Rampart.. more like GAYWTF

[Kaylia]

I understand that good programmers can come up with more complex random number generation algorythms, but there still has to be some pattern behind it. Game mechanics all have to be based on statistics and probabilities as determined by the coding. In which sence I guess you're both right. The game is neither totally random nor predictable but some bastardized combination of the two.

You don't even need to be a good programmer imo . I can see in what situation it would cause a problem, but I also see hundred of way to go around it.
I seriously doubt SE programmer would have coded such awful random functions for thing like dynamis and sea, even if it's not impossible they did.


Generally speaking, when we talk about random not being random in programming, it justs mean we could predict the sequence if we had access to the PC and algorithm (time, memory...etc). That's very different than producing a series of fluke (bunch of similar number in a row usually).

Btw lol at the ReBoot comment!

I didn't want to write the "reboot" at the end, but I wasnt sure if anyone would get it

[Sady]

Yeah I hear what you're saying. My money is on the game's random number generator somehow taking game time and moon phase into consideration. Thus why "full moon" and "new moon" tend to yield better results. In all honesty it's pretty trivial.

Getting back to the dormant rampart duscussion, I wouldn't put it past SE to have some wacky condition for poping the NMs but I think it's much more likely to just be some low probability in the 1-5%ish range. That makes going 0/100 not uncommon, and 12/100 not impossible either. If you think about all the stuff you need to do to get X lvl 35 salvage item the deck is very much stacked against you (in the case of bhaflau: pop rampart > pop NM > get drop).

I think only the Canadians in the audience would understand the ReBoot comment, I don't know if it was ever aired in the US.

[Not Kuno]

They definatly had reboot in the US. I loved that show so much.

[divisortheory]

Even if it doesn't take moon/day into consideration, it doesn't matter. If I produce 1,000 random numbers and then use those random numbers to "seed" 1,000 different random number generators, some of those RNGs will produce lots of "streaks".

[Calipso]

Yes, there are obviously streaks in all of these, and the simple explanation is that the random number generator is seeded when you enter the zone, and certain seeds produce more hits than other seeds.

This is so totally off-topic but omg I love you for saying that.

I've been doing dynamis for a long-ass time consistantly on the same days/times, as well as researching drops of other shells. Just watching drops and talking to some programmers, the most conclusive thing I've come to believe is that the dynamis random seed is based off time (and possibly day?) that you enter. I guess there's a lot more intelligent ways to go about doing it, but I think SE just got lazy with their programming. I actually got my shell to do a ~2 week test in xarcs with different times/days to try and test this; unfortunetly drops were really low overall so it ended up being inconclusive, and it's just too inconvenient to most members to do different times like that.

I know there's a certain amount of "luck" in all of ffxi, but in the end it's just a computer program that has to follow some sort of set of rules.

I'm really tired of listening to people who say "it's totally random", which doesn't even technically exist in a computer world..

[Kaylia]

Even if it doesn't take moon/day into consideration, it doesn't matter. If I produce 1,000 random numbers and then use those random numbers to "seed" 1,000 different random number generators, some of those RNGs will produce lots of "streaks".

I don't understand why they would proceed that way to generate their seed.

None of us has access to the code, so we could argue forever, but it doesn't make sense to produce seed for a zone all at the same time, for event that won't happen till the next hours. And even if it was true for dynamis, it doesnt apply well to other area in game.

I'm really tired of listening to people who say "it's totally random", which doesn't even technically exist in a computer world..

I supose you could predict the next /random number then? ;p The question is not if it is truely random or not, it's if it appears random or not.

Would be interesting to see /random number distribution. I'm tempted to make a parser and let it run in my moghouse for the night

[Soily]

I'm really tired of listening to people who say "it's totally random", which doesn't even technically exist in a computer world..

What we call "Random" isn't more random in real life than it is in the computer world... When you roll a dice IRL, the result isn't random, it simply depends on a lot of (physical...) factors that you can't control. If you could reproduce exactly the same situation twice, you would get the same result twice.

It's the same thing with computers and what is usually called "pseudorandom", rather than "random". No, it's not really random, but it can be called random, simply because you can't control it or predict the results (unless you have access to some information that you shouldn't have access to). So, yes, we can actually say "it's totally random".

I often see people saying "it's not random, it's based on time"... without knowing what it means. Basically, a pseudorandom number generator is generally initialized by a number (called "seed"), and usually, the number used is the current time (on Unix systems, it will often be represented as the number of seconds elapsed since the Epoch, 01/01/1970). So, yes, you can say it's based on time, but that doesn't make it less random, since there's no way you can control it or make sure you take advantage of it by predicting the next results... I mean, do you know when/how often the random generator is initialized? Do you know if there's an instance of the generator for each character, or for each area, or for each party/alliance/job/race/sex/whatever? Do you know what the algorithm used by the game to generate numbers is?

So, as Kaylia said, it may not be strictly random, but for players like you and me, it is random...

[mikazuki]

droprate is a riemann zeta function.

[Croaker]

Generate a random number between 1 and 100. Excel command "=RAND()*100". Copy and paste in cells 1-100 (pretend you just killed 100 dynamis mobs) and count the number of times you get a number between 0-5. Pretend that signifies a "drop". Repeat.

