Drop Theory Experiment

arnansnow

arnansnow

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

DOOM

E/N

08 Jul 2005 at 00:51 - 81
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoDiamonds
Sentinel and I tested some theories today.

We went outside of Augury Rock. I sat down. Sentinel went far, far away and killed a bunch of guys.

Drops: 11 for Sentinel. 0 for JoDiamonds.

Then we did the Elona Mission. I stayed well outside his danger circle, but kept him in my minimap (and close enough to be selected, also; if you get too far away you lose selection). We did this twice to kill enough enemies.

Drops: 7 for Sentinel, 6 for JoDiamonds

Each time, I made sure to not cast anything or pretty much do anything at all.

Likely Conclusion: Dealing damage or healing or doing anything at all doesn't matter at all; it only matters that you are close to the monster when the monster dies. "Close" means "shows up on the minimap", or maybe just that you can select the monster.

Possibly, you need to be close enough to the killer, which could be much farther away if the killer is using ranged attacks. That warrants a little more testing, maybe.
No matter what, if you are too far away to see the enemy on the minimap, you don't get drops, you don't even see what dropped in all the cases I have

All you tested was the range, at which drops started dropping, not what gives some people more drops then others.

Sentinel

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Somerset, NJ

aB

08 Jul 2005 at 01:29 - 82
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnansnow
No matter what, if you are too far away to see the enemy on the minimap, you don't get drops, you don't even see what dropped in all the cases I have
Agreed. If you are not in the minimap when the kill was made you don't get a drop - big fat period.!

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnansnow
All you tested was the range, at which drops started dropping, not what gives some people more drops then others.
I don't get what you are trying to say. We did prove that there is no secret formula that is used to assign loot based on where the players are and what they are doing in relation to the battle. Most of the time he was at least an aggro circle away by the edge of the minimap and he still got half the drops.

It was basically a flip of an imaginary coin....in other words....RANDOM!!

Things are getting weird for people when the coin has 6 or 8 sides which means the odds are reduced to 1/6 or 1/8 per kill for each player.

Probability theory anyone??

Here is a test:
a) what is the probability that a player in a group of 8 will NOT
get a drop in 8 kills by that group

b)what is the probability that a player in a group of 8 will get AT LEAST
one drop in 8 kills by that group.

c)what is the probability that a player in a group of 8 will get ALL 8 drops
in 8 kills by that group.

Sent.-

Uldrath

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

Twin Cities, MN

The Harbs [TH]

E/Mo

08 Jul 2005 at 02:28 - 83
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninna
what is defined as far distance?

being within spell casting range of killing things? ie within danger circle?



only asking because I want to do same test using only 2 players

- I have 2 computers, 2 accts

By "far distance", I was referring to as far away as an Elementalist could fight. That is simply the range of my wand and spells such as flare and fireball. Far simply means far.

Ninna

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2005

Northeast USA

Guilded Rose

Me/

08 Jul 2005 at 08:06 - 84
wand range is certainly *inside* the monsters "danger circle"

Mitsu Bishi

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2005

Austria

Need for Seed [SeeD]

Mo/Me

08 Jul 2005 at 08:47 - 85
I've not done any tests on that, but I think it's random because of the strange streaks that seem to occur. When I went along with guildmates on the Ruins of Surmia mission with my healing monk, I didn't have to heal much because they were playing quite well. Still - without firing my staff and often just standing back out of aggro range (I don't want to take away their fun by killing monsters with my wand which does 40-50 damage on those low level monsters) - I got 5 rune drops within a few fights, two of them purple and way more drop overall than the fighter and the others.

A few days later - we were doing Galrath and started from Bergen Hot Springs to the Temple of Ages. I was healing a lot, removing conditions etc. the whole way and the only thing I got was a staff and one armor, way less than anybody else. From the Temple of Ages onward to Galrath it turned around and I had a fair share of loot, pretty much in line with the rest.

