Curse

L33TNeMiSiS · Nov 13, 2007, 12:36 PM // 12:36

I have no intension of turning this into a A-net bashing session. As a sys admin my self I really appreciate all the time, services, events and development that they put into the game, turning it into one of the greatest games that so many ppl enjoy playing right around the world.

With the recent release of Gwen I found that the loot scaling system Gw uses is struggling to keep up with the amount of ppl taking up gw again. I've spent about 23 hours of game time in gw this weekend(doing night fall missions, vabbi and realm of tourment mainly). And so far I've only picked up about 3 purple's no golds except for the burried treasure pickups(I dont believe they really count as drops). Does anybody know if Anet is doing anything to address this problem?

Coridan · Nov 13, 2007, 12:55 PM // 12:55

no as far as i know loot scaling as it is will not be changed. Its actually sad that i can hop on a secondary toon and go to the same place that i was playing with my main character and get way better drops.

GW's HoM has forced us to concentrate on playing one character as a primary...but yet loot scaling has forced us into playing mulitple characters for decent drops/money. I have a whole inventory feeled with nice req 10-11 warrior weapons and shields...and numberous req 9-10 staves/wands/staffs/off hands and I can't ever sale them for 1k each. 500g less thant he price of the key that it cost me to get the damned things. Really disheartining in my opinion...but it is the way it is...and i like gw so will continue to play etc....

Karia Mirniman · Nov 13, 2007, 12:59 PM // 12:59

You have my sympathy. It's certainly not very consistant. As a Ranger, barraging, I feel it's like someone has tipped up GW and all the nice things have rolled of the edge.

But as a Warrior I can nearly always fill my bags.

I'm trying to kill things slowly (lol) and see if that helps.

Also; I play wherever it pleases me in normal mode and I've seen golds and jewels in the oddest of places. Maybe it's that the obvious high level places have been over farmed.

So maybe it's not a problem as such , more a GW weird economy thing.

Keithark · Nov 13, 2007, 01:53 PM // 13:53

It is a problem, a-net just will not admit it or do anything about it. People say "open NF free chests" well for one not everyone has NF, secondly the chests went from giving golds and 1-4 plat to grapes and 400-600 gp so those are not worth it anymore. Then they say "well with hm you get more golds and can sell them to make money" that too is BS, for one not everyone in the game is good enough to play HM (not me, I am fine with it but I been with some ppl that simply cannot do it) and secondly who are you going to sell it to?? Nobody is buying anything other than the 1/133700000000 drops like elemental swords and things that are more rare than that. Problem is if you don't have all 4 chapters, several level 20 toons to farm different areas, most skills unlocked, all areas unlocked and tons of time on your hands you cannot make money in this game anymore. And even if you do have all of the above it is still painfully slow going.

onilosmada · Nov 13, 2007, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

Problem is if you don't have all 4 chapters, several level 20 toons to farm different areas, most skills unlocked, all areas unlocked and tons of time on your hands you cannot make money in this game anymore. And even if you do have all of the above it is still painfully slow going.

I can make alot of money in a short period of time in the GW:EN areas. Just gotta know where to farm.

Washi · Nov 13, 2007, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coridan

yet loot scaling has forced us into playing mulitple characters for decent drops/money.

This statement has no sense, what has loot scaling to do with my character? Loot scaling means that I'm getting less drops solo and when in party drop rates increase so everyone can get something. That's why it's called SCALING

Ofcourse soloing is still profitable but not as much as before when you were getting 8 times as much as in full party.

DDL · Nov 13, 2007, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Out of curiosity, though: what do you really need the money FOR?

GW has always struck me as rather well designed in that anything more than say...50k is strictly speaking completely unnecessary: everything more expensive than that is basically for prestige alone: elite/obsidian armours are no different (game mechanics-wise) to their cheaper 1k equivalents, for example.

(admittedly I'm not doing high-level elite missions, so I might be missing something..in which case: enlighten me!

