Notes on new team difficulty settings
By
Abigail Frost,
Posted on: 2009-08-26 15:02 in The Market and Inventions
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I can't say why, but my standard 'go to' missions are generally Borea. Chewing through Rikti is highly satsifying to me. I kind of RP the fact that I am a lone force in the world that is being quickly overrun by the alien horde. Perhaps it isn't all that creative, but it's how I enjoy the game. I'd enjoy the romans more if I had better defense debuff resists, but a tray full of purples usually helps.|
Originally Posted by Defenestrator
During the last (and pretty much every) double XP weekend, someone on our server runs "Endless Borea" missions (or as I like to call it "Endless Boring"). 8-person groups for every waking hour he was on during that three days -- not ONE purple dropped for anybody this past x2 XP.
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Incidentally, I did come across a Soulbound Allegiance (Rech/Acc) Recipe last night against the Rikti. It seems like the last purple I got was also from this group. While I don't need it, I'm going to happily craft it and put it on the market at the earliest opportunity.
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I've kept a grand total across all of my characters. Purples were first introduced in what, i11? I've gotten a total of 14. My number of STF runs is past 150 post-i11..pre-i11, it's a bit more in the area of 400-500 but anyway (although, STFs aren't a good example for my group...we tend to do the minimum requirements to get to the end mission). My ITF runs however...probably in the area of 150-200 runs and the very nature of the ITF expects you to do lots and lots of killing (including our method...30 minute runs don't mean you can't kill everything in your way, rather good 30 minute runs require that you do!). Same case with the LGTF, although I don't run that as often because I hate the hostage mission.|
Originally Posted by Kitteh
Over time there have been one-zies and two-zies that have posted in response to the "purple topic de jour"... that they've never received a purple drop...despite running nothing but there 50s through ITFs or STF/LRSFs or newspapers.
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The thing that drove me a little nuts about that total of 14 was listening on my Guardian global channels to one particular person who would get up to 15 in a single night of farming (2-4 or so hours...which wasn't too aberrant from me, at the time...heck, I was playing after he was done usually) and was guaranteed to report at least one or two. He had gotten to the point of actually selling them to people in the channel for 1/2 going market price if he didn't need them or was just feeling generous.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
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At least the issue is known now. Good work by the dev team, and all the peeps who reported drop issues. Though whoever let slip an uninitialized variable should be smacked!
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Originally Posted by pohsyb
This was caused by an uninitialized variable, in this case specifically it was a structure declared locally when awarding a drop table.
About four function calls deeper, something was using a member of that structure to determine if you were fighting something grey (no drop). Uninitialized variables can be anything, but often have tendency to be zero, which would not cause a problem (actually any positive value would not matter). This bug as been in since Issue 9 and was not caused by specifically by anything related to I16 (Whenever code is changed the tendencies of uninitialized variables can change). I suspect the changes made with I16 caused drop rates to be closely scrutinized. |
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Agreed, but it's one of the more common mistakes that I see people make. I also see a lot of over-initialization that annoys me almost as much, but this isn't a discussion of software development, so I'll shut up now. |
Originally Posted by Dispari
Though whoever let slip an uninitialized variable should be smacked!
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"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
how long does it usually take to pop out a patch for something like this? A week? Two weeks?
The timing depends a lot on the internal 'cycle' when the change was made.
It is possible but unlikely to be in the next test patch. It is almost certain to be in the one after that.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Depends on the change control process, how quickly it can be tested in the dev environment, when the patches go to test, and how long *that* process normally is. From there it falls into the Test Server-to-Live-Servers migration process.|
Originally Posted by Aerandirel
how long does it usually take to pop out a patch for something like this? A week? Two weeks?
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Also keep in mind that a recent patch to Test implemented a "fix" where the difficulty settings had no effect of TF/SF difficulty, and that has a number of people up in arms that like to make TFs/SFs a little (or a lot) harder for the challenge. Backing that change out or modifying that change also needs to be factored into the change control process that's in place.
All in all, I'd be surprised if we see this before the Halloween event gets going...
