Curse

Gli · Mar 28, 2008, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

Vanity items, are what keep people playing the game.

Right, that's what I thought. So what exactly is the problem? You keep playing the game, you get your vanity items.

DivineEnvoy · Mar 28, 2008, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

Instant Death Scaling. Kill lots of foes in small time, and get no drops. This happens in 1/8 and 8/8 teams. IMO.

Isn't that just an illusion people see with loot allocation? Aren't we talking about loot scaling here? Why are these arguments about loot allocation kept coming up?

Default Name · Mar 28, 2008, 08:23 AM // 08:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by DivineEnvoy

-rhetoric question-

Because some muppets (probably high on something too) are disillusioned into thinking LS is A-net's way of denying them opportunities to obtaining "e-peen bling".

mr_groovy · Mar 28, 2008, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by DivineEnvoy

Isn't that just an illusion people see with loot allocation? Aren't we talking about loot scaling here? Why are these arguments about loot allocation kept coming up?

IDS is a part of the LS system. Ever killed 4 groups of foes and only got 1 drop?
LS in effect you should get about: (16 foes / 8 = 2. Ls scales according to party size and has an exeem list. So it should be about 3 to 4 drops). That's IDS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Default Name

Because some muppets (probably high on something too) are disillusioned into thinking LS is A-net's way of denying them opportunities to obtaining "e-peen bling".

If you want to play with 1K and collectors armors that 's fine with me. Don't complain if people want to fit their chars with 15K armors.

Anyways this is way offtopic, if you should or shouldn't have elite armors. How long have you been playing this game anyways?

DivineEnvoy · Mar 28, 2008, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

IDS is a part of the LS system. Ever killed 4 groups of foes and only got 1 drop?
LS in effect you should get about: (16 foes / 8 = 2. Ls scales according to party size and has an exeem list. So it should be about 3 to 4 drops). That's IDS.

"With loot scaling, players receive an amount of normal drops (common and uncommon rarity items, collectable drops, gold, common crafting materials) proportionate to the size of their party as compared to a full party. For example, a solo farmer will on average get the same number of blue weapons as a player in an eight person party."

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Loot

Loots are scaled according to the size of the party of the players, not the size of the party of the foes you are facing. Now who misled you?

Default Name · Mar 28, 2008, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

-failed comeback-

You want 15k armor, which is "e-peen bling" then don't QQ like a little girl (boohoohoo LS stole my phat lootz) when it takes more effort. Mmmkay?

I shall be expecting my third minipets in 2 months.

mr_groovy · Mar 28, 2008, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by DivineEnvoy

"With loot scaling, players receive an amount of normal drops (common and uncommon rarity items, collectable drops, gold, common crafting materials) proportionate to the size of their party as compared to a full party. For example, a solo farmer will on average get the same number of blue weapons as a player in an eight person party."

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Loot

Loots are scaled according to the size of the party of the players, not the size of the party of the foes you are facing. Now who misled you?

Playing the game, and knowing through experiencing it that LS doesn't work how they say it should work. I'm fine with LS if the IDS would not exist.
IDS is not documented, but a proven fact. Kill 1 by 1 you get more drops then 1 vs many.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Default Name

You want 15k armor, which is "e-peen bling" then don't QQ like a little girl (boohoohoo LS stole my phat lootz) when it takes more effort. Mmmkay?

I shall be expecting my third minipets in 2 months.

I'm not complaining that LS is stealing my phat lootz + make more constructive post you are failing.

LS has put a limiter on what EVERYBODY can earn in the game. If RMT proves to work, why should we earn less, and spend more time acquiring things in the game? Sense it makes none.
LS can either be removed, or be re evaluated and be in the game in a diminished form.

DivineEnvoy · Mar 28, 2008, 09:13 AM // 09:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

Playing the game, and knowing through experiencing it that LS doesn't work how they say it should work. I'm fine with LS if the IDS would not exist.
IDS is not documented, but a proven fact. Kill 1 by 1 you get more drops then 1 vs many.

So how was this so-called fact proved to be true, or even to exist for that matter?

tmakinen · Mar 28, 2008, 09:14 AM // 09:14

There is still a lot of confusion about how LS actually works, so here's a rough description of the mechanism:

Every monster has one or more associated pieces of loot that may or may not drop when the monster is killed. If an item is on the LS exempt list, it will always drop. If it isn't there's a random chance of it getting withheld instead of dropping. The probability of that happening is the waste percentage. If the waste percentage of your team is 50% half of your potential LS relevant drops will never materialize.

