1) Loading and logging might very well affect the outcome of getting a disk or not. When I go and collect around 900 loots off the bazaar (7 factories + 1 bank + 1 backpack + 1 personal inventory) and then I RE it all and not loading I find maybe 1 disk. Sometimes 2. However when I RE as I go I tend to find 6 or more disks. RE as I go means I go to a bazaar, pull off the parts I want to RE, RE what I can there, then move on to the next city and repeat. Not saying its fact. Just saying loading/logging might zero out your chances each time.
If this is true then it supports the idea that the chances are tracked and you have less of a chance the more disks you find. Which is quite possible and one way of controlling the amount of disks out there. Next time I feel like doing this I will go and collect loot then log a few times while staying in my city. If I get more disks then maybe there is something to this.
2) I now have around 60 disks. I need to count them again. But the thing is I have only ever found 2 disk 6/8. I have 5+ of each of the other disks except 6/8. This is really making me believe that disk 6/8 is the hard one. Whether its the hard one just for me or just for SWs on my server I dont know. It may well be that its for each person. Quite possible each shipwright has some sort of variable in the loot system that gives them one disk less common then others.
Of course the question is why do this? Well look at what happened with me. I had lost disk 6/8. My tool had ate it. So I was contacted by another shipwright who had disk 6/8 and wanted to make a deal. A deal that worked out for both of us. Thanks again Volket. This could be a system within a system to keep the shipwrights talking to each other and more social with one another. The DEVs love things like this. Look at AxP. Its only real use is to make us social and force us to talk to each other. You could play the whole game without ever talking another soul except for AxP.
Anyway just somethings to consider. Would love for someone to disprove or prove this by the way.
Tyranus
Yoda: "When I die, the last of the Jedi, you will be!" Luke: "Really? what about those 50,000 Jedi Masters outside comparing Saber Size?" Yoda: "Sorry I am, My Bad it is"
"I think it was him who suggested I go play Diablo 2. This is about what I expect from one of the script kiddies over there."
No, I did not suggest that you go play Diablo 2. I only stated that I saw this EXACT kind of discussion for 2 years, in Diablo 2, and even when code was examined and massive statistics compiled against it, it never went away. It was so prevalent (and likely still is) that there are entire pages on those myths.
This is what i am talking about. In computing terms rand() is not random, as was stated above (by the guys from MIT(sic))
Why do you say "fairly" random....lol
I say "fairly" random because I am acknowledging that it is not truly random. We all know that random number generators from the pseudo-random number generator are not truly random. But that fact is completely irrelevant in this discussion. Bringing it up as defense of anything in this discussion is pure ignorance (i know you didn't bring it up but others did in defense of their patterns). What I mean by "fairly" random is this: Pseudo-random number generators are random enough that if they used one to decide whether or not you get a schematic each time you RE, no human being would ever observe any pattern in when the schematic appears and when they do not. If anyone, observes a predictable pattern, rand() cannot be the cause of that pattern. period.
You also mention the fact that a program written that uses rand() produces the same first number each time you turn the program/computer on. That happens because of what we call the "seed" to a random number generator. Only a poorly written program, or a program that doesn't care if it repeats itself exactly every time it is turned on will produce the same first number each time it is run. Programs have a choice of how they want to seed the random number generator. That seed determines the starting point in the random sequence. In this case, because we are playing a game that has a client-server model, we can be fairly certain the the seed is controlled by the server and is something the client has no visibility into.
Still don't know what your point is though. You still haven't explained why multiplying a result from rand() by the time interval between mouse clicks serves any useful purpose. We could just drop it. It doesn't really have anything to do with this discussion either.
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Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have never once said I was right or correct. Yet he does. And he presents his "I am the computer god so burn in hell Petabyte, you moron" additude badly.
As I said if he wants to discuss this then fine. I am open to discussion. But when someone calls me a moron or talks down to me with each post then guess what? Its not a discussion anymore. Its one man who thinks he is so correct it gives him the right to treat others against his arguement like dogs.
