Talk:Item drop system

Daily Item Cap

Hi guys. I was discussing things with ShunyValdez, and there seems to be a daily cap on the number of items you can get aside from the weekly cap of hours in which you can get items. Essentially, if you idle for a single day and use up all your "alloted weekly cap of hours", you might not be able to get any more items for the rest of the week.

There seems to be some truth to this as when I played for over 12 hrs, I only got 6 items for the entire week, but then when I played for about 2-3hrs/day in the span of 3 days, I was able to get 12 items (and it wasn't carry-over from the previous week - I had just received 6 items the week before).

Can anyone else confirm this? There's also been some talk that idling will get you less items than actively playing, possibly due to the daily item cap + weekly hours cap combination? Essentially if idlers use up all their alloted weekly hours in the span of a single day, that's it for them, just 6 items? -Object404 02:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as my observation has been, it really doesn't affect it, as I've heard this "rumor" before. I've idled weeks in straight up training mode for 24 hours straight, and other times in playtime bunches of 2-4 hours, like you've stated. The amount of drops I received wasn't that significantly different - they seemed to be still in the same ballpark of 6-10 items + 1-3 crates, regardless of method, server type (local or an idle server), or play time. Everything is complete speculation until commented on by devs, in my opinion. I can probably go more in depth, but that can be reserved for a PM/friend request/IRC chat if you wish to converse further on this matter with my observations/results. — ventus|talk    02:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Was your idling continous over a span of days, or was it just for 1-2 days out of a week? How long were your idling sessions per day? Thanks! -Object404 03:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I heard it was 11 hours, with the last week's unused hours stacking on top. Wakkydude 20:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Multiple drop mechanics

I've added an explanation on how a player can "receive" multiple items/drops (shown on the hud as multiple "has found"). I would be thinking of a way to make the explanation a lot clearer (I'm unsatisfied at the current state). -- ShunyValdez 15:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I also noticed that "stuck in the void" items appeared in the backpack (without a full-screen notification offering to open backpack or use it) when I sorted it. --Zhur 19:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Under what conditions will you not receive item drops?

The information I have been able to find is old, and sometimes contradictory. I was hoping to find the answers here, on the wiki, but no mention is made in this article. Do you still have to be signed into the friends system to receive item drops? If you do not, when did this change take place? Lastly, can you receive drops in training mode, offline practice, or by creating a private LAN or internet server?

If somebody can find this information, I feel it would be a great addition to the article, for people like myself who haven't followed the system very closely. --Shackanaw 08:32, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll answer what I do know: You can receive drops in a private LAN server (I get items all the time while tr_walkway'ing), and I assume offline practice/training mode is exactly the same as that (only a different map). As for your other question, I don't know D: — WindPower 08:35, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I received an item drop in offline practice while I was not signed into my friends list, so those two are answered. However, I still do not know when they made it so you do not have to be signed into the Steam Community. --Shackanaw 01:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Error

What's that "cite error" BS at the bottom of the page? -Shine () 13:40, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There were <ref> tags in use without <references /> appearing anywhere on the page. I've fixed it now. seb26 [talk] 21:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is there a Milestone section to this article?

It seems to be unnecessarily long, and doesn't add more to the generalized discussion than just indicating that items drop from earning achievements in addition to randomly.

Absoluteparanoia 12:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

-novid

"Despite the new systems Idling still exists, however it is now possible using the offline mode (use of the -textmode game launch parameter combined with -novid and -nosound to disable video and audio processing respectively) leaving server providers free to provide a gaming experience."

-novid just disables the intro video, it would seem to be -textmode that actually disables video. I don't use -textmode though so I'll let someone else who knows more fix it...

--The MAZZTer 19:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I noticed this too. - LingoSalad_(talk) 14:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

New way of idling

I have been playing in the offline practice mode with the bots and got no less then 2 weapons and a crate. This will allow a lot of players to idle without connecting to the internet or using a lot of CPU. We need to test further what can and can't be used to see how to idle in this mode. Daminshi

This seems odd, I'm pretty sure the drop system is managed outside of the TF2 client. Perhaps it could've been things in your TF2 drop queue that you didn't receive when you last signed off. Either way, if anybody supports your claim then I'll certainly be interested in looking into this. -RJ 02:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This was a significant amount of time between drops and I didn't get those several items before. I even used no clip and Sv_cheats randomly and still got the crate. It's weird. Also got a new Huntsman.  :3 I love this. Daminshi

