Drop modifier, Resource cap, Loot effects?

Hey so, I came here from a game that has a very intricate loot engine, and while I’m not making any spreadsheets or anything, I try and keep and eye on how things go. This game is a little grindy so I frequently perform the same comfortable activities across a range of times and I’ve noticed that the results can frequently vary.

t this point I’m curious about player observations. I’m not sure if a dev would clarify any of this but they’re fairly open here so maybe someone will take an interest when they’re at work.

I’m specifically curious about the following effects:

Resource Caps:
What I mean here is if there are, for instance, a threshold amount of reactive lamella extant in game, will the system lower the drop chances for reactive lamella when a fungus is harvested?

Activity Caps:
What i mean here is if there are a given number of players who appear to be performing an identical activity, will the system lower drop rates. For example, if here have been 100 lamella harvested universe wide in the last 5 minutes, drop chance for lamella would be lowered.

Cycle/Timing Effects:
What I mean here is maybe a little more complicated if you haven’t experienced it. There are several ways to achieve this but the net result is that some times are better than others for certain activities. It may be clock time related but more likely elapsed time, and if it’s used heavily it creates the impression of cycles or waves.

Effectively then, if I was seeing poor results harvesting lamella, I could head over to another biome perhaps and harvest fibrous or another resource, which may be on an up cycle. TBF I do this out of long habit and I don’t see it working here within the same sort of related activities. However if it was an overall hunt/gather/mine/craft separation applied subtly it would be much harder to notice.

Other Balancing effects:
I don’t know I’ve been playing MMO a long time, but not a lot of games. I’m sure there are other techniques I’m not looking for/familiar with. Is anybody aware of similar mechanisms?

It would be wonderful if I could just know that each loot event is a 100% isolated call to the RNG for drop chance and quantity. Since we already have modifier stats It’s clearly not that simple.

i see there are definitely some number trackers here in the community - barring dev input, are there any players with info on this, or tracking numbers over long periods to watch for this stuff?

1 Like

I’m not sure if this helps, but I frequently harvest exotic yams from mud. I have a good spot that is 5 mud blocks high in all directions, for quite a distance.

I head there with a 3x3 1 shot (ish), high durability shovel.

My gathering sessions last the length of one persisting pie, which is 45 mins with buffs, I use 3 mega speed potions at 15 mins each with buffs.

Each time I come out with the same amount of exos, give or take about 5%.

If there was any significant difference I would have spotted it right away.

So where as I can’t specifically answer any of your questions, I can tell you my results are consistent, and I gather at all different times of the day.

Of course, I leave enough time for the world to regenerate between gathers or I use a regen bomb.

1 Like

Yes thanks fidach this is what I’m looking for, barring dev input.

Are you doing this in a consistent time frame? As noted I’m suspicious of these effects but I was for most of months in a pattern of waking up and harvesting three specific areas. This put me in a consistent two hour time frame for the activity and I would say(again not tracking) swings of 5 - 10% were normal but every once in a while there’s just that trip where I’m pulling 60 - 80% of normal.

“Bad streaks” are a thing with any RNG and it hasn’t been enough for me to complain. Since I was here today to gather info about drops and related skills I figured I would ask people about this, too.

EDIT I see fidach noted he gathers at all times sorry for the repeat question.

Also in a familiar area, I usually take dormant meteors lying around and clustered plants/fungus as a solid sign I’m not rushing regen, I do try to be aware of this and sometimes it’s questionable as the main area I’m talking about is well known for timed/dormant meteors laying around.

As far as I’ve observed there’s nothing so intricate, it’s purely dependant on your drop modifier attribute in your character sheet. What you’re seeing might be explained by regen not having taken place yet completely on all chunks so you’re just harvesting less in general.

I would hope this is the case, and would LOVE to have a dev confirm that each loot event is atomic and based on known modifiers.

Sometimes it’s easy to tell that a hunter or someone has come through and harvested a straight line through a biome. A couple of hours later though and you are right I would have no way to know that a couple of chunks were still partly done.

However, these numbers are solid in most cases in near multiples of values of 40 +/- a stable 5-10% variance for this biome. If I’m hitting in one of these ranges I’m personally looking at the loot events, and not regen as the cause.

Of course it could all be a bunch of coincidence.

There are definitely cases where carelessly seeding an RNG has caused unexpected conditions, but I would say that’s a big difference(glitch/bug type stuff) from intentionally implementing ‘hidden’ modifiers or caps and balances into the loot engine.

I was here to post on another drop related issue today so this post is more a matter of curiosity than suspicion.

But having played where these things are known to be in effect, you start looking for them. And any time pseudo-random is involved it’s pretty easy to see what you’re looking for lol.

As a few people weigh in with no evidence of anything like this, I can start to assign my worries to paranoia and blind RNG luck =D