PC How does the item drop chance work? [Question]

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DiamondDeadMaw

Official Terrarian
So if the chance of a shrine containing an enchanted sword is 1/3, and large worlds have three shrines, is it guaranteed that you will get at least one enchanted sword?

Or, say a biome key has a 0.04% (or 1/2500) chance of dropping from an enemy in the specific biome. Does this mean that if I kill 2500 enemies in the biome, I will get the biome key?


Please help I'm confused.
 
The way it works from what I understand is that everytime an enemy is killed, or you break one of the enchanted sword shrine for example. The game in the background generates a random number in the background (this can't be seen by the Player) and if that number hits a certain number, then it will drop that item. (This is also where the term RNG or Random Number Generator comes from)

The drop chance represents the probability of getting an item, but it does not guarantee you will get the item. You could end up getting 2 enchanted swords and/or an Arkhalis or end up getting none from breaking 2 consecutive sword shrines for example. There's no way to predict whether you'll end up getting the item or not. It is up to chance which is what this drop rate is meant to represent. The chance you have of getting that item from killing a specific enemy/breaking a sword shrine.
 
Just picture the game rolling dice whenever it needs to figure out whether to give or not give you a certain item.

In the case of these shrines and if there'd indeed be a 33% chance for one to spawn with an enchanted sword, the game would have a 3-sided die to decide if a shrine will contain this sword. Throwing this die will of course have random results, just like a real life die.
Let's say the '1' on this die would generate an enchanted sword while '2' and '3' would generate nothing: It could be very possible for the game to throw three '1's in a row, giving you three enchanted swords. Or it could generate '2's and '3's and give you nothing at all.

In short: You'll never have a guaranteed drop of anything. Even with a droprate of 50% the game could very well drop nothing 10 times in a row, or the opposite, drop the item every single time.

In the case of that biome key, if you're lucky you could get it after 10 kills. If unlucky you get a key after 10.000 kills. It's just a roll of the dice.
 
DiamondDeadMaw said:
Thanks! (This would explain why I never got that pesky crimson biome key)
Click to expand...
Whenever you want a certain key, go to the appropriate biome during bloodmoons and eclipses. Lots of spawning enemies, more chance for that key. Placing water candles and drinking battle potions also helps.
 
Pirate Invasion is also good for farming keys. Pirate Maps are easy to obtain. (Just go to the ocean during a Blood Moon with a Water Candle.) Jungle, Hallow and Snow can all co-exist with each other and NPCs. Best to do that on a throwaway world though, so as to preserve your bases and main worlds. :)

You can also do it with Crimson / Corruption, but they don't play nice with NPCs, so definitely use a throwaway world for that.
 
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