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"Bioritma" by any other name would still be "Luck"

Doer

Doer

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David "Doer" Falkayn
Didn't see the thread until it was trollbombed or whatever but for those who were earnestly trying to understand the general concept of "bioritma" (biorhythm) it's here in the post linked in my signature for years: Luck.
Me said:
The thing is, many people aren't calling the unknown-parameter(s)-that-affect-outcome "luck", and will even (and have been) arguing that there isn't controlled luck. It's a matter of semantics. There's really no way not to have "luck" involved in EU, unless you make it purely (pseudo)random, and i think everyone who has spent time observing the system will agree that that's one thing it is not. If everything was stochastic, only luck would matter, but because it's at least partly deterministic, "luck" matters, whether you call it that or not. The question is how much MA tweaks those factors and how "fairly" they are distributed.

One possible way of implementing that "luck" that i described there is as interacting sine waves. Not only does MA have a huge penchant for sines (they figure in prominently in the skill level to skill volume function, for example), but this is an easy to control and easy to calculate method that doesn't require storing a lot of data, and explains the very common phenomenon of clustered drops--be it of items in loots, HOFs for an avatar, etc.
Click to expand...
The idea is that your avatar is generated with a series (1+) of numbers that are used to calculate a single "loot factor" that varies over time (where "time" can be and probably is looting events rather than seconds/minutes/hours/days) and determine your avatar loot. There could also be a "server factor" or a "mob factor" that's combined with the "bioritma" and input into each looting event to determine tt.

Note that i didn't claim any specific knowledge of how to affect the rhythm (unlike the OP of closed thread from what i could see in the aftermath), but the half dozen years since I made that post haven't really dissuaded me from thinking it's a possible loot mechanic. The mechanisms affecting specific item drops have become more clear, and I don't necessarily think that "bioritma" is connected with specific item drops, per se. Anyway, this mechanism meets several requirements:
  1. Doesn't depend on a "personal loot pool" (the dev notes a couple years ago made it "clear" (lol) there isn't a personal loot pool
  2. Accounts for the runs of globals/high loots that an avatar can have while those around him are having "normal luck"
  3. Provides for a "fair" "luck" system in that at sufficiently long "time" (again, or number of looting events), if all avatars hunt the same size mob with the same gear (dpp/dps), they will all end up with the same loot. This is where he was saying in the other thread that if you hunt something big while your cycle ("bioritma") is low and then switch to something small just as you hit a peak, you'll lose big. As long as there's no way to predict when "your luck will change", you can't use the existence of a "bioritma" to game the system...
  4. Wouldn't generally be predictable and hence not gameable. However, it's MA so who knows.
  5. Couple more i forget now
I called it the sum of sines theory. Every time i go loot i start thinking "S.O.S". ;)

sum_of_sines.jpg

(Posted in The Developer Notes 2 thread to illustrate the idea. The idea is that the numbers created with your avatar are the cofactors and possibly divisors of the different sines, thus creating interacting waves of different length and magnitude. As long as the overall sum is normalized, this will result in "fair" "luck", but may mean some avatars experience high/low extremes in loot for long times if they are (un)lucky.
 
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This "luck" code, or Wi Flag, has happened before in days of Asheron's Call. Turbine, ofcourse, denied all existence of it, until much later:

[LINK]

Wi Flag

For those of you who don't know what the Wi Flag means, a little history. From the beginning of AC, some players have complained about unbelievably bad luck. When the swarm of Lugians spawn in the citadel, they will go after certain players--every time. The player's level doesn't seem to matter, nor does the number of other players in the room. What does seem to matter is that this player is cursed with that most unfortunate of distinctions: the Wi Flag.

For some players, the flag came and went. For others, it was a perpetual nightmare, present in nearly every monster experience. To live a Wi-Flagged life meant to be hunted at every turn. Perhaps other adventurers could know peace in a BSD or a Citadel, but there was no rest nor respite for one under Wi.

