Ok... I figure some things need to be said about drop rates.... data needs to be compared and things need to be analysed. However, I have noticed quite a few things during play that many people might not due to... well... their being more rhetorical and less rational perhaps. There definitely do seem to be certain unspecified things that influence drop rates.... and quite a lot that probably don't.... so... I'm going to try and put them together.
#1. Populace Overfarming.
Myth. Total and utter myth, of that I am certain. Yet it is a totally prevalent one. People complain about certain spots being overfarmed because it is the easiest thing in the world to blame other people because you don't get good drops. I've tested this one a lot... farmed in areas where other people are swarming... and farmed in areas where there is nobody else around at all. In both cases, I've had times where I was getting tons of gold and loot abounding, and others where I got nothing much. Who else was there didn't seem to influence the results at all. Not in the slightest. You can even do the same farm as the bots at Granite Citadel and get just fine drops (provided you don't mind being mistaken for a bot yourself).
#2. The Anti-Farm Code.
~~ 2a. Zoning Repeatedly.
A-Net removed this. You can zone in and out as often as you bloody well please and it won't influence the drop rates. It doesn't matter if you're killing the first one or ten enemies, or going in there three times per minute. This won't change drop-rate.
~~ 2b. Killing Same Enemies Repeatedly.
Possible, but it seems unlikely at present. While my Necro's efforts always seem to wane over time, I've had other farming runs that show no diminishing returns over time, even when I'm killing just the one group.
~~ 2c. Getting Rares Repeatedly.
If any sort of anti-farm code is in effect, this seems the most likely.... though probably weak at best. With many characters I have had quite a lot of golds initially from farming, and then had them wane to a low level and stay there... and stay there until I haven't had any golds for a while despite killing a lot (for whatever reason). O'course that doesn't stop there being an occasional gold-spike...
#3. AoE Slaughter vs Individual Kill.
This almost certainly IS a factor... at least when solo-farming. I have reason to believe that when a lot of enemies die in very rapid succession or simultaneously, that the drops are intended to cycle between the people present to keep it more fair.... but if only one person is there then some drops may not happen at all. There is quite likely a timer in effect on this which resets after a few moments... In other words, killing enemies one at the time should yield better results than AoEing them down.
[Edit]: Spacing out your kills seems to drop more scaled loot, but not more rare stuff. This pattern is seen consistantly by many people now. If you're farming for golds alone, it is apparently still alright to just nuke the fetchers!
#4. Loot-Scaling + Hench-Flagging.
As far as I can tell, how much chalk / blue / grape stuff you get is going to be the same irrespective of whether you're solo-farming, 8-group farming, 8-grouping with the herohench parked out of compass range... Hard-mode OR Normal-mode. You will get one person's worth, and that seems to be it.
As for non-scaled stuff... you will get 8 peoples worth if you are the only person in compass range, irrespective of what is flagged outside. Normal-mode and Hard-mode much the same. Alive or dead doesn't matter; only whether they're in range or not.
Just remember though... herohench will take their share of any raw cash you find, no matter where they are on the map and whether they're alive or dead.... so only bring them if you absolutely have to.
#5. Hero/Hench versus Real Players.
The same. Totally the same. If you're in a party of 8, you will get 1/8th the rare drops and the same number of normal drops irrespective of whether the other 7 are meatbags or AI. Any suggestion to the contrary is a myth... Totally.
#6. Enemy Variety.
Can't really be sure on this one, but I don't think it makes any difference at all. I seem to get exactly the same number of golds, other rares, etc from farming runs with only one type of enemy as I do with every species under the sun.... Only thing enemy variety influences is WHICH items you get (and they will tend to have the same probability of a rare from one to the next).
And I won't patronise anyone any further by noting that Hard Mode gives better quality drops but not better quantity...
If anyone can add anything to this, please feel free to tell me.
