Guild Wars 2

Yes, I’m sure ArenaNet has nerfed the rate of ecto salvaging.

Just like this time.

And this time.

And here, too.

And that other time.

And of course here.

People should read this. I’m going to be incredibly disappointed with ArenaNet if they are actually bothering to check if the drop rate of ectos has been bugged in the last patch or not. The company itself, at least, should be smarter than that.

Erasculio.2914:

Yes, I’m sure ArenaNet has nerfed the rate of ecto salvaging.

Just like this time.

And this time.

And here, too.

And that other time.

And of course here.

People should read this. I’m going to be incredibly disappointed with ArenaNet if they are actually bothering to check if the drop rate of ectos has been bugged in the last patch or not. The company itself, at least, should be smarter than that.

The guy in the OP checked this with a sample of 5000 salvages, even if the standard rate of return was below 1% (which it isn’t, not even close in fact) that would still be a sufficient sample size to see a deviation. It’s far from absolute proof, but none of the previous accusations had hard mathematical evidence behind them.

@Erasculio: obviously they are smart enough to notice, that this time there are a lot more players with relevant sample sizes showing a significant decrease of the ecto-rate. If you had taken a closer look, you could have noticed that difference between the regular patch-whining and this thread.

Let’s wait and see how disappointed you really are, when they acknowledge this bug.

@Conncept: just to stay correct: the OP salvaged 166 items. He bought them with 5000 CoF-tokens.

It looks like ArenaNet mixed up the code for crude salvage kits with master salvage kits.

I remember a thread a while ago that showed that crude salvage kits return ecto at a rate of 50%.

So now master salvage kits are overpriced pieces of junk. Buy crude salvage kits all the time!

WaxWorm.8574:

@Erasculio: obviously they are smart enough to notice, that this time there are a lot more players with relevant sample sizes

Looks like a lot of players who lack knowledge about statistics. Little surprise given previous discussions about similar subjects. I expect the exact same thing to happen: ArenaNet to state (correctly) that nothing has changed (which they have already done), and then later pay lip service so people stop complaining.

Legno.6548:

Armor level 80 yellow salvaged with Master Salvage Kit
775 Armors
402 Ectoplasm
634 Rune
1120 Common Materials
99 Rare materials
Drop Rate Ectoplasm 51.87
In the past I had 89 % ration on ecto from rare

I would like to ask anyone with a sound knowledge of statistics: what is the percentage chance of this occurring if we assume the 0.9 return rate is unchanged?

Erasculio.2914:

Looks like a lot of players who lack knowledge about statistics. […]

Somehow reminds me of the guy driving down the highway complaining about all the wrong way drivers he meets…

I take the hours long silence that John has found signs of the approaching doomsday within the code of GW2, researching this has now claimed his life. Spouting truths within the ANet halls, he has been removed, but he knows the truth. He is going on a spiritual quest to reveal to the world what he has found.

Some say that on still nights, when the breeze gently blows, you can still hear his calculator buttons clicking softly…

captaincrash.6528:

I take the hours long silence that John has found signs of the approaching doomsday within the code of GW2, researching this has now claimed his life. Spouting truths within the ANet halls, he has been removed, but he knows the truth. He is going on a spiritual quest to reveal to the world what he has found.

John Smith is,,,,, Batman?! Everything makes so much sense now :P Smart millionaire economist working at a lonely game company. Righting wrongs, fixing bugs, monitoring the trade. But nights.. nights are when he fights true evil! When this thread is over assuming he finds something, we may need another JS is awesome thread :P

Erasculio.2914:

Looks like a lot of players who lack knowledge about statistics. Little surprise given previous discussions about similar subjects. I expect the exact same thing to happen: ArenaNet to state (correctly) that nothing has changed (which they have already done), and then later pay lip service so people stop complaining.

Sorry, I’m not very good at math, could you please explain how .5 is actually equal to .9? Or you know, actually engage with some of the various analyses that have been posted that show the new rate on Master’s kits being .5 with a very narrow margin of error at .95 CI. If “SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!!!” is all you have, I wouldn’t bother wasting the keystrokes if I were you.

