Curse

ArKaiN · May 15, 2007, 03:52 PM // 15:52

My observations:
-There most certainly IS some kind of farming code in effect. My first run on any given place will wield decent loot, then progressively become worse and worse.

-This is a weird idea, but I think that the dropping of golds is actually time based. Hear me out. I've been noticing a really weird pattern lately: I get no golds for a while, then a mob drops like 4 or 5 golds at the same time. This got me thinking, and the only reason I could come up with is that the reason they all dropped golds is because they were all killed at the same time. Far fetched, I know, but I've been asking around, and this behavior seems in fact quite common. Any other ideas on why this happens?
Btw, with time based I mean that as soon as you get onto an explorable/mission, a timer starts, and if you kill something on second X, a gold will drop.
EDIT: Come to think of it, if this is true, then the AoE slaughter theory makes perfect sense: If you're killing most or all the foes at the same time, there's a smaller chance you'll hit that precious Gold-second then if you're killing foes one a second.

Koning · May 15, 2007, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Nah I don't think thats true (however getting 15 ecto's at the same time would be cool

) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).

I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance)

ArKaiN · May 15, 2007, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koning

Nah I don't think thats true (however getting 15 ecto's at the same time would be cool

) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).

I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance)

I don't think the system for gold drops and material drops is the same.
And about the multiple golds on a single mob, I'm not just saying random crap: I did indeed ask a lot of people, and they confirmed it. This thread has some evidence also: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0149873&page=7

I don't think there's a single one-gold drop in the thread, they're all in multiples.

SotiCoto · May 15, 2007, 04:27 PM // 16:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

SotiCoto, the exact consequences of point four are not completely clear to me.

IOf u flag hench far away and they grey out, would that result in mor drops for me? I interpret it like that, but maybe I'm just reading it wrongly.

Item drops are only calculated for party-members within compass range. Flag the henchies away and you'll get the same items you would if you were soloing. The cash drops are still shared though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bug John

His theory is based exactly on the same as yours, your personal feelings.

Keep telling yourself that.

But the default conclusion one should always draw from any situation, particularly because it is the default state of the Universe...... is no pattern... i.e. that supposed "cause" and "effect" are unrelated...

And despite what some people may experience, good drops still come to some in the midst of farming frenzy, and may be denied more (and this isn't so rare) when there are less people around. There certainly isn't enough bias one way to suggest an actual cause and effect...

So for the record.... you fail. Mine is not based on personal feelings.

Keithark · May 15, 2007, 04:37 PM // 16:37

To the OP if your chances of getting drop is increased on the time basis, then the spiders outside Rhilon are a good place toall the look at that...I kill "normal" spiders at same time sith ss and some drop some dont, but since it takes a good bit of time after they have died to kill fastfoot he should then drop something every time right? Not so, there are lots and lots of times he drops nothing even though he dies usually over 30 secinds after the other stuff has died. Plus looking at the spreadsheet by Ringsgold looks like the # of rares are about equal either way so you are better off killing fast because you could do 2 complete runs in the time it takes to kill them off one by one so if looking at time/money you are better killing fast and re-zoning and do again I would think.

Readsforpleasure · May 15, 2007, 05:08 PM // 17:08

I've had a few instances where the spiders (excluding boss) in Rilohn Refuge all died at the same time and dropped 4 golds and a couple of whites.

ArKaiN · May 15, 2007, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

....looking at the spreadsheet by Ringsgold looks like the # of rares are about equal either way so you are better off killing fast because you could do 2 complete runs in the time it takes to kill them off one by one so if looking at time/money you are better killing fast and re-zoning and do again I would think.

IF You're killing mobs. If you're killing just a few foes, and a boss, then it is relevant data.

SotiCoto · May 15, 2007, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Ok.... so the timing thing might possibly be off....
... But one needs often to be careful when dealing with things with a high degree of random fluctuation like this.

... However, Keithark... there has never been any "guarantee" of getting a gold drop from anything... The odds might be higher, but still not enough to actually trigger it more often for you within your test parameters...

I guess it just requires more testing.

I have given some consideration to the counter-opinions to the AoE kill-timing idea.

zorbi · May 15, 2007, 05:51 PM // 17:51

So farming is now going on "slow killing" builds. Right?

