th November.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Thanks for your response. I have to say that it definitely feels like a slap in the face when you describe our collective experiences as perceived. I found the other post even more disturbing then this one requiring empirical data, we keep track of these things daily and this thread is packed full of responses to our daily activities and the results thereof. This isn’t 1-2 people standing around the mystic forge in LA talking about how to make a big deal out of a tiny glitch. This has been going on for over a month now. To suggest even in an innocent way that it’s all perceived is insulting our intelligence….

I posted today’s numbers to the other thread but I can’t help but feel a very strong desire to shelve this game for months or a year until all of the problems perceived or not are worked out properly, if at all.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Finally we get an answer, however I’m sorry but you cannot simply tell us there is nothing suspicious. If, indeed what you are saying is right, then you simply lied to us when you mentioned in the November 15 patch notes that the drop rates ARE increased. We are not blind, nor stupid and it is clear as daylight something has changed, why the developers can’t be straightforward about it is a different question.

Thanks for your response, but I simply do not believe that.

Stephane Lo Presti (French Community Manager),

We appreciate that (finally) an ANet representative has commited themself to reply within this thread.

Players, please don’t jump all over Stephanies post – perhaps it is one of the reasons why none have taken the courage to reply – with the obvious result observed after her post.

Anyways, with regards to concrete data. This thread was MERGED for a reason. I would strongly advise that ANet reads over it – ENTIRELY and CAREFULLY. I know it may be tedious to go go through 25 pages, however, in all honesty, the there is plenty of data provided herein.

The general concesus is that the DR tends to strike after after 1+ hours of gameplay in a particular area/zone. I was struck with it today as well. Doing several personal story sections in Orr, I ended up getting more porous bones and junk than legitimate loot.

What ever the variables are for controlling it – they need to be eased up. The strictness towards the DR is causing more harm than resolve for anit-botting. There will always be methods to over-farm particualr items withing this game, however, controlling it will tend to result in players being frustrated.

I will compile my point of view in the thread you have provided. However, as posted previously, players don’t tend to use a pen and paer to jot down their loot reuslts.

I wish for this to be resolved as much as you.

Kind Regards,

D_R

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Dear Stephane,

Why do you want people to repost what they have already stated in this [merged] thread, in another thread? And does that mean you won’t consider every post in this thread in ultimately determining the other thread?

Is everyone in this thread delusional?

I am about to take a break from the game due to the loot feeling less rewarding. I used to get a rare dye a week and rare items at least once an hour when grinding loot…. i still only made around a gold an hour at best…now i get over a gold an hour one day and 90 silver another due to what seems like changes in loot potential. But the loot is flooded with items that do not excite me.

So is the change a way to try and stop people from getting commander titles and legendary weapons? how about changing the requirements for such things and dropping vendor prices not make me feel like im a idiot for playing GW2.

I’m sure they can tweak drop rates on items on the fly, you can hot fix certain things that don’t require a server restart or patch so why not drops? Having a magic find feature points directly to having a loot drop infrastructure similar to dungeon crawlers, Diablo III comes to mind and the same issues with drop rates appearing to rise and fall is a common issue over there.

Now think about it, we have a massive event happening, players have a large amount of gold they can exchange for gems at the start, but due to the rng involved with making certain items or the boxes on the gem store, most will burn through gems and not get what they want. Solution? Go farm more gold to exchange for gems, but if you lower the drop rates on items that are worth anything or just an overall reduction, you end up with players that get less money and are more inclined to just pay real cash for gems. Drop rates from what I remember seem to go down during every event, happened to me during Halloween as well as Lost Shores and now Wintersday, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

