Your WTF?! Gathering Probability Moments

[Kenji1134]

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?

[Lunavi]

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

But yeah, random is random

[Brevity]

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

[Pacifer]

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

[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.

[HiirNoivl]

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

[Lyein]

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.

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.

[zenmetsu]

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.

[Torama]

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.

[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.