Guild Wars 2

ezd.6359:

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).

There’s no way to sugar coat it. With the current drop rates, even the improved rates since the last patch, and yes, I’ve seen improvements since the last patch, unless you’re in a big guild with an army collecting mats for you, legendaries are still out of reach for most. To put it in to perspective, you need 750 Piles of Crystalline dust to make a Bifrost…that’s just ONE component. Unless you run a bot to collect this stuff, or sink money in to the gem store/TP, it would take years for one person to collect this. They either have to increase drop-rates or lower the requirements for making legendaries. That said, while legendaries are still out of reach, at least I don’t feel I’m completely wasting my time, however boss events still seem to be lacking. Did the Arah event last night, 3 champions…4 greens from the big chest at the end, whoopty-doo!!! Most people on the event with me were complaining about how it was a complete waste of time. Over the last month or two, I have noticed a marked decrease in world chat announcing boss events in Cursed Shore…you make a lot more in substantially less time just doing Penitent or Jofast.

I still consider the TP to be broken and in serious need of a rethink/reset. To me, it really seems they didn’t consider the consequences of suddenly removing 35000 bot accounts from the game. Then to make the situation worse they nerfed drop rates and lowered the DR threshold. Since all this happened, we’ve seen huge inflation in the TP as the quantity of high end items being sold in the TP dropped exponentially. I also think the problem is further reaching than those in this thread. I know every time I do a boss event or a dragon, pretty much everyone is complaining how bad the drops are and much of a waste of time it was. It used to be that you’d have all kinds of people linking all the cool stuff they got…now, it’s very rare anyone links anything in to chat.

While it’s obvious it’s the case, I wish they would just come out an say it if they’ve changed their business model to micro-payment.

Has anyone been testing dungeons since the last patch? Have drops improved or are they still the same blue/green crap fro the chests?

Just wanted to note that yesterday was the first day that I noticed a change in drop rates.

No update since the last time I played, so maybe it was just a lucky streak. Still never received any rares or anything, but I got almost 1g in crafting materials/items sold on TP in about three hours!

By FAR the best run I have ever had. As it has been 100% consistent for me during my entire 1k hour playtime, I am chalking this up to sheer luck. That being said, Ill take it! :P

I did not say drop is ok. I meant they drop normal things while most of us need more rare items.

This situation is good for newcomers. They can farm T5 mats then sell it. But we don’t need money, we have nothing from this drop.

Imagine if all people suddenly become extremly reach. All have food, houses, a yacht… Now all people need only one rare resource – diamonds (for example). Diamonds – deficit, everything else – cheap. One day they will become unreachable. At this moment it is not possbile in real life, but in game…

Everyday more and more people require those rare materials to craft only one available the best item – legendary, but arena increases drop rate of low level materials instead.

They must increase drop rate of valuable items or make new (more desirable to obtain) items to draw ours attention.

“Since all this happened, we’ve seen huge inflation in the TP as the quantity of high end items being sold in the TP dropped exponentially”. Can’t understand this.

Isn’t it funny that the DR mechanism is supposedly there to combat bots, but instead it gives them a stronger market? Because it is so frustrating to get T6 mats, it is much easier to buy them from the TP. And where do most of those T6 mats on the TP come from? Bots.

ezd.6359:

I did not say drop is ok. I meant they drop normal things while most of us need more rare items.

This situation is good for newcomers. They can farm T5 mats then sell it. But we don’t need money, we have nothing from this drop.

Imagine if all people suddenly become extremly reach. All have food, houses, a yacht… Now all people need only one rare resource – diamonds (for example). Diamonds – deficit, everything else – cheap. One day they will become unreachable. At this moment it is not possbile in real life, but in game…

Everyday more and more people require those rare materials to craft only one available the best item – legendary, but arena increases drop rate of low level materials instead.

They must increase drop rate of valuable items or make new (more desirable to obtain) items to draw ours attention.

“Since all this happened, we’ve seen huge inflation in the TP as the quantity of high end items being sold in the TP dropped exponentially”. Can’t understand this.

