Purple Drop Rate

I had particularly bad luck. I think I had two drop in as many years (and I think the two dropped earlier in that period). Then boom! I had three drop in as many weeks. I seem to get them now from time to time.

I do play a fair amount of alts, but that dry spell was making me wonder if the devs hated me for a bit, even though I knew it was randomly possible.

I was finishing Lavantaria's arc, on my defender, in RWZ last night solo, +0 3 minions. Last mission got an Absolute Amazement as a drop.

On a Barracuda last night a teammate got an Unbreakable Constraint triple and I landed a Soulbound Allegiance Damage/End I believe.

Sometimes I farm and farm and get nothing; just maximize your odds by playing high end content or market through sales for a return on your income.

I received 5 in two missions a few months ago. I was happy. There had been a six month dry period before that but that is how random works.

Random is random, all right.

When I was levelling my archery blaster, I got 10 purples in 32 calendar days -- couldn't have been 31 days for "10 in a month," no -- just playing the game and doing mostly radio and arc missions, back in the days of "Unyielding" and the like for mission difficulty. A few teammates got a few purples as well playing with that toon, and we joked about the dark blue costume and how the toon was apparently a "purple recipe magnet. Maybe you should make the COSTUME purple or something!"

Then I've got some other toons which I play semi-regularly that I'm not sure have ever gotten one. My main two or three toons get a purple -- I'm guesstimating now -- maybe once a month on average, doing the same combination of radio and arc missions. Rare enough to go "hey, wow!" but nowhere close to the farmers who claim to average one per map.

I must farm way more than most or something. Ive never gone months without purples. I farm a couple hours per day and up to 10 off and on during the weekends. I dont get them every run, but at least 1 every few runs. Just dumb luck i guess. Running solo at 0x8 unless PL'ing my 2nd account.

I got 2 with a level 50 archery blaster running in Peregrine when purples first came out... have not gotten a single purple SINCE. It's been what, almost 2 years? I play my two mains (50's) 90% of the time I am on, spend about 10 hours a week farming papers or running ITF's. I support the conspiracy theory...

-B

I am pleased to announce that I had my 2nd purple drop EVER today while running a tip mission with some friends against Carnies in PI.

After playing for over 14month on CoH this is only my 2nd every purple drop, unfortunately it was a relatively cheap purple, (fortunata sleep set iirc rech/sleep/end maybe?) only on sale for about 70mil but idc

The fact that i finally had another purple drop just made my day

@Shady Sam
Union

heh cheers for you!

Here is a theory supported by multiple people in my SG. It's called the Purple Window Theory (TM). It's about as random and insane as the regular drop thought, however, it supports the streakiness that the RNG likes to do sometimes. We even tested it tonight and it worked! Here's what it is:

The random generator picks a time of day, then a random period of time from 3 minutes to 10 minutes. During that time, a purple may drop on, we have believed to be, a 1 in 750 to 1 in 1500 chance. When you are not in the RNG's window of opportunity, then you will not get a purple, no matter how many mobs you kill. Period. The support of this theory is as follows:
Over the course of my 5 months in this game, I have seen the following happen a total of 26 times:
Random person in Global Channel: "Hey guys, just got a purple!"
Within 3-10 minutes later, people in coalition, the team I'm on, and other global channels say the same thing. However, at any other time in that day, not a single person in all 7 of my global channels and none of the hundreds of people in my coalition got a single purple drop.
Or, as it has happened this week... At exactly 12:45:06 EST Tuesday, my friend got an Armageddon drop. That same friend got a Hecatomb at 12:46:26 EST Wednesday, and then we tested it tonight, and at exactly 12:43:55 EST Thursday, another Armageddon dropped, and 2 people on the same team got purples within 4 minutes of that one dropping. Then after 12:48, not another purple dropped the next hour they were on.

It may or may not be as random as people think. I also believe that there are 2 Purple Windows, one for your not-so-popular ones, like your Sleep/Confuse/Immobilize sets, then the one with the more popular ones, AKA the damage purples. It's a theory worth testing. I, personally, have only had 1 purple drop on me in the 5 months I've been playing (about a week ago), but I also play a lot of lowbies. My time spent on my 50s is miniscule compared to my time levelling up toons.

Either way, random is random, lucky is lucky, streaks are streaks. You play the game, you have fun, and you squeal like a giddy little schoolgirl when you see Recipe Found!

Or, maybe that's the natural human tendency to see patterns where none exist, and random numbers are random?

Nah.... Couldn't be.

I wish they would lower the drop rate of temp recipes.

I have honestly seen 10 drop from one radio which to me at least seems way to high.

I've gotten around 20 purple drops total since they were first introduced to the game.
I've bought many others, but getting 20 of my own is probably not too bad all things considered.