The truth about RNG. Let the apocalypse begin

larmdyr

The below newspaper determined the chance of an apocalypse occurring in 2016 to be .2%.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/733358/END-OF-THE-WORLD-apocalypse-leicester-city-premier-league-odds

Chance to fail 78x on a 10% success rate artifact. .00233759%
Chance to be this bad on 3 artifacts out of 6...god help me I can't math because the apocalypse has already struck.

Thanks Cryptic. Do you give refunds?

callumf

Luck doesn't stack, its always 10% each time. You can flip a coin and get heads a million times in a row as its physically always 50% chance

But yes heck thats a very bad luck streak... and Neverwinter is notorious for luck fails

lowjohn

callumf#9018 said:

Luck doesn't stack, its always 10% each time. You can flip a coin and get heads a million times in a row as its physically always 50% chance

And yet, you'd probably start asking if this really was a fair coin somewhere along the line.

Having said that, failing a 10% 78 times in a row is ~0.002%.... but that's still only about 1/3700.

So of every less-than-4000 10% chances, you should EXPECT one of them to fail 78 times in a row.

callumf#9018 said:

Neverwinter is notorious for luck fails

I would say, rather, that Neverwinter PLAYERS are notorious for remembering bad luck and not noticing good, because that's pretty much how humans in general work.

larmdyr

Expecting 1 to fail 78 times in a row is one thing. When its 3 of 6 artifacts and this one ended at 139 fails that's another. I'm aware of the math callum that's why the chance of failing that many times was posted at .00233759 and ended with 139 tries to have a chance of failing so badly at .00080091.

callumf

Yes don't get me wrong - this is a massive problem. You are correct, you shouldn't *expect* to fail a 10% chance more than, say 20 times. Or a 50% chance more than 4 or 5 times.

I agree the RNG does seem very odd at times.

I have had a 3% work first time and a 20% take over 30 attempts.

It sucks so much but you will get players who have refined 1000s of enchants who will tell you that overall the % chance is pretty accurate.

rgladiato

The test: RNG % by refining Rank 4 enchantments to rank 5.

Expected result: 70% success rate.

Process: --No wards used.
--Each rank 4 refinement was attempted 1 time. If the refinement failed I moved on to the next rank 4.
--Attempts were done in batches of various sizes between 21 and 99 at a time. Batch meaning no more than a couple of seconds max between attempts.
--All attempts were made over a two week time frame.

Results:
Total number of attempts = 1540 (don't judge me lol)
Total number of successes = 1061
Success rate = 68.9%

larmdyr

@rgladiato that’s where it goes back to once in a blue moon expect the worst of the worst. 50% of the time reaching odds of .0002 or worse defies your personal average results.
Each try is the same % chance from the rest. You can flip a coin 500x and land tails only once. Can you do that 3 of 6 times in a row? I can apparently, and this is just mentioning this toons results that are rage worthy. None of the fun 14 fails on 50% chances (where your point was it balances out, these are my “balance it out” results.

rgladiato

larmdyr said:

@rgladiato that’s where it goes back to once in a blue moon expect the worst of the worst. 50% of the time reaching odds of .0002 or worse defies your personal average results.

Each try is the same % chance from the rest. You can flip a coin 500x and land tails only once. Can you do that 3 of 6 times in a row? I can apparently, and this is just mentioning this toons results that are rage worthy. None of the fun 14 fails on 50% chances (where your point was it balances out, these are my “balance it out” results.

Yes it more or less balances out. Sure you could roll a standard die 6 times and get 1,2,3,4,5,6 but with such a small sample size you probably won't. Sure you could roll it 100 times and get "3" 50 times but this is also unlikely. Roll a die 6000 times and it's highly likely you'll hit each number about 1000 times.

FYI - My standard deviation was 7.3%.

larmdyr

The laws of probability don’t say the results will find a medium. If that were the case you’d either have no deviation already or keep trying the experiment until the desired null deviation occurred and stop there so lay claim in an unfounded success.