We’re saying the same thing. I’m not an economist, so my terminology my not be accurate. The problem with the new, more desirable, items, is they only placed in one area of the game. If you don’t want to do fractals for ascended items, then you’re SOL. So, for many of us, they’ve done neither increase the drop rate nor introduce new items. So, we’re seeing ever increasing prices in the TP while the drop rates are hopelessly lacking.

Today I gave up. No one could have this much bad luck. It is obvious to me that this company would rather have a “perfect economy” than actual players.

I am in some state of permanent game purgatory. There is no time limit to it, I am being punished for something I have not done. I log in, kill things, get NOTHING, get bored, log off.

Great for the “perfect in game economy” —-(Keynesian, I bet) but not so much for people who wish to play and have fun. There is no point to the game anymore for me, and I resent very much being punished for the actions of others or because some geek at a desk wants perfect number crunching.

Nalora.7964:

Today I gave up. No one could have this much bad luck. It is obvious to me that this company would rather have a “perfect economy” than actual players.

What is a perfect economy though? The in game economy has runaway inflation.

Oh, and you can stop lying now about those log in numbers, guys. Really, you are not fooling anyone. Most of us who have been playing since head start know that our guilds are empty, our friends lists are empty and more and more people with less stick-to-itiveness than we have, (and are probably wiser, in the long run) left the game long ago.

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?

Definitely looks like it to me. I’m sorry but there’s something wrong when the devs don’t seem to see anything wrong with this happening and it is happening it’s not a perception. The environment isn’t so beautiful that the players aren’t paying attention to what’s dropping off mobs in a 30 min time period.

Have a feeling this will remain ignored until what happened to other game titles where DR was stubbornly held onto happens again, mass exodus away from the title because there’s no point in logging in anymore. I’ve only logged in in the past week to try the new daily rewards and to see what changes they’ve made on the engineer. I would have never spent the money to buy this title if I had known the economy would become this bad.

tigirius.9014:

I would have never spent the money to buy this title if I had known the economy would become this bad.

While I feel I have gotten my money’s worth out of the game…I absolutely agree, I would not have supported the company.

There are many games out there vying for my attention.

Ironically I’m probably one of the minority who has been getting increasingly better drops. Since last week I’ve played for a total of maybe 15 hours or so. Most of it was spent dungeon running. The trend was the same before that. Yet during that time span I got roughly 3 exotics and about 10 rares. I haven’t had the experience of getting continually worse drops.

Still free of the DR… Finished a run through CoE, popped out. Took about 10 steps, killed the first skelk to get in my way (level 67) and it droped a level 80 exotic amulet roughly my 4th open world exotic ever. This along side several (3) rares on my level 67 hunter that was in the region earlier today. I’m actually allowed to make some progress on the 250 ectos needed for the Gift of Fortune. Its… pleasant.

If this is the drop rates people were seeing before Nov 15, and most people are still experiencieng the drop rate I’ve had between reaching level 80 and January 28th (when my DR seemed to just go away) I can see why there is screaming and gnashing of teeth.

Nike.2631:

Still free of the DR… Finished a run through CoE, popped out. Took about 10 steps, killed the first skelk to get in my way (level 67) and it droped a level 80 exotic amulet roughly my 4th open world exotic ever. This along side several (3) rares on my level 67 hunter that was in the region earlier today. I’m actually allowed to make some progress on the 250 ectos needed for the Gift of Fortune. Its… pleasant.

If this is the drop rates people were seeing before Nov 15, and most people are still experiencieng the drop rate I’ve had between reaching level 80 and January 28th (when my DR seemed to just go away) I can see why there is screaming and gnashing of teeth.

For me, now that my perma-DR seems to have lifted, open world drops, with the exception of champs/vets, while not as good as Nov 15, are acceptable. If you didn’t empty your inventory and bring salvage kits in to dungeons, you would easily run out of space and were always guaranteed rares with often exotics…not so much anymore, with greens being much more common and a rare perhaps every few runs. Open world drops were still better than they are now pre-Nov 15, when one could experience upwards of 10 rares, or more, in a session.

But how were the drops/chests in the dungeon? I’m curious if drops rates have been improved in dungeons, of if they’re still hoping the tokens/dungeon armor will carry the dungeons.

I feel so sorry for you, Nalora. :-(

Navi.7142:

I feel so sorry for you, Nalora. :-(

Thank you Navi, for your kindness.

