Guild Wars 2

One strange effect I have seen was that when I did get a drop, I would get a small streak of drops and sometimes duplicates.

IE:
- No dye drops for hours and then all of a sudden I will get 2-3 dye drops in a span of a minute.
- Two of the same thing one right after another. For example: two yellow large skulls dropping from two mobs, one right after another.

DigiChaos.1893:

One strange effect I have seen was that when I did get a drop, I would get a small streak of drops and sometimes duplicates.

IE:
- No dye drops for hours and then all of a sudden I will get 2-3 dye drops in a span of a minute.
- Two of the same thing one right after another. For example: two yellow large skulls dropping from two mobs, one right after another.

This has been my trend to, exact same thing with dyes.

Its a pity we couldn’t continue the discussion in the discussion thread and keep this for the data, It might of made things easier.

Perhaps the mods could re open the discussion thread for this purpose ?

Errtu.8276:

Ladies and gentleman let me return with my paranoid messages …

For last 2 days, approx the morning of the forum topics release ive written some stuff about not recieving any good drop/not getting any exotic (except map reward&karka chest) after that; my luck suddenly increased i mean yesterday i run all 3 paths on AC/TA and 2 paths on CoF and i recieved like 8-10 rare and 1 “named” exotic …

And again im telling you i guess Anet just find people who are typing here and increase their drop rate for few days or so or maybe its like a bribe … and will end soon … but today after 4 dungeon runs AC 3paths and Cof 1-2 i recieved 2 rares

That means ive recieved nearlly the total rare count ive farmed till yesterday in 1 day // and i got 1.5k TA tokens / 1.9k CoF tokens think about it am i wrong ? or that just happened to me by a “Coincidence” ?

Same thing happened to me today While I was running HOTW it was really strange,while I wasnt getting any reward for a month now suddenly I start getting a satisfying amount of them Not sure if its coincidence or…?

Why so serious? Sorry for my english, but i want to say something.

1) I mean your conspiracy theories are totally wrong. You know about “Occam’s razor” right? They don’t need to do such things to control the economy. I can imagine many ingame methods to do so, like that permanent mystic forge conduit. All these promotion recipes are not to make you happy, they need to remove large amounts of unused materials from market, they also can introduce new recipes or change others etc etc.

I believe they just made a mistake somewhere in theirs DR rules, like “- How much time people play per day? 10 hours? Ok, others are bots.” Now all who (like me) is doing his job at home and can stand semi-afk in game for 12 hours per day are under effect.

2) About “perceived”… how can you call your “data”? It is right word, really :-/ Your reaction is anecdotal.

Only one thing i can’t understand, why they need 1 month to pay attention to ours complains?

zeus.5248:

Errtu.8276:

Ladies and gentleman let me return with my paranoid messages …

For last 2 days, approx the morning of the forum topics release ive written some stuff about not recieving any good drop/not getting any exotic (except map reward&karka chest) after that; my luck suddenly increased i mean yesterday i run all 3 paths on AC/TA and 2 paths on CoF and i recieved like 8-10 rare and 1 “named” exotic …

And again im telling you i guess Anet just find people who are typing here and increase their drop rate for few days or so or maybe its like a bribe … and will end soon … but today after 4 dungeon runs AC 3paths and Cof 1-2 i recieved 2 rares

That means ive recieved nearlly the total rare count ive farmed till yesterday in 1 day // and i got 1.5k TA tokens / 1.9k CoF tokens think about it am i wrong ? or that just happened to me by a “Coincidence” ?

Same thing happened to me today While I was running HOTW it was really strange,while I wasnt getting any reward for a month now suddenly I start getting a satisfying amount of them Not sure if its coincidence or…?

After letting my emotions get the best of me, and consequently spending far too much time posting often and at length in our old treadmill thread, oddly enough the same thing happened to me as well. Instant rares appearing…
I made a point of thanking the live drop-rate tweaking team through the chat, for the gesture they had made, regardless of what their motive or reasons were, and logged out again.
It just felt too, well, cheesy. I don’t know how to explain it.
I don’t want to be rewarded for complaining at length about a serious issue, whether it is to make me shut up, or as a thanks from a bound and gagged dev team behind their Nexon taskmasters’ back.
And so here we all are on our new treadmill, attempting to prove our perceptions to the actual database, while everything we poured into our old thread fades.
I am feeling rather peeved at being shoved back to square one and reset, the slate wiped clean(ish), and being told to prove it all over again.
It’s easy to see why you did it – that last thread was incredibly resilient and loaded with uncomfortable items, and was surprisingly long-lived on your front pages for something so embarrassing.
I have to say, though, your lock and reset was most unimaginative. Surely the Nexon import team could have brought some of their PR spin into the discussions before the post, and gave us some flavor to go with the shamefully contemptible dribble you churned out?
As our last thread was locked due to being ‘answered’ by this new thread, I am wondering at what point this new stomping ground for our dissent and seething discourse will be ‘answered’?

There are still bots in this game but it appears they are mostly limited to teleporting to resource nodes or farming mats under water. Since the bot farming is mostly under control I dont see a need for DR anymore. It should be turned off until bots become a problem again.

Ok, so let me add my experiences.

This is not supposed to be whining, but since GW2 release my guild members and I are experiencing odd drop-behavior.

Example 1: One Mate was absolutely flooded with Black Lion Chests. Regardless of where he went, every second or third enemy would drop him a chest. After only one month of playing he had several stacks of Chests, I had about 50 on 3 characters.
After a patch in november, (not the one changing the rates) he nearly doesn’t get chests at all anymore. (Maybe one in a week) So…I’d call this odd.

Example 2: I start to feel there is something like luck Accounts, or (which I feel is more likely) the RNG uses some parameters that lead to better drop behavior for certain characters and/oir Accounts. One of my guildies, probably our luckiest person at the mystic forge, buys 24 rare sigills, gets at least 2 superiors and can sell them for profit or at the very least for the money he bought the 24 sigills. When I do the same (and believe me we did this many many many times) I’m very likely to get no superior sigill at all, and if I get one it is nearly a 100% soulbound or worth nothing at the TP. So nearly always a 100% loss for me. The exact same applies to the gambling with rare runes that I get when salvaging rare items.

Example 3: Again the mate from Example two. We approximatly have done the same amount of daily successes and we have opened similar amounts of Black Lion Chests. Until today he got about 25 Black Lion Salvage Kits, I had 5. 500% difference. Nobody in the guild came close to his rate. Same applies to the recipies out of the X-Mas Gifts. So far I got 1, he had about 10 already.

Example 4: I can only underline what others said. The droprate for exotics and rares from bosses and chests SIGNIFICANTLY declined. I did about 10 fractals today, I used to get out with at least 1 ecto per fractal, in 10 fractals I usually had about 1 exotic.
Today I got 2 rares out of 10 fractal chests, nearly no green items, no exotic for any teammate. When I did the Shatterer about 2 hours ago, I got only blue items from the chest. Nothing green, golden or Orange, no Loadstone, NOTHING. Conclusion: Waste of time, like every dragon event I ever did. Fighting Jormags Claw sometimes costs you about 30 Minutes, especially when it’s buggy again, and you are ‘rewarded’ with 5 blues, when you’re lucky with 1 or 2 greens. Including travelling costs, this leaves me with a profit of 5 silver out of 30 minutes. There might be something wrong eh?
The exact same applies to the dungeon chests outside the fractals and to the drop rates of recipes from certain dungeon bosses. I have more than one bank tab filled with Tokens, and I already used quiet a few of them. And I NEVER saw one dungeon boss or chest drop a recipe, not for me, not for any teammate. In this whole time, I only saw 3 exotic drops, even rares only occur maybe once a day. Best example is Honor of the Waves way number one. I used to get about 10 greens out of this way, maybe one rare. At the moment I get 2 greens when I’m lucky (Omnom used), I haven’t seen drop a rare from a chest for a couple of runs for anybody and even the normal drops seem to have declined.

