Loki Message Board  

There has been a lot of confusion about the MergedCompetences.xmd file and the way it displays the item drop/find rates. I'll try to clear a bit of that up here since most previous efforts were written by people who do not speak English as well as we'd like. I'll assume if you're reading this you already have and understand how to decrypt/encrypt between .xmd and .xml files. So, have your MergedCompetences.xml file open in your preferred editor. I used notepad. Whatever. Remember to save a copy of the original file in a safe place just in case you break it.
Search the file for the phrase "SpawnProba" to find the start of the item drop data. You'll see this:
Competence Name="SpawnProba" !-- NB D'ITEMS DROPS PAR LES MONSTRES-- SubCompetence Name="Monster_NumDropsChance" Commun N0="0.4" N1="0.6" N2="0.0" N3="0.0" N4="0.0" N5="0.0" N6="0.0" N7="0.0" N8="0.0" N9="0.0"
The French line simply is a note that says "number of items dropped by the monsters." "Commun" means this line is the chance (probability) that a common-rank monster (a basic mob) will drop a certain number of items. If you want NO items from common monsters, set all N values to 0.0. If you want ALL common monsters to drop 9 items, set N9="1.0" and everything else to 0.0 and prepare to fill your backpack with junk. For a better dispersal, try to vary the numbers a bit, like N0="0.6", N1="0.2", N2="0.2" and all else to 0.0 so that most common monsters will drop NOTHING, but some will drop one item and some will drop two items. NOTE: The total for all 10 numbers must be between 0.0 for NO items, and 1.0 if you want the monsters to drop some stuff. So don't make N0=0.0, N1=12.0,... or N0=0.0, N1=0.8, N2=0.5,... because it WON'T WORK. The other monster types are arranged in a similar fashion, and their labels are easy enough to figure out. Notice that the more powerful monsters have higher drop percents by default, so the stronger monsters will drop more stuff. (!!This section ONLY covers the amount of stuff dropped, not the QUALITY of stuff dropped!! Dropped item quality and type is covered a bit later.)

The next section after all the monster types reads:
SubCompetence !-- NB D'ITEMS DROPS PAR LES COFFRES-- SubCompetence Name="Chest_NumDropsChance" Commun N0="0.0" N1="0.7" N2="0.3" N3="0.0" N4="0.0" N5="0.0" N6="0.0" N7="0.0" N8="0.0" N9="0.0" etc.
The French line is a note that says this covers the number of items dropped by opening treasure chests and boxes. The setup is the same as the section for monster drop rates, again ONLY for the NUMBER of items in a box, not for the QUALITY of items in a box. Again, total should be between 0.0 and 1.0. The types of boxes described are labeled in French, and in English are: Common, Rare/Unusual, Big/Grand, Super, Rack, Arms/Armory, Manufacture/Factory/Machined, and Quest.

The next section reads:
SubCompetence !-- NB D'ITEMS DROPS PAR LES MARCHANDS-- SubCompetence Name="NPC_NumDropsChance" Seller N0="0.0" N1="0.0" N2="0.0" and the numbers go up to 29.
The French tagline says this section determines the number of items (NOT the quality!!) sold by merchants. The first section, "Seller," is for the warrior item merchant. The "Wizard" section is for the Magic Item merchant. The "Mito" section is for something else...maybe the blacksmith but I'm not sure about that one. Anyway, same deal. Change the numbered rates so that the total is between 0.0 and 1.0 to determine how many items the merchant has for sale. By default, all merchants have a fully stocked inventory.