I agree that he is being a jerk about it. But his science is right.
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Still don't know what your point is though. You still haven't explained why multiplying a result from rand() by the time interval between mouse clicks serves any useful purpose. We could just drop it. It doesn't really have anything to do with this discussion either.
I said this from above. I have already said it will serve no purpose because my program knowledge is zero.
I was just trying to introduce another rand number. Never mind lets drop it....
But just 1 niggly bit (lol) I meant the time from starting to RE kit to the time to actually clicking to RE it....
But hey your right lets drop it sorry for all this stuff on this thread maybe peta should try starting it again.
D'Vad [X-Wing] Chimaera What was God doing before he said "Let there be light"... Religion is the easy way out........
I would tend to think that the server random # gens go on something of a cycle, aka not truly random. Consider this: Back in the day before there was a master Smuggler to make Mol clamps, a friend and I grinding up containers discovered that by rolling a chance cube IMMEDIATELY before each slice, whatever color came up would be the color wire to cut. This worked over 90% of the time. So it seems that the random gens do follow some sort of a pattern, granted a slightly offbeat example.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have never once said I was right or correct. Yet he does. And he presents his "I am the computer god so burn in hell Petabyte, you moron" additude badly.
As I said if he wants to discuss this then fine. I am open to discussion. But when someone calls me a moron or talks down to me with each post then guess what? Its not a discussion anymore. Its one man who thinks he is so correct it gives him the right to treat others against his arguement like dogs.
I agree that he is being a jerk about it. But his science is right.
I am not saying if he is right or wrong. I feel he is wrong because of several things that have happened since REing loot. And I dare say if he made a shipwright and REd as much loot he might even come back and say the samething. I doubt that though as he seemed the type of person who would rather lie then admit if he was wrong.
As for me if I am wrong then so be it. No pride lost for me.
The main reason I consider this not as random as we might think is this. I got 4 disks in a row before. 4 RE attempts and 4 disks. This is what really has me thinking there is something not completely random about this system. Yes it maybe random to a point. But I believe there might be hidden variables added in.
The big one I am thinking about now and want to test soon is the logging/loading theory. Crafters have told me if you start getting too many crit fails that you should log to reset your generator. And as I stated above it seems when I have to load between cities I get more disks. Here is what I know so far on this.
Sitting in one area and not loading or logging I RE 900 loots and get 1 disk in the first 100 loots and nothing after. I have done this several times. However going from city to city I get a disk in the first 100 loots then nothing. But when I load to another city I get another disk in the first 100. This is starting to be the MO for me. No more grabbing a ton of stuff and bringing it back to RE it in the safety of my city. Instead I go from city to city and sit near a bazaar, usually sampling something for survery xp, while pulling loot off the vendors to RE. This would mean that loading or logging zeros out or resets your generator. Which in turns means there is a way to "force" a disk. Hence not as random as we think. If there is a way to set up a disk find situation then the system isnt as random.
Now this also brings to light another question. If this is in fact the case, then is it possible for the opposite to happen? Where in your generator is always bringing in successes. Possible and maybe why I had the feeling of things coming in waves. But there I would have to try not to get a disk and I cant see how that is possible. Plus if I ever got into a good set of rolls I surely wouldnt want to log and risk losing that streak.
Also another thing I thought of recently is what if force luck has something to do with it? I really would like some feedback on this from other SW with and without force luck. I have luck IV and listening to other SW on my server and on here I think I am finding more disks then they are. Of course I am quite possibly REing alot more then most too. Which is why I would like some feedback on this. If force luck does have something to do with it, it doesnt disprove if its random or not. Just proves you can increase your chances. I have definate feelings about this though as I would prefer all FS and jedi stuff to stay as far away from JTL professions and systems as possible. But who knows.