Our developers at Turbine initially answered these complaints by saying that they could find no such bug. Occasionally, a senior Turbine engineer could be found who would admit that perhaps there was something “not quite right” with the system, but they still could not identify a cause, if one even existed. Easy culprits, such as a malfunctioning random-number generator, were eventually dismissed.

But our search went on. For there were people even at Turbine convinced that the Wi Flag existed, and that they had it in spades.

And then one day, long after most people had learned to either forget or ignore the Wi Flag, the answer was found. Here in the report from Sandra Powers, AC Live's Lead Engineer, on the nature of the Wi Flag. We warn you in advance that it is a very technical explanation, but we hope it is of some interest to those of you who have long been afflicted with this terrible burden.

“Many of our players have complained for a long time that their character are `Wi-Flagged'--that is, that creatures attack them a much greater proportion of the time than random chance or distance should dictate. After looking at the code in depth, I believe I have found out why this might happen.

Generally, a creature chooses whom to attack based on who it was last attacking, who attacked it last, or who caused it damage last. When players first enter the creature's detection radius, however, none of these things are useful yet, so the creature chooses a target randomly, weighted by distance. Players within the creature's detection sphere are weighted by how close they are to the creature -- the closer you are, the more chance you have to be selected to be attacked.

The actual algorithm for selection looks like this: We roll a random number within a certain range--say between 0 and 1. Each player is given a portion of the range based on how close they are to the creature. The closer you are, the larger a portion you get. The player who owns the portion into which the random number falls is selected to be attacked.

This algorithm is sound. The problem comes up when we are assigning portions of the range to various players. If we wanted distance from the creature to be proportional to your chance to be selected--that is, if the closer you are the *less* chance you have of being attacked--then we would assign this range by taking your distance from the creature over the total distance--the distances of everybody under consideration added together. But we really want the inverse of this ratio--so that the closer you are, the *more* chance you have of being selected. So we invert this ratio by subtracting it from 1 to assign you the size of your portion.

An example:
A is 5 meters from the creature. B is 2 meters from the creature. C is 3 meters from the creature. D is 10 meters from the creature. Total distance is 20. The size of A's portion is 1 - 5/20, or 0.75. The size of B's portion is 1 - 2/20, or 0.90. The size of C's portion is 1 - 3/20, or 0.85. The size of D's portion is 1 - 10/20, or 0.50. So we assign these people these portions of the total range: A has between 0.00 and 0.75. B has between 0.75 and 1.65. C has between 1.65 and 2.50. D has between 2.50 and 3.00.
Notice, however, that while the original ratios added to 1 (.25 + .1 + .15 + .5 = 1.0) that the inverted ratios -- and thus the total range from which we should have rolled the random number -- no longer add to 1. Instead, they add to 3. (Some algebra will convince you that the assigned portions always add to n-1, where n is the number of people under consideration.) So in order to randomly select some portion of this total range, we should roll a number between 0 and 3.

But in the existing AC code, we always roll a number between 0 and 1.

You can easily see in this example that if the random number is always been 0 and 1, only A and B have any chance at all of being selected, and A has the majority of the chance. And the reason that these two have all the chance is simply because they are first in the list, and so were assigned the low parts of the range. Normally--if we had rolled between 0 and 3 in the example--your order in the list should have no effect on how likely you are to be chosen. But because we only rolled between 0 and 1, the earlier you appear in the list, the more skewed your chance of selection is. And as it happens, in AC code, your position in this list is determined by the InstanceID of your character, which is assigned when you create the character and never changed. (Note that the InstanceID is hashed--mutated by the system into another number--to determine position. So it's not a simple relationship like the older the character, the earlier in the list they will be. It is, however, a static relationship--an ID that hashes to an early position will always hash to an early position, although it's exact position will depend on what other ID's are also under consideration.)

So what does this mean? The way this random targeting algorithm is implemented right now, if you happen to have an InstanceID that hashes to an early position, you will tend to be attacked more than your fair share when the creature is using random targeting, regardless of your distance from the creature. In other words, you are Wi-Flagged.”


We're glad we were finally able to fix this bug. With the July 2002 Event, may you know peace in the fast-spawning dungeon of your choice!
Click to expand...
 
