Guild Wars 2

I wish we had the tools Anet has. We could use the same account tagging they use for checking for bots. We could mark similar accounts and sit back and collect the data. Then compare said data to see if there are any anomalies.

Unfortunately it is nowhere near as easy for us.

tolunart.2095:

Essence Snow.3194:

This is a perfect example of what the person you quoted was referring to.

I call ’em as I see ’em.

So do I. That’s why I made a preemptive note about it. It’s fun to see things come to fruition.

FearSeven.6357:

I wonder what kinds of theories these people conjure if they play a game of dice.

“No, it’s not fair, I’m from the 90’s and gravity works different on 90’s kids, therefore my changes of throwing sixes are lower. I have a friend from the 90’s who has the same experiences and his dad is from the 60’s and he always throws six. No you can’t disprove it, and it’s in the realm of possibilities, therefore I’m right.”

To be fair I have access to the odds of craps. If I am allowed to play as the house, that is exactly what I’ll do. It’s how casinos make money. They lose a lot of time but ultimately in the long run they win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craps

tolunart.2095:

Andraus.3874:

This possible issue isn’t outside the realm of possibility. With that being said, some responses in this thread are on the verge of being rude. Dissenters of this thread have nothing to lose if this issue would be investigated. Well nothing to lose besides their ego trip by “proving” everyone else is wrong.

Otherwise, it’s just a small child saying “gimme a piece of candy… gimme a piece of candy… gimme a piece of candy…” out of the belief that Mama will eventually give in just to shut him up.

This is a perfect example of what the person you quoted was referring to.

Andraus.3874:

This possible issue isn’t outside the realm of possibility. With that being said, some responses in this thread are on the verge of being rude. Dissenters of this thread have nothing to lose if this issue would be investigated. Well nothing to lose besides their ego trip by “proving” everyone else is wrong.

Definitely……15 chars

Garth Thurgen.1380:

FearSeven.6357:

And religion was born.

This reminds me of the Horseshoe religion in Lord of the Rings Online, some people were convinced it had special powers even after the devs confirmed it did nothing.

Seriously. They’ve already confirmed nothing is wrong (WTB working search function… I guess), yet people still refuse to believe it. The allure of the sheer fact that it’s technically possible to happen, and that the organization that says it’s not a thing also has information that cannot be directly viewed means that there’s something there. After all, the fact that someone somewhere has had something happen means that there’s something there to substantiate the claim in the first place.

They never said they even investigated the possibility. That’s saying “There’s nothing wrong…..we didn’t look…but there’s nothing wrong.”

There have been examples even in this game where they have said nothing was wrong only to find out later that there were indeed issues.

Garth Thurgen.1380:

Essence Snow.3194:

Garth Thurgen.1380:

Essence Snow.3194:

The sheer number of players who share this concern gives it merit alone imo.

I’m fairly certain most players would be pretty happy with Bonetti’s Rapier. It’s 10 fold better than what we typically get. (ignoring it’s acquisition of bags)

A vocal minority didn’t give this game a stigma of poor loot. It’s goes beyond them.

Anet has all the data. They can do the exact same thing it would take us as players years to do in a matter of minutes. I think it’s rather pretentious to expect us to do such.

Whether or not they can do it in seconds means nothing when your stance explicitly requires that you say “They’re lying! They have all the data, and they can find this out in seconds, but they’re lying!” Either you put up with the fact that your statement holds literally no merit, or you put out some data to put substance into your claims. Yes it would take work, but so would them creating a non-RNG system to make drops “feel more random” (ie. give people more rare stuff at given intervals). Similarly, the total % of people that feel this way is absolutely minuscule, and it doesn’t mean anything by their sheer existence.

I never said “they’re lying”. Not at all. Possibly unaware of an issue, yes. Possibly unwilling to check for an issue maybe, but not lying.

No, you’ve only implied it. That, however, changes nothing. When your entire stance hinges on them doing a bunch of work for something that hasn’t been shown to ever exist (because finding bugs in code is extremely difficult, even for very simple problems), and yet you have nothing at all that you’re willing to do for such a stance other than voice it over and over, then there’s no difference between you saying that they’re lying. Either put out with your own investigation, just like how people in the past have done to prove that their problem actually existed, or understand that your claims are that of a small child yelling at its parents. They hold no weight, they hold no validity, and they aren’t something worth looking into (ignoring the fact that they already have been looked into).

