Please be truthful with us...

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Maeka, in actual daily life 0.4% odds isnt even uncommon. Thats roughly 1 in 250.

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So, what you're saying is somehow I succeed the 1-in-250 odds twice every 6 tries on an average over a couple months and that's supposed to be "normal"? lol.

That is some pretty insane luck there.

I'll give you another example. Ever played an old SNES game called Earthbound? There's a character named Poo (yeah, I know....) in your group who can only use 1 weapon in the entire game. Said weapon has a 1/255 drop chance from 1 enemy in the game, which is about the same odds you are saying of me succeeding 0.4%.

So you're saying that it's not so far of a stretch to get a 1/255 drop twice every 6 tries? Are you kidding me? If I had that kind of luck, everybody'd want me in their raiding groups.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

So, what you're saying is somehow I succeed the 1-in-250 odds twice every 6 tries on an average over a couple months and that's supposed to be "normal"? lol.

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Not quite. Averaging your history of RNG like "succeed the 1-in-250 odds twice every 6 tries on an average over a couple months" skews the data. You can have an extremely long run of bad luck which, when rearranged chronologically while being "averaged", would end up looking really out of place. Because it is out of place. You can't just say, "well, I failed 6 times throughout these last three 6-hit nodes, so that's the same as failing twice every node and it proves there's a pattern", because it's not the same and it doesn't prove there's a pattern. Rearranging chronology of events to make a pattern is a cognitive bias.

I can tell you right now, with near 100% certainty, that you did not, do not, and will not "succeed in 1-in-250 odds twice every 6 tries". You might get a few individual moments where you DO experience success in 1-in-250 odds twice within a 6-try span, but those are not patterns or proof of patterns.

What i said(how i meant it anyway) was in day-to-day living you do things much less likely then that constantly. And something as "uncommon" as what youre describing is happening to thousands of players right now. People have been complaining about their perceptions of the RNG since the game went live. And yet every time i hear about someone collecting data from a few thousand swings(or crafts - though gathering is much better for data gathering since it goes quicker) they report back that the numbers are more or less right. And "more or less" in this case means that theyve become convinced by looking at enough data that if they performed more tests the numbers will merge with the averages being shown(if they havent already). I wouldnt say no to one of the devs doing what you asked(showing that the algorithm was working correctly), but ive seen nothing to show the numbers arent accurate as is.

I will also agree wholeheartedly that it sucks when the RNG nails ya. I swear like a sailor when i miss on a 99% swing(twice... yesterday... on the same node... after buffing the hq chance to 42%... OMG that sucked), or NQ a craft at 94%(especially if i hit the wrong button and finished the craft early - also happened once this week). But i also celebrate the 25% craft that somehow goes HQ anyway, or the node where i get 3 hq in a row when i only had a 3% shot(and didnt buff it at all). By forcing myself to celebrate and remember the lucky successes(while i mourn the unlucky failures), i try to combat my own biases.

I doubt anything ive said will sway anyone on this issue. We know what we "feel", and to many thats more important than whats true. By all means, record the results from your next 1000-5000 swings and crunch the numbers. Id bet youll find that the percentages are right. And when the devs do a test on this issue(id also bet that they do tests like this at least a few times per patch), they wont look a small sample like that. Theyll pull the results from a few million interactions to compare.

Edit: As for your Earthbound example. No, i never played that one. But its also not a true comparison. If Earthbound was an online game with 6 million people playing, you could trade your "Poo stick"(for lack of an accurate name) to others, and you could fight the enemy that dropped it as often as you wanted at any time then the end result wouldnt actually be that rare of a weapon. Final Fantasy 4 had something slightly similar to what youre describing. To get the ultimate armor in the game you needed a super rare drop(it was a type of tail - odds 1/255) from a rare spawn(a type of jelly - odds 1/255) enemy that could only appear in one room in the entire game(the room was an empty dead end that unknowing people wouldnt spend extra time in to try farming), then you had to know who to turn it in to so you could get the reward. There was a consumable rare drop you could get(a come here and fight me whistle) to force an encounter with the least common enemy formation for the room you were standing in, so you could at least SEE the fight if you wanted, but forcing the reward took a game genie code. And ultimately it was 100% unneeded - just a hidden easter egg basically.

