L2J Server

...or more like a question about random!

Can somebody explain to me, why random is far from random in reality?

Whenever something is happening to one player, it's happening to all really, or atleast it seems like this.

An example:
When fighting a bunch of mobs with AEO skill on a spellhowler for instance (aura flash), you take life with Vampiric claw from time to time to stay alive.... Suddenly this skill start to suck real bad, like you get no HP from any mobs.
At the same time, you hear from other players (in the same room I might add) that THEIR vampiric claw is sucky! At the same time... And it's just not ONE skill...it's several in a row! Like you're in a 'bad-zone'!

Another example is the vitality herbs...
You can wait for a long time for a herb to drop (if you have it set low, like I have), then all of a sudden, you get 2 or even 3 at the same time!

Another example:
You play with a friend in IT, and you each have your own room with bugs or whatever. Suddenly you get a full drop...and behold, so did your friend! And you may have been there for hours without any drop.

You may say things like, this is how random works, it's not well spread out over time. If something drops at 1/60, you can't expect to get it on mob nr 60. Hell, you may kill off 120 mobs and don't get anything, since the 1/60 is on EVERY mob.
But... I don't buy this. There's more to it than meets the eye.

Random seems to follow a cycle or something.
You have a 'good' area of numbers, and a 'bad' area of numbers. Most often it's good when the random number is below a certain level. You call for a random number between 0 and 99, and if it's below 10 for example, you're in the 'good' area of random!
But it seems it stays there for a while, since more good things seem to happen at the same time, to more people than you.

I hope some of this makes sense, and I get some feedback on the subject, because I would really like random to be just that, random! And I don't think it is that atm.

Why some people wins in casino and lotteries and other - lost all ?
This is philosophy question, nothing more.

_DS_ wrote:Why some people wins in casino and lotteries and other - lost all ?
This is philosophy question, nothing more.

Well, if two people sits beside eachother on slotmachines, and they both win at the same time, this would be remarkable, but could happen...slim chance, but could happen.
If they then continue to play, and they both win again at the same time, I'm sure they would catch attention, and security would get involved!

my opinion:

random is not random at all.

well Notorious, random in pc doesn't act like real life random because it ISN'T really random, since our pc's can't think, it simply does random according to some internal clock with really small units (smaller than miliseconds), depending on what 'time' it is, it returns different values

Problem it works with operaters. Even we - humans cant think randomly we will always follow a patern. TO make it simple u get a full drop when the random number is below 10 out of 100. The computer gambles and does a 12 u dont get a drop. But now u gamble 90 still no drop. Is that random? yes it is. Is every gamble under 10 random? No its not. It gives u an operater to look for not a random thing.

But why is it like this?
Isn't every call for a random number a unique request?
If not, isn't there some way to make it unique?

Right now it's like...
Well, it's like going to the movies... everybody there gets to see the same thing at the same time.
I want it to be more like a rental-movie, where everybody get's their own movie to watch!: )

When googling random generators, there's a great deal of talk about different seeds, where a set of numbers is set up to be served when called for a random number, and mostly this seed is generated connected to what time it is. If you were to use the same seed over and over, you would always get the same random numbers.
Can't we in some way skip this freaking seed, and let the computer start from scratch each time? Like shaking the box of tickets in a raffle?
If you like random, like I do, it really sux when you notice it's not random at all!

well the time units are VERY small, so that even if you try to press the button at a certain time you won't be able to get it at the same as last time unless you're SUPER lucky...
with these small units random is close to perfect random.

what you could do, for example, in a 10% chance request:
instead of (Rnd.get(100) < 10)
try
((Rnd.get(100) >= 40 ) && (Rnd.get(100) < 50)

LOL, even if random number generator will be changed into sequental generator (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0) - you will not notice difference due to big number of calls to it from the different parts of the server. And more players< more active mobs, more actions - it will perform even better

So, the solution is to get more players to the server!
Well, then atleast it will LOOK like it's random....which it's not!

Maybe one could have a new configuration-setting:

SimulatePlayers: 500

Which would make random-calls as if there were 500 players online, making random more random!

BTW, I think you're missing the point here...
I'm not unhappy with the randomness really, only that the random seem to apply to more players than one at the same time... Like I said, two slotmachines wins at the same time...
Like all of server is in the 'good-zone' all at once!
You follow?

This is a psychology, not mathematic or programming.

random in PC is random...or please....tell me exact definitions and "formulas" for real life random events as in life also by PCs is some kind of algorithm...just on PC its alot of easier to predict it ask God about this...for sure he has nice explanation for you

this is all statistics, I've been studying statistics a lot so I know this is it. Every person has the same % chance of doing a skill, getting item etc etc every time they kill a mob, do an attack and so on. So Yes it can happen a lot of times that people get the exact same drop in the exact same time or even have their skill doing same damage if you will.

As I said before, I don't buy this explanation, since it's no explanation at all...
If I use AOE skill on a group of 20 mobs, and I do this 20 times, on like 18-19 times I get no vitality-herb, but on 1-2 times I get 3-4 herbs!
How do you explain that?