Guild Wars 2

There is a serious flaw with RNG in that 1 person can be very lucky and another can be very, very unlucky. The lucky player loves the game and the unlucky player calls the game utter rubbish and goes to play something else forever bad mouthing the game to all the people he knows.

SOLUTION

Keep RNG in the game but implement a method that restricts extreme bad luck which will happen to a considerable amount of players and it being luck, is totally beyond there ability to control.

Being a MMO base it on number of hours played, a 100% guaranteed drop. So rather like the current MF% counter, you could have a drop counter.

For example with exotics, Anet may think a exotic drop every 50 hours played is a ‘fair/average drop rate’, so when you play a counter clocks the hours up to 50, if a exotic drops on the 24th hour it resets to 0 and starts going again, so worse case scenario after 74 hours you would have had 2 exotic drops. The extremely unlucky player would get 2 exotics at 100 hours played. So you still have lucky/unlucky players but theres a LIMIT on bad luck.

Otherwise, without a system like that with RNG as it is now, you have one player who has had 10 exotics drop in 100 hours and another player with no drops in 1,000 hours. Blatantly unfair…

I think this is something Anet should look at to make the game and end content feel more rewarding.

Especially when you think on it, how easy you can get exotic items at the end game just through running dungeons over and over again with dungeon equipment through trading them in with tokens.

In regard of this, do drop exotic items imo way too rarely. In fact, most exotics i have gotten until today come from explorign the end game maps to 100% or through dungeon tokens,.. just a handful or 2 of exotics i got until today come from enemy/boss loot.

In regard of how useless exotics became now basically with ascendant/legendary weapons being more powerful than them, their current reason for existance is only making money, skin transmutation and salvaging them for dark matter/ectos and superior upgrades.

I think exotics should become “Rare” in regard of droprate and Rare droprate should get reduced slightly a bit and the current Rare should get renamed to “Exquisite”

So we would have then:

• Fine (Blue)
• Masterwork (Green)
• Exquisite (Yellow)
• Rare (Orange)
• Ascendant (Pink)
• Legendary (Purple)
  —-
• New Exotic between the new Rare and Ascendant (Red/Silver)

Add to this then again Exotic, that is same as powerful like Ascendant, but slightly easier to receive, but has no Infusion Slots!!
Exotic Items would be then upgradeable via Mystic Forge into Ascendant Items.

This way wouldn’t also be the Ascendant Weapons such a requirance and would be just something for Fractals/WvW that could be more useful and in overall PvE more useful for supportive effects like gaining more gold through kills, gettign, more karma/ Exp/WExp ect. that wouldn’t also require of a player to grind crafting jobs to 500 first to be able to craft these items.

Yes I know, this change would also require to change alot of crafting recipes ect. but i tstrongly believe, that this change would massively improve the game and its something, that could be done one day with a new patch. its no change, that lies out of possibility to do something like that.

However, what i posted here is basically an other topic, don’t want to derail this thread any longer
Just wanted to mention it only, its just something that came automatically out of my mind, when I thought about the Exotic Item Quality and its drop rate and how hard it is to get certain things in the game, like the new ascendant weapons, while their whole infusion stuff is basically only useful for WvW, fractals and PvE and provides other than that only an increase in attack power, which should be easier to get to stay competitive without having to do first massive crafting grind.

A streak-breaker definitely needs to be added to GW2.

From a player who is lucky if he gets a yellow a month, I would appreciate this.

There were a number of HUGE threads last year, thousands of posts, regarding bad luck/bad loot. I don’t know if anything was ever done about it, but last winter it seemed there were a group of people, myself included, cursed with a sort of permanent diminished return on loot drops. It was very disheartening to run events in Cursed Shore with a group getting 3-10 gold per run when I’m counting in silver. To my knowledge Anet never acknowledged the thread or even replied. I do remember them trying to bury the topic a few times by closing threads or merging in to others. It was an incredible PR failure and a large reason I stopped playing the game for ~6 months. Silence is golden and the short of it is, they want people to buy gems. It’s not rocket-science.

Leamas.5803:

There were a number of HUGE threads last year, thousands of posts, regarding bad luck/bad loot. I don’t know if anything was ever done about it, but last winter it seemed there were a group of people, myself included, cursed with a sort of permanent diminished return on loot drops. It was very disheartening to run events in Cursed Shore with a group getting 3-10 gold per run when I’m counting in silver. To my knowledge Anet never acknowledged the thread or even replied. I do remember them trying to bury the topic a few times by closing threads or merging in to others. It was an incredible PR failure and a large reason I stopped playing the game for ~6 months. Silence is golden and the short of it is, they want people to buy gems. It’s not rocket-science.

Nothing was ever done about it, my loot is still terrible and everyone still thinks it’s just conspiracy theories.

Now that MF was moved to account bound, I got swiftly kicked in the shin from 300+ MF down to 60% :\

Back to getting nothing and grey items all day if I don’t go farm champs.

A guild mate recently got 4 precursors in one day. He said he was actively trying to spend the money he got from one, only to get another precursor.