It is very sad to me, to wait five years for a game, and then for it to end (for me at least) In 5 months. I played Guild Wars 1 for 7 years, and I never worried about money or loot. “Loot happens”, I was famous for saying.

I did not have to think about loot in GW1 because it did happen. Now it happens so rarely I never know if this is going to be a “good log in” where I get something besides junk, or I get nothing. And I literally mean NOTHING. Not even a piece of junk.

It is just so sad that the Developers care more about a “concept” than actual player enjoyment. They seem so far from what is actually happening to people, and seem to either be in a state of denial, or groupthink, or both.

So much disappointment from so much potential.

You’re not alone Nalora. I’m back to GW1 already. It’s still a great game. All my friends who played GW1 are playing other games. My guild still has a bigger presence in GW1 than GW2. GW2 is just such a huge backstab because we’ve waited so long for it and ANet said all the right words the whole way through development. To be honest, the leveling process was great and WvW is decent but they cannot carry the game when the rest of the meta is nothing but epic grinding. Like you said…

So much disappointment from so much potential.

So true.

I made another observation (which I also described here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Loot-issue/first#post1383442):
The number of people is enormously affecting my drops.
The best number of players for highest amount of loot and some better quality loot whilst doing the event chain (penitent, shelter, ..) in orr is 5.
< 5 and 8+ people = less loot + lower quality loot

Couldn’t it be that before 15th November less people were doing these events? And now they are over-crowded and/ or maybe scaling doesn’t work properly?

Another weird note – the new chests that are supposed to contain good items? Had one drop from a vet in Straits of Devastation tonight. Made the mistake of getting excited. Then I opened it.

Porous bones.

I had that several times, too.

I think that happens when the chest is dropping for another player, but you are able to see and loot it. ^^

Navi.7142:

The number of people is enormously affecting my drops.
The best number of players for highest amount of loot and some better quality loot whilst doing the event chain (penitent, shelter, ..) in orr is 5.
< 5 and 8+ people = less loot + lower quality loot

If only, prior to Nov15 there were a lot more people doing the events I do, and even bots. There is a lot less now when compared to pre Nov15 numbers. These events have also changed since then to scale up with more numbers, so more foes compared to pre Nov15 numbers.

It is really interesting to read through these and see so many people getting bad loot.. I get some ups and down.. on a bad day i still make around 1-2 gold(maybe less rarely) good day i have made 8 gold.. just doing PvE and dungeons. I actually made a thread with a excel spread sheet to record my drop rates.. but after like 3 days and and exotic drop, 2 ascended crafting mats, and like 10+ rare armors/weapons i decided it wasn’t really worth my time to record it.
I still think that this is much better system to get your legendary weapon than to craft 10000 of the same sword and then spend “x” money in hopes of getting your level 12 glowing sword at a 1 in 10000 chance of successful upgrade… actually having to sit there and upgrade each one till it breaks.. bleh.

wildcode.5403:

Navi.7142:

The number of people is enormously affecting my drops.
The best number of players for highest amount of loot and some better quality loot whilst doing the event chain (penitent, shelter, ..) in orr is 5.
< 5 and 8+ people = less loot + lower quality loot

If only, prior to Nov15 there were a lot more people doing the events I do, and even bots. There is a lot less now when compared to pre Nov15 numbers. These events have also changed since then to scale up with more numbers, so more foes compared to pre Nov15 numbers.

The event scaling was present before Nov 15th…perhaps it was scaled up even more then, or just specific events maybe…. I first really noticed it at the bridge event in Kessex Hills. At the time I was still fairly low leveled, appropriate for the area, (Late September/Early October perhaps), but it was a popular spot for bot farming, and the first time I saw a group of naked ranger bots. However, I noticed a marked change in mob numbers as more or less people attended the event, especially the number of veterans that popped. It was a great event for loot drops at that level…don’t know if it still is.

