O.K so after reading and "debating" in far too many 'loot theory'/conspiracy threads, I have decided to try and give a basic and easy to understand probability lesson that directly applies to loot.
What I ask in this thread is that people read the OP (this one) carefully before commenting. Let's try to end all this nonsense and bickering now.
O.K, this will mainly be dispelling the old myth that some avatars are luckier than others. Now, already some of you who are ADAMANT this is true, are readying your typing fingers for a smart reply. Well, patience.. let me just try and explain how the logic fails completely, in every sense (business sense/mathematical/ethically.. anyway).
Let's start with the most important to MA:
Business
A lot of people claim that some avatars are created luckier than others to be used as a 'PR TOOL'. However, the general reaction to a noob looting high, or someone on a lucky streak, is extreme rage, jealousy, annoyance, and rage again. Lot's of people threaten, and some do, to quit everytime a low level person gets a huge loot. Often times these are big spenders, and often the 'noob' will also just take the cash and leave.
Word of mouth Advertising is very strong, but very biased. It is said that if you feel hard done to by a company, you will tell 30 people, if you feel thrilled by a company, you will tell 3, if you are content, you will probably tell no1. So per person they 'thrill' with a huge loot, they are potentially earning ~ three new customers who may leave within a week at the expense of loyal customers leaving along with bad word of mouth of a factor of 30 for everyone they pissed off.
It really doesn't make business sense, at least in an advertisement way (PR) to do this. It would make more business sense to restrict ubers from low lvl players, who probably feel like they are meant for ubers anyway and not feel hard done to. They do not do this however, which actually says something good about MA. They chose at the start to allow all players a chance a big loot, and they keep by it, despite the controversy it causes.
Next up, the cliche:
Mathetmatics
O.K, this can get complicated, but I will keep it as simple as possible and leave this link for people to 'start' further reading ino the topic if they find it interesting at all.
People try to 'prove' the theory that avatars are born luckier than others by mentioning how some people get nothing of note for years, but some players will get 2 ubers on mobs with less than 70 hp in 2 days, or some people will loot 20 sga items, whilst others will loot 0.
This leads people to belive the system CANNOT be random, theres just too much evidence against it right? Wrong.
This is difficult to explain in simple terms, but I will go as basic as I can without missing important points:
Let's say we have a bag full of 100 marbles, 10 black marbles, and 90 red. Each time a marble is removed, a marble of the same colour replaces it, thus keeping the probability the same at all times.
There is a 10% chance of taking out a black marble, and 90% chance of taking out a red one.
Let's say we give 200 people the opportunity to draw a marble 100times. This would mean, each person gets an equal 10% chance, 10 times, to get a black marble. This would, in most people's mind, mean that each of the 200 people will draw 1 black marble in the most likely situation (a total of 200 black marbles).
This is not true. In fact, 200 people getting 1 black marble each is actually the most unlikely event.
To start with, with 2000 draws total at 10% each, there is only a 2.9% chance of drawing an exact total of 200 black marbles (go higher than this sample [2000 draws at 10%] by a x10 factor, and it becomes ~0%.).
So even at the first hurdle, we see it is EXTREMELY unlikely that there will even be a total ammount of black marbles that can be distributed evenly, despite everybody having an "even chance" (or "all avatars are equal").
Now, we know that getting a fair ammount of black marbles is next to impossible, what about the actually distribution amongst the drawers? Well.. this becomes a bit more complicated, so I won't mind if you skip it, but for those brave enough to try and absorb:
To make it simple, let's assume the 2.9% probability of exactly 200 black marbles getting drawn (looted) in these 2000 draws somehow happened.
Each person had a 10 chances to get a 10% sucess. Using binomial distribution, this gives around 38.7% chance for one person to loot exactly one marble. Now, 38.7% must be multiplied by itself 200 times, for the 200 participants. so 38.7%^200. The resulting probability of this happening is :
"3.4849215320039630874714146191243e-81 %" which translates to:
"0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000035%"
And that is after the 2.9% chance of it even having this fair ammount of black marbles, so you would have to multiply it by 2.9% to get the probability of all this coming together.
