Talk:Item drop system

Erroneous information

I removed erroneous information regarding the drop system. There is also no proof that you are guaranteed to get 5 - 12 items per week, the only reason why I'm not taking down the images is because I don't want to screw up the format of the page by accident if I do so. Odin(Reborn) 16:58, 11 January 2013 (PST)

This post on teamfortress.com explains the current drop system, whereby players are guaranteed a certain number of items within a certain period of time. Granted there's no exact figure given, but those graphs on the article were made using real data, so at least give reasonably probable drop rates. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 18:55, 11 January 2013 (PST)

Will EVER any weapons disappear from the drop system?

So, just like what happened with those retired hats. Right now, I craft any duplicate I have to Metal, but if e.g. Shortstop is going to retire, then those 2 Shortstops worth 1 Scrap would cost a shitload and it would have been such a waste. Does anyone know if this has any chance of happening and has it ever happened before? I started Playing TF2 2 years ago so I don't know anything. Thanks! Xbenas 05:39, 13 February 2013 (PST)

There's no way we can know. Anyway, I doubt they'd do something like this; afterall, weapons are mostly gameplay-focused and hats are purely cosmetic.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 05:46, 13 February 2013 (PST)

Cosmetic items?

I'm wondering what you mean with cosmetic items. Do you mean that tags and painting cans are cosmetic items? I'm wondering because i am a f2p and i got a description tag recently. Kalle198 05:23, 17 March 2013 (PDT)

Cosmetic items are items which do not have a purpose or effect on gameplay. Items such as hats and miscs and cosmetic items. Tags and Paint cans are tools, which change items in your backpack. Ophyzarr 05:30, 17 March 2013 (PDT)

drop system changes or something maybe possibly???

the drop system was changed in the July 10, 2013 patch

(source: http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1250564&p=41407657&viewfull=1#post41407657 (read the next pages too ))

apparently you have to confirm each drop before you get new ones? Osku958 (talk) 14:25, 12 July 2013 (PDT)

Yes, it appears that the drop system now requires you to accept the item so that it is no longer in the unplaced inventory before you can receive any more drops. —Moussekateer·talk 17:17, 12 July 2013 (PDT)

Item Cap

The drop is 10 hours every week right and you can get one from 30-70 minutes. Doesn't that mean you can get 8-20 items per week. Wetro (talk) 13:47, 3 September 2013 (PDT)

In theory yes, in practice no. It's extremely unlikely that someone will go on a run of an item every 30mins or 70mins. They might also lose connection to the server and other such factors.

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Moussekateer (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 3 September 2013

Items being announced in chat after already been delivered to inventory

This is a bug I find myself running into more often than not. I'm certain that others have noticed that some items will be delivered to their inventory but will not be announced until a later time. (Such as MvM rewards). Is there any specific cause for this? Archeodemon (talk) 20:49, 29 December 2013 (PST)

Drop system is broken again.

Ok, they sad they fixed the problem, but no. I have only gotten 1 item the last two months, the gunslinger. I meet all of the criteria, but i still don't seen to get any items. If anybody knows what the problem is, tell me. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sweddy409 (talk) • (contribs)

This page isn't really a great place to ask this. You'll probably get more of a better response on the steam forums. Ashes (talk) 15:51, 28 February 2014 (PST)

Yeah, i did that after this. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sweddy409 (talk) • (contribs)

Is it possible to do this?

Is there any way to 'balance' the drop system so it tends to give you more items for one class than the others?

Lewleworange (talk) 11:33, 16 March 2014 (PDT)

Not possible. Drop system is completely random on drops. Modifying the drop system is only done by valve. Ashes (talk) 11:35, 16 March 2014 (PDT)

Percentages

Is there a percentage for an item type to drop? Like a percent of cosmetics to drop? Or weapons? Or something like that? If there is, can you PLEASE add a table? M15513c0mm4nd (talk) 14:57, 21 September 2014 (PDT)

There is no confirmed percentage. Its pretty much pure random. Even if we made a table, it would be all speculation and false information. Ashes (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2014 (PDT)

The Numbers of Drops is Constant not Variable

Always 9 items. Either 9 items or 8 items + 1 crate/box. IDS (item drop system) won't give more than 9 drops. I've tested this by a p2p account and a f2p account. Also, I asked other players, and they said 8–9 is max. Also interval does not affect the numbers of drops. For example, If you have 7 items and you reach 10 hours limit, IDS will give 2 items immediatley to reach its 9-item cap. And if you get all 9 items by 30-minute intervals (4.5 hours), there is no more item in the remaining 5.5 hours. Note1: I think gamers should play different multiplayer modes and MVM maps to get more than 9 items. Note2: it looks like that Achievement items count as drop too (bug). --Zyma (talk) 18:56, 28 March 2015 (PDT)

