Guild Wars 2

I love math and experimentation, so I’ve decided to start a science project in Guild Wars 2. However, I need your help to determine the best approach to take.

The experiment can take one of following different directions:
A) Salvage 1000+ rares to study the probability of receiving Globs of Ectoplasm.
B) Put 1000+ rares into the Mystic Forge and observe the results.
C) Some other option I have not considered: __________________

Questions for you:

Which of these approaches will produce the most meaningful data for the Guild Wars 2 community?

Is there a different approach that could be taken that would be better?

If you think A or B are good ideas, how could they be best carried out? (For example, should I group specific types / levels of rares together to observe specific patterns? In Experiment A, would Master Salvage Kits be the best to use, or some other type?)

Reward:

The best response will receive 3 Gold from the Asuran Tinkerers Society, acknowledgment in the published research notes, and the satisfaction of enriching players’ understanding of game mechanics in Guild Wars 2.

Thank you in advance for your replies!

Well you need controls and all that. The level shouldn’t matter too much, but to be safe for accurate results, all rares should be the same level. Everything else on the rare is trivial for ectos sake.

Next you need to decide what kit. Master Salvage kit has a rough rate of .9 ectos per item. Black Lion Salvage Kit has a 1.25 ectos per item. Obiviously the BLSK is best. But most people use a Master Salvage kit so I’d choose that one for this experiment.

If you’re going to Mystic Forge a 1,000 rares, you don’t need a heavy control of level. 75-80 is good being the forge will promote it to 80 anyways if you mix 75s with 77s and 78s. The Mystic Forge has a rough rate of 20% of promoting rares to exotics. So with the left over rares you did forge, are you going to throw them back in? Or no? If so, for how many times? Till you run out, or only reuse the left overs once, twice, thrice?

I’ll do the basic math here though.

Salvaging 1,000 rares with a Master Salvage kit would be 1,000×.9= 900 ectos about. depends on RNG. Ectos are worth 25s about. So 900×.25 (25s is 1/4 of 1G) = 225G

Mystic Forging 1,000 rares with a 20% exotic turn over rate. So 1,000/4 (It takes 4 rares to get 1 item back) = 250 items left over. 250×.20 (250 items returned times the 20% exotic return rate) is 50 exotics. Leaving you 200 rares left over about. All this is in theory of the current statics. 50 exotics can be 50G-1,000G depending on the price and what you get. Precursor being the best, 1G exotic the worst.

So now you have 200 rares left over from Mystic Forging, are you reusing them, or salvaging them?

Salvaging will yelid about 180 ectos and be about 45G.

Mystic Forging will yelid 200/4 = 50 items returned. 50×.20 = 10 exotics with 40 rares.

40/4 = 10 items returned. 10×.20 = 2 exotics with 8 rares.

8/4 = 2 items returned. 2×.20= .4 exotics and 1.6 rares. Being we can’t have decimals you can get 2 exotics, 1 of each back, or 2 rares. We’ll say rares due to RNG being at 20%.

50 exotics first run + 10 exotics second run + 2 exotics third run = 62 exotics returned out of 250 attempts first time + 50 attempts second time +10 attempts third time + 2 attempts fourth time = 312 attempts total

62/312 = 19.871795% of success. But remember I did not add 2 exotics the last time. So lets add them in so 64/312 = 20.512821% of success. Now lets range the data a hair for a better min and max. One test yelids lets say 55/312 and the second yelids 71/312.

55/312 = 17.628205% of success
71/312 = 22.75641% of success

So our average is between 19.871795% to 20.512821% and our min is 17.628205% and the max is 22.75641% of success.

In the end, if the player collected statics are accurate, salvaging is a more reliable way of recieving the hard earned money of those rares, while Mystic Forge can potentionally yelid more depending on the rate of success (About 20%) and what exotic is returned, which is a variable we can not statically find right now. So if you like gambles, Mystic forge your rares and potentionally recieve great exotics/precursor or if you want it “safer”, Salvage all your rares.

EDIT: I forgot Trading Post tax, which is 15% correct? I do not remember it off the top my head, but take 85% times net income to get total balance after tax.

Wow, Xter! Thank you for your incredibly detailed response! That’s exactly the type of info I was looking for. That makes sense that the Mystic Forge would have a lower min / greater max potential earnings than salvaging.

