Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

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Grofus
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Grofus »

Is there an official GM explanation of this that we missed?
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EyeOfHorus - Today at 12:03 AM
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^ agreed
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Capitalist »

Yeah. They're called patch notes, Grofus :P
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Grofus
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Grofus »

Yes, oh master king of the shard, I read the patch notes, but there was no explanation as to what the reasoning behind it was:

This was all it stated:
•The formulas for calculating magic weapon, armor and jewelry bonuses on all loot drops have been rebalanced:
◦The chance to have multiple magic bonuses on the same weapon or armor has been lowered.
◦The chance to get invisibility, teleport or magic reflection jewelry or clothing has been slightly lowered.

Hence the reasoning for this thread. People are trying to understand the goal of the rebalance or the why?
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EyeOfHorus - Today at 12:03 AM
Grofus is the man tho
Vega - Today at 12:03 AM
^ agreed
we need about 5 more Grofy's on UOSA

:D

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

I haven't played much at all since the patch, but I have made some interesting observations.

I've found that mobs that used to (almost) never drop magic items are now dropping magic items with some frequency; overall, my feeling is that, in terms of quantity, all "mob-drops" have been increased; perhaps this is right across the board.

Now, I've not plucked a +25 katana of vanquishing off of a Daemon or Elder Gazer or whatever, but I have retrieved some "keepable" stuff.

If more "keepable" magic-items are now coming in from "outside the usual suspects sources", then there has to be some form of rebalance, or the shard would soon be swimming in even more highest-end gear.

I would be content to wait and see how these loot-table adjustments play-out over the long term.

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by shiloh »

Based on comments from this thread, it appears that certain mobs, t-maps / treasure chest loots may not have been affected by this downward multiplier adjustment or had as great of an adjustment. If this could be looked into and addressed, it would be helpful. Just trying to understand all the changes that occurred.
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Jester1 »

I had a thought.... If we're trying to de-clutter the shard, why don't we start with EASTER EGGS! LOL
I'm still seeing those things all over the woods as I hunt. That makes them over 6=months old now?

How about let us cash those things in :mrgreen:
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Grofus
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Grofus »

I have done my part on easter eggs and have cooked over 3k that fit into one nice neat stack.
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EyeOfHorus - Today at 12:03 AM
Grofus is the man tho
Vega - Today at 12:03 AM
^ agreed
we need about 5 more Grofy's on UOSA

:D

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Farenathir »

There’s been a lot of discussion in discord as of late regarding the loot table adjustments that were done back in July 2017.
(see the patch notes dated 7/4/2017: Patch 155 - July 4, 2017 - Combat changes, Loot rebalance)

A summary of the changes are as such:
The formulas for calculating magic weapon, armor and jewelry bonuses on all loot drops have been rebalanced:
• The chance to have multiple magic bonuses on the same weapon or armor has been lowered.
• The chance to get invisibility, teleport or magic reflection jewelry or clothing has been slightly lowered.
Although there are several threads created by players that have questions regarding the changes that were made, I've tried to summarize their points here. I'm hoping we can get the staff involved in the discussion and perhaps give the player base as a whole some insight into the reasoning behind changes that were made.

The points so far raised via the threads and discord are as follows:
    1. 1) It’s understood that the original numbers set by Derrick weren’t in association with with any known T2A loot numbers (because there are no T2A era loot numbers available!). What was the original reason the drop rates were set the way they were?
    • 2) The server went 10 years without an adjustment to the loot tables, why now?
    • 3) Are the distribution of weapon properties seen Here in line with the changes that were implemented (thank you Vega for correcting me by pointing out that aspade predominately got his items from tmaps)
    • 4) If a change was needed, were they perhaps a bit too dramatic - i.e. perhaps a reduction in the drop rates/rate of multiple modifiers was necessary but not to this extent. (Thank you Randale and Grofus for your comments!)
If we could please get a staff response to the above questions it would be greatly appreciated! Also if any other players have any other questions they feel would contribute in a positive way to the discussion, please post them here (I probably missed a bunch of valid points in creating my summary).
Last edited by Farenathir on Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Grofus »

At first I was for this as it would make Force and Power weapons worth more, but over time realized that the new drop rate was so low that you couldn't even replenish a fraction of what you would use to keep a vendor stocked or even for day to day use.

If we have no factual data as to what the drop rate was, then how are we coming up with this 1% per stat of what it is now? There has to be some sort of middle ground.

I think we have seen both extremes of loot drops, lets come up with a viable solution to make players and staff alike content with it.
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EyeOfHorus - Today at 12:03 AM
Grofus is the man tho
Vega - Today at 12:03 AM
^ agreed
we need about 5 more Grofy's on UOSA

:D

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Capitalist »

Actually spade made 2 threads about his loot tables
Denis the Menace wrote:Vega for me you are just exploiting the uosa system with your vanq charged spellreflect recall invis pink boobi pvp trammel style which never existed on osi, so stfu.
Jakob wrote:Regardless of douchebag, fair player or Vega.

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by randale »

Capitalist wrote:Actually spade made 2 threads about his loot tables
Check out my post in anarcho's thread announcing it about just how hard it is to get invis, spell reflect, and teleport items now, at least from dungeons chests. Slight?? Guess back before it you could only get 3-5 more items than I did, because a whole overnight of lockpicking chests got me almost none.

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Farenathir »

Thank you for the post Randale!

Any chance you have any specifics regarding the following: number of chests you did, tier of chest (lvl 3,4,5), whether they were dungeon or tmap, and preferrably the exact items you were getting from them?

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Soulbreak »

My opinion here.