To this day, I haven’t noticed it to be nearly so prevalent in most other events. Even now I find Cursed Shore events like Penitent/Shelter Gate/Jofast/Plinx/Capture Arah WP tend to have too many players and not enough mobs and it seems worse since the recent patch for Orr where they said they thinned out mobs…kind of disappoints me. Many of these events are just too easy now and seem to be dumbed down for quick farming. The last time I did the Capture Arah WP event, we had a good group, it was a real fight and I believe we actually lost the event, but it was fun. When I did it just last night, there was nothing challenging about it, there were hardly any mobs and I don’t even think anyone went down at all other perhaps a couple on the last champion. I soloed most of Orr and it was challenging with a necro, but isn’t it supposed to be? My only complaints when I was doing Orr are the quality of the drops, which is a big one, and how most of the WPs in the Straits and Malchor’s Leap are contested most of the time. Cursed Shore isn’t so bad for WPs.

Perhaps that’s their game…make it easier so people will complain less about the lack of reward for effort.

Since the last patch I have quit trying to farm anything and noticed much better drops and doing DE and moving around is much more fun anyway.

I think anyone that feels like they are having and issue with DR should stop trying to farm any specific item for more than an hour and do more events in all the different zones.

I got 2 rares off of vets today and that exotic staff withthe skulls that goes for almost 10 gold on the TP and a loadstone off a vet in the level 4 maw FOTM just tonight.

Can we take a minute to reiterate that FOTM and possibly dungeon loot is not confined by the aspects of this specific mystery loot drop rate bug?

Yes, you will get “normal” loot rates in FOTM.
Yes, loot rates in FOTM scale as per your personal completion level.
No, saying that “I got decent loots in FOTM” is lovely, but not pertinent. It is not an accurate staging of recreating the loot bug.

Relinking the original thread for the interested. I know it’s a lot of text, but since it very well could apply to you, I would think it’s worth everyone’s time. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Change-in-loot-parameters-or-a-bug-Merged/first#post824938

I am an active player and have been having this issue with only receiving the drops the vendors consider junk for some time. I have mf gear with the mf runes. I also use the mf consumables to try to boost my percentage and any mf boosts that are available only to get junk all the time. Did 2 dragon events and 2 dungeons the other day and got all blues , whites, and junk.

IMO the drops in orr have been reduced, it may be because the mobs have been reduced. I never had a problem with the amount of mobs in the Cursed Shore myself, my first toon was an elementalist and I soloed her to 80 except in dungeons( I prefer it that way, I can gather to my hearts content and not kitten anyone off).

For me to have fun in a game, I have to have fun with my guildies, make money(I farm and crafted in every mmo I have played) I have not found the crafted item to consistently make money on, so farming is it. Now that has been reduced. I can not stand at the TP and play the trader, that is not fun. I know many in my guild has noticed this too. It seems like you are making it harder to get things to make it harder to get what you want, but that just drives people away. You had the sweet spot and ruined it IMO.

PS, Those chest we pay karma for should never ever ever have vendor trash in them…..

IMO drop has been increased by quite a bit since the jan update, the sheer number of large bag drops in Orr has easily doubled leading to many more T5 and T6 mats. Heck you can even sell the bags. Also rares are dropping much more often for me and anyone I’ve talked to in game. Only legit complaint I see on my server is that there are just so many people farming in cursed shore the mobs are getting killed too quick, looks like launch month.

Loot is still worse than 15 november patch. Of course for those of us, who don’t plan to make money by selling all drop.

My main have everything he wants. A have an alt, he will be geared to 100% in the moment he gets 80 lvl. I dont need money. I want to spend them for something.

I prefer to loot 2 rare items per event + some mats, than farm 30 T5 mats + add 10 silver to craft them

You think two rares per event should be the normal drop rate? Is this the general consensus? Seems a little high to me, would certainly have an effect on the market.

Medazolam.3058:

You think two rares per event should be the normal drop rate? Is this the general consensus? Seems a little high to me, would certainly have an effect on the market.

It was normal before “we will drop more yellows” patch Everyone was happy to have some free chances to get precursors from MF.

I do hope prices for linked items like T5 mats and ecto will go down too. And especially – precursors.

Medazolam.3058:

You think two rares per event should be the normal drop rate? Is this the general consensus? Seems a little high to me, would certainly have an effect on the market.