On that note, it’s not like Anet would ever admit to doing it, they’d lose the majority of the player base because of it. What they would do however is do what they’ve done thus far. Write down what drops for you in X amount of time or we are looking into it but nothing appears to be wrong. Then later down the road either the drop rate “magically increases” which I’m willing to bet will happen after Wintersday… or "We discovered a bug that was causing a lower drop rate of certain items or rarities or (insert anything here) and a fix has been implemented. <—- That fix or any before it to my knowledge never requires a patch so it goes unnoticed. Drop rates return and people forget until the next event, because oohh shinies.

tldr; If drop rates can be changed “secretly” and they are doing it to push players to the cash shop, they’d never admit to it. Drop rates go down every event and will go back after the event just like they have for the past two.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case

How so? It was even in the patch notes for kitten’s sake.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Can you possibly explain how we can provide the data to you and compare it to prior to November 15th since we could not possibly predict there would be a change?
And if that isn’t possible, what precisely do you mean by “Concrete Data”? Please explain the “EXACT” process and data you are looking for so it is no longer “PERCEIVED”!

^This…. This please
I also want to know how to provide them with what they require. Hundreds of hours played and not a single exotic, ever (barring map completions and the Lost Shores Event chest). Until recently I thought it was a dungeon or chest reward only.

I remain optimistic that if someone within the team really wanted to pull up specific information on an account that it could be done. I wouldn’t want to be the person tasked with this chore but I’m sure it could be done.
I will continue to monitor my ‘luck’ in the coming weeks. I had to take a break from playing for the past few days and when I can resume it will be interesting to see if the pattern continues.
So far it is a given (for me) that after approximately one hour of play all loot drops diminish; regardless of changing zones/maps/alt chars.

EDIT: I have already posted my findings in length a few pages back; so there’s no need to duplicate. Only change since that time is that I have run my first and only dungeon. I got nothing but 2 greens and a blue plus a lot of sub level equips and other junk loot.(This dungeon run included the killing of all mobs not just a quick run through since half the group were ‘first timers’)

I just realized that this is another delay tactic. I think their metrics showed people quitting because of this issue. So in order to continue the charade of “finding the truth” they keep it going.
Delaying it even further and further hoping that people will say OK great now something is going to happen. The reality is they have no intention of doing a kitten thing but placating some gamers.
Tell me How do I provide data for previous history? Arent you the ones with the metrics?
I find this degrading,insulting, disingenuous and disgusting.
How about you actually read the forum posts? I know a novel idea.
Call me a cynic but that is how I see this and how disappointed and let down I am.

Stephane, your finally participating in this thread although appreciated is an absolute insult to our intelligence. I have over 1300 hours playing time in this game of yours and I can tell you I’m getting sick to the back teeth of it.
What should I do Stephane? Should I keep playing in the futile hope that somebody in your company actually cares one iota about it’s player base and will fix this joke of a game. Or shall I just turn the game off and smash my own teeth out with a hammer as it would probably be less painful in the long run. I like this game, I really do but it’s getting to me now. I just want to feel like you guys aren’t taking me for an idiot, I’ve paid for gems from your store with my hard earned money, I didn’t go running to the gold sellers to buy gold from them even though I could have got a hell of a lot more for my real cash. I want to be treated fairly as a loyal customer, is that really too much to ask? I’ll keep on reading this thread periodically like I have done for the last month or so and hopefully somebody from your company will make another contribution to it by the end of January 2013. But I won’t hold my breath.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. T

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Thank you Stephane for being the only mod to step into what is the forum equivilent of Orr on a bad day.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “random” as “Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard.” This concept of randomness suggests a non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination.

Randomness is not the problem, exotics looted over a week of play of 1,0,0,9,0,0,1, would be a problem of randomness but heck i could live with it i hope of the day the flood gate opens. What people are kittened off by is 0,0,0,0,0,0,0. That is a patten and a bad one.

The total number of high end items dropping across the game may well be the same as pre 15th and to be honest i am will to bet its close, what was introduced was fractals . A recuring theme we see in the thread are people saying my drops are fine they run 8 dungeons a day and get heaps.
If the total pre and post 15th are the same then people who chose not to run dungeons are no longer given drop because the items they would have recived are being “balanced” to allow for the large number coming into the economy from the fractals.
That is your choice but if Anet feels you want drops you do dungeons is the ynew policy please tell us so we can make an informed choice about how we play and if we play.

