Public Service Announcement: The RNG in this game is not biased

[Cobayn]

Nice one OP!

And depending on how the RNG is set-up, it (can) theoretically be set up to weight more in one direction than the other, we just don't know how they've set it up.
(It'd be safe to assume it's set up fairly)

"All RNGs are equal, but some are more equal than others". ; )

[Lafier]

The numbers I used was assuming worst case, were you have an 85% chance to hit the node, then a 15% chance to HQ your hit.

[TheRac25]

alot of software rngs tend to stick around extreme values
you sound like a first year journalism major that took 000 introduction to computer science

[carlos777uk]

Except when crafting, I hit a 10% chance failure 3 times in a row (that's 1:1000 chance) two days on the trot. Added, I crafted 46 items before getting a HQ when the HQ chance was always better than 6% and up to 15%.

World's unluckiest gamer? Doubt it. Spout all you want about stats when the engine works mathematically correctly. This game does not work correctly.

[Sasagawa]

This was a really informative post.

Next is implicit functions for implying the boundary between a number that is random and one that is part of a group or cluster

thanks for the brain food !

[Quesse]

Lots of information with no actual data to back it up

Ok so you've explained why a perfectly working RNG works perfectly.

What you haven't done is shown that SE's RNG works perfectly.

[Alberel]

Ok so you've explained why a perfectly working RNG works perfectly.

What you haven't done is shown that SE's RNG works perfectly.

This.

OP if you want to prove a point actually do some tests in game and publish your numbers.

Most of us that have an issue with the RNG at present agree that the overall odds (with a big enough sample) match what the game tells us, but to get there it seems to roll long strings of good and bad luck more often than is believable (I say believable because software RNG is inherently flawed and only creates the illusion of being random).

The odds of getting 5 failures in a row on a 70% touch action are 0.00243, which is 0.243%. Now I probably craft a few dozen items in an evening and I see that string of bad luck multiple times in one evening, multiple evenings in a row. With those odds that simply shouldn't be happening.

[CianaIezuborn]

Ok so you've explained why a perfectly working RNG works perfectly.

What you haven't done is shown that SE's RNG works perfectly.

It's a reasonable assumption to believe that a psuedoRNG runs properly in this day and age. A first(or second if the curriculum sucks) year computer science student can put one together with the .NET framework with very little work (the framework includes a Random class). The efforts required to create unit tests to verify it's functionality are slightly above trivial for most software professionals that participate in unit testing (which we all should!). Edit: On second thought it would be non trivial to test as you could never test all seeds, but I'm pretty confident you could develop a seed spread that would be sufficient.

Due to that reasonable assumption, it's on you to prove that there are flaws in the psuedoRNG and to identify what those flaws are. Everything I've heard from people can be explained by a lack of understanding of probability and failure/success bias.

Most of us that have an issue with the RNG at present agree that the overall odds (with a big enough sample) match what the game tells us, but to get there it seems to roll long strings of good and bad luck more often than is believable (I say believable because software RNG is inherently flawed and only creates the illusion of being random).

Runs of failure/success should happen quite often in large repetitions of data, it's less statistically likely for them not to happen. I don't know of any human that can observe runs of good/bad luck over a sufficiently large sample and make a gut call on whether there were to many or to little runs off the memory of that data. It requires intense calculation to make such a call, what you feel will always be subject to negative or positive bias.

How is software RNG inherently flawed? It's not random, but it is sufficiently removed from it's seed to more accurately model randomness than any thing a single human can physically provide.

Throwing a die is not a random act, however it is influenced by so many physical variables as to be indistinguishable from random to the normal human consciousness. This is the same principal that software driven psuedoRNG works off of.

[Kat_Manx]

Ok so you've explained why a perfectly working RNG works perfectly.

What you haven't done is shown that SE's RNG works perfectly.

So this. Not a single person here believes that a proper RNG doesn't work properly, just that the FFXIV RNG is broken or rigged.

[Nenin]

Ok so you've explained why a perfectly working RNG works perfectly.

What you haven't done is shown that SE's RNG works perfectly.

This.

OP if you want to prove a point actually do some tests in game and publish your numbers.

Most of us that have an issue with the RNG at present agree that the overall odds (with a big enough sample) match what the game tells us, but to get there it seems to roll long strings of good and bad luck more often than is believable (I say believable because software RNG is inherently flawed and only creates the illusion of being random).

The odds of getting 5 failures in a row on a 70% touch action are 0.00243, which is 0.243%. Now I probably craft a few dozen items in an evening and I see that string of bad luck multiple times in one evening, multiple evenings in a row. With those odds that simply shouldn't be happening.

So this. Not a single person here believes that a proper RNG doesn't work properly, just that the FFXIV RNG is broken or rigged.

Well what exactly would you be satisfied with? I'll gladly start recording all my meld/gather/crafting attempts and bump this with the results in a month if people want to see that. Until then everyone is just flinging around anecdotal evidence.

Most people underestimate how frequently RNGs are used in games like this. It's not only invoked when you swing a pickaxe or attempt a meld. It's also the backbone of all combat interactions.

Every time a mob swings at a tank it gets called half a dozen times at least. First it rolls to see if the swing is a miss entirely. Then it rolls again to see if the tank dodges it. Then it rolls to see if the tank parries it. Then it rolls to see if the tank blocks it. Let's say none of these happen and the swing goes through. It still has to roll again to see if the hit is a crit. Then it rolls yet again to determine the actual damage dealt within some range.

If the RNG created a patently nonuniform distribution every aspect of this game would be wonky.



I've got some real life stuff to attend to now but later tonight I can probably spend an hour or so spamming hasty touch with no steady hand, with steady hand I, and with steady hand II. I'll do the same for a few other abilities. Maybe I'll even record a bunch of gathering attempts. Since I know you won't take me at my word I'll screenshot the chat logs for posterity.