was there a reason why Mesanna went to this system of item drops in the first place? And also how would you know if a crowded shard is really double than the intended drop count? It could be fewer collectors but more sellers so the appearance seemed a lot more.
I mean let's face it:
1. My educated guess is >70% of all drops are gotten by professional event goers/sellers. I said that loosely since they put in the work to attend events when expecting drops. We see roughly the same ~10 or so sellers on this board all the time.
2. In addition, there are a few collectors that hardly buys from the boards because they have their own contractual suppliers.
3. There could be more items than the intended drop count but just can't prove how much more and quantity doesn't affect the pricing as it use to be.
like i said, yeah trying to figure out true numbers is extremely complicated. as for why? who knows. maybe when lineman complained mesanna just decided to make events more casual. which they are in that its way easier to get a drop just from loot rights, plus the random points system guarantees a drop. and the reason some are playing 4 to 10 characters. which i also dont agree with but thats what we have.
And it was also when people said "homesharders" should have an advantage. which they do under the points system, assuming you consider a character that remains on the shard a "homeshard player"
mesanna said somewhere at a meet and greet that this "random points" played out to where you get 4 looting rights, your guaranteed a drop. but if you get a drop (from either the base number, or rng scales the points to a drop before that 4, your points are reset. these points are also reset if you transfer but hardly anyone does this anyway)
so you have the base drop. then you have points based on looting rights. shards with 2 (or more) bosses like GL or ATLC provide more "looting rights points"
All of this is very rough numbers. most basic calculation i use is number of people there, divided by 4 plus the base number, factor in if there were multiple bosses, then usually subtract a few. then adjust for if the boss was messed up or something (like when half the people at an event miss looting rights)
so theres that very rough calculation. plus going off how many people out of the about 20 characters that i know for a fact every event got the drop, compared to the total number at the event. this also contributes to figuring out what the true numbers might look at.
You can also get a good idea of true numbers anytime a drop is broken and theres a line for them to be "fixed" by mesanna.
So the larger shards are further from that base number, because drop number is directly related to number of people there.
Atlantic, Great Lakes, and a few of the other larger shards sure arent 20 drops.
As for price, yes the higher numbers are why we've seen lower prices. it basically comes down to how many come up for sale, and desireability.
If it were up to me, i think the best way to handle the points system would be to make every drop a (1) drop and let randoms points naturally increase that number for how many characters were at the event.
Its no secret to those who talk to me that im not a fan of this system, but i have spent the last 6 months monitoring it and getting an idea of true drop numbers. I really have been putting off bringing up the numbers in public discussion at all because its such a mess, and so hard to get an idea of unless you have alot of information to go on, like whos gotten how many, player count at events, keep track of last everyone drop / problems with boss etc.
So im posting this for everyone. I agree, its a mess to deal with.