Need Statistical Help!

[Skope]

Isn't this sort of stuff quantized? What I mean is that loot occupies specific tiers, each with its own formula (read: drop rate). These tiers would be shared across monsters for their respective loot tables.

For example:

Monster A has three drops (some may have more/less); X the common; Y the rare; Z the very rare. X has a rate of n%; Y of m%; and Z of p%.

Therefore pinning down the drop rate of one of these tiers would accurately represent the drop rates across a whole slew of NPCs.

I highly doubt the EQ coders (and Nilbog+Rogean and friends) have a completely separate equation for each piece of loot. That's idiotic and defeats the purpose of programming. Instead, new pieces of loot (like velious) would be simply plugged into specific tiers. This should make it easier to accurately represent the loot tables of NPCs. Rather than killing everything in the game in order to get a good %, all you'd need is a rough idea of what's common/rare/ultra-rare (+ additional tiers, if they exist) and a few mobs that drop common, rare, and ultra-rare drops. You wouldn't need to kill trakOnan a thousand times to determine the % of his drops when a lvl 20 mob with the same tiers would suffice just as well.