Hi,
Firstly I'd like to tell you that we encourage all types of questions. No question is noobish. It is very nice to see some good discussions such as this being raised.
1. No a person in a party dying does not affect the drop rate.
2. Hunting in large groups does make the possibility of drops more. At the sametime it also reduces the chance of you getting the preffered drop over another player less
3. Well simply put the drop rate works like this .
For every monster there will be a list of items that it will drop. Hypothetically lets assume it drops four items A,B,C and D. Then the drop rates would be coded as something like
A - 50 %
B - 10%
C - 5 %
D - 2 %
Chance of No drop - 33 %
Every time you kill monster this is the probability of which item it may drop. Notice that there is also a percentage for no drop.
Also understand that just because B has 10 % drop does not mean out of every 10 kills you will get 1 item B. It just means that every time you kill a monster you have a 10 % chance of getting that item.
Those words above many sound unmeaningful. Just go over it again.
So to answer your question the more monsters killed the more the chance of a drop. That means more people killing. So Dont waste any ammunition, hunt with everything you got. Every member who take a shot at the mops should contribute.
Regards,
[GM]First.