Guild Wars 2

I’m curious about DR, I know this is still largely hidden from us but I’m starting to notice a trend outside of the ‘do events to clear your DR’ in regular PvE. I’m talking DR outside of the dungeon. Dragons are related in what I’ve noticed but only due to the drops.

Here’s what I’ve seen:
My /age 1100 hours total for the last 7 months. I play frequently, almost religiously every day. I don’t get anything better than a Rare from a Dragon chest, most of the time that’s the guaranteed one. A Rare in a normal event actually results in a dis-heartened ‘woo, finally’ from me.

Several other players have a little more than half my play time.
An example would be someone who hasn’t played in 3 months, /age was around 400 iirc over 6 months.
Zhaitan’s Reach x2, Final Rest, and sorry 2 others I can’t recall while I’m writing this.

What does this mean to me?
Stop playing. Go do something else for 3 months. You have a better chance at getting something worthwhile.

I do it daily and I’ve gotten an exotic, so RNG can be RNG.

Farming world rares is overrated.

Let’s say you visit 10 world bosses per hour— once every 6 minutes. This is a very optimistic estimate because sometimes this isn’t even possible due to preevents or you get kicked into overflow and it takes time to actually kill the thing. Let’s say on average you get 1.25 rares per run +4 junk items that sell for 2s total. But who knows, let’s assume one is a leech that just tags bosses at the last second.

Junk = 2s x 10 =20s
Event rewards= 1.86s x 10 =18.6s
Rare after TP fee (25sx10=2.5g)

Oh but…
WP fee ~ 2s x 10 =20s

That’s about 2.5-3 g per hour with constant jumping around. It’s fine to hop around when they’re available, but it’s not something where riches pile out of nowhere.

Oh and 3,780 karma. Yea, that would change everything.

Hm, perhaps I could have worded it better. I am moreso pointing out that a player with less play-time than myself has consistently received better drops. I mean, consistent. We play together, we do the same events, the same dungeons, we level our alts. But there is a consistent difference in our drops.

In short it appears that RNG may also be affected by playtime. Causing players with more playtime invested to receive poorer drops. Which in theory does make some sense. More play time with the same drop rate of someone with less play time would bring a lot more exotics into the market.

But to the player who plays way too much and receives little to no return on their time investment, it’s almost like a punishment for playing too much. Understand?

I don’t think you’re right though, I didn’t get a single exotic drop from a world event until many months after I started doing them, and then I got 3 exotics in the span of a week or so. There’s no DR, but your brain is going to find patterns in the RNG that don’t exist because our brains are hardwired to find patterns in EVERYTHING.

@ArchonWing: There are some of us who do world events because they’re fun to do, any money made is just a bonus. Yeah it took me a month or so of world events to get 100g in the bank, but I had a lot more fun doing that than I would have had farming CoF howevermany times it would take to make that money.

rizzo.1079:

I don’t think you’re right though, I didn’t get a single exotic drop from a world event until many months after I started doing them, and then I got 3 exotics in the span of a week or so. There’s no DR, but your brain is going to find patterns in the RNG that don’t exist because our brains are hardwired to find patterns in EVERYTHING.

That’s fair, yes, our brains are hardwired to find patterns. I had two other guild-mates who had returned from a long hiatus were also getting fantastic drops. Which would reinforce the pattern.

rizzo.1079:

@ArchonWing: There are some of us who do world events because they’re fun to do, any money made is just a bonus. Yeah it took me a month or so of world events to get 100g in the bank, but I had a lot more fun doing that than I would have had farming CoF howevermany times it would take to make that money.

And I further agree here. Dragons and world events are significantly more enjoyable than repeating CoF or other similar over and over for the monies.

rizzo.1079:

@ArchonWing: There are some of us who do world events because they’re fun to do, any money made is just a bonus. Yeah it took me a month or so of world events to get 100g in the bank, but I had a lot more fun doing that than I would have had farming CoF howevermany times it would take to make that money.

And that is exactly my point and this part of the game is working as intended. You’re not in it because riches fall from the sky. You do it because it’s a more fun way than farming CoF til your eyes bleed. I would agree with such sentiment. =p

Now certainly there should be something to be gained out of it, but I just felt like posting it because when the change happened, a lot of ignorant folks used hyperbole to say that it would ruin the economy and that dragon farming was going to be the best way of farming loot blah blah blah. Nobody in this thread, but some people still believe it when they probably don’t even do the events themselves— though I suspect most were also market manipulators. But it’s not. I do it because large gatherings are fun and loot is the extra frosting. And it should be nothing more than that.

