To All Complainers of Reduced Drops with Henchmen in Comparison to Human Players

Seeing several threads dedicated solely to complaint after complaint of "not getting any drops" when farming the new Sorrow's Furnace area with a party of henchmen has prompted me to address this issue.

My main criticism is that these players are committing the false cause fallacy in their reasoning by stating, "I get almost no drops, and I farm Sorrow's Furnace with henchmen. Therefore, I get almost no drops because I farm Sorrow's Furnace with henchmen."

Almost certainly, there is no correlation between whether you farm with the same number of henchmen or human players on the probability of item drops assigned to your character.

All of you complaining about getting no drops with henchmen aren't even considering that, by even that 5th time you've re-entered Sorrow's Furnace in a single day (more likely, 50th time for you crazy addicts), Guild Wars will have nerfed your chance of item drops to close to zero!

The reduced drops with repeated runs of an area is a factor that makes everyone's "proof" that "no items are dropping for me, and I have the thirty-five trials to prove it" is clearly a load of unbased crap (forgive my lapse into crude language).

It's remarkable that people who have played many hundreds of hours to have gotten to Sorrow's Furnace on their fourth character still have no grasp of the game mechanics of Guild Wars and have the audacity to incessantly complain about a subject on which they have a laughable understanding of but claim otherwise.

Well, that denseness may be attributed to a general flaw independent of any game.

First of all, you should see if there is, in fact, a problem, which in this case concerning the alleged hypothesis of "If you farm with henchman, you will receive observably fewer drops than with the same number of human players," has absolutely no evidence of confirmation at this point.

Second, note also the random nature of the "dependent variable," hence its name, which entails that all results from trials are subject to incredibly random factors, and any derived conclusions are at best inductive, or based solely on the observation of patterns.

If you would truly like to conduct a valid experiment on the effect of a party of henchmen vs. human players on the amount of item drops assigned to your character ("quality" of items drops is a completely different issue, plus you cannot "measure" an item's quality), here are the two characteristics that any good experiment must include (which you hopefully learned, assuming you didn't drop out before the sixth or seventh grade): a controlled scenario and repeated trials.

In my opinion, the former aspect is the larger obstacle because it would require the highest possibility of ceteris paribus--holding all factors constant--in order to conduct a respectable experiment, but some things to consider are to farm in the same area (duh?), to farm the same number of monsters and bosses, to farm the same types of monsters and bosses, to perform the same number of trials with henchmen in a given day and human players on another day, and to perform separate sets of trials spaced at least a day apart for each human player in the party in order to reset the item drop nerf for repeats of an area.

Does the list of factors look daunting enough?

That's not all, seeing as how even with hundreds of repeated trials that are necessary to merely support the hypothesis, it is not possible to indefinitely prove any hypothesis, and it is only possible to disprove a hypothesis.

So, have any of you attempted to do any of these things at all before announcing your so-called conclusion?

In short, what I'd like to say is: you can complain all you want, but nothing's going to happen if you don't offer a solution.

Instead of shouting post after post of the same, trivial complaints, why don't you think of an actual, practical suggestion?

You just might get your point across a little better.

Nicely written, with lots of solid facts.

I would like to mention that I have farmed 95% of the rune unlocks, and the only time I ever recieved a Superior Vigor was with hench. In fact, the only time I was dropped a superior rune was that same time, with all hench, and I have logged over 800 hours.

Some things in the game are completely luck-based.

I'm playing my first character; a warrior lvl 20 ascended and now just getting skill points, and up till now she has not found a really good item, it doesn't matter if with henchies or people! I don't farm, just play the game. It would be very nice if for once I could find a good sword or shield! I don't bother to trade, beside I cannot afford to buy anything!
Yes I'm complaining very much about the drops!

I've Noticed / Tested something, before i fight a mob of Desert Griffons, FoW Monsters or opening a shiver peak chest i drop 3 or more Highly Rare Gold items for a few times then pick them up then attack the mobs or open chest. After doing this i started to get 2x more gold items then usuall!! try it !! this is how i got my Gold Fellblade / MAX +15% / 10-10 sundering / req 9 all of my 4 chars inventory is currently full of mostly gold items now , before it was mostly purple!

