Guild Wars 2

plasmacutter.2709:

Most other software houses, be they video games or otherwise, take action to prevent consistent good or bad streaks. Users don’t like it when they hit “random” on their playlist and somehow get a bunch of tracks by the same artist back to back.

Sure, but that has nothing to do with what you happened to be doing in game at the time when you started getting that streak, which is what I was talking about; gem sales, changing equipment, changing characters, etc, aren’t going to have any impact.

If the RNG isn’t correcting for streaks and is behaving in too truly random of a fashion it has nothing to do with anything else, and the devs absolutely should fix it if it’s doing that, but nothing at all that you do, as a player, is going to have the slightest impact.

Forgot to mention above that I pre-ordered the Deluxe edition back in April. My luck/RNG has been dismal so it certainly isn’t tied to the level of the account.
Moving around doing map completion by alternating maps, switching to alts and leveling them… none of it matters they all have pretty poor luck and possibly it’s due to DR, which isn’t a ‘tinfoil hat’ concept.
I did get a new account back on X-mas day for 29usd. Made a warrior since I didn’t roll one on the main account. It’s pretty much stuck at mid 30 level and has 3 gold plus 2 crafting disciplines at lvl200. It is a luckier account and DR doesn’t stick when it occurs and I move around.
Why not play this account instead? Well I have a lot of time invested as well as gems in the main account. I intended the secondary account as a way to try out all the professions and races and it was cheaper than doing it with 800gems per.
At some point I’ll run that warrior to 80 and see just how much ‘luckier’ it really is but so far it’s made 3 times the amount of gold my main did by lvl 30ish.

ColinJohanson.2394:

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

So, in other words, DR bugged RNG and ANet couldn’t fix it or didn’t want to fix it, and instead opted to add Laurels to offset this bugged feature (DR)?

Bartho.7896:

Yesterday i did 28 1-clover tries in row, (after failing nearly all 10-clover tries for 3 days), and i got 0 clovers from those 28 tries in row yes zero.

0,67^28 -> chance of this happening is 0,0000135.

…

While I dont think this RNG-system favours some accounts over others, I do think your system isnt that random, cause the amount of lucky or unlucky “streaks” is too common in this game.
When you have 4 rares salvage 3 and get 0 ectos the last will most likely give you 0 too, while when you salvage and get 1-3 ectos each the last will probably give you at least one ecto too.

Do you have some data to back it up? Similarly, can any other player report of a similar lack of luck with clovers?

The last part of your post is may be a hot-hand fallacy on your side. However, it is also not excluded that ANet’s random number generator is simply bad and can generate non-random sequences at times. It is difficult to say without having the details of how its coded.

ColinJohanson.2394:

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating, the crap you guys take for the low RNG and exorbitant gem store prices has got to be as frustrating for you as the actual RNG and gem store is for us. How many players do you think you’ve lost over this? How many more are you willing to lose?

If the gem store is the future of free games, I want to pay a sub again. Please give me the option to pay a sub so that I don’t have to farm for gear with the best stats. You can have a B2P game with a sub right? Just give me plain looking gear with the best stats. I’ll kittening pay you to not have to farm in your non-farming game. It’s better than dropping a couple thousand dollars in the gem store to get what I want.

green plum.7514:

Bartho.7896:

Yesterday i did 28 1-clover tries in row, (after failing nearly all 10-clover tries for 3 days), and i got 0 clovers from those 28 tries in row yes zero.

0,67^28 -> chance of this happening is 0,0000135.

…

While I dont think this RNG-system favours some accounts over others, I do think your system isnt that random, cause the amount of lucky or unlucky “streaks” is too common in this game.
When you have 4 rares salvage 3 and get 0 ectos the last will most likely give you 0 too, while when you salvage and get 1-3 ectos each the last will probably give you at least one ecto too.

Do you have some data to back it up? Similarly, can any other player report of a similar lack of luck with clovers?

No, I don’t keep track and can’t be bothered doing any complex tests.
However I do encourage anyone, who goes to forge and gets like 6 tries in row nothing, to stop and try again the next day.
And vice versa, if you getting very lucky and get every second try a clover or so, don’t stop you’re on that lucky streak that you might not catch that soon again.
I did Dreamer like that with 10 clover tries caught a lucky streak, 70 clovers took me like 13/14 10-clover tries.

