Upside of Nightfall/doa?

First let me say I'm no farmer, I don't have nightfall, and don't want this to be a complaint/argument thread over DOA. I am an average player that occasionally farms just to get that feeling of power from killing things with an odd build.

Around the release of Nightfall there was the usual occurrance where prophecies and Factions empty out and everyone tries the new stuff. Upside of this? I was able to recieve both Kephkets refuge and Razortongues recurve while henching. Both were during times when I had no intention of farming, just took henchies and decided to kill the boss for the heck of it.

Someone else had the math on probability of green drops based on number of people farming it, so I think my 'luck' is directly related to everyone being in nightfall.

Over the past few days I've been stocking up on items for the Wintersdays events, so I can get cc's if they're offering and whatnot. 2 days ago I got my 2nd black dye ever(the 2nd one I'd seen was in the same location). Ever since DOA my drops have progressively been getting better. I recieve the minimum of one gold per run, no max stats but awesome inherent mods(I vermin farm a lower level area). Today alone I found a 9%HCT, as well as 2 10% hcts. I did 4 runs today. During these same runs I've found 2 more white dyes and a black dye. If this is just luck, I hope it continues.

Here's my point: DOA = incredible challenge to the hardcore farmer types. They are all busy figuring out an area that actually challenges them. The middle farming types have taken a break from it for now and are refilling TOA and tombs(less so tombs, from what I could see). So with all the farmers otherwise occupied, it seems my luck is getting better in my little backwater spot.
So with all the farmers/hardcore players being kept entertained, it would seem from my limited perspective that the benefit to the casual player from the intro of DOA is a rise in normal drops. Maybe drop rates,etc. will level out for a while as DOA keeps everyone occupied. But that's just speculation.

What do you guys think? how is this going to effect the economy/drop rates/etc? Is it just my luck turning good, or is there actually an effect here?

But that's just my two cents
What's yours?

DoA is meant to challenge all players. People are getting frustrated with the difficulty and are either doing chest runs or slowly going back to old farming spots.

I think it's more luck than anything, but during the first days of DoA you may have had better drops with less people farming your area specifically. It's hard to tell.

Well, I hope DoA keeps everyone busy for awhile. I found about 20 or 30 non max golds before it started slowing down. Of course with Wintersday coming up, farming focus will shift toward stuff for the collector npc's which will up farming in certain regions again.

Seems your luck has been bad. In the 13 months I've been playing, I've gotten around 8 black dye drops and I have never farmed.

I wish Anet would finally answer some burning odd questions, such as the one the OP poses: Does the number of people in an area affect the drop rate of items? Do the primary/secondary professions of your character affect the drops you get [when solo farming, for example]? Does all dye have the same chance of dropping? Is Gwen really Abbadon's mother?

I have been playing since Prophecies and have received exactly 2 black dye drops.....

Same old myth, same old rumor.

Other people farming your same area/boss, has NO bearing whatsoever on YOUR droprate. Remember how this game has INSTANCED play? Means when you step out of town the world is freshly affected by you ALONE. So if YOU farm an area/boss too often, then YOU will affect droprates in YOUR instances of the game.

Get it? Got it? Good!
cheers.

Even though its an instanced world, ANet has to have a way to control the amount of items in the game, therefore a drop rate which is very low. But that is has little bearing on the main topic of this thread, as the area I am referring to is one of the areas I frequent the most.

So if I am simply having good luck, gg for me. It just seemed really weird that before DOA came out I had normal drops in this area, and then began having drops of multiple golds with decent inherent mods in this area alone. I repeat, this area alone is where I have been getting good drops.

I don't 'farm' that often, only when I'm bored. I use the area to test builds and have fun killing vermin(technically farming). So why would it be that when I increase my presence in an area that I would inexplicably see more good drops then ever? With the exception of one black, all my black and white dyes have been found in this area. 4 in the past 2 days alone. I've been playing almost exactly a year, so, as I said, it just seemed odd for my luck to suddenly change.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this while a new area/game has been out?

