So much foil-hattery…
As far as we know (and as far as nobody has actually presented any actual evidence to the contrary) the RNG (particularly when tied to beta portals) is random.
So, you can either present some actual evidence or get fitted for a foil hat and stop the QQ.
@ Aidan. Check out the bug forum we get new bugs all the time. What Anet said in the past about the system working correctly may or may not be true today. Also you’re quote from Anet doesn’t say anything about DR which we know affects drops.
Diminishing returns is not RNG. RNG is not diminishing returns. Get that clear first.
Is DR working? Probably. Before my work schedule interfered, I used to kill teq a couple times a day every day. After a while I only got the exotic dragon chest, regardless of what I did during the battery phases. There’s your DR. Well guess what? I’m getting all 4 dragon chests now. DR went away. Merely logging your character out doesnt get rid of DR on that character.
Cant remember what “rngesus hates meh” thread I said it in, but here’s the pictures I promised of everything I’ve dropped. https://imgur.com/a/22ANF
April 6th is the earliest point I’ve got screenshots of a dropped ascended item, though I’m certain I dropped it before then based on the gear my character is wearing. So, yea, account’s 465 days old, and first ascended loot I’ve gotten on it was <100 days old. Mind you, I hadnt been doing events/bossesable to give those as loot for long at that point.
Obviously DR and RNG aren’t the same thing. But they both have to do with loot. We don’t know how DR works or RNG works so what we could be perceiving as a possible issue is with RNG, it could actually be DR. Yes we know some specific ways DR works but you don’t know if there is some overarching DR that sticks around for a week or a month or whatever amount of time that affects exotic drops or ascended drops. DR experiments show that it sticks to some players longer than other players for doing the same event. It also kicks in sooner for some players versus other players. But again there’s no way for us to test DR and how it affects accounts long term. We simply don’t know.
Chuck that isn’t what this thread is about. Also you’re mis interpreting what Anet said. They are doing the next beta by both random email and by the portal drops. So if you didn’t get a portal drop there’s still a chance you get in through selection from email.
or you are misinterpreting and it means " If you aren’t selected from the mailing list you still have a chance to by looting a portal. The whole point of newsletter was to select a player base for the BETA’s. By making it available to everyone completely nulls there reasoning for newsletter.So RNG conundrum again.
But then why invite everyone to try for a portal if only those on the list could get one?
The mailing list got the first round of players into the stress test, the portals was the means to expand the number participation. Again under the rational that RNG is fair to all.
Fairness or to keep people playing. If you were TOLD it was only going to those who signed up and you didn’t sign up would you still farm for it? No. You’d be doing something more your taste instead of grinding dead maps. So as players obtain theirs map population would diminish until it was dead again. Gotta keep people playing to continue game production. What % of those who signed up got into the stress test? Most likely a small % leaving a plenty large source to pull from.
Except I got a portal without being signed up, the email you get when you find a portal tells you to sign up if you have not already. It even gives you the web address to sign up at.
So you’re just talking kitten.
i can think of some ways, but im genuinely curious.
Essentially, observed differences in drops due to the natural variance of a stochastic system with a common distribution are constrained by the sample size; as the same size increases, the proportional standard deviation shrinks (roughly by a factor of 2 when the sample size increases by a factor of 4). That is, as the same size goes down, the observed variance should go down.
Differences in drops due to other factors will not change with sample size – differences in distribution will remain and become more stark as more and more observations are made.
You can run a t-test on two accounts, or an omnibus test on several, it really doesn’t matter – if parameter estimates converge on each other as sample size increases there’s nothing odd going on, if they don’t converge with sample size and the distribution structure remains then there’s something not accounted for in the model.
And as I stated in my last post, people are horrible at understanding probabilities. With a low enough chance you can get a significant percentage getting nothing while a relative few get a boatload given enough trys. That’s the nature of randomness. There isn’t a discernible pattern. There will always be “unlucky” and very “lucky”.
Everything else in these threads aside…Why is that a good thing to have in a game? (accounts that remain on the low end of the curve)
To quote a very famous line: You can’t handle the truth.
That’s a pretty bad quote given the context of it. If you recall it was basically the breaking point at which Jessup was found to be hiding the truth. Are you hiding the truth? lol
i can think of some ways, but im genuinely curious.
Essentially, observed differences in drops due to the natural variance of a stochastic system with a common distribution are constrained by the sample size; as the same size increases, the proportional standard deviation shrinks (roughly by a factor of 2 when the sample size increases by a factor of 4). That is, as the same size goes down, the observed variance should go down.
