Guild Wars 2

Apparently, a certain economist has stated that Diminishing Returns is no longer “a thing.”

I’m going to take this as true, for the case of my request.

If it’s not a thing.. I graciously request that you disable it from the game, even temporarily as a test.

Perhaps it’s used as a “bot check” method? I additionally suggest you leave in a flag to tell when a player would have entered DR under typical conditions, so you can continue to track it.

Watch for a few days/weeks and see if people notice.. and what impact it has on the supply in the game.

Heck, it might even help you better catch botters, since they will be more likely to stay in one place to farm

Thanks!

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Watch for a few days/weeks and see if people notice.. and what impact it has on the supply in the game.

Unfortunately by then the damage to the economy would be done and irreversible.

your premise is flawed anyway… DR is being applied to a very small portion of the active player base and if you’re one of those few being affected by it, you’re supposed to be affected by it.

the system is working, I’m not sure what would be improved by allowing the accounts triggering it to bypass it.

It’s like saying “police have only given 5 speeding tickets on this street in the last month so we should just remove the speed limit here”

There’s more than one map in this game.

Move!

Hm… honestly I think there should be a way to track diminishing returns real-time so you know how much it’s affecting you. Like, some sort of debuff/stacks counter.

Well, the game could kindly send you a message that you’ve been somewhere for too long.

I guess they don’t want the mechanics to be too concrete in fear of people exploiting it…. of which they’re doing anyways.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Unfortunately by then the damage to the economy would be done and irreversible.

Using a baseless assumption to claim a flawed premise.

But if we get rid of DR entirely, what will I blame for my bad RNG?!?

Oniyui.8279:

Hm… honestly I think there should be a way to track diminishing returns real-time so you know how much it’s affecting you. Like, some sort of debuff/stacks counter.

it would be a great tool for bot designers to come right up to the limit.

the system is purposefully opaque to avoid reverse engineering.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Unfortunately by then the damage to the economy would be done and irreversible.

Using a baseless assumption to claim a flawed premise.

How is it baseless? we’ve had several examples of it throughout the lifespan of the game.

Ok, so I read the thread and the comments about DR. He did say that 26 in the last hour had hit DR. (at the time of his post). He did also state, that virtually nobody hits DR, and with the exception of the halloween event, DR isn’t even a thing. The way I read that is, DR is still there, and although VERY few people hit it, it isn’t something that an average player, or even a hardcore farmer should have to be worried about.

At least thats what I got out of it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/page/16#post4569768

Yes, that is also what I got out of it.. Hence my question.

One thing worth noting, is many players suspect there are multiple levels of diminishing returns. There are also different types of diminishing returns with separate flags, on event rewards, on dungeon rewards, on loot drops, for example.

Based on personal observation, and the observations of other players, it’s my belief that diminishing returns on loot drops has various levels. The more you kill a mob of a certain type, and/or the more you kill any mob within a given zone, you’ll start to see more and more ‘empty kills’ where instead of averaging loot every 2-3 kills, it might start taking 5 or more kills between your average drop, and slowly increases. Whether you inevitably reach a point where no loot will drop at all is still unknown, but that’s the conclusion that was drawn by some people given how the maize balm farm worked.

There’s also per-character flags for diminishing returns, as well as account accrued. He never specifies what type of diminishing returns he rarely sees “in any given hour”. If it’s the absolute ‘no-loot-at-all’ limit, then it’s completely expected that that number would be low. If it’s account wide, then of course that number should be low as well. But what about the initial steps of diminishing returns on loot that many of us suspect exist within as little as 30 minutes (depending on how fast you’re able to kill mobs)?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

It’s like saying “police have only given 5 speeding tickets on this street in the last month so we should just remove the speed limit here”

Except the analogy should be more along the lines of, only 5 people were given $200 speeding tickets in the last month, but every person who drove more than 5mph on the road were charged $1 per mile and most of them don’t even realize it.

I wondered if they changed something. It did seem to ease off some, much harder to get to a point where you know you are being penalized, an. It will take several days testing to see if there is a very noticable difference, but it also does seem to reset easier. Maybe that is what they changed, so that the ones falling through the cracks weren’t penalized for simply playing the game .

SKATE.1394:

One thing worth noting, is many players suspect there are multiple levels of diminishing returns. There are also different types of diminishing returns with separate flags, on event rewards, on dungeon rewards, on loot drops, for example.

