Surprise, you didn't want a master anyway

[Gonzo550]

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

[Armawk]

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

Same reason they do this stuff every time. top guilds need them.

[Dasein]

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

Or it could just be random. People see streaks of master chests, or lack there of, all the time.

[Rijacki]

Someone in our guild got 3 masters tonight in 10 mins on -trash- in Library in a PUG rolling Greed on each one.

[Greyana]

Random number generator is random (well, as random as you can expect, of course). Move along, nothing to see here.

[Littlelove]

shaunfletcher wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

Same reason they do this stuff every time. top guilds need them.

Funny, we just got 2 masters in the 1 instance we did tonight.  Got 2 from trash mobs last night in the hole doing faction quests.   But you know, it's gotta be SOE screwing with you.

[Hanari]

the chance for a master drop from trash or named is higher if the mob is atleast yellow and lower on blues and greens mobs. thats the reason why in the first weeks of an xpac usally droping alot more masters imo

[DngrMou]

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

Found three masters in Conservatory yesterday.  /shrug  I'm guessing the rng just hates you.

[hellfire]

Hanari@Nagafen wrote:

the chance for a master drop from trash or named is higher if the mob is atleast yellow and lower on blues and greens mobs. thats the reason why in the first weeks of an xpac usally droping alot more masters imo

And this is another thing that is false.

[PlaneCrazy]

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

[Troubor]

I've only done one instance, I've been almost completly soloing otherwise, and trying to level my crafters but I got a master from some down arrow trash mob in Toxulla Forest the night of the expansion launch for retail box.  (Was nice, sold it, been using it to finance my expenses so far with the expansion.    )  The one instance I've done I think we saw three masters in it, I can remember at least two.  I'd not sweat it personally.

[Kendricke]

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

How does this logic account for Research Assistants? 

[urgthock]

Kendricke wrote:

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

How does this logic account for Research Assistants? 

It doesn't get much more "scripted" than the research assistants. It is absolutely a controlled (via time) mechanism. No RNG involved at all.

Although just to be clear, I don't agree with what he said about a "scripted" RNG.

[ElsaRat]

This is just the nature of the Poisson distribution, a name for the distribution you get when a certain reoccuring event has a uniform probability over time. It's streakier than people typically expect.

[CoLD MeTaL]

No surprise I haven't seen a single exquisite yet. :

[Dasein]

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

Actually, that sounds like a heavy amount of confirmation bias. For example, I got 2 Kaborite clusters from the first two ore nodes I harvested in SF, when the zones were as crowded as I've ever seen them.

[PlaneCrazy]

Kendricke wrote:

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

How does this logic account for Research Assistants? 

 Because it's like 30 days to research a master at T9.  That and the fact you can only research one ability at a time and the fact that the researched ability is non tradeable are major controls right there.

[hellfire]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

No surprise I haven't seen a single exquisite yet. :

Wait you forgot to blame raiders for this also.

[Onorem]

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

Congrats on getting into instances early on when there was a ridiculous master drop rate?

1 master in 10 instances seems a bit light, although not far off from what I'd experienced throughout TSO, but 3 per zone is stupid.

[Geothe]

Bigron@Unrest wrote:

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

No surprise I haven't seen a single exquisite yet. :

Wait you forgot to blame raiders for this also.

Isnt' it obvious Bigron?You see there is a limited pool of masters that will drop on the server in a set time frame.And obviously raiders are getting all of those masters in each time interval because SoE always helps out raiders at the cost of the "common man"DUH.

heh.

[PlaneCrazy]

Dasein wrote:

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

Actually, that sounds like a heavy amount of confirmation bias. For example, I got 2 Kaborite clusters from the first two ore nodes I harvested in SF, when the zones were as crowded as I've ever seen them.

I've noticed a progression since the XP launched.  There was the initial race to 90 for a majorrty of large guilds and the "uber leet" .  I got quite a few rares during those days as well.  Then after a ton of players hit 90, they actually started doing the content and more people were harvesting.  There was also a spike in numbers last tuesday when the DD went live... and the rares got progressively less and less.  I've been harvesting the same routes every day for 3 or 4 hours at a time and there's a definite pattern.  The one day I got like 5 rares in 20 minutes, there was only 27 people in Sundering Frontier.  That was the day BG was up for the first full day .  When BG was throttled back, the shards shot up to three again and the population on my shard went to 60+ in less then an hour and I didn't see another rare for 2 hours.

I can't prove anything and SOE sure as &#!# isn't going to give us facts, but my "hunch" is that some system like this is in place. They have already admitted to having systems in place to monitor the markets and the exchange of plat and they have made games with trivial loot code before, so it's not a reach to assume that there's a similar system in place to control rare drops.

[Dasein]

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Dasein wrote:

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

Actually, that sounds like a heavy amount of confirmation bias. For example, I got 2 Kaborite clusters from the first two ore nodes I harvested in SF, when the zones were as crowded as I've ever seen them.