Farm Drop Rates ~ Myths + Facts
SotiCoto
Koning
I will post here the same as in that other thread than:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koning
Quote:
Anyway I've found another interesting thing which has to do with droprate; When we kill a mob at the same time all together (lets say with ss/sandstorm/soj and the like) it seems that you get ALOT less drops than when you kill them seperatly (Warrior, dervish etc and sliver armor/spoil victor in some extend).
For example when I go to UW with my sandstorm e/me, and kill 1 group of smites, there's normally only 1 white/blue drop or coin drop. (rares and ecto's excluded, you just have to be lucky to get those)
When I lure 2 or more groups together and kill them, I STILL get only 1 white drop/coin drop (again, rares excluded). This way it seems its more profitible to kill groups seperatly, and not lure them together.
However, when I go to the smites with my warrior (w/d most of the time) he seems to get more drops than my ele. I think the reason is that he doesn't kill them all at the same time.
Btw, HM or NM is the same.
Same drop behavior with minotaurs/trolls and all other monsters.
Any1 more noticed this? So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this.
For example when I go to UW with my sandstorm e/me, and kill 1 group of smites, there's normally only 1 white/blue drop or coin drop. (rares and ecto's excluded, you just have to be lucky to get those)
When I lure 2 or more groups together and kill them, I STILL get only 1 white drop/coin drop (again, rares excluded). This way it seems its more profitible to kill groups seperatly, and not lure them together.
However, when I go to the smites with my warrior (w/d most of the time) he seems to get more drops than my ele. I think the reason is that he doesn't kill them all at the same time.
Btw, HM or NM is the same.
Same drop behavior with minotaurs/trolls and all other monsters.
Any1 more noticed this? So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this.
okidoke
Quote:
Originally Posted by SotiCoto
As far as I can tell, how much chalk / blue / grape stuff you get is going to be the same irrespective of whether you're solo-farming, 8-group farming, 8-grouping with the herohench parked out of compass range... Hard-mode OR Normal-mode. You will get one person's worth, and that seems to be it.
As for non-scaled stuff... you will get 8 peoples worth if you are the only person in compass range, irrespective of what is flagged outside. Normal-mode and Hard-mode much the same. Alive or dead doesn't matter; only whether they're in range or not.
Just remember though... herohench will take their share of any raw cash you find, no matter where they are on the map and whether they're alive or dead.... so only bring them if you absolutely have to. What does non-scaled stuff mean eg. rare materials, armour?
I agree and understand the rest of your views and farm accordingly.
Guildmaster Cain
Hmm nice, I hope this bans some of the Myths that some ppl spread.
AoE Slaughter seems interesting to investigate... So does Henchflagging if you dont care about money sharing.
Though you cant base anything on a few runs in a certain area, as some ppl try to do. Sometimes I get 5 runs no rare at all and another run in the area suddenly 4 rares drop and more good stuff. Its all calculated in the chances of loot-roll.
AoE Slaughter seems interesting to investigate... So does Henchflagging if you dont care about money sharing.
Though you cant base anything on a few runs in a certain area, as some ppl try to do. Sometimes I get 5 runs no rare at all and another run in the area suddenly 4 rares drop and more good stuff. Its all calculated in the chances of loot-roll.
FoxBat
Let me clarify by combining your points; loot scaling is connected to kill rate (which is noticable when killing monsters quickly all at once, instead of slowly one at a time). You will get nearly full drops killing elona minotours with -10 degen than say halfish with sliver armor. (It will take ages, but you will get more drops per critter.) Therefore, kill slowly enough and you won't be affected by loot scaling at all. Note by "kill" I mean deaths within a short time window, so if you take 5 minutes SoJing a group of 10 down and then they die at once, you will get less drops then if you spent 30 seconds on each one with a sword warrior, even though the farming time is the same. One person claimed ~30 seconds between kills was the sweet spot for full drops but I haven't tested that number.
As far as I can tell, this means that things on the loot scaling exception list, should *not* be affected by kill speed, which would be confirmed by all the rares and ectos still dropping in speed farms.