Very true, and IMO the biggest weakness of the game in regards to loot. It's much better now than it used to be, but even so I still get days where I get not even a blue item and other days where it's practically raining purple and gold. No doubt they're using the built in random number generator

It does make me wonder though if this, just like the random arenas and probably lots of other things, could have benefited from just a little bit of tipping the scales. Just a little more chance of getting a good item if you haven't had one recently, just a little more chance of having a monk in every party, these small things could go a long way towards making the game seem a lot more fair and therefore be a lot more fun.

I receieve plenty of drops with henchies in the new areas, its just that they are all rubbish which go straight to the merchant.

And all this time I just thought Mhenlo was greedy. =P

You can expect my whitepaper entitled 'The effects of Guild Wars drop rates within a zero gravity environment', right after I have completed my current project - 'Zen and the art of going to the toilet'.

While you're waiting you may want to use perception & experience.

The biggest problem of the game is that everything is capped at low levels. This makes even the slightest improvement in 1 single item run players to a farming spot. And complain when they realize that they need to play many hours doing the same level without success. With tons of items with all kinds of *much higher* qualities this would not happen. Because players would simply find other stuff they like on their runs.

Of course the respond will be: "this game is not about gear, but about SKILLS". Sure. But for skill the same thing is going on: After 2 months everyone has the skills needed for his/her build. And did not we learn that making real good skill combinations are rewareded with... a nerf??

Lets face it: the level/item cap is a dead end. It limits gameplay too much. Where normally players continue playing after completing a level they now quit. Because there's nothing to gain anymore. If Anet does not find a proper solution to this than I predict there will exactly be 2 Expansions: the first one will sell reasonably because many players want to give it a try. For the second one they will say: more of the same? Sorry, it looks great, but no.

i like the way that you seem to suggest that killing everything in Grenths (around the camp at least) then clearing SF (or near enough) will cause the auto-nerf function to kick in.
it only kicks in if the repeat time for your actions are less than maybe half an hour.


urgh another Mo/W complaining that their 'perfectly balanced' build for soloing UW has been nerfed (all be it in a roundabout way...) the day that all classes can solo UW is the day that i will feel sorry for you concerning the nerf. lets face it that is not about to happen. what with this game being both cooperative and multiplayer.
also i'm not sure what bearing on this thread your post has.

i agree with the OP about the fact that there is insufficiant evidence to support the claim concerning henchmen. however i have done a few runs with a team of 8 people (all the way through grenths and SF) and have done the same with 5 henchmen. i got fewer drops with the henchies but more money.
never have i got a green with henchmen. i have got 4 greens with real people. i have been out with henchmen more than with people but never more than 3 times in a row (hence the auto nerf function will not have activated).

this suggests to me that drops with people are better than with henchmen. i have to try that 'drop a few golds' thing though. i won't be trying it with people however!

I've noticed one thing. The lucky keep getting lucky. Hence, why droppin golds makes sense, i dont know, but it fits with what i've seen. I never see a near-even distribution of greens. Once a boss dropped a green and 3 other items, sure they were crap but I got ALL of them. With 5 people in a party, thats ridiculous. I got the next green too. SO, dropping greens MAY have the same effect, just have "lag" or be "afk" when you do it ;-) have fun with that strategy.

You do realise people have been complaining about getting less drops with henchmen than you would with real players since long before Sorrow's Furnace came out?

They are supposedly making logical fallacies, you're claiming telepathy. Again the reduced drops with henchmen has been experienced by many people independently in different places.

Again, people have been complaining about this for ages. Anyway it's not proof that's being presented, it's personal experience and thus based on things which have happened to them not on some abstract logical argument which has no basis in what actually happens.

It's even more remarkable that someone who presumably doesn't have a 4th character at Sorrows Furnace is trying to claim in his own "logical" way that something that people have observed for months does not infact happen, despite not having any hard evidence and instead choosing to throw around abstract logic which he appears to be pulling out of thin air.

Ad hominem?

Aside from the experiences of a large portion of GW's playerbase. Oh and it's not a hypothesis since people are relating experience and are not using scientific method.

