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Fewer Hits per kill improves drops! No it doesn't! Yes it does!


Kill Speed and it's Effect on Drops  

45 members have voted

  1. 1. Choose one of the choices below.

    • The quicker you kill a single target the better the drops.
      15
    • The fewer number of hits to kill a single target the better the drops.
      1
    • Excess Damage from a Killing Blow improves Drops
      0
    • Damage has nothing to do with Drops.
      29


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I'll post my results soon. :P

Ok, here it is. I chose Seraphims because I know them better.

 

Player 1 (slow killer), weapon: level 1 dagger

slowkill_stat_1000_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg

 

Player 2 (one-hit killer), weapon: BFG

fastkill1_stat_1000_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg

 

Drops (after 1000 kills, mostly kobolds, some boars, turtles and bears)

 

Player 1 (SB: 15,9%):

slowkill_inv_1000_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg

blues: 50

yellows (rares): 10

browns (uniques): -

greens (sets): -

legendaries (oranges): -

 

Player 2 (SB: 9,1%):

fastkill1_inv_1000_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg

blues: 38

yellows (rares): 6

browns (uniques): 2

greens (sets): -

legendaries (oranges): -

 

I'm going to continue the test up to 2000 kills (or more), but I'd like care with SB from now on so it will take more time.

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Wow tapir! I see your point on the SB. It is interesting that total magic-unique items is lower for the fast kill, but there are 2 uniques. seems like a larger test than 1000 is necessary. but I can see how the SB would eventually make a huge differense. and level 12 is just barely high enough to start seeing the level 15 uniques anyway.

 

Good Job!

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Sidenote: I made a mistake with Player1, I forgot to switch HC mode on. I hope it doesn't affect drop rates.

 

Anyway, here is the results after 2000 kills (@ level 17):

 

Player 1 (SB: 27,9%):

 

blue (magic): 111 (50+61)

yellow (rare): 15 (10+5)

brown (unique): -

green (set): 1 (0+1)

 

Player 2 (SB: 16,2%), still w/o SB training

 

blue (magic): 86 (38+48)

yellow (rare): 14 (6+8)

brown (unique): 4 (2+2)

green (set): -

 

Interesting... but I don't wanna judge yet. :)

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lol. So many nah sayers! I am with you all the way, Schot!

 

lol. Must... hold... on. Keep... faith. Thanx loco. :lol:

.. in the end the results with be too close to tell or they will be a landslide.

 

That's exactly what I'm counting on. I'm trying my best to set up the two test chars so that there is such a large difference betweeen them that the results will be one of those two as you said loco. :)

 

Very interesting results tapir. Thank you! This will help towards coming to a conclusion. Concerns I have with your two characters though is that they used ranged damage and different weaponry. Ranged damage is known to generate less SB than melee and the two chars also use very different weaponry. One uses an actual weapon whereas the other uses a very unique Buff attack. I wouldn't say the two different weapons will flaw the results but you can never be sure. The suggestion that Rotluchs made is what I'm setting up to test with. Identical chars in as many ways as possible. :)

 

It's a very good point you make about UW Rotluchs. It should remind us of just how much complexity Ascaron was willing to put in the game and no doubt did in Sacred 2. Unique rune drop chances per character is quite detailed coding.

 

As for your questions about the different balance.txt values. I believe RareBonusDanger = 1000, is where SB comes into the MF equation. A dev pointed out that SB had an influence on MF. SB raises the enemy level above your own thereby increasing Danger(ring colour) of spawned enemies which improves chance to drop Rares. Maybe. There's a relatively easy way to see that. Take a level 1 character and fight level 1-2 enemies. Then again in an area where the min spawn level is higher and see what you get. Clearview would be about a minimum spawn level of 5 I think.

The other values I really couldn't say. KillCountInc might be Kill Count Increment?

 

As for the test characters I'm working on they're more or less ready so I should be able to provide them for download soon. Took a long time to buy the final shoulder piece for the Damage Snob. I actually took them out for a test run and the Snob got 3 Yellows, 3 Blues; the Poor Boy got 5 Blues. Very inconclusive of course but I thought that was interesting. I also realized that there is a lot more to look out for regarding drops and the testing of them so I'll create a new topic for the level 1 testing when I have them ready for download. The test Shadow Warrior's will be melee and the SB problem may need to be controlled a bit. Taking SB notes at 25 kill increments during the 100 kill test would help. That way the Damage Snob could train SB every 25 kills to keep the SB between the two chars the same. Though I'm doubtful that the discrepancy will have much of an effect. SB's primary role is to raise the level of enemies. At level one that won't change much.

