Guild Wars 2

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Thanks for finally saying something on this issue, just don’t know why it took 2 months to get a response!

I really hope it will get fixed soon nonetheless as it is incredibly frustrating.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Without a standardised report for people to fill out, how much automation can there be?
Surely if this is an issue of collating and comparing, you would need to provide some way for people to contribute data in a specific format?
The OP asked for ‘concrete’ data, whilst providing no definition of such.
Now might be an ideal time to provide people the means to assist, if this issue truly is being looked into on the scale implied.

Finally!
Thank you Colin for informing us about your stance on this problem.
I am willing to help, as has been said, if you provide us with more info on how to do so. Communication is key.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Thank you Colin for the update.

I have to ask though, what is going on with champion/vet drops? This shouldn’t require extensive testing, it is clear that they rarely drop and most of the time its blues. If your dev team doesn’t beleive us, I am sure half of us would be willing to play with you guys for a couple of hours to show this – lets meet up somewhere and go champion hunting in lower and mid level zones for evidence.

This current situation clearly contridicts the patch notes yet no communication has ever been relased regarding this – only notes from devs regarding the overall loot, which is ‘being looked into’. Can we please have some sort of update regarding what is happening with champions atleast, moving forward?

Thank you for your time. Cheers.

puffintoast.6501:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Without a standardised report for people to fill out, how much automation can there be?
Surely if this is an issue of collating and comparing, you would need to provide some way for people to contribute data in a specific format?
The OP asked for ‘concrete’ data, whilst providing no definition of such.
Now might be an ideal time to provide people the means to assist, if this issue truly is being looked into on the scale implied.

Originally posted by OP:

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.

It sounds like they might be looking at game code lines practically object-by-object.

If that’s the case, and they don’t know what’s causing the glitch yet then that’s the worst case for a troubleshooter. It means they don’t know what to focus on yet (no standardized report form) and the only thing we can do is to try to do the part of OP that I quoted above. Unfortunately for myself, the doctors are slowly reducing my meds in preparation for some procedures I’m getting ready for. And I can’t sit here long enough for a good play session, much less one where I can keep a record of what’s going on too. I apologize for that.

Side-Note: I didn’t know they were also focused on a problem with the Mystic Forge… (see above quote.)

Edit: Errr I mean, of course, I’ve read all of the information including this OP – I just missed the Mystic Forge part.

Here’s a simple info any dev can look into and decide for themselves if drops are bugged or perceived as such. Claw of Jormag event – the whole event finishes, people loot the chest, head back to see the Champion Icebrood Goliath and 3 Veteran Icebrood mobs still roaming around. Around 10 people start killing the Champion mob including me, full of MF gear (silly me, bought another MF gear on TP and trinkets and kitten) – zero drop. I mean not even Glob of Globby kitten … nothing. Nobody got anything. 3 remaining vets – no drop. I only ever have gotten one rare out of Jormag chest even. Of all countless events I’ve done – only one rare.
I’ve started to wonder if I should buy a new a/c and farm on that and transfer to my main a/c via mail to see if my main a/c is “cursed”. But I’m also worried that the great intelligent system of GW2 would perceive me as a gold buyer/seller and ban both my accounts so in the end, I’d be kittened. I don’t see a reason to play anymore when I’ve 100% map on one char, 4 lvl 80’s and finding it boring and tough to level up remaining alts.

Pls give us atleast some ETA when it would be fixed so we can just quit the game now and return when you have a fix. Also, one original thread with so much data, then a merged thread with even more data and now this thread with 15 pages of data isn’t enough for you guys? So are you guys just branding your customers as fanbois who try to throw dirt on you and don’t trust us? You still need someone to test it intensively only to come back to us saying, “its only perceived nerf you fools, the game is working as intended”? So basically we’re being taken dump on. I’m sorry but after so many hours into game, so much money spent on gems to gold, and time spent into reading and replying here with info, we find being cheated! And I was told lots of great things about Anet from GW1 fan base.
We don’t want or care about Ascended gear when basic system isn’t working as it should be!

phaneo.4597:

I’ve started to wonder if I should buy a new a/c and farm on that and transfer to my main a/c via mail to see if my main a/c is “cursed”. But I’m also worried that the great intelligent system of GW2 would perceive me as a gold buyer/seller and ban both my accounts so in the end, I’d be kittened. I don’t see a reason to play anymore when I’ve 100% map on one char, 4 lvl 80’s and finding it boring and tough to level up remaining alts.

You could both join the same guild and trade through the guild bank….problem solved…unless the new account gets hits with the same problems then you would have 2 useless accounts.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Unbelievable.. someone was actually brave enough to stick their head into the lion’s den.

Unbelievable.. someone was actually brave enough to stick their head into the lion’s den.* Why couldn’t you, or anyone there, have gotten back to us sooner than this?

