Dynamis drops mechanics?

[evilpaul]

I'm not sure if this should go in Event Strategies or here because its a stupid question, so feel free to move it as appropriate.

I've been wondering for a while about Dynamis... How do the possible drops for a zone work? Is it whichever currency 1/100 pieces, whatever crafting items (sparkling stones, wootz ores, goblin grease, etc), and then any of the possibly relic weapons and armor? Or are a few relic weapon and armor that can drop selected when you enter, in addition to the other stuff, as the only ones that will drop?

I've seen sooooo many times that we'll get a LOT of one particular item (like tonight Relic Axes, Relic Scythes, Relic Blades, and Itos...about 4-8 of each) and nothing else. Like tonight where we were in Bastok for 4 hours, cleared it, farmed it, and got a late arrival to the ??? for the clear and only got four diff relic weapons nobody wants. It just seems kind of unlikely that there's be multiples of the same item in the treasure pool at the same time if they all have an equal chance to drop.

[Tajin]

The short: SE hates you.
The truth: T.I.M.E.S.I.N.K.
The ugly: :bastok:

[Nuketwig]

I just assumed it was blue car syndrome.

[S N K]

The short: SE hates you.
The truth: T.I.M.E.S.I.N.K.
The ugly: :windy:

*Fixed

[Tomiko]

Dynamis Drop Mechanics:

If you want something to drop, it won't.
If it does drop, you'll be outlotted.
Any AF not being commented will drop in multiples (See also: Drg, Bst).

And I'm pretty sure there's only 4 different types of weapons that drop in Bastok.

[Wizerd]

Based on the fact that you expected more than 4 weapons to drop in Bastok, I'm gonna go ahead and answer with this:

Bastok, Windurst, and San d'Oria each have 11 different Relic Armor pieces that can drop, and I believe each also has 4 weapons. There is 1 Relic Armor per job, and 4 jobs get dick squat in these areas.

Jeuno has 12 different Relic Armors, and 3 weapons, also totalling 15. (This was offset when they introduced the shield, but shield isn't a weapon so meh!)

Nothing's chosen when you go in, in terms of which ones will drop that day. Some do believe in the voodoo nonsense though. Whatever works, right?

[Phla]

The short: SE hates you.
The truth: T.I.M.E.S.I.N.K.
The ugly:

*Fixed

?

[Niiro]

The short: SE hates you.
The truth: T.I.M.E.S.I.N.K.
The ugly: :rocl:

*Fixed

?

Fixed again!

osnap

-USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST-






More seriously:

No there's no predetermination of your drops upon entering, every beastman mob you kill can drop 1 of any AF in the zone, probably the same for relics but their rate is much higher no doubt.

Crafting junk probably works the same too, don't think I've ever seen more than one crafting item drop off the same mob.

[Izzy]

No there's no predetermination of your drops upon entering, every beastman mob you kill can drop 1 of any AF in the zone, probably the same for relics but their rate is much higher no doubt.

Crafting junk probably works the same too, don't think I've ever seen more than one crafting item drop off the same mob.

This is very true. Every time we do Bastok we clear the zone (as I'm sure most of you do). You'll notice that there are always a different amount of AF/Currency/Weapon drops each time you clear it. So, unless the drops that were pre-determined when you enter the zone are different every time, the odds of them being pre-determined are very slim.

[vegetaa]

It just seems kind of unlikely that there's be multiples of the same item in the treasure pool at the same time if they all have an equal chance to drop.

It's the problem with Random Number Generators, you can never tell if it's really random. In most events in this game, things usually happen several times in a row. May it be while crafting, fishing, farming a specific item, I noticed that many times. And I think it's just the same with Dynamis.

[Okuza]

It depends on how the pRNG is being used and on it's quality. Most pRNG's generate a sequence that looks random and displays the some of the qualities of an actual random series only when viewed in sequence. If you take the numbers out of sequence, you get a new series that looks much less random. No psuedo-random number generator produces actual random numbers. The good ones just look more random than the bad ones.

So, what this means is that if all the "drop randoms" were done with the same pRNG, they'd look fairly random. There would be some clumping, but it would rarely be outrageous. If the "drop randoms" are taken from the same pRNG that is generating other random numbers -- eg. for combat -- then the numbers are being taken out of sequence and most likely the new sequence won't appear nearly as random as the original. Same thing for combat itself. If the "combat RNG" is producing numbers for more than one person, the sequence isn't going to look terribly random to each person. It would only look random in the aggregate.

