I have a question about drop rates

Did they get totally nerfed in this new update, or what?

I just walked from Amnoon Oasis to Thirsty River, fought almost every mob in my path on the way, wound up with -29 DP which I got back to -9 by the time I arrived in Thirsty River.

My grand total amount of loot from that entire mission. (I'm not kidding)

1 gold wand. 10-19 damage, +3 energy, when hexed. (wooottt.....)
1 air wand. plain
1 double axe. plain
1 holy staff. plain
1 other type of axe (forgot the name, sorry). plain
approximately 300-500 gold. I'm not quite sure what I started out with, but it wasn't a whole lot, and I would up with 700 gold once I reached TR.

I'm pretty sure that almost half the monsters didn't drop anything (or at least, that got claimed by henchies), and I got a grand total of seven items. It just reached my second bar in my backpack. I found NO BLUES, NO PURPLES. Normally when I took an hour's trip, I'd at least find blues. 99.9999999% of those would be junk, but at least I found them. Now? Nada. Niente. Zip.

This trip took me about an hour, during which time I gained about 20% of XP to my next skill point.
Now, it is possible that I was supremely unlucky, but this kind of garbage should not be dropping in the Crystal Desert? PLAIN ITEMS???. From lvl 22 hydras, lvl 21(?) dune burrowers, lvl 20 minotaurs, lvl 20 jade scarabs etc???

So how is getting items now NOT grinding? I guess for PvP it doesn't matter, although every top level PvP'er I've talked to says that having items IS important for PvP, DESPITE what Anet says. (which is not that hard to figure out. Would you rather fight someone with your +6 energy flame artifact, or your +27 energy holy artifact, +30 to health? )

With the drop rates being this terribly lousy (I mean, come on, this is the crystal desert I'm talking about, not pre-searing ascalon. What is all this plain crap that keeps dropping???), how can anyone say that there is NO GRINDING? I guess nobody cares about finding cool items? Isn't that half the fun in a game such as this?

If they REALLY want to stop people from having to grind, UP THE DROP RATES.

It's simple. Anet is apparently annoyed at farmers and the prices they ask for items. Which is fine, I can totally understand that.

There are two ways to tackle this problem. Supply and Demand.

1) Deprive the farmers of their ability to farm and thus their ability to gain items. Lower Supply. This has the nasty side effect of annoying people since there doesn't seem to be dropping anything decent. Maybe it's just me.

2) Increase drop rates, thereby giving more people cool loot. This also lowers demand. Why would I pay some farmer 20K for an item, when I have a good chance of going out and finding something similar within an hour of walking around in the crystal desert? This has the added benefit of making people happy, since who doesn't like to find cool loot?

It seems to me, however, that Anet continuously choses to follow option number one, rather than option number 2. Nerfing farm areas, lowering drop rates, increasing monster difficulties (which is great fun if you're just trying to get somewhere, and get NINE freaking lvl 22 hydras on top of you out of nowhere... )

My current character, I've been playing steadily for almost three weeks now. I have yet to find a single decent weapon for her (E/mo). The weapon I'm currently using, I bought for 3K. I've found a grand total of now five yellow weapons with her. The crap wand I mentioned above, three yellow hammers and one weapon that had no mods on it for some reason (this might have been a purple one, can't quite remember).

I must have logged about, I don't know, at least 50 or so hours with her. Nothing found.
I guess I'm just unlucky? Or is finding items just not what this game is all about?

Hey, I've enjoyed playing so far, but I fail to see many reasons to keep playing after I've finished the storyline (which is good btw). I just don't really enjoy PvP, so I'm not going to get into that. Besides, grinding to unlock your skills which you need for PvP isn't all that great either (Although I do think that the previous method of capturing Elites was more fun, rather than the assassination mission that it is now).
With no loot falling (for me anyways, don't know how it is for anyone else), I just don't see any point in continuing.

Now, a lot of you will say "STFU N00B! Glad to be rid of you", but you're ignoring the fact that Anet needs money from continuous sales of expansion packs in order to stay profitable. No Anet = No Guild Wars.
Every customer that walks away is 50 dollars less that Anet will be receiving.

