Guild Wars 2

Ravious.4269:

Chuo.4238:

For example: what about military people who are deployed, or at sea, and can’t play for a few months? Are they just left out forever on the chance at these achievements?

Sometimes they will miss whole bits of content! And content > achievements. That is part of the Living World experience. Experience it now because a lot of it will not last. That bit is not going to change because it is core to the live experience that ArenaNet wants to bring.

Honestly though this appears very sour grapes. If the achievement was so darn important, why didn’t you spend the 5 minutes to get it? What was more important to Chuo then? Are achievements more important to Chuo now, or just because you can’t get them?

Ravious bats .500 – P1: ; P2:

It’s not sour grapes at all – Chuo has a valid question. And here is the answer:

As KTR said, this is how Anet is building Tyria – it’s innovative, interesting and fun. Also, it is and will be frustrating for all of us. I understand that having a 100% completed achievement list is now ruined by having that hole that can never be filled.

The answer to your question is that you should continue because ALL of us have or will have holes in our achievement logs. There will be no way around it for almost all of us. The only one who will be able to always be online at the right time, in-game and properly prepared to grab every achievement that will ever be offered by GW2 will be the one who has no life or is incredibly lucky.

So, the challenge for all of us is to have the least holes in our achievement logs. IMHO no one will be able to have absolutely every achievement that will ever be available for ever.

So relax… but not too much, because you CAN get most of the achievements and possibly more than anyone else!

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Geotherma.2395:

jwburks.9735:

Geotherma. Worst troll ever.

??

You are, You keep coming in this thread with your claims of everything being all right, for you and “everyone I talk to”

If you aren’t experiencing loot problems, why not count yourself lucky and remove yourself from this discussion. I would say, of the posts in this thread claiming no loot issues, most of them are yours.

Why are you on a crusade to not see this issue fixed?

TBH, now I want “ignore user” fixed as well.

Teofa & jwburks – I cannot agree. I believe that Geotherma’s posts are sincere, honest and helpful.

We know that the majority of players still have not (yet?) been “infected” by DR and/or loot issues. I think that dialogue from these folks is useful to this thread.

Beyond that, Geotherma posting vids of PvE chests dropping porous bones is relevant especially if ANet is still paying attention to this thread.

The posts from people like this are the opposite of troll posts.

Navi.7142:

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

QFT

You’re Doing It Wrong

Los Re.4607:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bean.1247:

Bean.1247:

I have noticed my Warrior is no longer cursed with bad luck since the last patch but im not sure how long that will last for.

..spoke too soon and no it didnt last long at all.

Oh, man that really sucks – I really hoped it would stick for you.

This thing seems to be account-bound for most many of us; but have you tried an alt to see if the DR is showing up there too?

I know the feeling of not wanting to play…

Infernia.9847:

@Apropos of Fire – I am afraid of heights and this game makes me sweat bullets when I do the jumping puzzles. My ranger is a rather large female norn and half the time I can’t even see where I’m supposed to go next. I scoot to edges too.

For anyone that missed Navi’s post above or didn’t click the link here’s the dev’s responses to Dragon Chests failing to appear, as in not invisible, but not spawning for a large amount of people while appearing for others. On top of that some people were not getting the experience or karma reward or it was extremely reduced suggesting they had hit DR.

Jason King:
“Did any of you do another event prior to fighting dragon? It’s possible you’re hitting the DR if you completed another event beforehand.”
Jason King:
“Thanks for the details, everyone! We’ll be looking into this issue and examining how dragon chests are affected by DR.”

You see some of these people logged out for 8,10,12+ hours before returning but are still being hit by the DR. They also travel to completely different maps only to have the same DR follow. (Sound Familiar?) I wonder if a big bug like this will finally out the length of time DR truly should last and if it will draw attention to the “real” problem where as this sticky thread never could.

(Large Charr character here… it helps to focus the camera straight down onto the crown of your head. I really think it might be the camera – some jumps require you unlock the camera entirely because of walls and trees. Then you have take care to not fall off when you are not really facing the direction it looks like you’re facing. lol)

Yeah, I read that thread and:
“Thanks for the details, everyone! We’ll be looking into this issue”
… we’ve heard this in our thread too, haven’t we?

Leamas.5803:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Not only that; but I would not craft one rare for the purpose of salvaging if my life depended on it. I am too scared to be banned for “exploiting”. This sounds extreme and it probably is but there is no proof that it wouldn’t happen.

Why would this be considered an exploit? I’ve salvaged tons of stuff I’ve crafted. On the road to level 400 crafting, you make way more than you can ever use and not all of it is easily saleable, so the logical thing is to salvage them. I’ve salvaged exotics that I’ve made without any issue.

Well I said it was extreme – I just worry about stuff like that. After all – who knows what would happen if a GM is having a bad day? I crafted a rare snowflake just to see what it would turn out to be with the intention of salvaging it after and then heard about the bannings and now I still have that rare taking up space in my bank because it’s not worth selling.

Leamas.5803:

In the last couple days, I completed all 4 WvW jumping puzzles, nothing better than a green. Creature drops…chest drops…crap. Killed over 60 invaders (8-10 executions) in WvW last night…nothing better than a blue and I think I only has 3 or 4 gear items drop, some trash and 5 badges…I wish I could sell the badges. :/ In any case, this completes jumping puzzles for me. They’re lots of fun, but with rewards like this…not really much point in going back. The rewards, typically, won’t even cover the cost of the waypoint fees to get there. If I were working toward a legendary, perhaps, since you get 5 badges of honor for each borderland puzzle and 10 for Obsidian. But…I’ve already explained how outrageously out of reach legendaries are for one affected by this issue.

—Aside—
Jumping puzzles are one of most unique and fun parts of this game IMO and I would suggest anyone not doing them, try them out. You also get an achievement and 10 achievement point per puzzle and at 44 puzzles (46 with Halloween and Christmas puzzles), that adds up.

I was pleasantly surprised how in the WvW puzzles, even in enemy borderlands and the shared Obsidian Sanctum puzzle (Which is one of the better puzzles in the game), there’s kind of a no attack thing going on. Of all the “invaders” I saw, only one attacked me, a big brute of a hammer-wielding char guardian, and the silly fool did so in the dark area, I dropped my torches as he had none and he was easily avoidable using mark reflection to navigate…probably still waiting for me. He might be tough, but the bugger is lucky I was pressed for time and decided to avoid him otherwise I’d have hit him with fear to make him walk off the edge.

Yeah if the rewards were worth it, I might try to get over my JP fears and un-coordination. I pretty much just can’t get through a JP without getting all bent out of shape b/c of my lack of coordination. When I am with a guildie doing completion, I just wait for them at the bottom of JPs and Vistas lol.

The only way I can do the Asura Fractal (don’t remember the name) is after the rest of the party boop, boop, bip, bip their way to the top they are patient enough to allow me to sweaty jump, carefully step to the edge closest to the next platform, sweaty jump, repeat till I make it to the top. It’s strange too – I have no problem with platformer games (I was the Mario champ) but I just can’t get the hang of JPs in this game.

