HM drying up?

After returning to Zehlon reach after a 24 hour break, i averaged 2 gold drops per run over three runs, 5 purple items and approx a dozen white items.
My gold coin drops averaged out at around 610 per run and materials wise i averaged around 20 bolts of cloth and taanned hides, respectively.
Then i went to Bergen Hot Springs and over three runs runs harvested four gold items one non max dmg dead bow and three very good staffs all max dmg with good stats, plus a couple of dyes.
I am still collecting data on other runs, but to me it seems that if you tear the arse out of one area, by repeatedly farming it then yes there is a noticeable degradation in drop quality , however if you limit your runs there to just three or four then move on it seems to that the drop rates are by and large ok, and given the massive amount of people farming Zehlon reach for example it seems to fit the law of averages that you will have to expect a few duff runs if you are soley just farming that one spot. The trick is i think is to cut and run when you have a had a few good runs and farm another spot, this for me seems to keep the gold pretty consistent and the change of scenery and opponents helps keeps the boredom and repetiveness that comes with farming largely at bay.
However i will still track my drops at other spots based on the three run experiment and see if i can find a correlationin my theory.

I totally understand what your saying my friend
But do u really want a situation in gws where u might as well sell a rare gold for the price its set at due to everyone having one.
I personally want the rare stuff because there not the norm... a bit as i ve said b4 real life we all want a nice car but we all cant afford one
That special 15k armour which many of us have worked long and hard for wont be specail any more.

So basically i totally understand the other side of the fence all im saying is for me they have turned a great game with great status into just an average game thats all so if they only lose me as a customer/player fine but i only play games for my own personal enjoyment and atm im not having much fun anymore

Oops i forgot this

I have 8 chars done all 3 campaigns so i have done my fair share of the storyline and helping out others farming just adds another dimension to the game for me thats all

There is this 'Edit' button

I'm going to be a bit harsh now.

Now you are complaining that all people are able to afford 15K armor that you and others have worked so hard for.

First of all, that's not true, not everyone can afford it. Playing NF helps a lot but that has nothing to do with the recent updates.

Second, farmers are the people that were bringing gold in the economy with truckloads (so to speak).
Therefore, farmers are also at least part responsible for the inflation of gold in the game.
And since 15K armor has a fixed price, they made it easier to obtain for the masses.

I'll try to give an example.
When Factions came out, there was this nice green +1 death magic staff.
It's been priced a long time for around 100K.
Only farmers are/were able to pay that amount of gold.
Without farming, it takes quite long to get 100K, specially in Prophecies.
The same was true for a lot of Factions weapons. They all had high prices compared to their prophecies counterparts.
So, people were going to farm those greens, but prices remained stable.
This could only happen in an economy where new gold is generated.
More people started to farm, because they wanted the greens and there was no other way to obtain it. Introducing more gold in the economy.
And people were told 'you want the green, go farm (gold or the green)'.

That way, the inflation was getting worse.

I'm not saying farming is the only thing causing problems with the GW economy, A-net also contributed to it.
They tried to make items more affordable to people, but that had minimal effect on the economy because the new gold was still flooding in.
They even brought more gold in the game (unlocked chests).
Now they have targeted the new gold, which I think is the right thing to cool down the economy.

I think you have to be realistic.
The high-end items in the game will remain as unreachable for the masses as ever before.
This is perfect gold items, non-perfect rare skins and the FoW/Vabbi armor.
The regular 15K is in reach of all, but only with dedication and clever playing.
But that has been that way since the introduction of NF.

Some areas are definitely drying up for me, I'll try others later. TBH I don't believe anet.

I havn't noticed any changes in drops I get now compared to when hard mode was introduced, so not really sure what everyone is complaining about.
Over farming areas seems to have no impact whatsoever.

I think Kas and others have hit the nail on the head.

