Guild Wars 2

It’s all a matter of perception and eventually those who remember the “good luck” days will have all given up and left, like myself and several others I know. Others will just accept the fact and eventually stop complaining. Either way, it just feels like ANet is just trying to wait us out.

The only thing I do with the game these days is read this thread because I do hold a feint hope that I’m wrong with all my theories about what’s going on and the drop rates will return to normal. Even then, I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at the game the same way ever again, which is really a shame. Gamers are a fickle crowd and loyalty can be lost much easier than gained/regained.

How about there not being a problem with the drop rates, but a problem with magic find?

I’m not the first to notice this, not by a long shot.

It seems that for whatever reason, the higher your MF is, the LOWER your drops are. It almost seems that if your MF is over 100%, your DR is maxed out before you even start farming.

Friday I bought 20 gold worth of MF gear, and my MF went from a base of 0% to a base of around 150ish (at work so can’t give you an exact number) with luck runes that add up. With omnomberry bars that adds 30% plus any buff banners I find which adds 10%.

After 3 days of farming, I spend 12 hours with my normal gear with a 0 base and 30% from food, and 12 hours with my MF gear on and food, this is what I was tallying up:

0% base armor I use for everything:
7 rares
52 greens
71 blues

150% base MF gear:
0 rares
37 greens
32 blues

Again, this is what I tallied after 12 hours of use of EACH armor set.

There is obviously something not right here.

note added
I am farming in the same areas, so it’s not location

Also, champions are STILL not dropping ANY loot around 60% of the time

Kyosji.8961:

0% base armor I use for everything:
7 rares
52 greens
71 blues

150% base MF gear:
0 rares
37 greens
32 blues

As stated many times in different threads, despite the advertised purpose of magic find, magic find reduces your drop rate, lowers the % of equipment, and increases the % of fines/bags/salvageables.

Magic Find works if you are after crafting materials, otherwise don’t use magic find.

Kyosji.8961:

How about there not being a problem with the drop rates, but a problem with magic find?

I’m not the first to notice this, not by a long shot.

It seems that for whatever reason, the higher your MF is, the LOWER your drops are. It almost seems that if your MF is over 100%, your DR is maxed out before you even start farming.

Friday I bought 20 gold worth of MF gear, and my MF went from a base of 0% to a base of around 150ish (at work so can’t give you an exact number) with luck runes that add up. With omnomberry bars that adds 30% plus any buff banners I find which adds 10%.

After 3 days of farming, I spend 12 hours with my normal gear with a 0 base and 30% from food, and 12 hours with my MF gear on and food, this is what I was tallying up:

0% base armor I use for everything:
7 rares
52 greens
71 blues

150% base MF gear:
0 rares
37 greens
32 blues

Again, this is what I tallied after 12 hours of use of EACH armor set.

There is obviously something not right here.

note added
I am farming in the same areas, so it’s not location

I typically run 0 MF on my armor and still get garbage most of the time. I think I have about 15 MF on my trinkets, but have often considered replacing the MF enchantments with something more useful since MF doesn’t seem, and never has seemed to work anyway.

Kyosji.8961:

How about there not being a problem with the drop rates, but a problem with magic find?

I’m not the first to notice this, not by a long shot.

It seems that for whatever reason, the higher your MF is, the LOWER your drops are. It almost seems that if your MF is over 100%, your DR is maxed out before you even start farming.

Friday I bought 20 gold worth of MF gear, and my MF went from a base of 0% to a base of around 150ish (at work so can’t give you an exact number) with luck runes that add up. With omnomberry bars that adds 30% plus any buff banners I find which adds 10%.

After 3 days of farming, I spend 12 hours with my normal gear with a 0 base and 30% from food, and 12 hours with my MF gear on and food, this is what I was tallying up:

0% base armor I use for everything:
7 rares
52 greens
71 blues

150% base MF gear:
0 rares
37 greens
32 blues

Again, this is what I tallied after 12 hours of use of EACH armor set.

There is obviously something not right here.

note added
I am farming in the same areas, so it’s not location

What you should also be keeping track of is the type of monster and the number killed over the same period.

When you equip MF gear, you lose out on a main stat. Doing that for all of your gear can significantly hamper your effectiveness at killing monsters and lower your rate of loot attempts.

That’s always been the problem with “Magic Find” … if you don’t have it innately, you have to weigh the opportunity cost of a more effective stat which would increase your rate of pulling from the loot tables against a higher chance of better items from a lower number of pulls from the same table.

Point being: Is the number of times you’re looting significantly lower with “Magic Find” gear? I would say since you’ve got a total of 130 uncommon or better items with no MF vs. a total of 69 uncommon or better with 150% MF, you’re amount of looting has significantly decreased to the point of MF being a detriment to whatever style of ‘farming’ you were using.

