RNG-itis: a cure without (notably) changing probability

Motivation: players who have especially unlucky streaks are turned off and perhaps turned away from the game. Typical response in many communities is to respond by changing probabilities. This response suggests an alternative.

Response:

Summary: do not change probabilties, but instead apply a statistical regulator in order to assure a very high probability of the outcome once N events have occurred.

Example:

Suppose that the chance of dropping a unique is 1:N.

Keep a record on the character for each drop chance that has failed to produce a unique. Once that count has reached N, chance to drop chance to a much higher number. Variation would change the regulator kick in to 1:2N, or 1:3N.

This method is not entirely disimilar to what was done with evasion, and may be applied in a variety of other circumstances (e.g., fusing, map drops, chromatics, etc).

A saavy reader will note that this method actually increases the probability of the outcome slightly. This can be left is, or the statistical engine could track lifetime drops instead, and only respond when lifetime drops go below a critical threshold.

Er, huh? Why are you telling them how to change RNG when you don't supply a reason to do it in the first place.

Evasion was changed because "randomly getting one shot" is not fun and a negative aspect so strong people did not want to use the defense stat in HC.
But randomness is otherwise, usually fun. There are times where you can get 4 uniques in a day, and times when you get nothing in 2 hours. It is these spurts and dry-spells that spice up a random game like POE.

If you make all RNG in the game deterministic, you just homogenize the experience.

Why does Vegas regulate the slots using a very similar approach, do you think?

Hint, hint.

Anyway, you are mistaken: I did give a reason.

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anubite wrote:

Er, huh? Why are you telling them how to change RNG when you don't supply a reason to do it in the first place.

Evasion was changed because "randomly getting one shot" is not fun and a negative aspect so strong people did not want to use the defense stat in HC.
But randomness is otherwise, usually fun. There are times where you can get 4 uniques in a day, and times when you get nothing in 2 hours. It is these spurts and dry-spells that spice up a random game like POE.

If you make all RNG in the game deterministic, you just homogenize the experience.

Not really, if something is a really low chance than its still going to be a really low chance

For example, I heavily believe that both sockets (fusings) and colors (chromatics) should use the same entropy system that evasion does, mainly because those aspects of items actually influence your skill build, and that shouldn't be subject to that much RNG

It's clear to me how uniques and fusing a would work; how would chromatics work?

I don't know if I should like or dislike the extreme randomness in this game.
Sometimes, useful stuff drops, a map here and there, an unique from time to time.
Then when it comes to crafting.. I've lost count on how many Alts I spent to get two mods I can make use of, since my weapon keeps rolling lvl 20 mods. Crafting feels very unrewarding, at least for me. I see no reason why level 60+ gear should be able to roll all low level mods (I don't say remove the option to roll lower stats, but limit it in some way (e.g. 60+ items won't roll anything lower than level 30 anymore))

"Adjusting" the RNG however will be pretty difficult in some cases. How should the RNG know what loot YOU would like to see? How should it know what colors you want on your gear? How should it know, what links you want on gear? (no, I'm serious, not everyone wants a 6-link)
Some things could be adjusted, but I doubt it's the RNG in general.

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Courageous wrote:

It's clear to me how uniques and fusing a would work; how would chromatics work?

Well the way that chromatics work is that (depending on how many sockets the item has) you have a separate chance for each combination of colors, and the entropy counter would work in that it guarantees that you will get that every combination if you have enough chromatics (this of course would depend on how many sockets an item has, probabilities go lower for the more sockets in the items you have)

"

"Adjusting" the RNG however will be pretty difficult in some cases. How should the RNG know what loot YOU would like to see?

Yeah, it wouldn't, unless there were some GUI for that, where you could indicate a preferred improbable outcome (indeed that very thing could be entertained for that purpose later down the road, as part of a more elaborate enchantment interface, but better to get this system in place first, regardless). In a few cases, however, you can record an expected result, such as a unique per N drops, or a 5L or 6L per N fusing attempts. Obviously, book-keeping would be required.

