Overflow XP rewards now have a lower chance to drop Rough Astral Diamonds

soditallover · April 2018

well here is my two cents, the way rng works is difficult to calculate on a per toon basis. for instance before the ad reward nerf i was getting 1 reward for every 6 overflows on average across my account which was a nice little reward for my effort then after the nerf i got one reward for every 14 bags opened across my account how ever you might think that's fine cos i have x on one toon so ill get x number of rewards however that's not how rng works its all or nothing yesterday i opend 68 rewards on my main just to see what id get and if the average was correct i should have seen 4~5 ad rewards however i got 0 rewards. an d thats the thing one player will get lots and lots, and the next 50 players get zero its the same all over the server some players get items some get lots and then some get none i know players who have never had a +5 ring from any content and others that have 100+ rings and they both have run the same amount of content. and its the same for everything in the game some lose out and others get rich id rather see a points based system that can be used to purchase rewards that was players that work hard and grind out content get the items they want/need

minotaur2857 · April 2018

I think the issue for me is in fact a reduction in XP for some of the tasks. I'm not sure exactly what they reduced in XP that was a task I actually do, but I'm NOT getting 17x the awards, hence cutting the chance by a factor of 17 is massively reducing my ADs.

It's now 22 days since the patch, I've had 6 awards in just under 300 level ups (and I didn't get one until my 128th). I was getting ADs around every other day before, now it's once every 3-4 days.

sandukutupu · April 2018

soditallover said:
... after the nerf i got one reward for every 14 bags opened across my account how ever you might think that's fine cos i have x on one toon so ill get x number of rewards however that's not how rng works its all or nothing yesterday i opend 68 rewards on my main just to see what id get and if the average was correct i should have seen 4~5 ad rewards however i got 0 rewards. ...

I posted about this issue a while ago on this other thread here, the Random Number Generator that Cryptic uses in this game is streaky. For example; You would expect random numbers 1 to 6 to be a series like "136245261354641325416235" but with Cryptic's version you get more like "224111323314455243655666" same results but massive runs of repeats.

soditallover · April 2018

just a little update i have opened all im going to open this event and my rewards stand at
first toon 68 opened 0 ad rewards
second toon 20 opened 2 ad rewards back to back
third toon 22 opened 0 ad rewards
fourth toon 26 opened 0 ad rewards
so in 136 overflows only 2 rewards

plasticbat · April 2018

I have not opened all because I like to stack up some AD bonus and XP rewards for the main toons.
I did open 4 characters.
1. 1/40
2. 1/52
3. 0/38
4. 3/98

So far, 5/228. No back to back.

I also noticed I missed the boat, a pretty big boat. In this 228 XP rewards, I also get 126 Black Opal (+ other unbound RP). I have just checked AH. The current price of 99 Black Opal is 218295 AD. 5 rAD reward including AD bonus is 5 * 45K = 225000 rAD.

karvare · April 2018

Do I think exploit is inappropriate? Yes. Am I exploiting my eyes when I look at the screen? Exploiting my key board and mouse? Exploiting the internet? Exploiting Cryptics servers? No.

sandukutupu · April 2018

What I am seeing is people not understanding statistical math and the relationship of sample sizes. I always set the sample size to 100 because;

1. It is simple to convert into a percentage.
2. It prevents me from tainting the data.
3. The larger the sample the better, I would prefer 1000 but who would be willing to do that?! lol

@soditallover you opened 88 and got 2 had you stopped there the odds (at that point) would be 2 in 88 or 2.27%, however at 100 you would have still had 2 in 100 and thus 2% that everyone else is reporting. Your sample size continues to a total opened of 136 and because you stopped there 2 in 136 appears to be 1.5%. If you had opened 64 more and received only 1 more this would be accurate but we don't know. Getting 2 in a row is what I was explaining about the random numbers being "streaky" with this game.

@plasticbat as you got 2 in first 100 (2%) but I have no idea where the 3 was in the last 98 . So this is why doing statistical math helps to break it into equal runs. I would break it down by tens or twenties. However 3 in 128 is still 2.34%, a little high but I am betting all 3 were not in the last 28 opened.