Just did the shelter event … tagged many things with my grenades (lots of numbers on the screen) and all I got was

5 porous bones
2 prickly spider legs
1 potent venom sac
1 large bone
1 giant wintersday gift
1 travellers orrian staff (green)
1 shamans reinforced scale coat (blue)

that is all

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t know how much you “imrpoved” the drop rates of Champions but obviously it’s not enough

The problem is, if you have a .01% chance of finding an exotic from a normal monster, and you increase that by something outstanding, say 40x, you’ve still only got a .4% chance of finding an exotic.

Not only that, but you’re getting ONE loot. That means, if you don’t find something substantial, the opportunity cost of fighting that one monster for as long as it would have taken you to fight ‘x’ number of normal monsters is greater than the reward. Opportunity costs should always be taken into consideration. For the sake of arguement, lets just say it was 40 normals to every champion in keeping with the 40x loot table. You’d have to increase ALL loot AMOUNTS by 40x

That means even junk loot. That’s right, junk loot. If you can kill about 40 normals in the time it would take you to kill 1 champion, you can get 40 pulls from the same loot table that the champion has. Even though he’s got a better chance to drop uncommon+, you’ve only got one loot (maybe). That means, if he doesn’t give you the ‘awesome’ item you’re hoping for, you’ve foregone 39 OTHER attempts at the same table. Even with a lesser rate for top-tier loot, you’re looking at more junk, more common, and more uncommon+ loot.

Champions’ tables need a look at. They should all ALWAYS give off a silver amount equal to the relative time expected to be spent by the same expected group of people killing normal monsters.

Which means the champion’s loot rate AND silver should scale up at a slightly accellerated rate than the difficulty of the event as more people arrive. Anything less than that and you’ve just given people incentive not to play together. If it gets harder but your loot doesn’t get better, why bother? If the difficulty goes up but the loot matches it, who cares? If the return becomes greater, even slightly, than the time involved as more people show up, you’re inviting team play and cooperation.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Hi,

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it.

So we’ve created this thread so that players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter. Please be as accurate as possible, reporting only concrete data that you’ve experienced first hand. Among the information we’re interested in: map where you played, creatures you fought that dropped items, recipes from the Mystic Forge that you used.

Thanks for your understanding and help!

I’ll be standing in the corner with cobwebs all over me by the time they see the light and figure out something is not working.

This game is starting to look more like “pay to win/play” to me. I don’t mind working for my drops, but as it currently is setup, I am whipping myself for drops instead.

As a casual player I normally do not have drop issues, but this is one game I think I may end up leaving since the drop rate for anything I do is less than it used to be…even after they posted they were fixing it.

Personally, I am beginning to think Anet DOES NOT CARE about us.

Time for me to look for another game that does.

lynspottery.6529:

Personally, I am beginning to think Anet DOES NOT CARE about us.

Time for me to look for another game that does.

Careful! They’ll infract you! kekeke

They’ve now closed the bug thread related to this and are directing people to here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Loot-Drop-Rate-Bug/page/4

One more nail in the coffin…one more thread (Also with good info in it) shut down without any real answers. That’s some big rug…sweep sweep sweep…

Here is how to sum up 6 weeks of frustration.

There are 3 types of drops,
1. Equipment drops which is made up of armour, weapons, jewels, back pieces,
2. Crafting drops which is made up of fines, bags and salvageable.
3. and Junk drop which is made up of anything that gets sold when you hit the sell junk button.

On Nov15 something was changed that changed the drop mechanic for a lot of players. Now while ArenaNet says they didn’t change the mechanic maybe another change did.

It is quite clear from the evidence provided that prior to Nov15 “equipment” drops were the most significant drop. This means drops of equipment were more frequent than junk and crafting drops.

It is also quite clear from the evidence that since Nov15 “equipment” drops are now the least significant drop, with “junk” drops now being the most significant drop. This means we are getting more junk than any other item.

While I acknowledge ArenaNets statement that they did not change the drop mechanic, our experience is that something has changed the drop mechanic.

What is frustrating the issue even more is our experience is being minimised as a perception despite pages and pages of evidence to the contrary.

Clearly the evidence shows,
1. Drops from champions are not guaranteed as stated in patch notes of Nov15.
2. Drops from veterans are still quite rare despite patch notes of Nov15 implying otherwise.
3. Rare items used to drop around 1 per evert, maybe more if you were lucky. Now you are lucky if you get 1 per day.
4. Equipment drops were the most significant drop prior to Nov15, since then they have been the least significant drop.
5. Magic find only makes the problem worse with even less equipment drops occurring with the more magic find you have.
6. People would quite easily make about 10G per day running events in cursed shore prior to Nov15 (that is if they salvaged the rares and sold the globs of ectoplasm). Now it can take upwards of 3 days to make the same amount.

