Ancient Items Roll Like Crap

General Discussion
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Every Season I say this. I can’t be the only human being on the planet who plays Diablo III and sees this trend.

I think everyone knows my stance on Ancient and Primal items.

Ancient items almost always roll like crap.

After watching tens of thousands of Legendary and Ancient items drop in this game, it’s pretty obvious what Blizzard’s philosophy is on Ancient items.

Since Ancient items roll a much higher range on Main Stat and Vitality, and appreciably higher ranges on many other properties, Blizzard has reduced the probability, or “weighting,” on the chance that the higher ranges of the more desirable damage-dealing properties will roll.

How many Ancient rings have you found that have 4.5% CHC, and amulets with 8.5% CHC, or 56% CHD? How many Ancient Witching Hour belts with 5% IAS and 26% CHD? How many Ancient Focus/Restraint rings with main stat, Armor, and CDR? How many Ancient Compass Rose rings with the mandatory Main Stat and Movement Speed, Vitality, Life regeneration, and RCR?

I recently picked up a Primal Ancient Legendary Focus with Dex, Vit, and Armor. Another example, an Ancient Kymbo’s Gold amulet with 16% Lightning [15-20%], 853 Dex [825-1000], 15% Life [14-18%], and 77% Gold [75-100%]. Every one of these properties rolled very close to the lowest possible value in the range, and this amulet is an exemplar of all Ancient items.

Here is another item I just picked up: an Ancient Legendary Elusive Ring, 638 Dex [550-650], 10% Life [10-15%], 4.5% CHC [4.5-6%], 10,886 Life per Hit [10,175-11,975], 198 Arcane Resistance [176-210], and 53% Damage reduction [50-60%]. Again the stats that count rolled at close to their lowest values. This Ancient ring is just one step above the worst one I have, while I just picked up a normal Legendary one with 60% damage reduction.

Don’t even get me started on Ancient gloves.

Primal Ancient items always roll the maximum possible value on whatever property appears on the item. So instead of weighting the property value, Blizzard weights the property itself; therefore, the most desirable damage-dealing properties that can appear on an item have the smallest chance of actually appearing. Thus, we are presented with a continuous string of horrible Primal Ancient Compass Rose rings, among all the other horribly rolled Primal items.

It’s ridiculous that Blizzard would purposely cripple what should be an excellent item because they’re afraid of it being “too powerful,” When they are fine with adding massive power creep in other ways. Why make players feel bad (to put it mildly) about these items?

Long ago I had the idea for “Paragon items.” My philosophy for these items would be that they would have property value ranges across the board that were 85% to 150% that of standard Legendary items. In an un-weighted world, one of these items would have a mere 23% chance to roll a property value less than the maximum value of a Legendary item. But in the world we have, I would be satisfied if Blizzard would simply stop giving low values a high chance to roll.

One of the things I liked about Jay Wilson was that one of his philosophies was, “There’s no such thing as too much power!”* But when it comes to these Ancient “power” items: amulets, rings, gloves, and some other items, the adage that I coined comes to mind:

“Blizzard giveth and the Blizzard taketh away, usually at the same time.”

*Diablo III: Gameplay Trailer - YouTube

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It’s called RNG, luvie. It’s meant to keep you playing longer. If every item that drops is perfect, it kinda cuts your overall gearing process short.

Chillax and have another beer, my pretty.

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Ancient(or normal) jewelry seems to always drop like crap atleast for me.

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If they will give free best rolled ancient to everyone game will die in days.

I had 5 pri als drops today and none of them was usefull. I even had 3 primals drops from kadala/rare upgrades on my barb that never did any rift :smiley:

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So… why did you write any of this? It’s the same set of easily explainable statistical expectations stacked against your egotistical need to confirm your pet theories on what would be stupid and backwards mechanics.

You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. Why make your lack of mathematical reasoning everyone else’s problem?

Your “theories” are ridiculous and delusional. Stop spreading lies about the game.

Yikes.

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The game is item-dependent, not build-dependent. If it was build-dependent, they can program the drops to roll much better. I’ve been playing POE for 2 weeks now and I can see why some ppl prefer it to D3. The replayability of POE is so much better than D3. There’s infinitely more builds you can try and you can explore further with your build than you can ever do in D3.

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Keyword almost and when they don’t you’re set until the next powercreep-patch.

#reversethepowercreep

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Another “I’d rather type than play” post.

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Once you have finished the story and see you are forced to go through it again and again you will rather scratch your eyes out than ever touch it again. Well ok that is how I feel about it.
Even though i can agree about the builds. And that game has a real necromancer/minion mancer. One of the best i have ever played in any game.

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And the Earth is flat. What’s your point?

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Spare me… I have 6 accounts with which I finish Guardian every Season.

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And yet you continue every season.

:stuck_out_tongue:

That said, I don’t see a change to this in the foreseeable future.

Though you should look at the items that have fallen with perfect stats too. I have had several ancient items that fell with exactly what I needed or within 1-5 rolls of what I needed.

And I have others that have several million in costs to re-roll, and I would argue that some of you have ones with even higher costs.

