(In)Equality in loot drops

Originally Posted by Night

Actually you just answered your own question. See number 3 here and your above post describing how it changes when you switch to your other char.
I'll do my best to see if I can help you but in the end, sometimes perception is reality.

Anyway first things first. I highly doubt that the coders for ANET would hardcode something like "if Class=Ranger && SubClass = Mesmer then Rand_Number=(rand()%32) else Random_Number (rand()%6);" doesn't make sense although it's possible that through coding that an adverse affect on certain variable has thrown off the counts or drops rather. There is nothing that states that you are guaranteed 1/6th of all drops. For instance flip a coin. Let's say you get heads the first toss so 50/50 odds means that the next will be tails, right? Nope no guarantee as each toss is it's own individual event meaning that this toss has no corelation with the first toss. You could toss the same coin 10 times and get all heads or all tails. 50% or 1 in 2 simply means for that and only that toss, you have a 1 in 2 chance of getting heads or tails. What should see over a period of many tosses that the number fall in the 50% heads and 50% tails category but even that may be off until you hit large numbers like in the thousands.

It could be very well that between all of your chars you simply balancing out the approx. 1/6 (depending on where you fall as far party make up). It just appears that when you hit your Ranger, you get the short end of the stick. The only way you possibly test the true randomness would be to 1) run the same area with each character. 2) attempt solo then attempt with the same grouping of henchmem 3) Repeat it numerous times like several hundred per char.

Yes to truly be able to tell whether or not there is randomness, you have to do hundreds if not thousands of runs. Again keep in mind what random and what odds mean. Odds/Randomness doesn't mean that you are guaranteed anything, it simply means that on the drop that is occurring right then you have 1 in 6 shot (if in a party of that size) of getting loot. This could also be compounded if no drop is selected as that is an event as well. Run the above test and see.

You could be right that there is a bug that somehow keeps the particular class combo you have selected from getting the same share but I find it very unlikely. The reason why is that item generation and loot sharing is a function that has been around game programming since the inception of treasure/loot and drops, kind of like case statements or for loops and by now I am relatively certain that any issues that may have arised such as coding that causes adverse issues would have been discovered and corrected but who knows. Humans are the ones doing the coding so maybe someone did some sloppy coding.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

I also doubt that Guild Wars was coded in Basis lol

Originally Posted by Dwiggit

Night, Algren Cole, thanks for the helpful responses, and an open mind that something other than perception can be at play.

Sounds like both of you have some programming experience.

I was trying to avoid the scientific study of the situation, but I guess that is what it will take to convince people. I would rather just play the game and have fun, rather than logging all the loot drops for a month. I wonder if AN had some testing software that logs this stuff? It would make testing this a lot easier.

Thanks for helping!

Dwig

Originally Posted by Night

Basis? Not sure I follow that or did you mean Basic as in the language? Being that the rand() structure above is a C++ although the hastely thrown together If-Then statement was a lot easier to throw out then putting into a case statement as it would more than likely be coded in the game.

Originally Posted by Night

Actually you just answered your own question. See number 3 here and your above post describing how it changes when you switch to your other char.
I'll do my best to see if I can help you but in the end, sometimes perception is reality.

Anyway first things first. I highly doubt that the coders for ANET would hardcode something like "if Class=Ranger && SubClass = Mesmer then Rand_Number=(rand()%32) else Random_Number (rand()%6);" doesn't make sense although it's possible that through coding that an adverse affect on certain variable has thrown off the counts or drops rather. There is nothing that states that you are guaranteed 1/6th of all drops. For instance flip a coin. Let's say you get heads the first toss so 50/50 odds means that the next will be tails, right? Nope no guarantee as each toss is it's own individual event meaning that this toss has no corelation with the first toss. You could toss the same coin 10 times and get all heads or all tails. 50% or 1 in 2 simply means for that and only that toss, you have a 1 in 2 chance of getting heads or tails. What should see over a period of many tosses that the number fall in the 50% heads and 50% tails category but even that may be off until you hit large numbers like in the thousands.

It could be very well that between all of your chars you simply balancing out the approx. 1/6 (depending on where you fall as far party make up). It just appears that when you hit your Ranger, you get the short end of the stick. The only way you possibly test the true randomness would be to 1) run the same area with each character. 2) attempt solo then attempt with the same grouping of henchmem 3) Repeat it numerous times like several hundred per char.

Yes to truly be able to tell whether or not there is randomness, you have to do hundreds if not thousands of runs. Again keep in mind what random and what odds mean. Odds/Randomness doesn't mean that you are guaranteed anything, it simply means that on the drop that is occurring right then you have 1 in 6 shot (if in a party of that size) of getting loot. This could also be compounded if no drop is selected as that is an event as well. Run the above test and see.

You could be right that there is a bug that somehow keeps the particular class combo you have selected from getting the same share but I find it very unlikely. The reason why is that item generation and loot sharing is a function that has been around game programming since the inception of treasure/loot and drops, kind of like case statements or for loops and by now I am relatively certain that any issues that may have arised such as coding that causes adverse issues would have been discovered and corrected but who knows. Humans are the ones doing the coding so maybe someone did some sloppy coding.

Originally Posted by Arvydas

The test runs you talked about also has to be ran with the same group and same alignment (meaning you're always the first/second/... person of the group). Like i said, if you do the die experiment, or the coin toss, you cannot get a correct result if you switch your choice around (joining another party). You have to always choose #1 or Head in order to test. So I guess it's very difficult to conduct a test in an online game that many odds (outside interference) could happen.

And I also don't think such a game that addresses balance would be coded in bias..