Differences in drops due to other factors will not change with sample size – differences in distribution will remain and become more stark as more and more observations are made.
You can run a t-test on two accounts, or an omnibus test on several, it really doesn’t matter – if parameter estimates converge on each other as sample size increases there’s nothing odd going on, if they don’t converge with sample size and the distribution structure remains then there’s something not accounted for in the model.
but first you would have to identify over performing/under performing versus average performing acounts, which means they have to collect data on how much high rarity, and mid rarity items accounts get, versus total items monsters killed/bags opened
I doubt they are actively storing and tracking this data on an account basis, and even if they are, JS makes it seem like they limit the complexity/scope of his queries (vague recollection of him wishing he could return more data)
The problem is, all the evidence is anecdotal. Someone hasn’t gotten a rare or exotic drop for a long time, but their friend who just started playing the game this week, got 3 in one dungeon run. This seems to be all the evidence there really is.
There are ways for players to make statistic tests but that requires alot of community effort. Without proper tests our suppositions are invalid and remain w/o proof.
A way to do this will be to get 100 players, all having same level, all having same magic find (we know that magic find dont afect chest drops but do affect mob drops), and make those players do exactly same activity on same server time on a shard with a certain population number.
After 3 hours, compare the data.
Redo the test changing the parameters.
Rinse, repeat.
THIS is how statistics are done and how valid data is gathered.
And even so, the data is not 100 accurate due to minor issues but is gives the closest to reality information you can get about RNG vs accounts.
It also can narrow down the “luck” effect that occurs. For example, from those 100 players , if one account is particulary “lucky” it can be compared with the rest of the batch to see the differences.
W/o this tests, suppositions remain as they are, unproven.
The question is, who would be up for this ?
(edited by MorganLeFay.5816)
As I asked in the other thread.
Why are some people (Astral, Fleshwound, etc) so opposed to having Anet look into this? What do you personally have to lose if they look into this.
I simply believe them when they said they did look into it and found nothing. I do not require them to repeat that every time the next similar thread pops up. I also know that Mr Smith does run checks anytime someone brings up some data that backs up their claim that something might be a problem (yes, might be, not necessarily is – mere suspicion, if it’s backed by data that looks fishy, is enough).
And yes I know they looked into this before, however I’d like them to look into DR as well.
They did. This did not confirm that DR is not a problem, but showed that the number of people that are even affected by it in a given time is extremely small. As in double digits per day, if i remember correctly.
I don’t really expect a response. I think at this point they are here to derail the thread to make it close. Everyone has heard your points over and over. This still doesn’t dimiss the fact that there COULD BE a problem.
It is possible there could be a problem, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that there is a problem.
Basically, this.
Sorry I know you haven’t read the other threads. But there is no way to gather evidence to show this isn’t problem.
Unfortunately it’s true. But if there is a problem, then showing that it may exist should be possible. Granted, it wouldn’t be easy, and would require lot of work and perseverance.
Yes, i know that shouting loud is easier, but it only makes the message more annoying, and not more persuasive.
There are ways for players to make statistic tests but that requires alot of community effort. Without proper tests our suppositions are invalid and remain w/o proof.
A way to do this will be to get 100 players, all having same level, all having same %magic find (we know that magic find dont afect chest drops but do affect mob drops), and make those players do exactly same activity on same server time on a shard with a certain population number.
After 3 hours, compare the data.
Redo the test changing the parameters.
Rinse, repeat.
THIS is how statistics are done and how valid data is gathered.
You wouldn’t even need 100 accounts. Just picking few accounts that seem to you to be lucky, and few accounts that seem to be unlucky, then making them note all activity and drops should be enough for some very basic, entry level data that could be then used to refine the further tests (or even make Anet take some action, if the results would differ significantly from expectations). Still, you’d need to do that last step ( “rinse, repeat”) many, many times. The longer, the better. The best option would be to somehow log all activity and drops on an account for extended periods of time. Similar activity on all accounts, of course, would be the best.
My suggestion would be to use dungeons, preferably the same path, day after day after day, and note all the drops. Instanced nature of dungeons would help to normalize a lot of variables.
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
“RNG is borked”
The issue here is lack of proof. But more importantly, how impractical it is to get this proof. It would require a large number of account experiences that all had a large sample size of loot drops for the information to be considered evidence. There is so much that is needed that resorting to ad Populum is a better method. Granted, ad Populum is a logical fallacy but its only power in an argument is limited to show that an issue exists._
It’s not even argumentum ad populum if most people think you’re a loon though.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/first
John Smith (dev) here literally says the following:
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.
