Any reason why I consistently get bad loot?

[FreeLoveKarma]

Well I’m not one of those that farms or even really cares about named loot. So I’d say my standards aren’t really too high, I’ve just gotten to epic levels with other characters that never had this problem. And random isn’t really random if it’s consistently biased to one party member. But considering my partner is my boyfriend the generosity things isn’t really an issue (lol). But really I just play for fun, I just like to actually get some loot out of quests to sell, otherwise it makes playing the game (without farming or ransacking or repeating quests) really difficult when you don’t have plat for potions, spell components, or repairs let alone new gear. Sooo yeah. And I do believe in luck, because mine is pretty much the worst. Not believing in luck is a luxury for people with better luck than mine ???????? but yeah thanks, didn’t know loot class only affected end quest rewards, but it actually has improved those a ton. My other four or five characters never have this problem, so I’m assuming she just doesn’t have good luck for chests. Maybe it’s bc she’s a drow and all of Eberron hates them ????????

[AbyssalMage]

Who knows if it's luck? You might actually be loot-cursed. DDO was made by the same company that gave us the Wi Flag, after all. It took them years to figure out why certain players had "bad luck", and it was actually a subtle programming error, not luck at all.

Wow, thanks for the link!!!

[Aelonwy]

Anecdotally, my experience matches yours for the most part. Most of the time I duo exclusively with my hubby, about a quarter of my playtime is with one or both of my kids. We have a few friends that join us on occasion but they are serial game hoppers so we only see them for a couple of weeks after an update.

In my experience, my hubby routinely gets more named items than I do, better loot in general with random insightful bonuses or augment slots, and he has more windfalls of mysterious remnants too. My son's characters seem even luckier, often when we first get him an adventure pack he will get named loot that we haven't even seen drop yet for us at all. Oddly, my daughter's characters have either the same luck as mine or even worse.

This weekend with double daily dice, two of my rolls were an 8... yes two of them, and one was an 18. One of those 8's was my single gold dice. I actually cringe when the bonus is double dice weekends because I can predict that likely all of them will be in the absolute lowest category.

Today my hubby had 3 mysterious remnant windfalls, my son had one, and I had... *dun dun dun* 0. We played GH Tor with our son, and then ran 3 out of 4 of the Devil's Details quests after putting the kids to bed. My hubby has actually started passing all his remnants in remnant chests to me and most nights he still ends up with more than I have in my bag. Tonight he passed one of those windfalls to me in a chest and he still ended the night with over a hundred more remnants than did I.

Based on my own personal experience my opinion is that there is something that makes certain characters luckier than others. This is more obvious to people that play in static groups because they see the contrast of their loot to the "same" other people's loot repeatedly. In my case this is personal experience based over the last ~8 years.

Thankfully, I can shrug this off and keep playing because no particular item is necessary to enjoy the game.

P.S. Also it is no bad thing that my hubby and son are luckier than I because when they've looted the same named item multiple times they have no trouble passing those extras to me.

[HAL]

Who knows if it's luck? You might actually be loot-cursed. DDO was made by the same company that gave us the Wi Flag, after all. It took them years to figure out why certain players had "bad luck", and it was actually a subtle programming error, not luck at all.

Except that there is no competition for loot as there is for who gets aggro.

[SirValentine]

Except that there is no competition for loot as there is for who gets aggro.

You are completely correct that a bad loot flag would probably not be the exact same subtle programming error as the Wi Flag was.

[LeoLionxxx]

Who knows if it's luck? You might actually be loot-cursed. DDO was made by the same company that gave us the Wi Flag, after all. It took them years to figure out why certain players had "bad luck", and it was actually a subtle programming error, not luck at all.

Thanks for that, that was a good read.

My expectation for DDO would be that loot is distributed as "player accesses chest, fnRoll() for their individual loot". fnRoll() takes in the quest's loot table, loot bonuses on the chest, and loot bonuses on the character." I'd be surprised if there's any monkey business with player IDs.

[HAL]

You are completely correct that a bad loot flag would probably not be the exact same subtle programming error as the Wi Flag was.

My point was not that it would not be the same type of thing, but that there is no mechanic that I can think of in DDO that would flag characters for any loot discrimination at all. The only flag I can think of that might have "gone rogue" is the class loot toggle which would then only change the type of loot you received, not the quantity or value thereof.