But that's just my two cents

/edit And by decent inherent mods, I mean mods that, if were inherent on a rare skin like a storm bow, would have someone shelling out around 50k and up(depending on skin) In my opening post I mention 3 I found in the same day, 9% and 2 10% hct's(with another 10% the day before)

this has been answered and was *reposted* on these forums yesterday
http://forums.gwonline.net/showthrea...70#post4297070
heres another summary
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0075774&page=3

I realise that you belive this and i also know that gaile confirms your statement, however, drop statics that i have accumulated since prot bond days indicates different.

gaile has also said that the skill hunter title would be maxable in nightfall, she said that the sunspear title would be maxable with the release of the latest update and im sure if i went back and cross referenced all her previous statements there would be more instancesof inaccuracy.

Although drop rates don't change dynamically based on other people farming in the same area, it is possible that Anet updates an area themselves. For example Ettin farming for sup runes, Griffon farming, or whatever. If Anet thinks it's being done too much they can manually change drop rates. Although I don't see why they would put them up.

I dont see your statistics posted anywhere


who am I more likely to believe?

an ANET staffperson of the Design team (Gaile)
or a stranger who says they have unknown numbers proving otherwise

Since you dont have Nightfall, you wont have heros.

The increase in drops is probably due to everyone being in nightfall AND using heroes.

The drop rate while you use them is stupidly low. I used to be able to get alteast 1 black dye a month and several silver drops in cantha and tyria.

Ive had NONE in elona.

Ive also had absolutely NO green drops through the entire NF game. Something I find off, because there are dozens of greens.

Now I know that had I been playing with henchs and not heroes, I would have stood the chance of getting atleast 1 or 2 green drops the entire time.

In factions I must have found 4 or 5 greens by the time I got to end of it.

The increase in drops in other campaigns will be due to this.

Everyones using Heroes over in elona, getting lower drops and those in tyria and cantha are feeling the knock-on effects.

Heroes are a blessing and a curse.

My reply to this is "the code".

They obviously do monitor who is farming and where they are, and they do count drop rates for individuals, so they do know which locations are farmed more then others.

As to whether they take actions against it.... I dont know.

But I find it hard to believe that a company who are sooo "anti-farming", wouldnt use what power to try and influence drops.

Theyl have a piece of software in place counting the drops in a certain location and having it say....

"if it exceeds this amount, reduce the % chance of a drop by 10%"

"if it is bellow this amount, increase the % chance of a drop by 10%"

...its not impossible, because the records and information is obviously there to use.

- Number of people in an area, doing whatever, has NO effect on drops. This was stated officially.
- Nothing in any way affects your drop rates, not secondary, not build or anything
- All dyes have the same drop rates, except for black, which is some hundred times rarer than any other dye (I've been collecting all the dyes I ever got, I have around 50 of each, and 7 black ones - that's sufficient sample to give an estimate)

If Kepkhet's Refuge has a 1 in 100 drop chance, then out of 100 times that you kill the mob, it will drop 1 time (on average). Split with henchies, it will drop for you on average every 600 kills. Note that Kepkhet has almost 100% average drop rate (I solo farmed that place, getting 2 of them in a single run sometimes, and none sometimes, usually just one). This means, going out with 6 henchies, you have average drop rate of 1 in 6.

Roll the dice. How likely is it to roll 6. Is it really that impossible to roll 6 in first try?

I *never* had a green drop in Factions, despite playing with 8 characters

Nightfall, with heroes/henchies seen 3 greens (without farming)


Different people - different drop experiences

It isnt just green drops Ive had a low yeild of.

My experience with drop rates when you compare tyria and cantha to Elona, using the exact same character is noticable.

Just the yeild of drops in itself is low.

Everything is terms of dropping is reduced,and I can only assume its due to the use of Heroes.

Ive had less whites, less purples, less blues, less golds, less dye.

Everything is down.

And it cant be due to Nightfall being a new game, because it was higher then this when I first started in cantha.

