How does the lottery work?

[IcterusGalbula]

<p>I hesitated a lot to post this thread because I might seem like a whiner.  That said, I've grouped several times with one other person.  I do not recall winning a single lottery the last 3 times I grouped with this person.  The probability of me losing 15 lotteries in a row to one other person is about 0.00003 assuming both people in the group have a 50% chance to win any given lottery.  This has me wondering if a group leader can set the odds of winning a lottery to anything from 0.0 to 1.0.  If a group leader can indeed set the odds of winning to whatever he wants, is there some way I can see those odds on my computer screen?</p><p>I would not object if a group leader wanted, say 60 : 40 odds of winning, or something like that.  After all he puts the group together to achieve a particular objective.</p><p>Nevertheless, we are fighting names characters and I am putting my character at significant risk in these battles... and I am losing out on loot that is worth a significant amount.</p><p>I have gotten to the point where I do not feel comfortable playing with this person any more.  However, before I put a stop to it, I just wanted to raise the issue here.  Perhaps I am just really unlucky.</p><p>I did hint about this with him, but did not get what I felt was a particularly candid and straight answer.</p><p>Thanks for any advice.</p>

[Bloodfa]

Don't group with them for a bit and see what happens.  Or be the one to invite them and be the group leader, then "roll" for the loot.  The command is <b>/random 1-100</b>  you could tell them it feels more like playing an PRG then.  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ixalmaris]

What was you characters name and what was his? Since beta I have the feeling that the lottery favores characters with whose names are at the begining of a indexed list (Starting with A or B etc.) Whenever such a character was in the group my character (starting with V) nearly never won anything.

[TheSpin]

<p>As a general rule, loot is need before greed, and then free for all if nobody needs.  </p><p>With the mechanics built into the game nobody has a better chance of winning than someone else.  If there is a way to 'hak' and change your chance of winning I am not aware of it.</p><p>I wish I could tell you more about this, maybe someone knows more than I do.  I have learned that computer randomness is not 100% random in most cases, but it should at least be equal between you and your group members.</p>

[IcterusGalbula]

<p>Thanks for the replies.  I do not want to give out the names here right now, at least not his, but I think mine always came before his.  He did not play the same character every time.</p>

[Deyaneyra]

It's helpful in most groups to talk about looting rules before going out to kill. I myself prefer Need before Greed, so if anyone in group could use one or more of the dropped items (armor, spells, whatever) he/she should say so and all others decline, if more in need the roll will decide. If no one needs, everyone is welcomed to do a greed roll. Most of the groups I am in go for this, if not I won't stay in that group.

[Taldier]

Lotto is always approximatly random, no way to set the odds.  The simple fact is that no computerized random number generator is completly random.  EQ2s rng seems to be well known for "streakiness".  This leads to many random superstitions about what affects the rng.

[Gnobrin]

Rabbit's feet are always useful in these instances... (j/k) Totally random...  You'll find from time to time that your luck simply stinks and other times you'll get that guilty feeling since you seem to always win.  It's all up to Drinial in regards to how you get your luck.  ~Gnobrin!

[Windowlicker]

<p>Unless of course your talking about the Goblin lottery, in which case it's impossible for the entire server to win.</p><p>Absolutely, impossible.   </p><p>In all my years of playing this game, I have yet to know even one person that's won it.  Seems kinda useless to have it ingame.</p><p>/derail off</p>

[Baalazamon]

I had an alt in Deathfist last weekend, I won both Masters. I even mentioned in party chat I felt bad for winning them and was willing to random roll for them. They all declined, so I left with two fables to sell.

[Calthine]

Or unless you're me.  I'm statistically cruddy at lotto and /random.  We've crunched the numbers, and it has been proven that the PRNG hates me.

[Taabissa]

There's really no such thing as a true random.  There's a mathimatical formula to figure out the true chances of a human drawing your name from a big round urn after it's spun 5 times and the human reaches into the middle.  No one really knows it though. But that's neither here nor there.  I also run with terrible luck with all MMO random generators.  WHether it is WoW or EQ2 or any other game, it always seems some people win, while others always lose.  I'm usually the one who always loses. In wow, before I left the game, I was doing a regular dungeon.  Had a blast, but there were lots of green+ drops.  I think out of the 5 of us, I only got 2 of them, and there were atleast 15-20 of them. It's how it works.  Luck runs strongly for some.  Plus random number generators aren't 100% random, since it is a math formula, but they will continue to get better and better.  Roll with the rolls, that's all I can say.

