Little while back bought some new accounts mostly for storage. Decided to have 1 toon on each capable of getting nick sets ect so ran them around. Figured it was a good opportunity to do a little test id been meaning to do for years to answer the question: Do new accounts / new characters get better drops? I've been running dungeon for years and always had many accounts to get extra chests / running other people for books / points / ZB. It always seemed to be that the sought after chest rewards (Silverwing, BDS, Emerald Edge ect) went to characters than were opening that chest for the 1st or 2nd time and characters that had opened it many times rarely got anything. My theory was the first 3 opens of any given dungeon chest give a dramatically increased chance of the item(s) unique to that chest dropping and after that it becomes very low. I realize to some / most this is kinda known / assumed to be true but I've never seen it tested its always just anecdotal.
I had 6 characters on 6 separate accounts all who had done nothing but finish eotn and run around a few other towns. Ran them through 9 dungeons (so far), 3 times each in hard mode. So 6 drops per character per dungeon.
Did them in this order over 2 days:
1) Arachni's Haunt, 2) Oolas Lab, 3) Rragar's Menagerie, 4) Sepulchre of Dragrimmar, 5) Ooze Pit, 6) Darkrime Delves, 7) Frostmaws's Burrows, 8)) Bloodstone Caves, 9) Catacombes Of Kathandrax
Results: (Numbered 1-3 to indicate if it was 1st 2nd or 3rd chest open).
Account #1:
2 - Q9 Insectoid Scythe
2 - Q11 Insectoid Staff
2 - Q13 Emerald Edge
Account 2:
1 - Q11 Storm Dagger
2 - Q12 Clockwork Scythe
1 - Q10 Silverwing Recurved Bow
Account 3:
2 - Q13 Signet Shield
2 - Q10 Cobalt Staff
1 - Q13 Golden Horn Staff
Account 4:
1 - Q11 Dryad Bow
1 - Q12 Astral Staff
2 - Chrysocola Staff
Account 5:
2 - Q12 Turquoise Staff
2 - Q13 Demon Fangs
2 - Q12 Ancient Moss Staff
Account 6:
1 - Q9 Insectoid Staff
1 - Q12 Cobalt Staff
2 - Q11 Violet Edge
3 - Q9 Topaz Scepter
So ignoring data size problem which is obviously present this is what happened:
- In all 9 dungeons we got at least 1 of gold drop unique to that chest, in many cases several.
- 1st chest open gave 7 drops.
- 2nd chest open gave 11 drops.
- 3rd chest open seems mostly a waste of time (at least when doing the same dungeon b2b). The only drop from the 3rd open was the Topaz.
- 0 Polymock pieces so I'm thinking that its unaffected by this effect and just a standard low % chance all the time
- The 2/3 other accounts in the party doing the dungeon got almost fuck all. 1 Chrysocola staff total (They had opened all these chest dozens of times over the years).
- Some of the time when one of the runners was also a fresh / fresher character (we swapped them in and out) we got some drops. Several staffs and a q10 emerald blade. Didn't keep good notes of these but we definitely noticed the difference.
Conclusion:
Even with such a relatively small sample size it really does seem that new characters and or new accounts get much better dungeon chest drops.
I'm pretty consistent with taking screenshots of good drops, its just a habit but came in handy with this. Went through the folder and this drop frequency is never seen with my older characters or even characters / accounts that are only 12-18 months old but been used ALOT in dungeons.
Considering I regularly solo / duo dungeons with 6-7 alts its a pretty decent comparison. Shame I don't have exact records but that aside that amount of drops these new accounts got in so few attempts just doesn't happen to me and I'm expecting when I repeat this test again it will show that. Predicting 4th 5th 6th chest opens will yield significantly less drops.
Thought this was somewhat interesting information, do with it as you like. My advise = If you got some fresh accounts go open dungeon chests a couple times, seems lucrative. At some point I will do other dungeons on these 6 and repeat dungeons again for another 3 opens, see what comes. cba to post them all but here is some of the drops. PS. I definitely got screwed on reqs
Anybody done something like this before with same or differing results?