Guild Wars 2

Please check the numbers.

It’s possible you reintroduced the bug you fixed with a recent patch.

I agree. It might have happened that whatever caused it is back or something else.
I experienced a strange ecto salvaging behaviour since the last big update, too.

Have you done some thousands of salvages since the last patch, and want to post your results here? Anything to back up your accusation? Or you just salvaged 5 rares without getting any ecto and you’ve alredy noticed a pattern? Just curious ^^

Doesn’t matter. We know it bugged out last time, and it’s not our job to salvage thousands of ectos to provide them with a sample size that is “big enough”.
They shall just check. =)

If only things worked that way… sigh

I know…….. but we can try to skip that part where we have to prove everything before they check it? (Especially as it recently was an issue!) ;-)

I’ve gotten 3 ecto from a rare as recently as an hour ago.

AeroJavi.1687:

Have you done some thousands of salvages since the last patch, and want to post your results here? Anything to back up your accusation? Or you just salvaged 5 rares without getting any ecto and you’ve alredy noticed a pattern? Just curious ^^

Thousands? No. Hundreds? Yes.
Combined with the fact that I have seen a few pixels in my day, and peer corroboration, I’ve concluded that it’s borked.

Get on my level.

I’ve had 10 or 11 rares in a row with no ectos from Black Lion Salvage Kits. Is that 100% proof? Nah, but the most I’ve ever gone in a row before without ectos was 2. Something is either fishy or my Black Lion Salvage Kit is defective.

I did Guild Missions last night and salvaged all my rares. I got 1’s, 2’s and 3’s. My rates were just fine.

The thing that defined the last ecto salvage bug was that no one was able to get more than 1 ecto from a salvage.

Nothing is wrong, take off your tinfoil hats.

Salvaged 28 assorted Rare armor pieces, got 42 Ectos using Master Kits, during PM of 6-15. Had only three 0 results. Admittedly, this is remarkable, and it could not possibly happen imo if there was a bug active.

Apparently all the missed ectos griffdog had were rolled into my luck locker. Sorry griff.

lol Jak – hey at least it’s working for someone! Reporting back. I had another 0 result with a BL kit, but then I had two in a row hit! I must have had really, really, REALLY bad luck.

I don’t complain…much. :p

Usually am able to find the lemonade.

But since, what, a month? There was a patch and it seems like the masters just ‘tanked’ at producing Ectos. I don’t get them much any more, and when I do, they are ‘rarely’ 2s or 3s.

I used to get 2s and 3s and much more frequent 1s with the masters.

And I am going to leave my tin foil hat on, thank you very much.

It would be nice to have included in the patch notes, or a statement, indicating that they did, in fact, change it to encourage more store purchases of black iron salvages from the store. It’s a business, I get it. Just let me know where I stand.

Or, if you truly didn’t change a thing, go ahead and say that, just so long as it’s true.

/considers putting tin foil hat down, but then thinks better and keeps it secure.

Bright.9160:

[…]

The thing that defined the last ecto salvage bug was that no one was able to get more than 1 ecto from a salvage.

[…]

That is not correct. It had been just a lot rarer to get 2 or 3 ectos but it still happened even during the bug. But the overall rate of ectos had been down from 0.9 to about 0.5.

Right now I don’t have enough data to really make a serious assumption here. But I found it suspicious too the last hours.

Salvaged 9 rares in a row using Master Salvage Kit… not 1 ecto. Please check.

My rates from 6/15:
7 rares with master kits: 7 ectos
7 rares with black lion: 3 ectos (5x 0 ecto in a row, odd but still possible with RNG)

My rates from 6/14:
6 rares with black lion: 12 ectos

So, my only problem was yesterday. Not everyday since the most recent update.

Striker.9413:

So, my only problem was yesterday. Not everyday since the most recent update.

I also had my suspicious ecto experience yesterday. (I thought it would be a great idea to salvage exotics with blk(s), obviously it was not -.-)

Ok, at least in the past 2 hours everything seems to be pretty normal (even slightly above average for me):

Salvaged 600 lvl80 armor with the master’s kit and got 576 ectos out of it averaging at 0.96.

Sometimes I get the impression that in the first hours after the daily reset the rates are significantly lower but I haven’t looked into that seriously enough yet.

