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Malphas Crow
Webmaster
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 47
Location: UK
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 Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:40 pm
Post subject: Loot Farming. |
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I am what would be considered a 'farmer'. I enjoy repeating runs over and over again to get better at the run and, more importantly, get the loot and gold drops each time I do it.
When I first started playing Guild Wars again after my break I noticed that my pre-searing characters were getting a hell of a lot more items than my post searing characters were. I checked out the available loot scaling information on the wiki and various other sites and since then have been testing out the loot scaling system in post-searing and all of the expansion areas.
:: The Problem ::
| Guild Wars wrote: |
Loot scaling was introduced in the April 19, 2007 game update. The amount of drops you get are scaled to your party size.
(...snip...)
With loot scaling, players receive an amount of normal drops (common and uncommon rarity items, collectible drops, gold, common crafting materials) proportionate to the size of their party as compared to a full party. For example, a solo farmer will on average get the same number of blue weapons as a player in an eight person party. |
The pre-searing area of Prophecies is clearly designed for a solo player, there are no henchmen available and as such the entire pre-searing area, possibly with the exception of 'the North', is exempt from loot scaling. The problem with farming pre-searing is that the drops are mostly garbage and the only thing worth keeping is usually dye and special event drops. You can't really pass these drops on to your other characters either as there's no chest available and once you change time-line there's no going back...
Leap forward to post-searing and we have a very different game. If you are in Ascalon and journey outside you'll notice that the difference in loot drops between you going solo and loading up with a few henchmen is minimal and as such there's no point in going solo, you're just making things harder for yourself. The further you progress in this, and the other expansions, the higher the level of creatures and the more desirable the drops but the higher the intended party size. Therefore we can conclude that the further you get the better the loot and the more loot scaling kicks in reducing your drop rate to prevent farming.
So that's the problem, we've got nowhere to efficiently farm because everywhere we go to farm solo is scaled meaning we don't get all of the drops, nightmare...
:: The solution ::
The simplest solution to this problem is to always populate your party with the intended number of real players and ensure that the players you are with are going to be open to giving or trading the items which get dropped for them. This, however, is almost never going to work because anyone who has a gold item drop for them isn't going to just give you the item they got.
The real solution to this problem would be to find high end areas of the game where the mobs are of a higher level than your character and the instance you are playing is intended to be a solo instance. To my knowledge there are no areas in any of the expansions which are intended to be a solo instance, apart from one...
If you have the "Eye of the North", A.K.A GW:EN, expansion then Kilroy Stonekin offers a repeatable missions which gives you 2,500xp and 100 dwarf reputation points which can be completed from start to finish in under ten minutes, my record is a little over seven. The mission replaces your normal skills with 'brawler' skills and even though Kilroy assists you he does not appear to be part of your 'party' because any gold which is dropped is not 'shared' in the description, it all goes to you. As this is a 'Solo' mission it is relatively safe to assume that it, like pre-searing Ascalon, is exempt from loot scaling as the intended party size is one.
If you run this mission from start to finish with Kilroy assisting you then you can easily make upwards of a thousand gold and probably get a few blue, purple and maybe gold items which you would want to keep. If kilroy does the killing then you'll see less items dropping for you though so it's best to try and do all of the damage yourself and truly solo the instance.
The best tactic which I've found for farming this area is to kill the first six enemies with kilroy and enter the second area where there's an Ettin, kill off the other enemies, ignoring the Ettin, and kilroy will run over to try and beat it up once the others are dead... Leave him to it and he should get knocked out, this leaves you with all of the killing and all of the drops.
Combining regular farming of this instance with a special event is also a great way to improve your loot drop rate. The Easter event which has just expired yielded more than enough reward to entice me in to recycling the mission for the duration of the event. These drops are exempt from loot scaling but when they drop they seem to be capable of dropping with another item and with each other, so when I was easter farming I quite frequently got an item, bunny and an egg from a single kill.
This mission is, in my opinion, the only way to farm in Guild Wars that isn't touched by loot scaling. I didn't get much time to play over Easter and still managed to bring in over 20k of gold, a lot of blues, purples and gold items and plenty of eggs and bunnies!
:: The More Obvious Solution ::
I should say right now that I think this isn't going to work and if it does I'm shocked, seriously shocked. If you take the time to research this subject you will eventually stumble on to the following bit of information :
| Guild Wars wrote: | | To be eligible for a drop, you must have been in radar range of the monster when it dies. |
If you read between the lines here you'll have already figured out that if the loot is assigned to players who are in radar range of the kill then the logical way to circumvent the loot scaling system would be to fully populate your party with henchmen, stick a flag at the start of the instance and then move out of radar range of them all to get X / X drops instead of 1 / X as intended. However this information is, in my opinion, intentionally mis-leading...
