Excessive farming?

UndeadRoadkill

UndeadRoadkill

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

If you farm excessively, does drop quality decrease? I have a friend who swears that the game will adjust your drops if you've been farming the same area repeatedly, but I can't seem to find any reference to this on the wiki or in forums. I've heard talk of areas being overfarmed in general, and so the drop rate for everybody goes down, but I haven't seen people confirming it on a personal level.

It seems to me like he may be right, I've seen a difference in gold drop rates when I've been doing it for a while compared to when I've been away, but maybe it's luck and I'm imagining it?

Tifa shadowheart

Tifa shadowheart

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2007

Bolton, UK

ShadowHeart Clan [SC]

N/

I know you used to get a message box pop up if you farmed the same boss over and over, not too sure if this still happens though.

scythefromunder

scythefromunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2008

CA

Tears Of The Ascended [ToA]

I heard there was a "Farm Code" that goes off after you've done
a number of zones.

BulletStopper

BulletStopper

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2005

Staring At my computer

Knights an Heroes

Mo/

Currently it is solely a matter of opinion. As far as I've seen, nobody has actually posted any statistics, that can actually be reproduced, supporting either point of view.

In my farming time, and I have over 100 million experience between my two main farming characters, someday it does seem this way, and other days, it doesn't. I accept the possibility of "anti-farming code" but haven't seen it in a manner that I can track, show and reproduce.

Unknown Duli

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

Missouri

Reign Of Judgement

Rt/

this was posted about 5-6 months ago

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Loot

I believe it too be true as I remember farming years ago and that nice little box would pop up indicating I had killed them too many times. It was my understanding ,with the advent of HM, that the infamous "anti-farming" code went out the window and was replaced with the now infamous "loot scaling" where you will get 1/8th of the drops there by making it just as easy to travel with a full group of players.

Antares Ascending

Antares Ascending

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2008

E/

.

I haven't counted the drops but there are a few 'quickie' farms I do when bored or just to spend a little time with something different and...The drop quality definetly go down. ALOT! This usually happens after several passes on a small area. Fewer gold items and less gold though tome drops seem stable.

Taking the character into regular game mode, doing some exploring or re-doing a mission seems to help restore drops for the next run which will be in a day or so. This may also be just because there was no farming activity for a pre-determined time.

infamous16

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Apr 2007

Rt/

After two runs I notice it...like ALOT.

UndeadRoadkill

UndeadRoadkill

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Antares Ascending View Post
.

I haven't counted the drops but there are a few 'quickie' farms I do when bored or just to spend a little time with something different and...The drop quality definetly go down. ALOT! This usually happens after several passes on a small area. Fewer gold items and less gold though tome drops seem stable.

Taking the character into regular game mode, doing some exploring or re-doing a mission seems to help restore drops for the next run which will be in a day or so. This may also be just because there was no farming activity for a pre-determined time. Ah yes, this seems to reflect my experience.

I've been wondering, if there is indeed an anti-farm code in place, what exactly causes it to ease up. Whether it's just simply a set time of expiration, or time spent in-game doing something else besides farming. And if it's the latter, if the time must be spent on the farming character, or if you can pass that time with any character on the account. My farmer hasn't done much exploring since he started farming, and it kind of seems like my drops aren't improving even as I take other characters through the campaigns.

I also was trying to do the "leeching" thing (which I have little experience with) with a guild member, and noticed that the drops were much worse with her tagging along, and got better after she left. This got me wondering if it might affect me if there is an anti-farm code affecting a party member.

infamous16

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Apr 2007

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by UndeadRoadkill View Post
Ah yes, this seems to reflect my experience.

I've been wondering, if there is indeed an anti-farm code in place, what exactly causes it to ease up. Whether it's just simply a set time of expiration, or time spent in-game doing something else besides farming. And if it's the latter, if the time must be spent on the farming character, or if you can pass that time with any character on the account. My farmer hasn't done much exploring since he started farming, and it kind of seems like my drops aren't improving even as I take other characters through the campaigns.