For a legendary…when you need, on average, more than 1000 rares to flush down the mystic toilet to get a precursor, and probably as many to salvage to get the required ecto, not to mention the hundreds of gold you need to spend otherwise, I consider at least 2 per level 80 event to be fair, especially since it seems most people tend to be using them for these purposes. And, I think it’s obscene that dungeons and boss events don’t return rares absolutely every time and exotics occasionally.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae137/bruce_w/8Orrdropruns_zps004fb7f3.jpg

8 runs of Penitents/shelter camps.
*These were average runs for me, not “extra special” or anything.
*All were done today 2/10/2013.
*From selling all mats on TP, NPC’ing gear below yellow, and salvaging yellows for ectos (which wasn’t many ectos) I made about 12g. Which is around my average for this many events. Sometimes higher sometimes a lil lower. Tried my best to keep it my average so nothing was too off.

Keep in mind theres some variables like the amount of mobs I was able to tag enough for drops etc.
Also this does not include straight coins dropped.

Notes:
Vets seems to not drop anything sometimes.
I was solo in every one of these.
DR was not in affect in any of these.
I was using Omnomberry Bar 30% MF + Guild Buff 10% (not banner).

For the person above about loot box- I’ve yet to get a quick pic of me getting the loot box with porous bones, but I have seen them. BUT, and I’m at least 50% sure when I got them the last few times there was coin drop with the bones. Can anyone at Anet confirm that coin is concidered a rarity equal to that of green + drops? That would explain some things. *Also gotten Moldy Bag from chest.

For the person above about the Karma Boxes-
I spent around 70k Karma getting boxes. I made 17g off lodestones, 1 g alone from teh vendor trash, a mini, and some other stuff. With the karma drops I got I made 120k back return, and of course spent that too lol. My best advice for them is-

Karma Boxes are the lottery. You have a chance to get some nice money or items, you have a chance to not get them. The important difference is with these boxes you DO get something back; Karma. So you get some of your funds back for “playing”. The biggest advice I have is to get in a guild who can give you the Guild karma buff, the guild karma banner, use karma boosts if you have, and then-and only then, open the new karma you got. Get the most you can, otherwise its a waste. The “junk” you get from these is worth more than regular trash, so that helps. Overall for me it was worth it, again its a chance. So when you see them and want to buy, simply think “lottery”. Do I want to spend that 1$ to win maybe $100? Am I ok with losing my $1? Just chose wisely and know the consequences. In the end you have a choice, its only there as an option not as a must have.

Just noticed this in the dungeons sub forum from Robert Hrouda: “Since DR is a safety net system for exploits, we’re likely not going to announce when and how we made changes to it.”

I think its safe to say its gone far beyond being a safety net for exploits.

@Geotherma – I am jealous. I have never had a 12G day and have run those two events (in a 5 person group) 8 each. It’s rare I have that kind of time for that many runs but I have done it. I hit DR so fast doing it more than 4 each is a waste. I hope I can get to where you are some day. Thanks for the info.

BTW – if anyone figures out how to get the Combat Log to actually log to a file… it DOES keep track of all loot you obtain.

morrolan.9608:

Just noticed this in the dungeons sub forum from Robert Hrouda: “Since DR is a safety net system for exploits, we’re likely not going to announce when and how we made changes to it.”

I think its safe to say its gone far beyond being a safety net for exploits.

From reading some of the stuff Robert has said, it looks like DR also kicks in if you do an event too much without doing something else. And he also says they recently made changes to DR which is probably why we are now seeing more people with the loot issue.

DR should be removed from drops.

Well I went to two zones I havent been in ages and OMG the drop rates were quite good. In a two hour run I got 1/4 sellable junk, 2 yellow, 12 greens, 6 blues, 23 whites, and few cloth/leather for slavaging.

Then went to do a dungeon. In the beginning I got only globs of globy goo, but then started getting blues and greens. I even got an exotic (Vatlaaw’s Gloves)!!! Which I sold for kool 4.5G.

How ever DR hits, it does help to randomise what you and where you go in the game. I will post another update – will go to other zones I havent been to in a while.

I had a good day today. Certainly not at Geotherma’s level (12g a day?! Holy Moley puddin and pie, I have 27g total for 5 months of work, granted, today I gave in and spent some of my hard earned cash, but 12g a day? I weep for my ineptitude.)

