Drop Rates

[Xenon.4537]

> Ember Infusion - 2800 gold

> Gift of Spiders - 52 silver

Yeah no... Anet, you need to move these items into different categories. They are not the same rarity.

[Linken.6345]

> @"Haleydawn.3764" said:

> > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > > > an we get an official site indicating item drop rates?

> > > > Almost certainly will never happen. ANet's feeling, for the last 12 years, is that it's more fun if this is left as an exercise for the community. I don't entirely agree, but it's a matter of style rather and principle; there's no specific logic that dictates that one way is better than the other.

> > > >

> > > > > There is no reason to keep them secret, unless someone is doing something dubious like actively changing them on the fly to suit market demands...

> > > > ANet barely has time to manage the initial drop rates before introducing items. Moreover, ANet has shown distaste for even the idea of micromanaging any aspect of the economy: they don't like it and they know that they aren't that good at it (although, to be fair, economists would say it's all but impossible to do well).

> > > >

> > > > There are reasons to keep rates secret: it's more fun (for a lot of people) to shroud things in mystery.

> > > > And publishing rates isn't likely to make much different in the choices most of us make: people simply aren't that good at stats or making decisions based on data. (If they were, no one would ever buy Exclusive Dye Kits from the gem shop.)

> > >

> > > There's fun in keeping it a mystery? Cool. Good for you.

> > > Then release the official drop rates and don't look at them if you don't want to. If you want to look at numbers yourself and do all that, that's your thing. Not everyone has the time for it.

> >

> > Also, not going to say I'm speaking for everyone, but I would hazard to guess that the majority(a majority being over 50%) don't really care about the actual percentages of the drop rates, they just know they might get something. There's another factor you might not have considered here...and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe your Magic Find percentage affects the bags WHEN they drop, NOT when you open them(don't ask, it just works), that will affect the rarity of items from the ToT bags as well.

>

> Hmm not quite sure what you mean here.

> Loot from bags is determined when it is opened. Regardless of Magic Find.

> ToT bags are not affected by Magic Find. Not many loot containers are.

> You should read the wiki page about magic find before posting ‘rules’.

 

Well magic find do affect if they drop from mobs or not as s/he says.

[Karaha.3290]

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> Hello, can we get an official site indicating item drop rates? There is _no reason_ to keep them secret, unless someone is doing something **dubious** like actively changing them on the fly to suit market demands...

>

 

I also can't see any reason to not keep them secret. The only "reason" from you is an insinuation of doing somethin dubious. So your reason is a demand of supervision.

I played games where you can see the drop chances and it was only helpful to see what a mob can drop at all. On the other hand there were many compaints from people with no idea of stochastics. Something like "The droprate is 50%, but I killed 20 of them and don't got my 10 items".

 

> I ask this because in the first week of the Halloween event, on average per 1000 trick or treat bags, one of the new infusions would drop. People were getting them left right and center and the trader got flooded and their prices kept going down.

 

Where do you take your numbers from?

Only release day more then 1,5 million tot-bags were sold in tp. Only from that 1500 new infusions should be dropped. Highes pieks were less then 100 from any infusion

Addition the farmed bags (low average of 500 bags/hour multiplied by 20 player per map multiplied by 30 active maps [that's only the lfg one]) you have another 50,4 million bags in the first weeks. So another 50400 new infusions.

That's definitely not the case, so sorry but your number are just wrong.

 

What really happened is nothing but the excitement of new items. In the first days people are excited when they get new items -> because it's a new item. The will post in in chat, make a reddit post and so on. So the impression is "wow, new item drops everywhere".

Well, a week later new items aren't that new anymore and way less ppl will post them etc. Impression -> "hmm, way less infusions than before".

 

Tbh I would be very happy about this average. I opened 15k bags on the first weekend and got no new infusion. :)

 

 

> Now, trick or treat bags are cheaper than that week, yet many of these infusions have begun increasing in price. This shouldn't correlate if drop rates had remained the same.

 

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Infusion prizes are decrasing in price sind festival start.

Gray Infusion started at 225g on first day, now it's 95g.

Red Infusion startet at 475g, now it's 200g.

Purple Infusion startet at 385g, now it's 254g.

Even the Ember Infusion dropped from 4900g to 2800g.

 

Keep in mind that you have to look at the +5 Condition Damage Infusions.

Infusions with other stats doesn't drop form tot-bags, but were made by stat changing by player.

