A Random Comment

[Yoohre_WildRiver]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

a good video on randomness.

[reality_check]

Great post!! Thanks!!

[Noshpan]

Still doesn't reassure those who have 99% success rate and still fail ten times in a row.

[Tiggy]

It's surprising how many gamers don't have even the most basic concept of statistics even though the games they play use the mathematical laws of statistics constantly.

If I can somewhat consistently fail something with a 70% chance of success 8 times in a row, essentially meaning the 30% of failure won out, shouldn't it be possible that I successfully do something with a 30% success chance 8 times in a row? As anyone who plays this game will tell, that will never happen... ever. The game seems to favor failure regardless of your chances of success. There are so many occasions throughout my mining in this game since launch that a 95% success chance has yielded 3/4, 4/5, and 5/6 fails. They're always in batches, be it in a row or over a larger pool of attempts. This isn't even including the rather consistent occurrences of 1/4 failures on nearly every node with a 90% or higher success chance. Why is it common and predictable that I fail a 45% success chance to meld 8+ times in a row, meaning the remaining 55% won out all those times, yet I will almost never successfully gather something with 55% success rate as a common and predictable outcome?

You are falling prey to the very fallacies they listed, and then act like success conditions when probability is low never happen at all when they most certainly do. I recently desynthed 72 silver sovereigns starting at a 40% success rate and I most certainly did succeed a decent amount of the time. I didn't check the statistics of my end results but 40% felt pretty accurate at the start.

A computer cannot do random (on it's own), that's why it has pseudorandom in the name, it makes you *think* it's random when really it isn't, it's possible to ensure that the results you get from a pseudorandom number generator are exactly the same every time (i.e. you start the generator, write down the first 1,000,000,000 numbers, restart it and the same 1,000,000,000 numbers come up), which is a bit like having the same lottery numbers this week, next week, the week after and the week after that.

A psuedo random number generator uses a seed number to begin calculation. As long as that seed is different every time (perhaps based on cpu cycles, or system clock, etc) then no numbers will appear in the same order as you suggest. Only when using the exact same seed will the results you listed ever happen. No game is going to overlook such a basic use case scenario in regards to random numbers. The way you suggested it is not how it works.

[Teakwood]

RANDOM NUMBERS:

STILL

TOO

RANDOM!

[Tiggy]

RANDOM NUMBERS:

STILL

TOO

RANDOM!

That's the point.

What do you expect? That the game realizes you've had a bad run and eventually just gives you a win so that you feel better? Is that the kind of game we all play these days? Happy go lucky fun time where prizes are handed out just so you don't ever know the slightest amount of frustration?

[Lexxuk]

Tiggy, the time and cpu clock etc. are all known and constant variables, let's go with the system clock, the seed is 9am on the 1st June 2014, you can (if you know the seed date) know what the 1,000,000,000th number is, it isn't random, it has an end result which can be known, there is a 0% chance that you *know* if a coin is going to be heads or tails next toss, it's true random.

A computer on it's own cannot generate a true random number, all it can do is apply fancy mathematics to simulate a large enough pool of numbers to suggest randomness, if the same seed is used again, the same results are shown, so the seed itself has to be randomly generated from a method that cannot be guessed so that the same results can never occur, we could go for, number of transactions currently hitting the database, multiplied by the number of people logged in, divided by the current time (UTC), again, not true random, the seed has the possibility of reoccurring which would bring exactly the same results again.

See, you're trying to make a computer generate a seed, but a computer cannot generate a random seed, but as a computer cannot generate a random number it cannot generate a random seed for the pseudorandom. If the seed repeats, the sequence repeats which is why a computer will never be able to do random because math.

[Zarzak]

They've stated it's pure RNG. I know friends who've spent 60+ hours & are only a couple or so in.

SE, PLEASE - here forward nerf Relic Chains two steps back from current (e.g. Atma should've been eased up at Novus release; Animus should at next release)

pure RNG still has to have a % chance.

How many possible numbers can the generator spit out vs how many of those result in a atma drop.

[Brine_Gildchaff]

You are falling prey to the very fallacies they listed, and then act like success conditions when probability is low never happen at all when they most certainly do. I recently desynthed 72 silver sovereigns starting at a 40% success rate and I most certainly did succeed a decent amount of the time. I didn't check the statistics of my end results but 40% felt pretty accurate at the start.

Agreeing wholeheartedly with this. I recently reached mastery in botany and have been picking up Shroud tea leaves for my Builder of the Realm friend. On more than one occasion, with a 96% gather and 11% HQ rate, I've come away with no less than THREE high-quality bunches. Even factoring in the 100% on Chain 4 skill, that's two high-quality gathers on a .96*.11=10.56% chance for each, out of only five gathers. I've also had a fair number of triple-gathers on fragrant logs, even though the highest I can pump my HQ rate on those is 15%.

[Zirael_Foxfire]

Ever experience a time crafting when you are at 90% and still manage to blow it up? Three times in a row?

I know I’ve experienced some unlucky situations like this and thought to myself “Oh c’mon! No way!” all the while thinking the RNG gods hate me. If you’ve ever had times when you thought the same and questioned whether there something wrong, you are in for an interesting read.

Grab a drink and snack, because it’s time for a mega-knowledge bomb from Hiroshi Minagawa.

So all those DRG belts dropping in T1 was algoritms working as intended and we should never doubt developer's coding. Thank god!