I don’t really care how much money I make from this, since I’m doing it for the sake of knowledge and confirming existing theories with well-documented, hard data. I will be Fraps-ing the entire process and will compile the data into a spreadsheet to produce conclusions and graph the information.

The ultimate question, then, is which approach would be more helpful to improving knowledge in the community? Confirming ecto drop rates or documenting Mystic Forge results?

That has been a very interesting reading Xter. I just want to share my experiment with the Mystic Forge. Two weeks ago I managed to store a large quantity of rares in bank to use in the Mystic Forge because I wanted to know it was better to sell them. I had collected 54 yellow items (level 76+) that I valued at 12 gold. I also put in the Forge all of the rares that it gave me back.
Results: 4 exotic items
- Deathwish ~ 8 g
- Ruinmaker ~ 4 g
- A piece of armor ~ 3g
- A torch ~ 1g
Total ~ 16 g
It’s true that I had an effective gain of 4 gold compared to the 12g if I had sold them but this is to me the proof that the Mystic Forge shouldn’t be used.
The gain comes from the Deathwish, what if I had got another weapon worth 4 gold less that it?

viperior.2461:

Wow, Xter! Thank you for your incredibly detailed response! That’s exactly the type of info I was looking for. That makes sense that the Mystic Forge would have a lower min / greater max potential earnings than salvaging.

I don’t really care how much money I make from this, since I’m doing it for the sake of knowledge and confirming existing theories with well-documented, hard data. I will be Fraps-ing the entire process and will compile the data into a spreadsheet to produce conclusions and graph the information.

The ultimate question, then, is which approach would be more helpful to improving knowledge in the community? Confirming ecto drop rates or documenting Mystic Forge results?

Well, I’d say the Mystic Forge would be a better experiment for the community’s sake. You could help document and confirm what exotics the forge may return, and help verify the rate of returns. In edition you may make your money back with a precursor return to help fund more samples or for personal sakes.

Another thing if you did do another sample, try doing the first all at once, then the second in small segments. That’ll help test if the forge has diminishing returns too like the anti-farming mechanics in the game. The exotic yelid may be higher in segments compared to doing it all at once like many of us do. That’d help explain why some players toss 500+ rares in without many exotic yelids/precursors yet some of us (I being guilty of this) throw in 3-5g and get a precursor and nice exotics.

A sample size of 1,000 is not big enough though to help confirm a DR, but it’s a step in the direction and hopefully more players will contribute their yelids in similar fashion to obtain a true average of what the Mystic Forge rate of returns are and mechanics such as diminishing returns.

Keba.8930:

That has been a very interesting reading Xter. I just want to share my experiment with the Mystic Forge. Two weeks ago I managed to store a large quantity of rares in bank to use in the Mystic Forge because I wanted to know it was better to sell them. I had collected 54 yellow items (level 76+) that I valued at 12 gold. I also put in the Forge all of the rares that it gave me back.
Results: 4 exotic items
- Deathwish ~ 8 g
- Ruinmaker ~ 4 g
- A piece of armor ~ 3g
- A torch ~ 1g
Total ~ 16 g
It’s true that I had an effective gain of 4 gold compared to the 12g if I had sold them but this is to me the proof that the Mystic Forge shouldn’t be used.
The gain comes from the Deathwish, what if I had got another weapon worth 4 gold less that it?

Thank you.

Are you sure it was 54 rares? 100% sure? If so we can throw your results in the sample even though it was a very small sample, everything helps.

Are you sure those were your returns also? If so then find out the other names of the two exotics. Depending how detailed the OP wants to be, he can also compile the rate of returns of exotics. I assumed he wanted to throw in all weapons which was my fault, but if we are using a mix of armor and weapons then the results of the item returned are bigger.

So there’s another question for you OP. Are you using only weapons/trinkets/armor or are you planning to use a mix of two or three? If you want to be detailed detailed then you need to decide. I would suggest only one type like all weapons and see the rate of return of different exotics. That’ll help find the Mystic Forge’s rate of returns of precurors which so many players seem to be after.

Xter.6271:

Well, I’d say the Mystic Forge would be a better experiment for the community’s sake. You could help document and confirm what exotics the forge may return, and help verify the rate of returns. In addition, you may make your money back with a precursor return to help fund more samples or for personal sakes.

