Guild Wars 2

How does this happen? I’ve been farming since the event started… and there are still those who haven’t received one yet?

The only thing i can think of, is certain accounts have been flagged to receive beta access.

So Anet thought of a sneaky way to get people to play in SW and DT which have been dead the past couple of months by letting everyone think they have a chance to get beta access.

I have seen multiple people with 2-3 portals already, and TONS more without even 1.

This is ridiculous… They need to increase the chances again. All of it was wasted effort otherwise.

Ovawatch.8307:

How does this happen? I’ve been farming since the event started… and there are still those who haven’t received one yet?

I have very bad news for you : the vast majority of players wasting their time farming for this item will NEVER receive one.

Ovawatch.8307:

This is ridiculous… They need to increase the chances again. All of it was wasted effort otherwise.

Why?

Do you know how many beta testers they want this time?

Do you know how many portals dropped so far?

No, you don’t. ArenaNet know. And that’s why they already increased the drop rate once. That drop rate may later be increased again if they consider they need to.

Or even decrease the drop rate if they feel they need to too.

Yep. It was a bad idea from the get go imo. When its over there will be more upset and burnt-out players, than happy ones. I my self gave it one last go today, got a few greens blues and gold items, oh and my 3rd coat box. The rest of my game time will now be in GW1 getting the new weapon skins that the ten year celebration has brought with it.

They need to consider flagging the players who have already received one either way… If they decide not to raise the drop rate, fix the issue where we see users with MORE than one. Its not difficult, ArenaNet is amazing and im sure they could handle this task. It’s infuriating to find these users post their finds in chat to those who have wasted 15+ hours trying to get one.

It’s not because someone drop 2 or more portals that it diminishes the other players chances to drop a portal.

It does not.

There is not a set number of portal that drop on a given timeframe.

Everytime you access a drop table you have exactly the same chance to get a portal, no matter how many where dropped previously.

For example, if the chance to get a portal is 0.001% everytime you drop something, you’ll always have 0.001% chance to get one. It will never increase or decrease, unless Anet modify that number. And if someone dropped 2, 4 or 100 portal, it will not modify YOUR chances to drop one.

I’m not understanding the issue. Them getting one doesn’t prevent you from getting one. Flagging them wont change anything whatsoever.

Also, disregard anything you read in chat. People can lie, post multiple times, link chat codes etc. So many people trolling their finds out there just to get a rise in map chat and on the forums…

Randulf.7614:

I’m not understanding the issue. Them getting one doesn’t prevent you from getting one. Flagging them wont change anything whatsoever.

Also, disregard anything you read in chat. People can lie, post multiple times, link chat codes etc. So many people trolling their finds out there just to get a rise in map chat and on the forums…

If those people are “trolling” then the drop rate is way worse than precursors.

Ovawatch.8307:

How does this happen?

RNG

BrotherBelial.3094:

Randulf.7614:

I’m not understanding the issue. Them getting one doesn’t prevent you from getting one. Flagging them wont change anything whatsoever.

Also, disregard anything you read in chat. People can lie, post multiple times, link chat codes etc. So many people trolling their finds out there just to get a rise in map chat and on the forums…

If those people are “trolling” then the drop rate is way worse than precursors.

Not everyone is trolling, but there will be people doing it because that’s just the way ti goes.

In terms of the drop rate, well I can’t really say how rare it is. Sure I haven’t had a drop, but between people not linking in chat, large numbers of megaserver shards across 2 maps and 2 continents, across a wide spectrum of time zones, we’re never going to see enough to make a judgement.
All we can say for sure is that it wasn’t enough initially hence why they upped the droprate and a lot of people Ive seen have been saying how much fun they have had trying regardless of a drop or not.

Randulf.7614:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Randulf.7614:

I’m not understanding the issue. Them getting one doesn’t prevent you from getting one. Flagging them wont change anything whatsoever.

Also, disregard anything you read in chat. People can lie, post multiple times, link chat codes etc. So many people trolling their finds out there just to get a rise in map chat and on the forums…

If those people are “trolling” then the drop rate is way worse than precursors.

Not everyone is trolling, but there will be people doing it because that’s just the way ti goes.

In terms of the drop rate, well I can’t really say how rare it is. Sure I haven’t had a drop, but between people not linking in chat, large numbers of megaserver shards across 2 maps and 2 continents, across a wide spectrum of time zones, we’re never going to see enough to make a judgement.
All we can say for sure is that it wasn’t enough initially hence why they upped the droprate and a lot of people Ive seen have been saying how much fun they have had trying regardless of a drop or not.