My bet is that is what is happening. I don't think they have any HW driven RNG, though they really should -- it's cheap and their entire product relies on random numbers. I think it's probably just a standard library function or (even worse) something one of their devs made up because it seemed random at the time; like cpu ticks mod 2^32, which gets used a lot, but is very VERY far from random. I've seen that kind of thing in a lot of code; just because you don't understand the function doesn't mean the series it produces has the properties of a random sequence. ><

If a game dev wants things to appear random, each set of events that should look random needs it's own unique pRNG.

[Rasantath]

i also remember some sort of hypothesis that if everyone who entered already had the key item for the clear that drops would be better.
no idea if thats true or not. probably not.

[Lampoon]

9 Xarcabard pieces tonight and 100 piece. Most i ever saw in Xarc, ever. Go figure.

[Hanyoko]

From what I recall of the dynamis drop mechanics generally the following would hold true.

The average amount of drops would increase with more people (this generally causes more kills). Certain mob groups in the zone tend feel to be inclined to drop certain pieces.
There will always be more relic weapon drops then people wanting to actually upgrade them.
TH generally helps.

But really, the zones are designed to be a gil/time sink so the drops are most likely completly random. Unless there is some "master control table" that throttles the amount of incoming relic armor to a certain quantity per timeframe.

It just seems kind of unlikely that there's be multiples of the same item in the treasure pool at the same time if they all have an equal chance to drop.

There are typically three types of random sets people think of. True random (where anything can happen), True Random except previous (same number cannot be back to back), and Random with equal numbers (over time the random values will appear an equal amount of time relative to possible other results)

example: 6 sided dice
True Random: 1 5 3 4 3 3 6 3 4 4 2 5
Rand except prev: 1 5 3 4 3 2 6 3 4 2 5 1
rand equal: 1 5 3 4 2 6 3 2 6 1 4 5

most people want to belive that all results will have an equal chance of showing up. When in reality its more of a true random and if it so desires can show up as a 1 as many times in a row as it wants.

[Vedder]

Crafting junk probably works the same too, don't think I've ever seen more than one crafting item drop off the same mob.

Got a Tukuku, a Lancewood Log, and a Relic Iron last night in Windy off the same Yag... so I'm pretty sure more than one crafting drop per mob is possible.

Of course, POIDH... but I don't have the P.

[Niiro]

I don't doubt it it's just not something I ever payed attention to I guess.

[Howard Roark]

Based on the fact that you expected more than 4 weapons to drop in Bastok, I'm gonna go ahead and answer with this:

Bastok, Windurst, and San d'Oria each have 11 different Relic Armor pieces that can drop, and I believe each also has 4 weapons. There is 1 Relic Armor per job, and 4 jobs get dick squat in these areas.

Jeuno has 12 different Relic Armors, and 3 weapons, also totalling 15. (This was offset when they introduced the shield, but shield isn't a weapon so meh!)

Nothing's chosen when you go in, in terms of which ones will drop that day. Some do believe in the voodoo nonsense though. Whatever works, right?

i see what you did there...

[Aux]

I've had considerable dynamis experience since the start of 2005, let me come out to say that after these three years I feel strongly on the following about dynamis:

1 - Moonphase affects what drops. This is under wide debate, the answer will never be known until some crazy guy comes along to test it with a large sample, or SE explains it to us. I can foresee the first coming before the latter.
2 - Kill faster/smoothly = More drops.
3 - There may be a moonphase/cycle where that job's AF2 "Window" is open during a certain time. (Similar to Racial RSE) Knowing how lazy SE can get I wouldn't be surprised if they used the same function for dynamis, minus treasure chests and keys.
4 - Certain AF seems to drop in certain places.
5 - Each linkshell seems to have it's "common job drops".
6 - Most linkshells seem to suffer Post-traumatic Xarcabard disorder after a few months(weeks) on starting.

Regarding in depth explanations of the notes I made above:
(2) - This is definitely true. The less time the puller spends waiting to pull after all mobs are 0%, the less time the main assist is taking to switch between slept mobs, the more AF AND Currency you will get. Well, not AF2 if you are unlucky that day I suppose. The less the puller sacs that triple linked pull on your alliance, the farther you can progress. Kill faster, keep morale up and you will get more output.
(3,5) - This may all be contributed to that moonphase/job window. If you think about it, many Dynamis Shells enter Dynamis during the same two times every week. Usually both those enter times, it is *almost* or near the same moonphase. Vana's clock seems in sync with the real world clock. Before you enter each dynamis do a /clock and check the current phase you're in, and then check it a week later.
This may explain why some LS can get multitudes of X AF2 while the other gets multitudes of Y AF2, or a bit from both. I stand behind this theory very strongly.
(4) - Haven't you noticed that one section Valor coronet just loves to drop at? How about Melee Hose? Sure, it can be from anywhere, but my brain doesn't lie to me when I get deja vu seeing it in the same area the next run.

