Hardmode Flashpoints; No loot variance for premade groups

[Soluss]

Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that random does in fact mean random. However much you may dislike it, however bad your 'luck' may be, however much things seem to be a pattern. They are not. You're 'problems' as stated in this thread are a miniscule minority, which tends to imply that the thousands upon thousands of forum posters NOT posting in this thread are not having issues.

 

TLDR: Random loot is random, keep on trying, eventually youll get something, or something will drop that will break your fancy 'x drops with y in group' patterns.

 

Nah thats horse crap. This is not random. This is something broken. I will give you yet another random that noone talks about anymore.

 

Back in beta, social points use to only goto 100. The system seem to work decent. They then added the ability to crit and go above 100. At that point it broke. The same person would very often win every single role in the conversations. This went on for weeks. It wasnt until towards the end of beta that they added a modifier. That modifier made it so that the more times you lost a roll the bigger boost you got to your next roll. Guess what, its still broke. I run with pretty much the same group every time, since level 1. Sometimes a different person but always with the same healer.

 

Im not even level 4 social yet. My ops friend is not even level 3 social yet. However that healer was level 4 social by the time I made level 2 social. Yeah ... even with modifiers, that healer won 90% of the convo rolls. Every dungeon, ever quest. Happens every day.

 

Sorry his *** is not that lucky and we are not that bad luck.

[Choombatta]

We see the exact same drops in HM Esseles everytime we have run it with a Sentinel, Sage, Shadow, Gunslinger.

 

We get Tionese Stalker belt, Tionese Stalker earpiece, and Columni Knight bracers everytime we run it. No deviation.

[JuliusMidnight]

Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that random does in fact mean random. However much you may dislike it, however bad your 'luck' may be, however much things seem to be a pattern. They are not. You're 'problems' as stated in this thread are a miniscule minority, which tends to imply that the thousands upon thousands of forum posters NOT posting in this thread are not having issues.

 

TLDR: Random loot is random, keep on trying, eventually youll get something, or something will drop that will break your fancy 'x drops with y in group' patterns.

 

And a Troll is a Troll... OP was asking if other people experienced the same thing. Which people have, all over. Their "random" equations for loot clearly has some class based dependencies that bring the same results when those classes do not change. There may be only certain cases where this happens too, a small percentage of the possible makeups, but the more feedback on what those makeups are, the better chance of finding them out. Saying "random is random" when the OP was looking for information serves no purpose.

[Frogg]

/signed

 

We've ran over 30 HM's over the last 2 weeks and have seen little to no variation in loot drops with our set group of friends.

 

Absolutely no Inquistor gear has dropped with a grp of 3 Inq's and a BH. It is almost always IA gear.

[Prolyfic]

Same problem exactly!

 

Usual group:

 

Powertech tank

Assassin mdps

Jugg mdps

Operative heals

 

So we have one of each class and I have seen sith warrior chest 15/20 times, the other few times we had swapped out one of the dps

 

I also experienced the social pt freeze mentioned above. I am social 1 and my healer I've been grouping with since 30s is social 5. awesome.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Prolyfic

[Daltin]

I'm going to reply with an update. I'll copy and paste from another thread I found on another board.

 

It was very predictable for a few nights, but then 'something changed'. We don't know what, if something was reset. But the person, lets call them Leader A, would 90%+ of the time receive Bounty Hunter gear, and most importantly, the Bounty Hunter Columi piece.

 

Leader B would usually receive 90%+ Warrior, Leader C, Agent, etc. We didn't have anyone that would lead to Willpower drops.

 

Tonight, Leader A was dropping all Agent gear, switched from Bounty Hunter. Leader B has now switched to Bounty Hunter gear. Again, this is 90% of drops when items are supposed to be an even 25%. These streaks are so abnormal, that the mathematical odds of them occuring this frequently, are astronomical.

 

We've now gone 38 consecutive bosses without seeing a Columi Willpower item, or token, drop.