I’m really gratified to hear that the trolling in WvW JPs is calming down. For a while, people just seemed to want to ruin it for everyone. But now it seems players are getting the point that letting others complete them makes it possible for them to complete them also.

You should have feared the “silly bugger” –!

(Not to undermine your completely valid post – but “bullkittens” sound really interesting. If there weren’t so many other problems with the game, I’d suggest they create a “bullkitten” mob in-game. Again, sorry and I don’t mean to undermine your post.)

[Mod: I understand this is off-topic, so if you have to delete the post that’s fine with me. Please just don’t mute me — I just thought this would be a clever way to refer to the forums in-game.]

I understand your point ezd and in normal circumstances that is completely reasonable. The problem is that proving the ecto nerf after the snowflake incident (which has probably already been done in another thread) doesn’t really feel worth it.

I, personally, and possibly many others don’t really see the evidence that ANet will care.

Not only that; but I would not craft one rare for the purpose of salvaging if my life depended on it. I am too scared to be banned for “exploiting”. This sounds extreme and it probably is but there is no proof that it wouldn’t happen.

Edit: Well, that’s not true: My GW2 account isn’t more important than my life but you understand my point.

ezd.6359:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

ezd.6359:

d
Still not enough info. Try to craft 100 yellow items of 80 lvl (light armor masks for example) and salvage them with most expensive kit from vendor. I receive ~90 ectos from same amount items salvaged.

I read something like this and wonder if I am playing GW2 in some alternate reality. I can’t visualize having enough fines to ever craft 100 rare 80 items. 1500? at the current prices of that level? with this drop rate? Posts like this floor me. Your game is not what I am experiencing.

My experience? 12 level 80 rare loots since my char got to that level in early December. Easy to count, as I saved them to salvage. Black Lion Kit. 3 ectos.

The RNG hates me so much, that putting 4 Level 50 rare crafted chests into the Mystic Toilet gained me.. nothing? Everyone tells me “nothing” is impossible, yet, that is what I got.

Use trading post to buy mats. Since t5 mats, 80 lvl yellows and ecto are tied to each other – buying, crafting and salvaging it with good salvage kit (Master’s Salvage Kit) should not lead to money loss.

You think 100 items is too much, right? When i worked for my legendary gifts i crafted much more items. Just one stage – http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4964/ectossource.jpg

Please do your own tests before report. “17 ectos from unknown amount of items salvaged with unknown salvage kits” – not enough info to make conclusions, not even close.

Try and post here how many items salvaged, salvage kit used (i recommend Master’s Salvage Kit), ectos received.

ezd: I know that you have been watching this thread for a while so you should know that he and others have been trying to give detailed information for months. If posters have become exhausted at giving specific, time-consuming details; then I understand that.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you for your materials cache. I am very glad that you are not (at least as) affected by these issues as many others. From your screenshot I can see that you can immediately craft at least:

• 8 Rare Apothecary’s
• 77 Rare Explorers
• 85 Rare Knights
• 6 Rare Rampagers
• 67 Rare Valkyries

Not to mention all the materials you have for Embroidereds. You have 1278 Large Scales and 700 Bolts of Silk.

You have done pretty well and I sincerely wish that you do not get caught up in these issues others have.

Many of us do not have the resources to go to the TP and buy up yellows to salvage much less the resources to buy high end salvage kits.

Adding: And we don’t have the ability to craft ectos that you and most of the others in the player base have. This, really, is the whole point of this thread. We just want to have a fair shake at getting to the level you have achieved.

Oh, to remember that in GW1 one could go out and just gather ecto drops through farming. In GW2 you can’t do that – we are limited to hoping to get something to salvage one (maybe) and hopefully we will have enough gold beyond that one rare drop to buy the salvage kit to actually try to squeeze an ecto out of it.

SenorMoody.5908:

There is really no need to keep posting evidence here, since the devs have pretty much made up their minds that nothing is wrong. The majority of us already know that something is wrong, but they devs have already stopped reading. This thread will be closed soon.

Agree and I’ll even go further. I feel strung along by the vague comments seeming to agree there’s a problem. I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Now all of a sudden, they admit that they consider what we are experiencing is intended. This leads me to suspect that the whole point of this thread is to get our data so that they can figure out how to infect the rest of the player base with the issues we face.

I would say for the benefit of those who are not yet having our issues that we don’t post any more loot/drop data. I figure they probably already have the info they need; but in case they still need more we should not oblige.

When this thread was started, I decried the tone of the OP as unprofessional and unnecessary. With the last (almost smirking) post by CJ we can clearly see that the OP was fully intended to goad us and that they have never thought that what they did with the loot and DR was a problem.

Edit: Yes, re-reading this post I can see some tin-foil hat in my comments. I am still disappointed and this is why I’ve not posted much. I’ll give it some time to cool off more.

—> Original post continued…

I couldn’t have said it better than:

Nymphetamine.2103:

Colin: you’re insulting our intelligence mate.
What kind of disingenuous response is this in any case?

I am very disappointed in your response. I falsely thought you and your team were looking to better your communication with the community.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve completed verifying every update from the november release, and there were zero changes to anything what so ever that would have negatively affected loot in any way/shape/form.

I’d like to point out that if you were serious about the, as you guys call: “perceived” lower drop rates, you would have very quickly noticed that not a single poster questioned any changes regarding droprates between Noverember and now. It has been clearly stated that whatever happened, happened on or before the November update. By investigating anything after that, you’re looking at a completely wrong data set. I am stunned at this, to be honest. Start taking it seriously, please.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We can officially confirm this as an X-files level conspiracy at this point.

So we are all dreaming right? Your statement discredits your whole “investigation” even more.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’re in the midst of evaluating every loot table in the game and running massive random roll evaluations table by table, as well as evaluating every system game wide that causes a player to qualify for items to determine if any issues exist in those systems from launch.

Past performance is a great measure of future performance. Sorry, but I’m not going to hold my breath here. I’m now convinced that we won’t ever see an honest response on this issue.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Will update again when we have another round of concrete information.

I know you guys are busy, so once again, I won’t be holding my breath for a quick response.

I do however feel your priorities are not entirely where it should be: As I understand, building a strong base for the continued health of the game, is your number one priority, right? And that includes content like living story and a multitude of other additions to the game, including those new chests which spawn in place of corpses. In my humble oppinion: those changes only weaken your base, when other bugs remain. Addressing existing issues, perceived or not, and communicating it to your player base, would benefit you much more than introducing more bugs in new content.

I’m going off topic here, so I’ll end by asking you guys to man up and try to be moe honest with sensitive issues like the droprate. I’d be much happier, if you told me in my face to f..off and accept the current droprates. This dodging of the issue at hand is what irks most players in my opinion.

Anyway…

./end rant

Well stated, Nymphetamine +1

Nike.2631:

Well, my drops have been excellent since the patch. 2-4 rares every day, the Orr critters have been droping piles of useless essence like crazy, which makes me hopeful next time I seriously farm sparks I might get a lode stone or two. It seems like either the patch fixed something for me, or at least reset it for now.

I even had a real live rare drop off a landscpe (not event) Champion another person and I downed because it kitten us of hanging around a skill point.

That’s good news – grats! I hope it continues for you. Make sure you do everything you can to not trigger DR.

