Are FB drops nerfed by high level characters?

PsychoChickn - Dreamweaver
PsychoChickn - Dreamweaver Posts: 107 Arc User
edited July 2009 in General Discussion
My experience so far has been that FB runs with more apropriate level charactes have produced a nice crop of drops (3/3 runs). When going in with high level characters that can breeze through in a few minutes we have gotten decent boss drops only 3 times out of 13 runs. A lot of high level characters wanting to help on these runs keep saying that they have no effect on the drops. I do not believe this (for obvious reasons). It appears that the bosses drops have some randomness with the chance of getting nice drops decreasing as the level of the characters goes up. Does anyone with more than my limited experience care to illuminate us? I appear to have offended a few people by expressing a desire to he "helped" by people nearer my level. My usual buddy and I have even started a barb/cleric combo just to help people in the lower level FB's. We have no idea what to do with all the exp they may get, other than leveling new Genies.
Post edited by PsychoChickn - Dreamweaver on

Comments

  • Bittersweet - Harshlands
    Bittersweet - Harshlands Posts: 236 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    Well; I'm not sure about this either. A whole group of 8x only did FB39; and a wheel of fate dropped. :/
  • Tearvalerin - Sanctuary
    Tearvalerin - Sanctuary Posts: 3,787 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    yes, highest pary member kills drops
  • LloydAsplund - Sanctuary
    LloydAsplund - Sanctuary Posts: 3,899 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    I had a fb39 run with my squad, all lvl 78+ except the tabber who was level 40. 2 WoFs dropped, both given to tabber of course. Not sure 100%, but I think it is nerfed somehow with high levels. I remember getting very few coin drops when I was level 30ish. Now coin drops are common as hell.
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  • Darksylph - Heavens Tear
    Darksylph - Heavens Tear Posts: 1,816 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    The high level players you spoke to are noobs. The fact is, the level of the highest player to appear on the bosses aggro table (so healers included even if they never touched the boss) compared to the level of the boss, effects the chances of drops. Many high level players might be used to TT, FF, Lunar, World Bosses, etc, all of which are level [?] which is calculated as lvl 150 in terms of drops, as such until players start hitting level 151, the drop rate will never be reduced. However, FB bosses & quest bosses are not level [?], but they do in fact have a level. I believe Quigzi of FB29 is officially level 35, so players over 35 will start to nerf the drop rate, and by level 75 the nerf will be at its fullest extent (40+ levels over the mob). If the boss has a level, higher levels will nerf it. Use this table to see by how much;
    http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/drop
  • Skimi - Dreamweaver
    Skimi - Dreamweaver Posts: 333 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    My usual buddy and I have even started a barb/cleric combo just to help people in the lower level FB's. We have no idea what to do with all the exp they may get, other than leveling new Genies.

    Isn't your cleric and bar also higher level than fb boss? If yes then you do same thing, reduce drop rate for people.
    High levels do reduce drop rate, but doing fbs withing fb level its more like suicide/waste of time and tons of deaths. So who cares about drop rate when can do it fast and smoothly
  • Deceptistar - Sanctuary
    Deceptistar - Sanctuary Posts: 10,454 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    The fact is, the level of the highest player to appear on the bosses aggro table (so healers included even if they never touched the boss) compared to the level of the boss, effects the chances of drops.
    Is this singular or the cumulative sum of lvls?
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  • PsychoChickn - Dreamweaver
    PsychoChickn - Dreamweaver Posts: 107 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    Thanks for the quick answers. On the day we offended a few people, we did the first 2 51FB bosses (that all dropped a ton of stuff on the floor) with the highest level in party being the level 57 barbarian. We experienced no more than 3 party member deaths getting there, (except for the party wipe when a patrol came by -- we learned to kill them first after that) but all the mobs dropped stuff and gave good XP--not just the bosses. We could have done better, but we were all learning how to do it with appropriate level characters. Some lessons had to be relearned on the fly. The tank had to leave and mow the lawn or something, and we finished with a level 71 tank. With the L71 tank the next 3 bosses we killed (there were 3 of us with tabs that day) only dropped once from the boss, and only enough coins dropped from the other no-xp mobs to equal a miserly tip from Ebenezer Scrooge. Then, the party broke up and we all went our separate ways.
  • Kittennice - Heavens Tear
    Kittennice - Heavens Tear Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    Hmm, not entirely sure on that. I get good drops 3/4 of the time.
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  • Piliener - Lost City
    Piliener - Lost City Posts: 589 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    It takes an avg of the squad lvl if the formula is still the same
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  • _DarkSeph_ - Sanctuary
    _DarkSeph_ - Sanctuary Posts: 2,294 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    Common sense. You go fight a level 30 mob at lv80, you'll most likely get **** drops. It's the same in fb's. It's not a 0% chance, so sometimes you can get lucky.