They are more expensive, because stat changing costs a bit and ofc, ppl want to make even more money this way.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It would seem having high Magic Find would engender less ToTs, as they are of Basic rarity, and higher MF awards less Basic-rarity items.

[Linken.6345]

the junk items can upgrade to tot bags mate.

[Karaha.3290]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> It would seem having high Magic Find would engender less ToTs, as they are of Basic rarity, and higher MF awards less Basic-rarity items.

 

Magic Find doesn't increase the items rarity chance, but the chance of a better category. It's not like "the more mf, the higher your chance of exotic drops". Items rarity is independent to the loot category which is affected by mf.

Take the Blacklion-Chest preview as an example. You have different categorys of rarity, common, uncommon, rare, superrare etc. Inside this categorys you have different items, but there can be green items in the common category, white items in the rare category and so on. It's two different things.

Now mf increase the chance to get loot from a higher category.

For example the BL-chest key is in the same category as precoursers even though it's a blue item.

 

Now for tot-bags in Mad Kings Labyrinth, you will see there isn't only one "kind" of bag drops. Mostly you drop 1 bag, but sometimes you see a drop of 2 bags and even a drop of 3 bags is possible.

So it is very likely that every category contains tot-bags. The "trash category" contains no bag, the next one contains a drop of 1 bag, the next one a drop of 2 bags, the next one a drop of 3 bags. Well I haven't see a drop of 4 bags, but maybe there is one too.

 

That means the higher your mf is, the higher is your chance to get loot from a higher category, which containes more bags. So more mf -> more tot-bags.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > First 5000 bags I opened I got 4 of the new poly infusions, 3 of the old infusions and those were in the first day or two of the event. I earned hundreds of gold just from buying, opening and selling. Looking at the stat sheet provided those drops should be nearly impossible.

>

> Again, you understand that player perceptions are skewed yet you insist that your perceptions are not. I'm glad you scored big.

> But those odds aren't anything close to nearly impossible, just incredibly rare. Given how many people are opening 5k bags, it's unlikely that _I_ am going to get great drobs, but it's pretty likely that _someone_ will. That someone just happened to be you.

>

> When you have data on 100k bags, publish that and we can reevaluate the hypothesis that @"sutgon.5402"'s data is problematic. Until then, we can only establish that you were lucky.

>

> _adding_

> @"sutgon.5402" has been a reliable publisher of drop rates for _years_. It would take a lot to consider the hypothesis that we should reject their verifiable & documented data, especially based on a single claim by a single player, which in turn is based on a mere 5k containers. And especially since there's no math to back up the claim of "nearly impossible" results.

>

> Every researcher makes mistakes, so it's not impossible to accept the idea that the 100k ToT data might be missing something (despite the [video 'proof](

)' to help validate the numbers). It's just going to take more than extrapolating from a data set 20 times smaller.

 

It's almost like in order to get the most accurate results, straight from the horses mouth would be best, no?

Considering by your argument, to argue with this person's 100,000 samples (which is hardly enough to represent the system as a whole) you claim one must also acquire 100,000 bags. Since most normal players won't have the gold to afford that nor the feasible time to farm that, you'd need someone who is either funded by a guild or actively dipping into the game from their bank account.

 

Ergo suggesting that since bursts of money get spent by players to investigate drop rates, if Anet released them they would lose a significant profit.

Which comes back to my original point of it seeming rather dubious.

But hey, when you can get your customers to do your work for you and hand you money, all while defending the practice, I suppose you've made it.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Xenon.4537" said:

> > Ember Infusion - 2800 gold

> > Gift of Spiders - 52 silver

> Yeah no... Anet, you need to move these items into different categories. They are not the same rarity.

 

My point exactly.

[Zaoda.1653]

I too would like an official statement of the drop rates of these items. Anet, more and more players are refusing to open bags now (including myself) because of how stupidly rare these items are. When you hear of people opening over 100,000 bags and not even getting a phos or ember infusion, you have to wonder - how many bags do you ACTUALLY have to open to get one of these drops?

 

I found myself many times selling everything I could find in my bank just to buy more bags on the off chance of being that one in a million person to FINALLY get the break they've been waiting for, by getting a decent drop - but it didn't happen. I found myself feeling like a gambling addict (for the first time in my life). This can't be healthy. Maybe the drop rates were intentionally made to be this insane, so that more players would BUY GEMS to CONVERT TO GOLD. I see your tactics, Anet, but no more. I'm not buying any more bags, they're going straight onto the trading post. And I'm not the only one no longer opening bags - others have also noticed how bad this too.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> It's almost like in order to get the most accurate results, straight from the horses mouth would be best, no?

