Talk:Game updates/20070419/Drop Rate

Soloing Killed?
The hard mode update says loot now scales dependign on party size.


 * That is ambiguous. Either means you get a lot more total loot as a full eight-man party (nice for higher end game areas), or means you get a lot less. I am having trouble finding out exactly what ANet meant by that. I am inclined to believe the former, because that will encourage more teamwork among players and once again discourage farmers. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 23:13, 19 April 2007 (CDT)


 * And Anet always said they had nothing against manual farmers... - B e X or  [[Image:Bexor.png]] 00:19, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Yep, I can confirm. They've officially killed off solo'ing. I just got less drops now, than I did before with the anti-farming thing activated. You already get very little when you're in a party of 8, but now, that's the most you'll ever get. No idea what their problem is. Just making you waste more time to pay for those npcs in your guild hall or getting the 15k armor. Rickyzhou 01:39, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Grrrrr... this ticks me off, though it's slightly less ticking me off since I have hard mode to play with now... but still. Aggrivating. Very, very aggrivating. Of The Wojek 01:50, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, no kidding. Henchmen won't even trigger the more loot after moving them off the map and greyed out. Since you're not grinding for levels like WoW, you're now grinding for money. To hell with this Rickyzhou 01:55, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

So, basically, no reason to ever solo, 2-man, 5-man, 6-man, again? 66.65.34.242 02:18, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah. Basically it. The only reason to solo would be to absolutely, 100% garantee that IF a desired item drops it 100% DOES drop for you and you alone. :( Thanks for killing the only decent way to earn cash in the game ANet, thanks a lot. *tear* Of The Wojek 02:40, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Yea, ANet has a habbit of sneaking the nerf-bombs in with major updates. While we are all distracted with Hard Mode, the real tyrant is running loose. (Remember October 2006? The AI nerf was snuck in along with the Halloween distraction.) I think ANet seriously wants to lose loyal customers. I know they already lost many of my friends to the AI code previously. And while even though the introduction of Hard Mode may bring them back, the farming nerf will ultimatly make them delete thier accounts. =\ --Curin Derwin 02:44, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * So much for my Derv getting Vabbian armor. *Sigh* I loved farming... --Armond Warblade (talk) 02:52, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Or...you could just bring full 8 man teams into your favorite solo areas and get it done even faster, so that you can do more runs, and get more items. I 110% support this update. This will encourage more team work and more team farming I think. Remember, Guild Wars is supposed to be a co-op game, not "Lets see who can solo farm fastest and get the most ectos." -_- I see nothing bad about this part of the update. --Ryudo 04:16, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * I agree, and the idea that it's impossible to get by without resorting to farming is positively ridiculous, as I never farm and am certainly not hard up for resources. And I give anything decent I find away to boot. -Gildan Bladeborn 04:26, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * I disagree Ryudo. There's nothing faster than killing 30 trolls in one cast of your skill bar. Instead you'll have to split loot, wait around for people to be ready, if you even KNOW enough people to have an 8 man party with - I play with 2 or 3 people. The most real I've ever had in a group playing through any PvE campaign after Prophecies was 5 and that is rare. Now will I be forced to pug and no longer be able to do a couple of farming runs on my own when I'm waiting for my friend to get home from work or school? I remember Anet reps saying on the forums that they didn't care about manual farmers, and that people who have the ingenuity to come up with solo builds should be lauded for their creative thinking. Now we get no reward for this? Forcing people to play a cookie-cutter style is a bad thing for a game like Guild Wars. - B e X or  [[Image:Bexor.png]] 05:05, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * People who never did any farming, should not write such things. I myself did hardly ever farm, I just started a few runs, for my para needs only the two cheepest parts of fissure armor.. and now, even that seems in the realm of impossibility. It would take a year, to get the missing 18 of 30 ectos... Thanks very much a.net for bringing this one step closer to wow grinding... that's the first time since the first beta weekend, that I hate you for an update. --Ineluki [[Image:"Coward!".jpg|19px]] 05:31, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * This is absolitely outrageous, Ryudo, I disagree with you. Just to make Anet suffer, I thought of a way to get money through hard mode while farming. As ineluki said, farming is about doing things quickly. One of the things that dont for in this games quickly are good teams. There are always leavers and noobs. FACT. I have NEVER EVER done a full UW with an 8man group - always 1 leaver or noob spoils everything. FACT. This game is oriented around money, but now money has been slowed down, maybe even stopped. The only decent ways of doing money will be DoA, gems will become the new ectos.This update has discouraged my guild and my alliance. A good thing for GW is to be different from WoW and be better. Well now Anet, you fell to WoW level.I expect that there should be some kind of changement with GW 2. --Batno mercy 08:51, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * "FACT. This game is oriented around money" Wow, I've been playing GW for almost two years, and I never knew! I thought GW was above WoW preciously because GW wasn't money-oriented, because money has no substantial value in GW except to satisfy vanity and compulsive-obsession.  And I suspect the reason why you've never done a full UW with an 8-man group is because most of the experienced people who were interested in doing UW went solo or duel-farming.  After this update, the amount of 8-man UW groups should slowly increase, which would indirectly increase the overall quality of 8-man groups (as more people will have more experience).  Yay! -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 10:08, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * "because money has no substantial value in GW except to satisfy vanity and compulsive-obsession" Thank you for pointing that out, because some people seem to forget this. In WoW, you spend money on new equipment because it's needed, but as there is set, easily-attainable maximums in Guild Wars, you don't need a FoW armor, because one from Droknar's Forge will work just as nicely. I'm totally in favor of this update, because a lot of people I know who are still playing this game are just farming all day and can't be convinced to help with more than one mission or quest per day.


