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Question: Could you please improve the randomness of rare drops?

girtsn

girtsn

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Girts Smilgs Niedra
It seems that last bulk event was just another case where a certain rare part was dropped to selective audience with no visible logic in sight, namely they (practically) didn't drop from maturities 8-10, but from lower ones instead. Maybe this was based on hp, bug, or whatever, but seemed pretty clear. This is especially questionable knowing that you screwed up the better loot on many higher maturity "normal" mobs by simplifying the loot system = making all maturities drop the same loot. So why not here?

And to be clear at once, not blaming the players but the system of distribution for rares seems too flawed and not motivational (in this instance like in many others, what is the point to have the skills and equipment to hunt 08-10 if 01-07 have all the good stuff?).

Imho could be better to base the drops based on turnover and make them assigned as randomly as possible (yes I know there can be no true random implementation, but you can still try to be as close as possible).
Just to name a few other cases not nearly random enough:
  • waves - common, why is this needed? so some can be informed when there is a wave and do only then? motivational as &^&**.
  • server restarts restocking rares...
  • predictable time / kill patterns
  • rare drops after coming back from long periods of inactivity, guess what it just motivates to do exactly that (not play try for a small period not play again) and demotivates actual committed players - last examples I remember Skalman and more recently Focus, sorry if mistaken
  • items dropping during the instance type events - not sure what screwed logic is behind it but same avatars seem to be looting them again and again (mod hedoc is the perfect example, 2 to Stryker and 3 to Star)
  • also for instance type event rare loots, why is there a difference between maturities and loots while not for normal mobs (e.g. mod hedoc only from cat 5?) imho it should be possible for cat 1 just smaller chance to happen...
  • many cases of good loots dropping on occasional "drop by and try a bit" rather than one of the pile trying it for several days in a row
  • quantities of same item dropping from same mob over and over very quickly until reserves depleted (ES500, regen nanochips)
  • sudden esi rains (thing of past?)

Yea I know many will again call me unwilling to adapt and to just (ab)use the system, but couldn't you do an effort to make it more fair for everyone and so that it is motivational for the ones trying hard?
 
Iam with here on the W items and predictable loots.

Yes i want changes to this system and i want the person hunting longer should reap more MU rewards.
Its not about uber supremacy but more about common sense, especially with wave items where we see same trend on all new item.

New item > mat needed only drops on W > W item harvested > Item eventually lost most MU = hardly any cycle done on mob and the ones trying to hunt the mob like a normal player will suffer from the turned down TT on "event" mob and once they collected the items needed orignal value will be cut way below when they started their quest.

I just want it simple.
Go out and hunt then if iam lucky i get something with MU, if not then i know someone else had the luck of the draw.

I dont understand why its so hard to make it random when they dont need to have wave-loot on event-points system.
 
Really no need for wave based loot any more. True random number generators are not hard to implement these days.
 
True random number generators are pretty much non-existant.
But reasonably good random number generators are not hard to implement these days and inexpensive.
See this thread to see what's been discussed, and how the off the shelf RNG still show patterns.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?291758-PRNG-not-so-random


And yes there is no reason for wave based loot.
Spend the $1500 x 3 and get 3 cards working together to improve things
 
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I don't know the answer, but I gave up on bb event, I might give up on all events. I get tired of doing all the shooting while others were doing all the looting. I am too stupid to figure out the pattern so that I can just show up and shoot and loot.

At least with Gold Rush I get a skill pill every now and then and an evade booster when I complete the mission, I will do that much.. queue pavlovs dog.
 
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Max Hec said:
True random number generators are pretty much non-existant.
Click to expand...

Actually its very easy. All you need is a chaotic external input such as samples from an air pressure gauge and then use the least significant digits. For example. external input = 37.772233 take 3 least significant digits to get a value 233. This will be an unpredictable value with an even distribution between 0 and 999. Trance discussed use of external inputs in the thread you referenced.

Heck, you can even get this sort of thing from a web service these days.
 
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I want 4 christmas rings.

What comes to loot, their system sucks and will not be changed. Dunno how serious is yearly audit, but someone hitting 1:50000? 4 times is fucking out of this world.

Same shit with rest of the loot. It's fucking stupid to farm something for 3 hours without any drops and then "wave" starts and people gather in areas to hunt and loot. Or having same person loot few super rare items, how often, or how many irl dual-tripple lottery winners you know in person?

I think only way to have MA change something at all or bother with better system is when 4-5 ubers cash out. Not selling skills, but just liqudate everything and stay on hold.