Now, as you can see, it's basically impossible. Yet, when it doesn't happen like that, everyone goes in uproar; "omg he got 10 sga, and I got 0, rigged, corrupt, MA mole, PR!!!". Believe it or not, that is JUST MORE probabable than the system actually giving everyone equal loot, just because everyone has equal chance.
Also note that despite probabilities being so complex and useful, they are also a very vague guideline. Variance can be calculated, but I won't go into it, it's way too complex, but normal variance is way larger again than anyone without a maths background would assume. That guy who looted 3 eon sga pieces in one day; That is way within the realms of probability/possibility without any error on MA's part; it's not 'probable' but it is, far far far from impossible, which means it can and it will happen.
That example was extremely simplified... in EU there are so many variables that we don't even comprehend, that I doubt even the people who programmed it comprehend, because it is automated, unless you still belive that for some reason, MA officials sit in an office and import loot into there chosen fews folder.
So, when people claim that MA is rigging EU to give some people better loot, consider that if everyone WAS getting the same loot, this would be the only thing that makes MA corrupt, as they are clearly rigging the loot system they claim is dynamic to make everyone feel better. Again, the fact that they don't take this easy route says something GOOD about them. It must be frustrating to read the forums that accuse you of such low things on a hourly basis.
You are contradicting yourself by saying MA is rigging the system, because these things aren't turning out as you would expect (using preschool maths.. "we all all equal, why don't we all have equal loot"?). Probabilities goes a lot deeper than the average person would think, they aren't as simple as the majority think, and so conspiracies appear with very LITTLE factual information.
For anyone who is interested, here is a binomial calculator
Ethics
This bit is short and sweet:
It's plain unethical for a company to do what you people accuse it of doing. After this ammount of time, they would of been investigated, sued, and destroyed for half the stuff you accuse them off.
If you disagree with the system being random now after seeing this and would prefer that hard work got rewarded etc, then that is your opinion, but that means you want the system rigged, so what were you complaining about in the first place?
(I am aware that not everyone complains, but this thread is mainly aimed at the people who don't already understand)
I hope this helped shed some light on a controversial topic.
If you feel I am wrong, state why, please don't turn this into a flame fest or conspiricy thread. Thankyou for reading patiently...
What I ask in this thread is that people read the OP (this one) carefully before commenting. Let's try to end all this nonsense and bickering now.
O.K, this will mainly be dispelling the old myth that some avatars are luckier than others. Now, already some of you who are ADAMANT this is true, are readying your typing fingers for a smart reply. Well, patience.. let me just try and explain how the logic fails completely, in every sense (business sense/mathematical/ethically.. anyway).
Let's start with the most important to MA:
Business
A lot of people claim that some avatars are created luckier than others to be used as a 'PR TOOL'. However, the general reaction to a noob looting high, or someone on a lucky streak, is extreme rage, jealousy, annoyance, and rage again. Lot's of people threaten, and some do, to quit everytime a low level person gets a huge loot. Often times these are big spenders, and often the 'noob' will also just take the cash and leave.
Word of mouth Advertising is very strong, but very biased. It is said that if you feel hard done to by a company, you will tell 30 people, if you feel thrilled by a company, you will tell 3, if you are content, you will probably tell no1. So per person they 'thrill' with a huge loot, they are potentially earning ~ three new customers who may leave within a week at the expense of loyal customers leaving along with bad word of mouth of a factor of 30 for everyone they pissed off.
It really doesn't make business sense, at least in an advertisement way (PR) to do this. It would make more business sense to restrict ubers from low lvl players, who probably feel like they are meant for ubers anyway and not feel hard done to. They do not do this however, which actually says something good about MA. They chose at the start to allow all players a chance a big loot, and they keep by it, despite the controversy it causes.
Next up, the cliche:
Mathetmatics
O.K, this can get complicated, but I will keep it as simple as possible and leave this link for people to 'start' further reading ino the topic if they find it interesting at all.
People try to 'prove' the theory that avatars are born luckier than others by mentioning how some people get nothing of note for years, but some players will get 2 ubers on mobs with less than 70 hp in 2 days, or some people will loot 20 sga items, whilst others will loot 0.
This leads people to belive the system CANNOT be random, theres just too much evidence against it right? Wrong.
