Party Size : Drop Rates

I think that party size to drop rate is an EXCELLENT idea it wont matter if you wish to solo, 4 man team or full 8 size team, your drops will be the same that is BALANCE that is what Anet want.

This will help drastically reduce solo chest runners, farmers (underword) etc from becomming more rich then anyone else... balance.... perfect.

it would be like having an invisable henchman for every space that can be filled in your party nicking items, it would be total balance.

you would not need to incease drop rates, keep them as they are now or slightly higher as Anet will know it wont benifit soloers so they wont have to worry about nerfing so much.

I am sure there will be people ho say that this will ruin the economy. i would probably have to agree, unless they lowered the stats on rare drops.

<hands ddoogle a flame suit>

You're going to need it. Once the farmers descend on this thread it'll turn into a full blown BBQ.

On topic: I think this is a great idea. It seems to me that the economy ANet is trying to create is scaled based on the number of drops/gold one would receive as part of a full group (whatever a full group for your location is). If one person is getting all those drops, then their wealth is increasing at a level inconsistent with the rest of the in-game economy.

Furthermore, I think it would help encourage building good groups. There would be a benefit to constructing competent, full groups so that more drops would be available. Therefore more CHANCES for good drops.

why would it ruin the economy? drop rate could be the same as now, you dont have to make drop for 8 group so that each one earn as many drops as if they were on thier own.

You would have it so that its the same as it is now for a full team and the less you have in your team the less drop you get.

i.e. its like having an invisable henchman for every space that can be filled in your party nicking items, it would be total balance.

you dont have to incease drop rate itself.

read my post above this the writting in BOLD, you dont need to increase drop rates and make items more common

Absolutely nice idea.

Not to rain on your parade, though, but I'd still farm solo. Why? Well, I'm sick of W/Mos who aggro 4 ataxes instead of 2 and cast breeze and mending on themselves; sick of Eles who use flare; sick of Necros who raise useless armies of minions.

Oh and do we want to talk about the Peace and Harmony monks?

Solo ftw guys, solo ftw.

EDIT: actually, having read your following posts, it's not a nice idea at all. Seven invisible henchies? Are you kidding me? Here's my suggestion: next time you have a brilliant idea such as this one, lock it in a small box and never look back.

I think it's definitely a nice idea. I, unlike many others apparently, enjoy playing with other human beings (even if they are sometimes hilariously bad) and I feel this is an attitude that should be rewarded, not punished as it is now.

Which brings us to the problem of henchmen. Should playing with a full group of henchies be as rewarding an experience as playing with humans? I don't really think so, but it's kinda touchy.

i dont think anet will have a problem with you soloing it as much if they did invisable henchie , as you arnt benifiting from doing that. Their main conceren is the economy of to much gold going around, making rich players that set to high prices for players that play the game properly.

so you can still be free to do how you will, just the GREEDY people will complain.

the more supply enters the market, the lower the prices will be, assuming the demand stays the same.

the very basic economy rule.

I am off to email Anet 500 times a day... about this

I edited my post. And for the second time, it's not "invisable", it's "invisible".
If you want to be taken seriously, spell the words correctly.

Old but great idea. I'm all for such an improvement to develop full parties & teamplay. Unfortunately, I don't think ANet is ready to affect what they call 'honest farmers'.

Note to all farmers who will read this thread. You have the right to disagree and to post here. Just be sure to provide arguments or material for a healthy and civil discussion, or expect a few mods to use the Troll Stomper (new green item, moderator-restricted).

You can't reward people for using skill and strategy to succeed in areas intended for larger groups, and then suddenly take that away from them. That isn't what should be done, anyway. The optimal solution to the problem is to make the ability to farm items more closely proportional to the skill of the player. The hard part is actually coming up with a way to do that.

If your goal is to get more humans to party together I don't think this change would have any effect. If someone is currently solo farming and they don't leave the game because of this change they'll party with henchmen.

Rather than penalizing solo farmers, if they really want to encourage humans to party I think they should give more gold and better items the more humans there are in a group to make up for all the problems associated with PUGs.

For example, have a sliding percentage for bosses to drop green items. 5% chance for 1 human, 40% chance for a party of 8 humans. For a short time people will be partying together like crazy...

You could also have humans in the same guild double the percentage increase, to try and get people to have larger guilds instead of the onesy/twosy guilds...

But I don't want to party with humans. Most of the time they are dumber than the henchies.

quote for emphasis.

most people begin to solo the game because they reach a level of understanding of how things work in the game. Other players, unfortunately, do not reach this same level. Thus making partying with people a headache. When I'm by myself I blame myself when I die. I took on a group of mobs that was too large for me to sustain life....when I die partied with a group it's always the WaMos fault for opening the chest we told him not to, or aggroing the mob of Aatxes we told him not to, or trying to pull when he shouldn't be....I'm all set with that. I'll be back to play this gam (yes...even with a group which I miss doing) when the expansion comes out and ArenaNet implements some type of learning curve to keep the morons stuck at outposts. There is a large conglomerate of players who aren't playing solo because they need gold and uber items...they just can't stand the grossly poor level of play in most PUGs

I think the drop rate should be lowered for solo and 7-henchie squads. However, squads with two or more humans should get the normal drop rate.

I don't think Anet wants to require people to play with 8 humans to get decent drops. If you and a buddy want to play together, that should qualify for normal drop rates, even if you fill out the rest of the party with henchies. (henchies would still take their cut of the drops though)

I dont like this idea. And before you call me a farmer, I admit that I'll occasionally farm but I PVP and group up with others more often than not. I don't like the idea of punishing honest people just because of some bad eggs.

And why should 1 player 7 henchie teams be punished?!? Sometimes I have to do a mission on my own pace, going afk a lot to take care of my kid or I'm working on something. I'm certainly not going to make real people wait for me all the time. If they're going to punish people for only teaming up with henchman then they might as well take them out...

Good for balance, bad for players... the drops aren't particulary good.

If those spots are taken with some imaginary-friends, it will make it even harder to get gold and items.

Because if you're with less players you have to work harder to kill monsters, so the extra higher chance of items and more gold is good.

It'd be so stupid if you kill monsters in your own and droprate is the same as with 3/5/7 other players with you.

It should stay the way it is.

If the droprate is the same regardless of people with you, people would still solo farm. They'll be getting the exact same benifits, but don't have to deal with idiots. If they increase the drop rate depending on the size of the group, promoting, not forcing people to party, then we'll probably see a lot more people come out of soloing.

The current system means that a person who forms a full group for Underworld (assuming you can get a group that can work together) gets 1/8th of the drops of a soloer. Both methods take skill, the soloer to create a build (or copy off forum lol) and the team player to work well as a team (no mean achievement), therefore both methods should be rewarded in terms of drops.

Perhaps a solution to this would be to make corpses lootable instead of having items drop on the ground. They could act like the chests (i.e. Each person could loot and get different items). This way there would be no penalty/advantage to having any party size whether it be solo or a full group.

actually i find my performance at fornace be better with good 4 man farming group than a average PUG group

I farm (runs and hides behind sofa)

In principle i like this idea, The only flaw is that the drops in a full party SUCK. As an example, I think i have spent approx 30 hours in both UW & FOW, so far i have had 2 shards and a few rubbish weopons (shadow shields & choas axes ect with naff stats) that ive salvaged. I think that in total thats about 6-8k ive made, oh then take of about 10k as i sometimes pay for my groups. Oh wait that means if made a total of -4k.

I still plan to go to both, but i only do it for teamplay and not to make money.

I can make a couple of thousand in about 5 minutes farming, Also any good weopons that i have come from farming. Through playing the game i have had nothing drop that i would consider worth bothering with.

So yes, i like you idea but only if the amount of drops are increased for a full team.

Otherwise trying to save up for FOW armour and other items would be a full time job.

saving up for FOW armor is a full time job right now.

i think each monster should drop multiple items with more people in party so more is reserved for players. solo would get no benifit and would encourage PUGs.

yes PUGs are dumb and most of the time don't listen to a target call but ya......don't know where i'm going with that.

just nothing that really makes me want to play with a pug they usually piss me off more than anything.

sad when a lvl 4 ranger can complete ice caves with full henches but the first pug i join war or ranger attacks mursaat.

Sekkira: Why remove soloing, it's not really fun to see others take away all the money and items O_O

This system is good, you work more you get more.... why not keep this?

ok this is a good idea in theory, but once you raise the drop rates, you now have EVERYTHING flooding the economy. there is no balance anymore to anything. granted paying 500k+ for a req 8 perf 15>50, 10/10sundering, 30 hp longsword is outrageous, but seen them going for it. The problem in this game is that EVERYONE has the mentality that if it isnt the best in the game, then its trash. thats why you can see a pommel of fort +30 go for 75k and a 29 pommel sell for 15k..... balanced? no, but if that one health point matters that much to your build, then you need to rebuild that toon IMO.

edit: some of the solo farm builds take skill and almost perfect timing to where you still dont get owned. anyone can build the char, but if you have no idea how to use the char, then its just as worthless as your non perfect item in the economy. Why punish those who do have the skill to be able to farm and have the means and time to do it by raising the drop rates so that everyone has the same chances? remember people will still solo because of the fact that in a party of 8, you still onyl have a 1 in 8 chance of that GODLY fellblade that could drop being yours. so in a whole, raising the drop rate will help you a little in the fact that it could drop, but doesnt help the chances that it will drop for YOU..