• How much aggravation can you cause the players of your game before they up and leave?
• I recall a certain AMA reddit thing where it was said communication was going to be more fluent among your playerbase… or did you not get that memo? Oh the irony.

Here is one of your colleagues who started up this whole thread, leaves it totally unattended for over 2 months and not a single word is said about the issue… until now? We want to be talked to, and communicated with about this!! It’s US that’s having the issue with your system here, surely you could take some advice on where things have gone wrong in such a crucial piece of the game’s workings? From our perspective it appears quite obviously that you want us to waste our time in the vain hope of getting something that’s worthwhile of our time spent in an area, when clearly there’s nothing more than lowly blues and junk to be sold at the end of the day. I should make it clear to you that not all of us are completely daft and sold by your penchant for gem store sales and cash shop neediness. Take your findings from this and the previous two other threads instead of wasting more man-hours scouring code for something that’s gone awry.

Why was this not even mentioned in the live stream? Do you really think all the hype and propaganda of something brand new, flashy and in your eyes, “exciting”, will turn the meagre masses’ attention away from the current problem, which until now you’ve not even acknowledged is actually a problem?

You know, I’ve seen this game slow down for a while now, and it’s not solely because of your ridiculous prices on microtransactions that you feel everyone needs so much; it’s not because of your blatant ignorance of the trading post warriors who don’t even play the game for what it is, that know how to get rich quick and flaunt the “fruits of their labour”, further bolstering prices of hard-to-get items, such as precursors; it’s not because of the stupid drops and hefty prices for waypoint travel (who ever thought that would be a good idea, or should I guess?) and lack of rares and exotics in our inventory day after day because of some bugged code; it’s not because of the RNG but that is slowly killing it as well, and not just for me… it’s because of your lack of communication with us.

And while you don’t communicate, this game slows down even more, until it stops… and if I were to animalise this game it would be a shark, and if a shark stops moving forward it eventually drowns. Your own inactions are killing this game. Pick up your game before more of us pack up and leave.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

A couple of things sort of stand out here.

1st, they are manually going through the data … where is their much touted metrics in all this? Surely their metrics tracks loot drops, after all the OP said

So far nothing shows anything suspicious

or are we to assume that the original response was based on QA experience on a test server?

2nd, they are developing tools to help sort through the data … Since loot is a big part of this game and they would want to make sure that no-one is taking advantage of some loot bug, surely there are tools already in place that can tell them whats dropping, how frequently and so on, after all they did pick up on dye drops happening too frequently …

I just find it disheartening that after 2 months of players stating what is wrong that this issue has not been resolved. A simple comparison of the loot metrics pre and post Nov15 would show a difference. Plus the fact that champs are not guaranteed loot, like the Nov15 patch notes state, shows beyond doubt something is wrong.

@wildcode, excellent points, especially on dye drops thing. I guess this is only an attempt to further delay any actual response on this. Two more months will pass and then they’ll come back that things are running well as intended, so stop “perceiving” things.

After a total of 10 hours farming, across two maps, on two different days, these are my results. This is the result of killing every single mob I see, Gathering every node I come across, and participating in every Dynamic Event that pops for 5 hours on one map. Then doing the exact same thing the next day, on a different map.

Character: Warrior, Charr, Male, lvl 80
Gear: Full MF set, while constantly using Omnomberry Bars
Map: Malchor’s Leap, all areas
Hours Farmed: 5

Drops
White: 59
Blue: 46
Green: 6
Yellow: 0
Orange: 0
Rare Crafting Mats: 19

Character: Warrior, Charr, Male, lvl 80
Gear: Full MF set, while constantly using Omnomberry Bars
Map: Cursed Shore, all areas
Hours Farmed: 5

Drops
White: 76
Blue: 68
Green: 3
Yellow: 0
Orange: 0
Rare Crafting Mats: 26

Conclusion: 10 Hours with full MF Gear and Not a single Rare or Exotic drop

Angry chickens drop no loot. Not only are they hard to kill but after killing several, not a single one dropped anything. Zero reward for time spent

I have noticed a clear difference in drops when using target focus AoE and AoE without focus. Let me ellaborate. Quite often when e.g. farming in Cursed shore or in WvWvW comes that target dies and there are lots of enemies around so I used cone/aoe skills or use e.g. flamethrower against them. I was wondering already that I seemingly didn’t get on wvwvw almost any bag drops at all in huge fights where I tend to hit a lot of people or in cursed shore events. Then I tried on just using pistol 1st skill aka explosive shots and just spam it as much as I can with always target, never just tossing some skill over groups of enemies (like circling them with flamethrower) – drops increased significally. I started to wonder this after I participated on battles on wvwvw with people claiming receiving dozens of loot bags while I got none to few.
So perhaps there is some method preventing aoe without having a target chosen to result anything for you?