 * So why have FoW armour in the game? Or 15k armour for that matter. Anet put them in there for vanity reasons. As you mentioned they have no other benefit to say Droks armour, so why are they there? Might aswell get rid of them if we're removing all vanity from the game. 86.134.245.21 11:06, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * They didn't kill vanity, they killed people doing alone what was intended to be for teams, because they don't feel like sharing. You can still have Fissure armor or Torment weapons. Only thing that's changed is the way you earn money, if you're a compulsive farmer. If you actually play the game, you won't notice any difference anyway. That's why the game is called Guild Wars, not Gold Farm. 87.174.252.40 11:41, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Oh no, ectos are going to end up costing 15k apiece!--CannibalBob 11:46, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Ummm, have you ever taken the time to put full runes and insignias on your heroes? For all the heroes it cost me around 70-100k ... now multiply that times my 10 characters.  Bullshit the game doesn't rely on money.  If options were free like PvP, then you can make that statement... but you definately can't in this case. — RabiesTurtle (contribs) 13:20, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I haven't taken the time, because I don't really need to. Just like I don't really need to spend plats of money on a 30 Fortitude mode for my weapon so that I get 4 more health than a random drop. QED. -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 19:38, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * WoW here I come ... Bezza2k7 09:45, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Its not a terrible idea in theory, but they should have scaled drops up for a full party instead of scaling them down for a small party. The fact that they are so stingy with good drops is the main reason that people solo farmed.  Imagine how nice it would be to actually pick up usable drops in many areas of the game, it would certainly add some excitement, satisfaction, and motivation to play more.  Instead its the same old thing, "pick up garbage, go to merchant, pick up garbage, go to merchant".  No wonder people solo farmed, it was the only way to actually work towards getting something good, unless you "win the lottery" by actually getting a good drop while adventuring with a party. -- BrianG 11:45, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I just got a couple gold drops from outside Yohlon in Hard Mode with a full group. ANet did say they increased loot value in hard mode--CannibalBob 21:00, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * That's a good idea there Brian, scaling the drops UP would have been an improvement, during the days before the update, even the GOLD drops were usually worthless (and not just from a vanity market standpoint, but from a usability standpoint as well), I'd ID them for Wisdom title and merch or salvage mods. Increasing the numer of usable drops would be a huge step in the right direction) and yes, I know they've increased the grape and gold drops in Hard Mode, but again, it's an area of the game that almost requires a full party to complete. Even so, I'm sure that in a few months, we'll see some ingenuity in how to earn money again, though I do see skyrocketing ecto, shard and DoA gem prices, even in normal green prices as well as the drop rate lowers significantly. Wish I'd done more Nightbringer farming before this update now.... Of The Wojek 12:01, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah exactly. I didn't read about the increased drop rate for hard mode until after I posted, so in a way they did increase the drop rate, but at the same time, you're right that it is going to increase the cost of some items, which is frustrating since I'm already broke, and now to get the most of my drops I have to find more real people to party with instead of using heroes to fill some slots. -- BrianG 12:28, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Well technically you're all right solo farm is just past, there is no point in doing it anymore. It's funny to see that farming build page is almost no longer useful and most of team builds will be unfavoured now. But, lot of discussion pages were already talking about farming nerf, and i knew that soloing would be out of this game someday, because what's the point of a rare item if someone can get full storage and inventory of them in a day, and considering that nerfing skills is not suffisant to stop farming, that was the best thing to do to stop farming. Still i agree with some that will say: oh my god i'm screwed i still need ectos but it will take me a year getting them, but basically this game was created so you couldn't get ectos that easily, now, it was like easier to get a green drop and full obsidian armor than getting grapes and golds... The only question people asks now: what if I have finish all 3 campaigns, i can do nothing now...well here comes hard mode! Paul revere 14:01, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