This very thing is the same reason that evasion works the way it works: to prevent a string of bad luck. That is all.

But I acknowledge that it is imperfect, and cannot work for everything.

Still. Vegas does this with all of their electronic gaming, and they do so for a reason. The reason is a little bit different than my motivation (some casinos would like nothing better to promise a 1:5000 payout and only give a 1;1000 payout, hence the reason, it's a legal one), but this is neither here nor there.

I should say, I don't feel the POE game has ever left me in the lurch on any probability. This suggestion is not at all written to attend to my personal self interest, but is rather one born of observing people QQ on the forums due to streaks of bad luck. In brief, I sympathize.

"

Courageous wrote:

Why does Vegas regulate the slots using a very similar approach, do you think?

Hint, hint.

Anyway, you are mistaken: I did give a reason.

You didn't really give a reason. You said "people will be turned off". Well, tough. People get turned off to POE because it's an RPG and not an FPS, yet, I don't see guns in the game yet.

What exactly is so frustrating about RNG? You're saying everything in the game needs to be deterministic? Why? What's so bad about not getting loot for a few hours, only to get it in surge a few hours (or days) later.

RNG, over long periods of time, is consistent and fair. The only people complaining about RNG complain about it in the short term. They whine about not getting a 6L in 1000 fusings, but fail to realize that in a year of play, they'll probably get 2 or 3 6Ls. Do you think they wlil complain then?

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Not really, if something is a really low chance than its still going to be a really low chance

The chance stays the same, but there are still dry spells and abundance periods. There are streaks of luck in randomness, it's just in the long term, things average out.

If getting the right socket/links/fusings is too difficult, they can always introduce other currency items to address the issue. What's stopping them from introducing a currency item which has a +100% higher chance compared to regular fusing orbs of getting a 6L? The orb itself could be 200% rarer, but its existence would mean you'd, overall, have a higher chance to get a 6L.

This is why I'm coming down on your post - you propose a solution to a problem you don't articulate well. There are many potential problems that stem from the assessment that "RNG is bad" but developers can't really try to second-guess your reasoning too well. You have to dig deeper than "RNG is bad"; because RNG clearly works for many other aspects of the game.

Since POE is an item-based game, I'd prefer an item-based solution to RNG anyway. If RNG is such a problem, they may as well introduce an item as rare as a mirror - one that freely turns a 6S into a 6L. Surely the existence of such an item would be perfect, right? If that is the issue, rolling certain things on gear, then we simply need to adhere to systems which already work well. POE's currnecy system is one that can be strengthened and expanded over time.

The problem is extremely simple:

Some folks are exposed to unusually bad luck. That is all.

Consider some degenerate cases. For example, it is possible that for some event with the probability that occurs with 1:1000, that after 100,000 draws nevertheless does not occur. This event is 3.5 x 10-44 against. It is preposterously low. And yet. A computer will draw a series of numbers like that eventually.

If you're the human on the other end of that, you might be unhappy. Unhappy enough, for example, to potentially give up the game. There are less extreme cases, of course, and are more associated with first exposure.

This came up all the time in the boards of that other game; someone would complain that they had zero legendaries in XX days of play, from the time they started playing. The probabilities were such that they should have seen a half dozen or so, but bad luck, none.

(and more likely, some but missed, left lying on the ground, but that's a side discussion).

After much squealing, moaning, and groaning, what they did in response was increase drops rates quite a lot, by offering large amounts of innate MF, that went up with your level. I will not criticize this, I will say that there are other steps that could have been done instead, first, and the one I propose is one of them.

As a business person, one should be concerned about unusual circumstances that might potentially drive customers away; if an easy fix that does little to the overall drop rate exists, why not make it go away?

That's it.

Simple. Elegant. You and I know it doesn't change much, truthfully. But it quiets a certain portion of the population, and that is more than a little worthwhile.

IMO.

Mind you, I don't know that it matters to the degree that it requires any kind of present developer intervention. And yet, if they were designing the game from the start, I would recommend a biased random number generator like this from the start, just for this very simple business reason.