You realize there are several thousand random number generators out there that are used in computer science, right? There’s no mysterious algorithm that calculates ecto’s or anything like that. Just an RNG that has a fixed set of numbers that is so big and set up in such a way they appear random, and for all purposes they are used, are close enough to random to be considered random.

I could go ahead and explain to you how they work, but I’m pretty sure it would fly right by your understanding of RNG…

Someone doesn’t live up to his name here. You DID notice that I wrote “Sometimes I get the impression […]”, which is slightly different from “I am sure […]” or even “I believe […]”?

If you had followed the discussion concerning the ecto salvaging bug that came with the patch of may 28th you would have known that I actually do understand statistics. I always plead for large enough sample sizes to at least be able to make serious assumptions.

And if you had followed this thread thoroughly and had read my post completely, you would have noticed, that I provided the only serious sample size here yet. And that it even leads to the assumption, that there hasn’t been any change this time, be it accidentally or intentional.

And if you had read the patch notes concerning the fix for the ecto salvaging bug, you might have noticed the word “sometimes”.

Fixed a salvaging bug introduced in the last patch that sometimes caused salvage kits to yield incorrect results.

But I am sure there never ever has been a bug in a computer program, where “sometimes” meant “certain times of day”.

Stop arguing over phrasing. I have played games with variability based on hour or amount of people around you before. I do not believe this game uses such a system. If anything, it would be daily, and I have not observed such variance.

My results today were still suspiciously low. Am still keeping tabs on my rate, and the rates of members in my guild.

As long as you keep your results a secret it will be difficult to take your suspicion seriously.

I have nothing to prove to you. Either they will check and make sure they didn’t reintroduce a bug, or they won’t.

When the bug occurred, a lot of people salvaging hundreds or thousands of rares per day showed up here and provided their data summing up to a sample size of several thousands all pointing towards the changed rate. This time they don’t show up here (well except me, but my sample of by now 1000 rares shows no significant change). Whatever that may indicate…

Today I got 70 ecto from 75 rares. Same thing with 3 days ago. Everything is just as it is suppose to be.

Bright.9160:

You realize there are several thousand random number generators out there that are used in computer science, right? There’s no mysterious algorithm that calculates ecto’s or anything like that. Just an RNG that has a fixed set of numbers that is so big and set up in such a way they appear random, and for all purposes they are used, are close enough to random to be considered random.

I could go ahead and explain to you how they work, but I’m pretty sure it would fly right by your understanding of RNG…

Well, AeroJavi is a bit more right than you, yet not completely.

Generating random numbers in computer science is … simply impossible (for computers without atomic disintegration module). Any algorithm will always get the same results, if the preconditions are the same. Imagine you’d have the same PC twice. Completely identical (which is practically impossible, due to IDs and such – but theoretically possible) … Even their ime in milliseconds is the same. Let them both generate a “random” number and you’ll get the same number twice. Simply because computers can’t generate random numbers, but “pseudo-random” ones.

And since we don’t know what kind of algorithm ArenaNet uses, we can’t kitten its correct behaviour.

WaxWorm.8574:

But I am sure there never ever has been a bug in a computer program, where “sometimes” meant “certain times of day”.

You are sure … then you failed …
Generating pseudo-random numbers (as described above) usually consumes alot computing power. Pretty unnecessary for MMORPGs. I know at least one MMORPG which was rumored to use weekly-based random tables. Meaning, at each time there’s a slot which contains the “random result” (of a dice roll). This implementation had two unique behaviours. First, opening two random boxes in a lag resulted in two identical items since they were both opened in the same timeslot. Second, opening another box exactly one week later, often resulted in the same item.

Saying “pseudo-random number generators are completely independent from the world” is a bit off.

[ Edit ]
[ Ontopic ]
I see no difference in ecto salvaging. I’m also at a ~90% rate. Maybe those “I salvaged 20 items without an ecto” shouldn’t test those things on their lvl 20 chars …

Statistically, a LOT of people will salvage 9 rares are come out with 0 ectos. And those will think the process is bugged, instead of blaming pure bad luck. So it’s not necessarily a game bug.

Results from latest test (with Master salvage kit):
- 36 rares;
- 43 ectos.

It seems fine here.

[Edit]Small mistake, fixed.

Nretep.2564:

[…]

WaxWorm.8574:

But I am sure there never ever has been a bug in a computer program, where “sometimes” meant “certain times of day”.

You are sure … then you failed …

[…]

Did you read the whole post and understand it? Ever heard of “irony” or “sarcasm”? Stop the friendly fire, man.

