In my quest to unlock the secrets of Treasure Hunter I've come across several posts that were intriguing and answered questions I wanted answered.
But still I am left with more questions that have either gone unproven or haven't been touched yet.
It all started when I saw the interview in which a programmer or development team person stated (while Sage Sundi had left the room and whether it was accidentally said is not known) that the more people in alliance when a monster is killed the better chance for drops.
So I figured that coming from a game programming background that I would logically think in the most simplest terms of what processes the game takes when a mob dies.
We all know that each item a monster can drop when it dies has a default base drop rate. For sake of argument let's say the mob being killed is Kirin, and let's say it's base drop rate was 10% on Kirin's Osode and 7% on NBody.
Now if the chance for drops increases as the number of people in alliance increases this must mean that when a monster dies the following process it taken.
DROP[1] = Kirin Osode
DROP[2] = NBody
1. Select DROP[1] from Loot Pool
2. Select first player in alliance.
3. Store treasure hunter modifier in Y (default modifier is 0 for non THF's)
4. Pick X+Y (X*0.Y more likely) numbers at random between 1 and 100 (X = 10 in this case because its 10% base drop).
5. Roll 100 sided die and store number in Z.
6. If Z = one of the numbers selected in Step 4 then the item drops, goto Step 8.
7. If item doesn't drop then go back to Step 1 until all players in alliance have been selected.
8. Select next DROP item in Loot Pool, goto Step 1.
I say X*0.Y is a more probable calculation for the algorithm because TH seems to help common items drop more often then rare items. So a 50% drop rate item would drop at 65% with TH3 where as a 10% drop item would only drop at 13% chance.
Note: these are hypothetical steps, there may be more steps involved.. maybe less... its really dependant on knowing everything there is to know about how things drop (including if last hit by THF has anything to do with it) and no one knows that except SE.
Now after I figured this part out above and have found over a long period of time that it does seem to hold true. I wanted to know what effects Step 3 and more importantly what number goes into Y.
This thread here http://www.theorderls.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6072 proves that the difference between TH levels is only 1% increased drop rate. Which is easy to understand, and even easier to put into the algorithm above if you don't think about it really. At first I thought that you could just assume TH3 = +3% to the base drop rate, which means Y = 3 and the drop rate when the THF is being checked is 13% which gives him a higher chance to make the item drop then anyone else.
But then I thought, everyone always says how they see such a big difference between No Treasure Hunter and TH1 when they sub THF for farming. So I took a look at this thread here http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46508 and noticed from this players statistics that the difference in drop rate from No TH to TH1 was almost 10%.
So it's conclusive then isn't it? Well no... the player that did the test on the Berry Grubs in Rolanberry was farming a high drop mob and only did 300 iterations of his test. 10% is not very conclusive evidence on a mob that drops at a very high rate without TH in the first place. What I want to see is someone do a test of 3000 Gobbue's with and without TH like the tester in the first thread did and come up with a nearly conclusive percentage of the difference between No TH and TH1.
Until then it will be impossible to know what Y is and what the drop rate becomes when a THF helps in alliance, the only thing that will be known is that THF does indeed help, and so does having a lot of people helping when the mob dies.
But still I am left with more questions that have either gone unproven or haven't been touched yet.
It all started when I saw the interview in which a programmer or development team person stated (while Sage Sundi had left the room and whether it was accidentally said is not known) that the more people in alliance when a monster is killed the better chance for drops.
So I figured that coming from a game programming background that I would logically think in the most simplest terms of what processes the game takes when a mob dies.
We all know that each item a monster can drop when it dies has a default base drop rate. For sake of argument let's say the mob being killed is Kirin, and let's say it's base drop rate was 10% on Kirin's Osode and 7% on NBody.
Now if the chance for drops increases as the number of people in alliance increases this must mean that when a monster dies the following process it taken.
DROP[1] = Kirin Osode
DROP[2] = NBody
1. Select DROP[1] from Loot Pool
2. Select first player in alliance.
3. Store treasure hunter modifier in Y (default modifier is 0 for non THF's)
4. Pick X+Y (X*0.Y more likely) numbers at random between 1 and 100 (X = 10 in this case because its 10% base drop).
5. Roll 100 sided die and store number in Z.
6. If Z = one of the numbers selected in Step 4 then the item drops, goto Step 8.
7. If item doesn't drop then go back to Step 1 until all players in alliance have been selected.
8. Select next DROP item in Loot Pool, goto Step 1.
I say X*0.Y is a more probable calculation for the algorithm because TH seems to help common items drop more often then rare items. So a 50% drop rate item would drop at 65% with TH3 where as a 10% drop item would only drop at 13% chance.
Note: these are hypothetical steps, there may be more steps involved.. maybe less... its really dependant on knowing everything there is to know about how things drop (including if last hit by THF has anything to do with it) and no one knows that except SE.
Now after I figured this part out above and have found over a long period of time that it does seem to hold true. I wanted to know what effects Step 3 and more importantly what number goes into Y.
This thread here http://www.theorderls.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6072 proves that the difference between TH levels is only 1% increased drop rate. Which is easy to understand, and even easier to put into the algorithm above if you don't think about it really. At first I thought that you could just assume TH3 = +3% to the base drop rate, which means Y = 3 and the drop rate when the THF is being checked is 13% which gives him a higher chance to make the item drop then anyone else.
But then I thought, everyone always says how they see such a big difference between No Treasure Hunter and TH1 when they sub THF for farming. So I took a look at this thread here http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46508 and noticed from this players statistics that the difference in drop rate from No TH to TH1 was almost 10%.
So it's conclusive then isn't it? Well no... the player that did the test on the Berry Grubs in Rolanberry was farming a high drop mob and only did 300 iterations of his test. 10% is not very conclusive evidence on a mob that drops at a very high rate without TH in the first place. What I want to see is someone do a test of 3000 Gobbue's with and without TH like the tester in the first thread did and come up with a nearly conclusive percentage of the difference between No TH and TH1.
Until then it will be impossible to know what Y is and what the drop rate becomes when a THF helps in alliance, the only thing that will be known is that THF does indeed help, and so does having a lot of people helping when the mob dies.
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