Guild Wars 2

I dearly wish they would look into their DR and report back. After being out of Southsun for well over 24 hours ( I spent yesterday leveling an alt through his storyline) I tried farming skelks. One hour later, ( 2 omnom bars worth) with 271% MF I had all of 2 vicious claws, 6 powerful blood and the rest junk to show for it.

Oh my bad, I did get 2 Black Lion chests to add to the 300 in my vault.

Now I have spent money to buy gems to get bank upgrades, alt slots and such but will not be spending any more real cash until they come back with a definitive answer on whether or not DR is working as intended for ALL people and not horribly skewed for some.

The only issue I have with raids as per the WoW example is that it breeds elitism. Then you have what we currently have with the Warrior/Berserker requirements for dugeon “speed runs” but multiplied a hundred fold. Raiders “expect” you to have specific gear, be traited in specific ways, to do things in specific order and so on. When a game gets to that point and I have to play my character the way someone else wants and not the way I want in order to take part in the latest content then it no longer becomes fun.

Vayne.8563:

You got VIP for free? Or you bought it when it was sold? Red herring is a red herring. I was a VIP to, a privilege for which I paid $15 dollars a month. Sure if I pay $15 a month I can save my points to get the expansion free with the points I didn’t spend on other stuff. But that’s not free. That’s not even CLOSE to free.

In the short time I played Lotro, I paid double the money I put into Guild Wars 2, for a whole lot less.

I got my accounts on release when they offered lifetime for a flat one time fee. I realize that option is no longer available but I do not have to pay a 15$ per month fee, still get my TPs each and every month, and have gotten my full enjoyment out of the game for my initial investment. Everything that came after that, including Mines of Moria, Riders of the Rohan and this years expansion Helms Deep, I got (or will get) with my points. So three expansions, plus the original game all for my initial investment was well worth it for me. If I want something from the store I do not have to buy “chances” to get something, I buy the item outright with earned points and no rl money.

So although I enjoy both games, GW2’s rng business model is rapidly lowering my enjoyment for this game.

Good idea but I have one thought that may spoil it. If nobody is in an area are all the mobs there or do the “spawn in” only when people are in the zone? I mention this because many games only spawn in the mobs when people are in the area to avoid the extra server hit they take by spawning mobs in empty zones.

Dyes should be account bound. Having them character bound is a pain in the dye factory. I was lucky enough to find Abyss in the early going and since my main at the time was my Guardian, he got the Abyss dye. When my thief hit level 80 I tried a myriad of colours but face it, a thief would look better in Abyss, right? Well I finally found a second Abyss and spent days deciding whether to give it to my thief or sell it for the needed coin.

I finally gave it to my thief and was heartbroken that due to the texture difference between the heavy armor on my Guardian and the medium armor on my thief that the Abyss just not look like Abyss on the thief, it displays as a grayer hue. I could have had +20 gold!

Vayne.8563:

Skins are not content. Lotro has races and quest areas that you have to pay for. DDO has the same. And EQ 1 and 2 are owned by Sony and don’t provide content updates nearly as often. I’m not sure either are currently as ambitious as Guild Wars 2 is.

Also don’t they offer option subs?

Well I have2 lifetime accounts with Lotro and they are releasing the Helm’s Deep expansion later this year. Being a vip I get Turbine points every month on both accounts and should have enough TPs to get the expansion without having to pay a cent. Anything in the Turbine store can be bought using Turbine Points you earn in the game. If you want it faster then you have to pay money to buy the points. Unlike GW2 where you earn Turbine points in the game, you cannot earn gems here, you have to use gold to buy the gems or real life money. As far as content updates go “Rider of the Rohan” expansion came out last fall which included mounted combat. Helm’s Deep. this years expansion should prove to be interesting as it will have mass warfare.

A chainsaw cannot be infinite…it would need gasoline to run and although there are oil slicks I have yet to see any gasoline pumps!

Some people like Jumping puzzles.
Some people like dungeons.
Some people like questing.
Some people like fractals.
Some people like WvW.
Some people like sPvP.
Some people like dancing in Lion’s Arch
Some people like farming.
Some people like doing a mix of some or all of the above.

Now in all those things there is one and only one that ANET is dead-set against and that they have gone out of their way to control or limit. The DR code was put into place to prevent it. MoBs that used to drop loot no longer do again to prevent it. Things like rich ori nodes were removed from the game to prevent it. Rewards for boss chests were changed to per day/per account versus per day/per character to prevent it. The only place that has escaped so far is CoF1.