Bio rhythm = 2 years or even more of constant losses then 3 weeks with excellent loots.
 
Fanan said:
Bio rhythm = 2 years or even more of constant losses then 3 weeks with excellent loots.
Click to expand...

And guess what happens if you do not play during those three weeks.
 
remontoire said:
And guess what happens if you do not play during those three weeks.
Click to expand...

you would still have the same biorhythm when you come back??? cause its pre-determined for x amount of "events" (clicks, drops, kills) thats how i understand it. then the only difference could be the other factors like if the server is ready to pay out
 
I don't see anything about location.

647,842














670,836















 
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Kitch said:
you would still have the same biorhythm when you come back??? cause its pre-determined for x amount of "events" (clicks, drops, kills) thats how i understand it. then the only difference could be the other factors like if the server is ready to pay out
Click to expand...

same biorhythm when you come back???

no, it is not same.
the biggest and freaking thing i discovered is absolutelly different that i thought in first place.

After making self to believe that system was made absolutelly different than we all think , i started to understand alot things here.

that explains :
1.standing whole day and first mob global
2. Not doing nothing whole day or shoot after break get skill boost in firt shot
3. skill boost % (with secret formula) can dirrectly calculate your loot avarage that day.
4. Uber lucky avatars
5. Balance dynamyc system for people who loose (deposited Money)
6. Rare items Mu calculation to return
7. Welcom back presents and how it is really works. (only for people who have loss)
8. Manual balancing of system by mindark.


But all this things was ready to post , before i noticed that noone worth to know it.
Gl for all who will start analyzing it itself, and for others - good luck trolling.


p.s. i am so calm now
 
It's well known that PE historically has run on sine curves (i.e. Mining cracking) however, I believe there is a certain "avatar factor" which is created when your avatar first starts. There's too many instances of consistently "lucky" avatars and consistently "unlucky" avatars which cannot be solely compensated for a variating multisine curve.

Essentially, lootcycles are sinusoidal around a "y average" which is predetermined in some fashion by MA.
 
ktpsmf said:
s
1.standing whole day and first mob global
2. Not doing nothing whole day or shoot after break get skill boost in firt shot
3. skill boost % (with secret formula) can dirrectly calculate your loot avarage that day.
4. Uber lucky avatars
5. Balance dynamyc system for people who loose (deposited Money)
6. Rare items Mu calculation to return
7. Welcom back presents and how it is really works. (only for people who have loss)
8. Manual balancing of system by mindark.
Click to expand...


1. very true (or 2nd or 3rd mob)
2. very true
3. idk that
4. yes
5. idk that
6. correct
7. maybe true
8. idk that

how about profit and leave how is this biothingy works on it?
 
Aio said:
It's well known that PE historically has run on sine curves (i.e. Mining cracking) however, I believe there is a certain "avatar factor" which is created when your avatar first starts. There's too many instances of consistently "lucky" avatars and consistently "unlucky" avatars which cannot be solely compensated for a variating multisine curve.

Essentially, lootcycles are sinusoidal around a "y average" which is predetermined in some fashion by MA.
Click to expand...

My original point in the "luck" post in my sig that i quote in OP is that an avatar with a one really long sine wave contributor that starts on the "up" could have better results than many other avatars for a very long time, all without MA considering it "unbalanced" or whatever because they have stated it's a long-term game: given enough "time" (mobs killed, etc, -- whatever contributes to the motion of the sines), this avatar would in the end tend toward the same overall loot as everyone else. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility of other avatar-specific settings that would, under any circumstances, be considered "unbalanced".

This latter is a favorite conspiracy theory which is based on the potential motivation for MA that such "poster children" create interest in their game.
 
ktpsmf said:
After making self to believe that system was made absolutelly different than we all think , i started to understand alot things here.

that explains :
1.standing whole day and first mob global
2. Not doing nothing whole day or shoot after break get skill boost in firt shot
3. skill boost % (with secret formula) can dirrectly calculate your loot avarage that day.
4. Uber lucky avatars
5. Balance dynamyc system for people who loose (deposited Money)
6. Rare items Mu calculation to return
7. Welcom back presents and how it is really works. (only for people who have loss)
8. Manual balancing of system by mindark.


