Guild Wars 2

I have noticed this while running with the megazerg who runs from one megaevent to another.

It seems like whenever you kill champions with such a large megablob, a large portion of the players do not receive any champion loot, despite dealing significant damage to the mob.

Considering this seems to be directly tied to the number of players partaking in the kill it has left me to believe that there is a ~50 player tag limit on champion mobs. Anyone tagging the mob later won’t be assigned any loot.

Could this be correct and if so, is it intended?

I don’t believe so. More likely, the players aren’t meeting the damage threshold for loot. Let’s imagine you need to do 2% (made up number) of the champ’s health to get credit: then, only 50 players could possibly get credit. If there were 100 players who each did 1% damage, none would get credit. Basically, the more players, the harder it is for each individual to reach the damage threshold.

While that would function as a sort of limit, you can easily get around it by having a party, because you only need the total damage from all party members to be above the threshold. Eg. 5 players in a party; 4 just tap the champ once and leave it; the 5th does 5% of the damage = all 5 players get loot.

It really feels like there is a limit. I’m usually getting loot if I manage to tag the champ immediately and never if I tag it too late even if I do more damage than when I tag it early.

Olvendred.3027:

I don’t believe so. More likely, the players aren’t meeting the damage threshold for loot. Let’s imagine you need to do 2% (made up number) of the champ’s health to get credit: then, only 50 players could possibly get credit. If there were 100 players who each did 1% damage, none would get credit. Basically, the more players, the harder it is for each individual to reach the damage threshold.

While that would function as a sort of limit, you can easily get around it by having a party, because you only need the total damage from all party members to be above the threshold. Eg. 5 players in a party; 4 just tap the champ once and leave it; the 5th does 5% of the damage = all 5 players get loot.

That’s some assumptions here. And I have personal experience that says otherwise. Got any sources to back any of that up?

For one, if it was indeed like that, how can it be that sometimes I stumble upon a champion that is almost dead, get a hit with my low level character that does what must be 0.05% damage compared to its health, and still get a Gold Contribution and the loot whereas other times I start attacking it, whack it with my level 80 char until it dies, and get Bronze Contribution and/or no loot at all.

Second, I’ve never seen it happen that you can have your party tag other mobs for you. Some people believe that loot tables are buggy / give better loot when you’re in a party, so they party up, but I can’t confirm or deny that.

On topic, I do believe there’s some threshold to how many players can tag something and still get credit. I don’t know how it’s calculated though, maybe it’s only the first/last X number of people, maybe it’s random. But it doesn’t seem to be how much damage you do.
Maybe it’s the timer messing up, as you must hit a mob about 1 second before it dies, I believe, to have the tag count.

Technically there is a limit being imposed by the damage threshold. At least I assume that’s what happens to me when I don’t get loot.

Sourde Noire.5286:

That’s some assumptions here. And I have personal experience that says otherwise. Got any sources to back any of that up?

For one, if it was indeed like that, how can it be that sometimes I stumble upon a champion that is almost dead, get a hit with my low level character that does what must be 0.05% damage compared to its health, and still get a Gold Contribution and the loot whereas other times I start attacking it, whack it with my level 80 char until it dies, and get Bronze Contribution and/or no loot at all.

Second, I’ve never seen it happen that you can have your party tag other mobs for you. Some people believe that loot tables are buggy / give better loot when you’re in a party, so they party up, but I can’t confirm or deny that.

On topic, I do believe there’s some threshold to how many players can tag something and still get credit. I don’t know how it’s calculated though, maybe it’s only the first/last X number of people, maybe it’s random. But it doesn’t seem to be how much damage you do.
Maybe it’s the timer messing up, as you must hit a mob about 1 second before it dies, I believe, to have the tag count.

Sources? Not off the top of my head. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot#Participation That tells you about the damage threshold. I recall one patch or dev post where they told us they were reducing the threshold needed for champions, so that more players could tag them. That’s why it’s easier to tag champs than Elites or Vets.

Your party can’t tag other mobs for you, but they can bring you up to the damage threshold. Eg. you need to do arbitrary number 2000 damage to a mob: if each person in your party does 600 damage to it, you all get loot. If all the other 4 but you do 600 damage to it, you personally do not get loot.

I can’t account for anecdotal evidence, of course. Any number of factors could be influencing why you got Gold one time and Bronze another.