Nitpicking only goes so far on the Internet, and doesn’t hold any major weight in the real world outside of law (Though, the fact that not one person has pointed out that my calculations on drop chance were actually from 400% Magic Find, not 500%, makes me sad. Such an easy calculation, yet even the Internet didn’t nitpick about it. ). At this point, either put something substantial on the table, or I’m not even going to bother with replying. Put out, or pack it up.

They could take the data that they have vastly easier access to (the very same if not better that you want us to get) to see if there is something warranted. Then worry about the need to look for a bug in coding.

It’s like asking someone to go find a pay phone when you have a cell phone in your pocket. Just use the cell phone. Saying that the other person isn’t worthy of making the phone call when they don’t necessarily want to wander around looking for a pay phone when they know you have one in your pocket is……..well just think about it for a second.

Garth Thurgen.1380:

Essence Snow.3194:

The sheer number of players who share this concern gives it merit alone imo.

I’m fairly certain most players would be pretty happy with Bonetti’s Rapier. It’s 10 fold better than what we typically get. (ignoring it’s acquisition of bags)

A vocal minority didn’t give this game a stigma of poor loot. It’s goes beyond them.

Anet has all the data. They can do the exact same thing it would take us as players years to do in a matter of minutes. I think it’s rather pretentious to expect us to do such.

Whether or not they can do it in seconds means nothing when your stance explicitly requires that you say “They’re lying! They have all the data, and they can find this out in seconds, but they’re lying!” Either you put up with the fact that your statement holds literally no merit, or you put out some data to put substance into your claims. Yes it would take work, but so would them creating a non-RNG system to make drops “feel more random” (ie. give people more rare stuff at given intervals). Similarly, the total % of people that feel this way is absolutely minuscule, and it doesn’t mean anything by their sheer existence.

I never said “they’re lying”. Not at all. Possibly unaware of an issue, yes. Possibly unwilling to check for an issue maybe, but not lying.

The sheer number of players who share this concern gives it merit alone imo.

I’m fairly certain most players would be pretty happy with Bonetti’s Rapier. It’s 10 fold better than what we typically get. (ignoring it’s acquisition of bags)

A vocal minority didn’t give this game a stigma of poor loot. It’s goes beyond them.

Anet has all the data. They can do the exact same thing it would take us as players years to do in a matter of minutes. I think it’s rather pretentious to expect us to do such.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Essence Snow.3194:

It is in Anets best interest that players are happy. One of the major aspects of this game that is almost universally considered poor is the loot system. It just makes sense that they would want to address it. On an individual employee level it is in their best interest that nothing happens. Nothing happens means less work, less stress, and higher comfort zone. (note I am not calling anyone out this is just a reality of working life).

Two things:

1. This poster assumes that it is in ANet’s best interest to make players happy. This is false. ANet’s best interest is served by producing profits. This goal is best obtained by keeping players playing. MMO’s are about loot. Players will only be happy when they get the loot they want as fast as possible. They will then demand more loot, and the content to go with it. MMO developers need to find a balance between making loot seem so bad that players quit and game longevity, which is served by keeping carrots in front of players.
2. The backhanded slap to the professionals who are on staff is unwarranted. If there is a problem with the GW2 loot system, those problems are the result of design decisions that are rooted in the philosophy behind the game, and reinforced by management decisions.

You are suggesting that games are not meant to be fun. That fun is not the basis of game sales and therefor profits?

As to your second comment I specifically added the note to address that assumption. It’s just a reality of working. Kinda like saying it’s dangerous in Australia . I’m not trying to insult Australia….I’m simply saying that it is indeed dangerous there as there are numerous dangerous animals there.. It reminds me of a quote from Sean Bean from Troy “It’s not an insult to say that a dead king is dead.” I know the truth hurts, but I am not intending to hurt anyone, I am simply stating the truth.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think the most useful discussion is how we can change the system for the better, instead of arguing over the obvious account luck factor.