There is one more issue people have touched on but has not really been discussed. It seems that salvaging what little rares we do get, peoples experience is that we also have a lower chance of globs of ectoplasm than prior to the Nov15 patch. This issue has been detailed in a couple of posts in the other thread by people who bought bulk rares from the trading post for the purpose of obtaining globs of ectoplasm.

The one constant in all these issues is the random number generator(RNG). Now to make it clear as to what our perception is, on the scale of loot, it appears that the RNG has been pushed further down the scale to favour junk rather than equipment.

Think of a rubber band and mark 2 spots on the rubber band a fair distance apart. Now draw a box on a piece of paper the same width as the marks on the rubber band. This box is going to represent the RNG, while the rubber band represents the loot table with no drops being on the left to exotic being on the right. Sitting the rubber band over the box, this is how we perceive our drops prior to Nov15. Now pull on the right hand side of the rubber band stretching it out. This is how we perceive drop now. The RNG seems to be looking at a lower part of the table than prior to Nov15, as if the loot table had been stretched, just like the rubber band, and the RNG was not modified to compensate.

I hope this clarifies what we are experiencing, and not just perceiving.

If I get anything, which I don’t regularly even now, it’s usually a white or a blue piece of armor.

Bosses: Often if you die before he is dead, the boss will not drop anything for you. This happens in all of the fractals. Say you die when he’s at 20% or so, and you are defeated so most people wont res you immediately (which is fine because there’s no use risking your life to save someone at that point). Result: No drops from the Boss for you. (Lornarr Dragonseeker is an example.)

Magic Find:
So recently I got a full Explorer’s Set with Traveler runes and please don’t ask me to put together all the MF % because I suck at maths. I also wear those 3% MF trinkets and what not AND I use Peach Tarts.
I played Honor of the Waves Story yesterday, and got:
0 Exotics
1 Rare (lvl80)
1 Elborate Totem
1 Heavy Icy Bag

The rest is just not worth mentioning in detail, a few spikes, ice stones… that’s it. Does that count as abnormal behaviour? Because I got about the same without the added MF.

For an accurate summary of the state of loot, please see Wildcode’s post just above.

Here is some more info for devs:

2 days of Cursed Shore events and farming, between 1 and 3 hours per day. MF (5 piece pirates, 1 explorer, MF gear on trinkets, 30% food, banner at times — total of 130+, not sure exact #)

Total rares: 0.

Estimated Chains: 4x Shelter, Jofast Chain x2, Penitent x3, Jofast’s defense x2

Spark farming for 30-45 minutes. Mob slaying between all events.

Considering the only drop of value at 80 is a rare or better, this is near-useless for me as a player, and, aside from WvW, GW2 is becoming little more than an uninspiring time-waster. No hope at a legendary at this rate (despite having the precursor).

Again, about 4 hours of playtime in 80 zones with near-max MF (minus booster), 0 rares.

I am starting to get frustrated. I have played this game since head start period. I struggle to get any good drops at all. I get so many porous bones I could build a house out of them. I average 1 yellow every 2 days or so. Most of the time it is a putrid essence. I have gotten only one exotic drop period and that was from Mad Kings Chest. I have tried fractals, dungeons, dragon chests and farming Orr, but my luck is still bad. I opened over 200 gifts last night, 98% of them was ugly socks. I got 7 tiny snowflakes, 3 choir bells, 1 recipe and focus skin. I have tried with and without mf gear. It doesn’t matter for me. It is now to the point that I have the number of greens I get start to decrease and junk increase. I do get a fair bit of crafting materials in orr by that I mean the dust and small venom sacks, but that is about it for me. I did 2 shelters, 2 pentient and 1 defense event and got 1 yellow out of it. Just from the first shelter event I had 37 porous skulls. It now takes several days to make just 1g. I am not a rich character, I just made it to Orr right around Lost Shores time so I never got to do any farming back when it was good. I wish Anet would do something about this.

I rarely get a good drop ever. Mostly just stuff I can hit “sell junk” on when I am using a vendor.

I might not have exact numbers but I can tell you this ArenaNet, most of my guild/friends don’t log in anymore because they had fun finding neat things. They stopped playing PvE and went into WvW with hopes it might be more fun. They found WvW to be a huge waste of money with little to no reward. Drops in WvW were even worse and even harder to get since they were randomly dropped in the middle of huge fights.

I don’t care about the drop rate from the chests you buy on the marketplace, I don’t care about the drop rates on things like the holiday events. What I do care about is all my friends leaving because of the normal drops from mobs in PvE being practically nonexistent.

Yes I do care a bit about the drop rate, the key to it being it was more FUN when the drop rate was better. What I care the most about is everyone I know doesn’t log in anymore with this being a big part of it since it added a little excitement to running around killing monsters. We used to have fun sharing and trading drops with each other. They are bored. Without all my friends I’m growing bored.

