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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Absolutely not. Synapse has straight-out said that there is no intentional decrease in recipe drop rates. That means that if we continue to see reports of drop rates well outside what should be expected, it's a bug.|
Originally Posted by JDub
If there has been a decrease to drop rate, but it hasn't been in any patch notes or mentioned by any Devs, isn't it likely a mistake that will be corrected? Just curious if you guys are under the impression they are trying to sneek something in under the radar.
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Nobody is accusing the devs of a stealth-nerf to drop rates. I've tossed out some wild ideas, but when Synapse says they haven't changed anything, I have no reason not to believe him, so any change must be an unanticipated consequence of some other code change.
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| Also, over the last three days I've played a Claws Brute from 1-25. I started out with missions spawned for 3 and worked my way up to 6 currently. I haven't done any tracking, but before I read this thread I thought drop rates had been increased. My recipes and salvage have been filling up so fast that I have to sell every 2-3 missions. |
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Summary so far...
I've tabulated the posts in the thread that have sufficient data.
The total is 11039 defeats including 1766 LTs and a few bosses. The total number of recipe drops is 202.
This gives us an average drop rate of 1.59% with a 95% confidence interval of 1.37% to 1.81%. The 99.99% confidence interval is 1.18% to 2.05%. I calculated the confidence intervals using this page. We're expecting a drop rate of 2.66%.
Of the 10 runs that I tabulated, only Lakanna's looked like live runs. One of these was the only run to exceed the expected recipe drop rate. All 9 others were below the expected value.
I think we can safely conclude that the recipe drop rate is bugged.
We generated 658 items of salvage from 9298 minion equivalent defeats. (The equivalency is a little different for salvage according to the wiki.) This gives an average drop rate of 7.07% with 95% confidence intervals of 6.55% to 7.61%. This looks suspiciously low but I might just have got the maths wrong.
I still hold the bug has to do with the number of real toons Vs. "virtual" toons as noted by Ignitros's post yesterday. I hope to be able to back this up with my own tests tonight.
I wonder if the drops are calculated at mob creation or at mob defeat. that may have something to do with the difference Ignitros saw.
Card Carrying DeFulmenstrator--Member Crazy 88s
We burn more Influence before 8am than you make all day.
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As evidence against this hypothesis, the reduced rate is also showing up during Archie's runs on the Wall in Cim, at a party size of 1.
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Originally Posted by _23X_
I still hold the bug has to do with the number of real toons Vs. "virtual" toons as noted by Ignitros's post yesterday. I hope to be able to back this up with my own tests tonight.
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Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
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This may be a valid point and something I've been wondering as well (haven't been able to get to test to get my own numbers, but I have been following this thread). What if the bug is something along the lines of, the drops that were supposed to go to you when you turn the team size up instead drop to some sort of virtual player that was used to "pad" the team.|
Originally Posted by _23X_
I still hold the bug has to do with the number of real toons Vs. "virtual" toons as noted by Ignitros's post yesterday. I hope to be able to back this up with my own tests tonight.
I wonder if the drops are calculated at mob creation or at mob defeat. that may have something to do with the difference Ignitros saw. |
Might not even be how they handle those new team sizes, but its something worth looking at.
I'm gonna 3box a few runs soon.
Should help with the uncertainty around virtual teammates vs. actual.
Repeat Offenders
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That would probably be the runs set for team size 1, +0. They had a drop rate that looked very close to expected, and it dropped way off when I added a virtual teammate. My runs were done on test, though.|
Originally Posted by Archie Gremlin
Of the 10 runs that I tabulated, only Lakanna's looked like live runs. One of these was the only run to exceed the expected recipe drop rate. All 9 others were below the expected value.
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Also, I was tracking enhancement drops, and those looked to be doing the same thing as recipes, dropping off with a teammate. Gonna add another few runs on each setting tonight.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
I ran some more missions today and remembered to get the mob breakdown. Here are my numbers:
Defeated Mobs: 684 (50 Bosses, 74 Lts, 452 Minons, 5 Portals, 103 Monkeys)
Enhancements dropped: 4
Inspirations dropped: 268
Vanguard Merits Acquired: 70
Recipes Dropped: 7 Total (4 set, 3 standard)
Salvage Dropped: 69 Total (47 Common, 17 Uncommon, 5 Rare)
Influence Earned: 3,313,481
Time Ellapsed: 1:35:31
Again, this was run solo on my Kat/WP scrapper, but I changed some of the settings. My difficulty was on 8,+0 with bosses enabled. Perhaps the fact that I got more set recipes than standard was due to the bosses, but it was two recipes less than I got last night. I don't know what to make of that.
