Are drops in HM normal or bugged?

I have been playing hard mode in all 3 campaigns at various locations for the last few days for many hours and I have gotten far worse drops than playing the game in regular mode. I have had full parties each time. I only had 1 gold drop 4 purples, I have gotten 1 lockpick and no tomes at all, I estimate approx 30 hours playing!
The money that drops is pathetic and whites, blues etc... have been no where close to normal mode. Is anyone else having this issue?

Drops in HM have been much better for me so far.

Better for me too.

I don't think I've ever got a blue since hard mode. Just golds and purples.

When playing in a group, everything has been brought up to end game area's drop rates for me. For any of the low level areas a HUGE increase, for the higher level areas not so much.

Though, to a large extent that *should* be expected as the high end areas are already dropping mostly max items and nothing goes beyond max. There just isn't much room to grow there. Gold items drop rates in a group are already low enough that even 5 times the rate isn't *that* big a deal and I haven't seen small or solo group farming of high end hard mode areas yet. In Ascalon and a four man group I'm averaging about 4-5k/hour while playing too the Vanquisher title. However, I find hard mode Ascalon easier to party farm than most elite areas so that is a plus and I have not tried solo-farming anything in hard mode yet.

I have been trying to duo a monk boss outside of Blacktide Den (Keshel the Voracious) now for over 2 hours and absolutely horrid. No golds, one green (and that one was when I forgot to change to hard mode), and no tomes - which is what I was wanting (elite monk tome - I figure if they are now going for 10-15k then they must drop common enough that farmers can get them). It takes 1:30 to 2 minutes per run so at least 60 goes. Since the skill tome should not be scaled the either the drop rate on that guy is absolutely horrid, I'm one of the most unlucky players in the game, or all hard mode bosses do not have an equal chance of dropping them (maybe the noob isle guys do not?). In fact, the best drop I have gotten is a non-max purple hammer that merched for 100 gold or so. At least I'm getting 320 something exp per kill on a character I want the skill hunter title on.

Better drops, but chests have a tendancy to drop the exact same style of item (purple, gold, deathbane, etc)

6 of us from my guild were farming for ss and lb points at sulfur wastes this weekend on hm everyone got at least 2 gold drops from creatures and many purples every run. white drops and blue drops are the same as nm and hm chest drop the same things as nm except for a few occasional elite tomes

Found these yesterday. Playing hard mode and just killing things. Of course I got these 2 items from chests. But tell me my heart didn't skip a beat when the Dead Bow dropped out of the chest. Then I noticed that I didn't even lose my lock pick! w00t!

I did Prophesies Mission 1 last night. I got less then 300 gold, a white hammer, white shield, and a couple of 5 gold value Masses (love these from lvl 20) and a purple earth staff. I used a lock pick which of course broke (they have every time I have used one) on a chest. Got a gold Recurve bow Req 11 that was (15-27) 1 point away from max dmg with the following states (+15% health over 50%) Awesome I thought but then I realized it was not an inscription. Vampiric with a plus 20% enchantment. What to Salvage hummmm?

After seeing the picture above maybe I will see a lock pick not break after all

try doing some missions and then go back to farming, you could be flagged.

There is no more anti-farming code.

I've been getting a lot better drops in HM too...

Farming for sunspear on Sunday I got a grand total of 9 golds in about 4 hours, all of which had either decent superior runes (i.e monk, sup fire, etc..no sup vigor ) or perfect mods if they were weapons (picked up a +30 sword mod and scythe +1 20% to just name a couple off the top of my head. Not to mention the 5 golds from 4 lock-pick drops.

Actually, I think this is working out better by eliminating the solo farmer advantage. The bots are getting a lot less for their efforts. In hard mode you get better drops. In lower level areas where you enter hard mode and the party size is limited to 4 or 6 you can do quite well. I have been "vanquishing" some lower level areas with heroes and have managed to pick up a gold drop or two on every single run. Oh, and I have used several lockpicks, only once did it not break on the first attempt.

Im not too sure about that, there is a group of 8-9 baddies near a portal to another EA. My first time soloing them they dropped 5 items, I ported & came back killed then they dropped 2 items, ported & back 1 item, I did this 9 to 10 times & each time after the 3rd time in they only dropped 1 item, ranging from a glod item (once, 2nd time in), collectable items (ie mountain troll tusk), white weapons or gold ($$).

IMO theres still an anti farm code in HM.

Just went out and tested hard mode. There's a counter in the upper left corner. In 136 kills, there were 13 white and 1 blue item.

I haven't played enough to say with certainty that the drop rates are off, but in my limited experience I have noticed extremely low drop rates overall in a group. I cleared Nolani Academy mission a few times with a group last night and got one gold, one purple, and three whites (and a few assorted trash drops). I tried Elona Reach and didn't get anything but a little gold and some trash drops. Northern Wall - same story. Kinda frustrating, but it could still be a bad run of luck.

better for me as well, vanquished sulfurous wastes twice(once for myself, once for guildies) and got a total of 14 golds(including perfect sephis axe), 3 greens(Alem's Remedey, Hajkor's Flame, and Vahlen's Vow), around 20 purples, 6 lockpicks, elite mesmer tome, elite warrior tome, para tome, ranger tome, and ele tome, 2 passage scrolls(UW and FoW), around 5k LB Points, and around 15k Sunspear Points. All in about 3 hours.

I have run keys in Gloom, and have gotten 10 golds in 17 runs (didn't get a chest in each run). I tried same run in HM and have 4 purples in 8 runs to show for it, twice I just left the thing there and zoned. So, I haven't noticed any improvement thus far from the chests.

I also solo trap Veil, and group trap Veil in HM, the drops are roughly the same, just more drops for more people in the party (apparently size does matter!!!)