OliverLogan.7145:

Legno.6548:

Armor level 80 yellow salvaged with Master Salvage Kit
775 Armors
402 Ectoplasm
634 Rune
1120 Common Materials
99 Rare materials
Drop Rate Ectoplasm 51.87
In the past I had 89 % ration on ecto from rare

I would like to ask anyone with a sound knowledge of statistics: what is the percentage chance of this occurring if we assume the 0.9 return rate is unchanged?

Now, this isn’t truly a binomial event, because we can get more than one success per attempt. But we can approximate this as a binomial event, with a .89 probability of getting the desired result. The number of trials here is what should jump out to you to tell you this result is strange if the .89 rate was still there.

If we use the binomial distribution to make this approximation, there is a probability of 4.441 × 10^(-16) that 775 trials would yield 445 or fewer successes given a success rate of .89. That is what leads these folks to the conclusion that the likelihood of the rate being the same (Type I error, here) is extremely small (you probably have a better chance of dying by a lightning strike, and someone at your funeral also dying by a lightning strike in the next year). Typical thresholds for these kinds of conclusions are 0.001, 0.01, or 0.1. This is something like 0.0000000000000004.

Now, like I said earlier my estimate using the binomial distribution is a touch flawed, but not 16 orders of magnitude flawed.

Dumb Woob.9415:

Now, like I said earlier my estimate using the binomial distribution is a touch flawed, but not 16 orders of magnitude flawed.

It is a binomial distribution when you count ectos returned as the success whether it’s 1, 2, or 3. It’s a very safe assumption that the quantity is determined on a secondary loot roll. Otherwise, great post.

Broadicea.8294:

Dumb Woob.9415:

Now, like I said earlier my estimate using the binomial distribution is a touch flawed, but not 16 orders of magnitude flawed.

It is a binomial distribution when you count ectos returned as the success whether it’s 1, 2, or 3. It’s a very safe assumption that the quantity is determined on a secondary loot roll. Otherwise, great post.

Ah I was considering total number of ectos as somehow part of the binary “do you get an ecto?” calculation. Thanks for making this more clear.

Edit: I think I should use a modified example of this to illustrate my students next year the power of the Central Limit Theorem..

Dumb Woob.9415:

OliverLogan.7145:

Legno.6548:

Armor level 80 yellow salvaged with Master Salvage Kit
775 Armors
402 Ectoplasm
634 Rune
1120 Common Materials
99 Rare materials
Drop Rate Ectoplasm 51.87
In the past I had 89 % ration on ecto from rare

I would like to ask anyone with a sound knowledge of statistics: what is the percentage chance of this occurring if we assume the 0.9 return rate is unchanged?

Now, this isn’t truly a binomial event, because we can get more than one success per attempt. But we can approximate this as a binomial event, with a .89 probability of getting the desired result. The number of trials here is what should jump out to you to tell you this result is strange if the .89 rate was still there.

If we use the binomial distribution to make this approximation, there is a probability of 4.441 × 10^(-16) that 775 trials would yield 445 or fewer successes given a success rate of .89. That is what leads these folks to the conclusion that the likelihood of the rate being the same (Type I error, here) is extremely small (you probably have a better chance of dying by a lightning strike, and someone at your funeral also dying by a lightning strike in the next year). Typical thresholds for these kinds of conclusions are 0.001, 0.01, or 0.1. This is something like 0.0000000000000004.

Now, like I said earlier my estimate using the binomial distribution is a touch flawed, but not 16 orders of magnitude flawed.

I just did my own independent calculation and I can confirm this.

Even if you had a 50% chance of getting 2 or 3 ecto’s for each salvage attempt after just 7 tries the probability of not getting 2 or 3 on all 7 tries is 0.0078125. The larger the number in a row of not getting the multiple ecto salvage @ 40% means there is next to no chance of this occurring. It is either a bug or an intended change to the ecto salvage rate provided the example provided is correct which I don’t doubt.

