Guild Wars 2

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

Then how do you explain a person getting 5 precursors in 20 forges? Luck? Hell no because that same guy will get a precursor drop off a mob in WvW then the next day will get 3 ascended chests and the next day will get another pre off a random mob…. While a person like me can play for 4k hours and not get a single pre.

Time played in the game does not influence whether you will get a precursor drop. Just like someone playing the lottery for 60 years is no more likely to win than someone who has played for one year. You need to take a closer look at probability.

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

papry.8096:

I don’t pretend to do statistics & in all truth; I don’t care. This is just unrewarding.
Spending time in the game to have bad reward most of/all the time(no precursor & almost no ascended chest drop) whereas someone have a lot.
That’s the point there.

But… you can do a lot of different activities with good rewards and you can buy your precursor.

Let’s say the average precursor drop rate is 1 precursor / 2k hours.
Average value of a precursor is ~500g.

That is 25s/hour only, but you can easily make 8-10g/hour in the game, 1 or 2 precursors make a very little difference.

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

Beast Sos.1457:

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

Then how do you explain a person getting 5 precursors in 20 forges? Luck? Hell no because that same guy will get a precursor drop off a mob in WvW then the next day will get 3 ascended chests and the next day will get another pre off a random mob…. While a person like me can play for 4k hours and not get a single pre.

Time played in the game does not influence whether you will get a precursor drop. Just like someone playing the lottery for 60 years is no more likely to win than someone who has played for one year. You need to take a closer look at probability.

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

I’m not arguing about the differences of the two systems in how they operate. What I was doing was trying to show you that time spent doing either doesn’t matter in relation to winning.

“Biologically, we are not very different from our ancestors. But some stone-age strengths have become information-age weaknesses.

Human beings do not have very many natural defenses. We are not all that fast, and we are not all that strong. We do not hve claws or fangs or body armor. We cannot spit venom. We cannot camouflage ourselves. And we cannot fly. Instead we survive by means of our wits. Our minds are quick. We are wired to detect patterns and respond to oppurtunites and threats without much hesitation.

‘This need of finding patterns, humans have this more than other animals,’ I was told by Tomaso Poggio, an MIT neuroscientist who studies how our brains process information. ‘Recognizing objects in difficult situations means generalizing. A newborn baby can recognize the basic pattern of a face. It has been learned by evolution, not by the individual.’

The problem, Poggio says, is that these evolutionary instincts sometimes lead us to see patterns when there are none there."

-Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

Yes, we’ve been over this again and again. Particularly in the ‘RNG as a concept’ thread.

But you’re forgetting something:

Anet listened.

They gave us gauranteed ways to get precursors. The collections introduced with HoT.

And they gave us the ability to change stats on ascended items.

And they gave up map rewards for things like T6 crafting materials and lodestones.

And they even increased the drop rates of rare or better items in full level 80 zones.

What more do you want?

Beast Sos.1457:

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

You are wrong.

Tickets (every different number combination) * ticket price >> jackpot

Beast Sos.1457:

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

Stores don’t have a fixed number of tickets. If someone bought every combination of numbers at every store then every store would win. Also, the number of winners doesn’t matter when it comes to whether the lottery companies make money.

RNG in the game is working properly. The problem is RNG will always be the worst alternative to manage rewards.

Arenanet wants you to believe everyone has the same chance. Using RNG makes it so everyone does not have the same chance. They want winners that can dangle carrots in front of everyone else. Many of those “unlucky” people will just whip out the credit card to catch up with the Joneses. They use kittenty RNG by design.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Arenanet wants you to believe everyone has the same chance. Using RNG makes it so everyone does not have the same chance. They want winners that can dangle carrots in front of everyone else. Many of those “unlucky” people will just whip out the credit card to catch up with the Joneses. They use kittenty RNG by design.

I heard Anet evil evil developers use slave labour and sacrifice chickens to the dark gods as well

Beast Sos.1457:

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

Stores don’t have a fixed number of tickets. If someone bought every combination of numbers at every store then every store would win. Also, the number of winners doesn’t matter when it comes to whether the lottery companies make money.

Yeah I was talking out of my kitten there lol. Idk how this kitten works. But I do know that if the lottery worked like gw2 RNG then there would at least be one person out there that wins every week but its not and thats how you know the “RNG” in gw2 is fixed in a way.

Not really. It comes down to the number of possible combinations, number of people playing, and how many choose the same numbers.