However, there is an additional factor in play since the waste percentage is not fixed. It has a self-adjusting control mechanism that is designed to make sure that your rate of income (i.e., gold per hour) doesn't exceed a certain limit. The way that feedback loop works is the following: when a drop is pending, the program calculates the ratio between the monetary value of the previous drop that was granted and the time that has elapsed since then, and compares that to certain reference values which are determined by the number of party members and the maximal party size. If the ratio is below the lower threshold, you are earning too little and your waste percentage will be decreased by a fixed fraction. If the ratio is above the upper threshold, you are earning too much, and the waste percentage is increased by a fixed fraction. After the waste percentage has been modified, the program then throws a dice to see whether you get that drop or not. If it passes LS and gets assigned, its monetary value and assignment time are written down for the next call of the algorithm.

How does this then affect the actual game? If you kill several monsters at the same time with some AoE spell, the drops are not processed in parallel but sequentially. For the first drop the reference drop has happened some time before and everything works as described. If the drop passes LS something nasty happens. Its value and drop time become the reference values when the next drop in the queue is processed. Now, however, the effective time elapsed since the last drop is zero, and when you divide any finite value by zero you get infinite (in reality, there is a safeguard in the code to give a finite but big number instead to avoid an exception). Since the result is always above the upper threshold, waste is adjusted one notch up. This then happens with every subsequent drop until waste hits a hard cap of 100% and all the rest drops of that mob will be withheld. In practice 3 drops seem to get through regardless of mob size. This is known as the IDS bug but it isn't an actual bug, just a consequence of the way LS is implemented.

There is another little known effect caused by this method of self-adjustment. Since the algorithm needs to know the value and drop time of the previously assigned drop, it must initialize these variables at the creation of the instance. Thus, there is a 'dummy drop' recorded when you enter an explorable. Now, since the waste percentage is modified according to your rate of earning and this dummy value gives you a fake earning rate, your waste percentage will be very high just after entering an explorable, and get progressively better as time passes and you're not earning over the limit. A monster killed about 20 seconds after entering an explorable has a nearly zero probability of dropping LS affected loot but if you wait 2 minutes before killing the first monster the chance of a drop goes up to almost 100% (I actually have data to back this up).

This description is necessarily very simplified but should give you a basic idea of what is happening to your loot and why.

Default Name · Mar 28, 2008, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

-more groovy phailz-

LS is not limiting anything from me or anyone like me who don't solo farm. I am not earning less and it isn't me alone.

And, RMT only addressed one of the agenda of LS.

So, speak for yourself.

Edit: On second thought that was a tad harsh.

Kashrlyyk · Mar 28, 2008, 09:23 AM // 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

..
Instant Death Scaling. Kill lots of foes in small time, and get no drops. This happens in 1/8 and 8/8 teams. IMO.

I thought that was named RoK-Bug (Rate of Killing) ?

tmakinen · Mar 28, 2008, 09:30 AM // 09:30

See a couple of posts up for an explanation for why IDS/RoK happens.

But quite frankly, I'm responsible for a large percentage of actual analysis of the issue in this thread but it gets inundated with a flood of flames from people who don't even read what other people are saying because it's so much more fun to troll. Welcome to teh intarwebz, eh?

I think that I'm done with this thread, especially as it doesn't affect my game play either way.

Default Name · Mar 28, 2008, 09:31 AM // 09:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

-RoK-

That's what they call it over at GWO I believe.

mr_groovy · Mar 28, 2008, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

See a couple of posts up for an explanation for why IDS/RoK happens.

But quite frankly, I'm responsible for a large percentage of actual analysis of the issue in this thread but it gets inundated with a flood of flames from people who don't even read what other people are saying because it's so much more fun to troll. Welcome to teh intarwebz, eh?

I think that I'm done with this thread, especially as it doesn't affect my game play either way.

I concur, and you make valid points to the cause. But flaming for people in riverside seems more rule then exception

Angelic Upstart · Mar 28, 2008, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

I'll be sure to remember that you are, simply put, someone who has nothing of value to say about anything. Welcome to the ignore list. I enjoy learning about metagames, not dealing with asshats who think they are onto something special regarding a game mechanic that's more than a decade old simply by the happenstance that they started GW before me.

What little credibility you may have had, just ended when you had to resort to insults and name calling, basically you are shouting your mouth off on a subject that you, by your own admission, have had no actual experience.

Your myopic stance on this and your general childish attitude, beggar belief, LOL.
I am done here.

strcpy · Mar 28, 2008, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by DivineEnvoy

So how was this so-called fact proved to be true, or even to exist for that matter?

I'm too lazy to look it up nor do I recall if it was here, the wiki, or someplace else there has been a fairly large amount of samples taken (and, while not perfect, done fairly well and was a large enough sample to be significant) that show such. Also it works nearly 100% for anyone testing it.

That being said, read http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10225077 which pretty much says the above is bunk. There is enough independent conformation from people who would be trusted that this is also true.