The idling article is marked for deletion, but giving instructions and/or discussing the various methods for connecting to TF2 servers and the likelihood of recieving items from the item drop system is ok?Nooch 02:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a new way, you've always been able to idle in offline practice --Firestorm 02:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This is news to me because I've tried it before and it didn't work. It was before the April patch that changed the random time drop to the fixed time drop, must have been very unlucky with my PC running for 36 hours. Daminshi

Oh you meant offline practise? I misinterpreted you and thought you meant Steam was in Offline mode. -RJ 09:56, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Now I know for certain that items can be dropped in that mode. I got a error saying my "server", my TF2 client running offline practice, "lost connection to Steam." So the Steam item and drop servers are connected to my "offline" practice mode. Daminshi

Items drop outside of game

I've been getting a few weapons when I start up my game and look in the Mann Store. Who else has noticed? Daminshi

-Sometimes you can be due to recieve items, but due to certain circumstances these may not 'drop' until the next time you play. Matimoo 09:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

56 items per week?

"The maximum amount of items you can get is not known, however it can't exceed 56 because the day drop limit is 8. On average a player gets ~6 items a week. [2] The system resets each player's item drop count around each Wednesday, Pacific standard time where Valve is located."

Seems somebody messed up here. Secret Agent Clank 01:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Er. I thought it was, like, 11 items a week?

Idling page says 8-12 items a week, which seems right, so I'm going to change that.

Regardless, from what I hear, if you don't get your drops for a week they carry over, can anyone confirm?

One of my sources :http://www.ubercharged.net/forum/index.php?topic=2580.msg163269#msg163269

Secret Agent Clank 03:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I've heard a LOT of contradictory information regarding the drop limits. Some places say 8-12 items per DAY, others (like here) say per WEEK. I know I can get 11-13 items per day, which is already more than this page and other sources I've seen have claimed. Lately for some reason I get NO drops anymore during normal gameplay, but if I leave the game idling for even 30 minutes - even AFTER a day of no drops whatsoever, and regardless of how long ago the drop system was reset - I start getting items again. What on earth is going on here?!

I'm still experimenting with the system to determine how many items can be acquired per week/why I don't get drops anymore except when idling. About to test if I can get more items after having gotten 12 or so earlier in the week, perhaps I'll report back if I get any interesting results. Will-T 06:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

There are not caps on the quantity of items one can receive per week, but instead caps on the amount of playtime in which drops can be obtained - and this playtime has been determined based upon the average time spent in TF2 to make it fairer for those who don't have the time to play. This means that light-players will get more than they would've with the older system, and heavy-players would get a similar amount (instead of a lot more - with the old sytstem. Check out the tf2 blog about the newer system here: http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3727. -RJ 09:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems like the item is artificially capped at 12 items, however if you did not reach the cap a week prior, you can earn up to two more items. I've achieved 14 items in a single night only once from many months of idling on several accounts. This needs a lot more testing. Sanitysama 03:20, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

No items when playing with bots?

My computer isn't powerful enough to handle online matches very well, but I can play with bots just fine, so that's what I've done for a long time now. For several weeks I haven't gotten any item drops in normal gameplay with bots. I do, however, seem to get drops if I'm playing tr_walkway or just mucking around solo on any map, even the same ones that don't give drops with bots. Does anyone else have this experience? Has Valve changed something so that using bots stops the drop system from working? Will-T 21:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I was still able to get items when playing with bots... Maybe you just hit your cap. Meter1060 19:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I got a drop while playing with bots today, so I think things might be back to normal, though I don't know what was different before, if anything. I don't think it was me hitting my cap, because I wouldn't get drops even if I'd found nothing at all yet in that week. For now it looks like things are good again ... I hope they stay that way! Will-T 20:07, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Separate drop timers?

In the Mann Co. Supply Crate discussion we noticed that drops are on separate timers. At the very least, there is separation between droppable tools and droppable weapons/hats as its pretty common to see a double drop (i.e. a crate and a weapon drop on the same death). I don't think there is enough verifiable data out there to add onto the wiki page but how do we start determining what is separate and what isn't? Is it possible since hats drop so infrequently? Iloverice 23:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe Robin has responded in an email that they are indeed on separate timers because it wouldn't be fair to have one of your item drops used up by an item that you need to pay to open. Moussekateer 00:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Then it might be useful information to put in. Meter1060 19:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought the article used to say this. Was it removed, or maybe I'm misremembering? (Digging through the edit history is tedious.) The separate drop timer would be useful information to include, maybe just cite "personal correspondence." --Itsatrap 19:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Aha, I found it. It was mentioned in the Mann Co. Supply Crate article in early October, but was removed on October 12, 2010 as an unsourced statement. A quick web search turns up comments that "crates use a separate drop system," but those all point back to the wiki, so nothing solid. --Itsatrap 19:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a good ol' fashioned email to Robin is in order so we can source it? Meter1060 19:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Double Drop-Rate week: December 23rd-30th, 2010

http://tf2.com/post.php?id=4822&p=1

Item drops are doubled from tomorrow through the day before New Year's Eve.