Anyway, I think it was Robert Hrouda (sp) who said that no one comes back to say something positive, although my drops were not eye poppingly good, they were consistent. I did not have loonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng stretches of absolutely nothing today, this at least kept me out of the pits of despair.

Had some funny drops: A Loot Bag from a box. (someone was safety conscious)

And the Skritt burglar who I never actually saw, just caught his bag on the ground, gave me my one rare of the day (week?) It was not worth keeping, but it salvaged well for me, 2 ectos.

I also managed to get Dill. This…is a GOOD day for me.

I logged back in just to see what was happening while Tera was updating and it came up with a message saying that GW2 was already running (it was aaaages ago since I had played!). I looked and it was hidden in the windows 8 task manager and no where else. Could this be the reason why DR is messed up??

spritefire.5234:

I logged back in just to see what was happening while Tera was updating and it came up with a message saying that GW2 was already running (it was aaaages ago since I had played!). I looked and it was hidden in the windows 8 task manager and no where else. Could this be the reason why DR is messed up??

Probably not.

Did the Megadestroyer event this evening. 3 blues and a green gem from the big chest. This is less return than I can make on a since ore vein. I’m not amused. Also did several events in Cursed Shore, Jofast, Shelter, Penitent, Jofast, Shelter, Plinx, Champion Abomination. No yellows (Other than one essence), only two greens, one unidentified dye, opened to a common, about 15 bags, over 30 porous bones, relatively few drops otherwise. Was grouped for Plinx and champ…champ dropped nothing…again. I have to test a champ once in a while. Perhaps my days of better drops were short lived…DR was not active. :/

Well, I would like to also throw out this question, and seeing as if I were to put a new thread up I am sure it will get shifted here, or just out right deleted.

So here it is, has anyone also noticed that the loot levels for High level Fractals has decreased to almost nothing. Now I on average Run the high levels once every other day, so there isn’t a possibility to be hitting DR. Now the part that annoys me more however is the fact that I can turn around and run a low level fractal and walk away with ten times the loot I would get in a high level. Now in my opinion this seems a bit off. I mean you have to work hard in the higher levels, so you would think you would have a better chance for better loot. So my point is that what is the point of doing the extra work when I can go do the lower level and walk away with a lot more. Also Just cause I know this will be asked, I use different characters on these runs. I have 4 80’s and use them quite effectively, just to make sure I don’t hit DR.

I’m not a dungeon runner, so I can’t say much about that. But I like world events, and grinding. I’ve been going at it for days 2 non-stop (in Orr) and have only gotten rubbish loot. I’ve been on a Champion/Veteran murder spree as well, and have gotten NO LOOT at all from those. How many Champs and Vets did I kill in the last 2 days? Countless. How come I don’t get any loot from Champions if it was said they would always drop something?

I don’t have all the time in the world, as I do have other things to attend to. I have to make do with the time I have. These last 2 days I’ve spent entirely on GW2 because I had days off. I wasn’t really rewarded though. Mindlessly mowing over things to get useless junk isn’t exactly motivating people to set another step. Repeating the same lengthy fights with bloody CHAMPIONS and not getting ANY loot makes you just want to sit down and watch the world go to hell. LOL, what’s in this for me? “Nothin’.”

Why are you continuing to spend time to report on your bad loot rate?

Anet has appeared only once in this thread, with a level of disrespect that many players have already successfully commented on. The very title of this thread should give you a hint as well. Anyway, what did Anet say when, finally, it came with its “response”? Well. We looked at it, it’s in your head, case referred to the X-files, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation. By its response, Anet has shown that it does not look at anyone’s individual case reported on this forum regarding troubling droprates. Despite the fact that this reporting was extensive, and was done at Anet’s request. If it had looked at these individual cases, the problem would have been fixed by now, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps, even acknowledged?

TL;DR There is only one possible conclusion. The drop rate of open world PvE was nerfed heavily, and intentionally so. Anet only steps in if you report that the loot rate goes up. See the quick patch of 29 January: you reported good loot? Boom, “fixed” within a day to the same, horrible droprates.

You should also have learned by now that communication regarding droprates is a one way street. They are “announcements” to players, nothing more. There is no dialogue.

Buttercup.5871:

Why are you continuing to spend time to report on your bad loot rate?