Thus the options would be to play neverwinter for a lifetime in hopes to hit lottery odds of success, which is needed to balance the current overall fail rate of this toon, or hold accountability.

jeremytheman232

Now convert the chance of ranking up a 13 to a 14 with pres wards compared to pulling a legendary mount. It seems very toon specific for me how my rng is. One toon i refine gems very easily. The other gets decent items from lockboxes. Not legs as ive only pulled one and ive been playing years on ps4 and xbox one. But i get the enchantment packs and such on that toon but on my refining toon i get mainly stronghold packs and adventurer packs

larmdyr

@jeremytheman232
I've heard similar suspicions and hold the same perception as well. Albeit, I cannot prove/disprove these, my objective is to use actual math here. As I linked with the joke on the first part, it would be more likely to have had an apocalypse by now than to have struck the above odds. If for some horrific reason they aptly use quantum mechanics in their RNG equation(don't know who they stole from NASA), I could accept I'm beyond the 1% of the 1% of the 1% etc... However, in the likelihood they don't have a real math equation that is an obvious backbone to growth in this game, something needs to be done when these results occur on a player. Beginning with calling it out, having numbers to support yourself and actually getting a dev to respond. I'm guessing cryptic doesn't share Amazons beliefs of being the worlds most customer centric company.

silverkelt

Chance rate should be higher as you go along and only the last high tier should require the cward. Up every tier chance by like 5% .. that would be nice.

callumf

silverkelt said:

Chance rate should be higher as you go along and only the last high tier should require the cward. Up every tier chance by like 5% .. that would be nice.

Or even 10% at lower levels

larmdyr

Bumping this up since nobody actually wants to address/resolve the issue. As I will continue to do so until something is done other than tucking tail and hiding from a difficult conversation -.-

adinosii

larmdyr said:

Bumping this up since nobody actually wants to address/resolve the issue. As I will continue to do so until something is done other than tucking tail and hiding from a difficult conversation -.-

"Resolve the issue"? Well, it simply isn't clear whether there is any issue to resolve. People have tested the NW RNG in various ways, and the consensus is that in the long run the results are as expected. There are some concerns however that the RNG is too "streaky".....that long strings of sequential failures are more common than what you would expect.

Of course there is some bias here...people are much more likely to report a streak of "bad luck" than a streak of "good luck", and as far as I know nobody has actually tested this and gotten statistically significant results, so to speak.

For now, what I suggest is that if you are not happy...say, getting 20+ failures on a 10% chance, for example, do something like switching areas or something. No, it will not affect your chances, but it will break the monotony and help you stay sane.

silverkelt

Agreed first few levels could be bumped up to 10% , if you want players to catch up that would be nice, then a 5% increase up to the last level , leave at 1% for cward consumption.

Its just painful to watch your stack of 99 pwards go from 99 to zero on a 5% chance..

larmdyr

@adinosii
The post refers to an ongoing issue that occurs on 50% of the artifacts for this 1 character. Your success numbers thus have been reported from the top of this post. It would take years of upgrades to even prove or disprove this consistent false logic that anything in math says it will balance out. Luckily math isn't karma here folks and I don't need to disprove RNG does not balance. What I did was post the odds of an apocalypse occurring being more likely than the results of the upgrade system of NW and I get pity responses of people who have failed 30x on a 10% chance like it's comparable or opinion responses without data to back it up. What I called out in the title and have been saying is for a dev who knows how to math to join my conversation. The system while not perfect, leaves outliers to its targeted balance. Meaning the options of those rare few who aren't systematically allowed to progress will/should not play this game or as called out above, 1) escalate the issue. 2) provide data. 3) cryptic and not those outside the sphere of influence actually review and respond appropriately

ecrana

larmdyr said:

Bumping this up since nobody actually wants to address/resolve the issue. As I will continue to do so until something is done other than tucking tail and hiding from a difficult conversation -.-

RNG is streaky and over time the % will feel more in line. We (me included) will remember for years that one piece that wasted 200 pres wards to flip on a 5% chance. We'll also quickly forget the numerous times something flipped on 2-3 pres wards on items. Addressed?

Not sure what resolution you want outside of removing RNG (completely in favor of this myself) or adding a % increase based on how many fails you get. If they went that route you could expect to log in and find pres ward prices have been raised to compensate for the fact that you won't fail as often.

namelesshero347

The RNG is what it is. If you feel it is unfair and ripping you off, you can walk. They probably lost a good number of players this way. But many of the long timers here adapted and come up with ways to mitigate the risks. As someone who has been around since mod 2, I do believe the results are about right "in the long run". In between, can be very streaky. I've had many bad lose streaks early on. My best win streak was doing two 3% upgrades with 5 wards. You may be able to take advantage of win streaks by upgrading multiple enchants at the same time.

rickcase276

I have failed 7 times in a row with a 90% chance rate and did it first time no ward on a 1% chance rate. So all in all I would say it evens itself out over time.