What I want to say: I can hardly suppress my feeling that the RNG does not evenly distribute drops form the forge, chests and mobs. Additionally the increase in drop rates especially for boss mobs seems to have turned into the exact opposite.

I’d really like an official statement and some NUMBERS. Do not only talk about increase or decrease. Give the community evidence. What’s the rate for salvaging ectos, what’s the chance for a precursor, how often will you get a rare from a veteran mob and so on. Be transparent here. This is the only way to end this discussion, at least for me, because the latest happenings and observations have created a lot of mistrust and sometimes I felt playing ‘normally’ was a waste of time. (Farming CoF the whole day is not my style of playing)

Thanks for reading, and have a nice X-Mas first

Walker.2184:

There are still bots in this game but it appears they are mostly limited to teleporting to resource nodes or farming mats under water. Since the bot farming is mostly under control I dont see a need for DR anymore. It should be turned off until bots become a problem again.

Bots were a means to end, both as a necessary impetus to implement DR (and subsequently reduce open-world gain), and also as an effective method of market supply and hence control in the lead-up to the mid-November changes.
There was/is a very good reason that bots would be reported so frequently and repetitively by so many players, without any apparent action for a long period, and then suddenly seemingly eradicated at an appropriate, alloted time.
There is an awful lot of real-world investor money now tied into this game, and the return on investment expectation is high.
Words like ‘coincidence’ and ‘perceived’ pale into insignificance.
The arrival of Nexon heralded a marked change of focus in the development cycle of what was still an unfinished title, and the push to an early release of the game with it’s re-tooled gem store and purchase focus in the leadup to Cash Festival clearly demonstrates this.
But all this has been stated before, repeatedly, in the old thread that was an elaborate, long-term discussion on the topic of reduced open-world rewards.
It’s just a shame that a large portion of not only the information posted in that thread, but also the people that posted it, have either left the game due to the current management and customer service, or are, quite justifiably, too burned-out to bother going through the motions again in what is essentially a cycle of pointless effort in data gathering for a laughably small possibility of an equitable outcome.

Claw of Jormag event:
%140 Magic Find
25+ corrupted enemies killed (I know because my MF sigil was at 25)

2 drops total, one from a champ and one from a quaggan.

Exotic drop rate:

Prior to Lost Shore (which includes the majority of my farming):
1 Exotic total from drops/chests (Not including dungeon specific sigils and runes)

After Lost Shore
5-7 Exotics total (Not including dungeon sigils or Fractal chest accountbounds)

The increased exotic rate seems to have applied to me successfully

Rare drop rate:

Prior to Lost Shore (which includes the majority of my farming):
10-30 Rares per 4-9 hours high level gameplay

After Lost Shore
2-8 Rares per 4-9 hours high level gameplay

The increased rare rate seems to NOT have applied to me successfully

Other notes:

• I’m an obsessive clicker (1 2 3 4 5 are bound to extra buttons on my mouse) despite having auto attack on, I don’t really let it do its job
• The majority of my drops prior to Lost Shore came from Penit/Shelt in Cursed Shore
• I replaced one of my MF earrings and now have 3% less MF
• I’m a ranger who uses greatsword for farming, pets are red moa and river drake
• No matter how much damage I do, I rarely get tagged for kill credit from Veteran enemies in crowded areas unless I have a loot group

After watching this topic expand over numerous threads and countless posts, I feel a strong urge to comment. This post contains two separate sections. It is also long, so if you want to jump to the data, head to the next post.

To the Community:

As fans and players of Guild Wars 2, we have a strong desire to see the game we’re playing be the best it can be. We expect a solid experience – not a perfect one – but one that is not marred by bugs creating unplayable, non-challenging, or no-fun scenarios. As a whole, I believe that the game and ANet have delivered on this. However, we as a fan base – just like this game – are not perfect, and frankly a lot of posters seem to have the illusion that we are.

Throughout this thread (and the previous one), we have expressed perspectives regarding the drop rate of items. We’ve had lively discussion about the topic, produced theories to explain it, and collected some data to help prove it. But we have also spent a LOT of time whining, playing the blame game, and most importantly, generalizing the issue.

This presents a problem. In the previous thread, there were some posts that did an amazing job of proving exactly what had happened with the drop rate – specifically, these posts included percentages and math to help show a distinctive problem. However, these posts were few and far between, and in a thread that long, they got lost in the deluge. In this thread, there have been many references to “we already have all the data you need in the other thread,” but I (and I’m certain none of you), feel like sifting through that entire thread for the relevant information that will actually help solve this problem.

This is why this thread was created. It is a space for us, as a community, to post SPECIFICS of what we are experiencing. However, all too quickly, this thread is becoming much like the other: 90% of this so far is generalizations about the drop rate. “We’ve noticed a decline” and “I’ve played XX hours and gotten no rares” isn’t going to help. Those who have provided specifics (numbers) in this thread – good for you and keep it up.

Should there be more input from ANet regarding the issue? More transparency? Clearer communication about how we can help? The answer to all three is probably. But there is only so much that the ANet team can do, based on the resources (both people and data) available. Should we be responsible for helping? For addressing a problem such as this? Probably not. But we’re here now, so let’s do something about it.
This is why, as a community, we need to step up and help, and I believe we have enough of a love of this game to help it succeed. Instead of providing more generalization about the issue (we’ve established there’s a problem and it’s annoying – time to move on), let’s get some data to prove it.

The following is a simple test scenario. It gives hard data based on play experience. It is easily reproducible in any area in the world, and takes very little time to collect this information. I think, if we all took some time to put this together, we could provide some compelling evidence to show a good example of what the drop rate is like across the game. If we do that, then we’ve done as ANet has asked. This thread has done its job. Whether we see a resolution to the problem, we’ll just have to wait and see. But at least we can say we did our best, and that ANet can count on us to lend them a hand and not simply blame them when everything goes wrong.

NOTE: The following scenario deals with simply fighting enemies in the world. Easiest way to do this is to strip it down to the basics. If you want to provide info on chest drop rates, champions, or dungeons/fractals, a different test scenario may be warranted.

(continued from above)

To the Developers:

This is a test scenario showing the current drop rate when fighting enemies as experienced by a player. Details on character type, fighting conditions, and additional variables are noted.

TEST SCENARIO

Character: Level 80 Necro.
Armor: Exotic (orange) weapons, armor, and accessories.
Magic Find: 0%
Area: Frostforge Sound
*Frostforge Sound was chosen for this test due to the high quantity of different enemy types, providing a larger test base.

ENEMY COMPOSITION

Enemy Information: 25 enemies total. Level Range 77-80. Defeated solo, without the aid of minions or other players. Unless noted, one of each enemy listed was defeated.
Enemy List: Longhorn Ram, Dolyak, White Moa, Icebrood Wolf, Icebrood Hunter, Ice Elemental, Minotaur Bull, Ice Imp, Arctodus (x2), Snow Troll, Moose, Grawl Shaman, Ice Worm, Ice Drake, Alpine Skelk (x2), Icebrood Colossus, Artic Jellyfish (x2), Ice Shark, Barracuda, Icebrood Fish, Icebrood Kodan, Corrupted Quaggan.

REWARDS

Gold Received: 62c
Total Items Dropped: 13
Drop Types:
- Craft = 4
- Salvage = 1
- Wintersday Gift = 2
- Gray (Junk) = 5
- White = 0
- Blue = 0
- Green = 1
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0

TEST SCENARIO

Identical test scenario as above was repeated one hour later. This time, Magic Find was set to 95%.