I'm now convinced there is a timer (sort of like the Soul Reaping timer) in place. I have Vwk'ed the swarm of termites, 12 or so at once, outside of Kamadan a bunch of times (in HM) and when I gather them up and take them all at once I get one, maybe two, drops. If I take them 3 at a time I have a much better chance of getting something off each group.

It's Anet's decision how they want to structure their game, I just wish they would be upfront about it. Gaile says "We have made absolutely no changes to the drops since we introduced Hard Mode." But it doesn't take a genius to see that doesn't preclude the existence of a code in place at the launch of Hard Mode. C'mon...

I have noticed a dry up as well in HM, but then again I have also noticed a pickup in certain areas in normal mode. heck the past two days I have been in the FoW spider cave in normal mode getting an average 4-5 shards now...which hasn't happened in well over a year except for the occasional fluke, but then again it could also be a fluke here as well...in all though, I am just going to play the game like I do and if I get a good drop, so be it.

Since we don't know how ANet actually is deciding drop outcomes, we will never know.

Maybe it reduces if you keep killing the same mob again and again.

I'm having great fun trying to get groups in mission areas like the Wilds. I'm a monk, but there's rarely 5 people that want to do HM!!!!

At this point it's becoming an issue with the respect that Anet is showing it's customers.

How much of an uproar is needed before they actually respond with real help, and not just a token cookie cutter response? Just take a look at the views on this topic thread. That's a whole lot of concern that is not being addressed, or it's just being ignored.

The question seems to be now:

Will you buy GW:EN, with the amount of disrespect Anet and it's staff show you as a customer?

Anet, how can your support keep telling your customers to addess concerns on fan forums, when you just ignore them anyways? Piss poor business practice.

Yeah, we will buy GWEN, because the missions and the story are still great.

Well, ring of fire dried up almost completely for me (as in practically no golds in like 8 runs of HM) when it was working fine before, so I tried another area I hadn't HMed before... and got next to nothing. However, then I tried zehlon reach, and it was just as good as it was several days before and I was reeling in gold and purple drops... so I dunno...

Just throwing in my experience. I've been farming sunspear points in the Wurms and the first day I did it I got like 5 golds in 3 runs. I've done it probably 15 more times and only gotten 2 more golds. Can't say if there is or isn't anti-farm code, but it's certainly not as $rewarding$ as it first was...

Edit: and I've only every gotten 1 dye, during this time...

There's definitely something wrong - perhaps a bug? I used to get about 2-3 golds when i zone into maps. Right now I only get 1-2 purples and hardly any whites. Why is that?

Actually, I've been making more profit in Hard Mode than the old Normal Mode drop rates. But, it forces the player to complete the campaign in order to reap the rewards, but whats the fun in that, by the time you get your 15k armor, you'd already beat the campaign.

Hard Mode will keep me busy until GWEN, the challenge is there.

Well I'm glad you're making money because my coffers are steadily declining. Since HM has been out I've had trouble selling pretty much any item here on Guru and I/G. I've lost a good bit with ecto prices going south. I've spent more on Lockpicks than I'll ever get in return for the items I receive from the locked chests. I spent 50k+ getting lucky rank 2 for a measily 4% return on my lockpicks. I had to afk most of that weekend because I lost 50,000 lucky points due to a glitch/rollback so then I spent another 100k+ buying Birthday Cakes which I could have easily farmed (most useful event item ever IMHO).

At this point I don't even know how to fix the economy. Loot scaling was "adjusted" to promote I/G selling of items/materials but the market has crashed. Everybody is hoarding their plat because coins are the only thing left that are truely rare right now since our farming efforts yield only a few white items per run. Farming Tyria and Cantha for rares is so hit and miss because you're not guaranteed to get that nice 15>50 damage mod like in NF, and NF items have been so over farmed that nobody wants anything that's not Q9 20/20 +30 (or as the nubs say, "perfect").

Tomes are good right now but they will eventually tank in price. I personally have been keeping mine because I find them quite useful so I'm not making any cash off of them. Although selling them now while the market is "hot" would probably be a smart move.