I find it hard to believe that its because my luck has suddenly just changed. There are different game mechanics at work in Elona effecting drops.

I've been playing since last August and I've received 4, none of them in Prophecies.

If you're more likely to get a green drop when less people are farming, how do you explain green weekends? I got 40 scar eaters across three characters before I stopped farming it just during the last triple green weekend in Factions. On an average day, I can kill the scar eater about 8 times and get him to drop. I've found 6 greens in teams of hencmen and one in a team of eight people (in Arborstone). I got that one when I was standing around clearing my inventory and some poor MM killed the boss by himself, so the boss wasn't within my aggro bubble and the green still dropped for me. I don't think it's based on anything other than a random number generator. Maybe they seed it with something that hates you.

I don't think people playing Nightfall increased your luck at all.

why not? my luck changed for the better with Nightfall
- dramactically so

let the dice roll !

You are the luckiest player in the game. I have been playing Guild Wars for 15 months, and I've had 1 Black Dye. One. No greens have ever dropped for me in Factions, ever, and I've been playing that from when it was released to when Nightfall was released.

I don't think heroes affect drop rates anyway, aren't they just like henchmen? They take loot but you don't see what they take, but playing with 7 henchmen gives essentially the same drops as 7 real players.

Ive been playing since the day gw was released over 18moths ago and yet inall that time ive only ever had 3 black dyes, 1 sup bigor (what just so happened to drop during the breif period that the former 50k runes had suddenly dropped to below 10k) no sup absorbtion, only 1 SF green which was after months of going down there and questing there more times than i can count. Lol and only a few golds most of which have been completely useless. On a lighter note i did manage to get 2 greens from going through Nf but i think that was more to do with the fact it was the triple drop chance weekend.

Where as one of my friends has had well over 20 sup vigors, 10 absorbtions (back in the day they were super expensive, 100k), has had loads of golds drops, atleast 12 black dyes and hes spent less time online than i have and he has farmed alot more resulting in anti farming code kicking in and yet he still gets way more decent drops than me.

I'm not debating the rest of your post, however a correction needs to be made. Gaile is not part of the design team. She is the community relations manager. She is relying on information from the design team and she interprets it accordingly. She is just as likely to be wrong about things as other people are... she is human after all... so taking her word as the god's honest truth is not always best. Of course, being inside gives her a better understanding of things, so I think more often than not, she is correct.

I really didn't want this to become a debate of black dye and whether the drop rate is rigged(if Gaile said it, I'll believe its the best info I can get for now)
I think what it boils down to is either luck or mass conspiracy(the gods of tyria are setting my monk up for a fall).
And while I understand the skepticism of "unknown numbers" by a stranger, I didn't exactly think to take a screen shot of my wisdom track before I started farming there. As I have rarely found golds or anything of value there in the past, I was simply going to test some ideas on smiting builds.

For all I know Anet manually changed the drop rate to update certain areas in the storyline(for ex. shing jea etc, get lowbie greens, maybe they want more golds in low areas of tyria to balance) while everyone is looking at nightfall. But that falls under the mass conspiracy, rumor mill of death idea.

If you really want me to, I can start taking screenies of the (at least) 1 gold item I get every run, but I think it would be pointless. And knowing my luck I'd stop gettnig them as soon as I said I'd photo them.

So for now I'll assume its luck in this area, as I've had an average drop experience in the rest of the game.

But that's just my two cents

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10084554

people can only go by their experiences

I played Factions for 6+ months and never saw a green (altho I dont farm either)

In NF, during regular storyline play/sidequests, Ive already seen 3 greens
(none of them dropped during special events)

If I was to go only on my experiences, I would assume that Green drops were *increased* in Elona content --- but I know thats not true

its all stupid luck

yeah I didn't really read the OP or any of the other posts.... My main concern is the initials DoA.... Dead on Arrival >_< Not exactly the best choice of letters imo XD

(Sorry couldn't help it, its been bugging me all morning )