Curse

CE Devilman · Mar 23, 2008, 10:46 PM // 22:46

the way I see it:

U kill 1X in a sec ..Anet server ..ok..send data back...U got a drop.
U kill 20X in a sec ..Anet server ..ok ..got a lot of data...cut down to keep a good ping..U dont get drops

My Lipgloss is Cool · Mar 23, 2008, 10:52 PM // 22:52

That's possible, but it could also be something to nerf SS/55 profits a bit. With our access to the game, I don't believe there is any way to figure out WHY something happens; only WHAT happens and it's effects.

Murmel · Mar 23, 2008, 10:57 PM // 22:57

I think Lord Russano made it all preety clear. Kill all at the same time = less drops.
Kills 1 at a time (which I guess you did as you had SV and Necrosis..) more drops.
Right eh?

manitoba1073 · Mar 24, 2008, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Better huh. as Ive said its in the loot selection when you kill things is where it hangs. If the ToD bug wasnt there the selection of character hang-up then thered be no difference that is what is happening not that anet decided to reduce the drops on what skills u use.

which is why you recieve results like this

throw in that your farming an area for 8 people makes that selection to ur character even more likely not to happen.

Age · Mar 24, 2008, 01:29 AM // 01:29

That must be NM and is that you Ele?

manitoba1073 · Mar 24, 2008, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

That must be NM and is that you Ele?

yea Age thats my Nieces ele as my 3rd ele isnt there yet. lol

It doesnt matter the size of the groups. All that matters is they die at the same time. That is where you see the bug. It has always been in game,but you only saw it in full groups ie someone getting most of the drops when you nuked them in one shot.

Thats all there is to it. No more no Less.

Age · Mar 24, 2008, 02:11 AM // 02:11

I do remember that quite well in the early days playing my Monk in groups and having the least amount of drops.They weren't all the great as well some got better drops than others.There were times where I Monked a mission and never got one drop some gold yes.

Talarian · Mar 24, 2008, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

It doesnt matter the size of the groups. All that matters is they die at the same time. That is where you see the bug. It has always been in game,but you only saw it in full groups ie someone getting most of the drops when you nuked them in one shot.

Thats all there is to it. No more no Less.

I'm not saying you are wrong, as I didn't code the game so don't know how it works (although I would be horrendously surprised if the system was as weak as you suggest it is), but I find it strange that I have never experienced nor seen a screenshot of a situation where every mob dying at the same time led to as many drops as if killed 1 by 1. And by this I mean in cases of 10+ mobs.

What I have always believed is that the difference comes not from mob size but from AoE vs non-AoE damage. If all mobs die at the same time (give or take a few ms) then the system attributes the cause of death to AoE, and the drop chance is lowered. However, if the members of a group die 1 by 1, then the system attributes the death to spiking, or at least wearing a mob down, and the drop chance is raised.

My evidence supporting this comes from almost a year of farming with a Sliver Armour elementalist. I have noticed on several occasions that when the group is at its biggest, there is perhaps 1 drop every 3-5 kills. This is because there is so much damage dealt by SA that mobs die within half a second of each other, causing the system to assume they were killed by AoE. However, as the group thins out, the drop rate increases, as it takes longer to kill each member.

Either way, I think it can be safely assumed that if you want more drops, kill mobs individually

Winterclaw · Mar 24, 2008, 03:21 AM // 03:21

I get about as few drops either way so I'm not sure how much it really effects it. The best way to measure this is to take 7 other players and then have everyone observe while one player takes a lot of mobs down at once over a number of runs. That'd give us a better idea.

Xx_Sorin_xX · Mar 24, 2008, 04:18 AM // 04:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

Better huh. as Ive said its in the loot selection when you kill things is where it hangs. If the ToD bug wasnt there the selection of character hang-up then thered be no difference that is what is happening not that anet decided to reduce the drops on what skills u use.

which is why you recieve results like this

throw in that your farming an area for 8 people makes that selection to ur character even more likely not to happen.

few questions:
1) how did this back up your point?
2) what was the point in showing hours played?
3) why were you in that zone for an hour?

itsvictor · Mar 24, 2008, 04:20 AM // 04:20

Here's my theorycrafting:

I do believe it's time-related-to-mob related.

Now let's say you can kill a mob of 20 in 1 minute then rezone for another run, only getting 2 drops.

On the other hand you can also meticulously kill 1 monster at 30 seconds at a time getting a drop from each kill.

