Square Enix's RNG

I've done Garuda Hard mode about 25 times and I've yet to see a bard bow or a scholar book drop.
I've since gotten my Scholar's relic so now I do it to get weapons for my sub characters but still kinda sad lol..

This reminds me that there are still too many people that don't understand percentages or probability.

Less than 100% chance is not 100% chance, no matter how close it is to 100%.

50% does not mean that a specific person will succeed 50% of the time, it means that there's always a flat 50% chance of success or failure. You could fail 90% of the time even though you had a 50% chance of success every time, because it's not cumulative, but flat probability for each check.

Most RNG systems are not perfectly random in the strictest sense, but can seem close enough. This game uses one of them.

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Originally Posted by Doson

Keep this thread going. When I wake up i want to read about people bitching about RNG. I love RNG. My favorite way to get loot. I wonder if i'll get my Allagan weapon before 2.2? Just love being rewarded for clearing hard content. Wait. I haven't.

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Originally Posted by Amyas

Just be glad something drops. And it wasn't dark matter.

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If anything, he can be glad that his item exists. The item I need, ancient shield, doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Moirear

This reminds me that there are still too many people that don't understand percentages or probability.

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I understand probability quite well. Did statistics in University. When I frequently see sequences that have less than a 1 in 100,000 chance occurring, every 500 chances or so, and others complain of the same thing, we're either all incredibly unlucky, or the system is prone to excessively long sequences of extreme values.

Frankly though, I'd be happier if they just did away with the RNG entirely, and introduced some form of Fatigue factor, that increases with every action, and once full, the next action is going to fail. Various abilities increase fatigue more, while various traits decrease the rate of fatigue growth.


Do the same thing as well, but for HQ gatherings. When you gather, your HQ meter fills, and then once full, you get an HQ hit, and it resets with any full surplus carried over.

Such a system would remove the immense frustration that many feel with an RNG. I hate RNG's in MMO's period (excluding combat). If I'm a skilled artisan or botanist, it's only a matter of time, not chance, that I'll HQ something.

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Originally Posted by Rivienne

It isn't fancy math.. it is about statistics.

Random is random(or pseudo-random in this case obviously). But once you apply a statistical value too it, like SE has done, then it can be expected to conform to that number within certain tolerance levels over larger sample sets, otherwise that number is meaningless.

I am not complaining here: I think things function okay-ish. Just that the numbers SE has given aren't accurate to what is going on from what I have seen thus far, but they do mostly conform to some pattern. Just not the one stated by the number SE gave. Subtract 10% (for any value between 10% and 99%) seems a good rule of thumb for me. (Though it likely isn't accurate to what is actually going on to cause that perception)

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It doesn't matter what you say really, my comment still rings true. Sugar coat it with as many math textbooks as you like good sir. If it's not 100% you ALWAYS have a chance to fail.

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Originally Posted by Rivienne

And the fact I did 300 in a row to receive my tests should be at least somewhat representative of that.

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What did you do 300 times? All I saw was you mentioning AK, which any RNG factors therein are far more obscure than 98% HQ success rate, so I am not sure what one has to do with the other.

Having gathered up to 800 Mythril Ore, equal numbers on other items, I can confirm that HQ is around 15-20% and it's like that all the time. Proc for Mooch is similar. For Gathering, it's 15-20% of hits though so if you are getting nothing 40% of the time, you get 15% of the 60 times you hit.

Crafting is different. If I can get 50% or 75% or 88% with all Normal condition and do it over 100 Synthesis, my true HQ will come up half on those synthesis. The number fusges based on Good quality but the true value of my crafting percentage is almost always half. It doesn't matter what the bar says.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Anyone else feel like SE's RNG is a complete joke?

I have been crafting all night getting about 80-90% chance of HQ and swear I have failed about 50% of the time.

Meanwhile I barely get any HQ with 15-20% chance HQ.

Same goes for gathering. Several misses in a row on 80% chance.

They really need to update their RNG formula.

/rant

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Haven't had an issue with the crafting, but the RNG sure gets screwy when they unleash it on the loot tables. Had me convinced for a while it was picking drops by day instead of by run.

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Originally Posted by fixitman

Sometimes, luck just isn't on (y)our side.

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once you have levelled multiple crafters to 50, and gotten all your cross class.. should luck still be a factor? to a degree i guess but it is really annoying to consistantly hit 100% HQ then on one craft fail fail fail fail and hit 10% lol

And the ugly truth to %-based rates is that, mathematically speaking, there exists a statistical probability that someone will never get an item they desire. Game companies won't sell you that info though. :P

Obviously the odds are very low assuming an infinite number of attempts, but it's not 0.

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Originally Posted by Sin_Nombre

I would actually like to know what random number generator they're using, and whether or not it has passed all the tests out there for random number generation. There are plenty of bad generators out there, and if they wrote the one they're using themselves, then there's a high probability it IS broken.

I've seen events happen more than a few times that simply should not have occurred, like failing over and over again with 98 and 99% chances for success. And by not occurring, I mean that the probability of these events is on the order of 1:1,000,000,000, and they occur all the time.

They've already had to fix issues with loot drops in coil, so it really makes you wonder what else is broken in this domain.

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This.

