Drop Rates SoJ vs. SV (Image heavy!)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 1st post updated with a 3rd Run * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ever since I started farming and until this day there's been a lot of opinions and discussions about what, and how drop rates work, and what kills them.
And one of the more well known is that you get far more drops if you kill off
your foes one by one, right?
This led me and my brother to dig a bit deeper to get some sort of proof of this or that.
So, we went to Fahranur to do some tests in the name of science.. me playing my monk with Shield of Judgement, and my brother
playing his necro packing Spoil Victor.
Now, we kept entering the area until we managed to enter the zone at exactly
the same moment, checking the first spawn of skales helped us determine if
we'd succeeded or not.

Now on to the fun part.. this is a screenshot of my loot:



..and this is a screenshot of my brothers loot:



Well, look at that.. even the amount of gold is exactly the same for both of us! ..and no, this is no fake, we just made the same run simultanously.

And for the hell of it we id'd our loot and guess what?

My:



And his:



Yes, even the stats matched.

Now, there are some slight differences in the loot and the explaination is
probably that we didn't enter the area at entirely the same moment, it's a very small margine of error..

But, the conclusion we came to is simply that the loot is determined when you enter the area.. not by the way you kill the foes.

On side note, we even hade the exact same chest spawn and loot from it.

This is actually the second time we manage to do this, but I screwed up the screenshot on the first run..

So, that's it, ladies & gentlmen.
We thought it was a pretty interesting discovery and wanted to share it with you.

...and sorry for the huge images, I couldnt find a good host that didn't shrink them.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 2nd Run * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



We just finished another run after having some troubles syncing our entrance, and this time my bro played his 330 Rit while I played my monk.
The loot was aweful, and there are differences even this time.
However, here's a screenshot of both our loot piles, side by side.



The interesting bit is once again that even the stats matched.

Now, I'm not fully satisfied with tonights run as there were so few
coloured drops, so we'll get back at it soon.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 3rd Run * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This time we went back the 1st line up, me playing SoJ monk and Phawk playing his SV necro.
And this time we took screenshots of all drops with party list, inventory and
chat log open for all to see. I'm not posting screens of all mobs as it would
take forever, but here's a whole bunch of interesting examples.
Sooo here we go.

9 kills:




12 kills:




After 21 kills we stumbled upon a chest. Now, we didn't open but the location is the same:




42 kills:


The necro did these 2 mobs seperatly so here's the loot at 39 kills:


...and at 42 kills:


48 kills:




At 57 kills we reached the warrior boss mob:




At this point Phawk's inventory was full, so he had to salvage and drop some items to make room:


70 kills and end of run:


2 screens for Phawk for the last ones:




And here's the result all id'd:




Yet again, Phawk's inventory was full so he had to leave some stuff behind:


And, finally, to sum the 3rd run up we dropped our loot side by side:



Even this time there are some minor differences, but all in all the similarity is
pretty striking.


That's it ladies & gentlemen.

I hope we were a bit more clear this time in showing the drops and when and
where they dropped.

Well, if it isn't a fake, all I have to say is: OMFG!

btw 1st

Wow, if this is real, very interesting!

Edit: I do see a difference in lockpicks though, is that because you opened a chest and one broke, and the other one didn't?

It's not a fake. Of course I can't prove it.. but I have nothing
to gain by making this up.

And yes.. pretty interesting result, huh?

I did this run with a monk/d 105 holy scythe build, got loads of drops by trying to get around drop rate system =]

Could you test this a few more times with your friend just for comfirmation?

Looks interesting, but I just want to know if this would be the "one in a million" where the drops line up.

...How come always other people get 3-4 golds per run and I get only 1-2 golds? What's the terrible secret?!

Assuming it is real and all, this certainly is an interesting discovery, however when doing an experiment like this one, nothing conclusive can be proved by doing 1 run.
I'm not sure if you were just too flabbergasted and decided to post it immediately and were planning to do it another 10~20 times, or just leave it at this.
Maybe it has also something with the two of you being on the same connection, nonetheless it is quite amazing.

On a side note, during my necro farming; Minister Cho's Estate HM, I find the (gold) drops are better using SV instead of SS.

Same golds? That's so odd.

Nice work, its pretty incredible that you got the same loot. Im struggling to believe you. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

That's quite interesting. I always seem to get better drops when I use SV rather than SoJ, but maybe that's just me.

don't feel no pain said in another thread, and I agree because I've witnessed this sort of thing myself, killing big mobs with them all dropping at once triggers loot scaling, as in, filtering out the crap white items, while keeping gold drops in. Just today I found myself with 0 white items, a req 9 gold skull longbow and a black dye after dropping 22 monsters at once.

sorry, i dont think thats true...

same golds,blues,purples, and even the tome? ok no biggie, now with all the exact same mods and the exact same amount of gold?

Although this is our second successful simultanous run we will for sure do more
of them, just to confirm what we've seen.. and testing other areas too perhaps.

We both have saved numerous screenshots of our loot from runs in Farhanur with different chars to have some statistics of drop rates, and they pretty much say the same thing.. the method doesn't seem to matter..

But hey.. this is what we've found out so far, and maybe this can incourage
someoone out there to try the same thing.

Quote:

Well, once when running a few chests, I got two Greater Guardian Spears, both purple, both Q11, both with the same mods (+13% while in stance). The only difference was the merch price. They came in consecutive chests.

Sorry m8 I don't believe you. There is no way in hell all the weapons would have EXACT same stats.

Please post a screen comparing the item's side by side. Sorry, just another farmers opinion.

~Hott Bill

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If that is true (and I put my hands down that it is seeing that you tried to enter at the exact time and precice spawn of the skales), it's a really interesting discovery.

Just want to say, good luck on your other runs! :]

well, if you really did this in case of science ?? GJ
also to your brother ofcourse,

i believe you guys btw

i think they will rechange the farming ways each time not sure about that imo

but already thought it was dependend on time when you started!!

So it says the seed for the pseudo random number generator for loot distribution and determination is determined at the moment you enter? Interesting. If you have two people with the same seed, the loot for the entire zone will follow exactly the same pattern?

That's the reason why we saved so many screenies of the loot, trying
figure out if there was a "prime time" for good drops at any point of the day.. but so far I've
found no patterns.. maybe I'm just thinking too much.

I'll try to add more details on my post of the next run, dropping both loots
side by side etc.

Dustbunny - Yes, I believe that's how it works. But it's kinda tricky to
enter a zone at the exact same time tho due to latancy, ISP and so on.

1 word... Woah... Could I do one run with one of u guys at the same time? I never get drops like that from Farhanur >_>... Maybe I'l proove nothing but dam.. u got loads of lockpicks in just one run =). Btw.. try 330hp rit, see if the drops vary even more from soj monk and sv necro. If your theory is correct... which I do hope it is.. Anet will probably do something dumb and completely change the system. However... a Computer's version of 'Random' isnt exactly... 'Random' it could just be a lucky chance where you get similar drops. Do several...

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