RNG isn't random it's broken.

regime211

How is it that a 4 man group runs scalecaller, and not one single person got a piece of medium armor? That isn't RNG at all! The loot drop table needs some serious adjusting. You can't expect people to grind dungeons when things like that happens!

redspecter23

Your sample size is too small. Now if this happened to every group, all the time, you can say it's broken. This doesn't actually prove anything at all other than you were a bit unlucky on one run.

Raideen

regime211 wrote: »

How is it that a 4 man group runs scalecaller, and not one single person got a piece of medium armor? That isn't RNG at all! The loot drop table needs some serious adjusting. You can't expect people to grind dungeons when things like that happens!

I agree OP. Its all ready been well documented that ZOS/ESO RNG is not TRUE RNG as some RNG on computers is based on white noise. Their RNG seem to be group based, not individual based.

I ran a dungeon yesterday and this guy had been looking for a particular set. He had run it 12 times that day already and not seen a single piece of the gear set he was looking for. In the run I had with him no one got the gear either. I thought it was odd so I looked up the set and sure enough every website that has information on that set showed it dropped in the exact dungeon we were in.

That is enough sample size to know that the numbers are in fact adjusted and that some sets do drop more than others.

I have also experienced this when trying to farm "popular" sets to sell for gold. Its extremely convenient that I can run delves, dolems, world bosses in an area and never see parts from the set I want to sell, but I sure see a lot from the other 2 sets from that area.

If it smells fishy.....

Mindcr0w

regime211 wrote: »

How is it that a 4 man group runs scalecaller, and not one single person got a piece of medium armor? That isn't RNG at all!

No, that is exactly what RNG is.

Raideen wrote: »

I agree OP. Its all ready been well documented that ZOS/ESO RNG is not TRUE RNG

Please provide said documentation. Otherwise you are just making baseless claims.

I ran a dungeon yesterday and this guy had been looking for a particular set. He had run it 12 times that day already and not seen a single piece of the gear set he was looking for.

[snip] I find it much more likely that he was looking for specific pieces of the set, possibly with specific traits, and didn't get those specific things. The idea that no pieces at all of a particular dungeon set dropped in 12 runs is laughable. Either this guy was exaggerating in his frustration, [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Raideen

Mindcr0w wrote: »

[snip] I find it much more likely that he was looking for specific pieces of the set, possibly with specific traits, and didn't get those specific things. The idea that no pieces at all of a particular dungeon set dropped in 12 runs is laughable. Either this guy was exaggerating in his frustration, [snip]

But no, he was not looking for specific pieces, in fact let us know at the beginning of the run he was looking for Tzogvin’s (Frostvault was one of the undaunted dailies either yesterday or the day before). He even said he does not care what the trait is because he can change that, but that he never sees any of the gear drop.

I can't say if he was exaggerating or not, but what I can say is that no one in our party had any Tzogvin’s to give him. I thought it odd myself that no one had it, and we all stood around at the end looking for the gear.

And no, I did not make him up. 100% true person looking for Tzogvin’s and not seeing it drop.

Ackwalan

Broken is probably not the correct word to describe the RNG. A better word could be flawed, or even deeply flawed.

Mindcr0w

Raideen wrote: »

I can't say if he was exaggerating or not,

But you'll take him at his word and spread his story, presenting it as if it were verifiably true.

This is how misinformation spreads.

Raideen

Mindcr0w wrote: »

Raideen wrote: »

I can't say if he was exaggerating or not,

But you'll take him at his word and spread his story, presenting it as if it were verifiably true.

This is how misinformation spreads.

Based on the fact I had no gear at the end of the run, and neither did the other 3 members of the run, I would say he was not exaggerating. In fact he asked us if we'd like to run it again. This indicates he had been running it, and was willing to continue to run it for the drops.

It did not appear to me even in the slightest that he had an agenda, outside of wanting to obtain that gear set, which clearly did not drop at all in our group.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

Mindcr0w wrote: »

Raideen wrote: »

I can't say if he was exaggerating or not,

But you'll take him at his word and spread his story, presenting it as if it were verifiably true.

This is how misinformation spreads.

It’s not misinformation if you have an hour to kill go to a zone with a popular set and two trash sets hit dolmens and loot all chest you will see at the end of an hour that the popular set will have dropped least often.

Raideen

[snip]

That kind of drop rate seem to be inline with how the game handles RNG, which is group based, not individual based. I have seen this countless times myself and measured this along with my girlfriend a couple years ago for three months straight. Our findings held true then, and now.

A day or so before the Antiquities event I was farming the yellow lead in Clockwork city. I farmed I believe 6 of them (I had a specific need in a particular house for a number of them). I never had to finish a fishing hole to get a lead. That is to say, they came very quick. Sometimes on the second cast. This went for every one of them I fished for.

The day the Antiquities event started I thought to myself I will help the event by farming the heck out of those yellow leads in Clockwork City. I farmed roughly 8 to 10 fishing holes a day for the first three days and never saw a single lead drop. I gave up.

There were also a lot of other people farming the lead, I asked many of them if they had any luck with the lead dropping, 100% of the cases I polled said "no".

So, based on what I have been able to test and observe, this pattern holds true. It's predictable. That leads me to believe that this person is not out of line when they make the commentary that they are not seeing drops at all. In fact, when he first mentioned it at the start of the run I thought to myself that he was in luck because I would gladly give all those drops to him. I actually felt bad at the end that I had nothing to share.

[edited to remove quoted content]

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

[snip]

I and many others have when gear grinding this is not a close to a secret that ZoS has a weighted RNG. Note: I have 18 characters all master crafters

1: crafting mails if I’m off the game for a few days straight I see gold mats 90% of the time.

2: crafting dailies a few days straight offline gold reward drops are more likely I do this 18 times a day it’s a very noticeable difference in the gold drop rate.

3: leads the longer you wait to start digging up leads the more leads drop. It’s like the system is trying to get you to start it then dials it down once you do.

4: Zone gear grinds popular sets drop less often ie you get more pieces of the other sets that’s not RNG if set A is great and very popular and sets B & C are not but 80% of your set drops were B & C. That’s not random it’s weighted

[edited to remove quoted content]

Mindcr0w

Raideen wrote: »

Not a leap at all. That kind of drop rate seem to be inline with how the game handles RNG, which is group based, not individual based. I have seen this countless times myself and measured this along with my girlfriend a couple years ago for three months straight. Our findings held true then, and now.

Again, please provide said documentation. [snip]

So, based on what I have been able to test and observe, this pattern holds true. It's predictable. That leads me to believe that this person is not out of line when they make the commentary that they are not seeing drops at all.

And based on my own non documented experiences and observations this scenario is unlikely to the point of being unbelievable. Every single videogame I've ever played that featured loot drops has had people make claims about the RNG being broken, unfair, or biased. Every single one. I've not once seen anyone provide proof. In fact the few times I've seen players actually document a significant sample size of drops over a significant period of time the results have always been consistent with RNG functioning as intended.

[edited for baiting]

Raideen

Mindcr0w wrote: »

Again, please provide said documentation. [snip]

There is no need to present documentation, many people have observed this. It's not even a secret. Perhaps you should do as we have and test this for yourself in great length. As I previously stated I tested this for 3 months straight with another person. Both our findings were repeatable, even to this day.

I look forwards to your results on January 21,2021.

Mindcr0w wrote: »

And based on my own non documented experiences and observations this scenario is unlikely to the point of being unbelievable. Every single videogame I'be ever played that featured loot drops has had people make claims about the RNG being broken, unfair, or biased. Every single one. I've not once seen anyone provide proof. In fact the few times I've seen players actually document a significant sample size of drops over a significant period of time the results have always been consistent with RNG functioning as intended.

All I can do is convey what I have witnessed, what others around me have witnessed and share this information. I do seem to possess a strong observational acuity, perhaps that is why I have noticed these patterns easily.

Bucky_13

I put on my tin foil hat, you turn into a puppet of the mastermind...

Edit: it's RNG, one 4 person run is a very small sample size. I've had runs where only the sets I was looking for dropped, and others where nothing dropped at all

Mindcr0w

[snip]

20+ years of playing MMO's. MMO players have shown themselves time and again to be an absolutely obsessive community. Every aspect of these games is gone over with a fine tooth comb. Thousands of hours are spent testing every conceivable aspect of these games. Dozens of hours will be spent proving which skill does 0.5% more dps than another. Hours of video, and dozens of spreadsheets will be produced during such testing.

And yet for all the hundreds of times I've seen people make claims about broken RNG not once have I ever seen documented proof. Just claims and anecdotes.

[snip]

[edited for baiting]

AinSoph

[snip]

20+ years of playing MMO's. MMO players have shown themselves time and again to be an absolutely obsessive community. Every aspect of these games is gone over with a fine tooth comb. Thousands of hours are spent testing every conceivable aspect of these games. Dozens of hours will be spent proving which skill does 0.5% more dps than another. Hours of video, and dozens of spreadsheets will be produced during such testing.

And yet for all the hundreds of times I've seen people make claims about broken RNG not once have I ever seen documented proof. Just claims and anecdotes.

[snip]

Would you like to document every possible drop in the game with exact percentages including every possible variable? Please be realistic, we all know RNG is these games are horrible but to even consider documenting it is just borderline insane.

MKintr

I don't agree with the assumption that everything is right and that drop rates are not tweaked to enforce more grinding. However I agree, that a proof would need a statistical basis, like it was done with crown crates (best example of weighted rng).
Instead of arguing about it, maybe you better lay out which statistical test/measurement would fit the hypothesis and how large the sample size should be. I'm sure many players would willingly participate in collecting the needed data.

Berenhir

I consulted a well-known scientist on this specific matter and was allowed to publish his findings:

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

― Albert Einstein

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Because there is a hook in the API for add-ons that allows you to see the drops for the entire party, it would be perfectly possible to create an add-on to automatically collect lots of data on loot drops in a very short time. It would require the participants to trust and run a separate network client to report the data back to a server, similarly to TTC, but I bet many would like to participate in a test like that, regardless of what point, if any, they are trying to make.

The problem is that there would be no single trusted party to run this experiment. Regardless of the finding, they would be discredited by people with a strong contradicting opinion. It would take a lot of independent studies to settle this, and I doubt we will see that kind of scientific effort to figure this out for this particular MMO.

Besides, even if the client software could be written in a manner to be trusted to provide complete and correct data, the mere knowledge by ZOS that the RNG is being audited (and it would be impossible to keep this study a secret) could influence how it is handled.

Myself, I don't know enough to say. I can just say that my personal experience has been that some of my gear farming has seemed to take forever, and some items can appear to be "cursed" with a low drop rate even as I join farm runs for others (looking at you, BSW inferno staff), while other times I have had 5 body pieces of a popular set, occasionally even all three pieces of jewelry and a weapon to match, drop all for myself in a single dungeon run. Seems random enough to me. Biased or not, I really cannot tell from what little and informal data I have. Consistent over time or not, I have no idea.

If I were to venture a guess, it would be that extremely attractive gear pieces, like that infamous Burning Spellweave inferno staff, deliberately has at least a somewhat lower drop rate in the loot tables, and that the drop tables are being updated all the time based on the game-wide statstics that only ZOS can collect. This is more than a hunch based on my small sample size from dungeon runs -- it would make perfect business sense to do this, and I don't think the developers would pass up on an opportunity to exert that level of control over their game.

Or it could all just be random. I don't know, and I am not dying to find out. I just play the game.

zaria

Mindcr0w wrote: »

[snip]

20+ years of playing MMO's. MMO players have shown themselves time and again to be an absolutely obsessive community. Every aspect of these games is gone over with a fine tooth comb. Thousands of hours are spent testing every conceivable aspect of these games. Dozens of hours will be spent proving which skill does 0.5% more dps than another. Hours of video, and dozens of spreadsheets will be produced during such testing.

And yet for all the hundreds of times I've seen people make claims about broken RNG not once have I ever seen documented proof. Just claims and anecdotes.

[snip]

Problem is that we lack something like the crown crate logger for drops.
Had we had it we could just look at the data to get drop rates.
I say its very strong indications that drop rates for some sets are tilted so its less chance of getting them.

alainjbrennanb16_ESO

Eso is more forgiving than most mmos

notyuu

When farming sets I've noticed that the dungeons typically drop items from 2 of the 3 sets per run
for example when farming bone pirate it would go
run 1: unweaver + knight errant
run 2: bone pirate + unweaver
run 3: bone pirate + knight errant
run 4: knight errant + unweaver
and so on..and so fourth
so maybe that's the cause?

Bucky_13

zaria wrote: »

Mindcr0w wrote: »

[snip]

20+ years of playing MMO's. MMO players have shown themselves time and again to be an absolutely obsessive community. Every aspect of these games is gone over with a fine tooth comb. Thousands of hours are spent testing every conceivable aspect of these games. Dozens of hours will be spent proving which skill does 0.5% more dps than another. Hours of video, and dozens of spreadsheets will be produced during such testing.

And yet for all the hundreds of times I've seen people make claims about broken RNG not once have I ever seen documented proof. Just claims and anecdotes.

[snip]

Problem is that we lack something like the crown crate logger for drops.
Had we had it we could just look at the data to get drop rates.
I say its very strong indications that drop rates for some sets are tilted so its less chance of getting them.

There's usually a thread once a month about surveys or gold mats from daily writs decreasing. This is usually rebuked by players who use 18+ alts to craft with and who are using the addon that tracks your drops.

Now, consider the insane volumes from the drops in master writs compared to the amount of dungeon drops here, you'd need 10+ dungeon runs daily for a month to come close to to the sample size that us crafters have. We still see variations in writ drops months that evens out eventually.