Will any of the ubers, hitting the same jackpot every event, bother with something like that? I doubt.
 
NPV said:
I think only way to have MA change something at all or bother with better system is when 4-5 ubers cash out. Not selling skills, but just liqudate everything and stay on hold.

Will any of the ubers, hitting the same jackpot every event, bother with something like that? I doubt.
Click to expand...

Actually there would be much more influence if many regular players stop or slow down playing because of the loot system.
 
Xen said:
Actually there would be much more influence if many regular players stop or slow down playing because of the loot system.
Click to expand...

nah, regulars wount matter. I can't loot better ring than 8% taming with my 5k$ deposits a year.

I'll just deposit 50k$ next event and maybe loot spring ring 2017. Whoever looted 4, must of have deposited 5mil$ and I envy him a bit, that he can spend so much cash on a game :)
 
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flying_rat.jpg



My personal opinion:

When something can be predicted, it is no longer random (and maybe it never was?)

My personal playstyle:

I'll keep shooting and hope for the odd random thing to fall my way. :)
 
Mega said:
I'll keep shooting and hope for the odd random thing to fall my way. :)
Click to expand...

Same :) I'm actually doing very well, crafting/hunting wise, can't complain about loot and returns.

It just leaves a bad taste when you see how "rng" works here. Nothing similar could happen in real world, while it happens tens of times a year in EU.
 
NPV said:
nah, regulars wount matter. I can't loot better ring than 8% taming with my 5k$ deposits a year.

I'll just deposit 50k$ next event and maybe loot spring ring 2017. Whoever looted 4, must of have deposited 5mil$ and I envy him a bit, that he can spend so much cash on a game :)
Click to expand...

I know Messi looted many rings but check how many canes he got and you get a hint on his xmas depo alone.
 
Good thread. I just want to point out that KJ has a good head start. For example, a current Harvard student had implemented a random number generator with online quantum measurements as source. The documentation is [here], along with comparison with its alternatives. You can find the source code in the same Github directory. As you would assume without deeper background knowledge, standard Random libraries and system random are not random enough (low information entropy). That is because their random numbers are time based. So it is not difficult for another program to guess new generated numbers given past generated data sets, basically pseudo-random.

Another example, which might be more credible for most people without verifying the code and delving into statistical analysis for the example above, is to use libraries used for cryptography, such as OpenSSL.

I think the main issue is that MA don't have enough (high quality) software engineers. So as you would imagine now, the game is full of bugs (low quality) and slow development cycle (low man power).

KijkkiJikki said:
Really no need for wave based loot any more. True random number generators are not hard to implement these days.
Click to expand...

KijkkiJikki said:
Heck, you can even get this sort of thing from a web service these days.
Click to expand...
 
Oh wait, what if the reason why MA has rare loot drops in waves is due to the fact that they don't have enough computation power in their servers to use real random generators to calculate the loot every single time for every single user? If I were to use outdated hardware infrastructure and poor code quality to upkeep EU, I would have a list of predefined loot table that maps each loot with their weight and just let the system roll the die for each loot. Then have rare loots drop every 30 minutes or so or have them only drop in the first hour, for example, after patch. That would be very easy to implement and you do not need to put a lot of thought into it, such as space and time complexity (algorithm design), because the program would be extremely trivial and computationally light on the CPUs and/or GPUs. That would make sense I think. Ok, so the solution is to let MA make more money so they can put that into hiring more/better software engineers or upgrade infrastructure (hey, I hear those new Ryzen CPUs have approximately the same computational power as their Intel counterparts with half the price! *wink wink*).

Darn, half an hour of my time wasted here typing. :D You beautiful peoples keep up the awesomeness!
 
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carle said:
I know Messi looted many rings but check how many canes he got and you get a hint on his xmas depo alone.
Click to expand...

you loot canes too. not sure the ratio at higher instances.

26 christmas rings dropped, 7 looted by 2 persons.

I guess these two deposited ~25% of total deposits during event. Messi and Jack should post their numbers :p

PS! Takes me forever to open 500 boxes...if they do deposit like 10k$ during event...it would probably take like 12+ hours real time to open them :) Then again, 10k$ seems such a tiny amount to loot ~12% of rings...
 
I've all but given up with MA.

When it improves, I'll come back maybe, if not, I wont.
Still an Entropian at heart, just broken the addiction, and not been on for 4 / 5 months now.

I was never a wave hunter, but could clearly see it in action.
 