This is also what I think causes ppl to think anet prefers some accounts over others, while actually they just got a “lucky day” meaning they caught a good sequence of draws.
Yesterday I got 3 cores in CoE, so (following my theory) right after it I went to do 2 TA paths and ofc I got 3 onyx cores and 1 lodestone.
Now you can ofc dismiss all this as luck / unluck, but I’m convinced that this RNG system draws whole sequences not a single drop.

i bought a very plain normal edition and from sometime now (even before than this last patch) i’m blessed with loot.
just to say, i made 3 attempt at the mystic forge to transform 4 green in 1 yellow and i had success 3 times.
i purchased some gems with gold waiting to trade them back when it will be convenient

Bartho.7896:

green plum.7514:

Bartho.7896:

Yesterday i did 28 1-clover tries in row, (after failing nearly all 10-clover tries for 3 days), and i got 0 clovers from those 28 tries in row yes zero.

0,67^28 -> chance of this happening is 0,0000135.

…

While I dont think this RNG-system favours some accounts over others, I do think your system isnt that random, cause the amount of lucky or unlucky “streaks” is too common in this game.
When you have 4 rares salvage 3 and get 0 ectos the last will most likely give you 0 too, while when you salvage and get 1-3 ectos each the last will probably give you at least one ecto too.

Do you have some data to back it up? Similarly, can any other player report of a similar lack of luck with clovers?

No, I don’t keep track and can’t be bothered doing any complex tests.
However I do encourage anyone, who goes to forge and gets like 6 tries in row nothing, to stop and try again the next day.
And vice versa, if you getting very lucky and get every second try a clover or so, don’t stop you’re on that lucky streak that you might not catch that soon again.
I did Dreamer like that with 10 clover tries caught a lucky streak, 70 clovers took me like 13/14 10-clover tries.

This is also what I think causes ppl to think anet prefers some accounts over others, while actually they just got a “lucky day” meaning they caught a good sequence of draws.
Yesterday I got 3 cores in CoE, so (following my theory) right after it I went to do 2 TA paths and ofc I got 3 onyx cores and 1 lodestone.
Now you can ofc dismiss all this as luck / unluck, but I’m convinced that this RNG system draws whole sequences not a single drop.

Well yesterday I tried making my mystic clovers and must have been on a lucky streak as I got i think 7/8 on the 10-Clover tries, and then 7/10 on the 1-Clover tries, so there may well be something in the sequences, I certainly knew once I had the first 3 working I had to try more.. I may well be slightly off with my numbers as I really did not count the tries, but I would only be 1 out if that, as I only had about 80 ectos to start and only bought 6 that I can see on tp history. A friend of mine probably has tried the same amount as me and has approx 20 clovers…. so I do think a lucky streak was had by me.

I direct suspicious parties to this blog post about probability in MMOS. The thing about probability is that some people seem lucky and some people seem unlucky, that’s actually chance at work. It’s easy to be tempted to read more into it when it happens to you, but the math will predict that streaks will happen.

The problem with probability in MMOS is that sometimes an unlucky streak lasts the entire experience and there is no stop-gap for such an issue. The unlucky schmuck just walks away from the game grumbling while the lucky few point, laugh and wave good-bye.
The only thing I know to say to that is the sample size isn’t large enough. And that is in no way going to cure those of a super long bad luck streak. Some people have reported as much as 1200 hours being unlucky. How much more time will those people hang around to see if their luck changes. Sure maybe when the time is doubled the streak will turn around, but the real question is … will they stick around that long?

Curuniel.4830:

I direct suspicious parties to this blog post about probability in MMOS. The thing about probability is that some people seem lucky and some people seem unlucky, that’s actually chance at work. It’s easy to be tempted to read more into it when it happens to you, but the math will predict that streaks will happen.

Unfortunately, this is fundamentally wrong on many levels from a customer service point of view.

It’s quite easy to build floors and ceilings into the amount of “luck” someone gets, because month-long win streaks are game-breaking, and month-long loss streaks make people want to tell their friends to get other titles.

I’ve noticed since the November 15th patch, that the rare drops out in the open world have become even rarer. Since then I think I’ve only managed to get 1 exotic. FOTM seemed to have better rare drops. That was until the recent patch.
Ran FOTM after the recent patch and all I got was blues from chests and nothing but very, very few whites from mobs.
Ran COE story mode yesterday, and after more than an hour of frustrating dungeon running came away with 1 rare and the rest all blues. I vendored the blues, and tried to salvage the rare (cause I couldn’t sell it) but didn’t get a single ecto from it.
That’s been my experience when it comes to ectos. Since Nov 15th I’ve yet to get an ecto from salvaging a rare drop. I think I’ve salvaged over 10 mob drop rares since then. Nowadays, I don’t bother salvaging rare drops, I just TP them and let someone else try their luck.
Also, since the last patch T5 crafting mats seem to be harder to come by. I can usually get 5 to 10 large bones from farming events in Orr for my dailies (26% MF, food.) But now even with 40% MF (food), I can barely get 3. The prices on the TP also seem to be reflecting this as T5 mats seem to be climbing steadily. Doubled in price over 2 weeks.

