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Forums > Home› Neverwinter Discussion › Player Feedback (Xbox One)

Cryptic influencing drop rate of boxes...

stercesderisedstercesderised Member Posts: 334 Arc User
edited June 2015 in Player Feedback (Xbox One)
So early morning EST my UK friends who play had an interesting thing happen. 5 of them turned in medallions to get the event box, and turned them in together. Out of those boxes, all 5 got companions....one of them got the combat medic and the other 4 got green companions (neverember guard). I looked on the auction house, and there are now a batch of combat medics that all posted in the AH within a two hour timeframe.

However, a few hours later each turned in another couple of boxes and got silvery scales and companion boxes. I turned in one and got same this morning.

Sooo....clearly the drop rates are being influenced based on time of day. The odds of 5 people getting companions at same time are astronomical, and even more so for a large batch to get the combat medic within a two hour timeframe.

If this is the case, this is complete BS if cryptic is influencing drop rates at times favorable for players located on one side of the globe vs another. The rates should be static by time or at the very least announced so other players can make the choice to try and attend.

Why influence drop rates on a specific hour that others are likely asleep? I assume they are doing this to encourage the UK player base to stick around...

This makes ESO look more and more appealing....
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Ayzah - 70 GWF
Bull - 70 GF

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Post edited by stercesderised on
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Comments

  • vinceent1vinceent1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,264 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    dont think so. maybe your friends get a good strike positive trend rng together somehow connected. thats all. in the next year i think they get nothing at all.

    actually i play eso too, and its not that apeealing to say the truth. PC version is heavy neglected by console release and you can bet console release will have many issues too, to need fixed for 2 months maybe
  • stercesderisedstercesderised Member Posts: 334 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    vinceent1 wrote: »
    dont think so. maybe your friends get a good strike positive trend rng together somehow connected. thats all. in the next year i think they get nothing at all.

    actually i play eso too, and its not that apeealing to say the truth. PC version is heavy neglected by console release and you can bet console release will have many issues too, to need fixed for 2 months maybe

    Look on the AH right now at all of the combat medics posted with 4d 18hrs and 4d 17 hrs now. That is absolutely influenced.....

    10 of 23 posted??
    Aza - 70 DC
    Ayzah - 70 GWF
    Bull - 70 GF

    Legacy - always looking for active, mature, fun players. Join the LEGACY - (click here)
  • vinceent1vinceent1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,264 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    how many is batch?
  • quspivquspiv Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,087 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    It wouldnt surprise me but it's still speculation tbh.
  • stercesderisedstercesderised Member Posts: 334 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Correction, my friends just corrected me....out of the 5 boxes, 3 neverember guards and 2 combat medics....
    Aza - 70 DC
    Ayzah - 70 GWF
    Bull - 70 GF

    Legacy - always looking for active, mature, fun players. Join the LEGACY - (click here)
  • stercesderisedstercesderised Member Posts: 334 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    vinceent1 wrote: »
    how many is batch?


    10 (half of total posted, with at least the other two my UK friends picked up being sold since then...)
    Aza - 70 DC
    Ayzah - 70 GWF
    Bull - 70 GF

    Legacy - always looking for active, mature, fun players. Join the LEGACY - (click here)
  • vinceent1vinceent1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,264 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    stercesderised wrote: »
    10 (half of total posted, with at least the other two my UK friends picked up being sold since then...)

    its normal in my point of view. maybe when there is already 100 or more ....
  • stercesderisedstercesderised Member Posts: 334 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    ^^^ 50% of the posts occuring within a two hour window is not normal RNG. Normal RNG would have overall equal, normalized distribution over all hours.
    Aza - 70 DC
    Ayzah - 70 GWF
    Bull - 70 GF

    Legacy - always looking for active, mature, fun players. Join the LEGACY - (click here)
  • namelesshero347namelesshero347 Member Posts: 2,109 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Cryptic influencing drop rates? I think they do. But not by time of day, more of by the number of winners within a time frame. They make most of their money from drop boxes. They can't have too many winners overall or their PnL would be impacted.
  • suicidalgodotsuicidalgodot Member Posts: 2,465 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    stercesderised wrote: »
    ^^^ 50% of the posts occuring within a two hour window is not normal RNG. Normal RNG would have overall equal, normalized distribution over all hours.