Qustion(I don't think this has been asked yet, if so my bad):
Could this bug have the opposite effect? Meaning instead of a bad drop rate like most of yall have seen, could it increase somebody's drop rate?
My roommate has been getting drops out of this world. Now he has been soloing 8 man Battle Maidens, so that could easily explain it(or maybe it's both).
Depending on what the variable is affecting, then yes, it could do that. It could do anything. We don't know what the code does exactly, other than that the random variable effects a change in the drop rate, resulting in a reported negative effect.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
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Theoretically, yes. People I play with regularly used to comment on my ability to get drops all the time; I thought it was random, and due to my playing a lot, but I may have been getting an above-average rate before I16, which would explain why the changes seemed SO massive to me.
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Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Qustion(I don't think this has been asked yet, if so my bad):
Could this bug have the opposite effect? Meaning instead of a bad drop rate like most of yall have seen, could it increase somebody's drop rate? |
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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I ran tests on the Wall and it's definitely affected. As far as I can tell, you'll see reduced drop rates whatever you do until the bug is fixed.
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Originally Posted by Aerandirel
so this drop rate issue is affecting everything in game? not just mission right? Because farming on the crim wall, not in a mission, it seems like drop rates are really low there too. To clarify is this a universal issue or one that just applies to missions?
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I don't think so. As far as I can tell from Pohsyb's post, the game rolls to see if you get a recipe drop and then checks to see if the mob was grey. If it was, then the game discards the drop. The bug causes the game to think that a mob was grey when it wasn't. This causes it to throw away recipes that you should have received.|
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Could this bug have the opposite effect? Meaning instead of a bad drop rate like most of yall have seen, could it increase somebody's drop rate?
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| My roommate has been getting drops out of this world. Now he has been soloing 8 man Battle Maidens, so that could easily explain it(or maybe it's both). |
(Apologies if this is a double post. I've replied already but the post just evaporated.)
I want to give explaining unsigned variables a shot.
Let's tell a little story:
You and your best freinds (functions) are in a room (a structure).
There are other rooms (structures) with other people (other functions)
You all have access to a common hallway (memory stack)
with a bunch of little bags (variables) to put marbles in.
Synapse and pohsyB come into your room and give you some marbles.
They tell you to go out to the hallway and put the marbles from bag #9,
plus your marbles, all into bag #23. Then add them all up and return the sum.
Well, they never told you to empty bag #23 BEFORE adding other marbles.
(It was an uninitialized variable)
Fortunately for Synapse and pohsyB, bag #23 was always empty.
Now comes i16 though, and suddenly other people, from other rooms start adding or taking away random numbers of marbles from that bag #23!
The sums you are returning become very random, with higher highs and lower lows than ever before. In fact, your sums are so random that overall they average out the same as before, so at first sight it looked like nothing was wrong.
Then Synapse and pohsyB find out what you've been up to.
They come in, kick you in the shins, and tell you to empty bag #23 BEFORE adding the other marbles.
Now everything is right with the world and we all live happily ever after.
-Morty
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I don't think so. However, if the bug has been present since I9, it's possible that it would seem this way.|
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Could this bug have the opposite effect? Meaning instead of a bad drop rate like most of yall have seen, could it increase somebody's drop rate?
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Based on the description pohsyb gave, the best case scenario is that the game actually gives you all the successful random drop rolls you get. So for people that the uninitialized variable worked out for just right, they would get all the drops they were due, while other people might get something less than that. However, as described, no one should be getting better drops (on average) than that.
However, if you are someone who's getting less than your "due" in drops, someone who's getting their "due" is going to seem like they have better luck than you.
I think an interesting question is: was this bug doing more than we know? We have TopDoc's pre-I16 farming thread, which seems to track pretty well with known drop probabilities. Other than that, we don't have a whole lot of other statistical data that I know of about pre-I16 drop averages. Is it possible a lot of people were getting less drops than the assigned probabilities would suggest? If so, fixing this bug might create some noticeable supply increases in pool As, purples and boss pool Cs.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Originally Posted by Synapse
PS: I love the tags on this thread. They've made me laugh, boggle and shake my head. "devs dont care"
 Not true! "devs dont care" okay, that's better. |
I personally think the best was Synapse + happy = snappy.
