Curse

Tactical-Dillusions · Sep 15, 2005, 06:37 PM // 18:37

I started to take into account other peoples opinions and experiences relating to damage dealt. Some people claim that high damage dealt will mean more loot.

I tried my ranger after having no luck with my monk and i got a green almost immediately, later on that day, i got another one using my ranger in an all hench group.
Today, i got another green with my ranger and a gold armour.
Also today with my warrior, i got a shiverpeak key (which yielded a gold chalice from the nearby chest), i got a gold armour and a lovely green fleshcleaver which i had stolen from me the other day.

Countless trips with monks over many days...1 green in hench team
Five trips with my ranger and warrior provided four greens in an all hench team.

This is either a very lucky streak or the damage-dealt hypothesis may be correct. I have no faith in my monk whatsoever

I will keep you posted on my experiences....

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueSS

I did 1 run with 5 henchmen and got 4 green items

Lucky bastage

jdwoody · Sep 15, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Last night w/ 5 henchies + my monk I started the 4th quest. No greens on the outside bosses, but after repelling a few waves, a wave with a boss ended up killing everyone in the party except the guy we were protecting.

10 seconds later we rez'd, killed the boss (he was the only one left) and I got a green half-moon, go figure! The next wave killed us all and I was sent back to town, but it was still a fun trip.

unienaule · Sep 15, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Im gonna say the drop rate is random. Sometimes people get lucky, but if you take a sackful of confetti and drop it, there WILL be piles of it, not a nice, uniform spread. Case in point, I play an Earth Ele, which is NOT the closest, the most damage dealing, or most in any category. Killed Flint, 4 items dropped, I recieved EVERY SINGLE ONE of them which included his staff. And I got more greens than my friend Savio even though we basically farm with each other all the time.

heist23 · Sep 17, 2005, 06:26 PM // 18:26

a guildmate of mine said that he read somewhere that the drop rates and quality of the drops are significantly reduced with henchmen to "increase teamwork and cooperation." from most of my runs, i've seen that this is true: when i went on a farming run with that guildmate (4-man, me, him, Lina and Mhenlo), i got flint's artifact plus my new gold half-moon that i got from a chest. i absolutely love it. after he had to leave, i went on more 4-man runs, this time with devona instead of a human warrior. i usually go on chest runs, since they reliably give better items than monsters. but with the henchman teams, the drop quality with the henchmen has been terrible. nothing but purple items, and the magnificient minor death magic. i acutally got lucky and got thorgall's shield (-2 while something and quick recovery from weakness) with a 4-man hench team, but that was the end of my luck. even when i tried another 4-man with a human w/mo instead of devona. he got flint's fleshcleaver, while i got all the manner of raven staves and junk.

from all this, i think it proves that either A) henchmen eat your drops, or B) the quality of drops are reduced with henchman teams.

The Mighty Toe · Sep 18, 2005, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Can someone please tell or show me what a 'Green Item' is as I have been exploring in and outside of the Furnace and haven't seen or heard ofa single one.

Sandman Uk · Sep 18, 2005, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Maybe coincidence

74 boss kills and no green drops. Got fed up and did a titan quest. Back to Sorrows and after 11 boss kills

Still no fecking green drop.

Total 85 boss kills with henchies and not one GREEN.

Tell me its not nerfed with henchies.

LAST UPDATE

Fixed a bug introduced in the Sorrow's Furnace Update that was causing unequal loot distribution among party members.

Think you need to re look at it.

Tijger · Sep 18, 2005, 11:33 PM // 23:33

So, basically, this is a thread for whining if you dont get a green item drop if you run through SF a couple of times.

I've lost count of the runs I've done through SF and Grenths, so far I've gotten a lot of blue, similar amounts of purple, quite a lot of gold items and 7 green items. I've made about 50-60K (that includes the cost of buying keys which so far has been a loss maker for me) on those runs in total. I'd say its been pretty good going.

Except for the Yakslapper which I think is pretty good for my healer/prot monk I havent kept a single one because quite frankly, they arent THAT good. A good to great gold item is better imho.

Tactical-Dillusions · Sep 18, 2005, 11:48 PM // 23:48

I feel your pain sandman.

I did 60 bosses yesterday and got 2 greens from #17 and 18. That's one green every thirty bosses. While initially pleased, it's not that great really.

Using the few drops which i have got with henchies and parties and a few from trades and the 1 free gift from a player, i have today...finally...got all the green stashed from Grenth's.

Now i just need to keep taking the painstaking journey into SF.

unienaule · Sep 20, 2005, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Well so far.... I started out this update with 5k. I now have 140k, 13 ectoplasms, 1 obsidian shard, 6 rubies and 2 sapphires, a +5 energy sword, and... that's it. My main moneymakers were 2 Grognar's Shields and a Grognar's Sword.

