Guild Wars 2

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I got.. nothing. Literally, nothing.

I won’t ever fight it again. Is that the intention?

working as intended
aren’t you thankful?

/bashiok mode off

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

All I have today is, I kind of stumbled over the Champion Reef Shark in Southsun. After a long, iffy, “go go heal cooldown” kind of battle, I managed to solo it.

And watched with crushing disappointment, again, that for what I considered an accomplishment for my noob self, I got.. nothing. Literally, nothing.

I won’t ever fight it again. Is that the intention?

Yes, there is absolutely no kittening way Anet doesn’t know about this, which has been a problem for months.

It hasn’t been fixed or mentioned since they supposedly fixed it months ago. working as intended.

This is strictly an observation, and while I’m sure RNG is a big part of it, but it also doesn’t feel right.

I have 2 friends that I play with, and a lot of the times when I’m running Fractals, they’re off farming for lodestones/doing events. In other words, they’re always together.

Both guys are in MF gear when they do their runs. Guy1 is wearing exotic MF trinkets but rare MF gear and I think some MF runes/sigil, while Guy2 is in full on exotic MF gear with MF runes/sigil and trinkets. So in essence, Guy2 has more MF than Guy1.

The thing is, whenever they farm, Guy1 ALWAYS yield better farming result than Guy2. It’s crazy, for instance this past weekend, Guy1 got a lot of rares and a couple of exotics, while Guy2 barely got half of the rares Guy1 got. This always happens, it’s really rare. Guy2 tends to get more junk than Guy1 does, and it’s baffling. Shouldn’t Guy2 have a better chance at getting better loot because of MF when compared with Guy1? that’s what I don’t understand. Guy1 also seems to have a really good “luck” with stuff, for instance dyes…from when the game launched up to now, he has gotten 2 abyss/1 white/2 celestial/1 midnight fire, while Guy2 has 1 abyss.

Maybe it’s nothing, but it’s just that sheer obversation where I noticed RNG somehow for some reason…tends to be in favor of someone…it’s just…weird.

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

First let me say that I solo, a LOT. I am slow and methodical, and because of my bad loot or “permanent DR” I hit nodes a great deal for materials so that at least I have something to show for my efforts and can sell them so I am not in the red for my playing time. (since armor repairs, waypoints, salvage kits, craft gathering tools) nickel and dime me to death every day.

Anyway…the coincidence, and I notice it in these youtube films as well. If I kill something with my first skill, (say I am lazy and do not pull out all the stops) just spamming my first attack, I will frequently come up with nothing, or junk. If I am very active in my attacks, switching my weapon, etc. My drops are better. Now granted, I rarely if ever get anything of real worth. I have played for 5 months since launch, Have the CE, and played since Beta WE1, I have never gotten an exotic drop. My only exotics I have gotten from map completion. I got my first rare 3 weeks ago. I have gotten a few more since then. My average is one every 3 or 4 days now.

I have resolved myself to never having anything on my characters for YEARS. 5 months have passed, and I am still poor, and cannot afford to outfit my second 80. I just figure this is the way the game is intended to be—-a hard uphill grind—-more like work than a game.

I do find the coincidence in skill use and drop rate to be interesting to note, because it seems it may be some kind of anti-botting mechanic.

Los Re.4607:

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

Go loot some Champions, pro farmer guy. You know, the ones that were “guaranteed” to drop better items, and always drop items in the Nov 15 notes.

I solo. I am pretty sure I have “tagged” everything that is dead when Im allll alone out there.

I know you. If there is a game issue, the answer is lrn2play. If there is any other issue, its ‘buy a better comp". You can’t make a forum paragraph without saying “whiners” or “try to be better at” usually followed by “im not gonna explain it to you”

Always helpful, insightful, understanding of the actual issues, and a service to all game communities.

And, if you meant the vids by Geotherma.2395, he is actually doing vids to show that the loot system is “fine” for him, not “poor”

Nalora.7964:

First let me say that I solo, a LOT. I am slow and methodical, and because of my bad loot or “permanent DR” I hit nodes a great deal for materials so that at least I have something to show for my efforts and can sell them so I am not in the red for my playing time. (since armor repairs, waypoints, salvage kits, craft gathering tools) nickel and dime me to death every day.

Anyway…the coincidence, and I notice it in these youtube films as well. If I kill something with my first skill, (say I am lazy and do not pull out all the stops) just spamming my first attack, I will frequently come up with nothing, or junk. If I am very active in my attacks, switching my weapon, etc. My drops are better. Now granted, I rarely if ever get anything of real worth. I have played for 5 months since launch, Have the CE, and played since Beta WE1, I have never gotten an exotic drop. My only exotics I have gotten from map completion. I got my first rare 3 weeks ago. I have gotten a few more since then. My average is one every 3 or 4 days now.

I have resolved myself to never having anything on my characters for YEARS. 5 months have passed, and I am still poor, and cannot afford to outfit my second 80. I just figure this is the way the game is intended to be—-a hard uphill grind—-more like work than a game.