Sorry that was a description of pretty much every scientific experiment. Observation of patterns is science. Which to be fair is not the same as logic, however since science requires reality checks (ie. the reality has to match the logic, it's not just an inconvienent factor).


To my knowledge noone is claiming to have performed experiments, they are merely stating what they have experienced.


Or we could just take the experiences of pretty much everyone who's played the game and not take ourselves so seriously, it's just a game after all.

Well a practical solution is for A.net to sort out the supposedly "random" drop system and explain how it works and why some people seem to be "lucky", why I got 4 purple armours in a row one day and got no other rare items all that day, why 4 out of the 5 gold items I have were recieved were on my 3rd character and were recieved over a very short period of time etc.

And if you've played this game for any amount of time you'd realise that the drop system definately has it's little quirks. To be fair as of yet there is no scientific hypothesis as to how, why or even if henchmen reduces drops for the player however there are enough people who have experienced this to indicate that there may be some truth to it and despite all your logical bluster I note you haven't actually tried to disprove it either. Heard of argumentum ad logicam?

If you want to disprove it I would be very interested to read the results of any tests you do but so far all you've done is present logical arguments which if you have any understanding of science, which you seem to do, you'll know are no substitute for real evidence.

Drops are about the same in GF and SF for normal drops with the Henchies of Doom. But you take henchies and go out and kill bosses and your chances of getting a green are practically zero. Since I first set foot in GF and then the SF on Sat. (ok....so I was on vacation last week) until today.....how many greens have I picked up? That would be zero. When I am in a group with real people in it, I have seen greens drop but alas never for me. Everyone is saying how great things are....well I have yet to see it, even after playing 5+ hours a night since Saturday.

I am beginning to think this game hates

I got zero green items with henchies and 4 so far with real players(even with 3:5 human/hench ratio). If it's luck, than henchies are truly luckiest bastards in entire game, drowning in green right now.

After reading this earlier I figured I'd try it in Grenth's Footprint. 5 man human team, no greens, one gold (not for me) and a grand total of 800 gold earned per person, give or take, after selling the stuff at the merchants.

Me and 5 henches, same bosses killed but this time I got 2 golds, about 12 white items, 2 purples, a blue and the Yakslapper. Total gold earned, 2000 without selling the yakslapper.

This is by no means meant to be representative, its just an illustration that taking henches is not a guarantee for worse drops.

lol ad hominem and false cause fallacy.

there are more than me out there that use the lingo of arguments.

What LathalDraugr said.

For my own part, I wasnt complaining either. There is a difference between observing causal results in a game and forming a complaint of said results. Its quite entertaining to me to figure out and observe the mechanics of a game while I play it. In this case, there's no doubt in my mind that henchmen take a higher percentage of drops than human players. Significantly so. It was worth therefore mentioning and discussing, imho. You could then try to figure out the mechanics of how that works, or argue about it, but on at least one topic I was in on the subject, I thought we were just discussing the experiences we had with henchmen?

I dont have the drop data at the moment to post here, but its my experience and many others' experience (yes, over 4 characters) so I dont really know where the original poster is even remotely coming from (not a flame - just confusion).

Not less remarkable than your arrogant, factless post that contains nothing but subjective bashing on many other people's tests and arguments.

I have probably killed 20x more bosses in a myself+hench or myself+guildie+hench teams, but have gotten all my greens from the rare occassions when I've dared to venture out with random groups (or had the pleasure to go to SF with a full guild group). In fact I have never ever seen a green drop in presence of a henchie ... neither for me nor someone else.

My own experiences in combination with tests and experiences of other people I've read on forums lead me to believe hench are rigged when it comes to getting greens.

Untill you haven't done tests yourself that prove the opposite, flaming these kind of arguments from other people will stay just that - flaming.

why is it such a shock that the henchman(mercenaries) take drops?? it makes perfect sense to me

No, its not that. They take a far larger share than the same number of human players.

Note: I state it as fact, since I believe and experience that it is. Its not, of course, fact, without supporting data. Not really that hard to test, I just have not tracked it that carefully.