As far as I can tell, this means that things on the loot scaling exception list, should *not* be affected by kill speed, which would be confirmed by all the rares and ectos still dropping in speed farms.
KartMan
Quote:
Originally Posted by SotiCoto
#1. Populace Overfarming.
Myth. Total and utter myth, of that I am certain. Yet it is a totally prevalent one. People complain about certain spots being overfarmed because it is the easiest thing in the world to blame other people because you don't get good drops. I've tested this one a lot... farmed in areas where other people are swarming... and farmed in areas where there is nobody else around at all. In both cases, I've had times where I was getting tons of gold and loot abounding, and others where I got nothing much. Who else was there didn't seem to influence the results at all. Not in the slightest. You can even do the same farm as the bots at Granite Citadel and get just fine drops (provided you don't mind being mistaken for a bot yourself). I don't agree with you on this point, please check my following post
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=162
FoxBat
I'd be interested in seeing your data which supports an overfarm nerf, but your theory of the mechanics behind it is lacking. There isn't really any way for drops within seperate instances on the same server to be related unless Anet had specifically coded it to work that way. If they went with the common number generator which they probably did, it is just a seed based on system clock to fractions of a second precision. How often a new seed is created, whether its just one per drop or simply one used for your entire stay in that instance, doesn't relate at all to multiple instances on one server. Servers are not bound to in-game locations, so normally a server is running many, many instances of all sorts of different missions and areas at once, with none of those people complaining about their drops.
Koning
The old griffons also were dropping frequent goldies while tons of people and bots were farming them...
KartMan
it's solely based on my own (little) farming experience, example zehlon reach, I think I was among the firsts to try there, gold galore and nearly every monster did drop something, now that it is swarmed with Mo/D, I barely get 3 or 4 items (including gold coins) from the whole run.
what makes me think that everything is pre generated ?
I was doing a run in gates of kryta HM, in one monster pack, I received 5 life steal from one archer (normal monster) when he attacked me, guess what, he did drop a gold dead bow with a vampiric string on it.
My guess is that there is a large part of "randomizing" in Guild Wars and with loot/drop, and probably a test when you kill a monster to determine whether he will drop something, and if he did what part of "his inventory" it will be.
This could explain why if you AoE kill some mobs, you only get a few drops, since the "test" for drop or not will likely get the same "nodrop" result.
(I can't remember in which post I read this, it was related to random numbers I think)
hope it helps.
edit : I found the topic : http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10153337
also you may find it interesting the following link http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/index...howtopic=24727
believe what you want to believe, I just wanted to give my point of view
cheers
what makes me think that everything is pre generated ?
I was doing a run in gates of kryta HM, in one monster pack, I received 5 life steal from one archer (normal monster) when he attacked me, guess what, he did drop a gold dead bow with a vampiric string on it.
My guess is that there is a large part of "randomizing" in Guild Wars and with loot/drop, and probably a test when you kill a monster to determine whether he will drop something, and if he did what part of "his inventory" it will be.
This could explain why if you AoE kill some mobs, you only get a few drops, since the "test" for drop or not will likely get the same "nodrop" result.
(I can't remember in which post I read this, it was related to random numbers I think)
hope it helps.
edit : I found the topic : http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10153337
also you may find it interesting the following link http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/index...howtopic=24727
believe what you want to believe, I just wanted to give my point of view
cheers
Patrick Smit
SotiCoto, the exact consequences of point four are not completely clear to me.
IOf u flag hench far away and they grey out, would that result in mor drops for me? I interpret it like that, but maybe I'm just reading it wrongly.
IOf u flag hench far away and they grey out, would that result in mor drops for me? I interpret it like that, but maybe I'm just reading it wrongly.
letshuntx
I believe that ANet has put in code to encourage spreading out your kills.
Instead of nerfing drop rate in certain farms that drastically improve it for a short period when you change campaign or area or something like that.
I found that when I started hard mode in tyria drops were amazing then went to crap. then when I started factions hardmode on the first missions the drops were amazing again and then got reduced again.