I do find the coincidence in skill use and drop rate to be interesting to note, because it seems it may be some kind of anti-botting mechanic.

Don’t feel all alone. I’ve got 3 alts stopped at 65 ish waiting for me to earn 6g on my main to pay for trait books.

I’m not seeing the skill spam effect. I kill karka a lot, and have to pretty actively use my skills to do so. I’d hate to see what their drop rate would be if I wasn’t using lots of skills lol.

On the other hand, I kill a lot of Cuda and Skelk underwater, which is easier and I get very lazy on skills since underwater is a snorefest for me.. and they drop a bit better.

But hey, I’m to the point if it takes one pink sock and one black one while sticking out my tongue “just so”, to up loot a little, Ill do it.

I’ve been having concerns about drop rate for a while now as well, sadly, I’m only now stumbling across this thread.

I can’t help but wonder if drop rate is some how linked with game play (like in GW1). I’ve got more hours logged than I’d care to admit and I get CRAP for drop rates. I just don’t understand! I play with a few friends sometimes and we’ll all be doing the same event or harvesting the same nodes and every few mins I hear from one of them “OMG I just got [insert awesome/rare/exotic item here]” and here I get junk or stuff levels way below me. I have practically given up on dragons and farming for those things because my friends get 1-2 exotic/rares when I play with them and I get all blues, 1 green, and a level 65 coral.

I practically never get rare/exotic drops and when I do, I’m reluctant to do anything with them because this may be my only one over the course of a week. I even started resorting to wasting money at the TP to buy rares just to try and salvage Ectos out of them to avoid dishing out 33s x5 every time I needed another 5 to craft something.

Money doesn’t come easy for me here either. I’ve gotten more silver (yep silver), running around and following boring WvW zergs than I have playing through story, dynamic events in pve, hearts, etc. And sadly, because that takes so long to get anything accomplished (2+ hours just to knock at the door of the same camp/towers and run again), I end up with more barbs, claws, and “bags” than anything else… if I’m lucky, I find 1 rare of around lvl 75-76 (after about 7 hours of game play… a lot, but I have been hard pressed to try and complete the Been there, Done that track). But my bags are rarely full, and when they are, it’s crafting materials and junk. I think I had over 75 barbs after a 5 hour play session and didn’t empty my bags once.

I don’t have specific #‘s on this, but I can honestly say that I’ve had a noticeable decline in good drops since before december and at this point, I’m sadly disappointed feeling like nothing has any value for me. I don’t go after the dragons any more because it feels like a waste of time and money, it can cost up to 3s to get someplace from LA (if you try to hurry and not miss out taking the cheapest route) and you only get about, on average from the 3 fights, 1.6 silver from the event itself… I found myself losing money trying to get to them all with nothing but vendor crap and salvageables to show for it.

Yes, this is a bit ranty, but it’s sad to feel this way considering I don’t care to go after JP anymore now that I’ve done them all once (the rewards are not worth the effort, even on characters appropriate to the level), major event chains are boring and feel worthless to farm without any reward for them, champs are certainly not worth the effort (no event or loot drop for the time invested in them), and my bags are always only half-full of grey and white items. And every time I play with my friends, I hear about all the great loots they picked up and how much they sold it for on the TP if it wasn’t useful for them. [I remember when I had to empty my bags every 30 mins just to keep playing without leaving stuff behind]

Thanks for taking the time to read this and looking forward to some sweet loot in the future!

Los Re.4607:

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

You do know that sometimes the point isn’t to tag directly, but to control the mob. As a necromancer, I often lay marks outside the mobs to extend damage over time. Sometimes they move in to the mark, sometimes they don’t and sometimes they go down before getting the chance. And, yes, sometimes I just have bad aim. As for groups, in nearly 500 hours of play, I’ve done extensive solo runs and have grouped up on many occasions, both guild groups and random ad-hock groups. Personally, I have never found it makes any difference at all. IMO, the BIGGEST advantage to grouping up is that you’re much more likely to get res’d if you go down.

As for farming, Anet considers farming bad and you will quickly get hit with DR…I don’t farm, already have full exotics and unless the market and drop-rates are fixed no illusion of ever getting an legendary…I do an event…move to the next event. I don’t stand around waiting for events to reset or stay in the same spot killing the same thing over and over for hours on end as I consider this a boring waste of time.

Before you accuse people of not knowing how to play, you should read both this and the original thread in their entirety.

Los Re.4607:

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

and ad hominem will always be ad hominem, did you have a point to make in that rambling incoherent post?

Kyllaa.1385:

I have practically given up on dragons and farming for those things because my friends get 1-2 exotic/rares when I play with them and I get all blues, 1 green, and a level 65 coral.

This is typical for those affected by this issue. I’ve stopped doing boss events altogether.

