RNG: How fake is it?

So you get a craft going, or a materia meld set up, and you are about to hit the button.

You look at your gil and your material supply, and checked the market board and retainers. Your good stuff probably isn't selling for 3 days, maybe 3 weeks, and you know if you miss this hit, you're probably out quite a bit of time and money.

90%. Can you trust it? NQ.
5% meld? well 5x20 is 100, so 25 should probably work, right? LOL. No.

For those of us who haven't been Sleeping with Tyche on our off hours, there's probably something fundamentally fake about RNG used by FF!4.

The numbers they display are so hideously off, and the cycles so unreliable, you just have to ask, is anyone else experiencing this?

All I can say is that 60% of the time it's working as intended every time. So please look forward to it.

I'd say it's confirmation bias, though the RNG DOES seem to cheat its dirty little head off in this game.

I can count the number of times I've HQed an item at 5% HQ chance on one hand, but I cannot count the number of times I've had an item be NQ when the HQ bar is at 95%...

Sometimes I feel that the rarer the item, the bigger the RNG lie gets.

5% meld?

That's a 95% chance it won't ever work. You could technically get screwed an infinite amount of times lol

i spent a fair number of years doing RPGs dice and programming them alike. 95% is just 95%. it is not 99.999999999999% 95% is just like saying 'you will never roll a natural 20 on a d20". Which, frankly, is the byproduct of an elaborate imagination.

I think if FF14 is playing with the chaos of saying, "well, it's theoretically possible to keep rolling 33 a hundred times..." then they need a self correcting RNG using an iteration to govern a given number of sets.

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Originally Posted by shintashi

5% meld? well 5x20 is 100, so 25 should probably work, right? LOL. No.

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People always seem to think that the % is based on 100 tries. Its not, it is a % of that try and that try only.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

People always seem to think that the % is based on 100 tries. Its not, it is a % of that try and that try only.

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I don't see why they don't just make higher melds take more materia of that type and tier rather than continue to use dice rolls. For example, first overmeld would be x2, second overmeld would be x4, third overmeld would be x8, 4th overmeld would be x16.

I mean it's not like RNG materia melding is a deep and engrossing gameplay mechanic, unless you are a masochist. Either that or rework it into a mini-game like crafting so there is some type of element that the player interacts with besides throwing money at the Market Board.

At one point, maybe a month ago, I did a little experiment with Raisins, the lvl 3 Cul recipe.
I did SH2+GS+BT to get it to about 90% HQ chance, and finished the synth. If I got a Good on the BT step, I would use ToT to remove it so I always got the exact same HQ chance.
After 200 Grapes, 180 HQ, 20 NQ. Yeah, came out as exactly 90%.
Of course there were times where I would get an "early NQ", but over 200 iterations, 90% was in fact 90%...

Here is the REAL question. If someone were to repeat this experiment with a 2 star, say Pineapple Juice, and use a modified 100% rotation, resulting in a 85-90% HQ chance, with ToT on every Good and skipping Excellent/Poor for Touches as best as possible, for 200 iterations, would the displayed HQ chance STILL hold true?

(And where would we find such a devout masochist?)

From atma to desynths to melding, I've found the successes on low chance occurrences to come in waves, and changing zones or doing something else for a few minutes can alter being in one of those lucky times or not.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

From atma to desynths to melding, I've found the successes on low chance occurrences to come in waves, and changing zones or doing something else for a few minutes can alter being in one of those lucky times or not.

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I've had this feeling myself. I've had master book 2s that were riddled with the worst RNG. I come back to them the next day and I kill it in 4 synths.

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Originally Posted by shintashi

5% meld? well 5x20 is 100

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LOL, that's not how statistics works man, not even close. 5% is abysmally low and if you manage to get it in 20 attempts than you are very VERY lucky.

But yes, it is just confirmation, frustration, and self-center bias. I like to joke that this game's RNG system in this game is rigged but I assure you that if you were to craft 1000 items at 90% HQ rate, you WILL get around 900 HQ items. The perception is further skewed by the fact that there are lot more people who NQ at 90% than there are those who HQ at 10%, simply due to the fact the instances of people completing a craft at around 90% is FAR greater than the instances of people completing it at 10%. Even with horrible gear and zero knowledge of the crafting system, you would still be able to get over 10-20% on most items in this game.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

From atma to desynths to melding, I've found the successes on low chance occurrences to come in waves, and changing zones or doing something else for a few minutes can alter being in one of those lucky times or not.

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I do notice this as well, that sometimes you get a horrible streak of fails and then sometimes you get blessed a streak of success. I stand by my statement that you will get 900 HQ items out of 1000 items if you have a rate of 90% HQ chance but this does suggest that the RNG system in this game is odd. However, it is entirely possible that the system doesn't have an odd pattern and I'm just noticing the few rare instances where there just happens, by chance, to be an odd pattern.