ALSO: there'll be a special "stocking stuffer" sometime, possibly Christmas. Satorifan 04:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

*Quick update: http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Stocking_Stuffer_Key That's what's dropping, and it IS confirmed that it'll drop on Christmas. Satorifan 04:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

We know all this. Also you can get the key now. —Moussekateer·talk 04:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The hours per week are the same to can get items? Jag Gentleman 23:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, seems like it. —Moussekateer·talk 00:00, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a little bit of confusion about what the «double drop rate» means. Do items drop two regular amounts or just twice faster? Ee9 09:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Error in "Advantages and disadvantages"

"- alleviating the need for dedicated idling servers.", in textmode you still need to connect to a server to be eligible for drops. Bobic 07:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I think what it's saying is that you don't need to connect to an external server anymore. You do have to connect to one but it can be your own (training map or bot map). —Moussekateer·talk 07:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Non-dropping item list?

Could be useful? Just like the non-purchasable item list in the Mann Co. store.

Is there any reliable source on what drops and what not? Aside from promotional stuff, I do believe both the jumpers don't drop (but I could be wrong though).--Kid Of The Century 11:30, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The jumpers and crit-a-cola doesn't drop, I never see that. Jag Gentleman 11:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Crit-a-cola does drop now. Impoxdragon 15:24, 21 August 2011 (PDT)

am, pm, 24.00 time?

The wiki page says that the drop cap "resets every Thursday at approximately 0:00AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)." As a non-american I have big problems with the am/pm system since it goes from 11:59pm to 12.00am, it doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway, i didn't think that 0:00AM existed, and on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_PM, it isn't listed, so what exactly is 0:00AM? Is it 00:00 in the 24h system? This should be made clearer. Traxus 10:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

To me "0:00 AM" doesn't make any sense. I'm not used to the AM/PM notation, but also I don't know how it is seen in the rest of the world.--Kid Of The Century 11:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

336 hours worth of playtime?

When the article says how it will carry over for a maximum of 2 weeks playtime, does that mean 336 hours (hours in 2 weeks) instead of 11?? Somebody who knows, please respond. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by UBERxL33T (talk) • (contribs)

I think it means if you have 0 hours playtime in week 1 and 22 hours playtime in week 2, you can get upto 12 drops in week 2 and none in week 1. If you have 11+ hours of playtime in week 1 and 11+ hours in week 2 then you get up to 6 drops each week within the first 11 hours of each week. JakeSanchard 18:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It means two weeks of playtime that would be counted towards drops. Let's assume that 6 hours a week will give you items drops. If this is the case, and you do not play for one week, then the next week, 12 hours will give you item drops. This does not carry over into the third week as 18 hours if you do not play that second week. -- Firestorm 19:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't even think this works because I was gone for nearly a month and came back to only 8 drops for that week. Fowah 04:15, 1 July 2011 (PDT)

Reset time

Where does the time for the playtime cap reset come from? Because to me, it seems erroneous. I live in the Netherlands, so I am GMT +1/+2, depending on summer time, and for me it always seems to reset on Thursdays around 4 or 5 pm. I know this is merely anecdotal evidence and thus probably weighs naught in the grand scheme of things, but I do feel I should mention this because I might not be the only one that has experienced this. For clarification, by the way, I have tested several times by starting to idle in the morning on Thursdays, never lost connection and my first drop would only drop around 4/5 pm. This also includes the Double Drop Week, where I saw no drops for several hours and then stuff suddenly started dropping every 15 minutes, around 5 pm. -- Hefaistus - talk 15:58, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Tested it out two more times in the past two weeks, every time the drops don't happen till 5 pm. So can someone finally respond to this? Because at the moment I am half tempted to just remove the claim that the drop resets at midnight GMT, as I have yet to see any kind of proof of the supposed reset time. -- Hefaistus - talk 03:56, 1 August 2011 (PDT)

Should this be mentioned?