So perhaps DR should also be applied to JPs. Do more then 1 per day and suffer diminishing returns. Same with dungeons or fractals.

Better yet to make things fair across the board perhaps they should limit the number of gems you can buy over a given period of time. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander, right?

Well here is the thing. The wife and myself run our characters together through the story missions. I do not pvp although I do spend time in WvW. Since we have 9 characters each (6 are level 80) I spend the time when she is offline farming for materials to outfit all these alts. I put a game on on the television, turn my in-game volume down and farm away.

There is one spot that I farm on a regular basis when I have that time. In an hour there with 170% mf, I can get 120 of one type of tier 5 mat plus two or three rares. Sitting around waiting for enough people to run Lyssa or for a dragon to show up in my opinion is a greater waste of time. Even spending time looking for a group to run a dungeon/fractal will usually burn up 15 minutes or more. That is 15 minutes where I could be doing something. even if it is farming.

Now there is no way I am ever going to post where that spot is as it would get nerfed within a week so please do not ask!

AntiGw.9367:

Two hours a day can get you a lot of gold for just playing the game.

For example, that’s a full clear of orr temples, 6-9 guaranteed rares with a chance for exotics.

If someone doesn’t have a lot of time to play, I doubt mindless grinding is what they will want to do with their limited time.[/quote]

On the contrary, if I have limited time to play I would rather go out and farm by myself. If I have plenty of time ahead of me that is when I will do events, etc. If a run on a temple goes south (like Grenth) I want to be able to have the time to try it again. I could not do that if my time were limited. As for clearing temples, it is difficult to do if nobody is running those events when you have the time to run them.

For those people that can afford to buy gems on a regular basis then farming is a non issue. However there are many students, retirees, people on fixed incomes that also play this game who can only afford to buy gems once in awhile, when the budget permits them to do so. So what do those people do? They farm and sell what they get to get the gold they need. Not everyone wants to run CoF 20 times a day just like not everyone wants to farm. Why is one choice being restricted?

And in the end that is what it is all about. Choice. If I choose to spend real money for gems, so be it. If I choose to farm instead why restrict it? I never farmed Union Station yet the one thing that bothers me with the fix is that even if you were running the quest through, you now get nothing whereas before you at least got something. They did not increase the final reward or compensate in any way for the loss of drops from that part of the quest so in essence they punished not only the bots but everyone.

It is getting to the point where you play the market (TP), run CoF ad nauseum or buy gems with rl money. They still however consider it a fair price to pay 40 laurels and 50 ecto for one piece of ascended gear.

So let me get this straight then. They are going to restrict the game play of the majority of the people by restricting drops, nerfing farming areas, plus the DR in order to keep the minority, the bots at bay? This sounds counter-intuitive to how it should be. Unless of course the bots are the majority then it all makes sense.

The majority of people who want to farm are looking for materials for crafting. Why not give them areas to farm? Take Orr for example, plunk an island down and stock it with mobs and let people farm away.

But then the bots will take over right? Well you could always do something like this. At random intervals of 15 minutes to 2 hours an on screen warning pops up stating that a plague is sweeping across the island. You have 5 minutes to get out of the area or get insta-killed with all your armor taking damage. The reason could be that so much death has happened on the isle that things are ramping out of control.

Make that death costly enough to discourage bots but as long as the warning is ON SCREEN with maybe the Island turning dark green to warn off anyone approaching it then bots will not be able to adjust and get out. They cannot read on screen announcements, the have to rely on parsing the chat for that sort of information. especially if the announcement also moves around the screen at random.

They can still keep their DR, the can still keep their rng, the bots are controlled and those that wish to farm and grind things out can do so.

Hey, it is just a random idea from my patented random idea generator!

CETheLucid.3964:

Gasoline.2570:

I’m not the only one adressing this. True story.

True randomness is exceedingly kind, exceedingly cruel, and exceedingly moderate and always without any rhyme or reason.

Unfortunately although I agree with the above point, we have no way of knowing exactly what type of RNG GW2 is using. Most games will use a pseudo generator that uses a seed number in the formula. If that seed number is fixed and tied to your account then every character on your account will experience the same pattern of rolls and those patterns will repeat themselves, it is no longer random if a pattern can be established. It would be more random if the seed number varied in some fashion but again we have no way of knowing that. You can read more about this from the wiki or a number of other sites that explain random number generators.

