% for melding materia is broken

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

RNG is RNG

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Actually I'm not so sure the RNG is not bugged though, I've had more than a few occasions where I would be farming the daily maps with 97% success rate and if I fail the first time each successive swing will guarantee a failure unless I use an ability to up the rate to 100% success. I've also had similar statistics from multiple melding failures.

It almost seems like the RNG doesn't actually randomize beyond the first attempt, so if you have a 90% chance at anything if you succeed/fail you'll be predisposed to the same result unless you force the RNG to change by either changing the values of the success/HQ/Gathering/whatever rate or change the scenario such as changing jobs, zoning, and such.

On the other hand it might just be bugged and stuck on a predetermined value of success or fail after the first attempt and SE has thus far just hard pressed to find it when it occurs.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

Let me make it easier for you to understand. If you flip a coin 30 times, the odds of you obtaining an even split of results 15 heads, 15 tails is miniscule. But you are saying that you can start to infer significance from results you get from a mere 30 flips, that you could say well, I've had 18 heads and 12 tails, this is evidence that heads are more likely than tails. That you would be expecting, by 30 for the results to be starting to conform to the odds. This conformity simply isn't going to start to appear until the late double digits at the earliest for the vast majority of samples.

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Wrong. I would have given a more in-depth explanation, but given your "edit", it's obvious you're here to troll and not to have an intelligent discussion.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

Edit: Thinking about it, your mention of the 'social sciences' would lead me to guess you do mostly qualitative research? Well I got news for ya bud, that isn't science. There's a reason you get a BA not a BSc.

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Two incorrect assumptions and a poor troll attempt.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

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But then again, if you raise your chance to 100%, then how can you know that hit wouldn't have succeeded if you didn't? I don't up my chance to mine it on maps to 100% unless I am down to the last attempt at gathering, I have failed attempts several times, but really, I have only needed to use an ability to get 100% once, and that's simply because if I only have one chance then obviously I am going to remove any risk of failure.

When it comes down to it, you're much more often getting a less notable, more in line with the success rate result, than you are getting a lopsided one. The only difference is that people have a cognitive bias to view certain patterns as more noteworthy than others, while that is when it comes down to it just that, a cognitive bias.

For example if you flip a coin five times you are just as likely to get heads -> heads -> heads -> heads -> heads as you are on getting heads -> tails -> tails -> heads -> tails, for example. You'd just take more note of when you get five in a row simply because your mind considered it more notable, then the other pattern slips to the back of your mind as time passes on, resulting in the belief that you see the notable pattern more often than you actually see it. Yes, you are more likely to not get heads 5 times in a row than you are to get heads 5 times in a row. No you are not less likely to get heads 5 time in a row, than you are to get any other specific sequence of results.

The stuff like this in crafting and gathering basically just comes down to: You're forgetting how many more times you got the more probable sequence, because when it happens you have no bias to consider it noteworthy, and as such just move on with your day. If people want to prove the RNG is truly broken, then rather than just off hand saying "I get this more than I should", they have to do testing, recording every single attempt over a large sample size.

And as some people have mentioned: Mathematical statistics require much larger sample sizes than social sciences. Ideally social sciences would have larger sample sizes as well, but due to there being more determined elements and it not being random, and it just not being feasible to get a huge sample size when you need individual people for each test, we've kind of compromised to accept smaller ones.

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Originally Posted by Astralos

2) http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~aa/articles...n_binomial.pdf

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Thank you for the references. Now I see where you get the number 30 from. It's essentially the minimum number of samples required for calculating a confidence interval. Below 30, the error calculation isn't very accurate.

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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Originally Posted by O-Deka-K

Thank you for the references. Now I see where you get the number 30 from. It's essentially the minimum number of samples required for calculating a confidence interval. Below 30, the error calculation isn't very accurate.

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Right. By the time the sample size increases to about 30, any results using a t-distribution will coincide with the results from a standard, normal distribution (with minimal error).

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Originally Posted by O-Deka-K

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. Even if you increase n to 10000, the range is still some +/- 4.6%.

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I agree. You'll always get more accurate numbers (and thus, be able to draw a conclusion with greater certainty) with a greater sample size.

I edited above. It wasn't +/- 4.6% but +/- 0.46%.

Edit: I was wrong again. (z alpha / 2) is 1.96, not 0.98, which means that my intervals were even larger (+/- 0.92% for n = 10000).

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 Astralos

Wrong. I would have given a more in-depth explanation, but given your "edit", it's obvious you're here to troll and not to have an intelligent discussion.

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I wouldn't get one if I wanted it.

ITT: People who get bad luck call an RNG biased against them.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

ITT: People who get bad luck call an RNG biased against them.

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That's how it is in every game. Someone comes on saying RNGesus hates them and gave them too many failed runs/slots/whatever in a row. Then another person comes along and says RNGesus loves them and gave them many much blessings. The devs look at it and go "Yep, working as intended" and nothing changes lol.

It's RNG. That's just how it goes :-\

the trouble it's in many game they applicate RNG to the basic without put some safeguard to avoid long streak of "bad luck". it's frustrating for the player, and frustrate a player is never good.
indeed RNG is RNG, but let's admit that some safeguard for avoid stuff like 14 fail in row with a 41% of succes is needed. it's like play coin toss and get 14 time Face in row...