This way you are making the same amount of money despite killing faster in one than in the other. You may get less drops but you can rezone faster and continue that same farm, on the other hand you take more time to kill but get more drops. Therefore they're relative and you can do which ever and still make the same gold.

manitoba1073 · Mar 24, 2008, 05:42 AM // 05:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xx_Sorin_xX

few questions:
1) how did this back up your point?
2) what was the point in showing hours played?
3) why were you in that zone for an hour?

1.) I was showing the result everyone was seeing
2.) there was no point in the hour played it was for some testing when the picture was taken.
3.) cause i offered a few misguided people to show consistant proof waiting for them to show up and noone showed up that time was sitting waiting in nolani academy and not in the mission.

that help. That was taken roughly 6 months ago

Talarian it does matter where or what type of damage it is, its only from the timing of there deaths.
which is why it seems if you stagger there deaths that it seems like more drops, by not letting the loot selection system get hang-up.

Age cant remember if you remember the old FoW bug with how item selection was? This is a left over from when Anet tried to fix that. instead of redoing the code they patched it.

Talarian · Mar 24, 2008, 02:17 PM // 14:17

Just re-read your explanation manitoba, and I've got to say it really doesn't make any sense to me. We know that loot scaling already assigns normal drops to 7 invisible team mates. This happens no matter if you kill a million mobs at once or 1 at a time. What exactly are you trying to say? That if you were doing this with a full team, someone would actually get all the drops? Because I can't believe that. We already know that there is different AI for AoE damage, why not have a different loot system? That would make it fairer for classes that can't deal masses of AoE damage and so take longer to clear areas, but get the same overall loot.

Sorry but I honestly can't believe that a computer system based on millions of calculations per second would "hang for a sec" because you killed 20 smites at the same time. And as I said, where are the pictures of people doing so and receiving 20 items?

gw_poster · Mar 24, 2008, 03:41 PM // 15:41

vaettir farming in jaga moraine - 60 enemies in area every time...that is a good place to test your hypotheses..

As for me (600/smite <--dunk), when starting my first run..always 3 golds, second and subsequent runs never more than 1. Glacial stones? Always the same, the number never is noticeably less, I average about 6-10 per run. A couple of grape, lots of blue and butt-loads of white. I've no imperical data to back my claims, but seems to me the only thing that is ever affected when farming (i.e. killing all and rezoning) is the drop rate of golds..

Just my two cents.

Amazing Stroopwafel · Mar 24, 2008, 04:09 PM // 16:09

first of all I think that nolani accademy of manitoba is one of the worst places to test this becouse it's a 4-man area! so the difference will be much smaller.

To me it's clear that killing 1 a time increases the drops but takes longer so you won't get much more profit. Where do the drops go then? is asked above. 7 invisible team mates ofc, to test the less-drop-theory you whould make an 8 man team so loot-scaling is no longer in order and go out on the vaetir farm with 60 foes. the farming is done the normal way in which the ele kills all at once. if EVERY vaetir drops now, the theory is busted. if there are vaetir that don't drop it is proven that killing all at once does decrease the ammount of drops.

ofcourse another person can kill them 1 a time afterwards but this is not needed to prove the AoE kill < drop

PM ig anaytime to test

My Lipgloss is Cool · Mar 24, 2008, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

If the ToD bug wasnt there the selection of character hang-up then thered be no difference that is what is happening not that anet decided to reduce the drops on what skills u use.

Are you saying that drops lost because they are killed at the same time, not because they are killed by AoE skills?

If not, I'm not understanding you.

If so, this arguement isn't about what skills you use to kill them, but them dieing at the same time...in theory, the same thing would happen with 8 people killing 8 things at the same time.

MLiC

Fuzzy Taco · Mar 24, 2008, 06:58 PM // 18:58

here's my theory regarding the "kill all at once, server drops the data, get less drops" phenomenon:

one popular theory is that you get less merch crap (i.e. lootscaled stuff) if you kill all at once. i agree with that, and i HIGHLY disagree that this affects lootscaled items.

take, for example, the chocolate bunnies in Russano's pictures.

they're not lootscaled, but they stilll dropped in comparable numbers when they were killed all at once AND killed separately. that means that the server didn't drop the data, which helps to convince me that this kill all at once, get less drops effect only works on lootscaled stuff.

Heinrich Deathlord · Mar 24, 2008, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Taco

here's my theory regarding the "kill all at once, server drops the data, get less drops" phenomenon:

one popular theory is that you get less merch crap (i.e. lootscaled stuff) if you kill all at once. i agree with that, and i HIGHLY disagree that this affects lootscaled items.

take, for example, the chocolate bunnies in Russano's pictures.

they're not lootscaled, but they stilll dropped in comparable numbers when they were killed all at once AND killed separately. that means that the server didn't drop the data, which helps to convince me that this kill all at once, get less drops effect only works on lootscaled stuff.