extremely unlucky here, but i’m used to it, it’s the same in every game :P One of the reasons I bought gw2 was the token system, because I never got any drops in anything else (until everyone else had everything they wanted :P)

One of my friends has gotten
2 fractal greatswords in the same week
3 precursors, one of which was dusk, from a random monster.
over a 50% success rate when making his clovers
Metric tons of rares every day.
3 lodestones and 20 cores in a 5 hour period of CoF

I on the other hand
0 fractal weapons
0 precursors (hell, I had to go 900 hours before I saw my first exotic drop. And ive only gotten 2 since then)
under a 25% success rate with my clovers
2 rares a day if im lucky
3 cores in the same timespan (we were in a party together the whole time)

My luck has always been this way. Im literally known as the unluckiest person in my entire guild.

Perhaps RNG is RNG. But out of about 15 people, all of whom have put in over 1000 hours, I am by far the unluckiest of all of us, by quite a wide margin. Even RNG cant account for all of that. :/

^And this is why RNG is horrible game design.

I have nearly 1600 hours played since the headstart -almost all on one character- and a total of three level 80 characters, with several more waiting in the wings. On my main character, I have multiple sets of exotic weapons and armor, some crafted, but mostly from dungeon token vendors. I recently scraped together enough money to purchase a cheap legendary precursor from the trading post, and am now very slowly working toward my legendary weapon.

All that being said, I have never seen a lodestone drop, or even a named exotic item. Since November, at least, I’ve been seeing even less of what was once a meager, but acceptable level of reward for killing enemies, participating in dynamic events, and opening reward chests. Not a single equipment item better than blue quality or upgrade component better than green quality has been bestowed upon me by this RNG system. I can recall with perfect clarity the last time I saw an exotic item from any loot source: It was the last day of the halloween event dungeon, and I received the Mad Moon on what was literally the last possible run to be made.

It has been my experience that the RNG loot system has been consistently heavily weighted against me, even moreso recently without any reason, while simultaneously favoring a significant number of people with whom I’m acquainted.

TL;DR: The loot system works heavily in favor of some and the detriment of others for no reason, and once it decides whether to bless or curse you, you’re stuck with it.

And let’s not forget, every success story of getting a precursor on the first try, there was 1000s of failed tries by other people. “well if I got it everyone else has same change herpa durp”, yeah ok those 1000 fails that yo- oh nevermind.

I like the RNG, the RNG made me very rich, however not because I killed monsters and collected loot, or played the game for that matter. Instead I took the formula governing the RNG’s chance to miss, which is ((x-1)/x)^x). Best thing about that formula, the result does not really change once you move below a 1in6 chance, so not matter how ArenaNet will adjust the dropchance in the future, the abusive potential of my formula remains.

So remain calm, if there is a 1in100 chance for anything and you get 100 tries, math still says you have a 36,7% chance of failure.

ColinJohanson.2394:

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Wait, so you’re offsetting the randomness by giving definite rewards, laurels, which you can trade in for a box of random equipment?

I’d much rather pay 4-8 laurels for a definite level 80 exotic than more lottery style thing you’ve given us. As it stands, might as well keep saving the laurels for ascended gear (either the current or when the new stuff is introduced).

Zonzai.2341:

Speaking of frustrating, the crap you guys take for the low RNG and exorbitant gem store prices has got to be as frustrating for you as the actual RNG and gem store is for us. How many players do you think you’ve lost over this? How many more are you willing to lose?

I presume they haven’t lost a whole lot. These “issues” are minor to non-existant for most players. Don’t take your own elitist situation as the norm.

If the gem store is the future of free games, I want to pay a sub again. Please give me the option to pay a sub so that I don’t have to farm for gear with the best stats. You can have a B2P game with a sub right? Just give me plain looking gear with the best stats. I’ll kittening pay you to not have to farm in your non-farming game. It’s better than dropping a couple thousand dollars in the gem store to get what I want.

The best gear in the game costs a few gold in total. Sure it’ll be plain looking as per your suggestion. The best gear in B2P games takes months of farming the same dungeon. I’d much rather stick with the current model.