I could be wrong but thats what I believe
Instead of nerfing drop rate in certain farms that drastically improve it for a short period when you change campaign or area or something like that.
I found that when I started hard mode in tyria drops were amazing then went to crap. then when I started factions hardmode on the first missions the drops were amazing again and then got reduced again.
I could be wrong but thats what I believe
Bug John
Quote:
Originally Posted by SotiCoto
I see your counter-theory... but what is it based on?
His theory is based exactly on the same as yours, your personal feelings.
I tend to agree with him, as I'm personnaly convinced that the number of instances in a zone has an influence on how good drops are.
I play on euro servers, and I've never had such good drops than since I came to taiwan for a traineeship : I play less, but I play when european players aren't farming.
Haven't you noticed too how good drops are when a new campaign has just been released ? And how fast this quality disappears as more people reach the new zones ?
I know gaile said this isn't true, but do you really think anet would explain how the anti farm codes work ? That would make these codes useless.
Believe me or not, I don't want to convince anyone (and you should do the same as long as you don't have read the source code yourself
).
I tend to agree with him, as I'm personnaly convinced that the number of instances in a zone has an influence on how good drops are.
I play on euro servers, and I've never had such good drops than since I came to taiwan for a traineeship : I play less, but I play when european players aren't farming.
Haven't you noticed too how good drops are when a new campaign has just been released ? And how fast this quality disappears as more people reach the new zones ?
I know gaile said this isn't true, but do you really think anet would explain how the anti farm codes work ? That would make these codes useless.
Believe me or not, I don't want to convince anyone (and you should do the same as long as you don't have read the source code yourself
).
XvArchonvX
There are 101 myths out there that people have made up to either explain why someone didn't get the drops they wanted from farming or to just blame A-net. Almost all of them are pretty much like superstitions in that they are simple rules conjured up by the simple minded to avoid accepting the fact that random drops mean that you just might farm for days on end and never get what you want.
KartMan
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxBat
as I said, the "instances" are just data, whatever its form, to put it bluntly an array, containing various informations (coded or not, example int value 13 for dead bow). Each array corresponds to an instance, which are unrelated amongst themselves, but the functions that "uses"/"works" those arrays are the same for all those data.
so to speak if you have a function that spawns the monsters on a map, it may call another function that determines (probably using a random number generator) the drop and quality the given monster has.
It is exactly here where I think the skew is.
if you now consider the Guild War server you're as a whole (and not only in your own instance), the server may host 1000, 10000 instances or even more, so possibly hundreds or thousands of call to the same function in a very short time window.
I don't think we will ever see this server part code but that's at least how I guess it could be like.
FoxBat
Quote:
Originally Posted by KartMan
(I can't remember in which post I read this, it was related to random numbers I think)
Also if the game is using a single seed for 8 or 9 drop chance checks in any normal way, the first call will set the number for the second call regardless of the time difference between the two, even "simultaneous" because single-threaded processes can't do anything simultaneously and must make the calculations in order. Additionally if your theory was correct, we should see simultaneous kills trigger all-drops-at-once or no-drops-at-once, mistakenly using the same generated number, and not a consistent no-drop behavior.
The birthday presents thread is silly because the # of presents any individual can open is typically much much smaller than the number of rares they can accumulate, it is unlikely most people can accumulate enough unopened gifts to have any kind of remotely significant data. There isn't a huge variety of miniatures in the first place anyway.
There is speculation about some widespread attenuation of rares in hard mode past a certain point. So to verify over-farming theories you need to, like Soto mentioned, spend some time farming similar enemies in unpopular locales and compare drops.
