Born Lucky

[Jehosaphat]

ill just leave this here....

 

Epileptic Trees

DARN YOU AND YOUR TVTROPES

 

On-topic: I don't know. I really don't.

[mughinn]

(sorry if my answer is like other answers, i read the first post but not other peoples postss)

 

It seems very likely to be like that, but there is one part where you're wrong(i think). It can't be a static ID for each player, if that was the case, some people then would NEVER get a specific drop, and that doesn't seem right, it surely has to change at some point.

[Triquos]

I sometimes wonder this as well. I had better ancient effigy luck when I had the display name 'Slayer Cape'. Coincidence? I don't know. I always seem to have rotten luck most of the time anyway. I've played RS for 8 years now and still have only received 1 visage from 13,000+ metal dragons and 1 d chain from 15,000+ dust devils.

 

Oh well, I'll get whatever is given to me I guess :shades:

[jettrider]

Runescape sample sizes are too small to even get close to seeing a pattern among pseudorandom numbers.

 

In addition, although it's interesting to speculate about all the secret ways Jagex could be affecting your "luck," you could be using that speculation time to increase your sample size and decrease the "luck factor." It's as impossible to prove a nonrandom drop theory as it is to prove an exact droprate without confirmation from Jagex.

[deletemeplease]

Actually, in terms of coding, there are no random attributes.

 

To the human mind it may seem so, but in fact a random generator is an algorithm of algorithm's picking certain numbers. To the computer this is not random at all and completely predictable, but to a person, it's the same concept of a cartoon. The cartoon never moves, you're just tricked into thinking it does. You're tricked into thinking you got lucky, when the coding was already determined awhile ago.

[aspeeder]

Wouldn't that mean that, for example, the 13th person to kill a TD on world 2 is guaranteed claws, or something like that?

 

The RNG shouldn't be permanently determined. Instead it is rerolled each time.

 

But that's the thing though, unless the seed number is changed every time, the "on the n-th of X, Y will happen" would hold true.

 

And even if the seed number WAS changed, it would have to be completely independent from the RNG produced. Which would mean at least doubling the work Jagex's servers have to do.

Is your point that since computers cannot truly produce random numbers that there is someway of knowing for certain how/when something will happen? Even if it is unknown to us or impossible to take advantage of due to human error/net neutrality/etc.?

[Star_Fox]

YES. I completely agree with everything in this thread. I have so much to prove that I just have NO luck to score any

decent monster drops besides whips and a cheap dragon drop. I cannot count how many times I've sucked at this game PURELY

by luck and it's becoming evidential that some accounts have more "luck" than others.

 

I have done over 920 clue scrolls (yes I count them) and I have YET to get a robin. -.-

[Zaaps1]

Wouldn't that mean that, for example, the 13th person to kill a TD on world 2 is guaranteed claws, or something like that?

 

The RNG shouldn't be permanently determined. Instead it is rerolled each time.

 

But that's the thing though, unless the seed number is changed every time, the "on the n-th of X, Y will happen" would hold true.

 

And even if the seed number WAS changed, it would have to be completely independent from the RNG produced. Which would mean at least doubling the work Jagex's servers have to do.

Is your point that since computers cannot truly produce random numbers that there is someway of knowing for certain how/when something will happen? Even if it is unknown to us or impossible to take advantage of due to human error/net neutrality/etc.?

 

I do not expect at all to be able to take advantage of this fact. It's just an interesting thing to think about that might be able to explain a few things.

[Quyneax]

I don't think Jagex uses many different RNGs (e.g. only one per server or something, idk how that goes exactly), so while it would theoretically create 'luck', it practically doesn't. What people very often forget is that a something-hundred/thousand dry streak can be quite expected.

[pulli23]

First I'd like to say I'm not a mathematic student, my study (aerospace engineering) only touched the subject very generally when discussing various testing methods for wings/other complete products. - You can't really do an ultimate test on a full product (ultimate tests have the tendency to break the subject and reconstructing the wing for each test is too costly - we're talking about 10 million euro pieces). So doing a random test is an option (along with a few other algorithms to get multiple results out of 1 test). Here we use random - yet repeatable tests. Thus we moved over the pseudo random number generators quickly.

