Named Loot Theory

[DrgnMstr333]

Since the game's release, the players of DDO have formulated theories to try and explain the vast mysteriousness that is the DDO loot system. With over 900 raid completions to my name, here is my theory.

Theory - The named loot drop rate depreciates with high pull rates and will recover from depreciation with lower pull rates. Each quest difficulty is treated separately.

What are some of the implications of this theory?
1. If you want the highest named loot drop rate, choose the difficulty that has the lowest pull rate. In other words, pick the difficulty that is run the least often.
2. The bloodstone drop rate will be much lower if a lot of people are constantly ransacking the chest, than if only a few people are occasionally.
3. As different raids and loot runs go in and out of popularity, the drop rates will fluctuate.

(note: pull rate being the number of times a chest is pulled from per time or pulls/time)

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Observation #1 - The quality/quantity of loot coming from a chest decreases when opened multiple times within a short period of time.

This observation has a large amount of evidence to support it including in-game text notifying a player when they have reached the state of "ransack."

Observation #2 - The quality/quantity of loot coming from a chest will recover from deprecation over time.

Like observation #1, this one has been well observed.

It is difficult to be any more specific about the first two observations. I will not attempt to determine at what rate the loot depreciates to ransack or appreciates out of ransack as it is not relevant to my theory.

Observation #3 - Some quests have the final chest spawn in different places for the different difficulties.

The two places that I noticed this in particular was the Hound of Xoriat and Vision of Destruction. This one leads me to believe that there does exist some difference between the these chests on different difficulties. Also, for those end chests that spawn in the same spot for each difficulty does not mean that they are the same.

Observation #4 - Raid loot drops more from a raid when it is first released than it does after its been run for many weeks. This is most noticeable on the difficulty that is the most popular.

The evidence for this observation isn't as strong as some of the others and is closely related to the final theory. For example, when a raid first comes out, each completion may produce multiple pieces of raid loot. As strategies are learned and completion rates go up, each completion will produce closer to zero pieces of raid loot.

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How does this theory relate to other theories?

There have been attempts to use static observation to determine which difficulty will have the highest drop rate.

For example: running a raid X number of times on normal, hard, and elite, and seeing which one has the highest drop rate. The conclusion being to always run that raid on the difficulty that had the highest drop rate.

The problem I have with these studies is that it is often conducted over a narrow time frame and assumes the drop rate is constant.

[Kraak]

Khit - I'll buy 1 and 2, and have noticed 3. As for 4 it is my presumption that Turbine changes the loot table drop percentage after a couple of weeks.


I know your observations are in direct contradiction to what's been published by Turbine. However, I notice that observation's 1/2 apply more to an individual than a "group" chest. What I mean, is that I've noticed the guy's I never run, and or a newb I'm running in a raid for the first time, has an unusually high hit rate for named items. Very weird indeed.

[FluffyCalico]

Agree

I did a reaver on hard and 7 pieces of raid loot dropped.

[DrgnMstr333]

As for 4 it is my presumption that Turbine changes the loot table drop percentage after a couple of weeks.

This one doesn't make sense to me. It creates more work, and why would they do it? I don't think Turbine is sitting there messing with the drop rates. "Hehehe... I just put the drop rate to zero for that hound, muahahaha"

I know your observations are in direct contradiction to what's been published by Turbine.

Could you reference this for me?

[Kraak]

This one doesn't make sense to me. It creates more work, and why would they do it? I don't think Turbine is sitting there messing with the drop rates. "Hehehe... I just put the drop rate to zero for that hound, muahahaha"

This is just my subjective opinion from post Mod release loot drops. I think its there to create buzz. "Wow - this stuff is cool". Again, who knows, its my subjective view, but I do think loot drops are higher right after the Mod releases then 3-4 weeks and beyond.

