Want an explosive fastball? Here are your chances

[Cyanity]

Idk if people realize this, since a lot of info on this game is outdated, but Boll HAS been patched and will now drop the fastball. I decided to do some math to figure out the exact chances of getting the rarest version - the explosive fastball.

So looking through gibbed it seems like the fastball doesn't just have an equal chance to spawn as incendiary, corrosive, shock, or explosive. There are actually four grades of incendiary, shock and corrosive that can spawn, bringing the chances of an explosive fastball to 1 in 13 drops. If we assume a 10% drop chance on boll, then that is 1/10 * 1/13 = .0077 * 100 = a .77% drop chance per boll kill. That averages out to about 130 kills for each explosive grenade. HOWEVER

and this is a BIG however...

There are actually SEVEN different grades of damage a fastball can spawn with! That means that even if you get your explosive fastball, you might not get the best damaging version. I can do some editing and figure out the exact difference in damage, but for now I'll just figure the probability of getting a tier 7 explosive fastball. The tier starts at 3 for this grenade, so there's a 1/5 chance of getting the best possible explosive fastball each drop. .0077*1/5 = .00154 * 100 = a .15% chance of getting the best explosive fastball per kill.

This means that you'll have to kill Boll 650 times (on average) to get the best possible explosive fastball.


Happy hunting, friends.

[wingdings]

i got a fastball from H3RL-3's chest kek

[Cyanity]

Originally posted by bl00p:

i got a fastball from H3RL-3's chest kek

I found a fastball in an ammo vendor right before making this post, actually lol.

[MV75]

I always get mine from loot midgets. Never farmed Boll, I keep forgetting about him.

[trukr]

Poor Boll, how tragic, he is forgotten

[LightChaosman]

Here you have two "parts", one being the element, one being the tier.
Now calculate the odds of finding a perfect parts <your legendary gun here>.

You have to get the right element (1/5), right grip (1/8), right barrel (1/8), right stock/exhaust (1/8), right sight (for launchers) , and right prefix (1/8).
That is a 1/2570 per drop in the worst case, if none of said parts are fixxed for your chosen weapon.
Some things might be fixxed, e.g. a hellfire will always be fire elemental, an inifinty will always have a vladof barrel and never be slag, etc. which improves your chances.

[z00t]

Right after the patch that fixed Boll dropping the Fastball, I went on an extended OP8 farming spree. I wanted one of each flavour. Drop rates were about 10%, but the actual elemental flavours were not evenly distributed. I ended up with a mixture of well over 25 explosive, incendiary and shock 'nades before I saw the first and only corrosive one. More of the non-corrosive ones followed until I got fed up.
All of them have insane damage - up to 28 million or so at OP8. There is a wide variance though. Damage numbers are very variable - high damage does not mean high DOT as well. Some have high damage and distinctly meh or actual crap DOT numbers. Or vice versa.

I fully agree with Cyanity - you are in for a long haul if you want a maxed out version of any particular flavour. Out of the large number I farmed, most were rejected as being not as good as they could be.
Farming Boll can be done very quickly. Fast travel to the map, spawn a technical and about 12 seconds later you are there, and 10 seconds later you are seeing if he dropped anything. Nothing? Save, quit, restart and do it all again.
Until you get bored, or get one that suits your needs.

[Cyanity]

Originally posted by z00t:

Right after the patch that fixed Boll dropping the Fastball, I went on an extended OP8 farming spree. I wanted one of each flavour. Drop rates were about 10%, but the actual elemental flavours were not evenly distributed. I ended up with a mixture of well over 25 explosive, incendiary and shock 'nades before I saw the first and only corrosive one. More of the non-corrosive ones followed until I got fed up.
All of them have insane damage - up to 28 million or so at OP8. There is a wide variance though. Damage numbers are very variable - high damage does not mean high DOT as well. Some have high damage and distinctly meh or actual crap DOT numbers. Or vice versa.

I fully agree with Cyanity - you are in for a long haul if you want a maxed out version of any particular flavour. Out of the large number I farmed, most were rejected as being not as good as they could be.
Farming Boll can be done very quickly. Fast travel to the map, spawn a technical and about 12 seconds later you are there, and 10 seconds later you are seeing if he dropped anything. Nothing? Save, quit, restart and do it all again.
Until you get bored, or get one that suits your needs.

This is interesting. It never occurred to me that there might be some hidden numbers weighting the drops. Maybe you just got unlucky?

[bastien]

Originally posted by Cyanity:

...
This means that you'll have to kill Boll 650 times (on average) to get the best possible explosive fastball.

