Game Mechanics Change how loot rewards are chosen

[Acamaeda]

Right now, it's not unheard of to fight the Moon Lord 50 times and not get the drop you want. And the worst part is, you're still no more likely to get it the next time around. Progress is all-or-nothing. It's kind of ridiculous. No one needs 5 Lunar Portal Staffs.

A solution to this would be for each world, each boss who always drops one of several items (like WOF, Moon Lord, Martian Saucer, etc) has a table keeping track of how many times it has been defeated since it dropped each item. Whenever the boss is defeated, the probabilities of getting each drop are weighted based on that table. Whichever item is dropped has its weight reset to 1, and the others have their weights increased by 1. This means, for example, that an item that hasn't dropped after 9 defeats is 10 times as likely to drop next time as whichever item was last dropped.

This system could possibly be used in other areas too, including Angler Rewards, Mimic drops, Crate Loot, even loot generated in chests. All of this would make grinding in these areas more rewarding, because you are always getting closer to that reward.

If this takes away too much from the randomness, the effect could be reduced. The weights could be incremented by a smaller value than 1, or they could be square rooted or something. It could even be different for different tables. Any little boost would be meaningful.

Humans have an innate logical fallacy that makes them think that a result gets more probable the more times it hasn't happened. Why not make it actually work that way?

Edit: I did some simulations on how long it would take to get a specific Moon Lord drop and to get all 9 Moon Lord drops with the current system(red), the proposed system(green), and a version of the proposed system that square roots the weights(blue).

Spoiler: Graphs

 

[temery2383]

From a coding perspective, as someone who's been learning how to mod the game and has been working with drops a lot lately, I'm not totally sure how this would work. Making the drops weighted in the first place wouldn't be that bad, but I'm not sure how the weight could be tracked and changed with each drop. Could just be beyond my own level of knowledge and skill though.

Overall, it's an interesting idea though. It would certainly make the game less of a grind, although sometimes the randomness can be fun.

 

[Acamaeda]

From a coding perspective, as someone who's been learning how to mod the game and has been working with drops a lot lately, I'm not totally sure how this would work. Making the drops weighted in the first place wouldn't be that bad, but I'm not sure how the weight could be tracked and changed with each drop. Could just be beyond my own level of knowledge and skill though.

Overall, it's an interesting idea though. It would certainly make the game less of a grind, although sometimes the randomness can be fun.

I also do a bit of game design, and I made something that uses a system like this to select random events. If I can do it, the pros definitely can.

 

[Doanage]

This would be very easy to implement actually. It's quite an elegant solution. Great idea.

 

[Acamaeda]

Update: I ran some simulations on how many Moon Lord kills it takes to get the Terrarian, and how long it takes to get all 9 drops. Check out the OP.

 

[King Victor]

I didn't read all his post, but didn't @Lord Garak make something like to this?

I'm not calling out copying, I was just wondering about the differences.

 

[sharkman0101]

Alternatively, a much more agreeable solution would be to make the boss drop a material that can directly be crafted into the items they have respectively dropped beforehand. That way, the player can instantly craft the item they wish without having to pray for the item they want. Of course, the boss will still only drop a limited amount of the given miracle material, so procuring multiple items exclusive from the boss would require more fights to get more of the material. It may be strange seeing the Moon Lord drop Luminite then some other material, but it's better than seeing it drop Luminite and then the Rainbow Crystal Staff.

 

[Lord Garak]

I didn't read all his post, but didn't @Lord Garak make something like to this?

I'm not calling out copying, I was just wondering about the differences.

This thread was created before mine...

 

[King Victor]

This thread was created before mine...

Yet another sign of my great impulsiveness.

 

[The Storm]

Alternatively, a much more agreeable solution would be to make the boss drop a material that can directly be crafted into the items they have respectively dropped beforehand. That way, the player can instantly craft the item they wish without having to pray for the item they want. Of course, the boss will still only drop a limited amount of the given miracle material, so procuring multiple items exclusive from the boss would require more fights to get more of the material. It may be strange seeing the Moon Lord drop Luminite then some other material, but it's better than seeing it drop Luminite and then the Rainbow Crystal Staff.

