Custom Mob Drop Risk Gauge

What is the Risk Gauge?(top)

The Risk Gauge is the server's automatic system which determines if a monster being attacked by a player has a reasonable chance to fight back against the player.

This system is based on the concept "with risk comes reward." Empire Minecraft's special drops and features are intended to be earned in fair combat with monsters.

While you are allowed to get creative and kill monsters with little to no risk, doing so will reduce your chance of receiving the custom loot that EMC has to offer since you didn't face much risk of dying.

Determining risk(top)

For sword/fist-based attacks (i.e: non-skeleton attacks), the risk is determined by whether or not the monster can find a path to be within melee-distance of the attacker. This means that standing on a two-block tall pillar, preventing the monster from attacking you, and attacking the monster back will qualify as "no risk," and trigger the risk gauge system.

Likewise, trapping a monster in a kill chamber where it cannot get out, as typically done in mob farms, will trigger this system.

For ranged attackers, such as skeletons, ghasts, and withers, the determined risk is based on whether or not the monster has a clear line of sight toward the player.

Penalty for no risk(top)

For melee/close-range attackers(top)

If you are in combat with mini-bosses or if your player difficulty is greater than 7: The monster will teleport to the player, escaping the barriers that were minimizing risk.

If you are in combat with normal monsters on difficulty 7 or lower: The entity's effective difficulty will be reduced after each hit. This nerfs the effective difficulty setting that you are playing on in that specific combat instance, resulting in no special loot being dropped by the mob.

For ranged/long-range attackers(top)

Attack damage dealt to these mobs will only be resisted because the risk guage could potentially trigger in normal combat. However, this means that players face less of a risk of missing out on loot while engaged in combat with these types of mobs.

No effect on vanilla loot(top)

This system does not affect vanilla loot items in any way. This system only applies to special rewards added by Empire Minecraft, such as Custom Items and Tokens.

Source Code(top)

For those that can read code, we have posted the source code for this system to be reviewed here:
https://gist.github.com/aikar/34ad5e79756a686ca8a8. Note that the code was updated for the Survival Update 2.0, and so this code may be outdated.