Hi, as i was suprised by your results, i used the Community Patch to check.
It appears that the explosive variant has a 7 probabilty weight compared to 1 for each of the 12 other elemental variants (3 elements x 4 grades).
As there are 5 damaage grades, the probability to get a max explosive variant is 7 / (7 + 4x3) * (1/5) = 7.37%
Given the 10% drop chance, the average number of kills is 136.

Originally posted by LightChaosman:

Here you have two "parts", one being the element, one being the tier.
Now calculate the odds of finding a perfect parts <your legendary gun here>.

You have to get the right element (1/5), right grip (1/8), right barrel (1/8), right stock/exhaust (1/8), right sight (for launchers) , and right prefix (1/8).
That is a 1/2570 per drop in the worst case, if none of said parts are fixxed for your chosen weapon.
Some things might be fixxed, e.g. a hellfire will always be fire elemental, an inifinty will always have a vladof barrel and never be slag, etc. which improves your chances.

Unfortunately, in general, the different parts are not equally weighted.
For example, the sandhawk has 71% probability to spawn as non elemental and 77% without accessory.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by bastien:

Unfortunately, in general, the different parts are not equally weighted.
For example, the sandhawk has 71% probability to spawn as non elemental and 77% without accessory.

Interesting. Are there any details of the manner in which those percentages were arrived at?

[bastien]

The spawn probabilities for the different parts of an item seem to follow the same pattern as the loot described in the articles from Paul Hellquist.

The accessory parts for the sandhawk are weighted :
- SMG_Accessory_None : Weight_0_VeryCommon (=200)
- for each of the 6 other (SMG_Accessory_Bayonet_1, SMG_Accessory_Body1_Accurate, SMG_Accessory_Body2_Damage, SMG_Accessory_Body3_Accelerated, SMG_Accessory_Stock1_Stabilized and SMG_Accessory_Stock2_Reload) : Weight_2_Uncommon (=10)

So the probabiltiy for SMG_Accessory_None is 200 / (200 + 6 * 10) = 77%

Same for the elemental parts :
- SMG_Elemental_None : Weight_1_Common (=100)
- for each of the 4 other (SMG_Elemental_Fire, SMG_Elemental_Corrosive, SMG_Elemental_Shock, SMG_Elemental_Slag) : Weight_2_Uncommon (=10)

So the probabiltiy for SMG_Elemental_None is 100 / (100 + 4 * 10) = 71%.

Edit : these are just my interpretations of the info i have gathered with the Community Patch, so i might be wrong. However, re the sandhawk, the probabilities are consistent with my tests.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by bastien:

The spawn probabilities for the different parts of an item seem to follow the same pattern as the loot described in the articles from Paul Hellquist.

The accessory parts for the sandhawk are weighted :
- SMG_Accessory_None : Weight_0_VeryCommon (=200)
- for each of the 6 other (SMG_Accessory_Bayonet_1, SMG_Accessory_Body1_Accurate, SMG_Accessory_Body2_Damage, SMG_Accessory_Body3_Accelerated, SMG_Accessory_Stock1_Stabilized and SMG_Accessory_Stock2_Reload) : Weight_2_Uncommon (=10)

So the probabiltiy for SMG_Accessory_None is 200 / (200 + 6 * 10) = 77%

Same for the elemental parts :
- SMG_Elemental_None : Weight_1_Common (=100)
- for each of the 4 other (SMG_Elemental_Fire, SMG_Elemental_Corrosive, SMG_Elemental_Shock, SMG_Elemental_Slag) : Weight_2_Uncommon (=10)

So the probabiltiy for SMG_Elemental_None is 100 / (100 + 4 * 10) = 71%.

Edit : these are just my interpretations of the info i have gathered with the Community Patch, so i might be wrong. However, re the sandhawk, the probabilities are consistent with my tests.

So the idea that item parts are weighted by rarity just like the items themselves is something that is suggested in the Community Patch? I did come across a text file with listed parts in that patch but didn't delve much into it.

[bastien]

In fact, Community Patch allows you to enter commands in the console to get/set object properties. So i used this feature to check the properties of several items.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by bastien:

In fact, Community Patch allows you to enter commands in the console to get/set object properties. So i used this feature to check the properties of several items.

I see, that's good to know. Wish there was some sort of official way to access this info myself rather than having to resort to third-party methods but nevertheless, it's valuable insight.

[bastien]

Indeed. I was reluctant at first, but the information you get access to cannot be found elsewhere, like pearl drop rates for tubbies or designated loot pools.

[ZZZZZ]

I got a lv6 fastball with 5500dmg.. in first run.