Who ever wrote the loot scaling algorithm

1. I quite like Discord, but builds / teams are personal taste

2. Tried again today, dropped first run :P

This is mostly correct, however, if you farm the same few mobs over and over and over the Loot Scale will kick in. For example raptor farm, or troll farming outside droks when 55's were still the thing.

It is important to note though that greens, golds, scrolls, dyes, lockpicks, holiday drops, and probably other things are exempt from loot scaling. Your white vendor trash drops will tend to decrease if you farm the same area several times.

Also if you aren't solo'ing it the loot drop may get assigned to a hero or hench which would mean it may have "dropped" you just didn't see it.

But yes overall drops are dependent on the timestamp, there is a big thread about this somewhere on guru.

EDIT: Hmm I went to wiki and looked, they say loot scaling is determined on party size and how long it takes to kill things. No mention about repeated farming. However, it does exist here is the link to the wiki page which includes a list of exemptions. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Loot_scaling

EDIT #2: What I was thinking of was the anti-farm code which is also discussed on wiki... http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anti_Farm_Code
This page mentions the timestamp determining the loot as well as time between kills having an effect, and that the first several kills in a map have a reduced chance to drop anything.

Actually it's partly correrct and mostly misleading and incorrect. Sync entry supports the notion that loot is generated at the time the instance is created, and that the random seed used to create the instance is time based. But the main thing is that this has absolutely nothing to do with loot scaling, which is mainly controlled by rate of kill, not party size.

The worrying thing about sync entry is that nobly has ever been able to reproduce it after the initial post of it. I myself tried a lot.

That's a myth. I tracked nearly a 1000 raptor farm runs and there is no statistical variance in the quality of the drops over multiple runs.

Really? You get the same number of Saurian Bones the 5th, 10th, 15th+ run as you did on your first two? Golds, Greens, Tomes, Scrolls, and Dyes are all exempt from loot scaling, so yes you should get roughly equivalent drops across all 1000; however, the number of white drops and gold coin drops probably decreased. Or so has been my experience raptor farming, that usually after the 2nd or 3rd run the white quality drops/gold coin drops tend to decline at least until I give it a rest for a day or so.

Insofar as loot scaling is concerned yes, you are right it has little if nothing to do with it.

There is actually a thread floating around somewhere on guru with several screenshots of it being reproduced. The creator of the thread did this several times with his brother, and I've personally done it with a friend of mine though I didn't bother taking screenies; was more to satisfy our own curiosity than anything else.

If you have trouble doing it, all I can suggest is make sure your pings are both similar and try starting well away from the exit. Use a voice chat to sync and run for the portal at the same time. Starting as far away as possible that still allows for a straight run at the exit, lets you make sure your characters are right on top of each other, and that they will zone out at the exact same time. Also keep in mind that the first several mobs have reduced chance to drop, and that you should both be using similar builds as the time between kills also affects drop rate, which could throw off your results.

I'll search around for the thread, I know its old and I only stumbled across it about a month ago, didn't think to bookmark it though. If I find it I'll link it here.

Found it... http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/drop-rates-soj-vs-sv-t10225077.html?t=10225077&highlight=timestamp+drop s

It's from November 2007 so some of the images are no longer hosted, but enough of them are still there to show the point. Read it and judge for yourself I guess, I've personally had similar results but I've no desire to "prove" it myself, as ultimately I don't think it makes any difference one way or the other how the loot assignment algorithm works.

Synching drops isn't profitable unless you actually happen to get a map that has a lot of good drops in it. If you were farming with a partner it would probably be better to get as many different maps as possible to increase your odds of getting a rare drop.

Just my 2¢ believe what you will

EDIT: I see you actually posted in that thread. I feel I should clarify my experience. My friend and I only did it once to see if it worked, we never repeated it to see if we could keep replicating it nor did we mess with time between kills (both of us ran spirit spam).

Here is what happened in this case

This boss is right next to a zone. There is some sort of code that about 10-15 mobs need to be killed before a boss even has a chance of dropping their green. So if you weren't killing that many, which I imagine you were not, then the boss has zero chance of dropping that green. This isn't part of loot scaling, but part of something they added at some other time for some other reason.

Well.. apart from the op matter....

Yes...Loot scaling sux. Its pretty frustrating.

This is not true. I farmed Woespreader before with the old E/A Shadowform+Sliver Armor build. The only foe killed is the boss and the green still drops.

is this a bad troll attempt? numerous bosses are still 55sv farmed im certain, among various other builds which only deal damage against the boss solely.

I feel like I've gone back in time...

I was going from the north of Woe Spreader & to get to him you have to kill at least 1 if not 2 groups (Oni pops), not including the group surrounding the boss itself.
Oh and solo oc

Hmm, interesting this:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_...#Miscellaneous
Quote for those who can't be bothered to follow the link:
" Loot now scales according to party size.
Repeated map entry no longer reduces loot." Unquote

So, unless this has since been rescinded, it would still be in force now...
Food for thought indeed.

Yeah, there is no statistical variance. Sometimes you will hit a dry stretch but it is just random noise basically, nothing to do with your time farming.

No, this is just not true. There are many farmable greens that you just hit the boss and nothing or little else prior. Thinking off the top of my head - Byzzr Wingmender, Rekoff Broodmother, Eshim Mindclouder, Molotov Rocktail, Reefclaw Ragebound, Cultist Milthuran etc etc.

Been my experience for over 2 years now.

Most recently I did close to a hundred runs for a stupid monk offhand that I'll never use, never dropped when I went straight for the boss. I wasn't even getting regular "Boss" loot nor any type of gold drops while going after just the boss.

I'm not going to try to sit here and argue it any further as I've seen the people that "have to be convinced" concerning how loot drops; no matter how much factual information (which I am not going to sit and farm and try to figure out) is available they stick to whatever they used to believe and dismiss anything else as "just chance." Leave it at what it is, my experience.

While I believe you, I personally hate Molotov, lol. I farmed HIM and basically him only like 100 straight times not that long back. Long story short after those 100 runs or so I was in major cities saying "WTB Rocktails Stinger".

I'm not sure the mechanics are exactly as Rev posted, but there does seem to be an anti-boss-farm-thing separate from loot scaling. I've noticed a cliff boss drops fall off of after you kill 3-4 or so in a row, whether in or between instances. Interestingly the NF/Factions bounties have a similar kind of "protection" by requiring you to kill 25 or so before getting max faction from bosses.

I used to farm Byzzr Wingmender (Just outside of Lutgardis), for Elite monk tomes not the offhand, unfortunately I amassed over 100 of the offhands during the course of it all... just killing the boss only with a 55 SV necro.

This was a few years back though, things might have changed...

I was hunting for amphibian tongue trophies this other day. Mind you, it wasn't anything related to Nicholas gifts, I just needed the tongues to get a collector weapon for one of my heroes. It took about 4 trips to the sparkfly swamp just to get 5 tongues after butchering mobs of frogs. Going through that for a lesser weapon is outrageous!

Outrageous? Yeah, I'd feel that way too... if I was one of the Hylek/Hekets.

You want to do all that work just for a lesser item?