should an item that has 5/5 drop chance be a guaranteed drop.

CSR _Waylander

This really bugs me when its a big chrono cost and the item doesn't drop at all.

Emmett K

Yes

They will jus make every thing 4 pips after they do though

Secret Journey

Yes

Much like the posted odds on shuttle runs and gauntlet the pips on warp items are complete smoke and mirrors...

Daivahataka

Frankly I'd rather they just gave the % chance rather than the stars, the number of stars seems inconsistent across items/missions with some one star probability drops dropping more often than 3 star ones.

Pallidyne

Yes

Daivahataka wrote: »

Frankly I'd rather they just gave the % chance rather than the stars, the number of stars seems inconsistent across items/missions with some one star probability drops dropping more often than 3 star ones.

It frankly is inconsistent, its in relation to the other item in that mission not the other missions.

Commander Sinclair

It's just like the Portal and their "best chance of" dropping. No guarantees in this game...ever.

Dark Matter

Yeah, sure, DB and guarantees. This could be good April Fool's Day joke. You rushed it little bit. :-)

Dirk Gunderson

Don’t look at the pips, just go direct to the wiki. At best, the pips are confusing. At worst, they are downright wrong.

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••]

Yes

Ive found that if i run a mission that has a 5/5 drop of item from the 'get' list for that item, i wont get it, but if i run that same mission from the Galaxy Map, i will get it. Very...interesting...

RaraRacing

No

getting a guaranteed item to drop means that there will only be two other possible drops on that mission (in general, yes there are 4 items drop missions, or even 2 item drop missions) ... so suddenly, the other items become a lot more difficult to acquire.

I know I Warp 10 missions to get both a good selection of the "5/5" pip items, as well as some of the others ... there are plenty of good combo missions where I'm looking to get more than one of the items.

As others have stated ... if you are frustrated at drop rates, go to the wiki, it is a decent resource on drop rates ... some of the more expensive missions are under represented because very few people run large batches of them.

Hunter247

No

I think it should drop at a rate no lower than 1 in 3 attempts but every time would be too much

Mirror Cartman

No

It would completely mess up the drop rates for that, and other items. Currently some items drop more than once, and a guaranteed drop for 5 pips would mess that up. e.g. Basic starfleet uniform pattern drops an average of more than two per run of "A tale of forgotten lore"

The pips are meaningless at the moment. Some mission ratings of two pips have a higher drop rate than missions with four pips, and the same as missions with five pips. e.g. 2* Database (Panel)

The pips should accurately represent the drop chance, with partial pips allowed. e.g.
5 pips, average of two or more per run.
4.5 pips average of 1.4 per run
4 pips, average of one per run.
3 pips, average of one every four runs.
2 pips, average of one every ten runs.
1 pip, use the replicator instead.

As for the wiki, I should not have to check it for things like this.

Ishmael Marx

No

Although it doesn't work this way, I feel the pips should represent the range of chances that it could drop at least once. For example: 1 pip - 1-19%, 3 pips - 40-59%, 5 pips 80-99%. It's still an RNG mechanism, 'cause that's what we do here, but at least the probabilities would be close to the intuitive expectations that come with the pips.

Secret Journey

Yes

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

Don’t look at the pips, just go direct to the wiki. At best, the pips are confusing. At worst, they are downright wrong.

I don’t like calling them wrong. That implies DB simply made an error.
I prefer to call them deceptive or manipulative...

Ivanstone

No

I don't feel the pip system is a great way of representing things. It implies that things are a single roll but in reality its usually 3 rolls.

5/5 pips is more like 3x 3/5. Good odds but a chance of getting nothing or all 3.
4/5 pips is more like 2x 2/5.
Etc, etc.

The Wiki is a better source in general. I still use the pips somewhat since I'm lazy but I also rely on memory for the juicier locations.

~peregrine~

My understanding of the pips was that they represent the best chance of that specific item dropping, relative to the other "droppable" items, on that specific mission. I could be wrong, though.

Automaton_2000

~peregrine~ wrote: »

My understanding of the pips was that they represent the best chance of that specific item dropping, relative to the other "droppable" items, on that specific mission. I could be wrong, though.

We all know how "Best chance" works with DB...

Daivahataka

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••] wrote: »

Ive found that if i run a mission that has a 5/5 drop of item from the 'get' list for that item, i wont get it, but if i run that same mission from the Galaxy Map, i will get it. Very...interesting...

Have had similar suspicions for a week or two but would need to do some serious datamining to verify it. If true that would be an appalling way to treat the playerbase.

Mirror Cartman wrote: »

As for the wiki, I should not have to check it for things like this.

Definitely.

Secret Journey wrote: »

I don’t like calling them wrong. That implies DB simply made an error.
I prefer to call them deceptive or manipulative...

As we in software say: "It's not a bug, it's a feature."