Returning players and the loot table

Ok, so I've recently returned to UO (about 4 weeks ago) and for the first month I have been catching up on knowledge, taming and training new pets for my tamer and updating my suit. In every aspect I have been able to put work in and see rewards for my efforts, bar one area. In search of more MR I have been farming Navrey for a Tangle half apron, I have been in this hole for the last 8 days farming her, often not leaving, other than to drop off artifact drops to the Bin for hand-in-points and gold to the bank. I would say I have killed her over 100 times.
I have seen countless other players come in for a couple of days and get a drop. It seems that either I have VERY bad luck (100 kills should mean if Tangle was on a % drop chance, statistically it should have dropped even with 1% drop rate) with drop rates or the loot table is based on a points system (simular to Doom Gauntlet) and other players are riding on the back of their activity in the past.
As a returning player this is extremely disheartening and almost infuriating. I dont have a lot of gold or items and it appears that I will have a harder time getting items than the rest of the player existing player base...... So am I destined to be "gimped" on arti drops for the next 6 months until I've done enough to deserve loot? I dont understand this system at all, shouldn't I be encouraged to return to UO, not actively discouraged?

It's just the RNG I have only solo'd Navrey around 30 times and I got one drop, I know of other people who have done maybe 100 or more solo and had half a dozen drops. You are not guaranteed a drop. Interestingly both myself and the others I mentioned were using the trap, which you can't do if you play a tamer, I don't play a tamer and neither does my husband. Every time you do the encounter you have that same tiny drop chance, it's not cumulative like some areas of the game.

People put this down to the RNG, but I admit, I don't get it at all.

Like you say, some people seem to get stuff all the time, and I know I've killed some mobs 1000's of times, and put the effort in, yet not got anything.

I'm not a returning player, I just seem to have been permanently gimped in pvm. I sometimes think I killed the wrong player one day, who worked at OSI and they put a black marker against my account, that's how bad it feels. Maybe it's because I don't use a Tamer or Sampire.

So yeah, I get how you feel.

jaytin said:

It's just the RNG I have only solo'd Navrey around 30 times and I got one drop, I know of other people who have done maybe 100 or more solo and had half a dozen drops. You are not guaranteed a drop. Interestingly both myself and the others I mentioned were using the trap, which you can't do if you play a tamer, I don't play a tamer and neither does my husband. Every time you do the encounter you have that same tiny drop chance, it's not cumulative like some areas of the game.

So most of the kills are have done are solo. I would say that only a third of the time I've put in has been with other players involved.
Secondly you can use the traps as a tamer. Most of the time I've been using a Chiv, AI Nightmare. I have to use the traps three times per kill with the last use as an execute. I admit, todays combination of Top > Right > Left is very difficult, but it is still doable... and the other combinations are fairly trivial. I'm not even using a targeting macro for each tower, I manually click them.

Just out of curiosity what is you player's luck my experience is that it makes a difference.

As far as the $#^&#$ RNG I saw a lottery mathematician explain that the odds of 1,2,3,4,5,6 coming up were exactly the same as any other 6 numbers and the odds of it coming up the next draw were the same as they were in the first draw. 

Conclusion NUMBERS SUCK and the universe IS out to get me.

It may save your sanity to sometimes kill mobs in Blackthorn's dungeon instead - there is a Tangle equivalent from there you could work towards, and if you get a real tangle before you get enough points in Blackthorns there are other nice items on the Blackthorn arti list you could get instead?
It takes a while to get something from Blackthorns, but at least you know you're sure to get there eventually.

Ah ok the only time I've seen the traps used when tamers were there the pets all died. Just didn't seem like a good idea! 

Tim said:

Just out of curiosity what is you player's luck my experience is that it makes a difference.

As far as the $#^&#$ RNG I saw a lottery mathematician explain that the odds of 1,2,3,4,5,6 coming up were exactly the same as any other 6 numbers and the odds of it coming up the next draw were the same as they were in the first draw. 

Conclusion NUMBERS SUCK and the universe IS out to get me.

My char has 1670 luck as standard. 2100+ when I use the vase which I have been doing daily. I usually get at least 4/5 kills in with the vase bonus active.

Petra_Fyde said:

It may save your sanity to sometimes kill mobs in Blackthorn's dungeon instead - there is a Tangle equivalent from there you could work towards, and if you get a real tangle before you get enough points in Blackthorns there are other nice items on the Blackthorn arti list you could get instead?
It takes a while to get something from Blackthorns, but at least you know you're sure to get there eventually.

Thanks! I'll look into this. I've been doing the odd (3 times xD) "Rooms & Roof" with my guild, I dont know if this is it or something different but I'll read up. Thanks a lot!

Mariah said:

Blackthorn's dungeon is found under Castle Blackthorn in both Trammel and Felucca https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/world/dungeons/dungeon-castle-blackthorn/

Minax artifact drops (tokuno style) are dropped and traded for various artifacts.

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/artifact-collections/artifacts-castle-blackthorn/

Thanks a lot!
Could you confirm for me that the Tangle is a % drop chance from Navrey? 

jaytin said:

Ah ok the only time I've seen the traps used when tamers were there the pets all died. Just didn't seem like a good idea! 

Its a radius of damage of about 2-3 tiles... Just call pets back and only the boss gets hit. Easy. You can annoy people who are there afking though if their pets die.... weird that, I'm the one paying attention and your the one annoyed? Hmmmm xD

Qwerty said:

Thanks a lot!
Could you confirm for me that the Tangle is a % drop chance from Navrey? 

Tangle is a % drop from Navery. Each time you kill Navery there is a small chance you'll get a Tangle.

However, I think I killed Navery solo around 100 times before I got a Tangle. It may have been a few more, or a few less. When she respawned, I killed her again and got another Tangle. It is definitely just UO's RNG. Like skill gain you can get nothing for ever, then get a 0.1 gain two or three times in a row.

If the drop rate is 1 in 100, that only means that every time you kill Navery you would have a 1% chance at a drop, not that after 100 kills you'd get a drop. I think of it like rolling a 100 sided dice. You could roll that dice a thousand times before 42 came up. Or you could get 42 on the first try. Or any try in between. Whatever rolled before has no effect on the current roll. The current roll has no effect on what will roll after. 

Personally I think Tangle's drop rate is something like 5% or 3%. At 5% that would be a 1 in 20 chance. It would be like rolling a D20 and hoping for a 20. You can roll a D20 twenty times and not get a 20. You could roll that D20 100 times before 20 came up.

Anyway, good luck with the Tangle. Hope you get one soon!