I've played a Warrior, an Ele and a Monk as primary so far (and I play my characters like their primary, so Warrior is a tank, Ele is a nuker and Monk is a healer) and I have not encountered a big difference in their wealth and drops.

So I'd say there is a certain range at which you won't get any drops at all but inside that range, you're pretty certain to have a random distribution of loot.

JoDiamonds

JoDiamonds

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

New England

08 Jul 2005 at 13:59 - 86
Monsters don't have a danger circle. Only players do.

JoDiamonds

JoDiamonds

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

New England

08 Jul 2005 at 14:04 - 87
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnansnow
No matter what, if you are too far away to see the enemy on the minimap, you don't get drops, you don't even see what dropped in all the cases I have
That's not completely true. You absolutely get a chat message saying, "Super Item dropped for SomeoneWhoIsn'tYou", even when the entire battle happened far out of sight.

Quote:
All you tested was the range, at which drops started dropping, not what gives some people more drops then others.
That's certainly not all we tested. I got drops by doing absolutely nothing at all in battle, just being near the fight (but outside of the Danger Circle). That certainly proves something:

- You can get drops even if you don't attack and don't use skills, if the fight is happening on your minimap.

It also appears that you get a fair and random distribution of of drops (if there are N people near the fight, you have a 1/N chance of getting any given drop). So far we've only formally tested this for N=2, but hey. Certainly, doing more damage (100% of it) did not appear to noticably improve drops for anyone.

arnansnow

arnansnow

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

DOOM

E/N

08 Jul 2005 at 14:07 - 88
Quote:
That's not completely true. You absolutely get a chat message saying, "Super Item dropped for SomeoneWhoIsn'tYou", even when the entire battle happened far out of sight.
Not for me, when I was doing a drake run with someone else, he was far ahead of me and killing drakes, and it didn't say anything at all.
Quote:

That's certainly not all we tested. I got drops by doing absolutely nothing at all in battle, just being near the fight (but outside of the Danger Circle). That certainly proves something:
You should also try it inside the danger circle, but not attacking or anything.

Diomedes

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Blue Island (think Chicago)

Me/N

08 Jul 2005 at 14:13 - 89
Interesting results JoDiamonds. I would of course like to see more experiments done, but never the less, that's very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to try that out. Looks like range probably plays less to no role. This weekend I'll see if I can verify your results with a test of my own.

-Diomedes

Dralon

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Stillwater, OK

R/Mo

08 Jul 2005 at 14:15 - 90
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sentinel
When you are doing experiments you need to be unbiased. Do the experiment
and take a look at the results after. The original poster had already a "feeling" and therefore he was biased. No offence but I can't trust his results one bit.

Also when random numbers are involved then statistics come out to play and you need to run the same experiment over and over to start getting an idea of what is going one. I'm afraid 20 times is just plain inadequate. Even 100 times is not enough to write it in stone. I mean look at the real world. Scientists take thousants of samples in order to formulate an opinion about something.

Back to the game. With my W I was always complaining that I don't get any drops in FoW or UW. Some days were better than others but the bad days I remember the most. After I accepted it's random somehow the drops got better.
It was all in my mind?? YOU BET!!lol

With my monk i stay the hell out of range of the nasties while I stay close enough to heal and my drops don't suffer comparing to anyone.

Just to disprove the argument once and for all I invite you guys to come to one of my farming spots. You stay at the spawn while I go out, deep in the map, and kill 30-40 nasties. According to some of you I should get most of the drops.... say, more than half... and you guys at the spawn you'll be lucky to get anything. I highly doubt it but with you guys there checking on me I can't be biased.


Sent.-
Then almost every experiment you would consider biased. We decide what to test in the world often based on our experiences in the world. Example : a native tribe has used an herbal remedy for years to cure headaches (or whatever). A researcher who had some personal experience with this herb and its affects wants to test whether this is true. He sets up a hypothesis that it does not affect headaches then constructs an experiment to gather raw data which is interpreted. He may have a bias that he wants this herb to work, but if an experiment is properly constructed it can still be completely valid.

