Educate me on Phantasy Star Online

[Milenkov]

Hello, longtime player of the Gamecube version but hoping someone knowledgeable about loot mechanics can help me out.

It was my understanding when I was younger that the numbers given for a given item were explicitly how many of such needed to be farmed to acquire the item (I had done so with the Kaladbolg on Caves, I kept tabs on how many runs I had done and how many killed during each but I can't say for certain that it was the total number when I received it), but upon replaying it yesterday with my friends one of them stated that it actually is partly that but also just a normal percentile drop? Was my way of thinking flawed and I just got lucky or is how he said it actually how it is?

[Aleron Ives]

The drop rate is a random roll that happens every time you kill the enemy. If a rate is 1/100, it means there is a 1% chance of getting the item every time you kill the enemy. It does not mean that one is guaranteed to drop every 100 enemies; you could kill 200 enemies and not get the item if you are unlucky.