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Well, I must say, we appreciate some sort of feedback.

You mentioned this process is strenuous. I have a simple solution. Remove DR coding and wait some time for the replies from players. If you don’t see an influx of happy players then we will go back to our game and not bother you with DR again.

You are trying to create an automated system that has clearly cuased issues over a long period and with that had to use many resources. Just give my idea a go. Deal?

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Nicely observed, Lyn.
They juggle the ‘cutting edge’ proclamations with the ‘old school’ grind, dependent upon the requirements of the situation.
In this case, it’s simply buying time. Gives the appearance of slaving over the hot anvil, poring with cracked spectacles at the archaic lines of code piled to the rafters on ages-old parchment, whilst rabid bats peck at their sweat-encrusted foreheads lined with worry and concentration.
Fills the gap until the open-world reward ‘fix’ of limited cheevo token food stamps are brought to bear upon our endless complaints about the problems caused by their war-time loot restrictions in the “Grand War on the Bots to Save the Economy”™.
Gods, makes you feel dirty enough just typing that out. Imagine having the role of a public face in ArenaNet, and standing up to spout this nonsense on behalf of the latest hare-brained Nexon directive.

This entire thread is proof of a failure in customer service. In this “age of the internet” word of mouth is an even greater form of advertisement than ever.
One complaint is a normal day, two complaints a problem, but three is a failure that will cost money. Should have never got this far and could have been avoided with a simple “Smile and a ’We are working to resolve this problem.” In the end people don’t generally care about results, what they care about is feeling like someone is listening to them, communication costs very little compared to the alternative. I hope that the issue of “perceived strange drops behavior” does get fixed, but this thread shows that for some atleast it is already too little too late.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Answer me one thing why should we believe you. You claimed that there was no issue and then two months later you say there is an issue but you have no made any progress in two months. You clearly have the abilitly to modify droprates as you nerfed them in the first place. This is nothing more than a delaying tactic until the new content whihc you hope will shut us up.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

I’m sorry, but from that statement I can’t tell if your side acknowledges a problem even exists, much less that you are pursuing a fix/correction.

I know that people saying they used to get 5 rares a day sounds like a foriegn universe to what I’ve experienced – I’m late to the party so the new rates are really all I know for higher level gameplay, and they are soul crushing.

It almost doesn’t matter if they have changed – what the game is granting as rewards out on the landscape RIGHT NOW are demoralizing. More so when I hear that people who were playing just weeks to a month ahead of me wear raking in literally an order of magnitude more desirable drops. I don’t mean a color shift, I mean 10 times as many desirable results.

Killed several champions today and many vets, also killed a boss or 2 that wasn’t labeled champ/vet … and only 1 of them dropped something

dani.1956:

Data part 1 : 10 Hours farming onyx lodestones – 1 onyx lodestone – earth ele.
Data part 2 : 7200 earth ele. killed – 1 onyx lodestone
Result : 100 onyx lodestone needed = 1000 hours ( 1 K hours ) or 720000 earth ele. kills !
Match this data with your testers that see nothing wrong with drop rates please !
Have a nice day !

I just really hope that they never encourage people to kill any type of enemies over and over again…

Data part 1: better chance to get onyx loadstones from elementals then from chests
Result: people instead of enjoying the game are killing the same monsters over and over again.

HiddenNick.7206:

dani.1956:

Data part 1 : 10 Hours farming onyx lodestones – 1 onyx lodestone – earth ele.
Data part 2 : 7200 earth ele. killed – 1 onyx lodestone
Result : 100 onyx lodestone needed = 1000 hours ( 1 K hours ) or 720000 earth ele. kills !
Match this data with your testers that see nothing wrong with drop rates please !
Have a nice day !

I just really hope that they never encourage people to kill any type of enemies over and over again…

Data part 1: better chance to get onyx loadstones from elementals then from chests
Result: people instead of enjoying the game are killing the same monsters over and over again.

It’s fun for some people to farm things. I find it satisfying, as long as I’m getting a decent return for time invested. That’s how you get a decent supply of things in the market. Those who like to farm, do, and sell the items to those who don’t. If items can’t be farmed effectively, you see the kind of prices we have on charged lodestones.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Thank you, Colin.

droprate of rings in fotm:

I do daily run whit the same persons:
- There is one always getting a ring i get one ring in 7 runs….
And it doesn’t matter how much i run that one persons gets a ring evryday and the others not…

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Here’s a thought to save you some trouble: Look instead at the content of the mid-November patches, find the nerf, and reverse it.

For the record, I have nearly 1000 hours of play. I have got roughly a dozen exotic drops during my time in the game. I got a couple from the mad king chest, a few from the karka chest, one in dubs, four in FOTM, and probably three or four from dungeons. I’m not sure if I’ve ever got a PvE exotic drop…I don’t think I have.