I just killed maybe 25-30 things in Malchor’s Leap on the Crystal Desert world. I got these drops: 5 dark stained claws, a Giant Wintersday Gift (Contained a ugly wool sweater), and a white mace.

papryk.6273:

let’s start with Champions not droping anything at all…when it was stated in the patch notes from 15th november that they should ALWAYS drop something….but yeah…anything suspicious… -_-"

Agreed… Killed 3 Champions in a row and got absolutely nothing for all 3. This was last week.

In general, I do try and avoid Champs because I know regardless of my contribution I will rarely get drops. This is sad to me because I have been in smaller groups that needed that extra help to down a champ, but few come to help due to the low chance of getting loot. I have done Melandru numerous times in the last couple weeks with groups anywhere from 8-20+ and never gotten a drop although I get gold on the event.

RongBip.5463:

In general, I do try and avoid Champs because I know regardless of my contribution I will rarely get drops. This is sad to me because I have been in smaller groups that needed that extra help to down a champ, but few come to help due to the low chance of getting loot. I have done Melandru numerous times in the last couple weeks with groups anywhere from 8-20+ and never gotten a drop although I get gold on the event.

I hear ya. I remember trying to find groups to do some of the more difficult skill points in Cursed Shore. Long before I essentially stopped playing the game, I stopped doing champion/boss level events, unless they were required for map completion, even then I often found myself trying to ninja the point or use minions to distract mobs to get the point. Aside from the time commitment and general player base lack of participation, the repair costs often outweigh the reward. I rarely get less than a gold-level contribution for events, unless I hit-n-run or come in late and I rarely get anything worthwhile for bosses, so why bother. I’d rather do defense events like Penitent or Jofast where there’s lots of easy kills. My main attack is AOE condition damage, so I can tag a lot of mobs all at once. Still rarely get anything worthwhile.

Played last night for about 30 minutes, just to see if my DR had reset, it did not, I did get an unidentified dye last night from a risen chicken (Essentially a rare-level reward that sells for, what, about 14 silver?). I open all dyes and this one did open to be an Abyss Dye, probably the best drop I’ve gotten since the lost shores chest, but I know many people don’t open dyes so, again, it’s essentially a rare-level drop.

Champion drops are as rare as red posts in these two threads, Veterans are worse despite the patch that was supposed to fix the drop rate in those two.
What it actually did was make the drop rate worse in open play across the board and still we hear nothing.

wildcode.5403:

Here is how to sum up 6 weeks of frustration.

There are 3 types of drops,
1. Equipment drops which is made up of armour, weapons, jewels, back pieces,
2. Crafting drops which is made up of fines, bags and salvageable.
3. and Junk drop which is made up of anything that gets sold when you hit the sell junk button.

On Nov15 something was changed that changed the drop mechanic for a lot of players. Now while ArenaNet says they didn’t change the mechanic maybe another change did.

They may say that they didn’t change the drop mechanics but this says otherwise.

Martin Kerstein

Head of Global Community

" Corrected drop rate for Unidentified Dye.

On November 1, we introduced a change that unintentionally increased the drop rate of Unidentified Dye. Today’s game update corrects the drop rate for Unidentified Dye."

Interestingly enough this change was made around the time loot went sour…
IF not that exact update it was the one that caused the increased drop rate (typo error probably) but we know they were tweaking numbers since they accidentally increased the unid dye drop rates; the Nov 1st patch notes dont say anything about tweaking loot but it happened, so my question is this what all were they tweaking? Regardless they did/do tamper with drops at one point or another.

Aha, I see they moved this thread from the “bug” forum to this discussion forum.

I would like to know why? If they indicated it was a bug introduced inadvertently, why not just fix it?

So far I’m at about £80 spent on Steam these holidays but zilch on GW2, there is no point at all in buying slots to create one of each profession/race which was my plan because I will outlevel my weapons faster than they drop to keep up with the monsters levels making the game a chore. I’ve only logged in to wish my Guildies a Happy Christmas and Merry New Year lately.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

My interest in this thread topic isn’t as much about missing great loot. My game account is one of those typically ‘unlucky’ accounts and because of that, I’m not as profoundly affected by this issue as others. But the point of my participation is that, being a low-value-loot player, any decrease is going to further gimp my drop values.

How can you be permanently unlucky? Do you think you’ve been hit by permanenet DR?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

So let’s assume for this discussion that player population has increased dramatically (I understand that there are possible arguments against this – but also consider that ANet has not reduced the number of servers). If this is the case and that the population increase has diluted the loot tables:

I’d hate to think my loot drops are affected by other players, that would be seriously poor game design. I know that if an enemy hasn’t been killed for a while that apparently his chance of dropping higher level loot increases, I find that bad enough.

morrolan.9608:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

My interest in this thread topic isn’t as much about missing great loot. My game account is one of those typically ‘unlucky’ accounts and because of that, I’m not as profoundly affected by this issue as others. But the point of my participation is that, being a low-value-loot player, any decrease is going to further gimp my drop values.