Avitarus.1865:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

You know, avitarus, this isn’t about you “being right all along” and “I told you so”. This is about sadness for a game that had so much promise and potential.

Well, nah.

After all your page long posts telling everybody what to do and how your experience leads you to believe blah blah blah this is the best you’ve got? At this point, since most of the people who posted here are going to quit playing this game, all that is left is a few “Told ya so’s” before we kitten off and go elsewhere.

And dont even start trying to act like a martyr.

Well at least one person on this thread didn’t really care about the game. Some people want and feed off of controversy and nothing more. I certainly am not going to argue with you. So I’ll just say “Congrats, you were right on and got what you wanted”.

Edit: Note all the new people who have posted that there are indeed problems with the game since you came out and “confirmed” there is not, ANet. I guess the “conspiracy” is much wider than you expected.

What really sucks for the other posters (most of the other posters) in this thread who only began having problems in November is that the ‘wi-flagged-account’ issues began at launch or in beta and so since ANet is allegedly looking at that period there is still a chance (I suppose %-/) those accounts might still get help.

I have to say the art was really pretty good in this game – in spots, excellent above all others. However, the art is only part of a fulfilling gaming experience. The art could look like RS and still be successful. (Edit2: No offense intended to RS, errr, no offence.)

I don’t know what NCSoft/ANet is aiming for: perhaps as some have speculated it’s about the cash shop plain and simple. Perhaps this thread was about getting as many of the people who are having these issues to post details so that ANet could figure out how to spread these issues to all the players.

If what we are experiencing is intended, then the other players who are getting normal loots are the ones they want to “fix”. Dry periods in MMOs are to be expected – we all agree on that. But if a 3-month dry period with no end in sight is “intended”, then an EU-type economy is what is intended and perhaps the Nexon people in the GW2 business office are the guiding force as many on this thread have worried.

You know, avitarus, this isn’t about you “being right all along” and “I told you so”. This is about sadness for a game that had so much promise and potential.

ColinJohanson.2394:

there were zero changes to anything what so ever that would have negatively affected loot in any way/shape/form. We can officially confirm this as an X-files level conspiracy at this point.

evaluating every system game wide that causes a player to qualify for items to determine if any issues exist in those systems from launch.

So the perceived strange drop behavior has now been confirmed as only an unfounded conspiracy.

November 15 to present has been determined to be working as intended.

They will now check anything from launch to Nov 1 to see if anyone was having issues with drops for that period.

I apologize for naively believing that the issues of champ/vet/boss non-drops and excessive DR and gray loot flooding would definitely be resolved by ANet. And I apologize for doubting posters who suspected this would be the case.

Since you are trying to be reasonable:

1. The majority, I think, of the people on this thread will agree with your post;
2. The problem is those are not the issues at question;
   * Nov. 15, 2012 ANet: (paraphrased) “Champs and Vets will now always drop good loot”,
   * Nov. 16 to present: you can still go out and kill champs and get zero & grey drops at times,
   * Nov. 16 to present: The vast majority of the player base is getting normal acceptable MMO drops,
   * Nov. 16 to present: We know the above is true (you don’t have to tell us). Most of the posters on this thread point to the above drops as what is acceptable and what they are asking for,
   * About a month ago: ANet accepted that something is wrong so they created this thread for input,
   * Over the past month Colin Johanson has been making vague (<.<) comments in posts elsewhere and interviews that the reward system is being worked on;
   * About 3 weeks ago: ANet stickied this thread to bring wider attention to it,
   * 12 days ago: Colin Johanson posted in this thread that they are sifting through insane amounts of data to find the problem… ANet keeps this thread open,
   * January 28 to present: Some of the posters on this thread are seeing a positive change in rewards after the update yet some still are not,
3. The fact that there are a few players, out of the hundreds of thousands that play GW2, who consistently almost without fail always get poor loot indicates a pseudo-wi-flag situation;
4. People refuse to go out and buy a new account to escape these issues because there is no guarantee that the next account won’t also be affected by this issue;
5. So they want to know if they should give up on their favorite game, GW2, or if they can expect a resolution;
6. Many of us are taking ANet at their word in this thread and doing everything we can to help get to the bottom of the problem;
7. Based on some of the people’s successful recovery, it appears that ANet might be on to something.

No offense, but you may not put anyone in this thread down for trying to get these issues resolved simply because you are one of the 100’s of thousands of players who are not affected.

Iceinux:

• You would do well to read the thread before commenting on it;
• I’m afraid you have misjudged (like I did when I first came to this thread) most of the people posting here;
• The off-topic points you make have hurt your reputation;
• You may attempt to salvage your credibility with follow-up posts, but I will not be arguing with you going forward.

Leamas.5803:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

EDIT: Hmmm – Has anyone who is still having issues guested to another server to see if the issue still follows you? Is it possible that those who are seeing improvement are seeing the better drops on a guested server?

I’m too lazy, and realistically, I shouldn’t have to.

You’re right, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not suggesting this as a permanent work-around. I’m asking: “Would this make a difference? If yes, in what way? If no, then it’s eliminated as a possibility.”

I’m saying if doing this makes a difference it will give them another piece to use to get to the fix. We don’t know unless we try it.

It would be Great! if this does make a difference. It would narrow the problem down even more.

Avitarus.1865:

In the Bugs forum there is an on-going discussion about missing chests from dragon events. Jason King said this:

Did any of you do another event prior to fighting dragon? It’s possible you’re hitting the DR if you completed another event beforehand.

Seems the DR is very strict indeed these days.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Dragon-chest-bugged

So are they saying we can’t do 2 events in a row?

Edit: It looks like he is asking if they are doing the dragon events over and over. BUT I didn’t think DR affected these regardless.

Edit #2: As an aside, ANet has said on multiples of occasions that they don’t want us to be doing one thing over and over (even if we want to do that). So it makes sense what Jason King asked – they are DR’ing and nerfing anything we want to do repeatedly. This is one of the things that I have against ANet. The devs don’t like even the appearance of grind so they nerf it as soon as it manifests. I suppose they think they are doing this for our own good… I don’t like being forced to play a certain way. >^< I am so puppied off right now I am really controlling my desire to just go off!

Leamas.5803:

About 4 hours of play in Blazeridge Steppes and Fields of Ruin. Few greens, no rares other than the two for area completion of Blazeridge, no little chests. If they improved loot at all, I’m not seeing it.

This is strange. Some are seeing improvement while others are not. It’s almost like they made some test changes to part of the code base but not to all of it.

Obviously, where the new PvE loot chests are not dropping is where the issue is.

Etien: You never mentioned how you got your better drops. Did you loot those off the mob corpses or out of the new loot chests?

EDIT: Hmmm – Has anyone who is still having issues guested to another server to see if the issue still follows you? Is it possible that those who are seeing improvement are seeing the better drops on a guested server?

Etien.4601:

Buttercup.5871:

Etien.4601:

Yesterday i played for […]

I stopped reading here. Yesterday was a different game (the game you liked). Not working as intended, so it was patched today and nerfed into oblivion.