Quote:
I'm not sure for the all-drops-at-once or no-drops-at-once, I was rather thinking :|
so to speak if you have a function that spawns the monsters on a map, it may call another function that determines (probably using a random number generator) the drop and quality the given monster has. It is exactly here where I think the skew is. As I mentioned, in conditions of not overfarming, a single server is running tons of instances of people in various missions and areas. The same function is being called across many instances, yet reputedly drop rates are not being lowered. Why would this specifically target areas that happen to be the same and avoid areas that are different, unless Anet intentionally coded it to do so? Once a seed is set anyway, you could call it an infinite number of times and have a "random enough" behavior, there isn't some degredation of integrity over time, so one seed value being shared across instances again should make no difference. There simply isn't anything relevant for a RNG to share beyond a single seed and # of calls.
ReZDoGG
I noticed that also. That taking on a huge group and killing them all pretty much at once, kills drops. I put together build for Luxon Assassin's farming where I can take on every Sin that pops up there at once, which is over 25 sins. I killed them all, and only got 1 gold armor, and 1 purple armor with like 3 other drops. Definately better to take them a few at a time.
Ringsgold
#3 is hereby confirmed:
farmed the spiders outside rihlon refuge, alternating between using SS and SV to kill them
KartMan
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxBat
|
CODE
10 -> nothing
10
10
7 -> luxon pendant
7
7
4 -> weapon
3 -> luxon garb
3
3
well maybe with 10 or 15 more "10"s ...
I only used the birthday's topic for its content regarding random number, I know that the sample one can get is really small for it to be significant.
Quote:
As I mentioned, in conditions of not overfarming, a single server is running tons of instances of people in various missions and areas. The same function is being called across many instances, yet reputedly drop rates are not being lowered. Why would this specifically target areas that happen to be the same and avoid areas that are different, unless Anet intentionally coded it to do so? Once a seed is set anyway, you could call it an infinite number of times and have a "random enough" behavior, there isn't some degredation of integrity over time, so one seed value being shared across instances again should make no difference. There simply isn't anything relevant for a RNG to share beyond a single seed and # of calls.
that's because of "prediction", nowadays most CPU architecture has this feature I think, if you call a function with the same parameters, it is highly likely that it will return the same "value" or "array" in our case.
Anet doesn't need to nerf farm, their servers are doing it on their own
Anet doesn't need to nerf farm, their servers are doing it on their own
FoxBat
Quote:
Originally Posted by KartMan
that's because of "prediction", nowadays most CPU architecture has this feature I think, if you call a function with the same parameters, it is highly likely that it will return the same "value" or "array" in our case.
That would be a complete failure of a random number generator. The standard, cheap generator everyone is using is very capable of spitting out near-random results when being fed the same parameters, and if something was fishy anyway, you would notice it affecting far more frequently occuring identical random rolls like damage ranges in isle of the nameless.
I'm not trying to put down the idea that there may be something going on, but blaming the solid, simple, time-proven RNG itself is based on human misunderstandings of randomness, which in fact include long runs of similar results happening sometimes.
I'm not trying to put down the idea that there may be something going on, but blaming the solid, simple, time-proven RNG itself is based on human misunderstandings of randomness, which in fact include long runs of similar results happening sometimes.
ArKaiN
My observations:
-There most certainly IS some kind of farming code in effect. My first run on any given place will wield decent loot, then progressively become worse and worse.
-This is a weird idea, but I think that the dropping of golds is actually time based. Hear me out. I've been noticing a really weird pattern lately: I get no golds for a while, then a mob drops like 4 or 5 golds at the same time. This got me thinking, and the only reason I could come up with is that the reason they all dropped golds is because they were all killed at the same time. Far fetched, I know, but I've been asking around, and this behavior seems in fact quite common. Any other ideas on why this happens?
Btw, with time based I mean that as soon as you get onto an explorable/mission, a timer starts, and if you kill something on second X, a gold will drop.
EDIT: Come to think of it, if this is true, then the AoE slaughter theory makes perfect sense: If you're killing most or all the foes at the same time, there's a smaller chance you'll hit that precious Gold-second then if you're killing foes one a second.
-There most certainly IS some kind of farming code in effect. My first run on any given place will wield decent loot, then progressively become worse and worse.