If ANet created a loot scaling system to combat farming by populating your party with invisible henchmen then the chances of them leaving a back door in the loot scaling system like this are as close to zero as makes a difference.
I cannot tell you that 'parking' your party outside of radar range makes a difference on the rate of drops because I've never tested it. I firmly believe that this is something which the coders would have thought of when they were designing the loot scaling system and if it wasn't it would have been patched out 'on the quiet' after the loot scaling system was introduced...
If the loot scaling system is working as intended then the only way in which this would work is if you were in a party of maximum size populated with real players. In that situation moving outside radar range should, if everything is working as intended, give you all of the drops for everything you kill.
[i]NB: If any of this information is discussed and found to be inaccurate I'll edit the changes in as we go along.
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There comes a time when a man looks at his forum sig and realises it's far too big...
Last edited by Malphas Crow on Sat Apr 05, 2008 12:53 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Vandela Lifedrinker
Guild Member
Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Posts: 20
Location: England
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:02 am
Post subject: RADAR Restriction |
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I have tested the RADAR restriction and it does apply.
If Human Player A is in range and kills a foe who drops an item of loot AND Human Player B is parked away from the fight and not particpating then the dropped loot will always be assigned to Player A!
One item of importance you omitted to mention in this very impressive research (and I'd love to know where ArenaNet keep this information?) ):
Once one of your characters has completed a Game to the final Quest Hard Mode becomes available to that Character AND all other characters on the account for that game.
Hard Mode is the Portal to valuable drops and even if you only farm the lower end (and arguably 'easier') quests/missions you are guaranteed drops that are worthwhile selling in open trade or by auction.
The types of drops are critical though and, of course, high-end and really valuable drops do only occur in certain areas of the map for each game and particular solo-farming builds exist to scoop up those drops. 
Vandy |
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Malphas Crow
Webmaster
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 47
Location: UK
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:49 am
Post subject: |
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Ahhhhh, Hard Mode!
I've been reading a little about hard mode, here and there, but I've not managed to unlock it yet and as I've got a lot on my plate with the expansions and putting Malphas through as many missions as possible it's not something I've focused on...
It seems I've made a rather large omission and I'm putting a lot of effort in to areas which I perhaps don't need to, saying that though from what you describe the information is still sound it would just yield far better results in Hard Mode.
I've been focusing on missions a lot recently but I think that I'm just going to have to go all out and try to finish everything with Malphas as soon as possible if it's going to mean my other characters get unlocked at the same time. The benefits are far too appealing to ignore it and continue on as I have been...
:: RE: Research ::
Most of the information I wrote is my own assumptions based on a little testing and conclusions drawn from various resources. As I took a two year break in Guild Wars a lot has changed and I frequently find myself reading and writing notes instead of playing...
Not trying to be patronising here by the way, just explaining my thought process :
As I'm a coder I'm drawn to update histories like a moth to a flame. If I think something is happening, as with loot scaling, I'll trawl through the update history to find the official statements first and then try to tie that up with the main articles on official and unofficial wiki sites next, which may not be totally accurate.
After that I'll look at the commentary from the people who use the wiki, something which most people never check despite it being about as reliable as the wiki itself, and then I'll look at forums for opinions on the subject, I don't post though as a general rule. At that point I can usually decide if what I'm seeing and thinking has potential, if I have figured out something which people have rarely explored in depth or if it's all just utter crap...
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There comes a time when a man looks at his forum sig and realises it's far too big... |
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Ash
Alliance Member
Joined: 01 Jan 2009
Posts: 4
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:12 am
Post subject: |
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| The flag party outside radar range [around 2 agro bubles or even more, till the party turns grey in the party menu] works and it's applied during some of the most dificult runs for green farming. Tried it so i guarantee for it, all that's left is that you succesfully kill the desired boss and again, luckily get the desired green item drop. |
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Adam Longshaft
Guild Officer
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 9
Location: Norfolk
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:18 pm
Post subject: Hard Mode on all characters |
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To add some bad news to this topic, it looks like the hard mode bug for all characters has been Nerfed. While i can play in hard mode across NF, Proph and EotN with my warrior, i cant do the same with my Derv. Sorry to break some bad news 
Adam |
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Vandela Lifedrinker
Guild Member
Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Posts: 20
Location: England
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:54 pm
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Erm? This is not true on my account where I have several lvl 20 characters that have not completed any of the campaigns but I have Vandela who has completed all and others who have completed at least one campaign . . . . . all my lvl 20 characters on Vandela's account can access HM in any of the campaigns courtesy of Vandela's achievements?
It is true to say that HM is only available in the campaigns that have been completed by any one of the characters on the account and that, until Vandela had completed all three main campaigns and EotN, hard mode was only available for those completed campaigns. |
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Adam Longshaft
Guild Officer
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 9
Location: Norfolk
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:00 pm
Post subject: |
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yep, your right, im severly mistaken here!! ignore my last post lol!!!
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