    Personally I have never seen or got a mold drop in any fb I've done or helped with. On fb19, I've seen coin drops on every occasion apart from once when I solo'd it at 46.
  • Michael_Dark - Lost City
    Michael_Dark - Lost City Posts: 9,091 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    The regular drop rates do indeed change, but the mold drop rates (which are so low to start off with) don't seem to. Out of all the fb's I've ever done, molds have only dropped in high level groups... as well as doing many fb59/69/79's, molds are just as uncommon.

    So running a FB with comparable levels does produce more drops, most of which are garbage anyway. 3* rate is also nerfed, but molds seem to have a mind of their own.

    Sure you can crunch the numbers and make up what works, but in-game things act differently.
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  • Chrisssss - Sanctuary
    Chrisssss - Sanctuary Posts: 531 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    I think it might. I've seen more mold dropped then I ever did in my lower lvl. Still though idk about your server but the most common rule now is tabber gets molds and 3 stars. So ether way its a win win situation for lower lvls.
  • nederlandse
    nederlandse Posts: 189 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    12-14 solo fb19 dryruns (just me), and i got a grand total of 2 mirage swords, 1 moonlight bow, several dark cone amulet, and a great deal of 3star equipments.

    20+ runs with a tabber, me soloing the fb19 for them, resulted in nothing but coin drops

    this was with my lvl 44 veno on sanc

    discuss...

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  • WitchBurner - Sanctuary
    WitchBurner - Sanctuary Posts: 1,394 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    It may be just coincedence but whenever I'm in a squad where the tabber and a squad member are around the same level, 1 mold has dropped during the run.

    I guess just one squad member can tip the odds of the drop in the players favour.

    Closer to end-game the drop chances in your fb's always go up, I ran my fb79 with a level 78 and some low 8x's. 89 will be likely the same thing, me and people around my level.

    Also the number of possible mold drops seems to increase the higher up you go. Many low level molds are pretty worthless except the fiends ring from 29.
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  • Tahathegreat - Dreamweaver
    Tahathegreat - Dreamweaver Posts: 99 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    i did a FB 19 with a bunch of 60's and the tabber got a mold
  • Lennson - Heavens Tear
    Lennson - Heavens Tear Posts: 32 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    It has been stated only the 3* item drops are reduced by high level squads running an fb, while the mold drop rate is not, this is in fact only true in one sense.

    The chance that molds can be achieved from the "additional drop" IS NOT changed by level.
    The chance that molds can be achieved from the "normal drop" IS changed by level.

    The level used in calculations I believe is simply the highest level in the party.
    (I doubt an average is used as such a set-up could be exploited by having a lvl1 in party to lower average level, however I haven't seen this proven one way or the other)

    Here's an example fb29:

    Squad with a level 31 as highest level:
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE 3* item: 98.5%
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE mold (from either drop type): 22.5%

    Squad with a level 75+ as highest level:
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE 3* item: 19.7%
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE mold (from either drop type): 4.5%

    Note: the mold that can be achieved from the "additional drop" has negligible effect since the chance of it occurring in either case is only 0.0000085162% chance.

    Disclaimer: all values are calculated based on the data and methods from pwdatabase.com as I interpret them.
  • Reivi - Sanctuary
    Reivi - Sanctuary Posts: 742 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    the problem of your calculation ( even if its well done) is that drop rates from pwdatabase arent accurate

    from experience =>
    Fb below 59 , real lame drop rates

    Fb 59 and above, are better, but not even near what Pwdatabase writes.
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  • Amsel - Sanctuary
    Amsel - Sanctuary Posts: 295 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    I think it might. I've seen more mold dropped then I ever did in my lower lvl. Still though idk about your server but the most common rule now is tabber gets molds and 3 stars. So ether way its a win win situation for lower lvls.


    Same here been about 2 3*s in every one i do now, even as low as 29 we got a 3* yesterday, for 4 today in two i ran 39s
  • Alyyy - Sanctuary
    Alyyy - Sanctuary Posts: 3,165 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    It may be just coincedence but whenever I'm in a squad where the tabber and a squad member are around the same level, 1 mold has dropped during the run.

    this hapened when we did fb59 as a faction (me and taber were similiar lvls)T_T yay 4 me not to lvl at that time....we were lucky i gues :P

    (sad u left us tho DURING MY VACATION T_T.....)
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  • FoxRunning - Heavens Tear
    FoxRunning - Heavens Tear Posts: 2,048 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    one word: yes.


    UNLESS you are with honest people, who realise that its YOUR FB, and YOUR drops. ...all of them.

