Guild Wars 2

Sorry if I missed this in the patch notes.

I just salvaged 5000 cof marks converting them into helmets for salvage. I never received more then 1 ecto per hit. I recall usually getting 1-3 per salvage before and have it video documented in my epic world first 20,000 cof mark salvage. Was this just changed today? I checked my records and did receive 1-3 ectos per hit from a mass salvage I did last week.

Edit 5000 cof marks = 166 salvages. You used to get about .9 ectos per salvage using master kits. I got 80~ ectos which is around a .5 per salvage. Which seems to be a 50%~ nerf

My theory so far is that either the lvl of the item (cof is 70) effects the chances or just dungeon bought rares had a nerf where they can only give 1 ecto now while others still can give more. Or that there is truly a 1 ecto per salvage limit with same proc chance reducing the rate from .9 to .5~.

edits:
To summarize comments and finalize the thread with what happened.

Salvage rates have been corrected!

Despite randoms accusing a conspiracy theory the truth came out and salvage rates were off and were corrected by some of the best staff support I’ve seen in an MMO to date. Salvage rates should be correct now and returned to their .9 rate of ecto with master kits and everyone may salvage once again.

I want to say thank you to the community that was open minded enough to assist in this study and to John Smith for some of the best staff support I’ve seen in an MMO. Although I did have to take a hard hit of 2-4 infractions to deal with the trolls while making my point.

Special thanks to Geotherma who did all of the work and brought his reputation and research to get this problem resolved after the community hurt my feels to much and I had to leave.

Perhaps some gloating at the Stego haters that tried to call me out, and label me a conspiracy theorist or “like all the other ecto posts” specifically Aeonblade.8709.

Thanks everyone for helping to resolve this and although I wish I could have my 8000 cof marks back to resalvage this engagement on the forums was overall quite fun and worth it.

I’d like everyone to take some time and check out the art work of my character I made at the start of my salvage proof video to celebrate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pbn_U6CUFw

I think that change was months ago, ever since people started farming dragon events they reduced ecto yield per item. Sorry :/

Yeah, it was a big nerf. I usually do way less than 0.5 per hit so count yourself lucky. T.T

Reviewed my records and last week I was achieving a .9~ salvage rate with multiple procs I believe so it wasn’t a patch months ago. Expect ecto prices to double I guess and rares to be 50% their current value?

That is quite the sample size. But I just last night of the 2 rares I salvaged, I got 3 on one and 1 on the other. That was last night though, it is possible this patch changed things.

Ursan.7846:

That is quite the sample size. But I just last night of the 2 rares I salvaged, I got 3 on one and 1 on the other. That was last night though, it is possible this patch changed things.

I think it’s a sufficient size, and I do believe this wasn’t in place last week unless my records are off and judging by your salvaging data it most likely happened in the patch today.

i just tried with 100 rares. only got 1 ecto IF i got any.
Start the Ecto hoarding wars. expecting 35 silver ectos in a week

Doomknight.7923:

i just tried with 100 rares. only got 1 ecto IF i got any.
Start the Ecto hoarding wars. expecting 35 silver ectos in a week

I think the ectos will continue to drop in price, I bought ectos awhile back because everyone was crazy they would rise due to mega bosses only giving a rare once a day, my ectos, I’m down 20s per ecto right now.

As for your salvage for ecto, it’s probably duegon exotics only because I still getting 3 ectos.

I just did 75 rares (level 68 or higher of course) and hit maybe 60% of that in ectos. Pre-patch I actually got 27 out of 25 rares. I’m using the master kit in all cases. I thought I was having just a run of bad luck.

these were a mix of rares from wvw chests/world bosses/Rng drops. i did not have any dungeon token rares or exotics.
its may not be just 1 ecto per rare but the rate has deffinetly been reduced.

Behellagh.1468:

I just did 75 rares (level 68 or higher of course) and hit maybe 60% of that in ectos. Pre-patch I actually got 27 out of 25 rares. I’m using the master kit in all cases. I thought I was having just a run of bad luck.

Besides the overall percentage what’s most relevant is if anyone can get more then 1 ecto from salvage now.

I admit my 27 out of 25 was high and due to a run of 2 or 3 ectos per that made up for the misses but if this really has changed then it wipes out my daily income source. No way rares will drop to under 12 when ectos are in the mid 19s range, which is where it would be profitable. I guess people can always buy rares just for the MF.

I have been salvaging level 80 rare items everyday for weeks now (average 100 per day). Just now I tried 100 items (lev 80 rare), I too am seeing a 0.50 average, down from what I used to get 0.90. I definitely know something has changed….not one time did I get more than 1 ecto per salvage.

I believe the previous .9 was tied purely to master salvage kits where as Black Lion Kits were around 1.25 before this nerf. I’d be curious to see if Black Lion Kits still maintain their 1.25 or if that was nerfed also.