I continued to play even after that patch and nothing felt odd. It was the same drop I was receiving prior to it. Now I just logged in again and let’s how things goes.
Edit: my playtime yesterday was from 10am to 8am today.

Etien: Wow – grats! But while you had a few breaks you were playing for 22 hours and now you are logged in again. Etien – get some sleep man! Eat something, take a shower and get some well needed sleep. Your health is more important than any game.

That said; 56 rares in your play time works out to approximately 2-1/2 rares per hour. Again, grats, but that is beginning to get in to the non-rare category.

Personally, (and this is just me) I would be happy with half that. (Of course, that’s not going to happen because my issue is completely different; for the most part my account is “unlucky”. So fixes to the issues in this thread are probably not going to help me a lot.)

Buttercup: I sure hope that you just ran into DR. If you began getting about half of what Etien reports then it sounds like they did adjust the %age. As I said, for me personally, half of what Etien reports would be acceptable. When items stop being rare, they also stop being valuable and worth getting.

All that aside – we are still evaluating. I suggested earlier and think it’s a good idea that we give it a few days and even the whole week to get a handle on what the loot system settles into.

I don’t know that they did anything to mitigate the diminishing returns mechanic so we need to see how that plays into all this.

Also Champs/Vets/Bosses are not fixed yet is what I’m seeing. Etien’s report about his use of MF is promising but again as I said earlier – I’d be happy to just get rid of the magic find mechanic altogether.

The Mystic Forge issue is also outstanding and it would be nice to get some metrics on what’s going on there.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

I think what they have done here is add another piece of code based on the RNG. Make the ratio (i.e. RNG) between junk and not (i.e. chest) better towards the non-junk item. This means that your chance of getting something of higher rarity has now improved when compared to before. This is the simplest method, because instead of changing code more, you are essentially adding another IF that encapsulates the already written code.

Then give this code a pretty face (i.e. a chest) and run the RNG within it to give an item from blue rarity upwards.

Simple and effective, but I wish the minimum rarity within the chest was green…not blue.

No doubt you’re right. We know that these loot issues are not happening to everyone – some people are not affected. So those people who are less affected or not affected at all are getting the PvE loot chests as intended. No need to look there for a problem.

And, since some of us are seeing blue and above drops falling without a chest, I think that is a indicator of when the loot problem is manifesting in-game. If so, that will be a flag for the coders to narrow down where the problem is happening.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Well I’ve just noticed that the recent patch notes say they have adjusted the loot drops in Orr but don’t say up or down so i suspect that will mean down though i cannot imagine handing out more porous bones lol!
i found a rare off a spider and got a wooden chest that dropped a green and the wife just got a level 80 exotic torch off a champion boar in Queensdale, i got a blue.

Well, in my 45 minutes in CS I did get porous bones; but not as many as the mats I got. That was only 45 minutes though.

Were the rare and exotic drops in chests? Did the blue from the champ drop in a chest?

moose.6973:

Low level blue and green gear is so cheap from the market you should be able to afford it just from vendoring all the trash you find.

Is anyone trying their greens (or even blues) in the Mystic Forge yet?

Edit:
Okay I logged in to throw away some stuff to the MF. I started with the whites (I knew going in I wouldn’t get anything from these). On 2 sets, I got another white and a green.

I had 1 set of blues to burn and got a green back. The rest of the blues I had were sub-level 70 so I didn’t even try those.

Next I did 3 sets of greens (burning some Lv 75+ and 80 magic find gear). I got 2 greens back and one Lv 80 Rare! Yay – I got a rare in I don’t remember how long.

In summary, since I don’t usually play with the MF I don’t know if this is poor, typical or above average but there’s what happened.

lynspottery.6529:

Yes, champions and vets still are stingy with loot. Most often nothing, but the mobs at least are dropping things…even if only porous bones. Too bad we can’t use porous bones as an armor mat.

I have to back-pedal on my report to state that I did see a lot of blue mats dropping from mobs more than I saw before. This was welcome (but kind of late seeing that I’ve already maxed all the craft skills. )

Also, I couldn’t stay at my computer much longer last night so I didn’t clarify what my 2 hour run consisted of. I started in CS and played there for about 45 minutes. I got a lot of porous bones (no more than I got before and probably a few less). I saw a few moldy bags and blue mats also. As far as the mob distro in Cursed Shore, it didn’t feel like it was too nerfed (yay for me and my target-kind-of-rich environment. ) It also seemed like there were more Ori and Ancient Saplings and Orrian Truffles than I have been used to but that could have been a coincidence.

After that long I was beginning to worry that I couldn’t stay on too long so I went to Charr home town and Diessa to see if I could see any of the new content. I did not (and it’s been announced today that this content doesn’t trigger for another couple hours today).

However, I went to the North East portion of Diessa I had never visited before to that Incendio flame charr base. Again, I saw a lot of mats and few junk. Armor drops were mostly white and some blues. I don’t remember seeing any blue Lv 80s (just Lv 76’s which is normal for me in low level areas). I did get some Lv 80 whites which is again normal for me in low level areas — however, I seemed to get 1 or 2 more than usual. But again that could just be coincidence.

Diessa is where I killed the 2 Vets – both Vet Charr Shamans – no drops from either. I have to say that they seemed to be easier than I expected – more like normal mobs. BUT that might have been because I was still wearing my non-MF gear with NO magic find at all making me more powerful.

I tried to solo the Champ Fire Shaman with 2 consumable pets and my elite Warband. Once my pets and warband de-rezzed I was knocked off one ledge and took falling damage and while trying to rez (no lower level mobs around to revive off of) he again knocked me off a 2nd ledge and finished me after me taking more falling damage. I Failed. :/ A player came by and rezzed me at about the same time my guild was calling me to Gendarran to work on the Combo daily. When I got partied up and at [Edit – oops – I mean human starter area (we thought the mobs were too low lvl to get combos in so we moved to Gendarran after about 20 minutes. Turns out the
Combo daily was not working as intended and ANet removed it later.)] I saw in my chat that I missed the opportunity to take down that Champ with the help of 2 or 3 other players. Crud! (err Puppy!, if that gets filtered.)

I had gotten knocked off-line and rolled back about 5 minutes when I was in CS and then not again until I got to Gendarran when my party got rolled back 2 or 3 times more. I got my green here (again, no PvE chests in sight – even for my guildies). I also continued getting blue mats a lot. I also got several greys but not more than and possibly a few less than normal due to the increased blue mats dropping. Then I had to stop b/c of pain. I made my report on this thread last night and stayed on as much longer as I could in case someone wanted to follow-up on my post then logged off.

Patch Notes

• In PvE, if a player is awarded loot by killing a creature and the loot is of uncommon rarity or higher, a chest will appear that contains the loot that would previously have been on the corpse. If the rarity of the loot on the creature is lower than uncommon, the loot will remain on the creature’s corpse.

ANet: Based upon my experience and that of other posters here, it appears the PvE Loot Chests are not working as intended. Would you please look at and if at all possible fix this – also, I can’t help but wonder if the chests are being missed. An update to make these chests more obvious might be needed?

Also – Should we expect all blues + higher; &/or all greens + higher; &/or what in the loot chests? All my blues and 1 green were all looted from the mob corpse and I didn’t see any loot chests at all. I used the Alt key for most of my kills to make sure I wasn’t missing chests.

Drew.1865:

It seems the issue I was having with drops has been resolved with this patch so far. I feel much better and I hope it continues.

This is good news, Drew, but lets give it a few days to see if Diminishing Returns triggers on you and reduces your drops again. Also – please let us know what your experience is with the PvE loot chests.

Has anyone found a rare or exotic in a PvE loot chest at all?

A final note for this post: The patch notes indicated nothing about Champs/Vets being changed and I can confirm from my personal experience that at least Vets are still dropping nothing.

I just played for 2 hours and I also didn’t see a difference. However, I got a green but looted it from the carcass. I didn’t get any of the PvE loot chests (I held the Alt key a lot to make sure I wasn’t missing it.) There were also several (3+) 5-10 minute rollbacks which affected loot and daily progress. I was able to log right back in immediately each time. I killed two vets in Diessa and they dropped nothing – I especially looked for chests on the vets. I didn’t get to finish a champ.

Has anyone seen the chests yet?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-January-28-2013

I will wait for the actual update to be pushed out and do some farming to see what’s what.

Medazolam stated that he saw some indications that they made some changes to loot. This is a promising report, anyway.

Because the November update promised positive changes to Champs/Vets but then the drops were at minimum unchanged (I routinely got no drops from them before Nov) or negatively impacted; we will need to play to find out for sure.

Starting at the top, this is what I noticed:

Patch Notes

Rewards when adjusted down have been increased to compensate.

This doesn’t directly seem to address our issues, however, it might be an indication that ANet found a problem with scaling that was nerfing drops. We will need to keep an eye out for this increase.

Patch Notes
Orr

• The Risen creatures all across Orr have had their population density adjusted.
  * Areas, chests, and merchants in Orr now offer better rewards.
  * See “World Polish – Orr” below for more details.

Emphasis added to 2nd bullet point: This is a pretty general statement – we will want to spend some significant time in Orr PvE to check for the changes.

As for reducing the amount of Risen in Orr – I really didn’t have an issue with the mob density myself so I’ll miss the target-rich environment. However, people were complaining about it so they addressed it. By reducing the number of mobs, we very definitely should be able to notice an increase in loot value on the mobs that remain.

Patch Notes

• Updated the participation rewards for the event “Defend the Pact interruptor from Risen attacks” to be more consistent with holdout events at other temples in Orr. Players who participate will earn three times the normal event rewards. (and others)

Several events have had rewards trebled – we’ll want to play those events to check it out.

Patch Notes

• The item “Heavy Moldy Bag” has been updated to drop more frequently.

I have always been glad when this was dropped for me – but now the price is going to tank on the TP. Those of you who TP these should probably get your Moldy Bags sold now before the prices dive too much.

Please pay special attention to this one:

Patch Notes

• In PvE, if a player is awarded loot by killing a creature and the loot is of uncommon rarity or higher, a chest will appear that contains the loot that would previously have been on the corpse. If the rarity of the loot on the creature is lower than uncommon, the loot will remain on the creature’s corpse.

Now this looks to me like the major thing we will want to keep track of. It’s almost like ANet maybe suspects that greens and above have been bugged and are putting in a trouble-shooting feature (the chests on normal mobs and above in PvE) to isolate a suspected problem.

We will want to track our chests in these instances. I read this to mean there should always be uncommon or above loot in these chests. Please make sure to report any and all instances where you got one of these chests and there are any common rewards in them OR if there is nothing in them.

Also, many of you might be aware of the loot bag mechanic in WvW and how sometimes the bag falls a distance away from the mob. If this chest mechanic is based on the loot bag mechanic, we will want to make sure to look around for chests before moving on. I really hope they make these chests stand out and have a noticeable “looty” animation on them so they don’t get missed.

Finally: There was a quote I didn’t include regarding the Mystic Forge drops that concerned “inappropriate” results. As we are getting these uncommon loots in PvE chests that we can’t use; it might be a good idea to try feeding them to the MF to see if this might be where ANet wants to drop us rares. This would be a difficult-to-hide place for bots to get their rares, so it’s conceivable that ANet might do something like this. No, I don’t like the Mystic Forge myself either but I think it might be something to check out.

lynspottery.6529:

Aproposs, why are you backing up your client? Is this a necessary procedure that Anet just never mentioned?

I seriously doubt it’s necessary. But I always back up my client in case of unforeseen problems with patch/update downloads, corrupted files and the like.

If there are problems, I watch the forum for a resolution and then try the download again fresh (after making yet another backup for safety). This way I’ve always got an uncorrupted client to start with.

Edit: You can always start with a fresh new download of the client from scratch but that’s time consuming. However, that is the last resort.

Flame and Frost: Prelude
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013/

Pretty naturally, there is nothing about loot issues in the splash page for tomorrow’s update. No game that has PR people would allow that; I’m certain.

I assume that they will address the loot issues in the patch notes. Least preferably they will simply ninja loot fixes into the patch without comment.

I trust that they will address the issues one way or the other.

To that end, I am backing up my client in preparation for tomorrow’s patch. Once the patch is live, since the patch notes don’t always appear immediately, we should do our best to test the state of the loot, DR and even the MF systems both in open world and in instanced play.

We’ll see what the verdict is this coming week.

Bartas.4908:

As has been clearly stated in this interview (http://www.guildwars2junkies.com/tag/diminishing-returns/) ANet allows us to “farm” but what they mean by “farming” is totally different what the majority of playerbase considers it to be. Point is, that if anyone wants to farm X stuff it is basically not possible. First because quite large loot tables, second because 70% if those consist of trash (like Porous Bones) and third because you hit DR as soon as game decides you killed 1 too many mob in a single place/period of time.

As I wrote earlier if I do not focus on what I am doing I can hit DR in less than 10 mins. If I do pay attention I might avoid it for some time but I will be hit by it sooner or later during my typical 3 hour/day session. IMO 3 hours per day, no matter how intense, can hardly be called hardcore grinding/farming yet ANet thinks otherwise. Now, I don’t even try to “farm” one typical material, just want to loot enough of stuff to be able to gear my alts just because “normal” play with my second and third char is not rewarding enough to gear properly to their level. This was not the case before Nov 15 patch!

To get the most from the game, you have to farm mats – it’s why there’s a crafting system. (Not that crafting is much of an advantage – but that’s a whole other topic.)

The problem with diminishing returns is that it does not solve the botting problem. If a bot gets 1000 rares then it’s in business; however, if a bot gets 10000 porous bones it’s still in business. The merchants pay currency for those bones which the bots can sell.

I’m not smart enough to figure out a way for DR to effectively stop botting. If there’s a fix – it’s beyond me.

Not only that, but the teleporting bots are getting 100’s of thousands of copper, iron and etc ores which as far as I know is not affected by DR.

kuroioni.3147:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

…

…

So my input is not valuable and I should stop posting now? lol

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Customer base have done their part these last 2 and a half months….what have you done?

They’ve done nothing visible yet. They have had time to work on these issues and we’ll see how it is addressed in the updates.