@karvare and @chidion There is no one here exploiting the game, we are discussing the unknown math of the game engine. Don't start up a conspiracy where there is none to begin with. Nobody is exploiting the game, game companies do exploit people's need to gamble and use psychological selling tactics (everyone does) but we are not here discussing exploits. Thank you for your opinions.

plasticbat · April 2018

sandukutupu said:
What I am seeing is people not understanding statistical math and the relationship of sample sizes. I always set the sample size to 100 because;

1. It is simple to convert into a percentage.
2. It prevents me from tainting the data.
3. The larger the sample the better, I would prefer 1000 but who would be willing to do that?! lol

It is because we cannot do that in this case. We do not know how many XP overflow rewards we have. We can know how many we had after we open them.

I am not trying to figure out the statistic of the RNG of the game because pseudo random of RNG has the same repeatable sequence of numbers for the same seed number. The outcome is kind of predictable if the seed number is not changed like playing black jack before they change the deck. In this case, as you said, you need a big sample and for me, it is using the big sample before the seed number is changed.

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.

minotaur2857 · April 2018

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.

Then you're in complete cloud cuckoo land. 2% seems about right and consistent for many people now (I'm 6/299 over 23 days). I seem however to be getting AD rewards about half as frequently in elapsed time terms as I used to before mod 13 (one every 4 days when it was one per two before). This indicates to me that XP rewards have reduced significantly somewhere as if anything I'm playing more atm than I was before the release.

plasticbat · April 2018

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.
Then you're in complete cloud cuckoo land. 2% seems about right and consistent for many people now (I'm 6/299 over 23 days). I seem however to be getting AD rewards about half as frequently in elapsed time terms as I used to before mod 13 (one every 4 days when it was one per two before). This indicates to me that XP rewards have reduced significantly somewhere as if anything I'm playing more atm than I was before the release.

I have been doing these for more than a year. I don't use days. I use the number of XP reward to count. I only open them in 2xEnchant (or 2xRStone now). It was about 1 in 6 pre-mod 13. So, for me, it should be around 1/100 using the same AD reward per XP ratio (not AD reward per XP overflow reward ratio). When you have 299 in that 23 days, I have over 800 in the same period.

I am happy with the current result. You don't have to.

minotaur2857 · April 2018

plasticbat said:

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.
Then you're in complete cloud cuckoo land. 2% seems about right and consistent for many people now (I'm 6/299 over 23 days). I seem however to be getting AD rewards about half as frequently in elapsed time terms as I used to before mod 13 (one every 4 days when it was one per two before). This indicates to me that XP rewards have reduced significantly somewhere as if anything I'm playing more atm than I was before the release.

I have been doing these for more than a year. I don't use days. I use the number of XP reward to count. I only open them in 2xEnchant (or 2xRStone now). It was about 1 in 6 pre-mod 13. So, for me, it should be around 1/100 using the same AD reward per XP ratio (not AD reward per XP overflow reward ratio). When you have 299 in that 23 days, I have over 800 in the same period.

I am happy with the current result. You don't have to.

I didn't keep stats before as to rate of acquisition, but I know I'm getting way less ADs out of it and it's crippling me. Being forced to play meaningless content I don't want to play simply to stay solvent when I didn't have to before is not encouraging me to keep playing this game, I was making c 150K/week, I'm now making half that, and that's a lot of difference to me. 6 or so instances of random queue rubbish I didn't have to do before just to get back where I started.

plasticbat · April 2018

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.
Then you're in complete cloud cuckoo land. 2% seems about right and consistent for many people now (I'm 6/299 over 23 days). I seem however to be getting AD rewards about half as frequently in elapsed time terms as I used to before mod 13 (one every 4 days when it was one per two before). This indicates to me that XP rewards have reduced significantly somewhere as if anything I'm playing more atm than I was before the release.

I have been doing these for more than a year. I don't use days. I use the number of XP reward to count. I only open them in 2xEnchant (or 2xRStone now). It was about 1 in 6 pre-mod 13. So, for me, it should be around 1/100 using the same AD reward per XP ratio (not AD reward per XP overflow reward ratio). When you have 299 in that 23 days, I have over 800 in the same period.

