When is loot determined? - Answer found?

[Remmie]

I can't resist this topic. So here goes my two pecs of opinion...

....clippity clip....

OK, time to close this up. I apologize for the length of my rambling. Please feel free to pick this apart, point out my logical, deductive, mental, and physical flaws: I need the help people!
And oh yeah, good luck out there!

Eeeeeeek!!! Gave too much away but certainly hit the nail on the head with a couple of them. +1 rep. And now I've said too much.

-Rem

 

[Darkscorp]

From my various points of deduction I have come to one single conclusion.

There is no loot pool. And the Globals/hofs occur in random order but are still mob/time/place specific. The way these are generated depend on the tides,Calypsos orientation to the rest of the universe and what color socks you are wearing.

It also is dependant upon how much time you spend seeking the elusive bird of happiness.

I personally hate that bird.....

 

[south park mexi]

To me it is obvious that loot must be affected by MAs daily profits from money lost on repairs, ammo, TT sales, tools etc. But i feel that there are several "layers" in the loot process.

#1 The first factor would be MAs pocket.

#2 Then, a mob is born. Each creature on calypso has its own fixed looting stats. Perhaps it is known at this stage at least whether you will actually get loot or "this creature carried no loot" has been calculated. maybe not.

#3 The creature spawns in a certain location. Different regions may introduce their own environmental modifier, which i would believe to be just as dynamic as loots where location is not taken into consideration.

#4 The creatures maturity LV modifies the size of the loot. young creatures would be slightly decreased loot from base mob loot, and older ones would give increases.

#5 that creatures loot is then given another modifier which scales that creatures loot within a certain range of random numbers which MA would be able to afford to give in a particular loot at the moment. This is where your luck comes in.

Also the actual duration of a mobs life on calypso could be important.

Now that the creature has spawned on calypso, its loot waits for the final factors which could determine whether you get HOF 6 pec.

YOUR AVATAR: You are skilled in this and that; You start fighting with this weapon, end with another, gain several xp in X skills, and take X amount of damage in the fight. you may also be in a team. Any of these things may affect loots.

I have listed many possibilities for events which may effect a mob's loot. I generally believe the ideas that i have numbered.

 

[Ulv]

Hmm.. One thing comes to mind.. well 2..

1st. I never had a lootlagging global/hof that I can remember..

2nd. I have had items pop up in loot window slightly after peds..

 

[SheilaWeber]

Looting

I'll add one observation...

Have u ever noticed this....?

When a mob becomes "aware" of you and charges, more often than not, they carry loot?

Seems to work for me lol. I wade into a herd of mobs and wait for attacks. Seems like the ones with loot are more aware of my presence lol...

Anyone else notice this?

PS: I also agree with the "mob out of place" theory lol... I automatically kill it.

And secondly, areas you hunt are time dependent for loot. I chase globals whenever I can, trying to find the area where the globals are going off. You'll notice the uber players hunting allos, as a example, whenever there are globals being had on allos... my 2 pec worth

 

[Wayneh]

I'll add one observation...

Have u ever noticed this....?

When a mob becomes "aware" of you and charges, more often than not, they carry loot?

Seems to work for me lol. I wade into a herd of mobs and wait for attacks. Seems like the ones with loot are more aware of my presence lol...

Anyone else notice this?

I personally think that these loot theories will drive me crazy, so I am going to turn into MA's ideal customer.

Play and dont ask questions

 

[psychnosiz]

Loot is related to me and my luck - if I'm around, you can be sure as hell that you can find nothing serious in a 5mile radius as the creatures who DO carry loot are allergic to me and certainly won't be near.

 

[Kerham]

I will post my opinion after i will state several facts, which can be verified:

* exarosaurus dominants far northwest from Fort Troy loot incredible amount of pixie harnasses. also purple paint, which I rarely saw on exa.

* exa young around fort troy loot other pieces.

* snablesnots dominants and guardian south of uppernamed spot loot pixie faces/gloves, while those are almost impossible to find north of Caravan

* when, in the first several mobs (3-4) one yelds 5-6 peds, then is a big chance of globaling inside the same mob+spawn spot, or ar least getting profit

* when hunting in team, the loot (and I mean peds/pec) ARE ALWAY PERFECT divisable to the number of party components, if the money is set to equal

* certain "basic loots" can be oberved: 1,83 ped for argonauts, 2,3 peds for atroxes, 30 pec for snablesnots and so on.