Edit: ok, I think I see, why you didn’t get the sarcasm. That whole post of mine relates to another post by Bright.9160 that obviously has been deleted in the meantime.

WaxWorm.8574:

Edit: ok, I think I see, why you didn’t get the sarcasm. That whole post of mine relates to another post by Bright.9160 that obviously has been deleted in the meantime.

Not my bad, apparently I broke Forums rules by referring to religion.

I still stand by my point though that thinking RNG is better at some times of day is about equal to believing the tooth fairy brings you presents every Christmas (I hope I don’t offend anyone with this), especially since I know a thing or 2 about Random Number Generators and how they generate their numbers, and why considering them to be “random” is a pretty safe bet (although, yes, they’ll still always be pseudo-random).

Unless Anet dun goofed with their RNG and went with some Wi Flag system that does the RNG, and screwed up in the code somewhere, and some players are truly “more lucky” than others, but I doubt it, because I don’t see why you would choose Wi Flag over a simple/cheap RNG..

Salvaged at least a 1000 rares over the last 2 days; there really is no nerf. You have to understand that it’s entirely possible to get 10 rares of nothing but ore/wood. It’s not uncommon for this to happen.

However.

When you start salvaging more, it all evens out (i.e. those “bad” streaks" will always be compensated by “good streaks”). The salvage rate is still around 90% for globs, and 80% for upgrades, when using rare kits.

kerona.3465:

I have nothing to prove to you. Either they will check and make sure they didn’t reintroduce a bug, or they won’t.

Problem is, they’ve only checked when people provided stats of their salvages clearly showing something was wrong. Post “fix” I’ve been tracking my salvages (which aren’t many tbh) and I personally haven’t seen any oddities. Posting your salvage results will likely get this thread the attention (of the developers) you believe it deserves. If you just claim you’re right and have nothing to prove, neither do the developers.

I just salvaged many yellows… Few of them failed (30% aprox.), but with one i got 3 ectos. Anyway too much low salvages to do a statistic. I think Anet must do a track of all salvages, thinking too in my problem with a salvage bug (you can read my problem here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Salvage-bug-2 )

I think it’s funny what lengths people will go to defend a company that obviously made a mistake with a bug.

Nothing has been changed. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ecto-Drop-Rate/first#post2236538

But that doesn’t tell us if the bug reappeared or not. Until now it just says they only did not change it intentionally.

Time to take our tin foil hat off!
No bug!

They should consider to finally put the tin foil hat into the gem shop (of course for free!). I would proudly wear it right now.

Apparently, I must just have sincerely bad luck, the likes of which are not heard of before.
Or the RNG does not properly reset on each salvage creating false ‘chains’ of bad luck.

Either or.

And for those who asked, I have salvaged over 300 rares of the appropriate level in the past week and made somewhere around 60 ectos total.

Ohh, kerona, I feel sorry for you.

kerona.3465:

Apparently, I must just have sincerely bad luck, the likes of which are not heard of before.
Or the RNG does not properly reset on each salvage creating false ‘chains’ of bad luck.

Either or.

And for those who asked, I have salvaged over 300 rares of the appropriate level in the past week and made somewhere around 60 ectos total.

Try salvaging 70+ rares.

Nretep.2564:

kerona.3465:

Apparently, I must just have sincerely bad luck, the likes of which are not heard of before.
Or the RNG does not properly reset on each salvage creating false ‘chains’ of bad luck.

Either or.

And for those who asked, I have salvaged over 300 rares of the appropriate level in the past week and made somewhere around 60 ectos total.

Try salvaging 70+ rares.

They were almost all 78-80s. I spam CoE.

Were you tracking them on a spreadsheet? It may “feel” like you did 300+ and only got back about 60, but the actual results may be very different since we tend to dwell on the negative :/ Keep track of your salvages from now on (if you aren’t), it makes it easier to credibly shed light on a potential problem and reassure yourself that it isn’t just biased perception. I’m doing that for this exact reason

ExTribble.7108:

Were you tracking them on a spreadsheet? It may “feel” like you did 300+ and only got back about 60, but the actual results may be very different since we tend to dwell on the negative :/ Keep track of your salvages from now on (if you aren’t), it makes it easier to credibly shed light on a potential problem and reassure yourself that it isn’t just biased perception. I’m doing that for this exact reason

I keep a note pad. The above stats are accurate.