I'm not sure if it's a bug, or if drop rates have actually been lowered, but it's definitely an issue:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1960592

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1949527

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1959434

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1960575

BTYM 20:01, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

Yes there does appear to be some sort of glitch with the drop system (weird things happen to the items in my backpack), but this isn't noteworthy enough to go on the article as we can't say for sure there is something wrong. —Moussekateer·talk 20:03, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

Double Drop Rate Event Item Cap?

Does Double Drop Rate event increase the "cap"(well total quantity rather than playtime cap) of items dropped? I'd assumed it does since it's based on play time (10 hours) and not the amount of actual items obtained right? So instead of 30-70 minute would it be 15-35 minutes per item with a playtime cap of 10 hours? Goldfish 19:04, 7 July 2011 (PDT)

Drops no longer appearing in text chat

As of the July 18, 2011 Patch it appears that drops are no longer announced in the text chat. The same is true for crafting and trading. Should this be mentioned here? Jh9594 01:57, 28 July 2011 (PDT)

• Never mind, this was a bug, fixed as of the August 2nd patch Jh9594 14:51, 2 August 2011 (PDT)

Still seems broken to me, if it was! Evang7 20:51, 12 August 2011 (PDT)

Yeah, its still broken, adding to "bugs" on the page. Jh9594 02:31, 15 August 2011 (PDT)

Planeswalker items--do they drop or not?

The pages for both the Planeswalker Goggles and the Planeswalker Helm list them as items that can drop. This page's dropdown list says that neither of them will drop. So, which is it? Evang7 20:51, 12 August 2011 (PDT)

All of the other genuine items that have gone "common" have been added to the drop system so I assume that they do drop. Boregano 21:06, 12 August 2011 (PDT)

Then we should remove them from the list of undroppable items. The Heros Hachimaki from Homefront is also marked in its page as droppable.Portugueseotaku 10:33, 17 August 2011 (PDT)

Items capped by unique ID or unique IP?

After a few months of experimenting with multiple idle accounts running at the same time on a network I've run into a few problems. First, there seems to be an arbitrary number of items each account can receive overnight. For example, I will idle several accounts and by complete random one will receive six items, one gets 8, and one maybe gets 10. If I continue to idle them throughout the entire day I will get absolutely nothing extra. Sometimes textmode idling simply no longer works after this point and I must revert to playing in 3d mode in a private server.

I've been recording the amount of items I received in a single session on each account for several weeks. I will idle three accounts on three separate computers every Wednesday night. The amount of items I would receive this way would range between 6-10 items per account. Recently I idled only two computers at night instead of three and I got a surprising difference. The pairs of accounts I idled per night received no less than 10-14 items in a single idling session.

This led me to the theory that items are not capped on an account-by-account basis but rather by IP address. Valve servers may see my IP getting more items than possible and are arbitrarily capping each account. However, that cap is usually somehow lifted in a short amount of time by evidence of the fact that I can simply change the method of idling and start receiving items again. I can only assume the action that relieves the cap is signing out of Steam. Can anyone confirm any of this to be true? Additionally, can anyone positively confirm that idling in a server alone increases the amount of time between item drops? I've only heard rumors of this being true and have yet to see anyone provide evidence. Sanitysama 03:40, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

I think you are right that it is by IP address, as me and my brother have separate accounts, but share the same computer, and we see a wide variation in the number of drops we each get per week Jh9594 16:44, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

The cap is a time based one not item count. You will not get the same amount of items from week to week or account to account, there's a variance. The article explains this, there is nothing surprising about your observations. —Moussekateer·talk 16:49, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

That's well and good but still doesn't answer the question the original question posed concerning items being dropped per account or per IP address. In a given drop period, regardless of the items dropped to time played ratio, are two or more people playing on separate accounts but on the same IP going to see a dramatically lower, on average, number of items dropped per account than a single account would in the same drop period being the only account on the IP? Grammar don't fail me now. From experience I believe the item drop system to be on a per IP address basis. My friend and I play, on separate accounts, but under the same IP. I play often and reach the point of slow/no item dropping sooner than they do while also acquiring consistently more items than they do. Anyway, neither of us idle, nor do we have any data yet to present as somewhat more solid evidence, however, I feel that the topic should be opened up to questioning again and perhaps more testing, myself included, be conducted. - Slimbob 01:56, 10 October 2011 (PDT)