Kyllaa.1385:

Money doesn’t come easy for me here either. I’ve gotten more silver (yep silver), running around and following boring WvW zergs than I have playing through story, dynamic events in pve, hearts, etc. And sadly, because that takes so long to get anything accomplished (2+ hours just to knock at the door of the same camp/towers and run again), I end up with more barbs, claws, and “bags” than anything else… if I’m lucky, I find 1 rare of around lvl 75-76 (after about 7 hours of game play… a lot, but I have been hard pressed to try and complete the Been there, Done that track).

I’ve also resorted to WvW zergs as a money supplement as it’s consistently better than what I make from PvE events, unless I run around and harvest nodes, but as I’ve already stated…I’m really not a farmer. Although, WvW drops have sucked even worse than PvE, you can grind through a ton of event is a short period of time. Feels like you’re actually accomplishing something for your effort. I have over 150 kills and have received, 27 badges (Range user…don’t get a great many executions), one rare, one blueprint, some random coin, and mostly blues and whites on the rare occasion something does drop…perhaps 15 total. I think you should get badge rewards for capturing enemy keeps as well.

Kyllaa.1385:

But my bags are rarely full, and when they are, it’s crafting materials and junk. I think I had over 75 barbs after a 5 hour play session and didn’t empty my bags once.

I once saw over 90 porous bones in less than 2 hours of play…it was very disheartening and the last time I played Orr, until the recent testing I’ve done for this thread.

Kyllaa.1385:

I don’t care to go after JP anymore now that I’ve done them all once (the rewards are not worth the effort, even on characters appropriate to the level), major event chains are boring and feel worthless to farm without any reward for them, champs are certainly not worth the effort (no event or loot drop for the time invested in them)

Same. The reward from the JP chests will rarely cover the cost of the travel to and from the puzzle, so, while I love the jumping puzzles, now having completed all of them at least one, I see no reason to go back. Dragon/boss events are the same, what I typically get from the chest rarely covers the cost of travel and I just never do open world champions anymore, unless I’m in a group intent on doing one. As I said, with my drop rates I have no illusion of getting a legendary, so without good rewards otherwise, I’m farming dungeons for useless tokens…if I could sell them, then it might be a bit better, but that will never happen. So, while I enjoy the challenge, I just don’t do dungeons anymore as the reward vs. effort is not there. I currently have no interest in fractals.

Kyllaa.1385:

I remember when I had to empty my bags every 30 mins just to keep playing without leaving stuff behind

Likewise.

Mercypsy.9602:

In 600 hours of playing open world with 100% map complete I’ve had two exotics drop from enemies. Both came within minutes of each other on the day of the mid November patch. “Hey, this patch is great” I thought. Now, not so much…

I’ve had an almost identical experience. The one and only open world exotic drop I’ve ever had occurred in WvW, shortly after the November patch — which purported to improve loot drops acquired in WvW. Needless to say, my luck did not hold.

The diminishing returns mechanism is punishing, especially for slow, methodical PvE players who enjoy exploring and more relaxed wealth accumulation.

The devs have publically stated that the vast majority of botting activity has been eliminated. I would implore them, then, to rid the game of the DR mechanism. At this point, it hurts only legitimate players and, as others have said, makes the game a tedious and unrewarding grind.

I wonder if that is the common denominator. I would also characterize my playstyle as slow and methodical. PvE, and solo.

At the risk of wild speculation, I would guess the majority of posters in this thread and the one prior are on the casual side.
I am sure there are exceptions. The DR mechanism needs to have some sort of visual representation that we can see and then try to remove by the methods that Anet has described for us to do so. IF that doesn’t work then we know that DR is truly bugged and it’s not an issue of RNG.
There are so many variables in this issue to pin down. Is it tied to MF and is MF actually working? Is it really just RNG and some of us will be crippled by bad luck throughout our entire existance in this game? Or is it truly buggy DR?
Are there any checks/balances implemented in the code for those who always get the bad side of RNG?
In my opinion Anet was forced to reduce loot since game start. As some hard core user demonstrated how easy it was to amass the required mats/gold/luck to get Legendary weapons within the first/second month of play.
The casual players were not even close to this kind of acheivement but felt rewarded. If Anet ups the loot drops again we will see the same kind of distribution. Hard core players will rack up the mats/gold while casual players plug along and feel 90% better about being rewarded for playing.
The only thing I see that could even this out is some sort of RNG balance being implemented. Where as if you are unlucky X amount of times eventually you’ll get lucky. And likewise if you’re lucky X amount of times eventually you’ll get unlucky.

And just to toss in there my findings this week: Vets + Champs still reward blue, white or nothing at all. More often they reward nothing whether soloing or with 1 or 2 other people.
The rare I got this week was in my personal story… very weird(edit: on my alt guardian with no MF). Still no exotics dropped since I began playing Beta weekends. No lodestones either. I did get 1 onyx core from a centaur bag in WvW getting a skill point. <—- that’s the best thing I’ve gotten in WvW as a Ranger the ‘finish them’ option is gone by the time I run down so badges are few. And the most that dropped in a bag was a green.
One thing I do know is that I find myself logging in and playing less each week. It’s just that feeling that I know I am beginning to barely break even unless I farm the lvl80 events (boring but the porous bones and blues can net you at least 1 gold). I know that coming here and posting labels me as a whiner and I really just want to help. I am tired of listening to people who have no idea what it’s like to be on the bad side of RNG or DR or whatever it is; tell me I’m not playing it right or hard enough or just go run dungeons for the win.
Thx for all the fish

Los Re.4607:

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

I suppose tagging the mob to kittening death as I normally do should suffice. The only thing that you have “prooves” is that you haven’t read or been following this thread. Maybe instead of telling others to L2P, you should L2R. Perhaps bad posters will always be bad posters.