Hours played: ~1000
Exotics dropped: ~12

That’s roughly one per one hundred hours. And, given how easy exotics are to get in game, I think this works out pretty well. The reason I say that is I get really, really excited when an exotic drops precisely because of their rarity.

Chopps.5047:

For the record, I have nearly 1000 hours of play. I have got roughly a dozen exotic drops during my time in the game. I got a couple from the mad king chest, a few from the karka chest, one in dubs, four in FOTM, and probably three or four from dungeons. I’m not sure if I’ve ever got a PvE exotic drop…I don’t think I have.

Hours played: ~1000
Exotics dropped: ~12

That’s roughly one per one hundred hours. And, given how easy exotics are to get in game, I think this works out pretty well. The reason I say that is I get really, really excited when an exotic drops precisely because of their rarity.

I can’t speak for anyone else in this, or the other, thread but for myself, I am not even considering exotics in my complaints about the loot drop issues. The problem with the drops since Nov 15 is the incredible increase in junk (porous bones, for instance), white and blue gear in relation to the tiny drops of greens and microscopic drops of yellows. I have, on more than one occastion, had a full main pack, went to a vendor hit “Sell Junk” and be left with 5 or 6 items which were mostly white with one or two (if the loot god was generous) blue items.

It was a distinct and very noticeable difference which occurred the day that patch went live.

@Chopps: the thing is, we aren’t just talking about exotics; we are talking about rares (yellows) and even masterworks (greens) not dropping anymore since the start of november.
Maybe 80 or 85% of the players have a “normal” experience in game, but this thread is about that 10/15% of the players who seem to have a constant DR sticking to them. Accountwise, all the time, for over 2 months now.

Essence Snow.3194:

Question:

Does the QA team play/test on live servers using regular accounts or do they do QA on dev servers using dev accounts?

It would stand to reason if they are using dev accounts/servers then there would most likely be the the reason they are not “perceiving” the same drop rates as the players.

That was the first thought that popped into my mind. They stated it clearly in other thread that they cannot reproduce certain things on test servers just because there is a limited population (or some other factors). I tested some games on closed test servers before and I know for sure that test server =/= live server in 99% of cases.

Oh BTW, I am experiencing slight increase in “yellow” drops if you cound Pile of Vile/Putrid Essence as “rare” drop. Besides that Porous Bones are my main source of income.

I thought I had normal drop rate but since I had a week break from the game it is all terrible.

Bonefield.9813:

It’s fun for some people to farm things. I find it satisfying, as long as I’m getting a decent return for time invested. That’s how you get a decent supply of things in the market. Those who like to farm, do, and sell the items to those who don’t. If items can’t be farmed effectively, you see the kind of prices we have on charged lodestones.

Ok, but for me it’s not satisfying to not getting as much when I try to actually enjoy the game. I don’t like the thought that I’m missing something simply because I play it only the way it feels fun and not like a second job.

HiddenNick.7206:

Bonefield.9813:

It’s fun for some people to farm things. I find it satisfying, as long as I’m getting a decent return for time invested. That’s how you get a decent supply of things in the market. Those who like to farm, do, and sell the items to those who don’t. If items can’t be farmed effectively, you see the kind of prices we have on charged lodestones.

Ok, but for it’s not satisfying to not getting as much when I try to actually enjoy the game. I don’t like the thought that I’m missing something simply because I play it casual.

I said it before and restate it again. When I was levelling my first char I had no problems with gear. Everything I needed for current level just dropped. Now I am levelling an alt and without using TP or main char crafting I would be running in lvl 10 gear while being close to 40.

No idea if my main char farming affected the drop rate for my alt but something is obviously not right here. My ele basically didn’t drop a single weapon/armor usable for him since he hit lvl 10. OFC I did drop few whites and blues and got some green staff/scepter from JP chest but that’s basically it.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

smh, two months for this, after we’ve been told that drop rates can be changed on the fly. As someone mentioned earlier, to save you guys some time, go back to nov 15, undo what you did. I suppose we should get another “update” around the beginning of April

@Surmaturma.4823 – This is an interesting concept. I play as a Ranger and use the AoE barrage of arrows with LB to start then pick a single target and use a condition and quick shot to hit that one target or stack them since piercing arrows can hit multiples.

My observations are similar to yours though. I rarely get drops in WvW to the point I can’t really afford the repairs. I am getting credited with kills but it seems not enough to get loot.
I noticed this in Orr DE’s as well. If it was just me I wasn’t getting enough damage in to get loot but if I group up, all of a sudden I am getting more loot than I can deal with at times. Even the quality improved slightly.
I would attempt melee with a greatsword but my build is a bit on the glass cannon side. I wonder if there is some merit to the DPS tying into loot somehow. Maybe if others test out the AoE and we see a definite pattern then the devs can take notice and test it themselves.

