Bug? Weighted dice rolls.

[Ilhares]

I first noticed hints of this some time ago, but today was the most drastic display of it yet. I understand a certain weighting where things like Social rolls might be involved, so everybody gets some increase, but the RNG for loot when it comes to the Premium or above gear is just ridiculous.

 

A friend and I, who frequently run together, both began our class story phase together on Corellia today. I began at 51, he was 49, due to my having finished all companion conversations and such. After doing all of our story missions, we finished up and did the final tally. All die rolls, save for 1, went in his favor for every single piece of loot to be picked up from corpses. I may not be the luckiest sod in the galaxy, but 14-1? That's pretty ridiculous. It was the 14th roll where I finally got my first success. We see this most of the time when we're running together, but usually closer to a 2/3 split (in his favor) regardless of who the party leader is, the only real distinction is that I'm a little ahead of him in XP most of the time. This is often because of XP boosts, either item based or due to legacy perquisite bonus.

 

Is this seriously working as intended? Because that's absurdly slanted.

[Niliu]

Not a bug, you're just unlucky. It happens. Get over it.

[Stoofa]

Random is random. You could have lost every single one of those rolls and that would still be within the realms of possibility and probability.

[Ilhares]

Yes yes, I comprehend how things that are truly random operate, but it has occured on such a reliable and regular pattern over the course of THREE YEARS whenever he and I are running together that it well defies 'odds' and standard probability, hence I submitted it for the Devs to take a look at - not random joes, thank you.

[sethdil]

It does not defy odds, some people have no luck or bad luck. It's just a fact of reality Luck really does exist and some people are blessed with it and some people lack any of it.

[Banthabreeder]

/roll 100

 

100

 

Sorry, you lose.

[Stoofa]

Yes yes, I comprehend how things that are truly random operate, but it has occured on such a reliable and regular pattern over the course of THREE YEARS whenever he and I are running together that it well defies 'odds' and standard probability, hence I submitted it for the Devs to take a look at - not random joes, thank you.

 

Well you may have submitted it, but it won't be looked into.

It doesn't matter how many rolls you make, even if every single roll goes one way, its random.

With you and you're mate it's always 50% chance on every roll. You don't take other rolls into consideration, it is each roll - each one is a self-contained 50/50.

Go to vegas, bet black/red. Each spin of the wheel is a self-contained 50/50 chance. If red has rolled for the last 25 times, the next roll is still 50/50 red/black.

 

As for "luck". No, really no such thing.

There is no skill involved, so there is no luck. In the same way there is no luck if you roll a six-sided die over and over again. Each roll is a one-in-six chance to roll the number of your choice.

[Faardor]

I won all the dice rolls in an athiss run including 2 decos, someone submit a report to bioware because RNG shouldn't work within the realm of possibility like that am I rite?

[Diviciacus]

ITT: people who understand just enough about statistics to be wrong.

 

Yes, every roll is an independent trial.

 

Yes, it's POSSIBLE to lose every roll, forever.

 

Take note also that the chance of winning a 1-100 roll against another person is not 50%. It's not a situation where it's 50% chance of winning, 50% chance of the other person winning. The odds of actually winning are not actually 50%. Technically, two people rolling on an item are two independent trials of the 1-100 roll. And I'd be lying if I said I remembered how to calculate the actual percent chance, given that a higher roll will win.

 

{EDIT: That's a lie, but it's a lot of work. It's calculated by adding up the probability of rolling a particular number (which is 1% for all numbers: 1 number /100 numbers) multiplied by the probability of given you rolled that number, the probability that the NEXT number will be lower.

 

Example: Percent chance of rolling 1 on 1-100 is 1%. Percent chance that the NEXT number will be higher is 99% (since all numbers except another 1 are higher than one), so the percent chance that the next number will be lower is 1-.99, or 0.01. So the percent chance of winning a 1-100 roll with a 1 is 1%x1% (percent chance of second number NOT being higher), or 0.01% (One in ten thousand rolls is the expected chance of winning with a 1).

 

You then calculate this probability for the other 99 numbers, and add up the cumulative probability to find the percent chance of winning a 1-100 roll against one other person.

 

I brute-forced the formula by hand, and it comes to the % chance of winning a 1-100 roll against one other person is actually 49.5%

 

To find out the chance of winning against N other people, you would multiply that 0.495 to the power of the numuber of people in the group who are not you. Thus, the formula for winning a 1-100 roll is 0.495^[group size-1], which for two people gives 0.495^[(2-1)=1]. For an eight man ops group, the percent chance of winning if everyone rolls on something (say, a mount) is 0.495^[(8-1=7)]=0.7%. }

 

However, just like any set of independent trials, the chance of the desired result NOT occurring is a simple calculation.