There is a reason i always bump up it to 100% cause 90% = 10%

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Originally Posted by Frizze

I will also agree wholeheartedly that it sucks when the RNG nails ya. I swear like a sailor when i miss on a 99% swing(twice... yesterday... on the same node... after buffing the hq chance to 42%... OMG that sucked), or NQ a craft at 94%(especially if i hit the wrong button and finished the craft early - also happened once this week). But i also celebrate the 25% craft that somehow goes HQ.

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I 100% agree with on this, sometimes when doing gathering for collectables I'll miss twice in a row at 91% but then OFTEN I have gathered consecutive HQ items at 6%. The other week I gathered 3 HQ items consecutively with a 6% chance. 6% 3 times a row. What are the odds in that? very low. But good luck occurs too, but just as the developer said, Cognitive fallacy is true. I sometime doubt the system too, but then when I get luck like that, maybe it isn't all bad lol.

Another example is on Pokémon games (bear with me here!), catching shiny Pokémon is usually around a 1/4000 chance. I have personally experienced getting one in 7 attempted, other times it takes 1 thousand attempts. its unfortunate, but it is just RNG.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

You either don't gather very much, or you're blowing it out of proportion. Since most people only remember when the RNG was bad and not extremely good it's not super surprising.

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I disagree. I understand the percentages and I have used that theory to soothe my savage gathering beastie heart, but something is up with this. This is someone who's gathered a lot. A whole ton. I basically spent all of HW gathering and crafting, because my computer at the time was bad. So I've done a lot of gathering and I've done them across the board. I just say that so you know I'm not a hysterical newbie gatherer.

That said, even I have noticed this issue. I've gotten none way, way more often in SB than I ever did in HW. It's gotten rather ridiculous. Even with 92%, I generally get 50/50 on each node I do. I always miss at least once. I can't remember the last time I got 100% of a node without using any abilities (on things 92% or higher chance.) This has been constant since SB came out and it's been no where near the miss rate in HW. Not even close. I was wearing half crafter gear to spirit bond on the left side and spirit bonding accessories to speed it up during HW. Even with basically wearing no gathering gear, I still got less misses than I do in SB. I am willing to accept a spate of bad luck because RNG. I'm not willing to accept a spate of bad luck that started at the beginning of SB and has lasted to this day. That's ridiculous.

But it's anecdotal and that doesn't hold any water, which is why I haven't brought this up. I have wondered if the set up of the new nodes is to blame. Like the artifically set the miss rate slightly higher to account for the chances of getting either 50%-ish HQ, 2+ attempts or items, or 25%+ gather rate with the set values you see (the 1+ attempt, 10% gather rate, and 5% HQ.) That or they messed up the formula with the new expac. As I said, I know, I know, anecdotal!

But on the contrast, I can't recall a single time in SB gathering while leveling where I got nothing off of a node, and I used my Ironworks gear all the way to 70; I didn't stop to replace any of it. This is why the value of anecdotes is limited; any time somebody gathers hard data, the numbers come out matching what SE has put forward.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

If the replies to my OP are true, then SE simply needs better RNG that doesn't do so much freaking clumping.

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Any good RNG will have clumps/streaks. Otherwise it is not a good RNG.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

But on the contrast, I can't recall a single time in SB gathering while leveling where I got nothing off of a node, and I used my Ironworks gear all the way to 70; I didn't stop to replace any of it. This is why the value of anecdotes is limited; any time somebody gathers hard data, the numbers come out matching what SE has put forward.

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So did I. This was another reason why I didn't make a thread about this in the forums. I thought it was my gear. Now that I have HQ crafted, with some overmelds, I haven't seen much change. And I have no doubt that people have gathered the hard data about this issue. I don't think it was off during HW. However, we're only two months or so into the new expac and they did change the SB nodes (to have one of each pair have a specific buff with the others having a chance of procing a buff.) It's within the realm of possibility that they might've screwed something up along the way in SB. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them to double check things.

I have gathered extensively. I can verify that their numbers are good. Go mine 500 of a single item and see how many HQ's you walk away with, without using HQ+. I have done this and I always end up with ~15% of my items being HQ. Sometimes it is a little more due to the random 20% HQ nodes but it is definitely par for the course.