I am happy with the current result. You don't have to.
I didn't keep stats before as to rate of acquisition, but I know I'm getting way less ADs out of it and it's crippling me. Being forced to play meaningless content I don't want to play simply to stay solvent when I didn't have to before is not encouraging me to keep playing this game, I was making c 150K/week, I'm now making half that, and that's a lot of difference to me. 6 or so instances of random queue rubbish I didn't have to do before just to get back where I started.

I guess (a pure guess) is you don't earn as much XP as pre-13 in a 'day' anymore.

It can be multiple factors. You are doing exactly the same thing as pre-13 and the amount of XP of your XP source was changed.
I myself have been sensitive to XP earning for over a year. I pay attention to the amount of XP for a quest.
I would do (A) instead of (B) because (A) gives much more XP.
I noticed the XP of some of my usual 'quest' were cut. At least, one weekly quest was cut 1/5. However, in the grand scale, that does not really matter to me. On the other hand, the change might be a matter to you. Mod 13 does give more ways to me to earn XP. However, "earning more/less XP" is not a factor in my comparison because I use amount of XP to compare and not effort (such as days).

sandukutupu · April 2018

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.

I can respect that. I just want other players to understand the proper methods to use for calculating statistics. My husband is the IT guru in my nerd herd, and told me the RNG is based on an algorithm. He said the developers would be extremely ignorant to place it on the client side where a "memory sniffer" could read it and get the jackpot all the time. He is pretty certain they placed it on their server side and the random numbers are generated there. He rambled on about other stuff but I ignore him a lot... However unless you are psychic, it would be impossible to guess when to open your packs. If I was trying for a mount from a lock box, I would open them as you see others winning them in Admin Chat. Because the generator is very streaky and you would stand a better chance to be in that winning streak.

plasticbat · April 2018

sandukutupu said:

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.
I can respect that. I just want other players to understand the proper methods to use for calculating statistics. My husband is the IT guru in my nerd herd, and told me the RNG is based on an algorithm. He said the developers would be extremely ignorant to place it on the client side where a "memory sniffer" could read it and get the jackpot all the time. He is pretty certain they placed it on their server side and the random numbers are generated there. He rambled on about other stuff but I ignore him a lot... However unless you are psychic, it would be impossible to guess when to open your packs. If I was trying for a mount from a lock box, I would open them as you see others winning them in Admin Chat. Because the generator is very streaky and you would stand a better chance to be in that winning streak.

I certainly do not know how Cryptic implement their RNG. I can only suspect how it is implemented because I have been in IT for 30 years and I am still doing programming. I "suspect" there are multiple RNG. One RNG is a RNG with the same seed in this context. I "suspect" at least one RNG is shared per instance. I "suspect" this RNG is used to do multiple things in the instance. I "suspect" the RNG result is cached for performance (that can explain the streaking). I suspect the seed is changed when it reaches some time interval. That is why I always go to a personal instance to do RNG stuff. I also alter the speed of the mouse click depending on the outcome I saw.

With so many "suspect" in my paragraph, one should treat that as voodoo, myth or just brain dead habit.

plasticbat · April 2018

I finally finished opening XP reward for this 2xRstone event because (a) I don't knowingly open a small number of XP rewards and (b) run out of AD bonus (I don't open XP reward without enough AD bonus to cover it).

So, the following is the numbers for this particular 2xRStone event. This is just my own number and it does not represent what other can get. Please treat this for some "entertainment" value instead of something serious.

1. 1/40
2. 1/51 (was a typo above)
3. 0/38
4. 3/98
5. 1/43
6. 0/86
7. 3/79
8. 2/81
9. 1/90
10. 4/76 (stop to open for this character because ran out of AD bonus; none of these 4 were back to back; got AD reward on the 1st XP reward).
11. 0/40
12. 0/43

Overall: 16/765. About 2% which is inline with others' numbers.

tecmyst · April 2018

rAD rewards:

5/137 CW
6/140 TR
3/142 GWF
2/140 GF
2/138 DC
1/140 HR
0/144 SW
4/140 OP

~2% overall (23/1121)

minotaur2857 · April 2018

plasticbat said:

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

minotaur2857 said:

plasticbat said:

Anyway, that is not important to me at all. As long as the overall result is I can get 1 AD rewards in 100 XP overflow reward, I consider it is a good outcome (comparing with pre-mod 13). Getting 2 or more is of course better.
Then you're in complete cloud cuckoo land. 2% seems about right and consistent for many people now (I'm 6/299 over 23 days). I seem however to be getting AD rewards about half as frequently in elapsed time terms as I used to before mod 13 (one every 4 days when it was one per two before). This indicates to me that XP rewards have reduced significantly somewhere as if anything I'm playing more atm than I was before the release.