-This is a weird idea, but I think that the dropping of golds is actually time based. Hear me out. I've been noticing a really weird pattern lately: I get no golds for a while, then a mob drops like 4 or 5 golds at the same time. This got me thinking, and the only reason I could come up with is that the reason they all dropped golds is because they were all killed at the same time. Far fetched, I know, but I've been asking around, and this behavior seems in fact quite common. Any other ideas on why this happens?
Btw, with time based I mean that as soon as you get onto an explorable/mission, a timer starts, and if you kill something on second X, a gold will drop.
EDIT: Come to think of it, if this is true, then the AoE slaughter theory makes perfect sense: If you're killing most or all the foes at the same time, there's a smaller chance you'll hit that precious Gold-second then if you're killing foes one a second.
Koning
Nah I don't think thats true (however getting 15 ecto's at the same time would be cool
) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).
I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance)
) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance)
ArKaiN
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koning
Nah I don't think thats true (however getting 15 ecto's at the same time would be cool ) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).
I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance) I don't think the system for gold drops and material drops is the same.
And about the multiple golds on a single mob, I'm not just saying random crap: I did indeed ask a lot of people, and they confirmed it. This thread has some evidence also: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0149873&page=7
I don't think there's a single one-gold drop in the thread, they're all in multiples.
) cause that's not happening all the time while they get killed at the same time (and it also never happened to me, and i'm sure to the majority of GW players).I think it's some kind of timer (like the soul reaping system) that decides if we get a drop. And IF we get a drop, the game decides what kind of drop this is with chances. (keep in mind some monsters tend to drop more golds than others, and also farming code probably influences this chance) I don't think the system for gold drops and material drops is the same.
And about the multiple golds on a single mob, I'm not just saying random crap: I did indeed ask a lot of people, and they confirmed it. This thread has some evidence also: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0149873&page=7
I don't think there's a single one-gold drop in the thread, they're all in multiples.
SotiCoto
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Smit
IOf u flag hench far away and they grey out, would that result in mor drops for me? I interpret it like that, but maybe I'm just reading it wrongly.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bug John
His theory is based exactly on the same as yours, your personal feelings.
Keep telling yourself that.
But the default conclusion one should always draw from any situation, particularly because it is the default state of the Universe...... is no pattern... i.e. that supposed "cause" and "effect" are unrelated... And despite what some people may experience, good drops still come to some in the midst of farming frenzy, and may be denied more (and this isn't so rare) when there are less people around. There certainly isn't enough bias one way to suggest an actual cause and effect... So for the record.... you fail. Mine is not based on personal feelings. Keithark
To the OP if your chances of getting drop is increased on the time basis, then the spiders outside Rhilon are a good place toall the look at that...I kill "normal" spiders at same time sith ss and some drop some dont, but since it takes a good bit of time after they have died to kill fastfoot he should then drop something every time right? Not so, there are lots and lots of times he drops nothing even though he dies usually over 30 secinds after the other stuff has died. Plus looking at the spreadsheet by Ringsgold looks like the # of rares are about equal either way so you are better off killing fast because you could do 2 complete runs in the time it takes to kill them off one by one so if looking at time/money you are better killing fast and re-zoning and do again I would think.
Readsforpleasure
I've had a few instances where the spiders (excluding boss) in Rilohn Refuge all died at the same time and dropped 4 golds and a couple of whites.
ArKaiN
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keithark
SotiCoto
Ok.... so the timing thing might possibly be off....
... But one needs often to be careful when dealing with things with a high degree of random fluctuation like this. ... However, Keithark... there has never been any "guarantee" of getting a gold drop from anything... The odds might be higher, but still not enough to actually trigger it more often for you within your test parameters... I guess it just requires more testing. I have given some consideration to the counter-opinions to the AoE kill-timing idea. zorbi
So farming is now going on "slow killing" builds. Right?
Batou of Nine
Point #1, is fact. Period. SotiCoto is not stating it by opinion. I have been saying this, trying to dispel this myth for over a year now. The reason i know its fact is it was stated/dispelled by Gaile Gray herself a long time ago. So long ago, that i have not been able to find the thread again. I will continue to search for it, if it still exists. But that is why i know its fact, at this point, it is merely my word that this is true...