Anet has appeared only once in this thread, with a level of disrespect that many players have already successfully commented on. The very title of this thread should give you a hint as well. Anyway, what did Anet say when, finally, it came with its “response”? Well. We looked at it, it’s in your head, case referred to the X-files, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation. By its response, Anet has shown that it does not look at anyone’s individual case reported on this forum regarding troubling droprates. Despite the fact that this reporting was extensive, and was done at Anet’s request. If it had looked at these individual cases, the problem would have been fixed by now, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps, even acknowledged?

TL;DR There is only one possible conclusion. The drop rate of open world PvE was nerfed heavily, and intentionally so. Anet only steps in if you report that the loot rate goes up. See the quick patch of 29 January: you reported good loot? Boom, “fixed” within a day to the same, horrible droprates.

You should also have learned by now that communication regarding droprates is a one way street. They are “announcements” to players, nothing more. There is no dialogue.

I reported “Good Loot” (See above, this is my daily average) , and my loot actually got better that day. 1 Exotic, which I get about 1 a week or bi weekly. Which is fine with me

8 Events-5 Minutes each- 40 minutes of actual grind.
My drops are consistent when you compare them day after day after day as a whole. Not as 1 hour in a dungeon, or grinding a few mobs. But this isn’t an argument, everyone is entitled to ask for information and make inquiries to Arenanet. This is just my experience, and that of most people I know. I see chests, karma chests, as a kind of lottery. I’m ok with some blues and greens, if I get a yellow I’m thrilled. And I feel that’s how I should feel. Otherwise yellow would just be the new blue, or even white.

I found out that the combat log does list all loot as well as damage received, etc. I thought there would be some sort of switch or setting in-game that would allow us to save the combat log to a file. This is not the case. I can’t find anything.
I did a search and found out that when the game was in beta there was a switch that would allow the combat log to write to a file on disk. Since then that has been disabled.

Logically speaking, this combat log is the only Proof we can provide to Anet about the perceived drop rates. It would show absolutely everything you did and all that mobs did and what you received. It is the concrete evidence they asked us to provide. And now there is no way to do so. I may be an idiot here but I can’t figure out why this switch was disabled. Am I missing some obvious thing?

So if an Anet Dev wants to answer this I would be most appreciative. Especially since the very first post in this thread asks us to provide this very thing and yet we aren’t allowed to?

Infernia.9847:

So if an Anet Dev wants to answer this I would be most appreciative. Especially since the very first post in this thread asks us to provide this very thing and yet we aren’t allowed to?

Well, they don’t want to make it too easy for us to record data…if we can actually record and analyze proper data, we might actually figure out their precious DR.

The more I play the game, the more I understand why people use bots. Before the infamous November nerf, I never really understood as drops were good and the TP affordable. Perhaps because I don’t have the long MMO background many here have, I never really understood how terrible it can be to get loot and many of these games.

The more I think about it, perhaps it was those 35000+ bot accounts that were killed who were actually keeping the economy in balance, from a player point of view. Things in the TP were relatively affordable, most things, even legendary skins, could reasonably be earned in game either through farming or grinding for gold and buying them from the TP. One could actually craft for profit without grinding your butt off (Now, it’s usually more profitable to sell the mats than it is to craft with them.). High end items were still expensive, but not outrageous. That said…a balanced in game economy is not necessarily very profitable in the gem store, so what is one to do.

They hit us with a triple whammy, first they killed the bots, which were responsible for a lot of mats in the TP, especially high-end equipment such as precursors and named exotics, T6 mats, cores, lodestones, etc, then they globally nerfed the drop rate in to the ground to increase demand (For everything…not just mats), thirdly, they imposed crippling DR to prevent farming…making already scarce items even more in demand.

So, in a very short period of time, we had substantially less supply being put in the TP, a reduced ability to farm due to crippling DR, increasing demand, and a drastically reduced drop rate, further increasing demand. So, mats and high end items are getting more and more expensive, while players are making less and less. Well done ANet!!!

This situation can only lead to runaway inflation, as we’re seeing on the TP, and places high-end items out of reach of most players unless, of course, they want to use the gem store. However they leave the teleporting bot bug unresolved, the last bastion for the need of DR, a bug which should be dead simple to close in any number of ways. Why not just fix it? Well, it gives them the excuse, however weak, to keep the economy anorexic.

