ToT Bags and loot scaling

Are ToT bags effected by loot scaling? Or maybe thats the wrong wording. If I keep doing the vaettir farm will I see that I'll be getting fewer and fewer bags each run? Do these same rules apply to all holiday drops?

Loot scaling hasn't worked that way for years. Instead, the way it works is that of the items that are not exempt from it, you get roughly how many you would have gotten had you been in a full party (there may be other factors that influence the drop rate, such as how much time passes between kills, but that's not confirmed.) Anything that is exempt from loot-scaling will all go to you (assuming, of course, you're alone.) Trick-or-Treat bags are exempt from loot scaling, and so each one that would have dropped will all drop for you. You don't get a reduced number of them.

That goes for all holiday items.

I seem to have seen a reduction in drops as the number of runs progressed. Very simple SoS farming outside Bergen. Consistent enough that I do not think it was my imagination.

I do tons of runs every festival, and I never see a decline in drops. I might get a few runs with very few drops, but then I'll get some with an abnormally large number of drops. I see nothing to indicate that the code that was removed in . . . I think '07 . . . is back.

I see a decline in golds after a while in one spot. idk if its come of some kind of farming code or just the way my luck runs.

Golds != ToT bags.

Obviously regular drops are affected by loot scaling which is not the point of this discussion.

I personally have not had any decline in bag drops from over 30 raptor runs...

Yeah I know how regular loot scaling works, what I really mean to ask about is the average number of drops per run.

its your imagination... or just bad luck.

There may be an answer that no1 actually thinks of.
We know drops are random for a zone and certain items are exempt from loot scaling but does anyone take into account that the items like tot bags are also set to drop a random amount.For eg say you did 5 snowmen runs and you managed to get 5 - 7 bags each run - but as soon as you get less than say 5 you seem to think youre getting less.
There is no set rule to how many drops of event item is standard and i can honestly say ive had times when ive started farming say totbags and for a few runs on a rested chr ive had no bags or 1 or 2 max.
So on a few runs a high drop rate we tend to think is normal when actually we may have been lucky just on those runs.
And no we are not going to go into the mechanics of fast aoe dmg/kills - what im saying would apply all over gw regardless of what we farm or how fast we kill.

For the record, I seem to be finding that ToT bags are dropping a lot more readily than previously. Not sure why that is (conspiracy theory anyone?) but I'm not complaining.

HM Raptor farming is what I'm basing it on BTW.

The number of drops for a single run is going to be a lot more variable than the number of drops over an extended period, so the average for one run doesn't tell you very much. You can easily be far below average for several runs in a row.

For vaettir, I usually figure about five hours per stack of whatever festival drop I'm farming, including pit stops to summon a merchant every now and then. This is still subject to some noticeable variation, but is more consistent than looking at individual runs.

You will notice a shortage in drops on occasion however it' s merely a "drop slump". After a few more runs things will pick up again.

Loot scaling is not the same thing as "Anti-Farming Code". Some people say that there is AFC that reduces the number of drops you get if you repeat the same run. I've never seen any good evidence for it. It certainly hasn't affected my ToT farming. (but, see quote at the bottom.)

As has been explained, loot scaling affects the number of drops you get depending upon the number of people in your party.
Sometimes, because of loot scaling, it's faster and/or easier overall, to farm things with more people/heroes (2-3) and get fewer drops, than to farm solo, take more time, but get more drops.

QFT

I've always farmed Vaettir for weekend events whether it be with my Ele or Derv, My Ele was made for doing Vaettir only (don't like casters) and has done nothing but Vaettir since she's been able to do it, and I have noticed that My golds and event drops are almost non existent now. (retired)

My Derv however who is my main, breaks up the farming with other random activities be it Vanquishing and General game play does a lot better with event drops.

So I'm inclined to say they are effected by scaling, though of course I may be wrong.

Needless to say I'm using my Derv this weekend

Event items are excluded from loot scaling. Loot scaling or rate of kill does not affect drops of event items in any way.

I would be tempted to say i dont agree 100% but thats because i could argue that if i did vaetires using fast aoe kills then compared to a diff chr who kills vaetires in small mobs 1 at a time - there is a slight difference .
But ... this also swings both ways as ive seen times with single kills that gave less than aoe kills.
We do know from anets replies in the past that mass killing foes does yield less drops - but we dont know if that includes exempt items.
As always anet is very secretive on drops etc so we will never know 100% - too many damn variables.
Ps i actually managed to do 2 runs of snowmen ( 1st 2 waves ) 2x and had no totbags at all .

I've been farming hm raptors for the ToT's and have actually noticed an increase in gold drops since the halloween event has started compared to earlier this week when I could go 4-5 runs without getting a gold to drop. I probably got 50 golds in 50 runs from farming raptors last night. And I'm averaging 3-4 ToT's per run.

We'll see how this goes as the event progresses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance

Yes, it's Wikipedia, but it describes it well enough.

No, event items are not affected by rate of kill or loot scaling. They appear to drop separate from and in addition to normal drops, and they seem to use their own set of less restrictive rules to determine when they drop.

Here's a link for you all.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20070420

The human brain, through centuries of evolution, has developed in a manner that it remembers bad experiences much more easily than good experiences.

Thinking that you are getting less drops is just that your brain remembers the few runs were you get less over the the few runs where you get more. All in all, the drops even themselves out.

If you want ToT bags, doing the repeatable "Every Bit Helps" quest is where its at. It gives you 320 ToT bags/hour minimum - roughly double what you're likely to get from Raptors or Vaettirs. It also nets you a modest amount of gold, and a risk-free Legendary Survivor if you need one.

The Halloween quests probably become available on Monday. You have to do the two solo quests first, but an hour or so spent doing that is well worth the big ToT bag rewards afterwards.

You can do it with any profession, and any number of team builds. No drop rates fluctuations to consider - there are always 5 or 6 skeles at the start area of the Underworld. You can easily cap them all in less than 8 minutes. That's 7.5 runs/hour... about 41 skeles capped/hr... 13 quest rewards/hr... 325 ToT bags + 130K XP + 13K gold, per hour. That's the minimum - If you're swish you can do the runs faster.

Rewards are doubled if you are able to play two accounts at once.

I have seen no such effects.

I farm Vaettirs for event items with an Ele, I do a LOT of hours when event items are dropping, and I track the number of event items I get in each hour. I farmed Raptors for years and did the same thing. I also farmed about half the golds needed for max Wisdom from Vaettirs, and I tracked the gold item drops/hour.

Drop rates for event items and gold items goes up and down, sometimes by a large amount... but they average out over many, many hours... to remarkably consistent numbers. I have not seen anything affect those averages, including leeches in the party, going to do other stuff with farming character, etc etc.