The chance of getting a precursor from the forge is fixed. If you throw in four exotic greatswords, they have a certain chance of getting a precursor. This doesn’t change with each successive attempt. If the percentage is 1% then it will always be 1% for each attempt. It also doesn’t change from player to player.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Arenanet wants you to believe everyone has the same chance. Using RNG makes it so everyone does not have the same chance. They want winners that can dangle carrots in front of everyone else. Many of those “unlucky” people will just whip out the credit card to catch up with the Joneses. They use kittenty RNG by design.

Using RNG does give everyone the same chance. An item that has a 1% drop rate will be the same for everyone.

Astralporing.1957:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Ayrilana.1396:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Right now I have yet to hear a disproof of unlucky people in general, let alone game accounts.

The burden is on those seeking to change the status quo to prove that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. There’s been no evidence shown in this thread (or any other) that demonstrates that the results are anything other than predictable.

At any given moment, some people have had better drops and some have had worse. Everyone agrees that happens.

The question raised in this thread is whether that same ‘luckiness’ applies to the same accounts tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…and there’s zero evidence for that.

tl;dr past performance cannot be used to predict future earnings.

The thing is, that conclusion is just pressing the prior assumption that these drops are all independent of each other. If they aren’t, well…

BTW I don’t think there are lucky or unlucky accounts. I just recognize that, without the actual code displayed for determining luck and drops, that there’s no evidence to discern between a fair system that has a random awards resembling a bell curve, or a system that is randomly unfair, and this distribution of unfairness itself resembles a bell curve.

Let’s assume that Anet released the actual code. Do you think most of the players would even understand it? They’d be relying on the what others say about it which is no different that relying on what Anet says about it.

It’s quite a bit different, really. Peer review and third party verification are useful things, and they speak volumes more than whatever company officially sanctioned post will say.

In this topic there are people seriously thinking there’s some hidden bug that Anet’s programmers can’t find. And you expect them to believe someone else who will say the code is clean? They will still think the same…

Nope. Independent verification carries a lot more weight than that.

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

Stores don’t have a fixed number of tickets. If someone bought every combination of numbers at every store then every store would win. Also, the number of winners doesn’t matter when it comes to whether the lottery companies make money.

Yeah I was talking out of my kitten there lol. Idk how this kitten works. But I do know that if the lottery worked like gw2 RNG then there would at least be one person out there that wins every week but its not and thats how you know the “RNG” in gw2 is fixed in a way.

Not really. It comes down to the number of possible combinations, number of people playing, and how many choose the same numbers.

The chance of getting a precursor from the forge is fixed. If you throw in four exotic greatswords, they have a certain chance of getting a precursor. This doesn’t change with each successive attempt. If the percentage is 1% then it will always be 1% for each attempt. It also doesn’t change from player to player.

I understand some people will always get more because thats how RNG works but when someone gets something almost every time thats when it becomes fishy.

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

You are not a developer, so you may need to check, but I would take that to mean that every account uses the exact same RNG bases, and all RNG bases in game uses the same seed value.

Would that be a correct statement?

Now granted if the seed is the hardware of the server in question itself, then all bets are out the window as the likely hood of server hardware being identical is next to nill. (hard drives die, and NICs have to have different MAC address, etc.)

Beast Sos.1457:

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

Ayrilana.1396:

Beast Sos.1457:

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

If RNG with the lottery worked the way RNG does in Gw2 then there would be at least a couple people in the world who win the lottery every week. Which doesn’t happen. If it does show me a link then I’ll kitten.

If you buy every possible lottery ticket then you can win it every week It is similar in GW2, you can buy thousands of exotic weapons and get dozens of precursors.

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

Stores don’t have a fixed number of tickets. If someone bought every combination of numbers at every store then every store would win. Also, the number of winners doesn’t matter when it comes to whether the lottery companies make money.

Yeah I was talking out of my kitten there lol. Idk how this kitten works. But I do know that if the lottery worked like gw2 RNG then there would at least be one person out there that wins every week but its not and thats how you know the “RNG” in gw2 is fixed in a way.

Not really. It comes down to the number of possible combinations, number of people playing, and how many choose the same numbers.

The chance of getting a precursor from the forge is fixed. If you throw in four exotic greatswords, they have a certain chance of getting a precursor. This doesn’t change with each successive attempt. If the percentage is 1% then it will always be 1% for each attempt. It also doesn’t change from player to player.

