Loot Mechanics?

[Slayer]

I need some serious help and someone here might know. I have a couple questions and every time i think i have it nailed down i seem to get it wrong so now im asking.

1. Are the loot tables for a chest the same when soloing as when in a group?

I was soloing STK on elite to get the featherfall ring and ransacked it 4 times with 6 different toons, thats 240 chests with no ring. (have KY cause now my butt is sore) thanks alot DDO. ran it once with a new toon and in a group and got it first time thru.

2. Do "NAMED" items only drop if you're a certain level?

The "Sunblade" is a good example. I NEVER repeat NEVER NEVER NEVER can get one with my level 16 toons but on very rare occassions i can find one if i run a level 6 or 7 toon.

3. I was told a VERY long time ago that there is a hidden luck modifier attached to your account when you create it, but didn't pay it any mind as i thought it was BS. but it seems that some people get consistant pulls where others have none. and its ALWAYS the same people.

(example) the entire time ive played this game ive gotten a TOTAL of 4 (+1) tomes (and ive played since BETA with only a short 4 month pause), yet a friend of mine pulled 3 in one single mission (granted he was really lucky, but really he does this **** ALL the time)

I'm really hoping someone out there can shed some light on this cause if i can't nail this down soon i'll need to find something else to play. I think the "ulcer" its caused is a girl and im going to name it sue.

[itsmezed72]

I feel your pain! I just have the worst luck with chest pulls. Like this one time, warded Reaver chest, I get +5 healer kits, 5 shield of faith pots, and some forgettable level 10 hide armor (does ANYONE wear hide armor???) End rewards, on the other hand, I've done fairly well with; I've gotten my only +5 mithral chain shirt and +5 mithral full plate (in 2+ years, might I add - so how lucky is it REALLY?) off reward lists, as well as the vast majority of my 'epics'.

I'm hoping it's just a small(er) sample size, and I'm not 'teh lewt uber gimp', as the kiddies might say

[Aesop]

I need some serious help and someone here might know. I have a couple questions and every time i think i have it nailed down i seem to get it wrong so now im asking.

1. Are the loot tables for a chest the same when soloing as when in a group?

I was soloing STK on elite to get the featherfall ring and ransacked it 4 times with 6 different toons, thats 240 chests with no ring. (have KY cause now my butt is sore) thanks alot DDO. ran it once with a new toon and in a group and got it first time thru.


Yep same way and all that... just to make you feel better across multiple servers and a number of rerolls I've only ever pulled 1 Ring of Feathers


2. Do "NAMED" items only drop if you're a certain level?

The "Sunblade" is a good example. I NEVER repeat NEVER NEVER NEVER can get one with my level 16 toons but on very rare occassions i can find one if i run a level 6 or 7 toon.


OK just to make you feel better I've NEVER pulled a sunblade on any character ever ever ever. Hell I've never pulled a Vorpal or a set of +5 Mithril Full Plate... I've pulled +5 Mithril Half Plate... wonder how useful that is? About as useful as slamming your head into a table... btw I did that when I pulled the Half Plate



3. I was told a VERY long time ago that there is a hidden luck modifier attached to your account when you create it, but didn't pay it any mind as i thought it was BS. but it seems that some people get consistant pulls where others have none. and its ALWAYS the same people.

(example) the entire time ive played this game ive gotten a TOTAL of 4 (+1) tomes (and ive played since BETA with only a short 4 month pause), yet a friend of mine pulled 3 in one single mission (granted he was really lucky, but really he does this **** ALL the time)

I'm really hoping someone out there can shed some light on this cause if i can't nail this down soon i'll need to find something else to play. I think the "ulcer" its caused is a girl and im going to name it sue.

Well I got ya beat on Tomes... I've pulled now 5 +1s and 1 +2 ... oh and yeah I've been here since December '05 playing Beta if that helps. If there is a Luck Modifier attached to our accounts it must be a negative modifier. Anyway I dunno much else helpful on this subject. I just play and hope someone else in my group pulls something nice in place of my lousy loot

Aesop

[Lifespawn]

heres 1 for you i've done probably 1000 raids over all my chars since beta never seen a +2 tome for myself in any of the chests
never need a +3 tome for myself either including 9 different 20th completions on reaver 4 of them on a single char.

Conversley i have a guildy who's not even capped bard has +3 tomes on every single stat except int their other chars all have atleast 1 +3 tome in them and atleast 3 of them with 2 or more.

I play every single day and raid quite often run the top elite content all the time and i Always seem to get crappy loot while these same select people pull uberness over and over again.

I have also never pulled a sunblade or a planar gird ransacked for the gird i can't even count how many times.