My two (or more) pecs on this matter:

- loot is generated in the moment of "loot" action
- the specific avatar counts
- higher maturities loot better
- loot is area dependant (talking about items)

So, I would say there are two systems:

- peds: generated in the moment of looting, seems to be calculated on an equation formed by: "total in-game expanses on that mob" + "avatar skills" + "avatar luck" (I am sure that exists such parameter like avatar luck, perhaps dynamic). here would count also the "crap" items: hides/wool/iron for argo, etc

- items: also generated in the moment of loot, in what regards quality (tt value) and amount. Seems like is area-dependant and also luck dependant and, for sure IT IS mob dependant.

From all of the above, chances for better loot:

- higher skilled avatar
- higher maturity of mobs
- higher number of mobs killed
- of course, luck

As for the opinion that lesser the effort killing a mob, higher the loot, I can sustain that also, from my newbie encounters with atroxes. I NEVER looted ANYTHING from an atrox until I was able to constantly kill 10-20 of them in a row.

Also, I am sure there are special events, like looting angel or so, out of "average" distribution of loot, which are triggered by completely unknown factors (would be hilarous otherwise), but tho, meeting the above mentioned conditions would increase the chances for such special events.

All those seems to confirm everything that MindArk let out from time to time to the community regarding this matter.

Nevertheless, pray to Lootius, luck IS a factor.

Regards,

K

 

[DeusDeOnis]

I would think the simplest way for the loot to be determined, in programing terms, would be a random setup. X% for X item/ped on X mob based on maturity level. I have seen this in many other games, and programed it into a few myself, it seems to be the easiest way to randomize the looting. Then you could add in the other factors as well. The % goes up based on area or skills. Just a thought.

 

[SheilaWeber]

Heres a question for you all....

When you've fought off multiple mobs and you've got 2-3 dead mobs laying at your feet.... how do you loot?

Biggest one first? last? Anyone notice a difference or a pattern?

I've noticed that its rare to get 2 loots in a row... so, after I receive a loot, I look around for a smaller mob which won't expend alot of resources... Voila... no loot. Then I attack a bigger mob, hoping for loot.

Example: I wade into a herd of maffoids... one of em is a warrior, bunch of outcasts etc. I try to save the warrior till i get 1 or more "no loot" notifications in the hopes that the warrior will loot better.

If the theory that bigger mobs give bigger loots, this should work somewhat...

Don't think it does, but you gotta start somewhere lol...

Thoughts?

 

[Sharyn]

Loot has moods for me....yeah, moods....

I read your assumptions above. I must say that some of them did pass my mind too. But I think the answer is simpler than that:
You'll never know what you're going to get!

 

[Tigerman]

But

I would think the simplest way for the loot to be determined, in programing terms, would be a random setup. X% for X item/ped on X mob based on maturity level. I have seen this in many other games, and programed it into a few myself, it seems to be the easiest way to randomize the looting. Then you could add in the other factors as well. The % goes up based on area or skills. Just a thought.

BUT that is also the most stupid way of doing it dealing with real money.
You DONT want to make things very random when youre planning to make a profit, you want to have some kind of control of a few things, some being;
* The total ammount of money you pour out from one loot and from ALL the loots within a timeframe, in order not to pour out more than you get in.
* The number of a specific item that is dropped. You might have noticed the description of some items? "This weapon was produced in the lower hundreds" there was made a "500 item test batch" and so on. If theres X% chance of getting it, then youll suddenly dropp 1000 weapons of one that by its description and history only should exist a few 100 of..
* The market value of items. This is one thing that people often neglect, but if an item cost 500 or 5000 PED on the market DOES matter to MA. Simply because those 5000 PED someone buy this item with have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is someones creditcard. You might loot enough to pay 5000 PED for an item without depositing, but that means someone else have already deposited the 5000 PED you made..