I moved to mining years ago; and now that I don't have much time to play I want to come back to do some low level hunting.
I must say that the waves have always been there in one form or another. Loot is not random at all; not the item part and to a lesser extend the TT return part. It has never been random; hence MA's struggle to obscure the many patterns over the years.
In the end, pure randomness might be more boring than you think.
 
I dont know. I kind of enjoy the wave based loot. I understand most of you deposit 1000$ of dollars a month, so wouldnt you want a more predictable outcome with your money?

Yall just wanna turn this game into a virtual Las Vegas.
 
silentkill234 said:
I dont know. I kind of enjoy the wave based loot. I understand most of you deposit 1000$ of dollars a month, so wouldnt you want a more predictable outcome with your money?

Yall just wanna turn this game into a virtual Las Vegas.
Click to expand...

actually with pure randomness it would turn a lot less into a virtual las vegas.
reason is the following:
scenario 1: lets say you are average joe. average joe can play a few hours a day with random afkness inbetween because of his children, work or whatever. he goes out, hunts 30 minutes, afks 30 minutes and so on. if he is unlucky and doesnt hit the wave he has absoulte zero chance of hitting for example a shroom or other stuff with good markup that he would need to break even or profit. his chances will most likely always be zero to get this because of his playstyle. he would need to continuously hunt the same mob type for at least 2 but better 3 hours in a row without any major break (>10 mins). with pure (or better randomness) he would always have the same chance of hitting the item, no matter his playstyle. that way he wont get punished for heaving a real life.
scenario 2: you are a very active hunter but you want to rely solely on lots of markup to profit. most likely you are in a group of hunters. one spotter checks the mob with relatively low kill speed and high eco until the indicator item drops, that shows the wave start. now you and your friends start to burst away lots of mobs in the next 5 to minutes to get the 1 or 2 valuable items that can drop ONLY now. after u got it or after the time is passed, all apart from the spotter stop hunting for the next +- 60 minutes until the next wave starts. problem here is for MA as those hunters could be permanently hunting to generate income for MA or for all the CLD deed holders. but they dont, because the system is shitty and exploitable. the hunter dont have any fun but profit and MA loses out in the end.
scenario 3: a heavy hunter, hunting 12 hours a day. he hunts all the time the same mob to stay eco and to improve his returns. he wants to try and profit through big turnover. he kills the most mobs in all the 3 scenarios. as the item that he wants to profit is only dropping once or twice every 60 mins for 5 mins (+-) means that in those 12 hours he has exactly 1 hour in which he can loot it and 11 hours in which he just gets the standard crap without any kind of chance of hitting something nice. he kills possibly 10 times as many mobs as the wave hunters combined but will most likely only get half of the items they are getting. with a normal random pattern he wouldve gotten approx. 10 times as many valuable items as the other guys as he killed more mobs. he has a calculable chance to hit an item and a nearly calculable return over x amount of kills which means it will be a lot less like the wave casino it is now.

overall it would be a lot better for everyone (except the wave exploiter) and especially a lot better for MA to implement more randomness. if the people know they have the same chance in hitting something, no matter their playstyle, they would be more encouraged to cycle more which means more income for MA and deed holders and with this increased profit they could make the game even better, which will profit the wave exploiter as well in the end.
 
my wishes

my wishes would be:

1 damage = 1 chance to win something
200 damage = 200 chances to win something
=when you hunt 1 hour @ 200dps, you get 720.000 chances

simple as that
no waves
just fair chances

currently, when you only hunt 1 hour/day, you have like 0 chance, because you are very likely to miss the waves.
 
I prefer boring over the nonsense going on. And let's face it, hunting a lot is boring anyway :)
Acro said:
In the end, pure randomness might be more boring than you think.
Click to expand...
 
And how many special loots dropped to defenders? I'm guessing none.
 
