I never played GM with the infamous bug in place. However, I unlocked GM yesterday. Started running GM strongholds and was massively disappointed in the loot. Logged on here today and found out it's a massive issue. Here's what I've noticed as someone that never experienced the bug.

I currently have 4 Masterwork items. 2 dropped during a mission and another 2 during contracts.

The drops during these 2 activities seem to be linked to player and javelin level. As such, at Epic javelin level basically 100% of all drops (when running hard), will be rare or epic. With an extremely low chance of Masterworks.

At hard, enemies are extremely easy to kill. With virtually no chance of dying. Activities can be completed in a handful of minutes.

Drops in Stronghold seem somewhat arbitrary. And not RNG. Rather, there appears to be some kind of resource allocation that prevents "great" drops. How can I never see a common in Freeplay, Missions or Contracts, but see them in basically every chest in Strongholds?

GM strongholds also have a much great chance of killing you and taking more time.

As such, when farming for Masterworks, it makes far more sense to run regular contracts on hard than to bother with GM strongholds. It's faster, easier, more fun and more reliable

*To be clear, I'm not hating on Anthem. I really enjoy the game. Having loads of fun. Think the reviews are overly negative. I'm just pointing out, the reward balancing is broken. If less challenging activities provide better chances of reward*