RNG doesn't hate you

[reality_check]

There are way too many ludicrous claims rolling around these forums. Let's take Atma drops for example, as they seem to be causing the most grief.

Let's assume the drop rate of an atma is 2%, because I think as a community this is a pretty conservative guess (I would personally put them at 3~5%.)


Case One: I DID 100 FATES TO GET MY ATMA! UGH WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG?

Congratulations, you're an unlucky person. The chances of you not seeing an atma for the first 99 fates is approximately 14%. While this number isn't astonishingly low, it's reasonable to believe that this could happen to someone, and probably does from time to time.

Case two: I DID 250 FATES TO GET MY ATMA! UGH IT TOOK ME LIKE TWO WHOLE WEEKS TO SEE ONE ATMA.

Congratulations, you're a very unlucky person. Assuming our drop rate is 2%, the chances of you not seeing an atma for the first 249 fates is approximately 0.6%.

Case three: I DID 500 FATES TO GET MY FIRST ATMA. I AM QUITTING THIS GAME.

I don't even know what to say here. You're a complete statistical improbability. The chances of not seeing an atma for 500 fates is approximately 0.0041%. I do suppose, there is maybe one or two incredibly unlucky people in all of Eorzea who have experienced this. But dozens daily on the forums?

Case four: I ONLY HAVE TWO ATMAS AFTER 1000 FATES. (INSERT WILD CLAIM ABOUT WHAT SHOULD BE DONE HERE).

Please, go buy a lottery ticket. The odds of this happening, you not seeing an atma for the first 499 fates, and then not seeing another atma for another 499 fates is 0.00000018%. Compare this to the probability of having other very unfortunate things happen in an average person's lifespan (according to CBC):

Chances of being killed in a terrorist attack while on vacation:
0.00015%

Death by a flesh eating disease in a normal life span:
0.0001%

Be killed by lightning:
0.0017%

So please, the next time 50 of you are going to claim that you've done thousands of fates and haven't seen any atmas...



Oh, and if that isn't enough, the developer team basically made a whole forum post and streamed 14 hours of straight atma farming to send you a message.

[Tsukino]

This is not how probability works.

[reality_check]

This is not how probability works.

I have a solid understanding of math, but I would never call myself a mathematician. Please explain how probability of consecutive events happening doesn't apply here.

[zeopower6]

The way that the game handles random numbers tries to be 'truly random' and so.. things don't really work like that in game. It explains why people can get several failures in a row with 95-96% success rate.

And some atmas just don't want to drop... I've witnessed it myself and at times, a certain area's atma wouldn't drop until several days of farming hundreds of FATEs.

[swordrain]

You are completely and utterly dead wrong. This weekend I made a thread when I was at 1140 fates, starting my atma quest at around 300. At the time that was 840, but I got up to 1200 fates by the end of today. I'm at 900 fates and only have two atma. Neither of those were received this month.

Its easy to sit there and yadda yadda yadda about how you know so much about being in a situation, but you aren't there, so you can't possibly know how terrible it feels t be in this situation. This system is BROKEN and needs to be completely redone. I made an entire thread where I went through the five stages of grief over my weekend, said some really mean things, cried, was really mean to my boyfriend for no reason, and then finally he convinced me to surrender utterly after all the work I put into it.

So you can shove your math. You can't possibly know how it really is for some of us.

[Edli]

That's great and all but how about we leave luck to the casinos of Las Vegas and focus on challenge and skill on our video games? A feature that relies on luck only will always annoy players no matter what because with luck there is nothing you can do about it. There is nothing that will rub a player the wrong way more than a "challenge" they have zero control over.

I mean sure luck is present everywhere even in combat (get hit by massive crit dmg) but is still something you can recover from through skill. Managing to overcome bad luck through skill. Atma however is 100% luck based and that makes a player feel completely hopeless.

[Dijana]

I haven't counted how many fates I've done, but after nearly 5 months, or however long it's been since the atma system came out, I'm still only 4/12 after going out and doing fates each day. Granted some days I'm only out there for an hour or two, others I spend quite a lot longer. I've tried staying in one place til I get it. I've tried the JP theory. I've tried in groups and solo. I havent ever actually said the system needs to change, I've seen someone get like 6 in one day, but it's so disheartening when its just fates fates fates nothing but fates.

Try to do something else? Start thinking 'I should be doing fates...today might be the day I finally get it'

Even though any complaints I make on atma are usually jokes about my rotten luck (cause thats what it is) making threads like this, and the dev team getting 11/12 in 14 hours (which was completely unfair due to the amount of people running around with them, they only took seconds to complete fates rather than the normal amount of time it takes everyone else, giving them far more chances to actually get the atma in the same amount of time it takes everyone else), isn't actually helping, it just makes those of us who are still struggling feel worse about the game.

[lynyan]

the only "message" the devs sent us with that 14 hour atma farm was that they're incredibly out of touch with the reality of atma farming for most of us (just like the OP is, whoops!)

[reality_check]

The way that the game handles random numbers tries to be 'truly random' and so.. things don't really work like that in game.

Using truly random numbers just means they've programmed the game to have the most accurate RNG possible. It's not to give you a disadvantage. Of course people can fail several 95% success rate synths in a row, that doesn't mean that the RNG system in this game is broken.

[Tsukino]

I have a solid understanding of math, but I would never call myself a mathematician. Please explain how probability of consecutive events happening doesn't apply here.

"Probability of consecutive events" is literally that - the probability that things will happen in a specific order. The events still have no bearing on the outcome of each other, and so your chances for each event are still the same. Your math is not so much wrong as it is misleading; probability does not dictate outcome.