As of right now we have quite a bit of evidence saying *both* are true and the reality is that both can not be true. While I used to be fairly heavy on the side of kill rates and strongly believed that loot scaling limited you to a specific gold/per hour I no longer think so. I think it is more complex than that as that is the only way both sides can be true. As such I can't give much of a guess.

Were I to be forced, I would guess that tables are set at the instance creation and then drops are pulled from said list as you kill. That would allow drops to be the same in those instances yet have the kill rate data be true. The other option is that we were *really* unlucky (or some bias we have not noticed) is in the kill rate samples. However I would put anything outside of what Anet tells us at a very low likelihood of being mostly accurate including what I've wrote.

Drop rates are interesting and many arguing do not have the background to comment. There is A LOT of ideas that are not supported by the data given and are fully covered by random (and there is a large amount of incorrect ideas about how computer generated random like numbers function). That's not to say they are incorrect either - just that they are inconclusive. As of right now we have decent evidence that kill rate affects drops and that drops are set at an instance creation.

CHannum · Mar 28, 2008, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angelic Upstart

What little credibility you may have had, just ended when you had to resort to insults and name calling, basically you are shouting your mouth off on a subject that you, by your own admission, have had no actual experience.

Actually, no, I claimed more than a decade of experience playing in games involving player based economies with loot scaling in effect. How exactly is GW magically exempt from the same contextual factors that have made it both a necessity and a boon in every other single game that has implemented it? You discount my take out of hand (if I didn't play GW without it then the fact that I'm doing fine with it, heck, according to reetkeever I'm positively rich under it, means I'm not capable of giving an informed opinion) and you call me childish?

The fact is that whether you ever played GW without it has very little bearing on your ability to give an informed opinion on it because it is not special to GW, it's just a common game mechanic. Further, given the subjectivity of the human mind to remember the hits and forget the misses, I call into question the inherent bias of testimonies of pre-LS awesomeness given the existence of hard caps like the AFC.

hallomik · Mar 28, 2008, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

There is still a lot of confusion about how LS actually works, so here's a rough description of the mechanism:

Every monster has one or more associated pieces of loot that may or may not drop when the monster is killed. If an item is on the LS exempt list, it will always drop. If it isn't there's a random chance of it getting withheld instead of dropping. The probability of that happening is the waste percentage. If the waste percentage of your team is 50% half of your potential LS relevant drops will never materialize.

However, there is an additional factor in play since the waste percentage is not fixed. It has a self-adjusting control mechanism that is designed to make sure that your rate of income (i.e., gold per hour) doesn't exceed a certain limit. The way that feedback loop works is the following: when a drop is pending, the program calculates the ratio between the monetary value of the previous drop that was granted and the time that has elapsed since then, and compares that to certain reference values which are determined by the number of party members and the maximal party size. If the ratio is below the lower threshold, you are earning too little and your waste percentage will be decreased by a fixed fraction. If the ratio is above the upper threshold, you are earning too much, and the waste percentage is increased by a fixed fraction. After the waste percentage has been modified, the program then throws a dice to see whether you get that drop or not. If it passes LS and gets assigned, its monetary value and assignment time are written down for the next call of the algorithm.

How does this then affect the actual game? If you kill several monsters at the same time with some AoE spell, the drops are not processed in parallel but sequentially. For the first drop the reference drop has happened some time before and everything works as described. If the drop passes LS something nasty happens. Its value and drop time become the reference values when the next drop in the queue is processed. Now, however, the effective time elapsed since the last drop is zero, and when you divide any finite value by zero you get infinite (in reality, there is a safeguard in the code to give a finite but big number instead to avoid an exception). Since the result is always above the upper threshold, waste is adjusted one notch up. This then happens with every subsequent drop until waste hits a hard cap of 100% and all the rest drops of that mob will be withheld. In practice 3 drops seem to get through regardless of mob size. This is known as the IDS bug but it isn't an actual bug, just a consequence of the way LS is implemented.

There is another little known effect caused by this method of self-adjustment. Since the algorithm needs to know the value and drop time of the previously assigned drop, it must initialize these variables at the creation of the instance. Thus, there is a 'dummy drop' recorded when you enter an explorable. Now, since the waste percentage is modified according to your rate of earning and this dummy value gives you a fake earning rate, your waste percentage will be very high just after entering an explorable, and get progressively better as time passes and you're not earning over the limit. A monster killed about 20 seconds after entering an explorable has a nearly zero probability of dropping LS affected loot but if you wait 2 minutes before killing the first monster the chance of a drop goes up to almost 100% (I actually have data to back this up).

This description is necessarily very simplified but should give you a basic idea of what is happening to your loot and why.

I have to admit this sounds very plausible - unlike many, many other theories I have read.

If you have already made a thread with your findings, could you link to it? If you haven't done so, could you start a new thread in Riverside or the Farming subform with the details?