Best for what purpose?

In terms of accuracy of drop rates, sure. But is that best for all players? And is it worth the extra work it takes to organize and present the data? Especially since most players will not change their behavior based on that data. You might, I might, but most will not.

 

> Considering by your argument, to argue with this person's 100,000 samples (which is hardly enough to represent the system as a whole) you claim one must also acquire 100,000 bags.

I claim nothing of the kind. You claimed that 5k was representative and that it indicated that the 100k data was suspect. I pointed out that the 100k data was from a reliable poster, who has backed up their numbers with documentation.

I agree that 100k data isn't enough to establish rates for the rarest items. But it's certainly more reliable than 5k, which is all you claim to have (and you haven't actually published it).

 

 

> Since most normal players won't have the gold to afford that nor the feasible time to farm that, you'd need someone who is either funded by a guild or actively dipping into the game from their bank account.

No, I don't need either. I collect my data, I add to that data from others, who are kind enough to publish. None of the people I know who publish have dipped into their bank account. They have used gold earned in the game to fund their data projects.

 

 

> Ergo suggesting that since bursts of money get spent by players to investigate drop rates, if Anet released them they would lose a significant profit.

No, that's an incorrect conclusion based on inaccurate assumptions. ANet has been consistent for the entire length of the franchise that they think it's more fun if the players are left to figure out details like this. It's this way in GW1 where you cannot convert RL cash to coin to buy stuff in game. It's this way for items that can't be bought with gold.

 

> Which comes back to my original point of it seeming rather dubious.

Your original point was that the 100k data is dubious. You haven't offered any evidence as to why anyone should agree.

 

> But hey, when you can get your customers to do your work for you and hand you money, all while defending the practice, I suppose you've made it.

Again, I am _explaining_ their stated reasons. I'd love to see the actual tables they use (since it's more complicated than simple percentages).

 

Even so, I recognize that it would be expensive to change the current system: they need a UI to show the numbers, they need to be even more careful with initial numbers because any tiny course correction would get tons of attention (which they'd have to explain), they'd have to figure out whether to include MF or not (where applicable), and it would affect how easy it is to set up different kinds of reward systems that also use some RNG.

 

In short: it's nothing close to as easy as implied.

Given that it would have small benefit to a small fraction of players, it's understandable that they have chosen not to do it.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > It's almost like in order to get the most accurate results, straight from the horses mouth would be best, no?

> Best for what purpose?

> In terms of accuracy of drop rates, sure. But is that best for all players? And is it worth the extra work it takes to organize and present the data? Especially since most players will not change their behavior based on that data. You might, I might, but most will not.

>

> > Considering by your argument, to argue with this person's 100,000 samples (which is hardly enough to represent the system as a whole) you claim one must also acquire 100,000 bags.

> I claim nothing of the kind. You claimed that 5k was representative and that it indicated that the 100k data was suspect. I pointed out that the 100k data was from a reliable poster, who has backed up their numbers with documentation.

> I agree that 100k data isn't enough to establish rates for the rarest items. But it's certainly more reliable than 5k, which is all you claim to have (and you haven't actually published it).

>

>

> > Since most normal players won't have the gold to afford that nor the feasible time to farm that, you'd need someone who is either funded by a guild or actively dipping into the game from their bank account.

> No, I don't need either. I collect my data, I add to that data from others, who are kind enough to publish. None of the people I know who publish have dipped into their bank account. They have used gold earned in the game to fund their data projects.

>

>

> > Ergo suggesting that since bursts of money get spent by players to investigate drop rates, if Anet released them they would lose a significant profit.

> No, that's an incorrect conclusion based on inaccurate assumptions. ANet has been consistent for the entire length of the franchise that they think it's more fun if the players are left to figure out details like this. It's this way in GW1 where you cannot convert RL cash to coin to buy stuff in game. It's this way for items that can't be bought with gold.

>

> > Which comes back to my original point of it seeming rather dubious.

> Your original point was that the 100k data is dubious. You haven't offered any evidence as to why anyone should agree.

>

> > But hey, when you can get your customers to do your work for you and hand you money, all while defending the practice, I suppose you've made it.

> Again, I am _explaining_ their stated reasons. I'd love to see the actual tables they use (since it's more complicated than simple percentages).