Here is a developer admitting that there are extremely lucky and extremely unlucky people in the current system. I would say this pretty much proves that yes, there is a problem for some players, and yes, the devs are aware of it. They’re also asking for input on how to change the current system. So I’d say have at it.
How to change system?
How about awarding players for actually playing the game?
There have already been multiple cases where newly made accounts(or newbies in general) get better loot than veterans.
There was a bunch of people from my guild which you could call ’’newbies’’…
Who entered into SW for the very first time… and what a suprise, after 10min of doing events he and later other such people got a Beta Portal.
Meanwhile I, after farming SW for 50+hours…. not a single valuable drop.
And on top of that I got 1300h of In-game gameplay… and my highest value item drop has been 80g…once.
My Suggestion is simple and here is an Example:
And obviously the question would rise: ‘’What would happen with ’’this system’’ to veterans that have already spent a lot of time?’’
#Lets say there is a maximum cap of Drop rate which you can acquire for each ’’type’’ of loot.
#If you have spent 500h-750h(as an example), your chances to get precursor from a Mob, MF or otherwise, would be around 5%~7.5% (affected by magic find).
But the Drop rate would reset, just to prevent sudden influence in Supply just because you and other people got 5x Precursors from a single mob, MF or otherwise.
At least this system would motivate you to play or such, because you would know that eventually you would get a valuable item that you desire.
(edited by AivenPrimus.9184)
1st:That system would discriminate new players. Would be like: “sorry but you cannot get a precursor, you’ve played too little”. That would be unfair, plus, it creates intensive farming and even botting, something that Anet stated multiple times they don’t intend to have.
2nd, : 750h probably would be enough to buy a precursor even by selling linen. I mean, if you salvage and sell silk, linen,damascus, piquant food, growing lamps or w/e TP values most and is easy to get , by the end of 3 months you would have enough gold to buy the darn thing and let the rng gods rest in peace.
Thats what I plan to do and tbh, my goals seem more straight forward and easy to reach atm. I got 50 gold, 2500 left:D
1st:That system would discriminate new players. Would be like: “sorry but you cannot get a precursor, you’ve played too little”. That would be unfair, plus, it creates intensive farming and even botting, something that Anet stated multiple times they don’t intend to have.
2nd, : 750h probably would be enough to buy a precursor even by selling linen. I mean, if you salvage and sell silk, linen,damascus, piquant food, growing lamps or w/e TP values most and is easy to get , by the end of 3 months you would have enough gold to buy the darn thing and let the rng gods rest in peace.
Thats what I plan to do and tbh, my goals seem more straight forward and easy to reach atm. I got 50 gold, 2500 left:D
1. They haven’t played enough to get a precursor. They shouldn’t have a large chance to get one. Not sure why you think they deserve one since they just started playing? I would suggest that a new player looting a precursor very early on has a significantly higher chance of quitting the game then one who doesn’t. If you can buy everything you want/need the amount of time you stay around is greatly reduced. this effect decreases as your account ages because you have more goals which are more expensive as time goes on.
2. I do think the system would need to be more complicated than that, otherwise people would just leave their accounts logged in 24/7 and then go out and loot a precursor every 2-3 months.
We don’t have enough challenging content in GW2. Making things less RNG or require kittentones of tokens would cause huge inflation. Solution -> wait for HoT. If there’s enough of very challenging content, we’ll be getting 60% droprates for killing bosses only 10% of the gw2 population can beat. #HOPE
And congratulations, you’ll have merely set off an entirely different kittenstorm from the 90% who complain that the content is “too hard” and “not fun.”
We’ve already been down this road, and a lot of the dungeon content was nerfed into the ground because of it.
The problem is, all the evidence is anecdotal. Someone hasn’t gotten a rare or exotic drop for a long time, but their friend who just started playing the game this week, got 3 in one dungeon run. This seems to be all the evidence there really is.
anecdotal evidence is generally seen first. then it is more formally recorded. The fact of the matter is, we dont have the tools to easily track this except by anecdote.
it is the type of thing that is fairly unlikely for one person to test, though it is pretty likely that IF it were the case, players would notice it, anecdotally.
As I asked in the other thread.
Why are some people (Astral, Fleshwound, etc) so opposed to having Anet look into this? What do you personally have to lose if they look into this.
I simply believe them when they said they did look into it and found nothing. I do not require them to repeat that every time the next similar thread pops up. I also know that Mr Smith does run checks anytime someone brings up some data that backs up their claim that something might be a problem (yes, might be, not necessarily is – mere suspicion, if it’s backed by data that looks fishy, is enough).