)

Coridan · Nov 13, 2007, 02:28 PM // 14:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Washi

This statement has no sense, what has loot scaling to do with my character? Loot scaling means that I'm getting less drops solo and when in party drop rates increase so everyone can get something. That's why it's called SCALING

Ofcourse soloing is still profitable but not as much as before when you were getting 8 times as much as in full party.

What i meant by that statement is that there is loot scaling affects you more or maybe its an anti farm thingy...not sure but it surely affects you more when you play on a single character for an extended perioed of time...and you get no decent drops...i am talking no blues/purples let alone golds...but when you play a character that is rarely played they tend to get amazing drops. Do some searching...there are numerous threads about it. Alot of people will only do FoW or UW or other elite areas with secondary toons because they get better drops than they get with thier primary toon.

As to not getting as much loot when killing in mass numbers vs killing slowly...over time you get about the same...killing slowly you get more drops in that instance but takes you 5 times as long to do it....do 5 instances of fast aoe killing and you get about the same amount of items as you did in that one slow instance.

Quaker · Nov 13, 2007, 02:33 PM // 14:33

I was under the impression that "loot scaling" had to do with the amount of loot you got as drops not changing with the party size. You guys seem to suggest that loot scaling changes with different characters. I haven't found that to be the case. I don't get any better or worse drops with my 10millionXP Ranger than I do with my <1milXP Dervish. If you do notice a difference, it's probably just random chance, or anti-farming code.

On the other hand, I have noticed that the drops and stuff you get from chests - particularly in Normal Mode - is crap compared to what it was. But isn't that just part of a natural progression? Even back in the early days of Prophecies, you got better loot in the later stages of the game (Southern Shiverpeaks, for example) than you did in the early parts. Now Hard Mode has added a new level and the loot needed to be scaled back in the lower areas (and Normal Mode) to compensate.

There are already so many people getting so much stuff that the market is saturated with common req9 weapons and stuff. If you made it even easier to get, it would be worth even less.

Quaker · Nov 13, 2007, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by DDL

... anything more than say...50k is strictly speaking completely unnecessary: everything more expensive than that is basically for prestige alone: ...

I agree. There are too many people who play GW for 2 hours every second weekend who think they should be able to buy everything and anything and whine about how they "can't make any money". But, as has been pointed out many, many times - you don't need any of the fancy stuff to play the game. An elemental sword is no "better" than a common crafter sword when it comes to damage and mods - it only looks different.
And, those who have played the game over a long time and/or for a lot of time, should be able to have fancy stuff to show-off.

Crom The Pale · Nov 13, 2007, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Time has always been a large part of making money in GW, but most don't realise how much time is involved.

Some people will claim to make 5-10K every hour, and they probably do, but they don't factor in how long it took them to lvl their char, unlock all skills needed and reach the area they are farming/runing/ect.....

Making lots of money in GW is easy, but it does take time.

Simple completing most missions on normal mode will net you 1-2K at an average mission time of 30-60min. More on hard mode.

You can lear any map in GW in about an hour with a full party and make between 1-10K depending on drops.

There are several places people pay for runs at 1-4K each.

The real trick is to not spend any money at all once you start saving up for something. It's harder to do than most think because many people are trying to save before they have fully equiped a char, then they find they need a diff rune or weapon mod to improve the performance of thier build and there goes 1-30K just like that.

Once you have a lvl 20 char that is fully equiped and has completed at least one campain it is very easy to make lots of money in a REASONABLE amount of time.

Fury Incarnate · Nov 13, 2007, 03:34 PM // 15:34

One thing I've noticed (and this is just observation, I haven't seriously tested it) is that regardless of your character, the drops are MUCH better if you play at low-traffic hours. I can give two good examples:

I've been working on my LB/SS titles for months, running out of Ruins when I'm bored and need something productive to do. In general, if I run at 6pm EST, I see maybe one gold drop for one person in the party every 2 runs (HM). If I run at 2am EST, I see 2-4 gold drops per run.