I understand some people will always get more because thats how RNG works but when someone gets something almost every time thats when it becomes fishy.

Not really because that how things work sometimes. Just like how someone can get nothing most of the time.

Tamasan.6457:

Yes, we’ve been over this again and again. Particularly in the ‘RNG as a concept’ thread.

But you’re forgetting something:

Anet listened.

They gave us gauranteed ways to get precursors. The collections introduced with HoT.

And they gave us the ability to change stats on ascended items.

And they gave up map rewards for things like T6 crafting materials and lodestones.

And they even increased the drop rates of rare or better items in full level 80 zones.

What more do you want?

Times like this reminds me why I despise evolutionary psychology. It isn’t a science. It is a bunch of egos taking several pre-presumed deterministic qualities and pushing them somewhere on our theoretical history. So long as they’re creative enough to come up with a circumstance, regardless of whether evidence exists for this circumstance, in which this quality will be “fit”, they happily declare any nature of humanity as deterministic and evolved, and leave it there. Then they move on to the next quality, declare it evolved, declare there was some circumstance in which it evolved, and then worship themselves for being so knowledgeable and informed. So rather than default to generic humanistic worship, I’ll explain what really goes on.

Statistical analysis is complicated, mostly because it is trying to come up with a mathematical model to describe systems that aren’t based on math at all. Whenever someone comes up with a statistic (say, the average height of a man), that means nothing to the individual. There’s no math god out there that forces people to become a certain height because the average demanded it. Really, each person is a certain height from a contribution of factors, and they will be that height regardless of how tall other people get.

These “factors” are what people are concerned with. It is more important to know why an outlier exists than it is to just say “outlier” and leave it all up to the whimsy of a nonexistent math god. When someone is 8 feet tall, there’s an explanation why, other than “outlier to a random number generator”. This is true even with things that are purportedly random, such as roulette tables and keno.

The thing is, the idea that everything has an explanation, this carries over to systems that are very heavily based on random numbers. A random number generator is an imperfect system that is designed specifically to look like there is no explanation for its outputs. It is a system that tries to be defiant of the inherent “there’s an explanation” phenomena that we’re all familiar with. It is meant to defy logic. Regardless of being random, it will produce trends, even if in theory there should be no reason why this trend would exist.

With that diatribe aside, the whole point of getting a precursor as a drop isn’t about having a precursor. It is about having the equivalent wealth of a precursor fall from the sky.

LastShot.4762:

First off, no RNG ever made can be truly random. To ask for true randomness will be like asking roll a zero or seven(or any number that’s not 1~6) with a standard six face dice, which you know it’s impossible due to limitation of the tool/device.

Curo.2483:

… most of us know that computers cannot actually create random numbers, and there must be a ‘random seed’ based off something.

Several people have commented on the “impossibility” of generating truly random numbers. Those statement, such as the ones above, are incorrect. First of all we should note that the random numbers generated by pseudo-random number generators are so close to true random for our purposes, that it’s really not a relevant argument. But, for argument’s sake, it is indeed possible to generate true random numbers from sources such as atmospheric noise and background radiation – essentially using nature’s entropy to arrive at randomness. There’s a wealth of information about these methods available if you’d like to look it up. It should be noted that these methods would be accessible from code, and therefore could be used in GW2 – however given that the difference between this and pseudo-random methods is not important in this environment, I again point out that it’s not really relevant.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Astralporing.1957:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Ayrilana.1396:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Right now I have yet to hear a disproof of unlucky people in general, let alone game accounts.

The burden is on those seeking to change the status quo to prove that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. There’s been no evidence shown in this thread (or any other) that demonstrates that the results are anything other than predictable.

At any given moment, some people have had better drops and some have had worse. Everyone agrees that happens.

The question raised in this thread is whether that same ‘luckiness’ applies to the same accounts tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…and there’s zero evidence for that.

tl;dr past performance cannot be used to predict future earnings.

The thing is, that conclusion is just pressing the prior assumption that these drops are all independent of each other. If they aren’t, well…

BTW I don’t think there are lucky or unlucky accounts. I just recognize that, without the actual code displayed for determining luck and drops, that there’s no evidence to discern between a fair system that has a random awards resembling a bell curve, or a system that is randomly unfair, and this distribution of unfairness itself resembles a bell curve.

Let’s assume that Anet released the actual code. Do you think most of the players would even understand it? They’d be relying on the what others say about it which is no different that relying on what Anet says about it.