Overhaul the loot system to be semi-random. There should be streak breakers in place to prevent extreme outcomes. No one should get 5 precursor drops in a week, and no one should go 3 years of heavy play without a single drop. Games are supposed to be balanced and fun, true RNG is neither balanced nor fun.

These threads will never stop until the loot system is overhauled to be semi-random.

I agree with this. We had the thread on RNG that was sorta guided (see my posts on survey bias), but ultimately lead no where. It is in Anets best interest that players are happy. One of the major aspects of this game that is almost universally considered poor is the loot system. It just makes sense that they would want to address it. On an individual employee level it is in their best interest that nothing happens. Nothing happens means less work, less stress, and higher comfort zone. (note I am not calling anyone out this is just a reality of working life).

Garth Thurgen.1380:

snip.

Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I’ll make my response rather simple for the sake of brevity.

Why must there be a burden of proof? Is it not enough that the game is known for poor loot? That so many players have issue? I think that requiring those in a game that feel there is an issue such as this that impacts the “fun” they might be having to meticulously gather data (which is most likely not fun) is sort of absurd. Anet is in the business of fun. They should be concerned when there is something that is such magnitude effecting that business. Making players who feel their fun is diminished, diminish it further to address their concerns……sounds strange to me.

That aside…The other things I wanted to quickly note is that most of my and other players with the same concerns “observational data” has been over long periods of time. This is not one week. These are consistencies, that have become predictable. Sort of like house odds. Do they know they will win all the time? Nope. But, they do know they will win over time…and boy do they.

Sorin.4310:

Essence Snow.3194:

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

If you are unwilling to listen to the reasons why this happens, then what possible discussion were you hoping to have? “Agree with me or don’t post”?

Not in the slightest. I am more than willing to discuss the matter when valid points are made. No one making the claim that “rng is rng” has given any decent reasoning to why that is a valid counter point as of yet. If you would like to, I’d be more than happy to read though it and consider how it applies.

So to expand on this a little bit more. The conversation of it typically goes:

a)“I think our loot system is borked”
b)“Nope, rng is rng”
a)“Huh?”
b)“Rng will have some lucky and some unlucky by default”
a)“So, what does that have to do with the loot system being borked?”
b)“Any outcome can be explained as random”
a)“That might explain outcomes, but it doesn’t address whether the system is borked”
b)“It makes evidence redundant, therefor denies the possibility of a broken system”
a)“Uhmm ya, that sounds more like a cop out”
b)“Nope rng is rng”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Essence Snow.3194:

To address “Anet said there is nothing to do with our accounts and rng”:

We know magic find is supposed to increase our chances at better quality loot. There’s an account based variable that contradicts that statement.

There have also been multiple bugs (wvw bonus bug, fractal reward level bug. etc), that have also effected some accounts and not others.

How is it possible that our loot has nothing to do with our accounts when there have been multiple instances to show otherwise?

What?

Your claim, lo these many years and specifically as the original poster of this thread, has been that certain accounts are seeded with better chances in general, without regard for MF buffs, including that granted by use of the luck consumable.

ANet’s statement is in regard to that claim (specifically: it’s not true; all accounts are equal before RNG).

Separately, as an entirely different mechanic, ANet has give us ways to increase our chances of getting better quality loot on average.

I hope that you can see that the two claims aren’t contradictory in the least, unless you want to define the terms in such a fashion that it would make discussion about it impossible.

tl;dr There is zero evidence that any accounts have better chances to get better loot, except in the context of MF buffs.

What?

I don’t understand what’s hard to understand about it. Our loot is dependent on several variables. RNG interacts with those variables to produce an outcome/drop. Every single drop is effected by those variables. They cannot be separated in this context because if they were there simply wouldn’t be a working algorithm. By that alone….we know that all accounts are not equal when it comes to loot. Remember loot is not rng alone. The algorithm includes account variables that we know make accounts different to produce loot. This is not my point. This is simply addressing that statement (<that’s the key word) on account equality factors.

So one simply cannot separate the variables. It would be like saying two turkey sandwiches have no difference in taste even though one has lettuce and tomato. They are obviously going to taste different regardless of one that may or may not have dark meat when the other has light.

tl;dr (well not really but its fun anyhow) There is zero evidence that any accounts don’t have better chances to get better loot, with or without the context of MF buffs.

