Guild Wars 2

Crazy isn’t looking at things objectively with historical precedent and determining that there’s a pattern here, crazy is brushing it off over and over again and thinking that certain explanations for these behaviors are actually the explanations for what’s happening.

RNG doesn’t make loot or rewards disappear, it makes it drop something else entirely. DR makes loot disappear. It’s really that simple.

Andred.1087:

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

Funny thing, I dont think the devs ever admitted it existed (nor will they) but there was a bug early on in the game which clearly showed that accounts where not equal. Some players experienced consistent throttling of event awards – they couldnt achieve gold even if they soloed the events.

CureForLiving.5360:

And you’re rather condescending. See everyone is something, otherwise we’d be nothing. So everyone is something, except those who are nothing but they’re nothing so they’re not part of everyone so everyone is still something.

Nah, I’m nothing but gas and wind. Maybe a piece of bacon, in the middle.

Besides, the smiley was there because I was actually laughing as I wrote that. Because I’ve been around the block enough to know the complaints won’t stop. They’ll just change the tune slightly. Probably to how tough it is to acquire a Precursor through the new method.

Varrg.2704:

wow, people actually defend the abominable RNG in this game. I guess you drones will eat anything.

At least we understand a concept before complaining about it.

Everyone else gets mini teq and wurm though, because the price is pretty low now. I’ve never gotten anything from them either and just bought the minis. Unfortunatly can’t do that for Ascended armor boxes but farming those in general is impossible.

What the other person said that random is an illusion and knowing all the variables there is no random. He is 100% correct.
Even in a simple example like a coin toss, if you know the angle, the force, the distance of the arc it will make, the air pressure, mass of the coin, air resistance of the coin and all the variables, you can predict with 100% of success the results.
Same with in game RNG, every software needs a “seed” to generate a random number, most of the system use among that seed number things like current time stamp, machine mac-address and so on, and an ANet dev already said that account info isn’t used in the RNG, so if some genius know all the parameters needed to create the number, he will be able to predict for sure what will be the result.

Its quite funny and sad that people accept this type of reward/rng system in a b2p game. I have played f2p and even f2p/p2w games that are more rewarding than this game which is saying alot.

Maybe they need to add a spoon vendor that will turn those useless extra spoons in to something you want from the boss drops.

Lifestealer.4910:

Its quite funny and sad that people accept this type of reward/rng system in a b2p game. I have played f2p and even f2p/p2w games that are more rewarding than this game which is saying alot.

pw2 games. Rewarding. Lold

Lifestealer.4910:

Its quite funny and sad that people accept this type of reward/rng system in a b2p game. I have played f2p and even f2p/p2w games that are more rewarding than this game which is saying alot.

Of course I accept this type of reward system (RNG); I’ve been playing with it for 20+ years now. It’s a matter of realizing if you want it bad enough, then it’s time to start putting your time to work for you on it.

Is it pleasant? Not all the time, really.

Can it be done better? Yeah, probably.

Dragon Warrior 2 had a supremely useful item as a random drop, from a rare enemy group, which would run at the drop of a hat and possibly TPK if they all stuck and fought. It also had a slot machine for a 25% discount item, which could only be accessed by RNG blessing you when the shopkeeper decided to hand you a ticket.

Baldur’s Gate had a lot of the nice stuff be non-random. And attached to RNG in other terrible, terrible ways. (Instakill attacks randomly targeting among six party members, and if it’s the main character then game over.)

EverQuest was the king of wasting time, what with it’s two-tiered RNG approach to really useful loot (first you have to hope the placeholder doesn’t spawn this time, then you have to hope the loot you actually want drops).

It’s really bad in SquareEnix games, though Atlus manages to one-up them by a bonus boss which can only be beaten via having a tremendous amount of lucky reactions and timing. And a lot of grinding setup which means you have a chance. Oh, and Atlus’ early partner in crimes, Nippon Ichi? Even more hilariously terrifying RNG involved in its Disgaea family of games. Also much more hilariously incredible grind.

Guild Wars 1 pinned its “highest prestige” armor set on two different items which only dropped in a single area each with no crossover, and while you could buy them off a trader it required people to be selling them to the trader. Six years of playtime and not even 10% of the way to earning it. Oh, and the chance of getting a green-rarity miniature out of a birthday gift . . .

Yeah, I’m kind of used to the whole “RNG sucks” aspect. Jaded, if you might accept the term.