I also was trying to do the "leeching" thing (which I have little experience with) with a guild member, and noticed that the drops were much worse with her tagging along, and got better after she left. This got me wondering if it might affect me if there is an anti-farm code affecting a party member. ok heres the deal, if you are with a full party your drop rates will almost never decrease no matter how many times you clear or vanquish a place, but you will get less drops since you are in a party...

and if your with a partner, your drops will be split in half, but the drop rates wont decrease for a bit longer.

razerbeak

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2006

R/

I've only been doing 5-6 Vaettir runs a day lately, as I get about 4 golds a run, then almost instantly crap for drops. The next day the exact same thing happens, although farming in a different area does help restore drops somewhat.

wetsparks

wetsparks

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

I remember there being a big argument about this a long time ago with Gaile and people were bringing in all these numbers and trying to be scientific but I don't remember if it got anywhere (in fact I'm sure it didn't) other than it officially doesn't exist anymore.

The Mountain

The Mountain

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jun 2006

Realm of the GWAMMs

Teh Academy [PhD]

W/

Gotta love percentages, they offer opportunities for some crazy theories...

I know guildies and I have all received equally good and bad drops around our 1000th runs killing the Broodmother (compared to runs 1-10 of the weekend), without logging off or taking any sort of break to do missions and 'refresh' drops.

But believe whatever you want :-)
I believed dying my armor green last SPD helped my drops, lol

Amnel Ithtirsol

Amnel Ithtirsol

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2008

AU

League Of The Fallen

Mo/

lol... also have friends who swear by anti farm code influencing drops when 'overfarming'.
From personal exp: there is no anti farm code just pure randomness.
I could get crap for 10 raptor runs then suddenly 5 golds + black dye in one run... and that type of trend continues as long as I'm farming that spot.

I've also noticed that Golds seem to drop better during event weekends, especially when kegging. Raptors, however, seem to yield pretty much the same golds/hour irrespective of events. (pure speculation, from personal exp only)

AntmanA

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2009

R/

I keg farm alot, and last tie I went my first 5 runs netted nothing, then suddenly it was 5-8 golds a run... then nothing, then 5-8 again...

I think it's totally random, like a dice roll every time you kill a foe!

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

The misconception with any farming is damn loot scaling - specially when the word drops is used.
I find doing repeated runs either gives you in the longrun more crappy items - only exception is trophies which often drops less than anything else.But as many other have noticed if you take the chr somewhere else and "rest" that zone for a few hrs the drops do get slightly better.
Players trying to work out the actual drop routine is like quantum physics - but im sure even anet dont know the exact drop routine as its probably a simple random code and we kno random cant be worked out.Code it to pick a number between 1 and 10 million and you try guessing the number - could take 1 day to pick the number or a few yrs.
If anet did know the secret then also they wont say - not because players would kill the economy but bots would again be back on the scene bigtime and they kill the economy.

I think of the farming code like real life - you hunt one place too much and the animals reduce in numbers - give it time and they will increase and you have better bounty.

ragnagard

ragnagard

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2007

In Spain, of course

Gamer Espa??ol[GE]

N/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiritz View Post
Players trying to work out the actual drop routine is like quantum physics - but im sure even anet dont know the exact drop routine as its probably a simple random code and we kno random cant be worked out.Code it to pick a number between 1 and 10 million and you try guessing the number - could take 1 day to pick the number or a few yrs.
If anet did know the secret then also they wont say - not because players would kill the economy but bots would again be back on the scene bigtime and they kill the economy. I like to try to understand how that code works :P (and i dont like Physics :P). Btw, Anet does know the code, the only thing that is unknown is what random number is generated, but it is just a variable and means nothing but a condition trigger to call one part or another in their code ^^.