Also from what I can gather from your post, I should spell out L2R, as Learn To Read. It’s ok if you’re slow and confused though, everyone in this thread has or is coming to the realization that so is Anet, maybe you should apply, they need more enlightened individuals such as yourself.

Sorry i didn’t answer to the previous guys, i was having fun ing. @WarMacheen, no my friend tagging is more complex that you think. I have noticed difference even if i kill something faster or slower. I didn’t want to sound bad it’s just i’m bad at english. I don’t have any problem to help, with my experience, any guy who does need help.

PS: I never used the tp to make money Just 4-5 hours per day casual gaming.

Oh, for the record, I have no MF except for occasional food, but it makes no difference in my drops either way. I have had MF on my early armors, I have used food with MF, I have been in guilds with MF etc. on 24/7 and to me MF is a placebo.

Los Re.4607:

PS: I never used the tp to make money Just 4-5 hours per day casual gaming.

I would consider4-5 hours per day pretty serious and not so much casual. Many of have jobs, families and lives outside GW2. What would you consider to be serious?

Los Re.4607:

Sorry i didn’t answer to the previous guys, i was having fun ing. @WarMacheen, no my friend tagging is more complex that you think. I have noticed difference even if i kill something faster or slower. I didn’t want to sound bad it’s just i’m bad at english. I don’t have any problem to help, with my experience, any guy who does need help.

PS: I never used the tp to make money Just 4-5 hours per day casual gaming.

Lol right, the speed at which something dies determines what drops. I don’t think Anet put that much thought into it. I think you are overestimating your ability and intelligence. Also 4-5 hours a day is most certainly not casual, maybe not hardcore, but absolutely not casual.

Infernia.9847:

…
The DR mechanism needs to have some sort of visual representation that we can see and then try to remove by the methods that Anet has described for us to do so. IF that doesn’t work then we know that DR is truly bugged and it’s not an issue of RNG.
There are so many variables in this issue to pin down. Is it tied to MF and is MF actually working? Is it really just RNG and some of us will be crippled by bad luck throughout our entire existance in this game? Or is it truly buggy DR?
…

No. They will not explain it to us. Because we are not monkeys and will find a way to optimize our gameplay and avoid punishing. It is much better to punish us from stealth, sitting with logs and laughing at us while reading about blues from dragon chests then telling us cool stories about rng https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/DR-Diminished-Returns/1384649

Have you ever imagine an idea to consider relogging to do particular event as exploit?

Now i think removed drop from PvE is intended and they will not fix anything. They know how their system works. I don’t surprise any more when mithril ore node disappear just in front of me. Because go to zone to gather resources is an exploit too.
And since champions must drop anything, farming it == exploit.

No surprises any more. We are not allowed to play the way we want unless it clearly coincidence with their plans.

I’m still experiencing an average of 2 rares per hour of chasing events in Cursed Shore. It’s kinda amazing – plus several Piles of Putrid Essence which are technically rares…

I evidently was under DR non-stop from when I hit 80 to the January 28 patch and now I’m free of the curse, FREEEEEEE!

X-files or not it was like a bloody light switch how my drops changed.

A funny addition… I ran a dungeon just after I posted this… I got a rare drop from some random mob of baddies. Some generic pistol lol. Oh well, guess we’ll see how this goes as time moves on.

I just did the quaggan event in Sanguine Bay, Blood Coast. where you keep the 15 guards alive. You kill non-stop waves of risen. Two other people were with me. Not one drop. NOT ONE DROP. The event took me well over 20 minutes, the reward was 1 silver and 59 for the event.

Yowza weeza havin’ fun now yes indeedy.

You’re Doing It Wrong

Los Re.4607:

I saw 3 random video that “prooves” poor drops in Orr. In all of these videos i saw terrible tagging skills and in of them the player didn’t even get xp for the kills. Guys maybe you should try to be better at tagging mobs? Or maybe next time someone next to you spams “lfg” you actually group with him? I am not going to explain to you why this will help because i am sure that you won’t try it and you will continue the forum-whining. I guess bad farmers will always be bad farmers.

I considered suggesting videoing our runs when this thread began. But I quickly came to the conclusion that we would immediately draw the players with ‘youre-doing-it-wrong’-itis. There are a lot of those players like the quoted poster.

If an experienced MMO player who knows how to farm, PvE & PvP an MMO is doing it “wrong” in GW2 then it’s not the player’s fault. This is doubly true if the majority of experienced MMO players in GW2 are playing the same way as us but are getting proper returns for the time being where we are not.

