Curse

treserious · Feb 09, 2006, 05:46 AM // 05:46

ok, first off, lets assume that this isnt pure conjecture.
all of the numbers i will be using are based of real numbers that are GW related, but are used just in example to try my theory.
much of this is based on fact. the facts behind how the GW economic system works.
these facts are derived from reading various fansite fridays and interviews.

goal,
to prove that the player base, and not arenanet is nerfing drops.

drops i find have been getting of lesser quality, and good drops have become rarer and rarer.
by good drops i mean IDS, greens, gold chaos axes, storm bows, etc, 15^50 stuff with great stats...

fact.

the way the economy system works is based on supply and demand. in this kind of system, the supply is not limitless.
the manner in which rune, dye, materials traders work proves that this is the case.

question

are weapon, offhand, and shield drops affected by this.

assumed numbers.

ok, in november/december arenanet announces 1 million copies of gw sold.

lets say items are limited to 8 per character( 4 equipped item slots, 2 each slot), 32 items per account.

thats 32 million items.
not top end items, but in general equip-able items.

now, like myself, there are collectors in the game.
those who collect top end items, and hoard them.
this type of person we will assume is a minority, so for my theory, we will say 2% of the population, or 20,000 players.

for our argument, lets say they are hoarding 5-20 items, thats 12.5 average per each of those 20k players, or 250,000 items being hoarded overall.

fact on the economic model of GW

like runes or dye, the more items sitting in players inventory, the less available as drops, or from the traders.

to put it back into the pool of available items, from vendor, or as a drop, they have to get used (dye, rune, salvaged, customised), or sold back to the game(merchants, traders).

take black dye, certain runes, monk superiors for instance as example.

the fun part?

if 20,000 players are hoarding 250,000 top end items, that are not being put back into the pool of available items (32 million for arguments sake)by being resold to the game, or used (dye, rune, salvaged, or customised), is this nerfing the drops for everyone?

i believe so.

the way it works is, if an item gets sold to the merchant, or used, an equivalent item becomes available in Tyria.
depending on the typ of item, either its available at a merchant, drop, or both.
if it is not being used, this item is out of economic play,
not being recycled into the loot system and thus it is in limbo outside of the system untill it is used.

so, youre farming griffons, like a couple of thousand other players, but youre getting only crappy gold items.....
thats because they arent worth anything, and either get salvaged, or sold to the merchant, putting them back in the pool.

what do you think?

Sir Skullcrasher · Feb 09, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

This theory is nice and plausible since items are stored within A-Net's server. Which mean that they probably can track down how many time you farm for that serpant axe, chaos axe, crystalline sword and other rares. As people get more of those items, the less likely it will be dropped in that certain areas. Also as players decide to keep those items and resell it, it (the codes for those weapons) would be re-upload back into the servers thus creating less of the chance for it to drop.

Let be honest, would A-Net really put in say 1 million type of each weapons into their servers.. No!! These drops probably is coded into their server and it all random and can be affect by how many time its been farmed. The servers don't have room to store that many copies of rare weapons. I think the number of chance to get them decrease (maybe because of how they setup the drop system) as peoples farm away for it. Look at IDS for example, it harder to get it during the wintersday event (but some get more per weeks).
I still believe that the drop is all based on numbers and ratios. As more farmer take over certain items, the less like it will show up ingame.

Deathqueen · Feb 09, 2006, 07:09 AM // 07:09

I don't think there's a cap on anything cause I've already seen a million +5 energy focus items.

But, I do think things are on a % scale the best ones being a a lower percentage. Then again I went thru the new tombs 4 times and 4 times only and got at least one green each time and a different one to boot. One time I got 2 greens. So, I dunno if it's luck, SKILL (lol remember they said this game was about SKILL) or what, but, for 8 months I got jackchit otherwise.

Maybe we are all on a que and when our day comes up we get good loot if we are in the right place at the right time.

SilentAssassin · Feb 09, 2006, 11:48 AM // 11:48

well I see your point,

but never in those 1000 hours I played the game I have found a +15>50, never I don't say I got bad drops, found 2 sup abs, 4 sup vigors,... but still I find it quite weird that a weapon like that has never dropped for me.

But is it really true that when ppl keep weapons that they won't get back into the pool you described

I just think we all got bad luck because atm everybody is farming because they have anything better to do, just stand in augury for a sec, unbelievable how many 55 monks run past you to get to griffins...
Oh well everybody is just getting rdy for ch2.

Numa Pompilius · Feb 09, 2006, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by treserious

what do you think?

I think that it makes sense. Hardly anyone customizes the really expensive stuff, because they want to keep the option of selling it. Hardly anyone ever salvages a very expensive item, or sell it to a merchant, except by accident.

This means that rarities become progressively more common.

ANet could conceivably have the game check how many, say, Icy Dragonswords, there at present are in the game, because they have access to all our storages, and automatically adjust drop rate accordingly.

On the other hand they may simply be manually lowering drop rate in an attempt to counter the observed rampant mudflation in the game (that fewer and fewer items are expensive/rare).

I don't know.