Well I sold a poisonous bow string for 600g last night I guess that counts for something.

Sorry for the rant, but the state of the economy really sucks right now and my inventory is overflowing with useful items that I can't seem to get rid of.

I also think we need an explanation of wtf is going on with this "non-existant anti-farm code" in HM from either Gaile or one of the Devs. It's quite annoying to kill 50+ mobs and get two whites, a blue, 101gp, and a collectable.

Well, finally Anet and it's PR got unlazy and actually did it's job.

They've replied with the reasons why Hard Mode has been scaled back from it's inital loot drops. More importantly, they've apologized for ignoring a massive thread in their "support" chain (ie guru, since their actual support refuses to deal with these issues other than suggesting the problems be aired on public fan forums).

But finally here's what you've all been waiting for:


And there it is. I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier. I know how important getting this vital information on this current situation is to all of you.

Let's not go crazy here. I don't think your reply is really going to give ANet motivation to reply to this post with an explanation....

I completely understand why my white drops are scaled 1/8th, etc.

The whole point of this post is that we have been told there is no anti-farm code in HM when numerous people have provided data that says otherwise. If ANet can honestly say at this point there is no anti-farm code in HM then I guess we are just all unlucky?

If there is a mistake with the code it would be very nice to get it fixed. Or if the anti-farm code is left in HM then I guess we just have to deal with it...

at this point I'm so anti-farmed in HM it's crazy. I usually get ****NO*** drops from those cheesy Byzzr HM runs, Corsairs give a purple per run, undead killing usually yields nothing (whether it's vanquishing an area solo or doing the Gates of Kryta thing), normal vanquishing or HM questing usually gives no golds.

This needs to be acknowledged, explained, and addressed by Anet. And those damn lied-about Sunspear skills too while at it.

A new build of Guild Wars is available. Please exit the program.

Update: Fixed a bug that prevented loot from dropping in Hard Mode.

Remember the ecto drop screwup? The double scroll drop weekend screwup? Maybe one day they'll admit that they did just that... screwed it up.

KANE

Nothing mysterious, just looks like the code that turns the buried/hidden treasure chests drops in action here. Always golds first couple of times then lots of purples untill purples is all you gonna get. Always been that way, not part of the regular anti farming code.


At least white items such as non elite tomes and rubies/sapphire/diamonds still drop as normal (not sure about ectos/shards though) otherwise there would be no point in farming, for me at least.

You guys are also forgetting that they lied to us about the anti-farm code from the start of the game.

and no word regarding the kill-all-at-the-same-time drop reducing code, lol

Had a very interesting thing happen to me recently. In 25 locked chests, 21 of them were purples. It really put a slight damper on my mood, but I only managed to lose 10k on the day as a whole.

Other than that, the actual monster drops seemed fine.

Yeah, when Prophecies came out, when Factions came out, same thing. Lots of good quality loot. But then the quality of the loot declines.

HM, depends on area maybe. But I too have done areas where you get more and better loot in Normal than in HM.

Few nights ago, went out with a player group to do Domain of Pain in Hard Mode. Cleaned most of the map. Couple people got good drops, but I think I got back with about five white and blue items plus one trash gold from a locked chest and a purple worthless item. Vendored it all, still nearly 1K down from buying the lockpick.

You should realise, folks, that A-Net never said they removed the Anti-Farming code... persay.

What they essentially said was that repeatedly zoning in and out of an area won't influence drop-rates. That doesn't mean anything as regards killing the same enemies over and over.... or indeed killing enemies solo at all.
It definitely does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that there is no anti-farming code; just that if you happen to step in and out repeatedly between an outpost and explorable area... that it won't influence the drop-rates as an independant action.


The anti-farming code is still there.... I'm fairly sure of that.