How can you be permanently unlucky? Do you think you’ve been hit by permanenet DR?

There is a common theory that certain accounts seem to be more prone to this problem while others seem not affected at all. While I’m not as unlucky as some others here, the only time I get good weapon drops seems to be shortly after server restarts or if I haven’t played the game for a while. Last time I really played, I garnered over 90 porous bones in the run of about an hour and a half.

Ok, I am getting frustrated now…

Last few days I’ve been moving about zones and it doesn’t matter where I went, after ~15min I would get >75% garbage or nothing – hooves, porous bones etc etc etc.

Sometimes I would not even get anything from several mobs in a row.

Hows that for statistics???

I was hoping that once new year has popped we start getting some communication in this thread… will wait a bit longer I suppose.

Leamas.5803:

They’ve now closed the bug thread related to this and are directing people to here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Loot-Drop-Rate-Bug/page/4

One more nail in the coffin…one more thread (Also with good info in it) shut down without any real answers. That’s some big rug…sweep sweep sweep…

They now closed THAT thread and are directing them to this one. An interesting game of cat and mouse.

I am not a farmer, I mainly wander around, do events, and finish zones. I will not help with Champions most of the time now, as most of my experience has been a non-lootable corpse, or no corpse at all. The few times there is a drop, it is blue trash. I have mostly Norn, have done the Svanir’s Dome event many times, and usually no one will get any drop of any kind.

I pretty much started the game at the time of the “loot improvement nerf”. I have no past to reference, only my experiences that indicate there is slim to no chance of better rewards from doing harder content.. in the world. I don’t do dungeons so can’t comment on those.

Veterans and Champions rarely drop anything for me, and I am usually on a character whose level is within 5 levels of the zone. Yellows I have looted have always been off random trash encountered while exploring and extremely rare. I have yet to get a rare off a Champion, Veteran, or meta event chest at gold levels of contribution.

If you want people to not bother with Champion events and meta chains, this is the way to accomplish that. Given my history of loot from them.. I am already at the point of ignoring them.

I run mid level stuff mostly, my chars are one 80, 4 in 50s, 1 at 25. Champions like the Krait bloodwitch, Jotun Magekiller, Branded Devourer, etc will be up for hours and left alone. I’ve killed Ignious the Eternal at least 5 times for no drop at all. He can stay up forever as far as I am concerned now.

You have a problem. I think it is safe to extrapolate that the bots circuiting on common trash are pulling more rares out of the game than actual players who participate in events do. You have a situation when “Kill the Champion” events come on screen and people don’t care, instead of rushing to help. People ignore meta chains because they know the reward will not be worth the time. Seems to me that improving the rewards for events Bots can’t do would be just common sense, but the reverse seems to be in effect. The ability to bot kill hundreds of Trash Mobs trumps active participation in major events and boss kills.

I did the whole Ogre meta chain yesterday in Fields of ruin. Gold participation at every step. For that entire chain and chest I got 2 common blues 5 levels under my level 43 and a lot of junk and mats. On my way out of the area I stopped to stab some annoying hyena and pulled a 43 Rare off it. Shook my head and laughed (major rune of divinity on it), knowing I would have been better off had I spent the time murdering hyenas as opposed to participating in your Signature content.. events.

morrolan.9608:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

My interest in this thread topic isn’t as much about missing great loot. My game account is one of those typically ‘unlucky’ accounts and because of that, I’m not as profoundly affected by this issue as others. But the point of my participation is that, being a low-value-loot player, any decrease is going to further gimp my drop values.

How can you be permanently unlucky? Do you think you’ve been hit by permanenet DR?

As someone said above, there is a common theory that player accounts in online games can be negatively affected by some otherwise innocent setting or account ID when that setting or ID is referenced in a ‘dice-roll’ or PRNG algorithm. Say for instance, that the coder used a prime number to set up a random number roll and also referred to “account_ID” or “character_ID”. If the prime number happens to match something in the ID then there may be a limiter created when the coder say, tells the program to not let the prime number interfere with the outcome of the ‘dice-roll’.

Obviously, that is a puppy example because I’m not actually a coder. But that kind of gives you the idea. Please also see Wi Flag from Kill Ten Rats and the source explanation for “Wi Flag” at the AC Wikia.

morrolan.9608:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

So let’s assume for this discussion that player population has increased dramatically (I understand that there are possible arguments against this – but also consider that ANet has not reduced the number of servers). If this is the case and that the population increase has diluted the loot tables:

I’d hate to think my loot drops are affected by other players, that would be seriously poor game design. I know that if an enemy hasn’t been killed for a while that apparently his chance of dropping higher level loot increases, I find that bad enough.