I've noticed this as well during the weekend event. Farming Fastfoot and friends, I noticed that the bunnies/eggs were about the same any way, but sometimes, when the boss is misplaced and you have to put SS on another bug (two bunches dying at different times) I would get more extra trash.

manitoba1073 · Mar 25, 2008, 04:09 AM // 04:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Lipgloss is Cool

Are you saying that drops lost because they are killed at the same time, not because they are killed by AoE skills?

If not, I'm not understanding you.

If so, this arguement isn't about what skills you use to kill them, but them dieing at the same time...in theory, the same thing would happen with 8 people killing 8 things at the same time.

MLiC

Yes thats basically what it is. Its not that they are being lost though its just that with LS in that the code is not properly selecting who gets the drops when you kill them at once. It hangs or hiccups whatever you want to call it.
It does happen when 8 people do it to. Its what you see when 1 person in a group gets the majority of the drops when you kill them with AoE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talarian

Just re-read your explanation manitoba, and I've got to say it really doesn't make any sense to me. We know that loot scaling already assigns normal drops to 7 invisible team mates. This happens no matter if you kill a million mobs at once or 1 at a time. What exactly are you trying to say? That if you were doing this with a full team, someone would actually get all the drops? Because I can't believe that. We already know that there is different AI for AoE damage, why not have a different loot system? That would make it fairer for classes that can't deal masses of AoE damage and so take longer to clear areas, but get the same overall loot.

Sorry but I honestly can't believe that a computer system based on millions of calculations per second would "hang for a sec" because you killed 20 smites at the same time. And as I said, where are the pictures of people doing so and receiving 20 items?

It dont hang or hiccup that long. However you do see where some people will get a majority of the drops in a full group when you do AoE a big drop.
If you cant believe that a computer can hiccup or hang like that then you need more computer coding training. Im not being mean Im just saying that they do. That comes from all the patch work that Anet has done to the loot system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amazing Stroopwafel

first of all I think that nolani accademy of manitoba is one of the worst places to test this becouse it's a 4-man area! so the difference will be much smaller.

To me it's clear that killing 1 a time increases the drops but takes longer so you won't get much more profit. Where do the drops go then? is asked above. 7 invisible team mates ofc, to test the less-drop-theory you whould make an 8 man team so loot-scaling is no longer in order and go out on the vaetir farm with 60 foes. the farming is done the normal way in which the ele kills all at once. if EVERY vaetir drops now, the theory is busted. if there are vaetir that don't drop it is proven that killing all at once does decrease the ammount of drops.

ofcourse another person can kill them 1 a time afterwards but this is not needed to prove the AoE kill < drop

PM ig anaytime to test

Nolania Academy is actually one of the best areas to see it at work. You dont go to the casino with the worst odds to prove that all casinos are crooked. Just take 4 people to Nolania Academy and watch its that simple.

Antithesis · Mar 25, 2008, 05:08 AM // 05:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

If you cant believe that a computer can hiccup or hang like that then you need more computer coding training. Im not being mean Im just saying that they do. That comes from all the patch work that Anet has done to the loot system.

Dude, you are so full of crap...I'm certain software developers programming a game that sells 5 million units are advanced enough at their craft to not add sticky tape and chewing gum to their code. And for the record, yes, i am a software developer so I do have limited insight...you can't dismiss me with 'you need more computer coding training'.

I have little doubt the lootscale code is working exactly as intended - 15 enemies dying at once is going to make bugger all difference to your average CPU and GPU capable of millions of calculations per second...the computer is not going to 'hang' and it's not a 'bug'. You're engaged in pure speculation backed up by no evidence at all. Your statements are always made as fact when they are nothing more than theory. You don't know the inner workings of the code, none of us do. You're making guesses based on your own observations and that amounts to nothing more than just one more asshole's opinion.

We know little more than this - killing foes one by one 'may' increase chalk drops. It can also dramatically increase the time to complete a run, so drops over time needs to be factored in. There also 'appears' to be a decay in the quality of drops in a given location over time - you tend to get your best drops on the first few runs. Maybe we can link this to the buried treasures around Nightfall and 'assume' that you shouldn't farm that location more than once a month.

All of this is based on subjective experience and results vary from person to person - we can't document them as fact when none of it can be proven as true for all users and there is cold, hard, replicable evidence to dispute the AoE vs Single Foe theory. This thread is the closest thing we have to proof that drops are determined and delegated upon the instance spawn. There is no difference between blue, grape, gold and green drops. Some variance exists in cash and chalk. Therefore AoE vs single makes no difference at all UNLESS you want merch food.