Curse

Angelic Upstart · May 05, 2007, 10:35 AM // 10:35

After returning to Zehlon reach after a 24 hour break, i averaged 2 gold drops per run over three runs, 5 purple items and approx a dozen white items.
My gold coin drops averaged out at around 610 per run and materials wise i averaged around 20 bolts of cloth and taanned hides, respectively.
Then i went to Bergen Hot Springs and over three runs runs harvested four gold items one non max dmg dead bow and three very good staffs all max dmg with good stats, plus a couple of dyes.
I am still collecting data on other runs, but to me it seems that if you tear the arse out of one area, by repeatedly farming it then yes there is a noticeable degradation in drop quality , however if you limit your runs there to just three or four then move on it seems to that the drop rates are by and large ok, and given the massive amount of people farming Zehlon reach for example it seems to fit the law of averages that you will have to expect a few duff runs if you are soley just farming that one spot. The trick is i think is to cut and run when you have a had a few good runs and farm another spot, this for me seems to keep the gold pretty consistent and the change of scenery and opponents helps keeps the boredom and repetiveness that comes with farming largely at bay.
However i will still track my drops at other spots based on the three run experiment and see if i can find a correlationin my theory.

scottbigboy · May 05, 2007, 11:15 AM // 11:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

On-topic:
HM dorps have changed for me, but I can't remember how, since I was doing DoA the first days and am clearing Ascalon now.
I know we did a Breach vanquish yesterday and one of my guildmates was the one getting most purples.
That could be odd. I don't farm and my mesmer has no anti-farm code for sure. On the other hand, given drops are randon, it could have been random luck for him.
I'm watching it, but don't really care about it.

Off-topic:
scottbigboy: The change on the loot system is understandable for me.
They nerfed the gold drops and white/purples because they are sold to merchant most of the time.
The nerf creates less 'new' gold in the game.

The reason you want less gold in the game is to stop inflation.
Inflation was getting worse in Factions, most notably on the green items.
Prophecies items were, except a few, affordable to the crowd.
Equivalent Factions' items were expensive and stayed that a long way.
A-net did several attempts to cool down the market, with green item weekends and the 'chest' weekend.

You may not have been affected by the inflation, but many ordinary players can't afford the 20K+ asked for most greens.
And you can't just tell them: Go farm that 20K+, some just want to play the storyline.
Don't forget playing the storyline and helping others along the way is just as much 'work' as farming.

To decrease inflation (or slow it down), you have to slow down the new gold flowing in the game.
Gold drops and rare crafting materials were taken out of lootscaling.
That's because are often not sold to merchant, but sold to other players.
That way, there is no new gold in the economy and therefore no increase of inflation.

I totally understand what your saying my friend
But do u really want a situation in gws where u might as well sell a rare gold for the price its set at due to everyone having one.
I personally want the rare stuff because there not the norm... a bit as i ve said b4 real life we all want a nice car but we all cant afford one
That special 15k armour which many of us have worked long and hard for wont be specail any more.

So basically i totally understand the other side of the fence all im saying is for me they have turned a great game with great status into just an average game thats all so if they only lose me as a customer/player fine but i only play games for my own personal enjoyment and atm im not having much fun anymore

scottbigboy · May 05, 2007, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottbigboy

I totally understand what your saying my friend
But do u really want a situation in gws where u might as well sell a rare gold for the price its set at due to everyone having one.
I personally want the rare stuff because there not the norm... a bit as i ve said b4 real life we all want a nice car but we all cant afford one
That special 15k armour which many of us have worked long and hard for wont be specail any more.

So basically i totally understand the other side of the fence all im saying is for me they have turned a great game with great status into just an average game thats all so if they only lose me as a customer/player fine but i only play games for my own personal enjoyment and atm im not having much fun anymore

Oops i forgot this

I have 8 chars done all 3 campaigns so i have done my fair share of the storyline and helping out others farming just adds another dimension to the game for me thats all

the_jos · May 05, 2007, 02:11 PM // 14:11

There is this 'Edit' button

Quote:

That special 15k armour which many of us have worked long and hard for wont be specail any more.

I'm going to be a bit harsh now.

Now you are complaining that all people are able to afford 15K armor that you and others have worked so hard for.

First of all, that's not true, not everyone can afford it. Playing NF helps a lot but that has nothing to do with the recent updates.