So no.. Its a lot more complex than just some random x% chance for this oro that

 

[deo]

that makes it so it is still possable for a noob to get an imp fap from killing the llowest maturity of feffoid.. just not anywhere near as likely to happen. in that case that newb would be incredibly lucky. but if you hunt nothing but the highest maturity your more likely to get the imp fap.

Wich is why it pays to hunt the highest maturity that your able and that too is how skills and/or your bank account come in to play.

I just wanna know if feffs loot imp faps, thats all i wannna know, i dream about imp faps, so if they loot them, in about 2-4 weeks, there will be no more feffs, cause i am gonna get my ml-35, put in another 500 usd for ammo, and kill them all, or just the bigger ones.

so do they loot impfaps? or does anything anymore, please let me know, or pm me if its a big secret.

also, is there a better loot table other than zaps? i dont seem to loot anything for items except for the jag thighs off of that list

 

[thoreau]

There is always a little bit of lag for me when I loot a mob. I thought that the lab was due to the system determining the loot. If it was determined at the time of the spawn I don't think that the lag would exist.

 

[jcfuller]

I believe the loot is determined at spawn but not just a single loot per mob but multi. How many ???
Then when the mob is killed there is no calculation to perform just a random selection of the available loots for this particular mob.Balancing could go on in the background and loots adjusted accordingly; not when the mob is killed. They could be grouped by avatar's ability, weapon etc.

The lag is just normal lag in my opinion because many times the loot window pops up before my mob hits the ground if I right click fast enough.

James

 

[Vince Vaughn]

There is no loot pool. And the Globals/hofs occur in random order but are still mob/time/place specific. The way these are generated depend on the tides,Calypsos orientation to the rest of the universe and what color socks you are wearing.

what about if... gasp.. you wear no socks?

 

[Ulv]

I have to revise my statement from before.. I did have a lootlagging global today..

 

[Beki]

the only reason there is lag is because you never stop for a breath between mobs..........

 

[Ulv]

the only reason there is lag is because you never stop for a breath between mobs..........

And you are just 1 step behind

 

[Truman]

I've played PE off and on since early in the COT, and the theory I currently have on looting is as follows:

1. Loots are calculated on-the-fly at the moment the mob is destroyed.
-If loots were determined when mobs' spawned, the PE server for a given region would have to constantly update a massive database that contained entries for every mob in the region. That database would need to be updated everytime a mob is killed or spawned, and would be under an extremely heavy load 24/7. Of course, it's possible that MA keeps a massive database of every creature on a server, but that would be an extremely inefficient system.

2. Loots are calculated on some mixture of global and individual factors.
-For example, the amount of money curently in the loot pool is a global factor, the amount of damage inflicted by an avatar is an individual factor.
-Individual factors, like an avatar's current skill levels, ultimately determine how much money the avatar produces for MA in terms of repair costs when killing a mob. I have a hunch that the avatar's repair cost per mob killing is the biggest factor in loot calculation -- I seem to get lower loots, on average, from mobs now that I bumped up my dodge, evade, combat reflexes, etc, skills few thousand levels through chip implants.

3. Luck will always be a factor.



I could speculate all night on the ins-and-outs of looting... Ultimately, I think the biggest clue of how the loot system works is referenced in the game's name: Entropy.

 

[Slaytin]

i ahvent read the other posts but i have 2 globals with the same amount of ammo showing (different day) and it was the same amount of ammo i started with.. if any1 wants to see them i will be happy to post..

 

[Tigerman]

No need for databases

...
-If loots were determined when mobs' spawned, the PE server for a given region would have to constantly update a massive database that contained entries for every mob in the region. That database would need to be updated everytime a mob is killed or spawned, and would be under an extremely heavy load 24/7. Of course, it's possible that MA keeps a massive database of every creature on a server, but that would be an extremely inefficient system.
....

Wrong. They do not need to keep that information in a database and im quite sure they dont either (will elaborate later). Also, they HAVE to keep track of their creatures for many more reasons than the theoretical incident that its already carrying around loot.
If two people come into an area and this creature is moving, bot people need to see where its located and both have to see the same location. This is server -> client data and need to be kept track of anyways.
Therefore we can in example assume that creatures are objects created by the PE servers. All objects have certain values linked to them, so why not put a value like "int lootsize = 1;" in there? Its easy, question is if its beneficial.
Why im sure the creatures dont exist in a database? They are all respawned when the servers restart, which suggest to me its not saved to a file, which i.e. a database transaction would be.

