Talk:Drop

Now...i do not understand the droprate for players. In party's i get white, blue and purples while others get black dye's and three to four gold drops. In (vanquish)hard mode not having much trouble at all i get lousy white Raven & Bo staffs? three or four at a time?

More people are collecting evidence to make their grievance know. Some players feel there is some kind of "Unlucky" jinx at work.

So... how does it work? How to de-jinx?

--Silverleaf

It's all random. Just bad luck, unfortunately. -- br12 • (talk) • 17:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe so. More players cannot have a continuous stream of bad luck. This game is balanced for the most part.
--Silverleaf

Yes, they can. Just because you have some bad luck does not mean there is a conspiracy against you. Drops do not need balancing, because they are random. Ale_Jrb (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mention a conspiracy or anything. Not that paranoid. I simple want to understand the drop rate. For more than one player that's seems to have "lower-than-usual" drop chance.
--Silverleaf

It is because it is not random, it depends on the amount of experience earned without a drop. In any case, using scrolls and solo farming areas does give you loads of experience, which in turn translates into good drop rates. For example, every time I use a beserker scroll I get green drop almost guaranteed when solo farming bosses. People think the currency in Guild Wars is gold but it is experience. It finances everything and ensures people who play more earn more.MindMaze (talk)

I don't know why it sent me an email that you edited the talk table, but I think you're a little late to the conversations lol. 63.147.218.112 20:41, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

That's actually how stats works. Assuming all drops are random, a fair distribution is far more unlikely than an unfair one. Bobius 22:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

NPCs

Do NPCs affect the drop rate? I have been solo farming Strongroots Tanglebranch. He is located just outside of the Kurzick Unwaking waters. There is a Rez shrine there with the Kurz guards, priest and Merch. I have been getting almost no drops from any of the 10 or so creatures I kill. I never get far enough away for the NPCs to leave my compass map. Has anyone noticed this? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Mamertine (talk).

I doubt they contribute to loot scaling. — Why 21:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been wondering about this also. I've been pulling Cultist Milthuran (Outside Aurios Mines) to the shrine with his mob and killing them repeatedly to get the staff. Now, while it did drop, it was only when I killed him without assistance from the guards, but that proves nothing for one drop. Took 25 tries, 20 with guards, 5 without, 10 in HM (with guards) prduced gold/purple armor a few times but nothing else. Not a large amount of data, but it seemed to me that he was dropping items for me when guards had done some of the fighting, but I'd done most of the damage, but when guards fought him for longer (I'd be killing the ritualist/mobs) he'd drop nothing. Drop rate for everything fell significantly after about 10 runs. Pure speculation at this point but I'd like to know if there is any concrete data on this. 110.150.38.240 23:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

NPCs affect the drop rates, but have nothing to do with loot scaling. One of the easiest tests to confirm NPC-theft is Jarimiya, since he always drops a bottle of vabbian wine. If you pull him to the Kournan guards and if they contribute to his downfall, the bottle might not drop for you. If you do all the damage, you get a bottle (plus the usual random stuff). The easiest way to test loot scaling is to measure the amount of gold dropped — since it falls in the same amounts whether NPCs join in the battle or not, there's no evidence for loot scaling.

However, it is hard to determine the cutoff for when NPCs might get drops: clearly, they get nothing if they do no damage and just as clearly, if they do all the damage, you get no drops. The question is: what happens when the NPC does 25% of the damage? Do they get 25% of the drops? Or do any NPCs doing at least x% of damage have an equal chance to get a drop (e.g. 2 NPCs do 15% of the damage, you do 40%, and another NPC does 35% — do you have 50-50 chance with the 35 percenter? is it quarter chance for everyone?)  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

As long as they participate they share. There is an easy test for this, you can use bonds and maintained enchantments on yourself and leave your NPC's at the opposite end of the radar - because they heal you in a way, you get experience divided by party size. So even with the smallest amount of participation, you share loot. NPC's who are non party members have the same influence.MindMaze (talk)

Enemies wield weapons they are about to drop?

I was just in Wajjun Bazaar, fighting some Jade Brotherhood Knights. I somehow noticed one of them was using a weapon I didn't know. Since they are axe warriors, they should use axes, but this one was clearly using a sword, a Jitte. And when I killed him he dropped a Jitte. Strange? -- Magamdy 10:41, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, in w:Unreal Tournament 3, whatever weapon you're using is the one that drops, so everyone always switches to Enforcer before they die :D | 72 |

Green drop rate now zero when elite capping?

