Spiral Knights - Are equipment drops based on RNG or... another factor?

Are equipment drops based on RNG or... another factor?

13 replies [Last post]

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 13:15

Abelisk

Due to the lack of people paying attention to this thread: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/11128... it is difficult to calculate the appropriate value of finding an equipment drop. Equipment drops only drop from treasure boxes and, from gaining research based from the reports in the above thread, it seems items are found based on the level it is found in. For example, if a handgun deals Elemental damage and has Shock, it may be found in a Shock-themed Gremlin level (Gremlins produce Elemental damage). That leads me to assume that there may be a factor behind the discovery of these rare drops rather than luck/randomly-focused methods. It would be cool if an admin said if it was RNG or not, though I don't know if that's appropriate. Still... I don't believe that exposing the way equipment drops are obtained would ruin the experience, let alone spoil it.

Also, has anybody found any equipment drops in the past 2 weeks?

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 13:21

Subchu

Not too long ago (Idk how long)

I found a plain prismatech Alchemer (3 star) in a jk run a few weeks ago. So I have no clue how it works.

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 13:31

Abelisk

Based off of more evidence, it seems equipment drops are based on the damage type of enemies, and the amount of them. For example, if there are 100 Elemental enemies and 1 shadow enemy, the chance of finding Shadow equipment is much, much lower than finding an Elemental piece of equipment. There are also fixed drops, such as Thwack Hammer being found a lot in Gremlin levels.

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 14:16

Leafblader

moo

There are definitely some fixed drops such as Owlite shields in candlestick keep.

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 16:09

Fehzor

It appears to be based on level type as well as individual level, where levels drop all of their type's stuff. So C42 would drop fire, poison, gremlin and slime related goods. It would also seem that fiends/undead, beast/slime and construct/gremlin share drop tables, and that individual levels can drop specific goods- like Seerus dropping stagger storm.

But we don't know any of this for sure because there's really not enough data.

Wed, 04/08/2015 - 19:41

Hexzyle

This thread might be interesting to you.

Thu, 04/09/2015 - 09:28

Abelisk

Hexzyle

Thank you! I'll side Bopp's case from that thread. I too believe that the boxes are not predetermined and not the level determining them because when a box is opened, a frame rate drop, albeit slight, sometimes takes place directly after opening the box. That leads my conclusion to say boxes are not predetermined by the level, but are determined the moment they are hit open. I guess that answers my question as RNG.

But I'm not done yet... I still need to know if equipment drops themselves are based on RNG, or time-based like daily Prestige missions, or are dependent on the amount of boxes opened, or maybe dependent on how old your character is. I'm sure it's not RNG though, given that some players (like Clwnbaby and Poetry) have a fixed date set of receiving their equipment drops (weekly or every 2 weeks). Also, the fact that Poetry said he/she stopped receiving the "normal" amount of equipment drops after the Sprite update brings me to think that was no coincidence (other players were concerned that equipment drops were much more rare than usual). That further digs out the fact that there is something else pulling the strings behind equipment drops. Maybe you need to log on everyday? Hmm...

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 08:52

Abelisk

I think I've discovered something huge. I've been playing the first floor of Operation Crimson Hammer for over 250+ runs while farming the first 8 treasure boxes. What I discovered was that the only tokens that dropped were: Forge Sparks.

But this is what's interesting: I farmed through a Gremlin Arcade level and discovered that both Forge and Grim Sparks could be found. It seems the materials that are found in the level can relate to the Tokens that can be found. I also found that Forge Sparks were much more common than Grim Sparks. However, on the first floor of Operation Crimson Hammer, the only spark I found was a Forge Spark. So, what materials are used to calculate these Token drops?

I think the materials are already available to everyone. Go to Haven, go to the Bazaar, and talk to the Token Trader (where you exchange Tokens for Vana stuff and Pulsars etc.) Now, when you scroll down, you see a list of things you can get for your Tokens. All of those materials you can trade for your Tokens are what spawn the Tokens in the specific levels (for example, a Gremlin Gizmo is a material you can buy from Forge Sparks, so if you go farm a level that have enemies that drop Gremlin Gizmos, expect Forge Sparks to drop from chests).

But what if you have two of each category? That's what happened in the Gremlin Arcade level - there were both Forge Spark and Grim Spark materials in the level, so both of them dropped. On the first floor of Operation Crimson Hammer, only Forge Spark materials could be found - literally.

So how does this tie in with equipment drops? Simple. Equipment drops have a certain "recipe" which require a set of materials. The more of those materials can be found in the level, the higher chance of finding that equipment drop in that same level (for example, in Operation Crimson Hammer I found a Fiery Vaporizer MK II because 4 of its recipe materials matched with the materials that can be dropped in Operation Crimson Hammer).

What about items that don't have a recipe, like Blackened Crest? Well to tell the truth, all items have a "recipe" based on my research. My ultimate goal is to obtain rare items such as the Darkfang Shield, which is also why I am farming Operation Crimson Hammer. For Darkfang Shield, the stats are Elemental + Normal, and the theme is Gremlin, so I have strong belief that the first floor of Operation Crimson Hammer will have a higher chance of being able to drop the Darkfang Shield.

These are my conclusions, and if anybody else would like to add/edit my conclusions, feel free to do so.

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 09:20

Skepticraven

↓

Wiki beat you to it.

Also, there is high correlation between item stats (damage type and statuses) and the monsters on the depth. I'm a bit lazy to find the location first mentioning it, but it has been hypothesized for quite a while. [Correlation does not imply causation... but there is a statistically significant correlation.]

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 12:01

Bopp

to be fair

To be fair, that wiki page is out of date. Spark tokens used to drop in a way that matched theme --- for example, forge sparks in gremlin/construct levels. But sometime last year that code seems to have been damaged/changed, and now I seem to get a pretty random selection of sparks. For example, I've definitely gotten lots of grim sparks on gremlin levels.

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 12:50

#10

Skepticraven

↓

@Bopp

I haven't noticed any change. However, I do notice that the existence of silkwings, trojans, turrets [slime, construct, and undead], and menders that sneak into the monster pool to influence the possible spark tokens. There are few depths that completely isolate out monster families. The ones that do [deconstruction zones, devilish drudgeries, wolver dens], I have not noticed any out-of-place spark tokens.

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 13:22

#11

Bopp

no concrete evidence

I acknowledge that I'm not offering concrete evidence to support my claim. If I think of a way, I'll follow up. Cheers.

Sat, 04/25/2015 - 22:15

#12

Carbon-Jm

This might not be relevant...

A few years ago (Okay. ~May 2012) my friend found a Surge Breaker Shield (three star) in the arena of Rise or Fall, before it was nerfed. A few days later, he found a Scary Skelly Shield (three star) in Time Enough at Last. I think there might be some correlation, or maybe not. I just wanted to throw this out there. And yeah, the level does determine the drops (to an extent).

Tue, 04/28/2015 - 11:54

#13

Jmmoormann

My 2 item drops (both quite recent)

Cryotech Alchemer (ele + freeze) in a Cooling Chamber: Gremlin Grounds (ele + freeze)

Thwack Hammer (gremlin-themed) in a Decon Zone (gremlin-themed).

So yes, there is probably some kind of correlation.

Search

Are equipment drops based on RNG or... another factor?