Guild Wars 2

hey everyone.. seems a lot of people are unhappy about the RNG aspect of getting mystic clovers.. I did some computations and it seems here’s a good way of looking at it:

if you do the 1 clover recipe 303 times, you have 99.9% chance of getting the 77 clovers
you need.

So instead of thinking of this as gambling for 77 clovers (which is awful when you’re on a bad run), think of it as: once you’ve saved up enough for 303 applications of the recipe, you’re “guaranteed” to get the 77 you need. You may have a few bad runs at the forge but ignore them — as long as you’ve saved up enough for 303 tries, you’re all set!

Thought of in this way, getting your 77 mystic clovers “equals” grinding for a fixed number of materials — with the bonus that you’ll most likely have some left over!
(perhaps for your second legendary?)

by the way, with the 10 clover recipe, you’re 99.9% guaranteed to get what you need after 31 tries.

here are a few more numbers just for fun (1 clover recipe):

after 230 tries, there’s 50% chance you’ve already got the 77 you need.
after 249 tries, there’s 80% chance you’re already done.
after 259 tries, there’s 90% chance you’re finished.
after 284 tries, there’s 99% chance you’ve already got what you wanted.

Disclaimer: of course it’s possible that you’re the unluckiest person in the world and don’t get your 77 after 303 tries, but then you probably don’t deserve anything named
“gift of fortune” LOL!

Edit: I used 33% probability to get a clover per try (from the wiki) .. but as it’s been pointed out, the 33% is a guess from a sample size of 159. Perhaps someone should add a disclaimer on the wiki?

Edit 2: For those who feel particularly unlucky, 350 tries should give you 99.9999% chance of getting your 77. (still assuming 33% clover rate)

What data did you base your calculations on?

So, in other words, one in a hundred players will need at least 285 tries? One in thousand at least 304? In a game with few million accounts that is a huge number.

Did mine in around 170 tries. I know its lucky but my first 50 which were singles were very unlucky. After taking some advice i did stacks of 10 and got on a winning streak.

To do them in 303 tries the probability of that would be very low.

Edit: by 170 tries i mean 170 ectos used and i think that was a 45% success rate instead of 33.3%

I did 3×10 clover recepie and 7x 1 clover one and I have 35 clovers. I did not do it in a single day just when I got enough ectos to play with.

TWMagimay.9057:

What data did you base your calculations on?

33% chance of getting a clover per try — according to the wiki…

I hope that number is right… but to now hear that someone did it in 115 tries (the post above) that 33% sounds a bit fishy!

Lord Kuru.3685:

TWMagimay.9057:

What data did you base your calculations on?

33% chance of getting a clover per try — according to the wiki…

I hope that number is right… but to now hear that someone did it in 115 tries (the post above) that 33% sounds a bit fishy!

Sorry that may have been me. The 115 was a typo. I did it by using a total of 171 ectos. My spreadsheet values below. I’m not sure how many singles or 10’s i did but i think its around 61 singles and 11*10’s

Clover Tries 171
Clovers 77
Conversion Ratio 45%
Completion Ratio 100%

I completed this at 45% success which is way higher than the 33% shown in the wiki so i was wondering if its really 33% or if i was just lucky

I was doing 1 clover recipes in 10 ecto/coin/shard groups. From each group of 10 i got at least 3 clovers which goes along with ~33.3% chance. I spent only about 40 ectos and i know its small sample size so far but i will keep doing it in groups of 10 and gather data for further analysis.

The law of large numbers concept applies here…. Individually, some may end up having a better success rate than others, but on aggregate the chance still hashes out to a 1/3 chance doing the 1 clover recipe.

Lord Kuru.3685:

TWMagimay.9057:

What data did you base your calculations on?

33% chance of getting a clover per try — according to the wiki…

Saw in the other clover topic that the 33% chance was based on 159 tries, a remarkably low sample size. Wiki is pretty much fan-made, only the devs have the real value. Without that, your calculations are pure guesswork. Also, probability is just that, probable. There is nothing even remotely guaranteed about it.

TWMagimay.9057:

Lord Kuru.3685:

TWMagimay.9057:

What data did you base your calculations on?

33% chance of getting a clover per try — according to the wiki…

Saw in the other clover topic that the 33% chance was based on 159 tries, a remarkably low sample size. Wiki is pretty much fan-made, only the devs have the real value. Without that, your calculations are pure guesswork. Also, probability is just that, probable. There is nothing even remotely guaranteed about it.

I believe that a sample size large enough “Can” guarantee an approximation to that probability. Also, this greatly depends on the randomization algorithm used.

I will agree though that if the sample size was based on 159 tries it shouldn’t even be used as the norm in a wiki.

It took me 287 one-clover tries to get my 77, if that helps the interests of science and research.

wow… so we have one person with 171 tries to get 77 and another with 287 tries.

interestingly, that’s 154 clovers in 458 tries, which is just about 33.6%

the funny thing is that if the 33% number were correct, (far) fewer than 1% of people would get it as fast as 171 and fewer than 1% would need as many as 287 tries… so we’ve got both the luckiest and unluckiest two players in this thread! The wonders of self-reporting? Probably!

Astralporing.1957:

So, in other words, one in a hundred players will need at least 285 tries? One in thousand at least 304? In a game with few million accounts that is a huge number.