Batou of Nine · May 15, 2007, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Point #1, is fact. Period. SotiCoto is not stating it by opinion. I have been saying this, trying to dispel this myth for over a year now. The reason i know its fact is it was stated/dispelled by Gaile Gray herself a long time ago. So long ago, that i have not been able to find the thread again. I will continue to search for it, if it still exists. But that is why i know its fact, at this point, it is merely my word that this is true...

I also believe the rest of his points are well founded as i they are comparable/similar to my own observations. Nicely done and concis thread. Well said SotiCoto...

Now please people, stop crying about 'overfarmed' areas. It is tiring.
cheers.

ArKaiN · May 15, 2007, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by zorbi

So farming is now going on "slow killing" builds. Right?

No, not really. Killing enemies one at a time doesn't have to be slow. In fact SV farming is pretty quick.

english storm · May 15, 2007, 07:19 PM // 19:19

I think when a lot of people farm the same area the drop rate of items does go down after time. But I don't think it's anything to do with the amount of people farming that location that is directly responsible for the lower amount of drops, Anet see the amount of people farming one location so they adjust the drop rate of the monsters. Hence lower drop rate caused by over farming.

Captain Arne Is PRO · May 15, 2007, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koning

I will post here the same as in that other thread than:

So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this.

I can also vouch this.

On my one Warrior whilst solo Smite running, I kill each monster individually and end up with an average of 3 Ecto per run. [grasps + smites only]

On my other Warrior, I kill ALL Smites at the exact same time [roughly] and I average 1.5ish per run.

These tests are averages of 100 runs per toon.

Ratz · May 15, 2007, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Well, I took this screen shot a few days ago. It's the spider farm near Rilohn Refuge. I cropped it too much but trust me I was in HM and this was after I had killed them a few times already. Not sure what this means, other than it is possible to get multiple golds in one run after a couple of tries; but anyone keeping data on this may find it useful to know. I was using an SS/Reckless Haste build and the only reason that one spider died after Zelnehlun was because it was a little further back and I didn't notice it wasn't getting affected by my spells.

I've also tried using an SV/Signet of Sorrow build killing them all one by one. I haven't noticed any significant increase in drops doing it this way. Could be that the kills are too close to each other time wise because each spider still dies within seconds of each other. I've been meaning to try to space out the kills a few more seconds apart but I've been lazy to give it a try.

Even after this I do believe killing all enemies in one swift AoE can have an effect in drops. As someone else said, when I do the E/Me UW solo run in NM and kill 2 or 3 groups of smites I'll get a drop of 100g; but if I kill one group at a time I'll get more regular drops. Ecto, however, still drops for me in those large groups; which makes sense since it is in the list of excluded loot scaling drops. So, I still group all the smites I can as I'm there for the ecto anyway and I'm still averaging better than 1 ecto a run. Only thing is I'll maybe get 300 - 400g worth of item drops as opposed to about 900g I'd get taking one group at a time.

strcpy · May 15, 2007, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bug John

His theory is based exactly on the same as yours, your personal feelings.

No, it is based on what Anet has repeatedly told us.

Quote:

Haven't you noticed too how good drops are when a new campaign has just been released ? And how fast this quality disappears as more people reach the new zones ?

Not really. They were consistent to me. Up until the anti-farming code was removed I noticed that the first few times I zoned in an area I got better drops - but that was true on each and every character and I just needed to rotate around where I was at and do some missions to get back to the good drops. At the least my gp/hour only has changed on the major AI changes or farming changes listed in the update notes since I purchased prophecies (about 3 months after release).

Quote:

I know gaile said this isn't true, but do you really think anet would explain how the anti farm codes work ? That would make these codes useless.

First off, if they didn't want it known they just wouldn't talk about it. Secondly you already believe nothing other than how you feel - be happy and go with it. I generally try and base what I believe on more than simply a feeling, especially when there is decent data.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KartMan

that's because of "prediction", nowadays most CPU architecture has this feature I think, if you call a function with the same parameters, it is highly likely that it will return the same "value" or "array" in our case.

Umm, I do not think you know what "prediction" in modern CPU's are.

