Fixed drop rates suck. I remember collecting f***ing Spider things in a WoW quest which had a f***ing low droprate. Had to kill something like 250 spiders to get the stuff. It's always the same without major brainwork to balance it.

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

With 125h you more likely have ~30% to find a hat...


@Blackhawk: Blame Gabe for playing too much WoW

Well, it's not exactly the same system. In TF2 you get to a specific time line where the system is triggered to give you something so it draws a random number, like a dice roll, and if it fits the small margin the hat is in, you get the hat. If the math behind it is true randomness then the roll is pure unadalturated luck.
In WoW(or any other mmo for that matter) if you want to get an item then it's like an elimination game because the dice is rolled regardless of your actions or that time line. This is to say that when a mob spawns, it's drops are already fixed, it's just a matter of finding the right one that drops what you want. If it was like this in TF2 it would be something like one server getting taged with giving a hat to the first player to get 5 points on it and every tf2 player having to get 5 points on each of the servers on the list till they find the right one. Just rinse and repeat.

Both systems suck incredibly and are unfair.

The difference however is that any item with a 0.3% drop rate in WoW is considered incredibly rare and is very valuable through the bonuses it gives. If it's just a cosmetic item then you'd get a crapload of gold off it. The hats however are worthless, it's just about a poor soul who just wants a fro on his demo or a beanie on his pyro.

I've been playing TF2 heavily since the hats got introduced and have not gotten any. There is no item in WoW or any other mmo I can think of that requires anywhere near this amount of time. The system Valve introduced is borderline stupid and frustrating and there's nothing out there like it in comparison, not even the grinding in mmos.

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Comfortably Numb

Converging drop rates sucks: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pl ... m+0+to+500
The chance never gets to 100% (Well, ok, they have to use some limited precision numbers but anyway). So if you are really unlucky, no hats. Never.

Someone proposed different formula on steamforums, it was also linked here I think. It was slowly going up, like this, but after some time it got straight up to 100%. So after some time you are guaranteed to get a hat. After getting it, it would reset and start at 0 again.

I guess I could have played/idled ... 400 hours since the update. Thats 93 cycles = about 67% chance to have at least one. So I'm unlucky, but not that much.

Now, Bartg got 5 hats. Getting exactly 5 hats after x cycles has probability like this.
Update was released ~3 months ago, if so if you idled 24/7 since then you could get about 503 cycles. Thats 46% chance of getting 5 hats.

Idling half the time might be possible, thats just 7% chance. So Bartg is lucky.


Why did I waste time with this? ... I hope at least one person reads it.

Yep, that's exactly how it works in mmos. If the drop rate is 1% and if there are 100 mobs on the map and you kill them all, you are guaranteed to get the drop. It only gets harder because the mobs are spread, more than 100, other people are killing them as well and so on, but within a small margin you are guaranteed to get what you want as long as you've got the drop rate correct.

Now lets do the math for a new player's chance to get, say the fancy fedora in 3 months(!!!). It will be so small it's painful to grasp.

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Comfortably Numb

Yeah, i was just saying in theory now that the new hats are out (when there was 9 it was 33% after 125h, now there is 18 new ones, and each hat has a fixed drop rate of whatever so it has gone down to 125h) I'm consistantly doing around 90 hours of idling a week and haven't got one hat

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

Thats because (and I'm quoting):

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

Why do you care about hats and items? Ask valve to drop some skill for you

I dont care about items, I care about hats :3

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

Wohoo found a hat =D
Stainless pot "only" though. But hey, better than nothing^^

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All roads may lead to Rome, but all Wikipedia pages eventually get you to the Third Reich. - m3n

I'm feeling lucky today.



For sandviches obviously I'll never get a fucking hat

Cherry was lucky earlier:

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Ze Ãœbermensch

Yea bloody lucker, it looks awesome though. But can the beard be seen all the time while disguised as enemy team ?

Haha, looks crazy on the medic xD

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"There is a simple, logical explanation... and there is nothing under the bed.”

http://www.sourceop.com/modules.php?nam ... pic&t=1627

loads of pie charts and other useless graphical sources showing you how little chance you have of getting the hat you want

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

ive just joined the idling ranks ...

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

That's outdated now, more hats have been added and the chance is calculated separately per hat, so now you have 3 times the chance you had when there were only 9.

Although the chance to get a hat you want might have decreased depending on which hats you like

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

nahhhhhhhhh

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

Balls is absolutely right. It is like two roulette wheels. I know this is a very crude example; but if the first wheel decides if you get an item or a hat (0.5% chance of a hat) the second wheel then decides what hat you get. So, because there are more hats, does not mean you are more likely to get a hat - it just means that you are now less likely to get the hat you want.

correct, the chances of getting a hat are still the same, just means there are more hats.

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

Isn't it obvious that Mini fails at maths?

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Ze Ãœbermensch

No, you have more chance of getting a hat you nubs, just less chance of getting the hat you want, assuming you want 1 hat.

If you wanted 1 of the old hats, and didn't want any of the new ones then you would have less chance of getting the hat you want. Now if you wanted 1 of the old hats and 2 of the new ones then you would have the same chance to get a hat you want etc... Now I could also say that the chance to get a hat you want has increased, since someone could have wanted 1 old hat and then like 8 of the new ones, so personally his chance is high. So it's very subjective.

EDIT: Aha, i found it:
Data from the King of TF2 3rd party programming 'Drunken F00l', confirmed by valve.

Unless of course the chance to get a hat is worked out by having a base 0.44% chance of getting one, then it could work out like this:

(4x60)+17=257 minutes
257/45=~5.7 item rolls in that time
5.7/2=~2.85 successful item drops (each time it rolls you have a 50% chance of a drop)
2.85*0.44= 1.25%

So this could be possible since the 0.44% is probably inaccurate since it was collected on the idler when it was relatively new. I bte if someone searched on google we would get an answer.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

You go girl!

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

nahhh sorry mini, dont think so.

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

I think so

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

nahh, think its bs tbh valve lie.

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-"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
-"No, not really. This is a different thing, it's spontaneous and it's called wit."

dam straight sister

How exactly you have more chances getting a hat if the drop rate is the same ?

My last calculation was for the argument that it hasn't changed, my point was that if it had changed you can work it out to fit the 1.19% but also you can work it out as if it hasn't changed.

Is there a seperate roll for hats every 4 hours 17 minutes? There must be because he would just do the percentage chance per normal item roll if it wasn't, I was just showing that I'm not sure because you can make it so it works out with the item rolls per 45 minutes and the 4 hour 17 minute roll. If there is a seperate roll for hats then I believe the chance has increased (if there isn't an overall chance of 0.44% per roll, i don't know if its like: it used to be 0.44% to get one of the 9 hats and now i don't know if it's 0.44% to get one of 27 hats), if the roll for hats it's once per 4 hours 17 minutes then the chance to get a hat has stayed the same... I think ^^ Really you would have to know the proper chances before an after the update, which I don't know so I'm doing this purely by assuming everything

So there is a seperate roll for hats every 4 hours 17 minutes I guess, where you have 1.19% chance of getting a hat, I don't know whether the chance has increased or stayed the same (I certainly hope it hasn't decreased since the update came out).

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig