Talk:Hard mode/Archive 2

Rewards

There is said that the drop rate of rare items is increased. But do they mean weapons, shields and offhands or also rare crafting materials? For instance ecto's. Can anyone enlighten me? F. C. Sauër 20:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

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Hard Mode

First and foremost hard mode can be done. Yet when designing it they never thought about the 30% of their population who cant log in when the server is decently populated. They designed it to be very difficult to the players with lives. Cause personally and if i had to i could get this petitioned hard mode is very difficult to the point were its no longer a game but more like a second job. Arena net needs to consider this for guild wars 2. Cause you figure the many many other people like myself who have money and play wont want to buy from the arena net store if the game is not thought through when they designed it. So arena net if you ever read this you should think about the entire population of GW. Not just the elitests.

Dude, what do you mean? Be clear. Second, sign your posts. If you mean that Hard Mode is to hard, you just need better builds. Hard Mode is made for people that want extra challenge, so if you don't want that, or if it is to hard for you, don't do it. I got a really good life outside Guild Wars, and still I can play on Hard Mode fairly easy. Just find the right set of builds. I do quests and stuff on Normal Mode, because it is easier and so faster, but I play lots of missions on Hard Mode. I am also busy with Vanquisher. 87.208.166.90 16:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Also.please indent and Dont use spaces.it fcuks sizes.--Neil2250 , Render Lord 16:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I only could read it in the changes thing. The first reply on the post in this section was mine. Sorry, I forgot the login. F. C. Sauër 16:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The perceived difficulty is always going to be quite subjective. For my part, I do find the earlier Prophecies missions (without full compliment of H/H) exceptionally tedious. But that's just me. In any case, HM is, after all, just an "added extra" for those who want to pour the time into it — much in the same vein as Survivor, Lucky/Unlucky, Drunkard, or Legendary Hero etc. etc. --DryHumour 18:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok I know this is an old thread, but. Honestly I think the Original poster has a point, content my Primary Charactor walks over in her sleep NM, can be nearly impossible in Hard Mode. I do think it might have been better balanced; certainly all zones should allow teams of 8 in HM. Perhaps for GW2 the Devs might consider a Hard Mode, and an Elite mode in the End Game area. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.255.123.188 (talk • contribs) at 15:08, 31 July 2012 (UTC).

About the "disabled" message

"Hard mode has been disabled. <player name> does not meet the requirements for Hard mode." This has sometimes appeared in my chat log when playing alone, even though I have HM unlocked for all campaigns and characters. I can't exactly recall what I was doing when the message appeared, maybe changing districts in ouposts? I'd like to know if someone else experienced this "problem" and also if they recall what caused it, so we can add it as an anomally or something the like. --Lhoj 12:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

That would probably mean you have entered a PvP area :P ***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 12:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd swear it happened in Kamadan and Cursed Doomlore too, maybe I'm just imagining things :S --Lhoj 13:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

It happens when you go to GToB. Manifold 15:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Innacurate

'Passages Scroll to the Fissure of Woe, and Passage Scrolls to the Underworld can drop from foes only in hard mode'. Ive had some drop in both uw and Fow and it was not HM a change possibly? -- Ickoization 20:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I've changed it. --Silver Edge 05:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Condition for wiping back to the last outpost: bad description?

It seems to me that the description for being defeated is wrong, as it implies that as soon as everyone has 60%, you wipe and are returned to the outpost, even if seven out of eight of the party are still alive. Is that right? The situation I'm thinking of is where my party goes out, and each person gets killed four times, but only one person at a time is dead because someone resurrects the newly deceased immediately (and before the next person dies). So, eventually everyone reaches 60%. If the wording is correct, when the eight person dies his fourth death, the other seven are also killed (by the "you are defeated" game mechanic, not by health loss) and the party is returned to the outpost.

Is this right? Or is it more like the party being returned to the outpost if it has a wipe with all members now at 60%? Cynique 12:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, OK, someone changed it some time when I wasn't really watching. It's still not quite right/clear. The last time I went out vanquishing, I got wiped with some people at -55% before dying, and all the others already at -60%, and I didn't get defeated. My crew was then able to defeat the one remaining foe and complete the vanquish, even though everyone was, at the instant before the foe died, at -60%.

