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Terry's got them all - fishing in one spot yesterday he got 5 serps, 3 of which gave a mib. It was sufficiently unusual for him to mention it to me (my hubby)
Basara
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Remember, they claim to have replaced the RNG (for some things); I personally doubt they changed much, as a former programming student. They probably just replaced one aspect of the seeding, which didn't fix the real problem (That, while fair, taken over thousands of samples, the RNG for UO is flawed and tends to have a problem with small-scale streaks - something that Draconi discovered and admitted to, before his departure from UO.)
I suspect that the flawed part of the seeding being used might have been being sourced from the client (accessing the system clock for its seed), as I've had (a crafting example) 5 GM+ BOD runners from 3 accounts come back from the same 5-minute period with 2-4 of the 5 bods for a skill being for the same weapon or clothing part (if you hit the armor side of the tree, the color check seems to invoke a more random result, but not always), with at least two being completely identical, too often to be accidental - and being completely different from someone using a different computer, pulling BODs at the same time for their accounts. After all, there are 25 weapons BODs, with equal chances to their counts, and equal chances for normal/EX - 4 characters out of 5, spread over 3 accounts, all pulling the same weapon type, should be (0.5 (weapon) x 0.04 (specific weapon)) ^3, or 1 in 125,000 - yet when I was pulling BODs 2/day for each character, it was happening 2-3 times a month, at minimum (well less than 1/100).
The chance of an MIB appears to be about 1/100 or so; Tests pre-HS indicated about 5 or so special items an hour from Sea Serpents on average, with about 250-300 casts per hour, and serpents could have a map, a MIB, a net, or nothing at all. But with the streaks involved with the process, while you might expect 2 or so MIB an hour, you might get 5 out of 10 serpents one hour, but only 1 out of 12 the next (with a lot more maps). It still averages out over thousands of serpents, but that's little consequence if you're only after the MIB, not maps - at least nets give more MIB chances.
I suspect that the flawed part of the seeding being used might have been being sourced from the client (accessing the system clock for its seed), as I've had (a crafting example) 5 GM+ BOD runners from 3 accounts come back from the same 5-minute period with 2-4 of the 5 bods for a skill being for the same weapon or clothing part (if you hit the armor side of the tree, the color check seems to invoke a more random result, but not always), with at least two being completely identical, too often to be accidental - and being completely different from someone using a different computer, pulling BODs at the same time for their accounts. After all, there are 25 weapons BODs, with equal chances to their counts, and equal chances for normal/EX - 4 characters out of 5, spread over 3 accounts, all pulling the same weapon type, should be (0.5 (weapon) x 0.04 (specific weapon)) ^3, or 1 in 125,000 - yet when I was pulling BODs 2/day for each character, it was happening 2-3 times a month, at minimum (well less than 1/100).
The chance of an MIB appears to be about 1/100 or so; Tests pre-HS indicated about 5 or so special items an hour from Sea Serpents on average, with about 250-300 casts per hour, and serpents could have a map, a MIB, a net, or nothing at all. But with the streaks involved with the process, while you might expect 2 or so MIB an hour, you might get 5 out of 10 serpents one hour, but only 1 out of 12 the next (with a lot more maps). It still averages out over thousands of serpents, but that's little consequence if you're only after the MIB, not maps - at least nets give more MIB chances.
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Basara
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no clue whether it does or not..... Sounds like a question for ask the devs...
I posted a question myself there a couple days ago - asking why it takes the only ML ingredient with any real use (and is part of EVERY recipe worth making) to make the Exodus keys, when they had so many worthless ones they could have finally given a use to....
I posted a question myself there a couple days ago - asking why it takes the only ML ingredient with any real use (and is part of EVERY recipe worth making) to make the Exodus keys, when they had so many worthless ones they could have finally given a use to....
I honestly get a boatload of nets and mib's with my luck suit. I'm not sure if it plays a part, but I can definately see a difference without it vs with it, or maybe I'm just lucky.. I got 44 MIB's in two days of fishing nonstop when I was re-gming fishing. I haven't fished in five years until I had to rework it, so I'm not sure if that's a large amount, or small for the time I put into it?
Something I've noticed with luck, I tend to get more ASOS's from the mib's I pull up while wearing higher luck. Using my normal mage suit I'll get apx 1 white out of 40 mib's. I bump that up to 1000ish and suddenly I'm getting 3 or 4 out of 40 (I like to pop them in bulk). I have never noticed an increase in what I find via the luck though. What I pull up tends to be more of where I'm fishing.
me toooooo. it's like christmas
Agree'd... I imbued my Fisherman's Suit (the Cleanup one) with luck, so he's currently at around 1400... I just opened about 50 MIB's and got 5 ASOS's, so I'm very happy about that...
Oh, and archiv - love your sig pic! Is that Hemmingway's "Old Man and the Sea" ? How appropriate for this forum....
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Not sure I understand the need for imbuing the CleanUp Fisherman's suit with Luck....
Why not just have a "Luck" suit (which goes higher than 1,400 Luck...) and wear that one, perhaps using the Luck Statue even, just before opening up a bunch of MiBs ?
Or is the Ancient SoS perhaps determined right since when one 'fishes up" the MiB ? That is, when one double clicks the MiBs it has already been set whether it will become a regular SoS or an Ancient SoS ?
Well, since I was imbuing it anyway, I figured I'd go ahead and slap luck on it... After all, both my fishermen will wear the suit for everything they do - from fishing for MIB's to questing to pirating to rare fishing/crabbing....
As a matter of fact it is. That was one of my favorite books as a kid. The movie didnt do the book justice but it's still in my favorite movie list. And when I saw that little picture I knew it had to be mine!Oh, and archiv - love your sig pic! Is that Hemmingway's "Old Man and the Sea" ? How appropriate for this forum....
Whether it's true or not, I believe the ASOS is determined when the MIB is fished up. Could all be RNG coincidence but before I had a luck suit that I could fish in I would use my mage suit to fish and max out my luck when I popped them. Using apx 1400 luck that way I would only get 1 in 35-45. It could all be coincidence but, as every fisherperson knows....if that's what they keep biting on then keep using it.
I'm going to do a study on this... My hunch is that ASOS is not in the bottle when taken from the serpent, but I could certainly be fos.... I'm going on a hunch, since I don't currently have any empirical data to prove it one way or the other, but it "seems" that luck during "opening" (or pop'd as Xen says) helps the ratio.... I'll let you know in a couple of weeks tho, one way or the other.... The experiment begins....
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If you're going to do a study I'd be willing to start tossing in my data once I clear out some room to start fishing again. All the new items have taken up a bit of room in my limited storage. Although I must say, I'm all ready to be married at least 50 times, each can wear their own valkyrie bra and feed me freshly picked grapes!
Seriously though, If you'd like I'd be happy to send how many I fish up with what luck, I'll strip to 0 luck and pop them, though it wont be instantly since I have about 200 sos's to fish up before I have room to fish up more mib's
Ok, I had 60 MIB's to pop so I got out my trusty luck suit last night...The first 30 (no luck) I got 4 ASOS. The next 30 (1200 luck + luck stone) I got 2 ASOS. Hmmmm Not sure if luck helps or they are pre- slated to be ASOS? I'll look forward to what you guys find out.
I have one char fishing for the MIB's and another doing them. By this evening I should have the first "batch" of 100 to record. If you (archive or Xen) want to contribute, then just keep track of luck worn by fisherman who gets the MIB's and luck worn by char that opens them. I'm going to open the first batch of 100 - wearing as much luck as I can gather up from all chars on 4 accounts - should be around 3k if I remember right. The next batch of 100 I'll open naked, which should give me some basic idea as to whether or not luck is involved at least in opening them (since all 200 will have been fished up by the same char wearing the same luck)... Then I'll continue from there based on results.
Basara
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The official statement made several years ago when they were introduced is that an ASOS isn't checked for until the bottle is opened.
The Coordinates, on the other hand, I'm not so sure of...
The Coordinates, on the other hand, I'm not so sure of...
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Well, if that's the case - then my first 100 MIB sample certainly suggests that luck does NOT play a part in determining whether a MIB contains an ASOS at the time of opening the bottle. Wearing 2800 luck when opening 100 MIB's only produced 2 ASOS's. Disappointing to say the least.....
I will continue to track luck and after the next 100 MIB's I'll report back here...
I have never observed a correlation between Luck and any aspect of Fishing. Sadly, the 2/100 ASOS rate is about what I usaully get.
, and not the 1/25. However, my guildmate is luckier than I am and gets just slightly better than 1/25 (so he opens all of our MIBs). One thing I have noticed is that there seems to be areas of the deep sea which yield more serpents than other areas.
Stayin Alive,
BG
Ok, my fishermen have been doing quite well.... By this eve, I had 152 mib's and my "luck" fisherman opened all of them...
Here's the pertinent pic:
So my char Stun, one of my two fishermen, slaps on my Sammy's luck suit for 2725 (I think I may have stated 2800 earlier, which was apparently a guess - so sue me) and how many Asos's does he get out of 152 more mib's?
TWO, that's right 2... As in the number two - as also in 1/38 (one out of 38 when wearing luck) ***this round***...