    Quite the opposite. No spikes => low randomness.

    Also, maybe the companions just have a fat chance to occur...
  • vinceent1vinceent1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,264 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    i already say to you that this game has TREND RNG, you will see yourself in time. you drop 2 artifacts in one hour and then nothing for a year
  • torontodavetorontodave Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 992 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    RNG is a lie.


    Rolls are based on timeclock. ;D

    Flame at will.
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  • melodywhrmelodywhr Member Posts: 4,220 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    regardless of what mathematical algorithms are used, it's all a gamble. if you're not one to take such chances, don't participate. opening drop boxes is not any required part of game play.
  • vadimt83vadimt83 Member Posts: 259 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    What boxes are you talking about? The CTA event has no companions that drop from boxes, or I missed something?
  • suicidalgodotsuicidalgodot Member Posts: 2,465 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    If you use time as seed, typically the third to last 8 or somesuch digits of the miliseconds since 01.01.1900 or something the like are used.

    Also, RNG will be purely on the server side...

    ...so in principle it can easily be (and for some things definitely is) bent. Loot tables can be changed according to certain playing situations (e.g. the skill node ICD-nerf), gameworld situations (IMHO low AD backlog on ZAX ups the probability for getting lucrative rare LS tasks) or times of day. But still, the appearance of streaks is typically rather a sign for _good_ randomness when the mathheads assess it with their statistical analysis methods...

    vadimt83 wrote: »
    What boxes are you talking about? The CTA event has no companions that drop from boxes, or I missed something?

    ...the new lockboxes with the new +movement speed & extra attack capability mount...

    [Edit: ...I wrongfully assumed. See below.]
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,374 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    suicidalgodot wrote: »
    ...the new lockboxes with the new +movement speed & extra attack capability mount.

    If we are still talking about the OP, the new lockbox does not have medic or neverember guard.
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  • nehemiah217nehemiah217 Member Posts: 181 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    torontodave wrote: »
    RNG is a lie.


    Rolls are based on timeclock. ;D

    Flame at will.

    You're right in more ways here than you do realize. First of all, you are current in saying the RNG is a lie; their is no such thing as a Random Number Generator within computers (randomness I n nature may not exist either, but that's a philosophical discuss the likes of which I have intent of taking up here). The closest that we can get is a pseudorandom number generator, which attempts to mimick randomness as closely ad possible (at least good implementations do).

    PRNG's all rely on a "seed" value, that is, the initial value that is passed into the randomizing function to provide the randomness. Usually the seed is based upon time, since that is most consistently a value that is ever changing. However, time itself is a completely arbitrary and subjective value; are they utilizing the hour of the day, the minute within the hour, the seconds within the minute, the milliseconds within the second, the milliseconds within the hour, the number of seconds that have passed since the year 2000, et cetera. You get the idea. The seed can be anything as long as it is in a state of semi-constant change. Heck, the seed could simply be an incrementing number, 1 for the first roll, 2 for the second, etc. It could even be based upon the RNG of others! For example, is Player x makes an RNG roll, then player Y could use player x's result as their seed, and so on, so forth.

    Now, based on what I've seen within this game in the past two years, I have some speculation:
    1. The PRNG implementation used here is the worst implementation ever, or that it is perhaps broken.
    2. The seed is arbitrarily changed by Cryptic when they feel like it.
    3. The seed is determined by the hour of the day.
    4. The seed is determined at player login, and then does not change.
    5. The seed is determined by "other" factors.

    Now, I tend to lean towards #5 personally with a bit of #2 mixed in, mainly because of the lockbox issue that happened a few months back. Remember that one, where for like a whole day prior to patch 3 or something, EVERYONE who opened a lockbox got a mount? The forums were ablaze that day, because there was one player in particular who opened about 100 lockboxes as quickly as possible and flooded the game with this administrative lockbox success messages. People were ticked, to put it in SFW phrase.

    This tells me that whatever mechanism is used to determine the random seed was broken, plain and simple. If it was based purely upon time, it would have changed then, and we'd see a LOT more "randomness" to this day. However, the "streaky" or "trendy" nature of the RNG tells me that it is, in fact, influenced by other manipulatable factors. They may even be using a static seed for the players, and then reseed the result (so that success could be a roll of >1 in one case, then >12 in another, and the player has the same roll of, say a 6, for every PRNG roll.