I also believe the rest of his points are well founded as i they are comparable/similar to my own observations. Nicely done and concis thread. Well said SotiCoto... Now please people, stop crying about 'overfarmed' areas. It is tiring. cheers. ArKaiN
Quote:
Originally Posted by zorbi
So farming is now going on "slow killing" builds. Right?
No, not really. Killing enemies one at a time doesn't have to be slow. In fact SV farming is pretty quick.
english storm
I think when a lot of people farm the same area the drop rate of items does go down after time. But I don't think it's anything to do with the amount of people farming that location that is directly responsible for the lower amount of drops, Anet see the amount of people farming one location so they adjust the drop rate of the monsters. Hence lower drop rate caused by over farming.
Captain Arne Is PRO
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koning
I will post here the same as in that other thread than:
So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this. I can also vouch this. On my one Warrior whilst solo Smite running, I kill each monster individually and end up with an average of 3 Ecto per run. [grasps + smites only] On my other Warrior, I kill ALL Smites at the exact same time [roughly] and I average 1.5ish per run. These tests are averages of 100 runs per toon. Ratz
Well, I took this screen shot a few days ago. It's the spider farm near Rilohn Refuge. I cropped it too much but trust me I was in HM and this was after I had killed them a few times already. Not sure what this means, other than it is possible to get multiple golds in one run after a couple of tries; but anyone keeping data on this may find it useful to know. I was using an SS/Reckless Haste build and the only reason that one spider died after Zelnehlun was because it was a little further back and I didn't notice it wasn't getting affected by my spells.
I've also tried using an SV/Signet of Sorrow build killing them all one by one. I haven't noticed any significant increase in drops doing it this way. Could be that the kills are too close to each other time wise because each spider still dies within seconds of each other. I've been meaning to try to space out the kills a few more seconds apart but I've been lazy to give it a try. Even after this I do believe killing all enemies in one swift AoE can have an effect in drops. As someone else said, when I do the E/Me UW solo run in NM and kill 2 or 3 groups of smites I'll get a drop of 100g; but if I kill one group at a time I'll get more regular drops. Ecto, however, still drops for me in those large groups; which makes sense since it is in the list of excluded loot scaling drops. So, I still group all the smites I can as I'm there for the ecto anyway and I'm still averaging better than 1 ecto a run. Only thing is I'll maybe get 300 - 400g worth of item drops as opposed to about 900g I'd get taking one group at a time.
strcpy
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Originally Posted by Bug John
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Quote: Haven't you noticed too how good drops are when a new campaign has just been released ? And how fast this quality disappears as more people reach the new zones ? Not really. They were consistent to me. Up until the anti-farming code was removed I noticed that the first few times I zoned in an area I got better drops - but that was true on each and every character and I just needed to rotate around where I was at and do some missions to get back to the good drops. At the least my gp/hour only has changed on the major AI changes or farming changes listed in the update notes since I purchased prophecies (about 3 months after release).
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Originally Posted by KartMan
that's because of "prediction", nowadays most CPU architecture has this feature I think, if you call a function with the same parameters, it is highly likely that it will return the same "value" or "array" in our case.
Umm, I do not think you know what "prediction" in modern CPU's are.