My Characters
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I think you actually made it sound more complicated than it actually is. |
Originally Posted by Norty_Morty
I want to give explaining unsigned variables a shot.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Really? Arg! Could be, could be.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
I think you actually made it sound more complicated than it actually is.
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I was trying to explain it so someone that doesn't even know what a variable is could understand it.
It doesn't matter, in a month the shins of that misbehaving function will be healed and the whole thing forgotten
-Morty
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Only possible opposite effect I can see (based on pohsyb post), is getting drops from grey mobs...
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
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Based on the description pohsyb gave, the best case scenario is that the game actually gives you all the successful random drop rolls you get. So for people that the uninitialized variable worked out for just right, they would get all the drops they were due, while other people might get something less than that. However, as described, no one should be getting better drops (on average) than that. However, if you are someone who's getting less than your "due" in drops, someone who's getting their "due" is going to seem like they have better luck than you. I think an interesting question is: was this bug doing more than we know? We have TopDoc's pre-I16 farming thread, which seems to track pretty well with known drop probabilities. Other than that, we don't have a whole lot of other statistical data that I know of about pre-I16 drop averages. Is it possible a lot of people were getting less drops than the assigned probabilities would suggest? If so, fixing this bug might create some noticeable supply increases in pool As, purples and boss pool Cs. |
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No, it won't.|
Originally Posted by Norty_Morty
It doesn't matter, in a month the shins of that misbehaving function will be healed and the whole thing forgotten
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In-game, it'll float around the global channels, poking its head in, asking "sup gaiz?" for a few weeks to a couple of months, then go to a predictable cycle like the accuracy nerfcalls. Occasionally, there will be a flare-up when you get people that are convinced they're right and "their friend" has had crap drops or some other silliness, kind of like the random people that are still 100% certain each server has its own market. These latter ones are usually reserved for "Legendary PuGs" so the effect should be localized (of course, this doesn't account for people that get confused by wrong information and ask about it, possibly sparking a debate).
On the forums? It'll probably follow a cycle like the accuracy nerfcalls (after this thread dies down), with a possible wildcard response coming from ignorant people who notice/wonder why their drop rates changed. After that, it just will be in danger of necroequinophiliacs and being used as a localized Internet meme. And in fact, it already is in use.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
I've just released a new version of DropStats.
The main changes in this release (0.4) are:
- added -nobosses command line switch to force bosses to be counted as lieutenants
- heuristic check now works when in Super Group mode
- recipes are now split into the correct pools and Pool A recipes are sub-divided by rarity
- changed the output to make it more compact
- recipe lists etc are now hidden by default. Run with "-output verbose" to see them
- added a load more mob types to mobTypes.txt
- should now work under Linux, MacOSX and cygwin
Enjoy!
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Thanks for the time and effort you put into this, Archie. I'm heading over to the site to download it now!
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Originally Posted by Archie Gremlin
I've just released a new version of DropStats.
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well, iam a player that likes to PVP, and for that to happen i need to Farm to get those rare items. With this very low drops, i just waste my time running a BM farm 10 times to get one drop. I've tried every single setting there is, and i do not plan in spending tons of dollars buying influence online so i can slot my PVP heroes. before issue 16 drops were good, not they are super rare, even regular IO drops...
Good reason to move on to a different game until this gets somehow fixed.
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You're welcome. It's good to know that people are using it. |
Originally Posted by AgentMountaineer
Thanks for the time and effort you put into this, Archie. I'm heading over to the site to download it now!
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I also appreciate the acknowledgment and finding of this bug. Now I hope that this will be openly acknowledged in the Known Issues for Live until the fix is released.
I'd always dismissed their cries as noise or hyperbole, but maybe they were legitimate concerns afterall.
From what I understand (in light of the data posted herein), random being random and all...some people have been severely affected while some have barely been affected.
During the last (and pretty much every) double XP weekend, someone on our server runs "Endless Borea" missions (or as I like to call it "Endless Boring"). 8-person groups for every waking hour he was on during that three days -- not ONE purple dropped for anybody this past x2 XP.
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.