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Concerns I have with your two characters though is that they used ranged damage and different weaponry. Ranged damage is known to generate less SB than melee and the two chars also use very different weaponry. One uses an actual weapon whereas the other uses a very unique Buff attack. I wouldn't say the two different weapons will flaw the results but you can never be sure.

Maybe you're right but this was the easiest way (without any special arrangements) for me to test the slowkill/fastkill differences.

 

My results after 3000 kills:

 

Player 1 (@ level 21, SB: 37,2%):

 

blue (magic): 159 (50+61+48)

yellow (rare): 28 (10+5+13)

brown (unique): 1 (0+0+1)

green (set): 2 (0+1+1)

 

Player 2 (@ level 20, SB: 22,7)

 

blue (magic): 117 (38+48+31)

yellow (rare): 17 (6+8+3)

brown (unique): 6 (2+2+2)

green (set): 1 (0+0+1)

 

I'm afraid I have failed to proove anything. :woot:

Edited by tapir
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You got some good data! Food for thought. In order to prove something you need an idea of how 'player 1' varies against an identical 'player 1' Do you see?

 

For example if you have 1 smoker and 1 non-smoker and the smoker has 1000 red blood cells (which the test is measuring) and the non-smoker has 900 red blood cells....

 

This proves nothing because it is possible that if you meausred 10 non-smokers you would get the following data: 800 900 900 800 1000 1100 850 1150 1200 1000.... Which would mean that the difference between a non-smoker and smoker was very likely to be produced by chance alone.

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Difficult indeed to prove! Excellent data tapir and to clarify I only wanted to "think out loud" with my concerns. Not that I think your results are of any less value. :woot:

 

Lately I've been playing my Damage Snob up in levels a bit just to get a feel for it and the drops that I am getting are not what I was expecting. I had expected the drops to have much more rares but for some reason they aren't dropping as much as I had hoped. I leveled the Snob from 1 to 12 and throughout the levels I fought various different enemies. What I can say about this test is that animals are terrible for it. Animals have a very limited pool of items they can drop which would create misleading drop results. Kobolds have always seemed great for drops in general. However if we were to test at higher levels we would run into problems using Kobolds from Tyr-Lysia since they have a low maximum allowed spawn level. The Scarabs of Bengaresh would probably provide good test results...

 

I'm thinking now that a good test level would be level 11. It's the level at which set items begin to drop which would make creating the Damage Snob that much better. As for drops maybe the Bengaresh Scarabs could be good subjects. They generally seem to have great drops which might provide clearer results between the Poor Boy and the Snob. Minimum level that Silver Scarabs spawn at seems to be 18.

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Difficult indeed to prove! Excellent data tapir and to clarify I only wanted to "think out loud" with my concerns. Not that I think your results are of any less value. :cstars:

 

Lately I've been playing my Damage Snob up in levels a bit just to get a feel for it and the drops that I am getting are not what I was expecting. I had expected the drops to have much more rares but for some reason they aren't dropping as much as I had hoped. I leveled the Snob from 1 to 12 and throughout the levels I fought various different enemies. What I can say about this test is that animals are terrible for it. Animals have a very limited pool of items they can drop which would create misleading drop results. Kobolds have always seemed great for drops in general. However if we were to test at higher levels we would run into problems using Kobolds from Tyr-Lysia since they have a low maximum allowed spawn level. The Scarabs of Bengaresh would probably provide good test results...

 

I'm thinking now that a good test level would be level 11. It's the level at which set items begin to drop which would make creating the Damage Snob that much better. As for drops maybe the Bengaresh Scarabs could be good subjects. They generally seem to have great drops which might provide clearer results between the Poor Boy and the Snob. Minimum level that Silver Scarabs spawn at seems to be 18.

That could just be you...upload them so the rest of us can give them a whirl!

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Difficult indeed to prove! Excellent data tapir and to clarify I only wanted to "think out loud" with my concerns. Not that I think your results are of any less value. :cstars:

 

Lately I've been playing my Damage Snob up in levels a bit just to get a feel for it and the drops that I am getting are not what I was expecting. I had expected the drops to have much more rares but for some reason they aren't dropping as much as I had hoped. I leveled the Snob from 1 to 12 and throughout the levels I fought various different enemies. What I can say about this test is that animals are terrible for it. Animals have a very limited pool of items they can drop which would create misleading drop results. Kobolds have always seemed great for drops in general. However if we were to test at higher levels we would run into problems using Kobolds from Tyr-Lysia since they have a low maximum allowed spawn level. The Scarabs of Bengaresh would probably provide good test results...