Tactical-Dillusions · Sep 23, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Yesterday i sent ArenaNet an email again regarding the current reduced green/gold drop rate (poor folks, lol) and i got a very swift response.
They asked me to put my email up on the forum to help them gauge the situation. I tried posting yesterday but the forum died

Here is the email i sent them and my reply i received just below it.

Quote:

Hello support,

I would be grateful if you could answer a couple of short questions for me because there is growing tension and upset amongst the community.

Why are the monster drops in Grenths Footprint and Sorrows Furnace currently of a really poor standard as opposed to when the update was first released?

Why are monster drops within groups of players equally as terrible as with groups of henchmen, when this never used to be the case?

If (as people suspect) the drop rates have been reduced, could you please explain the reason or reasons behind this descision?

Does a characters XP play a factor in determining what drops will be accquired?

Do other players playing extensively/exclusively in a particular area determine the drops for the players that visit an area infrequently?

Finally, could you please tell me why James Phinney's "State of the game letter'" promised "...accelerated sources of rare items." but the drops are so appalling, most bosses now only drop a white armour or an enslavement stone?

To add...last night, our group of six players, (all human except for one suicidal individual, who was a W/Mo so can probably be exempt) only got one green item from over two hours in Grenths Footprint and Sorrows Furnace.
This as i am sure you must agree is appalling considering them being advertised as one of the most rewarding and difficult areas in the whole of Guild Wars PvE.
Quite frankly, and in my own personal opinion, the areas are now boring and the drops need to be reverted back to how it was.
I am luckier than some people with the luxury of having infinite time to play in these areas. However, a casual player (which Guild Wars was advertised as being able to support) does not have the luxury of time and i can only sysmpathise with whatever non-drops they also receive.

I know you are not at all obligated to answer my questions, since you reserve the right to change content at any time and without reason as stated in the EULA.
However, public relations are also an important aspect and i'm sure you will agree that it is also in your best interests to help, answer, reassure and entertain your customers... not to mislead them with a source of grind, dissatisfaction and phantom fun decorated as a proverbial carrot.

I have taken my time with this email and have tried to structure it with intelligence, meaning and reason. If my tone sounds displeasing, i apologise. I do not mean to sound patronising or pushy.
I merely seek to find reasons behind the reduced drops which are prevalent and to give you a heads-up on the way some members are feeling....not only myself.

I thankyou for your time.

Best regards, Gary
IGN - Beast Master Archer

Quote:

Hello Gary,

Thank you for contacting Guild Wars Support about this.

There are many players that are having these same issues and you have asked some very good questions about the discrepancies and imbalance of loot drops in game and especially in Sorrow's Furnace. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to consider posting these on one of many of the Guild Wars Fansite message boards. A compiled list can be found on the official Guild Wars website at http://guildwars.com/community/default.html.

Doing this is one of the best ways to make sure that the developers see these. Other players can comment on your ideas, concerns, and suggestions, and Development Team members are able to catch up on what the community wants to see in Guild Wars. Fansite forums make it easy and efficient for us to learn from those playing the game.

In fact, discussing your suggestions on public message boards can often be more beneficial than directly contacting the Guild Wars team. We ask for players to share feedback or ideas on the message boards because the resulting discussions can quickly give us a broader perspective than one-on-one conversations.

Even though you may not receive a direct response to a post, the developers check the forums regularly, and this allows them to get a feel for the issues and features that are most important to the players.

Thank you again and please feel free to communicate any additional questions.

Kind Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

So, they acknowledge that there is indeed a problem and they are currently trying to gauge the size of it.
Yesterday, i spent 2 and a half hours in a PUG in Grenth's and then travelled deep into Sorrows. We completed a few quests and cleared out almost every enemy. NOT A SINGLE GREEN ITEM DROPPED FOR ANYONE.

The day before, i was in an almost identical situation. 2 1/2 hours, almost 100% clearing of SF and only 1 green dropped for a party member.
Both of these groups had 6 members and 0 henchmen.

Definitely something wrong Anet. I don't even go there now because the drops, or lack of them have made it boring.

How does everyone else feel about this situation? Are you experiencing loot discrepancies too?

Pandora's box · Sep 23, 2005, 11:33 PM // 23:33

In Europe we contacted Anet as well, this was the answer:

Quote:

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars customer support team. The system for drops is the same whether you are in a party of henchman, or a party of humans. However we will transfer this report to our Quality Assurance Department. They will examine the situation that took place in order to learn if we need to correct a problem that may have caused this issue to take place.