He bought insanely expensive quality of life items off TP and in the end had enough left over to have a ‘holiday’ on an EU server to check out WvW there.

I’m not angry at all, tbh I laughed when he told me.

Given that sigils, runes, traits etc. don’t work properly. Such poor programming when it comes to RNG is hardly surprising.

If your on the good side of it, you laugh all the way to the bank.

there will alwys be the perception of people with extremely bad luck as long as there are people who dont get what they want when they want. the amount of luck is relative to expectations.

I have been playing since the head start. It took 4 months for me to get my first rare item from defeating the Claw of Jormag. 4 months of blueberry salads, and to this day, over a year later, I have not gotten a single exotic from that chest. People who don’t believe in luck are fools. There is both good and bad luck, and some people end up on either extreme end of the spectrum. And this was just Claw of Jormag, the other chests were just a tiny tiny bit more generous.

Yes, I have gotten exotic drops elsewhere (though not very many at all). Almost all of my equipment was acquired through crafting. The few exotics I got were some of the more common exotics.

Yes, I know these items are meant to be rare, but you can’t deny the frustrations that people feel when some people get 4 precursors in one day and other people take 4 months to get a single rare from a chest that, at the time you could open multiple times per character in the same day. If it wasn’t for the bonus chests (thanks again ANET, you gave me a chance at actually having a few more than 10 ectos), I’d have gotten but a tiny fraction of the rares I’ve gotten so far. I would not have gotten the ectoplasms needed to make any of the weapons I wanted.

I’ve had extremely bad luck too. Ive gone bout 30 min to an hour of grinding in Orr w/o a single drop not even a white. My whole guild keeps trying to tell me to write a ticket cause its not natural.

Dustfinger.9510:

there will alwys be the perception of people with extremely bad luck as long as there are people who dont get what they want when they want. the amount of luck is relative to expectations.

No, there was extensive research done by players on it last winter. Now it could just be caulked up to good luck/bad luck. For certain players it was just permanent bad luck, forever. The only exception seemed to be the first hour, or so, played after a patch release where drops seemed to improve but, oddly, often came in multiples and quite often with similar stats. At the time, I had it happen at least 10 times, where within minutes of each other, I’d get two rares both “…of the Cleric”, or “Berserker…of the…” At least once I had two of the exact same rares drop with minutes of each other. One that comes to mind was at Jormag and the second a couple minutes later from some lowbie mob not far from the Jormag spawning area…the EXACT same item. All this points to a very obvious bug in the RNG. I could also go weeks/months without seeing rares, then all of a sudden get 5 in the run of a couple days, then back to nothing. Exotics were so rare as to not even bother mentioning.

These issues had been reported and ticketed multiple times by multiple players and nothing was ever done and responses were rarely received. Those responses received were usually dismissive at best or insulting at worst. Discussion threads were often closed by moderators without resolution or merged with others to try to bury the issue. The only loot related issue they EVER acknowledged was that of champion loot, and they had to, because NO ONE was doing champions unless they HAD to. World discussion could quickly get very toxic when someone even suggested doing a champion. Eventually I got fed up with crappy drops, stopped following the issue and stopped playing. I only just picked it back up again for Halloween because I needed the jumping puzzle, being the only one I hadn’t done. God knows how long I’ll stick with it this time…we’ll see how drops go.

None of that actually disputes what I said. You actually agreed with me by acknowledging the possibility that “Now it could just be caulked up to good luck/bad luck.” But even then, any RNG is going to have the “perception of people with extremely bad luck as long as there are people who dont get what they want when they want. the amount of luck is relative to expectations.”

That’s how random factors works. Like a roulette wheel. it can often come up red 30 times in a row. That would be interpreted as a “bug” only because the person betting black wasn’t doing it while it was coming up black 40 times in a row.

Dustfinger.9510:

None of that actually disputes what I said. You actually agreed with me by acknowledging the possibility that “Now it could just be caulked up to good luck/bad luck.” But even then, any RNG is going to have the “perception of people with extremely bad luck as long as there are people who dont get what they want when they want. the amount of luck is relative to expectations.”

That’s how random factors works. Like a roulette wheel. it can often come up red 30 times in a row. That would be interpreted as a “bug” only because the person betting black wasn’t doing it while it was coming up black 40 times in a row.

Yes, but there is a point at which the randomness failed, again, I’m not even sure if this is still an issue since this was last winter. But when you can reliably predict what will happen and when it will happen, then the RNG is broken. It’s kind of like using loaded dice for craps.

Leamas.5803:

Yes, but there is a point at which the randomness failed, again, I’m not even sure if this is still an issue since this was last winter. But when you can reliably predict what will happen and when it will happen, then the RNG is broken. It’s kind of like using loaded dice for craps.