I do not doubt his numbers, they may be possible. I do wish however ANET would look into their diminishing returns code (DR) and come back to us saying it is working properly. I just spent the last hour at Southsun farming skelks and got a total of 0 crates, 4 powerful blood and a bunch of junk. Now I had been spending time running an alt through his story line and getting him to level 80 so the anti farming code should not have been in effect, yet the results tell me it was. Too many people seem to be locked out of the loot because the anti-farm code is not being reset. In all I have a grand total of 2 crates found in Southsun since it all began. That is trying different alts there, taking breaks after an hour to go do something else and killing everything that moves.

ANET PLEASE look into your DR code!

There are too many factors that determine what type of loot you get in the game and too many demands on certain items which necessitates the need to farm for them.

First you have the drop rate which is controlled by ANET.
Then you have Magic Find, controlled by the players.
Add to that Diminishing Returns which modifies what you get as a drop.

Now throw in what many have complained about and what ANET refuses to address/acknowledge is that many people seem to have gotten stuck in a perma-DR mode.

Then consider that legendary weapons and ascended gear take a pile of resources. There are two methods to gain these resources, buy them from the TP or farm for them. Yes, legendary weapons should take time but consider that most people will spend no longer then 3 years at any game before moving on and you have a time-frame in which people want to accomplish things. Buying gems and converting to gold is fine for those with a good income but for students, retirees or people on fixed incomes buying gems is something they will do once in awhile and not on a constant basis.

By placing the dreaded RNG into the equation and limiting the window of opportunity to gain a certain item through rng you again place a timeframe on people which pressure them into buying gems to convert to gold.

Looking at it all in my opinion ANETs marketing gurus are painting themselves into a corner. People will move on to other games, that is a given in this business but the way things are currently going people will pack up and leave earlier then they normally would and word of mouth will not bring in new players.

What they should do is either lower the amount of materials required to gain special items (40 laurels AND 50 ecto for 1 ascended item?) or increase the opportunity for players to get these items by farming if they so wish. In other word quit trying to force people to follow what their bean counters want and give people the choice to either buy gems or grind for what they want. That choice will keep more people around for a longer period of time. The more they remove “choice” the more they remove the enjoyment for the game and the more greedy they look.

It does not take “forever” or even that long to level an alt to 80. A week ago my engineer was level 23, today he will hit 80 as he is currently at 79 and a half. That was accomplished with a blend of crafting and questing and making 10 levels a day is easily done so 8 days is not forever.

As the wife and I level our characters together this will be our 6th level 80 character set with 3 more sets to go. What was interesting is that we selected a different story line for them and experienced some new stuff that we had not seen before with our previous 5 sets.

So I currently have as level 80 characters:

Guardian
Thief
Elementalist
Warrior
Necromancer
Engineer (today)

Left to run through:

Hunter (2)
Mesmer (24)
Another Thief (43)

Although I was aware of the farming spot I was reluctant to take part in it myself, even though I could have used the gold/materials generated. It caused quite a bit of acrimony in map chat between those that wanted to farm the event versus those that wanted to complete the event with some rather harsh words going back and forth between the two sides. I stayed out of it.

However ANET seems to have a contradictory philosophy when it comes to farming. They do everything they can to prevent it yet add in everything they can think of to encourage it or even make it a necessity. Even the new Southsun event requires that you farm the area extensively in order to get the chance at a “prize”. The sheer cost in materials for legendary and even ascended items promotes farming yet everything they do prevents it.

They have to decide one way or the other because if things remain as they are now people will find other means/methods/ to use game design glitches to get what they want.

DR seems to kick in quite quickly once you have been in an area too long, however it seems as if the code to remove DR after a given period of time outside that area is not working so DR remains in effect. This problem exists for all areas in the game and not just for Southsun which is why many people seem to be under permanent DR or just incredibly lousy luck.

In all my time in Southsun I finally found 2 crates. That was it, just two but at least it was 2 more then I had found before that. The thing is previous to the new events in Southsun I did farm the area for blood and scales. Putting 2 and 2 together it makes sense to me now that the DR I gathered for that area never did get removed which would explain why it took me well over 20 hours of farming to find my first crate.

So to others in Southsun a few questions .

How long have you farmed for crates?
How many crates have you gotten?
Have you farmed Southsun previously for anything else?

It may help establish a pattern.

The Law of Diminishing Returns! Thou shalt not farm!

