Talk:Drops

I really didn't finish the drops page before it got formatted. Monday (6/13) will be the first time I get to finish it, so if anyone wants to beat me to it, I'll thank you. --KoreRekon 03:49, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Drop Rates
Am I allowed to add drop rate informations, extracted from the terraria source? Rynti 16:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, please do. I'll just ask that you start slow, and only do a few pages. Show the community what you want to do. 16:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been working a bit on drop rates and have a couple questions. When I started 1 monster had a "Drop rates" section and 2 had "Special Drops", so I went ahead and used "Special Drops", but I like the sound of "Drop Rates" better. What is the proper placement? I think it should be at the top, after the initial text block but before videos and strategy. I noticed a handful of items listed drop rates on their pages. Should I deleted those and have it only on the monster's page? I think that would make it easier to update. Any opinions on the formatting? Originally I wanted to do a little table for it, but they like to use "if ... else if ..." a lot (like Demon Eye drops) and I thought that would get messy. I like having both the percent and the ratio in there (credit to whoever originally did Demon Eye). --KoreRekon 11:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi.
 * I think it would be better to keep them on the monster page, as that is what the info should be found: It is a page about the monster. Pages about items should link to monsters that drop them, and players who want to know the drop rate should then go to the monster page
 * I think a table would indeed be too bulky, but I don't think it warrants entire sentences either. A simple bullet list is what would be best, IMO.
 * I think just simple "Drops" is the best title, as the drops may or may not be special. Further more, the section isn't entirely dedicated to the rates themselves.
 * Finally, I'm not a huge fan of the "else", as it is something strictly related to code. From an observer point of view, there is no "else": I think it would be better to just put the compounded "else rate".
 * So to summarize, I (IMO) think this would be best:
 * == Drops ==
 * Lens: 33.4% (1:3 chance)
 * Black Lens: 0.67% (1:150 chance)
 * happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 12:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I love that layout, simple and to the point. What about for multiple drops?  Something like:
 * 1-5 Spiky Balls: 50% (1:2 chance)
 * This part is going to sound horrible, but it's been a long time since I've used anything besides basic math. If there's one drop with 1:400 else another drop with 1:200, what is the formula to calculate the adjusted 1:200 drop rate?  It's sad how quickly I forget things I don't use. --KoreRekon 12:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that looks good.
 * If the first item is a/A, and the second item only drops when the first doesn't, at a rate of b/B, then overall, the second item will fall at (1 - a/A)*(b/B).
 * For the Demon Eye Example, that would be:
 * (1 - 1/3)*(1/100) = (2/3)*(1/100) = 2/300 = 1/150.
 * In your example, the exact value would be 399/80000, but I think it would be fine to put (&#8776;1/200). happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 12:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The (&#8776;1/200) actually answered my next question.  To continue the formula, would (1 - a/A)*(b/B)*(c/C) work for 3 daisy chained drops? --KoreRekon 12:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be more like (1-a/ A )*(1-b/B)*(c/C). You can always draw a distribution tree if it helps. happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 12:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ordering of the drops, based on drop % (high to low?) or alphabetical? --KoreRekon 12:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say common to uncommon (so high% to low%) happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 12:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

You're correct on EoW's segments. About Shadowscale Armor drops... It's kind of a grey area. It will always drop a piece, but I thought we were more going for individual item drops and simplifying "else's" and other code complexities (like how Lens drop precludes a Black Lens drop). IE, Hornets/Man Eaters have a 1:150 chance to drop a random piece of Jungle Armor, I instead calculated individual pieces (1:450). --KoreRekon 15:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, in this case, it isn't a detail though... each individual piece doesn't have an independent 33% chance to drop. The Eater of Worlds will never drop 2 pieces, or no piece. Overall, I think you did a great job, and what you did is good, but if breaking the rule for a page will make that page better, then so be it (IMO). This is your "project" though, so I'll let you have the last word, do as you feel works best. Don't be afraid to undo me - When it comes to page content, I'm just an editor. happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 21:51, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for saying I did a good job. I couldn't have done it without your help. This is the first time I've ever edited a wiki, so I really don't want any sort of final say. While EoW will never drop 2 pieces nor no piece of armor, the Demon Eye will never drop both Lens's, a goblin will never drop 2 different items, a Hornet will never drop 2 pieces of armor, Dead Miner will never drop both of his items... In my opinion we should either go for simplicity (the chance of each individual item) or detail (if ... else ...).  Personally, I prefer detail, but that's much harder to present in a neat fashion. --KoreRekon 00:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, thank you for adding the part about worm's segments. I had no idea how to stick that in there. --KoreRekon 00:38, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That is true, but this default behavior of "never drops two items" does not apply to bosses: Each segment will always drop a scale and maybe some ore. Killing the worm will drop Potions and ores and a piece of the set. Under these circumstances, I find it leaves a little bit of ambiguity, and a bit more detail is required.