They take an equal share of drops and gold it's just that you've alone and you notice it more because the items that go to them don't drop , while when you are with a party you see items dropping at the same speed as you.

The only possible reason that people are not getting *any* drops is because they've farmed the place too much and decrease their drop rate by so much they get nothing anymore, then they worry it's the hench, take a break, go with a party back later and get a few items.... which further makes them beleive that it's the henches fault.

But really it's a pit they've dug themselves in and haven't realized yet.

(notice I say they and not pointing fingers, I'm having a problem with drop rates, I,m not sure why but does being a monk affect drop rates in any way?)

No, its not that. Matters not if you see the drops (as you do with humans) or not (as you dont when with henchmen). Its even easier to tell then that, and very obvious: your inventory. Over time, lots of time replaying the same darn quests and areas and no, not farming, since I dont farm, its quite easy to start accumulating experience of observation. When I am in human groups I get more drops. Not a complaint (also, not a fact I realize). Just an observation, and one I'd think many would have made.

so you mean unlike playing with human players you have to pay the mercenaries out of your personal inventory(i.e. they take a portion of your drops)...it seems logical to me.

I have no experience with hechman...I played with henchman probably 2% of the entire game(if that). So I'm going by what others say.

Could someone articulate exactly what the rule is regarding repeat trips and reduced drops? I am aware of A rule, but not sure what the specifics are.

How many times can I consecutively enter a zone before the reduction happens?
Do they have to be consecutive zonings? GF,GF,GF,GF,GF,Perdition rock, GF, GF....
Does zoning into SF reset the drops?
Does it reset every day, even if I haven't left the warcamp/GF/SF?

I'm not sure if there is any solid data regarding this. I've farmed about 900 plat on my monk...and done it all in two places. I've never noticed a reduction in drops. Which is not to say that there isn't a reduction in drops from doing the same area over and over again. It's obvious that it exists within the game...maybe it's just faulty.

I have experienced much the same with drop rate problems. Just doing the SF quest with henchies, not farming, I have never EVER seen a green item. Yet I have only been to SF with an actual group maybe 3 times and got a green twice. So yes, I believe the henchies do effect the drop rate of higher items. That is what I have experienced and you can use all the logic that you want to try to say it doesn't happen. Neither your so Called Logic, or yourself has played 700 hrs on my account to disprove what I have seen. I find it very amusing that some of people think they are the Gods of GW and have the absolute answer for all things unknown..lol

Anyway, I do agree that the luck factor is skewed with drops when you have henchies. Maybe some of us are just unlucky at the exact time that we choose to take henchies instead of real people...who knows.

Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers... that smell bad.

Am I missing the boat here or what?

I have gone out with both 5 and 8 player teams, I have also gone out with myself and all the henches, when I was with human players, best thing i ever got was a major rune.

With (7) henchies I have gotten a sup vigor, a green shield, a nice gold half moon among other things, but I never go out expecting that I will ALWAYS get at least one godly item.

If something great drops I am happy, if not that's the way it goes and there is always next time.

It sounds to me like a bunch of spoiled third graders who don't get their way complaining about it and wanting mommy/anet to nerf the rest of the entire game for everyone else because they are having a bad day.

You will not always be lucky, enjoy the times you are and get yourself back in the game, how do you expect to find anything if you are here whining about it and not playing?

I'm not into farming much, but someone should try farming a spot a set number of times (say 10 for example) with differing number of henchies; 10 griffon runs with one henchie, 10 griffon runs with two henchies, 10 griffon runs with three henchies, etc. It would be interesting to notice the drop ratios...

8^B

I'm not sure how the W/Mo works but my 55 monk can't do the griffon run with a henchman in the party.

What most of you seem to forget is that SF is not meant to be a farming area. Of course we all want that green item that has max stats on the things you need most. And since SF is so huge its annoying and boring when you have to enter lots of times and dont find anything. My advice:
-Play there as long as you like and stop playing when it becomes repetative.
-Meanwhile farm other area, sell what you find and gather lots of gold.
-Eventually BUY that green item you like; prices will drop after a while.
-Remember that most green items only add something usefull for the better PvP players. In PvE they hardly make any difference (unless, maybe, in 1 or 2 solobuilds, but for those there are workarounds).