I've noticed a progression since the XP launched.  There was the initial race to 90 for a majorrty of large guilds and the "uber leet" .  I got quite a few rares during those days as well.  Then after a ton of players hit 90, they actually started doing the content and more people were harvesting.  There was also a spike in numbers last tuesday when the DD went live... and the rares got progressively less and less.  I've been harvesting the same routes every day for 3 or 4 hours at a time and there's a definite pattern.  The one day I got like 5 rares in 20 minutes, there was only 27 people in Sundering Frontier.  That was the day BG was up for the first full day .  When BG was throttled back, the shards shot up to three again and the population on my shard went to 60+ in less then an hour and I didn't see another rare for 2 hours.

I can't prove anything and SOE sure as &#!# isn't going to give us facts, but my "hunch" is that some system like this is in place. They have already admitted to having systems in place to monitor the markets and the exchange of plat and they have made games with trivial loot code before, so it's not a reach to assume that there's a similar system in place to control rare drops.

It's not that such a system is impossible, but there are two problems with your approach. First, you have an extremely limited dataset and second, everything you've seen can easily be explained by the tendency of humans to see patterns in otherwise random data.

What would be needed is a much larger sample size, across multiple servers, along with a control group to test for RNG streakiness. It would be an interesting experiment to conduct, but my hunch is that the system is simply random (or at least as random as one can get with available technology).

[Obadiah]

Every expansion the tinfoil hats come out and people insist that the drop rates change; that you get the best drops within the first couple of weeks. I think you're giving them an awful lot of credit to even suggest such things. They are not nearly that clever and devious and tricksy.

Plus they can't even get things working properly. Quests missing, massive XP nerfs making whole zones useless, DB issues, worst unscheduled server downtime since the original game. FWIW, I harvested a more rares the 2nd week of the expansion than I did the first, in less harvesting time.

[Yimway]

Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:

Every expansion the tinfoil hats come out and people insist that the drop rates change; that you get the best drops within the first couple of weeks. I think you're giving them an awful lot of credit to even suggest such things. They are not nearly that clever and devious and tricksy.

For whatever reason, there is a perceived and repeatable trend of zones/instances not played often dropping higher loot.  This is demonstrated at each expansion launch, and occasionally at times outside of them.  RoK:CoA having higher master drops than TSO zones when TSO was at his height, etc.

Now with expansions, this could be a factor of the underutilized zones being hit by the early to cap folks, it could be just bad coding (see dof mastergasms), or just tin foil hats.

The fact that its repeatable and observable pokes a few holes in the tinfoil hat.   Now, I question if its by design, bug, or omission.  But I can not deny the repeatable and observable data that collaberates the tin foil hatters.

Oh and lastly, unrelated, I've seen FAR more masters off trash since expac launch than I have off any named incounter instanced or otherwise.

[Bhow]

Ok, based on what I'm reading here, a lot of people in this thread also believe in the idea that a number / horse / card w/e can be "due" in terms of probability theory. As in, "Ohhh we haven't seen 67 in a while, its due to show up." (when playing the pick 6 or some such lottery)

Soo forgive me if I digress into a little Math lesson for everyone.

If the probability that an independent event occurs is 1/2, then every time you perform that action the probability stays the same. For example, the probabilty that a coin flip is a heads is 1/2. If I flip the coin and get tails whats the probability that the next flip is a heads? Some people would say 100% since the prior flip was tails. This is a logical fallicy. The probability is *still* 1/2.

What this means for you: Assuming that the chance of a Master drop is random and independent of any other influence (which it probably is) if you kill 10000000000 things w/o any masters and the drop percent is .1%, the probability that the next mob is going to drop a master is STILL .1%. If you kill 100000000 mobs and you get 1000000 master drops, the chance that the next is STILL .1%.

In terms of random, STREAKS OCCUR and are NATURAL.

For those that are math comfortable, this is a good description of the law that this whole mini-rant was based on.

So what I am trying to say more or less is that though it is possible that SoE is manipulating Masters etc, it is a) highly unlikely, and b) you don't have NEAR enough information to make that conclusion.

I personally would be very interested to see the actual drop rates from a bunch of different servers along with all the other major statistics over time. I highly doubt I will ever see such information but it would be interesting none-the-less.

And just for the record, SoE is not generally big on making Raiders lives easy. Broken mobs, items that dont drop that are necessary for an encounter, etc. To say that they are doing this to help us is a little ludicrous. =P

[Tyrus Dracofire]

i found 3 Ancient Rhino Horns in just 2 minutes, rare 3 in a row for finding the Kunark rares near area of droga clan.

[Troubor]

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Dasein wrote:

PlaneCrazy wrote:

Armus@Crushbone wrote:

As usual, it's two weeks into an new expac and SOE has already shut down the master engine. That's right, we have gone from 3 chests per zone to one chest in 10 zones. Ninja nerfed of course. Thanks guys for seeding the world with the t9s and then taking them away. Why do you do this?

I have a feeling that the game has some sort of tracking script running that records and controls the total number of rares/masters/fabled drops on a server during a given time frame.  If the number exceeds a set amount, then the tap gets turned off until the average drops down into acceptable levels again.