Conclusion: the back-to-outpost condition is a wipe when all party members were already at -60% before dying. As written, it could mean a wipe that puts everyone to -60%.

Cynique 08:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

There was a similar discussion on Talk:Death_Penalty#What_happens_at_60.25_DP and I did quite a few tests back then. From what I remember, death penalty is checked at the moment the wipe occurs (i.e. everyone is dead on the floor), it's not remembered from the moment each party member died. Is it possible that some of your party members died at -60%, then some experience was gained by the surviving members to get them to -59%, then everyone else got killed?

You're more than welcome to do more detailed tests though. I suggest a controlled environment, like the isle of the nameless with sac-skills and/or the student of burning. Tub 10:18, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Nobody was at e.g. -44% before dying so everyone was at -60% after dying. The last to go was at something like -59% (but not -60%) before dying. During the countdown, I could see the last foe (EotN mandragor of some sort) laughing at us as it ran off. And then we were rezzed and I checked and everyone was at -60%. (Me plus seven heroes.) So is it something like: in order to trigger the wipe-back, the last to die must be at -60% before dying, or is it a 7Hero oddity, or an EotN oddity? We were definitely all dead - there was no hero alive with an unusable rez sig.

I also see an implication that XP that would have been gained if a character was alive will mitigate the DP of that character when dead. Is that right? (I don't think it applies here as everyone was at -60% after rezzing.) Cynique 11:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Common crafting materials

Is the amount of common crafting materials increased in Hard Mode? 195.113.70.10 10:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought so yes. --The Holy Dragons 15:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems more likely to me that the drop rate for trophies and common crafting materials is lower in HM, since that mode increases the rates of other types of items (rare mats, tomes/scrolls, golds, ...). However, no one has published the statistically significant amounts of data that would allow us to say for sure.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 15:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about trophies, but common crafting material drops do not seem to me to be reduced in Hard Mode. As a matter of fact, the quantity of materials per drop is generally higher in hard mode, so even if the drop rate was less it would probably at least even out. In my experience farming feathers in North Kryta Province on Hard Mode, I can say pretty surely -- but without any statistical data -- that I get many more feathers in Hard Mode due to the higher quantity of feathers per drop and the number of feather drops in general is still high. Gregchristensen 14:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The idea that you might get more feathers/run in HM is intriguing ...and very plausible. Still: evidence would be better. If possible, please record some of your results for feather farming. Are you finding that you get more feathers/hour? — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 15:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

You do get more feathers per run in HM due to the larger stack sizes. I don't know whether stacks of feathers drop more often or not, but when they drop you may get 20 instead of 4.

Feathers/hour really depends on your efficiency in HM. You can solo-vanquish jaya bluffs with a spirit spammer, and you will end up with lots of feathers, it just takes a lot of time and death penalty-removal. Spending that time doing multiple runs on NM seems more efficient. Tub 16:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

In some zones, however, the material-count-per-drop is the same in NM and HM (e.g. in FoW, dust only drops 4 piles at-a-time). So, documenting amounts would be useful. If the HM-bonus is strong enough, it might be worth taking a hero or two to speed things up (e.g. if the rate were triple or quadruple in HM). — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hard Mode Quests

Where do we put this? Will we need an entirely new categorization? --Falconeye 06:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Unlocked HM after Thunderhead Keep

Title says it all. I beat Thunderhead Keep, and had been 20 for a while before that, and all of a sudden HM was unlocked. I'm pretty sure that no other characters had beaten Proph, although I did delete one of my PvE characters before. FTLForTheLulz 23:57, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting, what you say shoulnt be plausible... are you 100% positive no other playable characters on your account has ever beaten Prophecies at least once; even you deleted character? How long have you been level 20? Have you already beaten the other campaigns/expansions? --Falconeye 00:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Trophy drops in HM

→ moved from User talk:Tennessee Ernie Ford#Trophy drops in HM?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Hard_mode&diff=2224648&oldid=2224598

"Foes are more likely to drop rare or hard-to-find items, e.g. bosses are more likely to drop greens. As a corollary, they are less likely to drop low-end items, such as trophies."