>

> Even so, I recognize that it would be expensive to change the current system: they need a UI to show the numbers, they need to be even more careful with initial numbers because any tiny course correction would get tons of attention (which they'd have to explain), they'd have to figure out whether to include MF or not (where applicable), and it would affect how easy it is to set up different kinds of reward systems that also use some RNG.

>

> In short: it's nothing close to as easy as implied.

> Given that it would have small benefit to a small fraction of players, it's understandable that they have chosen not to do it.

 

Wouldn't need to be expensive. The data is right there in the API. They can have it wired up to the Wiki with relative ease.

Also, in my original post, I claimed keeping the drop rates secret is the dubious part, because it gives them the ability to actively change them on the fly.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Zaoda.1653" said:

> I too would like an official statement of the drop rates of these items. Anet, more and more players are refusing to open bags now (including myself) because of how stupidly rare these items are. When you hear of people opening over 100,000 bags and not even getting a phos or ember infusion, you have to wonder - how many bags do you ACTUALLY have to open to get one of these drops?

>

> I found myself many times selling everything I could find in my bank just to buy more bags on the off chance of being that one in a million person to FINALLY get the break they've been waiting for, by getting a decent drop - but it didn't happen. I found myself feeling like a gambling addict (for the first time in my life). This can't be healthy. Maybe the drop rates were intentionally made to be this insane, so that more players would BUY GEMS to CONVERT TO GOLD. I see your tactics, Anet, but no more. I'm not buying any more bags, they're going straight onto the trading post. And I'm not the only one no longer opening bags - others have also noticed how bad this too.

 

> @"Deimos.4263" said:

> It's a nice gold farm but trick or treating in Tyria is just the opposite of the happy, easy, overindulgent celebration for all that is real world Halloween. I don't know what the drop rates are, but just imagine how horrible trick or treating would be in the real world if the drop rates matched those in game.

>

> Now nevermind the candy corn, peach tarts, etc. That's a trick. Infusions are the treat here; they're the real candy. (And tattered bat wings, but they're a bit chewy.) The rest is cigarette butts, smacks to the face, broccoli and tofu. Thousands of neighborhood kids going block to block getting nothing good at all. There's a tofu vendor somewhere that will let you buy single gumdrops for maybe a thousand tofu chunks. And then one kid screams over a megaphone how they just won sweet sweet candy for life and literally starts glowing...

>

>

>

>

 

These points are exactly true. The game has been on a curve, slowly increasingly the amount of loot gained instead of the quality. The higher quality loot getting lost in translation almost. What normal player has the time to sit there and open 100k bags? Especially considering the MAJORITY of things in those bags can't even be vendor trashed and have no sell value on the trader, you're essentially left manually deleting thousands of items from your bags, and that's after only opening say, 10 stacks.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > > an we get an official site indicating item drop rates?

> > > Almost certainly will never happen. ANet's feeling, for the last 12 years, is that it's more fun if this is left as an exercise for the community. I don't entirely agree, but it's a matter of style rather and principle; there's no specific logic that dictates that one way is better than the other.

> > >

> > > > There is no reason to keep them secret, unless someone is doing something dubious like actively changing them on the fly to suit market demands...

> > > ANet barely has time to manage the initial drop rates before introducing items. Moreover, ANet has shown distaste for even the idea of micromanaging any aspect of the economy: they don't like it and they know that they aren't that good at it (although, to be fair, economists would say it's all but impossible to do well).

> > >

> > > There are reasons to keep rates secret: it's more fun (for a lot of people) to shroud things in mystery.

> > > And publishing rates isn't likely to make much different in the choices most of us make: people simply aren't that good at stats or making decisions based on data. (If they were, no one would ever buy Exclusive Dye Kits from the gem shop.)

> >

> > There's fun in keeping it a mystery? Cool. Good for you.

> You mean, "good for the community." I'm not sure I entirely agree that it's more fun, as I wrote above.

>

> > Then release the official drop rates and don't look at them if you don't want to. If you want to look at numbers yourself and do all that, that's your thing. Not everyone has the time for it.

> It's a lot of work to publish such numbers. It's not in the least clear that it's worth the effort since the number of people who will actually look and make decisions based on that data is small, perhaps tiny.

>

> In effect, your argument is: "I want it, so they should do it." Whereas ANet's argument is, "we think the status quo is fun and haven't seen a compelling argument about it strong enough to change our (collective) mind."

>

 

Now who is the one making assumptions? You're assuming the number of people who want to know is small, perhaps tiny, yet you've offered no evidence to back that up.

