RNG doesn't hate you

[ariaandkia]

Pretty sure it was math'd out there that with 2% drop rate and the current playerbase on FFXI: Statistically, there should be around 40 players that will see 1000 fates without a single atma. If the RNG is true like they said, it means that there ARE people looking at this numbers out there.

See, this is the problem. Devs and RNG advocates only look at the macroscale effect of RNG. A true RNG has this effect where individuals can be subject to "extreme outliers". From a macroscale, looking at 1000 misses out of 1000000000000 is a very tiny number, but when those are subjected to a single individual, well, you get a shitty player experience. And true RNG allows that. Understanding of the concept or math behind this doesn't really make anyone feel better. You could be Erdős himself and you'll still call bullshit if you have that happen to you.

Is it the devs fault? Probably. The correct choice would have been to either subject the quest to something that is not 100% true RNG, or implement a RNG monitoring system to remove outliers (Smart RNG, basically). In the end, smart RNG doesnt affect % if you do it properly (Remove both good and bad outliers), and has the added benefit of making players happy.

In the end we get back to the same thing: Atma was lazy and poorly implemented, and the devs are trying to shift the blame to their "true RNG" system instead of realizing that its their fault True RNG is giving players the shaft.

Yeah, I've made a few games and I will say this: I hate "True" RNG. Instead, what I use is a Pseudo-Pseudo-Random Number Generator.

Essentially one of those works like this: Each thing that is supposed to happen at random has a say chance of happening. Say 1 out of 100.

So, then I have it set to 10 out of 1000. For each attempt that is done, one of the possibilities is removed. In other words, if you try 990 times and you don't get the chance to happen, your next 10 tries, it will happen. If you try 10 times in the first 10 tries of that set and all 10 happen, then your next 990 will fail.

This way, I still have the RNG factor, but at the same time, people end up seeing it happen that much of the time.

Another is this:

You have a chance of something happening each attempt. Say the start is 1%. After each attempt, the chance increases by 0.5% (the starting amount) until it happens. Then the chance is reset.

Generally this means that the actual chance is supposed to be higher. For example, something that is 10% chance might start as 1% chance with a 1% increase per failure. This means that eventually the % will hit 100% so eventually, it will succeed.

Those are just two examples.

I think you're watching too much anime

No, I've experienced it too many times.

Someone call Mulder and Scully bc this person is an X-File. I don't doubt you've found yourself unlucky, but that number is so improbable it is a statistical impossibility. There is no way you experienced something as rare as 100 to the 10 thousandth power. Literally every other anomaly known to man would happen at the same time before that would.

Again, I'm used to it. As one of my friends said to me: "The only reason you aren't dead is because you are the embodiment of everything that is wrong in the world and if you died, then there would be nothing wrong with the world anymore. Since that can't happen, you are still alive."

Think of it this way. What is the probability of Earth existing? Fairly unlikely for it to exist, but it exists anyways.

Also, statistical impossibility is only a statistical impossibility. It can still happen. As I mentioned earlier, due to how RNG works, if you hit a seed group that will always produce a failure, you could fail thousands of times in a row.

[Krr]

Taking a random semi-high number given what we've seen in press releases regarding FFXIV, let's assume the active playerbase consists of around 500,000 people, being cautiously low and not having real numbers on hand. If the chance of something happening is 0.0041%, then on average, the 'statistical anomaly' will occur to 2,050 people, which is much more than the number of people I have seen posting on General Discussion.

I would go so far as to speculate that there are far less "The Atma RNG is garbage!" posters than there are people who are being screwed by RNG.

When on average, enough people to fill a small town are being shit on by your game design, you should probably consider reworking it.

[reality_check]

Taking a random semi-high number given what we've seen in press releases regarding FFXIV, let's assume the active playerbase consists of around 500,000 people, being cautiously low and not having real numbers on hand. If the chance of something happening is 0.0041%, then on average, the 'statistical anomaly' will occur to 2,050 people, which is much more than the number of people I have seen posting on General Discussion.

No, the answer to that would be 20~21 people. Not thousands. And this is 500 fates, not the CRAZY thousands people claim. Let's claim that all 2 million players are actively subscribed, play English clients, attend the English forums regularly, and have attempted the atma quest with such tenacity that they do not give up before reaching their goal.

~82 people would do 500 fates before seeing an atma.

[GalkaBikini]

Pro tip: You can't get atma if your inventory is full. Also, atma must be unlocked and your relic weapon must be equipped. Lastly, Atma does not drop in every zone. So get out of South Shroud. There, I fixed your atma grind for you.