Well, you understand that your drops aren’t directly affected by others (except by kill credit, of course). With that said, I don’t know about poor design – it could just be that the loot tables were never coded to check total game player population and adjust the RNG for an out-of-scope total player population (this is not referring to the event scaling for number of players in the area).

That could work the other way too. If the population fell drastically, and if the loot tables didn’t take that into consideration then everyone might start getting above average drops.

If this is the case, then I’m certain ANet would make the proper changes to address this.

As far as a mob that hasn’t been killed in a while: my understanding is that loot/drops are NOT affected, but instead if the mob has not been killed for a while then the player will get an xp bonus (which by the way, is shown on the user interface with the normal xp + bonus xp).

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Obviously, that is a puppy example because I’m not actually a coder. But that kind of gives you the idea. Please also see Wi Flag from Kill Ten Rats and the source explanation for “Wi Flag” at the AC Wikia.

I’ve had this happen in GW2. The champion risen abomination in cursed shore (Near Plinx) went agro on me as soon as it saw me. I didn’t have to hit it. Upon dying, respawning and approaching again, same thing…never even had to hit it. It did the same thing 5 or 6 times before others finally took it down. It was an expensive fight, costing about 12 silver in repairs.

No loot from the encounter either.

Darn, playerbase is quite resourcefull in finding possible bugs. Some of you should be on ANet paylist for doing their job.

Leamas.5803:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Obviously, that is a puppy example because I’m not actually a coder. But that kind of gives you the idea. Please also see Wi Flag from Kill Ten Rats and the source explanation for “Wi Flag” at the AC Wikia.

I’ve had this happen in GW2. The champion risen abomination in cursed shore (Near Plinx) went agro on me as soon as it saw me. I didn’t have to hit it. Upon dying, respawning and approaching again, same thing…never even had to hit it. It did the same thing 5 or 6 times before others finally took it down. It was an expensive fight, costing about 12 silver in repairs.

No loot from the encounter either.

Heh; yeah the solution to the problem is to shout in alarm: DODGE! and then press the dodge button. And then get a few licks like “Whirling Blades” or “Hundred Blades” in.

Just checking in to see if they’ve bothered to fix the game yet.

I’m guessing based on the last posts that they still haven’t. Oh well, guess I’ll check in in another 3-6 months, not that I hold much hope that they’ll fix it ever.

Rather pathetic, really.

Vets/champs rarely drop loot contradicting the 15nov patch.

MF drop rate is messed up, for example 4 rare 80 daggers gave me a blue 74 dagger wtf?

Yeahhh..to say I’m not annoyed would mean i am lying :/

The only time I attempt doing a Champ is if it is an event champ. The only thing I know I’ll get out of it is karma. That’s fine for me.

Champs out in the world I don’t mess with. They do not drop anything, ever.

I just hope Anet fixes it is all. Still love the game regardless of what drop what.

roostapro.9827:

Vets/champs rarely drop loot contradicting the 15nov patch.

MF drop rate is messed up, for example 4 rare 80 daggers gave me a blue 74 dagger wtf?

Yeahhh..to say I’m not annoyed would mean i am lying :/

This is an existing, known and acknowledged bug. See here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mystic-Forge-Downgrade-Possible-bug/first

I believe the whole loot issue is due to DR, I can make peace with RNG mechanics, but when you proceed to make it not random anymore by putting DR on individual accounts, then problems are bound to arise. My loot has been very good lately but I believe the reports in here and again believe DR is to blame.

To resolve this, please provide more transparency for resetting DR. I fully understand the bit issues, I was sickened by the sites I saw offering bot programs online. Truely one of the lowest form of gamers. However do not punish your real fan base, your very customers to stop these vile cheaters, use better bot detection software. Something like dot use a nuclear bomb to kill a house mouse or something…

By the way I love the game and will keep supporting your efforts

Medazolam.3058:

I believe the whole loot issue is due to DR, I can make peace with RNG mechanics, but when you proceed to make it not random anymore by putting DR on individual accounts, then problems are bound to arise. My loot has been very good lately but I believe the reports in here and again believe DR is to blame.

The problem with DR is that support can not even tell you if DR is active on your account. I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck, and to put a mail in the suggestion forums if I had an issue with drops.

Only when I pressed the issue further did they suggest I post in here, effectively ending the attempt to see if diminishing returns was activating on my account.

wildcode.5403:

Medazolam.3058:

I believe the whole loot issue is due to DR, I can make peace with RNG mechanics, but when you proceed to make it not random anymore by putting DR on individual accounts, then problems are bound to arise. My loot has been very good lately but I believe the reports in here and again believe DR is to blame.