It can’t really be a fixed damage number though. I’m talking about a Full Berserker Mesmer who, despite tagging the Champ at 80% HP, can’t get a “tag” in a mass blob. I mean it did take at least 20 seconds for the blob to melt the champ, more than enough time to deal significant damage.

Yet no “tag”.

That’s why I doubt it matters how much damage you deal. It’s about tagging it before the vast majority does.

Olvendred.3027:

While that would function as a sort of limit, you can easily get around it by having a party, because you only need the total damage from all party members to be above the threshold. Eg. 5 players in a party; 4 just tap the champ once and leave it; the 5th does 5% of the damage = all 5 players get loot.

Except that not being forced to group was one of GW2 attractions, and now their broken code is forcing it — and it still does not ensure you get credit for your time.

Circumstances under which I sometimes don’t or do get loot are seemingly without rhyme or reason, so I’m assuming it just doesn’t work right, i.e. it’s just bugged.

Been in the game since launch, you can tag an event itself without tagging the mob. The more players hitting it, the harder it is to tag since it dies faster. You can even get gold on an event without tagging the mob you’re fighting.

Simple soloution is to group up.. it pools the groups damage in order to meet the thresh hold..

I have had it happen where when in a full group, I only need to hit the enemy once (For ~200pts) to get credit for the kill.. while solo I have to hit it at least 3 or 4 times (and hope for crits) to get credit.

I’m guessing there is a tagging limit. I’m pretty sure I’ve been at events where I’ve done sizable damage to the boss, not got the champion loot, but have got gold event completion for hitting only that boss. These were big zerg events.

Dee Jay.2460:

It can’t really be a fixed damage number though.

Ah. Well, yes, it isn’t a fixed damage number. Not when we’re talking about event champions, anyway, because of scaling. When more players are in an event radius, the event scales up, and the champion’s health pool increases. So 2000 damage might get you over the threshold when there are 5 players around, but not when there are 50.

And this scaling happens dynamically, so: 5 players start an event. You do 2000 damage and then stop. 45 more players show up (considerably increasing the champs’ HP pool) and start DPS’ing. Right at the end, another player shows up and does 2000 damage. In this scenario, you will potentially get loot, while the player who showed up at the end will not. Because the damage threshold increased as more players showed up.

I just as often get my champion bags when I tag one within the last few seconds of its existence during a huge zerg event as I don’t get loot when I’ve been whacking at a champion from the moment it spawned until it dies. No explanation anyone ever provided fits my experiences. I can really only conclude that the whole system is unreliable and bugged.

Dear wear PVT gear OP, stuff shouldn’t even exist in PvE.

I was just fighting a champion in orr with about 3 others. 100 blades + flameblast from my sigil and I was dropping tons of damage. I even received a gold medal for killing him but I did not get my champion loot like the others.

There was only 4 of us so how could that be explained?

“IG: How does the nitty-gritty of XP and loot sharing work?
EF: For just a monster.., each monster has a threshold of a percent of its health whereby if someone deals that threshold/percent of damage (it’s about five to ten percent), you get full credit for it.”

From: http://www.incgamers.com/2011/06/interview-designing-guild-wars-2-part-2

As this is what the wiki is stating (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot), I doubt there is a later source contradicting this. Also, I can find no evidence that being in a party increases loot, other than anecdotal forum posts. If there is any, please link — or stop claiming that to be the truth.

@Gizmo: the only explanations I can think of are: you did not do enough damage to qualify; you qualified to roll for loot, and that champ bags are not a guaranteed drop; or that you were the victim of a bug.

There probably isn’t a tag limit. Indigo explained it pretty well. We also saw that there wasn’t a tag limit during the destruction of LA and pre-patch players found it extremely beneficial to zerg the watchwork knights to receive alot of loot until they added an artificial tag limit through the light buff(only gave out 50 buffs to players).

If it keeps happening, join a party, makes it much easier iirc

Seems that there’s something going on, whether it’s a tag limit or that the Champs scale rediculously high with more people so that you have to do an incredible amount of damage to tag them. Like, for example, when doing Claw of Jormag sometimes I’ll get champ bags and sometimes not even if I feel I’ve done a more than reasonable amount of damage to a certain champ.

Justin.7163:

Seems that there’s something going on, whether it’s a tag limit or that the Champs scale rediculously high with more people so that you have to do an incredible amount of damage to tag them. Like, for example, when doing Claw of Jormag sometimes I’ll get champ bags and sometimes not even if I feel I’ve done a more than reasonable amount of damage to a certain champ.