It I cant say I’ve not had fun doi g the tasks, that would be a lie. But I have to admit, the when people complain about how bad drops are, after you open your hundredth champ bag and get blues and greens again, is kind of soul crushing. I think I’ve had around 5 gold items from the bags/chests not including rear item bags, coat boxes or sinister books, with a magic find of 300% with buffs. Kinda sucks. I’ve never been lucky with the drops in this game. Don’t see why they would change now.

At the very beginning I thought that this idea of distribution beta access was very good. Now I see that it’s not so good as it seemed. What I really like about the game is that it doesn’t force you to grind all days like crazy like in other mmos to achieve something. By this portal beta event they introduced true grind which i hate. Instead of having fun this gives frustration. After so many hours in last couple of days I am tired and have enough. Now I consider taking a longer break from the game, because If I kept up forcing myself to grid, sooner or later I would leave and I don’t want this, because I love the game. Sorry devs, but I think this idea wasn’t the best one. Maybe next time consider for example doing event for 24h or 48h with higher drop rate, so people won’t build more and more frustration over time and seeing someone getting portal every 5 minutes in map chat rather than once per hour (or once per a few hours…) would be more motivating and fun, because it would give a feeling that this is achieveable and this wouldn’t feel like a grind.

Wouldn’t surprise me if he was handpicked. I see ANet capable of that. Maybe drops are based on how many gems they bought.

Max i’ve seen was 2 different people with 3 invites each…while ppl with days of farming got none.

There has been a post from Gaile that stated it is purely random. Like any other loot. Put your foil hats away.

Random events are random and anyone that thinks spending X hours in a zone means they should have the item doesn’t understand statistics. If you go in with the mindset that you’re going to grind for the portal, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment. Go to the zones looking to play the game and enjoy your time.

Besides, it’s just a short-term beta event. You are stressing over not being able to access unpolished, unfinished content. Literally, you are working for free when you beta test. There is no NDA on the events, so you won’t be losing out information either.

Humans and math. It’s terrifying to watch.

Random distribution is NOT uniform distribution. It would be weirder if there weren’t people with multiple portal drops.

Nike.2631:

Humans and math. It’s terrifying to watch.

Random distribution is NOT uniform distribution. It would be weirder if there weren’t people with multiple portal drops.

or you know, flag the account so that it doesn’t drop for them again

if only 10 drop an hour and you want to argue math, the law of probability could have all 10 portals go to one person…..highly, highly unlikely, but it could happen

what good is getting 1 tester in an hour?

I have farmed 12+ hours approx on Thursday and 8+ hours yesterday @SW (I do mainly to farm gold) and I’m yet to get a single beta portal drop….

#LuckWars2

Jordo.5913:

Nike.2631:

Humans and math. It’s terrifying to watch.

Or you know, flag the account so that it doesn’t drop for them again.

Other than for your fragile peace of mind why does it matter and why should they bother? Doing so is more code, more checks within the system bogging it down and generates zero impact on the outcome of the larger process.

If only 10 drop an hour and you want to argue math, the law of probability could have all 10 portals go to one person…..highly, highly unlikely, but it could happen

what good is getting 1 tester in an hour?

((Mind boggles)) There’s not a magic faucet that spits out exactly ten per hour and duplicates are lost forever to the abyss! When there are ten times as many people active there are ten times as many checks to generate one. And on average 10 times as many portals produced. Your guy with nine extra isn’t some how stealing them from everyone else. Every check is independent.

Jordo.5913:

or you know, flag the account so that it doesn’t drop for them again

if only 10 drop an hour and you want to argue math, the law of probability could have all 10 portals go to one person…..highly, highly unlikely, but it could happen

what good is getting 1 tester in an hour?

Someone dropping 4 or even 100 portals in an hour would modify in no ways YOUR chances of dropping one.

There is not a “XXXX number of portals drop each hour” thing. You have “XXXX” chance to get one everytime you access a mob’s drop table. Just like you have the chance to drop a piece of armor, or a weapon or a crafting mat.

There can be a million portal drops in an hour as much as there can be no drop at all in an hour.

You can spend a million hours farming for it and never get it, while someone else can get in 2 minutes after he started farming for it.