 

 

I don't think Jagex uses many different RNGs (e.g. only one per server or something, idk how that goes exactly), so while it would theoretically create 'luck', it practically doesn't. What people very often forget is that a something-hundred/thousand dry streak can be quite expected.

Using multiple random number generators is actually worse than using 1. - Though in a multithreaded environment it is often the only/best choice to prevent threadlocks in your application (and thus unnecessary slow down).

 

What people also seem to forget is that because runescape is so massive the generator is very unpredictable. - Heck even something which would "increment" the number by 1 each time would be completely unpredictable for each player: there're so many things which need this generator that each second the number would change by 0-100 depending on the user interaction!

[Zaaps1]

What people also seem to forget is that because runescape is so massive the generator is very unpredictable. - Heck even something which would "increment" the number by 1 each time would be completely unpredictable for each player: there're so many things which need this generator that each second the number would change by 0-100 depending on the user interaction!

 

That resonates off an interesting fate v. decision theme. Just something I thought I'd point out.

[stonewall337]

Actually, in terms of coding, there are no random attributes.

 

To the human mind it may seem so, but in fact a random generator is an algorithm of algorithm's picking certain numbers. To the computer this is not random at all and completely predictable, but to a person, it's the same concept of a cartoon. The cartoon never moves, you're just tricked into thinking it does. You're tricked into thinking you got lucky, when the coding was already determined awhile ago.

Who says all accounts are created with the exact same drop ratio? You can't prove I am the same as you, can you?

[Viv]

people are luckier than others it seems

 

i havee gotten 2 visages but my friends have gottenn none and i know people that have gotten 9 visages

 

some people get 2 effigy task like nothing others go like 10+ task for one...

 

effigy rate considered to be 1/110k sllayer exp in the longterm tho..so someone may seeem lucky based on one a log then go awhile w/o one..

 

so i think luck matters most wwith the bigg drops someone that gets a divine on thier first few days of corp can be gamechanged compared to someone that waste 2 months + w/o a divine

 

but small things like granite mauls people dont usually say omg ur luckeir!

[pulli23]

people are luckier than others it seems

 

i havee gotten 2 visages but my friends have gottenn none and i know people that have gotten 9 visages

 

some people get 2 effigy task like nothing others go like 10+ task for one...

 

effigy rate considered to be 1/110k sllayer exp in the longterm tho..so someone may seeem lucky based on one a log then go awhile w/o one..

 

so i think luck matters most wwith the bigg drops someone that gets a divine on thier first few days of corp can be gamechanged compared to someone that waste 2 months + w/o a divine

 

but small things like granite mauls people dont usually say omg ur luckeir!

See the image I posted earlier (and mark the caption text).. It's a thing in the human mind that we like to say "lucky" or "unlucky"...

[highlanders]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

[ghjkl]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

Jagex does lots of things without reason

[ForsakenMage]

When the Treasure Trail update came out, I went and literally did 207 easy clue scrolls in nine days (I screenshot them all...), only because these were easy and fast to get. I ended up getting around 8 million, including several gold-trimmed black armor and mage robe items, and some random elegant clothing pieces and Bob shirts. It might sound like I was destined to get the items if I told you I only told you I got them in one week, but if I told you how many clue scrolls I did before I finally did get all those items, it may sound more random luck.

 

Consider the higher level clue scrolls. Many want to get some Third-Age items. The problem is they are so rare. However, consider what if you managed to do a ton of the hard or elite clue scrolls in a short amount of time. You may get the items after all.

 

Another example: The drop rates. Just because it says 1/750 doesn't mean that it will drop immediately after you've killed 750 of the monsters, but somewhere in that 750 mark you may be able to get one. However, the drop rates are set by players, not Jagex, so we cannot expect the rates to be that correct either. We can talk about frequency qualitatively, but not quantitatively.