Here are some results. This took me about 5 min to do.

Drops: 8,7,6,6,0,8,9,4,4,5

The time I got 0 had nothing to do with "new moon" and I didn't enter a TH code into Excel for the time I got 9.

Its all luck, or if you prefer, random chance.

[Not Kuno]

What people think "new moon" does is allow getting a number like 11-15 become an AF drop instead of nothing.

[Kaylia]

Generate a random number between 1 and 100. Excel command "=RAND()*100". Copy and paste in cells 1-100 (pretend you just killed 100 dynamis mobs) and count the number of times you get a number between 0-5. Pretend that signifies a "drop". Repeat.

Here are some results. This took me about 5 min to do.

Drops: 8,7,6,6,0,8,9,4,4,5

The time I got 0 had nothing to do with "new moon" and I didn't enter a TH code into Excel for the time I got 9.

Its all luck, or if you prefer, random chance.

Tell me how long it take you to get 20AF now >_> The chance to get nothing in 100 kill with 5% drop rate is low, but big enough to see it happen a couple of times. However, if those flukes happen more often than not, it means there is other factor to the drop rate equation.

Anyway, I never said new moon influence drop rate in dynamis or anything because I don't believe it does. I just said to check moon as one potential factor to determine the number of HQ pop you will see. If there is a link, good for us, if there is none, that's too bad.


In any case, those numbers are all seeded at the same time, while drop rate is probably seeded when the monster is killed or spawned (not every mobs are up at the start of dyna). And who knows, maybe there is a factor like in phantasy star online that determine player luck. Afterall, there is taru foretelling your future in every city. (I doubt it's really a factor, but who knows >_> )

[divisortheory]

In any case, those numbers are all seeded at the same time, while drop rate is probably seeded when the monster is killed or spawned (not every mobs are up at the start).

That's not what "seeded" means. To seed a random number generator means you to generate the pattern for how random numbers will be assigned.

For example, I seed my random number generator right now, and it's predetermined that I will get numbers in the sequence 4, 8, 15, 13, 2, 9, 12, 18, 24, 6, 107, 67, 34, 2, 1, 0.

Now I seed the random number generator again, and it's 7, 14, 105, 216, 43, 20, 8, 97, 45, 6, 45, 2, 100, 98.

After the first seed, the first "random number" will be 4, the second will be 8, etc. It's predetermined.

What this means is that there's no WAY the random number generator is "seeded" every time you kill a mob. That would just be stupid, and it goes against the whole concept of "seeding" anyway.


In the end, there's no way for us to tell what they do. Do they seed it once when the server boots and that's it? Do they seed it for dynamis every time you enter dynamis, and salvage every time you enter salvage? Is crafting and item drops seeded differently? Not only would it be extremely difficult to answer this question, but in the end it wouldn't matter anyway.

One thing is for sure though, it definitely isn't seeded every time you kill something. That would be the programming equivalent of saying that paralyze can be affected by weaponskill.

[Kaylia]

In any case, those numbers are all seeded at the same time, while drop rate is probably seeded when the monster is killed or spawned (not every mobs are up at the start).

That's not what "seeded" means. To seed a random number generator means you to generate the pattern for how random numbers will be assigned.

For example, I seed my random number generator right now, and it's predetermined that I will get numbers in the sequence 4, 8, 15, 13, 2, 9, 12, 18, 24, 6, 107, 67, 34, 2, 1, 0.

Now I seed the random number generator again, and it's 7, 14, 105, 216, 43, 20, 8, 97, 45, 6, 45, 2, 100, 98.

After the first seed, the first "random number" will be 4, the second will be 8, etc. It's predetermined.

What this means is that there's no WAY the random number generator is "seeded" every time you kill a mob. That would just be stupid, and it goes against the whole concept of "seeding" anyway.


In the end, there's no way for us to tell what they do. Do they seed it once when the server boots and that's it? Do they seed it for dynamis every time you enter dynamis, and salvage every time you enter salvage? Is crafting and item drops seeded differently? Not only would it be extremely difficult to answer this question, but in the end it wouldn't matter anyway.

One thing is for sure though, it definitely isn't seeded every time you kill something. That would be the programming equivalent of saying that paralyze can be affected by weaponskill.

Nah, I understand what seeding is, I just worded it wrong after editing my sentence twice. What I'm saying is that it's unlikely the series of random number FFXI generate last for every kills on a long period of time. Maybe they generate 50-100-1000numbers at time, but with attack roll, monsters AI and other factor, they probably use most of them really quickly.
Assuming those generated number are used exclusively for loot pool in a single area, and they produce fluke, SE deserve to be slapped. I don't think generating 10number x20times instead of 200numbers in a row would have made a huge difference for area like dynamis. Their server could have handled it


If all 100 mobs were dying at the exact same times, and you would getting fluke drop rate, I would agree with you, but it's not what happen here. There is a long time before your first kill and your last kill, and SE had plenty of time to reroll their series of random number

[NynJa]

having just gone through 100 hunting wasps...I concure with the GAYWTF statement of the OP.

[Hapernack]

100 Chigoes....

:rip: