Guild Wars 2

For what it’s worth, don’t stress out about it. Give the game a couple of months, I think it will get better with the hints of changes Anet have given. There are a few things that would drive people away leading to this situation such as the loot issues, areas not being overly active, but hopefully things will change and give both guilds and higher level characters more of a sense of purpose and accomplishment.

Also, do you play WvW? In games like this I normally don’t join groups but found a good guild which is always participating in WvW so there is always something to do and still lots of people online to party with in WvW even if your not in a guild.

Regardless, good luck with whatever you decide.

Run through multiple event chains in the Harathi Hinterlands, killed around 10 champions. Half dropped loot, all was blue gear each worth less than a silver. No MF, I don’t think DR was relevant as not playing before starting this. Level 80 mesmer.

Level 80 mesmer, no magic find. 3 to 4 hours in Frostgourge Sound (early third of the map). Completed 10 to 15 events, half by myself. Took down a champion and an event boss. These were the drops:

4 White
9 Blue
0 Green
1 Yellow

3 Salvage Items
20 Junk

The champion (corrupted quaggen) and event boss (Imp Boss) both dropped a blue valued at less than one silver. The rare was dropped by a normal mob I think, though there is a chance it came from a veteran, hard to tell due to so many mobs being close together in some events.

Is this loot rate really expected? If I want to get decent equipment do I have to run fractals over and over again?

Making note of this sort of data is tedious and can be difficult – I hope this thread isn’t just Anet trying to look like they care when they won’t even investigate. The wording of the title is condescending as it is…

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ve seen reports from players questioning the randomness of the drop mechanisms in GW2 and in particular asking if it’s been changed recently. This is not the case and we don’t think that the randomness mechanism is misbehaving, but we’re running some data to be sure there isn’t anything unexpected going on. So far nothing shows anything suspicious but we’ll keep gathering data and analyzing it. We’ve also created a thread where players can share with us their concrete data about any perceived strange drop behavior they encounter:

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

Thanks for your understanding and help!

Thank you Stephane. I have posted a long post in their with some information, but also summing up a number of the issues in this thread and issues reported in other websites. If you can take a moment to read this and pass it onto the relevant team it would be greatly appreciated.

Will try to start recording drop rates etc if this will help you guys out, please understand it can be awkward to record these sort of details as a player though.

Stephane, thank you for bringing this discussion forward. I will post some information I have from memory and also sum up the issues that are reported below for your convenience. The first thing that really needs to be clarified, before you start getting data, is what should be expect? The 15th of November patch states the following:

“The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. This was to ensure that world loot drops were not a significantly worse way of acquiring rare and exotic items than crafting and running dungeons.”

Champions are not always dropping loot. Most of the time, it is just a single blue item, if that. This isn’t just my experience, there is a thread with over 1000 replies and 40 000 views stating from a large number of users they have the same issue. Veterans are even worse, they seem to 50% of the time, and that is just junk. I can’t recall ever pulling a rare or exotic off either. I won’t comment on WvW as the dynamics change so much depending on team size and objectives. I haven’t seen any post or user comment, either on this forums, other communities or general map chat, that they have received better loot since this patch (which states this should be expected). Now people feel like they are expected to run dungeons to get gear (understandable for ascended items while you work in better methods for open world development, but for everything else this is not cool).

If you want evidence of this, log in, find a champion and solo it. Rinse and repeat, record drops. Get a team together and repeat. For the amount of time you put in to do that, do you think the loot drop was acceptable? Especially taking into waypoint and repair costs…

I got map completion in Straits of Devastation the weekend before last. Total drop, after completing the entire map and over 30 events was around 5 greens, 20 blues and a lot of junk. No rares, no exotics (ignoring completion rewards obviously as these are not random). Is that what you would expect? Or even fair to a player who has to spend so much time for so little? My ele in this case was level 75-80 during this adventure so I don’t think that would have had a huge impact as it isn’t too far from the expected level of the area.

So far this week I have played, for 2-3 hours every day (barring today – Saturday morning in AU). I have received 4 rare drops the entire week, 2 weapons and two crafting materials. Around 10-12 greens. Enough junk to open a cheep import business within Lions Arc.