Well I think you're absolutely right; I made a test through continuosly farming the same area (the same 22 mobs) for 6 hours, after having a 2-days long break to "reset" any code:

First runs: 2 golds per run; then, steadily decreasing quality of the drops, till the end when 1 purple every 3-4 runs -__-

And.... Anet never said they removed anti-farm... only if you don't count the Dev Update on Loot, and Gaile's posts in this thread :P

However: 1/8 loot AND anti-farm plain sucks

No, Anet didn't say they removed anti-farming code per se. Here's what they did say:


From the Guild Wars official website updates page:
*Bold added for easy identification of the topic in discussion*



Now there's many different ways we could interpret this:

1) Repeated map entry doesn't reduce the loot, but repeatedly killing the critters on the map does (of course in a game where the focus is on killing critters that would be silly),

2) The number of loot drops hasn't decreased, just the value,

3) There is a bug in the code or some latent anti-farming feature that is still unintentionally active despite their claim,

4) ANet just thinks we are making this up and chalks it up to "random rolls" despite what appears to be a clear trend for many players,

5) ANet lied to us in the first place, thinks we're stupid, and thought we wouldn't notice golds turning to purples and eventually to whites.

6) Despite claims of wanting everyone to enjoy the game in their own preferred manner, they really don't care about this issue at all.

I'm really hoping that it is option 3 and they are working on it. Any other option smacks of deceit or incompetence.

I posted this in a botting thread before it got closed but its relevant here so I'll tell the story again.

I was going for the legendary skill hunter this weekend through yesterday afternoon and had to do runs in Mineral Springs multiple times to get the Avicara elites. Its not my first time in MS I also have legendary cartographer so I am no stranger to the run. I figured while I was in there I'd do IDS sweeps in the northeastern cave. Not once ever in my nearly a year playing GW have I dropped a single IDS. The only thing constant was the massive volume of bots in Granite Citadel heading northbound. No this is not a bot flame mods...its about loot scale or anti-farm.

In comparison early yesterday morning I did a Sorrow's Furnace run top to bottom and wound up with half a dozen golds from chests and mobs as well as a Superior Vigor.

I could never prove it but it seems like there is an anti-farm code that scales loot depending on how many people are in a zone. Literally no one was in the war camp that early so I have to figure I had my pick of the drops in Sorrow's Furnace. By comparison I was extremely lucky to see a purple in Tasca's or Mineral Springs. I'd be curious if anyone else has had the same thing happen, or if this warrants further player testing.

I've never really farmed until HM, so haven't paid much attention to other farming discussions; apologies if I'm saying something that's been said a million times before:

I've been farming one area repeatedly (20 to 40 runs per day) for the last 5 days, and at first the outpost I start from was pretty much empty. The golds, elite tomes and rare materials flowed for the first three days. Since then I have noticed the outpost get busier and busier, and at the same time my drops have gone from 2-3 golds and locked chests per run, to one gold every 2 runs and one locked chest per run - if any at all. White drops have started to overflow my first bag now, where at first I'd barely half-fill it with them.

I wish we could be told either way - even if it's "yes there's definitely anti-farming code still, but we're not telling you what it is" - just so I can go and do something better with my time, rather than keep on in the hopes of it just being a run of bad luck!

I don't think so, since GW is an instance driven game, the only # of people in the zone is a number between 1 and 8 with loot depending only on party size/heroes/henches/other 'real' human party menbers/and range. It's possible that there are other anti farm codes in effect other than killing the same few mobs in a zone repeatedly, Anet has flat out said 'Anti-farm has been removed from normal mode, and was never installed in hard mode' my take is, after that it's all luck. Anet also may have decided there were just too many golds flooding the market from solo HM farming and just tweaked the universal %yellow/%purple/%white rates down though in order to 'protect the economy'. All this aside, some runs I get 6-8 golds, some none... my bets on it's just blind dumb luck.

If you think it's just blind dumb luck then I issue this challenge to you:

Pick 5 spots you can solo farm in HM. Do 20 runs in a row on each of those runs, preferrably back to back if you have the time. Keep track of exactly how many gold, purple, blue, and white drops you get in each run as well as the coin count and oddball stuff like dye or tomes.

