once and for all: ratio of drops playersX - VS - drop rates of faster kill speed on lower playersX

can someone explain it to me once and for all, in simple words?
I've tried reading them guides, and they are like science articles.

the only explanation i got is
1) the p8 mobs have way more damage and hp therefor kill speed is much lowered.
and if you can put a counter on p8 kill speed vs p5 or p4 kill speed you'd get more monsters killed, and therefor more drops.

i wonder what's the formula for this, or at least an average ratio.

how much am i losing by doing the p8? just because that's my test for my character kill power.

so drop rate of p8 kill speed VS drop rate of p4 kill speed for example.

can anyone throw a Bone in here?

I know this has been discussed, but if i don't have numbers, and it could be real close, i don't know if i should bother.

There's no benefit to drops to use p8 over p7. Drops number increase at p3,5 and 7, so if p7 is slow, it would be better to go at p5

There's no math formula, so it all depends on the killspeed of your character.
You're definitely losing some killspeed by using p8 instead of p7, but only you can judge between 7 5 and 3

Check this website: https://dropcalc.silospen.com/item.php

It’ll show you drop odds for something specific you’d like, your mf and players level say p8, then at p1. Then compare run times at those player levels.

well i wish there was a formula..

so it's kill speeds..actually this is gameplay ruining, it's like d3 screen smash. i should just play the game and feel lucky i found something.

Formulas don't always help but...

x/t = p1k/t * p1d - p7k/t * p7d

t = a set unit of time
p1(-7)k = number of kills achieved on p1-p7 respectively (during that time t)
p1(-7)d = average # of drops per kill on p1-7 respectively


For example, say you farm for an hour:
t = 1hr

Say you can kill 500 p1 mobs in that time or 250 p7 mobs because they slow you down:
p1k = 500
p7k = 250

Say a p1 mob drops on average half an item (i.e. 50% chance of drop) while a p7 mob drops a single item 80% of the time then:
x/1 = 500/1 * 0.5 - 250/1 * 0.8 = 250 - 200 = 50

As a bottom line, if x = 0, it doesn't matter, if x is positive, lower player count wins and if x is negative, higher player count wins.
The same contrast can be done between p1 and 3, p3 and 5 or whatever you want to look at.

The problem with a formula like that is that you have too many variables to turn it into a generalized rule for everyone.
How many mobs you can kill on P1 vs. P3/5/7 respectively depends entirely on you, your build, your farming area and so on. The smaller the difference in number of mobs, the better off you likely are going for higher player counts instead. The actual average drops per kill are also not set in Stone. Higher counts reduce the no drop odds but those differ per mob type/quality and so on so that, too is impacted by where you farm and what you kill there (e.g. everything vs. champs only). The unit of time you could standardize but realistically, that's the one piece that is also largely irrelevant.

Basically, in simpler terms than a here largely pointless formula:
- Each mob may or may not have a chance to not drop anything when a drop is rolled for it. This is referred to as the nodrop (or nodrop odds). The actual odds for this differ and depend on the mob type/quality and range from 0 to significant percentages.
- For each 2 players beyond the first, these nodrop odds (if > 0) are reduced, effectively increasing the average number of drops per kill/run/game at P3, 5 and 7. The extent to which this really has an impact (if any) again depends on where and what you farm.
- As player count goes up, so does mob health, potentially increasing the time it takes you per kill/run. The extent to which this impacts your times depends again on a ton of factors such as what you farm, how you farm, with what build you farm, your level of gear and so on and so forth. It may be insignificant (or in extreme cases literally no difference) or it may on the opposite end easily more than double or triple the time needed for kills.

Looking at the above bullets in more detail and in the context of how/what/where you farm, you generally arrive at two things:
"Moving from x to y players gives me z more drops per run"
and
"Moving from x to y players makes runs take z% longer"
If the increase in drops per run outweighs the added time per run, higher player counts are the better choice for you. Inversely, if the time increase outweighs the gain in drops, you want to stick to lower player counts.

But because all of that depends on so many variables from area to mob to your build, your gear and even your playstyle, it is impossible to accurately and specifically generalize.

Schnorki that's a great post!
but- what the hell is x? at the formula.

the formula is pretty solid on my book. time per kill isn't enough for drop rate.

just a crude example, that is probably not realistic in D2:
say you kill 500 mobs in 1hour.
on p1
and 250 on p8.

and lets say the drop rate for p8 is 8 times p1.

it means you get 4 times the drop rate at players 8.

i know its totally in accurate. and perhaps even wrong. but you can see drop rates difference when you start the game on normal, every chest is filled with 3-8 items on p8, while sometimes getting zero on p1.

these are the stats for no drops (normal mobs):

p1/1, p2/1 = 62.5%
p2/2, p3/1, p3/2, p4/1 = 38.78 %
p3/3, p4/2, p4/3, p5/1, p5/2, p6/1 = 24.05 %
p4/4, p5/3, p5/4, p6/2, p6/3, p7/1, p7/2, p8/1 = 14.29 %
p5/5, p6/4, p6/5, p7/3, p7/4, p8/2, p8/3 = 9.09 %
p6/6, p7/5, p7/6, p8/4, p8/5 = 4.76 %
p7/7, p8/6, p8/7 = 3.23 %
p8/8 = 1.64%

so 98.36% vs 37.5%
that is a ratio of 1:262
meaning for normal mobs:
if you kill 500 on p1 , and 250 on p8, you'd get abit more than p1 drops.
since it's about 2.5 more drops. or at least the chance for drops.

what i'm seeing here that the notion of more kill speed is wrong. and p8 actually wins.

that is if you know your kill speed, and that is actually 1:2 ratio of kill speed. obviously.

x would be the comparator between higher and lower player count. Hence the critical question being "is x >, = or < 0?".