Also there are countless reports of MF not doing anything, or at most increasing the drop rates of whites/junk.

Can you please clarify, as this is creating a lot of negative feedback:

1) Should all champions drop loot? What is the expected drop rate of atleast rare loot from champions?

2) Should all veterans drop loot? What is the expected drop rate of atleast rare loot from veterans?

3) Should all event bosses (non vets/champions, like the Risen Drake Broodmother in Malchor’s Leap) drop loot? What is the expected drop rate of atleast rare loot from event bosses?

4) How often do you actually expect rares do drop in open world? I know this is based on a huge number of dynamics, but please be as forthcoming as possible. Do you expect a player, fighting mobs in a higher level map to get atleast one rare per hour? More/less?

5) What dynamics actually effect drops. MF? Damage done to mobs? Number of players around? etc

6) What impact does DR actually have on loot? Should someone be expected to change maps every 10 minutes? People have noticed, with enough evidence to back this up, that their drops rates are dramatically better after a server reset, for an hour or so. Why?

I apologies for the long post, I am trying to sum up the problems people have been mentioning for a long time now though I expect this post will be ignored by Anet. A little bit of clarity would be welcome, as you can tell, this is causing frustration for a large number of users. This is not just in these forums, check Reddit, check other forums, check map chat, check people discussing things in LA. Even people who don’t read these forums have noticed oddities. Even stranger is some people don’t seem affected at all, while others have a horrible experience…

And worse off all, possibly the one of the worst things you can have in any game – players are loosing a sense of accomplishment. Why should I spend 15 minutes to solo a champion in an area where there are no other players in sight and the normal mob respawn rate is so high it slows everything else down dramatically, when you get nothing in return.

Seriously, whats the point?

Cheers, and thanks for taking the time to read this.

Really cool video, thanks for sharing. Love the synergy in the way you play and time everything, the escapes worked out well, nice to see scepter/torch being used. Also your character looks awersome.

Any tips for playing against a build like this (bad question :P). Having so many stacks of confusion at once complicates things.

Solid Gold.9310:

Well l put several, at least 8 bots in my friends list several weeks ago after l reported them, they dissapeared for a while, but half of them are back on line now.

How does ArenaNet explain that one, they have typical no sense names by the way, and l watched them at the time, naked Rangers, there was no doubt they were botting.

Is it as has been suggested, only a temporary ban for botting ?

And do l keep reporting them ?

Hacked accounts?

Question, if only for interests sake. I was exploring the other day and run into a group of bears and their naked leaders running quickly past me. I managed to report two of them in time, but the speed they move it’s hard to get them all. Are you able to cross link accounts in that situation to get the rest? Or monitor how much time they spend together, as this would hit groups at once atleast.

http://i.imgur.com/eM6ta.jpg

Can we keep him?

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

If you want ascended gear to be distributed among other avenues, then this was not the update you were looking for (also you can quit if you’d like see if we care). Enjoy Wintersday everyone! The next updates in January and February (which may as much release Cantha or just new year celebrations) will be changes to ascended gear to all areas of the game and then some. They just fixed loot drops apparently, so lets go hunt some vets and champions!!

Source?

Timed out originally but downloading now. If I had to guess, it looks to be 500-600MB.

LordYz.8941:

One does not simply run on the plains of Orr.

Confirmed. Ele cantrips seem to be the only thing keeping me alive at times. :P

Open world.

I don’t have huge map exploration but look forwarding to getting it, particually in the snow based areas as the background music is stunning. Dungeons are a nice alternative from time to time as well. The problem with open world is the loot drops have been hit since November (though the patch stated it would raise them) so dungeons are the most reliable way to get loot.

Also I agree with Mahaedros, the Mad Kind labrynth was awesome.

wildcode.5403:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Bug-Request-Orr-Bugs-and-Exploits/first#post975330

This isn’t restricted to Cursed Shore, Cursed Shore is just easier to show the bug because of all the events.

