Your WTF?! Gathering Probability Moments

So how often has the game thrown you guys an amusing probability curveball?
For example, when I am logging normal trees, with an 88% chance at a given item, and miss all 4 times. By my math, thats 0.12^4 ~ a 0.02% chance of happening, and yet it does, and isnt that rare.

Or when you are doing leves, used Sharp Vision 2, and have a 97%+ chance of getting an item... but miss on the 5th one, resetting your chain and preventing you from using Deep Vigor or Brunt Force...

Its similar for crafting as well... the game LOVES to give me an excellent condition the moment I hit 10 durability, but never when I have Waste Not active... Things like that.

Anyone else care to share their WTF probability moments?

I usually have it in reverse.. 15% to get HQ? Lol, nope! HQ 5 times out of 5.

But yeah, random is random :)

hehe, I recall on my miner having a 97% node on mithril and failing to mine anything 3 times in a row. - > in a row. I just laughed and told my hubbie next to me, that japanese statistics were owning me.
This was after having had several odd experiences with seemingly good or terrible chances creating surprising results.
I still occasionally have those weird moments. Fx, arriving late at the gold node in Drybones, and not having GP potions, so unbuffed I have 2% rare chance, and I get 3 hits for rare gold in a row again, while sometimes when Im fully buffed at 32% I get none at all.

Random is random. (but then Ive been in the login Q at number 20, when my husband logs in right next to me, and enters right away) - I think they just do numbers differently :D

I won the lottery couple days ago , lvl 48 mining on cobalt at 95% , 4 nothing out of 4

I've had it go both ways for me. I've had 90+% on normal trees and missed all 4 on more than one occasion (granted it's not common). Conversely, I nailed 4 HQ hits in a row once on an unspoiled node with a 1% chance of success. I've been saying this for a while now, but I'm almost positive there is something more to their gathering probabilities than just a straight % base. I constantly find myself on both sides of the issue; either missing a ton in a row with a high % or hitting a ton/getting HQs with a very low %. While statistically it's possible, these things shouldn't be happening as often as they do.

If it's not 100% it's 50%

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Originally Posted by Kherza

I've had it go both ways for me. I've had 90+% on normal trees and missed all 4 on more than one occasion (granted it's not common). Conversely, I nailed 4 HQ hits in a row once on an unspoiled node with a 1% chance of success. I've been saying this for a while now, but I'm almost positive there is something more to their gathering probabilities than just a straight % base. I constantly find myself on both sides of the issue; either missing a ton in a row with a high % or hitting a ton/getting HQs with a very low %. While statistically it's possible, these things shouldn't be happening as often as they do.

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You hit the nail on the head there. Probabilities mean that eventually all of this WILL happen. But it seems like the Seed just gets in its own little rut and won't budge. For better and for worse.

I was gathering Grade 3 Carbonized Matter in the shroud. The listed success rate was 96%. I failed 6 times in a row.

0.04 ^ 6 = a 1 in 244 million chance. It was about that time that I started parsing my logs and found out the likely gathering formula. Hint, the stated success percentage is only valid if you have a food effect. It doesn't matter if the food is related to gathering at all, it only matters that you have the food effect.

The formula appears to be success rate = (X^j +X)/2 where X = stated success rate (0.96 in my case) and j = 1 if you have a food effect and 4 if you do not.

In this case, with food, success rate is 96%. Without food, the success rate is (.96^4 + .96)/2 = 90.47% In this case, since i didn't have food, my chance of failure 6 times in a row dropped to about 1 in 1.33 million.

99%/50% chance to gather HQ Mahogany Logs. Missed three times and no HQ. On two different trees during the same gathering session. On the other hand, I did manage 4 HQ gather on a 75%/15% tree during that same session. The RNG was being really fickle that night.

From some of the RNG i experience with this game, it is quite evident that the RNG algorithm they use in this game is rather poor.