Based on personal observation, and the observations of other players, it’s my belief that diminishing returns on loot drops has various levels. The more you kill a mob of a certain type, and/or the more you kill any mob within a given zone, you’ll start to see more and more ‘empty kills’ where instead of averaging loot every 2-3 kills, it might start taking 5 or more kills between your average drop, and slowly increases. Whether you inevitably reach a point where no loot will drop at all is still unknown, but that’s the conclusion that was drawn by some people given how the maize balm farm worked.

There’s also per-character flags for diminishing returns, as well as account accrued. He never specifies what type of diminishing returns he rarely sees “in any given hour”. If it’s the absolute ‘no-loot-at-all’ limit, then it’s completely expected that that number would be low. If it’s account wide, then of course that number should be low as well. But what about the initial steps of diminishing returns on loot that many of us suspect exist within as little as 30 minutes (depending on how fast you’re able to kill mobs)?

I can guarantee there is. And I don’t believe for a minute it only affects a handful.

But it also seems pretty easy to remove as well.

Because some players do hit it, and as long as one player reaches the point where DR kicks in then it is doing its job, the way it’s been set up.

The numbers do not tell the whole story. 4/5 dentists recommend brand x toothpaste. Well that’s nice, but it means almost nothing. Here we have 26 for one hour on a Monday morning. Again that’s nice, but it doesn’t tell us much of anything. He also noted that not including Halloween we have not had triple digits in that category either. Now we can take a high of 99 and a low of 0 and assume an average of 50 per hour (ofc this is only if we take any of the numbers to mean anything what so ever). 50 per hour times 24 hours equates to 1200 players per day hitting DR. Woohoo this is going places….lol. Now we have 8400 per week. Knock that down to 4200 for repeat offenders and take a high estimate of 400k concurrent….carry the 1…and calculating…calculating…calculating……..You have a better chance of hitting DR than of getting a precursor! Virtually nobody divided by 2 gets a precursor.

Essence Snow.3194:

The numbers do not tell the whole story. 4/5 dentists recommend brand x toothpaste. Well that’s nice, but it means almost nothing. Here we have 26 for one hour on a Monday morning. Again that’s nice, but it doesn’t tell us much of anything. He also noted that not including Halloween we have not had triple digits in that category either. Now we can take a high of 99 and a low of 0 and assume an average of 50 per hour (ofc this is only if we take any of the numbers to mean anything what so ever). 50 per hour times 24 hours equates to 1200 players per day hitting DR. Woohoo this is going places….lol. Now we have 8400 per week. Knock that down to 4200 for repeat offenders and take a high estimate of 400k concurrent….carry the 1…and calculating…calculating…calculating……..You have a better chance of hitting DR than of getting a precursor! Virtually nobody divided by 2 gets a precursor.

Except getting a precursor is random, while dimishing returns has no randomness whatsoever. I appreciate your attempt to state the size of the problem, but once again.. this is why I am asking why it even exists if it has such a marginal impact.

At best, it’s a bot-flag. At worst, it’s a penalty against the most dedicated… or obsessed, depending on your perspective.. players.

Sorry I thought my sarcasm was a bit more obvious. My point was the data of 26 ppl hitting DR during 1 random hour during 1 random day means just about nothing.

RollingBob.8502:

I wondered if they changed something. It did seem to ease off some, much harder to get to a point where you know you are being penalized, an. It will take several days testing to see if there is a very noticable difference, but it also does seem to reset easier. Maybe that is what they changed, so that the ones falling through the cracks weren’t penalized for simply playing the game .

It may be the type of loot being farmed. Chests as as a whole, including their contents, aren’t affected (though the xp/karma reward is if you stay at the same event repeatedly). This is why the Amber farm returned a continuous stream of reward boxes no matter how long one stayed. The same happens in Frostgorge.

It’s only mob loot (and the maize farm was a 1-item loot table mob drop), which is easiest to test in maps like Cursed Shore, where diminishing returns introduces the opportunity to have its greatest impact. That is.. players who spend hours in the map, running Plinx every half hour while waiting for the temples. Scaling up the temples to have massive numbers of monsters… and of course, remember, there are 3 temples to wait for.

Note, it’s not the time spent there, but the number of kills… which is proven by:

In the Maize farm, the number of trick or treat bags farmable before DR appears, from what I read of other players reports, based on drop count and not on clock time.

Removing DR, on the other hand, most definitely relies on clock time. Change maps, take out a few random mobs, wait 20-25 minutes, take out a few more, then WP back to your farm.

so tl;dr: my view is that it is the reward structure for maps that has changed more than the DR code itself.