True, I just posted it as out of all the zones, it is the one I presume people would be most familar with loot levels. I don’t want to hijack that thread, just point out that the drops there are an issue in the zone – which applies to half the reason why people are there in the first place.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Bug-Request-Orr-Bugs-and-Exploits/first#post975330

Edit; not intending in any way to hijack that thread or cause issues, just presuming people will be familiar with the changes in drop level there and be able to provide more objective information than other zones.

Mozzyrella.4517:

Asuka, I’m sorry to dissapoint you, but it’s not just Orr.
Many people (including me) noticed a severe lack of lootdrops on their alts while leveling them. The past 4 weeks it is impossible to get them level-appropiate gear by just playing the game (and without heavily using TP).
So, it’s not just Orr and it’s not just high levels.
It seems the only way to get any decent lootdrops atm is by grinding grinding grinding FotM.

Thanks for the heads up, I think you are right.

Also, testing with my high level character in a lower level zone didn’t help. Killing 5 champions gave no greens and a couple of blues… very rewarding for the time spent.

Possibly it’s better for lower level characters? The algorithms for higher level characters could be messed up.

Just ran an event chain in the Harathi Hinterlands twice (failed). Killed 5 champions, 3 of them just myself (level 80 ele) and a warrior who was nearby. Killed more vets than I can count. Dropped no rares, 1 green, a few blues and a lot of junk. The most valuable thing was likely the supply bags (20 of them) simply due to the mats, though this only came from taking down an excessive number of centaurs (fought 10 or so at once at one point to rez another player). This includes the loot from opening the chest, twice. I doubt DR is invovled as this was the first time I logged in today and played for around an hour and a half, if DR is that jumpy it’s a little concerning.

These event chains are really fun (though hard with so few people around at times) but the loot is terrible.

I think this is affecting higher level characters more, as my mesmer who is level 50 pulled more far more greens and overall better drops in half the time without doing events. Maybe the algorithm for higher level character drops is messed up?

I spent a lot of time on the weekend playing through Orr with my ele, enough to get map completion in one zone. I was surprised how little loot everything dropped, to a point of frustration. I solo’d some event chains 5+ times to try to make progress and received very little, no rares over the entire weekend. Even soloing event bosses/champions and received very little, most of the time junk. I don’t think this would be heavily influenced by DR as I took quite large breaks, though the time over 3 days was considerable. I noticed though when I did events in lower levels (there’s a couple I do for fun every day when possible) the rewards were a lot higher…

Sick of how pointless it seemed I decided to level up my mesmer (currently level 55) in level 30+ zones that I hadn’t explored yet. I was surprised how high the drop rate was – within an hour I had nearly more greens that I got over the entire weekend from drops in Orr. There was a lot less junk, more whites but salvageable stuff is still useful. And this is with no magic find – while when I was moving through Orr I normally had 30+ on, though tested without this – the only difference magic find seemed to make was finding more black lion chests. I did one event in a lower level zone which the veteran boss dropped both a green and blue – at the same time. It actually was a slight sense of accomplishment for a change…

So I am wondering if the drops have been applied just to Orr? Or more appropriately, risen? Could this be a bug as a result of nerfing plix or other events (can’t recall exactly which ones)? Veterans seem to more consistently drop outside of Orr, I haven’t tested champions yet (Queensdale Cave Troll, prepare yourself). Both the frequency and quality seems much higher.

So if anyone has time to test, want to try different zones with a level 80 character to see whats going on? Both with and without magic find. Maybe if we can isolate the exact issue Anet will pay more attention – and if not it will still be easy to tell people the downside of trying to farm those areas and potentially bring enough attention to the issue so Anet will need to act or risk damaging their reputation. I need to sleep now, will investigate sometime tomorrow hopefully.

Edit; has anyone tried farming Karka land? Not sure if there is any point, but it could be a good indicator of whats going on.

I have gotten three since pre-release. Two from map exploration (I haven’t completed many maps to be honest) and one from personal storyline.

I didn’t even realize they were in loot tables until today. Thanks for the heads up.

1) Nice variety in classes and playstyle.
2) For an MMO, open and somewhat evolving world (atleast not static)
3) WvW. Enough said.
4) Minipets
5) How beautiful the world is. Even Orr has it’s moments. And drakes are so cute. I wish I had a pet drake at home. Anet can you send me one please?