 

This includes:

Black Talon x2

False Emperor x2

Boarding Party, Kaon, Foundry, Ilum, Directive7 x1

 

Prior to these streak of 38, we had Ilum drop an Inquisitor Token off the bonus boss, and one off the final boss. After this occured, this is when Leader A, B, C, and D's predictable loot outcome had changed.

 

I really do wish Bioware would take a look at these two threads and comment, even if it's just a "we're listening" kind of comment. Little frustrating that our Warrior and BH have 5piece Columi, and the two Inquisitors have 1 piece, a helm, each. Been doing Hardmodes since early January, and the only piece we've had drop were the 2 helms that night.

 

Edit: ALSO. We are experiencing the Social Point bug as well. I'm stuck at Social III, 1767 rating. Been like this for 4 days. Everyone else in my party is stuck with Social Points as well.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Daltin

[Carynus]

So.. With all this the RNG is broken and the same drops come from the same bosses what HM FP's and bosses in them do I need to run to gear out the following :

 

Trooper tank

Cons Healer

Sent dps

Gunslinger

 

Please make a accurate list so that we can test your theories.

[Daltin]

That's not what I said at all. the loot seeds are bugged to the player, not the class. If you want a magic answer like "a bh leader results in warrior gear" you won't get it. But if you want to know that my lead generates the 90% bounty hunter, then here you go.

[realID]

Considering the token can only be one of four things... Ya, I can easily see people seeing the same item several times in a row.

[Daltin]

Considering the token can only be one of four things... Ya, I can easily see people seeing the same item several times in a row.

 

 

 

Congratulations on reading the thread title and not the contents found within.

[ScapeGoats]

I guess my group is very, very unlucky as well. We always run HMs together and see consistent Aim drops. Group make up: Jug tank (me), Assassin dps, sniper dps, Op Healer.

 

Once in a while something useful drops. It is pretty rare though. Most of our gear is bought with commendations. However, Pierce and Calio (sp?) are geared out.

 

Its discouraging.

[Kemorand]

Seeing how Bioware handled even a simple thing like sorting guild members by level in a guild panel, how many cunning defense items are still in the game, how some companions simple don't have options for weapons (Qyzen Fess anyone?), I don't think it's a stretch to think that there could be something odd with loot "randomness" in HMs.

 

I played many years of MMOs with "random" drops from a given loot table. Never have I had a problem with it, because overall it made sense and it was down to just luck or bad luck, period.

If you take WoW for example, mods allowed the parsing of thousands upon thousand of drops and it was clear that some items where rare, while some were more common. It also showed that there was a logic and that overall, it was just down to pure luck.

 

Here, as said previously, things seem fixed as soon as you set up a group, or close to it, for no apparent reason. If there was a flat 25% chance for each tokens to drop, there is NO WAY so many people would see insane stretches of drops like this. I've run 19 HMs so far (Shadow tank, Shadow DPS, Sage healing and Sentinel DPS), usually with the same people and I have NEVER seen a single willpower token while I've seen 14 smuggler ones (with no smuggler in group) and 5 trooper ones (no trooper either!!). My healing companion is currently nearly full columni (just head and boots missing)...I got 2 pieces, from operations.

 

Now, we simply stopped doing HMs

Edited February 12, 2012 by Kemorand

[Auru_shad]

I can also add the it's not just hardmode flashpoints, I run the ones I'm way overleveled for to get a set of orange gear that I like (unwavering powertech foundry set for example) since my guild isn't really doing any level 50 stuff right now, most of the time I get the exact same stuff everytime I run it, I've done Boarding Party at least 20 times now I'd say, maybe more.

[Thoffs]

 

Now, we simply stopped doing HMs

 

Some in our guild are at about the same place. I have a Sage friend who has been unlucky in normal mode ops loot assignments, and has been trying to get a willpower drop for two weeks doing HM FPs (I have been in a few of his groups) -- nothing but trooper/smuggler drops. He says he has done 20+ HMs (I have done 10+ myself). I will keep helping him hoping for that 5% drop but I am not sure how much longer he will want to keep trying.