I figured I’d add in more statistics too. Before the patch, my friends/guildmates documented (via excel) 1455 exotic items salvaged, all with black lion kits. The results looked like this:
26.46% 3 ectos,
37.93% 2 ectos,
13.6% 1 ecto,
21.99% 0 ectos.
Yes I know this isn’t the largest sample size, but I’m just sharing the results.

After the patch, we had a much larger decrease. This is with the same parameters as above, except only with 98 exotics (exotics are expensive for the sake of math/science):
0% with 3 ectos,
26.37% with 2 ectos,
24.17% with 1 ecto,
and a whopping 49.45% with 0 ectos.

Once again, low sample size post patch, but the sudden staggering rate of 0% of 3’s from exotics, coupled with an almost 50% 0 ectos rate with a BLK are hard to ignore. Using the percent of 3 ectoplasms per exotics before the patch in our data, the chances of getting 0 in 91 is 1.2591762e-12, which is one trillionth of a chance (assuming no change as stated, and that my math isn’t off). Once again I know this isn’t the largest data sample, but the overall numbers are still disheartening.

33 rare CoE helms today

9 ectos.

Math says that’s not good.

I mean, obviously way below the curve for even .5, but….

i will just save all my rares until “they fixed” this issue

Are we taking bets on a “the 0.5 salvage rate was always intended, and we just fixed a bug” response?

My bet is on “Our testing and data analysis have shown no change in the salvage rates of Ectoplasms.”

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Are we taking bets on a “the 0.5 salvage rate was always intended, and we just fixed a bug” response?

I’ll take over/under bets on how long before it’s officially addressed. Let’s set the line at 3 months!

WaxWorm.8574:

@Erasculio: obviously they are smart enough to notice, that this time there are a lot more players with relevant sample sizes showing a significant decrease of the ecto-rate. If you had taken a closer look, you could have noticed that difference between the regular patch-whining and this thread.

Let’s wait and see how disappointed you really are, when they acknowledge this bug.

@Conncept: just to stay correct: the OP salvaged 166 items. He bought them with 5000 CoF-tokens.

No, they’re not as smart as you think they are, you actually think they test these patches before they put them in, and if they do test them they don’t do it thoroughly in anyway or else we wouldn’t be getting 10 more bugs every time they try and fix 1 bug with a simple 8 file patch.

They could avoid so much work by adding a test server players could log onto and play the new content for a couple days and give them feedback on.

There was a salvage task for yesterday’s daily and I did 10 salvages and got 5 globs of ectos. All were single ecto procs.

Rama.6439:

WaxWorm.8574:

@Erasculio: obviously they are smart enough to notice, that this time there are a lot more players with relevant sample sizes showing a significant decrease of the ecto-rate. If you had taken a closer look, you could have noticed that difference between the regular patch-whining and this thread.

Let’s wait and see how disappointed you really are, when they acknowledge this bug.

@Conncept: just to stay correct: the OP salvaged 166 items. He bought them with 5000 CoF-tokens.

No, they’re not as smart as you think they are, you actually think they test these patches before they put them in, and if they do test them they don’t do it thoroughly in anyway or else we wouldn’t be getting 10 more bugs every time they try and fix 1 bug with a simple 8 file patch.

They could avoid so much work by adding a test server players could log onto and play the new content for a couple days and give them feedback on.

That’s why ANET has the ALPHA SERVER to test things before it’s released(they just may be doing it hurriedly). You’re grabbing at straws now.

Oh how I wish we had people with your level of communication and seemingly high dedication working on fixing fractals and creating high level dungeons. Thanks for being a boss in looking at this issue!

Well it’s obvious looking at the ecto market that something has changed since the patch went live Tuesday. Buy orders went from 17.7s to nearly 23s as supply fell sharply.

So the question is why did supply fall? Were items pulled and not reposted? Or did a steady flow of new “for sale” listings slow to a crawl? Why did it slow to a crawl? Are players now using them? hording them? or simply no longer creating them through salvage?

He’s peeling an onion here. Datamine to eliminate all the potentially normal reasons and what you have left is less ectos being created though salvage. Once you prove that then you can get a programmer scheduled to look into what might have happened in the code.