 

(1-[chance of desired result])^[number of trials] = chance of result not happening over [number of trials]

 

From that simple formula, it should be incredibly obvious that as the number of trials (1-100 rolls) increases, the chances of not winning something from rolling 1-100 drop to infinitesimally small.

 

Let's say the chance actually is 50% to win (it's not, but let's say it is). Two trials give the chance of losing both rolls at .25, or 25% (0.5x0.5). Five trials give the chance of losing all five at .03125, or 3.125% (0.5x0.5x0.5x0.5x0.5).

 

See how quickly the chance of not winning anything dropped massively? Repeat this a thousand times, and my calculator can't even display the infinitesimal probability. It just tells me "0."

 

So although the actual chance of winning based on two independent trials of a 1-100 roll isn't 50%, assuming the OP isn't lying, something is indeed afoot.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Diviciacus

[AlrikFassbauer]

Random is random. You could have lost every single one of those rolls and that would still be within the realms of possibility and probability.

 

It does not defy odds, some people have no luck or bad luck. It's just a fact of reality Luck really does exist and some people are blessed with it and some people lack any of it.

 

Right : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729516&highlight=luck

Some have less good luck than others. It's a fact.

Edited August 30, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[Stoofa]

Right : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729516&highlight=luck

Some have less good luck than others. It's a fact.

 

LOL - no, they don't.

Saying "FACT" will not make it so. You are not a scientists, you are in no way an authority on this - but you can prove something is "FACT" against overwhelming information against?

Because once you extrapolate further you will always see "random".

There is absolutely nothing in the thread you have posted a link to that would indicate otherwise.

 

Let me ask you some test questions:

 

Player A opens a hypercrate. Inside he receives the "very best" items, over and over. He estimates he can sell them all on the GNT for around 25-30m.

Player B opens a hypercrate. Inside is nothing but rubbish. He could have bought all his items on the GNT for around 300k. All his reputation items are green, etc.

 

Who has been "lucky" and who has simply found that random is random?

 

Player A attempts to craft a purple augment. He leaves 5 in his crafting queue and on return to the game he has 10 augments waiting for him.

Player B attempts the same. When he returns to the game he has 5 augments waiting.

 

Luck or random?

 

A player can appear as lucky as you want to believe. However that player, along with the player who "appears very unlucky" is still living by the same random number generator.

If you want to believe in luck - then explain where this luck is coming from? In fact, explain where any luck is coming from?

Once you take your "luck" it can easily be explained:

 

"He was lucky - his first every shot in a football match and he scored a goal".

No, he hit the ball in a direction with the amount of force required towards a goal and nobody stopped it. He may not have meant to do what he did, but there is no luck in what was done.

"I lose every single roll in flashpoints for equipment".

First I question, do you really? If you then decide to be more specific and say "always lose the roll for good equipment" then we're moving further and further away from "luck".

I also question you - although possible, random is random, I'm afraid I do not believe you if you say that you have lost every single roll you've ever made.

Luck is really not real. Some people may feel it, some people may feel others have it, some people feel they have it themselves. But when you remove all outside influence, then luck is nothing more than the random - random is random.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Stoofa

[Zharik]

<snip>I brute-forced the formula by hand, and it comes to the % chance of winning a 1-100 roll against one other person is actually 49.5%

 

While your math is correct your assumption is wrong.. it is in fact 50/50 because there are no tie situations. In the event you roll the exact number that your "opponent" rolled (one percent chance) someone is declared the winner (note I have no idea how the game decides that, used to think it was who clicked first but I don't believe that anymore).

 

Your posit also assumes no reroll in the event of a tie.

[Diviciacus]

While your math is correct your assumption is wrong.. it is in fact 50/50 because there are no tie situations. In the event you roll the exact number that your "opponent" rolled (one percent chance) someone is declared the winner (note I have no idea how the game decides that, used to think it was who clicked first but I don't believe that anymore).

 

Your posit also assumes no reroll in the event of a tie.

 

I won't lie, I was surprised the summation came out to 0.495. But yes, you are correct. I don't even know how WoW calculated who wins in event of a tie, however, and I played that game for a decade. I would presume both games simply do a second roll "behind the curtain" and takes the winner from that.