Me Really Never said:
actually with pure randomness it would turn a lot less into a virtual las vegas.
reason is the following:
scenario 1: lets say you are average joe. average joe can play a few hours a day with random afkness inbetween because of his children, work or whatever. he goes out, hunts 30 minutes, afks 30 minutes and so on. if he is unlucky and doesnt hit the wave he has absoulte zero chance of hitting for example a shroom or other stuff with good markup that he would need to break even or profit. his chances will most likely always be zero to get this because of his playstyle. he would need to continuously hunt the same mob type for at least 2 but better 3 hours in a row without any major break (>10 mins). with pure (or better randomness) he would always have the same chance of hitting the item, no matter his playstyle. that way he wont get punished for heaving a real life.
scenario 2: you are a very active hunter but you want to rely solely on lots of markup to profit. most likely you are in a group of hunters. one spotter checks the mob with relatively low kill speed and high eco until the indicator item drops, that shows the wave start. now you and your friends start to burst away lots of mobs in the next 5 to minutes to get the 1 or 2 valuable items that can drop ONLY now. after u got it or after the time is passed, all apart from the spotter stop hunting for the next +- 60 minutes until the next wave starts. problem here is for MA as those hunters could be permanently hunting to generate income for MA or for all the CLD deed holders. but they dont, because the system is shitty and exploitable. the hunter dont have any fun but profit and MA loses out in the end.
scenario 3: a heavy hunter, hunting 12 hours a day. he hunts all the time the same mob to stay eco and to improve his returns. he wants to try and profit through big turnover. he kills the most mobs in all the 3 scenarios. as the item that he wants to profit is only dropping once or twice every 60 mins for 5 mins (+-) means that in those 12 hours he has exactly 1 hour in which he can loot it and 11 hours in which he just gets the standard crap without any kind of chance of hitting something nice. he kills possibly 10 times as many mobs as the wave hunters combined but will most likely only get half of the items they are getting. with a normal random pattern he wouldve gotten approx. 10 times as many valuable items as the other guys as he killed more mobs. he has a calculable chance to hit an item and a nearly calculable return over x amount of kills which means it will be a lot less like the wave casino it is now.

overall it would be a lot better for everyone (except the wave exploiter) and especially a lot better for MA to implement more randomness. if the people know they have the same chance in hitting something, no matter their playstyle, they would be more encouraged to cycle more which means more income for MA and deed holders and with this increased profit they coulde make the game even better, which will profit the wave exploiter as well in the end.
Click to expand...

As much as I appreciate the quality of the scenarios you gave me, you also made it extremely biased....

What if the average joe hits the good waves?

For scenario 2, I can tell you arent a hunter. Because waves dont just have some magic "20 minute time limit" where you go on a frenzy and get a shitton of minis and globals. Waves in this game are extremely tiny spikes of loot. The waves youre talking about happen once in a blue moon my friend.

Scenario 3, the heavy hunter experiences ALL PARTS OF THE LOOT WAVE except for Ubers and ATHs. (Unless were talking about hunters like girtsn here) Which means they get a stable return of ~85-110%
 
not limiting to bulks, the first post lists all the cases where the drops are anything but random - this robot attack is just the last embarrassing example
as for defenders of course in these kind of events everyone shooting the event mobs should have a chance of getting the robot components blood samples or whatever the bait is at that time... as long as the chance is proportional to the turnover.
the events are prepared less and less accurately - what is scary is that seems that there is even no understanding / or even worse, lack of interest how the ingame mechanics works. event created, job done. event description and stats wrong, event items not dropped from most of event mobs/maturities, buffs screwing up items with high uses per minute / limited armors becoming exploitable? no problemo, turnover temporarily increased, that's all that matters. any real consequences for the ones screwed up? none that we can see, keep on moving... or rather shooting...
also every time hearing from support that my 1500$ per month losses are "normal" makes me wonder how far from reality they are. would they even know / bother to check that there is indeed something broken?
slither said:
And how many special loots dropped to defenders? I'm guessing none.
Click to expand...
 
i might be a stupid noob, but i struggle to see the incentive to grind with mid-upper lv gear outside of events.

with the top 10 dps guns on a few mega-mobs only a few can handle, i can see the incentive. but, who can get these weapons when one group of players hold the monopoly on them?

without insane piles of cash of 500k+ for just 1 gun or get really lucky with the 1:9,999,999,999,999 odds no one can join the top 1% titan club :)

im just an average noob working hard to achieve a place along side the top 10%-15% players but the lack of MU in common mobs makes grinding difficult and expensive. i feel there is too much UL low-mid Lv gear out there so there is little to no demand for the majority of looted or crafted L weapons/armor/faps. even most upper lv mobs are shitty to grind these days.

ive never had issues with my tt returns im perfectly happy with 89-95% tt returns but without that 5-10% MU to cover the gap on grind worthy mobs its impossible for average noobs like myself to climb the ladder. i cant see a reason to skill past 85~ im currently at lv92 hit/dmg and i own some pretty great gear.

but, im seriously considering to sell the excess 7 levels, as i cant afford to wait for MA to make lv100+ worthwhile for us mere mortals that dont have unlimited funds and endless time to grind mobs only the titan-players can handle.

ive often told my friends if i cant at the very minimum break even im selling out my 40k$ account. and it seems ever more clear to me selling my excess skills is the only way im going to break even until they are totally worthless.

ive long learned my place is not to be among the gods that can grind 20+ hours a day with 200k on card, earning a living playing EU. but i can try and get damn close :)

i agree that good items are not random enough and drop waves is not the way to go. this only incentivises player not to play for 90% of their online time. i feel this is a very bad thing for MA. i feel it should be based on an individuals cycle rates, grind and you will be rewarded for your efforts. this way even the ppl that play very little will eventually get something, not straight up nothing.

i dont think it should be based on dps or skill lv or how much you own.