I am sure that it is on the style of:

Code:
OnEnemyDiesTriggerHandler(enemyID){
      randomNumber = calculateRandom(1,x);
      if (randomNumber < 10){
        dropTome(enemyID.getProfession());
      }
      else{
         if (randomNumber >10 and randomNumber <50){
            dropUniqueItem(enemyId.getUniqueID());
         }
         else{
            dropGold(calculateRandom(100,120);
         }
     }
    
}
It scares a bit! 
(Yes, i am a programmer wannabe :P)

And if anyone magically finds when a boss is going to drop a tome (for example) and you must reenter 100 times to get 1 assured time (magically found) bots wont use it, becaus the time rezoning means less crap drops gotten and i bet is better for them sell lot of crap things than spam WTS XXX elite tome on kamadan. This could only alter tome prices between normal players (in my example) :P

Fay Vert

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

R/

Drop rates do decline over time. eg. raptor farm would regularly yield 1 or 2 golds per run, often more. Now I can get maybe 1 gold in 5 or worse.

As for loot scaling, that was one whopping big lie from ANet. Its directly linked to rate of kill and affects full parties just as much as solo. eg. Do an Urgoz run, full 12 man party in 2 hours and you will need multiple salvage kits to cater for your drops, do it in 40 minutes and you won't even get half an inventory full.

Another thing anyone can try to prove for themselves, go into an area you can farm, wipe out 10, 20, 30 etc monsters in a few seconds and you get full loot scaling about 1 drop in 8. Now do exactly the same farm but kill one monster every 30 seconds and you will get a drop from 80-90% of the monsters, ie. no loot scaling at all.

FoxBat

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2006

Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/Me

It depends alot, actually. Spending 5 minutes to kill a group of 50 foes at once is awful compared to kiling the 1 at a time over 5 minutes. Killing faster is better, but staggering the kills while retaining the same speed is optimal.

Sliver armor is one of the better compromises to this issue.... well as long as you aren't waiting on the last handful to die. And it supposedly only affects crap white drops including gold and collectors items, which isn't always relevant when you are hunting rares and ectos.

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

Ty ragnagard - im glad someone knows roughly what i mean , its hard to explain to ppl specially if like myself you have no coding knollege and try to explain.

Mass killing itself is bad like mentioned - look at keg farming vaettires , you can kill 2 groups within 2 mins and get 2 - 5 drops if lucky.

Anwyn

Banned

Join Date: Feb 2009

YaRR Bear Pirates

P/W

My record is 10 in 1 go Spiritz...

FoxBat, if you can kill those 50, 1 at a tim, in 5 mins, then yeah... would work out much better...

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

Hes thinking in code mentally - ppl who do sorts of coding do that , hackers just hack code etc.

I know what you mean by a kill timer - keg bombing is a gr8 example of that.
kill 10 foes individually ( say 1 min max total ) and note drops then do same 10 foes in mass kill (say 10 secs aoe ) and you`d see a big drop in drops.Thats theory before ppl jump in and state you cant base it on that few runs - was an example.
It could be like when foe dies it waits x secs to prime next drop and mass killing screws the routine slightly by adding more time but with uber randomness ( anets fav thing ) to throw us all.

Sliver is a random skill - read its description then watch as it goes fubar -
Eg - perma sliver sin vs scareater = sliver targets boss ignoring foes around
then go to shatterstone ( just round the corner same map ) - scareaters a monk so ar60 , shatterstone is ele ar60
perma sliver vs shatterstone = 9/10 times it targets everyone else.
Now that is weird , does sliver target highest armor , lowest armor first ?
And many if not all of us sliver users doing raptors ( be us sins or eles ) we see it all the time with broodmother - some runs you target her first and others you go down in a blaze of glory as she owns you lol.

@Anwyn - me and the wife did a duo perma keg run , we split up and got all 60 vaettires between us together and blew them in 1 mob - we laughed when all we had was 1 white drop.