I can count maybe 4 or 5 that have dropped since I have been playing that honestly didn’t need a re-roll. That is they fell with exactly what I needed and with near perfect rolls to boot. Maybe a tweak or two to max one out, but that’s it.

RnG is STILL RnG. Even after 18 seasons and 7 + years.

Game on.

Edit:

Examples of gear that fell with perfect stats/rolls (for what I was after) can be found in several slots on this character:

https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/DTMAce-1687/hero/98427597

So both sides of the coin exist.

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“You are indeed powerful…”

Very nice gear Ace. And I’ve had pieces of gear drop that are exactly the same, almost perfect; an Ancient item that rolled better than 10 of its Primal counterparts. But I’ve been playing a lot, you know that, I started maybe two weeks after you did. And I see trends. Sure, a lot of these “statistics” aficionados will argue that what I’m seeing is perfectly normal and within the realm of statistical probability, blah, blah blah, blah blah. I still see the trends. And it bothers me that I’m not dedicated and diligent enough to take the steps necessary to prove my own theory. And the following is my theory:

If you flip a coin 40 billion times, the average result is going to be almost exactly 50% for heads and tails. If you record the stats of 1000 of the same Legendary, Ancient, and Primal item, you will find the property and property value curves of the Legendary item to be nonspecific; an even distribution. The Ancient item will have a lower percentage of damage dealing properties, and the values of those properties will be toward the lower end of the scale. For Primal items, the damage-dealing properties will have a lower rate of appearance than either of the previous two versions.

I could very likely prove these theories, because the tens of thousands (maybe millions) of items that have dropped for me in this game have created an illustration, built graphs and probability distributions in my mind, and led me to the place where I believe what I wrote in the original post of this thread.

If there were a way to guarantee an accurate, unbiased, and non-prejudiced test, I would be willing to bet a Digital Deluxe copy of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls with the Necromancer character pack, that my theories would be validated. If anyone figured out a way to do the above, and wants to participate, do it to it. Show me verifiable results I’m wrong, and I’ll gift the game to anyone you want.

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The only way to do this, would be to farm for items and record every variable. What it fell with, what the values of each stat were, etc. And have an excel sheet (or something) set up to factor in all those items to provide an averaging result or listing of averages. But you are talking thousands of a single item to even approach any real meaning.

We all know that stats are weighted.

However I don’t think Ancients or Primal stats are any differently weighted than normal legendaries. Larger value ranges on some stats, sure. But as to weight of which stat is more likely to show, I think your idea of doing this test over a large enough sample are going to show that those chances for each stat showing are going to be similar for all quality levels.

If anything.

Those stats with a larger value pool on Ancient items may in fact show up more often. But that’s only if that factor is taken into consideration when weighing the chances of what stat will show up more often.

But again, you are looking at some serious time spent. Best way to accomplish this would be to craft the same legendary at the blacksmith, over and over, to the tune of a few thousand of them. Record each and every one of its stats and their values.

But who is going to do that? I sure as hell won’t be, don’t have time for that.

Game on.

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So, you’re posting it again to demonstrate that you still haven’t learned how statistics work and that you still think your feelings are worth more than facts?

I have never found an ancient amulet with 4.5% CHC.
You have never found an ancient amulet with 4.5% CHC.
No-one has ever found an ancient amulet with 4.5% CHC.
That’s because the range for CHC on an ancient amulet is 8.0-10.0%.

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To be fair, rings do fall with as low as 4.5. So, half right? lol

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Well, for rings the possibilities are 4.5%, 5.0%, 5.5% and 6.0% and he’d probably claim that rather than a 25% chance of each, the lowest value is heavily weighted. So, his argument is about the percentage chance of each possible affix value. I’m merely pointing out that his claim of 4.5% CHC on an amulet has 0% chance of occurring. You know, to demonstrate that his post is more about feelings than a valid statistical analysis.

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LOL…Oh yeah…the perils of copy and paste. I forgot to correct that from the last time you pointed it out…LMAO

And, bonehead, it’s a typo; an absentminded error in typing, and hasn’t got anything to do with my real-world observations of how this game operates. You should have realized that immediately if you are as smart as I think you are. But no, you simply look for any opening to criticize, belittle and berate me (and others).

But if you want to ignore the obvious when you are playing, and instead blindly (and erroneously) pander to statistics, well, I guess that’s your party to go to.

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Honestly, I just feel the more desperately you want to get a stat rolled onto an item, the less likely its going to show up, especially if:

You are low on mats.
You are low on gold.
You are only trying to get a better roll and keep getting the same value.
Or no matter how many shards you spend on 2 handed weapons, you keep getting everything else BUT the ancient one you want. Even if you take the rares and upgrade them after filling your inventory till you run out of mats yet again.

But when you aren’t looking for it, rolling for it, or anything else, you get the good stuff every time.

Those are my observations… :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yup, that’s how it goes…lol. The instant I look at YouTube while I’m rerolling, the stat with max value will show up.

*Man! I hate that this stupid discussion board doesn’t have a “reply with quote” like every other one on the planet…