Loot Scaling

If that showed anything I wouldn't mind doing it, however it doesn't. What you need to do is record *every single drop* you get, no matter what and where you are for long enough for any patterns to show (*at least* 30 or so runs). Make sure you note each "run" what the variables are (that is - new player with me, old player with me, solo, etc). Just record the things that matter to you - value of what you merch, number of shards/ecto, number of gold.

If there was such a thing as a Law of Averages than your idea would be somewhat useful, except there is no such thing. The closest you get is the Law of Big Numbers and that is what I am trying to achieve with the above protocol. Even should we do it and you get all the drops (me being "correct" as I never play those areas as I am a pure H/H or solo player) it *still* wouldn't mean anything.

Every single time someone has done the above they get *no* anti-farming code that you complain of and that is irrespective of how much they believed in it. At one time I kept track of my Bergin Hot Springs runs "prove" that there was one in effect and found out I was incorrect. This rumor has been around since day one and there has yet to be anyone find evidence of it once they start applying a systematic approach and Anet has denied having this in there since then also.

That isn't the way random number work with a computer. Yes, there is eventually a pattern but it repeats after a certain period per seed (and is why PRNG's re-seed from time to time), that period is generally fairly large and would not cause a depression in drops on older characters or hit any one particular character more than others systematically. While true that the sequnce generated is deterministic for any statistical analysis of the data it conforms to being "random" - that is there is no discernible pattern.

What this means is that you can not predict that next state generated from looking at the previous ones (and thus, for all intents random) but if you knew the algorithm used and the seed you could predict each successive exactly. This doesn't cause a single individual to experience anti-farming code in any way and has nothing to do with it. Even with the *REALLY* poor ones that you are going to find a pattern by looking at the outcomes they take large amounts of data and generally complex statistical analysis to find the pattern (and since PRNG's are central to much of gaming they do not use the bad ones and haven't since the early Atari 2600 days). And, even then, all it would allow you to do is to predict what is going to drop next, not have a systematic depression of drop quality against a single individual.

You will note that a fairly famous one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RANDU) takes thousands of samples to notice and requires the values to be plotted in a specific way. It is considered to be one of the worst ones out there and you could not detect that pattern just by watching numbers come out (or drops generated from it).

Even should they seed off of "time spent in game" it *still* wouldn't degrade drops for long term players unless they used a *really* poor PRNG and, again, the field is old enough that it is well known how to avoid this - it takes intentionally doing so even if there is one out there (I know of none as that destroys the whole statistically random thing). Plus it puts us back into the Anet is liars and it violating any of the longer term data anyone has compiled.

All of this is drilled into your head on any course dealing with seminumerical algorithms (go have a read of Knuth's volume two of The Art of Computer Programming/Seminumerical Algorithms). Your taking a small tidbit of information and carrying too far - you know enough to extrapolate some *really* incorrect ideas.

I dont know what PRNG is(think you might be talking about the drop algorithm used). But as for the rest, I'm not talking about 1 run (thought of doing just 1 run to show you what i get every time). But I'm getting bad drops EVERY TIME I go out with other people(Everybody else will get better drops, eg more blues, greens, golds, rare materials). I play every night and I see it every night. I'm willing to record it for as many times anybody feels necessary. The thing is it's not just me, the same thing happens in our entire guild for ppl that play 1 char mainly. It seems ppl that play multiple chars don't suffer from this as much.

PRNG = Pseudo Random Number Generator, a deterministic algorithm that produces a sequence of numbers that appears random for all practical purposes. The properties of PRNGs are intangential to the issue here, since they won't produce the kind of effects that are claimed to exist.

There are two options, either (1) ANet has misinformed us and implemented a complex and mischievous piece of anti-farming code in addition to the well established loot scaling effect, or (2) people are seeing patterns where none exist, like in 'other lanes are always faster than mine' (a psychological illusion confirmed to exist even if the test subject is aware of it).

There's a simple although tedious way to tell which option is true: collect enough data and use statistical analysis to show whether events are highly improbable or fit within the bounds of normal variation.

Loot-Scaling is one of many big reasons why the fun factor in Guild Wars is fading away. That, and all the other irksome/useless updates that have been shoved down our throats. I've been around since 1 month after the release of GW: Prophecies. I must say, it's changed for the worst; players have thrown in their white towels left and right and anet can care less knowing that they already made their profit off of all 3 campaigns + expansion.

Additionally, there was never a need for the /report, dishonorable, loot-scaling, nerfs, etc. (notice all of those changes have/contain negatives). The result of those updates are:

increased gold items, tomes, etc.
decreased gold drops/gold (to buy those gold item drops/tomes/etc.)
paranoid pvpers
broke-ass community (no gold =/)
shattered/imbalanced professions (i.e. Paragons, Assassins, Ritualists, Mesmers, Necromancers, Dervishes and Rangers)

In conclusion, Anet has our money now and can care less; updates are here to stay until GW2 comes out and GW1 is shut down by anet. All the hard work in GW1 will become rework in GW2 (as we all very-well know that nothing more than some crappy weapons and our titles are about the only things you can take with you to GW2).

Yay - Mathematics FTW!!!!

And it always seems nearly impossible to convince those that think the other lanes are always faster they are wrong. I suppose at one time that type of thinking helped us live (and at worse, did no harm) but it causes some policy problems in our world today.

Even when you *know* that to not be the case it is tough to break, we are just wired to do such things - it still feels like if I take time off my drops are better outside of Bergin, yet recording my drops tells me I am seeing something that isn't there as it remains fairly constant. When I still had the runs it wasn't hard to see by looking at the data regardless of how it "felt".

I've also recorded SS/LB runs to see if I could afford keeping up with lockpicks (turns out I averaged making around one lockpick per run so I knew how to control my budget) and I got the same results - and that one is quite a bit of grinding in the same single explorable.

u can level to 20 in factions in about 5 hours straight playing

Time doesn't equate to money... AT ALL (in an online game). You people need to get that thru your skulls. Time = enjoyment of said game. Period. If you're not having fun PLAYING the game... move along.... these aren't the droids you're looking for.

KANE