Guild Wars 2

My good fortune in the Dragon Coffers has made me realize that something is really wrong with the way RNG is handled in this game, and I’m wondering if the forums really are right about Dimishing Returns affecting it adversely.

The situation I’ve viewed is this: I received a dragon ticket after 3 coffers. Yes, 3. Not 3 that sitting. Not 3 that week. I mean I opened 3 dragon coffers TOTAL, in all time, and got a ticket. That was pretty awesome, I thought, and I was very happy. I understand RNG is luck, and I just got SUPER lucky, but bear with me here…

My girlfriend has been trying for a ticket, as well. Since I have what I wanted, I’ve saved all my coffers and gave them to her. Combined with the coffers she has gotten, she has opened roughly 2 full stacks of coffers (that’s 500 coffers). In 500 coffers, she has received a grand total of ZERO tickets.

I get one after 3, she gets none after 500.

I understand this is luck based but… isn’t that a bit excessive? Surely I’m not the only person to see a flaw in this design.

So, is it true that DR decreases the chance of you getting a ticket the more you open? Where you might have a (incoming arbitrary numbers) 1 in 1000 chance of getting it on the first box, but that might increase to 1 in 5000 after you open a stack of coffers? I’m honestly curious about this.

I don’t think so.

I open coffers as and when I get them, I think the most I’ve opened in one go is 6 but I must have opened over 100 in total and I haven’t had a single ticket. Quite a few minis though.

Nope, I opened over 1000 before I got my first ticket. RNG isn’t intuitive when dealing with tiny percentages, that’s all that’s going on here.

DR is a mechanic specific to mob loot tables and dungeon rewards, it doesn’t effect package items or chests.

Even 500 isn’t that many with no ticket. They are really, really rare in coffers. I suspect there will be many posts coming in saying they’re in the 1000’s at least with no ticket. I’d say I’m about at 1k with no ticket, and it also took me 28 rich coffers to get one

Wow! Thanks for the replies, all. I guess I got really lucky with my ticket. REALLY lucky. Way more lucky than I originally thought lol

Tolmos.8395:

Wow! Thanks for the replies, all. I guess I got really lucky with my ticket. REALLY lucky. Way more lucky than I originally thought lol

The computer doesn’t know – or care – how many chests you open, how many times you roll the dice, how many times you shuffle the cards. Every time has exactly the same chance of a specific result happening whether it’s the 1st time or 100,000th time.

The complaints about RNG are based in entitlement behavior. That is, people are saying to themselves “I should have gotten X by now, so something is wrong because I didn’t get it.” The game isn’s Santa Claus, checking names on a list… oh, Tommy has played for 1000 hours, so it’s time he gets his precursor… Bob has done the Shadow Behemoth event 500 times so he should get Final Rest…

The computer doesn’t care about these things. It just spits out a number, and if that number matches Final Rest, you get it. Yes, you did get very lucky with the ticket. In a game where millions of these chests are opened every hour there will be a few situations like that happening.

tolunart.2095:

Tolmos.8395:

Wow! Thanks for the replies, all. I guess I got really lucky with my ticket. REALLY lucky. Way more lucky than I originally thought lol

The computer doesn’t know – or care – how many chests you open, how many times you roll the dice, how many times you shuffle the cards. Every time has exactly the same chance of a specific result happening whether it’s the 1st time or 100,000th time.

That’s completely true, but opening more chests does also increase your chance of getting a ticket. 100 0.01% chances are better than 1 0.01% chance.

The part where I think a lot of people get confused is that it’s not cumulative. If something has a 1 in 1000 chance of happening it doesn’t mean it will happen on your 1000th attempt, or that if you try 1000 times you WILL get it. All it means is that in total, across all the attempts 1 succeeds for every 999 that don’t. But someone else might get 2 in their 1000 trys and you might need 1100 to get even 1.

If the drop data in the wiki can be relied on, standard coffers are around 2000:1 while rich coffers are round 80:1 for a ticket.

With 500 standard coffers, there is a 77.9% chance of not getting one, a 19.5% chance of getting one and a 2.6% chance of getting more than one.

There are different types of random number generators and some are, how shall we say it, more random then others. Generators that use a fixed seed will return a set of numbers that will eventually repeat, that is there is a pattern to them. Those that use a random seed will produce a wider variety of results. These generators, called pseudo random number generators are commonly used in computer games as they can return a result faster then hardware dependent rngs. Thus it is possible that one person with a fixed seed could very well experience worse luck then another person and that “luck” is not because of true rng but due to the type of rng used.

How can diminishing returns affect a randomly generated number?

Unless the devs are using a “different type of rng” like stated above.

God Of Fissures.8627:

How can diminishing returns affect a randomly generated number?

Unless the devs are using a “different type of rng” like stated above.

Well, apparently it isn’t BUT in answer to your question in terms of what I THOUGHT it was doing: Random number generators pick a number within a range based on a particular seed, right? I assumed that DR would increase that range. So if you had to roll a 1 or something to get a ticket, then the range could originally be like 0-2000. But as DR increases, the range increase to 0-2500. or 0-3000. On and on. Your odds get worse the more you farm.

Was my theory, in any case. Turns out it was wrong. But that’s what I was thinking.