Tyranus
Yoda: "When I die, the last of the Jedi, you will be!" Luke: "Really? what about those 50,000 Jedi Masters outside comparing Saber Size?" Yoda: "Sorry I am, My Bad it is"
I think here is the general problem. I can feel a pattern. I dont know what but I can feel it. I think the situation is that most people RE loot randomly so they see randomness. But when you spend 3+ hours straight REing loot everyday. Well thats another matter. Its almost like a pulse. I can start to feel its peak.
You forget something very important with this comment: if the random number generator is server side, there is surely a single random number generation algorithm that many different unrelated random events are all using. That means people RE'ing and people slicing (for example) are all getting their random numbers from the same generator. This means the only way you could ever directly observe the actual random sequence is if you were the only person logged into the server. And even then, you have to remember that every time a new spawn appears, it's exact location and exact type are both randomly selected. So even if nobody logs in, you will not be the only thing querying the servers random number generation algorithm. Since the nature of the other queries is not patterned and will be random, there is no way that the servers use of rand() to produce random numbers will ever produce a pattern you can observe even if you RE a million items in rapid succession. If you want to look for patterns that is fine. But you should drop any pretense that the use of rand() or any other psuedo-random number generator could ever be the explanation for them. In this case, it can't.
But the biggest problem of all is that there is so much. So many different variables that can and I believe do play a part in getting a disk or not. Whether or not you log,
Whether or not you log can only play a role if the developers were stupid enough to use a client side random number generator that reseed with client side information when the game is turned on. OR if they were stupid enough to give each player his own random number generation algorithm that is run server side but uses client side information to seed. Neither makes any sense. Unless the programmers are very silly, each server will have 1 random number generator that gets seeded when the server resets and no amount of logging or relogging is going to have any affect on it because it is being used by the server for all random results for all players and zone spawns that it ever needs to calculate.
if you keep your disks in your inventory, company the loot comes from, and so on. And this may well be what the DEVs are counting on for their randomness. Keep the system tied up in all sorts of variables so that no one can stick even one part of the system to a table.
If they do anything other than have the server call a psuedo-random number generator to produce the random results then they are fools. Because nothing else that they could come up with will ever be as random as what a server-side pseudo-random number generator could produce. Why would they waste time relying on anything other than a pseudo-random number generator for their randomness? It just doesn't make sense. Because psuedo-random number generators are the best possible way for a computer to produce randomness.
I am not saying that they arent using a random number generator. I have never said that. I am saying there might be variables that affect the outcome of each RE. A simple number gen that could be tracked except having 50 variables added in would give a look of randomness just as having a complex multi tier number generator. It would look random until you figured out the variables. If there is 50 variables, what are the odds someone will figure it out? Not very likely.
I'm not saying that there might not be variables that affect the RE, but if there are it cannot be to help make it more random. Every variable that they might use to affect the RE result will only serve to make it less random because variables like you are discussing can be known by the client. They can be tracked and the results of those variables can be studied, whereas the calls that the server makes to a pseudo-random number generator cannot be known tracked or studied by the client.
No. The simple fact is that if they used any variables that are controlled by the client to affect the RE result, the only possible reason they would have done this is to make the result less random. Because that is what using those variables will do.
The more I RE the closer I feel to nailing something down in this system. Look at the original FS path. Before anyone knew what it was. People had theories. I remember a few people had the theory it was based on professions. No one had any real evidence. But these guys strongly felt mastering professions was the key. But they got flamed by everyone else because the DEVs had said the system was random and certain checks had been put in place. But we all found out those few were completely right.
Funny you bring that up. Everybody knew it was about mastering professions. The flame wars on the old Jedi forums were not about whether or not mastering professions was the key. The flame wars were about whether or not you could predict the next profession from the previous professions once your holocrons went silent. And what we found out was that all the crazy theories that people were coming up with about how you coud affect or predict what your silent profession was going to be by doing things on the client side were completely wrong.
Nonetheless, the arguments that those people gave were the same arguments you have provided in this thread. I don't mean that as an insult. It's a fact. That is what drew me into this thread. I read it and said, PetaByte and Tyrannus are using the same arguments that all the false prophets that claimed: "I can predict your silent profession" on the jedi forums were using back in January/February of this year.