Halvorn.9831:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Knighthonor.4061:

Kal Spiro.9745:

OH NOES! RNGESUS SAVE ME!

RNG is RNG?

Not sure what you want. Some people don’t get anything, some people get everything. Welcome to the outliers.

Nothing in computer programming is truly RANDOM.

That’s a misconception. RNG is the illusion of randomness.

Everything is the illusion of randomness. If you know all the variables nothing is random.

Don’t let a guy named Heisenberg read this. You’re wrong on a very basic level of the fabric of our universe

Edit: Gnarf, too slow…

But while I am at it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Actually I’m not. Because you are incapable of knowing all of those variables by the nature of their mechanics. My statement is true. They would not be able to be random if you could know them, that you can’t doesn’t change the fact.

The point of the statement was that computerized RNG is generally random by a sufficient level of entropy, most people consider it otherwise though because in the case of a computer all the variables can always be known and as such it does not seem random because it can be predicted.

Andred.1087:

I’m gonna go ahead and call total BS that you’ve done them every single day since release. I would be shocked to find a single human being that has done this.

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

BS—-John Smith has confirmed there are lucky/unlucky accounts. Refers to them as outliers—-they do exist!!!!
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1553-john-smith-outlines-discussion-of-rng-changes/

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually I’m not. Because you are incapable of knowing all of those variables by the nature of their mechanics. My statement is true. They would not be able to be random if you could know them, that you can’t doesn’t change the fact.

Assuming the variables are knowable, you are correct, but I do not think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that quantum mechanics might be deterministic. Way off topic though.

Blude.6812:

Andred.1087:

I’m gonna go ahead and call total BS that you’ve done them every single day since release. I would be shocked to find a single human being that has done this.

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

BS—-John Smith has confirmed there are lucky/unlucky accounts. Refers to them as outliers—-they do exist!!!!
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1553-john-smith-outlines-discussion-of-rng-changes/

They are not special accounts with special mechanics or variables that make them lucky or unlucky. Outlier is in reference to a bell curve. The majority of any populous should exist near the peak with the very middle being optimal fairness. Down on the left and right are the outliers. The few who for some reason consistently get higher or lower results than the general populous.

That is why I specifically welcomed the OP to the outliers earlier in the thread.

Andred.1087:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually I’m not. Because you are incapable of knowing all of those variables by the nature of their mechanics. My statement is true. They would not be able to be random if you could know them, that you can’t doesn’t change the fact.

Assuming the variables are knowable, you are correct, but I do not think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that quantum mechanics might be deterministic. Way off topic though.

By the very nature of itself it is not because you can only ever know half of the variables, at best, and not all of them at any given moment.

Outliers are still important to talk about even if they’re just unlucky by random chance.

I don’t know how long we’ve been asking this but I would really appreciate a token system for Teq and Wurm to get their unqiue items instead of the RNG-ness we have today.

welcome to gw2 rng drop rate i want see your face when after 350 tequatless kills you will not have any hoard or ascended chest like me and when your friend will after 20 teq kills will have 5 ascended drop

Blude.6812:

Andred.1087:

I’m gonna go ahead and call total BS that you’ve done them every single day since release. I would be shocked to find a single human being that has done this.

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

BS—-John Smith has confirmed there are lucky/unlucky accounts. Refers to them as outliers—-they do exist!!!!
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1553-john-smith-outlines-discussion-of-rng-changes/

That’s not because of some variable in their account that ups their chances of getting things or lowers their chances of getting things.

You have to land on a specific number or within a specific range to get a specific item.

Some people just have a streak of rolling the right numbers. Some people have a streak of rolling the wrong numbers.

And there will be people who for the few years the game has been out have just consistently been on one side or the other. Those are the outliers. But most people roll a combination of good rolls and bad rolls. The outliers who roll badly are just more vocal than the outliers who roll well.

An experiment could be set up where 100 people were told to flip a coin with equally weighted sides. They were told to flip it 100 times. There may be one or two people who get 90+ tails or 90+ heads. But most would likely land relatively close to the 50/50 split that should happen. And if you added everyone’s flips together, the distribution would still likely be close to the 50/50 split.

Those who flipped 90+ tails or 90+ heads did not have a coin that was weighted. They just lucked into it.

Same with outliers who don’t get much if any or the outliers who get a lot in GW2.

Seera.5916:

Blude.6812:

Andred.1087:

I’m gonna go ahead and call total BS that you’ve done them every single day since release. I would be shocked to find a single human being that has done this.

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

BS—-John Smith has confirmed there are lucky/unlucky accounts. Refers to them as outliers—-they do exist!!!!
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1553-john-smith-outlines-discussion-of-rng-changes/

That’s not because of some variable in their account that ups their chances of getting things or lowers their chances of getting things.

You have to land on a specific number or within a specific range to get a specific item.

Some people just have a streak of rolling the right numbers. Some people have a streak of rolling the wrong numbers.

And there will be people who for the few years the game has been out have just consistently been on one side or the other. Those are the outliers. But most people roll a combination of good rolls and bad rolls. The outliers who roll badly are just more vocal than the outliers who roll well.

An experiment could be set up where 100 people were told to flip a coin with equally weighted sides. They were told to flip it 100 times. There may be one or two people who get 90+ tails or 90+ heads. But most would likely land relatively close to the 50/50 split that should happen. And if you added everyone’s flips together, the distribution would still likely be close to the 50/50 split.

Those who flipped 90+ tails or 90+ heads did not have a coin that was weighted. They just lucked into it.

Same with outliers who don’t get much if any or the outliers who get a lot in GW2.

They already stated about ideas to fix that and the solution they gave was easy and simple.

Token like systems on top of RNG.

Those who pray tot he rng gods and do well, get what they want, and those who don’t will have a “participation” or token system to get loot, so even the worst rng offenders get something eventually. These means the lucky people will get really lucky, but thats better than people not getting anything.

Yeah, token system would be the best solution in my opinion, I hope anet listen to us and change it in a feature patch or something.

Unfortunately, ANet have seen fit to give us abysmally low rates for half decent drops. Some people are just lucky. I know someone playing for 4 days that got a precursor drop, and I know people who have been playing from the start that have never even seen an ascended chest.

This kind of thing happens when you’re dealing with rates in the 0.0X% range

rapthorne.7345:

Unfortunately, ANet have seen fit to give us abysmally low rates for half decent drops.

I dunno, I tend to get Rares I can use fairly often.

When I have time I command Teq runs and on one particular night the chest was particularly generous as there were lots of players with ascended chests, hoards and one supremely lucky fellow who got Colossus. I got another spoon. shrugs Depends on how much importance you attach to a few pixels.

If acquiring these pixels is the be all and end all for you a player, what’s left when they get it and craft that legendary? Personally, I don’t mind the RNG so much. Playing without a goal opens up broader horizons to enjoy myself in whatever I happen to be doing whether it be dungeons, fractals, SW, VW, bosses, Tequatl, Wurm, TP flipping, guiding guildies through fractals, bounties and what have you.

johnnymiller.5968:

The rng is this game is terrible as lot of us know. OP, its no worse than playing this game for 27 months & never having a precursor drop. Or throwing 1250 rare & 56 exotic (approx) greatswords in forge consecutively (today) without obtaining a precursor. No doubt many others could share their frustrations over rng.

Noooo! Why did you do that? 1250 rare greatswords at 40s each and 56 exotic greatswords at 2.5g each is 640g. You can (or could a couple of days ago) buy Dawn for 725 at the sell price. Why gamble when you could have had a sure thing?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

rapthorne.7345:

Unfortunately, ANet have seen fit to give us abysmally low rates for half decent drops.

I dunno, I tend to get Rares I can use fairly often.

Rares that get salvaged into mats are not “decent drops”

Dawdler.8521:

Andred.1087:

In any case, the devs have clearly stated on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as lucky or unlucky accounts. That is purely rumor perpetuated by disgruntled players who refuse to believe that the universe isn’t totally fair, or something like that.

Funny thing, I dont think the devs ever admitted it existed (nor will they) but there was a bug early on in the game which clearly showed that accounts where not equal. Some players experienced consistent throttling of event awards – they couldnt achieve gold even if they soloed the events.

Outliers again. The bug was not tied to any specific account or group of accounts – it could affect everyone. And it was not throttling, it was a bug in the event/drop tagging routines. There was also a bug with DR getting stuck, but again, it was not tied to specific accounts.

tigirius.9014:

Welcome to the ugly side of DR.

This happened before in the past. Whole dungeon runs on all three paths suddenly stopped dropping a single treasure chest.

When this happened before people didn’t resist it they knew what the culprit was and they demanded it be fixed but I think we need to go a step furter.

DR needs to be removed entirely because when have you ever played a tabletop MMO or a console game and had it retroactively take away the loot you just found?

That’s exactly what DR does in this game, it makes it gone.

Oh and to those who keep saying it’s RNG, RNG actually let’s you get something, it might not be what you want but it’s something. DR makes it so that that something doesn’t exist for you and in the case of their account system, doesn’t exist for your account.

^^^This, so much this.

And that is why people swear RNG varies by account. They are only half right. It is the account, but it is the DR score, not the loot tables themselves. Just like magic find affects the loot rolls, DR affects it too. I suspect the explosion of magic find has prompted them to increase DR penalties.

Belzebu.3912:

What the other person said that random is an illusion and knowing all the variables there is no random. He is 100% correct.
Even in a simple example like a coin toss, if you know the angle, the force, the distance of the arc it will make, the air pressure, mass of the coin, air resistance of the coin and all the variables, you can predict with 100% of success the results.
Same with in game RNG, every software needs a “seed” to generate a random number, most of the system use among that seed number things like current time stamp, machine mac-address and so on, and an ANet dev already said that account info isn’t used in the RNG, so if some genius know all the parameters needed to create the number, he will be able to predict for sure what will be the result.

The seed is randomly reset in a typical RNG function. It can be made to repeat if that is what you want. And while ultimately an arbitrary rather than random pattern, consider attempting to recreate a sequence from a simple RNG function if you only know the first number.

Loot tables are static but magic find and it’s counterpart DR are not.

The RNG is the way they want it to be. Everyone knows that in a game with low rewards overall, people will buy what they want. This game has a number of ways to get gold, so the rewards need to be low enough to encourage the useage of the system that’s in place.

Lifestealer.4910:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

rapthorne.7345:

Unfortunately, ANet have seen fit to give us abysmally low rates for half decent drops.

I dunno, I tend to get Rares I can use fairly often.

Rares that get salvaged into mats are not “decent drops”

So define “decent drops” because I had enough Rares drop through World Boss tours (especially Teq) to kit my Warrior up when he hit 80 and before I could get Temple Armor.

Yes, that includes weapons. Three sets.

Define “decent drops”. If you decide to put it as “exotic or rares worth X gold”, you’ve lost me already in understanding how to use “decent” as a descriptor.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The point of the statement was that computerized RNG is generally random by a sufficient level of entropy, most people consider it otherwise though because in the case of a computer all the variables can always be known and as such it does not seem random because it can be predicted.

No, the variables can’t be known all. If you take a naive implementation, you may be right, but it’s extremely easy (and it is done this way btw) to use the time stamps of incoming network messages as a source for entropy. These cannot be controlled from inside the computer and because of collisions on the various network segments etc.

Then I use an algorithm where all players share the same RNG for all of their actions that require a percentage calculation. Done with deterministics. Because the values you get also depend on the reaction times of the player, which partly depend on their brain and muscle structures. It’s not only “too many parameters to be known”. It’s non-deterministic, because it is a chaotic system whose start parameters are varying even down to quantum fluctuations. And as far as science knows at this point of time, these are “true” random.

RollingBob.8502:

Belzebu.3912:

things

The seed is randomly reset in a typical RNG function. It can be made to repeat if that is what you want. And while ultimately an arbitrary rather than random pattern, consider attempting to recreate a sequence from a simple RNG function if you only know the first number.

Loot tables are static but magic find and it’s counterpart DR are not.

Not really randomly reset because in computing there are no “true” random, all it is done is create several layers or algorithms where the resulting number is based in hard to follow values, like current used CPU clock for example, and based in that result get another parameter to base the RNG and so on.

EDIT: I know that theoretically one can predict the results of a RNG if he knows all the variables, but in reality it is just impossible to do.

Belzebu.3912:

Not really randomly reset because in computing there are no “true” random, all it is done is create several layers or algorithms where the resulting number is based in hard to follow values, like current used CPU clock for example, and based in that result get another parameter to base the RNG and so on.

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

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lifestealer.4910:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

rapthorne.7345:

Unfortunately, ANet have seen fit to give us abysmally low rates for half decent drops.

I dunno, I tend to get Rares I can use fairly often.