Obviously in a video game world where you don't have access to the raw programming and all the variables this is nigh impossible to do, so you are stuck with raw approximations based on drops you count. This is slightly more valid than blindly stating "drops are random" because that is what you want to believe because that would be fair.

JoDiamonds

JoDiamonds

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

New England

08 Jul 2005 at 16:12 - 91
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnansnow
Not for me, when I was doing a drake run with someone else, he was far ahead of me and killing drakes, and it didn't say anything at all.
Weird. Then I don't know what the difference is, but I have plenty of screenshots where Sentinel was off-screen and I saw what items were dropping for him.

Did you have all the chat channels turned on, like emotes and stuff? It doesn't seem likely that would matter, but who knows.

Quote:
You should also try it inside the danger circle, but not attacking or anything.
Yes, someone should try that. ;-)

While I'm still mildly interested in any results from someone else's experiments, I'm personally comfortable thinking that I don't have to be trying really hard to make sure I get good drops (especially with a healer or ranged character).

And I appreciate those who thanked Sentinel and I for doing the tests. =)

Sentinel

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Somerset, NJ

aB

08 Jul 2005 at 16:42 - 92
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dralon
Then almost every experiment you would consider biased. We decide what to test in the world often based on our experiences in the world. Example : a native tribe has used an herbal remedy for years to cure headaches (or whatever). A researcher who had some personal experience with this herb and its affects wants to test whether this is true. He sets up a hypothesis that it does not affect headaches then constructs an experiment to gather raw data which is interpreted. He may have a bias that he wants this herb to work, but if an experiment is properly constructed it can still be completely valid.
I agree. Saying that if you are biased you can't run or participate in an experiment was too strong of an opinion. Like you say, if the experiement is performed in an 'unbiased manner' then the results are valid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dralon
Obviously in a video game world where you don't have access to the raw programming and all the variables this is nigh impossible to do, so you are stuck with raw approximations based on drops you count. This is slightly more valid than blindly stating "drops are random" because that is what you want to believe because that would be fair.

So what is it that you are saying? There is no experiment we can run to figure out how the drops work?

You would rather believe that there is some obscure equation in the programming that decides who gets what and when, depending on what they are doing and where they are when they doing so?

My opinion that "drops are random" was developed from playing the game every day since it's release. It was never a blind opinion i came up with just to counteract the other opinions out there. Drops can be frustrating but there is no pattern to them. If there was a pattern the pattern would have been discovered and exploited by now.

And even though i had my opinion, I went out with other people and run a test to see what happens. We presented the results for everyone to see. If you have any suggestions on how to run a better experiment let me know.

Sent.-

Sentinel

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Somerset, NJ

aB

08 Jul 2005 at 16:53 - 93
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoDiamonds


And I appreciate those who thanked Sentinel and I for doing the tests. =)

Thank you JoDiamonds for your help....

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

08 Jul 2005 at 22:18 - 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitsu Bishi
I've not done any tests on that, but I think it's random because of the strange streaks that seem to occur. When I went along with guildmates on the Ruins of Surmia mission with my healing monk, I didn't have to heal much because they were playing quite well. Still - without firing my staff and often just standing back out of aggro range (I don't want to take away their fun by killing monsters with my wand which does 40-50 damage on those low level monsters) - I got 5 rune drops within a few fights, two of them purple and way more drop overall than the fighter and the others.

A few days later - we were doing Galrath and started from Bergen Hot Springs to the Temple of Ages. I was healing a lot, removing conditions etc. the whole way and the only thing I got was a staff and one armor, way less than anybody else.

...
So... may I propose a new theory: people who stay close enough but do nothing will get the most loot!

haa, I love it

sorry for taking your words out of the context Mitsu Bishi, but it's fun