Also, I'm a professional chest runner out of GWG. I've run well over a thousand keys, of which more than half were lockpicks. In all cases, and in particular with lockpicks, if at run at some absurd hour the drops are much, much better. The difference is absolutely incredible - running at 6pm vs 2am with 10 picks the difference is likely to be 3 golds vs 10-12 golds.

This seems to hold no matter how many times I play through a specific area or how long I've been on that session, day, week, or whole character lifetime. I can actually give lots more examples (DoA trapping, UW trapping, the list goes on.) My theory is that the servers have a set drop rate for each rarity, and the less people are playing, the bigger your slice of that drop rate. Whatever the case is, party loot scaling, as people have mentioned above, and "wtf loot scaling", as the OP was referring to, are two different and very real forces in the GW universe.

And to the OP - I've been chest running for over a year, which is when I first noticed these weird drop rates. ANet has done nothing about it in that time, so my guess is no, they're not addressing this.

malko050987 · Nov 13, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Something I noticed mentioned in another discussion around here is that killing with AoE (VwK Rt) gets you less drops than killing one enemy at a time (using a touch ranger, by example)

I didn't notice any difference myself, but I don't farm much. Simply playing through the game paid for all my needs. (well, except that Tormented flatbow I'm lusting for)

Lady S Shiva · Nov 13, 2007, 10:40 PM // 22:40

no good drops, like that's something new, i farmed over 1000 hours, yet nothing good dropped. if u want gold items come faster, go chest run, that's the only fastest way.

Friday · Nov 14, 2007, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by malko050987

Something I noticed mentioned in another discussion around here is that killing with AoE (VwK Rt) gets you less drops than killing one enemy at a time (using a touch ranger, by example)

This phenomenon does exist - I have had heated "debates" with guildies about it and taken them out to "prove" it to them...

Scenario:
1 mob of 6 foes
kill all six at the same time with AoE spell
maybe 3 foes drop an item/gp

1 mob of 6 foes
kill them one by one
six foes drop an item
(occasionally only 5)

This I have "proved" time and time again on numerous runs because they said it may just be "luck of the draw", one by one, to my guildies who argued that it was not so.

As to the OP - I still make enough money by "farming" to get the stuff I want, to provide npc's for our Guild Hall, get the armour I can put in HoM, give to Guildies in need, and lots left over for other things. BUT - and this is where all the QQ threads come from - you can't make "a lot" of money just by playing the game in NM - you have to be able to access HM and solo farm there to make "a lot" of money.

What ever reason someone wants money for... thats their business, but if you want to do anything more than just outfit your one char with basic armour and skills, then you will have to go out and actually "farm" the money. I am working on mapping, and the money I make by "just playing" the game through an area is laughably low - I really pity the guys starting now, who actually get forced to "farm" to get enough money to buy skills enough to be able to experiment with their skill bars.

Also, I just farm merch fodder, I don't sell to other players (now that's a game play style I have no interest in, so I don't do it). I ID the golds for the title, I salvage good runes for the rune trader, and merch the rest regardless of what it is. I do not buy keys - chests are a gold sink, so why use them to try making money?

I have the time and the inclination to mess around farming if I want money - others don't. Others have the time and inclination for trading of any description, I don't. Farming in the hope of that 1 crazy rare item? lmao

tmakinen · Nov 14, 2007, 11:28 AM // 11:28

My current working hypothesis for the loot scaling algorithm consists of the following:

* when you enter a map, your party is given a 'waste' factor 0 < W < 1 depending on the maximal party size and the actual number of party members
* each drop that is not exempt from loot scaling has a probability W of going to waste
* after every Nth kill (where N appears to be close to 3) the game compares the monetary value of actually happened drops over some reference time interval, and adjusts W: if you are getting stuff at a rate greater than about 10k/hour/player, W is increased (more drops will go to waste), otherwise it's decreased (less drops go to waste)

If you solo the same low level area in NM and HM you'll notice that the initial amount of no-drops is about the same but as you progress the drop rate of NM goes up pretty fast until after maybe 20 kills you will have no loot scaling whatsoever and every monster drops loot because the monetary value is so low compared to the income cap. In contrast HM where the value of loot is much higher will suffer from loot scaling throughout the run. Also, if you happen to get a 'lucky' string of drops in HM your subsequent chances drop through the floor until you've 'earned' the excess back.