Wait 3 days and then repeat the experiment. Post your results here. If you do this honestly I don't think you'll believe it's just blind dumb luck any more.

The reason many people on here don't believe it's luck is they have done things very similar to the challenge I issued to you. Luck can hold true for a small number of people a small percentage of the time, but if enough runs are logged you eventually kill the "random factor" and can see clear patterns emerge.

Uhmmmm, are you sure about that? :P
Here is what I read:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10146006
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...98#post2792698

Farming is still messed up for me. Did 15 runs last night in HM (Zehlon & Spiders) and got 1 gold... STILL BROKEN!!!

Me and guildie vanquished Lathenda Bog yesterday (2 players + 6 heroes) and we killed 393 enemies. Guess how many gold drops we had. 1... and 3 grapes, the rest were white. I thought rare drops were increased in HM? Doesnt seem like it to me. You would think with the sheer numbers of enemies we destroyed (& 4 bosses) that more than one gold would drop.

As the subject of this thread indicates, this is about HM. They said they never implemented anti-farming code in HM, therefore they couldn't have removed it.

Nor does the game prevent people from repeatedly farming the same monsters over and over - technically speaking. You just will get less and less value from your farm runs, but you can keep doing it.

My main point of contention is that the clear impression from the ANet was that you wouldn't see loot degradation while repeatedly farming the same monsters, however that appears not to be the case.

Now, if you want to be "fanboy" about it, you could always argue that no "anti-farming" code was ever added to HM, but game-wide there's a feature which we'll call something other than "anti-farming" that has the effect of reducing loot drops after killing X amount of the same monster type. You might argue that it was put in place so that people get good loot the first time they come to an area with new monsters, but as the loot dries up it encourages them to move to another area of the game.

It doesn't really matter to me exactly how anyone wants to explain this phenomenon. What is clear to me is that when I haven't been in an area for several days the drops start out decent, but rapidly decrease in value - usually noticeable by the 2nd or 3rd time in the same area.

So while technically speaking it may not be "anti-farming" code and I'm not actually prevented from repeatedly killing monsters in the same zone, the effect is the same. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, etc. then it is a duck.

This is either the way things were intended, and therefore extremely duplicitous on the part of ANet, or this is an unintended consequence of something else (i.e. a bug) that needs to be corrected. Either way for many of us it is definitely real and not merely some misinterpretation of randomness. I'm hoping it's just a bug and that's why many of us are trying to bring it to their attention.

Has anet made any kind of statement on HM drops yet?

They have a *ninja* farming code.......

My drops suck, i barely get 1 gold every 3-5 runs. I farm 5-10 different locations.

You know what I think? They simply removed the message. Also don't get your hopes up high about another answer, this thread got its answer and while it being obviously misinformed, it is "the" answer.
But maybe it is just a use of words. Sort of like proclaiming nerfs as buffs for example. Maybe they call the widely percepted anti farming code not anti farming code but instead name it "Elisabeth". This way they can happily say that they don't have "Anti Farming code" and don't even lie about it. They however have "Elisabeth" that does the very same.

Of course they haven't.

Anet and it's PR were caught with their pants down when they described and explained the nature of the drops in HM. At this point they won't say anything to avoid looking more foolish.

I personally think this is disgusting how they won't even interact with the community (especially considering the amount of attention this has gotten). They would rather leave us twisting in the wind than step up and do the responsible thing.

At this point, I'm in the: "fine, it is, what it is" camp. If Anet rather ingore customer support, I won't support their product anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I will still play. However, being a customer that has two accounts, with full CE editions on both, and 24 character slots (read: paid extra $$$ directly to their company via the online store, GOTY upgrades, etc, etc).....I will not be buying any more of their products.

I'll let their "support" make conga lines, debate what 2nd year present to give out, etc until they are blue in the face. You know, take care of the important things....