 

I submitted a bug ticket on this about a week ago and it is still open (every other ticket I have ever submitted has been closed within a day with a standard auto-response about being forwarded to the correct department). Not sure if that means anything or not.

[Farmbuyer]

Anyway, its probably not seeded exactly by class. Its either:

 

A) seeded by player internal id

B) seeded by classes with some order depending on how the group was built. So maybe even just switching party leader or the order in which you invite people may matter.

 

My personal guess is A), but who knows, its just a guess.

 

 

The mistake a lot of you guys are making is in thinking that the code creating the loot tables gets a PRNG all to itself. It'd be incredibly wasteful to implement anything like that.

 

A server uses its PRNG to get a number anytime it needs to get some random luck thrown in. Loot tables, yes, but also exact damage done on each swing chosen out of the min-max damage range, whether you crit or not, whether you shield or not, whether the fourth mob from the left dodges or not...

 

That PRNG is seeded long, long, long before you ever zoned in. It's shared for a lot more people than just your group. It'd be idiotic to have multiple PRNGs running for each flashpoint instance spawn -- which means they aren't seeded with anything related to the players. Please, just stop.

 

 

Now, what is more likely is that the loot tables -- specifically the loot tables, not the entire PRNG -- aren't necessarily random. Outside of hardmodes I tend to see more stuff drop for the exact players running it. For hardmodes, who knows what they're trying to do. If they're trying to do anything special -- by which I mean anything other than just simple random loot -- then it only makes sense to adjust the tables based on class. Not "seeding" with player internal ID numbers or anything else hidden.

[Daltin]

Of the last 135 Flashpoint clears (Yup.) We've seen 3 Inquisitor Drops.

 

2% drop rate on an item that's 25%.

 

Lol @ anyone who thinks this is "RNG" at work. Bioware tends to avoid the topics where issues are severe like this (See: Crevasse City broken PVP Queue / Ilum is broken on Jung Ma threads)

Edited February 17, 2012 by Daltin

[DarthSunshine]

I'm a Smuggler.

 

I have run Taral V seven times in a row. Each time it drops Jedi Knight gloves. Group makeup has been 3 Troopers and Smuggler three times and 2 Troopers, 1 Smuggler and 1 JK four times.

 

Of the last 15 HMs I've run, two pieces of Smuggler gear have dropped.

 

On a stranger note, I decided to run a Normal EV and I recieved 4/5 Columi drops specific to me.

 

Something is rotten in Denver

[DarthSunshine]

Now that I think of it, the three times I've recieved gear from HMs out of 25+ runs the groups were started by a trooper Leader. The ops where I recieved 4/5 Columi pieces was started by the same Trooper. Of the 15+ times I've started HMs as a smuggler I've seen 90% JK items.

 

So this is what I would suggest as a test.

 

Trooper DPS start group as Leader = Smuggler drops

Smuggler DPS start = Jedi Knight drops.

 

Just a thought to test

[Thoffs]

Of the last 135 Flashpoint clears (Yup.) We've seen 3 Inquisitor Drops.

 

2% drop rate on an item that's 25%.

 

Lol @ anyone who thinks this is "RNG" at work. Bioware tends to avoid the topics where issues are severe like this (See: Crevasse City broken PVP Queue / Ilum is broken on Jung Ma threads)

 

Between a sage friend and myself (another sage), we have run 30+ HMs FPs and seen no willpower items. The majority of the time has been smuggler (no smuggler in group) with rest about evenly divided between trooper and knight.

 

Frankly, we have given up on HMs for loot for sages. I only run them to help out other guildies and for camaraderie.

 

However, I have been insanely lucky on ops gear drops in Normal ops, to the detriment of the other sages in our ops group to where myself and Nadia are nearly fully Columni geared.

 

It is a borked loot system for HM FPs and normal mode ops.