Last night, started the evening in the Only Zuhl jumping puzzle in Timberline Falls, completed the puzzle but didn’t kill the champ for the chest as my returns would have sucked anyway and a guild-mate needed some help in Malchor’s Leap. This was much more appealing than trying to solo a champion in a confined space. So I moved on to Malchor’s Leap, then when he had to leave, ended the evening with starting to area clear in Mount Maelstrom, running most of the perimeter and completing both jumping puzzles there (Conundrum Cubed, Hidden Garden).

Over perhaps a 3 hour period, 3 different maps with no farming at all, very few DEs or staying in a single area for any amount of time. Untold numbers of veterans, at least 15-20, no champs, 3 jumping puzzles cleared for 2 chests…only one rare…from a random normal raptor. Typical post 15-NOV-2012 greens/blues and area appropriate crafting mats (T4 in this case) from the chests and I think I also got a rare crest from one of the chests, but they’re hardly rare and seem to be the only rares that ever drop in chests for me, I consider them “token rares” meant to placate the masses, and value-wise are usually worth less than most good green gear. I think I ended up vendoring it rather than listing it on BL. Lots of trophy vendor junk but had a brief time of about 15-30 minutes or so where there were lots of potent vials of blood and potent venom sacs dropping. All in all a strange evening for drops but not unusual. (Except for the rare, which I certainly not typical every day.)

Hello.
This is my first post on the forum, however after browsing the forums and keeping an eye on threads like these, I felt it may help just to throw in my two cents:
I got this game mid-October, and I love it. (Being a more single-player gamer, I enjoy the “cooperative” focus of GW2, whereas other MMOs pit you against the other players.)
A friend and I started characters together and play every once in a while, and before the notorious “Nov. 15” patch we were getting rare items almost as soon as we met whatever level requirement they have to drop. Not a lot of rares, mind you, but maybe 1 every second time we played, but it was enough to make us go “Sweet! I got another rare!” I’m not sure if my friend has noticed any change, but since the Nov. 15 patch I have gotten only 1 rare on that character.
Another thing I would like to add is that since the Nov. 15 patch I have made some new charatcers, and have gotten one of them to level 80. (The other two are at levels 42 and 16) Like others here, I have noticed a significant lack of drops from Veteran and Champion enemies in the world. I managed to get 100% world completion on my level 80 character, and when I was exploring the Orr zones I suddenly realized what all the complaints of “porous bones” were about. My time through the higher level zones were tough; like others have said, a lot of “junk” items, and a lot of “white” equipment items, and not much else. I did about 90% of my map completion solo, calling in help only when I really needed it, so I took down a lot of Veterans and a few Champions by myself, and was always a little sad when I wasn’t able to loot them for a reward for my time. Also like others have said, drops from big events like dragons aren’t rewarding either; I have done the dragon events ~10 times, and never recieved anything better than a green from any of them, and even getting greens from those big events make me feel lucky.
I’m not as concerned about the loot drops as many here; I don’t care about getting a Legendary, nor about getting the best armour ever (I saved up for a long, long time to get a set of exotic armour, and even then I just bought whatever was cheapest on the Trading Post) so the lack of drops is more of a minor annoyance to me, but I have noticed it is there.
This has just been my experience, but I hope adding my voice to the chorus might help give a bit more of a push for this to be fixed; I don’t want this community to derail.
Cheers.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

<snipped PR nonsense>

Yay, more PR speak and excuses instead of actually doing anything.

I guess I’ll check back in two more months for another dose of PR speak and excuses.

Here is what i don’t get. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot. BUT sometimes I can kill a regular trash mob and get rares? How does that figure?

I think they should hard code the champions with loot. Lets say about a dozen or so pieces( exotic, rare) that cover all classes, and maybe add in a chance for blues, greens ,t6 mats and dyes. Put that on RNG. with a chance of no less then 3 pieces dropping for you. They could be exotic,rare,blue or green. If you get a blue then it should drop 3 other types ( T6 mats, dyes, and maybe a green or a mix.) At least you will be guaranteed a drop of something!
Its the same concept Blizzard uses in their dungeons. Trash mobs=trash loot. Elite mobs=elite loot. Simple. I should not fight a Champion and get nothing for it, but I go kill a mosquito and I get a rare? Its not right.
I tend to avoid Champions. Risk vs. reward is not worth it.

Infernia.9847:

@Surmaturma.4823 – This is an interesting concept. I play as a Ranger and use the AoE barrage of arrows with LB to start then pick a single target and use a condition and quick shot to hit that one target or stack them since piercing arrows can hit multiples.