The sense of acheivment is being lost when there is little reward for making an effort at something. Over the weekend I did multiple events in Orr, enough to get one full map completion and took down multiple event bosses/champions, having to solo some. Not a single rare from drops. Most of the time champions gave nothing, vets often give nothing or junk.

The patch notes from last month contradict these results – either the patch was broken, there is a bug or the developers are deceiving the community by releasing misleading information (which is upsetting to think so). Hopefully the patch in the next week clears this up….

Edit (11/12/2012) – Lower level zones don’t seem to suffer from the same issues as Orr, atleast the drop rates for greens and mats seems as it used to be. Maybe risen are bugged? Going to investigate further over the next few days.

I think people may find ele awkard due to the nature of our skills and weapons which causes the frustration. Also the building may not be the most intuitive – I’m sure people would look at the videos of skilled d/d players and think they are power based, putting points into fire/air for the damage and not realizing the emphasis on survivability.

Also scepter could do with some work… I know it’s useable and you can certainly take down mobs with it, but the damage in water and dragons tooth’s timing could use some refinement. I have hung up my daggers to learn scepter better, hopefully the next patch helps this a little and we will see more S/D players instead of so many d/d or staff support.

I think it may be easier to combine the +10% damage traits and the cooldown traits into a single trait – such as 20% cooldown and 5% extra damage in water – which would be second tier for each tree. Or possibly a bonus of another sort, like how the mesmer traits are setup.

Realistically you would have to put 20 points in to get it, in doing so sacrifice one of the other 20 point skills for a bonus that affects a third of your skills. While the effect can be significant – s/d air for example would make great use of it, it removes the flexibility from traits which apply in all attunments.

The advantage is, it would feel like more of a ‘mastery’ trait for the class and more thematically suitable – mastering the element means a sacrifice to another option an ele could have, but gives them quite an advantage in using that element.

On a different note, I love the versatility in the 10 point traits we have – like 10 points in air gives you a number of different options to change depending on whats suitable. 10 points in fire gives you different options to increase damage depending on the rest of your build. But some of the 20 point traits seem lacking. I can understand the 30 point traits are relevant to building around and naturally less flexible (though some seem weak for the cost… Persisting Flames, Grounded, Rock Solid etc..).

Hopefully the build next week introduces more interest and balance in the overall trait line.

Just wanted to say thank you for making such an effort with this. After being sick at work all day yesterday, signing in and seeing that was a pleasant surprise. Certainly welcome after how long we waited on just the first event day for it to be fixed.

Pulled an exotic greatsword and axe, looking forward to using the greatsword once my mesmer hits 80 and the axe sale helped me buy a grandmasters manual.

Good luck for Wintersday release, hopefully everything runs smoothly this time. Cheers.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

i was on a keep wall with my level 40 or so ele in wvw.
one of the attackers went down.
i jumpped off.
rode the lightning to them
started the stomp.
mist form
stomped.
picked up loot.
then vapor formed back to the keep.

@curring… awesome!

That’s awesome! Does mistform work for stomping? I knew it did for rezzing, have to try that out…

continued

Earth:

1 – Stone Shards

For an auto attack this seems powerful. However.. the audio for the attack seems louder than other attacks? I may be hearing things but it seemed immediately apparent.

2 – Stone Shards

Another interesting skill.

3 – Dust Devil

10 second blind is useful.

Trait – Vigorous Scepter

Unsure why the scepter trait gives a boost to endurance recharge, 25% isn’t significant, especially with how easy Vigor is to maintain with Soothing Disruption. I keep thinking while playing scepter how interesting it would be to have this skill give a slightly larger range on attacks, such as 1200 to bring it in line with the staff – but without the AOE that the staff has.

I love how many of the skills are interesting and not so conventional, really works with some of the hybrid aspects of the scepter. I wish the 2 skills in fire and water were a little smoother for PvE/WvW though, sure they may be powerful in PvP due to the nature of their range, AOE and CD but they feel weak and misplaced, IMO anyway. A couple of the skills could do with damage increases, if only slightly to bring them more in line the other ele skills (naturally taking into account the mid range weaker aspect of the scepter). Also ANET if you read this, please consider looking into the oddities in Lighting 1, happy to provide screenshots if this helps.