If we are indeed ‘doing-it-wrong’ then this is bad news for the folks who are currently not seeing these bad loot issues. Because they are marked to get nerfed at some point.

There is another game where if you don’t play ‘eco’ (“economically”) you will bankrupt yourself in a single play session. And if you go bankrupt, you are doing it wrong. In that game you not only have to repair your armor but you have to repair your weapons. (Watch for the introduction of weapon repair in GW2 – it’ll be a big red flag.)

In that other game, you have to decide what to hunt, when to hunt it, what to use to hunt it, which armor to wear, where to hunt and how to go about it. Does this sound uncomfortably familiar? You have to do it right. If it doesn’t work, you’re doing it wrong. If there is a right and wrong way to play in GW2 then that’s not the players fault.

In that other game, if you don’t have the equipment to properly hunt or mine you are forced to gather rocks or fruit off the ground (RNG-controlled and nodes few and far between and never in the same place and mostly amongst aggressive mobs). If you don’t play right you have to farm nodes. This is time-consuming (hours and days) and if you can find enough to convert into gear to hunt (to actually play the game) then you can hunt for about 15-30 minutes before you are bankrupt again.

That other game also has listing fees AND selling fees on it’s “Trading Post”. It also has over 80% of it’s players losing money on every transaction on the “TP” without them even knowing it.

In that other game like GW2 you can buy in-game currency. This is the only certain way to actually get to have the resources to play that game. Because even though everyone there says “you can do it if you do it right” (that is play economically) you can’t play eco enough to actually get rich enough in game to play at your leisure. If this is where the GW2 devs are headed then I’m headed out the door.

What I mean is that in that other game if you spend say $25. to buy in-game currency (about the same as a monthly subscription-based game) then you get to hunt or mine or craft for about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Then you are back to picking up poop off the ground for the rest of the month – or spend more money.

In that game, they have Magic Find too… it’s called “amping”. And just like GW2, no one can definitely say that amping really does any good. Some players amp and others don’t and you can’t tell the difference for the most part. It’s exactly like Magic Find.

And don’t get me started about crafting in that other game. You sink literally the in-game equivalent of tons of mats into crafting and literally 99.7% of the time get nothing out of it. It is exactly like the Mystic Forge in GW2.

If someone here knows the game I’m talking about – they’ll say, “No man – you’re not doing it right!” lolol Exactly like GW2.

No that other game doesn’t look anything like GW2… but it sure looks like GW2 wants it’s loot system to look like that other games loot system.

Edit: I shouldn’t have said “literally 99.7%” above because I don’t know that to be true. It’s probably 99.9% of the time.

The “doing it wrong” argument doesn’t make any sense, because if that would have been the case, we would have done it wrong since we started playing gw2.
But – guess what? – we didn’t have to complain before the 15th November patch went live due to getting normal/ decent loot. That shows we didn’t do anything wrong to qualify for decent loot.
We also didn’t change all at once how we played since the 15th November to be not longer qualified for good loot or whatever…lol

Navi.7142:

The “doing it wrong” argument doesn’t make any sense, because if that would have been the case, we would have done it wrong since we started playing gw2.
But – guess what? – we didn’t have to complain before the 15th November patch went live due to getting normal/ decent loot. That shows we didn’t do anything wrong to qualify for decent loot.
We also didn’t change all at once how we played since the 15th November to be not longer qualified for good loot or whatever…lol

QFT

Navi.7142:

The “doing it wrong” argument doesn’t make any sense, because if that would have been the case, we would have done it wrong since we started playing gw2.

I have to agree with this, my drops changed, not the way I play, so if I was doing it wrong the whole time then my drops would not have changed the way they have.

wildcode.5403:

Navi.7142:

The “doing it wrong” argument doesn’t make any sense, because if that would have been the case, we would have done it wrong since we started playing gw2.

I have to agree with this, my drops changed, not the way I play, so if I was doing it wrong the whole time then my drops would not have changed the way they have.

Likewise. This being my first MMO, I really don’t have a basis for comparison to know if I’m doing it right or doing it wrong, but I know I ran my character 1-80 before November and didn’t have any issues with drops.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

You’re Doing It Wrong
…

Inspired by this.

I know, my english skills suck, but i want to share my thoughts :)

A dialog between a (P)layer and one game development company (E)mployee.

P: Hello. Tell me something about your game.
E: Hi. Sure. Our game is all about freedom, you can do whatever you want.

P: Nice! Can i do quests?
E: No, we have no quests, but we have “hearts” (dynamic quests), hundreds of them!

P: Sounds good, but hundreds… Can i skip them?
E: Yes. But you will not receive a gift for most fancy items in game. You need other gifts also, but it is not a problem, just need to play the game the way you want.

P: Hmm… ok. Where can i get equipment?
E: You can craft them or buy from trading post, but you need to earn some money before.

P: By the way, how to get some money?
E: Don’t forget, you can play the way you want and be equally rewarded for it.

