% for melding materia is broken

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Additional source for a minimum sample size of 30 being acceptable

http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-M...ability11.html

To be fair, here's another source stating the sample size of 30 is inane and 30 is not any form of a magic number, and that determining sample size is far more complex than that.

http://www.umass.edu/remp/Papers/Smith&Wells_NERA06.pdf

And here's a source on how to handle your statistical analysis when the sample size is greater than or less than 30

http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v4n3/rhiel.html

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Regardless of whether or not 30 samples is enough for establishing SOME basic significance for any given data set. I'm pretty sure it's woefully insufficient when trying to determine the quality of any PRNG and how it's used. I don't think an 8.4% margin of error (EDIT: or 16%, i'm not going to double check the math, sufficient to say it's not terribly precise) with only a 95% confidence rating is particularly helpful. When asked whether their RNG is good or not I think that's one step up from "sure, it feels about right"

Not to mention, how on earth could you apply something like the spectral test to 30 results and come away with any sort of meaningful result? Which is a more appropriate concern given the OPs complaints (that the RNG is streaky, IE: multiple fails in a row being too common)

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Additional source for a minimum sample size of 30 being acceptable

http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-M...ability11.html

To be fair, here's another source stating the sample size of 30 is inane and 30 is not any form of a magic number, and that determining sample size is far more complex than that.

http://www.umass.edu/remp/Papers/Smith&Wells_NERA06.pdf

And here's a source on how to handle your statistical analysis when the sample size is greater than or less than 30

http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v4n3/rhiel.html

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Originally Posted by O-Deka-K

Say the real probability is 41%. Let's take a sample size of 30. From 30 independent tests, let's say I get 10 successes (exactly 41% of 30 is 12.3, so 10 seems reasonable).

Formula (1) is:
p' +/- z * squareroot( p' (1- p') / n )

where:
p' is the observed probability (10/30)
z (or z alpha /2) is the (1 - alpha/2) percentile of a standard normal distribution
n is the sample size (30)

For a 95% confidence interval, z is 1.96.

This gives us an interval of 0.3333 +/- 0.1687. What does that mean? It means, "I am 95% confident that the real probability is between 16.5% and 50.2%". And it just so happens that 41% does fall within that range.

However, this interval is pretty large, so you can't really say "Yes, the percentage really is 41%". If you want a more accurate measurement, then you need to reduce the interval size. To do that, increase the sample size n. If you increase n to 10000, the range is +/- 0.92%, which is much better.

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yeah and in O-Deka-K's comment, you have the proof by numbers that a sample of 30 is irrelevant when it comes to mathematical statistics (ie : P-RNG here).

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Additional source for a minimum sample size of 30 being acceptable
http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-M...ability11.html

To be fair, here's another source stating the sample size of 30 is inane and 30 is not any form of a magic number, and that determining sample size is far more complex than that.
http://www.umass.edu/remp/Papers/Smith&Wells_NERA06.pdf

And here's a source on how to handle your statistical analysis when the sample size is greater than or less than 30
http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v4n3/rhiel.html

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Again, all of these are about confidence intervals. Also, the first link doesn't prove a minimum sample size of 30 - it takes it as an assumption.

30 samples is enough to say that you can measure the probability with an error of +/- 16.9% (for my example only). I'd argue that this is not particularly useful.

Let me put it this way:

There are 100 marbles in a bag. Some of the marbles are red and some of them are white. You are allowed to take one out, look at it, and put it back (sampling with replacement). How many samples would you have to take before you could say "I think I know how many red marbles there are in the bag"?

Is 30 samples is enough? There could be 5 red, or 95 red. How would you know?
Is 100 samples enough? Remember that you might pick the same marble more than once.
Is 200 enough?

My argument is that if you take 10000 samples, then you can be reasonably sure you know how many (although you still might off by a bit).

I still remember the time a guy wanted me to meld something. It was a IV, and it only had an 8 percent chance to succeed. I got it on the first try, and he was so stoked about it, he gave me a 100k tip. Without bad luck, there would be no good luck.

i successfully melded a 10% on my third try, and using a heaven's eye IV, feels good man.

There are people who are on both sides of the luck spectrum -- some are lucky to succeed in something with a low chance of success while others are "lucky" to fail with a high chance of success. (Albeit the undesirable kind of luck.)

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Originally Posted by Malusion

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Then again, were talking about a 3% margin of failure not a 50%+ chance like your coin-flip example. Now I'm not stupid enough to deny there is an extremely small mathematical possibility that I can miss each subsequent attempt when I miss the first attempt, I'll even say it's entirely possible for it to happen every single time like it has for me. It does make me think something is amiss however, and we're not seeing something. I do believe that it does lend some merit to my theory to at least warrant some investigation, that after the initial attempt every subsequent attempt is predisposed to that result unless you change the primary variable of that chance (raise/lower success/HQ rate/W/E) or force the RNG to create a new variable (Completley End Craft/Meld/Gathering Attempt/Change Jobs/Zone).

I failed a 45% 15 times.
I succeeded a 8% on a 1st try.
I managed to fail a 11% only 2 times.
I withnessed myself failing a 45% 23 times.