Amused Observer · Sep 24, 2005, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Just checking. . . any noticeable changes in drops post (latest) update?

Alone) · Sep 24, 2005, 06:50 AM // 06:50

Why is everyone complaining about not getting drops when they have henchmen? It's the same as having party members, but items dropping for them instead. Thes less people you have in a group, more chances of getting a item for yourself.

And yes, I did notice changes in drops. A LOT of changes. Farming isn't what it used to be.

Gustav Gloomp · Sep 24, 2005, 06:57 AM // 06:57

farming with henchies for me hasnt changed AT ALL. it has been the same since i started farming in gw, the only thing i realise in amount of loot drop is that after i farm a specific area about 3 times that place along with wat drops from chests degrade to absolutely nothing worth keeping but ive realised how ro get the drops becoming good everytime so im fine with farming henchies. around 3 green items drop every 5 or 6 times for me when i farm in grenths and sorrows with hench. and the late update improved my drop rate by increasing the gold that was dropped.

Mister Furious · Sep 24, 2005, 04:29 PM // 16:29

When the Sorrow's Furnace update came in, I was first concerned with completing the quests. During that time, I partied with 7 other people in my attempts to do them and I would see green drops all the time, however I only got one. After I completed the quests, I started to farm and would go in groups of five or six. I rarely saw a green item and we would usually get our asses kicked due to incomptetent morons. I decided that it would be faster and safer to go in a full group of 8, even if the odds of me getting an item were 1 in 8, more items would drop, so it would even out. Plus, I could do runs faster. I found a guy who was starting a group of 8 and he had the same opinion I did. Bigger groups are faster, safer, and he said more items dropped when you had more people. So, we tried it out and every single boss in the Footprint dropped a green item. I noticed that every boss was dropping four items, and I wondered if that was because we had so many in our group or if it was luck. Two people left our group, so we only had six when we went into the furnace. In there, only one green dropped, which I got. After that experience, I decided to try a full group of henchmen. I got a green, so I did it again. Again, I got one. I did six runs and got one green every single time. This is over the course of several days. On my 7th run, I didn't get anything. I then tried with six henchmen to see what would happen. I got two greens that run. On my 8th run, I went with five henchmen and didn't get any. I then went in a group of 8 people last night. Only two greens dropped and I didn't get any. Today, I'm going to experiment with diffrent group sizes to see if fewer people increases or decreases the chance of me getting an item. As far as henchmen go, I'm absolutly convinced that they have no negative affect on drops. It's only a matter of perception. You don't see their drops, so you think nothing is dropping. When I go through with henchmen and I don't see drops, but I know that items are dropping and I'm just not seeing them. You can go in a group of people and you'll see the greens dropping, but that still doesn't mean you'll actually get one. The only question for me is wheter or not the number of people in the group, real or NPC, affect how many items dropped. The main thing to remember is that it's all about luck.

Amused Observer · Sep 25, 2005, 06:46 AM // 06:46

hmmm... not much comments on my drops inquiry. . . My observations are that the chests are MUCH harder to locate, and that's a bad thing for me due to my preference for farming chests. I also noticed a slight increase in purple drops for un-id'ed armor. Not that I'm complaining when I'm unlocking some pvp runes. During the few instances I actually kill/farm mobs, I haven't seen an improvement in the chance of landing gold drops. But the ones I managed to get seem to be more useful.

Sagius Truthbarron · Sep 26, 2005, 09:39 AM // 09:39

I was doing quests with my level 10 using henchmen and out of the 6 bosses we killed I got 1 green necro item.

I don't see why everyone is always complaining about drops: I get good drops all the time.

Tactical-Dillusions · Sep 26, 2005, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by =HT=Ingram

Dude. Drops with full party henchmen per capita are ALWAYS low. no matter what. Try going with a full party of Players, and drops are very good. Go with a mid size party of just players and they are even better... go with a Small party of henchmen. IE you and 2 monks... and chances are you will get some good drops out of endeavor. But best stuff drops with large parties. that's as it should be. to promote Playing as a group and not soloing...

Strange how out of all the groups i have participated in for 4-5 days now, there has been one green drop in total for everyone combined.
Every group brings comments of "this sucks" or "where's the greens and rares?", "Two hours wasted!" etc etc

Next time you go in a group, let me tag along because i can't carry on farming charr hides until Anet concentrates on the loot balance rather than the artificial chest system.

Daren · Sep 26, 2005, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Henchies take same part of your drops as human players.. Patience is the key to every mmorpg game

DecoY · Sep 26, 2005, 07:48 PM // 19:48

got 2...
still in my inventory...

gorrel's staff
and the necro staff...

if anyone wants to buy them