 

I'm thinking now that a good test level would be level 11. It's the level at which set items begin to drop which would make creating the Damage Snob that much better. As for drops maybe the Bengaresh Scarabs could be good subjects. They generally seem to have great drops which might provide clearer results between the Poor Boy and the Snob. Minimum level that Silver Scarabs spawn at seems to be 18.

That could just be you...upload them so the rest of us can give them a whirl!

Since I am stuck in SP I could do a few runs as well

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Yes we need to test our results against monsters that do drop items we are looking for. And whatever our results if we find a significant difference between the two for scarab drops strictly speaking it is only apply to those enemies. But it is probable that extrapolating to other types of monsters Ascaron wouldn't code some monsters good for newbs and some good for 1 hit kill. Ascaron probably code the same trend for all monsters. But thats a guess.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It is a definite yes about the kill speed. I didn't even have to test this theory to figure it out. Just through normal gameplay.

How did I get to that conclusion then?

Well, next time u play, actually pay attention what's happening with drops while u fight and just do this simple test:

 

1. Kill an enemy as fast as u can.

2. Hit an enemy to decrease it's health, but don't kill it. Instead wait a couple of seconds and proceed with the kill.

 

The result should be this:

 

1. At least a blue item, lots of gold, maybe rune etc.

2. Depending how much u waited after a hit, u might actually not get anything.

 

What I strongly believe is that the game starts the "clock" for the drop for a target as soon as the target takes dmg, whether it is from you're direct attack or not (minions, quest companions, reflect dmg from you're buff etc.). And there is no way anyone will convince me differently because I know that every time I killed an enemy fast I got something (blue-yellow-set-unique), while when it happened that it took me a few seconds to kill an enemy because they run away (sandmen to heal for example) in 100% of the case they dropped either a grey item with gold, just gold, or nothing at all.

 

I get a lot of good drops with my fast killers, one shotters and mob nukers, while any enemy that runs away and I have to chase after them and kill them is an extremely poor drop or nothing.

 

Couple the speed killing with good MF and u have urself quite a "finder".

 

:) Just my $0.2

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At first I was a nay-sayer on this, but now I'm also a definite yes as far as kill speed improving drops, without question, 100%. I came to realize this when I tried forging a new Officer's Saber with 3 CFV items... it seemed that everything (including champions) was dropping crap... barely even any junk items, just potions and trophies. Skipping ahead in time now to about 15 mintues ago, I was in Kolbold area on my way to fight the white griffon, and my weapon (higher level officer saber with lots of + damage mods) is one hit killing every regular kobold on the way. I am just in total awe of the rate and quality of the items that are dropping from regular non-champion kobolds... I had one string of about 10 straight kills where every kill gave me at the very least a junk item or rune, zero potions or trophies. Apply this to champions and you'll start seeing uniques and sets pop up much more frequently... in the 30-40 minutes that it took me to get through the Wastelands last night on my way to beating silver I came away with 5 uniques (4 sets), and none of them even dropped from bosses, all came from champions. :pirate:

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I think we need to differentiate between kills speed allowing us to kill MORE enemies in the same amoun to time (and thus more chances for rarez), and killing things quicky vs slows and having the quality of items from those kill types be distinctly different.

 

My own experience with this game says to me that if there was a difference in drops that was affected by kills speed, it would not be debatable (in the same way it is not debateable when it comes to Bargaining and what the shops offer vs NON bargaining.

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1. Kill an enemy as fast as u can.

2. Hit an enemy to decrease it's health, but don't kill it. Instead wait a couple of seconds and proceed with the kill.

 

The result should be this:

 

1. At least a blue item, lots of gold, maybe rune etc.

2. Depending how much u waited after a hit, u might actually not get anything.

 

What I strongly believe is that the game starts the "clock" for the drop for a target as soon as the target takes dmg, whether it is from you're direct attack or not (minions, quest companions, reflect dmg from you're buff etc.). And there is no way anyone will convince me differently because I know that every time I killed an enemy fast I got something (blue-yellow-set-unique), while when it happened that it took me a few seconds to kill an enemy because they run away (sandmen to heal for example) in 100% of the case they dropped either a grey item with gold, just gold, or nothing at all.