Blah blah blah it's just a conspiracy theory some will say but SOMETHING is wrong luck is just that luck all the time **** loot pulls or all the time uber loot pulls is not luck there is some hidden modifier that flags accounts good luck finding it or having turbine admit to it.

[Zaius]

I don't believe any level is taken into effect, but I could be wrong. For all we know, dip may still have a .0001% effect on chests that the devs have been hiding from us. That said I've also played since beta (with a nice yearlong break) and hardly pulled anything noteworthy, but within the past couple months I've pulled 10 +1 tomes, smiting and banishing rapiers, wounding/puncturing bow, +6 stat items of every type, 6 vorpals.. but have still never pulled a +5 mithral anything, bloodstone (ransacked countless times) or a ring of feathers (also hit the chest tons of times). It's all just up to the loot gods

[Slayer]

well at least now i can see a trend and im not the only one out there. if 5 reply's so far make up a trend,,, but i have seen it so many times over the years where certain people pull good loot all the time and certain people pull **** ALL the time. I'm really begining to believe its just not all that random. I know we will never get a straight answer from ANYONE who really knows for sure but maybe we could get a poll going and see what the trend is ourselves,, cause even though i love playing the game(though its feeling more like work then fun) if it is something going on in the background i want to stop beating my head against the wall and go play something else.

Just a side note *, has anyone else had loot trends? example , i'll log in one day and 90% of my loot will be say robes, next day shields , next day weapons. just thought it was odd and wondered if anyone else is having that too.

[Hvymetal]

It's random man, grouping or soloing does not matter. I feel your pain.

+1 Tomes I can pull, only +2's I've ever gotten are 1750 favor tomes. Never ever pulled a sunblade and I reroll a lot. Pulled a Dwarven Thrower once +5 Mith FP once, only named item I ever seem to have luck with is Mace Of Smiting (pulled three total), Planar Gird (I've probablly pulled 5 across 2 servers), and Karadin's Eye I got on my 1st run through the Beholder room in PoP, other than those though I can never seem to pull named loot.

Been here since headstart and some people have all the luck, some are lucky at pulling certain items and some can't pull anything to save their life......

[Slayer]

It's random man, grouping or soloing does not matter. I feel your pain.
Been here since headstart and some people have all the luck, some are lucky at pulling certain items and some can't pull anything to save their life......

That's EXACTLY what im talking about though, the same people having really outstanding luck or no luck at all. and it not just being an un-lucky streak its consistantly so.

i'm suggesting it's tied to player account because on my main account(which i've had since headstart)my luck or un-luck has been standard meaning no real ups or downs,so it wouldn't have anything to do with server or what character you have, though i tend to loot more fighter gear with my sorc and more caster gear with my fighter DUH!!!

but i have created temp trial accounts (before we had the bank and mailboxes) so i could do item transfers w/o some stranger running off with my loot. and a couple of them DID tend to do MUCH MUCH better at looting.

They(DDO) tell you its random, so you believe its random? my mom always says if it looks like a duck,,, and walks like a duck you can sure as **** make a fair guess thats its a DUCK!!! all im saying is that after playing this long it sure as hell don't seem very random.

[xanvar]

I feel your pain but I believe it is random. Thats one of the great things about random tables each time you open a chest you have the same percentage of pulling an item. So if you open the chest 100 times then you have the same 1% chance each time you open it fo example. I think the more you loot a chest the worse your chance is of getting something good, at least I vaguely remember reading that at one point. It does appear that some people have great luck and others do not but thats the way it will always work on a random basis. Some people win the lottery alot of people don't.

[Thame]

It's random man, grouping or soloing does not matter. I feel your pain.

+1 Tomes I can pull, only +2's I've ever gotten are 1750 favor tomes. Never ever pulled a sunblade and I reroll a lot. Pulled a Dwarven Thrower once +5 Mith FP once, only named item I ever seem to have luck with is Mace Of Smiting (pulled three total), Planar Gird (I've probablly pulled 5 across 2 servers), and Karadin's Eye I got on my 1st run through the Beholder room in PoP, other than those though I can never seem to pull named loot.

Been here since headstart and some people have all the luck, some are lucky at pulling certain items and some can't pull anything to save their life......

There is no such thing as random when it comes to programming/coding. I see how maybe 5-6 people on my server ALWAYS pull the named/ best items in game and tons of raid loot while people like me I have mixed luck. I play certain toons because they pull tons of good-great items, but some of my characters pull nothing. My newest build has run 17 raids and has yet to pull any raid loot. Im about ready to delete him becuase ill never pull anything good with him.

Something happens when a toon is created he is placed in a certain 'spot' on a loot table which decides what loot levels he will pull. You cant possibly say its random when you know someone that pulls tons of w/p items each month. So give up the random idea

[Blood]

Loot distribution is on a bell curve. There are going to be be people who exist on the extremes. Its the same in all MMO's as far as I know. I quit DDO the first year it came out due primarily to this exact reason - but I'm back because its the best MMO.

Feel assured that each and every time you open a chest, you have the same odds as the guy sitting next to you. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK. Eventually if you give it time, you will get a streak (or several streaks) of good pulls that will even things out. At least the odds are in your favor. If you leave for another mmo, you wont have the chance.

There is no hidden luck factor tied to each account. What possible reason would the dev's have for doing this? Its not logical.

[Slayer]

I think the more you loot a chest the worse your chance is of getting something good, at least I vaguely remember reading that at one point. It does appear that some people have great luck and others do not but thats the way it will always work on a random basis. Some people win the lottery alot of people don't.

it's true that a "chest" has a level rating, and every time you open it it goes down a level till you are finally "ransack" once it's reset that goes away. that being known and not an issue the HIGHEST chance of getting something good is every seven days. at least thats how i understand how the ransack timer works. (when you open a chest the first time it will reset to the same level after seven days. can someone verify this for me. i'm pretty sure its how it works.

the mechanic of random number generators was a disscussion we had WAY WAY back in BETA when you could use diplomacy on a chest to make it effectively a higher level chest,, still works on NPC's btw for end rewards so i'm told. but do you remember some early copy protection source code from the eighties where when you type in your registration info it would spit out your access code? not very random if you know how it worked. thats why pirating was so easy back then,,, not that i know ANYTHING about that.

what my "GUESS" is and its only a guess but was debated at great length in the beta forums was that your account gets a random number when you create it and each day you log in you get another random number that gets added to it, and its those numbers that get pumped into the formula for "randomness".

but its not really an issue if a chest is random or not, i''m just looking to get a concencus to see if others have noticed the same things.(really all i need is a hug) just cause the last couple days have really been kicking my ass and i've been asking myself if all this self abuse is worth it. kinda like one of those fanatic baseball fans who always cheers for the same LOOSING team.

[Arianrhod]

Closest thing I've ever heard of to the "lucky/unlucky loot flag" alluded to was the "wi-flag", a (semi-?) legendary thing from AC1. There was a thread a long time ago from someone who described it in detail, I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it already. From what I can recall, though, getting anything decent ever should be taken as positive evidence your account isn't "wi-flagged", you're just having an unlucky streak (perhaps a very long one...)

BTW, in case of paranoia - the "wi-flag" wasn't manually applied, just some glitch that was near-impossible to track down.

[Joseph]

Aye - I was playing AC1 back in those days - and the Wi-Flag was in fact a legitimate thing - but my reason for responding to this post is...

In AC1 you had to use candles (tapers) for your spells. Each account code (literally, the account code) was a unique numeric value that dictated what order you had to put the tapers in to get higher level spells off (spell incredients were different for each player). Someone (I forget who now) made a program that allowed you to quickly (minutes or hours as opposed to hours or days) figure out what tapers were needed for spells. I have ALWAYS wondered if the same was true in DDO for loot, who gets attacked first, etc. In my case, guaranteed, no matter who or what I am playing, it seems like I am almost always the random aggro magnet.

Stil, I feel your pain - I also have a tower of masterwork armor if anyone knows a good recycling plant.

[Lifespawn]

Loot distribution is on a bell curve. There are going to be be people who exist on the extremes. Its the same in all MMO's as far as I know. I quit DDO the first year it came out due primarily to this exact reason - but I'm back because its the best MMO.

Feel assured that each and every time you open a chest, you have the same odds as the guy sitting next to you. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK. Eventually if you give it time, you will get a streak (or several streaks) of good pulls that will even things out. At least the odds are in your favor. If you leave for another mmo, you wont have the chance.

There is no hidden luck factor tied to each account. What possible reason would the dev's have for doing this? Its not logical.

i don't think the devs did it on purpose

i'm not just whining here i can seriously play any of my chars with any of this guildies chars put down 1000 dollars that if we loot 10 chests they will pull WAY better stuff than i do consistently.

even when i pull better theirs will be with +3 search added mine will be +5 search lol the IS something that makes some people lucky.

We don't have the same chance every time we loot a chest i think it's something like the coding 1d6 is actually 1d4+2 some people have that + whatever tied to their account if we all have 1% chance to loot it'd eventually equal out you saying that i don't have a large enough sample of 2+ years playing to come to my conclusion?

[crock]

i've noticed 2 "trends"

if i am leveling, and it is the first time this toon has seen the chest - that is when i pull the best stuff, rerun the quest later (higher difficulty or at a higher level) - nada

types of loot:
i.e. wizard will pull the "uber" greataxe or WF will pull the "uber" armor

i feel this is by design, either to encourage trading / server commradrie (sp?) or to entice the player to roll a new toon (keep people coming back - renewed subscriptions)

just my 2cp

[Missing_Minds]

1. Are the loot tables for a chest the same when soloing as when in a group?

Yes, the loot tables are the exact same.