[Lortet]

<p>While there is no "true" random as mentioned above, the non-randomness amount in a program such as this might start to give you some statistical results after playing EQ2 for a few (or lots of) years - not evident in one nights adventuring. You could then say that the non-random favor to a given character is determined at random lol.</p><p>That being said, I have had nights duoing with my irl brother, and one night he will get 90+% of the "good" stuff, the next night it inverts and I do. Two nights ago I showed a guy through Stormhold, me lvl 28 him 21 - I killed (he helped a bit i suppose) some named mobs and he got 4 of the 5 masters dropped - it happens, don't worry about it and it will turn sometime.</p><p>I have it set (can't remember how) on my group chat to show the numbers rolled. I have never seen a pattern.</p>

[Malfyr]

That's some bad luck. Usually if I win a couple nice things in a row I start declining till the wins have spread out a little. I'd rather have everyone have a good time and get some nice treasure than to make a few extra gold (groups I'm in typically are NBG first)

[Dendro]

The problem is people have a warped sense of what's random.  A truly random sequence has more streaks than people expect it to.  So when they see any streaks, they mistakenly get they idea that the sequence isn't random or fair.  This leads to nutty superstitions like thinking it makes a difference what the phase of the moon is or whether you play with your sound on or what letter your character's name starts with. See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion</a>

[Finora]

<p>It's all really just poor luck on your part =). Some nights you win, some nights you don't. A couple of old guildies of mine used to seem to win everything, and we always joked about their rigged gnomish dice. (One name started with a Z btw so the alphabet thing really doesn't hold true at all).</p><p>We have an entire guild full of people who seem cursed with low numbers on dice.</p><p>We do lottos yet for raid loot (we are pretty casual about raiding so DKP don't seem appropriate at this point) and people win loot contested by several people with single digit rolls. It's become a rather amusing running joke through the years. A recruit will have relatively high rolls (70-90s out of 1-100 randoms) before they become full members. Soon as they become full members they start rolling low like the rest of us =).</p>

[Nink]

<p>As already mentioned you can see the numbers rolled by each person if you enable it. No-one should have a higher chance than anyone else.</p><p>Generally I have found (assuming not NBG which is should be) "Stuff you want you won't win; and stuff you dont want or cannot use you will win". </p><p>In a recent group the two other players won armor and adepts and I won the junk. Eventually it became a joke that I was only winning the rubbish.</p>

[IcterusGalbula]

<p>I created this thread months ago after losing something like 15 lotteries in a row.  Eventually I ended up losing something like 30 lotteries in a row and had decided I had no choice but to avoid grouping.</p><p>Eventually somebody told me that I had to click on the "select all" button to "enter" the lottery.  If I did not click on the "select all" button the computer assumed I had no interest in any of the items in the lottery and I was excluded from winning any of them.</p><p>I had assumed that if I clicked on the "select all" button I was immediately claiming all of the items and removing them from the lottery by taking them all for myself.</p><p>How do I start a lottery if I am leading a group?</p><p>When people say "Need before Greed", how do they exclude the "Need" items from the lottery?  I suppose others could just click on the "decline" button or trade the item to the person in need for 0 coin or 1 copper.</p><p>Thanks for any advice.</p>

[Lortet]

<p>To exclude one item from a list in a chest - it is possible to shift click the other items and then click the selected items button.</p><p>To start the lottery loot method - options, group options, set looting method - but you must also select the "current group" drop down and do the same there for some reason that i have never seen explained.</p>

[LexiThePirate]

<cite>Ixalmaris wrote:</cite><blockquote>What was you characters name and what was his? Since beta I have the feeling that the lottery favores characters with whose names are at the begining of a indexed list (Starting with A or B etc.) Whenever such a character was in the group my character (starting with V) nearly never won anything. </blockquote>My characters name starts with an A, and I actually win on lotto rolls very rarely :p