It’s quite a bit different, really. Peer review and third party verification are useful things, and they speak volumes more than whatever company officially sanctioned post will say.

In this topic there are people seriously thinking there’s some hidden bug that Anet’s programmers can’t find. And you expect them to believe someone else who will say the code is clean? They will still think the same…

Nope. Independent verification carries a lot more weight than that.

Maybe in a different venue than an MMO forum. A lot of posters here dispute anything and everything. They’d be accusing the “independent” verifier of being on the payroll. If it were a firm rather than an amateur, they’d be accused of collusion.

There’s still the whole Occam’s Razor thing. The simplest explanation is that differential in scoring a high-value drop is adequately explained without a bias towards some accounts and against others. People don’t want to accept that either.

There’s no convincing people who’ve made their minds up that their anecdotal evidence is superior to whatever anyone says.

IndigoSundown.5419:

There’s no convincing people who’ve made their minds up that their anecdotal evidence is superior to whatever anyone says.

This is so true.

I would be glad to help and find a bug in the loot system, but without evidence and exact numbers it is difficult.

Roll dice alternating with your left and right hand. Do until you get a 6 three times.
Determine the hand that rolled the 6 twice. You have just proven that this hand is twice as lucky as the other hand.

In the heads of some people this method makes sense and is completely legit. Try not to argue with them

PS: I feel like sooner or later someone will stop reading after the first paragraph and quote it out of context. Sigh Well, we will see.

They said that they increased BL key drops. There was not even one drop in 4,5 months. NOT EVEN ONE.

Ragnarox.9601:

They said that they increased BL key drops. There was not even one drop in 4,5 months. NOT EVEN ONE.

Changing the drop rate of bltc keys from 0.0001% to 0.0002% is still an increase!

You get keys more often as map rewards than before.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Astralporing.1957:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Ayrilana.1396:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Right now I have yet to hear a disproof of unlucky people in general, let alone game accounts.

The burden is on those seeking to change the status quo to prove that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. There’s been no evidence shown in this thread (or any other) that demonstrates that the results are anything other than predictable.

At any given moment, some people have had better drops and some have had worse. Everyone agrees that happens.

The question raised in this thread is whether that same ‘luckiness’ applies to the same accounts tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…and there’s zero evidence for that.

tl;dr past performance cannot be used to predict future earnings.

The thing is, that conclusion is just pressing the prior assumption that these drops are all independent of each other. If they aren’t, well…

BTW I don’t think there are lucky or unlucky accounts. I just recognize that, without the actual code displayed for determining luck and drops, that there’s no evidence to discern between a fair system that has a random awards resembling a bell curve, or a system that is randomly unfair, and this distribution of unfairness itself resembles a bell curve.

Let’s assume that Anet released the actual code. Do you think most of the players would even understand it? They’d be relying on the what others say about it which is no different that relying on what Anet says about it.

It’s quite a bit different, really. Peer review and third party verification are useful things, and they speak volumes more than whatever company officially sanctioned post will say.

In this topic there are people seriously thinking there’s some hidden bug that Anet’s programmers can’t find. And you expect them to believe someone else who will say the code is clean? They will still think the same…

Nope. Independent verification carries a lot more weight than that.

Then get a decent number of players (20-30) together to do tons of testing on RNG. Have everyone note down EVERY possible variable that your group feels may affect the results. Magic find, the boosts to Magic find, what enemies they fight, what level and what type of items they throw into the Mystic Forge, etc. Have everyone record EVERY drop. Even note down the trash or when no rewards are given (if you go after drops from enemies). In the order received. And note down chests and then what was in the chests And have everyone then share the data on a public site and link to it so that everyone, including ANet, can look at the raw data and the variables accounted for. And make sure everyone has at least 250 items (trash or better, so keep going if they receive nothing for drops from enemies) on their list.

I still don’t get you people. You expect anet to go around individually manipulating player accounts rng? What exactly would they gain from this? Also if you think it’s a bug in the code I’m sure they’ve checked based off the amount of times they’ve responded on this topic

FlashAhAhh.4307:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

John Smith.4610:

There isn’t such thing is some accounts getting stuck lucky. Yes there’s an RNG, yes it’s random and there are streaks and outliers and an even aggregate distribution.

John Smith.4610:

wwwes.1398:

John Smith.4610:

There isn’t such thing is some accounts getting stuck lucky. Yes there’s an RNG, yes it’s random and there are streaks and outliers and an even aggregate distribution.