Mc Blarg

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2009

X Knock Out X

Yeah, I agree on how killing more things at a time gives less drops...
I watch my brother farm uw a lot and I saw that when he agroed 1 group of smites he would get about 2-4 drops depending on how many were in the group. But when he agroed 2 groups of smites he would get less drops than the 1 group...
So there is definately a timer or some sort of limmiter on the drops.

T1Cybernetic

T1Cybernetic

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Sep 2005

Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Uk, Nr Earth

Alternate Evil Gamers [aeg]

N/

The A/Me slowlo farming builds is a perfect way to examine drop rates compared to say (A/E Sliver armor build)

The sliver build kills them fast but 1by1 and the a/me degen build kills them all at one time, the point being i always get less drops farming on the a/me than i do on my a/e and it is a notable difference...

Coney

Coney

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2008

Very simple test to verify my hypothesis that first couple kills in instance net 0 drops. Can be validated easily by HM boss solo runs (Jishol, Craw/Zarnas, etc)

A. 1-man solo party.

Initial signature seen during solo Craw, then Zarnas. Craw drops nothing ~86%, Zarnas drops nothing ~50%. Do enough runs, you'll accumulate about 3x as many ELE as NEC greens/tomes.

B. 8-man solo party, bringing 7 H/H - 2 different ways:

1. Immediately flag H/H at entrance, then go solo bosses as if you were a 1-man solo party. Drops with 7 H/H flagged at entrance will be IDENTICAL to those you get in 1-man solo party (e.g. about nil). This rules out the loot scaling issue...

2. Go kill some non-boss MOBs (4 behemoths north of Jishol, 10 wardens on way to Craw/Zarnas). After killing non-bosses, flag H/H to entrance, and then solo bosses as normal. Now you will see the bosses drop nothing ~0% of the time - in fact, they almost always drop 1-3 items. Also, Craw/Zarnas now drop greens/tomes in a 1:1 ratio.

Pretty cut and dry verification of no drop phenomena on first couple MOB in instance...

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

Coney - no2 is invalid - h/h counts as 1 person solo , it seems before you could use that method but anet nerfed it.Otherwise all raptor farmers wouldnt need leechers.
Also tomes/greens are exempt from lootscaling so it doesnt matter party size as you get same chance of drop solo as 8 man.

MuC

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Apr 2008

Mo/

I was overfarming (keg farm) the wintersday. At the start i got like 5-9 snowmans and at the end i got like only 1 then i stopped. My friend said that is anti farm code.

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

Coney - im stating that h/h dont count as being human players , somewhere it was verified by gail a while back.And no2 is actually b1.
Gw see`s the h/h as npcs and loot scales the party as being 1 person/x.
You used to be able to bring 7 h/h ( 8 man zone ) leave them at start and go "solo" and get more drops.Wiki should state about h/h making you appear as a solo chr but alas it doesnt.

Also mentioned was drops are randomized - if you compare killing a boss with no kills and going and killing 10 foes then boss then yes there will probably be a difference as your doing 11 instances where there can be random drops.

Im not sayin im right an your wrong - drops are something that no1 will be able to say "i know how it works 100%" and will always be that way.
Elemental swords - i did over 80 raptor runs before i got 1 and upto now ive had only 2 ever drop - wife goes in on her pc and 3rd run she gets 1 but up to now and probably 300+ runs shes never had claws drop.Everyone can think of times like that as we`ve all been there.Random is random and therefore cant be sussed out.
Originally Posted by Fay Vert
Another thing anyone can try to prove for themselves, go into an area you can farm, wipe out 10, 20, 30 etc monsters in a few seconds and you get full loot scaling about 1 drop in 8. Now do exactly the same farm but kill one monster every 30 seconds and you will get a drop from 80-90% of the monsters, ie. no loot scaling at all. This is true, I tested it back when the Hylcon Job was still a big farm. I 55ed it on my necro and tested with SV and SS... SV netted more gold, but took like 5 times longer to farm the whole group... So, in the end, SS = more golds/time and SV = more golds/foe...