Considering in other MMOs such a feature is widely used on their free third party powered sites, it must be rather popular in order to justify it, no?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I'm not sure knowing drop rates would make a big difference in the player's favor. It would more likely be against ArenaNet's favor (in a PR sense). Since it's RNG, it doesn't guarantee anything.

Let's say the published drop rate is 1 in 500. So, some players get the item in 500 or less. Yay. But some do not; those players will then suspect ArenaNet of cheating them and complain loudly, not understanding that with RNG, it is just an average drop rate over millions of instances.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > > > an we get an official site indicating item drop rates?

> > > > Almost certainly will never happen. ANet's feeling, for the last 12 years, is that it's more fun if this is left as an exercise for the community. I don't entirely agree, but it's a matter of style rather and principle; there's no specific logic that dictates that one way is better than the other.

> > > >

> > > > > There is no reason to keep them secret, unless someone is doing something dubious like actively changing them on the fly to suit market demands...

> > > > ANet barely has time to manage the initial drop rates before introducing items. Moreover, ANet has shown distaste for even the idea of micromanaging any aspect of the economy: they don't like it and they know that they aren't that good at it (although, to be fair, economists would say it's all but impossible to do well).

> > > >

> > > > There are reasons to keep rates secret: it's more fun (for a lot of people) to shroud things in mystery.

> > > > And publishing rates isn't likely to make much different in the choices most of us make: people simply aren't that good at stats or making decisions based on data. (If they were, no one would ever buy Exclusive Dye Kits from the gem shop.)

> > >

> > > There's fun in keeping it a mystery? Cool. Good for you.

> > You mean, "good for the community." I'm not sure I entirely agree that it's more fun, as I wrote above.

> >

> > > Then release the official drop rates and don't look at them if you don't want to. If you want to look at numbers yourself and do all that, that's your thing. Not everyone has the time for it.

> > It's a lot of work to publish such numbers. It's not in the least clear that it's worth the effort since the number of people who will actually look and make decisions based on that data is small, perhaps tiny.

> >

> > In effect, your argument is: "I want it, so they should do it." Whereas ANet's argument is, "we think the status quo is fun and haven't seen a compelling argument about it strong enough to change our (collective) mind."

> >

>

> Now who is the one making assumptions? You're assuming the number of people who want to know is small, perhaps tiny, yet you've offered no evidence to back that up.

> Considering in other MMOs such a feature is widely used on their free third party powered sites, it must be rather popular in order to justify it, no?

 

Popular *among the subset of player who use third-party sites*. This doesn't necessarily translate to a large portion of the playerbase - the vast majority of players in *every* MMO don't even visit official forums, let alone third party sites.

[Karaha.3290]

> @"Zaoda.1653" said:

> I too would like an official statement of the drop rates of these items. Anet, more and more players are refusing to open bags now (including myself) because of how stupidly rare these items are. When you hear of people opening over 100,000 bags and not even getting a phos or ember infusion, you have to wonder - how many bags do you ACTUALLY have to open to get one of these drops?

>

 

And that's the problem with showing the droprate. The "how many bags do you actually have to open to get one of these drops" question.

Most ppl just don't understand (or never thought about it) how the droprate works and just add up the givven rates, til they get 100%.

"20% droprate, so I have to open 5 bags to get my loot" - And then they start complaining, when they don't get their item.

It's 5 x 20%, not 100%.

You just **can't** say how many bags you have to open to get item xy, even if you know the dropchance, but it would confuse many ppl, because they think they could.

And then they complain, because they were wrong, starting discussions about "that's not the real droprate" and so on.

Saw all this in other games.

But the best thing is, it doesn't make a different, it's just in your head. It doesn't chance anything if you know the droprate or not.

 

Also keep in mind that 100,000 bags are not much. Sure it is for one player, but we are hundreds of thousands of player in this game.

7,2 - 12,9 **million** bags are farmed every day, it's 86,4 - 155,5 milion bags since festival start.

 

If you want to keep an Item rare, you have to set the dropchance very low. And if you keep that in mind, you should see, that 100,000 bags aren't much.

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> Also, in my original post, I claimed keeping the drop rates secret is the dubious part, because it gives them the ability to actively change them on the fly.

In a subsequent post to justify your argument, you wrote:

> this guy opened 100,000 bags and got results which made zero sense.

 

You keep basing many of your arguments on this idea that your 5k initial sample is representative of what's going on.

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> Now who is the one making assumptions? You're assuming the number of people who want to know is small, perhaps tiny, yet you've offered no evidence to back that up.