It is settled then! I shall make the goal of the experiment to document the mechanics of the Mystic Forge using high-level rares.

Xter.6271:

Another thing if you did do another sample, try doing the first all at once, then the second in small segments. That’ll help test if the forge has diminishing returns too like the anti-farming mechanics in the game. The exotic yield may be higher in segments compared to doing it all at once like many of us do. That’d help explain why some players toss 500+ rares in without many exotic yields/precursors yet some of us (I being guilty of this) throw in 3-5g and get a precursor and nice exotics.

A sample size of 1,000 is not big enough though to help confirm a DR, but it’s a step in the direction and hopefully more players will contribute their yields in similar fashion to obtain a true average of what the Mystic Forge rate of returns are and mechanics such as diminishing returns.

This is quite an interesting idea, and one I think it would be productive to study. What do you propose my samples sizes should be?

1000 rares all at once?
500 rares?

Then what about the smaller batches?
10, 50, 100?

How long should the waiting period be between batches to let any potential DR run out?

The only problem I see with this approach is the sheer difficulty in amassing 500+ rares before even beginning the project, let alone storing them until it launches.

Xter.6271:

Are you sure it was 54 rares? 100% sure? If so we can throw your results in the sample even though it was a very small sample, everything helps.

Are you sure those were your returns also? If so then find out the other names of the two exotics. Depending how detailed the OP wants to be, he can also compile the rate of returns of exotics. I assumed he wanted to throw in all weapons which was my fault, but if we are using a mix of armor and weapons then the results of the item returned are bigger.

I would like this study to be extremely detailed in terms of recording the raw data (for multiple reasons). As I mentioned, I will be FRAPs-ing every Mystic Forge attempt, including a mouse-over of each item to show its exact name, level, upgrades, and stats. This will not only make my conclusion drawing easier, but will also allow for others to come along and use my data in their own experiments with utmost confidence in the accuracy (because they can actually see each transaction in-game using the video recording).

I would be willing to include data from others as part of my experiment, but I would like to have images from the actual game client. Whether that is a video recording or organized screenshots doesn’t matter, but high-level detail is one of the primary goals of this experiment. That being said, even general patterns observed by others is great information to help design my experiment and test against!

Xter.6271:

So there’s another question for you OP. Are you using only weapons/trinkets/armor or are you planning to use a mix of two or three? If you want to be detailed detailed then you need to decide. I would suggest only one type like all weapons and see the rate of return of different exotics. That’ll help find the Mystic Forge’s rate of returns of precursors which so many players seem to be after.

Weapons, armor, and trinkets will be forged in separate Mystic Forge transactions in order to isolate weapon returns specifically.

Xter.6271:

Keba.8930:

That has been a very interesting reading Xter. I just want to share my experiment with the Mystic Forge. Two weeks ago I managed to store a large quantity of rares in bank to use in the Mystic Forge because I wanted to know it was better to sell them. I had collected 54 yellow items (level 76+) that I valued at 12 gold. I also put in the Forge all of the rares that it gave me back.
Results: 4 exotic items
- Deathwish ~ 8 g
- Ruinmaker ~ 4 g
- A piece of armor ~ 3g
- A torch ~ 1g
Total ~ 16 g
It’s true that I had an effective gain of 4 gold compared to the 12g if I had sold them but this is to me the proof that the Mystic Forge shouldn’t be used.
The gain comes from the Deathwish, what if I had got another weapon worth 4 gold less that it?

Thank you.

Are you sure it was 54 rares? 100% sure? If so we can throw your results in the sample even though it was a very small sample, everything helps.

Are you sure those were your returns also? If so then find out the other names of the two exotics. Depending how detailed the OP wants to be, he can also compile the rate of returns of exotics. I assumed he wanted to throw in all weapons which was my fault, but if we are using a mix of armor and weapons then the results of the item returned are bigger.

Yes, i started with exactly 54 rares but I also put in the Forge the rares it gave me back.
I checked the “Items I’ve Sold”, the piece of armor was " Valkyrie Emblazoned Shoulders " but the other item wasn’t a torch, it was a " Carrion Tribal Warhorn of Rage".

someone beat you to A: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/BL-S-Kits-vs-Master-Kits-Results-Ectos/first