I have been doing these for more than a year. I don't use days. I use the number of XP reward to count. I only open them in 2xEnchant (or 2xRStone now). It was about 1 in 6 pre-mod 13. So, for me, it should be around 1/100 using the same AD reward per XP ratio (not AD reward per XP overflow reward ratio). When you have 299 in that 23 days, I have over 800 in the same period.

I am happy with the current result. You don't have to.
I didn't keep stats before as to rate of acquisition, but I know I'm getting way less ADs out of it and it's crippling me. Being forced to play meaningless content I don't want to play simply to stay solvent when I didn't have to before is not encouraging me to keep playing this game, I was making c 150K/week, I'm now making half that, and that's a lot of difference to me. 6 or so instances of random queue rubbish I didn't have to do before just to get back where I started.

I guess (a pure guess) is you don't earn as much XP as pre-13 in a 'day' anymore.

It can be multiple factors. You are doing exactly the same thing as pre-13 and the amount of XP of your XP source was changed.
I myself have been sensitive to XP earning for over a year. I pay attention to the amount of XP for a quest.
I would do (A) instead of (B) because (A) gives much more XP.
I noticed the XP of some of my usual 'quest' were cut. At least, one weekly quest was cut 1/5. However, in the grand scale, that does not really matter to me. On the other hand, the change might be a matter to you. Mod 13 does give more ways to me to earn XP. However, "earning more/less XP" is not a factor in my comparison because I use amount of XP to compare and not effort (such as days).

I'm clearly earning less XP even though I'm playing more, just not sure exactly what's been nerfed.

pitshade · April 2018

My PC's harddrive died today but was at least able to get back on to open XP rewards and some other tasks. Losing a day of quests cut down the number of rewards. 11 characters, all but 2 had 10 rewards. The other 2 had 9 and 11. So 110 rewards and I got 3 RADs. That is the same number as last week, although last week one character got all 3. This week they were spread out.

lldt · April 2018

If someone can save up over a thousand xp overflows between 8 characters, that seems like very good reason to make this a low drop rate if not eliminating it completely.

plasticbat · April 2018

lldt said:
If someone can save up over a thousand xp overflows between 8 characters, that seems like very good reason to make this a low drop rate if not eliminating it completely.

When they increased XP overflow reward 17 times in mod 13, it is not hard to save up over a thousand or even more. You don't know how long the person took to save up that much. One month? Two months? How many hours per day? 2 hours? 12 hours?

lldt · April 2018

I'm assuming it was since last 2 x refining or since the beginning of mod 13. That's a lot saved up for that period of time for a single person with 8 chars.

plasticbat said:
it is not hard to save up over a thousand or even more

And that's exactly my point.

chrsty740 · June 2018

I don't mind loosing my ad reward I mind The Bad JUNK that replaces it , If once in awhile they'd throw a gmop instead of 1 sap ,2 emrld n such and wth is up with the massive xp and comp xp book increase, It's BAD JUNK Give something good You dropped the best reward down and you can only get so many PP just once in awhile something differnt would be nice. Lowere the ammount of ad if you want But give something better than the BAD JUNK your giving.

plasticbat · June 2018

chrsty740 said:
I don't mind loosing my ad reward I mind The HAMSTER that replaces it , If once in awhile they'd throw a gmop instead of 1 sap ,2 emrld n such and wth is up with the massive xpand comp xp book increase, It's HAMSTER Give something good You dropped the best reward down and you can only get so many PP just once in awhile something differnt would be nice. Lowere the ammount of ad if you want But give something better than the HAMSTER your giving.

1. This is already old news.
2. I don't know if you noticed the amount of RP it drop is actually worth more than the rAD reward. Those are unbound RP and you can sell them.

Overflow XP rewards now have a lower chance to drop Rough Astral Diamonds

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