Or perhaps the Moon Lord weapons could also be crafted with Luminite, and the moon Lord drops a little extra. Maybe 100-120~ ores instead of 70-100.

 

[Acamaeda]

Alternatively, a much more agreeable solution would be to make the boss drop a material that can directly be crafted into the items they have respectively dropped beforehand. That way, the player can instantly craft the item they wish without having to pray for the item they want. Of course, the boss will still only drop a limited amount of the given miracle material, so procuring multiple items exclusive from the boss would require more fights to get more of the material. It may be strange seeing the Moon Lord drop Luminite then some other material, but it's better than seeing it drop Luminite and then the Rainbow Crystal Staff.

The problem is that this wouldn't fix it for all of the different places where it's an issue. They'd need to make a bunch of new materials and such for it and it doesn't seem like the sort of thing they'd go for.

 

[sharkman0101]

The problem is that this wouldn't fix it for all of the different places where it's an issue. They'd need to make a bunch of new materials and such for it and it doesn't seem like the sort of thing they'd go for.

I wouldn't see how it wouldn't. The suggestion is mostly talking about the loot system for bosses, not just universal drops from enemies or other loot systems. Because there is only around 6 bosses that drop various different weapons and tools in their loot pools, it wouldn't be that much of a hassle to implement such system. It would negate the need for creation of a loot system you have proposed and it makes thematic sense because some bosses (like the Eater of Worlds) already drop a material that lets you craft what you want, rather than getting a random drop from the boss.

 

[Acamaeda]

I wouldn't see how it wouldn't. The suggestion is mostly talking about the loot system for bosses, not just universal drops from enemies or other loot systems. Because there is only around 6 bosses that drop various different weapons and tools in their loot pools, it wouldn't be that much of a hassle to implement such system. It would negate the need for creation of a loot system you have proposed and it makes thematic sense because some bosses (like the Eater of Worlds) already drop a material that lets you craft what you want, rather than getting a random drop from the boss.

It applies to non-boss things too, like Mimic drops and determining which armor piece you get from the Angler.

 

[Izzabelle]

I could see this being done a couple of ways in the coding

You could have the game track X boss kills/fishing quests, much in the same way the Tally Counter does. You could then track the loot table -- and anything that didn't appear in the world from a kill / quest could then have its drop chance multiplied by Y where Y increases in value after each new kill/quest.

So if we just take the Terrarian and the Lunar Portal Staff for example. Terrarian drop rate 50%, Lunar Portal Staff drop rate 50%. Kill Moonlord, Terrarian drops. Now, behind the scenes, the drop rate would look like Terrarian 50%, Lunar Portal Staff 50%x1.5. Then (assuming Portal Staff still doesn't drop) it can increase to x1.6, x1.7, etc etc per Moonlord kill until the Lunar Portal Staff finally drops.

When the loot table exhausts itself, the drop %s can reset.

OR

You can simply remove the dropped item from the loot table until the loot table exhausts itself.

So if Moonlord loot table is [1] [2] [3] and he drops [1] then the next time you fight him, the table will only be [2] [3] until all available items are exhausted and the table resets.

OR

You could diminish any dropped item's drop rate. So in the Terrarian & Lunar Portal Staff example... once the Terrarian drops, it's drop rate becomes 50%/Y where Y increases in value as Moonlord is continuously defeated.

 

[Acamaeda]

I have literally coded this before. Twice, in fact, because I just did that simulation. It can work exactly like I described it in the code.

 

[Sockmonkey367]

I like this suggestion! @Acamaeda any way you can make this a tmodloader mod! That would be AMAZING

 

[Acamaeda]

I like this suggestion! @Acamaeda any way you can make this a tmodloader mod! That would be AMAZING

Maybe someday, but not right now. Someone else could do it if they wanted to, though.