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

not true. if you flip a coin and select heads as your choice you have a 50/50 chance of tossing heads....if you select tails on the next toss you still have a 50/50 chance of tossing tails.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

if I get some free time later this week I'll look into writing some rudimentary monitoring software to monitor all the drops that are assigned to each player. should make it easier to see what is actually going on....though I assure you it's a 1/# chance for every drop, and each drop has the same probability regardless of previous drops.(where #, again, is total party number)

Originally Posted by Arvydas

Yup.. but if you are to count how many Heads you get, you can't switch to Tail all of a sudden.

Originally Posted by Dwiggit

Wow! If you could do that, it would be great!
Can you really do this without knowledge of GW code? (Or are you one of the game programmers?)

Thanks!
Dwig

Originally Posted by b1m2x3

im a monk, i've beaten the game, and i have NEVER gotten any gold or purple items while playing with others.

the only good stuff i've ever found was found alone.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

but you're quantifying a probability...not the number of times that probability hits in your favor....either way it's 50/50 for every toss....there's no way to determine whether or not each individual toss is going to be in your favor based on prior history of tosses.

Originally Posted by Arvydas

Yup. There's no way to determine the individual toss. But what Night meant for the experiment to be conducted was to see is there a fair distribution for a particular character over time. So if you're counting head in one game and tail in another, you're not doing much.

But even so, I agree that history of toss cannot tell you what you'd get the next time.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

ahh I gotcha now. I've completely dismissed the whole "fair vs not fair issue"....as I'm certain that it's random.

Originally Posted by C-Tzar

I'm beginning to wish the drops were not completely random. If I had control over the loot drops, every account would have a "phat_lewt" field associated with it which would contain a percentage modifier that could be adjusted.

Spamming 1337 speak: -2% phat_lewt penalty.
Getting your whole party killed because you mistakenly think you're Superman: -3%
Propogating conspiracy theories about loot drop fairness: -2%
Throwing out vague, pretentious ideas about random number gerneration and/or chaos therory, etc.: -5%
Whining about phat lewt on a public forum: -4%
Being an arrogant jerk: -50% (wow, I'd be poor)
Creating a W/M: -3%

Wow, I could go on indefinately with this list.

Originally Posted by C-Tzar

I'm beginning to wish the drops were not completely random. If I had control over the loot drops, every account would have a "phat_lewt" field associated with it which would contain a percentage modifier that could be adjusted.

Spamming 1337 speak: -2% phat_lewt penalty.
Getting your whole party killed because you mistakenly think you're Superman: -3%
Propogating conspiracy theories about loot drop fairness: -2%
Throwing out vague, pretentious ideas about random number gerneration and/or chaos therory, etc.: -5%
Whining about phat lewt on a public forum: -4%
Being an arrogant jerk: -50% (wow, I'd be poor)
Creating a W/M: -3%

Wow, I could go on indefinately with this list.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

I did mean Basic. The If Then statement was Basic....and the rand() function is the same for .net and c++....and anyone that has coded in .net knows it's essentially a glorified basic language.

Originally Posted by Night

I apologize on throwing out brief if-then statement as I was just throwing out an example. Proper C/C++ would read:

if ((class=="Ranger") && (subclass=="Mesmer"))
{
rand_number = (rand()%32);
}

Else
{
rand_number =(rand()%6);
}

And no coding whatsoever in .Net (VB 6.0 and VB for apps yes but not in the current job as it's not necessary for me yet) although I have been informed I get to (or maybe get punished and have to??) take a course covering VB.Net sometime in July and I would bet your pay check (I don't make enough to even make it a worthwhile bet ;-) ) that it's coded in C/C++ as I couldn't imagine how cumbersome VB would be or even if VB could handle the complexity of game and graphic programming. But my experience in Game programming is Nil so who knows.


OK I apologize I hijacked the topic so I throw it back to the OP. And yes I still believe loot drops to be random.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

ya .net is going to be a punishment. some people like it. I've noticed that it's more the new school programmers that find pleasure in .net.

I was only kidding with the Basic comment btw

and..finally....VB COULD handle the complexity of GW. Basic is a pretty powerful language if used correctly...it'd just be hell on your system resources. You'd need incredibly beefy computers just to run it.

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

thanks alot! now everyone in my office is wondering exactly what it is about SMTP Protocol Patches I found so humerous.

Originally Posted by Night

I apologize on throwing out brief if-then statement as I was just throwing out an example. Proper C/C++ would read: etc.

Originally Posted by C-Tzar

Ah hah! So THAT'S what you meant by lazy programmers! (said the hypocrite as he glanced around the office, making sure his boss wasn't around)

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

Mathematics Random - Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution

Random as it pertains to computer languages - Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely....

they're alot closer than most people think they are.

regardless the drops are still random. everytime something is dropped you have a 1/# chance of getting the drop, where # is the total number of people in your party. You have this same chance for the next drop. It is entirely likely that you could spend an entire day and not get a single drop based entirely on probabilities. It more than likely won't happen...but it's possible

Originally Posted by Halaku

The level of the mob has to do with how good the drop is (you won't get a 20-25 bow off of a level 8 charr) but has nothing to do whether you get a drop or not.

Originally Posted by Reiden Argrock

hehe, funny thread.
There have been times where I don't get alot of drops and sometimes I get alot of nice drops, however in 300+ hours of play I still have never gotten a superior rune or gold weapon and this has not discouraged me at all.
I like to think that the game is setup to see who contributes the most in a fight, ie healing, dmg, protection, debuffs etc... and whoever contributes the most must not need any super items because they already kick ass while the ones who don't contribute so much need help.
This probably isn't accurate, but I like it, and alot of the time it actually makes since. But no one is saying you have to think like me