Purposes of this page
The purpose is to explain and elaborate on two core mechanics of almost every drop system in the game. These two mechanics are:
- Quality
- Weight.
Note that the SkyBlock community typically refers to the eligibility of drops from the Ender Dragon boss as 'Weight', however, internally this is actually Quality.
- For the purposes of this page, despite what the community refers to it as, systems will be referred to via their internal name, so for this case in particular, Ender Dragon "Weight" will be referred to as Quality.
Weight
What is Weight?
Weight is used in probability to determine the chance of an event occurring. In most cases, for SkyBlock, this would be used to determine the probability that a particular item is dropped.
The easiest way to explain how weights are used, is to think of a 6-sided die. Assuming it's a fair die, this would mean that each of the 6 possibilities have an equal 1/6 chance of being rolled.
What happens if you make one of the 6 faces heavier though? That would mean that it's no longer an even 1/6 chance per face. This is where weighted probability comes in; one face being (for example) twice as heavy would mean a particular other faceThe face being heavier means it will have higher chance of being face down; the opposite side would have a higher chance of being the value rolled. would be twice as likely compared to before.
Note, however, that this does not mean the chance is increased from 1/6 to 2/6. It would actually be increased to 2/7. This is better demonstrated when you consider each face as an entry on a table;
Face Number | Weight |
---|---|
1 | 1 |
2 | 1 |
3 | 1 |
4 | 1 |
5 | 1 |
6 | 1 |
In this case, the total weight is 6.
Face Number | Weight |
---|---|
1 | 1 |
2 | 1 |
3 | 1 |
4 | 1 |
5 | 1 |
6 | 2 |
If we consider that the chance is doubled for face number 6, we can see the total weight is 7, so the actual chance is 2/7, not 2/6.
Why use a weighted system? What are the consequences?
There are many reasons to use a weighted system, as opposed to a flat chance for events. For example, Slayer drops roll in a specific way - there can only be a maximum of 3 different drops that are rolled;
- A 'Token' drop (e.g. Tarantula Web)
- A 'Main' drop (e.g. Digested Mosquito)
- An 'Extra' drop (e.g. Bite Rune)
In this case, if it were a simple flat rate for every drop, you run the risk of being able to roll more than one from the same table. You may consider that you could simply roll the drops, and if you roll more than one, ignore all but the first. That is a possibility, but using a weighted system directly implies a single roll inherently (unless specified), and is simply the most economical way to have a drop system.
Additionally, using weight means that you can never (provided there are at least 2 possible non-zero events) reach a 100% probability, if you apply geometric multipliers to the weights. With the implication of Magic Find, this essentially means that drop systems can co-exist alongside the stat, and not pose issues relating the potential of reaching a 100% drop rate.
You may notice that certain drops have peculiar drop rates. This is directly because of a weighted system. A key point to note is that with a weighted system, you are realistically caring less about the flat rate, and more about the proportion of rates. For example, the drop weight of a Judgement Core is 8, while the drop weight of an Exceedingly Rare Ender Artifact Upgrader is 4. This means that a core is exactly twice as common as an upgrader.
The system using weight as opposed to flat rates is exactly why, for example, the Warden Heart has a (base) drop rate of 2/14527, or 1/7263.5; it wasn't necessarily chosen to specifically be a 0.013767% drop rate, but it was chosen to have a weight of 2, and the total weight of the drop table ends up being 14,527.
The following is a JSON object of weights, specifically from the 'Main' table.
"tier5": { "REVENANT_FLESH": 10000, "FOUL_FLESH": 2000, "UNDEAD_CATALYST": 250, "SMITE_VI_BOOK": 100, "BEHEADED_HORROR": 20, "REVENANT_CATALYST": 125, "SCYTHE_BLADE": 15, "SHARD_OF_THE_SHREDDED": 8, "WARDEN_HEART": 2, "REVENANT_VISCERA": 2000, "SMITE_VII_BOOK": 7 }
In the spoilered table of drops, one can clearly see that the sum of weights from the 'Main' drop table is 14,527. The weight of a Warden Heart is 2. Therefore, the drop rate of the heart is 2/14527, as stated earlier.
Slayer and Magic Find
Magic Find is a statistic which increases the drop rate of 'rare' items. Generally speaking, it applies a multiplier on drops with a base drop rate lower than 5%. This has some exceptions, such as the Ender Dragon loot table, where any drop which is internally considered as Unique is affected. This means drops such as a pair of Dragon Leggings, despite having a 30% drop rate, are still affected by Magic Find.
However, in terms of Slayer, Magic Find works slightly differently. In order to fully understand how it works, we need to first talk about how Slayer drops in general are rolled.
As mentioned before, Slayer drops are rolled essentially three times. The first roll is the 'Token' drop, the second is a 'Main' drop, and the third is an 'Extra' drop.
A weighted table will always return one drop or event, if you roll it once. In order to inflate the weighted tableOtherwise you will roll a 'Main' drop every kill., the 'Main' loot table adds the weight of the token drop when considering what to roll. If you roll the token drop in this case, you essentially roll no 'Main' drop. Since the token drop is guaranteed anyway, you simply get that drop and nothing else.
The weights for T5 Revenant Horrors is shown in a spoiler above, and those only include the token drop, and the 'Main' drops. The list of weights does not include the 'Extra' drops because they work slightly differently.
The 'Extra' drop is rolled separately, and to inflate its weighted table, it adds all other non-'Extra' drops to itself.
todo list:
- look into extra slayer drops
- provide dungeon/misc weights? (e.g. gifts)
- talk about quality + some examples