[juniorpfactors]

can anyone say "BARD CLOAK"

dont know bout you guys but its the joke of all jokes, its drop rate is over 70% in Maelstrom runs

and its very obvious that 3 or 4 desirable items have a very very low spawn rate, vod caster bracers for example, belt in titan.... grind FTW


jrp

[Murgatroyd]

Maybe it's just a matter of perception, but I have noticed that when I take a 2 week break the loot drops seem to be better when I get back. It seems like there's a higher drop rate for named loot for the first day back.

[Nevthial]

Maybe it's just a matter of perception, but I have noticed that when I take a 2 week break the loot drops seem to be better when I get back. It seems like there's a higher drop rate for named loot for the first day back.

Same for me when I'm not playing for awhile. I have also gotten more named items on Normal setting versus any other setting.

[Thrudh]

I've noticed loot comes in cycles for me, and not per character, but across my whole account...

For the last three years, I'll get zero tomes for months, then get like 5-6 in a two-week period...

In the Shroud... when I first started, I got devil scales all the time, then I went through a 4 month drought... In the last two weeks, I've pulled like 10 (and have had 3 instances where I got 2 large scales)

The Shroud data is inconclusive, since I only have a couple of data points... But the tome data has been pretty consistent over 3 years... I've had like 6 long drought periods, followed by 6 short "tomes dropping from the sky" periods...

Probably just random luck... but who knows...

[Kraak]

I got offered 3 +2 tomes as end rewards in a row doing prey on the hunter (out of 5 runs). Also, I notice that you'll get streaky on a type of loot. I can tell by 3/4th chest in the Shroud whether its going to be an armor, khopesh, repeater, BS, short sword, robe run. Its not 100% of the loot, but often 5-6 items from the 12 chests.

[tihocan]

What about the theory that it just works as expected? AFAIK there is nothing to disprove it, besides individual small sample observations that don't really mean anything.
Before trying to look for complex stuff, maybe it'd be best to figure out if the simplest solution is the correct one (e.g. Rainbow puzzle, now we had lots of fancy theories for a random thing )

[Kraak]

What about the theory that it just works as expected? AFAIK there is nothing to disprove it, besides individual small sample observations that don't really mean anything.
Before trying to look for complex stuff, maybe it'd be best to figure out if the simplest solution is the correct one (e.g. Rainbow puzzle, now we had lots of fancy theories for a random thing )

Uhm - computers and random /= random. That's why,

[DrgnMstr333]

What about the theory that it just works as expected? AFAIK there is nothing to disprove it, besides individual small sample observations that don't really mean anything.
Before trying to look for complex stuff, maybe it'd be best to figure out if the simplest solution is the correct one (e.g. Rainbow puzzle, now we had lots of fancy theories for a random thing )

That's the thing, my theory is quite simple, its anything but complex and is modeled off of what we already know (loot depreciates with high pull rates).

[DrgnMstr333]

I've had multiple people reference something that was said by a dev but have yet to come across a single person who will link me to it. If anyone knows of any post by a dev pertaining to this discussion, please post it here.

[tihocan]

I've had multiple people reference something that was said by a dev but have yet to come across a single person who will link me to it. If anyone knows of any post by a dev pertaining to this discussion, please post it here.

Kinda tough to dig up all relevant posts but here is one I could find that I remember to be one of the most explicit dev posts on this topic (from http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...#post1535433):

The chance to get raid loot from the raids increases on hard and elite. All raids start at the 1/6 chance on normal, but not all of them scale up all the way to 1/4 on elite. Velah and the Black Abbot do - the others are someplace in between, but all of them have better chances for raid loot on hard and elite.

They haven't been switched around, I just checked.

[gorloch]

I have a better theory.

If you are running a raid repeatedly for one particular item. Raid and put that toon on timer, then the next night briing a different one. I almost promise that what you are looking for on the toon thats on timer will drop.

If you are doing loot runs bring along a couple of guildies/friends/pugs who also wouldn't mind the item to help pop the chest. Again I promise that the item you are seeking will drop for them and not you (ask Suemo about this one).

This is how I have found to have certain named items that I am looking for to drop. Any able to disprove my theory?


PIXA