Branch prediction in modern CPU's make sure the pre-fetch queue has the correct data in it. The pre-fetch queue will generally hold a number of instructions and (IIRC, it's been a few years) the needed data in high speed on-processor memory, as long as the processor is pulling from there then it generally doesn't have to wait for a much slower read to another memory subsystem (and hopefully to RAM as little as possible), if it predicts the branch incorrectly then the processor has to wait and all the data in the queue dumped and rebuilt. Simple branches are pretty easy - the pre-fetch queue just loads up both branches and discards what isn't used - however with loops and such it isn't so easy. We used to do what is called "loop unrolling": instead of making the loop as small as possible you made it is large - if you knew the loop would repeat in multiples of five - make it five repeated lines. It could *really* speed things up. Nowadays the predictors do a MUCH better job and it isn't really needed, and in some cases can slow things way down because the processor is better able to handle it with pipelines and other modern structures. Note that this is something you only worry about in assembly, not a high level language - your compiler unrolled loops and such.

In no case is the computer somehow fooled because you called a function with the same parameters, if that were true then all sorts of things would fail miserably. It sure isn't uncommon to have a while loop call a single function until it's return value changed - if what you wrote was true that would *never* work. You are correct in that this is where branch prediction has come along ways, but it will not force the same outcome unless all the variable have the same content to begin with. That is caused by the programmer, not the processor, branch prediction, or a cache.

-Oviron- · May 15, 2007, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koning

I will post here the same as in that other thread than:

So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this.

I have to say that I agree with this 100%.

Doing the Assassin farm outside Zos Shivros, killing all the Sin's in 2 or 3 groups(mass aggro) would net me 1-2 golds, and 4-5 other drops(whites, blues...etc). But when I would kill one group at a time, and only kill one Sin at a time, my inventory would be full in 1-2 runs. Almost each Sin would drop something for me.

Looks like I'll be farming the slow way, seems more profitable. Maybe now my tank will see some more HM farming love.

For Great Justice! · May 15, 2007, 09:07 PM // 21:07

Heres one suggestion

Maybe its just timer'd.
So as to prevent you getting gold drops for successive kills 1 second after another, as that could happen with the randomly generated codes.
The time may even be slightly randomized, so after 1 drop, you cant get another gold for...1 minute? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? 1 hour?
But to be able to get the drop, you'd have to kill the beast on the very second which it would allow you to, or you cant get one for another 5 mins, 30 seconds, etc.
Do you guys see?
This is really much simpler than all the anti farm randomly generated zonal effect stuff that everyone else is talking about.
What do you think?

SotiCoto · May 15, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratz

Well, I took this screen shot a few days ago. It's the spider farm near Rilohn Refuge.... etc

Interesting.
That is definitely a strong gold-spike you have there, though I notice the comparitive lack of scaled loot. You pretty much have almost all non-scaled.

On the other hand.... there is the situation that I am going through right now with Sstou Swiftscale in Maishang Hills.
Using my present build I am in fact only able to kill one Naga Archer every 30 seconds or so at most (more like a minute).... and I'm getting an absolutely alarming number of chalk items.... far beyond what I would expect with the loot-scaling active as it is now. I have had one grape and one blue scroll from Sstou himself... and I've done the run 4 times now. Quite a few Naga dead...

Now.... I could be wrong here.... but this suggests at the very least that there is some form of timer mechanism in place on scaled loot.... if not so necessarily on gold items.
Of course we need to take into account the findings of others... and since I'm assuming they pay more attention to rares than to scaled loot, they are probably getting a timer on that too.

I'm still checking.... and for that matter I wouldn't mind farming Sstou until I get an Elite Ranger Tome or two.... or at the very least his Green.

P A L P H R A M O N D · May 15, 2007, 11:31 PM // 23:31

As far as #3 goes, I have experienced this farming Jade Brotherhood mages and knights in Majjun Bazaar. 55 Necro with SS and Insidious Parasite, its super easy, and get a ton of gold armors. Anyways, I aggro in small mobs, and they usually don't die all at once. Odd thing is, been doing it since HM came out, and 90% of the time they all drop something, I haven't felt any effects of loot scaling. Been getting everything from 100 gold coins to Jadeite to Armor . . . something seems to always drop. The way I run it I kill 15-20 foes in a few minutes, and all but maybe 4-5 drop something.

Gaia_Hunter · May 15, 2007, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Ive done monotaurs runs with ss and with warrior killing one by one.

I didnt noticed more loot by killing one by one or mass killing.

It just seems random.
Sometimes i get very few drops, other i get drops from every monotaur.