[Zaaps1]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

 

Of course, Jagex has no reason to be biased, but depending on the method they use to RNG, they may not even have a choice. That's the point of the post. That due to the fact that a computer can never be perfectly random, there's going to be some sort of bias.

[stonewall337]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

 

Of course, Jagex has no reason to be biased, but depending on the method they use to RNG, they may not even have a choice. That's the point of the post. That due to the fact that a computer can never be perfectly random, there's going to be some sort of bias.

 

Could also be world, time, time since last server update, time to kill monster, etc.

[Unb34t4bl3]

This all just leads back to the initial conditions that were in place before the Big Bang... :mrgreen:

[Star_Fox]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

Jagex does lots of things without reason

 

Lol. Agreed. :rolleyes:

[Cheefoo]

As some science guy once said, "God doesn't play dice." That being said, even dice aren't "random" as much as they are "unpredictable". If you had an infinite understanding of physics, you could predict how the dice will lie as you threw them. However, since we don't have the ability to calculate a throw of a dice so to such accuracy, it seems random. If something is so incomprehensably complex, it may seem random, but really isn't.

 

In computer programming, the programmers can make incredibly complex sequences to determine an outcome to the point it's so unpredictable, it seems random. Some older games have very explotiable random number generators, while others (such as Runescape) do not. One such game, Nethack, actually has an RNG seed generated based on a clock, and for a while, I had no idea how it worked. I noticed if I opened two instances of the game within one second of one another, the first level of the dungeon would be identical. However, beyond that, I have no idea how the RNG works in that game.

 

I believe, with super computer accuracy and a perfect understanding of the coding, Runescape's random number generator should be exploitable, to some degree. Theoretically speaking, this should be the case with any "game", computer based or otherwise.

[amitoz]

Why though. Why would jagex make some accounts luckier than others? That's not something you do without a reason.

Jagex does lots of things without reason

 

Lol. Agreed. :rolleyes:

:thumbup:

[jettrider]

As some science guy once said, "God doesn't play dice." That being said, even dice aren't "random" as much as they are "unpredictable". If you had an infinite understanding of physics, you could predict how the dice will lie as you threw them. However, since we don't have the ability to calculate a throw of a dice so to such accuracy, it seems random. If something is so incomprehensably complex, it may seem random, but really isn't.

 

In computer programming, the programmers can make incredibly complex sequences to determine an outcome to the point it's so unpredictable, it seems random. Some older games have very explotiable random number generators, while others (such as Runescape) do not. One such game, Nethack, actually has an RNG seed generated based on a clock, and for a while, I had no idea how it worked. I noticed if I opened two instances of the game within one second of one another, the first level of the dungeon would be identical. However, beyond that, I have no idea how the RNG works in that game.

 

I believe, with super computer accuracy and a perfect understanding of the coding, Runescape's random number generator should be exploitable, to some degree. Theoretically speaking, this should be the case with any "game", computer based or otherwise.

 

This is an excellent post and the main question of debate is whether that tiny possibility of exploitation can ever be reached on RuneScape. However, we'll never see when in the process psuedorandom numbers are generated and therefore we'll never know how to exploit it. Just as no one can disprove that drops are determined by a player object, no one can prove that drops are instanced on a monster's spawn or death.

 

You can choose to believe one side based on intermittent improbable events in RS' small sample sizes or you can believe in the explanation that there is no "luck" factor based on the most logical places or methods used to generate drops. Either way, don't expect to prove anything without knowledge that Jagex is unlikely to reveal.

[BLaSpHeMy]

What we percieve as "luck" is our instantaneous 4th dimensional observation of a cross-section of 5 dimensional space. If you want to start improving your luck, visualize yourself getting all of the things you want. You might just be lucky enough to move yourself across 5th dimensional spacetime and land yourself a 3a druid wreath instead of a dragon mask. Studies show that most people who would be considered "lucky" have been born with the ability to visualize themselves attaining what they want.

 

Fair point.

I still think that there is sometype of system Jagex do have.They may have a similar system for Combat too?

But then I think it gets too complicated to talk about.