Guild Wars 2

So we’ve all heard about stealth patches , broken dr and rng , and yada yada yada things anet quickly dismissed , but playing the game says othwerwise.
But I was chatting with a buddy and he said something interesting. Maybe those that are blessed by the rng , that 1% of players, are not random. Is it possible to gain positive rng because you , let’s say , payed extra ? Deluxe edition , heavy gem shopper etc etc? This is a a quite frightening thought but more so because of it is actually possible .
Any thoughts ?
I whole-heartedly hope I’m wrong

I doubt it. I bought a Collector’s Edition and have spent about £40 on bank slots and such. and my runs of luck aren’t consistent.

Basically – impossible to know unless you’re ANet and they’re not telling.

Possible? Sure… but what would the point be, if nobody knows about it? The people who have it would just assume all was well, and the ones who don’t would be dissatisfied and not even realize spending money would make any difference… so it would just seem like it would continue to be bad, but with additional cost.

A lot of things are “possible”

No. Not the case.

I have a guildee who’s spent about a jaguar’s worth (the car) of money. His drops are no better or worse than mine.

/this thread before the crazies come

No I don’t think so. I buy gems regularly and I can tell you, my drops are utter garbage! Consistently too.

Oreoz.2573:

No. Not the case.

I have a guildee who’s spent about a jaguar’s worth (the car) of money. His drops are no better or worse than mine.

/this thread before the crazies come

Is the car more or less expensive than an actual jaguar?

Xandax.1753:

Basically – impossible to know unless you’re ANet and they’re not telling.

And they probably don’t know either.
http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/Wi_Flag
There are a lot of things that can influence and bug the RNG generator (think of the DR bug, but not only that).
Anyway, at this point I’m pretty sure there isn’t really a working RNG. And I’m not talking about the fact that computers can’t really generate random numbers (we all know that, at this point, I hope).
Just an example, this is a personal observation shared by my ex-guildmates:
One of my ex guildmates had an average of an exotic drop every 6 rares. He always got at least one rare every dungeon run. The same person dropped 2 abyss dyes and 1 celestial. The same person dropped a Dusk during a CoF run.
All this just playing casually, not farming (he doesn’t play that much), and without any MF.
This is just one positive example, and I’m sure most of you can share similar stories.

Alts! That’s was my answer to the unrandom RNG. My first character is severely and permanently gimped for drops. Lots of blues and nothing but blues. My second character does better. My third character turned out to be my gold mine though. If I need gold, I go to this character, do anything, and get awesome drops.

If loot is not dropping for you, look to your alts. Find and level the cash cow. You’ll be glad you did.

Some players DO seem to be the lucky ones – but there’s no correlation to anything that I can see.

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

K.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here

Said so, since I don’t want to appear more negative than I really am, I would say that I like how you’re working to make it all fairer to everyone, more than you already did at start (I really apreciate tokens for armors and weapons, I really dislike counting on a random chance for your dream item. Well… you just have to fix precursors some way.).
Anyway, I don’t really understand why use laurels instead of karma or achi points… we already have way too many currencies, are you planning to add more and more with time? You realize it will eventually become a mess?

ColinJohanson.2394:

TooBz.3065:

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Thanks for the comment. It helps diffuse the conspiracy theorists. It is correct to say that there is no account specific information that is used as a seed in the random number generator?

That’s the only way that I could see any difference in drops for accounts.

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory. The only thing you can do to alter a specific characters chances is magic find which is a stat visible on your character from gear/food, for loot drops specifically.

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Thank you for taking this direction. As one of the extremely unlucky people, I’m a huge fan of the laurels/tokens and similar systems you’ve implemented to help us out.

Orion.7264:

ColinJohanson.2394:

TooBz.3065:

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Thanks for the comment. It helps diffuse the conspiracy theorists. It is correct to say that there is no account specific information that is used as a seed in the random number generator?

That’s the only way that I could see any difference in drops for accounts.

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory. The only thing you can do to alter a specific characters chances is magic find which is a stat visible on your character from gear/food, for loot drops specifically.

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Thank you for taking this direction. As one of the extremely unlucky people, I’m a huge fan of the laurels/tokens and similar systems you’ve implemented to help us out.

Thank you……you made my morning…well your comment in conjunction with your signature did

ColinJohanson.2394:

TooBz.3065:

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Thanks for the comment. It helps diffuse the conspiracy theorists. It is correct to say that there is no account specific information that is used as a seed in the random number generator?

That’s the only way that I could see any difference in drops for accounts.

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory. The only thing you can do to alter a specific characters chances is magic find which is a stat visible on your character from gear/food, for loot drops specifically.

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

I resemble that last remark.

I don’t think a tinfoil hat is necessary to come up with an answer to the problem. Most people misunderstand RNG and its use in a loot system. The loot system is not random. It is more appropriate to understand it as a rules-based system that uses RNG to spread results.

The problem here is in the tuning of the loot system, i.e. adjusting the rules that govern the system. Anet can make loot, for the common player, a wasteland or the big rock candy mountain. The goal is to follow the middle path where the common player experiences reward for playing the game. They have not arrived at that middle path and it is why you see these threads over and over. When you no longer see them you will know that they have it tuned correctly.

I want to find some way of testing out all my characters now to see if there’s one that attracts loot… but… I have 6 of them and getting the remaining 4 to 80 just for this seems like a lot of effort. I’d probably have more gold by then than I’d want for anything, anyway.

I don’t see that actually. My GM that left the guild and the game permanently paid a metric butt-ton more money on both the game and the store then i did but he too got tired of not getting anything for his time (as well as the glaring problems necromancers face on every patch day) So I don’t think that’s the issue.

I do however think they seriously need to take a look at their data collection software because it’s very obvious that it’s not working because it’s STILL not showing them the simplest of the problems to look at like, vets/champs not dropping anything or dropping whites only or porous bones dropping off everything during an Orr event with hordes of undead dying all over the place. There is definitely something wrong that closed test servers aren’t revealing.

ColinJohanson.2394:

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory. The only thing you can do to alter a specific characters chances is magic find which is a stat visible on your character from gear/food, for loot drops specifically.

Isn’t there one other factor you missed here? If you have triggered Diminishing Returns by farming an area over and over that also is factored in to loot drops, no? That is by Account/Player over I think an unspecified amount of time before that returns to normal. Amiright?

Lol, I have the deluxe edition and I can tell you that we do not get better loot. After farming a couple events in the area, I get nothing but junk.

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Can we get a little bit of clarification on what mf alters?
Because its hard to distinguish between just drop number and quality drop numbers to see the difference.
From my point of view it looks like its just increaseing the number of drops before dr reduces them to what we know atm.
Also i have to mention that there are several of people me included that dont want/cant go to dungeons.
I did a large number of dungeons in gw1 and the drops there made me hate them utterly.
Are we suffering a penalty for not doing them?

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

But, MF does not work on my character. So I started playing without it and my odds increased a very little bit?

I started getting a lot more of those porous bone drops than before.

Would be great if the market was there for porous bones…but not.

From what I’ve seen , mf increases the chance of porous bones.Stacks and stacks of porous bones. Anet if you’re keeping the kittenty and broken loot system at least let me build a castle or something out of those bones

Colin, my warrior friend gets 3x more rares than I do. And I have some magic find and he doesnt. Also when I swapped from condition damage to raw damage I started getting more loot. There was also a time where we got 4 items as loot, and I got 2.

So Im pretty sure better loot is being given to whoever deals the most damage and this is incredibly frustating and agaisnt the philosophy of “play your way” of Guild Wars 2.

We would all appreciate if you could give us a brief explanation on how loot is handled. Thanks in advance

ColinJohanson.2394:

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory.

Is any RNG done on the players computer using system data of some sort? It would explain a little why different players have consistently good/bad luck.

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Why in my case do I get less drops, less equipment, but more fine crafting material with MF when compared to without MF?

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Get rid of Magic Find and while your at it Diminished Returns as well. Neither works as intended, both as code and social engineering.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Colin, my warrior friend gets 3x more rares than I do. And I have some magic find and he doesnt. Also when I swapped from condition damage to raw damage I started getting more loot. There was also a time where we got 4 items as loot, and I got 2.

So Im pretty sure better loot is being given to whoever deals the most damage and this is incredibly frustating and agaisnt the philosophy of “play your way” of Guild Wars 2.

We would all appreciate if you could give us a brief explanation on how loot is handled. Thanks in advance

-Then shouldn’t we be getting more if we kill stuff alone? I can’t say I’ve noticed that happen. Maybe you were just going through enemies faster and thus having more chances at the same rate?

My RNG has been in the toilet for three months. That’s some long lasting bad luck. Like never ending gobstopper long lasting. But it’s good to know it’s not actually my account. So, I must assume receiving 5 blues, 13 whites and bags full of trash is normal for 8 hours of playtime. Every single time I play. And it’s really the people reporting multiple exotic and rare drops daily that are actually the ones that have perception issues. Laurels will solve all my problems. Crazy, over the rainbow ….

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Colin, my warrior friend gets 3x more rares than I do. And I have some magic find and he doesnt. Also when I swapped from condition damage to raw damage I started getting more loot. There was also a time where we got 4 items as loot, and I got 2.

So Im pretty sure better loot is being given to whoever deals the most damage and this is incredibly frustating and agaisnt the philosophy of “play your way” of Guild Wars 2.

We would all appreciate if you could give us a brief explanation on how loot is handled. Thanks in advance

I am beginning to think DPS does factor into loot. I have 1 lvl80 char, a ranger, that is running beserker gear with pirate runes. I get very poor loot and it’s gotten worse in the past few months. (never had an exotic drop in PvE or WvW nor a lodestone +700hrs)
HOWEVER I found out that if I group up with others and stay near them in Orr I will get rares and greens. If we stick to the same mobs I get higher quantity and higher quality loot. It happens every single time.
Of course once DR kicks in I can’t shake it so I end up switching characters to a low level alt and finish dailies then log off. ( no changing maps, zones, characters, anything will shake DR once it hits)

I really think there is something to the speed at which you kill mobs having something to do with loot. If I go to low level maps and solo I have a much higher chance at getting greens than anywhere else unless grouped.

Instead of another currency, 35 days for a pink ring?…..no pink back packs for laurels?

Why not just raise the loot rate game wide…to please your Paying customers?

The same Patch you lowered the dye rate drop, lowered all my loot ive gotten since, coincidence.. i’d say no.

Infernia.9847:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Colin, my warrior friend gets 3x more rares than I do. And I have some magic find and he doesnt. Also when I swapped from condition damage to raw damage I started getting more loot. There was also a time where we got 4 items as loot, and I got 2.

So Im pretty sure better loot is being given to whoever deals the most damage and this is incredibly frustating and agaisnt the philosophy of “play your way” of Guild Wars 2.

We would all appreciate if you could give us a brief explanation on how loot is handled. Thanks in advance

I am beginning to think DPS does factor into loot. I have 1 lvl80 char, a ranger, that is running beserker gear with pirate runes. I get very poor loot and it’s gotten worse in the past few months. (never had an exotic drop in PvE or WvW nor a lodestone +700hrs)
HOWEVER I found out that if I group up with others and stay near them in Orr I will get rares and greens. If we stick to the same mobs I get higher quantity and higher quality loot. It happens every single time.
Of course once DR kicks in I can’t shake it so I end up switching characters to a low level alt and finish dailies then log off. ( no changing maps, zones, characters, anything will shake DR once it hits)

I really think there is something to the speed at which you kill mobs having something to do with loot. If I go to low level maps and solo I have a much higher chance at getting greens than anywhere else unless grouped.

If you are fighting with a zerg, you need to be grouped or you will get greatly reduced drops. It’s based on the team damage (and tagging still) at that point…. Or at least I’ve been told and have seen.

All the conspiracy theorists here should really learn some basic statistics. There is absolutely nothing strange about a small fraction of players appearing to have better than average luck.

havoc.6814:

Alts! That’s was my answer to the unrandom RNG. My first character is severely and permanently gimped for drops. Lots of blues and nothing but blues. My second character does better. My third character turned out to be my gold mine though. If I need gold, I go to this character, do anything, and get awesome drops.

If loot is not dropping for you, look to your alts. Find and level the cash cow. You’ll be glad you did.

This.
My main is so unlucky that I think she is broken- I almost never get any drops on her whatsoever, not even porous bones.
My alts do better and my engi rains loot from the sky- she is lvl45 now and I’m getting her to 80 asap

ColinJohanson.2394:

This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

I think a lot of people are eagerly anticipating the legendary precursor treasure hunt, but that they are dreading the grind/purchase of lodestones, which are only available via fortune (in the senses of either luck or money) and don’t appear to be purchasable using the “long term timeline” method you describe above.

I have to say I agree with the general perception but I’ve gotten over the whole where’s my loot, to being able to smile when something yellow does drop and hitting my space bar once or twice.

But saying that I’ve noticed that the new hero panel omits Magic find as a stat (and no longer tells you your total condition damage), and was wondering if races or class differences would provide different magic find numbers as a default. I notice that when I jump on my Human Thife for example, it tends to be more supprising in terms of what drops compared to my Norn Warrior that I play mostly, and have wondered if their base stats as far as magic find goes, are different in any way.

I’m guessing probably not, and is more tied to how offten that character plays and spends time in Tyria, but it would be nice to know in terms of being ignorant due to lack of information and noticing that kind of disparity…. Not that I’m demanding answers, just stating my curiosity..

And I agree, as someone who got the DE I’ve found magic find makes a difference dispite what some people say, and that the serial code has little to nothing to do with what drops (in my case).

So ColinJohanson.2394, why doesn’t ANet use the laurel system to offset some of the randomness of the MF with precursors by coding em into the vendor at say 120ish laurels. That would equate to about 3 months of work if you did dailies EVERY day and the monthly. And yes, i know it’s abit off topic but seeing as how the biggest RNG complaint is based on MF and precursors, i’d figure i’d chime in.

I don’t really see lodestones as too much of a problem since they require small chunks of cash to purchase and can be gotten here and there. The precursors tho require a HUGE chunk of cash upfront and with the current inflation of em making it just that much worse.

Yesterday i did 28 1-clover tries in row, (after failing nearly all 10-clover tries for 3 days), and i got 0 clovers from those 28 tries in row yes zero.

0,67^28 → chance of this happening is 0,0000135.

Since I’m already working on a third legendary, from my earlier observations, once you get a clover, its very likely you’ll get one more clover right after it.

While I dont think this RNG-system favours some accounts over others, I do think your system isnt that random, cause the amount of lucky or unlucky “streaks” is too common in this game.
When you have 4 rares salvage 3 and get 0 ectos the last will most likely give you 0 too, while when you salvage and get 1-3 ectos each the last will probably give you at least one ecto too.

The longer I play this game the more I think that what you get is also dependent on what you got before.

Its like when i put my music on shuffle, some songs tend too play after each other regularly. These systems aren’t rlly random.

Infernia.9847:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Colin, my warrior friend gets 3x more rares than I do. And I have some magic find and he doesnt. Also when I swapped from condition damage to raw damage I started getting more loot. There was also a time where we got 4 items as loot, and I got 2.

So Im pretty sure better loot is being given to whoever deals the most damage and this is incredibly frustating and agaisnt the philosophy of “play your way” of Guild Wars 2.

We would all appreciate if you could give us a brief explanation on how loot is handled. Thanks in advance

I really think there is something to the speed at which you kill mobs having something to do with loot. If I go to low level maps and solo I have a much higher chance at getting greens than anywhere else unless grouped.

I thought so as well but ever since switching to a higher dps output build and them increasing the damage output of the engineers that hasn’t been the case for me, I still get junk all the time nomatter where I’m at or how long it’s been since I played. DR needs to be shut down entirely because It’s obviously working as intended (keeping people from making gold in game) or it’s completely bugged and they just can’t detect it with their software, either way it’s harming the players and that’s never a good thing no loot is the fastest way you can alienate your playerbase and we’re seeing it happen.

I bought digital deluxe, and probably ~$200 worth of gems so far, and I have absolutely terrible luck. Both in the MF, and with drops.

Assuming that RNG is functioning correctly.

Many aspects of GW2 don’t function correctly. Weapon swaps with sigil’s where some perform accordingly, others don’t. Runes that perform accordingly, where others don’t. Yes there are people who have tested for it.

But suddenly RNG functions perfectly with no issues.

The conspiracy theorists are wrong. It’s not because people get favoured deliberately, its much more accidental.

Can you please add non RNG method of getting fractal weapons, heck I’d be ok with 50 pristine fractal token because at least then i know after i do 50 daily i got the item i wanted.

ColinJohanson.2394:

[snip]

… we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Can the loot tables be made a bit better across the board? For instance, from it’s pretty disheartening to open a dungeon chest, Claw of Jormag chest, etc. and get no weapons or armor above Fine (blue) rarity, especially if people in your party get rares or exotics. Could items from chests at least be guaranteed to be Masterwork (green) or above?

Can someone direct me to a good post about the devs talking about how DR works? Also, wouldn’t it be helpful if you hit that point with an area, DR kicks in and an Icon on your screen appears, basically telling you “hey bud, go play somewhere else for a while?”. Right now it’s just playing mind games with me.

Wait. So magic find is what changes odds for loot drops. But magic find is pretty worthless, if not completely broken. So we’re all just screwed then?

ColinJohanson.2394:

TooBz.3065:

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is no such thing as player or account specific random loot rolls/odds. It’s the same for everyone, only magic find can alter your chances.

Thanks for the comment. It helps diffuse the conspiracy theorists. It is correct to say that there is no account specific information that is used as a seed in the random number generator?

That’s the only way that I could see any difference in drops for accounts.

That is correct yes, there is absolutely no account or character specific data used in loot rolls what so ever, can debunk that theory. The only thing you can do to alter a specific characters chances is magic find which is a stat visible on your character from gear/food, for loot drops specifically.

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Still, some people seem to be cursed by fate :P

For example I was playing Guild Wars 1 for well over 4 years, I got 50/50 in HoM, GWAMM and yet I never really dropped anything valuable. I’ve only looted like 3 or 4 black dyes and 0 runes of superior vigor

Smelly Bookah.6957:

For example I was playing Guild Wars 1 for well over 4 years, I got 50/50 in HoM, GWAMM and yet I never really dropped anything valuable. I’ve only looted like 3 or 4 black dyes and 0 runes of superior vigor

No doubt it’s a company philosophy. Anet games are really not about lots of loot and lots of varied loot. I would call it stingy in some cases, but it is just the way they like their games. I would have loved to see a GW1 meets ARPG loot, as a variant.

green plum.7514:

All the conspiracy theorists here should really learn some basic statistics. There is absolutely nothing strange about a small fraction of players appearing to have better than average luck.

And conversely, there is nothing strange about a small fraction of players appearing to have worse than average luck. Your personal experiences with loot drops do not mean that there is anything wrong with the RNG. It’s just an RNG working as an RNG does. If there is something wrong with the RNG, only ArenaNet would have the sample size necessary to tell.

And all of those things that you think are impacting your drops are statistical noise; you’re seeing patterns where there are none.

andreibianu.8051:

So we’ve all heard about stealth patches , broken dr and rng , and yada yada yada things anet quickly dismissed , but playing the game says othwerwise.
But I was chatting with a buddy and he said something interesting. Maybe those that are blessed by the rng , that 1% of players, are not random. Is it possible to gain positive rng because you , let’s say , payed extra ? Deluxe edition , heavy gem shopper etc etc? This is a a quite frightening thought but more so because of it is actually possible .
Any thoughts ?
I whole-heartedly hope I’m wrong

Actually, I don’t see a better rate and I purchase gems. (well, I did, before the drop rates TANKED for me irreversibly, and dragons started consistently giving me whites and those rabid upgrade items)

I DO notice the drop rates are good consistently, for a consistent group of the same people, while they’re consistently bad for the same people.

RNG is “sticky”, and there seems to be no in-built counter-balance for long, bad streaks.

And all of those things that you think are impacting your drops are statistical noise; you’re seeing patterns where there are none.

Most other software houses, be they video games or otherwise, take action to prevent consistent good or bad streaks. Users don’t like it when they hit “random” on their playlist and somehow get a bunch of tracks by the same artist back to back.