Individual Drops (PSO2 Drop Style)

[Soly]

We'll try to clear some doubts about this drop system.

DPP = Drop Per Player, the new drop system being implemented.
DPR = Drop Per Room, the original drop system that has always been in psobb.
DAR = Drop Anything Rate, the chance a monster has to drop an item or not (number between 0 and 100, this doesn't decide which item you get)

What is this new drop system?
This is a system that gives players individual drops.
What you see is yours, what others see is theirs, you don't see other player's drops

But why?
To solve the issue of players "calling" drops and/or "stealing" your drops.
Since they can't see your drops, you don't have to worry about sharing items, although you can do if you want, after you pick up the items.

That means if I am hunting with other players we all get the item we are looking for?
Not necessarily, here is a comparison between the original system and the new one.

First we'll explain how drops work:

• You kill a monster,
• The server generates a random number to see if you get anything from that monster (this stage is critical for the new system, where the DAR is used)
• If you get anything, then the server generates another random number to see if you get the monster's rare item
• If you don't get the rare item, then you get a common item.

Drop system specifics

DPR:
Someone kills a monster
The server proceeds to generate a drop for it
If the room gets lucky and gets a drop, everyone in the party sees it and can grab it.

DPP:
Someone kills a monster
The server proceeds to generate a drop for each player in the area where the monster was killed
If a player gets lucky and gets a drop, only they can see it and grab it.

So being specific, in DPP, each player gets a chance of getting an item different from everyone else. Not necessarily dropping the same item for each player but that possibility exists.

That means we get 4 times the chance to get an item in a full room of players?
Originally yes, currently not.
Originally you (as a whole room) would get 4 times the chance to get a drop, because each player will get a chance of getting a drop, so something has to be done about it and it has been done, which is reducing the DAR to a sensible value so you don't get as many drops but neither none.

Current DAR reduction
Player DAR
1p = 1.00
2p = 0.67
3p = 0.55
4p = 0.43

How do I use this drop system?
This drop system is disabled by default, you can use the following commands
/dropstyle    = Tells you which drop system is enabled
/dropstyle 0 = Disables the new drop system
/dropstyle 1 = Enables the new drop system

The drop system takes effect on the room, so if you have DPR enabled but join a room with DPP, you will be playing in DPP.

[Larva]

Sweet !! 

Reserved

[Soly]

Reserving too lol

[Midori]

OK, so this new drop system solves the problem of calling dibs on items/item ninjas. That's nice and all but why would a capable player who understands math, play multiplayer in the first place? In order for us to take advantage of the item ninja problem being solved, multiplayer needs to be worth playing. Let's fix this!

 

We currently have two problems when it comes to items.

 

Problem: The item balance between solo and multiplayer is way off. Solo is far superior to multiplayer because you get more items in less time. In other words, if you want items, and you are capable of soloing, you will generally get items between 3x to 4x faster by soloing. If you have additional members in your party, regardless of which drop system you use, it means less items for you. With 4 players, on average, each player will only get 1/4 of the items, compared to solo. If you want items, and you are capable of soloing, there is basically no reason to play multiplayer.

 

Solution: Better item balance between solo and multiplayer. We need a drop system that will give each player their own item, and at a decent enough rate. The goal should be a game that favors multiplayer, or at least a game where you can find items at roughly the same rate regardless of how many players are in your party. Ideally, the DAR would remain the same no matter how many players are in the party, which would mean that the game actually slightly favors multiplayer. But if the idea of an online game favoring multiplayer is crazy for some strange reason, assuming that each additional party member will speed up the quest clear time slightly, a slight DAR reduction could make sense. If it takes 60 minutes to get item X solo, it should take 60 minutes or less to get item X with 4 players. Adjust the numbers as needed to get the best balance.

 

Problem: One person using multiple accounts to get items faster. This problem has always existed and will continue to exist regardless of how the new drop system works, but it could potentially be worse if we let players quad box with a multiplayer friendly drop system to get items faster. New accounts are free, you can run multiple clients on the same PC, and one controller will control every client. All of these reasons make it extremely easy to exploit the game and get items way faster than normal. I've solo'd with 6 accounts myself and I can get 90 Luck mats or 12 Glide Divines in 1 HH.

 

Solution: Restrict one person from using multiple accounts to get items faster. One way or another, this needs to happen. Maybe it can be done through software, by reducing the number of accounts allowed to connect at once from 6 to 1 or 2, or disable support for multiple clients on the same PC. Or we can just have a written rule that says something like "One person cannot use more than one (or maybe two) accounts at the same time to get items faster", which means players could still use multiple accounts for things like item transfers or visiting a different lobby. If we allow two accounts, people could still use it for things like section ID and buffs, but more importantly, there would be room in the party for other players, so true multiplayer would still be possible.