The wife and I pushed our 6th set of characters through the Battle for Claw Island yesterday and were both looking for a way to shut Trahearne up. We finally just muted the sound on our computers and finished the battle in blissful silence.

Sadly for me Southsun is just another grind zone for mediocre loot. Although the story is good and the events are fast paced what spoils it for me is the finicky rng. One of the sources for excitement buildup my first day there was the chance at finding a crate with the chance of pulling a weapon skin from that crate. I see on the forums where people have opened 100 dropped crates or got a skin on their very first one yet I have spent close to 20 hours there with not one crate dropping. I have grinded skelks, karka, ran the event circuit and did all the achievements that are possible to complete to date and I am still waiting for that first crate drop.

I will go back and complete the achievements when they are available but the enjoyment for the area is gone. Until ANET can explain why some people ( I am not the only one) are bitten by such horrid luck with the reward drops, I will work on leveling alts.

Well went back tonight but with a different character. Same results. After an hour of farming skelks I got dyes, blood, fangs and assorted junk but again not one crate with +200% mf.

So all in all, farming skelks, karkas, the events and everything that moved on that Island I would estimate I have spent close to 20 hours there with not one crate and with MF ranging from 200% to 371%. Yet some people are opening over 100 crates from drops?

Computer
Model : GigaByte G1.Sniper
Chassis : GigaByte Desktop
Mainboard : GigaByte G1.Sniper
BIOS : Award (OEM) F1 01/17/2011
Total Memory : 12GB DIMM DDR3
Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Liquid cooled

Processors
Processor : Intel® Core™ i7 CPU X 990 @ 3.47GHz (6C 12T 3.6GHz, 2.66GHz

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Corsair CMZ12GX3M3A1600C9 4GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24 5-34-10-5)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : ACR G276HL
(1920×1080, 27.2")

GPU’s

2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (7CU 1344SP SM5.0 1.11GHz/1.32GHz, 384kB L2, 2GB 6GHz 192-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)

NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 (96SP 2C 1.4GHz, 128kB L2, 1GB 1.4GHz 128-bit) (Physix)

Storage Devices
OCZ-VERTEX2 3.5 (115GB, SATA300, SSD) : 107GB (C:)
WDC WD2001FASS-00W2B0 (2TB, SATA300, 3.5") : 2TB (E:)
WDC WD2001FASS-00W2B0 (2TB, SATA300, 3.5") : 2TB (D:)

Audio Device : Gigabyte GK104 HDMI Audio Controller

Network Services
Network Adapter : Bigfoot Networks Killer Ethernet Controller (Ethernet, 1Gbps)

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 6.01.7601 (Service Pack 1)
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 7.7

In the Living Story dungeon, with the final two bosses, I found it necessary to switch to scepters/focus from my normal greatsword in order to survive. I would go in and melee a bit but would have to back out and swap while my heals came off of cd, then rinse and repeat.

As far as keeping a boss in place it only works if the Guardian has the highest armor class in the group. MoBs tend to go after the person with the highest ac first. That is the only real aggro control there is in the game.

The average thief in WvW does not give my Guardian any trouble. I can usually handle them easily, even three at once. (that did happen) However a real good thief will put me down, thankfully these are few and far between. Then again a real good anything can put me down be it an engineer, a mesmer or even a ranger.

It all hinges on how quick you are to think and react versus how quick they are. At 58 my reflexes place me at a disadvantage but I can still out-think many! Having characters of each class so I know how the enemy works helps in the latter!

I would dearly love to know how ANETs random number generator works. If they use a seed number, and that is what is the most common, is that seed number fixed or does it vary? If it is fixed, is it fixed to a character or to an account? If it is varied how often does it change? By date/time or some other parameter?

A fixed seed number will return a repeating sequence of results and is not truly random at all. If the sequence of results given to you as determined by the seed number gives you trash then that is all you could ever expect. That would explain some of the wide discrepancies where some people are extremely lucky while others are extremely unlucky.