DR, MF and Vet/Champ drops —-- I really expect to see obvious progress on these issues in the upcoming patch(es). I wouldn’t have stuck around if I didn’t.

I have relied on them updating the game to keep their word on the ideals of the manifesto. But of course, my reliance is based on the company that published the MMO Manifesto.

If it turns out to not be the same company then I will have been silenced (sadly) and kuroioni above will get his wish.

And I will owe Vlad and others my apology for being naive. (If I am wrong I’ll freely make that apology in this thread.) Hopefully that won’t be necessary though which is why I’m still here.

kuroioni.3147:

The post you so eagerly are thanking for is nothing more than a glorified “yeeeah… we’re ‘looking into’ this”. Which, by the way, at this time is simply ridiculous.

I know what his post was about – I did read it. My post was about the new posters in this thread adding their experiences. I believe it’s important to encourage players to report their bad loot observations and show that this is a problem affecting more than just a few players.

I post to urge people to add their voices and not be intimidated into silence (and by the way, too bad, I’m not intimidated by poster I quoted above).

Now – This Zam interview [“ZAM speaks to ArenaNet’s Game Director on the future of GW2” dated today] addresses the time vs. reward issue of Vets and Champs among other things:

taken from http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=31615&storypage=3

Zam Interviewer Jarimor:
Along with a need for increasing the fun of fighting non-standard mobs, Johanson was also clear that more incentive is needed to get players leaping on creatures, such as veterans or champions, rather than sneaking around them to hit nodes. This is good news for those who have repeatedly slammed against high HP mobs, only to get a Dark Stained Claw.

Colin Johanson:
“A lot of what we’re looking at this year is how do we ensure that our reward systems are strong enough across all of these creatures in the game and all the things you do to make it worthwhile. One of the things we want to do is to make sure we’re not forcing you to go play one specific part of the game as the best way to be rewarded. We want you to pick the parts of the game that you’re excited about and you want to play and ensure that you’re being rewarded for doing that. Making these creatures more exciting is one thing but we have to make sure you’re rewarded for the time you put into them as well.”

It’s very nice that Jarimor and Zam (perhaps following this thread) thought it important to probe for a response about time vs. reward from Champions. “This is good news for those who have repeatedly slammed against high HP mobs, only to get a Dark Stained Claw.” Thanks!

I have to take a minute to thank Colin J. for posting in this thread recently. Before that, I believe that many players were hesitant to post their observations due to not wanting to be seen as ‘complainers’.

Since then, we are getting new posters and observations that confirm the issue as Colin did in his post. This can only help to get to the solution quicker.

There are too many new posters to quote but thanks to you all for some very good reporting of your loot experiences in-game!

Thanks Colin.

I have come to agree with the fairly large number of people who want Magic Find completely removed from the game.

When you think about the drop/loot tables and developers needing to balance the economy, you have to automatically assume that since 200% MF is possible for the majority of players (and it is if you work at it) then ANet must set the economy to assume that every player is playing maximum Magic Find. (Note: The loot tables themselves can and probably are calculated to take the exact MF percentage into consideration – but I’m not sure that can be done on the general economy algorithms as a whole. So there is a disconnect and possible “moving-part” issue.)

The truth is that the majority of players are using much less MF, if any, and so they are losing out on the loot table calculations that depend upon global variables from the general economy calcs.

Magic Find probably doesn’t work with this game. /understatement from an uninformed observer.

puffintoast: I don’t want you to sit in silence and endless map X loot Y isn’t what I was talking about either.

My point was that one hurts their cause by contradicting themself (I know that Leamas is right when he says it’s fair to say what is meant…). I know posters don’t mean to, but giving contradictory information undermines their own post. It’s simply the way it is received by the reader.

And I do not mean to put words in anyone’s posts. As I said, my goal is the same as yours… to get this issue resolved.

lynspottery.6529:

ColinJohanson.2394:

…

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Lyn, He didn’t say they were going through code line-by-line; I did. I am in no way connected with ANet or NCSoft or any other related company. And by the way; a lot of computer code is compiled now so it’s probably not what you remember.

I was referring to what Colin Johanson actually wrote not what you wrote, Aproposs Of Fire. Although I have to admit to actually thinking you did work for Anet considering some of the posts I’ve read which you have placed.

If Anet needs a PR person, I would suggest that you could fill that position very nicely. You actually have a comprehensive method of writing that seems to tone down a lot of irritation. Not to mention you post more often then any of their moderators.

P.S. Here’s hoping you feel better soon too.

LOL – Thanks.

Yeah – I could use a P/T job while I’m off work but I seriously doubt ANet is interested. I’m not a programmer, but I do know enough to be dangerous and I don’t think my posts speculating about their code and data bases would be welcome. Besides, there are some things about the game, their parent and their company I don’t like and that wouldn’t make a great fit, career-wise.

Edit: Not to mention, I pretty much slammed OP (a very highly placed individual in Customer Relations) as being unprofessional. Here’s your sign I won’t be getting a job offer. LOL

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I had no issue providing information after all I was the first to question the whole change back in November, but frankly the 65 days it took to get any kind of an answer is why you see the current level of frustration. Secondly, I’m not entirely sure of your motivation but frankly this is not “your” soapbox and people don’t need to be admonished, guided, nor scolded for their views by you, as for myself, I seek neither your guidance nor your approval in how or what I post.

As far as needing more information, the very hour this stickie was made I clearly requested what type of information, and in what format would they need said information and even this basic request was met with silence for over a month. So in my opinion if they choose not to give any guidance than I suspect they either have what they need or it is exactly what Puffintoast has claimed it was, smoke and mirrors and delay tactics.

Yes, I know it’s frustrating and I know it’s been a long time. As to my motivation; it’s the same as yours — to fix the problems with drops.

To answer your question, yet again:

Originally posted by OP:
Please be as accurate as possible, reporting only concrete data that you’ve experienced first hand. Among the information we’re interested in: map where you played, creatures you fought that dropped items, recipes from the Mystic Forge that you used.

pencapchew.5432:

Here is what i don’t get. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot. BUT sometimes I can kill a regular trash mob and get rares? How does that figure?

I think they should hard code the champions with loot. Lets say about a dozen or so pieces( exotic, rare) that cover all classes, and maybe add in a chance for blues, greens ,t6 mats and dyes. Put that on RNG. with a chance of no less then 3 pieces dropping for you. They could be exotic,rare,blue or green. If you get a blue then it should drop 3 other types ( T6 mats, dyes, and maybe a green or a mix.) At least you will be guaranteed a drop of something!
Its the same concept Blizzard uses in their dungeons. Trash mobs=trash loot. Elite mobs=elite loot. Simple. I should not fight a Champion and get nothing for it, but I go kill a mosquito and I get a rare? Its not right.
I tend to avoid Champions. Risk vs. reward is not worth it.

Pencap – I agree with most of your post, but this:

1. Champions do not drop anything. Ever. At least for me. (emphasis added)
2. If they do its trash or some trivial piece of loot.

These are conflicting statements one after the other.

To All:
I know you all don’t mean to do this, but I see this a lot in this thread and in the other thread (conflicting statements).