 

Personally speaking, until these problems are addressed, I will continue to solo with anywhere from 1 to 6 accounts, because that's the best way to play the game based on its own rules. I do this because I want to be strong/good at the game, not because I enjoy it. I actually prefer to play with other people, because multiplayer is much more fun and interesting to me. Please fix these problems so players like me can enjoy playing multiplayer and still feel like we are playing the game in an efficient way. Thank you.

[dmoney1969]

Start off by saying thanks Soly for adding this.   I do think we need to increase the Dar a bit tho.  It's unplayable atm.  

 

[ryukin]

If you're solo, dual logging, in a party with people you trust, the old drop system is better. If you're in a party full of shady people like cake, or cake, and cake, then maybe use the new system. End of story

[Soly]

Alright... I decided to work in a way to limit the multi log with this system specifically.
Can't promise anything yet, but will get to work on it soon, later today.

The DAR will never stay at the original rate, that's for sure, but as I put in the note at the end of the first post, I intended to give a boost to it to make it more appealing.

Maybe limiting the multi log and increasing the rates a bit will make everyone happy (I know I am asking a lot)

[dmoney1969]

1 minute ago, Soly said:

Alright... I decided to work in a way to limit the multi log with this system specifically.
Can't promise anything yet, but will get to work on it soon, later today.

The DAR will never stay at the original rate, that's for sure, but as I put in the note at the end of the first post, I intended to give a boost to it to make it more appealing.

Maybe limiting the multi log and increasing the rates a bit will make everyone happy (I know I am asking a lot)

Soly for President!

[ryukin]

3 minutes ago, Soly said:

Alright... I decided to work in a way to limit the multi log with this system specifically.
Can't promise anything yet, but will get to work on it soon, later today.

The DAR will never stay at the original rate, that's for sure, but as I put in the note at the end of the first post, I intended to give a boost to it to make it more appealing.

Maybe limiting the multi log and increasing the rates a bit will make everyone happy (I know I am asking a lot)

Nah you're not asking for a lot, that's what I thought was going to happen in the first place. That would basically fix it imo if you can still dual log for ID's for the room at the -most- for multi log along w/ increase would make me want to play with others way more. 

[Yannv]

There is a server somewhere that have this system and use the following DAR reductions:

Player DAR   Room Overall Chance
1p = 1.00      1.00 
2p = 0.82      1.64
3p = 0.67      2.01
4p = 0.54      2.16

I don't think it would be "broken" these reductions I suggested because the main goal of using this system is:

1. Less locked rooms

2. Make multiplayer game favored over solo.

3. Make people that are trying to help others do their best, since he will be rewarded too.

4. Even the less geared players have the same chance of getting goodies as the well geared player.

I'm not saying the DAR should be like above. But something approximate to that so all players can see the benefit from using this system.

I agree that there should be some way of restrict the usage of this drop style since some players can use that to dual/quad log and get even more drops when using multiple clients.

But yeah, this marks a new start to Ultima Story, but currently with these rates, it is still much more efficient to use Classic dropstyle.

Edited June 25, 2016 by yanvbraz

[HHawk4]

50 minutes ago, ryukin said:

If you're solo, dual logging, in a party with people you trust, the old drop system is better. If you're in a party full of shady people like cake, or cake, and cake, then maybe use the new system. End of story

yes, because im shady.

[BK-201]

Really happy about the pso2 drop system, but that's not how Probability works.
If 4 people has each 0.25=1/4 as chance to drop something, the chance that at least 1 will drop the item is not 1/4 x4 but it is-
1-(3/4)^4 = 0,68 (The chance that at least one event verifies is 1- ( the chance that exactly nobody will get the item) You can find this in every probability book.
So using those chances you are using the chance that at least one will get the item is way worse than 1.
This is a very common error.
 

Edited June 26, 2016 by BK-201

[Soly]

42 minutes ago, yanvbraz said:

Stuff

yeah, Ephinea has those rates and are high as you can see. Originally I though of something similar, but I didn't want to make such high rates.

Edited June 26, 2016 by Soly

[Soly]

4 minutes ago, BK-201 said:

Stuff

Finally.

[Soly]

@mudkipzjm I'm sorry, your post appeared twice, tried to get rid of one and it deleted both....