 

Edit: Cue the 'random is random' poster.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Thoffs

[ImmortalAlien]

If BW uses a smart loot system for SWTOR, it's broken. Too many times, I see Columni tokens for a class not in the group drop.

[Evan_Gregory]

I've been really trying to figure this out. I am conviced there is a "smart loot" system that isn't so smart afterall.

 

But, if we can figure out a way to manipulate it, we can control the drops thus gearing out whoever needs it or whatnot.

 

I will provide my findings; Group makeup is as follows:

 

Guardian Tank

Sage healer

Gunslinger Dps

Commando DPS (me)

 

The tokens seem to lead towards the consular, but those themselves are actually kinda varied.

 

The actual non token loot epics, however, have been about 85% smuggler.

 

This could be for two reasons; 1. our group makeup 2. the fact that my anxious self always seems to loot the boss (commando).

 

 

Let me know if you guys try this makeup and who loots the boss and let me know what you find!

[OpiumOhs]

I'm mainly a pvper but have recently gotten into FPs now that more of my guild is 50. Our usual setup is:

 

Tank - Sith Warrior Juggernaut

DPS - Imperial Agent Operative

DPS - Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer

Heals - Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer

 

I've only run 20ish HM FPs so this could be a bad streak but we have only seen 1 Sith Inquisitor token, 2 warrior tokens, and the rest about an even split between Agent and Bounty Hunter. This happens even when we switch out our Operative for an Inquisitor Assassin. Kaon Under Siege was especially frustrating last night when each boss dropped Bounty Hunter gear, and the two random blue drops were Agent and Bounty Hunter.

 

Again my sample is fairly small but when we don't run Bounty Hunters and multiple Inquisitors but around 90% of the tokens are either Bounty Hunter or Imperial Agent it's rather disheartening.

 

I'll start keeping track as we do more FPs to see if there's any type of pattern I can find.

[Zathena]

So it's unfortunate for my friends that 3 of us are Consulars.....DPS Sage, Healer Sage, Shadow Tank.....However we have run 15 HM's and never once seen a single Consular Columni piece. 8 times we've gotten Trooper loot (No Trooper in the group). 6 times we've gotten Smuggler loot (1 time we had a smuggler) and 1 time Knight loot (we actually had one). This is really, really frustrating.

[terminova]

Hey all,

 

Our standard group has been running hardmodes for the last 2 weeks. It's typically a guardian tank, sage healer, commando dps, and sentinel dps. We are seeing next to zero variance in drops when running with this premade group.

 

The couple times we have swapped out a member or two, is the only time we've seen different drops.

 

Take False Emperor for example. We've run it 13 times and seen the smuggler jacket 11 of those times. Twice it's been the Trooper jacket and those 2 times we had swapped out members.

 

Are other premade groups seeing this? Don't bother telling me random is random. I know how streaks are possible, but I'd love to know if other people that run with the SAME GROUP are seeing very little variance in drops.

 

Cheers!

 

The loot tables might be bugged. For example, (this isn't from a HM or anything) one of the boss level mobs in the wilds of Dromund Kaas, one of the Hadra ones (but away from where the Heroic quest is done) continuously dropped the exact same piece of armor every single time, a Nylite Kilt, except when it dropped a prototype. I killed him something like 6-7 times and ended up with 5 Nylite Kilts as the only green drops, so either the mob could only drop that one item or the loot table was bugged.

 

What might be happening is if the game is determining the loot tables based on group composition, it might be glitched and either not setting it up correctly, or be bugged and not accounting for everything on the table in the roll.

Edited February 19, 2012 by terminova

[exsvarlast]

there seems to be something wrong with the loot imo too.For the last month of doing HM ops with 2 different groups its like %50 smuggler %20 Trooper %20 JC and %10 JK(meybe less)

Our gunslinger and his companions are all from foot to head Rakata geared atm. While our main tank is still in full Collumi(which he optained from comms. and countless Hm fps) except a belt and offhand.

 

According to what i heard from many friends in-game, this is the case in almost all of their guilds.