But all this things was ready to post , before i noticed that noone worth to know it.
Click to expand...
What? There's balancing mechanisms? How many years it took you to find that out?
I think i just found someone who's "not worth to know"? :scratch2:

Hehe no, take it easy, i'm kiddin'. Kinda.
 
Doer said:
My original point in the "luck" post in my sig that i quote in OP is that an avatar with a one really long sine wave contributor that starts on the "up" could have better results than many other avatars for a very long time, all without MA considering it "unbalanced" or whatever because they have stated it's a long-term game: given enough "time" (mobs killed, etc, -- whatever contributes to the motion of the sines), this avatar would in the end tend toward the same overall loot as everyone else. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility of other avatar-specific settings that would, under any circumstances, be considered "unbalanced".

This latter is a favorite conspiracy theory which is based on the potential motivation for MA that such "poster children" create interest in their game.
Click to expand...

This I completely agree with. I think in the vast majority of cases, being "lucky" is the same as the whole deposit and you hof theory - pure coincidence. Also, the sine curve pattern is really the only way to guarantee a set return while simultaneously appearing "random" to the end user.

However I think we can say a few things with certainty -

- Placed items have occurred - be it through direct loot table manipulations or through boosted avatar looting parameters; this means direct manipulation of loots is/was possible, therefore tending towards additional settings other than a sine pattern.

- Certain avatars have had unreasonable "luck" in the past for periods which stretches beyond that logically (though not impossibly) boundaried by just the sine theory - and this in essence proves the reverse also, it must be possible to have both unreasonably "lucky" and "unlucky" to balance.

Whether these things have changed through the various loot system models over the years I'm unsure. Additionally, as someone posted about AC, these parameters could be entirely unintentional bugs - such as the Hogglo/IMK3 incident, Snables + i2870's, the pec-value TT item uber loots (15pec ML35's etc).

For a bit more info, I'm lucky enough to have used two polar opposite avatars in my time... it does help to give a different perspective.

My own avatar has historically been horrendously "unlucky" - to the point where I question the "Y" as I call it. Considering in 12 years since creation I haven't had a single "up" period, of any significant nature, and losses totalling around $20k, something seems amiss (and unlikely that my loot curve is so long (unless of course it is time based (illogical) where my "up" periods have hit in times when I have taken a game-break).

An avatar I used, [name witheld, you'll know it if you know me] had a interesting feature that it was almost impossible to lose money TT returns. In TT alone that avatar was running around 500k PED profit; the vast majority of it made post-trading and thus "from the system". Using that avatar it was possible to pull vast quantities of PED hunting... with seemingly no "down" period - and interestingly, no "uber" spikes. This pattern is what leads me to believe there is some y value manipulation. Especially between the two accounts; Now, there are two scenarios:

a) A 12y+ cycle around y=0, inverse to each other

b) Two cycles, for my avatar around y= -1 and for the other y= +1

Just my thoughts
 
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Lets laught a bit or cry about luck.
I see it in this way.
I do entire iron mission (i did plenty of them) and system deliver a hof to balance looses.
That hof ofc is looted by someone else as usual.
So that someone - another player had a luck.
But system did balance looses with hof so all comunity teories including warious spreadshets are still valid.
 
Setting up the biorhythm

Has anyone figured out how to do the biorhythm, Doer's and ktpsmf's thread didn't have instructions on how to sit it up. The only thing that I understand is that the Y axis is the ped amount and the X axis are the clicked events. What's not explained is:

1. Are the events logged individually or the total at the end of a hunt? (crafting lets you set the number of attempts)

2. Crafting has a statistics button that gives the tt value; but for hunting what do you do, use a screen capture for each kill?

3. If the event is logged individually, with lag, wait until the loot is received?

4. How do you adjust for areas with taxes when only one nonstackable item is received?

5. Is the largest normal return (non hof/global) tt and 0 tt (no loot) treated as the wave crests (placing the x axis between the min and max y values, so that hof/globals wont skew the other returns.