It is random, sadly it's a good random.
It's not a random that incereases it's odds of you wining the more you try.
It's a random that makes it possible for you to fail something at 50% for a hundred times or/and succeed even a 2% on the first go.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

I do believe that it does lend some merit to my theory to at least warrant some investigation, that after the initial attempt every subsequent attempt is predisposed to that result unless you change the primary variable of that chance (raise/lower success/HQ rate/W/E) or force the RNG to create a new variable (Completley End Craft/Meld/Gathering Attempt/Change Jobs/Zone).

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No, it's just random. The system isn't dead set against you to propagate a bad roll, and in the same regard it's not coded with a streakbreaker algorithm to prevent long streaks either. Random is random is random. That's all there is to it.
If you want to prove otherwise then by all means start jotting down the data and attempt to prove it. I have no doubt they've already looked at the algorithm before they ever posted the dev post talking about it anyway. This is just the gambler's fallacy in action.

I will admit it is not random. Simply because nothing generated by any current human technology is random.
However, the probabilities listed are most likely reasonably accurate.

Further note, one thing people rarely remember about inferential statistics is that most of the formulas you were taught are only truly valid for normal distributions. your sample size of 30 is meaningless when the population is non-Gaussian. That doesn't stop researchers from making this mistake all the time though, so I won't blame the internet for doing so.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

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Hence why I did acknowledge that with my own experience in gathering maps, where I have several times failed once, and will give it untill the very last swing to actually activate an ability (mostly due to being lazy), and yet have only ever encountered the need to activate that ability once, because usually I succeed the subsequent swing after failing.

That said, if you change no variables, the way their PRNG works there MIGHT be some correlation, but not exactly in that way. If you maintain the same percentage chance on a node for several subsequent swings, I do not know if they generate a new seed for every swing, or if it simply moves to the next number in the same seed. The effect of either of those scenarios would have little to no impact on the player's end of it, however.

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Originally Posted by Staris

your sample size of 30 is meaningless when the population is non-Gaussian. That doesn't stop researchers from making this mistake all the time though, so I won't blame the internet for doing so.

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False. Central Limit Theorem dictates that as long as the population is identically distributed, it doesn't matter if the population is normal or non-normal.

http://www.statisticalengineering.co...t_theorem.html

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Originally Posted by Staris

I will admit it is not random. Simply because nothing generated by any current human technology is random.

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I do agree with you on this.

Usually, I would agree that RNG is just RNG. But in ARR it really is a bit weird and makes me wonder if it truly is random. I've played way too many MMOs in my life and I know what random means. In this game, however, I can't get rid of the feeling that there are some hidden factors behind the "randomness". Also, I've never seen that many complains about RNG in any games I played.

Isn't the single try chance that gets higher. It is the chance to get at least one success on a sequence of 'n' tries, that goes higher when 'n' increase. You all said that, but I just have put it in more common words :P

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Isn't the single try chance that gets higher. It is the chance to get at least one success on a sequence of 'n' tries, that goes higher when 'n' increase. You all said that, but I just have put it in more common words :P

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That would be a streak breaker algorithm. Chance of success increases with n failures. This game doesn't have that, but some games do. This is what leads people to think "I don't have a problem in other games." The problem is players aren't used to pure unhindered randomness so they think something is wrong.

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Originally Posted by BillyBones

Usually, I would agree that RNG is just RNG. But in ARR it really is a bit weird and makes me wonder if it truly is random. I've played way too many MMOs in my life and I know what random means. In this game, however, I can't get rid of the feeling that there are some hidden factors behind the "randomness". Also, I've never seen that many complains about RNG in any games I played.

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that's because you never played any F2P. seriously.

You want to know what is a real rigged RNG ? go play dragon pals. Their "RNG" gives a good result after the entire server has spent enough money. Until then, crappy to trash results. Heck they have an event that forces you to pay and it's even in the description of said event. They KNOW their RNG is fucked up. they SAY it !


I have played a lot of F2P, and I know what a broken RNG is. FFxiv is very, very, very far away from having a broken RNG. And seriously, can any of you doubters can give me even one plausible argument about why SE would screw their RNG ? you're not paying for options or bonuses...

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

That would be a streak breaker algorithm. Chance of success increases with n failures. This game doesn't have that, but some games do. This is what leads people to think "I don't have a problem in other games." The problem is players aren't used to pure unhindered randomness so they think something is wrong.

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no not really :

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Isn't the single try chance that gets higher. It is the chance to get at least one success on a sequence of 'n' tries, that goes higher when 'n' increase. You all said that, but I just have put it in more common words :P

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the key here is "at least one success". On a pure random basis, the probability of an occurrence happening at least once increases the more draws you do.

Basically, you have more chance to get at least one good result by repeating the tries even more.

As an example, with a probability of 1% :

1 try : 1% chance to have one good result
69 tries : 50% chance to have at least one good result. could be more. But the only fact is that you have "only" 50% chance of failing 69 times in a row with 1% probability of success.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

That would be a streak breaker algorithm. Chance of success increases with n failures. This game doesn't have that, but some games do. This is what leads people to think "I don't have a problem in other games." The problem is players aren't used to pure unhindered randomness so they think something is wrong.

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That's not what she's talking about.

population is not identically distributed.
if you have a 76% chance to succeseed 24 % would be above and 76 % would be below