Second, farmers are the people that were bringing gold in the economy with truckloads (so to speak).
Therefore, farmers are also at least part responsible for the inflation of gold in the game.
And since 15K armor has a fixed price, they made it easier to obtain for the masses.

I'll try to give an example.
When Factions came out, there was this nice green +1 death magic staff.
It's been priced a long time for around 100K.
Only farmers are/were able to pay that amount of gold.
Without farming, it takes quite long to get 100K, specially in Prophecies.
The same was true for a lot of Factions weapons. They all had high prices compared to their prophecies counterparts.
So, people were going to farm those greens, but prices remained stable.
This could only happen in an economy where new gold is generated.
More people started to farm, because they wanted the greens and there was no other way to obtain it. Introducing more gold in the economy.
And people were told 'you want the green, go farm (gold or the green)'.

That way, the inflation was getting worse.

I'm not saying farming is the only thing causing problems with the GW economy, A-net also contributed to it.
They tried to make items more affordable to people, but that had minimal effect on the economy because the new gold was still flooding in.
They even brought more gold in the game (unlocked chests).
Now they have targeted the new gold, which I think is the right thing to cool down the economy.

I think you have to be realistic.
The high-end items in the game will remain as unreachable for the masses as ever before.
This is perfect gold items, non-perfect rare skins and the FoW/Vabbi armor.
The regular 15K is in reach of all, but only with dedication and clever playing.
But that has been that way since the introduction of NF.

Gimme Money Plzkthx · May 05, 2007, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Some areas are definitely drying up for me, I'll try others later. TBH I don't believe anet.

zerulus · May 06, 2007, 05:54 AM // 05:54

I havn't noticed any changes in drops I get now compared to when hard mode was introduced, so not really sure what everyone is complaining about.
Over farming areas seems to have no impact whatsoever.

Ludo · May 06, 2007, 07:01 AM // 07:01

I think Kas and others have hit the nail on the head.

I'm now convinced there is a timer (sort of like the Soul Reaping timer) in place. I have Vwk'ed the swarm of termites, 12 or so at once, outside of Kamadan a bunch of times (in HM) and when I gather them up and take them all at once I get one, maybe two, drops. If I take them 3 at a time I have a much better chance of getting something off each group.

It's Anet's decision how they want to structure their game, I just wish they would be upfront about it. Gaile says "We have made absolutely no changes to the drops since we introduced Hard Mode." But it doesn't take a genius to see that doesn't preclude the existence of a code in place at the launch of Hard Mode. C'mon...

BloodyHeap · May 06, 2007, 02:00 PM // 14:00

I have noticed a dry up as well in HM, but then again I have also noticed a pickup in certain areas in normal mode. heck the past two days I have been in the FoW spider cave in normal mode getting an average 4-5 shards now...which hasn't happened in well over a year except for the occasional fluke, but then again it could also be a fluke here as well...in all though, I am just going to play the game like I do and if I get a good drop, so be it.

kumarshah · May 06, 2007, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Since we don't know how ANet actually is deciding drop outcomes, we will never know.

Maybe it reduces if you keep killing the same mob again and again.

Takeko Nakano · May 06, 2007, 03:30 PM // 15:30

I'm having great fun trying to get groups in mission areas like the Wilds. I'm a monk, but there's rarely 5 people that want to do HM!!!!

Firebaall · May 06, 2007, 04:03 PM // 16:03

At this point it's becoming an issue with the respect that Anet is showing it's customers.

How much of an uproar is needed before they actually respond with real help, and not just a token cookie cutter response? Just take a look at the views on this topic thread. That's a whole lot of concern that is not being addressed, or it's just being ignored.

The question seems to be now:

Will you buy GW:EN, with the amount of disrespect Anet and it's staff show you as a customer?

Anet, how can your support keep telling your customers to addess concerns on fan forums, when you just ignore them anyways? Piss poor business practice.

kumarshah · May 06, 2007, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Yeah, we will buy GWEN, because the missions and the story are still great.

Gimme Money Plzkthx · May 06, 2007, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Well, ring of fire dried up almost completely for me (as in practically no golds in like 8 runs of HM) when it was working fine before, so I tried another area I hadn't HMed before... and got next to nothing. However, then I tried zehlon reach, and it was just as good as it was several days before and I was reeling in gold and purple drops... so I dunno...

ForgeWhelp · May 06, 2007, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Just throwing in my experience. I've been farming sunspear points in the Wurms and the first day I did it I got like 5 golds in 3 runs. I've done it probably 15 more times and only gotten 2 more golds. Can't say if there is or isn't anti-farm code, but it's certainly not as $rewarding$ as it first was...