    The point is, the "randomness" in this game is clearly influenced by a factor other than purely a seed. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Cryptic (or PW) was using a Bally product like Casino Marketplace (CMP) or Slot Data Systems (SDS).
  • cjh1983cjh1983 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Can this thread be renamed to 'I draw conspiracy-level conclusions based on small sample sizes' to more appropriately reflect is content.
  • sockmunkeysockmunkey Member Posts: 4,622 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    cjh1983 wrote: »
    Can this thread be renamed to 'I draw conspiracy-level conclusions based on small sample sizes' to more appropriately reflect is content.

    Id prefer if it was renamed into "Practical demonstration of how hokey religions are created"
  • vandignescavandignesca Member Posts: 162 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    If I were to hazard a guess, I would guess that the op is likely an Xbox player. Aren't they doing Siege of Neverwinter right now, which would include his mentioned companions?
    Love yourself, and focus on the rest of the madness of life later.
  • rock9000rock9000 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 67 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    nehemiah217 wrote: »
    The point is, the "randomness" in this game is clearly influenced by a factor other than purely a seed. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Cryptic (or PW) was using a Bally product like Casino Marketplace (CMP) or Slot Data Systems (SDS).

    You got this, now your account will be erased and PW thug will knock at your door tomorrow
  • suicidalgodotsuicidalgodot Member Posts: 2,465 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    plasticbat wrote: »
    If we are still talking about the OP, the new lockbox does not have medic or neverember guard.

    Yup, I stand corrected. Thanks, I'll edit...
  • nehemiah217nehemiah217 Member Posts: 181 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    rock9000 wrote: »
    You got this, now your account will be erased and PW thug will knock at your door tomorrow

    Well, the explains the creepy black van that's been parked in the street outside my house since 0900....
  • valwrynvalwryn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,620 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    The Seige of Neverwinter gives out The medics and Guards, which IS NOT running on the PC version.
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  • rayrdanrayrdan Member Posts: 5,410 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    or the drop rates are just high to let you guys play your very first events
    we already theorycrafted much in the past..
    rng here is not a rng, when you are lucky we can drop everything you want for like a hour otherwise you wont drop nothing for ages.
    its definitely not time based tho
  • mekolsmekols Member Posts: 210 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    what boxes are we talking about+?
  • iambecks1iambecks1 Member Posts: 4,044 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    mekols wrote: »
    what boxes are we talking about+?

    OP is talking about the Siege of neverwinter event on the xbone .
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  • waffennachtwaffennacht Member Posts: 149 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2015
    rayrdan wrote: »
    or the drop rates are just high to let you guys play your very first events
    we already theorycrafted much in the past..
    rng here is not a rng, when you are lucky we can drop everything you want for like a hour otherwise you wont drop nothing for ages.
    its definitely not time based tho

    Its definitely not high for the first events. After spending over 50 hours in nothing but those first events. After over 100 completes in each, many of us got NO companion.
    How can you say in one hour (time based) you get everything then after get nothing and then say its not time based?
    Coming from the world,of RNG in online poker for 8 years, i can tell you this "RNG" is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!# ed up
  • codher0codher0 Member Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    I spent at least 8,000 zen on this medals. I didn't get one combat medic! Believe me those **** boxes are evil. Do not wast you zen on medals!!
  • telprydaintelprydain Member Posts: 545 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    stercesderised wrote: »
    If this is the case, this is complete BS if cryptic is influencing drop rates at times favorable for players located on one side of the globe vs another.
    Lol, wat?!?
    WHY? Why would they do that!?
    stercesderised wrote: »
    I looked on the auction house, and there are now a batch of combat medics that all posted in the AH within a two hour timeframe.

    It's because they're selling fast at the lower levels! The older ones are hanging about because they're priced too high (and likely one or two newer ones are up there too - because some players are greedy and dumb). But most of the lower priced ones are selling fast, and thus the only ones shown are ones that are newly placed there.
    (Mine sold within the first three hours it was up - and I'd priced above the current minimum).
    cjh1983 wrote: »
    Can this thread be renamed to 'I draw conspiracy-level conclusions based on small sample sizes' to more appropriately reflect is content.

    I laughed - so much this!
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