Curse

Sca2pula · Oct 28, 2009, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

Great job there.
It confirms what I kept saying since after several days post the update, but I was too lazy to make a long detailed post with enough research data to back my theories up.

Just one thing - I don't see any mention of the First Minute Drop Reduction (FMDR) antifarm code (significantly reduced drops during the first ~60 seconds after instance creation) in your post, which could have affected some of your results.

To clarify for everyone: Back in June'05 Anet made first attempts to fight extreme farming and botting. They added the well known antifarm code (repeated farming of the same instance multiple times reduced the number of drops), which was removed with introduction of LootScaling, but they added a much less known antifarming code that reduces drops in the first minute since instance creation. Since the most popular farming runs of old times took at least a little over a minute from start utill first kills, most farmers simply never noticed it.

Now the most important part: FMDR was never removed and exists upon today!

*It affects Solo farmers just aswell as full parties 8/8 Human Players.
*It affects Normal Mode just aswell as Hard Mode.
*It affects areas designed for 8 playes as much as 2-man areas of Pre-Searing.
*It's not always active - may be not active at all when you start playing but can activate as early as the 2nd time you enter the same instance.
*Once activated it's very likely that it will affect you even when you'll enter a different zone, even if you do it for the first time.
*I'm not sure how to get clear of this code, maybe it's about time, maybe the old methods of doing missions work, hard to test that as this code is so easy to be activated again. I know that simply logging off for a day doesn't clear the code.
*The drop reduction is very strong, at least 75% chance for a NoDrop added on top of usual lootscaling.
*I can't say it's exactly 60 seconds - it seems to vary +/-5seconds and after that time FMDR simply turns off.

It's VERY easy to test and prove the existance of this code. Just find a place where you can make very fast kills in fist seconds after entering an instance, either solo or in a full human party, and do a few runs where you kill right away or wait 60 seconds and then kill.

FMDR doesn't usually affect Raptor farming as running to cave, gathering all the aggro and killing takes more than 60 seconds. But it is possible to run in fast using a speedboost without grabbing all aggro and just nuking 20+ of them, get 0-2 drops, type /age and see 0 minutes. (NM only, before Shadow Form damage reduction nerf also HM)

Oh, and if you need people for some testing things count me in.

Sorry to res an old thread, but has this FMDR been proven? If it is true I imagine it would have quite a large impact on W/N raptor farming.

Spiritz · Oct 28, 2009, 02:57 PM // 14:57

err that theory is hit n miss - or to me that is.
Yes ive had instances of quick kills within 1 min an hardly any drops but again ive had instances of fast kills within 1 min an get quite a few drops.

I believe the theory of kills in a timeframe is more plausable - eg nuke a mob of 12 in 3 secs yields lower drops than mob of 2 in 6 - 10 secs.
Raptors wise ive switched from a/e perma sliver using eboh/sliver/rf/aos to droppin rf for buh - its slower but i do seem to get a few more drops on avg

Riot Narita · Oct 28, 2009, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sca2pula

Sorry to res an old thread,

It's well worth a rez, and in fact - I vote for this thread to be stickied

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sca2pula

but has this FMDR been proven? If it is true I imagine it would have quite a large impact on W/N raptor farming.

Would be easy to test. With my Ele, I think Raptors start dying just before 60secs has elapsed. I could easily wait a couple of seconds at the start, so that kills begin after the theoretical 60secs. It wouldn't make a huge difference to my runs/hour, so I'd be happy to experiment. I'll give it a go tonight.

I already track my drop rates during events, so I have data I can use for comparison. I should be able to see any significant change in my averages.

Whenever possible, I farm for exactly 1 hour and then count ToT bags, gold items etc I got in that time. Unfortunately, event items and gold drops may be exempt from FMDR (if it exists at all)... but I pick up all drops, and I know how long it takes on average to fill my inventory (how long before I have to visit the merch). I'll notice if my inventory is filling up significantly faster.

If it exists, then yes FMDR might be a blow to ultra-fast W/N's. But on the other hand... it's possible that the extra runs/hour they can do, more than compensates.

