Crafting Success

[Script Wrecked]

Description: My character has a 65% chance of success in Alchemy. I generally make 14 attempts at crafting in each session (being a box of ingredients). Theoretically, that should average 65% x 14 = ~9 successes each time. For the past 4 out of 5 sessions (4 x 14 = 56 attempts), I have succeeded 6 times in each session (6 / 14 = ~43%).

This is a significant variation, some 22% of total results, or 33% of all successes.

Given the consistency with which this is happening, potentially, this could indicate something awry with how success is being calculated.

Location: Port Hempstead Enchanting Hall, North Point Crafting Hall, Moraken's Enchanting Hall.

Verified:

Reproducable: 4 out of 5 sessions so far.

[Weeblie]

To have less than or equal to 30 successes out of 56 at a 65% chance each, the probability for that to happen would be: 0.051... which is about 5%. In other words, on par chance as with rolling a 20 on a d20. Reasonable enough, is it not?

To have less than or equal to 6 successes out of 14 at 65% chance each, the probability for that event would be: 0.075

I'm sure that if you are tossing in the "successful attempt" and/or all successful attempts you have ever had, the chance of success truly is rather reasoanble.

[Script Wrecked]

But I'm not refering to the probability of any particular outcome. I'm refering to the average of all outcomes. If I have a 65% chance of success, from 56 outcomes, I would expect (in the order of) ~36 successes.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Weeblie]

What I'm pointing out is that your "unlucky" outcome still had a very high chance of happening (a little bit more than 5.1%) and there are no strong reasons to believe that something weird is going on here, especially considering that no one has touched this part of the system for probably a very long time.

If you toss in your "lucky" run, you will likely notice that this outcome had an even greater chance of occuring.

As a side note... the probability of that you would have succeeded 36+ out of 56 would have been ~60.4%.

Because of this whole thing is done in a pseudo-random fashion, we can really only talk about probabilities and compare them to see if it's reasonable or not. Rolling a 1 on a d20... do you consider that reasonable? If so, then that was exactly what happened to you.

Edit: Oh, wait... 24/56? Not 30/56 gotcha... That has a considerable lower chance: 0.0005810... which is one chance in 1721 and makes one raise some greater doubts but still, the code has not been modified to my knowledge. It would still be highly benefical if you could also state the success rate of a greater sampling (i.e. the successful round?).

And also... did you do "bulk creation"? Like creating 2 or 4 items at once?

[Script Wrecked]

Edit: Oh, wait... 24/56? Not 30/56 gotcha... That has a considerable lower chance: 0.0005810... which is one chance in 1721 and makes one raise some greater doubts but still, the code has not been modified to my knowledge. It would still be highly benefical if you could also state the success rate of a greater sampling (i.e. the successful round?).

The successful round was 11 from 14.

And also... did you do "bulk creation"? Like creating 2 or 4 items at once?

Not with results like that.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Hellblazer]

I have known other people having he same problems with the same odds. with 65% chances on ten attempts per session only making 2 success. Mathematically if you have 65% chances to make an item, on 10 tries you should get a result of 6. Unless I'm wrong which can also happen 1 on 3 times *grins*

[Link092]

I am possibly absorbing your luck with only 15% chance of crafting a cougar skin bag. And I made it too.

[Filuviel]

Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.
One day I succeeded 3 times in a row at 60% and later failled 3 times consecutively ...

[Script Wrecked]

One day I succeeded 3 times in a row at 60% and later failled 3 times consecutively ...

Which is averaging 50%.

The probability of 3 successes (at 60%) followed by three failures is:

[INDENT]0.6^3 x 0.4^3 = 1.38%[/INDENT]

Whereas the probability of 3 successes (at 60%) from 6 attempts is:

[INDENT]C{6,3}(0.6^3)(0.4^3) = 27.65%[/INDENT]

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[gilshem ironstone]

As I understand it, the system is server-wide and so while one person may be unlucky for a spell, as I have surely encountered, another may be extremely lucky, and another still right on the odds.  I have been in all three places, often, and I think it is a bit like tossing a penny.  I remember seeing a list of the distribution of crafting rolls server wide the last time this issue came up.  It showed pretty conclusively that there was a reasonable distribution of rolls.