Can you confirm whether it is an RNG that uses some sort of value from the user’s account or whether it is purely random/session based? I have a friend who swears that smack-talking an anet dev during a beta weekend pvp match doomed his account to poor rng for life.

Absolutely it does not use anything to do with a user.

John Smith.4610:

Here’s the premise. RNG is evenly distributed on aggregate. On an individual level this means that while almost everyone falls into a reasonable range in the middle, there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all. These individuals become sample cases and spotlights for experiences that maybe shouldn’t exist.

Ironically, the randomness of the system is significantly contributes to these posts continually popping up.

You should say it as plainly as possible so there is no more confusion.. something along the lines of..

“Every account has the exact same chance on RNG. Some accounts may get better ‘rolls’ than others but that is because of probability and occurs because the system IS in fact, completely random.”

It doesn’t matter people will still say there are favoured and disfavoured accounts.

Blanche Neige.7241:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

And what proof can you give us that what you say it true?

Human laziness.

It would take an incredible amount of effort to design a system in which a single algorithm isn’t used for a loot table. The algorithm is likely not perfect, which is the problem, but it is more than likely applied to all accounts.

Seera.5916:

Then get a decent number of players (20-30) together to do tons of testing on RNG. Have everyone note down EVERY possible variable that your group feels may affect the results. Magic find, the boosts to Magic find, what enemies they fight, what level and what type of items they throw into the Mystic Forge, etc. Have everyone record EVERY drop. Even note down the trash or when no rewards are given (if you go after drops from enemies). In the order received. And note down chests and then what was in the chests And have everyone then share the data on a public site and link to it so that everyone, including ANet, can look at the raw data and the variables accounted for. And make sure everyone has at least 250 items (trash or better, so keep going if they receive nothing for drops from enemies) on their list.

If right now there are 100,000 players online and each one gets a loot bag on average every 5s your sampling is worthless. The problem is not that the sampling cannot be taken but that without extensive sampling it’s all too small.

Doesn’t ANet have the ability to see all the loot drops and see what drops per kill and see what the percents are across the player base? If they want to check how often a precursor drops from random kills, they can see that and compare it to their expected drop rate. They probably can do it mob by mob. All hyena killed for example and what drops across a period of time and whether or not it matches the percents expected. They undoubtably can see how long accounts stay as outliers also and see if they move back into the main group and how long it takes.

DGraves.3720:

Seera.5916:

Then get a decent number of players (20-30) together to do tons of testing on RNG. Have everyone note down EVERY possible variable that your group feels may affect the results. Magic find, the boosts to Magic find, what enemies they fight, what level and what type of items they throw into the Mystic Forge, etc. Have everyone record EVERY drop. Even note down the trash or when no rewards are given (if you go after drops from enemies). In the order received. And note down chests and then what was in the chests And have everyone then share the data on a public site and link to it so that everyone, including ANet, can look at the raw data and the variables accounted for. And make sure everyone has at least 250 items (trash or better, so keep going if they receive nothing for drops from enemies) on their list.

If right now there are 100,000 players online and each one gets a loot bag on average every 5s your sampling is worthless. The problem is not that the sampling cannot be taken but that without extensive sampling it’s all too small.

Players won’t be able to conclusively say that there is something wrong with the sample size. But it may show that there may be something wrong with the system.

But until the player base that claims something is wrong with the system gets off their butt and documents findings from players who claim to be on both sides of the luck spectrum and players who are in the middle, then there’s no proof that ANet is lying. And ANet has access to the code and knows what the intent of the code is supposed to.

The person who exposed the ecto problem didn’t prove that there was a problem in their findings. They proved that there might be a problem.

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

You are wrong.

Tickets (every different number combination) * ticket price >> jackpot

Actually, no. The total rewards offered from lotteries are generally 50% of the total monies spent on tickets (at least, in the US) — the rest of the money goes to admin (3-12% typically) and to social programs. They are able to do this because there are limited combinations of guaranteed value rewards and jackpot winners split the top prizes. Like any gambling, the design ensures that the house always wins.

This is why some economists call lotteries “a tax on the poor”, because a rich person (who arguably doesn’t need to win) can afford to pay 10 bucks/week with a long-term expected result of 5 bucks in winnings/week (including jackpots), whereas the poor (arguably) can’t afford to lose that money.