I've seen this in EQ2 many times now.  You log on when the population is low and you clean up in rare harvests or master chests while running some instances.  but you log on during an expansion week when there's three shards of every zone and 75+ in each one and you can harvest for hours before seeing anything.

That's not RNG at work. That's a script controlling the total number droped per server per time frame.  It's an effort to control the in-game economy.

Just the other day, i was making a killing harvesting when everyone was going ga-ga in BG.  Then they shut BG down and I didn't get a single rare for the next few hours.  I had lots of nodes still... the server pop was just too high and too many rares being found.

Actually, that sounds like a heavy amount of confirmation bias. For example, I got 2 Kaborite clusters from the first two ore nodes I harvested in SF, when the zones were as crowded as I've ever seen them.

I've noticed a progression since the XP launched.  There was the initial race to 90 for a majorrty of large guilds and the "uber leet" .  I got quite a few rares during those days as well.  Then after a ton of players hit 90, they actually started doing the content and more people were harvesting.  There was also a spike in numbers last tuesday when the DD went live... and the rares got progressively less and less.  I've been harvesting the same routes every day for 3 or 4 hours at a time and there's a definite pattern.  The one day I got like 5 rares in 20 minutes, there was only 27 people in Sundering Frontier.  That was the day BG was up for the first full day .  When BG was throttled back, the shards shot up to three again and the population on my shard went to 60+ in less then an hour and I didn't see another rare for 2 hours.

I can't prove anything and SOE sure as &#!# isn't going to give us facts, but my "hunch" is that some system like this is in place. They have already admitted to having systems in place to monitor the markets and the exchange of plat and they have made games with trivial loot code before, so it's not a reach to assume that there's a similar system in place to control rare drops.

And yet for me the data proves otherwise with rares.  First week of the expansion, the "retail box launch" period/preview, I hit maybe 3 rares, period.  Second week, 5 or 6 while harvesting, my rate is close to one a day now not counting "free" ones hit due to innovation counters from crafting.  If I can count that, I can maybe go to a bit over one rare a day.  And I'm not playing harvest bot, I'm solo questing or crafting (either writs or daily crafting instances), I just harvest as I solo quest on the side.

Masters, as I posted for myself I hit one solo from a trash mob, the one and only instance I've done so far we saw two that I remember for sure, possibly three.  I've been levelling pretty slowly compared to the people who raced to 90th in the first week, my highest adventurer is 85th now, but based on my very limited sample of data, your assumptions/hypothesis IMO doesn't really fit.  If anything it's almost reverse of what you claim, I'm hitting more rares, and if what I've seen in groups counts as opposed to personally looted, more masters after the first week of launch then before it.

Going by broker price, I watch Kaborite a lot since I need it for my spells on my main.  It's gone from fluctating wildly in price to settling in at around 25 plat per cluster.  Consistant prices imply a consistant supply IMO. 

But anyway, it's all random.  No script, nothing like that.  Any pattern you see is just perceived.  Best I can tell, things haven't changed.  There's possibly more rares on the broker at t9, but only because more people are about that are wandering Odus and thus harvesting in Odus.

[Jesdyr]

Bhow@Lucan DLere wrote:

So what I am trying to say more or less is that though it is possible that SoE is manipulating Masters etc, it is a) highly unlikely, and b) you don't have NEAR enough information to make that conclusion.

Normally I would agree with this .. But many people obverse that new zones tend to be very hot for a few weeks. Then drops seem to decrease overall. This seems to happen with every new zone.

Is it just artifacts in the loot system,  SOE manipulation or just human tendency to see patterns where they dont exist ? .. we will never know

[CoLD MeTaL]

Bhow@Lucan DLere wrote:

... independent event occurs...

I believe that is what is being questioned here, whether it is in fact an 'independent event', or rather whether it is artificially altered for a time.

Which if it is like XP, we know they can grab a slider and throttle it at any time.

To me I am betting they set it at a certain place and as masters come into the world it degrades.

So no masters in the world at launch bonus table gets hit x.  As masters are discovered/foundbonus table becomes x-time. (for completely superficial simplistic functions.)

ie. The drop rate is constantly in flux as $OE determines how fast things are entering the world.

[Dasein]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Bhow@Lucan DLere wrote:

... independent event occurs...

I believe that is what is being questioned here, whether it is in fact an 'independent event', or rather whether it is artificially altered for a time.

Which if it is like XP, we know they can grab a slider and throttle it at any time.

To me I am betting they set it at a certain place and as masters come into the world it degrades.

So no masters in the world at launch bonus table gets hit x.  As masters are discovered/foundbonus table becomes x-time. (for completely superficial simplistic functions.)

ie. The drop rate is constantly in flux as $OE determines how fast things are entering the world.

Of course SOE can adjust the probabilities for any drop or other random event, but beyond that, there's not a whole lot we can tell. Perhaps there's some base probability modifier set for each server every few hours, so sometimes one server or another may have more or less of a chance to drop masters or produce rare harvests. Perhaps this value is set at the zone level, or character level on login or zone-in, or any number of other possible places.