2. Do "NAMED" items only drop if you're a certain level?

Negative. You must be in a quest of an appropriate level. AND they can end up in your end rewards list. That is how I got a the Flaming Tounge once. Now, will they show up in a quest beyond the appropriate level? That I can't say, but right now my guess is they won't.

3. I was told a VERY long time ago that there is a hidden luck modifier attached to your account when you create it, but didn't pay it any mind as i thought it was BS. but it seems that some people get consistant pulls where others have none. and its ALWAYS the same people.

I believe that developers have laughed, and I mean laughed a LOT at us players with all of the rumors we come up with in relation to this. I'll grant you, there does seem to be something there, but I just put it down to the fact my dice rolls suck.

responses in color. oooooo.. color.

edit: mind you I responded to #2 with the answer of "named, but no specific location loot" per your example. If the loot has a known drop point, there will ALWAYS be the chance it will drop, regardless of character level and quest difficulty.

[wolfy42]

I think I might be able to clear up a few things here.

First you can tell that named loot has a fixed chance of showing up in specific chests. This loot can show up no matter what level the character is that opens the chest as well.

How do you test this quickly? Take your lvl 16 char and run into any harbor quest (for instance Smugglers warehouse) and try and get a specific named item (vestments of light for example).

I did this with all of my characters to get a nice supply of them for my newbie ones I was creating (got 7 between all my characters running through it about 3 times).

This shows the following.

There is a fixed percentage chance for specific loot items to show up (Random loot...is just that random).

And your character level does not have a direct effect on obtaining that loot.

As far as random loot...well all I can say is it's always extremely random. I don't know if many of you remember the old giant caves runs for loot (was especially popular durring the +1 look weekend last year) but loot is just that plain random.

I have run Tempest Spine oh i don't know 200+ times over the years and characters and servers and accounts and I have NEVER once gotten a +1 tome from any of the chests.

I probably see at least 1 person pull one every 3-4 times at most....and I can remember many times when someone pulled more then 1 tome in a single run.

I've never pulled one.....in probably over 1000 chests in TS.

So it's all random. Some people seem incredibly lucky it's true....but it's just that luck.

I do seem lucky at getting mith FP and even the ring of feathers. I think with my new recent characters I ran STK maybe 8 times all together and I pulled 3 rings.

[Slayer]

responses are great. I tend to believe its all random also, but i have to admit after 2 years of game play something smells a bit funny. it would be alot easier if i could parse game logs to keep track of things but alas don't think we will ever see any implementation of that sort. without any way to get hard numbers there is no real way to look at the averages.

The thing about the "random" named items like the sunblade or luckstone is they have to come from the right level quest for them, but like i was saying i've had better luck pulling any on a low level toon who is in a group running the quest then i do soloing the same mission (over and over) in 5 to 10 minutes with my level 16 toons. in fact i have never pulled any of the random items on a toon that was over level 9 thats why i was wondering if anyone knew if a characters level also plays a factor ( I.E. a level 16 toon in a level 5-7 dungeon might be flagged not to get them ) anyone know anyone who has? and i don't mean items that drop from a static chest i mean those items listed on most sites as having no known location.

[Thailand_Dan]

Reading this thread, it reminds me a lot of a similiar conspiracy discussion about online poker sites. "Some guy goes all-in with 7-2 off suit and cracks my aces. That would never happen in live play."

If we are voting, I would come down on the side of saying it is random. I have been playing less than a year, just capped my first toon, and hit 1750 favor less than a month ago (re-rolled a bunch around level 8-10). In total, I have run TS - 8-10 times, Reaver - 2 times, and VoN - 1 time, for raids. So, I am just starting to get to the end-game content. In this time, raids have given me junk, while I've pulled the following of note from other chests:

- w/p bow
- bloodstone
- muckdoom
- muckbanes x 20 (but farmed for them)
- ring of FF x 6
- +1 tome x 5
- white scale x 1 (from 4 runs).
- PoP X
- Dusk Heart x 1

Never pulled: vorpal, +X Mith FP or +5 Mith anything, Smiter, Disrupter, Fire Greavers, or +2 tomes, or any of the other uber items.

I do play a lot, but spend a lot of time soloing in wilderness areas. I am somehwere between a casual player and power-gamer. Out of curiosity, would you consider this on the lucky side of the curve or unlucky side? It would seem to me, it comes down in the middle. Some great pulls, but also haven't pulled any of the middle-uber stuff at all.