My observations are similar to yours though. I rarely get drops in WvW to the point I can’t really afford the repairs. I am getting credited with kills but it seems not enough to get loot.
I noticed this in Orr DE’s as well. If it was just me I wasn’t getting enough damage in to get loot but if I group up, all of a sudden I am getting more loot than I can deal with at times. Even the quality improved slightly.
I would attempt melee with a greatsword but my build is a bit on the glass cannon side. I wonder if there is some merit to the DPS tying into loot somehow. Maybe if others test out the AoE and we see a definite pattern then the devs can take notice and test it themselves.

I’m not a ranger, but my necro build is essentially a pure condition damage build. All my gear is carrion of the necromancer, all my trinkets are geared to match, weapons stack on more condition damage. At level 80 with a full 25 stacks on my weapons I’m doing about plus 1200 power, plus 1600 CD.

I don’t typically do WvW, but in PvE DEs how I function, and it tends to work fairly well getting drops comparable to those around me, which still aren’t great (Personally, I think the loot nerf is more widespread than most are willing to admit). First, I cast minions to get that physical damage boost, then I lay down 4 AOE attacks to impose conditions, use minions to impose more (Where applicable), then switch to my melee weapons (Axe/dagger) to hit them with more conditions and some melee just to get in some more physical damage, quickly switch back to the staff, reapply my original 4 AOEs, as they become available, to keep building more and more stacks of CD on the entire group. In tough situations I can stack on even more conditions damage using signets. The whole time, I’m hitting them with ranged attacks, which I just use auto target select, while I’m waiting for stuff to refresh.

Essentially, for DEs there is player support, so I’m trying to do as much damage against the mob group to keep conditions going to make it easier for high damage classes to take the mob down. I’m not trying to bring down one mob myself as this seems counter productive in a DE. I don’t think that simply tagging a mob group with AOE conditions while you focus on a single will cause enough overall damage to get good drops when a warrior comes along and mows the entire group down. For DEs, if you use a lot of conditions and/or AOE, you might try more group and AOE attacks with some melee thrown in, rather than singling out one mob to take down…see if that improves loot.

I wish we had something from ANet telling us how this stuff all tied to together as there seems to be no real pattern.

Don’t want to hi-jack the thread so I’ll try to keep it short. I just wanted to clarify that I don’t try to single out one mob. The LB has AoE Barrage and then if I get a good line up of the mobs I can usually get three of them with quick shot(rapid fire) since I traited for piercing arrows. On the 2nd hand I have sword and warhorn but I would like to try out the GS and see if it makes a difference. The sword has less chance of hitting more than one mob than the GS but as most know that GS is slower and since I’m kind of glass cannon-ish …
I am thinking that mixing in the melee will help loot. I just have to get a few accessories to give a little more toughness and less zerker stuff. Fact is playing in a group made all the difference in quantity and quality of loot. Makes little sense because playing solo and beating up mobs still gives poor loot even if I’m killing multiple mobs. Sadly I have no hard facts.

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Lyn, He didn’t say they were going through code line-by-line; I did. I am in no way connected with ANet or NCSoft or any other related company. And by the way; a lot of computer code is compiled now so it’s probably not what you remember.

Mozzyrella.4517:

@Chopps: the thing is, we aren’t just talking about exotics; we are talking about rares (yellows) and even masterworks (greens) not dropping anymore since the start of november.
Maybe 80 or 85% of the players have a “normal” experience in game, but this thread is about that 10/15% of the players who seem to have a constant DR sticking to them. Accountwise, all the time, for over 2 months now.

QFT – This is correct and although the Colin didn’t renew his request for more info (in fact he said the data they’ve gotten is a lot to go through) I believe we should (those who can, again sorry) continue giving them examples of the problem that they can compare with other examples. This way they can maybe find common variances and get closer to the problem.

Some people, though, (I understand Nov was a long time ago and the issue is supremely frustrating) appear to no longer remember that they asked for an update – Got One – and are still looking for reasons to complain.

The post by Colin was asked for, was received (yes, late), and is only being used to make new complaints by some. Let’s work on the issue, please?

Edit: Thanks! for your input, Anuiel!

pencapchew.5432:

Here is what i don’t get. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot. BUT sometimes I can kill a regular trash mob and get rares? How does that figure?

I think they should hard code the champions with loot. Lets say about a dozen or so pieces( exotic, rare) that cover all classes, and maybe add in a chance for blues, greens ,t6 mats and dyes. Put that on RNG. with a chance of no less then 3 pieces dropping for you. They could be exotic,rare,blue or green. If you get a blue then it should drop 3 other types ( T6 mats, dyes, and maybe a green or a mix.) At least you will be guaranteed a drop of something!
Its the same concept Blizzard uses in their dungeons. Trash mobs=trash loot. Elite mobs=elite loot. Simple. I should not fight a Champion and get nothing for it, but I go kill a mosquito and I get a rare? Its not right.
I tend to avoid Champions. Risk vs. reward is not worth it.

Pencap – I agree with most of your post, but this:

1. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. (emphasis added)
2. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot.

These are conflicting statements one after the other.

To All:
I know you all don’t mean to do this, but I see this a lot in this thread and in the other thread (conflicting statements).

You know how I first introduced myself in this thread – it was with a sense of mistrust (and I apologize for that). The above was the primary reason for my attitude. I can only wonder what other readers think.

Please make sure your posts on this issue are reasonable, well-founded and able to be supported and backed up.

>> Flame away (sigh)

Edit: Back to Pencap: Except for hard-coding loot… it seems to me that would break the economy. There has to be a pool or someone, full-time, monitoring every drop from every champ and manually adjusting other parts of the economy in response.

Perhaps that other game “hard-coded” drops; but then forced it to be extracted from the loot pool when it dropped. I suppose then there would be problems getting the rare loot from other mobs. And what would happen when the loot pool is temporarily out of rares for the hard-coded mobs?

Annnnnd *Back to All: “…temporarily out of rares…” I keep coming back to this concept as possibly key to our issues. There must be a finite number of rares available in the economy and therefore a finite number of rares available for drop at any point in time.

ANet would be certain to ensure that they wouldn’t run out of rares to drop before resetting the loot pools. Perhaps, there is a sliding-scale possibility built into the drop algo’s so that as there are fewer and fewer rares available, they begin to be less and less likely to drop?

Be sure to put in your reports the time of day with time zone and the server you are playing on with your data.

I had no issue providing information after all I was the first to question the whole change back in November, but frankly the 65 days it took to get any kind of an answer is why you see the current level of frustration. Secondly, I’m not entirely sure of your motivation but frankly this is not “your” soapbox and people don’t need to be admonished, guided, nor scolded for their views by you, as for myself, I seek neither your guidance nor your approval in how or what I post.

As far as needing more information, the very hour this stickie was made I clearly requested what type of information, and in what format would they need said information and even this basic request was met with silence for over a month. So in my opinion if they choose not to give any guidance than I suspect they either have what they need or it is exactly what Puffintoast has claimed it was, smoke and mirrors and delay tactics.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Lyn, He didn’t say they were going through code line-by-line; I did. I am in no way connected with ANet or NCSoft or any other related company. And by the way; a lot of computer code is compiled now so it’s probably not what you remember.

I was referring to what Colin Johanson actually wrote not what you wrote, Aproposs Of Fire. Although I have to admit to actually thinking you did work for Anet considering some of the posts I’ve read which you have placed.

If Anet needs a PR person, I would suggest that you could fill that position very nicely. You actually have a comprehensive method of writing that seems to tone down a lot of irritation. Not to mention you post more often then any of their moderators.

P.S. Here’s hoping you feel better soon too.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I had no issue providing information after all I was the first to question the whole change back in November, but frankly the 65 days it took to get any kind of an answer is why you see the current level of frustration. Secondly, I’m not entirely sure of your motivation but frankly this is not “your” soapbox and people don’t need to be admonished, guided, nor scolded for their views by you, as for myself, I seek neither your guidance nor your approval in how or what I post.

As far as needing more information, the very hour this stickie was made I clearly requested what type of information, and in what format would they need said information and even this basic request was met with silence for over a month. So in my opinion if they choose not to give any guidance than I suspect they either have what they need or it is exactly what Puffintoast has claimed it was, smoke and mirrors and delay tactics.

Yes, I know it’s frustrating and I know it’s been a long time. As to my motivation; it’s the same as yours — to fix the problems with drops.

To answer your question, yet again:

Originally posted by OP:
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.

lynspottery.6529:

ColinJohanson.2394:

…

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Lyn, He didn’t say they were going through code line-by-line; I did. I am in no way connected with ANet or NCSoft or any other related company. And by the way; a lot of computer code is compiled now so it’s probably not what you remember.

I was referring to what Colin Johanson actually wrote not what you wrote, Aproposs Of Fire. Although I have to admit to actually thinking you did work for Anet considering some of the posts I’ve read which you have placed.

If Anet needs a PR person, I would suggest that you could fill that position very nicely. You actually have a comprehensive method of writing that seems to tone down a lot of irritation. Not to mention you post more often then any of their moderators.

P.S. Here’s hoping you feel better soon too.

LOL – Thanks.

Yeah – I could use a P/T job while I’m off work but I seriously doubt ANet is interested. I’m not a programmer, but I do know enough to be dangerous and I don’t think my posts speculating about their code and data bases would be welcome. Besides, there are some things about the game, their parent and their company I don’t like and that wouldn’t make a great fit, career-wise.