Thought the champs in that event don’t drop loot and Jormag doesn’t drop a bag, but instead a chest and a floaty chest if you haven’t completed it for the day and participated in the event.

TheGaryTh.1649:

Justin.7163:

Seems that there’s something going on, whether it’s a tag limit or that the Champs scale rediculously high with more people so that you have to do an incredible amount of damage to tag them. Like, for example, when doing Claw of Jormag sometimes I’ll get champ bags and sometimes not even if I feel I’ve done a more than reasonable amount of damage to a certain champ.

Thought the champs in that event don’t drop loot and Jormag doesn’t drop a bag, but instead a chest and a floaty chest if you haven’t completed it for the day and participated in the event.

But some of the champs that spawn do indeed drop chests. Like last night I managed to tag a champ that spawned from the cliffs on the sides and a chest appeared (with a champ box inside) during the fight. I know that defeating Jormag spawns the little chest icons on the side but this was separate from those. The spawning of the dropped, lootable chests just seems kind of random sometimes.

As someone who has done the temple run on NSP on a nightly basis, my best advice is join a group. It’s hard to reach the minimum damage threshold alone but your party will likely get you credit. I usually PUG up but when I don’t, I don’t get champ bags.

Join a group.

IndigoSundown.5419:

“IG: How does the nitty-gritty of XP and loot sharing work?
EF: For just a monster.., each monster has a threshold of a percent of its health whereby if someone deals that threshold/percent of damage (it’s about five to ten percent), you get full credit for it.”

From: http://www.incgamers.com/2011/06/interview-designing-guild-wars-2-part-2

As this is what the wiki is stating (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot), I doubt there is a later source contradicting this. Also, I can find no evidence that being in a party increases loot, other than anecdotal forum posts. If there is any, please link — or stop claiming that to be the truth.

Those numbers can’t be the whole story behind looting. It’s a almost 3 year old quote anyway, the game has changed since then, multiple times and drastically.

The bolded section implies that only 10 to 20 people can ever qualify for loot from a single monster. Surely, more people than that can loot champions while playing as part of a zerg.

Manasa Devi.7958:

IndigoSundown.5419:

“IG: How does the nitty-gritty of XP and loot sharing work?
EF: For just a monster.., each monster has a threshold of a percent of its health whereby if someone deals that threshold/percent of damage (it’s about five to ten percent), you get full credit for it.”

From: http://www.incgamers.com/2011/06/interview-designing-guild-wars-2-part-2

As this is what the wiki is stating (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot), I doubt there is a later source contradicting this. Also, I can find no evidence that being in a party increases loot, other than anecdotal forum posts. If there is any, please link — or stop claiming that to be the truth.

Those numbers can’t be the whole story behind looting. It’s a almost 3 year old quote anyway, the game has changed since then, multiple times and drastically.

The bolded section implies that only 10 to 20 people can ever qualify for loot from a single monster. Surely, more people than that can loot champions while playing as part of a zerg.

Absent official statements, however, it’s what we’ve got. Champ bags may very well have separate requirements, but I can find nothing from Anet to that effect. It may be that more than 20 get champ bags — given the numbers I used to see in Scarlet invasions, I’d have to say that’s possible.

However, it seems clear that not everyone is getting champ bags, so there is some kind of criteria. About all I can offer, which is again anecdotal, is that when I’ve killed Champs with my engineer I get lesser bags a lot — probably due to condition non-credit. With a GC warrior or ranger, I was consistently getting the best bags unless really late to the party.

IndigoSundown.5419:

“IG: How does the nitty-gritty of XP and loot sharing work?
EF: For just a monster.., each monster has a threshold of a percent of its health whereby if someone deals that threshold/percent of damage (it’s about five to ten percent), you get full credit for it.”

From: http://www.incgamers.com/2011/06/interview-designing-guild-wars-2-part-2

As this is what the wiki is stating (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot), I doubt there is a later source contradicting this. Also, I can find no evidence that being in a party increases loot, other than anecdotal forum posts. If there is any, please link — or stop claiming that to be the truth..

Haven’t got the party thing yet, it’s probably in some long lost post. I’ll see about looking for it. And even if there’s not one, it’s gone well beyond ‘anecdotal’ into ‘accepted wisdom.’