This could not have come at the worst time. I literly just pick up Factions last night to complet my set (perviously been playing Sins on my wifes account). I strictly farmed so I could buy skills for my toons. So I can tell you what going to come when GW:EN comes out and there are 150 new skills that cost 1000g apiece and there is no way to get the money for them. Also getting the 9000 gold and materials for basic max level armor set is going to be ruff too. The marketplace is going to need a complet revamp, and skill tomes are going to need to be introduced into normal PvE play before this nerf does serious damage. I dont mind the nerf but other things need to be worked on before changes like this happen.--Omega fury 14:47, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Now there's no reason for a character to stay in Pre-Searing, either, save for the Legendary Defender of Ascalon title. Dye prices are going to hit the roof. I am bobo 14:54, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * You mean, dyes will stop selling to the trader for 10g? Yeah, okay. I think we'll manage. &mdash;Aranth 15:47, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yea I bet black/white dyes are going to start going up. Also ectos and shards will probably go up.  So maybe it won't be impossible to get lots of gold.  However making 15K armor is going to become impossible.


 * Scaling UP drops for 8 man parties would be much better. The game shouldn't be, "Race to Hard Mode and get an 8 man team or else you can't make money. An then its split so we don't earn very much." It should be more along the lines of You get a 25% "Bonus" with an eight man team, and leave normal mode alone. Who knows, maybe they'll change... I sure hope so. Otherwise... Here comes the Guild Wars Economic Depression!!! This scales the average players options, and fun DOWN, not up. Urock 19:37, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Answer: Due to economics (supply & demand) all money is relative. They could make all gold in the game worth 1/10th as much by increasing everybody's stored gold by a factor of x10.  But it would still buy you just the samew ammount of materials, since everybody ELSE would *also* have 10x more money.  The end result is, it doesn't matter if they nerf solo farming it or boost multi-person farming, the result will be the same. --[[image:rollerzerris.jpg|50x19px]]    19:40, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Drop Rate For Normal Mode
I've been Farming, in UW, insects and torment gems, I've noticed a lack of loot, less than what i use to get, did they change the drop rate for normal mode??
 * Yes - quoting the update notes: "Loot now scales according to party size." -- Sai Qui 06:00, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * More appropriately, they changed the drop rate for all modes. --[[image:Goteki-45.jpg]] Goteki-45  07:56, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * So that means the only way to get money is to buy it, since it takes 4 runs before you have the normal amount of l00t u ussually get in 1.....that those ******** from Anet even dare to say: "The number of loot you get after reaptingly entering the same area dosn't drop anymore" no cause then there would be no l00t at all....&mdash;Merry  [[Image:MerrySig.jpg|19px]] (talk | contribs) 08:59, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Funny, I go with full-sized parties (so the drop rate update shouldn't affect me), and have only been playing on the weekends, and over the last month or so I've somehow accumulated around 40 plates. Just how much money do you need?  This is Guild Wars, not that-other-game-across-the-cyberspace. -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 09:23, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Saving for FoW, begun 1 week before hard mode, got 105 shards and 23 ecto's so i tough i could get the rest this week......so it seems...i can't, you see for things you rely need muhc money it's impossible to get them symply because you can't earn teh money anymore.&mdash;Merry  [[Image:MerrySig.jpg|19px]] (talk | contribs) 09:30, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * There's no real need to spend over 2 plats on any single thing in this game. I've been slowly saving towards my own Mesmer's FoW armor since almost two years ago, but that's not something I really need, it's just some fancy goal to work towards.  