Item drop

Item Drops, also known as Spoils, are items the player receives by defeating opponents. In many games opponents have more than one item drop, some rarer than others. The player has a chance of obtaining an item from an opponent if the enemy is defeated and the player finishes the battle successfully.

Final Fantasy VII
In Final Fantasy VII the chance of the enemy dropping an item depends on the enemy in question and some enemies have very low chances of dropping an item, although some enemies that have low item drops appear in large groups, which improves the player's overall chances. Some enemies, such as bosses, Magic Pot and Movers, have 100% chance of dropping an item when defeated. Some enemies have no item drops at all.

The enemy will not drop any items if: a) the player has stolen an item from said enemy b) the enemy is defeated by using Remove c) the battle ends without the Battle Results screen (such as the opponents on the Battle Square)

All enemies can carry four different items at once, although not all enemies use all this space. Some of these items can be stolen, and some can be obtained as item drops. The player can only obtain one or the other; if they steal an item from the enemy, the enemy will not drop items after battle, even if the steal items and drop items are different. Each of the items an enemy has has an individual chance of being dropped. For example, a [[Razor Weed (Final Fantasy VII)|Razor Weed has the following list:


 * [8] Tranquilizer, [8] Hi-Potion, [8] Loco Weed

Both the chance of each item and the order are important. When the enemy is about to drop an item each item it has on the list is looked at in turn, and drops if the following occurs:


 * If Rnd(0..63) <= Chance of Item, then Current Item is won

That means there is a (Chance + 1)/64 the current item is dropped. This is done in order, so with the item list above would be done like this:


 * 9/64 Chance: Win the Tranquilizer
 * 55/64 Chance: Move to next item...
 * 9/64 Chance: Win the Hi-Potion
 * 55/64 Chance: Move to next item...
 * 9/64 Chance: Win the Loco Weed
 * 55/64 Chance: No item is dropped

Chances of each item:


 * Tranquilizer: 9/64 chance, 14.06%
 * Hi-Potion: 495/4096 chance, 12.08%
 * Loco Weed: 27225/262144 chance, 10.39%
 * Nothing: 166375/262144 chance, 63.47%

Even though each item has the individual percentile chance the earlier items in the list are more likely to drop.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-
Every opponent has a base drop chance. After the game has calculated whether or not to drop an item, the actual item to be dropped is selected. Enemies have both common and rare drops. The player's Luck affects the item drops: the higher the luck, the better the chance of rare drops.


 * Normal Drop Chance: (Base Chance)+(Zack's Luck/10)/256

That's the chance to get a (common) drop. The chance that a drop is also rare, is a percentage out of the above Normal Drop Chance.


 * Chance that the drop is rare: (Base Chance)+(Zack's Luck/10)/256

Basically, the game first calculates whether the enemy drops an item or not. If the item is dropped, the game uses the same formula to calculate whether the item that is dropped is rare.

The accessory Mog's Amulet makes all item drops rare 100% of the time.

Final Fantasy VIII
Every opponent has its individual chance of dropping an unspecified item. Some enemies, such as bosses, always drop an item. After the game has determined whether or not to drop an item, the item to be dropped is calculated from the four item "slots" each enemy has. The enemy will never drop an item if the player steals an item from the enemy.

In the game data, every enemy has four item "slots" that contain all the possible item drop combination possibilities. Usually higher slots have better items. Bahamut's Rare Item ability doubles the drop rate of the second item slot, and reduces the chances of getting any items in the fourth slot to 0.

Opponents also have a chance of dropping cards, which is a separate mechanism from the item drops and is not affected by the Rare Items ability. Certain bosses always drop a card, but for regular enemies the chance is 9/256 or 3.5%. Enemies can only drop their own card, and not all enemies have a card to drop.