So my point was that if one really wanted quick riches, that they should look elsewhere. Expecting the dragon events to make you rich is forcing it to be something it isn’t. The mandatory rare is like that t-shirt you get for being there. Just keep your expectations to that, and it’ll be more realistic.

Distillia.9834:

rizzo.1079:

I don’t think you’re right though, I didn’t get a single exotic drop from a world event until many months after I started doing them, and then I got 3 exotics in the span of a week or so. There’s no DR, but your brain is going to find patterns in the RNG that don’t exist because our brains are hardwired to find patterns in EVERYTHING.

That’s fair, yes, our brains are hardwired to find patterns. I had two other guild-mates who had returned from a long hiatus were also getting fantastic drops. Which would reinforce the pattern.

You’re going to have to have a lot bigger sample size than that to figure out if there’s a pattern of any sort in the RNG. Like millions of drops across the playerbase kind of sample size.

@ArchonWing: Ah I see what you’re going for…good call:)

I know, sigh. I don’t have access to those kinds of numbers though.

Distillia.9834:

I know, sigh. I don’t have access to those kinds of numbers though.

Exactly…simplest answer is just perception bias on your point, not DR on the RNG, so I’d say you’ll either have to live with that or quit for a few months and come back.

I definitely agree that RNG favors those who play less. It sounds weird, but it was observed in GW1 when doing an UW/FoW run after being inactive for several months. A guildy of mine just came back after a few months of inactivity, through about 20g in the forge and ended up with a precursor. Another friend who plays less actively has gotten two super GS skins from SAB…it’s possible they’re just very lucky, but I believe inactivity is favored in the RNG.

Ah, you just reminded me about SAB. Guildie hasn’t played for 2 months, logs in to see SAB, first glorious chest, Scepter Skin.

Just another example. He doesn’t play, just wanted to see SAB so I have no more drops to tell of from him.

Pft.

I know the person Distillia has mentioned and I’m inclined to agree with her. It almost seems like there is a hidden modifier that adds a hidden passive stacking Magic Find during inactivity(kind of like rested experience in other games).

With that said; Brb, taking a trip around the world for 80 days.

On the subject of DR, I oppose it strongly, and if it were to exist should be on a long timer. (Say above 8 hours or something which would imply bot, because it seems to kick in much sooner. Of course, maybe a bit more variable.) It just hurts legit players over bots, especially now that bots can teleport. I would much rather take a nerf in mining node respawn times.

Contrary to what most people think, DR hurts casuals more. Why?

-Limited time when they can pick up the game. Imagine someone that plays the game only once a week. It’s likely they’d have to play for a bit more to get anything out of it. Whereas someone that has more free time does not need to condense their play time at all.

- Who needs gold more? The casual player of course. Let’s say DR cost you 2g in drops. Who does it hurt more? The person with 500g or the person with 10g? The casual player is more likely to be able to upgrade their gear via gold. This also applies to waypoint and repairs. The elite player is farming for skins and other things that don’t really affect gameplay save vanity. In gw2, this is not as bad, because you don’t really “need” anything, but it’s also clear if there are needs, on whose needs impact the gameplay more.

- As a general concept, money makes more money. In Gw2, this comes in the form of brokering. That’s how a lot of the rich make their gold and there’s… no DR on that!

- It’s not like there’s a notice that pops on your screen saying. “You’re experiencing Diminishing Returns, gtfo”. Is this mechanic intuitive? No. And then when someone complains they get dealt “RNG, L2P”. Which might be true, but they are also the ones less likely to be aware that this arbitrary mechanic was foisted upon them. I shouldn’t have to consult the wiki for something like this.

- Add to the likelihood that a elite player’s earn rate is higher, and well yea.

So I also see Dragon Chests as an excellent design choice. By making players move around, they may decide to kill things in the surrounding area due to convenience, and thus unknowingly avoiding DR. Also, events in general have a very poor minimum payout, and thus the guaranteed “rare” is something that is atypical and works wonders psychologically as well as in gameplay terms. And people might just visit those zones more and explore. Until people want more, of course.

If there are any neglected zones in this game, the occasional boss of that sort will easily revive it.