78% Critical Rate is a Lie on Essences (or even 79%)

[Yuffie67]

Ok, I'm now on roughly my 63rd try to make Supreme Essence..... (give or take one I didn't mark down..)

78% on one character and 79% Critical rate on other. I have failed most of them, the 78% is a (insert many swear words) LIE.

I'm known for having some bad luck, but constantly making 3-4 greater's in a row is BS. Something has to be wrong with in-game RND math on this.
I have 12 of 63 success rate... That is just not ****** right.

WB RND Grind Silver Pieces, with RND Grind Essences via RND boxes or RND in SofM, with RND Crit success rate... for love of god, remove part of RND out of this ****.

Please Turbine... look into this.

Others are having very bad luck on this and I know I'm not the only one.

[Gardhik]

It's just how RNG work. You can have a bad streak... or have a good one as me. I failed only 3 essences so far...

As the RNG don't remember our last.... unlucky try, every time you roll, you are not luckier than last time, be it for Big battle jewelry, First age symbols, loot, crafting and so on.

[Coeprandua]

I have the same impression as the op. My particular problem is I consistently fail to crit with 79-83% chance and I consistently crit lower level gear with around 44% chance. Something is not right. This didnt happen once or twice.

Are you gonna tell me I have extreme bad luck with endgame essences but very good luck with lower tier gear?

[Yuffie67]

I have the same impression as the op. My particular problem is I consistently fail to crit with 79-83% chance and I consistently crit lower level gear with around 44% chance. Something is not right. This didnt happen once or twice.

Are you gonna tell me I have extreme bad luck with endgame essences but very good luck with lower tier gear?

I have to agree, I can make near prefect ratios of batches of coffee and food with lower crit rates, my Metal Smith who barely break 66% ...has a bloody 69% success rate with crits. Near spot on a matching to math. 6 years... and crit rate has been pretty spot on.

Essences however are not.

I wanna call shenanigans...

[Bunjee]

It's just how RNG work. You can have a bad streak... or have a good one as me. I failed only 3 essences so far...

As the RNG don't remember our last.... unlucky try, every time you roll, you are not luckier than last time, be it for Big battle jewelry, First age symbols, loot, crafting and so on.

It's not the case that if you keep repeating a statement it becomes true.

LOTRO has a very terrible RNG system. Computers are incapable of true RNG, and games typicaly use "cheap" algorithms to mimic RNG, but LOTRO is uses a particularly bad RNG algorithm. And I wouldn't be surprised if they commonly have improper values used from bonuses. I suspect their seed is time based witch is horrible.

[Thakman]

It's not the case that if you keep repeating a statement it becomes true.

LOTRO has a very terrible RNG system. Computers are incapable of true RNG, and games typicaly use "cheap" algorithms to mimic RNG, but LOTRO is uses a particularly bad RNG algorithm. And I wouldn't be surprised if they commonly have improper values used from bonuses. I suspect their seed is time based witch is horrible.

This is all speculation especially since we don't have enough data to statistically interpret the validity of the RNG in the game. While computer hardware is completely capable of generating true random numbers I doubt this method is used by Turbine as it is usually much slower than most software applications require. The attempt to equate cheap with substandard algorithms also holds no water as one of the best Pseduo Random Number Generators(PRNG) available has been free since the late 90's.

To address your penultimate statement I would say this. If they do not correctly calculate the bonuses it's not an issue with the RNG but with Turbines coding. I doubt this is the case as but have nothing to back this up other than my opinion and my own personal experience with crafting crits in general.

For the last statement. Time based seeds are not bad in any way whatsoever. You can use the number 1 for a seed. The seed is only the initial value, once the PRNG increments one time the rest of the results form the PRNG(assuming it's a good one) are statistically random.(It will have a probability distribution that is acceptable for a pseudorandom generator.)

Now my speculation. I highly doubt that Turbine would use a cheap lousy algorithm when they can use an excellent free one. And if this is the case when you see a string of results that do not match the expected value it boils down to the fact that you're unlucky not that the PRNG is faulty.

[Hurin]

As already said, a critical chance not being accurately passed to the game would not be a problem with the RNG. That's a more "garden variety" bug. Though one that would be difficult to demonstrate since you're dependent upon your own luck (or lack thereof) to even determine that such a bug exists.

But, regarding the RNG in general. . . we have been hearing these sorts of things for years. And on at least a couple of occasions, some people have tested the RNG in such a fashion that their sample size was actually appreciably large and thus useful in actually drawing some conclusions. Those conclusions were invariably that the RNG was operating as expected. The horrific streaks of both the lucky and the unlucky not withstanding.