Although there are many sites on the web that explain rng you could start here for a more in depth discussion of what I am talking about.

http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/Random/Random.html

So I set my MF at 207% and farmed skelks for one hour exact. The last time I was on Southsun Island was 28 hours ago so DR should not have had an impact on my results. In one hour of farming I got the following:

42 Dark stained claws
1 spiral shell (errant crab)
7 salvageable hides

Common (white items)

1 chainmail shoulders
1 rawhide leggings
1 acolyte cowl
1 acolyte pants

Blue Items

1 Beserker Pirate’s hat
1 Rampager’s Pirate boots
1 Travellers Krytan Bow
1 Cleric dagger
25 large fangs
25 vials of potent blood
6 vicious fangs
2 vials of powerful blood

Green Items

1 Carrion cabalist hood of Melandru
1 Rampagers rifle of grawl slaying
1 Beserkers spear of grawl slaying
1 Rampagers greatsword of the hydromancer

2 Black Lion Chests

And a grand total of ZERO crates. Not one! Not even the hint of one.

Am I glad I did not hold my breath for that hour. I have a pretty good idea of what they can do with their rng.

Well perhaps I will try lowering my MF to 200% and farm skelks but I will not hold my breath while doing so. If I get just one crate I will be a happy camper, forget about what is inside the crate!

I have spent over 4 hours a day in Southsun, split up to avoid DR, and yet to have even 1 crate drop. And that is with MF over 350%!

The suppression system was put into place to combat gold spammers. However it affects everyone. I made this suggestion before in regards to chat suppression. All they have to do is put in another “step” into their code, a “report as spam” button. Once a report has been made against someone then the chat suppression kicks in. When they investigate and if they find the report unwarranted, they could take steps against the reporting party. If the report was warranted they could also take appropriate measures.

Considering the scarcity of them plus what omnomberry items cost on the TP my guss is they would have a similar, if not an identical taste to money.

Since computer random number generators depend heavily on a “seed” number it would be interesting to know how ANET derives that seed number. One of the most common ways is to convert the current date and time to an integer and then do a bunch of funny math with it. One thing that puzzles me with this method is if that seed is generated every time you loot something or if that seed number is generated at the beginning of your current session in the game? Actually with any method of choosing the seed number, does it change during game-play or only when one re-logs or does it change at all? The latter would be worrisome as this method of determining a random number will eventually repeat patterns. Perhaps (and I am just using conjecture here as I am no math expert by far) that would explain why your “luck” seems to change between characters, if the rng seed was tied somehow to a character.

Perhaps someone with a lot more experiance with random number generators and seed numbers could add more depth to the above.

Remember GW1? Just go to the Hall of Monuments if you do not and consider what is in the Hall for you. Now fast forward a few years to something called GW3. If ANET sticks to a pattern, items, minis, achievements, legendarys will all count to what you will be able to start the next game with. In GW1 it was grinding that brought you these rewards whereas in GW2 it is rng for the majority of them.

The way things are going with rng if there is a GW3, I highly doubt that I would even bother with it.

It is but one business model in use currently by Game developers. Along with Guild Wars 2. I also play another F2P game, LotRO. Both games have a store, both games offer limited time items but there is a divergence. GW2 gives you the option of turning gold into gems to spend at the store, LotRO grants you points for achievements, etc. to be spent at the store. However GW2 relies more heavily on gambling then does LotRO. The latter offers their rare items in the store for points whereas GW2 offers you a CHANCE at those rare items for gems. Both games have lootboxes/chests requiring you to purchase keys.

Example:

In GW2 you can buy a RANDOM package of dyes in the hope you will get the one you are looking for. In LotRO the dyes are the dyes you see in the store. In GW2 you get a random package of dyes.

As the OP described one is flat rate, one is lottery.

It would be interesting to look at the financials of both companies and see which model A) Makes the most return, Retains customers.

376% mf, in Southsun long enough to complete all the achievements and then some, and not 1 crate. A total of 3 rares and that was the extent of my luck tonight.

Tried logging into the game, the patcher kicks up at ’Downloading 0kb (0kb/sec) and just hangs until it eventually times out and goes into a " Connection errors detected…retrying" mode.

Anyone else stuck or is it just me?

The teleporting bots are a pain in the backside, especially the ones the port in to wps and poi’s as they seem to start every event which ends up broken/busted further down the road.

As far as using the hacks in WvW I have no use for anyone who cheats to win a game and if people would only report their guild members/teammates we would have no cheating in WvW. The hacks are quite easy to spot if you know what you are looking for.

Perhaps because you are being too rough by trying to savage them, be gentle and try to salvage them instead!

That said it looks as if you did something to upset the RNG Gods.

One day not so long ago the RNG Gods smiled on me and I collected 4 charged lodestones in just over an hour. I have farmed those sparks every couple of days for at least an hour and that was the only day I have found even 1 charged lodestone. So on and off I would guess about 100 hours farming sparks and 4 charged lodestones to show for it.