One concern I have is that your explanation is very specific. This implies either a great amount of careful data collection, insider information, or a habit of stating informed conjecture as fact. To help us judge your claims, some greater detail (or an admission it is conjecture) would help.

I have often thought there might be something like this going on. After all, it is pretty much the exact same logic Anet uses to control how frequently soul reaping triggers. You only get so many triggers of soul reaping over a particular amount of time regardless of how many bodies fall. It is easy to imagine a variation on that theme for loot drops that uses adjusted probabilities instead of fixed triggers.

However, I should also state that I'm not convinced this exists at all. I have personally never seen anything occur so regularly it couldn't be explained by normal variation. I ran the math on the expected distribution of drops in the raptor cave, and no matter how fast I killed, I got results consistent with what the formula predicted.

That said, I am open to be convinced, and you seem to know your stuff. Let's see some data.

Gun Pierson · Mar 28, 2008, 11:32 AM // 11:32

I checked a lot of the posts and the people who wanne keep LS say 'it's fine' most of the time. Shouldn't it be 'LS is the best or I'm having a blast with LS'? No it's fine lol.

I've read the quote from one of the devs some 20 pages ago or so and I understand LS better now. I'm leaning a bit more to 'keep LS' because of that, but I can't say I'm excited about LS myself either, it's indeed fine and nothing more.

About the poll: I don't think most people know how LS exactly works so I'm not surprised the majority wants it removed because the fun factor is the main concern. It's also the reason LS is just fine. It will never be super fantastic, because there was or is a price to pay when it comes to fun.

Cake is indeed delicious, like it too and I know it's to represent the players who don't care, so they have something funny to vote on. Yet it would be more interesting if people had to vote on just the first three possibilities in the poll, because now their cake vote represents nothing that matters. It's troll food.

Dark Kal · Mar 28, 2008, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

There is still a lot of confusion about how LS actually works, so here's a rough description of the mechanism:

Every monster has one or more associated pieces of loot that may or may not drop when the monster is killed. If an item is on the LS exempt list, it will always drop. If it isn't there's a random chance of it getting withheld instead of dropping. The probability of that happening is the waste percentage. If the waste percentage of your team is 50% half of your potential LS relevant drops will never materialize.

However, there is an additional factor in play since the waste percentage is not fixed. It has a self-adjusting control mechanism that is designed to make sure that your rate of income (i.e., gold per hour) doesn't exceed a certain limit. The way that feedback loop works is the following: when a drop is pending, the program calculates the ratio between the monetary value of the previous drop that was granted and the time that has elapsed since then, and compares that to certain reference values which are determined by the number of party members and the maximal party size. If the ratio is below the lower threshold, you are earning too little and your waste percentage will be decreased by a fixed fraction. If the ratio is above the upper threshold, you are earning too much, and the waste percentage is increased by a fixed fraction. After the waste percentage has been modified, the program then throws a dice to see whether you get that drop or not. If it passes LS and gets assigned, its monetary value and assignment time are written down for the next call of the algorithm.

How does this then affect the actual game? If you kill several monsters at the same time with some AoE spell, the drops are not processed in parallel but sequentially. For the first drop the reference drop has happened some time before and everything works as described. If the drop passes LS something nasty happens. Its value and drop time become the reference values when the next drop in the queue is processed. Now, however, the effective time elapsed since the last drop is zero, and when you divide any finite value by zero you get infinite (in reality, there is a safeguard in the code to give a finite but big number instead to avoid an exception). Since the result is always above the upper threshold, waste is adjusted one notch up. This then happens with every subsequent drop until waste hits a hard cap of 100% and all the rest drops of that mob will be withheld. In practice 3 drops seem to get through regardless of mob size. This is known as the IDS bug but it isn't an actual bug, just a consequence of the way LS is implemented.

There is another little known effect caused by this method of self-adjustment. Since the algorithm needs to know the value and drop time of the previously assigned drop, it must initialize these variables at the creation of the instance. Thus, there is a 'dummy drop' recorded when you enter an explorable. Now, since the waste percentage is modified according to your rate of earning and this dummy value gives you a fake earning rate, your waste percentage will be very high just after entering an explorable, and get progressively better as time passes and you're not earning over the limit. A monster killed about 20 seconds after entering an explorable has a nearly zero probability of dropping LS affected loot but if you wait 2 minutes before killing the first monster the chance of a drop goes up to almost 100% (I actually have data to back this up).

This description is necessarily very simplified but should give you a basic idea of what is happening to your loot and why.

What a load of BS. This "theory", atleast in part, does not concur with my empiric results. If I get bad drops I continue to recieve bad drops for the entire session (as long as I stay in the map/mission), there's no magical algorithm that gives me better drops or vice versa. It's a nice theory but it simply does not concur with empiric results nor does it have any solid evidence (i.e. data) to support it.