HM drying up?

My results are similar to last few posters. I did 3 areas last night, 5 runs each
Approx. kill count per run: 20-24

Area 1
1. 2 golds 1 blue 2 whites 95 gp
2. 1 gold 2 grapes 1 white
3. 1 gold 1 grape 2 whites 103 gp
4. 2 grapes 2 whites
5. 4 whites 114 gp

Area 2
1. 1 Gold, 1 grape, 2 whites, 98, 95 gp
2. 1 gold, 1 grape
3. 1 grape, 1 blue, 2 whites
4. 1 blue, 1 white
5. 1 white, 97 gp

Area 3
1. 2 grapes, 2 blues, 1 white, 111gp
2. 1 gold, 2 whites
3. 1 grape, 1 blue
4. 1 white
5. 1 gold, 89gp

All golds were merch fodder (saved 1 mod - 20% enchant)

With the exception of the very last run the drops did get progressivly worse the more I farmed each area. I will try this again tonight but I will do the complete cycle twice.

Thanks, that directly answered the two main questions as far as I can see.

^^

Gaile's response a step in the right direction, for sure.

We do need more detailed information however. If there's no antifarm code active in the game anymore, there's a real problem occuring atm.

I just cleared the whole area outside of Hotsprings twice solo and got one gold, one purp, a couple of blues, and tons of whites and innumerable amounts of orr emblems. That is a lot of undead to kill in HM to get one gold that went to merc. HM was hailed as a hard but rewarding way to play. Now its just hard it seems.

It would seem in nearly every test people do loot does decline in quality quickly over a few runs. This coincides with most people's experience, that accounts and areas are still experiencing strange "flagging" effects that seem to have a close to all or nothing effect on your drops. I guess all we can do is keep generating data... but the intent of no more anti farming code isn't matching up to the raw data.

If Gaile was correct than in normal mode we should be getting more drops compared to Hard Mode?

Actually, the way I read it is that the number of drops in Normal vs Hard will be broadly similar. What anti-farming (ie. drops getting progressively fewer) has been removed from Normal, which puts it on a par with Hard.

Golds and greens are excluded, and my interpretation is that higher level monsters are more likely to drop golds (and elite tomes and the like), so no, normal mode will not yield more drops than hard.

Whether the increased quality of the HM drops (whether farmed or not, and over a decent length of playing time - say a handful of farm runs or anything over a couple of hours of 'exploring') is enough to keep players interested in that particular game mode is the big question here.

Cheers.

My experience, like that of many others, is that there are AT LEAST 2 things negatively impacting on quality and quantity of drops, and I'm reporting them here cause I'm not sure that the second has been mentioned:

1. repeating an area over and over (or this could be just linked to time spent online, I know that even chest farming gets worse over time [!!!!])
2. the number of mobs that you kill in the same moment!! Nuking a large number of monsters, for example with a PBAoE, results in way fewer drops than what you'd get by killing them individually.

Final word: either the no-anti-farm isn't working as Anet intended, OR there's more hidden anti-farm codes of which Gaile isn't aware.

I don't find that fair at all to players who haven't had the chance to start hard mode yet. I've been beating the campaigns in regular mode and getting my heroes ready to do hard mode, and now it's just gonna be a waste of time? I'm broke and I was hoping Hm would be a fun alternative way to make some cash while still playing the game.

after a night of *attempted* farming, it's just totally dead now. It's gotta be heavy anti-farm that's been kicked in, because from about 10 dead sword runs I got 2 rares -- smite staff and prot icon. Then went on to the corsairs, and a few purples.

This reminds me of how anti-farm worked in normal before the, ahem, glorious improvements.

It's pretty crappy that you would have to clear out anti-farm to farm in HM. I thought it would be different there. Guess not.

edit: after reading Gaile's quote, it's pretty apparent from my personal experience and that of many others posted here that she's plain wrong. Over the last few months we've seen several instances of her being on a different page than the devs, of her not being kept informed by them, and her misinforming and being misinformed. I'm pretty sure she's gonna have to backtrack on that.

edit #2: what's not fair kobe? If you haven't had the chance to do HM because you are doing normal.......isn't that like saying you are just choosing to do one thing over the other? Like anything, choose your priorities wisely. If it matters to you.

It's nice to see that the community is on the same page on this issue (even some steadfast community members that originally took a biased stance). I'm sorry. But a day without word from the "PR" on an important issue like this is disappointing.

I'm feeling this isn't a "work with us" senario. It's feeling like a "work against us" situation. I'm not happy about this.

What do we have to do to get some acknowledgement? Is this worth posting about? Does this need massive outcry before something is done (like the first loot scaling farce?)?

1) What do we do about this?

2) Do you care enough about this situation to demand change (by the post views, I think you do)

3) Are you satisfied with vague responses from Anet?