Just salvaged 50 rares, with master salvage kit. Got back 28 ectos which is definitely much lower rate than before the patch. Only one of the successfully salvaged rares obtained 2 ectos, while the rest were only 1.

sinofmercy.7019:

I figured I’d add in more statistics too. Before the patch, my friends/guildmates documented (via excel) 1455 exotic items salvaged, all with black lion kits. The results looked like this:
26.46% 3 ectos,
37.93% 2 ectos,
13.6% 1 ecto,
21.99% 0 ectos.
Yes I know this isn’t the largest sample size, but I’m just sharing the results.

After the patch, we had a much larger decrease. This is with the same parameters as above, except only with 98 exotics (exotics are expensive for the sake of math/science):
0% with 3 ectos,
26.37% with 2 ectos,
24.17% with 1 ecto,
and a whopping 49.45% with 0 ectos.

Once again, low sample size post patch, but the sudden staggering rate of 0% of 3’s from exotics, coupled with an almost 50% 0 ectos rate with a BLK are hard to ignore. Using the percent of 3 ectoplasms per exotics before the patch in our data, the chances of getting 0 in 91 is 1.2591762e-12, which is one trillionth of a chance (assuming no change as stated, and that my math isn’t off). Once again I know this isn’t the largest data sample, but the overall numbers are still disheartening.

Well that data is pretty convincing.

I’d advice anyone else not to salvage their rares and wait until a fix. Because this is definitively a bug. There’s seriously no arguing against it.

John Smith.4610:

Hey all, just wanted to let you know I’m still working and I’ll keep you updated as soon as I have something to post.

Much thanks, Mr. Smith. Your efforts are appreciated.

Behellagh.1468:

Well it’s obvious looking at the ecto market that something has changed since the patch went live Tuesday. Buy orders went from 17.7s to nearly 23s as supply fell sharply.

I want to re-iterate this point, but the ecto market changing is not a indicator of any change. An example is when Anet announced the fact that world boss chests were account-bound instead of character bound. Ecto prices jumped from 25s to 30s, despite there being no changes in-game, due to sheer speculation. This current jump can very well be a result of speculation caused by this thread as well.

Ursan.7846:

Behellagh.1468:

Well it’s obvious looking at the ecto market that something has changed since the patch went live Tuesday. Buy orders went from 17.7s to nearly 23s as supply fell sharply.

I want to re-iterate this point, but the ecto market changing is not a indicator of any change. An example is when Anet announced the fact that world boss chests were account-bound instead of character bound. Ecto prices jumped from 25s to 30s, despite there being no changes in-game, due to sheer speculation. This current jump can very well be a result of speculation caused by this thread as well.

Which is why I listed all the things they need to first eliminate with datamining. Or are you suggesting that once they establish that the rate of ecto creation is way down that it’s because the majority of salvagers saw this thread and simply didn’t bother to try anymore thus becoming self-fulfilling? Interesting premise.

In your example, it was Anet’s news on the chests that cause the surge with supply dropping over 50% in a few hour only to rebound to only being down 35% a few hours later. Here the decline in supply was only 15-20% with it still declining more than a day later.

I usually tell ppl that they must be joking and blaming bad rng for their “reduced” ecto/salvage and that (with master) you’ll end up usually around 0.9 per salvage in long run and larger sample size.

This time, however, I say that there is some truth behind this. Price of ecto “skyrocketed” from 17-18s range to 22-23s while there still appears to be plenty of cheap rares in tp.

So, tested myself for curiosity; 45/100 salvages so half from what it used to be.
The interesting part; I didn’t score even once more than 1 per salvage. Before it was possible to get 1-3 ecto but this time I gained only 1 every now and then.
I used master salvage kit.

So, unless someone noticed something different, chance to get ecto is probably same but instead of 1,2 or 3 we get only 1. This explains why it dropped from 0.9 to 0.45 (in my case) because (1+2+3)/3->2 and ,9/2 -> ,45.

Just that you know where to look at John Smith.

edit
I’d use larger test pool, but not really interested to burn that much gold for science. Will try copypaste data from this topic for larger analysis.

I’ve seen this immediately after the patch has been applied. Even if I am salvaging less than 10 rares per day, that was obviously visible.