REWARDS

Gold Received: 72c
Total Items Dropped: 6
Drop Types:
- Craft = 2
- Salvage = 0
- Wintersday Gift = 0
- Gray (Junk) = 2
- White = 0
- Blue = 2
- Green = 0
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0

My nightly runs usually consist of at least 1 full clear of AC (so that’s path 1-3), 2 paths of TA, and at least 1 CM and/or HotW run. This is nightly. In more than 3 days, I have not received a SINGLE rare/exotic item from chests or bosses. My another friend who runs with me has had it almost exactly as bad as I have.

As for wintersday presents, I’ve cracked open no less than 400, and have received almost exclusively “Ugly wool _” items. I have gotten less than 20 snowflakes in total, and roughly 5 weapon skins.

I was trying to farm air elementals in Orr yesterday for almost an hour straight. I received 2 greens, a handful of blues, and the rest was vendor trash. No rares, no exotics, no Charged cores/lodestones. Nothing to warrant the time invested.

if the drop rate is related to the ammount of loot on the BLTM then we have bots to blame for that and ANET needs to fix the Bot situation cause legit players trying to earn a crust and make gear or earn a living in order to be able to play the game in the game without the purchase of gold each week. We shouldnt have to purchase gold just to play the game. But I feel the only way to afford to even run dungeons atm I need to buy gold each week just to be able to repair my gear. Im sure that is not intended bye anet and Bots are to blame, more people need to report bots and anet needs to have strict measures in force to ensure that these bots are removed from the system and not able to return Im sure ISP adresses linked to these bot accounts should ensure this. And also ensure that legit players are not being banned in the proccess!!
I hope that ANET fix these issues cause honestly feel over the last 3 weeks my drops on lodestones and lvl 400 mats have droped substantionally bye 75% which when u need 250+ of each material you are looking at months and months of farming for the same material. /age 700+hours in 45 days. And I feel im an average player!

Resk.6412:

(continued from above)

To the Developers:

This is a test scenario showing the current drop rate when fighting enemies as experienced by a player. Details on character type, fighting conditions, and additional variables are noted.

TEST SCENARIO

Character: Level 80 Necro.
Armor: Exotic (orange) weapons, armor, and accessories.
Magic Find: 0%
Area: Frostforge Sound
*Frostforge Sound was chosen for this test due to the high quantity of different enemy types, providing a larger test base.

ENEMY COMPOSITION

Enemy Information: 25 enemies total. Level Range 77-80. Defeated solo, without the aid of minions or other players. Unless noted, one of each enemy listed was defeated.
Enemy List: Longhorn Ram, Dolyak, White Moa, Icebrood Wolf, Icebrood Hunter, Ice Elemental, Minotaur Bull, Ice Imp, Arctodus (x2), Snow Troll, Moose, Grawl Shaman, Ice Worm, Ice Drake, Alpine Skelk (x2), Icebrood Colossus, Artic Jellyfish (x2), Ice Shark, Barracuda, Icebrood Fish, Icebrood Kodan, Corrupted Quaggan.

REWARDS

Gold Received: 62c
Total Items Dropped: 13
Drop Types:
- Craft = 4
- Salvage = 1
- Wintersday Gift = 2
- Gray (Junk) = 5
- White = 0
- Blue = 0
- Green = 1
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0

TEST SCENARIO

Identical test scenario as above was repeated one hour later. This time, Magic Find was set to 95%.

REWARDS

Gold Received: 72c
Total Items Dropped: 6
Drop Types:
- Craft = 2
- Salvage = 0
- Wintersday Gift = 0
- Gray (Junk) = 2
- White = 0
- Blue = 2
- Green = 0
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0

Well its obvious why u got no drops 0%MF

ANet wants some numbers. Ok, here they are.

Before the Lost Shores patch, full MF set + food (150% MF):
- Panitent/Shelter events: 1-3 rares per event in average
- Champions and veterans mostly drop nothing or crap (whites or blues, rarely greens)

After the patch, full MF set + food (150% MF):
- Panitent/Shelter events: 0-1 rares per event in average. Actually last time I did 6 events and got 0 rares.
- Champions and veterans mostly drop crap (whites or blues, rarely greens). Never sow a rare from them. About 100 champions were killed.

So something definitely wrong with drops. Probably DR works incorrect. I don’t really know the reason and don’t want to make any suggestions because we really have no idea how drop mechanic actually works in the game.

I hope devs will figure it out and fix it ASAP.

DarkWasp.7291:

Claw of Jormag event:
%140 Magic Find
25+ corrupted enemies killed (I know because my MF sigil was at 25)

2 drops total, one from a champ and one from a quaggan.

---

Exotic drop rate:

Prior to Lost Shore (which includes the majority of my farming):
1 Exotic total from drops/chests (Not including dungeon specific sigils and runes)

After Lost Shore
5-7 Exotics total (Not including dungeon sigils or Fractal chest accountbounds)

The increased exotic rate seems to have applied to me successfully

---

Rare drop rate:

Prior to Lost Shore (which includes the majority of my farming):
10-30 Rares per 4-9 hours high level gameplay

After Lost Shore
2-8 Rares per 4-9 hours high level gameplay

The increased rare rate seems to NOT have applied to me successfully

Other notes:

• I’m an obsessive clicker (1 2 3 4 5 are bound to extra buttons on my mouse) despite having auto attack on, I don’t really let it do its job
• The majority of my drops prior to Lost Shore came from Penit/Shelt in Cursed Shore
• I replaced one of my MF earrings and now have 3% less MF
• I’m a ranger who uses greatsword for farming, pets are red moa and river drake
• No matter how much damage I do, I rarely get tagged for kill credit from Veteran enemies in crowded areas unless I have a loot group

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

puffintoast.6501:

zeus.5248:

Errtu.8276:

Ladies and gentleman let me return with my paranoid messages …

For last 2 days, approx the morning of the forum topics release ive written some stuff about not recieving any good drop/not getting any exotic (except map reward&karka chest) after that; my luck suddenly increased i mean yesterday i run all 3 paths on AC/TA and 2 paths on CoF and i recieved like 8-10 rare and 1 “named” exotic …

And again im telling you i guess Anet just find people who are typing here and increase their drop rate for few days or so or maybe its like a bribe … and will end soon … but today after 4 dungeon runs AC 3paths and Cof 1-2 i recieved 2 rares

That means ive recieved nearlly the total rare count ive farmed till yesterday in 1 day // and i got 1.5k TA tokens / 1.9k CoF tokens think about it am i wrong ? or that just happened to me by a “Coincidence” ?

Same thing happened to me today While I was running HOTW it was really strange,while I wasnt getting any reward for a month now suddenly I start getting a satisfying amount of them Not sure if its coincidence or…?

After letting my emotions get the best of me, and consequently spending far too much time posting often and at length in our old treadmill thread, oddly enough the same thing happened to me as well. Instant rares appearing…
I made a point of thanking the live drop-rate tweaking team through the chat, for the gesture they had made, regardless of what their motive or reasons were, and logged out again.
It just felt too, well, cheesy. I don’t know how to explain it.
I don’t want to be rewarded for complaining at length about a serious issue, whether it is to make me shut up, or as a thanks from a bound and gagged dev team behind their Nexon taskmasters’ back.
And so here we all are on our new treadmill, attempting to prove our perceptions to the actual database, while everything we poured into our old thread fades.
I am feeling rather peeved at being shoved back to square one and reset, the slate wiped clean(ish), and being told to prove it all over again.
It’s easy to see why you did it – that last thread was incredibly resilient and loaded with uncomfortable items, and was surprisingly long-lived on your front pages for something so embarrassing.
I have to say, though, your lock and reset was most unimaginative. Surely the Nexon import team could have brought some of their PR spin into the discussions before the post, and gave us some flavor to go with the shamefully contemptible dribble you churned out?
As our last thread was locked due to being ‘answered’ by this new thread, I am wondering at what point this new stomping ground for our dissent and seething discourse will be ‘answered’?