To address “Anet said there is nothing to do with our accounts and rng”:

We know magic find is supposed to increase our chances at better quality loot. There’s an account based variable that contradicts that statement.

There have also been multiple bugs (wvw bonus bug, fractal reward level bug. etc), that have also effected some accounts and not others.

How is it possible that our loot has nothing to do with our accounts when there have been multiple instances to show otherwise?

Please do not think I’m saying that it’s intentional. I am not.

Idk if anyone else has this. I have two accounts. 1) 25k+ AP, head start, 230% mf and 2) 1.8k+ AP, 3 months old, 86% mf.

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. I had always had suspicion that certain players had better drops on average than other. In my guild and ally guilds we know which players will consistently get better drops. It’s so predictable it’s not funny. But, as all that was second hand I couldn’t ever really experience it for myself. Well, now I have.

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

Brace yourselves!…Get out your tinfoil hats!…and Hide behind you significant other! I’m going to claim that out loot code is borked!

With the limitations we have in terms of data, we the players have no clue how things work. We can only base our assumptions on what we experience and see. It’s very easy to say “it’s working as intended”, but really what does that mean? Is it intended that loot be equal? No. Does it mean loot is supposed to be fair? We don’t know. Does it mean that unless its absolutely kittened, it’s good enough? I have my hat on.

Thing is we simply don’t know as players. We are limited to very little evidence. Unfortunately most of the evidence I’ve come across as a player leans towards it being either broken or simply just bad loot algorithms. By that I"ll return to the question above. I cannot say I know it’s working correctly b/c I don’t know what working correctly is. I can however say it’s working poorly or broken since it defies logic.

Flame away………W O A L S p……..

Justin ODell.9517:

Flumek.9043:

Josh (Davis aka Grouch) is the messiah of pvp.

Here is Justin (ODell) , the wizard who programs your bad loot & and matchmaking. He can also cast a curse on you which does +400 ping.

Hey now… you can blame me for matchmaking, but I had nothing to do with loot.

Maybe you could have a chat with the person that has something to do with loot and learn them something, b/c they don’t really seem to understand it very well.

…..le sigh………………“ask me anything” turned into “here’s what we’re going to tell you”.

Granted there was lots of good things….just maybe, possibly, just a tab bit much messing around which caused topics to linger on longer than they should. That in turn resulted in the general questions…the ask part…to be dropped.

This prompted me to check my main account……4,892 skill points fml.

I just ask that ya’ll adhere to the “ask me ANYTHING” format and not cherry pick questions of little salt.

To be fair it doesn’t really matter. A dead player is not helping in anyway, shape or form. They are however a hindrance in the fact that they become an interactable object that takes presidence over other objects or downed (not dead) that may help in the immediate area.

In other words…..WP and stop being a lazy cheapskate.

What are the “crafting mats”? I love how they always remain vague…….

What type of crafting mats are skill points going to be turned into? T1-t6? Philo stones, crystals, augar stone, etc?

Mystic forge crafting mats sounds like the latter…..I hope it’s not the case though.

Kumion.7580:

From the fourth paragraph on: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge. Items and activities that were previously repeatable sources of skill points will now also provide that same crafting material.”

That unfortunately doesn’t tell us enough. Atm we can gain over 1g per skill point. If the new mats or whatever they are planning to convert them to are tradable and end up less than 1g each, well it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it’s not good for those with excess.

It’s one of those obvious things that everyone knew should be in the game since day one. No one knows other than Anet why it isn’t.

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

The rate at which they drop prevents that from being an issue. If they dropped all the time, then I’d be inclined to agree, but they do not. They are once in a blue moon type events that are more of a bonus.

The effect you mention is completely overshadowed by the positive impact to reward a change like this would make. In other words you’re overlooking a mountain because of a molehill.

I’m not overlooking anything. I’m also not making a value statement of any kind. I’m simply providing the likely explanation for why reality currently exists as it does.

That would mean that this:

As unethical and sick as this is, it is exactly what I’d expect of this company.

is spot on.

The rate at which they drop prevents that from being an issue. If they dropped all the time, then I’d be inclined to agree, but they do not. They are once in a blue moon type events that are more of a bonus.