So if you literally bought out every winning combination of (say) 1 billion combinations, you’d end up losing 500 million dollars. (This is not counting the fact that other people play and would likely share the jackpot.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Milkshake.4038:

Beast Sos.1457:

You’re just assuming that. Even if you buy every lottery ticket in your store doesn’t mean you’ll be a winner. Not every store has a winning ticket. Or the lottery companies would be losing money.

You are wrong.

Tickets (every different number combination) * ticket price >> jackpot

Actually, no. The total rewards offered from lotteries are generally 50% of the total monies spent on tickets (at least, in the US) — the rest of the money goes to admin (3-12% typically) and to social programs. They are able to do this because there are limited combinations of guaranteed value rewards and jackpot winners split the top prizes. Like any gambling, the design ensures that the house always wins.

This is why some economists call lotteries “a tax on the poor”, because a rich person (who arguably doesn’t need to win) can afford to pay 10 bucks/week with a long-term expected result of 5 bucks in winnings/week (including jackpots), whereas the poor (arguably) can’t afford to lose that money.

So if you literally bought out every winning combination of (say) 1 billion combinations, you’d end up losing 500 million dollars. (This is not counting the fact that other people play and would likely share the jackpot.)

You just agreed with him. He said the jackpot was significantly less than the ticket income.

DGraves.3720:

Actually that is true. Random number generation systems (since none are “truly” random)

Actually there are some truly random systems for generation of random numbers.

They are based on physical phenomenon whose unpredictability can be traced to the laws of quantum mechanics. Radioactive decay is a classic example.

There are sources of radioactive decay based random numbers that can be queried via the internet.

https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/

Hardware is also available based on these principles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generator

Or said that the ‘You are wrong’ was wrong. =)

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

Scandi.5693:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

If an RNG system is working, there will be outliers on both sides of the spectrum. Meaning there will be really lucky people and really unlucky people. Nothing in the accounts makes your account lucky or unlucky. Just sheer dumb luck on which one you fall into.

If the system was NOT as random as it is, there wouldn’t be outliers like your guildmates.

Seriously, do some research into statistics and randomness.

And remember, humans can perceive patterns where none exist and we can perceive randomness as not random. Why else would Apple make their shuffle less random? You’d think that would be counter-intuitive. But true random shuffle was perceived as not as random as it could be due to human nature.

Seera.5916:

Scandi.5693:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

If an RNG system is working, there will be outliers on both sides of the spectrum. Meaning there will be really lucky people and really unlucky people. Nothing in the accounts makes your account lucky or unlucky. Just sheer dumb luck on which one you fall into.

If the system was NOT as random as it is, there wouldn’t be outliers like your guildmates.

Seriously, do some research into statistics and randomness.

And remember, humans can perceive patterns where none exist and we can perceive randomness as not random. Why else would Apple make their shuffle less random? You’d think that would be counter-intuitive. But true random shuffle was perceived as not as random as it could be due to human nature.

Yes we are impressed with your knowledge of statistics…but that being said, it does not prove their system is not flawed. I have played many MMO’s since their inception and have never in any game but this seen ‘luck’ concentrated on so few accounts. You have no knowledge of how their system works, so why defend it?

Scandi.5693:

… and have never in any game but this seen ‘luck’ concentrated on so few accounts ….

Scandi.5693:

… There are too many instances of lucky people …

you are contradicting yourself ….

Scandi.5693:

Seera.5916:

Scandi.5693:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

If an RNG system is working, there will be outliers on both sides of the spectrum. Meaning there will be really lucky people and really unlucky people. Nothing in the accounts makes your account lucky or unlucky. Just sheer dumb luck on which one you fall into.

If the system was NOT as random as it is, there wouldn’t be outliers like your guildmates.

Seriously, do some research into statistics and randomness.

And remember, humans can perceive patterns where none exist and we can perceive randomness as not random. Why else would Apple make their shuffle less random? You’d think that would be counter-intuitive. But true random shuffle was perceived as not as random as it could be due to human nature.

Yes we are impressed with your knowledge of statistics…but that being said, it does not prove their system is not flawed. I have played many MMO’s since their inception and have never in any game but this seen ‘luck’ concentrated on so few accounts. You have no knowledge of how their system works, so why defend it?

Maybe other MMO’s don’t use 100% random RNG and make sure that every account falls within the average range on the bell curve and they remove the outliers.