Rares that get salvaged into mats are not “decent drops”

So define “decent drops” because I had enough Rares drop through World Boss tours (especially Teq) to kit my Warrior up when he hit 80 and before I could get Temple Armor.

Yes, that includes weapons. Three sets.

Define “decent drops”. If you decide to put it as “exotic or rares worth X gold”, you’ve lost me already in understanding how to use “decent” as a descriptor.

There are still people that gears up on rares!?!

Exotics are decent drop but guess what?.. There is a average of 1-2 exotic drop per MONTH, that is pathetic.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Varrg.2704:

wow, people actually defend the abominable RNG in this game. I guess you drones will eat anything.

At least we understand a concept before complaining about it.

what concept? “If you want something nice, you gotta buy it from game store, no way we are giving you something for free by actually playing our game”?

Halvorn.9831:

Belzebu.3912:

Not really randomly reset because in computing there are no “true” random, all it is done is create several layers or algorithms where the resulting number is based in hard to follow values, like current used CPU clock for example, and based in that result get another parameter to base the RNG and so on.

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

I didn’t know about a hardware RNG, really interesting, I only knew at the software level, good to know

Halvorn.9831:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The point of the statement was that computerized RNG is generally random by a sufficient level of entropy, most people consider it otherwise though because in the case of a computer all the variables can always be known and as such it does not seem random because it can be predicted.

No, the variables can’t be known all. If you take a naive implementation, you may be right, but it’s extremely easy (and it is done this way btw) to use the time stamps of incoming network messages as a source for entropy. These cannot be controlled from inside the computer and because of collisions on the various network segments etc.

Then I use an algorithm where all players share the same RNG for all of their actions that require a percentage calculation. Done with deterministics. Because the values you get also depend on the reaction times of the player, which partly depend on their brain and muscle structures. It’s not only “too many parameters to be known”. It’s non-deterministic, because it is a chaotic system whose start parameters are varying even down to quantum fluctuations. And as far as science knows at this point of time, these are “true” random.

Isn’t the first thing I said that it was random? What exactly are you arguing here?

The RNG is fine, the base rewards for doing content is way higher than most other mmos i’ve played.

Belzebu.3912:

RollingBob.8502:

Belzebu.3912:

things

The seed is randomly reset in a typical RNG function. It can be made to repeat if that is what you want. And while ultimately an arbitrary rather than random pattern, consider attempting to recreate a sequence from a simple RNG function if you only know the first number.

Loot tables are static but magic find and it’s counterpart DR are not.

Not really randomly reset because in computing there are no “true” random, all it is done is create several layers or algorithms where the resulting number is based in hard to follow values, like current used CPU clock for example, and based in that result get another parameter to base the RNG and so on.

EDIT: I know that theoretically one can predict the results of a RNG if he knows all the variables, but in reality it is just impossible to do.

Right, arbitary vs random being pretty much semantic differences for the same thing in this case. It doesn’t matter because the differences we do know that are applied to the resultant permutation (the loot table lookup) are huge. Magic find as the obvious example.

Varrg.2704:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Varrg.2704:

wow, people actually defend the abominable RNG in this game. I guess you drones will eat anything.

At least we understand a concept before complaining about it.

what concept? “If you want something nice, you gotta buy it from game store, no way we are giving you something for free by actually playing our game”?

No, the concept of RNG. How it works, where are its strong points, and weaknesses. Thanks to which, when we do complain (and, we do, frequently) we don’t use conspiracy theory arguments, or wild claims, like your one above, that are so overblown they end up easily debunked (both of which make it unlikely anyone will treat you seriously).

Lifestealer.4910:

There are still people that gears up on rares!?!

Yeah, guess what? PvE it’s not that much make-or-break.

Exotics are decent drop but guess what?.. There is a average of 1-2 exotic drop per MONTH, that is pathetic.

Yup, we’re done talking here. Your expectations are outside the normal.

emikochan.8504:

The RNG is fine, the base rewards for doing content is way higher than most other mmos i’ve played.

Yeah rewards are too cool, the problem is that 99,9% (in my case 100%) of the times you will play the content but won’t get the reward.

Is it really too hard to make a progression system like the one at pvp for pve big events like teq, wurm etc? Or maybe a token system like dungeons?

I don’t care if I have to kill 30 wurms to get an armor piece, I just want to see some progression.

It’s completely disappointing to do something everyday since months for nothing.