Anyway, I'll keep running missions and posting my results as they accumulate. With the market as crazy as it is right now, it would be nice to know that we're at least getting drops on the schedule we're supposed to for running non-AE content.
Edit: If it isn't obvious, these were all RWZ missions from Borea.
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C&P'd the above from my previous post (analysts: it's NOT new data).|
Originally Posted by Kitteh
Edit: set at 0x6
864 defeats 690 minions 163 LTs 11 bosses Actual Recipes:12 (1 rare / 1 uncommon / 10 common) Expected recipes: 27.91 Salvage: 67 (1 rare / 14 uncommon / 52 common) Expected salvage: 75.29 I'll add another 800-900 defeats when I can. |
Just wanted to put my inputs together for comparison.
EDIT 2: Bah! Looking at both sets, my expected salvage math looks wrong. I'll double-check tonight.
Recipe math looks consistent. I'll post the detail of both tonight as well.
Set at 0x6
3 toons on map (3-boxed, so all drops verified firsthand)
890 defeats
611 minions
190 LTs
10 bosses
Actual Recipes:17 (1 rare / 2 uncommon / 14 common)
Expected recipes: 27.18
Salvage: 69 (1 rare / 11 uncommon / 57 common)
Expected salvage: 71.61
EDIT 3: Weeee! Happy Monday! Ok...it's a small sample set right now, but there appears to be a consistent and significant variance with recipes drops in the case of a.) 1 actual toon in a mish set for 6, and b.) 3 actual toons in a mish set for 6.
Tonight I'll try 0x3 while 3boxed.
If I see the same significant variance for recipes then I'll post the results and will end testing.
If not then I'll do 3-4 runs of 0x2 while 2boxed for additional data.
Repeat Offenders
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Originally Posted by Stray Kitten
This may be a valid point and something I've been wondering as well (haven't been able to get to test to get my own numbers, but I have been following this thread). What if the bug is something along the lines of, the drops that were supposed to go to you when you turn the team size up instead drop to some sort of virtual player that was used to "pad" the team.
Might not even be how they handle those new team sizes, but its something worth looking at. |
Based in the report of the inf differences I am thinking the that the "Virtual" teammates are getting a slice of the inf and drops.
I guess the next test would be to compare a team of 8 Vs. a team of 1 set to 8 Vs. a team of 8 with 7 off map.
I am guessing test 1 and 2 will offer the same results, with test 3 being significantly higher.
Card Carrying DeFulmenstrator--Member Crazy 88s
We burn more Influence before 8am than you make all day.
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The inf is easy to verify. Compare the per-kill to what you get on live. At least early in testing, the amount that I got for a +1 Council minion or Lt. when I was +1/8 was exactly the same inf I got for a +1 Council minion solo on live.|
Originally Posted by _23X_
Based in the report of the inf differences I am thinking the that the "Virtual" teammates are getting a slice of the inf and drops.
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If virtual teammates are getting a cut of recipes, it's not a proportional cut; the drop rates I saw (and continue to see reported) weren't 1/8 of expected recipes. It's also not applying to salvage at all, and selective re-proportioning seems odd. Add to that the fact that I got lousy drop rates at +1/1 and I think the difficulty slider is at best only part of the equation.
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 agree.
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
If virtual teammates are getting a cut of recipes, it's not a proportional cut; the drop rates I saw (and continue to see reported) weren't 1/8 of expected recipes. It's also not applying to salvage at all, and selective re-proportioning seems odd. Add to that the fact that I got lousy drop rates at +1/1 and I think the difficulty slider is at best only part of the equation.
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Repeat Offenders
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
Also, I was tracking enhancement drops, and those looked to be doing the same thing as recipes, dropping off with a teammate. Gonna add another few runs on each setting tonight.
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I didn't think to track enhancements.
During my Excel sorts, I don't recall seeing that many at all.
Hopefully, I didn't delete those rows from my data sheets and I can add them on my next data post.
Repeat Offenders
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Both of your runs were consistent with the old drop rate of 2.66%. The run with fewer drops was closest to the expected value. Its rate was 2.40%. The +0/1 run had an unusually high drop rate of 3.75%. It was only just inside the 95% confidence interval.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
That would probably be the runs set for team size 1, +0. They had a drop rate that looked very close to expected, and it dropped way off when I added a virtual teammate. My runs were done on test, though.