You can farm Tier 6 mats from various “heavy Bags” in different maps. In Orr you get heavy moldy bags, from 78 and up dredges heavy miners bags. Keep in mind to get the “chance” for a tier 6 mat from these bags they should come from level 78 and up mobs. However you will have to deal with the anti-farming code and diminishing returns.

Tier 5 items are easier to gather so what I end up doing for ectos is gather enough tier 5 mats, make a tier 5 item (yellow-rare) and then decon it for the chance at ectos. Using a Black Lion salvage kit on a good day I can make up to 15 ectos for an hour or two of farming. On bad days maybe 6 or 7.

The other option is world events which usually will get you one rare per day per event which can be deconned for ectos. (dragons for example) I say usually as there is currently quite a discussion elsewhere over the whole loot mechanic.

DrixTrix.7168:

if i was anet i would release a patch with the message ‘’around 10minutes 32 seconds and 1 milisecond until an update patch is ready’’

Now that would take a high degree of accuracy!

I was unaware that you have two hours to complete a dungeon if you are in that dungeon when the message pops. Just goes to show I do not run many dungeons. These patches are pre-loaded into the system. Seeing as to how you have time to finish a dungeon if you are in that dungeon it strikes me as strange that in the open world you will never get the one to two hours, but only 10 minutes before you are forced to reload the game. What it looks like then is the message “within one or two hours” is meant mainly for those inside an instance or dungeon but it encompasses those in the open world as well so that one message covers everyone thus saving the need for two separate messages.

Case closed!

But would people actually play this class if they had to go through 79 levels of apprenticeship dressed as Robin?

Borked.6824:

Could always ask Anet to take the servers down for an entire morning instead.

You know, that would not bother me as much as long as they took it down for the entire morning, not all day or for 5 minutes.

Da Sonic.6521:

Golly me, did the way time works change while I was sleeping? Last time I checked 10 minutes was both within the next 1 hour, and the next 2 hours.

I must have missed the memo.

Nope, time has not changed but accuracy seems to be something that is amiss. What is ironic is that I was doing my daily in Orr when the message first popped up on screen. “A new build will be available ….” yadda yadda. I mentioned in map chat be prepared to relog in 10 minutes. 8 minutes later the “Your game will restart in 3 minutes” came up on screen. If I can predict it within 10 minutes what is stopping ANET from being more accurate in their predictions?

With the message of within the next hour or two, I could perhaps get my gathering done but I would not want to hazard starting an event or going into WvW to get my enemy kills. However with the inaccuracy of their predictions even going out to gather orri is out of the question.

Call it a vent perhaps due to my former career (now retired) but I would be able to plan the complete overhaul of a 5 million dollar piece of machinery and have my timing down a lot closer then what their predictions are. Let me see, using their methods of scaling if I scaled their prediction to that 5 million dollar overhaul I would have been off on my predictions by 3 months, 6 days, 5 hours and 23 seconds. Definitely would not have held that job for 15 years.

Why when we get an in-game warning that a “new build will be available within the next hour or two” we invariably receive a message no more the 10 minutes later that “Your game will restart in…” !

Why not " A new build will be available in 10 minutes" then? After 15 years of working as a Senior Planner I would say your planning staff needs some education!

Here in GW2 you have the cliping issue plus one other problem that is not mentioned here. Your back is where your bows, shields, and 2H weapons are displayed when you have them equipped but you are not in combat. Where would those display with a cape equipped? Under the cape? It would be occluded that way. Over the cape? The cape would have to be pressed against your back and the weapon would interfere with the cape.

Unfortunately the player is not the problem here. Anything could have come up in that thing called “real life” forcing someone to have to log out. What the problem is the game mechanics do not allow for a transfer of “dungeon ownership” to another party member.

It is not the RNG that is the problem, it it the anti farm (DR) code that seems to be the root of everyone’s woes. The DR is totally erratic in it’s application, sometimes you will get an hour before it kicks in and the next day it is as if it kicks in immediately, even if you leave 24 hours in between farming an area or a mob. When you have the RNG, MF and DR all being factors in determining your loot there is plenty of room for error to kick in and the DR modifier would be where I would look for the root cause. DR has to account for the area you are in, the time spent in that area and the type of mob you are killing in that area for that time period. Consider the math that goes into determining how rapidly your returns diminish.