There's no way the IPs from which you are connecting affect the drops that that account gets. Last week, my 10 accounts, all idled on the same IP address got; 7, 7, 6, 10, 10, 8, 5, 5, 6, and 8 items. This week; 12, 10, 9, 9, 13, 8, 8, 6, 5, and 6. I generally idle 5 accounts at a time, or do a 4/4/2 split over a period of 3 days. Each account is unique, and all my numbers from this calendar year show nothing to support such a theory. As much as I hate to say it, I will; random is random. SS2R 02:09, 11 October 2011 (PDT)

Unused time

How long does the unused time carry over? For example, if I don't play during week 1 and I play a week's worth of time in week 2, will week 3 still grant 2 weeks of item drops? (So in other words, still receiving 3 weeks worth of drops in 3 weeks.) BASEBALLFURIES 13:20, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

Isnt it, you have 10 or so hours per week of eligibility to receive drops, and any time that was not used during that week does not carry over. You just simply have a new week with 10 or so more hours to receive your drops for the week. I think it goes on a week by week basis with no carry over time, just every week has its own clock and if you don't use it, you have next weeks clock to work with. At least thats how I've always interpreted the system. ****BC^talk 15:05, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

No some time does carry over, but we have no idea how much. 'Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine' from this blog post. —Moussekateer·talk 15:12, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

Items in text chat

It has been almost 2 months since the drop notices were removed from the text chat. i seem to remember an unpdate where this was fixed (it wasn't), but the fix was removed from the changelog a short time later by valve. Can we assume that the drop nitifications missing thing is not a bug, but an intentional thing done by valve to allieviate trade spam? Jh9594 16:46, 25 August 2011 (PDT)

Item Drop List

Shouldn't the maul and three-rune blade be in the undroppable list? If not, then the September 20th 2011 patch needs to be changed to reflect that. Kodiak 7 19:03, 22 September 2011 (PDT)

Why, are they still undroppable? » Cooper Kid (blether·contreebs) 03:57, 23 September 2011 (PDT)

Regardless of whether they are or not, something is wrong. The undroppable list says they do drop, and the patch notes say they still don't. Kodiak 7 04:13, 23 September 2011 (PDT)

I've added them back to the list, they do not drop. —Moussekateer·talk 04:21, 23 September 2011 (PDT)

Post-Manniversary

Item drops have been kind of slow since Manniversary update. I'm suspecting server problems since a lot of things were broken after the update, but at this moment I also suspect there could also be a change in drop conditions. Anyone have any input? Similar experiences? Sanitysama 23:08, 14 October 2011 (PDT)

Been watching Steam Stats and noticed volume has corresponded with TF2 performance. And, considering the volume i'm still getting 90% of expected items during my last idle session (actual 205, expected 225). So, nothing indicates any change to the drop system from my perspective.Nooch 11:07, 15 October 2011 (PDT)

I made an account to seek help in this field. Ever since the update, my idling has brought in almost nothing. What will usually happen is that I will get one item after about 2-3 hours of idling, then nothing. I can't offer much in the way of additional information other than the fact that I've idled enough to hit the idling caps of 4 accounts and got nothing out of it. Meanwhile, on another account, I idled without hindrance, getting about 10 or 11 out of it. However, that one was during regular play. Any ideas on what could be messing up my idling? Screamineagles 12:38, 18 October 2011 (PDT)

No item drop problems here, seems like you've been just unlucky because the servers crashed when you idled. They were quite unstable over the weekend. --Picard ^talk 12:47, 18 October 2011 (PDT)

Yep, figured it out, came back to delete my post but I figure anyone having the same problem could get useful information from it. Turns out I was just losing connection to the steam servers / item servers crashed. Thanks for the reassurance. Screamineagles 19:34, 18 October 2011 (PDT)

Check remaining drop time?

I'm just curious, is there any way (within TF2 or otherwise) to check the remaining weekly drop time for an account?

I don't believe so at the moment. NihonTiger 16:04, 15 October 2011 (PDT)

Likelihood of receiving non weapon items (e.g. hats, paint)

Is there any information regarding the drop rates of specific items or item types? Like, if there's 0.5% chance of getting paint and a 3% chance of getting a hat, or something? Monkeyfetus 13:40, 16 October 2011 (PDT)

Item Chances?

If there isn't a section already on it, I think this would be a great place for there to be a chart or some statistics on how likely it is you will find: an item, a specific item, a hat, a specific hat, any/specific paint and the individual other drop-able tools. (and by specific I don't mean a different number for each hat, just the chance per drop of getting the hat that you want) Massive Mountain of Hat 16:25, 16 October 2011 (PDT)