Gambling in v1.10 beta--issue about

[Crystalion]

Arreat Summit updated the bogus info on v1.10 beta gambling chances posted a few days ago. It now reads:

The items you receive will be from most common, to most rare: Magic Items, Rare, Sets, Uniques. Set and Unique Items are extremely rare. The chance for Uniques is 1 in 5,000 and 1 in 2,000 for Sets. The chance for Rares is 1 in 10. The level of quality of the items will be from most common to, most rare: Normal, Exceptional, Elite. The chance for Exceptional items is 1 in 11 (or 9 in 100) and the chance for Elite items is 1 in 30 (or 33 in 1,000). You will mostly get Magic items which may or may not be worth anything to you (hence Gambling).

And this seems quite reasonable for realm play (a bit harsh still for sets and uniques for a Single Player only player, imho). Indeed, given that you can pick the base item, it seems like you'd be getting an Elite rare 1/300 with a shot at the lottery, elite unique 1/150,000 thrown in for good measure. If this is true and I'm understanding it correctly, gambling will be very popular and all characters can expect to be able to even out all their equipment to decent levels given enough (profitable, in order to gamble) play.

However, clearly, from my own experience with v1.10 beta, the base ilvl requirement for exceptionals (and I'm sure elites also) is limiting what I can gamble. Further I am wondering if exceptionals and elites can be gambled in normal, or if that is also a restriction.

Would it be correct to assume that the qlvls listed for base items from the mpq files at d2data.net could be applied to what AS says...

The items generated for the Gamble stock are +4 Levels/-5 levels of your character's level with a minimum level of 5. Note, this does not apply to level requirements sometimes seen on magic items, but instead means the base level requirements of base items. For example a Ring has a Level of 1, which means it's available at Level 1. Ancient Armor has a level of 40 which means you can see it in the Gambling screen at level 35. Look at the bottom of this page for a list of base item levels.

Despite the fact that at the bottom of the page they list only levels for the normal (not exceptional/elite) bases?

This actually would mean that some of the mid-level sets that use normal items should still be reasonably gamblable?

For example, Hwanin's Blessing is merely a belt (set item with nice v1.10 property of Prevent Monster Heal) and d2data lists it as a qlvl of 28. My guess would be that if I see a belt offered then 1/2000 its a set (I have, in fact, gotten one set item in v1.10 beta by gambling, over some hundreds of gambles) and then it would have to roll between Hsaru's Iron Stay and Hwanin's Blessing in some way, assuming my clvl was sufficiently high for qlvl 28 to be considered?

While it is a lot of clicking, certainly the $gold to gamble belts a few thousand times is not a big deal.

I would much rather that Blizzard didn't tempt folks to use shop bots just to save themselves from repetitive stress injury. Certainly a shop interface that allowed you to specify a base item that you would pay, ala Wirt in D1, a fee to have offered to you en masse would be nice (perhaps the "fee" could be, ala the imbue reward, an item of the base type, so, for example, once you found a Tiara you could give it to the shopkeeper just for the privilege of being offered the chance to buy some number of random gamble Tiaras rolled from 1..qlvl of the one "sacrificed").

Please let me know if anyone has figured all this out and done a www calculator for v1.10 sets and uniques by gambling.

[Brista]

I've seen some different explanations circulating but I think Zofox's explanation here is likely to be correct:

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=35&t=29576

So your actual chances are:

(90 * (ilvl - exceptional qlvl + 1)) / 10000 for exceptional
(33 * (ilvl - elite qlvl + 1)) / 10000 for elite

[Crystalion]

I've seen some different explanations circulating but I think Zofox's explanation here is likely to be correct:

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=35&t=29576

So your actual chances are:

(90 * (ilvl - exceptional qlvl + 1)) / 10000 for exceptional
(33 * (ilvl - elite qlvl + 1)) / 10000 for elite

Ah, thanks much, that explains a *lot*, indeed...

If this is true and I'm understanding it correctly, gambling will be very popular and all characters can expect to be able to even out all their equipment to decent levels given enough (profitable, in order to gamble) play.

if they don't change this gamble formula I'm sure I'm on the mark here, especially since the thread you cite also has the missing (from Arreat Summit v1.10 beta info) recipes for cubing rares from norm to except to elite and they are not hard...

Ort Rune + Amn Rune + perfect sapphire + basic rare weapon -> exceptional rare weapon
Ral Rune + Thul Rune + perfect amethyst + basic rare armor -> exceptional rare armor
Fal Rune + Um Rune + perfect sapphire + exceptional rare weapon -> elite rare weapon
Ko Rune + Pul Rune + perfect amethyst + exceptional rare armor -> elite rare armor

As a side note, the normal unique to exceptional cube isn't hard either (the to elite version is harder and ladder only) so I think a number of uniques previously mostly ignored, like the Woestave, could end up being popular choices (e.g. on the merc), because of their special effect mods (which you typically are unlikely to, or can't get on rares).

[Brista]

The percentage option really has to be gambling with the intention of finding a godly mods on a rare that can be upgraded. No reason why this approach can't also be combined with playing the long odds too

For example gambling Great Mauls would give you a rare one in 10, a really good rare perhaps one in 1000 and a chance of Steeldriver, Gavel of Pain or one of the two unique Thunder Mauls. Steeldriver and Gavel of Pain could of course be upgraded to Thunder Mauls in the cube

So the secret is effective high level gold-finding (barbs and summoner necros are the popular builds) combined with a gambling strategy that doesn't insist on the unique, but will be pleasantly surprised if you get one