P: Sounds fair. So, how can i earn money? Can i just grind mobs? Sometimes i just like to play using my spinal cord :)
E: Of course you can. But not for long time. We implemented a system which will protect economy from exploiters, it will not let you farm too much.

P: :( Ok. You will tell me when i must stop, right?
E: No. You will just spend your time for nothing, my apologies :(

P: >:( Ok. If i see something is going wrong and i already lost some time, what should i do? I still need my money.
E: You can explore dungeons!

P: Heh. I just choose a dungeon i enjoy the most and play it until i will get enough money, right?
E: It is right. But not more than one time a day.

P: Wtf? WHY?
E: Exploiters are gonna exploit exploits and we must protect you from them. Be thankful please.

P: Emm… i must stop playing today?
E: No you can choose another dungeon to explore. Don’t forget: our game is all about freedom.

P: But what if i do not want to explore other dungeons?
E: There are plenty of things you can do to earn money: fight epic dragons or gather resources for example.

P: Dragons!? Sounds great! I just need to wait for it and kill?
E: Yes… err… no. If you will not receive anything, may be it is because our system decided you are just stay here and farm dragons and it will punish you.

P: For what? Is it against rules to stay here and kill dragons?
E: Yes. No. I don’t know. You are warned.

P: 8-o Warned?
E: Emm… you will see if you get bad rewards for a month or so – you are doing it wrong.

P: How to do it right?
E: I can’t say, because you will exploit it and destroy our lovely best of the best real life game economy.

P: But i will get something worth time spent if i will do it right?
E: Rather no.

P: :-x You mentioned about gathering… What do you mean?
E: You can run around harvesting herbs, mining ores etc…

P: Nice! Finally i know how to get some money. I will gather enough resources, sell them and buy good items, right?
E: No. You can’t mine enough resouces, because our system will remove all nodes from the game for 24 hours to protect our eco… you know.

P: Anything else? If want to make best weapon in the game, what should i do?
E: Take everything you got for 6 month of game and put it in our Mystic Crafting Tool to get one part of that item with 0.02% chance!

P: So, i must choose things i enjoy the most and do them very limited time a day, then start to do other things which i dislike and then try my luck in this insane lottery? Don’t you think it is a bit too…
E: Yeah. We heared many complains about it and we are definitely working on solution from time to time between coffe for 3 months and we are not even close to it. We have other funny things like fractals where you can get best rings.

P: I don’t know what is it. And i don’t want to know! How can i get these rings without going to fractals?
E: You can’t.

P: You mean…?
E: Exactly. But we will add more ways to acquire items. We learn from our mistakes! In next month you will have an additional method to get rings! You just need to play for 70 days in a row the way you want!

P: Don’t you think you repeat your motto a bit too often?
E: Because we are all inspired by this idea. All our designers know what you will like the most and put all items in these places, then they restricted all other ways to protect you from missing such amazing things!

P: I think I started allergy…
E: Hey! We sold 3kk copies of our amazing game! Millions of hamsters can not be wrong.

P: Yeah, i see, bye.
E: We created so many things to entertain him and he doesn’t want to participate at it. Strange man…

Ezd, this is exactly what I think.

I will put is more blankly, I do have low reward like a lot of poster here. I work (my job) all day with a lot of stress. I come back to play “the way I want” but I got STRESS becasue I don’t know if my bad drop is due to RNG, DR (that I have no clue what I do wrong) or bad luck (which is fair though I come to get to dislike reward based on luck). The result is that the game STRESS me.

Btw yesterday I play with a friend that play less than me, we are both casuals but I play every day for my daily, and a bit more because of holyday and he does not played for 3 days. The results is that he got 4 yellow (rare) item form mob and I only got a couple of green.

Is it correct that the game send me the message : stop playing GW2?

Will I be hit by DR if I do my daily every day?

Personnally, I would prefer a game with server open only the week-end than a game that put a secret DR to people that play anytime because the game arbitrarily decided that I have play too much or the wrong way.

Ezd, that was the greatest post I’ve ever read, in my entire life. Kudos to you, as it explains everything pretty much spot on. If they don’t get it after reading that, they never will.

Nike.2631:

I’m still experiencing an average of 2 rares per hour of chasing events in Cursed Shore. It’s kinda amazing – plus several Piles of Putrid Essence which are technically rares…

I evidently was under DR non-stop from when I hit 80 to the January 28 patch and now I’m free of the curse, FREEEEEEE!

X-files or not it was like a bloody light switch how my drops changed.

Sad, as I consider myself lucky when I’m experiencing an average of 2 green per hour in cursed shore

Can someone make edz’s post a new thread or better yet put it on a blog somewhere so Anet can’t delete it – because it is oh so true.

Edit: I saved a copy of it just incase something were to happen to his post, corrected the english a bit too!

Fantastic post Ezd. A well-deserved +1.

Big Boss, I’m pretty sure Anet don’t even read the stuff we’re posting in this thread. One of the dev’s / staffers might drop in here once in a while to give us a fresh carrot… err, an update on what’s going on re: DR, the occasional insult, etc.

In fact I’m so sure of this that many of my posts in this thread should have been infracted and just weren’t. My general feeling is that Anet just doesn’t care. Stephane created this thread for us all to have free reign rant-wise about our ‘perceived strange drop behaviour’.

The more I try to figure out DR mechanic the more I am sure I am, in most cases, not affected by it yet sometimes loot for hours of farming is just terrible.

I mean, I get normal XP/Karma/coin from DEs. At least every second mob I tag drops something (be it trash or something of value) but then there are streaks of DEs when I drop absolutely nothing except bones here and there.

Now, my thoughts:
- this may be related to tagging or rather how game interprets it. I get XP, kill count for daily but maybe game (or rather some part of it responsible for activating loot table) is not working properly
- LAG, happens to me often, may cause the above
- too many people hitting one target (happens A LOT recently) which causes only some players getting credit for kill. Happens to me quite often recently when I do at least 1/4 damage to a target but not get any XP/kill count.

MF has nothing to do with it IMO. As already stated it may shift loot tables a bit or may not work at all which was deffo not the case at start of the game whe neven slight increase of MF resulted in “better” drops.
Too lazy to make some vid ATM but there are DEs when I shoot everythings that moves and get 0 drops, 0 XP yet get gold medal at the end. Why is that? No idea. I can either blame my connection (lag) or overcrowded DEs.

Spleen.7836:

Nike.2631:

I’m still experiencing an average of 2 rares per hour of chasing events in Cursed Shore. It’s kinda amazing – plus several Piles of Putrid Essence which are technically rares…

I evidently was under DR non-stop from when I hit 80 to the January 28 patch and now I’m free of the curse, FREEEEEEE!

X-files or not it was like a bloody light switch how my drops changed.

Sad, as I consider myself lucky when I’m experiencing an average of 2 green per hour in cursed shore

I consider myself lucky if I get one green…..A DAY.

The only thing that changed in my playstyle was that I no longer sought out the hidden chests in the world, and that was DUE to them not dropping anything anymore.

The rest is the same for me. Running around killing things in an area, moving on to the next, running thru orr to get to the next gathering node, using strategy to get to the nodes, do the occassional nearby events that popup for karma, doing my dailies to get coins and karma bottles.

Nope nothing different for me. I’ve been playing that way since level 2 and the only reasons I stopped were two things: because prior to this patch it was a second job to get my class the engineer to function properly no matter the build, and because of lack of loot.

(if you’re not an RPer) When you don’t receive rewards anymore what’s the point of playing. the scenery?

That’s okay, it might have gone back to the trinity and the old school dungeon system but at least I know I’ll get rewarded for spending my time on the new game that’s coming out. And they have solo content that gives loot and companions for every class. The only thing I can do at this point, move on, maybe I won’t get disappointed by the new one.

Defeated the priestess of Dwayna and went to go try farm some charged cores. Didn’t get any, no big surprise there. Opened one of the new drop chests that supposedly are only supposed to have green or above quality items in them to receive a white acolyte cowl.

This is just frustrating at this point. The server side data may be saying that this amazing loot is dropping for everyone, but on the player side we’re not actually receiving it.

I’ve watched all the X-Files episodes many times (big fan of the show, best tv show ever imho). I see no consipracy here. It’s simply like the X-files episode “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” where he remembered when he had the chance of doing something he enjoyed as oppossed to becoming who he became! We are all CGB Spender’s A-Net as are you and y/our future is in your hands!

“Life… is like a box of chocolates – a cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that no one ever asks for, unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you’re stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there’s nothing else to eat while you’re watching the game. Sure, once is a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee but it’s gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. In the end, you are left with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, which, if you are desperate enough to eat, leaves nothing but an empty box of useless brown paper.”

Is the exact quote! Is that what you want?

Medazolam.3058:

Thanks for uploading the videos, these are really the only concrete evidence of loot results that I can think of. Hopefully more people decide to upload, especially those who are having issues.

I’ve started posting my results with screenies.

A thought occurs about this situation. What about results from mac client users? Are there any in this thread and if so can you guys post the captures of the results you are receiving because if you are receiving better loot en masse that means there’s a programming error most likely.

Look on the bright side. The Elder Scrolls Online betas have started.

tigirius.9014:

A thought occurs about this situation. What about results from mac client users? Are there any in this thread and if so can you guys post the captures of the results you are receiving because if you are receiving better loot en masse that means there’s a programming error most likely.

I am using the mac beta client. It is just the windows client run in a wine type environment.

I used the windows and mac version on same computer and the result was the same.

Well, I may see a glimmer of hope. One char of mine.. out of 7, has begun to get more drops of fines and common/blue loots, and actually greens. My others, and most importantly my 80 are still horrible, so I guess Ill be leveling my ranger.

But Champs and Vets.. no improvement at all for this char. Normal mobs only.