6. How many events would be the minimum needed and as events accumulate, when do you eliminate the earlier events or do you just keep adding without truncating the earlier ones?
 
At the end of the day though, you can ''understand'' the biorhythm and luck associated with loot but you never know where you are along the ''sine'', therefore it truly does boil down to luck and you cant do anything to make your luck besides clicking more anyways... :wise:

Only way to truly make ped ingame is to hunt MU... Why do you think the most skilled players wait until competitions and events to hunt; because that's when new items with high MU are released. Just face it, this game is a way to waste time and chat with friends :)
 
Black Widow iK, I do respect what your saying. I plan to use the biorhythm as a performance evaluator, which is why I asked if anyone else had set one of these up. ktpsmf had done one as a series of 9 numbers (referred to as a factor) which Doer looked like he incorporated in this thread; yet ktpsmf didn't explain how he converted them from his point graph, as well as the data capture.

I do however disagree however with the word luck. If MindArk hadn't proven to a regulatory commission, that Entropia wasn't random, chance, or luck, it would have been classified as a gambling. ktpsmf and Doer looked like they had slightly different approaches to the same solution using some avatar characteristics to mimic luck even though its not.
 
essentialy regardless of the intellectual interest you have you sound desperate to gain this knowledge, which could only lead to you cheating money from the system/players and costing you a perma ban :laugh:

peace
 
Sorry, not desperate, and you made a knee jerk reaction assuming everyone is a thief if given the opportunity, which is a dim outlook on people and a crass assumption. We know how the saying about assume goes but me isn't in it.

and peace on you too
 
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Aio said:
This I completely agree with. I think in the vast majority of cases, being "lucky" is the same as the whole deposit and you hof theory - pure coincidence. Also, the sine curve pattern is really the only way to guarantee a set return while simultaneously appearing "random" to the end user.

However I think we can say a few things with certainty -

- Placed items have occurred - be it through direct loot table manipulations or through boosted avatar looting parameters; this means direct manipulation of loots is/was possible, therefore tending towards additional settings other than a sine pattern.

- Certain avatars have had unreasonable "luck" in the past for periods which stretches beyond that logically (though not impossibly) boundaried by just the sine theory - and this in essence proves the reverse also, it must be possible to have both unreasonably "lucky" and "unlucky" to balance.

Whether these things have changed through the various loot system models over the years I'm unsure. Additionally, as someone posted about AC, these parameters could be entirely unintentional bugs - such as the Hogglo/IMK3 incident, Snables + i2870's, the pec-value TT item uber loots (15pec ML35's etc).

For a bit more info, I'm lucky enough to have used two polar opposite avatars in my time... it does help to give a different perspective.

My own avatar has historically been horrendously "unlucky" - to the point where I question the "Y" as I call it. Considering in 12 years since creation I haven't had a single "up" period, of any significant nature, and losses totalling around $20k, something seems amiss (and unlikely that my loot curve is so long (unless of course it is time based (illogical) where my "up" periods have hit in times when I have taken a game-break).

An avatar I used, [name witheld, you'll know it if you know me] had a interesting feature that it was almost impossible to lose money TT returns. In TT alone that avatar was running around 500k PED profit; the vast majority of it made post-trading and thus "from the system". Using that avatar it was possible to pull vast quantities of PED hunting... with seemingly no "down" period - and interestingly, no "uber" spikes. This pattern is what leads me to believe there is some y value manipulation. Especially between the two accounts; Now, there are two scenarios:

a) A 12y+ cycle around y=0, inverse to each other

b) Two cycles, for my avatar around y= -1 and for the other y= +1

Just my thoughts
Click to expand...

I get friends of mine to collect loot for me without exploiting multiple avatars, and the benefit as well is my data comes from multiple people at the same moment. It seems people have different patterning on what does well and what does poorly, and they change at different rates over time. 'Lucky' may indeed just be they happen to be lucky more often on say, Eomon, than you. You may be more lucky than them at molisk.
 
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