:twocents:
 
Naomi said:
my wishes would be:

1 damage = 1 chance to win something
200 damage = 200 chances to win something
=when you hunt 1 hour @ 200dps, you get 720.000 chances

simple as that
no waves
just fair chances

currently, when you only hunt 1 hour/day, you have like 0 chance, because you are very likely to miss the waves.
Click to expand...

Or play US time :)
 
sidxx said:
i might be a stupid noob, but i struggle to see the incentive to grind with mid-upper lv gear outside of events.

with the top 10 dps guns on a few mega-mobs only a few can handle, i can see the incentive. but, who can get these weapons when one group of players hold the monopoly on them?

without insane piles of cash of 500k+ for just 1 gun or get really lucky with the 1:9,999,999,999,999 odds no one can join the top 1% titan club :)

im just an average noob working hard to achieve a place along side the top 10%-15% players but the lack of MU in common mobs makes grinding difficult and expensive. i feel there is too much UL low-mid Lv gear out there so there is little to no demand for the majority of looted or crafted L weapons/armor/faps. even most upper lv mobs are shitty to grind these days.

ive never had issues with my tt returns im perfectly happy with 89-95% tt returns but without that 5-10% MU to cover the gap on grind worthy mobs its impossible for average noobs like myself to climb the ladder. i cant see a reason to skill past 85~ im currently at lv92 hit/dmg and i own some pretty great gear.

but, im seriously considering to sell the excess 7 levels, as i cant afford to wait for MA to make lv100+ worthwhile for us mere mortals that dont have unlimited funds and endless time to grind mobs only the titan-players can handle.

ive often told my friends if i cant at the very minimum break even im selling out my 40k$ account. and it seems ever more clear to me selling my excess skills is the only way im going to break even until they are totally worthless.

ive long learned my place is not to be among the gods that can grind 20+ hours a day with 200k on card, earning a living playing EU. but i can try and get damn close :)

i agree that good items are not random enough and drop waves is not the way to go. this only incentivises player not to play for 90% of their online time. i feel this is a very bad thing for MA. i feel it should be based on an individuals cycle rates, grind and you will be rewarded for your efforts. this way even the ppl that play very little will eventually get something, not straight up nothing.

i dont think it should be based on dps or skill lv or how much you own.

:twocents:
Click to expand...



What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

5% completed.
Good luck with the rest.Key ingredient obtained.
 
if you play 24/7 or 1 hour a day you should have the same chance just 1/24 of the guy playing 24/7 a day

the only problem i see some poeple how the loot work on wave and are online like the guy that shooting no stop for 8 hours or more but there only shooting 1 hours a day on in the waves he is good like other say he know what he doing no he robing the player that plays alot and depo the other person pay for his withdraw of the game

and other things is loot caps poeple hoards t

that why i dont play much my 1k a month goes else were like poeple said manytimes stop complaining for the most part i stop also stop almost depo very rare

its a money game there alsways something new worths alot of money to stay on top and the poeple that are there there not the one paying its the mid players paying and some highlevel players that dont have good gear
 
silentkill234 said:
As much as I appreciate the quality of the scenarios you gave me, you also made it extremely biased....

What if the average joe hits the good waves?

For scenario 2, I can tell you arent a hunter. Because waves dont just have some magic "20 minute time limit" where you go on a frenzy and get a shitton of minis and globals. Waves in this game are extremely tiny spikes of loot. The waves youre talking about happen once in a blue moon my friend.

Scenario 3, the heavy hunter experiences ALL PARTS OF THE LOOT WAVE except for Ubers and ATHs. (Unless were talking about hunters like girtsn here) Which means they get a stable return of ~85-110%
Click to expand...

i think you are not a hunter because you dont seem to understand what waves we are talking about here. wave hunting specifies that certain item ONLY drop in a limited timeframe ( the wave) and that is the thing i wrote about. globals n hofs have nothing to do about it. those may or may not come in waves either but they arent nearly as predictable as the item drops. and the item drops are the real problem.
 
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