Something I would really need is a 20/20 Domination wand, and a Furious Spear of Enchanting with 10% HCT on it.  But even not having those isn't a big deal, so I'm not even gonna bother spending more than 2 plat on each of them.  I don't feel sorry for ppl who think they really need to spend 100+ plats on a single armor, weapon, or minipet.  If anything, the nerf on farming should cause a deflation on market values making things in general cheaper (probably takes a few months to really observe the effect though). -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 09:51, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * You think so? No, cause the few people that are buying money will start dominating the market because nobody can affort it, so the people who have it can make the price as high as they like cause the rich dude's just buy some more money...no big deal for them, so cause of this price will jsut go higher. And even if u don;t HAVE to buy FoW it no IS immpossible to get it. And dont think jsut of that, but laso Wisdom title, with less drops->less golds->no wisdom title, and wat about Unlucky or Lucky title? With no money to buy enough tickets...And Sweeth Tooth? It will take ages to get all sweet's for CoC form just events and such, same with Drunkard. See, it's not only very expensive armors or high-end weapons that are allmost unreachable to but after this, but also quite a lot of titles become WAY harder to atain. Accually, all of the Gold Sink's existing in GW are allmost unreachable after this ubdate. FoW allready was hard to reach before this, but it was still possible due to the amount of ecto's dropping on most of the UW runs. After this ubdate the same amount of ecto's is rached after 8 (!) runs, wich measn 8k, wich means 1 ecto, and the entry fee for FoW/UW was before erned back in the run with the other l00t, but now? maby u barely get 500g/run, expect the 8th run wich might contain 1 ecto. So waht i'm pointing on is that not jsut an expensive armor or a reae weapon became realy expensive, but also much farming will dry-out, thus meaning even less item's on the market, wich means higher prices. And maby u read it, maby not but on 1 topic on a GW forum existing maby 5 hour, containing around 60 posts, 40 (!!!) people said they where going to stop play GW due to this unfair (in their eyes) ubdate.145.53.104.132 10:07, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * IF money is worth anything of real value in GW, then your point might have some merit. But remember, the skills and equipments of necessity don't cost that much, and after that it's all luxury vanity items.  And I don't give a damn who dominates the luxury market.  It's not like a situation where 90% of the wealth is on 1% of the people when 30% of the children are starving to death.  We don't have starving children in GW, any semi-competent noob can get enough money for decent skills and armor.  IF price gets driven higher, it's because too many vain people are willing to pay for overpriced items that they don't need.  It's dumb buyers that drive the prices of luxury items up. -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 10:22, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Hey, uh, guys? I personally think drop-scaling is an awesome idea, and here's why: it's the only way I've heard of to actually, finally counter the farming bots. Which means the bots don't work anymore. Which means it's going to be a heck of a lot harder to buy hot platinum. PanSola is right. Go ArenaNet! 72.223.3.54 10:55, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Wrong about that -- bots will take longer to get gold, but they have the time. And the professional farmers will just run more bots to make up the difference. This nerf only affects human players. --Silicon 13:00, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * MY EYES THEY BURN CAN'T READ ANYMORE GAH! -grammar- &mdash;[[Image:BlastThatT.jpg]]Blastedt 10:11, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * You both have a point, Blastedt the best but MABY that's because I'm learing english for 2 years now >.< considder, how would your Duth grammer be if you where learning it for 2 years? Think about that.&mdash;Merry  [[Image:MerrySig.jpg|19px]] (talk | contribs) 10:25, 20 April 2007 (CDT)(Still toure g*dda*n right about it)