Joyeux Noël et Bonne année

an MMO is all about choice and it is NOT anymore, being forced to a certain direction ( TP, gem store or fractuals….) is not the way to go in PVE, if players want to farm zones they should get rewards equal to a fractual…..orr has been nerfed, suncove is a dead zone, what is left in 80 zones then? farming a legendary is impossible now as lodestones and T6 materials are being nerfed everywhere in the open world.

I bought gems when the game was out but now I see no reason to do so at all…..if the devs want to make a profit out of it then encourage players to do so and dont FORCE players there because that is whats happening now.

Kind regards

Darkdanjal

If nothing has changed and no bugs. Then the people are begging for looser slots and perhaps are eying another casino that will cater to their needs more favorably.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Stephane Lo Presti,

Now that I have thought through about your official answer to this loot issue and fully realized all the implications, I must say I feel deeply offended by you. Not by you personally or as a human being but by you as an official representative of your company.

Having the nerve to, after all the huge and detailed feedback in this thread, write what you have wrote really speaks volumes for your company respect towards your costumers.

Do you really think that your answer is satisfactory? Do you really think we deserve that kind of disrespectful treatment?

You seem not having the faintest idea with whom are you talking about. You seem to think that we are all a bunch of adolescents, hooked by a game, spending our valueless time playing it. But in my books even adolescents deserve respect.

You and your company need to realize with whom you are dealing with.

From all the posts I read here I can surely affirm that in this thread have posted people with twice your age, with family and huge responsabilities, with professional careers that would pale the careers of all your staff put together and with effective and executive power in their everyday businesses that most of you can not even dream of.

Yet, all of them, even if their anger showed through some of the posts in this thread, reported/complained/tried to get an honest answer from you and your company.

And what we all got? Your official answer.

I can only think that you and your company think that because we play a fantasy computer game, investing hundreds or thousands of hours/dollars/euros in apparently silly activities, we must be no-lifers and brainless human beings.

Just for your information, we play your game because we CAN and we WANT. We spend money in your gem store because we HAVE it in such a sufficient amount that we can buy pixels. In today´s world TIME is the most valuable asset. And yet, many of us manage to do all their important real world tasks and responsabilities and save some precious hours to spend in your game.

When we invest our precious time playing this game we want to have pleasure and fun doing it. Most of us are real life high achievers and that is amply demonstrated in this game.

We do not want to be lied at and we do not want to be funneled towards activities we do not like, just because someone within your company thinks itself sufficiently inteligent to steer us towards his/her greedy objectives.

We want to have pleasure doing whatever we feel like it and we deserve your attention, support and respect.

If all you have for us is your official answer then I must say is not good enough. Actually, short from being good enough, it is outrageously disrespectful because it just wants to buy more time from us and even tries to, once again, divert our attention away from this thread to other thread, pretending to be “working” on this issue.

Stephane Lo Presti,

I do not know if this post will be deleted or if I will receive a warning for it. All I know is that this is exactly what I feel and think.

Actually, just for the record, all you and your company achieved by “actively” policing and merging and deleting threads at will in these forums is that day by day more and more unsatisfied costumers are posting all around the internet in other forums their complains and frustrations about this game. You can silence us here but you can not silence us everywhere else.

And believe me that all of this is hurting your player base and your potential new costumers.

We complain because we CARE. We come here to inform you and your company and vent our frustrations about the shortfalls of this game because we LOVE it.

Its a pitty that such a wonderful game, full of potential, declines rapidly to be buried under the dust of MMORPG/MMO´s history.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I wish you and your company can make our Christmas Merry and give us a Happy New Year playing this game.

Best regards,

Red