The evidence is overwhelming that people do not use data to make decisions about games of chance. People buy BL Keys, despite published data showing that they are not worth the cost. People buy festival containers, at the start of the festival, despite data showing that they are not profitable. People buy lottery tickets despite the fact that those numbers are officially published (in most jurisdictions) showing that, on average, people lose 50% of their investment (the official sites don't additionally point out that the vast majority of players lose 100%; only a small fraction earn anything, over periods of time).

 

There's not much we can say about human nature without making some assumptions, but in this case, it's safe to say that the number of people is low, who will change their behavior as a result of knowing the odds for ToTs or other containers .

 

> Considering in other MMOs such a feature is widely used on their free third party powered sites, it must be rather popular in order to justify it, no?

No. If ANet had designed the game from the start with an API in mind to expose data for 3rd party developers, then this wouldn't be that big a deal. As it stands now, the API doesn't contain that sort of data. The RNG tables used in the game are nested, i.e. often conditional on other factors. Throw in Magic Find, and it's not a trivial calculation. (We've seen developers misunderstand the tables in the past, when attempting to figure out the rates for particular items or troubleshoot a bugged drop rate.)

 

It comes down to a stylistic difference. Some studios love the idea of publishing just about anything and everything, and letting fan developers run wild with it, building 3rd party tools galore. WoW definitely benefits from that kind of thing. Other studios like the idea of keeping things mysterious and try to avoid turning everything into math. ANet prefers that ... even following that philosophy to these very forums: they have never published a list of rules for getting titles and stars, leaving it up to us to discover them.

 

****

So again, to keep things clear: I personally prefer to see drop data published. I'd use the numbers (as I already do) and try to help anyone interested to make sense of them, even if they don't want to do the math. But that's nothing close to big enough benefit to justify the costs and it certainly isn't enough of a reason to convince ANet that their idea of mysterious might not be best for the game.

 

ANet likes the way things are. Anyone wanting them to reconsider needs to do more than simply wave their hands to say, "c'mon, it would be better if you shared the data."

[Linken.6345]

They should probabely do something similar that black lion chests have now statuettes so you can buy what item you want after 2,5,10 or 20k bags opened depending on rarity.

[Memoranda.9386]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> They should probabely do something similar that black lion chests have now statuettes so you can buy what item you want after 2,5,10 or 20k bags opened depending on rarity.

 

That's an interesting idea... Until you have to think how it would break down.

 

Do you get 1 of the currency each bag, or is it chance? If it's chance, seems kinda redundant to what we have now.

 

Based on that, where do you set the "value"? Some ultra-rare drops would need to cost tens of thousands of this new currency. Due to the constraints on the wallet, it likely wouldn't be added there.

 

I certainly wouldn't want to keep them all in my inventory/bank.

[Lacuda.8543]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> > Now who is the one making assumptions? You're assuming the number of people who want to know is small, perhaps tiny, yet you've offered no evidence to back that up.

> The evidence is overwhelming that people do not use data to make decisions about games of chance. People buy BL Keys, despite published data showing that they are not worth the cost. People buy festival containers, at the start of the festival, despite data showing that they are not profitable. People buy lottery tickets despite the fact that those numbers are officially published (in most jurisdictions) showing that, on average, people lose 50% of their investment (the official sites don't additionally point out that the vast majority of players lose 100%; only a small fraction earn anything, over periods of time).

>

> There's not much we can say about human nature without making some assumptions, but in this case, it's safe to say that the number of people is low, who will change their behavior as a result of knowing the odds for ToTs or other containers .

>

> > Considering in other MMOs such a feature is widely used on their free third party powered sites, it must be rather popular in order to justify it, no?

> No. If ANet had designed the game from the start with an API in mind to expose data for 3rd party developers, then this wouldn't be that big a deal. As it stands now, the API doesn't contain that sort of data. The RNG tables used in the game are nested, i.e. often conditional on other factors. Throw in Magic Find, and it's not a trivial calculation. (We've seen developers misunderstand the tables in the past, when attempting to figure out the rates for particular items or troubleshoot a bugged drop rate.)

>

> It comes down to a stylistic difference. Some studios love the idea of publishing just about anything and everything, and letting fan developers run wild with it, building 3rd party tools galore. WoW definitely benefits from that kind of thing. Other studios like the idea of keeping things mysterious and try to avoid turning everything into math. ANet prefers that ... even following that philosophy to these very forums: they have never published a list of rules for getting titles and stars, leaving it up to us to discover them.

