Mini Polar Bear Drops

Or you can just post here with comments that add absolutely nothing to the conversation (like yours).

For the record im not a power trader, anyone who knows me in game knows that for a fact, which clearly you do not. Secondly I created this thread out of pure curiosity since the drop rate for the mini is pretty pants.

Now back to the topic at hand, done a few dozens runs so far today still no luck yet

Pol

I think you misunderstand the fallacy. The fallacy is the incorrect belief that the odds on the next trial will be improved because previous trials failed.

For instance, it would be incorrect to assert that the 5000th trial had a 73% chance of success because the first through 4999th trials all failed. The 5000th trial still has a 0.02% chance no matter what.

The fallacy does not apply to Fay's (correct) claim that, if you did 5000 trials, there is a 73% chance that at least one of them would be successful.

Fay is talking about the overall odds for a series of events; the fallacy concerns the odds for the next* event in a series.


(* It would be a little more accurate to say that the fallacy concerns each future trial taken individually, but it's a lot more concrete and easier to grasp if I just say "the next trial.")

People replying to the (correct) odds calculation stated above by saying it's a gambler's fallacy: compare it to throwing a coin multiple times.

With 1 throw, you have a 50% chance of getting at least one heads.
With 2 throws, you have a 75% chance of getting at least one heads.
With 3 throws, you have an 87.5% chance of getting at least one heads.

As you can see, the chance of getting at least one heads in a number of throws increases with the number of throws. Of course, this chance will never get to 100%.

In mathematical terms:

1 - (1 - p) ^ k

where p is the success chance of getting the polar bear from the chest; and
where k is the number of chests opened.

Examples: p = 0.0002 (0.02%) and you do the following number of runs:
1: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 1 = 0.0002 or 0.02%
2: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 2 = 0.00039996 or 0.039996%
3: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 3 = 0.00059988 or 0.059988%
10: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 10 = 0.0019982 or 0.19982%
100: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 100 = 0.0198 or 1.98%
1000: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 1000 = 0.1812856 or 18.12856%
10000: 1 - (1 - 0.0002) ^ 10000 = 0.86469 or 86.469%

These are your chances of getting at least one polar bear in those numbers of runs. If you do 10 runs, you have about 0.2% chance of getting at least one polar bear. If you do 10000 runs, you have about 86.5% chance of getting at least one polar bear.

Note: the phrasing is critical: the chance of getting a polar bear in each next chest doesn't increase, but the chance of getting at least one polar bear does increase the more chests you open (like the chance of getting at least one heads is higher if you throw a coin 10 times than if you throw a coin 1 time).

Yeah your logic makes sense, but put differently...

The difference between the analogy with a quarter and the analogy with the polar bear is that a quarter has a 50% chance heads to begin with. The polar bear drop rate is <<1% (incase << notation is unfamiliar, it means very very less than basically) If you do the math using the 0.02% drop rate I saw somewhere, to achieve the same 50% chance as you would have for a heads with 1 toss, it would take 3465 "tosses" of the Wintersday chest. An ideal 100% (never actually achievable but the limit as your odds approach 100%) would would take upwards of 23000 "tosses" of the chest.

Basically it is highly unfavorable and unrealistic to think that farming a polar bear this wintersday will yield a polar bear drop. Assuming your run takes ~10 minutes, it would take 160 days of nonstop farming to achieve that nearly 100% chance of seeing just 1 drop.

Sorry I'm a math person =P

Edit: You edited your post while I was writing mine.

You guys are totally dorking up the polar bear!!! <3

I just looked and couldn't find the 2010 thread either...weird. Anyways, I was one of those people who got one last year and it took ~300 runs in 2010 out of ~3400 total since 2008 including that redux which slipped in there.

Edit: I see why we can't find the 2010 thread...somebody decided to merge the 2009 and the 2010 ones...

couldnt find one from last year....but this thread was from 09...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/m...ighlight=drops

I only edited to include a few calculated examples . There is no difference between the coin and the polar bear other than a different 'p' value: 0.5 vs 0.0002. But yes, don't go farming a polar bear expecting to get one .

Ladies and Gentlemen! I have solved the statistics problem!

Your chances of getting a Polar Bear are......drum roll please:

I doubt anyone can manage to do 5,000 runs in the time available to do it. you need a lot of spare time. but I'm on my 33rd run or so and no polar bear. I could end up wasting all of wintersday looking for it

Multiple accounts would make it fairly simple for a dedicated person. Could probably do 5x accounts and reach around 4x as fast per run pretty easily.

Course, the one really pulling in the polar bears are the botters. Not that polar bears are any different from all the other ways of getting cash in GW.

I dont care what the odds are... IM DUE!

These are indeed probabilities, but relying especially on averages... You have a 0.02% probability on getting one, so that means you should , in average, get one upon 5000 runs, but that also means you could get in average 4 upon 20000 runs, which means get those 4, for example, upon the last 300 runs...

You can do 1 run only and get a polar bear, but you can also do 50000 runs and not get any...That's the law of large numbers, upon a very huge number of runs, you should in theory have 1 bear per 5000 runs in average..

About the thread itself, i've personnaly done about 150 runs and get nothing... I did more last years but well i didn't really bother a lot this year..

If a hundred people do 150 runs each, about 3 of them on average will get a polar bear . Okay, that's it for the maths .

THAT perspective actually makes me want to try more Dz

Wow..
5000 runs? 10000?
Thats a lot of time anyway, even if you have 99% chance to get it..
5000 * 5 minutes (its the best time to do the full run) are 25000 minutes that are 416,7 hours, that are 17,36 days of farm, but 24/24 , 7/7, and you havent time to eat and sleep...maybe you can eat while you running, but at least you cant sleep..
Who want try it? LOL

A person would put a bullet in their brain doing this. Best thing to do if you want a polar bear is speed clear farm or something.

The best way I found is to do the runs with 3 accounts and AFKing the final part. By the time you have all 3 chars at the end, the Snowmen in the first account will have finished off the Grenches. Grab the Shards/chest, zone, retake the quest and run to the end to AFK again. By that time the second account will be done and so on...

The best way is to run with a Warrior as they have the amazing skill where they can run 10% faster for a whole 5 seconds (amazing isnt it?).

i do the same Rushin Roulette

80 runs + and nothing but i will drop it !! x)