I dont farm for rares cause i can farm nodes and make 30 rares a day with out breaking a sweat at low cost or kill a few mobs that drop 350 mats and get what I need to make the said ammount of rares, the mian issue with drops lately for me is lvl 400mats and lodestones which seem to droped bye 75% of wat I used to get 2-3 weeks ago and I feel that as other people have said Bots flooded the market so Anet have reduced the drop rates on said items! Also DR affects ppl after 1hour or so farming the same area.

Thexremstar.1457:

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

MF doesn’t work on chest alone, as in if you equip MF gear or consume food before opening chest, it won’t affect drops but if you have it on all the time during the fight, it does affect the chest loot. I have full MF gear incl. food & all boosters as well, and I don’t get as many rare drops now as I used to get before the infamous LS patch.

Thexremstar.1457:

I dont farm for rares cause i can farm nodes and make 30 rares a day with out breaking a sweat at low cost or kill a few mobs that drop 350 mats and get what I need to make the said ammount of rares, the mian issue with drops lately for me is lvl 400mats and lodestones which seem to droped bye 75% of wat I used to get 2-3 weeks ago and I feel that as other people have said Bots flooded the market so Anet have reduced the drop rates on said items! Also DR affects ppl after 1hour or so farming the same area.

Bots don’t spend time and effort in farming, humans do. No reason to punish genuine players for their limited time spent on farming only due to some mindless bots. Also DR now affects within minutes of farming. If you get porous bones or hooves and junk like that on your first kill, there’s something wrong with DR and loot table as a whole.

phaneo.4597:

Thexremstar.1457:

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

MF doesn’t work on chest alone, as in if you equip MF gear or consume food before opening chest, it won’t affect drops but if you have it on all the time during the fight, it does affect the chest loot. I have full MF gear incl. food & all boosters as well, and I don’t get as many rare drops now as I used to get before the infamous LS patch.

No. MF does not work on chest loot. Period.

perceived drop rate is a joke I have noticed a substanional drop rate reduction over the last few weeks at least 75% less drops then i was, I put it down to a flooded market with certain items, which also reduces there value to players. (bots flood the market) Legit players get Punished with DR and the rates from farming are droped substantionally. Ive posted a few times here and alot of people are apparently haveing the same issues altho some players seem to be confuesed with chest loot to mob loot benifits from Magic Find. Magic Find from info I have only affects mob loots and Jormag chest LOOT is totally random and LUCk is needed to achieve the pre legendary drop. But If u are farming for ascended items or legendary mats required u need alot fo 400mats which the drops seem to have droped for me bye an astounding 75% in a short space of 2-3 weeks i mean 20 elaborate totems down to 0-5 in a hour! and thats just 1 mat im farming
at the rate of 1-4 corrupted lodestones per day I need 200 thats a lot of days farming! for little reward to none Anet You need to listen or your guna lose alot of players who do buy gold regulary and wont recomend the game to any one let alone post good stuff on facebook about the game!

Thexremstar.1457:

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

I should clarify, the numbers of rares mostly came from Cursed Shore farming, not the Jormag chest.

The only reason I mentioned the Claw of Jormag was because of the spawns during the event, not the chest. The chest was not factored into my numbers.

I have been on a permanent DR for the last 3 weeks, I play alot, mix and match Wv3 with dungeons and Orr events, I try not to sit in one place for more than a couple hours. I very rarely get rares unless I craft them myself, only T6 mats I get are ancient bones and crystalline dust, havent seen any of the others in weeks, a descent chunk of T5 mats that I have been throwing in the mystic forge to make T6 mats if it wasn’t for that I would be even further back on my progress towards my legendary. As far as exotics go the last and only one I got since launch came 1 day prior to the Nov 15th patch.

I basically have been progressing 1 silver at a time and the grind is starting to feel like the days of early Aion, they say they don’t want grinding and its not fun, well you know what is alot less fun when you get one of the bad luck accounts and can only progress at a snails pace.

I haven’t noticed any patch lately but yesterday was kinda amazing drop wise. I just did what I usually do and got total of 11 Rares, 1 exotic, Charged Lodestone!, and tons of greens. Fact is that I been bit discouraged and did not try to hardcore farm. Just jumped from event to event and even changed zones few times. At the end I did 2 paths of AC and, imagine that, every chest granted me RARE item!

No idea how this happened but I do hope I will have similar luck next time I play. I say luck because if ANet changed something and didn’t even bother to tell us I would feel bad.

I’ve just hit over 400 completed fractals.

For the past 10 days, I’ve dropped a single vial (on lv20+ maw, presumably a bug) and a single shard (on levels 20+). I didn’t drop a single glob despite running 10-19 dailies. I’m not using MF gear. Other people with MF gear dropped 2-3 shards on their first 20+ run, and glob drops on lower levels were noticeable over the run of a couple days.

Rares, exotic and crafting materials drop rate doesn’t seem to be out of place, even with 0 magic find I’ve no troubles making a second 250-stack of ectos, in addition to funding 2 sets of exotic gear and a bunch of transmutation stones. I don’t really farm in open PvE zones so can’t comment on these.

A suggestion, if I may have any, is to normalise the drop rate of vials, globs and shards (boost their default drop rate, and make it not affected by magic find). Magic find is tolerable when used on lower (1-19) levels to boost personal wealth, however it shouldn’t affect personal progression and success in the fractals by awarding with very quick completion of 30 agony resist, whereas others (possibly contributing more in normal exotic gear) struggle to even hit the mark past 20 AR, because they didn’t get a single ascended ring from daily and can’t find enough shards, vials and globs to naturally progress, without grinding lower levels first.

While it is true hardcore guild teams might as well run with zero AR on all levels and get-by with use of resurrection orbs on Maw and Instant Repair Kits before boss fights, I don’t believe this kind of unintended game monetisation is the answer to malfunctioning drops of these specified items, in essence a "blocking bug" over a longer period of time preventing further progress with more casual, PUG-like groups of players formed spontaneously, where AR is a requirement to join and perform.

One thing that would help us players:
The first game would let you know when DR was kicking in (or “Anti-Farm Code” as it was called in those less spin-controlled days).
So how about GW2 flashing up a message to let you know that DR is kicking in and that you should maybe move on to something else?

Or maybe you’re scared players will quickly realise exactly how aggressive your DR algorithms currently are?

Periodic in-game “real person” checks, captcha for instance, would also allow normal drop rates for players while still crippling bots. But something that still has yet to be answered is whether or not DR is broken or working as designed. Given the amount of time it took to get a reply, my opinion it is working as designed. This thread takes focus away from the big ugly thread, is nothing more than a PR stunt or token meant to placate the masses until after the big Christmas spending season.

A Poster:

One thing that would help us players:
The first game would let you know when DR was kicking in (or “Anti-Farm Code” as it was called in those less spin-controlled days).
So how about GW2 flashing up a message to let you know that DR is kicking in and that you should maybe move on to something else?

The only thing this does is to tell the bots what to watch for and gives them invulnerability against DR.

A Poster:

Or maybe you’re scared players will quickly realise exactly how aggressive your DR algorithms currently are?

This is just confrontational and counter-productive. ANet is not ‘out-to-get-you’ or any of us – this thread (though it might have been started with little more tact) is about helping ANet revolutionize yet another piece of the MMO paradigm: loot tables and RNG.