The problem with DR is that support can not even tell you if DR is active on your account. I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck, and to put a mail in the suggestion forums if I had an issue with drops.

Only when I pressed the issue further did they suggest I post in here, effectively ending the attempt to see if diminishing returns was activating on my account.

Again, more smoke and mirrors. If DR is active on someone’s account, it should be a simple database query to check. There is going to be a flag or a score based on some predesigned, likely broken, algorithm, or something stored on a person’s account to trigger it. If they can’t pull such data, then they have fundamental design problems and need some new support tools. Perhaps they should be working on support software and fixing exiting bugs rather then releasing new content. I like new content as much as the next guy, but I’d like the game working properly first. Aside from the jumping puzzle, which was exceptional, the whole Wintersday event was plagued with the same DR as the normal game, which just ruined it.

wildcode.5403:

Medazolam.3058:

I believe the whole loot issue is due to DR, I can make peace with RNG mechanics, but when you proceed to make it not random anymore by putting DR on individual accounts, then problems are bound to arise. My loot has been very good lately but I believe the reports in here and again believe DR is to blame.

To resolve this, please provide more transparency for resetting DR. I fully understand the bit issues, I was sickened by the sites I saw offering bot programs online. Truely one of the lowest form of gamers. However do not punish your real fan base, your very customers to stop these vile cheaters, use better bot detection software. Something like dot use a nuclear bomb to kill a house mouse or something…

By the way I love the game and will keep supporting your efforts

The problem with DR is that support can not even tell you if DR is active on your account. I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck, and to put a mail in the suggestion forums if I had an issue with drops.

Only when I pressed the issue further did they suggest I post in here, effectively ending the attempt to see if diminishing returns was activating on my account.

So the drop issue is now being ignored by support.

Well, the only thing I can say is that ANet does appear to insist on people to play a specific play-style.

Before release, for instance, they talked about the trinity and made the point that it’s fine for the player to try to specialize on a single purpose – like tanking. But they made it clear they would make sure that player would be gimped and ineffective. It’s the same for dps and support.

Not only that, but they appear to have a thing against farming. Take the karma farm on Cursed Shore – they do continue to take steps to make it as inefficient as they can.

Probably the best thing to do is to not run the same Dynamic Event more than once per day or even two days.

Don’t kill more than a few of a type of mob within the same 24-48 hours. Since the game doesn’t distinguish between type of mob in high levels particularly (chicken, gorilla, drake or abomination – they are all the same mob since it says “Risen” in front of the name) then be careful to stay out of high level zones except every day or two. I guess this would also apply to “Branded” and the ice dragon minions up north.

There are plenty of zones – don’t play the same zone or map more than once every day or two (and don’t stay there more than about 15-30 minutes at a time).

Also it occurs to me that they are probably not happy that not a lot of players are spending time in the low levels so make sure to mix in low level zones regularly.

They give us 5 character slots which is plenty to not play any specific alt more than a day to 2 days straight.

Also dungeons – don’t play any one path more than once every couple days.

It might be a good idea for us to test this and play using the above guidelines. Maybe we can improve drops in this way? Let’s make sure to report back our results so that we can fine-tune these guidelines.

Leamas.5803:

wildcode.5403:

Medazolam.3058:

I believe the whole loot issue is due to DR, I can make peace with RNG mechanics, but when you proceed to make it not random anymore by putting DR on individual accounts, then problems are bound to arise. My loot has been very good lately but I believe the reports in here and again believe DR is to blame.

The problem with DR is that support can not even tell you if DR is active on your account. I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck, and to put a mail in the suggestion forums if I had an issue with drops.

Only when I pressed the issue further did they suggest I post in here, effectively ending the attempt to see if diminishing returns was activating on my account.

Again, more smoke and mirrors. If DR is active on someone’s account, it should be a simple database query to check. There is going to be a flag or a score based on some predesigned, likely broken, algorithm, or something stored on a person’s account to trigger it. If they can’t pull such data, then they have fundamental design problems and need some new support tools. Perhaps they should be working on support software and fixing exiting bugs rather then releasing new content. I like new content as much as the next guy, but I’d like the game working properly first. Aside from the jumping puzzle, which was exceptional, the whole Wintersday event was plagued with the same DR as the normal game, which just ruined it.

It also occurred to me to suggest that they code in a UI notification if we trigger the diminishing return mechanic. However, that would help the bots and gold-sellers to know when to switch it up.

Using the same reasoning, I suppose support can’t really tell a player if their character or account has triggered DR because the player they are talking to might be someone connected with bots.

So yeah, I’m sure they can tell if your character has triggered DR but I bet there is a policy to not tell you for the above reason.

wildcode.5403:

I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck,

Hmm – so do you think they are saying that it’s something similar to the “Wi Flag” concept? If you consider what I highlighted in your post, they do seem to be confirming that “some people DO experience bad luck” for sure.

