Unlocked Chests Give Purples in Normal Mode

Well, I was farming Sunspear Points in Hard Mode in the Sulfurous Wastes this weekend, and I decided to see if the unlocked chests had "refilled" for me. To my delight, it had and I recieved a standard gold item plus about 2.5k. So I went to gather the rest of my chests in normal mode (so that I could grab them all as fast as possible) and got 1-2 more gold items, but I also recieved 4 purple items (I haven't collected the chests in the Relm of Torment yet). I have never recieved purple items on any of my characters from these unlocked chests. I am wondering if this is due to Hard Mode? Maybe they scaled down the drops from normal mode chests because they want you to work harder for your free gold and gold items? I'm kinda bummed by this. Also, because I play this character about 95% of the time, it will be hard for me to check this theory because it will be a long time before the chests "refill" for me again. Anyone have similar experience? Gailie, if you read this could you provide an answer? thanks!

Gaile did actually comment on this; if you open the chests too often, items will start going purple. She suggested that people start from the high end chests first because the first few you open after a reset will be gold, and then after that all bets are off.

This was a couple months ago; it's nothing to do with hard mode or normal mode.

The quality of the item will deterioate the more you open the chest. My Ele and Warrior the last time both ended up with 6-7 purples.

All going in hard mode will effect (i'm assuming) is the damage/armour the items have. The ones from Istan will probably both be max in hard mode as oppose to been almost max.

Does anyone know if you can get the same chest in both normal and hardmode during the same "reset" period?

Also, This is the third time I have collected my chests. Does that mean that on the fourth time, everything is going to be purple?

thanks

Yeah, now I'm confused too - does this degradation occur just as you go down the line opening chests? So that you open three and get good stuff and then the fourth is lame?

Or is it permanent, so that whether you wait 30 days or 100, each time you open the chest the treasure will get worse and so after 120/400 days you have a purple?

Does it matter if you open the chests all at once, on the same day - does the effect weaken if you only do it, say, one a week?

Now I'm curious. If there is a finite number of times you can open those chests and get good stuff, I won't be so eager to open them right at the 30 day mark.

My main character hasn't been able to open the chests since January. I want to know why.

Good info to know. I was wondering why I was getting gold items and jewels in Istan but purple crap in the Desolation and Realm of Torment. Thanks for that heads up.

i was able to open the chest 3 times on 2 chars. the last time i opened them several of them only gave less than 1k in gold and no item. my guess is that drop rate decreases over time to prevent players from going to them to get an easy high amount of gold and gold weps, but now that farm code has been removed i wonder if it will affect them once they reset.

We know only that opening chests is per character and to open high level first. Outside of that - no non-dev knows (or, at the least, is talking) and there are lots and lots of theories.

Some have heavily played characters reset, some rarely played, some all. Personally I fall into the category of my most played characters not getting to open more than twice. Nor does any one know what causes them to degrade or if they will at some point increase - only that we should open high level first. The assumption is that the number of chest opens affects it.

My own thoughts are that there are some form of "random" in it, that there is nothing you can truly do to increase you chances. I can think of quite a few ways to do that so I must assume other programmers can also. Plus that would make it really hard to gather enough information to figure it out. But then, maybe they like watching us search for some simple algorithm they use? Who knows? Do whatever Mojo you think helps.

My main char has only opened two chests..... ever..... and only the once each.

One somewhere in Vabbi... that I found by accident.... and one in Nightfallen Jahai on the northeast side.
I have no idea where any others are even.... but I suppose even then I'm going to end up getting Purples soon if I find any more.

I want to know why my main has only been able to open chests once--in January, when the majority of my other characters have opened chests twice, others three times.

My Monk didn't get many purples on the fourth reset, only like 3-4, mostly golds. Funnily, my Ranger and Warriors chests haven't reset in around 3 months.

9 of my characters have opened chests, twice, and all got gold, and either gold weapons or diamonds. I dont check them that often but my top character that has visited all the treasure sites has just opened one in hard mode and still got a good gold item and gold in Lyssa's Mirror. so i will soon be going out with all the charcters i can to open again. Most havent got to vabbi yet though lol, I'm not religious about getting all the chests possible, even though i think i made about 50k just opening up last time

I am working on Wisdom title track so need the golds badly.... I started to keep a record of which chests my 7 characters have opened, and (lately) the last date they opened.