It's still better to kill the whole 30 at once, then 1 at a time... This is not true. There was an epic research thread where 2 people zoned into Plains of Jarin at exactly the same time. Using different classes they killed things in different orders and different speeds. Their drops were essentially identical.
With this in mind, I assume all the comments about A/Me vs A/E is just placebo/coincidence. (Plus ime with pre-nerf UW ecto farming, killing epic amounts of phantoms simultaneously vs killing them gradually no noticeable difference, but I'm not really a big time farmer).

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

Gold is party shared actually not player assigned.
You dont follow -
h/h gets a share of drops - fact
they cant be regarded as human players - fact
loot scaling is party size - fact
h/h taken into a zone and pinned at start - the 1 human goes out of drop area and solo farms.In theory his drops should include those of h/h but because its h/h the game ignores them and treats as npc so you only get 1 player drops.
This is already in discussion in guru/wiki and probably loads of other sites - im only sayin what others have observed and ive seen myself.

ragnagard

ragnagard

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2007

In Spain, of course

Gamer Espa??ol[GE]

N/Mo

Phew been temp banned and ya got a real discussion haha.

I see that fact explaining and want to add some ideas:

For the part about taking heroes as party helpers and/or leechers... I bet there's no difference for the system, i mean, its easier to program something to share loot between party people and if its human, add to his/her invent or send it to trash (and it is not even displayed on screen) if its a hero.
(Code reusability :P)

Ignoring how the receiver of the item is selected cannot be assured (randomness is still cool ) but it shall be effort less for the programmers :P.

And Spiritz, I bet you missunderstood me before. I didnt say that there was a timer-since-kill, and I can even asure that there is no one. I said there is a clock that resets when damage is taken by any of the combat groups. That can happen at the same time of the death (i.e 50 dmg when its life is 25) but that's just coincidence.
Btw, spells targeted like Liquid flame count as resetter but didnt know with a Keg nor known what happens if a "allied" NPC dies (f.e. Cantha Peasant outside market by Jade Brotherhood Knights).

If keg resets that to 0, then when ya do the boom boom booooooooom, timer shall be 0 in all that deaths, which might be related to drop.

As all deaths happen at same "time" but with difference of milliseconds, maybe the crappy item you get is dropped by the last processed death.

Another of my theories.. which may be true or not.. is really a question:
We only got the foes spawned on the range of our radar bubble, as was demonstrated with ghost running, and more are spawned when they "enter" our bubble (we move that bubble to them, to be more exactly).
Is drop predetermined when we reach them and they are spawned or when we kill them?
If the answer is predet, we can get rid of killing speed and so on, if when killed... then the "load" we may noticed when they spawn is just 3dModel and AI being loaded onto map O.o

Fay Vert

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueNovember View Post
This is not true. There was an epic research thread where 2 people zoned into Plains of Jarin at exactly the same time. Using different classes they killed things in different orders and different speeds. Their drops were essentially identical.
With this in mind, I assume all the comments about A/Me vs A/E is just placebo/coincidence. (Plus ime with pre-nerf UW ecto farming, killing epic amounts of phantoms simultaneously vs killing them gradually no noticeable difference, but I'm not really a big time farmer). 1) it was first city
2) the two kill builds had a very similar kill rate, just that one was AoE one wasn't.
3) I'm not sure, but has anybody been able to reproduce the effect? I personally tried many times with a friend in different areas with no luck.

So interesting as that thread was, it has no relevence to this discussion here, it did bnot address rate of kill.

Here is a test ANYONE can do. Same build, first killing things all together with an EoE bomb triggered by Spiteful Spirit.

Drops from fast kills

Second is exactly run and the same build but no EoE bomb, killing things at 30 second intervals with Price of Failure.