IF we can work with them rather than against them maybe GW2 will yet again revolutionize another facet of the “common MMO”.

It’s impossible for ANet to tell us exactly what the algorithms do – that would break the game for everyone except bots. With that in mind, I would say what they need is not your conclusions:

perceived drop rate is a joke I have noticed a substanional drop rate reduction over the last few weeks at least 75% less drops then i was, I put it down to a flooded market with certain items,

You are trying to help get to a solution. But telling the devs that you noticed 75% less drops gives them nothing to work with. How did you arrive at that calculation? What are the numbers that led you to that conclusion?

A Poster:

I’m not using MF gear. Other people with MF gear dropped 2-3 shards on their first 20+ run, and glob drops on lower levels were noticeable over the run of a couple days.

A suggestion, if I may have any, is to normalise the drop rate of vials, globs and shards (boost their default drop rate, and make it not affected by magic find). Magic find is tolerable when used on lower (1-19) levels to boost personal wealth, however it shouldn’t affect personal progression and success in the fractals by awarding with very quick completion of 30 agony resist, whereas others (possibly contributing more in normal exotic gear) struggle to even hit the mark past 20 AR, because they didn’t get a single ascended ring from daily and can’t find enough shards, vials and globs to naturally progress, without grinding lower levels first.

This poster is really trying to help but again you are coming up with conclusions without the benefit of knowing what variables to factor in.

Since ANet obviously cannot tell us what variables they need information on (because of cheaters, bots and exploiters taking advantage of the information) we’ll need to give them as detailed info as we can:

• What mob did you kill,
• what did the mob drop, if anything,
• include outliers also! (this means if you got something good, do not hide it from the report to make your drops look worse)
• what other mobs were in the area,
• how many other player characters were in the area,
• what server are you on,
• what time of day did the drop happen,
• what zone are you in,
• what was the last mob you killed and in which zone,
• how long were you in this zone,
• how long were you in the last zone?

Things like these would be more useful IF Anet is trying to revolutionize the MMO drop paradigm. Yes, they can get these data themselves and I will tell you they are. But they need more complete data that only we can give them. Otherwise they are only working with what they can see and NOT what you are seeing.

Consider this an open beta test to make drops in GW2 and MMOs in general more fair and useful.

FWIW.

My mesmer popped in for Tequatl, proceeded to do Danger at Fabled Djannor. First wave i got a green weapon and a small scale. On the second wave and thereafter, got nothing but porous bones.
On to Teq, i got a gold from one of the minions, chest gave me 5 blues.
I wish they would tell us what veterans and champions they increased the drop rates for, because it wasnt any that i have encountered to date.
I am seriously starting to wonder why they pander to the cheats in the beginning, then take it out on us casual players because they could not control the game from the git go. Serious lack of beta gnashing. I suppose they are gonna release a huge addition to the game before they fix whats broken, and let the problems cascade even further.
I love this game and have taken great restraint to level all my chars to let them get the high level areas fixed, and i am ready soon, I hope they got the memo that people like me, the casual gamer, need to be able to afford stuff without buying gems because if thats what they want Ill take my 8 year association elsewhere.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

SNIP
Since ANet obviously cannot tell us what variables they need information on (because of cheaters, bots and exploiters taking advantage of the information) we’ll need to give them as detailed info as we can:

• What mob did you kill,
• what did the mob drop, if anything,
• include outliers also! (this means if you got something good, do not hide it from the report to make your drops look worse)
• what other mobs were in the area,
• how many other player characters were in the area,
• what server are you on,
• what time of day did the drop happen,
• what zone are you in,
• what was the last mob you killed and in which zone,
• how long were you in this zone,
• how long were you in the last zone?

Things like these would be more useful IF Anet is trying to revolutionize the MMO drop paradigm. Yes, they can get these data themselves and I will tell you they are. But they need more complete data that only we can give them. Otherwise they are only working with what they can see and NOT what you are seeing.

Consider this an open beta test to make drops in GW2 and MMOs in general more fair and useful.

FWIW.

SNIP

ArenaNet should already have all this information as part of their metrics. The only way they wouldn’t would be if:
1) There is no or incomplete logging of events, drop rolls, etc. (This is a possibility, based on the fact that the system cannot seem to detect a problem in a character collecting from a node every second via ‘port hacks when nodes are too far apart for ’normal’ players to accomplish this.)
2) Drop rolls are being done client-side for some reason. (!)
3) ArenaNet already has all this information, and this is all distraction-based make-work to give people something to do that appears useful. (Tinfoil hats aside, the timing of this does make one wonder…)

Any of the choices would result in a facepalm of epic proportions. I bought a game (and a good many gems, as well) to play Guild Wars 2 in Tyria, not to play Log Server 2012. I already have a character in EVE when I’m in the mood for spreadsheets.

4 Toons leveled to 80. Over 400+ (Maybe 500) hours of game time. Only Exotic I have seen drop is from Karka Event chest. I have killed MANY (30+) dragon minions. While I have received several rare items (mostly ‘of air’) from those chests, the quantity of crap compared to how many times I have opened said chests, is very high.

I would love to get back to a GW1 style of loot. Any dungeon you ran would guarantee something, usually a onyx piece and some random yellow item. Would generally not be awesome, but a much better feeling than getting vendor trash and sub par loot.

Drop the amount of loot we get from the ‘big’ chests, but up the quality of those chests. Guarantee a rare item and something else. This would make it more enjoyable to play to get SOMETHING than to get a bunch of useless gear that is immediately sold to the merchant.

Just a note: If the internal systems which gather the data for Anet average all the loot collected by players including dungeons then obviously they will not notice a difference.

There will also not be a noticed difference in extended periods of farming. The loot is distributed well enough for me to say that its “ok”.

The real issue is short term returns in open world farming. Thats where the issue is. There used to be much more loot upfront than there is now but the overall spread is the same.

Thought: A change in the lambda on the Poisson distribution of loot can do that, if that distribution is used***

Anet: Check your data about loot drops in the first 30 min of consistent farming.

Thanks

DarkWasp.7291:

Thexremstar.1457:

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

I should clarify, the numbers of rares mostly came from Cursed Shore farming, not the Jormag chest.

The only reason I mentioned the Claw of Jormag was because of the spawns during the event, not the chest. The chest was not factored into my numbers.

Summoned mobs dont drop loot any longer:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Barracuda-s-bugged-stealthnerfed/first#post1051887

Okay just did a ~45 minute run:

Last played Borlis Pass Lvl 80 Charr Guardian in Mount Maelsrom 11/23/12 11PM EST for approximately 30 minutes.