All RNGs are fake by definition, because the can not produce truly random numbers.

I've seen mmo's with far worse "rng", thinking back at how people could fail an enchantment at 101%(!!!) success rate and lose said piece of gear.

I really wonder what's so difficult about applying true rng to your game, not saying XIV's rng is jinxed but from what I've read there are several raiding groups with very odd item drop patterns.

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Originally Posted by Trixxy

I've seen mmo's with far worse "rng", thinking back at how people could fail an enchantment at 101%(!!!) success rate and lose said piece of gear.

I really wonder what's so difficult about applying true rng to your game, not saying XIV's rng is jinxed but from what I've read there are several raiding groups with very odd item drop patterns.

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We cleared T9 about 30 times before we saw the BLM weapon drop, 20 before we saw the WAR weapon yet saw the DRG weapon drop 6 times, BRD weapon drop 5 times, and PLD weapon drop 3.

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Originally Posted by shintashi

5% meld? well 5x20 is 100, so 25 should probably work, right? LOL. No.

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Your logic is flawed. While you're right, you have a 1 in 20 chance to meld that does not mean if you do 20 melds you are guaranteed to have one of them work. As has already been pointed out in this thread, and every other one that brings up this issue, that's not how statistics work.

The devs have actually responded to the RNG thing already. Basically what they said is, "The problems with RNG are all in your head. Cognitive bias is real."
Here's the actual post if you'd like to read it. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2310334

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

People always seem to think that the % is based on 100 tries. Its not, it is a % of that try and that try only.

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Then what is the 95% out of? If not 100, then what? >.> Percentage has to be out of something. 1000? 2000? a million? lol

I guess we may never know >.>

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Originally Posted by Trixxy

I really wonder what's so difficult about applying true rng to your game, not saying XIV's rng is jinxed but from what I've read there are several raiding groups with very odd item drop patterns.

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Originally Posted by Sibyll

We cleared T9 about 30 times before we saw the BLM weapon drop, 20 before we saw the WAR weapon yet saw the DRG weapon drop 6 times, BRD weapon drop 5 times, and PLD weapon drop 3.

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All I say is first 9/10 T6 clears tank headpieces and took me 50+ ramuh clears to see the healring drop twice and only got it bc I forces our dragoon of our static to coheal (hes not bad but no raidheal xp, bit slower due to that and no swift :P) and I srsly dunno y but even then its was only a 6 i rolled (tend to be under 20 with my epic rolls XD)

RNG is lucky for some (getting weapons/gear at first clears) and pretty unlucky for others. RNG even ^^

And same for my melds I wasted 1,5m on my wvr offhand and when melded the gatherers for my friend was like 5 misses on 4th/5th slots

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Originally Posted by Meier

Then what is the 95% out of? If not 100, then what? >.> Percentage has to be out of something. 1000? 2000? a million? lol

I guess we may never know >.>

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Its out of a 100% chance you'll get it on that try. Alot of people think that the percentage is based on 100 tries. So that if you have a 95% chance at something if you craft 100 of them 95 will make it, or if its a 5% chance then 5 out of 100 will make it.

That is not how the system works, its all based on a single try. It is mostly noticeable on gathering classes and % chance at gathering a HQ item. If you have 20% chance at HQ and gather 100 times, chances are your gathered HQ item is going to be more or less than 20 gathered. Same goes for crafting.

I guess maybe think of it as a roll of the die. A die has 6 sides, 6 numbers. You have a 1 in 6 chance (or a 16.6% chance) you will roll a 2. Roll the die 6 (or 100) times, how many times will you get a 2? You may get it once, twice, or 6 times, (more or less than 16) Now this example has to deal with the physical world so variations exist, like what RNG tries to accomplish.

99% of success, failed! By the way, this is the second time :p

http://i.gyazo.com/f0d5b632c1056ac3d78fc981af42dc5a.jpg

The law of percentages in statistics dictate that to any given percentage it will be loyal to it but the way and when is unknown. 5% success might mean 5 out of 100, 50 out of a 1000, 500 out of 10,000, so on and so forth.

I've never found the RNG to be anything but as advertised in this game. I've managed to gather HQ materials 4 times in a row when the odds were 15% and I've managed to gather NQ 5 times in a row when the odds were 45%. I've not really had similar experiences with crafting because it's been so rare that I don't hit 100% when it's something important. I've hit NQ at over 90% quality a couple times (mass producing twinthread or something), but I've also HQd things as low as 7% once or twice (obviously it was something I didn't care about since I completed the craft at 7% -- purely the material contribution). It all seems to level out to me.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

Its out of a 100% chance you'll get it on that try.