—DAMAGE CONTROL—
Note: ESO = Elder Scrolls On-line
If left as it is, eventually the economy will collapse under it’s own weight and the game will be nothing more than just another MMO gear grinder, which it is essentially now…perhaps they’ll adopt a micro-payment model. They really should be looking to get their kitten together to do some PR and damage control before the end of the year. If they don’t, when ESO comes out later this year, they’re going to see a huge exodus. This may already be a foregone conclusion, given the scope and grandeur that is promised in ESO, but there are things ANet can do to mitigate that exodus. They are going to have to woo their play base. Anorexic drops and crippling DR is NOT wooing your player base. I know most of the 20, or so, people in my guild are not playing GW2 anymore and only 3 of us still play regularly. Some got bored, some got fed up with the drops, at least one, who is a hardcore completest, was so put out with how stupid legendaries are to attain that it completely soured the game for her. Of the 10, or so people in my guild who I actually know personally, 6, maybe 7 of those are already biding their time for ESO. I know at least 5 of those have enough interest that they tried to get on the ESO beta, not sure if anyone got in.

ArenaNet, the glory days of GW1 are over! History and previous reputation will only last so long, look what happened to D3. They relied too heavily on the fact that the Diablo franchise had a huge player base and figured they be happy with any crap they turned out…not so, as it turns out. Players are more intelligent that that. There is more competition vying for your player base and more competitors coming on to the market every day. The big one this year, and perhaps one of the most anticipated MMOs in a long time, will be ESO. Get your head out of the sand and do some damage control before ESO comes along and tramples GW2 in to the ground.

The above thread sounds like a ad for bots in gw2. Taking all the bots out of game apparently ruined the game? Darn arenanet for doing their job and getting rid of bots/rmt who support terrorist organizations, credit card theft, identity theft, and hacked accounts.

When the player base (and this is not a broad statement to every player) is lazy, as in they don’t farm mats or most the population doesn’t sell on TP THAT’S what hurts the economy. It’s as simple as supply and demand. More people playing, selling mats/items on broker the cheaper they will get. But since people are too busy spending hours on forums qqing about everything under the sun, instead of playing the game and supporting it, heres where you have the issue. For me my drops are consistent, I do not rely on something with the name “rare” or “exotic” to sustain me. I know I have to work hard to make gold, and I feel good when I see that 12g a day from just a few events. Even though those events lacked rares/exotics. People WILL leave, there is no way around that. But they will leave mostly for the wrong reasons. In the end its their money, so all the more to them.

Theres not really a grind in GW2, all exotics share the same stats anyway. If you want ascended then yes you will have to do dungeons or dailys/monthlys for laurels etc. An mmo needs a set of items that keeps it an MMO. Otherwise its just an RPG, and beatable in a few weeks. Changes will come, things may improve for different aspects. To give up on a game barely 6 months old (to me) seems silly over a few problems. But to each their own, again its your money.

ESO does look cool, as does FFXIV mostly because I’m a fan of the series/genre. I will probably play at least 2 of the 3 at the same time. Switching between to give me a variety of interesting things to do.

Drop rates for Orr were increased, and I can tell. From someone who does long term grinds and has accurate averages, going from 6-8g a day to 10g-12+g a day, makes me want to send Anet some flowers-if only they were tradeable..

I am sure I don’t make 10g for that amount of events (I didn’t count it yet)… but I am convinced that no one would complain if we would earn similarly.

Have you ever thought about a minimum amount of money you would be happy about? Let say for the same events, you sell your stuff and would get ~ 1 – 2 g. Would that be okay for you, too?

I second that Navi.. At most I get 1-2g and that’s with the ‘increase’ in drops. I want some of Geotherma’s RNG/DR/Luck or whatever it is.

My point was that they made this thread, asked for concrete proof and then removed the ONLY way we could provide it (via a log file).
Again what am I missing?
I can’t think of a single exploit from saving the combat log to a file, like was available in the beta. It’s obviously a troubleshooting function.

I don’t think Leamas was implying that botting was a good thing. I do think he/she was saying that the economy was stable because of them and once they were removed problems occurred that hadn’t been compensated for.