Weird loots theory

[Essi]

I havent ever been a fan of "bad, bad MA" thinking so here's one possible explanation of strange loots we have been seeing...

Items in loots are way more dynamic than we have thought.

Dynamic in a way that amount of items in PE is limited. Thus all items have occurrance factor that is defined with amount of participants. For example there might be maximum of 1 goblin harness per participant, 2 stacks of animal hides per participant, 1 im2870 per 10000 participants etc.

This might very well have been also before but now as MA changed loots and removed lowest possible TT value of items lots of items suddenly started dropping lot faster. However since number of items is limited in relation to participants PE actually can run out of items.

Loot content determination might go this way:

1. determine TT-value of this loot
2. for each possible loot item:
   • check there are these items left to drop (max amount/participant isnt exceeded)
   • check their lowest possible TT value is less than TT-value left for this loot
   • take random number and test it against frequency of this item
   • if test is successful add this item to loot, lower its TT-value from loot
3. add peds/pecs for rest of the TT-value

There might have been kind of pressure to drop high end items like im2870 which almost never happened since they were high TT-value item, dropped by low loot mob. If they had 2% change to drop with high enough loot and lowest TT-value 200 peds, they probably could have dropped once per year or so. (Think how long time is needed for 50 big snable hofs.)

About all items currently dropping are such that people stuff them in TT right away and so their amount in game simply wont increase much.

As for raw materials, there might be two explanations. One is that some people have tried to take over tailoring material markets and just stuffed thousands and thousands peds of raw material into storage. Other is that MA decreased amount of items to prevent running out of certain items and it affected most drastically on common raw materials (they still drop - just way more rarely than before).

Ok... reason for this kind of system would be obviously to cope with market saturation. With set number of each item per participant, most stuff will stop dropping before they lose their market value totally. Something that MA needs as player community loudly turned down permanent decay.

This kind of morning rant this time.

 

[Devil Doll]

Sounds logical to me. However, it is a bit depressing that in order for a Mod Merc to drop under your theory either 1) someone TTs it or 2) MA Manually changes the number that can be out in the world...

Your theory seems highly probable though.

DD

 

[RexDameon]

Sounds logical to me. However, it is a bit depressing that in order for a Mod Merc to drop under your theory either 1) someone TTs it or 2) MA Manually changes the number that can be out in the world...

Your theory seems highly probable though.

DD

wouldnt it just mean that one WILL come when more ppl are playing?

 

[Devil Doll]

oh yeah, hehe, that too

DD

 

[Starfinder]

Bug = no...
"Well thought of change" = no ...

Allow me to explain...

PE indeed is dynamic but it is set within certain limits, by the software.
I belive this (I hate to call it a bug) "thing" were something MindArk prehaps dident think too well about before they implemented it...

Lets give a small example of how the looting program could work for the "old" system AND the "new" system to work:

In this code I am going to assume that there is such a thing as a lootpool, a "pool" where wasted ammo and so on is going to, in order to increase some loot.

Here goes....


Old system:

(The amount a certain mob drops a certain item, lets say Imp M2870 )
Dropratio = 0.001 (one in 1000)
(The minimum TT the item MUST have before its dropped (in pec))
MinimumCondition = 60000 (600 PED)
(The looting chance of the mob)
LootChance = 4 (4 in 10 = 40%)


-----------------------
Function LootMob
LootingNumber = Int RandomNumber from 1 to 10
If LootingNumber <= 4 then
GetLoot()
Else
AddLootToLootPool()
End if
End function

-----------------------

Function GetLoot
TTLoot = GetTTofLoot()
If RandomNumber() = Dropratio AND TTLoot >= MinimumCondition then
Drop "Imp M2870"
else
Drop "Some crap nobody wants"
end if
End function

----------------------

Function AddLootToLootPool
AmmoSpent on killing mob added to lootpool
Print message : "this creature.. bla bla"
end function


----------------------

In this system you had a chance of 1 in 1000 to get a loot that COULD contain an imp M2870 ... and then...
If we say a snable costs 9 PEC to shoot there had to be 6666 kills without loot to get the loot pool to a place where it actually could drop..
So it would be 1000*6666 = 1 in 6.666.000 loots that contained the Imp M2870. (And thats if all the loots that dropped in those 6.666.000 loots dident profit.. if they did.. the lootpool would decrease instead of increase)

__________________________________________________ ___
New system:

(The amount a certain mob drops a certain item, lets say Imp M2870 )
Dropratio = 0.001 (one in 1000)
(The minimum TT the item MUST have before its dropped (in pec))
MinimumCondition = 2 (2 PEC)
(The looting chance of the mob)
LootChance = 4 (4 in 10 = 40%)
EmptyLootPool = 0.001 (one in 1000)

-----------------------
Function LootMob
LootingNumber = Int RandomNumber from 1 to 10
If LootingNumber <= 4 then
GetLoot()
Else
AddLootToLootPool()
End if
End function

-----------------------

Function GetLoot
TTLoot = GetTTofLoot()
If RandomNumber() = Dropratio AND TTLoot >= MinimumCondition then
Drop "Imp M2870"
else
Drop "Some crap nobody wants"
end if
End function

----------------------

Function AddLootToLootPool
AmmoSpent on killing mob added to lootpool
Print message : "this creature.. bla bla"
end function

----------------------

In this senario with the same functions but with a much lower minimum TT value of an item drop the drop ratio for the Imp M2870 would be:
1 in 2000 .... Kinda diffrent outcome with one single variable change.. dont you think....... makes you wonder........


Anyway... It were funny that they said "there is no bugs".. yet we downloaded a small update a couple of hours after the VU........... I belive that they dident realize changing one variable could mess up the system so much.. lol...

I think that theory is more plausible.... Since the extreme increase in the drop of the Imp M2870 cant be explained by the fact that "more participants have joined".. if the loot system worked like that.. we wouldent notice any increase in the loot...

 

[Spider]

I think that theory is more plausible.... Since the extreme increase in the drop of the Imp M2870 cant be explained by the fact that "more participants have joined".. if the loot system worked like that.. we wouldent notice any increase in the loot...

Wouldn't we actually see a decreased amount of loot since more players means the "pool" would be constantly decreased. By this I mean that just because you are out hunting and getting no loots doesn't necessarily mean that its the same for everyone. I don't know how many times I have gotten no loot on a mob at the same time someone else just globaled or hof'd. Also about Starfinders loot theory, I don't remember if C++ or C# uses a seed number for randomization of numbers but I know VB does. If you use a high seed number you get a better chance of good loots and a low seed number would mean lower loots. Just my thoughts, could be wrong.

 

[silverbane]

I'd say a combination of both these ideas. For obvious reasons they have to see to it that the droprate stays down on high end stuff but they also have to drop them if the player base gets bigger.

 

[Muppis]

I agree with silverbane on this.

 

[ron]

nevertheless we will never know the truth anyways..

 

[maniac]

Someone had an interesting Multiplier Mob theory.
Like, that there are multiplier mobs that take (mob hitpoint / 2) * some multiple of 4 = maximal guaranteed loot.

Anyone cares to elaborate on any of this?

 

[Silo]

another reason that the number of users doesn't determine drops in and of itself is that this weirdness coincided with a vu.

if, you say, that new vu's bring people out of the woodwork to join PE, then we would have seen the same weirdness after each vu.


for starfinder...you explained your theory of pre vu and immediately post vu loots quiet well and it does seem plausible. i also don't believe there was a "bug". how, though, does your theory explain the all-ped HoFs that have been occuring since the small update?