I believe this is just another knee-jerk reaction form where ANet after the launch of the API which gave us the possibility to gather rares easier, just because the rare drop rate was nerfed before and we are trying to circumvent the low drop rate by farming the “one rare” events.

For those who are waiting for a fix, I wouldn’t have high hopes of even acknowledging a bug, if that’s even a bug and not intended. Also most of the devs posting here have no clue about these drop policy changes. The standard response: “we fixed the drop rate since it was higher than previously intended”.

I just salvaged one rare and got one ecto so that’s 100%. Not sure what the problem is or why people are complaining.

Behellagh.1468:

Well it’s obvious looking at the ecto market that something has changed since the patch went live Tuesday. Buy orders went from 17.7s to nearly 23s as supply fell sharply.

So the question is why did supply fall? Were items pulled and not reposted? Or did a steady flow of new “for sale” listings slow to a crawl? Why did it slow to a crawl? Are players now using them? hording them? or simply no longer creating them through salvage?

He’s peeling an onion here. Datamine to eliminate all the potentially normal reasons and what you have left is less ectos being created though salvage. Once you prove that then you can get a programmer scheduled to look into what might have happened in the code.

We, as players, need to use the TP to guesstimate the availability of ectos… but Anet should have all ecto info at their fingertips.

.. not saying that it’s easy to find the problem… but it shouldn’t be as much guesswork as it may seem.

Salt.4621:

I just salvaged one rare and got one ecto so that’s 100%. Not sure what the problem is or why people are complaining.

And I played the lottery one time, won £2.. that’s 100% return on my investment.. why doesn’t everyone play the lottery, it’s awesome!

John Smith.4610:

Hey all, just wanted to let you know I’m still working and I’ll keep you updated as soon as I have something to post.

Awe, I just fell asleep waiting for your post and now a few hours later you’re still not there! XD kitten you, John! I will see what you had to say in a few hours again! Gl!

John Smith.4610:

Hey all, just wanted to let you know I’m still working and I’ll keep you updated as soon as I have something to post.

Thanks John

If it’s a bug:

It was intended as a control.

If it was intentional:

It was intended as a nerf.

Either way the players lose.

it also happens to me..
salvaging exoSSSSS using master salvage kit gave 0 ecto ._. WOW!

Calm people, John Smith will give words to you. Why? Check the Black Lion Trading Post section, great developer, great communication.

I did not get even one single Ecto.

Oh go ahead, nerf the game some more.

Siigari.6587:

If it’s a bug:

It was intended as a control.

If it was intentional:

It was intended as a nerf.

Either way the players lose.

Because programming errors/mistakes never occur, right? Conspiracy theorists at their best, where every mistake is 100% intentional if it hurts the players. What about the unintended dye drop rate boost a few months back? Oh wait, you’d see that as unintentional because it helped you.

Let’s leave the speculation/conspiracies behind while we wait for John to get back to us please.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-to-ecto-salvage-from-rares

First page of the forums, and it’s being checked by the staff. Not every potential bug is intentional as a nerf. If there was an intentional nerf on something as important as ecto salvage rates, it would be in the patch notes.

I salvaged 5 or 6 level 80 rares last night with a Master salvage kit and ended up with 7 ectos. They are still dropping at the same rate as always for me, I’m not sure why everyone seems to think its changed.

yeh same rate for me too not seen any change.

ExTribble.7108:

If there was an intentional nerf on something as important as ecto salvage rates, it would be in the patch notes.

When was the last time you saw drop rate nerf documented in the patch notes?

It’s a server side thing, and doesn’t require a patch.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I did not get even one single Ecto.

Oh go ahead, nerf the game some more.

Although I won’t enter the debate on “there has been a nerf, no there hasn’t”, I did get 6 salvages in a row giving no ectos before already, it’s not something new.

Most changes Arenanet does to the game appear to be made at the same time they release patches. You are right that it’s probably a server side thing. There’s still no reason for them to deliberately stay quiet while the forums explode in a total storm. Hence why I’m just saying to skip jumping to conclusions that it’s intentional.