There have been a lot of rumors going around as to what determines the quality of loot drops in Diablo 3. As many players will know, loot drops are random but exactly when their quality is determined has always remained something of a mystery.
Today, Blizzard community manager Lylirra wrote a post to clarify how items are generated in the game world.
“For clarity, items and their stats are determined at the time that they're generated in the game world,” wrote Lylirra. “In most situations, this is when the item physically drops (like from a monster, a chest, or a destructible). In cases where there isn't a physical drop, items and their stats are determined as soon the game creates them. For example, items from Kadala are generated as soon as they're purchased. Item types, stats, drops rates, etc. are not determined, or pre-determined, upon creation of a character nor is that kind of information stored in some sort of seed on the character itself.
Lylirra added that it’s important to keep in mind that random does not equal uniform or equal distribution. It's completely natural for random systems to included clusters, and for the human brain to interpret those clusters as patterns (even where there are none).
Basically, if you get two or three, or possibly even more Legendary items in a single drop, it’s completely random and not because there’s a method to the madness.
Speaking of the game’s loot system, Horadric Caches will be getting buffed in the upcoming patch for the game. Read about that here.