I’ve played in SW for maybe 3-6 hours and Dry Top for about 1-2 hours. I have seen a few people receive one in that time but I pretty much went in there not expecting to receive one myself. Yesterday I did receive more exotics in a single day than I ever received before (4 in a short period of time, during 2 game sessions). At least it’s a nice way to farm your crests and geodes if there is a chance for beta access added onto it.

Palindrome.8904:

There has been a post from Gaile that stated it is purely random. Like any other loot. Put your foil hats away.

Random events are random and anyone that thinks spending X hours in a zone means they should have the item doesn’t understand statistics. If you go in with the mindset that you’re going to grind for the portal, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment. Go to the zones looking to play the game and enjoy your time.

Besides, it’s just a short-term beta event. You are stressing over not being able to access unpolished, unfinished content. Literally, you are working for free when you beta test. There is no NDA on the events, so you won’t be losing out information either.

The chance will stay the same yes, but you have to agree, the longer you keep at you the odds of you getting said drop will increase. Not to the point that you will get it, as nothing with RNG is 100%. And given the short time span of said event, you couldn’t spend enough time in game to get the chance of time vs drop rate up to anything meaningful. I remember some one explaining it for another MMO, there was a drop with a low chance, but it worked out that is you did the activity every day for a year your time Vs chance would make it something like a 95% chance that you would get the drop in that time frame. But he did say that this would not mean if you kept doing the same thing, in another year you would get the drop. as the chance of the drop would not change. Just the chance of you getting it would increase over time. Same as playing the lottery, if you play it for long enough you will win something, might not be the jackpot, but you’d win something.

Nike.2631:

Jordo.5913:

Nike.2631:

Humans and math. It’s terrifying to watch.

Or you know, flag the account so that it doesn’t drop for them again.

Other than for your fragile peace of mind why does it matter and why should they bother? Doing so is more code, more checks within the system bogging it down and generates zero impact on the outcome of the larger process.

If only 10 drop an hour and you want to argue math, the law of probability could have all 10 portals go to one person…..highly, highly unlikely, but it could happen

what good is getting 1 tester in an hour?

((Mind boggles)) There’s not a magic faucet that spits out exactly ten per hour and duplicates are lost forever to the abyss! When there are ten times as many people active there are ten times as many checks to generate one. And on average 10 times as many portals produced. Your guy with nine extra isn’t some how stealing them from everyone else. Every check is independent.

Even if every check is independent, again, the law of probability states that there could be 1,000 people to log in and get the portal on their next kill. That simply isn’t going to happen because Anet has a cap on how many people they want in the beta. I can garauntee you Anet has a way to control this, and not just by making the drop rate .001%

The .001% will definitely slow the numbers from rising quickly, but just like RNG will be RNG to us the players, RNG could screw Anet and allow 1000 people (or whatever their cap is) in a single day before Anet has a chance to lower the drop rate, and one would have to be a fool if they don’t think Anet has a fail safe to keep that from happening.

Jordo.5913:

The .001% will definitely slow the numbers from rising quickly, but just like RNG will be RNG to us the players, RNG could screw Anet and allow 1000 people (or whatever their cap is) in a single day before Anet has a chance to lower the drop rate, and one would have to be a fool if they don’t think Anet has a fail safe to keep that from happening.

Of course they do. They are certainly monitoring the number of drops regularly. They can lower the drop rate past a certain threshold is reached. It can even be automated easily with a few lines of code.

You only have to put a counter that increase by one every time a portal is dropped for the first time by a player’s account.

Check the counter’s value everytime a portal is dropped vs the threshold’s value.

If the counter’s value is greater than the said threshold, then reduce the drop rate and increase the threshold value. Repeat.

Talk of some players being ‘hand picked’ to receive drops is ludicrous. It’s far more work to create a drop that only falls for specific players, than it is to just give access to ‘hand picked’ players without the need to create a portal to fake an RNG prize drop system. Hand picked players (should they exist) wont ‘need’ to find portals. Some of you seem to see conspiracy everywhere you look.

Blanche Neige.7241:

Jordo.5913:

The .001% will definitely slow the numbers from rising quickly, but just like RNG will be RNG to us the players, RNG could screw Anet and allow 1000 people (or whatever their cap is) in a single day before Anet has a chance to lower the drop rate, and one would have to be a fool if they don’t think Anet has a fail safe to keep that from happening.

Of course they do. They are certainly monitoring the number of drops regularly. They can lower the drop rate past a certain threshold is reached. It can even be automated easily with a few lines of code.