(leaving the post patch part alone for a minute) Unless we are privy to the outcome of all results, we have no idea if the randomness is failing. Because test sampling of random factors in inherently flawed. just like when a roulette wheel hits red 30 times in a row. But my point is that there will alwys be the perception of people with extremely bad luck as long as there are people who dont get what they want when they want. the amount of luck is relative to expectations. So the most vocal and the ones that complain will be the ones that weren’t betting on red because they figured the more red hits, the greater chance that black will be next. But that’s not how it works. The chance of black or red is reset on every spin.

Now no computerized RNG is ever actually random. because it is a program that generates the number. A program that predetermines what will come up and tries to simulate randomness by having a long and complicated cycle.

All that said, I don’t know about the post patch issues but the OP doesn’t seem to be talking about that. I was addressing the thread topic that as long as randomness is involved (or simulated randomness) there will always be lucky and unlucky people.

edit: so by taking steps to minimise unluckiness is actually elimination of the “R” in RNG. And if we do that, then there is no point of RNG at all and they might as well just sell guaranteed drops at a set price. and then we get “pay to win”.

Dustfinger.9510:

Unless we are privy to the outcome of all results, we have no idea if the randomness is failing. Because test sampling of random factors in inherently flawed.

No, test sampling randomness is very predictable if it’s truly random. I don’t know what GW2 is written in, but if given enough tests, the RNG in Java pretty much falls in to linearness and balances a vast majority of the time and produces the expected Gaussian bell curve when the distribution is analyzed. This indicates indicates that those with very good/bad luck should be very rare and should balance ultimately toward the middle. I’ve written code to test the randomness of the built in Java function.

If you randomly pick 1 out of 10 items, you have a 10% chance of getting one. If you
do it again, you have still have a 10% chance, but could do it 100 times and never get it, but the odds are still 10%. However, given enough tries it will eventually balance the curve. If the RNG is working properly, in 1000 tests you will get approximately 100 per bucket, with a small amount of deviation, a vast majority of the time. The further away you get away from 100 in a bucket, the less it will happen. The RNG in GW2 has seemingly never had very good balancing and seemed weighted toward high DPS dealers getting better rewards most of the time, while low DPS dealers and support type roles are on the opposite end of the curve. But this is also not exclusive and testing showed that even in groups, or solo, whether it be farming or adventuring, the loot did not improve, ever, which is counter to everything RNG theory says it should be doing. This behavior also extended to dungeons and for some, even fractals.

I like said, this was based on stats from last winter and I have not done enough testing to see if this is still the case, but I do know how RNG is supposed to work.

Leamas.5803:

Dustfinger.9510:

Unless we are privy to the outcome of all results, we have no idea if the randomness is failing. Because test sampling of random factors in inherently flawed.

No, test sampling randomness is very predictable if it’s truly random. I don’t know what GW2 is written in, but if given enough tests, the RNG in Java pretty much falls in to linearness and balances a vast majority of the time and produces the expected Gaussian bell curve when the distribution is analyzed. This indicates indicates that those with very good/bad luck should be very rare and should balance ultimately toward the middle. I’ve written code to test the randomness of the built in Java function.

If you randomly pick 1 out of 10 items, you have a 10% chance of getting one. If you
do it again, you have still have a 10% chance, but could do it 100 times and never get it, but the odds are still 10%. However, given enough tries it will eventually balance the curve. If the RNG is working properly, in 1000 tests you will get approximately 100 per bucket, with a small amount of deviation, a vast majority of the time. The further away you get away from 100 in a bucket, the less it will happen. The RNG in GW2 has seemingly never had very good balancing and seemed weighted toward high DPS dealers getting better rewards most of the time, while low DPS dealers and support type roles are on the opposite end of the curve. But this is also not exclusive and testing showed that even in groups, or solo, whether it be farming or adventuring, the loot did not improve, ever, which is counter to everything RNG theory says it should be doing. This behavior also extended to dungeons and for some, even fractals.

I like said, this was based on stats from last winter and I have not done enough testing to see if this is still the case, but I do know how RNG is supposed to work.

Bolded contradicts everything else you just said. Because it ignores the fact that samples are limited and won’t take into account that while red may come up 30 times in a row, black will also do so later on. So a sample of 10 trials will all be red while it is on a red streak (if we have a wheel with only red and black evenly spaced). Even though there is always a 50/50 chance. But the sample would indicate that there is more chance of red than black. When we know that it isn’t true. Then we get into a classic controle testing issue in social science basing our opinions off the testing of people who do their testing not in conjunction with each other. So you may well only be hearing from unhappy people who hit a “red streak” while those who have hit a “black streak” are perfectly happy and have no reason to come to the forums. So your need for 1000 trials is getting closer to exactly what I said is needed. Knowledge of every actual outcome. Not just groups of people who had a few dollars to spend on some keys.

Companies found out a long time ago, that an outcry doesn’t neccesarily mean there is a real problem, because generally only unhappy people feel the need to voice their opinions. While happy people tend to continue about their daily lives.

However, given enough tries it will eventually balance the curve.

This bit is what makes the sampling flawed. How much is enough? Was the amount of keys that unhappy people spent “enough” or “not enough”? The only way to know that answer is to know the intended outcome that a-net designed and weigh it against the sum total of the actual outcome.