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therealprotex

callumf#9018 said:

Luck doesn't stack, its always 10% each time. You can flip a coin and get heads a million times in a row as its physically always 50% chance

Yes, but the chance that this happens is abysmally small (0.5^1000000). In fact, it is so small that it will not happen. Never.

therealprotex

callumf#9018 said:

Yes don't get me wrong - this is a massive problem. You are correct, you shouldn't *expect* to fail a 10% chance more than, say 20 times. Or a 50% chance more than 4 or 5 times.

The chance that with a 10% chance for success for each roll the attempts fail 10 times in a row is 34.9%. That means from 100 people, only 35 of them should need 10 or more attempts. Memory maybe as selective as it may, but that's not what's happening in Neverwinter.

therealprotex

rickcase276 said:

I have failed 7 times in a row with a 90% chance rate and did it first time no ward on a 1% chance rate. So all in all I would say it evens itself out over time.

No, it does not. The chance to fail 7 times in a row at a 90% chance is 0.00001%. If it evened out, it should happen 3.5 times IN A ROW to succeed at a 1% chance. Hands up who experienced that?

larmdyr

r000kie said:

larmdyr said:

Do you give refunds?

Probably not. This is why they finally recognized that, in the particular case of illusionist mask, there is an issue refining it to legendary, which will be addressed today. Is that the artifact(s) you tried to upgrade?

Oh look, the item I tried to upgrade has a known issue.

r000kie said:

larmdyr said:

Do you give refunds?

Now, to all the statisticians around here: failing really, really, really badly at refining - like 70x times in a row on 10% - should be a damn rare occurrence for the average player, who does not refine artifacts for fun everyday. Maybe once in, let say, few years if one player refine 20-30 items / year? If the reverse would be true, we would win at craps every damn week.

Thank you for understanding math and actual probability as opposed to people saying things should happen because the feel a certain way -.-. This is why 3 of 6 artifacts this occuring on needed to be escalated. This character is less than 4 months old. Try 139 fails this artifact, 78 on a previous and 67 on another previous.

rgladiato

larmdyr said:

Thank you for understanding math and actual probability as opposed to people saying things should happen because the feel a certain way -.-. This is why 3 of 6 artifacts this occuring on needed to be escalated. This character is less than 4 months old. Try 139 fails this artifact, 78 on a previous and 67 on another previous.

One key thing that has never been made clear (and has been asked before) is what do the refinement percent chances actually mean? Does 10% really mean every time I try I have a 1 in 10 chance of success? Or is 10% based on population? As in, if 100 people try at the same time(or over some specific period of time) 10 of them will succeed?

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larmdyr

rgladiato said:

larmdyr said:

Thank you for understanding math and actual probability as opposed to people saying things should happen because the feel a certain way -.-. This is why 3 of 6 artifacts this occuring on needed to be escalated. This character is less than 4 months old. Try 139 fails this artifact, 78 on a previous and 67 on another previous.

One key thing that has never been made clear (and has been asked before) is what do the refinement percent chances actually mean? Does 10% really mean every time I try I have a 1 in 10 chance of success? Or is 10% based on population? As in, if 100 people try at the same time(or over some specific period of time) 10 of them will succeed?

10% means each chance is 10%. Not, 10 of 100. The question should have been answered when we were all very young :P

cts2000

I don't know about all the math behind the rng odds in the game...too much for my brain. However, I would like to see some sort of certification of the odds by some sort of outside agency. Now who that would be, or how it would be done...I don't know. The makers of slot machines certainly have their machines tested regularly.

I guess what I am saying is that I want transparency if I am going to plop down real life cash on a game with unknown odds involved. I mean, if everything is above-board, what would be the harm in them doing that? Nothing to hide I would assume, right?

krzrsms

lowjohn said:

callumf#9018 said:

Neverwinter is notorious for luck fails

I would say, rather, that Neverwinter PLAYERS are notorious for remembering bad luck and not noticing good, because that's pretty much how humans in general work.

And of course you would be both wrong AND right in this. Every time you do a bad upgrade and it fails its the most important one, that is true. However players here have also been dealing with this for years. Many of us reading this have upgraded thousands of enchants and have a feel for how many numbers there are. There are several large number studies showing that the RNG is not correct in its claimed numbers. This makes sense as a closed source unregulated casino with a vested interest in additional failures when there is no incentive to provide accurate numbers or way to officially audit them.