During the last week or so, another of my characters has been capping every elite skill in the game for the Legendary Skill Hunter title, and I notice in passing that not a single green has dropped for me despite killing hundreds of bosses. This is clearly a green drop policy change in the game, because it wasn't like this before. I've been killing bosses in GW forever at the 1/8th H/H-reduced drop rate, first with 7 henchmen, then with 3 heros and 4 henchmen, and now with 7 heros, and the green drop rate has always been pretty steady. Now the drop rate is simply ZERO for me, and the only thing I can attribute this to is the fact that I'm capping elites. Quite often the boss's group is the only group that I kill in a zone, and sometime the boss alone is the only foe that gets killed at all. Is the lack of green drops caused by some new over-eager change to the Anti-farm_code, possibly bugged, which is getting triggered by this elite capping? Morgaine 01:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It's almost certainly just luck. In the process of getting legendary vanquisher years ago I got exactly 2 greens. When I (solo) farmed every green that drops from a boss I got maybe 5 on the first kill, and maybe 5 took over 70 runs. Sometimes the boss was the first and only thing I killed in the zone, sometimes not. Manifold 01:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Statistically, it's certainly possible to play the game for years and never get a green drop, or indeed, any drop at all, ever. However, it is exceedingly unlikely for that to happen. In the current elite capping context, the likelihood of getting exactly zero green drops over hundreds of bosses is so small that I think an over-eager Anti-farm_code triggering incorrectly is the more likely explanation. Morgaine 02:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

There could be a simpler explanation ... Have ArenaNet decreased the overall green drop rate by a factor of 10, perhaps? That could explain it too, since the dozen or so greens that I would normally expect from this boss spree would reduce to being in the noise around 1 or zero. Morgaine 02:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Whereas I just picked up Koren's Hornbow a few days back while vanquishing Drakkar Lake, the first green I've found in months. You've just been unlucky. -- Hong 02:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

All my characters (I have lots) have continued getting greens during normal GW activities, and indeed so was this character before she started full-time elite capping recently. I'm very aware of the normal boss drop rates during normal activity. This is different though. It's sheer concentrated, continuous boss killing, many dozens a day, and "unlucky" doesn't match the statistical expectations, which are not zero. Morgaine 02:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Look at it this way. It's very unlikely that any one given person will experience a long stretch of time without finding a green. However, if you have enough people, it's very likely that at least one of them will experience a long stretch of time without finding a green. You just happened to be that one person. -- Hong 02:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

From farming hundreds of greens, I agree with the estimate of some other person I read who did the same: it's about 1 in 8 to 12. Multiply that by 8, it's entirely plausible that you could not get a single one after killing a few hundred bosses, and it's also entirely plausible that you could get a dozen. Slot machines are frustrating, yet addictive. Manifold 02:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It's just too easy to dismiss feedback on drop rates as "lucky" or "unlucky". What we need is a trained statistician and hard numbers. If there actually were an implementation fault with Anet's Anti-farm_code incorrectly triggering when engaged in continuous elite capping, we will never know it, the way it's being approached here. "Unlucky" just doesn't cut it. After so many years at this, you get a good feel for what is a common GW statistical trend, and what is way off the map. Morgaine 16:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence isn't really a good feel for what is common. I've discussed the drop rate of greens when elite-skill capping with about a dozen or so people; they all have the same experience, which is not that many greens drop. I did about 1/4 of my capping during double-chance weekends...and I still only ended up with 2 greens during the entire project.

The chance that there's something in the anti-farming code, even by accident, which somehow keeps track of how many times you capped is... really unlikely. We don't need a trained statistician to point out that, if the rate is really low, killing 400 bosses with 7 heroes by your side might leave you with zero greens. (Plus: there's nothing that says that the green drop rate is identical in call campaigns for all bosses.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"400 bosses + 7 heroes --> zero greens": It didn't used to be like that though, Tennessee. Remember the days of passing through Grenth's Footprint on your way to Sorrow's Furnace, and as likely as not, you'd get an unwanted green every few trips just in passing? GF might have had an exceptional drop rate, but it wasn't too dramatically less in the rest of GW either. Those days are long gone of course, but the change in green drop rates hasn't really been quantified. That said, I'm not highlighting the overall green drop rate here because I still see greens on my other characters every now and then, despite their rate of boss killing being much lower. It's only on this particular character with her very high rate of boss killing that I see a green drop rate of exactly zero, totally out of step with the others. Morgaine 18:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

This has never been my experience, Morgaine. I get greens in dribs and drabs... usually in a cluster. In fact, the most recent three greens were: one green from the last boss in a small-area VQ, one green from an Istan boss in normal mode, and the third on the way to capping the elite off an unrelated boss. Those all occurred in the same weekend in June...and before that, I had rarely seen even as many as 1/month (even when VQing or capping, as noted). I'm not saying that ANet didn't tweak the drop rate at some point... but I am saying it's not related to anti-farming code.