[Felisleo]

One thing that has been noticed and mentioned before, Tubines RNG does seem to group it's rolls. A string of crits or a string of failures in a row (which eventually smooth out over the long term).

When crafting, I often stop after a couple of failures, wait or process some raw materials, go back and get the crit I want.

Yes this is a pain when using high value resources and time limited crafting scrolls, but it can help break the unlucky streak.

[Grimdi]

But, regarding the RNG in general. . . we have been hearing these sorts of things for years. And on at least a couple of occasions, some people have tested the RNG in such a fashion that their sample size was actually appreciably large and thus useful in actually drawing some conclusions. Those conclusions were invariably that the RNG was operating as expected.

Funny, because you as player cannot test the RNG. At best you can test the /roll command or some other _application_ of RNG results, and even then you have to assume that the results are representive (not modified by untested factors). The raw RNG results are never visible to players, so it's impossible to verify any claims about correct/broken RNG. And even if the RNG itself is working as intended it's quite possible that its results are processed incorrectly for certain applications. Given that most in-game RNG applications cannot be practically tested in a controlled environment with a sufficient sample size it's again impossible to verify any claims that the results are broken/correct.

Unless Turbine releases technical specifics about the RNG and how it is used for certain applications (crafting, loot) including all influencing factors (very unlikely) this will always be a point of contention.

At some point Turbine stated that the same RNG state is used for the entire server. That would mean that most player-perceived streaks aren't necessarily streaks of the RNG itself, and actual RNG streaks cannot be noticed by individual players (unless they are alone on a server). Which again works against any player-made verification attempts.

[Hurin]

Funny, because you as player cannot test the RNG. At best you can test the /roll command or some other _application_ of RNG results, and even then you have to assume that the results are representive (not modified by untested factors). The raw RNG results are never visible to players, so it's impossible to verify any claims about correct/broken RNG. And even if the RNG itself is working as intended it's quite possible that its results are processed incorrectly for certain applications. Given that most in-game RNG applications cannot be practically tested in a controlled environment with a sufficient sample size it's again impossible to verify any claims that the results are broken/correct.

. . . while all technically correct, it also seems like splitting hairs. People went to great lengths to get sample sizes in the several thousands and then, as I said, produced their findings that the RNG appeared to be operating as expected. Nobody ever said that they were able to see the raw output of the RNG or determine its exact specifications.

What you said is entirely correct. But it doesn't render what I said any less so.

[Aedfrith]

I've come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time and resources trying to get crafting journals as an extra boost. I just use a craft scroll to give myself 40% and hope for the best.

[PoppaBear]

My question is where do you get the crafting journal recipes other then the rep vendor in Helms Deep? If that is the only place, how do you get more rep tokens. I didn't see any repeatable quests or dailies, other than the epic battles.

[HaleElven]

I didn't see any repeatable quests or dailies, other than the epic battles.

Warbands. .

[Vehdren]

RNG in this game is just the worst. First of all its everywhere you turn and second, its as far from a random number generator as its possible to get.

Haven't had any real problems with creating Essences but the journals are definitely broken. I must have crafted over 50 of these on my scholar at a 44% crit chance. I'm running at about a 5% crit success at best. I just laugh uncomfortably at them fail critting every time now.

@Turbine, if you're going to weave RNG into every aspect of the game then FIX IT!!!

[Michaleo]

Why is it we (almost) never see anyone post a complaint that they got too many crits in a row? (I know of one situation, where the crit version of a crafted rep items doesn't confer the rep, so people don't want to crit.)

If the RNG were operating correctly, there would be just as many people critting MORE than they expect as critting LESS.

Or do you think that people are happy and take it for granted when they crit more, but are annoyed and complain when they crit less?

Of course software can have bugs. However, given how many random numbers are generated each second in the game, and the simple way they are being used in determining crits, an individual player would never see the difference between true randomness and even a very weak random number generator.

I wish the game were instrumented so we could see some of these interesting numbers in real time. Wouldn't it be great for the website to show how many FA symbols have dropped from how many runs of different raids, or in your case how many essence recipes have critted? It may or may not make you feel better to know that other players are getting more crits to make up for the ones you're not getting.

[HaleElven]

Why is it we (almost) never see anyone post a complaint that they got too many crits in a row?

Because, the reason for those complaints were removed when they added Processing to all tiers of crafting. We no longer needed to craft item after item to just be vendor fodder, which was interrupted on each crit to name the item.