User:Jafar/Chest Loot
This is chest drop research that I started after the discussion at Talk:Chest. The summary of the discussion is the following thesis:
- Chest loot depends on the foes guarding the chest.
This is in contradiction with the following current belief, as can be found on the Chest page:
- Chest loot varies depending on the region.
The thesis is based on the following.
- Every chest has a guarding mob (henceforth called GUARDIAN). A zone without any foe will have no chests. Therefore, chests depend on the foes.
- New chests can spawn when new foes spawn in a zone due to some quests, again showing that chests depend on foes.
- Since, normally, foes in a region are from that region, and drops from foes are based on the region, it is easy to assume (perhaps wrongly) that the chest loot also depends on the region even if it actually depends on the foes rather than directly on the region.
- Chests that spawn due to quest foes have loot based on the foes rather than on the zone in which the chest is, showing that chest loot depends on the foe. For example:
- Underworld items from Locked Chests in Varajar Fells during Wintersday Cheer
- Kurzick attire coming from Luxon Chest
- My recent experience of Am Fah Cape dropping from a Luxon Chest during Ever Closer to the Edge, which was the final spark that triggered this investigation.
The chest loot relationship is therefore (CHEST LOOT)-(GUARDIAN LOOT). The Guardian Loot probably depends on many factors, such as race, affiliation, region, profession, etc. (it may be that each monster type has its own loot table predefined). How monster loot is determined is not the issue of this investigation. Rather, it is to demonstrate that, regardless of how monster loot is calculated, the chest loot directly depends on the guardian loot.
I contend that the current belief that chest loot depends on the region is a primitive understanding based on the (GUARDIAN LOOT)-(REGION LOOT) relationship. The relationship (CHEST LOOT)-(GUARDIAN LOOT)-(REGION LOOT) is correct because the relationship implies that the chest loot eventually depends on the guardian's region rather than the chest's region. In contrast, the current belief has (CHEST LOOT)-(REGION LOOT) as a direct relationship, implying that the chest loot depends on the chest's region, which has been demonstrated to be wrong by the experiences mentioned above of foes from other regions bringing with them chests dropping loot of the guardian's region.
My goal is simply to change the text on the Chest page to reflect this new understanding. To that end, I have begun collecting the following data. Others may freely add their data to this page, and their own footnotes. And if anyone feels like it, color-coding some of the notes (especially notes 2 and 3) would be nice (I am not the best at wiki foo). Single signature for blocks of data should be fine. Not sure where comments will go, maybe in the talk page of this page?
Note that, scientifically speaking, the proof below is proof by induction - given enough observations that something is true, one can make a general conclusion about the law. It has already been demonstrated through the loot anomalies mentioned above that the previous understanding of chest loot is incorrect. Therefore, a new scientific law is required for the chest loot.
1 As found from the item's page.
2 This supports the thesis that item drop depends on the foe guarding the chest.
3 Generic chest drop that neither proves nor disproves the thesis, because the current understanding (the chest loot depends on the region) and the proposed understanding (the chest loot depends on the foe whose drop depends on the region) both support such a regional drop.
4 This was an interesting one because when I went to check the Dolyak Cladding page, it only mentioned Dolyak Riders. The mob guarding this particular chest had no Dolyak healers, not even a Dolyak Master, so the chest should not have been dropping a Cladding. Fortunately, I checked the Stone Summit Heretic page and found that it dropped Dolyak Claddings, so I updated the Dolyak Cladding page, which was incomplete. As an aside, this also shows that monster drops depend on the monster type (dolyak-riding) and profession (caster, since the melee dolyak-riders do not drop claddings). Whether the monster loot is based on some monster categories or whether monster loot tables are predefined for each monster may be the matter of another investigation (which I have just discovered is going on here).
5 This chest was found when I went out to do cartography after the siege, at a spot to the north west with no foes. I suspect that this was where the Mursaat involved in the mission's bonus spawned (the ones that you have to light the beacons in order to make them come to you).
6 I suspect that core items drop from all foes, so nothing special here.
7 This chest came from the location where the foes sieging Thunderhead Keep spawn. These include White Mantle, Enslaved Frost Giants and Mursaat, so the chest could have come from any of these foes. The Hornbow (stoneshard) page is actually incomplete, because it lists weird stuff such as Darkstone Chest during Final Blow (which, if we apply the thesis above, means that Hornbow (stoneshard) is dropped by White Mantle, and its drop from a Darkstone Chest is a quest-related anomaly for the region similar to Underworld drops at Varajar Fells). The page also mentions drops by Canthan Chests and Lesser Grasps, which clearly imply that we need to figure out where these bows come from. However, from the evidence so far, one may assume that the chest at Thunderhead Keep was spawned by White Mantle, who drop the bow since that is what is implied by the drop during the Final Blow.
8 Monster groups at Diviner's Ascent consist mostly of several of the same foe type, which is why it is possible to mention the exact name of the foe, rather than the class of foe as had been mentioned previously.
9 This shows that, even if weapon and salvage armor drop depend on the guardians' loot table, the tome drops are totally random and do not depend on the guardians' profession. (Sand Drakes are Elementalists, not Warriors.)
10 I actually found this chest while backtracking a bit at a location where I had been attacked by a Sand Wurm nearby 1 minute before. The Sand Drake mobs nearby did not seem to be near the chest, but they may have patrolled away, so I can't say for certain whether the chest belonged to the Sand Wurm or the Sand Drakes. (Yes, I encountered two Sand Wurms on this vanquish and by chance they may both have had chests.)
11 Diviner's Ascent was really boring since all it did was drop core items. However, the warrior tome drop does add new information for our understanding.