This and more in my hardback cover book "How to play FFXIV", get yours now for only $49.99!

[Krr]

i can't believe people in the "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn" general forums are shittalking anime

Write the number 100 on a piece of paper. Then put 20,000 zeros on the end of that. That would be the probability of failing something with a 1/100 chance 10,000 times in a row. 2 million is nowhere. Nowhere in the realm of possibility for that. But then again, you and I are referencing two different things.

Yeah I took a step back and we're looking at entirely different scenarios, which is why I went back and re-edited in to specify the OP.

Still, inventing statistically impossible scenarios is somewhat silly because we are clearly dealing with statistically possible scenarios in this video game where you can in fact get a whole number by taking 0.00000018% out of the total number of active players.

[alimdia]

i can't believe people in the "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn" general forums are shittalking anime

I'm not shittalking anime, the person I'm quoting seems to be confusing real life with anime

[ariaandkia]

I'm not shittalking anime, the person I'm quoting seems to be confusing real life with anime

No, I was saying that anime has similarities to my life, not the other way around. It is more like, something happens in my life, a few months/years down the road, I see an anime and go: Oh hey, this character reminds me of myself (either right now or at one point). Or oh hey, this situation reminds me of my own at one point.

Is it wrong to go: Oh hey, this character in this anime can do the same thing I can?

Or: Oh hey, this character in this anime can do something pretty amazing. Why don't I take what they can do and make it my own ability? Such as Largo? from Megatokyo's ability to make full use of their body like some disabled artists can. I simply took the idea and actually trained myself to be able to do it. It is like if I see someone being able to lift a 400 pound weight and go: Hey, I want to be able to do that! And then go train to lift a 400 pound weight (I wouldn't train to do that, but that isn't my point, my point is why is it that I cannot see something I want to do and train myself to do it).

Then later after training myself to do various things based on stuff I've seen, I later see an anime and go: Oh hey, this person can do the same thing.

Or perhaps I see in an anime where the person knew when their family would die (for whatever reason) but decided not to tell their family members and then I go, oh hey, this happened in my life.

Because you know what? A lot of anime is based at least partially on real life. They tend to be exaggerated or take some of the most extreme cases, but does that mean that stuff that happens in anime can't happen? Or that people in anime can't do what they do in the real world?

So that character who likes to read books and reads all day couldn't possibly exist in real life? Sorry, but that is what I used to do. I spent most of my time in the library. It was safe there, I wouldn't have people trying to kill me. I wouldn't have to worry about being hit by a car. I wouldn't have to worry about being beaten up or worse. I could stay there safely and enjoy what I liked because I could read books right in front of the library staff.

So when I see a character who reads all day, I tend to go: Oh hey, this character is just like me. And sometimes: Oh hey, this character is in the same situation I was in.

Take a character that gets beaten up constantly, abused, tortured, etc. Not so fun fact? It has happened before in real life.

Fun fact: One of my characters ended up getting made into an anime character. I was surprised. Then I got harassed because people thought that the anime version was the original. Even when I showed proof that my character was made first, they kept harassing me. I love 07th expansion one way or another though.

My point? Anime is anime. Real life is real life. Even if they aren't similar at all, don't mix them up. Even if they are so similar that you could swear that one was based on the other, don't mix them up. Just because someone else's life reminds you of an anime (to be fair, I did mention that my life resembles certain animes to various extents), don't mix up their life and anime.

[Kanachan]

I have done 350 FATEs and haven't gotten a single atma stone. Does that mean I am lying or making some outrageous claim? No. The only reason why I logged on and posted this is because I have had such a bad time. What the OP doesn't quite understand is that the statistical outliers (or the statistical minority) is quite likely to be the vocal majority. If I finish my atma in a timely manner in 10-20 hours, I might complain about it, but would probably shrug it off as everyone else would have gone through the same. But those of us who are the statistical outliers, well you'll hear us complaining in game and on the forums (and for good reason, there should be safeguards in place to ensure situations like ours don't occur, but there isn't). I even know someone on the other side of the statistical spectrum, he obtained all 12 atma stones in 23 FATEs total and he was never vocal about it.

[GalkaBikini]

No one was craptalking anime, but even so, Final Fantasy has never been very animeish...

[lynyan]

No one was craptalking anime, but even so, Final Fantasy has never been very animeish...

are you sure about that.......