New loot system

[chrsschb]

I've been using the old system for over 5 years now and what you guys call "weird RND" is truthfully part of what made EQ, well, EQ. The numbers ARE random, and I've seen every item in a table drop fairly closely to it's proposed drop rate when looking at the whole picture, not just a single person's bad luck.

2% drop rate on super rare item:

Guy one gets item in 5 kills
Guy two gets item in 45 kills

50 / 100 = 2%

Sucks for guy two, BUT THAT IS WHAT WE KNOW AND REMEMBER!

[ChaosSlayerZ]

chrsschb, your example if perfectly normal - but thats not what meant by broken RND.

Let me give you an example:

you have loot table of 10 items, 10% each, and multiplayer of 5. (100% prob)
In theory, you should get up to 5 different items per kill.
What happens in reality, is that RND generates numbers in close series.
So when RND is asked to generate 5 numbers in a row from 1 to 100, it doesn't pick 5, 20, 77, 13, 56. It picks 88,81,84,89,91. So when it comes to loot table, you end up getting 4 copies of item that sits in 80-90 range and 1 item in 91+.

This doesn't happen every-time but VERY often.

[chrsschb]

Originally Posted by ChaosSlayerZ

chrsschb, your example if perfectly normal - but thats not what meant by broken RND.

Let me give you an example:

you have loot table of 10 items, 10% each, and multiplayer of 5. (100% prob)
In theory, you should get up to 5 different items per kill.
What happens in reality, is that RND generates numbers in close series.
So when RND is asked to generate 5 numbers in a row from 1 to 100, it doesn't pick 5, 20, 77, 13, 56. It picks 88,81,84,89,91. So when it comes to loot table, you end up getting 4 copies of item that sits in 80-90 range and 1 item in 91+.

This doesn't happen every-time but VERY often.

I haven't ran into this issue, sorry.

[Traul]

I really like ChaosSlayerz proposed modifications. Is there any update/progress on this at all?

[prickle]

The changes seem ok to me. However, the only problem i have with it is the PEQEdit interface wasn't updated to account for the changes. So, when i though i was setting a 5% chance to get one of 30 items, i was actually setting a 5% chance to get each of 30 items with no limit, because the PEQEdit interface did not have the mindrop and droplimit fields and the default for both is 0.

Fortunately, it appears that GeorgeS GUI tools have been updated to account for these changes, which helps with correcting the drop rates.

[cavedude]

PEQ PHP editor was updated way back in September, Rev 342. Make sure to grab it from SVN and not the download. I'm not going to be maintaining the downloads anymore. I just don't have the time.

I'll get back to the loot changes soon. I'm going to add probability back as an optional part of the system due to the fact that you can no longer have the same lootdrop in multiple loottables with different percentages. But, I'm 95% certain that is the only functionality the new system lost over the old, so no further changes will be needed. Of course, if we come up with something else the new system cannot do that the old could, I'll look at that as well.

For those who plain just don't like it, you can always revert locally. It's only 1 method, part of another method, and a few database calls. That code is hardly ever touched, so you could probably continue on with it in a conflicted state and never be bothered by it.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

you mean the probability, not multiplier, right?

[cavedude]

Sorry, yes! I'll fix my post.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

thank you Cavedude

[ChaosSlayerZ]

So Cavedude, when can we expect the new source revision out with the changes discussed?

[Tabasco]

As he noted, the adjustments are pretty minor. This works for me:
http://dungeoncrawl.us.to/eq/lootstuff.diff.txt

This is an excellent change overall and it has greatly simplified how I do loot.

Edit: You'll need to add a probability field to the table, I have mine in as a float.

[Caryatis]

Whoa dude slow down, you expect us to do a slight amount of work? No thanks, Ill just wait until somebody does it for me.

[sorvani]

Originally Posted by Caryatis

Whoa dude slow down, you expect us to do a slight amount of work? No thanks, Ill just wait until somebody does it for me.

don't forget the part about bitching about it.

[Drajor]

Originally Posted by Tabasco

As he noted, the adjustments are pretty minor. This works for me:
http://dungeoncrawl.us.to/eq/lootstuff.diff.txt

This is an excellent change overall and it has greatly simplified how I do loot.

Edit: You'll need to add a probability field to the table, I have mine in as a float.

Thanks, working for me

[cavedude]

Thanks for that Tabasco, this was going to be my next task after I got the new PEQ forums sorted. Even though it was a minor change, it was a big help to me thanks!

This is committed in Rev 2260.