The effect you mention is completely overshadowed by the positive impact to reward a change like this would make. In other words you’re overlooking a mountain because of a molehill.

That’s some strange logic….

We have the ability to craft them, so intended attempts are 1/1.

Why would it require removing those?

It seems to me that something is wrong with ascended drops. For items that are supposed to be some of the best drops a player can get in the game, they fall short imo. They fall short due to the added element of stat rng. This can cause a player to go from “omg finally something good” to “ugh….vendor trash” in a matter of seconds.

If they would to allow us to pick the stats of an ascended drop this “treasure to trash” aspect would cease and keep ascended drops rewarding. Since we know they have the ability to change items like this (see old mf items), I cannot see any reason to keep the fundamental flaw ascended drops currently have.

As long as they give appropriate rewards for events I’m all for it. This is not increased gold though. This is not vendor fodder either. The main reason sw chest farming leads to any inflation is due to all the vendor trash. I am hoping that the new incentives of t6 mats and the like will not be a disappointment, but tbh I’ve learned from the past not to expect much.

Also it would be nice to have better uses for karma and skill points that don’t make us jump through hoops to utilize.

Miku.6297:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Like, I understand what everyone is saying. The game rolls a random number, and then the loot tables are weighted. But because the loot tables are weighted, it’s the same as if you had a weighted dice.

No it is not the same. If you have a weighted dice the odds of getting the fixed roll increase. While the odds of getting other numbers decreases.

The loot tables have absolutely no impact on the rolls you receive. if 90 is worth more then 6 that has literally no impact on you rolling a 90 or a 6. So the RNG number is NOT weighted it’s not like a weighted dice. You are more likely to receive a certain item as a reward, however you are not more likely to roll a certain number over any other certain number.

Doesn’t magic find fly right in the face of that though? If it is supposed to increase the likelyhood of a certain rarity, then it’s weighting that rarity.

I wouldn’t even mind having to use a kit if there were more color options.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it’s fair to say that this case is most likely not speculation. Speculation is buying items with the hope that things change due to an “outside” factor/s. Manipulation is the intention to influence change via deliberate action/s.

No, it’s not fair to say that, based on the data we have. All we know for sure is that the supply dropped by a relatively enormous amount and price rose a noticeable amount. We don’t know if it was bought by one person or even one consortium. We don’t know if individual buyers intended to impact prices or if that was a side effect of their actions.

There are all sorts of potential mechanisms that would explain the limited information we can see; manipulation is only one of many.

Huh? The amount bought in the time frame bought, given no game changes were made, all scream it was done to increase the price due to drastic supply reduction. There is really no other logical reason for it to happen.

What else might explain it? I’m honestly curious to what your thoughts could be.

I am reminded every time we get new hairstyles that hair accessory colors are still an issue. Some of the new styles have very noticeable accessories.

It would be a great qol update to be able to access our dye banks for accessories. It just seems this should have been added long long ago.

Idk what’s the problem with giving players free infinite storage in their inventory and/or banks?

I guess what I am getting at is that it seems for all intensive purposes to be a work around for players to avoiding storage limits, which is something Anet uses as incentive to purchase account upgrades.

If you consider buying gems with rl cash to turn into gold you’ll get 800gems for 10 dollars or about 92 gold. If you buy another account for that same 10 dollars you’ll get the same 92g in less than 2 months and everything after that is bonus.

As long as you don’t need the gold now. I think the extra account is the clear way to go.

Heck idk..maybe something along the lines of not being able to place orders if one has more than 1 page of items in their pick up tab.

pdavis.8031:

Wanze.8410:

pdavis.8031:

Ayrilana.1396:

Anyway, it looks like the chests have come down from where they were about 24 hours ago. Supply does seem to be steadily increasing so I wonder where the new price range will stabilize.

pdavis.8031:

Some guildies of mine were talking about this in game, about how the price was going up. Someone else interjected that it’s only going to be for 5 more days and that they knew the person who was responsible.
So if they are to be believed, in the next couple of days you should start seeing the price go back down to normal.

Just some food for thought….

Nailed it!

Why would the person responsible for this be interested in bringing the price back down again?

Just some food for thought….