You know how I first introduced myself in this thread – it was with a sense of mistrust (and I apologize for that). The above was the primary reason for my attitude. I can only wonder what other readers think.

Please make sure your posts on this issue are reasonable, well-founded and able to be supported and backed up.

>> Flame away (sigh)

Edit: Back to Pencap: Except for hard-coding loot… it seems to me that would break the economy. There has to be a pool or someone, full-time, monitoring every drop from every champ and manually adjusting other parts of the economy in response.

Perhaps that other game “hard-coded” drops; but then forced it to be extracted from the loot pool when it dropped. I suppose then there would be problems getting the rare loot from other mobs. And what would happen when the loot pool is temporarily out of rares for the hard-coded mobs?

Annnnnd *Back to All: “…temporarily out of rares…” I keep coming back to this concept as possibly key to our issues. There must be a finite number of rares available in the economy and therefore a finite number of rares available for drop at any point in time.

ANet would be certain to ensure that they wouldn’t run out of rares to drop before resetting the loot pools. Perhaps, there is a sliding-scale possibility built into the drop algo’s so that as there are fewer and fewer rares available, they begin to be less and less likely to drop?

Be sure to put in your reports the time of day with time zone and the server you are playing on with your data.

Mozzyrella.4517:

@Chopps: the thing is, we aren’t just talking about exotics; we are talking about rares (yellows) and even masterworks (greens) not dropping anymore since the start of november.
Maybe 80 or 85% of the players have a “normal” experience in game, but this thread is about that 10/15% of the players who seem to have a constant DR sticking to them. Accountwise, all the time, for over 2 months now.

QFT – This is correct and although the Colin didn’t renew his request for more info (in fact he said the data they’ve gotten is a lot to go through) I believe we should (those who can, again sorry) continue giving them examples of the problem that they can compare with other examples. This way they can maybe find common variances and get closer to the problem.

Some people, though, (I understand Nov was a long time ago and the issue is supremely frustrating) appear to no longer remember that they asked for an update – Got One – and are still looking for reasons to complain.

The post by Colin was asked for, was received (yes, late), and is only being used to make new complaints by some. Let’s work on the issue, please?

Edit: Thanks! for your input, Anuiel!

lynspottery.6529:

Manually going through code? Excuse me? If I recall correctly, code is just a set of numbers or signs lined up in a row and the computer reads this code like we read the written word.

I am amazed they boasted so much about their ability to see the numbers and percentages behind the scenes when they now admit to having to manually comb through code lines.

What sloppy work. If I had done this type of work when I worked in my old telecommunications position back when we actually were using DOS, I would have been fired on the spot.

Lyn, He didn’t say they were going through code line-by-line; I did. I am in no way connected with ANet or NCSoft or any other related company. And by the way; a lot of computer code is compiled now so it’s probably not what you remember.

puffintoast.6501:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I posted this elsewhere, but just quickly wanted to update where we stand on this issue:

We’re continuing to look into this and have a team of folks sifting through insane amounts of data based on all of your reports. This is an incredibly time intensive and unfortunately mostly manual process while we work on building tools to streamline this in more automated ways so it’s going to take a while.

We’ll update once we have more tangible information to share.

Without a standardised report for people to fill out, how much automation can there be?
Surely if this is an issue of collating and comparing, you would need to provide some way for people to contribute data in a specific format?
The OP asked for ‘concrete’ data, whilst providing no definition of such.
Now might be an ideal time to provide people the means to assist, if this issue truly is being looked into on the scale implied.

Originally posted by OP:

Please be as accurate as possible, reporting only concrete data that you’ve experienced first hand. Among the information we’re interested in: map where you played, creatures you fought that dropped items, recipes from the Mystic Forge that you used.

It sounds like they might be looking at game code lines practically object-by-object.

If that’s the case, and they don’t know what’s causing the glitch yet then that’s the worst case for a troubleshooter. It means they don’t know what to focus on yet (no standardized report form) and the only thing we can do is to try to do the part of OP that I quoted above. Unfortunately for myself, the doctors are slowly reducing my meds in preparation for some procedures I’m getting ready for. And I can’t sit here long enough for a good play session, much less one where I can keep a record of what’s going on too. I apologize for that.

Side-Note: I didn’t know they were also focused on a problem with the Mystic Forge… (see above quote.)

Edit: Errr I mean, of course, I’ve read all of the information including this OP – I just missed the Mystic Forge part.

lynspottery.6529:

I had a thread started in the “Game Bugs” area which actually asked about this problem with the loot drops. Today I found the thread closed.

You all may be interested in knowing what comment I got. So here is the link and what was said.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Possible-loot-bug-being-Ignored/first#post1221582

“Hello,

Your concerns within this thread are being adressed by Arena Net. However, our teams need more data about this issue, and are still working on it.

We can’t answer each question personally about it, until we have a final statment.

Thank you for your understanding."

What I do not understand is WHY do they need our input? Its their game and you would think they would have the capability to monitor what happens in the game, right? Why do they have to ask us?

ANet – Can we at least get a “Yes” or “No” to this question, please?

“Are you getting the data / information you need from this thread?”

Or if it’s not a clear yes/no – can you please quote a post in this thread that has been helpful?

The Devs on the Twitch Livestream are taking questions right now at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Developer-Livestream-Questions/first and they will be back on to address the questions.

Please be polite, but let your concerns be voiced without accusations. Thanks.

PvE Rewards Clarification:
Thanks for doing this, guys.

It’s apparent that this issue is not a global issue – some players don’t see the issues from the Strange Drops thread. Others unfortunately cannot escape it.

Myself, I have always received the minimal rewards so I can’t really identify with many of the people in the mentioned thread. For me, nothing has changed – it’s all median.

Since this isn’t happening to everyone is it possible that the RNG or DR is not cycling properly throughout the entire population. In other words, are some players kind of prone to mostly get the poor roll of the dice? It’s just another idea.

None-the-less, many are experiencing issues with rewards can you please comment.

Below are just some of the posts in this thread asking about this issue. Thanks!

Mala.3861:

…

My question, also!

Since November 15, there has been a serious issue going on with loot drops. What is being done to address this problem?

PS: If the change was made purposely, for goodness sakes, just say so.

Tiderus.3861:

What is being done About the Perceived Loot drop issues and all the data collected by the player base? I am sure I am along with many others would like some form of response to this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

Zoal.1820:

Will the rewards systems coming this year be more than the achievement based currency? Will new reward systems be large enough to compete with the current system of material grind for the mystic forge?

Serophous.9085:

About Loot drops.

Since the nov patch, there was a patch note saying champions and elites would drop better loot. They still do not. Major event chests, such as dragons, temples, and more, still give mostly blues and a rare once and awhile. Even all around loot seemed to be nerf for people farming (see thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/page/10#post1159377 which was made after getting a response from the mod).

My question is, did the patch note not make it through, is it bugged, is DR bugged, or was loot nerfed over all?

Etien.4601:

Question: How would you guys explain the November 15th patch note – "the drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans and WvW players ) has been increased.Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. "
Clearly this isn’t working and it has been an issue for 2 months now with no actual response/solution. Any comment/fix would be appreciated. Thanks.