Not trying to make a complaint thread, apologies if it comes off that way. Just would like to hear other ele’s opinions on the scepter, it’s weakness/things that could be buffed or made a little smoother. There are many skilled players on this forum so constructive discussion is most welcome. Any tips or strategies you wish to share would be much appreciated!

Cheers.

I normally play D/D and carry a staff for WvW support. I tried out scepter while leveling a while back but didn’t stick with it as it seemed weak compared to our other weapons. During my first FOTM run I pulled an exotic scepter by chance and swore I would learn how it works. Though compared to D/D or staff, it feels misplaced in some aspects, particularly with how slow some of the attacks are. So I ask all ele’s, what are you thoughts on the scepter? Also, if you have any strategies or tips you want to share please do.

I’ll start; I can’t help but feel it is more balanced for PvP than WvW/PvE. Granted I don’t play PvP so won’t claim to any expertise, just observation from what others have written and watching playbacks on Youtube. I love the idea of the scepter though, similar to staff but one hand allowing versatility in the build.

Fire:

1 – Flamestrike
Cast time seems a little slow, but not bad overall.

2- Dragon’s Tooth
Why is this so slow to cast/take effect? It looses a lot of effect as a result – against single targets, unless they are standing still it seems to have little impact. Even AI mobs move around quite frequently so it’s easy to miss – especially if your character then auto casts 1, distracts them and they run out of AOE… If it hits the damage is decent, but it feels so awkward to use. I can see it being useful in PvP where people are trying to defend a point, but outside this it seems awkward to use and time correctly…

3 – Phoenix
This is an interesting skill… not sure what else to say.

Water:

1 – Ice Shards
Decent auto attack for water. Surprised it doesn’t have an additional function like the same position skills on staff and dagger, otherwise not bad for an auto attack.

2 – Shatterstone
Similar to Fire 2, this feel so slow and awkward. Also seems like it’s tailored for PvP (hitting a point constantly, small AOE). Why is the explosion time so slow for a small impact? It doesn’t do a huge amount of damage, 4 stacks of Vulnerability is nice but not worth it for that sort of effect time.

3 – Water Trident
Great heal. I am surprised this isn’t a water field though, seems suitable but may be too powerful?

Air:

1 – Arc Lightning
Firstly, I love this skill. The idea of a ranged channel that keeps growing in effect. But it needs some work as it constantly bugs out:

- At times the beam doesn’t connect in short range and you have this strange orb of electricity around your hand…
- Often once the target is dead the beam continues indefinitely, even after switching attunments and using other auto attacks!
- If the target is outside of range, the beam often connects yet an error is shown saying it is outside range… This is confusing as you are theoretically hitting the opponent based on a visual reference point, but the skill does nothing.

Also the damage seems low… For effectively a 4 second attack this is pretty weak. Instead of 9 stages, how about 7 – 2 weak, 2 medium and 3 strong? This wouldn’t reduce the overall power too much and would bring it in line with other auto attacks? Or make the channeling faster?

I love using this on mesmers who pop out their clones – the constant beam means they can’t hide. :P

2 – Lightning Strike
Great idea.

3 – Blinding Flash
Another great idea, works so well with other air skills.

Mainly play D/D, but trying out the scepter I can’t help but wonder what a skill that increases our range would be like. Maybe from 900 to 1200 like the staff? It lacks the AOE of the staff and would only apply to 3 skills each attunement, but could really add flavor to the instrument.

It would also mean ele’s with 20/30 in Arcane would have to give up something like Final Shielding or Renewing Stamina to use it, both of which could work well with scepter builds.

Also, please consider making Lingering Elements affect Arcane Fury and Elemental Attunement if it doesn’t allready. Those sort of ‘internal trait combos’ like we have with Water signets make build more fun and interesting. Really, how many people will build into more than 2 lines while having 20(+) points in Arcane?