And yes I know they looked into this before, however I’d like them to look into DR as well.
They did. This did not confirm that DR is not a problem, but showed that the number of people that are even affected by it in a given time is extremely small. As in double digits per day, if i remember correctly.
I don’t really expect a response. I think at this point they are here to derail the thread to make it close. Everyone has heard your points over and over. This still doesn’t dimiss the fact that there COULD BE a problem.
It is possible there could be a problem, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that there is a problem.
Basically, this.
Sorry I know you haven’t read the other threads. But there is no way to gather evidence to show this isn’t problem.
Unfortunately it’s true. But if there is a problem, then showing that it may exist should be possible. Granted, it wouldn’t be easy, and would require lot of work and perseverance.
Yes, i know that shouting loud is easier, but it only makes the message more annoying, and not more persuasive.
There are ways for players to make statistic tests but that requires alot of community effort. Without proper tests our suppositions are invalid and remain w/o proof.
A way to do this will be to get 100 players, all having same level, all having same %magic find (we know that magic find dont afect chest drops but do affect mob drops), and make those players do exactly same activity on same server time on a shard with a certain population number.
After 3 hours, compare the data.
Redo the test changing the parameters.
Rinse, repeat.
THIS is how statistics are done and how valid data is gathered.You wouldn’t even need 100 accounts. Just picking few accounts that seem to you to be lucky, and few accounts that seem to be unlucky, then making them note all activity and drops should be enough for some very basic, entry level data that could be then used to refine the further tests (or even make Anet take some action, if the results would differ significantly from expectations). Still, you’d need to do that last step ( “rinse, repeat”) many, many times. The longer, the better. The best option would be to somehow log all activity and drops on an account for extended periods of time. Similar activity on all accounts, of course, would be the best.
My suggestion would be to use dungeons, preferably the same path, day after day after day, and note all the drops. Instanced nature of dungeons would help to normalize a lot of variables.
before you try to limit your results to identify an issue, you should first confirm the broad situation.
if your data from instances turns up one way, that only tells you that instances are all good.
have the people play as they normally do.
but realistically the problem is tracking the data is a pretty monumental task, you would also want to track the number of loot earning situations (bags/enemies/shakies/whatever)
pretty monumental by hand
but realistically the problem is tracking the data is a pretty monumental task, you would also want to track the number of loot earning situations (bags/enemies/shakies/whatever)
pretty monumental by hand
Yes, that’s why i proposed dungeons for initial check. The number of enemies and chests is mostly constant for them (barring cases of skipping/not skipping), so it simplifies comparing the data.
Yes, if we could track the game history better, playing normally would be preferred (since it would generate a lot of other interesting data as well). Since we can’t, we do need to try to normalize the compared environ across all accounts
but realistically the problem is tracking the data is a pretty monumental task, you would also want to track the number of loot earning situations (bags/enemies/shakies/whatever)
pretty monumental by handYes, that’s why i proposed dungeons for initial check. The number of enemies and chests is mostly constant for them (barring cases of skipping/not skipping), so it simplifies comparing the data.
Yes, if we could track the game history better, playing normally would be preferred (since it would generate a lot of other interesting data as well). Since we can’t, we do need to try to normalize the compared environ across all accounts
yeah dungeons might make it effecient to track loot opputunities, but dungeons are also a unique environment and interact with the code differently. Its also not how most drops come into the world. You need to look at how people generally interact, not how they react in extremely closed circumstances.
Lets say if the issue exists, it turns out to be related to how a map interacts with 100 accounts accessing the rng function at an incredible rate; this type of issue wouldnt show up in a small instance with few accounts, and fewer loot generating events per time frame.
Ok question. If we had the data, or if Anet decided to look into this, how would they even go about this? You would first have to determine there is a problem and that would be the easy part. I would think this could be done by looking at exotic and precursor drops. If it shows a statistically significant pattern then you could say there is a problem.
The issue then would be figuring out what the problem is. That seems like a huge task. It could be anything from some type of DR to RNG to the class being played (since they did that update where youe class affects the drops you get). And some of that pattern you see is actual RNG so to determine what is actual RNG and what is part of the problem would be … Yeah.
Just thought I’d mention this incase if by some small chance that Anet decides to look into this, that they are looking into it in a way that will make sure they finding the peobelm if there is one, and figuring out the source of the problem if possible.
(edited by Andraus.3874)
“RNG is borked”
The issue here is lack of proof. But more importantly, how impractical it is to get this proof. It would require a large number of account experiences that all had a large sample size of loot drops for the information to be considered evidence. There is so much that is needed that resorting to ad Populum is a better method. Granted, ad Populum is a logical fallacy but its only power in an argument is limited to show that an issue exists._It’s not even argumentum ad populum if most people think you’re a loon though.