The notion of more kill speed isn't generally wrong, it is ultimately simply a numbers game.

Theoretically, you could chart and calculate all of it but the effort that would take is..well..a bit nuts. Simply because you have to account for so many different things that you need to first figure out and that can't just be pulled from raw game/drop data.

If you really want a somewhat reliable answer (which will be a different answer for everyone), what I for one would suggest is:
1) Look at which zones you typically run to farm in.
2) For those zones, run them multiple times over on each different player count. Stop the time it takes you per run.
3) Figure out the relative added time for you in those zones as player count goes up based on the above.

That'd give you something like "I can do CS in 1:48 on average on P1 but on P5, I'm about 27% slower" (one random example of the statements you would arrive at). With this, you have the time piece covered.

What you then need is the drop piece. That one would be easier to simply calculate as you can pull the nodrop data for the various mobs in those zones and do the actual math. Or you could just run them a few times each again on different player counts and actually count the number of drops you get per run.
This one would then give you something like "I get 483 drops on average from P1 CS while on P5 I get an average 21.7% more drops" (completely made up random numbers).

If you have both, you can then go "I need to get at least 27% more stuff on P5 to make it worth the added time but I only get 21.7% more drops so P1 is better for me than P5" (sticking with the made up example).

Again, theoretically, you can calculate all of that. But in the time it takes you to do that (correctly), you can likely just do a statistically significant amount of runs for both, timing and drop counting 50 times over. Just don't do your timing and counting in the same runs as the counting would most likely negatively impact your timing.

The concept is easy enough to understand. But actually truly answering the question of "which player count is best?"...not so much.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

"which player count is best?"...not so much.

perhaps yes:

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

1) Look at which zones you typically run to farm in.
2) For those zones, run them multiple times over on each different player count. Stop the time it takes you per run.
3) Figure out the relative added time for you in those zones as player count goes up based on the above.

perhaps i will try that. that's a good method to understand that. I think these guys who documented their drops on them farming journeys here in the forum, might have a better Insight. if they tested that too.

Are you accounting for quality of drops. Sure you could run em like 400 times to calculate your drop percentage but doesn’t going up to p7 also increase the chance of getting a higher TClass?

Grick91 wrote: 1 year ago

but doesn’t going up to p7 also increase the chance of getting a higher TClass?

Nope
Player count affects nodrop. That's it.

For 'normal' loot at least. In some cases (quest items, standards, ...) it multiplies guaranteed drops. But that's largely irrelevant for this discussion.

I understand the nodrop chance tables... I think!

I just can't find the clarity I'm always curious about on the players 3,5,7.. Maybe my thoughts are correct?

When people say P8 is the same as P7, are they referring to single player only? If so, is this because the players command is just simulating players in game, not in party and together? (Like the additional players are the equivalent to people sitting in town in a online game?) Technically making it impossible to achieve 8/8? Therefor it is falling in the 14.29 % portion of the table is where, 7/1, 8/1 are?

I just get this confusion because every table I ever look at has a P8 listed with a percentage 1.59 lower than P7. But if the game is actually simulating them like I wrote above when playing offline, it makes so much more sense to me.

Also, as far as I've ever been able to discern online, this is unique to the nodrop table. XP and monster health is purely relative to the amount of players present in game, with no clause to party and proximity?

GooberGirl wrote: 1 year ago

When people say P8 is the same as P7, are they referring to single player only?

It's referring to both SP offline and when playing online but alone (noone nearby and/or noone in your party). For offline play you are always alone, and a lot of people play alone online too, so people tend to leave out the second bit of information regarding nearby partied players. For clarity's sake, player count should always be specified as pX/Y, IMO

GooberGirl wrote: 1 year ago

If so, is this because the players command is just simulating players in game, not in party and together?

Yes, in a way. You can think of the /players X command setting players to pX/1. So there is no way to improve NoDrop beyond 14.29 % when playing offline.

GooberGirl wrote: 1 year ago

I just get this confusion because every table I ever look at has a P8 listed with a percentage 1.59 lower than P7.

The confusion comes from that a lot of information about it out there ignores the fact that party size matters (well, players in a party and nearby). It's a fact that a lot of people seem to ignore or don't care about, since it's not often relevant (who plays in a party anyway except during

Baal runs? .... I do, actually, but no matter ). I think the numbers you are referring to are p7/7 vs p8/8. These are only relevant if you actually have a party of 7 vs 8 who are playing together in the same area and nearby each other the whole time. In most situations you are alone, and then you should be comparing p7/1 with p8/1, which are effectively the same in terms of NoDrop.

GooberGirl wrote: 1 year ago

Also, as far as I've ever been able to discern online, this is unique to the nodrop table. XP and monster health is purely relative to the amount of players present in game, with no clause to party and proximity?

Correct, when it comes to monster health and XP gains, each player counts just as much, regardless if they are distant or unpartied.