 * Sorry it's not personal. I was making a general observation of the many posts I saw today from many different people.  My main point is that it's silly to be upset about the (lack of) access to luxury items, especially when no one's basic livelihood is being threatened. -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 10:34, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I was talking about 145.xx.xxx.xxx &mdash;[[Image:BlastThatT.jpg]]Blastedt 10:35, 20 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually ditto. I made the comment as I was responding to 145, but then Merry's response made me assumed the post I was replying to was written by Merry also.  I didn't really pay attention to who wrote what until Blastedt caused me to notice... -User:PanSola (talk to the [[Image:follower of Lyssa.png]]) 10:38, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Meh, i feel realy sad, tired, ashamed, pissed and sucking in english....time to react my anger on a baseball&mdash;Merry  (talk | contribs) 11:02, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, looks like eBay it is. :x --68.66.173.196 11:13, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

My problem with "Loot now scales according to party size" is simple. They are forcing their way of playing on the community.

Many game companies share that problem. I know it's for balance / community improvement. But you can also counter with the fact that it makes no sence for creeps to change what they cary vs different number of opponents. But neither of these points outweigh the very big issue of them forcing their play style on the community. --Mooseyfate 13:35, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Of course they are. But, if they didn't, who would?  Though I would much prefer to see the kind of community this update promotes, I see no other way to encourage it, and thus I support this "Farming nerf" if you choose to call it such. --[[image:rollerzerris.jpg|50x19px]]    13:40, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

I did a solo 55 hydra run in hard mode to test and I got about the same loot as I used to in normal mode, but the griffon's can't be killed with just SoJ. I have however noticed much better drops in groups. Mercurius Ter Maxim 15:49, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

So all you people are saying that you're too lazy to find a group? Guild Wars is lacking in comraderie between players right now, and this seems like a good way to bring back PUGs into their greatness. I wholeheartedly support this. Oh, and you don't need to farm hours and hours on end to get FoW armor. Sure if you want it in a week... But why they heck would you want that? Getting something through your accumulated cash while working as a team is much more meaningful than grinding to get things, which comepletely destroys the point of Guild Wars. I got 40k in a month by just doing regular things, and a little bit of grp farming, and I dont even play all that much anymore. Anyway, with even better drops for regular gropus than before, and worse drops for solo'ers, this is a step in the right direction to revivng Guild Wars's damaged soul. Oh btw, Hard mode is awesome. It was so much fun doing The grat northern Wall against lvl 23s XD Alreajk/Talk


 * Why should I bother finding a group? I've done pugs before, and the majority of the time, I can do the same thing faster, safer, and easier with hench and heros. For example, I once went with 4 seperate "masters" groups for Rilohn Refuge. Not one of them got it, in one of them, me and another ele were the only people not getting killed regularly. After the 4th PUG attempt, I switched to a hero/hench team. Mastered in around 10 minutes, nobody died once. This change certainly doesn't make me any more likely to group with people, it just means I can retire most of my solo builds and just bring hench and heros everywhere I go now. Funny thing is, I almost never solo'ed to begin with cause farming bores me...I almost never farm as is, but the fact that I CAN'T farm if I DO want to now is annoying. DKS01 19:42, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

So, if I can count all of this information to be correct, solo UW farming is dead, solo trapping the Stygian Veil will now yield few-to-no gems (Crap, I sold 15 Stygian Gems for 2k each last month T_T), and my 55 Necro Green farmer is dead? Or does this update affect green drops? I appreciate your help! Phalmatticus 18:45, 20 April 2007 (CDT)Phalmatticus