The first time I 'revisited' a chest was 13th March, and it was one that I hadn't opened for a couple of months. That day I was able to get 4-5 golds from re-opening with 1-2 characters. I am just talking about the chests in Istan and Kourna now that all my Prophecies and Factions characters can access with minimal NF advancement.

Anyway so I left it to 18th April and thought "it's about a month now" so started to revisit these four chests again with the same characters that opened them on 13th March. Character #1 got 4 golds. Character #2 got 2 golds from the first couple then empty from the second couple (despite having last opened them all on the same day). Characters #3 and #4 got all empty from all four chests straight after this - this was their first 'revisit' and again they had last opened these on 13th March, same as Character #1. So instead of 16 golds I got 6 from the first 6, then 10 empties straight after.

This is leading me to interpret that there is some kind of account-based limitation - possibly even anti-farm. A guildie who is with me disputes this hotly. He was accompanying me on some of these trips, having opened chests for maybe the 3rd or 4th time, and getting purples (and really quite surprised and annoyed by this ). His theory is that everything is character-based but, sorry, this doesn't work for me.

If I go to the same 4 chests/same date-interval across 4 characters and get

Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold, Empty x10

....in that order, this does not look like a random sequence. There has to be something account-based.

What I am therefore also wondering is therefore whether repeated opening of the Istani and Kournan chests will jeopardise re-opening of the ones in high-end areas.

Anyhow...I am not expecting anything more than a single drop from these chests and was delighted they re-open at all. Re-opening too often would only pump too much cash into the game economy anyway and I am sure A-Net would want to put something in place to stop people farming them systematically. The only reason I did this is - as I say - to get golds for ID as 10,000 is rather a lot to max a title (and I refuse to buy them in trading centers).

I'd be interested to know people's theories on what is the minimum/best interval to re-open, what determines gold/purple output, and whether there is a limitation either at character or account level.

If there is already a thread somewhere on this - my apologies - please can someone provide a link. Cheers.

i only open chests when i get a key drop so its pretty rare and when i do i only get purples.

I just realized the existance of such chests 2 days ago, I must have missed out alot *cry*

We're talking about the free, keyless chests in Nightfall.

Buried Treasure, Do Not Touch....these.

One thing that was also mentioned about the unlocked chests: Gaile said when you go for them, go for the high level ones first.

With the same character, if you open chests in rapid succession, the rewards get exponentially less and less, and they get less more quickly if you open them as soon as they are available to you. The best way to something good out of them is to wait a good long stretch, and then open one a day starting with the highest level ones in DoA.

I always get golds. But my Necro hasn't been able to open her treasures since January. Its weird that I always get a danged Eagle Defender from the easiest one to open and its usually the best thing I get. Hmmm, my Ranger hasn't opened most of her treasures yet. Here's hoping for a gold bow.

I only get Plat and one gold.

Finally got to the chest in Realm of Pain (where you cap Illusionary Signet): Got 3k and one Gold.

So, those people getting more Gold Items in one chest - does your Plat go down?

My first run with a particular character through all the chests got me all golds like most people. My second run with him gave me 9/12 purples. Didn't know about the trick to start with the high-end ones though. I'll remember that.

I been getting my Ritualist through Cantha and out of 15 chests I have only received 1 gold and it was nothing to brag about. It seems lately it is not even worth buying keys anymore.

In Hard Mode I took my Necro through a portion of Tyria missions and received 4 golds out of 10 chests and the rest was purple not to mention my lockpick breaks everytime so no more hard mode for me until there is a way for me to enchance my lucky title.

When I was going around Nightfall completing quests and areas I skipped with my dervish, I found that the chests reset a few times a month. My other chars were not as lucky with some chests not reset since they first tried months ago.

However, when I started to take them questing through Nightfall for trade contracts and doing the odd missions the chests reset more often for all of them. This got my thinking that experience earned (since last opening? maybe quests/missions completed) had something to do with it. Regardless of what the reason is, the more I played those chars, the more often the chests reset for them. Sooooooooo....I played alot, chests reset a lot and I was happy a lot But then recently the amount of platinum started to decline from them. So far I've only got ONE purple in about three months across all my characters but I won't say anymore for fear of nerfage

welcome to my world.
only my mesmer was able to open 1 single chest after a reset - others - nada!
i just make new characters so they open the chests

For those who don't know where to find the free items http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Treasure