The reason why its a fallacy is just because everyone believes it doesn’t mean its the truth. Likewise, just because everyone thinks someone is a loon for believing it doesn’t mean they are right either.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity
It is never a good idea to immediately shoot someone down in a debate.
The hypothesis being presented is that there are accounts flagged as lucky and/or unlucky and the RNG will then skew in the appropriated direction. However multiple independent trials using probability will naturally lead to lucky and unlucky individuals all on it’s own, no need to stack the deck by marking accounts. This is the RNG is RNG explanation.
So for us to prove this, we would have to show a deviation from the expected distribution and that is going to be nearly impossible. Impossible because you can’t eliminate the variation in conditions that may impact availability of rewards. Do we know that event A and B use the same drop tables with the same weights for instance? Is there even a chance for a precursor from critter X on map Y. Is it more likely in higher level than lower level maps? We have all these unknowns and any conclusion we may come to could simply be dismissed because we didn’t take some factor unknown to us in account when collecting and analyzing the data.
Ectos drop rate was easily tested. Get a bunch of appropriate level rares, get a bunch of mystic/master salvage kits and click away. And when too many players all had sub par results, specifically multiples weren’t dropping any more, it was enough to warrant an investigation. This, this is a lot more complicated for players to test.
This is kind of a side note. But something that always bothers me is when I’m changing gear around and my character comments on how rare it is, like its a drop and he is just seeing it for the first time. For all we know something like that could affect DR for ascended or Exotic drops.
but first you would have to identify over performing/under performing versus average performing acounts
Nah, you just have to check for over-dispersion. If there isn’t any you’re done, and if there is the process picks out the systematically unlucky accounts for you.
Lets say if the issue exists, it turns out to be related to how a map interacts with 100 accounts accessing the rng function at an incredible rate; this type of issue wouldnt show up in a small instance with few accounts, and fewer loot generating events per time frame.
True, there might be some more exotic issues that wouldn’t be easily checked without an earlier suspicion of what they may be. On the other hand, dungeon (and mystic forge) tests would be enough to check for the most common claim – the one about the existence of intentionally flagged lucky/unlucky accounts.
Besides, while the bugs like you mentioned might skew the drop curve, they would be extremely unlikely to target specific accounts, and thus wouldn’t really relate to the theories being checked.
And as I stated in my last post, people are horrible at understanding probabilities. With a low enough chance you can get a significant percentage getting nothing while a relative few get a boatload given enough trys. That’s the nature of randomness. There isn’t a discernible pattern. There will always be “unlucky” and very “lucky”.
Everything else in these threads aside…Why is that a good thing to have in a game? (accounts that remain on the low end of the curve)
To quote a very famous line: You can’t handle the truth.
That’s a pretty bad quote given the context of it. If you recall it was basically the breaking point at which Jessup was found to be hiding the truth. Are you hiding the truth? lol
It’s there to be found, and you won’t like it.
if you think guild wars rng is bad stay away from neverwinter if you are worried about the beta thing just wait like the rest of us for the mystic forge look at it like the lottery you cant win if you dont play dont toss anything above a green in without soul binding it because im sure zomoros loves feasting on the bits of soul you put in it helps him maintain his magic after all
Lets say if the issue exists, it turns out to be related to how a map interacts with 100 accounts accessing the rng function at an incredible rate; this type of issue wouldnt show up in a small instance with few accounts, and fewer loot generating events per time frame.
True, there might be some more exotic issues that wouldn’t be easily checked without an earlier suspicion of what they may be. On the other hand, dungeon (and mystic forge) tests would be enough to check for the most common claim – the one about the existence of intentionally flagged lucky/unlucky accounts.
Besides, while the bugs like you mentioned might skew the drop curve, they would be extremely unlikely to target specific accounts, and thus wouldn’t really relate to the theories being checked.
Not saying this means anything, but my second account which I anecdotally believe to be luckier than my main got 2 ascended drops and a precursor drop within 1 hr of each other the other night. lol it’s only 200ish hours old.
And on top of that I got 1300h of In-game gameplay… and my highest value item drop has been 80g…once.
These numbers show that everything is relative. The poster is using these numbers as evidence of poor drops. I’ve got easily twice the hours played, and my most valuable drop was worth under 10 gold — an exotic armor piece salvaged to sell the strength rune which I believe was going somewhere ~8.5 gold at the time.
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