Invis, Reflect, Armor is perfectly fine as it is right now. The drop rate seems fair I get them at a steady rate, however that rate is lower than before, but it is steady.

The change to weapons is terrible. Over 1000 weapons pulled, best I got was a +10 power. Mostly +5. The RNG on OSI was the weapon types per class. For example the +25 vanq butcher knife every tmapper eventually got.

It's either a Huge tactics bonus (got a +25 hally, no damage mod) OR a power or vanq. Getting one with both is easily 4 - 5x harder than getting a piece of reflect gear.

I think all this does is empower vets and hurt new comers, merchants, and PvE type players.
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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by randale »

Farenathir wrote:Thank you for the post Randale!

Any chance you have any specifics regarding the following: number of chests you did, tier of chest (lvl 3,4,5), whether they were dungeon or tmap, and preferrably the exact items you were getting from them?
Some of that is in my post I referred to here, at the end of the thread viewtopic.php?f=7&t=66701 I did all the dungeons chests listed at the Trinsic rune library (I made my own runebook of it) don't know the levels of each. the 2 deceit rooms, the lich lords and the one near the poison elemental. The 2 despise ones with the mages. The 2 shames- the ones on the island near the water elemental, the other near the mage "castle" near the poison elemental. Covetous with the dragons and drakes. The fire temple. Destard ancient wyrm room. Hythloth demon room and hell hound room, and the wrong ogre lord room, sometimes the yew crypts have chests, too. I opened ANY chest that was locked in those areas. I gathered 375 of each, wearables- shirts, skirts, jewelery, pants, and hats. I got one good invis jewelery piece with like 47 charges. 2 other invis jewelery pieces, one with like 6, one with like 9 charges, a teleport ring with 3 charges, out of ALL of those and about 6-8 hours of lockpicking those dungeon chests over and over.

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Re: Weapon Loot Drop Adjustment

Post by Anarcho »

1) It’s understood that the original numbers set by Derrick weren’t in association with with any known T2A loot numbers (because there are no T2A era loot numbers available!). What was the original reason the drop rates were set the way they were?
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2671
This is the patch in which the chances of multiple magic properties was raised. No reasoning is given in the patch notes nor code commit notes. My understanding is this was based on "feel" reports from players, as many changes were in 2008.
2) The server went 10 years without an adjustment to the loot tables, why now?
It had been on my mind for some time and was first brought to my attention by Kaivan a couple of years ago. I knew that the items already on the server would make the new rates seem far worse because those items weren't going anywhere anytime soon, so the plan was to introduce the changes alongside TUB in hopes that we could put a dent in some of these items.
3) Are the distribution of weapon properties seen Here in line with the changes that were implemented (thank you Vega for correcting me by pointing out that aspade predominately got his items from tmaps)
They are well within expected outcomes given the small sample sizes. I am confident the loot rates at the base level are working as I intended them to when I put them in.

I say base rates because the "chance" that they are factored against is on a per loot basis (monster, chest level).

4) If a change was needed, were they perhaps a bit too dramatic - i.e. perhaps a reduction in the drop rates/rate of multiple modifiers was necessary but not to this extent. (Thank you Randale and Grofus for your comments!)
This is certainly possible. This is an open issue.

I am extremely confident that we are far closer to era accurate drop rates than we were before - but it is possible that we are too low now, it needs more investigating to lend further confidence to the current rates or the future tweaks.

Here is some information from Kaivan that got me going on this issue:
Frankly speaking, have a lot of high end weapons and armor here on UOSA, and I'm concerned that the raw availability of these items has only casually been looked into. We know that on OSI servers, from several sources, that perfect weapons were quite rare. While the exact numbers aren't known for sure, the Prima guide claims that you had a 1% chance to get each of vanquishing, indestructible, and supremely accurate, producing a chance of 1 in a million to get such an item.

Here on UOSA, we have a lot more than 10 such perfect weapons (in a world of 10 million items), and while there are other factors that determine whether we should expect to see a perfect ratio or not, I doubt that our total number of weapons falls anywhere near what we should expect. In much the same way, the availability of high end armor, and other charged items (e.g. teleport rings) is also a likely issue.
We have the demo, but investigations have stalled in terms of determining exactly what the chance for an item to be produced was within the demo. The demo has a folder called classifier which contains different files that presumably contain tables for determining what the chance is for a specific magical item to appear. The most relevant file is the tables.cls file which contains the chance for each different type of effect to show up. According to that table, there is a 30 out of 119 chance for a weapon effect to be chosen (although the mechanism for determining what kind of magical item is created is not known).

The more relevant part of the table comes within the weapon effects table itself. According to the table listing, there is a 35/100 chance to obtain some sort of weapon skill increaser, and within that table, there is a 3/100 chance to obtain a supremely accurate mod, which makes the overall chance approximately 1.05% chance. Similar results exist for damage increasers (30/100 and 3/100 or 0.9%), durability increasers (25/100 and 3/100 or 0.75%), and other modifiers such as ghoul's touch (10% chance for any such effect).

The issue is that we don't have any solid confirmation that this is the way the chances are calculated, and right now it's based on the numbers contained within the files themselves, but the assumption of its behavior is reasonable given other areas that we've seen the mechanism employed.
This fell in line with many old usenet posts I saw regarding loot outcomes and the value of certain weapons and armor. I will try to find them again and compile a list.

To anyone else looking to contribute, I suspect these old posts will hold some of the most useful information regarding whether we are close to era rates or not. You can search them on https://groups.google.com/forum/ by including "ultima online" in your query.
Soulbreak wrote:I think all this does is empower vets and hurt new comers, merchants, and PvE type players.
These items aren't blessed :)

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