You only have to put a counter that increase by one every time a portal is dropped for the first time by a player’s account.

Check the counter’s value everytime a portal is dropped vs the threshold’s value.

If the counter’s value is greater than the said threshold, then reduce the drop rate and increase the threshold value. Repeat.

the drop flags an account for access for the beta and you don’t need to keep the item. So surely any counting done would be of account with access and not how many items have dropped

Shalloe.4867:

Blanche Neige.7241:

Jordo.5913:

The .001% will definitely slow the numbers from rising quickly, but just like RNG will be RNG to us the players, RNG could screw Anet and allow 1000 people (or whatever their cap is) in a single day before Anet has a chance to lower the drop rate, and one would have to be a fool if they don’t think Anet has a fail safe to keep that from happening.

Of course they do. They are certainly monitoring the number of drops regularly. They can lower the drop rate past a certain threshold is reached. It can even be automated easily with a few lines of code.

You only have to put a counter that increase by one every time a portal is dropped for the first time by a player’s account.

Check the counter’s value everytime a portal is dropped vs the threshold’s value.

If the counter’s value is greater than the said threshold, then reduce the drop rate and increase the threshold value. Repeat.

the drop flags an account for access for the beta and you don’t need to keep the item. So surely any counting done would be of account with access and not how many items have dropped

SELECT COUNT (*) FROM ACCOUNTS WHERE BETA_ACCESS = TRUE;

Yes, no need to have an independent counter syncing over multiple megaserver shards. The beta access information is a flag in the login server, so just check for the information there. You also don’t have to perform this check on every drop. Just checking periodically, how many players have access would be enough.

i see more people with 2-3 portal gj anet so after 25 hours of farming no drop

It,s amusing to see so many people thinking they should have got a portal because they farmed XX amount of time for it.

Do you also think you should win the lottery jackpot because you spent 1000$ on tickets?

Blanche Neige.7241:

It,s amusing to see so many people thinking they should have got a portal because they farmed XX amount of time for it.

Do you also think you should win the lottery jackpot because you spent 1000$ on tickets?

Ya, I feel like a lot of users didn’t pass high school math and don’t understand how probability works.

TheDarkCynder.4618:

Blanche Neige.7241:

It,s amusing to see so many people thinking they should have got a portal because they farmed XX amount of time for it.

Do you also think you should win the lottery jackpot because you spent 1000$ on tickets?

Ya, I feel like a lot of users didn’t pass high school math and don’t understand how probability works.

I don’t think many people know the law of probability. The law of probability states that 100,000 people could log in and get the portal on their first kill, or 99,999 could, or 99,998 could.

That’s why I’m saying Anet has something else besides just a drop rate keeping these items at bay.

It is SO easy to write a code, that adds the portal drop rate to a map for just a bit. So everyone in that map as .001% chance to get it. Once one person in that map gets it, it takes away the drop table for a RNG amount of time.

Anet had the ability to change a VISUAL part of the game, with the vines reaching the new pact camp, without needing to restart the game or put in a new build. I’m certain they can manipulate the drop table in such an easy way, so that then yes, they can control how many portals drop per map, per hour, and it’s still considered random.

A person posted a stack of 7 portals in SW today. I have no idea, though, whether they just figured out the chatcode or if they actually had those items.

I hope this event end soon nothing good about it just makes people angry and frustrated

Ovawatch.8307:

They need to consider flagging the players who have already received one either way… If they decide not to raise the drop rate, fix the issue where we see users with MORE than one. Its not difficult, ArenaNet is amazing and im sure they could handle this task. It’s infuriating to find these users post their finds in chat to those who have wasted 15+ hours trying to get one.

It’s a lot more complicated than you think, the Beta Portal is Legendary level, so it should be a lower drop rate than a Precursor. Flagging implies they have the code already in their RNG system to allow this, they don’t so they would need to completely rewrite the code for RNG. Also, it’s just not pulling from one Drop Table, it’s multiple Drop Tables and they go in sequence, so it might not be until that 10th or 20th random number that the Portal comes up. First it decides whether or not that person gets a drop, yes or no, then what type of drop, now from what category, then level, then which item, etc., etc.,…hopefully you get the picture. It works that way for everything in the game, yet people don’t completely understand that for some reason.

P.S. – 4 is nothing, there’s at least one person that had 7 as of yesterday.