I'm not saying you are one of those people, but you might want to be careful. You are using the same scientifically faulty logic that replaces "gut feeling" with cold hard facts, that those people used. And they were just as wrong as all the people that flamed them said they were.
My biggest point in the arguement for whether or not this is truely random, is the prize itself. The firespray. I honestly feel the devs are starting to learn from past mistakes, IE holocrons. Holocrons were a completely random loot item and with in a month of them dropping, people that wanted them had literally 5 or more of them. They were so prevelant you could go to coronet and see 10 or more players shouting to sell them. If the firespray disk system is completely random as some think then it wont be long before we see the samething with firesprays. With the amount of loot out there its inevitable. If firesprays get that common then it defeats the purpose and will hurt the economy once again. An economy, I might add, that cant take too many more hits like holos, crystals, and pearls did. This is one reason I feel the disks are truly 100% random. There has to be something in there that the DEVs can control to make sure things dont get out of hand.
That is a faulty comparison. The frequency of holocrons was never a problem with the old jedi system. Shoot. Were you here in december of last year? They gave every single player a free holocron as a christmas present, and for a very large number of players, that was the only holocron they ever owned. The holocrons were never the hard part of the old jedi grind anyway. The hard part was that once you did your first 4 holocrons, the holocrons went silent. It didn't matter how many you had. They wouldn't tell you anything.
In any case, as I've already explained, all of the variables you are hoping are there can only serve the purpose of making it easier for players to get their schematic. It will not make it harder. If you think they made some mistake with the holocrons that they need to "learn" from that affected the frequency of the holocron then there is a very simple way to do that: make the frequency with which the schematics randomly appear smaller. Adding client controlled variables as a means of reducing the frequency of loot makes no rational sense at all. It would be monumentally foolish for them to do what you are proposing if the reasons you give are the actual reasons.
Tyranus
Message Edited by Malitevv on 11-07-200401:28 PM
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In any case, as I've already explained, all of the variables you are hoping are there can only serve the purpose of making it easier for players to get their schematic. It will not make it harder. If you think they made some mistake with the holocrons that they need to "learn" from that affected the frequency of the holocron then there is a very simple way to do that: make the frequency with which the schematics randomly appear smaller. Adding client controlled variables as a means of reducing the frequency of loot makes no rational sense at all. It would be monumentally foolish for them to do what you are proposing if the reasons you give are the actual reasons.
Roger that
D'Vad [X-Wing] Chimaera What was God doing before he said "Let there be light"... Religion is the easy way out........
2) I now have around 60 disks. I need to count them again. But the thing is I have only ever found 2 disk 6/8. I have 5+ of each of the other disks except 6/8. This is really making me believe that disk 6/8 is the hard one.
this reasoning is horribly flawed. If you have 60 disks, and they were all randomly chosen, the probability that you would have more than 5 of every single of the eight disks is not significantly different from the probability that you would have only 2 of one of them. So the probability of the thing that you think you should have observed is not significantly different from the probability of what you did observe, yet you believe that your observation means something.
The fact that you believe this demonstrates that you do not understand statistics or probability.
Your observation is a perfectly normal and expected result of a completely random process. It doesn't provide any evidence at all that any one schematic is more rare than another. Quite the opposite.
Message Edited by Malitevv on 11-07-200401:41 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------- In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
I think here is the general problem. I can feel a pattern. I dont know what but I can feel it. I think the situation is that most people RE loot randomly so they see randomness. But when you spend 3+ hours straight REing loot everyday. Well thats another matter. Its almost like a pulse. I can start to feel its peak.
