Overfarming

May someone give me information on what is it, what drops are affected, and how I can prevent it or otherwise do something about it?

I'm sorry, let me clarify what I meant when I said overfarming. I meant farming the same mobs over and over again until the drop rates seem to decrease. Is this a myth?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. I've never noticed any statistical differences and raptor drops.

This question has been asked a billion times.

It's a myth and has never been proven.

actually in fact it has been proven. and ill make a thread on it soon enough ill edit this post shortly

ill give you some facts right now

Elemental sword- was like 100k+ e now worth like what 5k
Dead sword- worth nothing now
Totem axe- worth like 1k now
IDS- dropping in price

and im sure there is many more

Define overfarming.

when to many people farm an item due to its value.

and we all know from economic classes that when demand stays the same but the # of products increase the value goes down. so when an item is overfarmed the value of the item drops

Quote: Originally Posted by Lithril Ashwalker

actually in fact it has been proven. and ill make a thread on it soon enough ill edit this post shortly I'll be interested to see that "proof". And the explanation of why Raptors are visibly exempt from any such thing.

Quote: Originally Posted by Above_sky

when to many people farm an item due to its value.

and we all know from economic classes that when demand stays the same but the # of products increase the value goes down. so when an item is overfarmed the value of the item drops Yes, the value of the item changes but I don't think the drop rates do.

Quote: Originally Posted by Riot Narita

I'll be interested to see that "proof". And the explanation of why Raptors are visibly exempt from any such thing. you never farmed raptors before it was popular did you? xD drops were insane

Quote: Originally Posted by End

you never farmed raptors before it was popular did you? xD drops were insane I've farmed them since loot scaling was introduced. The only time drops were "insane" for solo farmers was before loot scaling.

I'm sorry, let me clarify what I meant when I said overfarming. I meant farming the same mobs over and over again until the drop rates seem to decrease. Is this a myth?

Quote: Originally Posted by Riot Narita

I've farmed them since loot scaling was introduced. The only time drops were "insane" for solo farmers was before loot scaling. loot scaling existed before Eotn came out...soooo I doubt you were raptor farming before loot scaling was introduced...

EOTN came out August 31,2007 according to wiki...


check the archived game updates and find changes to loot scaling earlier that year...April i think it was...


So how exactly were you farming raptors before they existed?


But boy do I remember some insane drops from raptors...must've been before eotn was released that I was farming them...

It would seem he meant what is more commonly known as loot scaling.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Loot_scaling

Quote: Originally Posted by Necromas

To the OP: Im not sure there is any definitive proof one way or the other. I know some folks have done some math by doing identical runs at identical times with 2 different characters. Over time they collected some data that was kind of interesting.

If you search it on the forumns here im sure you will find it.

Now having farmed Vaettirs for the last 3 days solid without returning to town, if concluded the drops do in fact change as you grind it out. When i first started friday afternoon the drops were great, lots of golds and virtually every vaettir dropped event items or weapons of the colored variety.

By this evening some mobs 36 in the north end 24 in the south did not drop an item. Not 1. What does this mean?? Nothing really. To me it means that after dozens and dozens of runs the drops poop out for a period of time. Am i right in assuming this? probably not, however that is what IVE found.

take it for whats its worth. .... very little.



Cronk

I'm not going to bombard you with numbers and statistics but in my humble opinion drops are in fact affected by over-farming.

I've been farming since release. Before 55 there was RoF spam/Zealots, then 55 with old school prot-bond. This was all before loot scaling. Back then I do not think any anti-farm code existed. You could farm the trolls outside droks forever and the drops were always amazing. Zero decline in rare drop rates, etc. Well sometime between "the good ole days" and when loot scaling was introduced something changed. Again this is just my opinion, but I do think anti-farm was introduced at some point that affects your drops when you "overfarm" a place over and over.

My fix to this has always been to complete a mission/quest or two. Your mileage may vary but this has always worked for me.

The other thing I like to do is have several farm spots and try not to overfarm a certain place. This is always hard for me because some places are just better than others, but I think it's necessary. Also have several chars with several places and just switch it up every other run or so.

I'm probably paranoid but that's how I roll. I'm sure tons with dispute my theory so please just take it as an opinion from an old school farmer that's been around the block a few times.

Happy farming,

Levi

I don't know about this one. After reading the loot scaling page nothing was said about reducing drops for "advanced" solo farmers based upon the rate of farming. It just says that they were receiving a lot more reward before loot scaling.

I don't think that solo farmers that repeatedly farm an area end up receiving less valuable drops. I think its all in the person's head doing the farming.

For example,

Jimmy likes farming raptors.
In Jimmy's first raptor farm run he received a black dye and two lock picks. Upon returning to farm again Jimmy only received a spiraling spear, brown dye, and assassin tome. Jimmy feels after the second run that the GW monitors are prejudice and hateful towards him and must have nerfed his drops.

Quote: Originally Posted by Levi Garett

Back then I do not think any anti-farm code existed.
There sure was an Anti Farm code back in the day. I used to trigger this message quite frequently farming Elona Reach, Trolls, Avicara etc.

You used to have to do something else for a bit to "reset" it. I used to run through The Great Northern Wall to reset this code.

I don't think there is a specific anti-farming code. For a while I was compiling some fairly exhaustive raptor farming stats and when you start looking at numbers over large numbers of runs, they clearly don't decline. I don't doubt that the powers that be might scale back overall drop rates in certain exploited areas, so I do accept stories about people who claim certain farms seemed to be more profitable in previous times. However, at least based on my stats, you are safe to farm the same spot over and over without any decline.

One thing I've been meaning to study when I have time is whether there is some sort of anti-farm code preventing drops within seconds after entering a zone. While farming various Nick items or Chunks of Drake flesh for Thackeray, things don't seem to ever drop if you kill something right outside the door. I hit the drakes about 20 times in a row with literally NOTHING dropping. I then started letting the character sit in the zone for a full minute and stuff dropped very readily (was able to farm about 12 chunks of drake flesh in about 30 minutes or so). I noticed this same trend when farming the ruby djinn right outside the bone palace that week that Nick was looking for their item. Kill them right away, nothing. Wait a minute, essences drop pretty readily. If I have time I'll actually compile some stats and post them. Otherwise just take this as purely speculative on my part without any data.

In general, be wary of what's called "confirmation bias". This is when you already have a preconceived notion (like leechers increase drops with raptor farming or perhaps what I posted in the previous paragraph). It is a human tendency to remember the times that a farm run fit into your belief and forgot the times that it didn't. Every time I confront superstitious raptor farmers they never actually have any data or ever tracked their runs, they just "remember" that they got better drops while taking leechers. I suspect that a lot of the anti-farm beliefs are merely a form of confirmation bias.