What was their exact response?

Also did you all see there is also a reddit thread at /r/Guildwars2 titled “DAE avoid champions…”?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

wildcode.5403:

I tried to get the to look into it and the response basically said the drops were the same for everyone although some people do experience bad luck,

Hmm – so do you think they are saying that it’s something similar to the “Wi Flag” concept? If you consider what I highlighted in your post, they do seem to be confirming that “some people DO experience bad luck” for sure.

What was their exact response?

Also did you all see there is also a reddit thread at /r/Guildwars2 titled “DAE avoid champions…”?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15r9p1/dae_avoid_champions_due_to_poor_timereward/

also this is interesting…

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15tnyo/for_all_the_recent_complaints_about_rng_farming/

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

It also occurred to me to suggest that they code in a UI notification if we trigger the diminishing return mechanic. However, that would help the bots and gold-sellers to know when to switch it up.

At this point, to avoid DR, I’d welcome some sort of in-game “real person” detection construct, such as plain text Q&A, recaptcha or some similar tool.

Something else I would like to point out, I hit the passion fruit plants quite regularly, but I have NEVER gotten a passion flower from them. And when I say never, I mean I only get passion fruit, and the occasional dandelion.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Well, the only thing I can say is that ANet does appear to insist on people to play a specific play-style.
…
Not only that, but they appear to have a thing against farming. Take the karma farm on Cursed Shore – they do continue to take steps to make it as inefficient as they can.

Probably the best thing to do is to not run the same Dynamic Event more than once per day or even two days.

Don’t kill more than a few of a type of mob within the same 24-48 hours. Since the game doesn’t distinguish between type of mob in high levels particularly (chicken, gorilla, drake or abomination – they are all the same mob since it says “Risen” in front of the name) then be careful to stay out of high level zones except every day or two. I guess this would also apply to “Branded” and the ice dragon minions up north.

There are plenty of zones – don’t play the same zone or map more than once every day or two (and don’t stay there more than about 15-30 minutes at a time).

Also it occurs to me that they are probably not happy that not a lot of players are spending time in the low levels so make sure to mix in low level zones regularly.

They give us 5 character slots which is plenty to not play any specific alt more than a day to 2 days straight.

Also dungeons – don’t play any one path more than once every couple days.

It might be a good idea for us to test this and play using the above guidelines. Maybe we can improve drops in this way? Let’s make sure to report back our results so that we can fine-tune these guidelines.

If that is true why ANET designed THE ONLY TRUE lvl80 zone with same type of mob? If I do a lot of events in Orr I maybe do 4 kill types of enemies for my daily. That’s if I come accrosssome event that spawns mobs other than Risen. Usually after 1-2 hours spent in Orr I have 1 type of enemy killed.

I do try to jump to different events whenever I see in chat someone is saying that Event X has popped and I must say I cannot cry about the amount of drops (including rares/exotics/mats). So your assumption that ANet designed the game to reward us when we try to explore whole content might be true. Still when I happen to hit DR (or some mysteriousbad luck) there is no hope for hours if not days. PorousBones and Junk till server reset.

Now, I do dungeons every couple of days and must say I drop the usual stuff which varies from junk to rares so no problem here. Again, I do not farm dungeons. If I decide to do a run I usually do 1 to 3 paths and that’s it. Again, it might be true to do dungeons every couple of days to maximise the loot.

So here, you got your testing. At this point I have to say I did it all on purpose and with the intent of testing if I can maximise my drops. I have some experience in testing. Was Core Tester in Warhammer for almost 2 years before + did some other titles betas and provided detailed reports. Not saying this to brab or anything just to point out that I can understand what I am doing and for what purpose.

Still few things are annoying as kitten. First, VERY POOR rewards for doing hard open world contentand this includes Champs, Dragons, long events, temples. Except Grenth (where you not getting anything of value from chest but trash mobs drop a lot) event I usually get less coin/loot than it costs me to WP there and pay repair fees.

Now, let’s discuss the possibilities for average lvl 80 to get loot in PvE. We have Cursed Shore Frostgorge, Malchor’s Leap and Karka island. Last one can be only used to farm mats, get karka shells (poor drop rate) and that’s basically it. Few events, insanely hard Champs that drop NOTHING. The other 3 zones (except Cursed Shore) are used only for Ori/Ancient Wood/Omnom runs and Lodestone farm. Oh yeah, temples there and dragon but the loot is terrible there! ANet nerfed trash mob drop rate from most temples and dragon events so I already see less and less people doing them.
That leaves most people with the only option to farm events in Cursed Shore and that inevitably makes them prone to be hit by DR sooner or later.

Ecto salvage rate is WAY down.