Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Arcon]

I guess one easy criticism of the system I propose is "people would only bring Thieves, hoping for a lucky double-TA WS." Realistically though, we're going into everything these days low-man with our parties already bursting with required proc jobs and a NQ dagger THF isn't going to out-WS a Twashtar or Mandau THF. I think it'd just make you bring the "best" Thieves.

I'm still not sure what to think of the additional rolls theory. If it's only true for the trait tiers, it might work, it still sounds horribly overpowered. It would push 5% drop rate to about 20% drop rate (think how incredibly noticeable that effect would be on King Arthro and Simurgh). And if we include other TH tiers (from gear and upgrades) as well, it would push the 5% to about 33%, so from a 1 in 20 drop to 1 in 3 drop.

I would love to do some new TH testing, with the new system to accurately determine a pattern to drops. In case anyone has some recent killing sprees they wanna parse for drops, I've included a drop rate counter into my parser:
http://ffxiut.com/parser

I like your suggested system a lot Byrth, although your formulas have me a bit confused. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I may have misunderstood, but wouldn't it be something like this

R = 1-(1-(D+T%))^(k+1)

where D is the original drop rate, T the TH level and k is the level you achieved from your highest damage attack, R being the resulting drop rate?

Generally I would endorse a system like that, however this is still a bit overpowered I think. If you think about it, having a good THF with you would be equivalent to doing a fight five times. And it's actually quite a bit more than that, due to the +T%, if you think about it, items with really small drop rates would be getting a massive drop rate boost. Take Hocho for example, an item with 1% drop rate, would shoot up to 35% if you get level 5, which should be very doable, quite possibly higher. That would be the equivalent to about 42 fights without TH. I think that's going a bit overboard.

So while I like the idea, I think it would need some fine tuning. For one you could replace the "+T%" by "*(1+T%)", and maybe give diminishing returns for higher level, like, only 2/3 the bonus with each level. This would be harder to implement however, would have to calculate it in a loop instead of one arithmetic expression, but it should still be very fast and easily feasible.

As I said, I might have misinterpreted what you meant, if I did feel free to correct me.

[Byrth]

The most recent testing thread is the top reference here, but Enedin has since removed his data. Thorny's sample is still there though. He used to overnight bot MNK and THF mules to farm KSs off Lesser Colibri while he slept, so he got a large sample sizes. Anyway, it fit about perfectly with a reroll hypothesis, and so did a lot of Enedin's data. There appears to be something funny going on with things that share drop slots (two different items in the same slot) but we never figured out what it was. One of the major conclusions of the thread was, "Before you start TH research, you need to know EXACTLY what the monster drop possibilities are and pick your target very carefully." Data on things like Dhalmels is almost a waste of time because they have many drops, some of which doubtlessly share slots.

As far as "wherever will we get so much data?" Well, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people kill Pachypodiums and Blood Bats. You could take an item like Bat Wing or Humus and measure its drop rate when on THF or not. Not perfect, but I'm sure a lot of people could contribute parses that they happened to accumulate when farming Glavoid/Chloris. 500 kills from 10 people would get us a nice sample size.

An interesting drop-related phenomenon that can't be explained right now is Dynamis - Tav -1 drops. Expansion (ToAU/WotG) AF2-1 will only potentially drop if a non-expansion AF2-1 drops. This hurts the "drop slot" hypothesis, because one slot blatantly depends on another.

Edit: The skyrocketing drop rate of things like Hocho generally relies on how TH+1 gear works. Right now, with level 8 TH and TH level 3, you'd predict Hocho (1% + 8% = 9%) would be a 31% drop rate. Obviously not right, though it's unclear how it's not right. First and most obvious option would be that TH isn't out of 100%, but /1024 and TH+1 doesn't add 1%, it adds +1/1024. Then your TH level 8 doesn't increase the drop rate by 8%, it increases it by 8/1024 <1%.

