Mischief was supposed to be chaotic!

You are completely ignoring the fact that we have an increased rate of expansion unlocks, and an increased rate of named mobs.

Get with the program, this is a loot pinata ruleset.

Two things. Nothing in the ruleset said mobs would drop 10x the loot. Second thing is, I was replying to someone who specifically mentioned about mobs dropping way more loot than they should be. I have accepted that this is the way it is. When my friends and I finally start doing some bigger raid targets, we will be able to gear our boxes up fast. Doesn't mean that it was intended. I think it is just too much of an issue to fix.

the way the raid mobs drop their extra loot, there is a 0% chance it wasnt intended to function the way it does. the only things theyve messed up is what mob drops what other mobs loot. the amount of loot that drops is too structured to not be intended

You do have random loot it just isn't random from every item in the expansion like you want it to be. They said at the start it would be random based on several factors which did suggest that you would not see any raid mob have a chance to drop any raid item.

This is bull

In what way?

It's between probable to certain that mob-configs are stored in LUA files, or something akin to them.

These files will have mob characteristics - HP, stats, combat abilities, probably scripting, and certainly loot.

All loot will be done in groups with respective weights, and various groups will be linked to another mobs' table that would otherwise traditionally be unique or outside of that that group.

It could look something like this:
Group1{ (guaranteed drop)
{Table1, %} (guaranteed loot roll)
{Table2, %}
{Tablen,...},
}
Groupn{}, % (chance to drop)
Etc.

EQ generates loot on NPC spawn (pretty sure, not 100% if some loot is generated after death).
Server rolls groups, then for tables.
Some groups have diminishing values that could roll high on all, or all come up nil.

To ensure that Zordak's heart would drop 100% on all Zordak corpses, it should just need the Group added as 100%. Likewise with other mobs who drop their heads, etc.

lol

The people on these forums....

Ok.

I tried to simplify it a bit; but I guess it wasn't enough.

\

Not sure on raid mobs but regular mobs appear to generate it on spawn. That is why you see them holding weapons.

Early-era EQ does not use Lua, or any embedded scripting language. Its original development, circa 1996, predates the popularity of such tools in gaming applications by a good five years. WoW does use a Lua variant, so what you described could easily be done there, but not here.

All loot is rolled after death. The generated loot for an individual NPC can include guaranteed item(s) for that mob, roll on a loot table for that mob, roll on any of several loot table for that zone, and/or roll on any of several global loot tables. We don't know exactly how the devs are implementing the random loot rules on these servers; we can guess that it involves some sort of joining of pre-existing tables. They won't change any of the pre-existing tables, because it's a common code base across all servers.

This can be deceiving, because many mobs show weapons that don't drop as loot, or show weapons that differ from what they might possibly drop as loot. Consider as one example the kobolds in the tutorial zone, some of which will be shown to carry a bladed weapon that doesn't drop. I believe they roll for mob inventory on spawn, and then may or may not treat that inventory as that mob's loot table on death. Also, when the server is lagging, you can see some significant delays between the log message for the mob's death and the appearance of that loot, if any, in the advanced loot window. It has to wait for the server to roll.

Those are new zones. Old world for sure the mobs spawn with that they have. You can notice it in sebilis. With the new loot, if the mob is holding a whip, it has a whip. If it has a sword, it drops a sword.
I know they changed it later to be like you were talking about, but not the first few expansions.

Characters were stored as files vs a in a DB (as it is now), up until the late 2000's ('08-ish?).
Though, NPC's were static opposed to the dynamic character files; so I could see NPC 's loading from some other medium.

I wonder of there's been any theory-crafting on Kerafyrm scripting (something for another day).

Go to any old-world newbie yard on a Live server and kill stuff. Mobs will occasionally drop rare items off global loot tables not in use in Classic, such as Crude Defiant gear, including Crude Defiant weapons. Those weapons are never displayed, because they are rolled at death. Any weapon you see on a mob is being used in combat, and those stats are applied, regardless of what is dropped.

Loot is rolled after death? How do you explain rogues being able to pick pocket an npc of all loot that isn't tagged magic? How do you explain people using programs in the past to see what a mob was going to drop and using tactics to force a crash and get something different?

Pickpocket is looking at an NPC's inventory, which is rolled at spawn, in certain cases rolled again on a refresh timer, and which can include items that won't drop. There are NPCs which can't be killed, such as some merchants and guildmasters, that can be picked. It is important to understand that inventory <> loot. Also, as an aside, pickpocket doesn't necessarily get you everything that isn't magic. Wielded weapons, for example, cannot be picked, but as noted above, on some occasions they can be dropped.

I can't speak to what early-era cheat programs could once do; many many bugs have been fixed since then, and quite a lot of mechanics have been changed. I am attempting to describe how I believe things work today, on both Live and TLP servers (same code base).

Ding ding ding we have a winner.

Apr 28, 2021

Are we talking about live servers or TLP servers? I can't attest to anything on a live server, only on TLPs.

On TLPs (I don't play live and have no idea what goes on in that strange world) loot is 100% rolled when the creature is spawned, not on death. Mobs do not always equip the gear they carry, often because they are not the correct class to equip that item. Doesn't mean the item wasn't on the mob when it was spawned. Drakes in TOV proccing Avatar because they were wielding an Avatar weapon that they proceeded to drop is an example.