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Not trying to argue by any means, just sincerely asking - where in the game does it specify it is out of 100 tries?

just yesterday I was crafting perfect pestle with all nq mats, for some reason rng decided to fail a bunch of hastys and I got 15% chance.. it gave hq,
I thought damn that was lucky.

next synth 18% again a hq, so yeah lucky day. one more to do.... you know where this is going right.!?

got 94% hq chance and got given nq.... so pure rng really. was I annoyed yes but I desynthed it and failed at 24% chance.. that wasn't a surprise really.


there is times when it seems the game just wants you to fail and so I've pondered the idea that there's some hidden mechanic in there to help balance the market.. but then you have to ask why would they bother doing this since the market always balances in the end anyways

you just have to take each instance of rng as a single entity and hope its always in your favour.

Fun fact: The odds of success for something with a 5% success rate after 20 tries is 64.15%. In order to get enough tries so that the odds of failure become insignificant is 69. Have fun. :)

Also note that no matter how many tries you attempt, the odds of success will never be 100%, just ever closer to 100, but never touching.

what I was pointing out, like the "magical 69 attempts" toward insignificance, is that the RNG, possibly being based on a sample of 50,000 out of 1000,000 will statistically produce more negative trends than the numbers at first claim. Therefore, it needs to be self correcting, since people aren't sample sizes.

Statistics Lie. That's one of the first things they teach you in school. In Gaming Design, there's this Effort/Joy/Return/Struggle ratio. FF14's RNG is outside that curve. Fix it. And yes, on average, no matter who it is, even my least favorite person, if they are trying something RNG based, even they shouldn't have to attempt a massive sample size to see a return on their effort. A Person who fails 40 times out of 40 may be getting bad luck on a 5% or in my case, 14%, but if you only make 40 attempts, then the statistics are just lying. Its 0%, not 1%, 2%, or 90% on Tuesdays. RNG needs to adapt to the game's Sample Size. With exotic/rare items, that size is incredibly small.

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Originally Posted by Meier

Not trying to argue by any means, just sincerely asking - where in the game does it specify it is out of 100 tries?

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It doesn't and I never said it does. Merely was saying that alot of people assumed that it was as there are a ton of threads about crafting RNG.

I feel your pain, i had 13 attempts at over melds today ranging from about 20-30% and was successful once.
I also had 7 attempts at desyntesizing ex primal accessories at 40% and got one.
Then to top it all off while i was crafting a rose gold choker, my hasty touches, which with steady hand 2 applied should have been at 80%, i hit 3 out of 9.
I now have one broken ps4 controller. It seems to me the rng seems to work more against you than it does for you.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

Alot of people think that the percentage is based on 100 tries..

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Why would anyone think that percent is out of 100?

General RNG Rule of Thumb:

If it doesn't say 100%, flip a coin, heads you succeed, tails you fail.
Be prepared to suffer these odds.

I agree something else is going on behind the scenes. In the last week, on 6 different occasions I failed more than 14 melds in a row on a 45% success chance.
I do not believe the number they show for melds/crafts is correct.

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Originally Posted by shintashi

So you get a craft going, or a materia meld set up, and you are about to hit the button.

You look at your gil and your material supply, and checked the market board and retainers. Your good stuff probably isn't selling for 3 days, maybe 3 weeks, and you know if you miss this hit, you're probably out quite a bit of time and money.

90%. Can you trust it? NQ.
5% meld? well 5x20 is 100, so 25 should probably work, right? LOL. No.

For those of us who haven't been Sleeping with Tyche on our off hours, there's probably something fundamentally fake about RNG used by FF!4.

The numbers they display are so hideously off, and the cycles so unreliable, you just have to ask, is anyone else experiencing this?

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Math. Please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Why would anyone think that percent is out of 100?

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If I had to guess it's because percent literally translates to per 100 and because in school people are generally taught that x% is the same as x/100. Not everyone has taken a statistics course and understand sample sizes.

Some one has already stated this, but I don't see why they even bother showing the percentage if the statistics are going to be based on 50,000 tries. At that point what meaning does this have? With the exception of Good/Excellent procs, the way RNG is handled in melding/crafting is very binary and that's part of the reason it's so easy to complain about. If you fail 20 melds on a 45% chance there isn't much you can do. If you fail 80% of your Hasty Touch + Steady Hand II spam and then fail your Reclaim, there isn't much you can do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

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The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen less frequently in the future, or that if something happens less frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen more frequently in the future (presumably as a means of balancing nature). In situations where what is being observed is truly random (i.e. independent trials of a random process), this belief, though appealing to the human mind, is false. This fallacy can arise in many practical situations although it is most strongly associated with gambling where such mistakes are common among players.