I have the knowledge that the ANet devs have posted. Given human tendencies to:

• Find patterns where none exist
• Remember negative streaks best
• Have a strong tendency toward confirmation bias (we’ll shape incoming information to fit our own bias)

Unless players can come up with concrete data for several accounts across hundreds of drops/forges, then I’m inclined to believe what ANet says. As they can see the code. They know what they intended the code to say.

Not saying there isn’t a glitch in the system. Just that until players are willing to put forth the effort to generate the data, the glitch isn’t likely to be discovered.

Anecdotal evidence is not concrete enough due to the nature of human memory and bias.

You have no knoweldge on how the system works, so how can you claim it’s broken?

MrTree.4890:

Amurond.4590:

X T D.6458:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

No offense, but I will never believe that for a second.

This is why they generally end up giving up responding to threads like this. It’s why I continue to get a chuckle out of them every time they appear.

Nothing they could ever say will convince those who have already made their minds up.

SirDrygan.1823:

<rng testimony>

So, you tell me if there isn’t a luck factor in a character…..

There isn’t a luck factor in a character. Unless you’re running character-specific MF buffs.

I understand what you mean these people will just not believe you because they don’t want to but tbh the devs have the same pose towards this issue they’re saying something without backing it up with evidence. How is this any less wrong then refusing to accept this truth/lie?

How exactly are they going to give you “evidence” ? Give you the entire source code showing that all accounts are treated the same? Give you a log of every single drop roll results that every single player has ever had (something that they are unlikely to have) ?

CptTrips.6512:

Scandi.5693:

… and have never in any game but this seen ‘luck’ concentrated on so few accounts ….

Scandi.5693:

… There are too many instances of lucky people …

you are contradicting yourself ….

No I am not, I just dont know if luck is the proper word considering I think it is poor loot generator. But they are lucky in that their accounts ended up with the endless loot.

Scandi.5693:

CptTrips.6512:

Scandi.5693:

… and have never in any game but this seen ‘luck’ concentrated on so few accounts ….

Scandi.5693:

… There are too many instances of lucky people …

you are contradicting yourself ….

No I am not, I just dont know if luck is the proper word considering I think it is poor loot generator. But they are lucky in that their accounts ended up with the endless loot.

There is a chance that there is a lucky player out there that everytime he sticks in 4 level 80 exotic weapons into the Mystic Forge he gets a precursor out of it. Without there being anything wrong with the RNG of the game.

Because it’s true, independent RNG. Each time the system references the loot table, it ignores previous drops except in the case of unique drops like in the case of collection items. And those are likely on a different table than the general loot table.

The other games you’ve played may not use a true, independent RNG for their system. They may use one that factors in what they got on the last few drops. So that players don’t fall on the outlier side.

Neither way is all good or all bad. The way GW2’s does it, means that each time you do something, the chances remain the same. So if you end up on a good streak, it won’t suddenly be ruined because you’ve gotten too lucky.

Conversely, this does mean that players can fall on the unlucky side every time or the lucky side every time and it not be because the system is broken. It’s just due to how things work with true, independent RNG.

However, with the other MMO’s, you get a higher chance of better drops if you have an unlucky streak, but conversely, you’d have a higher chance of starting to get trash drops if you have a lucky streak. And you’d be crazy to think they don’t factor that into the loot table base chances when they create them.

papry.8096:

Ayrilana.1396:

papry.8096:

Beast Sos.1457:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

Then how do you explain a person getting 5 precursors in 20 forges? Luck? Hell no because that same guy will get a precursor drop off a mob in WvW then the next day will get 3 ascended chests and the next day will get another pre off a random mob…. While a person like me can play for 4k hours and not get a single pre.

Same here around 5K hours; no matter what I play or what I put in the forge (& I did put a lot before the prec annoucement like all my yellow weap since 3 years) I never got one.

During this time lot of people of my guild got prec from forge.

Fractal is the same kind of bullkitten: 1 guildmate get an ascended chest almost every 4 days (even 2 sometimes), me none since one month.

So please stop with the “everything fine” when it’s not.

Hours played doesn’t matter when it comes to precursor drops.

Everything is fine. You’re only focusing on the outliers on either end which is not representative of how things are.

I don’t pretend to do statistics & in all truth; I don’t care. This is just unrewarding.
Spending time in the game to have bad reward most of/all the time(no precursor & almost no ascended chest drop) whereas someone have a lot.
That’s the point there.

