RNG doesn't hate you

[Kydi]

It's safe to say on all of the RNG topics that no, RNG does not hate anyone, it can't. However, it can contribute to a bad playing experience. As someone earlier posted, if we use a likely number of active players you get 2000 people not seeing a single atma
for 500 fates. That isn't good game design.

The OP's initial comment on "ludicrous claims" are somewhat debunked by his own statistics. There is a large enough sample size to see the statistical outliers that the numbers generate, and in my experience people are generally more vocal about the bad than the good, so I'm hardly surprised that there are so many threads and a number of players raising this as an issue

[Ashkendor]

He called me a liar, sorry its hard to not get very angry after everything I've been through on this, only to be called a liar about it.

And then to come here, to see someone like the OP say, "that can't happen!" and call people like "me" ludicrous and liars is just so insulting and hurtful.

I don't think he meant to directly call anyone a liar or say that it can't happen; he simply stated that statistically speaking, it's extremely unlikely to happen. It doesn't seem like he's here to insult you or anyone else in particular.

I honestly just think OP made a poor choice in his wording and that's what's upsetting people.

It's impossible for some people to understand, but I feel like trash now because I failed miserably at what I set out to do. I don't care what obstacles are in the way of my goal. I failed. It's hard to look at myself until I feel I do something to redeem myself of my failure.

I mean this in the nicest way possible: you may want to seek some professional help if you truly feel like this.

Your sense of self-worth should not be left in the hands of a PRNG on an MMO.

The OP's initial comment on "ludicrous claims" are somewhat debunked by his own statistics. There is a large enough sample size to see the statistical outliers that the numbers generate, and in my experience people are generally more vocal about the bad than the good, so I'm hardly surprised that there are so many threads and a number of players raising this as an issue

Right, that's the thing. So many people play the game and so many people try the atma grind that of course there's going to be statistical outliers. Do I believe that everyone that claims they've done thousands of fates without an atma has *actually* done thousands of fates without an atma? Not really. People have a tendency to exaggerate, and you're right - we can't forget cognitive bias either. Several hours of doing fates with nothing to show for it can certainly feel like you're doing thousands when in reality you're doing maybe 100. I was surprised at how slowly the achievement for successfully cleared fates goes up.

With that said, I'm sure there are a few people out there that really have done thousands of fates without completing their atma weapons, and I feel for them. RNG is the suck; honestly, the atma grind is the only thing keeping me from doing another novus. Animus and novus are non-issues in comparison to the wall of grind that you face when you're going from zenith to atma. It's just mind-numbingly boring and there's not really an end in sight. At least when I'm leveling with fates i can see my goal. Atma is just... ugh. Such poor game design.

Who uses RNG? "The RNG of dying in a plain crash is one seventh the RNG of being hit by lightning." Instead of calling it "RNG" call it what it is, chance or probability. Or in this case Atma drop rate. It's silly to call it RNG. It's a weird abbreviation and in previous Final Fantasy games it was the abbreviation for the RANGER class. Regardless the RNG term is still weird.

Uhh, except nobody was using it like that? RNG = Random Number Generator. We're talking about the RNG (or rather PRNG, Pseudo Random Number Generator) function that picks the "random" numbers for the game, not about the probability of dying in a plain[sic] crash. OP made mention of those, but he used the words "chance," "probability," and "odds" to refer to them, rather than replacing those words with "RNG" as you seem to be suggesting here. RNG and PRNG are widely used terms, especially in connection with online gaming.

[reality_check]

There is a large enough sample size to see the statistical outliers that the numbers generate

Here's my logic:

There are "2 million adventurers," which is probably not subscribed accounts but registered accounts.

My guess (and this could be COMPLETELY off, I admit it, but this is just a conservative guess) is that 1,250,000 of those are active subscribers.

I would also guess that about half of those are English players (if they werent English players, they'd be on forums for a different language. My post was in response to the sheer number of people on these specific forums saying they've done thousands of fates without seeing an atma.)

This leaves us with 625,000 English players. And of course, not everyone is even level 50, and not a lot of people even do the relic quest. So, let's say that half of those people have at least attempted the Atma quest. This leaves us with 312,500 people attempting the Atma quest.

Of those 312,500 people, we can expect 13 of those to reach 500 fates before seeing an atma. THIRTEEN. And that's assuming that these 13 people actually have the tenacity to continue through doing 500 fates and not giving up. So yeah.

[Nutz]

Man, lots of people in this thread don't seem to understand RNG very well. The OP is pretty spot on with most of this, except, as Krr said, there are hundreds of thousands (if not more than a million) people playing, which allows for a lot of extreme outliers. It's just bad business to use a method like this. Sure it will have the desired effect for the majority of the population, but the system allows for people to get atmas first try in every zone (probably has never happend and said player certainly wouldn't complain) or for it to take an indefinite number of attempts (literally never going to finish). Given the size of the population, if something has a 1/1,000,000 (.0001%) chance of happening, it will likely happen to someone. If it's only a 0.01% chance of happening it's going to happen to 100 of the million people.

Even though it's statistically insignificant, it's going to make for a very bad experience for some of your players. As such, there should be caps where possible (ie. atmas can from FATES at X% chance and will definitely drop on the 50th FATE, reset counter at acquisition).

EDIT: also someone pointed out that people tend to notice bad results much more readily than good results (regardless of what might have been expected). This seems to happen very frequently in this game (or at least I notice it more in this game than anywhere else). I can't count the times a FC mate has complained that when gathering they'll miss repeatedly when the chance is 85%. I fell into the same trap for a time and then bothered to actually keep track for a bit and found that while I noted each miss with frustration, the far greater number of hits were just taken for granted and statistically it worked out as advertised.

[ariaandkia]

Man, lots of people in this thread don't seem to understand RNG very well. The OP is pretty spot on with most of this, except, as Krr said, there are hundreds of thousands (if not more than a million) people playing, which allows for a lot of extreme outliers. It's just bad business to use a method like this. Sure it will have the desired effect for the majority of the population, but the system allows for people to get atmas first try in every zone (probably has never happend and said player certainly wouldn't complain) or for it to take an indefinite number of attempts (literally never going to finish). Given the size of the population, if something has a 1/1,000,000 (.0001%) chance of happening, it will likely happen to someone. If it's only a 0.01% chance of happening it's going to happen to 100 of the million people.

Even though it's statistically insignificant, it's going to make for a very bad experience for some of your players. As such, there should be caps where possible (ie. atmas can from FATES at X% chance and will definitely drop on the 50th FATE, reset counter at acquisition).

I think I remember hearing someone mention that they only tried once per area. All I know is that they got their Atma super fast and I was like: how many fates did you run? And they were like, 'It wasn't bad, it was one fate per area."

Now, whether they are including fates they did outside of hunting for Atmas or if they were including all fates that they did while counting, I don't know.

===

I seriously wonder if people realize the thing about statistics and probabilities. Just because it isn't likely doesn't mean that it can't happen and doesn't mean that it won't happen.

As I said earlier, what is the chances of Earth forming and reaching the EXACT result it currently has including all the events leading up to it? And yet, Earth DID form and all the events on the Earth HAVE happened.

I mean, consider in the rarity of all the material in the earth, in the moon, and how expansive the known universe is. The chances of all those materials forming into earth in the location earth is at and so on. If you think about it, the chances are statistically impossible to have those EXACT things happen.

Also, the chances of me rolling a 1 on a 20 sided dice each time would be the same as me rolling a 1->20 in order or all 20s, or any other specific combination.

Just as an FYI.

[KarmaCha]

ITT: two or three people that have even a rudimentary understanding of probability

[Garlyle]

ITT: two or three people that have even a rudimentary understanding of probability

Honestly, probability is one of those things that I always see people having misconceptions about, whether in video games or outside of them. Wrapping your head around the possibility that something can exist without rhyme, pattern, or intention, is actually incredibly hard for people.

I'm getting over it, my boyfriend convinced me to give up, and that it was ruining our fun ingame once I realized how much time I had wasted a couple of days ago, we both got really frustrated and angry. We've settled on getting the other 110 weapons now.

Bruised ego aside, I'm glad you've made the decision to back out.

For the record: Don't try progressing Fishing 'past 50' either, I would recommend. While the rates are theoretically a lot higher, the entire thing is an adventure in RNG.

[swordrain]

Bruised ego aside, I'm glad you've made the decision to back out.

For the record: Don't try progressing Fishing 'past 50' either, I would recommend. While the rates are theoretically a lot higher, the entire thing is an adventure in RNG.

Sorry I'm not even sure what you are talking about. I'm planning on leveling all of my gathering classes next however, but I think 50 is a good place to stop for fishing. I have 4 characters with max fishing on WoW before I came to this game, so I'm pretty much ready for any grind you can imagine to get all my classes up. As long as I'm not dealing with RNG to get to the 50 mark, I think I'm good.

[Anatha]

It's already been said.

What I'd say, to all those having issues with this system: "Stop fighting it, it's ok to use any of the other perfectly fine i110 weapons(and you'd better believe there'll always be viable accessible alternatives to the relic quest). We all play this game to have fun, so don't let one small aspect of the game dictate whether you're having fun or not."

It's unlikely this system will change, until such a time when these legs of the quest are just so behind the curve that they abolish or ease up how rare the drops are, but until that point in time(nowhere in the near future) it will be as it is now. Many people asked for relic quest to be a grind based RNG dictated experience, enough that it came into being.

For the rest of us, we've got options. Utilize them for your own sake.

[KarmaCha]

Servers are back up! We can stop this pointless debate now