True… but how many people are actively/seriously working to get legendaries?
That’s actually not a rhetorical question — I’m really curious! is it in the thousands? or tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?

I’m sorry but you should research the concept of probability. It’s quite possible that it can take someone over 500 tries. It’s even possible for it to take 1,000 tries.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m sorry but you should research the concept of probability. It’s quite possible that it can take someone over 500 tries. It’s even possible for it to take 1,000 tries.

No one said its not possible, its just extremely improbable. I’m seeing some nice statistics here but maybe you would like to correct us?

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m sorry but you should research the concept of probability. It’s quite possible that it can take someone over 500 tries. It’s even possible for it to take 1,000 tries.

oh certainly it’s possible.. that’s why I used a lot of quotation marks in the OP as well as the disclaimer

anyway the post was meant as a morale booster for those who are on bad runs at the forge — the point being that if you gather enough material for 303 tries (assuming the 33% number is correct), then you should feel confident that you’re gonna make it.

Ath.2531:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m sorry but you should research the concept of probability. It’s quite possible that it can take someone over 500 tries. It’s even possible for it to take 1,000 tries.

No one said its not possible, its just extremely improbable. I’m seeing some nice statistics here but maybe you would like to correct us?

I was referring to the OP’s statement about it being guaranteed. He did but it in quotes but that is a word that should not be used when dealing with probabilities.

Lord Kuru.3685:

oh certainly it’s possible.. that’s why I used a lot of quotation marks in the OP as well as the disclaimer

anyway the post was meant as a morale booster for those who are on bad runs at the forge — the point being that if you gather enough material for 303 tries (assuming the 33% number is correct), then you should feel confident that you’re gonna make it.

It’s not just possible, but it seems likely. Using the same logic of probability that you’re using, if 1000 people get enough for 303 tries, it is likely that at least one of them will not make it.

JaironKalach.4938:

Lord Kuru.3685:

oh certainly it’s possible.. that’s why I used a lot of quotation marks in the OP as well as the disclaimer

anyway the post was meant as a morale booster for those who are on bad runs at the forge — the point being that if you gather enough material for 303 tries (assuming the 33% number is correct), then you should feel confident that you’re gonna make it.

It’s not just possible, but it seems likely. Using the same logic of probability that you’re using, if 1000 people get enough for 303 tries, it is likely that at least one of them will not make it.

interestingly, if 1000 people get enough for 303 tries, then there is only a 37% chance that no one will fail!

so what about this:

for those who feel really unlucky: if you do 350 trys, then you should have 99.9999% chance of getting your 77 — i.e. only “1 in a million” will fail to get 77 after 350 tries.

Lord Kuru.3685:

for those who feel really unlucky: if you do 350 trys, then you should have 99.9999% chance of getting your 77 — i.e. only “1 in a million” will fail to get 77 after 350 tries.

Yeah, but I’ll be that one.

I don’t know. I considered myself lucky to get 77 Clovers at all… You should look at my ecto salvage rate out of rares if you want to see something really depressing (Currently resting at around 0.2 ectos/rare).

Saying that if you had enough mats for 303 runs = 77 clovers is incorrect. That assumes that 1 bad run will increase the probaliity of having a more successful run. It doesn’t work if the runs/forging tries are independent of eachother.

It is the same as saying if you have a 2 sides coin, you have a 50% chance to get heads or tails, and that if you dont get the face you want on the first try, you will get it on the second try. You can flip the coin over 100 times and still never get the face you are looking for.

JaironKalach.4938:

Lord Kuru.3685:

for those who feel really unlucky: if you do 350 trys, then you should have 99.9999% chance of getting your 77 — i.e. only “1 in a million” will fail to get 77 after 350 tries.

Yeah, but I’ll be that one.

LOL!

here’s an idea: if you still haven’t gotten it after, say, 300 tries, perhaps you should get a “gift of misfortune” which can substitute for the gift of fortune in the recipes.

maybe this would make people feel better about the randomness — in this way, randomness feels like a plus instead of a minus: you feel good/lucky when it takes less than the maximum of 300 tries, whereas now, you’re always feeling unlucky because you haven’t gotten 77 yet, and you don’t know how many more tries you’ll need.

Lord Kuru.3685:

JaironKalach.4938:

Lord Kuru.3685:

for those who feel really unlucky: if you do 350 trys, then you should have 99.9999% chance of getting your 77 — i.e. only “1 in a million” will fail to get 77 after 350 tries.

Yeah, but I’ll be that one.

LOL!

here’s an idea: if you still haven’t gotten it after, say, 300 tries, perhaps you should get a “gift of misfortune” which can substitute for the gift of fortune in the recipes.

maybe this would make people feel better about the randomness — in this way, randomness feels like a plus instead of a minus: you feel good/lucky when it takes less than the maximum of 300 tries, whereas now, you’re always feeling unlucky because you haven’t gotten 77 yet, and you don’t know how many more tries you’ll need.

Reminds me of the lucky/unlucky titles in GW1. Not a bad idea.

Eh, I completed mine at about 30-40 % chance. I actually wasn’t so annoyed by these mystic clovers. If you do it in bulk you’ll realise the probability is always right so think of it as you need 250 ectos and 250 shards to make the 77 mystic clovers.