What exactily is Loot Scaling - Noobe Q&A

So I noticed the big hoopla going on about the loot scaling, with a poll and everything. Reading through the opinions didn't really tell me what it was. So in doing my best not to be a pest I visited Wiki and got this:

Loot scaling was introduced in the April 19, 2007 game update. The amount of drops you get are scaled to your party size.
The following are affected by loot scaling:
Common (white) items
Gold
...
and it then continues on with a list of things not affected by loot scaling. So let me try to clear this up in my mind. If I go out alone I get 6 drops (just a number here for the purpose of this question. If I go out with 4 people the party sees ... 24 drops?

So assuming this is correct ... if it's not the the rest of this post is trash then lifting it means what all the drop rates will be the same regardless of the number in the party, and we are to assume this would be a pretty big number?

I'll stop now and wait for replies

Well you get less drops the less people are in your groups, so it's like invisible henchman taking your loot.

Course this doesn't apply to the list of exempt items.

If we stay with your maths, you go out by your self and get 6 drops, and go out with 4 people and you would as a total group get 24 drops.

Before loot scaling if you went out by your self you would have gotten all 24 drops to your self.

People want it back to the old way because earn lots more money while solo farming. They want their 24 drops back not the 6 they are currently getting.

It used to be that monsters had the same odds of dropping items regardless of how many people were in your party. So you'd get 8x as many drops solo farming as killing the same mob in a full party.

Loot scaling does something to reduce the number of drops if you're not in a full party. We're not quite sure what. Some people like to picture it as 7 invisible party members taking drops, but that's not quite accurate. According to Gaile, the drops are reduced so that solo farming yields roughly 2x as much for you as killing the same mob in a full party.

As the wiki noted, some item types (most importantly greens and golds) are excepted from loot scaling. So you will get 8x as many of these item types by solo farming.

[edit: To add a little bit more:
Depending upon who you ask, the purpose of loot scaling was either:
(a) To hurt the gold-selling RMT companies by drastically reducing the number of vendor-trash white items their bots/employees could convert to gold per hour, or
(b) To reduce the wealth gap between casual players (who don't solo farm) and hardcore players (who do solo farm) and reduce the inflation that favors hardcore players, or
(c) maybe both.

The current push to eliminate loot scaling is based on the assumption that reason (a) is correct, and that a-net's recent IP-blocking system will successfully remove RMT companies from the game, thus removing loot scaling's purpose for existing in the first place.]

I'm afraid I have a rather silly question as well. I've read a lot on Loot Scaling but it still confuses me.

For example: I've been farming this one boss over and over and he still hasn't dropped his Green. I've been doing it with 3 Heroes and 2 Henchmen. Is it that I'm just having bad luck and the Green isn't dropping or do my Heroes and Henchmen also have a chance to acquire the Green and I'm just not seeing it.

I have a feeling I'm addressing something different, but I'm not sure.

Whether or not you get a green drop has nothing to do with Loot Scaling. They are exempt.

It has to do with luck. Every time you kill a boss, you have the same chance of getting his green. How many times you kill him has nothing to do with it.

Okay, I'm still a little confused. I understand that Green items are exempt for loot scaling but if I kill a boss with my Heroes and Henchmen, isn't there a chance that they steal the drop? Or is this still loot scaling?

Basically, if I were to solo a boss and the Green dropped, it would be mine. If I kill the boss with a full party of H/H and the Green dropped, would it still be mine or do my H/H have a chance of acquiring it without me knowing?

I know that killing a boss by myself or with a full party doesn't increase the chances of the Green dropping but I'm wondering if killing a boss by myself or with a fully party will lower/increase my chances of actually acquiring the item, like reserving it for me. I'm sorry if I sound repetitive but I'm just confused right now.

You are correct if you solo a boss and it drops its green is yours.

If you are with 1,2,3 .... or full party of H/H and the boss drops a green then "yes" they have just as good a chance to get the green as you do (or a better chance if you ask me )

Krat

More than maybe both - it *is* both. See this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ght=loot+scale

and it goes on and on about a large part is to stop solo farmers from getting more drops than a "casual" player. They have been explicit and consistent in this.

Now, we can argue all day if this is a *good* idea (as I have said previously I don't think it is), but that is far different from trying to say that they only wanted gold sellers. They wanted both, said the gold sellers were a bigger problem, and that even without the gold selling it was still viable.

To note, the quoted thread also has a fairly detailed (at least as detailed as you are going to find) on how loot scaling works.

If you don't want to browse through 70 pages of, erm, frank exchange of ideas the post that describes the LS mechanism is number 1089 on that thread.

Here's a graph from the same thread that shows how you can circumvent LS to an extent.