Edit: and I've only every gotten 1 dye, during this time...

cheeze123 · May 06, 2007, 10:02 PM // 22:02

There's definitely something wrong - perhaps a bug? I used to get about 2-3 golds when i zone into maps. Right now I only get 1-2 purples and hardly any whites. Why is that?

Envious · May 07, 2007, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Actually, I've been making more profit in Hard Mode than the old Normal Mode drop rates. But, it forces the player to complete the campaign in order to reap the rewards, but whats the fun in that, by the time you get your 15k armor, you'd already beat the campaign.

Hard Mode will keep me busy until GWEN, the challenge is there.

Levi Garett · May 08, 2007, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Envious

Actually, I've been making more profit in Hard Mode than the old Normal Mode drop rates.

Well I'm glad you're making money because my coffers are steadily declining. Since HM has been out I've had trouble selling pretty much any item here on Guru and I/G. I've lost a good bit with ecto prices going south. I've spent more on Lockpicks than I'll ever get in return for the items I receive from the locked chests. I spent 50k+ getting lucky rank 2 for a measily 4% return on my lockpicks. I had to afk most of that weekend because I lost 50,000 lucky points due to a glitch/rollback so then I spent another 100k+ buying Birthday Cakes which I could have easily farmed (most useful event item ever IMHO).

At this point I don't even know how to fix the economy. Loot scaling was "adjusted" to promote I/G selling of items/materials but the market has crashed. Everybody is hoarding their plat because coins are the only thing left that are truely rare right now since our farming efforts yield only a few white items per run. Farming Tyria and Cantha for rares is so hit and miss because you're not guaranteed to get that nice 15>50 damage mod like in NF, and NF items have been so over farmed that nobody wants anything that's not Q9 20/20 +30 (or as the nubs say, "perfect").

Tomes are good right now but they will eventually tank in price. I personally have been keeping mine because I find them quite useful so I'm not making any cash off of them. Although selling them now while the market is "hot" would probably be a smart move.

Well I sold a poisonous bow string for 600g last night I guess that counts for something.

Sorry for the rant, but the state of the economy really sucks right now and my inventory is overflowing with useful items that I can't seem to get rid of.

I also think we need an explanation of wtf is going on with this "non-existant anti-farm code" in HM from either Gaile or one of the Devs. It's quite annoying to kill 50+ mobs and get two whites, a blue, 101gp, and a collectable.

Firebaall · May 08, 2007, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Well, finally Anet and it's PR got unlazy and actually did it's job.

They've replied with the reasons why Hard Mode has been scaled back from it's inital loot drops. More importantly, they've apologized for ignoring a massive thread in their "support" chain (ie guru, since their actual support refuses to deal with these issues other than suggesting the problems be aired on public fan forums).

But finally here's what you've all been waiting for:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anet

And there it is. I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier. I know how important getting this vital information on this current situation is to all of you.

Levi Garett · May 08, 2007, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firebaall

Well, finally Anet and it's PR got unlazy and actually did it's job.

They've replied with the reasons why Hard Mode has been scaled back from it's inital loot drops. More importantly, they've apologized for ignoring a massive thread in their "support" chain (ie guru, since their actual support refuses to deal with these issues other than suggesting the problems be aired on public fan forums).

But finally here's what you've all been waiting for:

And there it is. I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier. I know how important getting this vital information on this current situation is to all of you.

Let's not go crazy here. I don't think your reply is really going to give ANet motivation to reply to this post with an explanation....

I completely understand why my white drops are scaled 1/8th, etc.

The whole point of this post is that we have been told there is no anti-farm code in HM when numerous people have provided data that says otherwise. If ANet can honestly say at this point there is no anti-farm code in HM then I guess we are just all unlucky?

If there is a mistake with the code it would be very nice to get it fixed. Or if the anti-farm code is left in HM then I guess we just have to deal with it...

VitisVinifera · May 08, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

at this point I'm so anti-farmed in HM it's crazy. I usually get ****NO*** drops from those cheesy Byzzr HM runs, Corsairs give a purple per run, undead killing usually yields nothing (whether it's vanquishing an area solo or doing the Gates of Kryta thing), normal vanquishing or HM questing usually gives no golds.

This needs to be acknowledged, explained, and addressed by Anet. And those damn lied-about Sunspear skills too while at it.