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

LOL, that's not how statistics works man, not even close. 5% is abysmally low and if you manage to get it in 20 attempts than you are very VERY lucky.

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This is also false.

There's a ~65% chance you'll get it in 20 attempts with a 5% success rate. That makes it very possible to not get it in 20 attempts, but you're still unlucky if you don't stick your meld by then as the chance of success is almost double that of failure.

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Originally Posted by Sibyll

I don't see why they don't just make higher melds take more materia of that type and tier rather than continue to use dice rolls. For example, first overmeld would be x2, second overmeld would be x4, third overmeld would be x8, 4th overmeld would be x16.

I mean it's not like RNG materia melding is a deep and engrossing gameplay mechanic, unless you are a masochist. Either that or rework it into a mini-game like crafting so there is some type of element that the player interacts with besides throwing money at the Market Board.

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I wish it were more like this at least. It's fine to have some RNG in things as long as there's some kind of reasonable upper bound to the failure rate. RNG can be fun, but there's a certain point where you fail too often that it really detracts from your enjoyment of the game.

For instance, lets say that overmelds were a progress bar instead of pass fail. When you meld it would fill up that bar by some random amount, which would be dependent on how far you were overmelding.

So say, first overmeld, instead of having 40% (or whatever) chance at full success, will give some random amount of progress between 25% to 100%. That way you can randomly get a meld where you complete it in 1 attempt, but worst case will only take you 4 attempts. To take this further, they could skew the results such that it will more often end up closer to that 25% progress instead of the 100% progress depending on how they want to control the output so you're not getting a success in 1-2 melds too often (whatever the devs determine is too often).

While I enjoy the customization options provided by melded equipment, the heavy RNG makes the whole process very off putting. I would enjoy the process more (while still feeling like I was working toward the equipment) if I knew there was some lower bound for my failure rate. If you've failed a meld 40 times in a row, the knowledge you have the same chance of repeating that feat makes you really want to walk away from the game.

My personal feelings is that they probably have some sort of hidden skewed factor (math function) on the percentage. like high success rate but it has low factor, it forces Player to work against the factor. Just like the crafting quality where 1000/2000 is 50% of the bar but not 50% quality. Only 100% is absolute.

The function is probably something like y=x^2/100. Here is a quick excel calculation. SR is the success rate we see, the factor is what I feel it's happening behind the scene.

SR factor
1 0.01
2 0.04
3 0.09
4 0.16
5 0.25
10 1
12 1.44
14 1.96
16 2.56
18 3.24
20 4
25 6.25
30 9
40 16
50 25
60 36
70 49
80 64
90 81
100 100

I may be speak nonsense, just a thought.

The explanation doesn't have to be so complicated and mathy. If you have a 40 percent chance at Whatever, that's 40 out of 100, or 400 out of 1000, or 4000 out of... etc. We don't know the sample size. For the sake of this example we'll stick with 40 out of 100. So you make your attempt and fail. Here's where a lot of people go wrong. Just because you had a 40 in 100 chance and your first try failed, that does NOT mean your second try is now a 41 in 100 chance, your third a 42 in 100, and so on until you're at a 99 out of 100 chance because you've failed 59 times. That's not how it works. It doesn't mean that your chance of success gets higher with every failure. Your second attempt has the exact same odds. Every single attempt has the exact same odds totally regardless of how many times you've tried.

I mean they could just implement PRD if they really wanted to keep the RNG factor in the game, but I think it'd be better to just find a more engrossing mechanic than RNG.

RNG is a very binary design. You succeed or you fail and the player has little impact on this. Even in crafting when you can use skills like Steady Hand and Steady Hand II I feel like RNG dictates my success far more than it should.

I'd like to see more instances of Good/Excellent condition proccing and less percentage based succeed/fail scenarios in crafting. I'd like to see materia melding revamped to either be a mini-game similar to crafting or a scaling system where progressive overmelds require more materia of a given type/tier to successfully meld. Just anything to make it so that my choices dictate whether I succeed or fail rather than some dice rolls behind the curtains.

of course. its called a mutually exclusive event. But the problem is how does the game translate that 40% success rate to a 0 (fail) or 1 (success), how the game decides that. Does it roll a random number between 0 to 100 then compare to your success rate, or calculate it somehow.

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Originally Posted by Keyln

Fun fact: The odds of success for something with a 5% success rate after 20 tries is 64.15%. In order to get enough tries so that the odds of failure become insignificant is 69. Have fun. :)

Also note that no matter how many tries you attempt, the odds of success will never be 100%, just ever closer to 100, but never touching.

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Oh my god.

Somebody who understands dice rolls and RNG!