You forget something very important with this comment: if the random number generator is server side, there is surely a single random number generation algorithm that many different unrelated random events are all using. That means people RE'ing and people slicing (for example) are all getting their random numbers from the same generator. This means the only way you could ever directly observe the actual random sequence is if you were the only person logged into the server. And even then, you have to remember that every time a new spawn appears, it's exact location and exact type are both randomly selected. So even if nobody logs in, you will not be the only thing querying the servers random number generation algorithm. Since the nature of the other queries is not patterned and will be random, there is no way that the servers use of rand() to produce random numbers will ever produce a pattern you can observe even if you RE a million items in rapid succession. If you want to look for patterns that is fine. But you should drop any pretense that the use of rand() or any other psuedo-random number generator could ever be the explanation for them. In this case, it can't.
But the biggest problem of all is that there is so much. So many different variables that can and I believe do play a part in getting a disk or not. Whether or not you log,
Whether or not you log can only play a role if the developers were stupid enough to use a client side random number generator that reseed with client side information when the game is turned on. OR if they were stupid enough to give each player his own random number generation algorithm that is run server side but uses client side information to seed. Neither makes any sense. Unless the programmers are very silly, each server will have 1 random number generator that gets seeded when the server resets and no amount of logging or relogging is going to have any affect on it because it is being used by the server for all random results for all players and zone spawns that it ever needs to calculate.
If that were the case then crafters wouldnt be able to "reset" their bad experimentation streaks by logging or loading.
if you keep your disks in your inventory, company the loot comes from, and so on. And this may well be what the DEVs are counting on for their randomness. Keep the system tied up in all sorts of variables so that no one can stick even one part of the system to a table.
If they do anything other than have the server call a psuedo-random number generator to produce the random results then they are fools. Because nothing else that they could come up with will ever be as random as what a server-side pseudo-random number generator could produce. Why would they waste time relying on anything other than a pseudo-random number generator for their randomness? It just doesn't make sense. Because psuedo-random number generators are the best possible way for a computer to produce randomness.
I am not saying that they arent using a random number generator. I have never said that. I am saying there might be variables that affect the outcome of each RE. A simple number gen that could be tracked except having 50 variables added in would give a look of randomness just as having a complex multi tier number generator. It would look random until you figured out the variables. If there is 50 variables, what are the odds someone will figure it out? Not very likely.
I'm not saying that there might not be variables that affect the RE, but if there are it cannot be to help make it more random. Every variable that they might use to affect the RE result will only serve to make it less random because variables like you are discussing can be known by the client. They can be tracked and the results of those variables can be studied, whereas the calls that the server makes to a pseudo-random number generator cannot be known tracked or studied by the client.
No. The simple fact is that if they used any variables that are controlled by the client to affect the RE result, the only possible reason they would have done this is to make the result less random. Because that is what using those variables will do.
The more I RE the closer I feel to nailing something down in this system. Look at the original FS path. Before anyone knew what it was. People had theories. I remember a few people had the theory it was based on professions. No one had any real evidence. But these guys strongly felt mastering professions was the key. But they got flamed by everyone else because the DEVs had said the system was random and certain checks had been put in place. But we all found out those few were completely right.
Funny you bring that up. Everybody knew it was about mastering professions. The flame wars on the old Jedi forums were not about whether or not mastering professions was the key. The flame wars were about whether or not you could predict the next profession from the previous professions once your holocrons went silent. And what we found out was that all the crazy theories that people were coming up with about how you coud affect or predict what your silent profession was going to be by doing things on the client side were completely wrong.
Nonetheless, the arguments that those people gave were the same arguments you have provided in this thread. I don't mean that as an insult. It's a fact. That is what drew me into this thread. I read it and said, PetaByte and Tyrannus are using the same arguments that all the false prophets that claimed: "I can predict your silent profession" on the jedi forums were using back in January/February of this year.
I'm not saying you are one of those people, but you might want to be careful. You are using the same scientifically faulty logic that replaces "gut feeling" with cold hard facts, that those people used. And they were just as wrong as all the people that flamed them said they were.
You misunderstand. I am not talking about after the holocrons started dropping. I am not talking about the prophets. I am talking about before the holocrons ever dropped. When no one knew what the path was or what it was even based on. From when the game was first released up until the first holos started dropping. This is the period I am talking about. If you had really read that part thoroughly you would know this. I highlighted the part explaining this for you.