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Given that these are the only runs that look like the old drop rate, I thought I'd try the same map with the same settings. (+0/2) As it happens, I also used a lvl 50 brute.
My results were 720 defeats (no LTs or bosses) with 21 pool A recipes and 70 pieces of salvage. This gave drop rates of 2.92% for recipes and 9.72% for salvage. These are consistent with the old drop rates.
This seems highly significant. We now have three runs on this map with no sign of a bug. As far as I can tell, these are the only runs we've had that weren't bugged. I'll try the map again tomorrow with larger spawns. Perhaps the bug only appears when we defeat LTs.
It would be interesting if someone else could try this map with a different archetype on +0/2 just to rule that out. It would also be interesting to see someone run a different map with different enemies on this setting. That would tell us whether it's the map or the difficulty setting that matters.
Which map(s) are we looking at, specifically? I'm sure I'd be able to set aside some time to check the numbers here.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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It's a red side mission from Tavish Bell called "Eliminate demons, secure cargo". It's full of Possessed Scientists! |
Originally Posted by macskull
Which map(s) are we looking at, specifically? I'm sure I'd be able to set aside some time to check the numbers here.
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The map instance is CargoShip_Layout_05. (At least for me.)
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And just to repeat [someone up thread] this map was one of the maps (I think the BS arc map in Mercy was another] that was used to identify the RNG bug a few issues ago.|
Originally Posted by Archie Gremlin
It's a red side mission from Tavish Bell called "Eliminate demons, secure cargo". It's full of Possessed Scientists!
The map instance is CargoShip_Layout_05. (At least for me.) |
It was generally accepted that this map was "special" because of the "set pattern" of spawns under certain conditions.
I still have it on my Fire/Kin and will run it a couple of times here soon.
Repeat Offenders
There's two different maps you can get for that one actually. one has about 4 more spawns than the other. As one of the original verifiers of the rng bug I know it intimately 
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Yeah. I decided to test with it because solo at x1 and x2, it spawns only minions. Also, it has a set number every single time you go into the map, for me it's 52 and 104 at x1 and x2, so I get exactly double the number when I change the difficulty.
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Originally Posted by Kitteh
And just to repeat [someone up thread] this map was one of the maps (I think the BS arc map in Mercy was another] that was used to identify the RNG bug a few issues ago.
It was generally accepted that this map was "special" because of the "set pattern" of spawns under certain conditions. I still have it on my Fire/Kin and will run it a couple of times here soon. |
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
Am I recalling correctly that the devs made a per map cap on tickets? I'm not talking about the 1500 per mission or the 9999 maximum carry capacity. I vaguely recall a discussion or announcement that each map had it's own ticket cap.
If so, could the ticket cap per map have gotten translated to a recipe per map cap?
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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Yes, now that you mention it there was something that went in with the ticket cap that caused maps with fewer spawn points to cap their rewards significantly lower than 1500.|
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
Am I recalling correctly that the devs made a per map cap on tickets? I'm not talking about the 1500 per mission or the 9999 maximum carry capacity. I vaguely recall a discussion or announcement that each map had it's own ticket cap.
If so, could the ticket cap per map have gotten translated to a recipe per map cap? |
The maps I've used for testing have been very large, though, and wouldn't be affected by something that reduced tickets based on spawn points. I don't think the cargo ship map would, either. I've also not seen anything that would indicate a "hard" cap. Most of my runs on the warehouse Council map have been 1-3 recipes, but I've had runs where I got as many as 7, and running the same mish on a different character on a slightly different map with the same number of total enemies have gotten as many as 12.
It's a good thought, and given the complexity of the code base it's not out of the realm of possibility that they're related, but I don't think a hard cap is what we're dealing with.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
But a map cap combined with a "phantom" padder that puts drops in his phantom pocket due to the new difficulty slider might.
Also a question for those farming the Cimerora wall: I know you are not fighting in an instanced map or mission, but just out of curiosity, what is your current difficulty slider setting?
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
Archie has been farming the wall on team size 1, difficulty 0.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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If that were the case, I would show a much higher drop rate on the same map spawned for 1, since the ticket cap is based on the number of spawn points. The drop rate has not been significantly higher spawned for 1, though. Things are borked all over. |
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
But a map cap combined with a "phantom" padder that puts drops in his phantom pocket due to the new difficulty slider might.
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My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
I am betting this will be what others will see as well. I'll try to get toons copied over to test and try this out myself tomorrow.
My question with the team of 8 were the other 6 off map but on team the whole time, or just on team to paint the map?