 

[Truman]

Tigerman,

You're right about the server having to keep current information on a mob, such as location and health, I should have thought it through better before posting. There's no reason why MA couldn't just add a loot property to a mob object, but it would make the loot system overly simplistic because individual avatar stats would not be taken into account for the loot calculation.

But who knows? It could be that simple after all

 

[Envictus]

If the loots were already associated with living animals there would be useless calculations going on every time a mob died/spawned. As someone who has developed a few web applications I would say from a programming standpoint anything other than calculating loot at the time of "looting" could result in a needless waste of CPU cycles. Regulating the loot pool on a per creature basis regardless of whether or not it is looted would be kind of pointless. I can't see any advantage to doing it that way.

Its not simply a matter of storing a value its also a matter of calculating the loot based on the current value of the loot pool. (yes, I know that the loot pool concept is only a theory but its the best we have to go on.) If a programmer had to chose between doing those calculations every time an animal spawned/died or only when a creature is looted any programmer worth his salt would op for the later since it occurs less freqently. It would also give more control over the loots... like say someone at MA wants to give Envictus a massive global. Using predetermined loots it would be impossible to manipulate. (From one perspective that might be an advantage but from MAs perspective that is clearly a disadvantage.)

 

[Tigerman]

Now this is where the genious of the "int lootsize = 1;" line enter the picture

Now the reason why I used the "int lootsize = 1;" line instead of "int loot = modfap;" is simply because there wouldnt NEED to be very specific and complex calculations when the mob spawn or die..
The lootsize flag could be a basic size, which will be used to generate the actual loot based on when, where and by who the creature get killed...
if theres set a "medium" loot flag on a mob, this could for example mean that for me a medium loot would be 50 PED and for someone else only 10 PED...
Theres many ways that lead to Rome.. this is only one of many possibilities of how it COULD be done..

EDIT: If a mob dies btw, the calculation is very simple.. set loot to 0, done.

 

[Envictus]

I could be done that way, yes. I'm just saying any decent programmer would not do it that way.

What your saying makes it even more complicated becase the server has to calculate the size "range" value (if I understand what you mean), then at a later time calculate the actual loot value.

Why do it that way? I can't see any advantage to it.

EDIT: If a mob dies btw, the calculation is very simple.. set loot to 0, done.

That totally disregards the lootpool concept. IMO The loot has to go somewhere. MA could run into big problems if they don't regualate the availble loot correctly.

 

[ViagraFalls]

I could be done that way, yes. I'm just saying any decent programmer would not do it that way.

Have you played right after 7.6 came out?

Decent programmers would have bug-checked

 

[Tigerman]

Bugfree == Too slow

Have you played right after 7.6 came out?

Decent programmers would have bug-checked

There is a "rule" to programming..
"If your program is bugfree, you program too slow"
What it means is basically that the manhours needed to make a bugfree program would make the program too expencive to be sold at a profit..

 

[Tigerman]

Here goes...

I could be done that way, yes. I'm just saying any decent programmer would not do it that way.

What your saying makes it even more complicated becase the server has to calculate the size "range" value (if I understand what you mean), then at a later time calculate the actual loot value.

Why do it that way? I can't see any advantage to it.

EDIT: If a mob dies btw, the calculation is very simple.. set loot to 0, done.

That totally disregards the lootpool concept. IMO The loot has to go somewhere. MA could run into big problems if they don't regualate the availble loot correctly.

It wont make it more complicated at all, nor disregard the loot pool. When a mobs "size" is determined, it would be based on the current loot pool available and if the creature die of "natural causes" such as drowning (actually a mob dieing without being killed by a player could be considered to be the un-natural causes, but anyways) 1 loot of the size the mob that died carried will be returned to the pool.

You dont see a benefit? Ever tried mining? You tried bombing a location and NOT claim the deed but let someone else bomb the same location?
Theres the benefit for you.. Two systems based on the same way of distributing the "loots"

 

[Envictus]

Its like talking to a wall.