I benchmarked this with certain runs whose yield I've known since 2005 and for sufficiently long runs loot scaling doesn't exist in low end NM which is great news for everybody who's farming stuff for festivals

Washi · Nov 19, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coridan

What i meant by that statement is that there is loot scaling affects you more or maybe its an anti farm thingy...not sure but it surely affects you more when you play on a single character for an extended perioed of time...and you get no decent drops...i am talking no blues/purples let alone golds...but when you play a character that is rarely played they tend to get amazing drops. Do some searching...there are numerous threads about it. Alot of people will only do FoW or UW or other elite areas with secondary toons because they get better drops than they get with thier primary toon.

Biggest BS I have ever heard.

urban legends FTW lol

Mac Sidewinder · Nov 19, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06

I totally agree Washi - I have one toon that I play almost exclusively and I still get good drops on her. If I change to another of my lesser played toons I don't notice the drop increase or get better.

Diddy bow · Nov 19, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

I do seem to notice a few more golds when i play a character i never play with, even in a large party. But if you belive its true right?

.

But the lootscaling is basilcy the Sword pommel of new player slaying. A new player can still get his 1.5K armor O.K but i cant imagine how I could have started in GW as it is now.

KANE OG · Nov 20, 2007, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by L33TNeMiSiS

I have no intension of turning this into a A-net bashing session.

.....yet the title is loot scaling... odd.

KANE

Nov 13, 2007, 12:36 PM // 12:36	#1
L33TNeMiSiS Academy Page Join Date: Sep 2007 Guild: Graveyard of Undying Heroes Profession: E/	Loot Scaling I have no intension of turning this into a A-net bashing session. As a sys admin my self I really appreciate all the time, services, events and development that they put into the game, turning it into one of the greatest games that so many ppl enjoy playing right around the world. With the recent release of Gwen I found that the loot scaling system Gw uses is struggling to keep up with the amount of ppl taking up gw again. I've spent about 23 hours of game time in gw this weekend(doing night fall missions, vabbi and realm of tourment mainly). And so far I've only picked up about 3 purple's no golds except for the burried treasure pickups(I dont believe they really count as drops). Does anybody know if Anet is doing anything to address this problem?

Nov 13, 2007, 12:55 PM // 12:55	#2
Coridan Forge Runner Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: US Guild: Old Married Gamers {OMG} Profession: W/	no as far as i know loot scaling as it is will not be changed. Its actually sad that i can hop on a secondary toon and go to the same place that i was playing with my main character and get way better drops. GW's HoM has forced us to concentrate on playing one character as a primary...but yet loot scaling has forced us into playing mulitple characters for decent drops/money. I have a whole inventory feeled with nice req 10-11 warrior weapons and shields...and numberous req 9-10 staves/wands/staffs/off hands and I can't ever sale them for 1k each. 500g less thant he price of the key that it cost me to get the damned things. Really disheartining in my opinion...but it is the way it is...and i like gw so will continue to play etc....

Nov 13, 2007, 12:59 PM // 12:59	#3
Karia Mirniman Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Feb 2007	You have my sympathy. It's certainly not very consistant. As a Ranger, barraging, I feel it's like someone has tipped up GW and all the nice things have rolled of the edge. But as a Warrior I can nearly always fill my bags. I'm trying to kill things slowly (lol) and see if that helps. Also; I play wherever it pleases me in normal mode and I've seen golds and jewels in the oddest of places. Maybe it's that the obvious high level places have been over farmed. So maybe it's not a problem as such , more a GW weird economy thing.