What?
"Monster levels in Normal Mode are unchanged. This means that their drop rates are the same as before (though note that drop rates now scale with the size of the party). An example of this lowered drop rate is as follows. The 12 Dragon Moss that spawn in relation to the quest A New Escort outside Saint Anjeka's Shrine would usually drop between 10 and 12 items per solo run. They now drop 1-3 items" Is it just me or does this sentence not make any sense? It says that drop rates are the same as before, but in the end it says the dragon moss drop less items? Who added this?

Drop rate for a whole group remains the same, the numbers remained the same. What changed was the mechanics on how the "drop rate" of each monster was applied to a member if he is in a solo-party or an incomplete one. -Silk Weaker 13:23, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Or in other words, if you solo, you are essentially sharing drops with 7 invisible party members, give you a 1/8 of the loot. If you go out into the Jade Sea with a group of 4 people, you are sharing drops with 4 invisible party members, still giving you what amounts to 1/8 of the loot. And last of all if you go out in a group of 8, you get your normal 1/8 share of the loot. So basically, no matter HOW many or few people are in your party you're getting the loot you would get if you were in a full party. DKS01 13:53, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * That's what people keep quoting from the official releases, but the in-game testing results posted on various forums say otherwise. By most accounts I've read, however the testers are measuring it (gold/run, drops/monster set), the one-party loot drops have shrunk. 209.67.222.200 14:29, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * If the invisible party member theory is true (I'm sorta confused now), then farming with henchmen/heroes will now be more profitable /easier than soloing? Soulwar 15:57, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * You should get the same amount of drops whether you solo or if you have a full party. Consider it like this for an 8 person area. If you enter that zone solo, the loot scales so only 1/8 as much drops, but since you are the only person, you get all of it. If you enter with 2 people, the loot scales so only 1/4 as much drops (2 of 8 maximum party members), but there are two people so you are splitting it 2 ways for a total share of 1/8th. With three people, you get 3/8 as much loot total, split 3 ways for again 1/8th, and so on. Basically, the you get more loot for each person in your party, but you are splitting it amongst more people so it works out to be equal. Does that explain it? BigAstro 16:22, 20 April 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah I get it now. But nonetheless, the sentence is still worded in a way that causes some confusion.  BigAstro, you seem to have the idea down and you also seem to have relative ease with words, so why don't you go give it a shot and edit it? Abhorsen 21:01, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

Drop Rate
I noticed the big debate up there about farming nerf, but here are some points I thouight of that i didn't see mentioned:
 * 1) It scales with party size. So either:
 * 2) *You get the same amount of loot no matter your party size, or
 * 3) *You actually get more loot with a bigger party. Elite missions, anyone?
 * Also, if you just play hard mode you have a higher drop rate than you used to in normal mode. AND you can get better items in there. STOP COMPLAINING. --Wizardboy777 18:24, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

You get the same amount of loot no matter the party size. Which means you get the same low amount of loot playing by yourself as you would playing in a full 8 player group. And I sure as hell haven't seen any sign of a higher drop rate in hard mode. Let's say they doubled your chances of getting a gold in hard mode...the thing is, if your chance of getting a gold was .05% to begin with, doubled it's still only .1%. As for "better items", that's really subjective isn't it? The only hard mode items I have any interest in are the elite skill tomes, I don't need regular tomes, I don't care about lockpicks, and the only reason I ever had for going to FoW/UW was for farming, since they killed that I have no use for passage scrolls either. The only thing hard mode has that benefits me so far is the ability to get Lightbringer and Sunspear points, which I AM making the most of(running around in hard more Realm of Torment last night I went from ~4200 lightbringer points to ~6100, and that was BEFORE the doubled points thing, I can only imagine how many I'll get tonight, will definitely have the next title level though) DKS01 19:27, 20 April 2007 (CDT)