The next section reads:
SubCompetence !-- TYPES D'ITEMS DROPS PAR LES MONSTRES-- SubCompetence Name="Monster_DropTypeChance" !-- Weapon Armor Good Material Rune List Gold -- Commun N0="0.2" N1="0.2" N2="0.2" N3="0.2" N4="0.2" N5="0.0" N6="0.0"
As the French tag suggests, this section determines what TYPE (NOT QUALITY!!) of items are dropped by the monsters. The setup is similar to the previous section on number of items dropped by monsters, but this time instead of N0=no item, N1=one item, etc. the values are N0=weapon, N1=armor, N2=good (potion, ring, etc.) N3=Material (chunk of iron, silver, etc.) N4=rune (runes for making weapons/armor better), N5=list (not sure about that one), N6=gold (money). Also, the total here MUST be 1.0. It cannot be 0.0 or 0.6 or 23. So if N0=1.0, whenever that enemy drops an item, the item will be a weapon. If N0=0.5 and N4=0.5 and all else is 0.0, the item might be a weapon, or it might be a rune; there's a 50% chance either way. If N1=0.0, that enemy will NEVER drop armor. The stronger monsters have similar setups.

The next two sections also have taglines in French and tell what type of items will be dropped by chests/boxes, and what types of items the merchants will sell. Since they're similar to the last few sections, I'm not going to give a detailed description...I trust you can figure it out.

Now we come to this:
SubCompetence !-- RARETES D'ITEMS DROPS PAR LES MONSTRES-- SubCompetence Name="Monster_Rarete" !-- Divin Mythique Heroique Legendaire Celeste Ancestral Commun -- Commun N0="0.0" N1="0.0" N2="0.0" N3="0.1" N4="5.0" N5="20.0" N6="100.0"
which determines the quality of item drops by monsters. Divine is better than Mythic, is better than Heroic, is better than Legendary, is better than Celestial, is better than Ancestral, is better than Common, and each quality of item shows up in a different color in the game's inventory screen. Common are white with no magic, Divine are yellow or orange..?, with super stats. I'm not sure how the math works in this section, but higher numbers mean a greater chance of dropping that quality of item. I think 0.0 means you'll never get it, 100.0 means it is very likely. I'm not sure about the decimals and such. Anyway, this part is for monsters, followed by chests and then merchants.

[Edited by HansDavion, 5/25/2008 8:14:15 AM]

I've figured out most of the item rates and such, but the math that determines item quality (i.e. common, legendary, Godly...the different colors of weapons and armor in the game) eludes me. They used some wacky stuff where the probabilities are linked to the game difficulty so some must be less than one while others must be greater than 10 or something. If anyone knows how they worked the percentages for that, feel free to drop some aid here.

Regarding the amount of gold dropped...notice that my first post here lists Gold ($$ not materials for weapon/armor) as an item type to be dropped but does not cover the amount that is dropped. Well, if you have some of the monsters set to drop gold, here is how to set the amount of gold they contain:

SubCompetence SubCompetence Name="GoldCoeff" Commun 0.3 Commun Leader 1.4 Leader Elite 2.7 Elite Legende 3.4 Legende Boss 4.0 Boss SuperBoss 5.0 SuperBoss

The numbers here are the coefficients for the gold standard drop (the standard is based on game difficulty and character level). These numbers are multiplied by the standard to determine the average drop for each monster type. Note that by default common monsters have a smaller coefficient than bosses...that means that common mobs will drop less gold than the bosses. If you change the numbers, you can change the amount of gold the monsters drop. Big numbers mean lots of money, small numbers mean the monster drops will keep you in the poor house. DO NOT set them to 0.0 or negatives! If you want to get rich quick, try setting the value for Commun to 20.0. Kill monsters until they drop some cash and reap your rewards.

Still, I think the gold drop/dupe trick is easier. I didn't invent that one so you'll have to find it elsewhere on the boards.

Notet that I omitted the start/end punctuation (the greater/less signs) that are present in the xml format so they don't mess with the online messageboard formatting. You'll see them in the xml file, but not here.

I really appreciate the work you've done here. Thank you.

Glad to help. Happy hacking.

well if you look at the item xml's you will notice that they like to use decimals. for instance on the items in your inventory xml, you will notice that at the bottom of each item they describe the faith points you get on a item that shows in the game as light blue or higher you will see that on the proxy line and they will have like 10.89352019879 listed. my guess is they are using an equation that bases level times whatever divided by rarity or some crazy math like that. trying to figure it all out would more than likely be a waste of your time.

Yep. That's why I stopped trying to figure it out. With some light hacking, the game is easy enough; no need to fry my brain over a few extra lines of code.