Login – zone to Cursed Shore, Borlis Pass 12/24/12 2pm EST Anchorage WP. Armor – 107% MF

• 2 Risen Spiders (2 other PCs in area, not participating) = 1 Incandescent Dust
  At this point I ate Superior Sharpening Stone and Omnom Bar add 30%MF;
  Accidental Disconnect! (This was caused locally and not by the game)
  Relog; Food still active, same armor;
• Spider Queen already in progress = 1 Incandescent dust
• 2 Risen Noble = 1 Unid Dye
  Leave Anchorage;
• Noble = Giant Gift + Acolyte Shoe white lvl 76
• Noble + Jester add = 0 drop
• Jester = 0 drop
• Jester = 0 drop
• Servant = 0 drop
• Orichalcum Node = 3 ores
• Servant = 1 Lg Bone
• Servant respawn < 5 seconds = 0 drop
  Swim to Graven Cay;
• Pirate = 0
• Pirate = 0
• Tar elemental = 0
• Wraith = 1 Lg bone + 83 copper
• Wraith = 1 Porous bone
• Wraith = 1 Putrid Essence (yellow mat)
• Wraith (1 other PC participating) = 0 drop
• Crocus Node = 2 Saffron strings
• Wraith = 1 Travelers Orrian Shield (Blue lvl 76) + 16c
• Wraith = 1 Porous bone
• 2 Undead Claws = 0
• Wraith (possibly respawn but unknown) = 0 drop
• Wraith = 1 Incandescent dust
• Melandru Statue Commune = 1 Skill point
• Wraith = 1 Porous bone
• 2 Undead claws = 0
• Wraith = Heavy Moldy Bag + 98c
• Wraith (possibly respawn unknown) = 0
• 1 Undead claw + Add 2 Spectral Guard + 1 Spectral Juggernaut; Pop Elite: Warband = 0 drops
• 1 Spectral Juggernaut = 0
• Start 2 undead claws but @ claw=50% HP it instantly refilled to 100% HP so I disengaged b/c it wasnt the direction I was going anyway;
• Patrol of 2 Spectral Guards + 1 Spect Jugger = Heavy Moldy Bag
• Wraith = 0
  note: The spect guards + jugger patrol respawned already but I avoided;
• 1 (different) Spectral Juggernaut = 0 drops
• Wraith + Add the above patrol (lol) = Discarded garment + porous bone + Heavy Moldy Bag
• Harbinger Torch Skill Point Commune = 1 Skill point
• Wraith = 0 drops
• That 3 Spectral Patrol (again – but intentional) + Add Wraith – Pop Elite: Warband = 1 Lg bone
• Wraith = (Note – food expired; no bonus consumes active) = 1 Giant Gift + Moldy bag
• Wraith (continue with no consumables active) = 0 drops;
• Tar elemental = 0
• Tar elem = 1 clump resin
• Tar Elem = 0
• Tar Elemental + Add pirate = 1 porous bone
• Pirate = Discarded garment
• Pirate + Add Wraith + 2nd Pirate = Moldy bag + Chain Footgear (white lvl 76)
• Pirate (respawn) = Shaman Cabalist Boots (blue lvl 80)
• Tar elem + Add 2 Pirates + Add Ravager + Add Wraith = 1 Giant Gift
• Tar elem = 0 drops
• Tar elem = 0 drops.
  2:44pm WP back to Anchorage to inventory – during inventory, was attacked by:
• Veteran Risen Wizard + Add Risen Wizard – Pop Warband + Pop Ember = 0 drops
• Vet Risen Wizard (respawn ~ 20 seconds or so) = 0 drop.
  Zone to Eternal Battleground to do inventory.

New Inventory this session:
3 Incandescent Dust; 1 Unidentified Dye; 1 Acolyte Shoes (white lvl 76); 3 Giant Gifts; 3 Ori ore; 3 Large bone; 4 Porous bone; 1 Pile of Putrid Essence (yellow lvl 400 mat); 2 Saffron thread; 1 Travelers Orrian Shield (blue lvl 76); 5 Heavy Moldy Bags; 2 Discarded garments; 1 Axe (white lvl 80); 1 Clump of resin; 1 Chainmail Footgear (white lvl 76); 1 Shaman Cabalist Boots (blue lvl 80).

The dye opened to: Shy Blue Dye (blue rarity)
The Giant gifts opened to: 2 Ugly sweaters and 1 Flawless snowflake. The Moldy bags opened to: 3 Silk scrap, 3 Silk scrap, 1 Thick leather, 1 pile of Vile Essence (lvl 350 mat), 1 Intricate Totem, 4c + 4c + 3c + ?c + ?c (I didn’t catch them in time to see how much just that they were the copper icons).

Please let me / us know if there are any other data points you’d like us to include if you can. Thanks!

2 hour session report from today.

Hit DR wall 8 times while farming (getting nothing but greys or no loot at all after killing about five mobs in a row)

Results:
36 heavy miners bags
10 gifts
14 whites
8 large bags
41 grey claws
2 greens
5 blues
1 chest
0 exotics
0 rares

I killed 1 veteran three times, no loot any of those times and certainly no rares or exotics.

I am playing on my character that has only 3% mf on one of it’s pieces of jewelry simply because it came with it. No MF food. (about 30 mins before tracking these drops I started off with MF food when i did, i killed 25 enemies, I got more greys then anything else not even bags were dropping so i switched back to nothing).

I was farming the level 76 dredge in Frostgorge (because oddly 1 level lower dropped worse loot go figure /shrug).

Between getting almost nothing on my farming runs and having to deal with the serious issues in my engineering class I’ve just about reached my limit It’s tiresome. This game shouldn’t be a job and we should have rewards for our time open world pve, there should be no question.

Puchbol.9035:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

SNIP
SNIP

*SNIP**SNIP*

Puchbol;
The problem might be that they are NOT seeing the deviant drops that we are seeing… as I said in my post, they are surely looking at all the data they have. But if we are seeing something different than what they are seeing, they would never know it unless we give them something to work with. Accusing them of trying to distract us would not be helping in that case.

Just my opinion – I know this is frustrating but try to give them the benefit of the doubt or else lets give up on the thread entirely as a waste of time.

Those are really the only two options here.

I urge everyone to take ANet at their word and do our best beta testing to give them something to work with.

This is already (imo) the best game out there… lets help them out by making the drop system work like it doesn’t work in any other game. THEN it will be the WoW-killer, indeed!

Avitarus.1865:

DarkWasp.7291:

Thexremstar.1457:

MF does not work on chest loot so jormag doesnt count!

I should clarify, the numbers of rares mostly came from Cursed Shore farming, not the Jormag chest.

The only reason I mentioned the Claw of Jormag was because of the spawns during the event, not the chest. The chest was not factored into my numbers.

Summoned mobs dont drop loot any longer:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Barracuda-s-bugged-stealthnerfed/first#post1051887

imo, Code it so specific summoned mobs don’t drop loot. Barracuda’s and wolf’s for example. Easily bottable mobs.

But not things like adds from Jormag or summoned mobs that aren’t replicating forever (ice elementals may summon one add, or grawl might summon one worm – that should be fine).

ie. when coding, allow for exceptions. Don’t rely on maths to make fun.

Bots won’t ‘farm’ Jormag even if all summoned mobs drop loot. But I’m done with Jormag now that it’s pretty much pointless (blues/greens from chest, no loot from mobs). And others will probably lose interest once they start noticing the time/payoff/frustration/fun ratio is really low. I’m already seeing people camping out in the tents, avoiding everything until the last phase.

Thanks for acknowledging the “perceived” decreased in drops.

If you have no evidence (yet) of this substantial droprate nerf, then the battle is already lost. Something as noticible as this, not being picked up, and being downplayed by words like “perceived” is alarming by itself. I get the feeling that you are not taking this seriously

Now,
Like a lot of posters mentioned: Please explain how we are supposed to give you concrete evidence with regards to the drop rate decrease, when it is only you that have the tools to analyses such data?

While you might feel the urge to disregard my question, as well as the anecdotal evidence provided by many other players, keep the following in mind:

We play this game for fun. Fiscal progression is part of said fun, and when you reach a point where making gold feels like work, it is not so much fun anymore… And you know: when something is not so much fun anymore, people tend to avoid that something.

I’ve reached a point where I can’t get myself to log on anymore. I fail to see the point in farming karma for an hour or 4 without any real reward.
Gadd only knows why people continue to kill the dragons when their loot is as atrocious as the are (i know: this is a separate issue)

This “over-regulation” / gestapo style DR mechanics and nerfs are sucking the life blood out of this game. There is not much blood left, and if you guys don’t act quickly, I’m afraid it will be too late.