I hope this is not a bug, and I hope your luck changes.

Gilshem Ironstone

[Alatriel]

I have had days where even though I have an 80% chance of crafting holy water, I roll a 3 about 5 times in a row.  and yes, it remains the same number.  It doesn't happen every day though, so it may just be bad luck.

[orth]

Crafting Rolls Distribution

[Weeblie]

Without bulk creation and with that successful round added into the calculation... 35 or less out of 70 gives you odds of 0.7% which IMO is still very unlucky... but cannot truly be explained other than by bad luck.

Oh, by the way, was any obvious pattern shown for the 6 successes out of 14? Like 1-4 = failure, 2 = success, 3 - 7 = failure, etc...?

I have known other people having he same problems with the same odds. with 65% chances on ten attempts per session only making 2 success. Mathematically if you have 65% chances to make an item, on 10 tries you should get a result of 6. Unless I'm wrong which can also happen 1 on 3 times *grins*

When probability is involved, there are really no "should". Logic is lucky completely in black and white. "Should" means "must" which implies "0 or 100%".

[Script Wrecked]

Unfortunately, from Orth's link, I only get a grey screen with a box titled "Distribution of Layonara Crafting Dice Rolls".

Without bulk creation and with that successful round added into the calculation... 35 or less out of 70 gives you odds of 0.7% which IMO is still very unlucky... but cannot truly be explained other than by bad luck.

*cough* Or... something awry in the algorithm.

Oh, by the way, was any obvious pattern shown for the 6 successes out of 14? Like 1-4 = failure, 2 = success, 3 - 7 = failure, etc...?

[INDENT]1) S, 5, S, S, 3, S, 5, 4, 5, 5, S, S, 5, 7
2) 1, S, S, 3, 6, 2, S, 5, S, 4, 7, 2, S, S
3) S, 6, 2, 3, S, S, 6, 7, S, S, 2, 5, S, 3
4) S, 7, S, S, S, 7, S, 3, 4, 1, 6, S, 6, S[/INDENT]

Regards

Script Wrecked.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

The NWN RNG is faulty, and forces "apparent randomness," rather than generating truly random numbers.

What this means is, for every person that gets a string of good numbers, someone else gets a string of bad ones. It seems less apparent in a single-player game, but when it's trying to balance it all server-wide, you get these anomalies.

This is a Bioware Bug, and cannot be fixed.

[stolen]

just curious....is this the same way the roll for soul mother works?

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

just curious....is this the same way the roll for soul mother works?

Yes, it is.

[Weeblie]

The NWN RNG is faulty, and forces "apparent randomness," rather than generating truly random numbers.

What this means is, for every person that gets a string of good numbers, someone else gets a string of bad ones. It seems less apparent in a single-player game, but when it's trying to balance it all server-wide, you get these anomalies.

This is a Bioware Bug, and cannot be fixed.

There are no proof of that but rather being a wild guess. Few other games explicitly give you the rolls which could explain why there are very few remarks about them.

What is heavily suspected though, is that the RNG is seeded in a faulty way. First of all, the RNG seems to be seeded per area, and not server wide, which would negate your statement of that someone else on the server would be affected by "your" rolls.

The seed seem to consists of the state of the area (static ones like module placeables and creatures and PCs) with time not (?) being involved. A way to check that? Well... create a module of one's own, save it, perform a roll of some kind, reload and retry. If Bioware has not changed it since... um... 1.64 or something... then the result will be exactly the same everytime.

The game does not keep track of which numbers it "already has given out" and try to balance the number output...

[Hellblazer]

you can view the rolls while crafting if you set your dice bag to be broadcast locally. I've done that by mistake once and I was seeing the rolls in the server window.

[Goldwin Blacknight]

NWN loves low numbers is a saying that goes way back. It's amazing how fast we forget our running successes, and remember, etched into your minds, our running failures. Been there-done that.