Hi there,
Recently I decided to try to get cosmic wings so I did a little bit of goblin farming with the help of some online guides serving as an information on where do goblins spawn most often. Now, based on my experience so far as well as the information found in the aforementioned guides I came up to this:
A probability of a random goblin being actually a rainbow one is approx. 0.03;
A probability that Princess Lillians spawns in Wimsydale is approx. 0.003 (people claim they needed approx. 300 rainbow goblins to get these wings);
There are 13 areas where goblins usually spawn (based on the information on the Internet and confirmed by myself in Season 21);
I assumed that on average there’s a 0.5 probability of a goblin in each of the areas (sometimes it’s higher, sometimes it’s lower but on average I had like half of the time in an area a random goblin).
This leads to a conclusion that a probability of getting cosmic wings in a random run is approximately 0,0001. This means that you need on average like 10000 runs in these 13 areas. Now assume you have a speed build (suggested for this) and can make a full clear of these areas in like 10 minutes, which means 6 full runs per hour. This gives like 1500 to 2000 hours!!
Now my question is: why do probability of certain events don’t accumulate? This is an extreme example, where you need to spend (waste) like a month or 2 of not even actually playing the game but just checking if this time you were lucky… I had a similar problem with getting Curses! conquest - I just couldn’t get A cursed peat event for a looooooong time. Eventually I have got it but it happened when I didn’t even care for it anymore.
The system based around (pseudo)random number generator (RNG), where probabilities do not accumulate is a pure gambling mechanics (casinos base their income on the same rule) but this time you don’t gamble with your money but something much more valuable - your time!
HOW IS THIS EVEN LEGAL!? Gambling (as far as I know) is illegal in most of places - online casinos place their headquarters in special areas, where gambling either is legal or noone can actually punish them due to legal procedures being too problematic. How comes is this game even legal?
Personally, I tried and wasn’t lucky but I am not going to spend (waste) more time on trying to get an aesthetic item so I gave up but this is insanely dumb that you can spend so much time and still have no quarentee of a success.
There are a lot of players with gaming addiction who spend tons of time in such games. Nothing is done for these players when their play time have to be monitored and they have to be helped.
The next issue is the RNG which has to be monitored by external agency too - whether it is the same for every player.
I’ve said many times that any company respecting its players would incorporate the needed measures for the above two. In 2020 however the sad truth is that at the players is STILL looked primarily as sources of income, and not as human beings. That is to change in the future globally. Just be patient.
The title of this thread isn’t telling us something that we don’t already know. I know that the rng in all games, yes all of them is pseudo. Below is a video stating why computers cannot generate true random numbers.
It wouldn’t be truly random if failures were counted in such a way that after x amount of failures equals success. That is part to the gambler’s fallacy. Believing that past rolls having an effect on the outcome of future rolls. All because you never really leave that original percentage chance.
The best that a computer can do is generate numbers in such a way that it appears to be totally random. That is only possible if the rng is seeded properly as I understand it.
It is not illegal, if that were true then everyone would have to be given the gear on the silver platter. Where it is guaranteed to drop after x amount of times. That would make gearing up even faster than it is now. The same is true for the special wings. Should Blizz increase the chances of getting those wings, yes. But they shouldn’t just hand them out like they have practically been doing everything else.
Since the wings are purely cosmetic, and offers in-game benefit, it doesnt seem to matter how rare they are.
Nor is it really gambling, since you aren’t paying each time you try to get the wings.
Now, if the wings were 0.0001% chance from a lootbox, that would be gambling.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The notion that by farming for wings (or doing anything else for that matter) you’re wasting time that could be used more productively if you ran GRs is a complete fallacy.
This is a game, do whatever is fun for you - unless you’re actually making money off it, playing a video game is not a productive use of one’s time in any sense of the word by its very definition. Play the game in whatever way you enjoy or, if you want to be productive, go learn another language, find a second job, or volunteer in a soup kitchen instead.