It is most likely an attempt to make Black Lion kits more appealing I don’t see a reason anyone would purchase them currently as the cost to buy that many gems would be vastly higher then the profit you would make on ectos.

Ecto’s would have to vastly increase in value and the chance would have to raise much higher then 1.25 to come close to making it worth the conversion I think.

I’m relatively new to the game and I might be wrong in saying this, but a friend of mine said she received more ecto by wearing lots of magic find gear and being in Southsun with the magic find bonus on her when she salvaged her gear. She was getting around 13 ecto for every 10 items she salvaged. Have you tried that?

Maybe a lot of people got a string of bad luck?

penatbater.4710:

Maybe a lot of people got a string of bad luck?

For just my sample size to be wrong would be in the probability of .005% chance of happening I believe. That’s not including other people’s salvage records.

bad luck, I doubt it…they had to have nerfed it with people reporting .5 with large sample sizes

Stego.3148:

I believe the previous .9 was tied purely to master salvage kits where as Black Lion Kits were around 1.25 before this nerf. I’d be curious to see if Black Lion Kits still maintain their 1.25 or if that was nerfed also.

It is most likely an attempt to make Black Lion kits more appealing I don’t see a reason anyone would purchase them currently as the cost to buy that many gems would be vastly higher then the profit you would make on ectos.

I hope that is not the reason, I will be very disappointed in Anet. Friend on mine suggested that sometimes the balance tables can be messed up (technical term lol)after a large patch.

Phate.4871:

bad luck, I doubt it…they had to have nerfed it with people reporting .5 with large sample sizes

166 salvages is hardly a large sample size. A large sample size would be 500 or more.

noticed this too, yesterday i salvaged 9 rares, got 4 ectos…… like seriously, i was getting ectos from at least 1/2 times i salvaged a rare, at some point i salvaged 4 rares and got ZERO, none, nada, 0.

Anet, whatssup with this?

Chorel.1720:

Phate.4871:

bad luck, I doubt it…they had to have nerfed it with people reporting .5 with large sample sizes

166 salvages is hardly a large sample size. A large sample size would be 500 or more.

If you are flipping a coin 150 times and it’s heads every time, I can say with very high confidence that both sides of the coin are heads. 500 flips aren’t needed for this kind of sample. I’d say 50-100 from a couple accounts would be enough to satisfy most people. This isn’t a study of the .5 rate but of only getting 1 ecto per proc.

Hmm an ecto nerf thread has caught my attention.. It may be time once again to… repeat this https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/BL-S-Kits-vs-Master-Kits-Results-Ectos/first

Doomknight.7923:

i just tried with 100 rares. only got 1 ecto IF i got any.
Start the Ecto hoarding wars. expecting 35 silver ectos in a week

Lol @ 100 rares and 1 ecto……. I have no words. What level were they, what salvage kit, and which game were you playing?

rng is rng, one result doesn’t affect the others, it should average out to almost 1 ecto per rare.

Maybe they just found a way to put diminishing returns on ectos. Salvage more then 2 in 10 seconds and nerf yourself for a week! I kid I kid. They would never do something like that……

sorry for confusion.
I got 1 ecto at the most from any given rare. and that was less than 50% of the rares.
out of the 100 i ended up with 42 ectos. This rate is far below what it was 3 days ago

20 rare af the end of my day, i save them before go bed: 0 ecto. wtf?

In an average distribution with a Master Kit you would get:

75% of rare items salved would yield 0 ecto.
25% would yield 1-3
Average of 1-3 = 1.5

100 items would yield: (.25*100) * 1.5 = 37 globs
166 items would yield: (.25*166) * 1.5 = 62 globs

Both the OP and Doomknight are above the curve.

To get a consistent average return of .9 per salvage, you would have to have a lot more than 25% of the items salvaged yielding globs, or you’d have to get an average of better than 3 on a 1-3 curve: (100*.25) * x = 90. x = 3.6 on that 1 in 4.

With only one ecto per salvage, 80/166 = .48 and change, well above the 25% chance the Master’s Kit provides. Likewise 42 out of 100.

I don’t know about the “only one” thing, but will report on it if I observe it (or the contrary). Hopefully it’s either a bug from the new patch or a run of “bad luck” which will self-correct over time. It doesn’t seem likely that a random number generator would generate a result of 1 on a 1-3 chance 80 times — but neither does it seem that getting a result of 1-25 on a 1-100 would come up more than 1 time in 4 consistently either.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In an average distribution with a Master Kit you would get:

75% of rare items salved would yield 0 ecto.
25% would yield 1-3
Average of 1-3 = 1.5

100 items would yield: (.25*100) * 1.5 = 37 globs
166 items would yield: (.25*166) * 1.5 = 62 globs

Both the OP and Doomknight are above the curve.