I stopped reading after the false cause fallacy (because I like philisophical logic.) The rest of what I read (hehe) was simply an opinion, because it didn't come from ArenaNet. Therefore, until you here from ArenaNet, you are simply speculating.

It's aweful when the original poster of a thread starts its own flame war.

Anyways, if you find that your farming techniques are not yielding the results that you expect, then perhaps a new method will be necessitated. That is to say, you need to find a way to cope with it. The reason why your farming method doesn't work is a moot point, because it doesn't work, and fretting about it seems to be distracting you from your original intent: farming. So, I humbly suggest an effort on your behalf to find a more suitable method for farming.

I would suggest:
Instead of posting "GOD DAMNIT I CAN'T FARM WITH HENCHMEN",
Try: "Does anyone have experience farming the new area solo as a X/X?"

It is not my intent to chastize or patronize anyone, as that is outside my realm of abilities. I'm merely pointing out the most logical, effiecent method for soloving the problem.

~zehly

Drops are pretty bad. I mean, i have over 1,300+ logged on my main account and i have yet to even find a Superior Absorption let alone anything else remotely rare. Sometimes i just think it's my account. But i just know the loot system is pretty messed up.

Well, then please explain why I have found a Sup Absorp, 3 greens, countless golds (granted, most pretty useless) and purples in Grenths with both henches and humans?

Drops can be bad, drops can be good. First time I went to FoW I had a godly item, 2 rubies and 2 shards drop, last 3 times I went out there I barely made 2K *shrug*. It's how the cookie crumbles.

Props to LathalDraugr for his review and criticism of my opinions!

My primary purpose in starting this thread was to spark some actual thought on the issue, instead of taking people's word without examining its truth (so you can't take my word for it, either).

As for the arguments he presents, my summarized response is that my "logic" is based on the fact that the people who do post complaints are the ones who have experienced bad drops (I don't often see posts of good drops), and any assumptions based on those secondary sources are as a whole biased because they use incomplete information (what I mean is, for every visible post of bad drops, there is an unposted one of good drops).

Therefore, the data collected from hearsay and incomplete information are not valid, but I am not professing that the resultant inference is false because false information is used.

As to why we should not accept a conclusion based on appearance of truth from multiple instances, the continual repetition of an assertion is not evidence that makes the statement more valid--argumentum ad nauseam (sorry, but I love logical arguments even though they can be somewhat self-contradictory).

Thanks to everyone for your comments, but don't make any unnecessary accusations of "flaming" (though I did find it amusing how the "ad hominem" implied such) because, simply put, it annoys me, and I will feel that the way in which I posed my opinions was misinterpreted.

I would enjoy a continued discussion/debate (a sensible one, not a shouting contest) when I have the time to do so this weekend for anyone who is up to it (particularly LathalDraugr).

I play with henchies more than 70% of the time and only team up with Humans 30 % of the Time i Have 5 Characters that are all level 20 and have played more hours since i received the game in Dec than i would like to admit. LOL I have gotten ~6 greens my Wife has gotten ~8 We have gotten them when we are teamed up and when we were solo.. i havent noticed a difference. We dont farm, both have all 4 campaigns and havent finished any of them yet although we are very close in Prop,EOTN, and Nightfall. We have never been to the underworld and gotten the greens just doing regular campains and missions and running around killing things tryng to make $$. I gotta say 4 Months into GW i am Addicted Its a Great Game and i look forward to going home and killing some monsters HEHE

Nice to see someone being positive for a change though!

I was actually wondering where all the alleged whinge threads about thieving henchies were were till I clocked the date after I got bored halfway down the OP.

Search, and people shout Thread Necromance


Don't search, and people shout Uz Srch Plz!!1!!1


You can't win...


BUT, glad you're having fun!

True that to justice. I think I saw a mod do the same thing within about 15 minutes. Thankfully, he's not here anymore.

But yes, glad that you're enjoying the game, flea I also don't recall ever being real "disadvantaged" due to H/H. They just take they're stuff like any other player.

Well, I'm glad someone revived this thread because the OP was a good post even if some of the points are outdated now.