Global Unidentified Gear Incoming, March 26th!

[Irenio CalmonHuang.2048]

Greetings, Tyrians!

We’ve been working on a few major changes to loot drops at level 80 which will provide both quality of life improvements and help with the long-term health of the economy. These will go into effect on March 26.

• Core Tyria and the Heart of Maguuma regions will now drop Unidentified Gear rather than individual fine, masterwork, and rare items.

• Magic find will no longer affect the results of identifying Unidentified Gear.

• Unidentified Gear reward tables are being changed to account for their availability across Tyria, including:

o Setting the frequency of rare item drops in the Crystal Desert region to the same frequency as rare items from the rest of Tyriao Removal of Eyes of Kormir, Congealed Putrescence, and Pulsing Brandsparks from salvaging Unidentified Gear—they’ll now drop from the Crystal Desert region loot tableso Addition of fine and masterwork Reclaimed Weapons from the Heart of Maguuma region to Unidentified Gear loot tables
This means Unidentified Gear has the same value to everyone once it has dropped, regardless of your current magic find.

If you’ve been playing in areas that dropped Unidentified Gear, and you were identifying those items, your overall chances to receive exotic gear and legendary precursors will decrease. If you’ve been playing in core Tyria or Heart of Thorns maps, your chances for exotic and precursor drops will increase if you choose to identify the Unidentified Gear you find. This equalizes your chances of getting those drops across any part of Tyria you like to play in.

To summarize the changes:

Before the 3/26 change• Unidentified Gear drops are influenced by magic find twice—once when received as a drop and once when identified.• Fine, masterwork, and rare equipment drops are influenced by magic find once, when received as a drop.

After the 3/26 change• Unidentifed Gear drops are influenced by Magic Find once, when received as a drop. Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

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Overall, you’ll get the same amount of loot and won’t have to play inventory wars as much.

We look forward to getting these changes out to you soon!We’ll localize this information as soon as possible for our global community.

[thehipone.6812]

Will the salvage rate for getting ectoplasm from Elonian weapons be returned to match the usual chance for all other types of rares?

[Randulf.7614]

Maybe its me, but i find unid gear more cumbersome as a system. You end up with a big stack, which you cant open if you havent the space and then you have to clear down and salvage and repeat. Fair play if ppl prefer it, but id rather just salvage as go along.

It also absolutely will need the filter to keep unids from salvage all

[sarkysek.1085]

Wow, awesome change ArenaNet! Ty <3

[hugo.4705]

The Gearpocalypse is coming, no more benefices for selling unind gears, convert and stock your gems!.... (lol)At least it free some inventory slots...so it's a real revolution, got enough of salvaging one per one all my dropped equipment.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Randulf.7614 said:Maybe its me, but i find unid gear more cumbersome as a system. You end up with a big stack, which you cant open if you havent the space and then you have to clear down and salvage and repeat. Fair play if ppl prefer it, but id rather just salvage as go along.

This is only an issue if the salvage you get from un'id gear isn't the same as id'd gear. For example, under the old system if you salvaged un'id gear you got tons of Eyes of Kormir. Sounds like that has changed though, so if I salvage a piece of un'id gear I should get the same materials (mithril/silk/etc) as I would if I had identified it first. So long as I can just right click on my Copper Salvage kit and salvage everything in 1 click, I'm happy :D

[otto.5684]

I guess it is less junk to deal with.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:o Setting the frequency of rare item drops in the Crystal Desert region to the same frequency as rare items from the rest of Tyriao Removal of Eyes of Kormir, Congealed Putrescence, and Pulsing Brandsparks from salvaging Unidentified Gear—they’ll now drop from the Crystal Desert region loot tables

Pulsing Brandsparks drops from unid gear? O_o

To summarize the changes:

Before the 3/26 change• Unidentified Gear drops are influenced by magic find twice—once when received as a drop and once when identified.• Fine, masterwork, and rare equipment drops are influenced by magic find once, when received as a drop.

That double dipping is mostly theoretical isn't it? Most come from either chests/containers/map bonus systems that are unaffected by MF.

After the 3/26 change• Unidentifed Gear drops are influenced by Magic Find once, when received as a drop. Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

 

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Overall, you’ll get the same amount of loot and won’t have to play inventory wars as much.

but it still helps a bit to open on a medium armor class ...

We look forward to getting these changes out to you soon!We’ll localize this information as soon as possible for our global community.

[Vyrulisse.1246]

Can we please get an option at least to keep it from Salvage All?

[Dethl.2875]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:Maybe its me, but i find unid gear more cumbersome as a system. You end up with a big stack, which you cant open if you havent the space and then you have to clear down and salvage and repeat. Fair play if ppl prefer it, but id rather just salvage as go along.

This is only an issue if the salvage you get from un'id gear isn't the same as id'd gear. For example, under the old system if you salvaged un'id gear you got tons of Eyes of Kormir. Sounds like that has changed though, so if I salvage a piece of un'id gear I should get the same materials (mithril/silk/etc) as I would if I had identified it first. So long as I can just right click on my Copper Salvage kit and salvage everything in 1 click, I'm happy :D

the problem being you want to open them for rares/exotics, and then salvage the green's/bluessalvaging straight from unid leaves you losing the chance for good sigils/runes/ecto/pres, especially after this change, if you never open the unid's before salvaging, you're chance of seeing a precursor drop goes from basically zero to actually zero

edit: take pre's off that list, didn't see that exos are still dropped

[Randulf.7614]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:Maybe its me, but i find unid gear more cumbersome as a system. You end up with a big stack, which you cant open if you havent the space and then you have to clear down and salvage and repeat. Fair play if ppl prefer it, but id rather just salvage as go along.