You do have a point in that an addon which logs drops from dungeons would be useful, as this would give us concrete proof in either direction. Until then, I will assume there's nothing fishy going on based on the discussions about writs.

IMO it's more likely bias, as there's usually 3 sets in a dungeon but players run it for one of them, which makes is more likely you get the sets you don't want. You won't notice if the drop rate for one of the sets you don't care about is low either. But it does happen because RNG.

Stanx

RNG is simply a cruel mistress

nukk3r

Mindcr0w wrote: »

[snip] I find it much more likely that he was looking for specific pieces of the set, possibly with specific traits, and didn't get those specific things. The idea that no pieces at all of a particular dungeon set dropped in 12 runs is laughable. Either this guy was exaggerating in his frustration, [snip]

[snip] I've had over 80 runs of Direfrost Keep (both normal and vet) in search of Ice Furnace Lightning staff in any trait, premades with 11 different people and countless PUGs. I have a loot tracker addon. The staff I wanted didn't drop once for anyone in my groups neither from bosses nor from the chests. I've seen 7 ice staves, 4 resto staves and one inferno, for which I had to settle down.

[edited for baiting]

Olauron

regime211 wrote: »

How is it that a 4 man group runs scalecaller, and not one single person got a piece of medium armor? That isn't RNG at all! The loot drop table needs some serious adjusting. You can't expect people to grind dungeons when things like that happens!

Raideen wrote: »

regime211 wrote: »

How is it that a 4 man group runs scalecaller, and not one single person got a piece of medium armor? That isn't RNG at all! The loot drop table needs some serious adjusting. You can't expect people to grind dungeons when things like that happens!

I agree OP. Its all ready been well documented that ZOS/ESO RNG is not TRUE RNG as some RNG on computers is based on white noise. Their RNG seem to be group based, not individual based.

Just for your information, RNG means random number generator, it doesn't mean uniformly distributed random number generator.

gatekeeper13

I ve done Cloudrest trial more than 40 times. Not 1 in my group ever got a Siroria inferno staff, neither in boss loot or quest reward.

Opened hundreds of chests in Deshaan and Mother's Sorrow inferno never dropped.

Done Arx Corinium like 100 times. Only once did I see a Medusa inferno drop. Medusa Resto drops almost at 1/3 runs.

Wasted more than 60 keys to get Kjalnar's Nightmare medium shoulders. Never dropped.

Had to run MHK around 20 times for a Savage Werewolf belt to drop, getting same drops most of the time.

Wasted 120 Gladiator Proof for a chance to complete the Knight of the Circle style. 4/6 drops were Helmet.

This is more than enough for me to believe firmly that we are talking about a completely BROKEN RNG system. If it's not broken, then it's certainly designed to give you low drop rates for needed items.

ZOS_Lunar

Greetings!

We've removed some posts from this thread as they violated our rules on baiting. We understand that everyone has their own opinions they want to express, but we also want the forums to be a constructive platform for ESO and its community.

Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.

PrimusNephilim

They just need to move the RNG calculation decimal point over to the left by one digit and that will fix that

starkerealm

zaria wrote: »

Problem is that we lack something like the crown crate logger for drops.
Had we had it we could just look at the data to get drop rates.
I say its very strong indications that drop rates for some sets are tilted so its less chance of getting them.

It's not indicative of anything. It simply means that either no one cared enough to create said addon, or if they did, the results evened out on a long enough timescale.

So, two things:

First: There's no such thing as a truly random Random Number Generator in programing. Computers are skilled at many things, but they suck at generating random numbers. So, what most programmers do is they generate a number to kickstart the RNG. The processes of creating that number vary. The methods once you have that number vary. But, if you just ask a computer to pick a number between 1 and 100, it will favor certain values far more than others (even as you expand the data set.)

Second: ESO's RNG is streaky. Always has been. Short of completely tearing it up and putting in a new one, it's simply part of the game. It's not malicious. It's not designed to keep you farming for the set you want. It simply has a very bad habit of rolling the dice and coming up with a similar result to the last time.

The set distribution is supposed to be fairly even. Is it? Not on an individual basis. It evens out across multiple players and accounts, but for the individual it can be very harsh. If you have a hard time pulling a given set, you will continue to have a hard time getting that set to drop, until the RNG changes its mind. Other players will not face that difficulty, and will continue to get drops for that set, possibly at an increased frequency.

WySoSirius

Try farming for sergeant mail 1handers in wayrest sewers and not one person in the group loots any. On multiple occasions

Also just recently I have noticed on a second avatar I can not get purple lead drops even when I have followed alcasts guide. So I agree there is no RNG. The loot tables broken