Lets face it, we are the heart and soul of what keeps this game going. We deserve a forthcoming response. Even if it's a "piss off" response. At least we would have the dignity to know where we stand. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. The question is, do you care enough to say something? Does Guru care enough to let it be heard?

I think you do. I think Guru does. Although it could be the rum talking. :P

....I need some sleep.....

Hah! still sober enough to fix a spelling error or two.

ok I have a wild theory here, but it sorta makes sense. As you know HM was created to give regular players a bit more challenge and to make it easier for those "once in awhile" farmers to get cash. Well maybe in that idea is the problem. Maybe when you go into HM, if you farmed a lot in NM, your drop tables are lowered, making it easier for the players who didn't farm.

me for example. I only farmed when I wanted a skin and I usally got them pretty quickly, but I only farmed 10 or so times (cause I make money from making PVP builds). But once I did HM I noticed I was getting 2-3 greens from one boss, at the first time, I was getting Golds from every monster I killed and so on. But I noticed my farming-oriented Guildie complained a heck of a lot in guild chat about his crappy HM drops.

My Guess: They shoot the rates up at the start, dropp'em down and fit them to each person based on thier farming history.

I thought you guys were being paranoid with this thread at first, now I am a believer. When HM was first introduced, I went to the Sulfurous Wastes to max out my Sunspear title and farm some LB. I would clear the area each time except for the Undead Necro boss and his mob. Each run I averaged around 1-2 Golds from dops, maybe 2-4 four more from chests. This past week I took a break from it, and went to complete my Protector titles in Tyria and Cantha.

I went back to remains last night, to finish leveling up my Meloni, after 3 runs, I saw no golds, not even from chests. In fact, there were only around 2-3 chests out there when there used to be 4 in alternating locations. I did manage to get a Dervish skill tome (non elite) from a chest, it broke my lockpick too that crap. So i am definitely sure something is up.

Ok my experience in hard mode based on the fact that i started it four days ago, is limited to one area Zehlon Reach, the first day of farming this area yeilded me numerous gold amongst them a req9 Colossal Scimitar, the second day was not too bad but golds were not as numerous as in day one, day three yielded mainly purples and day four was basically as waste of time with just whites dropping.
Given that i started hard mode with an intention to prolong my GW experience rather than call it a day after the nerf of drops in normal i am quite surprised by the degradation of loot quality, which reminds me of the anti farm code of days gone by, i will now log my data from several different runs in different areas and see if there is a pattern to this.
Gaile has posted that there have been no changes to drop rate in HM so can this drop degradation be down to a hidden mechanism or a flaw within the code that cannot differentiate between normal and hard mode when numerous runs in an area are made by one specific character, i am suspicious as this has affected my 55 which from previous experience shows that Anet do not approve of this character maybe i am paranoid lol, but i will collect my data and post it here for analysis.

There definitely is an anti-farm code, but I'm not sure how it works.
I've been noticing it in CS farm.

Ok. I rarely, if ever farm. I'm usually doing quests or missions. I am a casual gamer. I maybe play two or three hours a week if I'm lucky.

I decided to clear out an area last night in hard mode in prophecies and headed out of Port Sledge to kill off the Grawl figuring that it was a smallish area and I'd have time to clear it.

I'd never once been in this are in hard mode. I cleared it all out in about an hour and a half and didn't get one gold drop at all. I got 4 blue and 3 purple and the rest was white. The only gold drop I got all night was one I had bought a lockpick for to get inot a chest on the Fire Islands (which broke first try) and got a gold that had not one good mod on and no player would want that I had to merch for 118 gold. Not even close to the 1500 I paid for the lockpick.

I'm not seeing how this is helping the casual player at all as I took 4k out of my storage and only put 3.25k back into it. If it is indeed drying up, I'm going to stick to normal mode where I actually MAKE gold running around killing monsters.

Am I alone if feeling there should be more activity in this thread from Anet and their PR staff? If support's solution is to post game concerns on public forum as a means of reporting issues, then I expect some proper attention by it's employees.

If I don't hear anything by the weekend, I'll submit a report to PlayNC asking them what the official response is. If they give the cookie-cutter response of "post your concerns on one of the many fan site forums", I'll give them a link to this topic thread. 4,457 views now. I think that indicates that this is a problem....

Man, how drops work is still a big MYSTERY!

(I agree, I see less golds drops now)

Interesting. I do 3-4 runs a day for farming in HM same spot. I get 2-5 golds every run plus 3-6k after selling. I dont have a problem with anti-farming.

My bf and I just have done all of Elona in hard mode and I have only gotten 3 golds I think that weren't armor. That's awful compared to when we did Guardian of Tyria title in which we'd get at least 4 golds per mission in Ascalon. So either anet hasn't shut that farm script off in Hard Mode or they really need to review the loot scaling method for hard mode.

Edit: Spelling bleh