This is difficult to explain in simple terms, but I will go as basic as I can without missing important points:
Let's say we have a bag full of 100 marbles, 10 black marbles, and 90 red. Each time a marble is removed, a marble of the same colour replaces it, thus keeping the probability the same at all times.
There is a 10% chance of taking out a black marble, and 90% chance of taking out a red one.
Let's say we give 200 people the opportunity to draw a marble 100times. This would mean, each person gets an equal 10% chance, 10 times, to get a black marble. This would, in most people's mind, mean that each of the 200 people will draw 1 black marble in the most likely situation (a total of 200 black marbles).
This is not true. In fact, 200 people getting 1 black marble each is actually the most unlikely event.
To start with, with 2000 draws total at 10% each, there is only a 2.9% chance of drawing an exact total of 200 black marbles (go higher than this sample [2000 draws at 10%] by a x10 factor, and it becomes ~0%.).
So even at the first hurdle, we see it is EXTREMELY unlikely that there will even be a total ammount of black marbles that can be distributed evenly, despite everybody having an "even chance" (or "all avatars are equal").
Now, we know that getting a fair ammount of black marbles is next to impossible, what about the actually distribution amongst the drawers? Well.. this becomes a bit more complicated, so I won't mind if you skip it, but for those brave enough to try and absorb:
To make it simple, let's assume the 2.9% probability of exactly 200 black marbles getting drawn (looted) in these 2000 draws somehow happened.
Each person had a 10 chances to get a 10% sucess. Using binomial distribution, this gives around 38.7% chance for one person to loot exactly one marble. Now, 38.7% must be multiplied by itself 200 times, for the 200 participants. so 38.7%^200. The resulting probability of this happening is :
"3.4849215320039630874714146191243e-81 %" which translates to:
"0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000035%"
And that is after the 2.9% chance of it even having this fair ammount of black marbles, so you would have to multiply it by 2.9% to get the probability of all this coming together.
Now, as you can see, it's basically impossible. Yet, when it doesn't happen like that, everyone goes in uproar; "omg he got 10 sga, and I got 0, rigged, corrupt, MA mole, PR!!!". Believe it or not, that is JUST MORE probabable than the system actually giving everyone equal loot, just because everyone has equal chance.
Also note that despite probabilities being so complex and useful, they are also a very vague guideline. Variance can be calculated, but I won't go into it, it's way too complex, but normal variance is way larger again than anyone without a maths background would assume. That guy who looted 3 eon sga pieces in one day; That is way within the realms of probability/possibility without any error on MA's part; it's not 'probable' but it is, far far far from impossible, which means it can and it will happen.
That example was extremely simplified... in EU there are so many variables that we don't even comprehend, that I doubt even the people who programmed it comprehend, because it is automated, unless you still belive that for some reason, MA officials sit in an office and import loot into there chosen fews folder.
So, when people claim that MA is rigging EU to give some people better loot, consider that if everyone WAS getting the same loot, this would be the only thing that makes MA corrupt, as they are clearly rigging the loot system they claim is dynamic to make everyone feel better. Again, the fact that they don't take this easy route says something GOOD about them. It must be frustrating to read the forums that accuse you of such low things on a hourly basis.
You are contradicting yourself by saying MA is rigging the system, because these things aren't turning out as you would expect (using preschool maths.. "we all all equal, why don't we all have equal loot"?). Probabilities goes a lot deeper than the average person would think, they aren't as simple as the majority think, and so conspiracies appear with very LITTLE factual information.
For anyone who is interested, here is a binomial calculator
Ethics
This bit is short and sweet:
It's plain unethical for a company to do what you people accuse it of doing. After this ammount of time, they would of been investigated, sued, and destroyed for half the stuff you accuse them off.
If you disagree with the system being random now after seeing this and would prefer that hard work got rewarded etc, then that is your opinion, but that means you want the system rigged, so what were you complaining about in the first place?
(I am aware that not everyone complains, but this thread is mainly aimed at the people who don't already understand)
I hope this helped shed some light on a controversial topic.
If you feel I am wrong, state why, please don't turn this into a flame fest or conspiricy thread. Thankyou for reading patiently...
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