Now: concrete data?
I dont have any yet, but I’ll start by pointing you in the right direction:

First and foremost, even before I’ll start to analyze the player data you are logging as well as the players will provide is this:
What changed on the 11/15 patch? The key to the mystery lies there.
I’d hazard a guess that you guys also take a look at the DR system, as it is highly possible that it is the culprit.

Hi, Stephane. I’m gonna just pointing out the obvious, anyhow, the level adjustament which some NPC recived, seems to have broken the drop rate in Tyria.
In fact, the only unaffected NPC are the lv81+ so, it’s this or either the player scaling. It would be nice if this issue as whole get fixed.

Inimicus.7162:

And I assume all this is a response to the “botting problem,” which has not gone away, only morphed the behaviors of the bots (I don’t see mobile ranger zergs and such anymore, now they remain stationary in secluded areas of Orr where the mobs respawn nearly instantly).

“but I offer to players in the Cursed Shores that some of our woes may be the lack of regular and large scale activity in those zones.

The bots have changed I see tons of resource node hacks…sit at a node for a bit or the Rich Orichalum and you will see people mysteriously appear then disappear. I caught the name of one b4 it poofed friend’d it. It moves from area to area in seconds all day long.

Cursed shores drops sucking is not from lack of reg/large scale activity thats what made the regular/lrg scale activity leave. Drops/DE’s nerfed everyone switched to fractals.

Hello Stephane,

here is my data concidering drop behavior. It i snot so accurate, cause as others stated, we had no idea that drop rate would change otherwise i would have made speciffic notes about it.

Before the Patch, items (especially Crafting material and equipment) were dropping “on the fly”. That means, you had fun playing and u were getting things without worrying about them. Sometimes you could use what you did find, or you could craft something with those materials u did find. And even if not, drops provided you with money neccessary to by what u would need, wether it would be craftingmats or equipment, cause prices stayed effortable for blue,green and even golden.

After the patch i can hardly find anything. Neither crafting mats or equipent. Blues are a highlight and crafting mats (350 for gold would be cool, doesn’t need to be the 400 ones in masses) are something like the holy grail. Time spend doesn’t feel rewarding anymore. Especially not when u like to do openworld events just for the fun. But to do the math before without knowing if i get out with a plus or a minus in income (note: minus profit equals minus fun) is not the way i want to play. i am not a powergamer that needs to max all out. I am not working towards an legendary weapon. I am just a Gamer that wants the time he spends not beeing wasted, and spend with things i choose to do like Arenanet said before. And i do come from a dungeon crawler, so plaese don’t suggest me to do more dungeons.

I have a thought i want to share with you: You are the developer. You are making it. You set the gamerules. Why do u ask us for data to prove something the community feels bad about and think that it did change? How about you deliver some data, more transparency about how things work, to show your customers that everything will be alright in the game?
See, it is like an open secret that the majority of the players base is not aktive in the forums. But all players feel changes. Some might not care about it. But others won’t cry or show there dissapointment here. I guess most people just leave if the game doesn’t provide the fun they are looking for. And the longer something stay what ever way most people don’t like mor people will leave, and then it is up to you to find out over the login data we provide WHY people don’t play anymore. So i suggest, whatever it is that gameplay doesn’t feel rewarding anymore, you better find it and change it before it takes to long. People these days have a lot less patience with companies than back in the good old days (like 9 years back ;-) )

But this threat is a good sign towards the community. I appreciate that you are listening and actually adress peoples concerns as something that needs to be taking care of.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

A Poster:

Or maybe you’re scared players will quickly realise exactly how aggressive your DR algorithms currently are?

This is just confrontational and counter-productive. ANet is not ‘out-to-get-you’ or any of us – this thread (though it might have been started with little more tact) is about helping ANet revolutionize yet another piece of the MMO paradigm: loot tables and RNG.

IF we can work with them rather than against them maybe GW2 will yet again revolutionize another facet of the “common MMO”.

…Since ANet obviously cannot tell us what variables they need information on (because of cheaters, bots and exploiters taking advantage of the information) we’ll need to give them as detailed info as we can:

• What mob did you kill,
• what did the mob drop, if anything,
• include outliers also! (this means if you got something good, do not hide it from the report to make your drops look worse)
• what other mobs were in the area,
• how many other player characters were in the area,
• what server are you on,
• what time of day did the drop happen,
• what zone are you in,
• what was the last mob you killed and in which zone,
• how long were you in this zone,
• how long were you in the last zone?

Things like these would be more useful IF Anet is trying to revolutionize the MMO drop paradigm. Yes, they can get these data themselves and I will tell you they are. But they need more complete data that only we can give them. Otherwise they are only working with what they can see and NOT what you are seeing.

Consider this an open beta test to make drops in GW2 and MMOs in general more fair and useful.

FWIW.

Every single variable you are requesting for the players to provide is apparent server-side. There is not one iota of the available data you specify for the player to gather that exists specifically in isolation to the client only. They have that data. All of it. You even state this yourself quite evidently. But then you go on to request ‘more complete’ data? What data are you referring to specifically? There is nothing ‘seen’ only by the client. The game is a graphical front-end to their database, with all data and records generated therein and accessed by the client.
For a month we provided every bit of data, unbidden by anyone in the ArenaNet community, to address the sudden impact that the changes they made mid-November to the reward system in the game were making.
The fact that they locked the thread (the gradualist, subtle deletion approach), and created this laughably obtuse request for ‘concrete data’ speaks volumes for the validity of their investigations.
It is painfully clear that this placation thread will wriggle a few more times before it dies, but end it will, doubtlessly under the weight of more ‘content’ patches tied to the kitten gem store.
If you really want to be taken at face value here, incidentally, lambasting what you seem to herald as the new participatory technique of game development, you need to ensure your tone is not so blatantly supportive of every move that has been made to create this woeful state of affairs.
You used the term “revolutionize” no less than three times in the one post in your accolades for the game and it’s design…
There are a few of us from the original thread that take a rather dim view as to the validity of any of such PR spin supporter threads.
It just reeks of the internal thread manipulator.

I can sell my data, 5 euro per mob/loot info. I didn’t bought this game to be volunteer and work for free for Anet. I bought this game to play it and to have fun.

puffintoast, eloquently stated, as always. It just seems too much like a delay tactic to me.

A normal event looks like a revolution to the ones with no historical background.

Now this is a ~2 hour session so I don’t know if it’ll fit in one post:

Borlis Pass; Lvl 62/63 Ranger; Armor 12% MF; Diessa Plateau; 5PM EST; 12/24/12; Going to Fireheart Rise (level appropriate zone): EDIT: Forgot – starting point Gram Hills