If I understood it right. They bought up a bunch to raise the price, then unloaded it all when it was high, which brought the price back down. Of course it would have been smarter for them to trickle it back in, and keep the prices high, but with such a rapid decline it doesn’t seem like they did that.

I think you might be underestimating the amount bought and then overestimating the amount relisted. Whoever bought them hasn’t come remotely close to relisting all that they bought.

pdavis.8031:

Essence Snow.3194:

pdavis.8031:

Ayrilana.1396:

Anyway, it looks like the chests have come down from where they were about 24 hours ago. Supply does seem to be steadily increasing so I wonder where the new price range will stabilize.

pdavis.8031:

Some guildies of mine were talking about this in game, about how the price was going up. Someone else interjected that it’s only going to be for 5 more days and that they knew the person who was responsible.
So if they are to be believed, in the next couple of days you should start seeing the price go back down to normal.

Just some food for thought….

Nailed it!

What do you consider “normal”?

I consider “normal” to be around 1s 5c buy listing (give or take a few copper). Which is about the same price as it’s been for about a year. Of course there have been some minor flucuations, but over all the price has remain fairly steady. At least until recently.

The 1st buyout occurred around 7 months ago in August. Prior to that buyout they were <10c for well over a year. The buy orders had never gone above 85 copper until this recent chest buyout.

What is the reasoning of allowing infinite storage via the pickup tab?

pdavis.8031:

Ayrilana.1396:

Anyway, it looks like the chests have come down from where they were about 24 hours ago. Supply does seem to be steadily increasing so I wonder where the new price range will stabilize.

pdavis.8031:

Some guildies of mine were talking about this in game, about how the price was going up. Someone else interjected that it’s only going to be for 5 more days and that they knew the person who was responsible.
So if they are to be believed, in the next couple of days you should start seeing the price go back down to normal.

Just some food for thought….

Nailed it!

What do you consider “normal”?

This wasn’t a few stacks…..this was 2 rounds totaling over 17k stacks. If anyone would like to try and explain how buying over 17k stacks (in less than 4 days to boot) of an item such as blc is speculation, I’m all ears.

I think it’s fair to say that this case is most likely not speculation. Speculation is buying items with the hope that things change due to an “outside” factor/s. Manipulation is the intention to influence change via deliberate action/s.

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Essence Snow.3194:

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

??

Is my math wrong? 2,729,000 (original) minus 212,000 remaining after buyout is 2,517,000. Divided by 250 in a stack is 10,068 stacks.

So, 10k stacks (I said over 9k)

Nope nothing to do with your math or anything it was just a common reference, which I was not aware of it’s origin till I watched the vid linked.

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

I hadn’t been paying attention to Black Lion Chests since the big buy out back several months, but I went to sell one today and wow. Someone/s reduced the available supply again from 2.73 million to 200kish on the 7th and 8th. Since then it has been further reduced to 55k and is now back up to 65k chests. This has caused the price to go from 10c (someone reminds me where it was) to the current buy 1s8c and sell 1s48c.

Rather interesting… https://www.gw2tp.com/item/20316-black-lion-chest
Initial thread 7 months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/bltc/Black-Lion-Chests-Artificial-Scarcity

edit to add link

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Essence Snow.3194:

Since we have a global (-China) economy they want to keep rates low so as to not flood the market. They do this b/c it is the easy option. If they were to increase the value of drops on the micro scale (make the individual’s better), they would flood the economy (given no other changes), which would decrease item value……a catch 22 if you will.

To avoid these opposing forces they would need to get creative, which is not as easy said as done. It however would be to the game’s GREAT benefit if they would.

I’m not sure how this relates to the original post. The OP is asking for help explaining their data: could it be that drop rates have changed? that there’s a lot more variability than could be found from opening 10,000+ bags?

(As a side note, some of the phrasing was confusing: I had to re-read the bit about China 4x before I realized that your “-” meant “not including China.” Next time, consider spelling it out or just leaving out that nuance — most folks will know what you mean; those that don’t probably wouldn’t even consider the CN reason in the first place.)

It was a response to the post right above yours. You must have posted yours a split second b4 I posted. In the future I’ll make note to spell out “minus” as not to confuse fellow posters and have them need to reminusread it….well darn…