Hard Mode - Your Experiences - Loot

I wanted to start a thread too look at your experience with the difference in loot in hard mode compared to normal mode , personally after my veil run today I dont see any real reason to play in hard mode unless title hunting but you may have different experiences.

Stygian Veil
2 Quests
Foes Killed: Roughly 250-300
Gold Drops - 2 (No Joke)
Purple Drops - 20

^Hard Mode also makes DOA much harder and for that reward there is not point in bothering. All the white stuff was mostly non max damage aswell , dropping from lvl 30 foes.

My guild and I have just finished vanquishing all of elona.

We usually have at least 4-5 real people if not a whole team of 8.

Gold drops range from 2-10 total per map for the party.

Elite tomes are scarce. Only 3-4 ever dropped after killing every boss from Istan to Desolation. I didn’t get any.

No green weapons dropped at all for anyone. Not even one.

I think that loot scaling should increase with the more real people you have. At least we had fun.

Yesterday I did a run from LA to ToA and then did Villainy. Even without the running fee I made more money that I do when I'm vanquishing. I usually get a bunch of purples(which sucks from a chest) and a gold or two. I need to find some good farming areas. Bergen Hot Springs seems like a good spot. *lol*

so far im liking hard mode..gold items side, yesterday i spent 14min in istan..got 7 golds 4 purples, but i thought they said that gold $$ drops were increased..i always get like 1 drop of 100g every 5 min or so

I've found that in a full party, I rarely find elite tomes. In a full party, I've seen maybe 1 or 2 since Hard Mode came out, and I've spent significant time in HM. However, solo farming bosses, I've found 4 or 5 since just last night! So yeah, it really seems to me like there are some flaws with the loot scaling, and I've felt that way since it began.

I just got Guardian of Cantha last night. Hard mode is nice, but I think they gave Searing Flames to some enemies in Cantha for HM

Legendary Guardian with my guild leader and friend recently. Had a grand old time. It was a lot of fun. Loot-wise, well, cant really say through all of that I got very much to write home about: a couple greens that werent worth anything anymore, a number of gold weapons I merched or gave to a Hero, a couple non-elite tomes, about two dozen worthless runes, around a half dozen lockpicks and a FoW passage scroll. Lockpicks actually and the gold rewards were probably the best of it.

Farming, well, I can go a number of places and get decent greens reasonably quickly now. Thing is, the economy is so bad I cant sell them to make doing that actually worthwhile unless I want to get them for myself or a hero. I stopped doing that. Sometimes an elite tome or a lockpick comes out of it and you can always sell those. Very few golds found actually command attention in the current buy/sell market either. That pretty much stopped me from farming, which is also one small factor contributing to also stopping me from playing recently.

Hard mode was fun though. I'll give it that. I really enjoyed Protectors for almost all my characters, so had a blast going through Guardians with my monk. Beyond that though, meh. Loot has become somewhat meaningless.

I make more money farming Gloom in NM than I do in HM....

Yeah, I've only been out a few times in HM (with equal number real ppl and heroes) and the drops have actually been really poor. I've seen one normal tome drop and a handful of gold items - and that's counting all three of us and all trips total. This was in Prophecies.

I noticed. In normal mode while doing veil each one of us got atleast 2gems(excluding the chest) while in HM only 2 of us even got 1.

I just did a vanquish of Nebbo Terrace earlier tonight (me and 5 H&H).
No golds, one or two purples, one regular tome, few blue, total about 20 items.
Left the collectable drops and a few whites, I have not that much space on my character. Gold gained was less than 1K.
Dual-smiting the undead there net's more than this entire vanquish.

Tried to dual Eastern Frontier earlier today, me and hero.
Killed about 100 foes, no golds, one or two purples, several blue and white drops.

HM Hell's with guildie did produce about the same, nothing special.

Overall experience over longer time:
HM nets me more gold overall, but drops can vary greatly.
I have vanquished several area's on all continents with guildies and on some the drops were a lot better than others.
Gold items drop more often in HM than NM.

Reason for playing HM.... Our guild specialized in it

Soloing in HM I found gave much better loot than soloing in NM, even in Gloom. With parties, I can't say I noticed much difference.

seems all over the place to me, ive vanquished 2 areas back to back with heros and henchies, and didnt get a single gold, but worm run (SS/LB) can net one or two maybe

had 1-2 greens drop (still a really poor drop rate) but plenty of purples :\

the loot isnt good enuff to justify doing hardmode imo, so hm is more for farming/titles

Loot? There's loot?
Oh wait, I got a lockpick. Maybe that counts as loot.
And some dude in Arborstone gave me his green curses staff. But actually I was just looking for Kurzick faction so that was a bonus.
But loot?
Can't say I've noticed anything very different from normal.

TRUTH OF LOOT SCALING!!!

Old normal system
before loot "NERF". We get a lot of gold from farming. Even with scatters those were the days fellow farmers.

New normal system
What more to say can I ask. Compleate nothin. ABSULUTE NOTHIN.

New hard system
Better then new normal system. But I cant say how many times better cause if it was million times better A MILLION TIMES ZERO IS STILL ZERO. In old normal mode gives (gave) 4-5times more then the new hard system.

"SUMMON" back the old system:,(


OH and ZOMG WHY YOU HATE IT MORE GOLDS WE GET ITS COOL. In time of getting 1 gold we could get 5-10k in back system with ignorant and brainless simples farm in game wghich were trolls. Cast first three enchantments and keep protective spirit and healing breeze up. Use soj when figtin. This did net us 5k in time 1 gold from HM that goes merchant from 200gold. What more to say I mean...

Woow, what's fun in that? Personaly, I am glad they put HM in, it produced more new and fresh builds then older system did in half a year. Try new things. Don't complain 24/7. Enjoy the game. Cheers...

Heh, i dont see a reason to even bother with hard mode like the freaks here.

I haven't noticed much of a difference as far as loot is concerend in the Regular playing areas between HM and NH. (I really hate the fact that collectors loot for 5 gold drops from a lvl 28 Monster, but I digress) I do however find that in elite mission, like the deep, the loot is alot better overall for me. I regularly get 2-3 decent gold drops and can make upwards of 3-5K per run before selling golds or end run chest items. In fact the other night I had both the Kanaxai blade and Axe drop in the same run and then recieves a Zodiac inscribable axe req 9 20/20 from the end chest. (I think that was my most profitable run to date)