I guess I'll just drop this here too. There has NEVER in all the data I've looked at been a case where TH+X was statistically significantly different from a kill without TH+X. The 1% is lore from a test someone did on Alla where they basically didn't find a significant difference and went, "Well, I guess that means it's 1%!"

[Insaniac]

People bring Thieves to events for a single extra TH roll (TH3 vs. TH2). I think they'd definitely try and abuse the new system as much as possible if they thought it could get them more TH rolls. That said, the benefits of adding rolls decreases the more you add. I think it sums to be:
New Drop Rate = (1 - Original Drop Rate)^(TH Level+1)

A 10% drop rate doesn't become a 50% drop rate until you hit TH Level 6, and it's already about a 35% drop rate with TH Level 3.

Point is, most people don't understand how TH works, statistics, math, etc. and this would be an eyeballable increase on some things. They'd definitely play ball.

What I was getting at was that there is no way SE is going to make an eyeballable difference between 200-300 damage. This may just be me but most of the people I play with don't care about anything beyond base TH planting and I can't blame them. The difference seems to be so small that the time involved getting up to TH9-10 is rarely ever worth it. For people to care enough to go through the trouble of setting a THF up for the perfect WS through out the whole fight the difference between 2500 damage and 3000 damage would have to be eyeballable. I understand in your system that it would be but SE would never allow it. We would get a system where 3000 damage = TH3+7.

The system that SE put in place was simply a way of getting THFs more involved in fights without actually making them any better at anything. They are using the belief that TH9 actually is TH9 instead of TH3+6.

[Byrth]

They don't care about letting your proc because there's no noticeable difference between TH3+7 and TH3. They bring you along on THF instead of having you come BRD/THF because there's a noticeable difference between TH2 and TH3. I think they'd follow the same logic and play along if the system was implemented.

Whether SE would let good Thieves hunt treasure better is up to them, but this is an option. I also really doubt they'd do it. They're afraid to do anything that might disturb the economic game balance, which this might do. Thousands of monsters, thousands of items... it only takes one really bad NPCable combination to upset economic balance. They don't seem to have much of an issue with Abyssea NPCing though, so idk that they care so much anymore.

If they aren't going to go a pure damage route, I don't see what talking about stuff like this really hurts. This is an option to fix the way THF is played and make people happy, while solidifying THF's role as a treasure whore (seems to be what SE thinks). At least then when people get pissed at you for no-drops you can be like, "Whatever, you guys couldn't set up SATA right." or "Oh well, I put TH5 on it... good show."

[Insaniac]

They don't care about letting your proc because there's no noticeable difference between TH3+7 and TH3. They bring you along on THF instead of having you come BRD/THF because there's a noticeable difference between TH2 and TH3. I think they'd follow the same logic and play along if the system was implemented.

Whether SE would let good Thieves hunt treasure better is up to them, but this is an option. I also really doubt they'd do it. They're afraid to do anything that might disturb the economic game balance, which this might do. Thousands of monsters, thousands of items... it only takes one really bad NPCable combination to upset economic balance. They don't seem to have much of an issue with Abyssea NPCing though, so idk that they care so much anymore.

Yeah I get it and I like your system I'm not arguing against it. I did say it wouldn't work to keep THFs WSing the whole fight but truth be told I skimmed it and didn't realize how much a potent WS would increase drop rates until I actually looked at the math. I still think once a THF got in a remarkable WS they would be sidelined again but people would be willing to try harder for that big one. Unfortunately like you said SE is understandably terrified of globally higher drop rates and what we would get are increases in the same vein of TH7 -> TH9 which people are not going to be bothered with.

If they aren't going to go a pure damage route, I don't see what talking about stuff like this really hurts. This is an option to fix the way THF is played and make people happy, while solidifying THF's role as a treasure whore (seems to be what SE thinks). At least then when people get pissed at you for no-drops you can be like, "Whatever, you guys couldn't set up SATA right." or "Oh well, I put TH5 on it... good show."