 

That's been exactly my thinking as well. I have yet to run a thorough test. Some time ago I began testing against bosses but going from boss to boss in the hopes of 100+ cases was a bit daunting. Champions would be a perfect test case since they have a larger item pool to work with. It's funny how you describe that when enemies run away thus causing an extended kill time. It annoys me to no end because I feel I must get them as quick as possible to ensure the best possible drops. Also interesting is the "clock". I've had the same thought. That or a "# of hits to kill" counter of some kind. Either one would be a complicated matter but then again Sacred has all kinds of computations running.

 

I think we need to differentiate between kills speed allowing us to kill MORE enemies in the same amoun to time (and thus more chances for rarez), and killing things quicky vs slows and having the quality of items from those kill types be distinctly different.

 

My own experience with this game says to me that if there was a difference in drops that was affected by kills speed, it would not be debatable (in the same way it is not debateable when it comes to Bargaining and what the shops offer vs NON bargaining.

 

For my own part Kill Speed to me is of the options I posted as choices in this topic's poll. To me it's either: the number of hits dealt in order to kill, or: the amount of time it takes to kill a target from the point of aggro to death.

 

As for how obvious an effect it would have, Bargaining isn't always an obvious benefit. In early levels it certainly is apparent how great Bargaining is but when a character is up around 140+ it's quite possible that Bargaining could be doing next to nothing for your shopping experience. However unlikely, should someone only put 1 point into Bargaining it wouldn't be doing much at all by level 100. My point being is that damage may only be a minor factor of the whole and thereby the difference is difficult to detect. Though that could be said about almost anything, haha. :drinks:

 

As for those test cases I've been caught up on creating a bonus test case to the two planned characters. It's a bit of a surprise. ^^

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For my own part Kill Speed to me is of the options I posted as choices in this topic's poll. To me it's either: the number of hits dealt in order to kill, or: the amount of time it takes to kill a target from the point of aggro to death.

 

Could it not be both? Maybe the number of hits contributes to 50% of the end "value" of the drop, and time to kill contributes the other 50%. Maybe there's a 3rd contributing factor that we haven't even though of yet...

 

As for how obvious an effect it would have, Bargaining isn't always an obvious benefit. In early levels it certainly is apparent how great Bargaining is but when a character is up around 140+ it's quite possible that Bargaining could be doing next to nothing for your shopping experience. However unlikely, should someone only put 1 point into Bargaining it wouldn't be doing much at all by level 100. My point being is that damage may only be a minor factor of the whole and thereby the difference is difficult to detect. Though that could be said about almost anything, haha. :)

 

I have to disagree with you here, I have a level 116 Shadow Warrior that does not have Bargaining learned, and the merchants offer absolute crap. They sell mostly junk and magic items, once in a great while you see a rare.

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Could it not be both? Maybe the number of hits contributes to 50% of the end "value" of the drop, and time to kill contributes the other 50%. Maybe there's a 3rd contributing factor that we haven't even though of yet...

 

It certainly could be. In Sacred Underworld's complete MF equation there were several variables to consider so it wouldn't be far fetched at all. :)

 

As for how obvious an effect it would have, Bargaining isn't always an obvious benefit. In early levels it certainly is apparent how great Bargaining is but when a character is up around 140+ it's quite possible that Bargaining could be doing next to nothing for your shopping experience. However unlikely, should someone only put 1 point into Bargaining it wouldn't be doing much at all by level 100. My point being is that damage may only be a minor factor of the whole and thereby the difference is difficult to detect. Though that could be said about almost anything, haha. :)

I have to disagree with you here, I have a level 116 Shadow Warrior that does not have Bargaining learned, and the merchants offer absolute crap. They sell mostly junk and magic items, once in a great while you see a rare.

 

What is it you're disagreeing with rhs? Are you saying that you've compared your level 116 Shadow Warrior to a character of about the same level with only one point in Bargaining? I can tell you from experience that Bargaining can be very depressing if to few points are in it.

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Hmm. I should look into this. I'm playing SP and tweaking balance.txt to better understand what it's entries mean.

 

Right now, my gut feeling is a drop is a drop... however, they could've put in a factor that increases chance of better drop based on the how long it took to kill x.

But, it still would be very much a game of chance. Drops as I understand them are very complicated. Very complicated. Designed that way so as to not be boring I'm guessing. 'Cause who would play a boring game? :D

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What is it you're disagreeing with rhs? Are you saying that you've compared your level 116 Shadow Warrior to a character of about the same level with only one point in Bargaining? I can tell you from experience that Bargaining can be very depressing if to few points are in it.