So basically you’re just unreasonably jealous and angry over something that doesn’t personally affect you. Like when a complete stranger or a friend wins the lottery and you get angry that they won and you didn’t. Because you somehow associate your sense of self worth with in this case in-game wealth/reward.

Scandi.5693:

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

If you give them a lot of rares they will get many precursors Ask your friends to give rares to you and you will be the lucky one who gets precursors.

Milkshake.4038:

Scandi.5693:

I do not believe this for one moment. There are too many instances of lucky people. Even in our guild we have two that get so many precursors, we pool our rares in the guild bank and let them do the turn ins for us. One person has had over 30 precursors since the games launch and has made every legendary (up to and including nevermore-is working on the other new ones), even underwater ones because, why not. Deny all you want, but your system is broken.

If you give them a lot of rares they will get many precursors Ask your friends to give rares to you and you will be the lucky one who gets precursors.

I wish that were so, I forge and throw a great deal of rares into the forge. I am not without luck, I have gotten 2 pre’s from the forge, but that is with far greater effort and cost. But others just throw in anything anytime and get a pre. But anyway, am off, have a great day.

Scandi.5693:

I wish that were so, I forge and throw a great deal of rares into the forge. I am not without luck, I have gotten 2 pre’s from the forge, but that is with far greater effort and cost. But others just throw in anything anytime and get a pre. But anyway, am off, have a great day.

This is about variance, it is huge in this case. There will be players who claim to get a precursor often. It is up to you to believe them or not.

I have 2 problems with this “anything anytime and get a pre”:

1. The market isn’t flooded with precursors, they are quite rare and expensive.
2. There is no evidence of their claim (there are some videos on youtube, but getting 3 precursors from 34 attempts with exotics is fine).

Beast Sos.1457:

I understand some people will always get more because thats how RNG works but when someone gets something almost every time thats when it becomes fishy.

Do you know what is the chance of getting randomly struck by lightning? And surviving? There’s supposedly a man in Australia that has been struck over a 10 times already and still lives. I smell conspiracy.

Nate.3927:

papry.8096:

Ayrilana.1396:

papry.8096:

Beast Sos.1457:

John Smith.4610:

Every account has the exact same chance on RNG.

Then how do you explain a person getting 5 precursors in 20 forges? Luck? Hell no because that same guy will get a precursor drop off a mob in WvW then the next day will get 3 ascended chests and the next day will get another pre off a random mob…. While a person like me can play for 4k hours and not get a single pre.

Same here around 5K hours; no matter what I play or what I put in the forge (& I did put a lot before the prec annoucement like all my yellow weap since 3 years) I never got one.

During this time lot of people of my guild got prec from forge.

Fractal is the same kind of bullkitten: 1 guildmate get an ascended chest almost every 4 days (even 2 sometimes), me none since one month.

So please stop with the “everything fine” when it’s not.

Hours played doesn’t matter when it comes to precursor drops.

Everything is fine. You’re only focusing on the outliers on either end which is not representative of how things are.

I don’t pretend to do statistics & in all truth; I don’t care. This is just unrewarding.
Spending time in the game to have bad reward most of/all the time(no precursor & almost no ascended chest drop) whereas someone have a lot.
That’s the point there.

So basically you’re just unreasonably jealous and angry over something that doesn’t personally affect you. Like when a complete stranger or a friend wins the lottery and you get angry that they won and you didn’t. Because you somehow associate your sense of self worth with in this case in-game wealth/reward.

Yes you can say it like that, except that this doesn’t steems from one occurence but multiples one.

I do the content with that person regulary. I don’t loot anything. he loot a lot.
Meaning my time playing doesn’t equate to his time in term of reward.
When this happens again & again & again & again & again & again with the same person; It doesn’t feel right.

When that happen for 2 years straight with one guildie getting multiple precursor in the mystic forge when you throw all your yellow in it, like him or even craft yellow to throw them in forge regulary.
At one point, you are bound to ask yourself “Why the kitten can’t I get even one ?”

Scandi.5693:

I wish that were so, I forge and throw a great deal of rares into the forge. I am not without luck, I have gotten 2 pre’s from the forge, but that is with far greater effort and cost. But others just throw in anything anytime and get a pre.

Are you sure? Do you really know everything they throw in the forge?
Because it may seem that someone that got a pre after throwing only 4 rares is really lucky, when you ignore all the previous (or possibly future) days of throwing stuff to Zommoros and getting nothing for it.