BurnWeed.5902:

Tiderus.3861:

What is being done About the Perceived Loot drop issues and all the data collected by the player base? I am sure I am along with many others would like some form of response to this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here/first

any info on loot drops, – why when two people do an on level champion is there only gray item as reward? The champion can kill me with two hits but it takes several minutes for us to kill the champ – for a couple of copper reward
PRECURSER info – easier ways to get, scavenger hunt or similiar

lynspottery.6529:

The sad part about all this is if Anet really offered value in their Gem Store to the players, they would not have a problem selling anything there. However, what they offer there is not of value to a majority of folks I play with. I personally do not purchase “things” from the Gem Store. To me the only “value” was to increase my bank and inventory space.

Well, this is a big part of why the cash shop isn’t completely acceptable to a lot of players. Some players fear that Pay-to-Win items will appear there and so ANet has to be very careful of what they offer. Some players don’t even like the boosts in the shop.

Reply @ Lyn below: I almost mentioned the skins as something I’d like to see expanded also. However, based on some things the devs have said, it’s not something they have scheduled. But I agree with you on variety – I might eventually get the skins there currently, but I would prefer a larger selection.

Leamas.5803:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

I don’t mean to say that this thread is dealing with “non-issues”… far from it. I just know how ANet works and I know that they will address this issue. I also know that the way they address it may tick me off a great deal. But I know enough to keep my cool and wait for it. Through the years I have learned that they (ANet) are sincere in trying to get it right (usually). If their solution(s) don’t get it right I can assure you, while I will still be professional, I will not hold back. However, I will never make silly allegations of impropriety where it’s not warranted.

Oh, great, I better stop now or I’ll never stop… { Much more could be said :p }

On the other hand, Anet is asking us for “concrete data” without offering any sort of tools, or even some sort of data baseline about what we might be looking for. We don’t know how DR or the RNG or the loot tables are supposed to work so how can we supply reliable “concrete” information about something we don’t understand? This is just bad faith and reeks of a stalling tactic; feeling like an exercise in futility. Almost 2 months now with no official response…this is not only BAD customer service, it’s verging on unforgivable. Luckily for them, gamers tend to have a short memory.

As you know, I have expressed… disappointment about the OP and my opinion has not changed on that. It could have been handled much better, IMHO.

Edit: Frankly, I would be gratified if they would just remove one word from the title of the thread. But that’s just me.

puffintoast.6501:

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

…I don’t mean to say that this thread is dealing with “non-issues”… far from it. I just know how ANet works and I know that they will address this issue. I also know that the way they address it may tick me off a great deal. But I know enough to keep my cool and wait for it. Through the years I have learned that they (ANet) are sincere in trying to get it right (usually)…

I’d have to agree with you in principal there. It may take a wretchedly long time to arrive, but ArenaNet certainly do get there in the end. Look at the reworks for the Ritualist, to take but one example from their past, who went from being a clunky, laborious sloth to a veritable powerhouse.
But the fundamental problem here is not their capability to repair.
The issue is that the reduction of open-world gain was not a game design decision, nor an error.
It was, and will remain, a financial one, and one that was not made by ArenaNet.

Whether that’s true or not – we’ll certainly know for sure after the Jan/Feb updates to the existing content.

Also, whether it’s true or not – at least it’s not as bad as another game I could mention where they squeeze the economy so tight that the players stress “playing eco” and count their every bullet literally. I doubt I can name the game, but it’s one that has won records (famously or infamously) for the most irl cash spent on in-game properties. That truly is a rich-man’s game. I cannot see GW2 ever getting that bad with drops and loot and if it does I won’t be back.

Sumii.2845:

In a situation like this where you have such a noticeable outcry saying there is a problem, not because they don’t like it, but rather because something significantly changed and the company claims it didn’t – what needs to happen is close examination of the problem, finding the answer / solution, and implementing it. But also, during the entire process you must communicate effectively and clearly with your consumer to let them know you’re addressing the issue. If there’s a problem and the consumer is given no communication, as time goes on (especially now so) they will become disillusioned, believe you’re not doing anything to correct the issue, and move on / change to another company for their goods.

Having a business background, I can confirm everything you say about communication is the truth.

As a GW player for years, I can also confirm that ANet does not always operate with these guidelines. Now whether this is proper for a game company in general or not; I have to only say that I have seen this kind of thing in a lot of games.

Sumii.2845:

We all know this, its simple common sense. Where I have an issue with your post is your extreme ability to interpret anything whether related or not and twist it around to the vision you so desperately are hoping for and also in doing so making Anet look oh so much the better company. I bear no ill to you for wanting the game to be fixed, rather I’d love for it to be fixed so maybe I could check it out again and see if I can find what initially I enjoyed doing. But I think that dispersing your posts and presenting Anet as being competent in this matter, when they are especially not being so -

I’m sorry that you disagree with me. I have twisted nothing.

I have twisted nothing. Every ANet post that I have quoted directly addresses in-game rewards. You and some others will not see it; but it’s clear.

Also, if you will look at all my posts in this thread you will find my reasoning for being calm and patient. This “no direct communication” is something that is quintessentially ANet.

Most of the time when there is a long delay in addressing a thorny issue, ANet finally does address it and the community is mollified. I can think of one example right on the top of my head: The announcement that there will be no dedicated healers or tanks. Another example: The announcement of the cash shop (their answer on this one – when it finally came – wasn’t universally acceptable to everyone but well enough).

I have made no representations of ANet’s competence at all.

As to why they don’t post in this thread – I have already admitted that I don’t know the answer to that. I speculate that they don’t want to create an uproar with players “wanting it NAOW!”. But that is my speculation and I have presented it as such.

This also is a repeat of what I have posted earlier in the thread. Rather than having an issue with my current posts, perhaps if you would click my name and read all my posts in this thread to find the context and previous posts that my current posts rest upon.

And – I won’t have to keep posting the same thing all the time.

The other thing you commented on where I called it the way I saw it should probably be dropped as that post no longer exists. Edit: Err, I don’t mean to say that you should edit your post at all – just that I’m not going to discuss this specific topic further.

As for the fanboi stuff you can forget that. I have a history at other forums of drawing high level attention with my valid concerns with ANet. If ANet takes satisfaction in my objectivity (okay, you’ll almost certainly argue that point, but I would argue back) then that’s fine. My objectivity has also caused some small consternation in the ANet studios (and possibly in the NCSoft offices) in the past and I am fine with that also.

I am a gamer, who also happens to be in the IT field and who also happens to have some business exp — not even close to being a fanboi. There is a lot about GW2 I would like to see changed (much of it off-topic so we’ll skip that) – but I’m okay with the fact that it’s their game.

I don’t mean to say that this thread is dealing with “non-issues”… far from it. I just know how ANet works and I know that they will address this issue. I also know that the way they address it may tick me off a great deal. But I know enough to keep my cool and wait for it. Through the years I have learned that they (ANet) are sincere in trying to get it right (usually). If their solution(s) don’t get it right I can assure you, while I will still be professional, I will not hold back. However, I will never make silly allegations of impropriety where it’s not warranted.

Oh, great, I better stop now or I’ll never stop… { Much more could be said. }

And you are not finding what you need from the trading post?