Can anyone tell me how was that about reentering a zone several times.. I recall been told that if you stayed at a fixed zone for some time there would be less drop.. can anyone shed some light on this plz?.. thxx

Probably something to do with the old anti-farm code that was removed once loot scaling was introduced. When you repeatedly entered the same zone, the code would kick in and reduce the numbers of drops, regardless of party size. That is no longer the case.

I have read bits and pieces of several threads re: lootscaling and the official notes explaining it. What puzzles me the most about all those who want LS removed is exactly what you said here. I will use raptors as an example just because I see tons of ppl farming them every event, myself included on occasion. If I am going to do 30-40 raptor runs in succession (sp?) I would rather have my chances at a green/gold/ whatever else is exempt from LS be the same each time and have my white stuff scaled back than to have no LS and see my drops wither away to zilch after a few runs because of anti-farm code... Then again I may not see the whole picture, maybe those that want LS removed want the best of both, no LS and no anti-farm code. Just something that has always puzzled me.

If you are referring to this as one of the threads you've read, you would be a better authority on what they want then me, as I can't be bothered to read 79 pages of junk(thank god it was locked). But casual skimming through that thread does suggest that most have forgotten that the anti-farm code was ever in place and that with LS gone, the anti-farm would be back. Anti-farm only went away, because LS served as a adequate measure to stem the amount of raw gold a solo farmer can generate and that with both in place it would have been overkill for any farmer. So yeah, they want neither back and whine, because thats just what they do.

Seems very much inplace to me, while Norn Point Farming in Olafsted, i watched my 1st 10 runs drop random Golds, next 20-30 runs turn into Purples, then after 30+ nothing but white drops and Bezerker Horns.
And i mean alot of Bezerker Horns.
This also works with the Lockpicks, purple every time.
For those who say the anti-farm code isnt there anymore, i say BS.
If it was removed, it was just put back and revamped and now they call it Loot Scaling.

I recently had to work alot lately, so i didnt get to play GW's, but when i finally came back..my 1st few runs out, every boss was dropping greens, golds and Gold scrolls in my name, even with my H/H team, then i noticed the drop rate diminish like it always does.
Has the anti-farm code been removed from the game? or just updated into the lootscaling code?
and this is with a full team of 8 humans..

I'm not one that argues that it needs to be gone though I do prefer the old method (for me it is 6 of one, half a dozen of another). My reasons are more that I find my profitable farming areas MUCH more limited than before - I used to have well over a dozen and a half that were quick, easy, and made good money. Now there are less than a dozen and even then I have to use much more gimmicky builds than I did before (I never had a 55 monk until LS/HM).

The part of the picture you are missing is that before LS there were quite a number of methods to never really have the anti-farm code kick in. Mainly by zoning on certain runs or so called "crop rotation" (having multiple farming locations that you switch around before the anti-farming stuff kicked in). Bots couldn't do this and it was trivial for a human to do it. With LS there is no way to avoid it.

For the person who just plays in a group they are making the same money. For the low end farmers you make more now due to HM (this is the class I am in - raptor, Vaettir, Hulking Stone Elementals, etc are the hardest things I will actually farm). For the medium to high end farmers they do not make near what they did before because of LS. Prices have also dropped due to a combination of increased quality in drops from HM and a large drop in incoming gold due to LS.

This means that adjusted for inflation the low end farmer made out the best as they both make more *and* prices are cheaper. People who just group made out quite good as they can actually now afford some high end items. The medium to high end farmers got a real major hit - which according to what Anet said when they first did this is *exactly* what they intended.

Just to totally clear this up; the fact that henchmen/heroes "steal" your loot has noting to do with loot scaling - it's a totally separate issue.

Let's say that a boss has a 1-in-10 chance of dropping a green. If you are with a full H/H party, there's a 1-in-8 chance that it will drop for you, thereby making your total chance of that green dropping for you 1-in-80.

But that isn't anti-farm. Just a bad unlucky streak. Under the anti-farm code, by the time you hit the 10th run you would have started see less drops of any kind, be it golds, whites, trophies or even gold piles. By 30+ runs you would have had one drop total per run, regardless of your team size.

Under LS, the drops aren't affected as you are still getting drops for each kill. Its just treated as if you had a full party every time and the loot is fairly divided among the party, whether or not there are other party members there. Since you are with a party of humans, you can see the drops being distributed. When you're alone, though the drops are still there, you just don't see them.

Actually, loot scaling isn't so restrictive that solo farming is as worth it as farming with H/H. Gaile provided some perspective, that solo farming under loot scaling would be twice as efficient as with a full party.

That would mean in an 8 party size area, going solo is the same as having 3 others with you without the relative loot scale effect of 4 players in an 8 player setting.