Just FYI, you can never program a truly random random number generator. The program has to use seed values which, by their nature, affect the resulting generated number. Some RNGs are better than others, and with the amount of '1 in a million' events that occur daily to myself and other crafters in my FC and LSs, its clear that the RNG in FF14 isn't very random at all.

same here. I kept track one night while mining just for S's and G's... an 88% success was 70% but that was only 100 chances, maybe it would equal out over more opportunities or another miner is getting the other side of that which is probably the deal. The negative mathematical long shot happens to me more often then not and I've never hit 4/4 on HQ mining items, ever

7 HQs in a row at 15%. It was so ridiculous I even took a pic:

http://i.imgur.com/ii5Oa7o.png

The RNG is definitely a little wonky. I always have bad luck or good luck in a row, (missing 6 out of 8 times on an 80% chance, getting 3 of 4 HQ on a 12% chance etc.) which, sure, can happen sometimes... but all the time over two different characters? That's a pattern.

Luckily, I normally farm things for long enough that it all balances out in the end, anyway.

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Originally Posted by zdub303

From some of the RNG i experience with this game, it is quite evident that the RNG algorithm they use in this game is rather poor.

Just FYI, you can never program a truly random random number generator. The program has to use seed values which, by their nature, affect the resulting generated number. Some RNGs are better than others, and with the amount of '1 in a million' events that occur daily to myself and other crafters in my FC and LSs, its clear that the RNG in FF14 isn't very random at all.

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Actually, you can have a pure RNG. It's call hardware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwar...mber_generator

Given that you maintain it and have competent components and filters, it's completely random.

I hope SE uses some implementation of this. Otherwise, we could game the RNG. Remember FF12 cure list?

And I know this will probably suck the life out of this thread, but we're wired for patterns. We tend to remember the weird things rather then what we perceive to be normal. Thus, if we feel that RNG is acting weird - it's probably doing it's job.

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Originally Posted by HoroBoro

Actually, you can have a pure RNG. It's call hardware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwar...mber_generator

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Thanks for the link, interesting read. I highly doubt, considering the server uses a 0.3s server-side position check delay to conserve resources, that they would actually use a hardware based random number generator. Esp considering how slow it says those solutions are.

More likely they use the software based PRNG with seeds values taken from recycled output.

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Originally Posted by zdub303

Thanks for the link, interesting read. I highly doubt, considering the server uses a 0.3s server-side position check delay to conserve resources, that they would actually use a hardware based random number generator. Esp considering how slow it says those solutions are.

More likely they use the software based PRNG with seeds values taken from recycled output.

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That's an interesting idea. Given my own experiences with crafting, I'm actually inclined to believe you (I sometimes feel like I can predict the next "good condition" or the next failure).

The next step would be to... I guess, pick up all the popular PRNG algorithms and put data into them I guess. Maybe find out what the formula is. Apparently the PRNG was a linear congruential generator: http://www.kotha.net/ff12random/rand...tml#a_overview

I doubt anyone has the motivation, and I doubt they would use the same type, (I certainly don't and wouldn't) but maybe we can take it from there? There's nothing in the TOS against using math.

I was mining for a Leve, and I needed two more stones with 6 tries 80% chance, only got 1. Almost facepalmed myself into space. :p

i had a funny moment, with 15% HQ rate and i got 27 HQ gathers in a row. i did not use any ability or get any node bonus

i have had 50% HQ chance and 99% success only to fail all attempts

It definitely has to do with the algorithm they used. I have noticed this a lot since gathering, so much so that I am now keeping a spreadsheet. I would guess that even with a huge sample size the percentages you see on the screen will not be valid. I plan on keeping the spreadsheet over a couple of months and see how it comes out.

I got 99% but a hit ain't one..

I failed a 100% chance after having used that botany ability which grants you 100%...

Buggggggggggg alert!

Now let us introduce evil rounding errors!
100% = 99.5%-100% = 1 in 200 chance to FAIL!!! a 100% gather. =P

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

Now let us introduce evil rounding errors!
100% = 99.5%-100% = 1 in 200 chance to FAIL!!! a 100% gather. =P

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Yeah I used that botany ability after chain 4 to give you 50% gathering bonus which said I was at 100%....

its absolutely ridiculous. way too many times i can remember missing a succession of attempts at 90%+. it's like i will increase my gathering rate and then then say to myself, it's at 95% now, so by the games math i should miss at least once here.