To get a consistent average return of .9 per salvage, you would have to have a lot more than 25% of the items salvaged yielding globs, or you’d have to get an average of better than 3 on a 1-3 curve: (100*.25) * x = 90. x = 3.6 on that 1 in 4.

With only one ecto per salvage, 80/166 = .48 and change, well above the 25% chance the Master’s Kit provides. Likewise 42 out of 100.

I don’t know about the “only one” thing, but will report on it if I observe it (or the contrary). Hopefully it’s either a bug from the new patch or a run of “bad luck” which will self-correct over time. It doesn’t seem likely that a random number generator would generate a result of 1 on a 1-3 chance 80 times — but neither does it seem that getting a result of 1-25 on a 1-100 would come up more than 1 time in 4 consistently either.

Wrong, master kits are .9 overall ectos per salvage blt are 1.25. I have a 20,680 cof mark salvage video you can review where 20,000 marks = 633 ectos (that’s 689 items) which is around .9 and a pretty big sample size there’s also spreadsheets I can link which show .9 as the obvious number.

The 25% chance of rarer materials in the tooltip doesn’t refer to the ectos, it refers to things like Gossamer and orichalcum Ore ore. Ecto % is a hidden number not shown in the tooltip.

Well the change is having an effect. Supply has plummeted. The 18k at 20s was blown through and the price is, as of the time I’m writing this, is 21s28c, up from 18s20c at noon EDT.

This is why I like gathering large samples of random events to establish a baseline so when it changes we can either see a stealth nerf or if it was unintentional, point out how it behavior has changed and have data to back up the claim.

There was no change.

Just salvaged 3 rares and got 3 ecto, 2 ecto, then 1 ecto… A very good result! But, aside from that proves beyond a doubt that there is no 1 ecto cap.

Indigo Sundown is indeed correct. The OP actually did better than average.

Please stop the conspiracies and not let market manipulators dupe you into artificially driving up demand from a false premise. If anything, the price of ectos should be going down right now due to the influx of even more rares into the system (new events just added all give rares).

So…. You won’t hear me say this often but.. I’m not 100% sure that the ecto drop rates are working correctly. I need to do more research, but bear in mind I wouldn’t ever say this if I had nothing to go off of.

A couple of months ago I noticed a drop in the salvage rate of ectos, but around that same time I went from black lion salvage kits to mystic salvage kits and I thought that was the reason for it.

Vayne.8563:

A couple of months ago I noticed a drop in the salvage rate of ectos, but around that same time I went from black lion salvage kits to mystic salvage kits and I thought that was the reason for it.

I’m using BL versions right now and even though it is a very small test number, something seems very off. And you know I am no where near a conspiracy theorist..

Edit: 22 rares = 8 ectos. Never more than 1 ecto per.
I want to remain positive, but I’m truly hoping this is an error and not a stealth nerf. If it is the latter.. you may have just given fuel to every conspiracy theorist ever and lose a great amount of credibility even by the most faithful of your player base. A nerf is one thing, people can deal eventually with that, but hiding it.. that is a whole different story.

Edit 2: http://youtu.be/8OFdMQHT91k
Small sample but something obvious here.. Will be ready in a few.

I’m getting slightly less than 1 for 1 ratio over time. I don’t have exact numbers, because I’m too lazy to track stuff, but over the course of time it seems to work out to a bit less than 1 ecto per gold. I might go three or four without getting one and then get three.

Geotherma it really seems some people are having this 1 ecto per rare issue and others arent.

some are calling me a “conspiracy thoerist” and others on my server are having the exact issue. guildies included
Possible diminishing returns on salvaging now?

Doomknight.7923:

Geotherma it really seems some people are having this 1 ecto per rare issue and others arent.

some are calling me a “conspiracy thoerist” and others on my server are having the exact issue. guildies included
Possible diminishing returns on salvaging now?

Not sure, I normally call conspiracy because it is so common. But I never do so without research, or at least until I can research. And this is an obvious change even at low rates. I recommend not salvaging unless you are willing to get results for community, in case this is an unintended error. And I truly hope for Arenanets sake this wasn’t a stealth nerf because that fuels future conspiracy and that is never good,.. I may log onto my other account and check to see if it is DR, since that account never does much of anything there is no way it is affected. Anet stated before there is no DR on salvaging as far as ectos, I hope this hasn’t changed.

Just had a guildie salvage a few rares from a fotm run… 1 ecto, 2 ecto, no ecto, 2 ecto, nothing, 1 ecto.

ThePedroKid.2580:

There was no change.

Just salvaged 3 rares and got 3 ecto, 2 ecto, then 1 ecto… A very good result! But, aside from that proves beyond a doubt that there is no 1 ecto cap.

