Miscellaneous: Potential Bug with No Manastones Dropping

[Deliverator]

Manastone drop rates on P99 are not even close to classic. I'd love to know what justification they have for setting it to less than 10% drop rate with a 60% PH chance. I get it, you guys don't think you have enough evidence to change it. What is the evidence you're using for the CURRENT drop rate? Because I feel like the "evidence" you're using to justify the current drop rate doesn't exist.

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by Deliverator [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Manastone drop rates on P99 are not even close to classic. I'd love to know what justification they have for setting it to less than 10% drop rate with a 60% PH chance. I get it, you guys don't think you have enough evidence to change it. What is the evidence you're using for the CURRENT drop rate? Because I feel like the "evidence" you're using to justify the current drop rate doesn't exist.

What "evidence" do you have "drop rates on P99 are not even close to classic"?

It's a hypothetical question because I know you don't have any.

[Aquelin]

We've nearly reached the thirty hour mark since the last stone dropped on Green. That's 28+ consecutive hours for one person to get their stone, with at least 4 others having to wait those same 28+ hours and more just for their chance to spend 20 to over 65 hours for their chance at this item that is largely only useful for it's own era.

Let's be real; this is likely the product of artificial scarcity because the staff knew the population was going to be many times over what the initial population of Blue was (/tinfoil hat). We even a post here from nilbog stating that the bag (the common drop from EE table) was dropping 70% of the time during early classic Blue prior the Manastone being removed. This coincides with the drop formula for named mobs Daldaen mentioned in this thread. So why is it being kept secret now?

More importantly, what evidence is being used to support the current drop rate if nothing decisive has been found?

[Solist]

Just some quick update.

The last 3 manastones are:
31.5 hours for a drop of a manastone from last
6hrs for another.
currently at 34.5 hours and no stone.

HEAPS CLASSIC GUYS

(qualification, im at just under 100 hours total spent here)

[randal.flagg]

For what its worth i saw 5 drop in 36 hours.

Sounds like ya'll got some bad RNG.

[Daldaen]

This is sort of like resist rates.

You’re not going to find specific resist rates on every single mob in game, so you generally just want to go with a basic resist set. Unless you have specific evidence indicating a mob has a special or unique resist, like some mobs being magic immune for example. Then you apply a magic immune resist level to a mob.

Same should go for Manastone drop rate. In absence of specific information, it should match the regular drop rate for “rare drops” from the other 20 named mobs in the same zone.

[Daldaen]

I’m pretty sure it was like this for the first group that got there before the split as well.

However if I’m mistaken, I’d hope they realize that’s a silly thing to do considering classic featured many splits and many of those servers merged back together in a classic era.

[Daldaen]

No one should care about the number of manastones after merger. A merger won't occur until Kunark at the earliest likely. No reason to worry about manastones count when the bulk of the server is in non-manastone zones.

[Veeshan31]

Guys are you really spending over a full 24 hours at this camp? Like you are sitting at your computer for 24+ hours? WTF is wrong with all of you.

[Dolalin]

I wanted to revisit Drakkan's post about the drop rate of Manastones, because I found more info from him on Graffe's in October 1999:

Drakkan Dragonsbane of the Covenant of Blood guild on Prexus sent in more confirming info on the disappearance of the Mana Stone:
"What the user submission said is no joke. Myself and a party of friends camped the Evil Eye in lower guk live side from 8:00pm PST On Saturday the 16th to 4:00am PST Monday the 18th. Do the math:
32 hour period
Less ~8 hours for sleep, food, etc
-
24 consecutive Evil eye camping hours
35 minutes per spawn leaves:
-
41 Eye or placeholder spawns
About 8 or 10 of which were placeholder live frogloks
-
Leaves over thirty consecutive confirmed Evil Eye kills on Prexus, yielding no manastones. Bring our stones back!"
Thank you Drakkan!

http://web.archive.org/web/200009181...ctober31st.htm

That's a decent sample size for the ratio of eyes to PHers, if nothing else. And I'll repost his newsgroup thread from below:

10/20/99

From: Drakkan Dragonsbane-CoB, Prexus

Dear Brad, Verant, John, anyone [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is the stoppage of manastone spawn (1) a bug? (2) an
intentional change? (3) a temporary change? Since Wednesday the 13ths
patch nobody on any server that I have friends on has seen a manastone
drop off the Evil Eye in live side lower Guk. I personally camped the
EE for 24 real-time hours, going through 30+ evil eyes (not including
placeholders) and not one single stone was dropped. Everyone I've
talked to has said for the longest time the ratio is about 1 in 8.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....c/4YkGk0ctJ7QJ

I will have a look at CoB's website and see if there's any info there to pry out. But I'd think with such a large sample size and what he's saying about the drop rate that this should be given some weight.

(Just FYI I play a Bard and couldn't give a shit about the manastone drop rate, heh. I just hate mysteries, they itch)

Edit: Also from that Graffe link:

Anonymous Viewer sent this in: "I heard a rumor the night before the last patch (solusek ro patch) that manastones will no longer be dropped by the Evil Eye in Lower Guk. Since the patch.. I have killed the eye 26 times and nothing.. a friend has killed it about 15 times and nothing.. and another friend has done 5-10 without getting one. I'm beginning to think that the rumor is more than just a rumor."

Puts more bounds on what the "expected" drop rate would have been.

Oh and hilariously, I think Drakkan may have been this guy who fell asleep camping the manastone lol:

A fellow guildie in Covenant of Blood on live back in 99 got stuck in a death loop. He was a wizard and he bound himself at the Evil eye camp in lower guk.. He was camping the manastone and fell asleep. I think he lost about 8 levels or so. The GM's thankfully restored his character.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...6&postcount=28