I think that you have been so lucky in getting greens, that this newest effort seems too low to you. However, as noted by myself and many others here and elsewhere, the no-greens-during-capping is common. (PS Tennessee is the stately adjective that modifies the name, Ernie Ford — which people for the past dozen years abbreviate to TEF, which is easier to type.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF)

Righto, on the PS. :P Morgaine 18:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

TEF: I'm a software developer, and so I can easily see how this kind of behaviour could have accidentally crept into the Anti-farm_code. Imagine ArenaNet devs noticing that their single-zone AFC was being subverted by farmers who switch their farming between two or more zones to break uninterrupted repeat-boss detection. That could easily tempt devs to add a "boss kill rate" enhancement to the AFC code, which would indeed have the desired effect against farmers. Unfortunately, such code could also cause AFC to trigger unintentionally on high-rate skill capping. Morgaine 18:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Grenth's Footprint is a completely different thing. You're three times as likely to get a green from the bosses, and you probably kill those bosses several times on the way to do Sorrow's Furnace, unlike most bosses that you only encounter vanquishing or capping. Manifold 18:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

TEF writes: "as noted by myself and many others here and elsewhere, the no-greens-during-capping is common." That supports what I've been saying. There is something going on that is capping-related which affects the green drop rate. It could be the sheer boss kill rate as I've hypothesized, or the ratio of boss to non-boss foes killed, or it could be the actual presence of a SoC on your skills bar, or perhap something different yet again. But I very much doubt that it's just imagined. Morgaine 19:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Erm, no, that's not what I meant at all. "No greens" is common all the time, it's only especially noteworthy during capping sessions.

Because I'm an assembly-line skill hunter (repeat same task in 137 zones) rather than a serial multi-tasker (combine VQ, carto, capping to avoid retracing steps), I separately VQ'd the same areas. I received mebbe 2-3 greens during the capping project ...and about the same number of greens during the VQ project, which involves killing many, many more bosses. If anything, my green drop rate was lower when I didn't have SoC on the skillbar.

My apologies if I didn't make that clear: I have seen no anecdotal evidence or hard data that in any way supports the idea that capping or SoCs has anything to do with the drop rate of greens. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"'No greens' is common all the time" --- but that's not the case at all! We see greens quite regularly, but the rate of greens per month is very low because our boss kills are spread out very thinly among all our other activity. When you raise your boss kill rate massively for 100% full-time elite capping, you'd expect to see a huge increase in the rate of green drops per unit time, but you don't. Morgaine 19:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

5 drops

on the main page it says that bosses can drop up to 4 items, is it worth noting that it can be 5 if one is a key for dungeon, or is that irrelevant info.Spark-TBa 22:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

If we decided to qualify drops, it would also have to mention that it doesn't include all sorts of other things: quest items, festival drops, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else besides keys. I hope that the context is clear that four drops means four items that drop from bosses or this species/type generally. In effect, the extras drop independently, i.e. it's four drops + guaranteed stuff.

Put another way: I prefer the simple note that helps set ppls expectations about what they might see rather than the more complicated note that would be 110% accurate. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

good enough answer for me  :)Spark-TBa 20:49, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

H/H Drop Distribution

When distributing items to your H/H, how far does the range extend to? While taking people with when raptor farming, for example, they don't get drops because they are off map (except for gold, of course.) Is the drop range spirit wide or map wide? Also, does it matter if they're dead or not? --Saera Serena 17:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

If your heroess/party members' names gray out, then they won't receive drops - (they will still share cash though I think). I believe that dead heroes/party members do not receive drops either. (again gold excluded)--File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 23:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Favor and Chests

Can anyone confirm that favor improves the drop rate of rares from chests, such as the mini polar bear from wintersday chest?

double drops from chests

Every locked chest contains a number of items equal to the number of human players in the party. When a player opens the chest, they receive one of the items. If there are two or more tomes of the same type, the player who receives the first one will receive all of them. This leaves not enough items in the chest for the rest of the party. For example, if there are 2 ranger tomes and 6 weapons in the chest, and all 8 players open the chest, 6 will each get one weapon, 1 will get 2 ranger tomes, and the last person to open it will get nothing.

None of that is confirmed because I'm not sure how to falsify it, but it does fit all available data, and I've not heard of any other working hypothesis. IMO this should be added to the bug note at the bottom of the page, preferably more concisely. Mist Y (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2019 (UTC)