I am disagreeing that you say the effect of a few points of bargaining on a high level char would not be noticeable when compared to a char of the same level with no Bargaining learned at all.

 

I have not compared my Shadow Warrior to a character of about the same level with only a point in Bargaining, but from what I have experienced from Bargaining, there would still be a very noticeable difference, even with only a point in Bargaining. What I read in the Wiki on Bargaining doesn't come close to summing up what I have all seen from it, which is as follows:

 

The bargaining skill appears to activate a new threshold of available items to purchase. Normal leveling of your hero does NOT affect the same "shopping attributes" that Bargaining does, no doubt about it. My level 116 Shadow Warrior sees the same quality of items at the merchant that he did at level 1, the only difference is the items are all of course much higher level. The ratio of junk/magic/rare items sold remained 100% constant as I leveled. When the skill Bargaining is learned, it seems like every single item sold at the merchant moves up a notch. For example, before Bargaining is learned at all, you will see only junk and magic items for sale, say 15 junk items and 5 magic items, 0 rare. When you learn Bargaining, you will instead see 15 magic items and 5 rare items for sale. Increasing points in Bargaining alters the ratio of magic to rare, so instead of 15 magic to 5 rare you may see 11 magic to 9 rare. Bargaining also affects the number of "extra rare" rare items (such as a piece of armor or weapon with 2 gold sockets) sold at a merchant, which is what the "special deal" attribute modifies. The higher percentage of "chance for special deal," the higher the ratio of the "extra rare" rare items showing up for sale at a merchant. Does anyone disagree with all that I have just stated?

 

So if a level 100 char first learned the Bargaining skill at level 100, I would expect to see very few rares, but mostly magic items sold, no junk items. I would classify this as a "big difference," as the level 100 char without Bargaining learned would still be seeing 15 junk items and 5 magic items at a merchant. I could be a little off on my estimates though, can you tell me roughly what your "ratio" of junk/magic/rare items was with the char that had only a few points learned in Bargaining?

 

Hmm. I should look into this. I'm playing SP and tweaking balance.txt to better understand what it's entries mean.

 

Right now, my gut feeling is a drop is a drop... however, they could've put in a factor that increases chance of better drop based on the how long it took to kill x.

But, it still would be very much a game of chance. Drops as I understand them are very complicated. Very complicated. Designed that way so as to not be boring I'm guessing. 'Cause who would play a boring game? :D

 

I saw your post before you edited it (I think), where it was showing the different values in balance.txt...very intriguing. I am not able to view the file since I play on PS3, can you (or anyone else) please send me the file? I would love to take a shot at cracking the "code" for item drops....

Edited by rhs408
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Ah I see rhs. I didn't realize you were playing the console version. I had prepared 2 test characters for you but only now saw that you're on PS3. It's no surprise then that you would disagree, haha. Bargaining no doubt has gone through much tweaking on the PC side. You would see this if you were able to play the test characters I made for you:

Lvl_100_Bargaining_Comparison.rar

 

The difference is absolute negligable and more over there are absolutely no Junk items(Grey for PC) at the merchants and there were no Rares(Yellow for PC) found by the Bargaining +1 char.

 

This is something that PC differs greatly from in comparison to console. In PC it is actually possible for Bargaining to become worse as your character levels up if you do not keep improving your Bargaining skill. In effect you're kinda penalized for not increasing the Bargaining skill through points or gear during your character's level progression.

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Ah I see rhs. I didn't realize you were playing the console version. I had prepared 2 test characters for you but only now saw that you're on PS3. It's no surprise then that you would disagree, haha. Bargaining no doubt has gone through much tweaking on the PC side. You would see this if you were able to play the test characters I made for you:

Lvl_100_Bargaining_Comparison.rar

 

The difference is absolute negligable and more over there are absolutely no Junk items(Grey for PC) at the merchants and there were no Rares(Yellow for PC) found by the Bargaining +1 char.

 

This is something that PC differs greatly from in comparison to console. In PC it is actually possible for Bargaining to become worse as your character levels up if you do not keep improving your Bargaining skill. In effect you're kinda penalized for not increasing the Bargaining skill through points or gear during your character's level progression.

 

I see, understood. For once I'm glad that I have the PS3 version instead of PC. :bye:

 

I'm getting a "Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. " error when I click the link?

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