I have been removing the 1:1 ratio for a guaranteed item from the drops section in articles (meaning it only states "100% chance" instead of "100% (1:1 chance)" ), but KoreRekon has a valid point in that it doesn't look consistent once removed. Maybe we should stick to either a percentage or a ratio? It seems excessive to state both, especially in the 100% case. I prefer the percentage value, but I can see why some people would prefer the ratio instead (as an estimate of how many monsters he should kill for the item). SilverSwift  ...TALK...  23:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I really like the percentage and the ratio. I'm more used to seeing a percent based drop chance, but the Terraria forums seems much more accustomed to seeing a ratio.  Why not display both? --KoreRekon 03:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I was curious, what is the source of the information regarding each drop rate? Some of them can be easily tested (specially the ones with high drop rate and/or common monsters), but what about the rest? I was specifically intrigued about the Plumber's Hat drop rate (drop from the Fire Imp). I made a trap (at a world created after 1.04) and let the Fire Imps die, and after some time I harvested the drops, and approximately 1750 Imps had died (this estimative considers 1:50 drop rate for Flower of Fire, and 35 of them dropped). Of course it can always be just bad luck, but is it possible that the drop rate for Plumber's Hat is actually lower than 1:500? Shrooms 16:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I found the answer at KoreRekon's Talk page. I didn't know it was possible to look directly at the code to figure out the drop rates. Thanks for the info anyway! --Shrooms 16:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Images
Someone names Ace added an image to one of the item drops. In my opinion it was a brilliant idea. I don't know how to add images, but I think it should go;
 * [img][item]: X% (1:X chance)
 * Use : it automatically finds the right image, and links it. However, don't put images when an enemy has too many drops (eg. Eater of worlds). It looks bad. happypal (talk &bull; contribs) 16:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Drops of Ankh Charm Components
When I updated and fixed the drop rates a few months back with the 1.2.4.1 game code, I neglected checking over the components of the Ankh Charm, as for some reason Re-Logic wrote it differently than the drop rates for every other item in the game. I spent a few hours today figuring out which enemies dropped which of the items, since I saw someone say that the Paladin dropped Armor Polish (which I knew wasn't true). If I made any mistakes, please let me know:

If you disagree with any of the information I found, like I said, let me know. In the meantime, several pages need to be updated.  Chrisf1020  (talk)  00:41, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I checked a couple of the ids myself, and I trust your work enough to assume that the rest are up to code. I had been having a bit of trouble finding general npc drop data myself, so this is also pretty helpful. I don't know if it's noteworthy that the overall drop rate on both special cases is still 1% but chosen between two items at a 50% chance as opposed to being two separate rolls, because functionally it's still .5% for either. This may also be related to the reported bug in the mobile edition where pixies drop both together all the time, though I'm not sure if that's appropriate for the wiki, or if the average reader would care about that.
 * In general, though, the more of this wiki we can get directly from the source, the better. If you haven't already, I'll go through sometime tomorrow morning and make the changes. It's a shame we can't get the mobile source, though, because the ankh shield and its components have come up a few times lately as problems. Gearzein (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * As for making the edits, I'll have time to do that later. The combined drop rate really isn't worth noting, as that's generally how all of the drop rates are already calculated here. For example, Ancient Shadow armor has a combined drop rate from Eaters of 1/175, but then another RNG decides which piece of the armor will drop, effectively giving each piece of armor a 1/525 drop rate. Perhaps it is worh noting though that only one piece of armor can drop at a time.
 * As for the mobile source code, it would be helpful to have as a way to actually identify bugs, as there seem to be quite a few of them. A few that come to mind are the Rainbow Rod dropping from Chaos Elementals and Shadow Keys from Wyverns. And then there are all of the console/mobile exclusive items that we don't know drop rates for. Unforetunately, 505 has stated in the past that they have no intentions of releasing the source code.  Chrisf1020  (talk)  14:14, 26 February 2015 (UTC)