>

> ****

> So again, to keep things clear: I personally prefer to see drop data published. I'd use the numbers (as I already do) and try to help anyone interested to make sense of them, even if they don't want to do the math. But that's nothing close to big enough benefit to justify the costs and it certainly isn't enough of a reason to convince ANet that their idea of mysterious might not be best for the game.

>

> ANet likes the way things are. Anyone wanting them to reconsider needs to do more than simply wave their hands to say, "c'mon, it would be better if you shared the data."

 

You keep switching what you're saying here, first you claim there's tons of information made available by the players who are forced by the current system to do all the math themselves, and that that information should be relied upon, but then you also state that Anet prefers not to make everything into math, which is just the opposite. By Anet not releasing the information, they're forcing the player base to do all the math (and spend additional gold, gems, money while they're at it)

 

You still haven't addressed the issue of why items like the Ember infusion (worth more on the trader than almost every legendary weapon) and the Gift of the Spider (a mere 50s in value) are grouped together into the same "tier" of rarity (Super Rare category) for all intents and purposes they should be dropping at the same equal rates, and any measurable differences should be made instantly aware to the consumer.

 

I get that you enjoy the mystery or whichever. But a large amount of players (possibly the majority) would prefer to see drop rates.

See what I did there? I made assumptions about the player base, like you did, with zero evidence, like you did. ;)

[zerorogue.9410]

Ok we got alot of misunderstandings and fallicies going on here.

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> Ergo suggesting that since bursts of money get spent by players to investigate drop rates, if Anet released them they would lose a significant profit.

> Which comes back to my original point of it seeming rather dubious.

> But hey, when you can get your customers to do your work for you and hand you money, all while defending the practice, I suppose you've made it.

This is purely hearsay. Additionally there are plenty of easier methods to make cash on the game without making a tiny percent of their overall budget hiding numbers for a small group of players to test.

 

> @"Karaha.3290" said:

> You just **can't** say how many bags you have to open to get item xy, even if you know the dropchance, but it would confuse many ppl, because they think they could.

Your half true, you can not know how many bags you need to open to get x item from them. However Drop rates give you an estimation on how many. If you knew the odds you would be able to understand how much work on average would go into getting the item. Knowing about how long it will take will save many players time and headache rather than having "Sometime" as their only point of refrence.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> The evidence is overwhelming that people do not use data to make decisions about games of chance. People buy BL Keys, despite published data showing that they are not worth the cost. People buy festival containers, at the start of the festival, despite data showing that they are not profitable. People buy lottery tickets despite the fact that those numbers are officially published (in most jurisdictions) showing that, on average, people lose 50% of their investment (the official sites don't additionally point out that the vast majority of players lose 100%; only a small fraction earn anything, over periods of time).

Association fallacy. Just because we know one group buys boxes at a loss does not prove that all players do so. Also What evidence? if your going to claim evidence put it forward.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> No. If ANet had designed the game from the start with an API in mind to expose data for 3rd party developers, then this wouldn't be that big a deal. As it stands now, the API doesn't contain that sort of data. The RNG tables used in the game are nested, i.e. often conditional on other factors. Throw in Magic Find, and it's not a trivial calculation. (We've seen developers misunderstand the tables in the past, when attempting to figure out the rates for particular items or troubleshoot a bugged drop rate.)

Completely false, Gw2 was designed at start to have an API and a mobile add-on. The mobile addon was scrapped before release, and the API took a bit to finish. but both where planned from the start. Addionaly Having RNG tables nested does not increase any difficulty in publishing them. It just takes one simple API call of GetTable(id) and it can return all items and nested tables(with their ids) in that drop table. At that point you can just use the same call agian with the id of a nested table to go one level down. The difficulty if any would be in programming an interface for this, and we already have plenty of talented third party developers who would jump at the opportunity.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> ANet prefers that ... even following that philosophy to these very forums: they have never published a list of rules for getting titles and stars, leaving it up to us to discover them.

Association fallacy again. Unless you have some post by a dev where they specifically says that they want to keep the drop rates a secret.

 

> @"Lacuda.8543" said:

> You still haven't addressed the issue of why items like the Ember infusion (worth more on the trader than almost every legendary weapon) and the Gift of the Spider (a mere 50s in value) are grouped together into the same "tier" of rarity (Super Rare category) for all intents and purposes they should be dropping at the same equal rates, and any measurable differences should be made instantly aware to the consumer.