Branch prediction in modern CPU's make sure the pre-fetch queue has the correct data in it. The pre-fetch queue will generally hold a number of instructions and (IIRC, it's been a few years) the needed data in high speed on-processor memory, as long as the processor is pulling from there then it generally doesn't have to wait for a much slower read to another memory subsystem (and hopefully to RAM as little as possible), if it predicts the branch incorrectly then the processor has to wait and all the data in the queue dumped and rebuilt. Simple branches are pretty easy - the pre-fetch queue just loads up both branches and discards what isn't used - however with loops and such it isn't so easy. We used to do what is called "loop unrolling": instead of making the loop as small as possible you made it is large - if you knew the loop would repeat in multiples of five - make it five repeated lines. It could *really* speed things up. Nowadays the predictors do a MUCH better job and it isn't really needed, and in some cases can slow things way down because the processor is better able to handle it with pipelines and other modern structures. Note that this is something you only worry about in assembly, not a high level language - your compiler unrolled loops and such. In no case is the computer somehow fooled because you called a function with the same parameters, if that were true then all sorts of things would fail miserably. It sure isn't uncommon to have a while loop call a single function until it's return value changed - if what you wrote was true that would *never* work. You are correct in that this is where branch prediction has come along ways, but it will not force the same outcome unless all the variable have the same content to begin with. That is caused by the programmer, not the processor, branch prediction, or a cache. -Oviron-
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Originally Posted by Koning
I will post here the same as in that other thread than:
So, I'm also noticing that killing all enemies at the same time gives less drops than when you kill them seperatly. And I did enough runs to say this is reliable information. Tho I also want to know if more ppl experience this. I have to say that I agree with this 100%. Doing the Assassin farm outside Zos Shivros, killing all the Sin's in 2 or 3 groups(mass aggro) would net me 1-2 golds, and 4-5 other drops(whites, blues...etc). But when I would kill one group at a time, and only kill one Sin at a time, my inventory would be full in 1-2 runs. Almost each Sin would drop something for me. Looks like I'll be farming the slow way, seems more profitable. Maybe now my tank will see some more HM farming love.
For Great Justice!
Heres one suggestion
Maybe its just timer'd. So as to prevent you getting gold drops for successive kills 1 second after another, as that could happen with the randomly generated codes. The time may even be slightly randomized, so after 1 drop, you cant get another gold for...1 minute? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? 1 hour? But to be able to get the drop, you'd have to kill the beast on the very second which it would allow you to, or you cant get one for another 5 mins, 30 seconds, etc. Do you guys see? This is really much simpler than all the anti farm randomly generated zonal effect stuff that everyone else is talking about. What do you think?
SotiCoto
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Originally Posted by Ratz
Well, I took this screen shot a few days ago. It's the spider farm near Rilohn Refuge.... etc
Interesting.
That is definitely a strong gold-spike you have there, though I notice the comparitive lack of scaled loot. You pretty much have almost all non-scaled. On the other hand.... there is the situation that I am going through right now with Sstou Swiftscale in Maishang Hills. Using my present build I am in fact only able to kill one Naga Archer every 30 seconds or so at most (more like a minute).... and I'm getting an absolutely alarming number of chalk items.... far beyond what I would expect with the loot-scaling active as it is now. I have had one grape and one blue scroll from Sstou himself... and I've done the run 4 times now. Quite a few Naga dead... Now.... I could be wrong here.... but this suggests at the very least that there is some form of timer mechanism in place on scaled loot.... if not so necessarily on gold items. Of course we need to take into account the findings of others... and since I'm assuming they pay more attention to rares than to scaled loot, they are probably getting a timer on that too. I'm still checking.... and for that matter I wouldn't mind farming Sstou until I get an Elite Ranger Tome or two.... or at the very least his Green.
P A L P H R A M O N D
As far as #3 goes, I have experienced this farming Jade Brotherhood mages and knights in Majjun Bazaar. 55 Necro with SS and Insidious Parasite, its super easy, and get a ton of gold armors. Anyways, I aggro in small mobs, and they usually don't die all at once. Odd thing is, been doing it since HM came out, and 90% of the time they all drop something, I haven't felt any effects of loot scaling. Been getting everything from 100 gold coins to Jadeite to Armor . . . something seems to always drop. The way I run it I kill 15-20 foes in a few minutes, and all but maybe 4-5 drop something.
Gaia_Hunter
Ive done monotaurs runs with ss and with warrior killing one by one.
I didnt noticed more loot by killing one by one or mass killing. It just seems random. Sometimes i get very few drops, other i get drops from every monotaur. |