This is only an issue if the salvage you get from un'id gear isn't the same as id'd gear. For example, under the old system if you salvaged un'id gear you got tons of Eyes of Kormir. Sounds like that has changed though, so if I salvage a piece of un'id gear I should get the same materials (mithril/silk/etc) as I would if I had identified it first. So long as I can just right click on my Copper Salvage kit and salvage everything in 1 click, I'm happy :D

Yeah i get that, but if i want an exotic chance im having to open everything. Since the only way to get to an exotic is to identify everything, it gets a bit more cumbersome

[xiiliea.9356]

Uggggghhhhh, now I have to remember to separate them from my inventory before using Salvage All everywhere in Tyria. I hope you're at least fixing Salvage All to not salvage unidentified gears first.

[Randulf.7614]

@xiiliea.9356 said:Uggggghhhhh, now I have to remember to separate them from my inventory before using Salvage All everywhere in Tyria. I hope you're at least fixing Salvage All to not salvage unidentified gears first.

One would hope this is being added

[Taelac.7036]

Thanks for the heads up. Will the availability of charms/symbols be monitored and/or has it been taken into account with respect to this change?

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

This may be a stupid question, but--what is the use of Magic Find after the change? It seems to me its only really useful purpose was the hope of getting better gear drops. I know it also gives you a chance of a higher tier of salvaged materials, but honestly, who cares about that? It's the lower tier materials that are hard to get when you're ranked up, and people specifically save characters at level 54 to open bags and get lower-tier materials.

Is magic find useful for anything else?

[Dethl.2875]

@xiiliea.9356 said:Uggggghhhhh, now I have to remember to separate them from my inventory before using Salvage All everywhere in Tyria. I hope you're at least fixing Salvage All to not salvage unidentified gears first.

invisible bag prevents it, which sucks but hey it works

[MithranArkanere.8957]

What about all these innumerable Loot Boxes and Caches obtained in HoT maps that are like the ones obtained from PvP tracks?

Will the common gear within them be unidentified gear now?Are there any plans to replace them with direct drops?

[Dethl.2875]

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:This may be a stupid question, but--what is the use of Magic Find after the change? It seems to me its only really useful purpose was the hope of getting better gear drops. I know it also gives you a chance of a higher tier of salvaged materials, but honestly, who cares about that? It's the lower tier materials that are hard to get when you're ranked up, and people specifically save characters at level 54 to open bags and get lower-tier materials.

Is magic find useful for anything else?

to my knowledge the only thing that affects salvage quality is purely the kit type

otherwise mf is still semi-useful (as much as mf is anyway) as an account/farm thing, since it sounds like the quality of an unid will be determined at drop rather than at open - so you have to be running the mf while it drops.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

@Dethl.2875 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:This may be a stupid question, but--what is the use of Magic Find after the change? It seems to me its only really useful purpose was the hope of getting better gear drops. I know it also gives you a chance of a higher tier of salvaged materials, but honestly, who cares about that? It's the lower tier materials that are hard to get when you're ranked up, and people specifically save characters at level 54 to open bags and get lower-tier materials.

Is magic find useful for anything else?

to my knowledge the only thing that affects salvage quality is purely the kit type

otherwise mf is still semi-useful (as much as mf is anyway) as an account/farm thing, since it sounds like the quality of an unid will be determined at drop rather than at open - so you have to be running the mf while it drops.

Okay, thanks--yeah, on second reading, I saw I missed this:

After the 3/26 change• Unidentifed Gear drops are influenced by Magic Find once, when received as a drop. Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

It will be nice to do a HoT meta without having to stop and empty the bags during looting.

[Naxos.2503]

Looking forward to see it implemented, I like the trend you're setting currently, very good sign Indeed !

[Kamui.3150]

Question: Will this also mean that the halved ecto salvage rate of Elonian weapons will be reverted?

[Holykitten.3064]

I'm going to have to repeat the sentiment of reverting the nerf of Elonian weapons salvage to Ectoplasm rate to be equal to other rare items now.

I'm looking forward to this change though.

[Irenio CalmonHuang.2048]

@Randulf.7614 said:

Yeah i get that, but if i want an exotic chance im having to open everything. Since the only way to get to an exotic is to identify everything, it gets a bit more cumbersome

No. This is not right.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

When you get a loot drop if it is an exotic you'll get that exotic directly into your bag.If it is a lesser rarity then you'll get the unidentified gear of that rarity.

On top of that if you identify the non-exotic gear there's ANOTHER chance for it to become an exotic.Hope that clarifies it.

[Randulf.7614]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

Yeah i get that, but if i want an exotic chance im having to open everything. Since the only way to get to an exotic is to identify everything, it gets a bit more cumbersome

No. This is not right.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

When you get a loot drop if it is an exotic you'll get that exotic directly into your bag.If it is a lesser rarity then you'll get the unidentified gear of that rarity.

On top of that if you identify the non-exotic gear there's ANOTHER chance for it to become an exotic.Hope that clarifies it.

Ok, but i still have to open them for that extra chance. So my point applies

[Dethl.2875]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

Yeah i get that, but if i want an exotic chance im having to open everything. Since the only way to get to an exotic is to identify everything, it gets a bit more cumbersome

No. This is not right.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Exotic equipment still has the same chance it currently does to drop directly in addition to the rare chance to obtain it from identifying gear.

When you get a loot drop if it is an exotic you'll get that exotic directly into your bag.If it is a lesser rarity then you'll get the unidentified gear of that rarity.

On top of that if you identify the non-exotic gear there's ANOTHER chance for it to become an exotic.Hope that clarifies it.

Wait, so if you're hunting for exotics from unid's, you DO need to open everything? I'm not sure how that makes Randulf "not right".