However, in the 26/02/2013 patch (Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm), we got this, which is evidence for the next bit of what I’ve said (about how they lowered the thresholds for champs):

Reward Updates

Credit for killing creatures is now easier to receive in situations when many players are attacking a single target.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Also, I can find no evidence that being in a party increases loot, other than anecdotal forum posts. If there is any, please link — or stop claiming that to be the truth.

This has been discussed so many times…

It seems the more people that join in on an event, regardless of the stage, the more it gets screwy. My ele can join in on a champ kill and get full gold credit/participation for the event, but zero loot from the champ. My warrior can join in at about 75% health and DPS it’s way to victory, getting the full benefit from partaking in the kill — gold participation and the appropriate level of champ bag.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Meta-Events-The-Great-DPS-Race

This thread I made discusses the circumstances and possible solutions at length, but while Anet refuse to acknowledge and speak up about it then the situation remains unchanged, people get more suspicious and the event/champ kill stays broken.

Justin.7163:

TheGaryTh.1649:

Justin.7163:

Seems that there’s something going on, whether it’s a tag limit or that the Champs scale rediculously high with more people so that you have to do an incredible amount of damage to tag them. Like, for example, when doing Claw of Jormag sometimes I’ll get champ bags and sometimes not even if I feel I’ve done a more than reasonable amount of damage to a certain champ.

Thought the champs in that event don’t drop loot and Jormag doesn’t drop a bag, but instead a chest and a floaty chest if you haven’t completed it for the day and participated in the event.

But some of the champs that spawn do indeed drop chests. Like last night I managed to tag a champ that spawned from the cliffs on the sides and a chest appeared (with a champ box inside) during the fight. I know that defeating Jormag spawns the little chest icons on the side but this was separate from those. The spawning of the dropped, lootable chests just seems kind of random sometimes.

There are two new champs now, Quaggan and Kodan i think, and at least one of them seems to drop a bag. The Wolf and the other champ (Troll?) that was always there still don’t drop anything.

Something seems to be going on. The new champs at the little wurm, sometimes I get bags and sometimes I don’t. I do plenty of damage.

The worst offender is the Maw fellow (whatever his name is). I can do the same damage and rotation one time and get his bag, and then other times get nothing.

If there is a tag threshold, there shouldn’t be one.

I don’t think there should be any sort of damage threshold with megaservers. Not even sure it made sense before. If you hit it, and see a little white damage number, that’s it, you get the loot.

I have also noticed not getting rewards despite doing upwards to 80k or so damage to the champ before it goes down in large zergs

If anyone visually knows by damage being dealt that they did enough damage yet did not get loot then it’s most likely server lag or client lag or both causing the game to not credit someone on the server for the amount of damage shown on the client side. The best way to avoid this is just to party up, it is a MMO after all so why play if you’re not going to play with people?

Following a mindless champ train zerg is not actually playing with people, that’s just mindlessly following a farming routine that other people are also doing. Maybe Anet notices and might address this, maybe they won’t because Anet does want people to group up and grouping up would solve this problem for anyone that is getting this problem.

Also if people party up in a party of 5 people then they have a better chance at getting better drops by doing more total damage via the party so it just makes sense to start a party or join a party for champ farming.

I don’t buy the 50 tag limit myth, or the damage threshold myth. (And yes, I know the threshold is in the wiki.) But I’ve come in late to champ kills (no party) and gotten in only a couple of shots and still gotten loot, so if there is a threshold it is very low.

Naevius.3185:

I don’t buy the 50 tag limit myth, or the damage threshold myth. (And yes, I know the threshold is in the wiki.) But I’ve come in late to champ kills (no party) and gotten in only a couple of shots and still gotten loot, so if there is a threshold it is very low.

Yes, and I have had this happen as well.

But since the megaservers, the opposite has been true, where I’ve been there the whole time, damaging consistently, and still gotten nothing.

So whether it’s damage thresholds, tagging max, or what have you, there is something not working there.

When I haven’t got loot, it’s usually because I arrive late, and don’t do much damage. That’s what I think anyway, But it could be that I was added too late and there was already a limit or something.

You could just go around solo champs with a necro

I’ve noticed it weighs when the damage was delt, not just total damage.
so the first 5% damage delt is less likely to get loot vs. the last 1% damage delt.

some other weirdness: when killing other players, even a slight tap will get you full credit.

I would like to point out: as an example, with a big zerg, The Shatterer has upwards of 8 million HP. probably more now with his revamp. point being that if you sneak in 10,000 damage, that’s just 0.125%.

I love getting credit for an event for killing a champ but not credit for killing the champ :P