The only bit of this that seems true is mentioning that if you hit your drop limit you won't get any more items. I've had some weeks where I've got 5 drops, and some weeks where I've got 10 drops (like this week, I got 8 weapon drops on my main account, and no crates at all). After Valve most recently changed the drop system, the game hasn't given me more than 1 drop in one go, and I only get drops in quick succession if I missed getting one of them. Different gamemodes don't have any impact on item drops (the closest to it is MVM giving you items for completing a mission/tour, but that's separate to drops). Achievement items have no impact on it either, as I got a bunch of the items on an alt account a while ago and I still got a full set of item drops. --Omolong (talk) 19:11, 28 March 2015 (PDT)

Just to complement that I only got 6 weapons on this week's drop, and I didn't got any crate either (they don't count as the cap limit, though, just to let you know). It seems to be variable, but one thing I'm certain of, is that the time between one drop to another has increased after the Idle Threat solution, you dropped pretty quickly before, now it may takes to half an hour to one hour, but I guess this is also variable. ▪ - 19:51, 28 March 2015 (PDT)

So you say "cap limit is variable" and "the limit is random for players every week"? For example, one player may receive only 5 items, and another player may receive 12 items? But even by 70-minute intervals, 8 drops is minimum. Is minimum variable too? --Zyma (talk) 09:14, 29 March 2015 (PDT)

How accurate is the section "Non-dropping items"?

The title says it all. Where does this information from items that do not drop anymore come from? Tiagoquix (talk) 05:24, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Cosmetics that CAN be found instead of cosmetics that CANT be found.

I assume the "cannot" table comes from a time when promo hats were the only hats not dropping. This has changed since cases were introduced and the hat drop pool has remained stagnant ever since. Thus I think it makes more sense to implement a "Cosmetics that can be found" table which is likely never going to need maintenance and remove the existing "cannot be found" table which is currently outdated and will continue to be outdated after every update that adds a case.

I have prepared the table already on my user page by running a program to compare the full list of cosmetics to the existing cannot find table and then manually checking all of them to make sure they can be found via drops. The table is missing translation switches for the new title (not yet removed the old ones as of writing) but otherwise should be finished. Also it's about half the size of the "cannot" table (56k chars vs 120k).

Wanted opinions before putting it on a real page (maybe there's a good reason for keeping the "cannot" list I can't think of) and adding it here (figured it would go directly above or below the paint section). Also opinions on what the template would be called since the "cannot" table is unfortunately occupying "Cosmetic_drop_list" and I don't think I could just replace it since the translated pages of Item drop system would need time to add it. Was thinking "cosmetic_list_can_drop" or something similar. Jh34ghu43gu (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't think of a reason to keep this template over the ones that don't drop, so I'd say  Support.
GrampaSwood (talk) 22:35, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

 Support. You've said it all already; it's just more practical in every way. - BrazilianNut (talk) 23:17, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Discrepancies

Hi, just wanted to mention that there are some discrepancies between the cosmetics listed on this page as droppable through the random drop system, and listings on individual item pages - for example, Mister Bubbles is listed here as droppable but not on the item's actual page - the opposite is true for the Photo Badge and the Brutal Bouffant. Would there be a way to clean this up, possibly through the WebAPI? Rodafy (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Find out which ones are and aren't droppable (an easy method is using backpack.tf to see if there are any timed drop examples), not sure if the WebAPI is needed.
| s | GrampaSwood (talk) (contribs) 16:48, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Cheers, that is a help - I noticed that TF2Items.com seems to have an option to display droppable items, but I can't seem to find any way to do this? Rodafy (talk) 17:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I can't help you there, I'm not familiar with TF2Items.com.
| s | GrampaSwood (talk) (contribs) 17:49, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Here is a copy of the bp aggregations for timed drop cosmetics if you want to check, I might get around to it on monday if I remember. Everything below the HHHH can probably be ignored and unfortunately I can't filter out limited items so there's a bunch of items like the gibus that shouldn't be included on the list. Jh34ghu43gu (talk) 17:09, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

How about a list of every tool that *can* drop?

Especially since I cannot tell if the summer claim check drops or not, conflicting info. Cheezcracker (talk) 07:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)