Edit: Not to mention, I pretty much slammed OP (a very highly placed individual in Customer Relations) as being unprofessional. Here’s your sign I won’t be getting a job offer. LOL

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Pencap – I agree with most of your post, but this:

1. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. (emphasis added)
2. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot.

These are conflicting statements one after the other.

Grammatical subtleties? Really? The intent of the statement(s) is obvious. I think it’s fair to say that what is meant here is that champions rarely drop anything and never drop anything worthwhile. For me, perhaps one out of every 10 might drops something. I’ve never gotten a rare/exotic from a champion and I think I’ve only gotten a green once. I really don’t have a great baseline for information as around Christmas I chose not to engage champions and only bother once in a while if I’m in the mood or in need of an event for dailies, if I’m bothering to do them that day. Every rare/exotic drop I’ve had in open world has come from regular, lowbie mobs or boss chests (Usually rare crests from the chests…<sarcasm>YAY</sarcasm>).

What I do know is that on the Lost Shore weekend not a single champion karka and few, if any, veterans dropped anything for me. I almost submitted a bug, until I saw someone already had. It was probably never answered either. The chest at the end was worth the fight…then it’s been downhill ever since. I’ve fought the champion risen abomination in the cursed shore probably 5 times and only once did it drop anything at all, the last time fought it, and that was a blue…first time I fought it, I suffered 12 silver in repair bills because it locked agro on me as soon as it saw me…I never even had to hit it. It is the only time I’ve seen this happen in the game.

Veterans I will still fight, but they rarely drop anything too and again, if they do, it’s usually useless blues or white or some salvageable junk and quite often it’s just plain ‘ol vendor junk (YAYYYY More porous bones!!!). On Cursed Shore, I once collected over 90 porous bones in less than an hour and a half. that’s 12.5 silver and was probably worth more than the sum of anything else I got that day. That said, I would hardly call and hour and a half hard-core farming.

These observations are only since the Nov 15th patch…perhaps even a little before, say the dye drop fix. Like many others, with the overabundance of veterans and champions present, I first noticed it during the Lost Shore weekend.

If I was in ANet’s shoes, right now I would use the quickest method of getting rid of this problem. Everyone seems to suggest November 15th patch being the culprit or part thereof.

Bartas.4908 mentioned he got yellow in the forms of ‘pile of putrid something’. I can concur. Another thing as well, I do get yellow on the rare occasion (excuse the pun) and they have been, thus far, only GEMS FROM MINING!

If my memory serves me correct, since November 15th patch I have gotten two exotics in two months. Before that I got 10 in in just under two months. Hows that for statistics?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

…To All:
I know you all don’t mean to do this, but I see this a lot in this thread and in the other thread (conflicting statements).

You know how I first introduced myself in this thread – it was with a sense of mistrust (and I apologize for that). The above was the primary reason for my attitude. I can only wonder what other readers think.

Please make sure your posts on this issue are reasonable, well-founded and able to be supported and backed up.

>> Flame away (sigh)

Aproposs Of Fire, I have no interest whatsoever in flaming, but I do take issue with your intent upon steering this thread.
The original thread that ran starting last year was of community origin, and was full to bursting with varied opinions, speculation, number-crunching reports and more than it’s share of emotion.
People are passionate about this issue because it is a deal-breaking one – something that a player’s ongoing commitment to the game hinges upon. Discussion about the ramifications of this topic are inherent in the thread, and I’ll be kitten if I’ll sit in silence and watch the open discourse we had dry up, and get shoehorned into endless “map X, loot Y” posts, as people jump through the pointless hoop they have set in front of us.
Our original, comprehensive thread was hijacked and eliminated the cowardly way, consigning it to death by enforced inactivity, converting it into this funnel of thought that encourages only ‘concrete’ data reports, despite the ludicrous concept underlying the premise that the customers are responsible for this situation.
If they want only number-crunching posts, they need to set up a thread for it to be done correctly: change it’s OP to include a format option for said reports, and categorically exclude anything but these reports.
And immediately afterward, reinstate our original thread in it’s entirety, so our freedom of discussion can return. Removing our thread, and replacing it with this vague call for assistance has given the moderators far too much leeway to remove undesirable conversation.
I, and I’m sure many others, have experienced far too many ‘infractions’ with very tenuous justifications of “straying from topic” in relation to this thread.
I’d hate to be proven correct in assuming this was most of the reason for the new thread, the simple desire to blanket displeased customers opinions.

“Porous bones” would make a great mat for an armor set. Not only do they drop almost all the time no matter what type of mob you fight, but they drop in quantities. I can see it now…visualize if you will, Charlize Theron’s character of the evil queen…her wedding dress had bones in the design.

Now that dress was beautiful, not to mention the amazing crow cape (lots of birds in our game) that just flies away when hit. Now that would be a great animation in combat. lol