Nov 13, 2007, 01:53 PM // 13:53	#4
Keithark Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Nov 2006 Guild: Be Aggressive B E Aggressive [AGRO] Profession: E/Me	It is a problem, a-net just will not admit it or do anything about it. People say "open NF free chests" well for one not everyone has NF, secondly the chests went from giving golds and 1-4 plat to grapes and 400-600 gp so those are not worth it anymore. Then they say "well with hm you get more golds and can sell them to make money" that too is BS, for one not everyone in the game is good enough to play HM (not me, I am fine with it but I been with some ppl that simply cannot do it) and secondly who are you going to sell it to?? Nobody is buying anything other than the 1/133700000000 drops like elemental swords and things that are more rare than that. Problem is if you don't have all 4 chapters, several level 20 toons to farm different areas, most skills unlocked, all areas unlocked and tons of time on your hands you cannot make money in this game anymore. And even if you do have all of the above it is still painfully slow going.

Nov 13, 2007, 02:16 PM // 14:16	#7
DDL Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Nov 2007	Out of curiosity, though: what do you really need the money FOR? GW has always struck me as rather well designed in that anything more than say...50k is strictly speaking completely unnecessary: everything more expensive than that is basically for prestige alone: elite/obsidian armours are no different (game mechanics-wise) to their cheaper 1k equivalents, for example. (admittedly I'm not doing high-level elite missions, so I might be missing something..in which case: enlighten me! )

Nov 13, 2007, 02:33 PM // 14:33	#9
Quaker Hell's Protector Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Canada Guild: Brothers Disgruntled	I was under the impression that "loot scaling" had to do with the amount of loot you got as drops not changing with the party size. You guys seem to suggest that loot scaling changes with different characters. I haven't found that to be the case. I don't get any better or worse drops with my 10millionXP Ranger than I do with my <1milXP Dervish. If you do notice a difference, it's probably just random chance, or anti-farming code. On the other hand, I have noticed that the drops and stuff you get from chests - particularly in Normal Mode - is crap compared to what it was. But isn't that just part of a natural progression? Even back in the early days of Prophecies, you got better loot in the later stages of the game (Southern Shiverpeaks, for example) than you did in the early parts. Now Hard Mode has added a new level and the loot needed to be scaled back in the lower areas (and Normal Mode) to compensate. There are already so many people getting so much stuff that the market is saturated with common req9 weapons and stuff. If you made it even easier to get, it would be worth even less.

Nov 13, 2007, 03:00 PM // 15:00	#11
Crom The Pale Furnace Stoker Join Date: Nov 2006 Guild: Ageis Ascending Profession: W/	Time has always been a large part of making money in GW, but most don't realise how much time is involved. Some people will claim to make 5-10K every hour, and they probably do, but they don't factor in how long it took them to lvl their char, unlock all skills needed and reach the area they are farming/runing/ect..... Making lots of money in GW is easy, but it does take time. Simple completing most missions on normal mode will net you 1-2K at an average mission time of 30-60min. More on hard mode. You can lear any map in GW in about an hour with a full party and make between 1-10K depending on drops. There are several places people pay for runs at 1-4K each. The real trick is to not spend any money at all once you start saving up for something. It's harder to do than most think because many people are trying to save before they have fully equiped a char, then they find they need a diff rune or weapon mod to improve the performance of thier build and there goes 1-30K just like that. Once you have a lvl 20 char that is fully equiped and has completed at least one campain it is very easy to make lots of money in a REASONABLE amount of time.