SE really failed at the way AF2 works in return for the effort put. Honestly most of it isn't even that great, their respective job sometimes have something better for that slot, making it a somewhat waste.

Examples:
Most city AF barring useful ones. And City AF2 isn't even that great.. when you compare it to the other stuff out there, and no I don't mean hard to obtain gear either.

Here IMO are the "useful" City AF2. Take it with a grain of salt because it's my personal opinion.
Headpieces
BRD (San)
NIN (Win) - for capped parrying, and it only works half the game day...

Gloves
MNK - Cheap alternative to a well known pair of gloves that have a crap drop rate..
SAM - For that extra 20% TP. (Or was it 10%?) I don't know, I'm not a SAM main.

Legs
BLM - Only good for four hours every real 24 hours. Provided that you are actually even logged on during Ice/Lightning weather.
NIN - Poor man's alternative to Byakko/Usukane, competes with shura
MNK - Same as above " "

Feet
Uhm.... NIN for that Ninjutsu skill macro?
BLM for the guys who can't get yigit/rostrum


Let me move onto Beaucedine and Xarcabard.. Rather than listing the good, here's my thoughts on each piece.

-WAR - If you want the stats of this piece so bad, save yourself the headache of waiting for it to drop and go get the Figher's+1 from limbus. The stats are completely negotiable. Legs are nothing special.
-+THF - Armlets for that supposedly 1 extra percent in drops, major attention gain though. In the end, you just are a TH Whore so it can be either a positive or negative thing depending on your personality.
-MNK - Nice and useless. WS'ing in Optical hat is more practical.
+RDM - Best two pieces in game. Could almost wear full time sans AF1 for enfeebling.
-WHM - Regen piece, easily overridden by Nobles. Don't even get me started on gloves
-+BLM - Just a different looking Demon Cloak. Hat is great for HNM, but all else it has alternatives
+PLD - Valor (Body) is pretty much fulltime. Not sure about legs though.
-DRK - Notoriously useless.
-BRD - Same as above
-RNG - Best RNG Feet in the game, but I still feel Skadi's are better overall on matchup. Is RNG AF2 body even worth mentioning?
-SAM - Spend a few days to earn 300k and you can buy yourself the best armor in the game. It's just relatively that easy. Oh for the hat, Hakutaku is taking requests for 100% drops.
-+NIN - Gain (5%) accuracy or step it down to AF1 for 5% faster swings. What's your pick? Hands are the best gloves for a lot of melee if it a) wasn't limited to NIN only b) only worked half the day.

there's only TWO that can use the relic gear full time. Is it fair to get 5 WAR's in 2 months that don't even get worn after the first week, or wait 1 year for something simple as a RDM Hat or PLD Body to drop? Or get all melee AF2 a run and no mage whatsoever (Just face this, when have you ever seen a RDM-BLM-WHM-SMN-BRD dynamis only? How about the inverse of this?)

Only jobs I can't speak for are SMN, BST, DRG, I don't know their other means of gear availability and uses.

This is probably going to derail the thread, I'll just say that I'm not happy with my time spent vs the rewards given back for it.

/end rant

[Ichthyos]

I believe each beastman mob and NM in each zone can only drop 1 specific piece of AF. It'd be hard to test the validity of this hypothesis without an app telling you each mob's ID though.

[Suiram]

I believe each beastman mob and NM in each zone can only drop 1 specific piece of AF. It'd be hard to test the validity of this hypothesis without an app telling you each mob's ID though.

I don't believe this is true. This was so long ago that I know this is going to be pretty vague, but I used to hold this opinion because the same mob dropped the same AF for my Dynamis LS and for my HNMLS's Dynamis group in the same month (I want to say it was from the pull of the 3 eyes in Xarc with the time extension just east of the tower with RDM and WAR NMs, and that it was THF hands, but I'm not 100% on that). Every time we'd fight that pull I'd mention that that particular mob dropped that AF, and then one day a few months later it dropped a different job's AF. Maybe someone else remembers, people tend to remember the times I've been wrong about stuff like that, whereas I prefer to forget about it.