The value of an item is does not directly tie to its drop rate in the ToT bags. the Gifts are likely just as rare or similarity rare. However, the demand for these gifts is extremely low as they are only good for creating a few very expensive exotics. As you can see by the spider gift being 46s14c with only one weapon useful to 3 classes. Moon being 87s71c with one weapon useful to 5 classes. Souls being 2g50s0c and 3 weapons useful to 8 classes.

 

The problem with the gift of spider is demand not rarity.

[Linken.6345]

> @"Memoranda.9386" said:

> > @"Linken.6345" said:

> > They should probabely do something similar that black lion chests have now statuettes so you can buy what item you want after 2,5,10 or 20k bags opened depending on rarity.

>

> That's an interesting idea... Until you have to think how it would break down.

>

> Do you get 1 of the currency each bag, or is it chance? If it's chance, seems kinda redundant to what we have now.

>

> Based on that, where do you set the "value"? Some ultra-rare drops would need to cost tens of thousands of this new currency. Due to the constraints on the wallet, it likely wouldn't be added there.

>

> I certainly wouldn't want to keep them all in my inventory/bank.

 

They could be a wallet currency and I already stated 2k,5k, 10k or 20k probabely would be even bigger then that tho.

Would be 1 each bag.

[Tommo Chocolate.5870]

> @"Karaha.3290" said:

> > @"Zaoda.1653" said:

> > I too would like an official statement of the drop rates of these items. Anet, more and more players are refusing to open bags now (including myself) because of how stupidly rare these items are. When you hear of people opening over 100,000 bags and not even getting a phos or ember infusion, you have to wonder - how many bags do you ACTUALLY have to open to get one of these drops?

> >

>

> And that's the problem with showing the droprate. The "how many bags do you actually have to open to get one of these drops" question.

> Most ppl just don't understand (or never thought about it) how the droprate works and just add up the givven rates, til they get 100%.

> "20% droprate, so I have to open 5 bags to get my loot" - And then they start complaining, when they don't get their item.

> It's 5 x 20%, not 100%.

> You just **can't** say how many bags you have to open to get item xy, even if you know the dropchance, but it would confuse many ppl, because they think they could.

> And then they complain, because they were wrong, starting discussions about "that's not the real droprate" and so on.

> Saw all this in other games.

> But the best thing is, it doesn't make a different, it's just in your head. It doesn't chance anything if you know the droprate or not.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking. Releasing drop rates seems like a good idea in principle, but in practice there's a danger that many players don't have the probabilistic understanding to know what they mean. For instance, in your example with a 20% drop rate, if you open 5 bags there's still about a 33% chance you won't get the drop (and this is similar for smaller drop rates - e.g. with a 1/10,000 drop rate, if you open 10,000 bags there's about a 37% chance of not getting the drop). I assume the complaints are of the form "you said the drop rate was 1/n, but I opened n bags and I didn't get the drop"? I wonder if that's part of the reason ANet don't release drop rates - especially if it's also more complicated than just a single percentage.

 

For those who say they want ANet to publish drop rates, I'm genuinely curious: how would knowing the drop rates affect what you actually do in game?

[Karaha.3290]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > @"Karaha.3290" said:

> > You just **can't** say how many bags you have to open to get item xy, even if you know the dropchance, but it would confuse many ppl, because they think they could.

> Your half true, you can not know how many bags you need to open to get x item from them. However Drop rates give you an estimation on how many. If you knew the odds you would be able to understand how much work on average would go into getting the item. Knowing about how long it will take will save many players time and headache rather than having "Sometime" as their only point of refrence.

 

But you wouldn't understand. That's the problem.

You will always end up add chances up to 100% to get a false "average" number of how many bags you need.

A dropchance of 20% is one thing, you know it could drop in the 3rd or the 20th bag. 100 bags are very unlikely, but possible. 1000 bags are nearly impossible.

But a dropchance of 0,00001% is different, it's meaningless. Get the item from the first 100k bags (the number you get, wenn you add up bags, to get "100%") are very unlikely. 500k bags are also very unlikely. 2 million bags are also very unlikely. Even if you open 10 million bags, it's very unlikely to get that item. And you you should see where the problem is, if you show the droprate by numbers.

People would start calculating to get a precise number of bags and that's just not possible.

But ppl just would calculate (wrong), get a number, open that amount of bags and would start complaining, because they didn't get the item.

 

Anet did a pretty good thing by showing simplified "droprates" with the categorys in the preview.

It's more than enough. You wouldn't get more information, even if you could see the exact dropchance.

It's precise enough.