Volatile Magic Gathering Tool - Magic Drop Rate

Submitted a Ticket concerning the Volatile Magic Gathering Tools drop rate decrease.

"Ahnah.8541Wednesday at 19:23

I noticed you had an issue with the Earthshaker tool causing a crash in the April 9th Release notes. Does this have anything to do with the drop rate of the Volatile Magic Tools Magic drop rate being changed so drastically?

Previous to a day ago the mining tool would gather 5-8 volatile magic per resource tick, now it's doing 1-3 volatile magic per resource tick.

If this an unintended change due to a pointer or variable, please address this issue as soon as you are able.

However...

If this is an intended change, I would be most displeased that you would nerf $70 worth of my gathering tools (2700 Gems per set * the 2 set's I own).

I use these tools as a side income, and you drastically changed the rate at which I can earn materials and gold.

I have screenshots of the magic collection rate, prior to the change and post change. I am not sure how to include image files in this ticket though.

Thank you"

Pre Changehttps://imgur.com/QpELf1kPost Changehttps://imgur.com/a/IToVLd9

Arenanet Response:

"Thank you for reaching out to us today.When it comes to these types of issues we here at customer support won't be able to go in depth about game and balancing changes as we do not actively work on this aspect of the games. If you wish to ask about, or provide feedback on specific changes when it comes to drop rates and things of that nature you will want to reach out on the Guild Wars 2 Forums (Link below) as the Developers patrol the posts there, and would be able to give you a more satisfying answer."

So it was a balance issue.

Look, I'll be honest. I understand the need for game "balance". It's a means in which a company can breathe life into a game throughout it's duration. My point of contention is when "balance" is applied to direct purchase items. I buy said product as it gives said result. If the tools needed balancing then they should have been addressed the first week out. Not this far down the line. The only reason we buy this type of account upgrade is the time savings that the product provides. When you augment the product to this point; you nullify the very essence or reason for which I bought it, or in this case, a second set.

It would be interesting to know if the Unbound Magic Gathering tools were out of balance for a certain amount of time as well though. It would indicate a trend.

nuff said.

Nothing was nerfed. It never consistently did 5-8 per swing on mining or logging. If it was, something was bugged with a particular tool or node. Only when the volatility glyph is in the harvesting tool does it give 3-9 VM.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Volatility

So it was a balance issue.That's not what support said.

Your question is about whether there was a change; support said, "we don't have answers for those types of questions."

As @thehipone.6812 suggests, volatile glyphs never got 5-8 per swing on average. I typically get 3-5, for example.(thehipone would know better than I: they have done extensive testing with all sorts of tools and glyphs)

Another possibility is what kind of node is being mined. I believe that when used on nodes that already provide volatile magic (i.e. kralkatite nodes) the volatile magic from the node is merged with the magic from the pick on a per swing basis. Thus mining kralkatite ore will give a consistently higher return than mining an iron node.

Yes, VM from general ore nodes is more like 5 to 8 per node, not per swing.

You got much more VM from mining platinum than usual compared to other nodes. If I were to guess the volatile glyph was previously treating plat nodes similarly to harvesting which can only be harvested once hence yeild 3x the VM return per "strike". This didnt apply to all mineral nodes though cause checked a few others like orichcalcum. LS4 nodes give 5 VM per strike too but only them. Man that wouldve good info to have beforehand so I could farm VM faster.

It's a bug fix not a balance change....

If this is a "pics or it didn't happen" thing...

Iron - Pre Balancehttps://imgur.com/a/1NKyRAn

My Tool's did per resource tick as the photos indicate.

Granted I re-skinned the Volatile Magic Tool Skin to the Unbound Magic Tool Skin, as I noticed early on that the Unbound Magic Mining Beam gathered 4 resource ticks per channel, hence I could farm a Rich Iron / Platinum in 3 channels versus 4 channels with other tools. (Channel = Farm action sequence)

According wiki, mining nodes are supposed to give 1~3 VM, so maybe getting 8 VM per tick was a bug and was fixed? I mean, 8 VM per mining tick does seem a lot compared to others, such as UM, which also shows 1~3 UM per mining tick.

I think i know the problem. Youd of course get more VM per note IF you harvest a node like Brandstone or Mistonium in ls4 together with volatile tools.

@LucianDK.8615 said:I think i know the problem. Youd of course get more VM per note IF you harvest a node like Brandstone or Mistonium in ls4 together with volatile tools.

OP's image shows them getting 5-9 from Iron, not an LS4-specific node.(And I believe that it's from Brisban Wildlands, not an LS map.)

I wonder if this was a bug with the UB skin; I believe those tools do give more UM on ore, and less on plants.

compare this to the unbound magic tools an see if u get the same issues? it might give more in level 80 map check it out if u have either tool set

bump

i noticed this too, i have unbound set, volatile set aswell as tailor/leatherworker set

previously if i did my rich ore route across all maps (+ any node that was closeby) i would gather around 5k volatile magic per character(the goal was 25k magic a day, which equals to 100 shipments)

nowadays, i often get 1 voltaile magic per swing up to 3 max while previously i would get 5-8 per swing regardless of map/node/lvli reskinned my volatile gathering tools to the unbound gathering tools (because animations are smoother, and the mining tool can gather a rich ore nodes in 3 channels (gathers 4 swings per channel compared to the 3 swings other skins do 43 is 12 (rich ore node is 10 swings) compared to 33 from other sets, and needing a 4th channel to land 1 last hit to reach 10 swings)

so ye not worth it anymore, it feels like a 66% nerf. it just is a 66% nerf

back to leatherworker and tailor, rip my gems i guess

Hmm, 1 VM is worth around 1.6 silver, at a (low?) average of 5 VM per node that is 8 silver per node plus the ore, etc. Still seems pretty good?

It's probably my fault, a few months back I joked on the wvw forum that I gathered almost 7k in VM from the wvw nodes over about 8 hours and multiple characters. They probably just didn't realize how quickly some people could accumlate that much VM with 1 set of Inf tools and a bit of patience. Plus in wvw in particular I'd imagine that issue could delve a bit into questions of monetary gains from stacked servers vs unstacked servers.

We just need a BSF version map for S4, especially if S5 continues with VM and provides more uses for it.