Riot Narita · Oct 28, 2009, 05:53 PM // 17:53

I tried. I had to wait about 20secs at the start of each run, to be sure of 1st kill occurring after 60 secs. I gave up after 30 minutes. Regular drops seemed much less than I'd normally expect in 30 mins. ToT bags were in the lower range of what I normally get, but still within the normal range. The 20 second delay resulted in several failed runs, due to meeting the Raptor patrol before I got to the cave.

Basically, it looked like if there is an FMDR effect, it's either not at 1 minute... or its small enough that it's not particularly noticable. And in the case of my Raptor farm, it was cancelled by wasting 20 secs at the start of each run. Those 20secs (and the increased failure rate due to meeting the Raptor patrol) mean at least 10 less runs/hour for me ie. ToT's/hour reduced by about 40 or more.

Fay Vert · Oct 28, 2009, 06:19 PM // 18:19

First minute is more like 2 minutes, can we please not invent yet another (false) acronym to confuse what is largely a thread full of clarity?

Its a waste of time testing on raptors as when you kill 20-30 in a few seconds all bets are off.

Its not hard to prove this, all you need to do is go out of any outpost and kill the first group, any number of times you care. You will get next to nothing. Then go out from the same place, wait for 2 minutes and then kill them, most will drop. When you test, don't activate the kill everything at once code, like you do with raptors.

Chico · Oct 28, 2009, 07:55 PM // 19:55

(As W/N) I didn't farm raptors once since the grog drops. I got tired of not getting a good amount of golds or grogs. Farmed until I had a little over 100 grog and quit it. Fast forward, came to visit the raptors for some bags and now I got many gold drops (like I had not seen before) and also many 8 and over bags drop at the same time quite frequently. That period of lots of golds and lots of bags, sadly, only lasted about 1 or 1.5 hrs. After that I stopped getting as many golds as when I started. Getting only like 1 or 2 golds to drop every 7 or 8 runs. Bags still drop like crazy.
I think the old "repeated entry" code still affects your drops in some way but it doesn't affect event drops.

I don't know about the 2 minutes wait at the start. I have not tried that to see if it has an effect when using the W/N bomb. I know my run takes 1 minute or less. I can idle 1 minute 30s and then see if there's any noticeable change.

Fay Vert · Oct 28, 2009, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chico

(As W/N)I don't know about the 2 minutes wait at the start. I have not tried that to see if it has an effect when using the W/N bomb. I know my run takes 1 minute or less. I can idle 1 minute 30s and then see if there's any noticeable change.

No it won't, if you bomb them all it doesn't matter how long you wait, the loot nerf will kick in maximum force.

Risus · Dec 19, 2009, 03:53 AM // 03:53

My research (conducted on vaettirs, which I will not divulge because its allowed me to farm stacks and stacks of holiday items without zoning etc) has shown that certain other factors affect drop rates. I kill all of them at once with degen. I get 1-5 golds and (on holidays) 5-10 white items per run. I kill 35-36 per run. No pauses in between, continuous farming. I'll post screens later maybe as proof.

And I'm not lying, I've already farmed a stack of fruitcake and eggnog and almost a stack of snowman summoners. And I farmed for about 2 hours.

Edit: White item count is more accurate as 7-15, I didn't count the crap normal weapons that I don't pick up the first time.

Fay Vert · Dec 19, 2009, 10:43 PM // 22:43

fruitcake and eggnog are exempt from the nerf so you add nothing.

StarkyFan · Jul 18, 2010, 10:44 AM // 10:44

I have been farming Spectral Vaettirs on my Ele, and I believe I get much better drops if I start of by killing 4 Vaettirs and then moving on the big group, I haven't put too much research into it but by the looks of it if you kill them all at the same time with a time wait (takes about 30-90 seconds to gather and kill) between the first group and the mob you can get better drops.

Although this works for me, it only works for a while as the drops start diminishing quite quickly due to over farm takes me about 6 runs and then the drops fade away, Golds drop much less frequently and I'm left with just whites after a while.

I also got three lockpicks in two runs but this my have just been luck, although i had done about 30-40 runs without killing the first group and not a single lockpick. (No research into the lockpick drops, just an interesting fact)