Recipe drops broken

I've been PLing a char. The level 50 farmer is set for +3 level mobs and missions spawned for 8. I get big spawns of level 53 mobs. I have PLd another char from level 1 to level 31 since Update 16 went live in one of Unai's missions. That's over 6,000 minions, based on the amount of Prestige I've earned. While defeating those 6,000 minions, I have earned a total of four recipes. Three of those are costume recipes (which aren't in the regular drop pool), and one was a common IO. I don't know the circumstances of how I got that common IO, as I had given up checking for recipes after a while. For all I know, some generous level 50 char slipped it to him while he was standing around outside the mission. I've gotten reasonable amounts of XP, Inf, Salvage, Inspirations, and Enhancements.

In order to test this with a control, I tried the same Unai mission under 2 similar circumstances. I have a level 50 Tanker in a Flashback that was started with 8 chars, so he gets full spawns. I set his difficulty to +1 mobs so I would get level 51s. I was the only person in the flashback logged in. Defeating ONLY minions, he got 2 Uncommon Recipes after defeating a total of 184 minions. That's a very small sample, but that's around the expected rate. I didn't see a need to get a larger sample.

I then copied my char to the test server (running the same version as live). I wasn't in the flashback, but I just so happened to have the exact same Unai mission as given by him normally. I set my difficulty to +1 mobs, spawned for 8. So I was on the same map, fighting the same mobs, at the same spawn size (spawned for 8), at the same level (51), with me being the only char in the team. I defeated 774 minions only, and I only got a costume recipe. Again, costume recipes come from a different drop pool than regular recipes. In the good old days, I would have gotten on average 15+ Common, Uncommon, and Rare recipes.

So it looks like increasing the team size completely shuts off regular recipe drops under some circumstances.

I have heard many other people make similar claims, some with numbers to back them up, but I haven't heard anything from the devs one way or the other as to whether or not drops are broken. Does anyone have any further information on this?

It would be interesting for someone could gather some more data on the wall in Cim, to look at the drop rate outside instanced missions. In at least some of the versions of I16 on test, that drop rate was also seriously down.

There's more info about the testing done so far, and tools to help with gathering data, in this thread here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=188370

I also second TopDoc's request for dev feedback on this issue. It would be really nice to hear something, not least so people can use their time testing this in the most productive ways.

Hmm, I ran Liberate TV once with settings +0/8/0/0. I got the following:
29 recipes - 23 generics, 5 uncommon, 1 costume, no rares, no purples
49+ salvages - ran with "salvage full" for awhile
10+ SOs

I'm going to try it again...

Yesterday and today I farmed the wall in Cim. for an hour each time as I have done countless times.

Neither time did I fill up on recipes. Usually I would have filled up twice in an hour.

Oh, and yesterday I ran a Sister Psych, and was the only lvl 50, the rest of the team was ssk'd to me, they were in the tf range. And one person had a purple drop for them. They were lvl 25.

If you're posting drop data here then you should probably know that we can't use your data unless you report certain things. We need the following to calculate your drop rate:-

• how many minions you defeated
• how many lieutenants you defeated
• how many bosses/EBs you defeated
• how many Pool A recipes you received (not Pool B or costume pieces)
• how much salvage you received

• your difficulty settings including virtual team size
• your archetype and level
• the map(s) you used
• the actual size of your team including padders
• any other factors you found interesting

Just added some numbers to the thread in the Marketplace section, and my findings are rather disturbing (to say the least). I am convinced that there is a bug since the Dev Team has denied tampering with drop rates, but we certainly need more data.

I need to test my numbers against standard street sweeping numbers some time later today (I'll hit the Croatoa Wall, RWZ and Peregrine parking lot a few times each.) People are claiming drop rates are "just fine" but they all seem to be observing this through sweeping instead of instanced missions.

To sum up my current findings:

Running instanced missions with the mission difficulty set to "Standard" (+0 level, 1 Hero Equivalent), the drop rate seems fine. Running those same missions at a higher difficulty and the recipe drop rate is WAY off. (Salvage continued to drop like candy, though.)

UberGuy, there are lots of things that can mess up the datamining. If there's something wrong with the final choice of who to give a drop to, then data-mining may indicate things are being dropped when they really aren't. For example, if the "spawn for 8" difficulty fills the team up with 8 chars who aren't really there, they may be the ones getting the drops. In my case (6000 mobs at level 53), the game may log that it's giving me a Crushing Impact, but then give me nothing because it doesn't hand out level 53 set IOs. It may also be a problem that only affects certain people, like those who fight at particularly high level or against very large spawns. That's a small percentage of the population, so the reduced drops there may be lost in the noise of everyone else. The Devs would need to do some different data-mining to figure out these sorts of things. Like mine just solo people, or mine just missions run at level+3, or things like that. But even that won't help if the data being mined is wrong, as in the first example.

Nord, could you try some different settings? Like try mobs at +1, +2, or +3 if you can manage. Your results for even level mobs look fine, so it'll be obvious what's wrong if you change something and the recipes stop.

badchad, in Cimerora the mobs spawn with fixed sizes and levels. I don't think your difficulty affects that at all. But certainly try farming the wall at significantly different difficulties and see what happens. If you're getting fewer recipes than normal and you have your difficulty to be spawn for a team of 2, they may be linked. Change to spawn for a team of 8, and see if the recipes stop.

Archie, the info in my original post should be sufficient for the Devs to track down the problem. Under virtually identical circumstances, the drops were significantly different. The main difference was getting big spawns using the difficulty slider versus using offline padders in a Flashback. In both cases I was solo, but the game internally has to recognize the difference. Somehow that appears to make a difference in handing out recipes.

"Liberate Television" +1/8/0/0:

17 recipes - 15 commons, 0 uncommons, 2 rares
56 salvages
7 SOs


I haven't try +2 and +3. While, I think, I will be able to handle it, it might become spawn micromanagement nightmare for my bane. Even at +0, I have to be careful to kill "Colonels" after majority of minions are down, and that greatly slows down the run.

Let's see. Yesterday I ran 10 back to back 8man Borea missions in the RWZ with my mace/elec brute.

Cleared the map each time.

4 Recipes and salvage dropped like candy.

1 of those were a costume drop
1 was a rare recipe
the other two were generic IO's.

I ran the last mission of the Dark Watcher's arc and I had them rain on my like no one's business. Filled right up from empty.

I have NO idea what the [censored] is going on