Landmark reached

Even with just a 3% chance, this really seems to be pushing the bounds of "how random is random?".

As most people probably know, my quest to earn a White Castle (Barbie House) from SFTR continues, and yesterday I completed my 440th attempt at the adventure, and got yet another iron refill. 0/440 really is starting to look like a bug, on average I might have collected 13 of these by now, but still yet to score a single one.

This might just be appalling luck, if a couple of other factors didn't also feature:
Since the grotty update last November, we didn't just start to import bugs from the Test Server that were routinely ignored, but the loot drops from adventures and Explorer finds show a clear bias to E/Wood over Granite. Over 7 times more likely to get the former, is it any surprise that back then granite was trading close to 1gc per unit, now the Trade prices are considerably more?
Also the Guild Quests, continually get stuck in the same old rut. It used to be Isle of Pirates, over and over again, now it is "experience 2 new adventures" 2/3 times or more.
Considering there were supposedly 200 new Guild Quests added, what happened to the other 199?

The whole thing seems to get stuck when there's supposed to be a choice, instead of a random event, it appears more like some factor is sticking, much like a cached page.

Some get this 3% random event after their first invite to a lootspot on this adventure. How many of yours were started by you and how many were a lootspot?

On average you should get this within 20 adventures, and it would be nice to have a system that gives a better chance with every adventure that you don't have one.

PJ, all bar 3 of them, I started myself.
Only really did the LSs just to test if they might be more forgiving.

Um.., with a 3% chance, you should get a tower every 33 adventures, not every 20. ~ Nogbad knows his maths...

Not sure BB have ever actually published the loot tables, not sure we have a valid way of knowing what the loot drop chances are

440? Wow! 68 was horrid enough until I got mine

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peck_ed

Not sure BB have ever actually published the loot tables, not sure we have a valid way of knowing what the loot drop chances are

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They have, we posted them up in this forum a long time ago, think we originally pinched them from the German forum.
Most of the adv guides begin with the loot percentages for each spot, there are also several posts listing the explorer percentages, think SidV was the first to post one of these up.
Tage includes them, and they also tie up with this post here:

http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/t...-Loot-overview


But, as has been reported a number of times before, something got changed in an update last November, at about the same time we started importing bugs from the Test server. There has been a marked shift away from granite and favouring e/w, with my explorers it has gone from 50/50 to just above 7 times more likely that e/w will be found over granite.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

But, as has been reported a number of times before, something got changed in an update last November, at about the same time we started importing bugs from the Test server. There has been a marked shift away from granite and favouring e/w, with my explorers it has gone from 50/50 to just above 7 times more likely that e/w will be found over granite.

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The question is what are the odds on a server by server basis. In my case on Sandycove the odds do appear to be somewhere near the 50/50 mark.

we have 2 in guild who share sftr a lot, they have had the biggest ratio of white castles between them that ive heard of. Ill ask one of them to post their stats

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

They have, we posted them up in this forum a long time ago, think we originally pinched them from the German forum.
Most of the adv guides begin with the loot percentages for each spot, there are also several posts listing the explorer percentages, think SidV was the first to post one of these up.

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Again, not sure BB have ever actually given out the information. If we've taken it from the German forum, where did they get it from? Likewise for SidV's explorer percentages

Granite loot from the single player low level adventures still appears to be 50%, its only when doing the adventures with titanium and saltpeter that you notice a big change in loot percentages.
I still recommend doing the island of the pirates for the best hauls of granite, with traitors and witch of the swamp if you enjoy doing those.
The Nords is very good for granite too.

Peajay, it's across the board for me, any adv or any explorer search, 7 times more likely to get e/w than granite.
There was a marked change last November following an update, granite became much rarer, and its TO price rocketed from 1:1 gc to 3:2 or more.
The only adv that has played fair in recent times was The Lost Skull (50 granite), but even that is now showing a distinct bias away from it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peck_ed

Again, not sure BB have ever actually given out the information. If we've taken it from the German forum, where did they get it from? Likewise for SidV's explorer percentages

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They have. Those screenshots originated from an official source.

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Originally Posted by Hairy

Um.., with a 3% chance, you should get a tower every 33 adventures, not every 20. ~ Nogbad knows his maths...

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Assuming a 3% chance: 46% of the people (about half of the weebles, which we could call on average) will have found a castle. I'de say Nogbad and Peajay know their maths ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peck_ed

Not sure BB have ever actually published the loot tables, not sure we have a valid way of knowing what the loot drop chances are

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Then why is the guide with the loot-overview a sticky? Normal players cant make a post a sticky, so it has to be a moderator who did it, which tells people it's a decent and good post. No guarantees it's 100%, but its good. Randomness and wild guesses dont make it to a state of stickyness. So as long as the loot-overview is a sticky, it should be considered a pretty good estimate at least.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

Peajay, it's across the board for me, any adv or any explorer search, 7 times more likely to get e/w than granite.
There was a marked change last November following an update, granite became much rarer, and its TO price rocketed from 1:1 gc to 3:2 or more.
The only adv that has played fair in recent times was The Lost Skull (50 granite), but even that is now showing a distinct bias away from it.

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The granite becoming more expensive might have other reasons. More and more goldsmelters/coinages are being build, so there are more coins to spend. And if you have your buildings at level 4, you dont need lots of coins anymore while the demand for granite is bigger then every for the level 5 upgrades. The change could be explained by normal game-mechanism. Besides I would expect logs to be basically cheap as water if everyone found it lots more then granite. For me it's about 50/50, and I already have a surplus of logs, yet logs still sell for a decent bit of gold. So there is not an enormous amount of spare-logs in the game.

I've kept track of granite/logs for a long time. There have been pretty long runs with the same resource, up to 13. But in the end it's almost 50/50. I also havent noticed any significant change in findings. The problem with statistics is that they are only valid for large numbers. in the long run granite and logs should be balanced, but just a handfull of adventures can easily give 100% logs. That makes it really hard for a single player whats going on. BB should be able to tell, until they do it's basically speculation.

440 attempts without white castle is a really small change. But annoying enough, it is still in the 'unlikely but not impossible' range. For example the longest run of the same colour on the roulette table reportedly is 32. And that event is still thousands times as unlikely to happen, yet it happened. (record from 1943, and for those wondering: it was red)
But if you do find way more logs as well, and it sounds like well documented and not just a few occasions... that does add to the mystery.

Not all bugs seem to affect all players, like this verified one http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/t...adventure-quot. So while I think it's pretty much ok for the server as a whole, it wouldn't be the first bug to affect just a part of the players. BB would do good to take it serious. Dont easily dismiss it as bad luck, and dig a bit to see if there is a lootbug hiding somewhere.

For the cases of bad luck, it would be a good idea to put a limit to it. Increase the % to find something after several attempts, just as the bookbinder increases his price every 10 books.

the percentages are player calculated AFAIK- based on a database of adventures played over a period of time. The way it is presented is just photoshop fluff

Qualan, they've been accepted as 'Gospel' for the best part of 2 years now.
Even if they weren't official, one would think that a correction would have been issued if they were wrong.

@Promethos, sure the granite prices could be affected by other factors, but the trading price altered significantly at the same time as players started to report a marked change in drop percentages, ie: that update last November, as the resource clearly became rarer.
Similar behaviour to the Isle of Pirates, its trading price rocketed when it became apparent that this was the only Guild Quest in town, and even healthy stocks of this adv were soon depleted.

Update 21/8/2013.
Just finished attempt no. 441. Still no Barbie House, and guildie got the 500 granite when I got 300 e/w.
This adv hates me. :(