[HAL]

Thanks for that, that was a good read.

My expectation for DDO would be that loot is distributed as "player accesses chest, fnRoll() for their individual loot". fnRoll() takes in the quest's loot table, loot bonuses on the chest, and loot bonuses on the character." I'd be surprised if there's any monkey business with player IDs.

Exactly. This is not the type of game where character or account ID factors in loot at all except end rewards. And at end rewards it doesn't affect the value, only the type of loot.

[HAL]

To put a different spin on "random is random", this happens IRL also. There are people who always get the great job, the raise, the great S.O., win the prize, etc. And there are people who never can seem to get a break. That's just life and there is no conspiracy, aliens, etc. to blame for it.

[bracelet]

I thought they were supposed to be pretty balanced rewards and never had this problem on my epic character with other people; if there were a few quests where I was at 6-7 items a chest and him at 3-4 eventually it would even out. There’s a huge variance here however. Is there a reason for all the loot to be consistently in one persons favor?

I've often wondered if it makes a difference who opens the chest. Is there one person in your party that opens them more frequently than the other? It might be pretty paranoid, but as a programmer myself, I could imagine some subtle algorithmic change that does alter outcomes depending on order.

[boredGamer]

Some of you need to take a serious look at your psyche if the things you are writing you actually believe to be true.

You know how "lucky" people get what they get ? Preparation, hard work, and then luck depends on how soon it actually happens. Same in the game, same in life.

Prepared and hard working people just have a different outlook, they KNOW through their strategies they have set themselves up for success, and whether it is 1 or 1000 rolls, success will come. People that only give themselves a limited set of rolls get mad about those rolls not going their way. I guarantee you those people are sacrificing success in other areas of their life for success in certain areas.

Good luck out there - this thread is seriously terrible.

[Cantor]

I've often wondered if it makes a difference who opens the chest. Is there one person in your party that opens them more frequently than the other? It might be pretty paranoid, but as a programmer myself, I could imagine some subtle algorithmic change that does alter outcomes depending on order.

This is easy to imagine, also I have always wondered how loot gems/bonus interact. Could a loot gem lower your chance of named loot by putting you in a different loot table? Of course there are way too many specifics to how loot is determined that would never be shared. But you have to imagine it's weird for chests with different difficulties where different items drop like in GH and HR.

[Fivetigers33]

My friend pulls all the cool stuff. I saw him pull a Tome of Fate in Deathwyrm and a stack of 10 Legendary Slavers Statuettes, and that's just in recent memory. He also consistently rolls high when rolling for loot.

My wife regularly rolls 80+ on daily dice and it seems like she rolls a 100 about once every month or so. She has so much daily dice stuff that I wish I had on my account (tomes, hearts, etc)

My toons are not as lucky.

[glmfw1]

I play a level 7 wizard (necro) and my partner plays a level 7 Druid/fighter. I’ve notices that on every single quest since we started, Ive consistently gotten bad/worse loot. Pretty much every chest since we’ve played these characters, I’ve not gotten any actual Loot. Nearly every chest I open, I get three things: plat, gems, and either one item typically a level below the quest or some cheap component or material I don’t need. He always gets six or seven items, two of which are always something valuable to sell like weapons or armor. I’ve used jewels of fortune or treasure maps, and was still getting loot one to two levels below my level/quest level even when running quests of my level or above. He’s made around $40k in play while I have made no more than $15k selling all the loot I’ve gotten (I’ve been using items from my last character for this one so haven’t bought much). It’s getting kind of ridiculous. He’s been getting named, treasure maps, and other worthwhile stuff. He’s also been getting all the scrolls and stuff I should be getting. I even tried a couple quests with the class turned off so that I could see if my class was the reason my loot was so awful but saw no improvement. I’m really st a loss. I thought they were supposed to be pretty balanced rewards and never had this problem on my epic character with other people; if there were a few quests where I was at 6-7 items a chest and him at 3-4 eventually it would even out. There’s a huge variance here however. Is there a reason for all the loot to be consistently in one persons favor?