Because you are not gambling money. Pretty much every RPG ever made has RNG mechanics. You would have to ban all these games for gambling. Think about it, pretty much every game ever made has a chance (gamble) to get a certain item, to do damage, move, upgrade an item, have a boss spawn, … If we knew the outcome from every situation, it wouldn’t be a game, and no one would play it. Under your definition of gambling legality, Parker Bros. should get a life sentence for making so many games with dice.
I get it, RNG sucks sometimes, sometimes it sucks most of the time. You are going to get lottery winners and losers, but that is the point of a game.
Yeah, I know this - I named this topic in such a way because of Blizzard’s requirements for the titles’ length (I wanted something like “RNG”, “Gamling”, etc but was too short and I had no idea for a better title)
@Shadout: The fact that there’s no money involved does not change the mechanics, in my opinion at least. Whenever the outcome is based on randomness only, it’s gambling.
And 1 more thing: I made a mistake in calculations (added probabilities instead of multiplying - not that I actually matters much, it’s just an estimate). If anyone is interested in more exact probability - it is: 0,000595, which changes the required time to approx 300 hours. Still quite a lot:)
Seeing as how a few people have responded to the gambling part I will only shortly say that it is also because of the way it is defined. Those online sports fantasy league things work hard to get themselves classified as games based on skill and not luck, for this purpose. But it is not the only reason.
On Pseudo RNG, I don’t think it should be implemented for something like super rare drops (or any cosmetics for that matter). But it should be for things that are game play based. Easiest example is crits, they should be pseudo in order to make the 25% even out to actual 25% of the time and not super luck 10 times in a row critting.
More important!
When you find the wings, your game experience doesn’t chance at all.
But all the paragon you could have had instead, from the same time searching for the wings, would make alot more different in game experience.
Actually, it won’t. That’s the big mirage players fail to solve and roll the hamster wheel therefor - the game experience is the same on every GR level. Welcome to Diablo 3.
Doesn’t change the mechanics other than no money is involved. No money, not gambling. Wife got those wings the the first week there were available in the first whimseydale she came across. I haven’t seen them but I don’t care about them.
something is wrong with the “RANDOM” in front and behind. i have often received many perfect legendaries in short time. even 3-4 in a few hours. according to drop chance, that can’t be the case?
without real code, i cant take this numbers seriously. good games have useful wikis with a lot of information. official data from the company has always been terribly bad and information in the game is absolutely for the garbage can. there are too many hidden subtleties here.
I think it is pretty obvious which contexts those two meanings are used.
Playing a video game is not a particularly risky action (outside of maybe killing yourself slowly due to a lack of exercise…). It is not gambling in the second meaning above, to farm for wings in Diablo 3.
Nor is it gambling in the first sense.
Can you gamle with your characters life in HC? I guess. But still not relevant in the context.
Doing Grift 100 with 1000 paragon is different than with paragon 2000, in both damage and damage reduction from mainstats.
2000 paragon is more welcome in group party, than paragon 1000.
Faster farming keys and bounties.
Better loot with better stats.
Dropping damage reduction stats for damage stats.
True experience with the build, from pushing high Grift, other than max T16 wings farming build.
This doesn’t mean only doing harm to yourself in the physical sense. You can “lose” in the psychological sense too when you consistently try something and don’t get the result you want. All gamblers have such kind of “bug” and are motivated to invest more time/money in things they don’t receive easily (but want) thus their proper life suffers from this and they can’t get things fixed due to their addiction. There are many studies on this type of gambling behavior.
But doing GR103 with P2k is same as doing GR100 with P1k for example. There isn’t anything special about each GR number. What makes it a different experience is your dmg/ehp versus the mobs dmg/ehp. However, due to GR nature the player can experience any gameplay, because he can select the preferred GR level at any time he wants. You’ll get 1k paragon and farm mobs faster at GRx, while I won’t farm paragon and drop the GR to x-3, and we’ll still have the same gameplay experience.
But you actually don’t know if it is completely random because you don’t have source code. I think it is not completely random and I do think that there are some mechanics that make you “win” eventually.
In vanilla, there was a mechanism that guaranteed a legendary drop, if you went too long without one (like hours, as far as I recall).
It might very well still be in the game. Nobody will ever know however, with legendaries raining from the skill all the time.