Nov 13, 2007, 03:34 PM // 15:34	#12
Fury Incarnate Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Connecticut, USA Profession: R/	One thing I've noticed (and this is just observation, I haven't seriously tested it) is that regardless of your character, the drops are MUCH better if you play at low-traffic hours. I can give two good examples: I've been working on my LB/SS titles for months, running out of Ruins when I'm bored and need something productive to do. In general, if I run at 6pm EST, I see maybe one gold drop for one person in the party every 2 runs (HM). If I run at 2am EST, I see 2-4 gold drops per run. Also, I'm a professional chest runner out of GWG. I've run well over a thousand keys, of which more than half were lockpicks. In all cases, and in particular with lockpicks, if at run at some absurd hour the drops are much, much better. The difference is absolutely incredible - running at 6pm vs 2am with 10 picks the difference is likely to be 3 golds vs 10-12 golds. This seems to hold no matter how many times I play through a specific area or how long I've been on that session, day, week, or whole character lifetime. I can actually give lots more examples (DoA trapping, UW trapping, the list goes on.) My theory is that the servers have a set drop rate for each rarity, and the less people are playing, the bigger your slice of that drop rate. Whatever the case is, party loot scaling, as people have mentioned above, and "wtf loot scaling", as the OP was referring to, are two different and very real forces in the GW universe. And to the OP - I've been chest running for over a year, which is when I first noticed these weird drop rates. ANet has done nothing about it in that time, so my guess is no, they're not addressing this.

Nov 13, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48	#13
malko050987 Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Arad, Romania Guild: The Arctic Marauders [TAM] - now recruiting! Profession: R/	Something I noticed mentioned in another discussion around here is that killing with AoE (VwK Rt) gets you less drops than killing one enemy at a time (using a touch ranger, by example) I didn't notice any difference myself, but I don't farm much. Simply playing through the game paid for all my needs. (well, except that Tormented flatbow I'm lusting for)

Nov 13, 2007, 10:40 PM // 22:40	#14
Lady S Shiva Desert Nomad Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: CA Guild: LOD??? Profession: W/Mo	no good drops, like that's something new, i farmed over 1000 hours, yet nothing good dropped. if u want gold items come faster, go chest run, that's the only fastest way.

Nov 14, 2007, 11:28 AM // 11:28	#16
tmakinen Desert Nomad Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: www.mybearfriend.net Guild: Servants of Fortuna [SoF] Profession: E/	My current working hypothesis for the loot scaling algorithm consists of the following: * when you enter a map, your party is given a 'waste' factor 0 < W < 1 depending on the maximal party size and the actual number of party members * each drop that is not exempt from loot scaling has a probability W of going to waste * after every Nth kill (where N appears to be close to 3) the game compares the monetary value of actually happened drops over some reference time interval, and adjusts W: if you are getting stuff at a rate greater than about 10k/hour/player, W is increased (more drops will go to waste), otherwise it's decreased (less drops go to waste) If you solo the same low level area in NM and HM you'll notice that the initial amount of no-drops is about the same but as you progress the drop rate of NM goes up pretty fast until after maybe 20 kills you will have no loot scaling whatsoever and every monster drops loot because the monetary value is so low compared to the income cap. In contrast HM where the value of loot is much higher will suffer from loot scaling throughout the run. Also, if you happen to get a 'lucky' string of drops in HM your subsequent chances drop through the floor until you've 'earned' the excess back. I benchmarked this with certain runs whose yield I've known since 2005 and for sufficiently long runs loot scaling doesn't exist in low end NM which is great news for everybody who's farming stuff for festivals

Nov 19, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06	#18
Mac Sidewinder Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Jun 2007	I totally agree Washi - I have one toon that I play almost exclusively and I still get good drops on her. If I change to another of my lesser played toons I don't notice the drop increase or get better.

Nov 19, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36	#19
Diddy bow Furnace Stoker Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Jawsome!!!!!!!!!!! Guild: looking for one :p Profession: A/D	I do seem to notice a few more golds when i play a character i never play with, even in a large party. But if you belive its true right? . But the lootscaling is basilcy the Sword pommel of new player slaying. A new player can still get his 1.5K armor O.K but i cant imagine how I could have started in GW as it is now.