These information wasn't there on the previous version of the article. Is there any source for these claims? I haven't found anything about drops on the official FAQ sheet, and the Game update only mentions:

"The average number of uncommon and rare items has been increased in Hard mode."

but says nothing about trophys. Tub 12:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I tend to find trophies far less commonplace in HM, personally. Though it may just be me. Konig/talk 19:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

There's no official note (that I have found) about this. However, mathematics alone should be sufficient backing for the argument: since foes drop lots of things in HM that they don't drop in nm, they have to drop less of something in NM. It's possible that the trophy drop rate is the same, but none of the testing I've done (or seen) suggests that.

Item type Freq	nm (lowercase)	HM (UPPERCASE)	Comparison
Common items	w	W	Includes trophies
Rare mats	rm	RM	rm << RM (empirical and official)
Gold items	g	G	g << G (empirical and official)
Cash	c	C	c ≅ C (consistent with reports)
Tomes	t	T	t=0 << T (empirical and official)
Total %	100%	100%	both columns must add to 100% ⇒ w >> W

To be fair, that's a theoretical argument (as noted, it's possible that e.g. there are far fewer blues/whites in HM, leaving room for comparable trophy drop rates. Also, it's possible that some foes are more likely to drop low-freq trophies at higher rates in HM (e.g. djinni might be unlikely to drop djinn essence in nm but semi-likely to do so in HM).

So probably we should restate the current comment to better reflect its non-official status.

Also, if this convo gets any longer than aha, we should move it to Talk:Hard mode, since it's relevant to the article. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 15:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Your table is missing the chance to drop nothing at all, which is >0% for all common foes. It's possible that they simply drop items more often in HM. Since there's no hard evidence, I'll remove the corollary from the article. Wouldn't want to start any more rumors about drop rates that may turn out to be false. ;) Tub 16:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Good point, but that is also > 0 % for HM foes, too. So, I don't think that affects my argument. However, fair point that it's a theoretical corollary rather than empirical fact. That said, if/when you do remove the note, please move this discussion to the talk page, so that there's a record when this comes up again. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Your point is that some chances are raised, so other chances must be reduced. That is valid. But we do not know which chances are reduced - it may be any combination of "common items", "trophys" and "drops nothing". Unless we collect more data, we can only conclude that the sum of all three is reduced, but we cannot make any additional statements about either one of them.

I've linked this discussion in the edit history, that should be enough (for now). Tub 17:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Greens/interpreting

"Foes are more likely to drop rare or hard-to-find items, e.g. bosses are more likely to drop greens" Perhaps the phrase "rare or hard-to-find" refers to bosses dropping Passage Scrolls to UW/FoW / foes dropping tomes and not greens/rare weapons/salvage junk. I'll point to this where an experienced green farmer thinks there is no difference between NM and Hm unique drop rate. - personally I think the increased drop table for tomes and scrolls means the chance of receiving "rare or hard to find items" is increased, but that the unique drop rate is the same File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.pngChieftain Alex 18:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Without actual numbers, it's all anecdotal. Even with numbers, I'm not sure data from a single farmer is sufficient to demonstrate if there's a difference between HM and nm. We know the drop rate for Greens is very low, but we don't know how much/little it varies across bosses. Of the z-bounty bosses (non-dungeon), I've seen some drop several greens over time...and others never drop a green. I farmed Avarr (for his scepter) and got no greens in nm (10x), but 2 in HM (about 8x). In other words, some bosses might drop greens 0.1% and others 0.01%.

ANet has released precious little hard information about drop rates, loot scaling, and anti-farming code. If we really want to make definitive statements, we need to collect a lot more data.

Short story: it's probably safe to say likely to drop rare or hard-to-find or even max-stat, but anything else is speculation (including some of what I've written in some mainspace articles). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)