Indigo Sundown is indeed correct. The OP actually did better than average.

Please stop the conspiracies and not let market manipulators dupe you into artificially driving up demand from a false premise. If anything, the price of ectos should be going down right now due to the influx of even more rares into the system (new events just added all give rares).

I’m not a conspiracy theorist or a manipulator and i don’t appreciate your tone. I showed a large sample where i got 1 ecto everytime salvaging cof helmets.

I will try again tonight and expect an apology from you.

It’s possible this was an attempt at a CoF nerf and only affects dungeon bought rares or is based on the lvl of the item. But the odds of salvaging that many items and getting 1 on a 1/3 roll 80 times in a row is in my favor I’d say.

If there is a variability the only way we can find out anything is saying if you’ve got more then 1 ecto per salvage and also saying where the rare was from and what level it was at this point.

35 ecto in my inventory just from today I’d say it’s working fine.

Doomknight.7923:

Geotherma it really seems some people are having this 1 ecto per rare issue and others arent.

some are calling me a “conspiracy thoerist” and others on my server are having the exact issue. guildies included
Possible diminishing returns on salvaging now?

Just did on a separate account, around 20 salvages with master kit for no more than 1 ecto per salvage. Having a higher average of 0. I know these are small samples but still seems off. It seems to not be global, but affecting certain people/accounts. I think at this point we need a dev response.

I apologize Stego, I did not intend to direct my comments at you specifically; however, I can see how it can be read that way.

It is a fact that many times people come to these forums and imply significant changes right after patches to cause market shifts that benefit their wallets. Hence, people need to beware of such behavior. Rumors are where all market manipulation begins. It’s important to differentiate between real events and manufactured ones. As it is extremely clear to me that more than one ecto does indeed drop still from salvaging a rare (based on doing it myself moments ago and getting more than one), it sends up red flags immediately.

It’s starting to look like there is some type of bug or something if people are not receiving over 1 ecto with such high sample sizes. Or, given the fact that your results are still above the expected average, it’s just RNG being RNG.

I seriously hope it is not a nerf to ectos as the ecto economy was just about getting to where it should be (sub 15s). It would be tragic to see it skyrocket again when there are already so many people overburdened trying to get legendaries, etc.

I salvaged close to a thousand over the weekend and got the usual distribution of 0.9 ectos per rare. Today I haven’t seen more than 1 ecto from a single salvage, averaging a bit under 0.5 ectos per rare.

Something is fishy.

Ensign.2189:

I salvaged close to a thousand over the weekend and got the usual distribution of 0.9 ectos per rare. Today I haven’t seen more than 1 ecto from a single salvage, averaging a bit under 0.5 ectos per rare.

Something is fishy.

I agree. And people know we did the research in the large thread I created. Based off those past figures and current, it is even beyond my ability to call this a conspiracy. I will gladly approve of Arenanet for many things, but I am not biased, and I truly believe something is off here. The fact that an account that only my son ever plays which maybe has 5 hours on it is experiencing this as well says a lot. I would again like to warn people of doing mass salvages until this is resolved, even at the expense of the economy. I doubt greatly if a bug is found they can refund anyone all the lost ectos/gold.

Edit: All rares I salvaged were from TP and level 80.
Edit: If you do make a salvage test, I would say video it if you can just in case. In a perfect world if you have video and they have logs, you might get reimbursed if it is a bug. Just don’t expect it, just a suggestion.

It might be useful to differentiate between rares from dungeon tokens and rares from other content. Pedro did not do so, and it might be relevant.

IndigoSundown.5419:

It might be useful to differentiate between rares from dungeon tokens and rares from other content. Pedro did not do so, and it might be relevant.

Yes, I don’t really do dungeons so anyone who does feel free to add info ^^ Posted the info in the bug forum just in case https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Possible-Ecto-Bug-5-28-13/first#post2112129.

Ecto prices changing, depending on whether this is permanent or not will affect if the price change will be permanent or not before settling.

I’ve done 85 with a master kit since the patch. I never got more than 1 ecto at a time, 48 ectos in total. Now if the 90% ectos was still holding the chance of getting only 48 ectos out of that sample size is near 0. I think it’s the lack of the 2 and 3 drops that is messing with the average.

Geotherma I prefer using GuildWarsTrade to see the a more frequent sampling with less averaging.

http://www.guildwarstrade.com/item/19721-glob-of-ectoplasm

I’m surprised dungeon token items can even be salvaged. I would expect them to be similar to karma items in that regard.
but, anyways, I’ve agree that I do always seem to get less ectos from cof level 70 rares than any other rare. I’ve just never cared, as that’s just a bonus to running that dungeon and not even my best way of making gold.
I can vouch for non-dungeon rares still giving ~0.9 ecto/rare.