Did I really just misunderstand what the game is all about (although every review I've read says that it has a "Great PvE part" and "tons of items to find" (yeah, tons of plain junk?).

I'm just really curious. I can't be THIS unlucky

Creston

Dude: You got a gold wand just walking somewhere in the desert. I am level 20 and have ascended and infused and have literally gotten (Again, exactly literal number) TWO GOLD ITEMS THE ENTIRE GAME!!

Do a search next time. Thread already open about drops being nerfed.
And.. they're random. You got a gold wand on that trip? I didn't get ONE item that was coloured. Be gratefull

Which confirms my point. Drop rates are crap.

Creston

Ditto. Nobody sees anything wrong with this? You're level 20, so there is no more advancement for your character. Gaining XP for that 1 skill point to me seems pointless, since I have, IIRC, 21 skill points available, and no skills that interest me that I want to buy.
So there is no more character advancement. All I have left is the storyline and finding loot.
And finding loot seems to get progressively more and more absurd.

I guess I just like different things than everyone else. *shrug*

Creston

I don't get you. You love the grind, you hate the grind, would you make your mind up already?

I challenge you to quote me, EXACTLY, the part where I said "I love the grind". Really, please. Go right ahead. I'll wait.

And I'm glad you don't get me, as you don't strike me as the kind of person I'd like to have discussions with anyways.

Creston

You shouldn't expect to get many drops when you're full of a party of henchmen and the fact that you got a gold doesn't prove that the game has nerfed drops.

Harder monsters ≠ better loot.

Good loot = random.

if you solo, u would get drop pretty much all monsters, be it gold or item. remember you are splitting 6 ways when partying. so multiply gold and items number by 6 is what your party approx got on the trip.

WEll, I'd love for ArenaNet to make the drops assigned to me semi-useful. In one mission in the Northern Shiverpeaks area, I got FOUR gold hammers. That would be GREAT if I was a warrior. I'm an el/mo. No use for hammers.

I think arenanet has a function for this. Wait its coming to me.. is it trade? If you get a good hammer you can most likely get a good wand / rod for the money you make if the hammer is equal in value.

Smart@$$. I have yet to find a warrior using a hammer as their weapon of choice. The hammers did not sell particularly well or for high $ amounts. I'm jst saying if I'm the only ele in a party of 6, why in the name of Dwayna does the warrior keep getting the gold fire wands?

Hammers are excellent. Can we conclude warrior primaries are morons? Maybe

you must be very unlucky, from what i have seen they have increased drops to about 10 times what they used to be, i used to farm drakes in kryta back in the first week of the game, i would get maybe 1 or 2 purple items soloing it usually, sometimes alot like 4 or 5, now i cant do any quest without getting at least 3 purples and one major rune, stuff has been increased so much that now you cant sell anything, because everyone who wants it has it, the few exceptions are like superior vigor runes, celestial sigils, and max weapons with awesome mods, and of course those are gonna be ridiculously expensive, its the only thing you can sell now! although i am sure by the next patch you will be able to get all those off of level 1 aloe seeds, since they seem to listen to whiners when they make updates...

damn.. is it me or in old ascalon, there are no gold item or weapons, heck even a average or semi-rare purple weapon or item has been drop for me once....

All the drops in Old Ascalon are (usually) just crap... nothing better than blue has ever dropped for me

I just thought this was a very amazing but weird experience I had after patch. I farmed an unnamed location where purple and gold armor was dropping like I've never seen--1 to 3 a group! I even got the much desired superior absorb rune after 20 minutes of farming this place. Then.. outta nowhere...all the drops stop completely. I killed group after group and nothin dropped at all. It got so slow I gave up, though quite excited about the runes I WAS able to get. Does anyone know how something like that could happen? Do they adjust loot drop rates silently?

Most likely just some random anomaly, and a very lucky person with many new runes

Umm just out of sheer curiosity, did you zone out (but not to a town/outpost) and then zone back to the zone where you're doing the killing?
Or did you stay in one zone the entire time?
Or did you zone to a town/outpost, back to zone, back to town, etc?