The problem shouldn't be happening, if everything is the same.
Every Chest has its content generated by random number generation against a table. It's possible, by pure fluke, that you have only ever received bad random numbers while by equal fluke, your partner has only every received good numbers. Random number generators don't remember the random numbers that they have previously generated and exclude them the next time round.
Two things I can think of as possibilites that might impact things beyond that:

• If you are in different guilds (or the same guild but one has guild buffs active and the other doesn't), you may have different bonuses active regarding loot rolls - by comparison, one person's loot rolls would always be better than the other's
• If you have a slow connection, it may take time for the Chest to populate. If you click "loot all" then manually close the chest, there could be other items appearing after you have closed that were part of your loot roll. This has happened to me on occasion, and someone has said "why did you leave X".

Either possibility, or a combination of them, could impact this character's loot relative to other people.
When it comes to your loot on this character vs on other characters, time of day could come into play, if you only play this character at peak times when your connection is slower.

[SirValentine]

My point was not that it would not be the same type of thing

Sure! I still agree, just like I said. It's different code, in a different game, doing a different thing. Of course it's not going to be the exact same type of thing.

...there is no mechanic that I can think of in DDO that would flag characters for any loot discrimination at all.

And nobody, including multiple rounds of devs at Turbine who were actually looking at the game source code, could think of any mechanics in AC that would flag characters for aggro discrimination at all, either. For years. Until, finally, one person noticed the subtle implementation detail that had that effect.

[zehnvhex]

The problem shouldn't be happening

I think one of the telling things is he says that items are rolling beneath the quest level. That shouldn't be happening.

OP: What difficulty are you playing on? If casual, then the rewards can be really, really garbage and luck would play a huge part. If playing on hard+ you should be receiving pretty standard/predictable drops. The ML on gear drops should be at least or equal to the difficulty of the quest listed in the pane.

I have a feeling you're doing quests on casual difficulty or something if you're getting drops that are lower level than the dungeon and you are regularly not getting more than just the base rewards.

[HAL]

I have always wondered how loot gems/bonus interact. Could a loot gem lower your chance of named loot by putting you in a different loot table?

No:

Jewels of Fortune and other loot boosts increase the level of a chest, which determines what level of random treasure will generate inside.

Jewels of Fortune and other loot boosts do not affect named treasure.

"Named" treasure is any treasure that has a special, bonus chance to appear in a specific treasure chest. It doesn't care about the chest or quest level, only that you're opening the right chest.

For purposes of treasure, level is what is increased by a Jewel of Fortune or other loot boost.
Named items are not affected by loot boosts, because the treasure system used to distribute named items in chests does not check for the quest's level, it looks for the difficulty: Casual, Normal, Hard, Elite, Epic Casual, Epic Normal, Epic Hard, or Epic Elite.

[HAL]

You know how "lucky" people get what they get ? Preparation, hard work, and then luck depends on how soon it actually happens.

Sure, prepared people usually end up with better stuff. Unless they are unlucky. I have known people who do everything right but get crapped on by life.

Same in the game

All things being equal, there is no way to "prepare" and get better loot. Sure you can use loot gems and other boosts, but if all characters have the same basic chance of getting loot, there is no way to "prepare" and get better loot.

[Brandall]

Had some experience with this today.
I ran the full legendary Ravenloft chain on reaper this morning with a +1 loot gem and a +15 treasure elixir burning. I did every opt and only got 1 named item, in the final chest of sunrise. What a waste.

[boredGamer]

Sure, prepared people usually end up with better stuff. Unless they are unlucky. I have known people who do everything right but get crapped on by life.

All things being equal, there is no way to "prepare" and get better loot. Sure you can use loot gems and other boosts, but if all characters have the same basic chance of getting loot, there is no way to "prepare" and get better loot.

Sure there is. The toons you see running around with everything ? They play, a lot. They run quests efficiently. They organize guilds and friends to run with. Of course it's equal each pull, but it certainly isn't equal across gameplay. Maybe some lucky sob pulls reaper helm on first run - but I bet they don't have every other piece of gear. I bet the ones that plan and play for gear mostly do.

More power to however anyone wants to have fun, but clearly there are ways to maximize various things. And I guarantee those that have more of most named items have also spent more time playing, or more time playing efficiently. Fact.

Totally random story / way to think about things - ever been to a gym, game, event, whatever, and no matter how sporadically you show up, the same people are always there? Big hint, those people are there when you don't show up also, it's not just a crazy coincidence they're there when you do.

Good luck out there.