I have had strings of 5 failures in a row at about 80% success. If you do the math, that is about 0.00032. I have had someone tell me their worst string was 6 failures at 90% in a row.

Whilst, I know just having 1 person I know of isnt a very good sample size, the thought that the example that happened to me as well as a few other strings of bad luck happen just doesnt seem... right.

Merely a feeling. I am not claiming to have any statistical evidence. I would just like to know what peoples thoughts are.

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Originally Posted by Castillan

I understand probability quite well. Did statistics in University. When I frequently see sequences that have less than a 1 in 100,000 chance occurring, every 500 chances or so, and others complain of the same thing, we're either all incredibly unlucky, or the system is prone to excessively long sequences of extreme values.

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You're all incredibly unlucky, because some others are incredibly lucky. My results are fairly average.

That's just how it can go. And most RNGs are basically pseudo-RNGs because they're not based on natural phenomenas that are truly random, so they can occasionally be perceived as prone to extreme values.

You're doing the math on a few samples, but you'd have to gather the data from all players, all checks, all the time to get a more reliable picture of how well the system works at acting random.

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

This.

I have had strings of 5 failures in a row at about 80% success. If you do the math, that is about 0.00032. I have had someone tell me their worst string was 6 failures at 90% in a row.

Whilst, I know just having 1 person I know of isnt a very good sample size, the thought that the example that happened to me as well as a few other strings of bad luck happen just doesnt seem... right.

Merely a feeling. I am not claiming to have any statistical evidence. I would just like to know what peoples thoughts are.

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This is entirely within tolerances for RNG. It's just a bad string of luck.

Honestly people. We really do need hard numbers here and not anecdotal evidence. If you think something is wrong then document it and prove with a high enough sample size. PROVE IT PEOPLE! This is something the player base can absolutely prove. Stop complaining and actually do something to prove to SE that there is a problem. That's what gets things done around here.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

This is entirely within tolerances for RNG. It's just a bad string of luck.

Honestly people. We really do need hard numbers here and not anecdotal evidence. If you think something is wrong then document it and prove with a high enough sample size. PROVE IT PEOPLE! This is something the player base can absolutely prove. Stop complaining and actually do something to prove to SE that there is a problem. That's what gets things done around here.

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Why should we have the prove anything when SE has the formula for their RNG generators sitting on the desk of their office? SE knows if something is up and they can choose to investigate it or not.

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Originally Posted by Psun

Thanks to this thread I finally figured out what RNG stands for

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I couldn't get past it standing for Ranger.

lol

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Originally Posted by Murakamo

Why should we have the prove anything when SE has the formula for their RNG generators sitting on the desk of their office? SE knows if something is up and they can choose to investigate it or not.

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Because SE probably knows it works perfectly as they sit there laughing there asses off at the players raging. Random number generating algorithms are very common and extensively tested. It is very probable SE is using a standard algorithm, and didn't write their own since there wouldn't be much benefit in reinventing the wheel. Which would mean there isn't a problem at all. If the players would take the time to try and prove the problem exists they might actually discover it works just fine, or if they find there is a problem then it might garner some real attention from SE who is likely sitting back feeling very confident in their industry accepted algorithm. So far no one cares to study this with a large enough sample size and they just want to complain instead. If I was SE I would expect that the generator is working perfectly because there is no real reason to expect that it isn't. From a programming perspective what everyone thinks is happening is actually a very unlikely scenario. It is more likely that personal perceptions are playing strongly in players minds and are making them perceive a problem that does not actually exist.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

What did you do 300 times? All I saw was you mentioning AK, which any RNG factors therein are far more obscure than 98% HQ success rate, so I am not sure what one has to do with the other.

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AK? No idea what you think you read, but I brought a specific test in my first post on thread of mining 100% chance nodes, and using unearth to increase HQ percentage. with a stated chance of 25%, I saw instead 38HQ over ~300 attempts (75 nodes total, so 300 is the minimum. It may be closer to 310 but for simplicity I rounded).

I am btw, neutral on this subject, I am not complaining, or defending the system. I am defending the possibility that the system is flawed however. Based on my experience and testing, the system seems flawed. That doesn't mean it is, but my one stated example was large enough to be meaningful, though not definitive. However for personal play, the system works good enough for me.

Regarding loot drop: I don't care at all. When stuff drops, better than my gear it is an oooh free upgrades moment. I don't go looking for them however, so I am not interested either way in chance rates of loot drop.

But gathering is very clean and easy test for the RNG system, which other people can easily test to backup or refute my numbers. Mine any 100% chance item with a 15% chance HQ over a sufficient sample size, of 50+ nodes. Use unearth consistently at every node to ensure that every node is given the same 25% chance at HQ. (25% is a good number of this type of test, because the sample size doesn't have to be prohibitively large to be meaningful). Count the total number of NQ and HQ at the end of the test. I would expect results of 18-25% HQ.

My own personal experience is that, over time, HQ gathering percentages do tend to match the listed percentage. Not that my sample size is statistically significant, but NO single player (or even a couple of players comparing notes) is going to have a large enough sample size avoid being an outlier on the bell curve.

The displayed percentages may, in fact, be incorrect and I've been lucky. My experience is no more or less valid than others.