I never meant to come across as discounting your idea or not wanting to talk about it. I appreciate the effort and thought put into it. I just don't think it's the answer because it's so unlikely to happen. Simple things like JTs and JAs are pretty much all we can expect at this point.

[Byrth]

I definitely agree, and I think THF is infinitely more likely to get Triple Attack II for a 10% base between level 90 and 99 than a functional and fun TH system. Still, if anyone from SE is reading this (and they probably aren't, because it's in a sub-forum), I'd like to give them as many bullets in their gun as I can if they go to suggest it to the Dev team.

I'm (incredibly lazily) leveling THF at the moment, so I'd like to see it fixed too.

[noodles355]

Unsure how much I buy into the "TH9 is TH3+6".
A Sub-90 thief can get TH level up procs (With only TH2 traits). You could get TH7 by being Lv75 with Knife/Armlets and getting 3 level up procs, making you TH2+5, and you could be Lv90 with Knife/Armlets/Boots and one level up proc making you TH3+4.
TH2+5, TH3+4. Both are listed as "Level 7 trasure hunter effectiveness".

There is data about drop rates etc, but how much of it is post-update? Talks of traits = rerolls were around long before update. Some people seem to assume that they didn't change the traits on the TH update. There is no proof of it. They could have completely re-written the TH system. Before it would have given you 3 re-rolls, but now it is just a flat +%, for example.

[Insaniac]

Unsure how much I buy into the "TH9 is TH3+6".
A Sub-90 thief can get TH level up procs (With only TH2 traits). You could get TH7 by being Lv75 with Knife/Armlets and getting 3 level up procs, making you TH2+5, and you could be Lv90 with Knife/Armlets/Boots and one level up proc making you TH3+4.
TH2+5, TH3+4. Both are listed as "Level 7 trasure hunter effectiveness".

There is data about drop rates etc, but how much of it is post-update? Talks of traits = rerolls were around long before update. Some people seem to assume that they didn't change the traits on the TH update. There is no proof of it. They could have completely re-written the TH system. Before it would have given you 3 re-rolls, but now it is just a flat +%, for example.

TH feels the same as it used to. The difference between TH0 and TH3 seems obvious but the addition of gear and procs on top of that is very hard to discern. Even when you go from TH3 to TH10. The same as when we had TH2+2 which was nearly indistinguishable from base TH2.

[Arcon]

TH feels the same as it used to. The difference between TH0 and TH3 seems obvious but the addition of gear and procs on top of that is very hard to discern. Even when you go from TH3 to TH10. The same as when we had TH2+2 which was nearly indistinguishable from base TH2.

I don't know why so many people are saying this, it doesn't feel like that at all to me. As I said, I didn't do any testing (I would, if SE would let me pay them again), but from eyeballing it seemed like my TH6 was noticeably better than my friend's TH4 (both Lv90). I didn't notice a difference (or a similarity, or anything for that matter) on TH8~10, but that's because I usually only get that high on NMs, and I don't do them in quantities where it would be noticeable. But pop item farming, TH6~7 is common, and I usually do better than my friend with TH4~5.

I know that eyeballing isn't reliable, but I haven't seen any testing to the contrary either, and I never noticed the (lack of) effect that people attribute to TH gear.

[noodles355]

The difference between TH0 and TH3 seems obvious but the addition of gear and procs on top of that is very hard to discern.

Re-read my first paragraph. TH3 seems obvious to you, suggesting traits are more significant than +TH gear, but TH3 is obtainable by a Lv75 Thief with Knife. TH3+0 or TH2+1, both are listed as "Level 3 effectiveness". You're contradicting yourself a bit: what you're saying would suggest that adding one TH item to a Lv75 thief would be significant (By virtue of TH3 seeming obvious), which goes against your claim that traits are strong and +TH gear is less significant.