Here’s an interesting passage in a discussion with Arenanet’s economist, John Smith:

http://lopezirl.com/2013/02/08/the-economics-of-video-games/

“Inflation controls could create a more sound economy in the long run, but they would also go against the primary purpose of a video game — fun. To limit the amount of money obtainable in Guild Wars 2, strict inflation controls would have to diminish the volume of rewards players can seek out. Just imagine an MMORPG in which enemies rarely drop valuable items and don’t drop money or “vendor trash” — useless items that can be sold to non-playable characters (NPCs). Players would — very reasonably — get fed up and quit as the experience fails to be quantifiably worthwhile.”

Isn’t this what’s happening already?

@Sunspear Mars – that answer is complicated. Yes (for those in this thread) No (for a an even larger segment of the population or else there would be a mass exodus.)

Inflation control can be done in other ways than loot drop nerfing. Large, meaningful gold sinks are another way. Imagine if they put in a vendor that sold account bound precursors for 200g. I couldn’t afford it but others certainly could and it would take out a ton of gold from the game. Imagine even more skins offered from NPC’s in each area like the cultural armor; Ie. corrupted armor for 100g set, branded armor for 100g, etc.

There are creative ways to improve inflation while still making the game friendly for casuals. Which is where the pain is most often felt. Hard core players may have to play longer to get the same amount of gold, but they have the time. Casuals don’t have that extra time to make up for the loss.
Either way to keep this on topic… I got lucky last night on the little necro I rarely ever play; 8 veterans and 1 champion killed = 1 green, 2 blues and the rest nothing.

Sunspear Mars.1480:

Here’s an interesting passage in a discussion with Arenanet’s economist, John Smith:

http://lopezirl.com/2013/02/08/the-economics-of-video-games/

“Inflation controls could create a more sound economy in the long run, but they would also go against the primary purpose of a video game — fun. To limit the amount of money obtainable in Guild Wars 2, strict inflation controls would have to diminish the volume of rewards players can seek out. Just imagine an MMORPG in which enemies rarely drop valuable items and don’t drop money or “vendor trash” — useless items that can be sold to non-playable characters (NPCs). Players would — very reasonably — get fed up and quit as the experience fails to be quantifiably worthwhile.”

Isn’t this what’s happening already?

Oh definitely, how ironic is that quote.

Sunspear Mars.1480:

Here’s an interesting passage in a discussion with Arenanet’s economist, John Smith:

http://lopezirl.com/2013/02/08/the-economics-of-video-games/

“Inflation controls could create a more sound economy in the long run, but they would also go against the primary purpose of a video game — fun. To limit the amount of money obtainable in Guild Wars 2, strict inflation controls would have to diminish the volume of rewards players can seek out. Just imagine an MMORPG in which enemies rarely drop valuable items and don’t drop money or “vendor trash” — useless items that can be sold to non-playable characters (NPCs). Players would — very reasonably — get fed up and quit as the experience fails to be quantifiably worthwhile.”

Isn’t this what’s happening already?

Drop overall is not very bad at this moment. Prior to november-15 patch T5 mats were ~20 copper each. Every green item dropped from mobs == 10 T5 mats. Price of money has changed since that. At this moment 1 green == 1 T5 material. They increased drop rate of T5 mats looks like ok, but… two things:

1) They want us to grind T5 mats, craft yellow items, drop all these items to mystic forge. We dont need money any more, we need to work for better (luxury like legendaries) items. Dropping 10 T5 materials while you need to put Nx1000 crafted yellows in Mystic Forge feels as unrealizable.

2) Farmers suffer from DR. Very stupid. They look at statistics and think “ah, 25% of our player base kill X mobs per hour, so after this number all are cheaters/exploiters”. So if you optimize your gameplay, if you find ways to be more effective than common casual homewife, they punish you for your efforts.

We want:
1) Return drop rate of yellow items (~2 per event with Magic Find equpped), we want ours free tries in mystic forge. Dropping x1.5 more T5 mats is not the same! Especially after promising us MORE yellows and exotics (it was decreased by 80% instead)!

2) Stop punish us for being more professional than my grandmother (or your testers).

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Well, I may see a glimmer of hope. One char of mine.. out of 7, has begun to get more drops of fines and common/blue loots, and actually greens.

I did Fractals for the first time with some guildmates last night, and it seems to have broken the “DR funk” my 80 was in for a while. Actually got quite a few greens, 2 or 3 rares, and the very first exotic I’ve ever gotten in this game as a drop in 2 runs.

We’ll see if it holds today out in the normal world.

I think I’ve said it before, but the Nov. 15th update said they increased the rare/exotic drop rate, but they didn’t say where. One would presume it was game-wide, but I believe they made rares and exotics a lot more available in fractals as a means to start funnelling people into that area, and to stop the elitists from getting too bored.

Playing from headstart I’ve only seen maybe 2 exotics actually drop in the map from foes, and not from a chest. We’re representing a larger playerbase here because all the people in map chat I talk to are very dry on both rares and exotics. And much like this thread, they can’t remember the last time they saw an exotic actually drop from some mob.