• 2 Wolves +2 Adds = 4 broken claws
• Silver node = 3 ore + Carnelian Nugget
• Lvl 18 Lakittenail Devourer = tiny scale + 26c
• Lv18 Lakittenail = 2 broken claws
• Silver node +Add Lv18 Lakittenail = 3 ore
• Lv17 Crimson Moa = 0 drop
• Lv 18 Lakittenail = 0
• Lv18 Lakittenail = Chainmail Shoulder (white lvl60)
• Lv18 Lakittenail Hatchling = Tiny scale
• Lv18 Lash +Add Lv18 Hatchling +Add Lvl18 Veteran = Carrion Rogue Pauldrons (yellow lvl 61) + 2 claws
• Lv18 Lash = Tiny venom
• Lv18 Hatch = (2 player characters [PC’s]) = 0 drop
• Lv18 Lash = 2 broke claws
• Sharptail +Add Lakittenail (2 PC’s) = Tiny venom + broke claw
• Lakittenail = 0
• Hatchling = 0
• Lakittenail +Add Lakittenail = Tiny venom
• Gift node = Large gift (ditched the Toy Ventaris)
• Lv18 Warg = 0 drops
• Lv18 Warg (respawn) = 0
  Discovered Freewain Pastures
• Lv18 Warg = 2 broke fangs
• Lv18 Warg = 2 broken fangs
• 2 Lv18 Ascalonian Archers = 2 Globs of Globby Goo + 16c
• Warg = 0 drop
  Discovered Marbanes Outcrop
• Lv18 Warg = 2 broke fang
• Lv18 Warg = Tattered hide
• Lv19 Crimson Moa = Small claw
• Silver node = 3 ore + Amethyst nugget
• Lv17 Warthog = 0 drop
• Lv20 Black bear = 0 drop
• Silver node = 3 ore + Topaz nugget (checked WvW Gathering bonus = 18%)
• Lv20 Black bear = 0 drop
• Lv20 Black bear = Giant gift
• Lv20 Black bear = 0 drop
• Lv20 Black bear = 0
• Lv20 Black bear = 0
• Silver node = 3 ore
• Lv20 Black bear = Tattered hide
• Iron node = 3 ore
  Accidental disconnect! (local cause, not game related but this usually doesn’t happen and now it’s happened twice today. So I did a reboot.)
  Login Diessa Plateau 5:48pm EST;
• Lv20 Black bear = 0 drop
• L20 Black bear = Tiny claw
• Lv20 Black bear = (1 PC, non-participant in area) 0 drop
• Lv20 Black bear = 0 drop
• 2 Brackish scales = (1 PC, non-participant) Vial Weak Blood
  Blackblade Lake discovered
• Lv19 Brackish scale = Egg
• Tar Elemental +Add Brackish scale = Giant gift
• Lv21 Brackish scale = 0 drop
• Brackish scale +Add Tar elem = Vital Worn Chain Greaves (blue lvl18)
• Lv23 Scale blighter = 0 drop
• Lv23 Scale blighter = Thin blood + 23c
• Lv23 Brackish scale = 0
• Lv23 Scale blighter = 0 drop
• Lv23 Scale blighter = Egg
• Lv23 Brackish scale = Thin blood
• Bogfang the Scale skill challenge + summons +Add Blighter = 0 drop + skill point
• Lv23 Blighter = 0 drop
• Blighter +Add blighter = Egg (1 PC participant)
  Flame Temple Tombs discovered
• Lv22 Crimson Moa = Egg
• Lv22 Blighter = 0
• Lv22 Blighter = Egg
• Lv25 Hyena = 0 drop
• Lv25 Hyena = 2 broken fangs
• Lv25 Hyena +Add Lv24 Hyena = Small fang + Medium gift
• Lv25 Hyena = 3 broke fangs
• Lv25 Hyena = 0 drop
  Character Level to Lvl 63 (yay me)
• Lv25 Hyena = 0 drop
• Lv24 Flame Legion Bladestorm +Add Lv25 Flame Leg. Stalker = Small ritual bag + 2 broken claws + 24c
• Lv25 Hyena +Add Lv24 Hyena = 0 drop
• Lv25 Hyena = 0 drop
  WP to Dolyak Pass in Wayfarer Hills
• Herb seedling node = 2 Thyme leaves
  WP to Charrgate Haven in Diessa Plateau
  WP to Ascalon City in Plains of Ashford
  Zone to Iron Marches
• Flame legion Marksman +Add 2 Flame stalkers = 2 Dull claws + Ritual sack
• Flame Stalker = Frayed garment
• Gift node = Giant gift + ugly sweater + gear
• Revive 2 NPCs
• Gift node = Giant gift + 2 crumbling bones + Sack of skritt shinies + metal scrap + 58c + Heavy bone + Heavy bone
• Lv55 Doe = 0 drop
• Flame legion Bladestorm +Add Flame Stalker +Add 3 other flame legion baddies = 2 Medium ritual bags (1 PC participant)
• 2 Lava elementals = 0 drops
• Rez 4 NPCs
• Lava elem = Luminous dust
• Ember = 2 Hot stones
• Rez 1 NPC
  Zone to Fireheart Rise (finally!)
• Platinum node = 3 ores
• Gift node = 2 Giant (Ditched the toy soldiers)
  Stop at Tuyere Command Post for break and to take inventory.

(continued)

New inventory this session:
1 Carnelian Nugget; 15 Silver ore; 2 Tiny scales; 3 Tiny venom; 1 Large gift; 2 Tattered hides; 1 Small claw; 1 Amethyst nugget; 1 Topaz nugget; 7 Giant gifts; 3 Iron ore; 1 Tiny Claw; 1 Vial weak blood; 5 Eggs; 14 Broken claws; 11 Broken fangs; 2 Globs of Globby Goo; 1 Chainmail Shoulders (white lvl60), Carrion Rogue Pauldrons of Strength (yellow lvl61); Vital Worn Chain Greaves (blue lvl18); 2 Vials of Thin Blood; 1 Small fang; 1 Medium gift; 1 Small ritual bag; 2 Thyme leaves; 2 Dull claws; 1 Ritual sack; 1 Frayed garment; 1 Gear; 1 Ugly wool sweater; 2 Crumbling bones; 1 Sack of skritt shinies; 1 Metal scrap; 2 Heavy bones; 2 Medium ritual bags; 1 Luminous dust; 2 Hot stones; 3 Platinum ore.

From opening bags, gifts, sacks and salvaging the salvageables:
1 Pristine snowflake; 5 Rawhide leather sections; 2 Flawless snowflakes; 1 Ugly wool sweater; 1 Ugly wool socks; 1 Wool scrap + 5c; 1 Rugged leather section; 1 Linen scrap + 3c; 3 Linen scraps; 2 Rugged leather sections; 1 Platinum ore; 3 Cotton scraps.

@puffintoast;
You probably should have read my answer to someone else about these points you make. Number 2 – no where did I say “more complete data” (oops I guess I did use that phrase but perhaps you should read it in it’s context) you are trying to spin my post for those who didn’t read it. Number 3 – What I see is you just trying to stir up trouble and me actually going out and gathering exact, itemized information.

As I said in a previous post there are 2 options in this thread: Either give ANet the benefit of the doubt and actually try to cooperate or to just lock and give up on this thread as useless. I am not a shill poster – and you are not a helpful poster.

For a month we provided every bit of data, unbidden by anyone in the ArenaNet community, to address the sudden impact that the changes they made mid-November to the reward system in the game were making.

Were you giving them verifiable information in that other thread or were you giving them your own conclusions based on unspoken facts and figures? To say something like “drops are 50% worse now than they were before the patch” and not give your quantifiable figures to back that up is useless.

I am suggesting take them at their word and give them specific information that they ask for. THEN if they continue in the same way without addressing the concerns you can perhaps make the arguments you are making. Until then, your accusations have no foundation because you have only given them your own unfounded suppositions and then blame them for not being able to use your baseless “data”.

I challenge you, puffintoast, and all other readers: Go out and gather the information as I am gathering and reporting it. Report it factually and completely. I will bet you that if there is an issue, this data will help the devs to find it. But one way or the other I bet they will honestly report their findings based on the specific information that we gave.

They will have to… because if you are right and they are bluffing you will have successfully called their bluff. But I guarantee you they can do nothing with your “feelings” about drops and your baseless suppositions.

To request player feedback is perfectly acceptable, and i encourage all players to give their feedback concerning their experience with the game. But it is my experience that I do not play a game for the purpose of “testing” or “quality control”, I do not work all day long just to come home and take notes and create flow charts of “Data” as my form of entertainment. The request for player feedback is logical, but perhaps the way the request was phrased was ill informed in the spirit of customer service.