Drops from slow kills

Don't believe it? Try it, its not down to chance, you will get the same results every single time.

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

ragnagard wb mate - i knew what you meant - in theory there has to be a kill counter effect as keg bombing/other aoe farming would yield better drops.
The exact method i doubt will ever be answered.
I do recall the thread about the 2 ppl doin a run and checking items but problem i see is how exact were they in entering zone.
The only viable way to test this would be in something like a big internet cafe/game zone where say 20 ppl on gw could enter a zone same time but i fear thats not possible and also too small a number.
Also a lot of loose variables - is it same district , what if someone from german dist entered same time , would drops be indentical then.
The variables from there increase - more you deal with - say 10 ppl from each language distict enter same time ...
Thats the problem with randomness - its not simple to predict.
Its also a stalemate debate i fear as another problem is as its random generated would the results be true - you could have been lucky on 10 runs and next 30 runs yield nothing.Took me a yr before i had my first black dye drop then a few months later i got 6 over a normal weekend - love to see the odds on that happening or even happening again.

Another theory was say for eg - raptor running , you died then did the run for better results but this cannot be proved as you cant tell what drops you would have had before dying so unable to judge if the post res drops were better.

To make a study on any theories would take years i reckon and by that time gw2 would be out ( we can hope lol ) and we`ll be too busy theorising about the drops there.

Coney

Coney

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiritz
View Post
Random is random and therefore cant be sussed out. You don't seem to be reading what I've stated, and assume I said something I haven't. FWIW, A general understanding of statistics shows that given a certain distribution and sample size, certain things can be shown to be statistically significant when comparing 2 or more trial cases.

As you noted and I already said, my A case was the same as B1, and was used to rule out loot scaling in my B2 case (B2 is the *KEY* in more ways than one!). I'll try to make my reasoning clear for my hypothesis, and the need for 3 cases.

Let's assume the following trial cases were performed:
A. you 1-player solo run Craw/Zarnas
1. total loop time of ~4 minutes.
2. you made this run 60 times (4 hours worth).
3. NEC Craw drops nothing 85% of the time.
4. ELE Zarnas drops nothing 50% of the time.
5. 1 NEC elite tome dropped.
6. 3 ELE elite tomes dropped.
7. 2 NEC green staffs dropped.
8. 7 ELE green wands dropped.

B1. you 7h/h the same as A above, just flagging h/h at entrance:
1. you see pretty much identical results as A above.

B2. you 7h/h and kill the 10 wardens on the way (why not pick up the Kurzick buff for ~700 rep!):
1. total loop time of ~5 minutes.
2. you made this run 24 times (2 hours worth).
3. NEC Craw drops nothing 15% of the time.
4. ELE Zarnas drops nothing 15% of the time.
5. 2 NEC elite tome dropped.
6. 1 ELE elite tomes dropped.
7. 5 NEC green staffs dropped.
8. 4 ELE green wands dropped.

I don't really want to get into the statistical analysis at this point, but interval testing can be done (T-tests, etc) which can determine the probability that distributions are different.

I've done enough of these sorts of analysis to know simply by looking at the above data, that 60 trials giving 85% change of no drops compared to 24 trials giving 15% chance of no drops is a statistically significant difference.

Looking at the data, one could also argue that in case A, there appears to be ~3x as many ELE items dropping as NEC, and this seems in-line with the fact that NEC drops nothing most of the time, while ELE drops nothing only half the time (this is not going to be statistically significant)...

More of this sort of drop difference can be seen looking at A to B2 (again not statistically significant), and could be used to further increase sample size on a future study to tease out a statistically significant signature...

I also understand this is not entirely the right way to go about things, as it is really binomial and we should really be looking at the chance that some distribution is (or is NOT) X, given Y trials showing Z...

PS - would still like the lowdown on how lockpicks are categorized WRT lootscaling... =)