    My experience so far has been that FB runs with more apropriate level charactes have produced a nice crop of drops (3/3 runs). When going in with high level characters that can breeze through in a few minutes we have gotten decent boss drops only 3 times out of 13 runs. A lot of high level characters wanting to help on these runs keep saying that they have no effect on the drops. I do not believe this (for obvious reasons). It appears that the bosses drops have some randomness with the chance of getting nice drops decreasing as the level of the characters goes up. Does anyone with more than my limited experience care to illuminate us? I appear to have offended a few people by expressing a desire to he "helped" by people nearer my level. My usual buddy and I have even started a barb/cleric combo just to help people in the lower level FB's. We have no idea what to do with all the exp they may get, other than leveling new Genies.
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  • Divine_Death - Dreamweaver
    Divine_Death - Dreamweaver Posts: 1,491 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    Just ran 2 FB 79s with 3 lvl 79, 2 lvl 80s and a lvl 78. 2 3*s from both runs and zero molds, so... not sure what that was about.
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  • Xenaaah - Heavens Tear
    Xenaaah - Heavens Tear Posts: 534 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    From experience, every time we let the tabber get the last hit in on the boss it seemed to drop better stuff.
  • CandyCaneNJ - Dreamweaver
    CandyCaneNJ - Dreamweaver Posts: 141 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    I agree with Xenaaah. If you are in a squad with much higher levels, the key is to wait until the beast is 1/4 dead than let the tabber ONLY attack until the boss is dead.

    This should get better drops. It doesn't work all of the time but when it did in my faction, several 3 star items dropped including a mold (twice)
  • Brael - Dreamweaver
    Brael - Dreamweaver Posts: 1,430 Arc User
    edited July 2009
    It has been stated only the 3* item drops are reduced by high level squads running an fb, while the mold drop rate is not, this is in fact only true in one sense.

    The chance that molds can be achieved from the "additional drop" IS NOT changed by level.
    The chance that molds can be achieved from the "normal drop" IS changed by level.

    The level used in calculations I believe is simply the highest level in the party.
    (I doubt an average is used as such a set-up could be exploited by having a lvl1 in party to lower average level, however I haven't seen this proven one way or the other)

    Here's an example fb29:

    Squad with a level 31 as highest level:
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE 3* item: 98.5%
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE mold (from either drop type): 22.5%

    Squad with a level 75+ as highest level:
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE 3* item: 19.7%
    Chance of getting AT LEAST ONE mold (from either drop type): 4.5%

    Note: the mold that can be achieved from the "additional drop" has negligible effect since the chance of it occurring in either case is only 0.0000085162% chance.

    Disclaimer: all values are calculated based on the data and methods from pwdatabase.com as I interpret them.
    the problem of your calculation ( even if its well done) is that drop rates from pwdatabase arent accurate

    from experience =>
    Fb below 59 , real lame drop rates

    Fb 59 and above, are better, but not even near what Pwdatabase writes.

    The DB drop rates are somewhat off. On many FB's they list a drop rate of a 100% chance for 3 drops, others list a 50% chance for 1 and a 50% chance for two per cycle. The 50/50 is closer to accurate but still seems slightly off (though I've never seen evidence of 3 being possible on any fb boss).

    Next, the number of drop cycles may or may not vary, if you kill a boss enough times you'll notice different amounts of coins drop, the number of coin piles you get seems to be independent of your level, only the amount is reduced in that case. Each drop cycle has a chance for a pile of coin, this is why you can often times get 2 piles of coin from an fb trash mob, they have 2 drop cycles. Coin on each drop cycle isn't guaranteed though, Qingzi for example usually drops 6 or 7 piles of coin and the highest I've ever seen is 8, which simply confirms that he has at least 6 drop cycles, with 8 likely being the max, though that can't be proven.

    The odds of a Fiends Ring according to the DB is .3600% per drop, which with their odds (10 cycles with a 100% chance of 3 drops per cycle) is 10.2547%, with the numbers as they actually appear based on what you can tell of the number of drop cycles, and higher FB boss drop rates (backed up by counting the total drops of several kills of him, to find over 20 items dropped, not counting confirmed additional drops) which would be 8 cycles at an average 1.5 drops/cycle, it's actually only an average of 12 drops opposed to 30, which would reduce the ring odds to 4.2354%.

    The same concept would reduce the chance of getting any mold from 66.4596% which obviously doesn't happen if you've farmed it enough, to 35.4008% which still feels high based on actual experience. This chance would then be further reduced by higher levels, as there's a chance to get nothing on every loot cycle (except coin) due to a level gap. If you had a level 75+ with you for Qingzi, and that 35.4008% is accurate (still not convinced it is, despite the math) it would be a 7.08% chance for any mold.