My biggest point in the arguement for whether or not this is truely random, is the prize itself. The firespray. I honestly feel the devs are starting to learn from past mistakes, IE holocrons. Holocrons were a completely random loot item and with in a month of them dropping, people that wanted them had literally 5 or more of them. They were so prevelant you could go to coronet and see 10 or more players shouting to sell them. If the firespray disk system is completely random as some think then it wont be long before we see the samething with firesprays. With the amount of loot out there its inevitable. If firesprays get that common then it defeats the purpose and will hurt the economy once again. An economy, I might add, that cant take too many more hits like holos, crystals, and pearls did. This is one reason I feel the disks are truly 100% random. There has to be something in there that the DEVs can control to make sure things dont get out of hand.
That is a faulty comparison. The frequency of holocrons was never a problem with the old jedi system. Shoot. Were you here in december of last year? They gave every single player a free holocron as a christmas present, and for a very large number of players, that was the only holocron they ever owned. The holocrons were never the hard part of the old jedi grind anyway. The hard part was that once you did your first 4 holocrons, the holocrons went silent. It didn't matter how many you had. They wouldn't tell you anything.
I was here for all that. I know all about the holocrons. And the problem I am mentioning is not the prevelent number of jedi but the ruined economy thanks to holocron fever. I used to make money to fund my grinds from selling holocrons. I seriously doubt the DEVs are going to let something that stupid happen again. So they would have to put some sort of checks and balances in to either control the numbers or allow them to directly affect the number. Again I highlighted the part explaining this was about economy and not jedi numbers.
In any case, as I've already explained, all of the variables you are hoping are there can only serve the purpose of making it easier for players to get their schematic. It will not make it harder. If you think they made some mistake with the holocrons that they need to "learn" from that affected the frequency of the holocron then there is a very simple way to do that: make the frequency with which the schematics randomly appear smaller. Adding client controlled variables as a means of reducing the frequency of loot makes no rational sense at all. It would be monumentally foolish for them to do what you are proposing if the reasons you give are the actual reasons.
I am just saying there might be variables that affect the outcome. And if there are then there migth be a way to "force" disks. Simple as that.
Tyranus
Message Edited by Malitevv on 11-07-200401:28 PM
Yoda: "When I die, the last of the Jedi, you will be!" Luke: "Really? what about those 50,000 Jedi Masters outside comparing Saber Size?" Yoda: "Sorry I am, My Bad it is"
It is possible that there are modifiers that affect the outcome. I am 100% sure that the random generator is random enough just like people have explained above (one server side random generator used for all random events and probably built into the development languague so it is nothing SOE has even developed).
They could make use of modifiers and the formula might be RND(1000) + X+Y+Z > 990 for example and the modifiers being for example based on maker. Let say Kuat has +10 as modifier and Sorusuub has 1 and another maybe even -10. And RE level might affect this.
However taken those probabilities we would need to have a very large sample of data to show any statistical evidence. I guess 100k of RE items to show any evidence.
But why would SOE make the process any more complex than necessary.
I am 100% sure that relogging etc have no affect on crafting etc. It is purely random. if we take critical failures the rate is probably around 1-5% if not having any modifiers. If you get 2 criticals and then relog and don't get any criticals it is pure random. It would take 1000s of tries (relogging) to test the validy of that theory.
--- Bermag [SiyBer Arms]
ex-NGE 12 pt Master Weaponsmith/FS Crafting Mastery- Wanderhome Corellia: (Coronet -200, -5500) Dantooine Imp op -4422 -2383 High quality and low price Now playing Eve
I don't mean that as an insult. It's a fact. That is what drew me into this thread. I read it and said, PetaByte and Tyrannus are using the same arguments that all the false prophets that claimed: "I can predict your silent profession" on the jedi forums were using back in January/February of this year. 