So where do we stand: Luck is NOT doing well - so far - when OPENING mib's to get Asos's... As of tonight, I've opened 252 mib's with Stun wearing 2725 luck - and he has a grand total of 4 ASOS's to show for it.
Correct me if my math is wrong, but I think that's 1/63 (one out of sixty-three) mib's that turn out to be ASOS's when opened wearing 2725 luck. My next batch of 100 (or so) will be opened by stun in the naked state again..... (So far he appears to "like" being naked when he opens mib's... no idea what he's thinking about in that state.... I suppose I could ask Poo, as I'm sure he could relate...)
Here's the pertinent pic:
So my char Stun, one of my two fishermen, slaps on my Sammy's luck suit for 2725 (I think I may have stated 2800 earlier, which was apparently a guess - so sue me) and how many Asos's does he get out of 152 more mib's?
TWO, that's right 2... As in the number two - as also in 1/38 (one out of 38 when wearing luck) ***this round***...
So where do we stand: Luck is NOT doing well - so far - when OPENING mib's to get Asos's... As of tonight, I've opened 252 mib's with Stun wearing 2725 luck - and he has a grand total of 4 ASOS's to show for it.
Correct me if my math is wrong, but I think that's 1/63 (one out of sixty-three) mib's that turn out to be ASOS's when opened wearing 2725 luck. My next batch of 100 (or so) will be opened by stun in the naked state again..... (So far he appears to "like" being naked when he opens mib's... no idea what he's thinking about in that state.... I suppose I could ask Poo, as I'm sure he could relate...)
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Well if I can ever find out where the heck I put my boat my plan is to start fishing again with my meager 1101 luck.
Question for you when you're popping them, are you popping them while they're in a box on the ground? or while they're in your backpack? I heard rumor long ago that where they were also made a difference. When I open mine I open them in a locked down container so I dont know that it would make a difference but it's a thought.
Question for you when you're popping them, are you popping them while they're in a box on the ground? or while they're in your backpack? I heard rumor long ago that where they were also made a difference. When I open mine I open them in a locked down container so I dont know that it would make a difference but it's a thought.
Good grief... that would be totally ridiculous. Why in the world would the dev's care WHERE they are when they are opened? What on earth could have possible caused them to think that we should be "rewarded" with an ASOS more or less often depending on where the mib is when pop'd?
Well, if it's true, then we can find that out too... And thanks archiv for that bit of info (gonna do some searching to see if I can find that anywhere here). I would NEVER have considered that a factor, but now that it may be - I will test that theory too...
UO - where people have been going to insane lengths to test rumors and urban legends since 1997...
Ok, Stun another opened 119 MIB's - naked again - and got 6 ASOS's.
So, adding it all up, here's the data that I have to date:
252 mib's opened wearing 2725 luck , ASOS's = 4
219 mib's opened naked, ASOS's = 12
These numbers give the following ratios:
So, does anybody know if these sample sizes would be considered "Statistically Significant" ? I had been considering putting that 2725 luck suit on my primary mib fisherman to see if luck effects the ASOS ratio if worn when fishing them up... But then again, after re-reading what Basara said above, there's no point in doing that.
So, unless one of you has a idea about a diferent direction for this experiment, I think I'll stick to what I'm currently doing until I get to a grand total of 1000 mib's each opened with and without luck.
So, adding it all up, here's the data that I have to date:
252 mib's opened wearing 2725 luck , ASOS's = 4
219 mib's opened naked, ASOS's = 12
These numbers give the following ratios:
Wearing 2725 luck opening 252 mib's, the ratio of ASOS's to standard sos's is 1/63
With zero luck opening 119 mib's, the ratio of ASOS's to standard sos's is 1/19.8 (three times better than when wearing 2725 luck).
So, does anybody know if these sample sizes would be considered "Statistically Significant" ? I had been considering putting that 2725 luck suit on my primary mib fisherman to see if luck effects the ASOS ratio if worn when fishing them up... But then again, after re-reading what Basara said above, there's no point in doing that.
I've not known a single case where Basara has been "wrong" in all my years here, which is certainly good enough for me.
So, unless one of you has a idea about a diferent direction for this experiment, I think I'll stick to what I'm currently doing until I get to a grand total of 1000 mib's each opened with and without luck.
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Basara
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471/16 is 1/29.5 (ish; actual number is 29 and 7/16)
With the streaks prone in the RNG (they didn't fix it, no matter what they think), that's well within the margin of error at that sample size for a 1/25 chance.
Oh, I've been wrong before on a few things - but I generally am right about stuff the devs have stated (especially calling them when they are wrong - for example, 35% DI for runic items was a deliberate change around Publish 19, despite the current batch of devs - TWO OF WHICH WERE WITH THE TEAM IN THAT PUBLISH - thinking that Runics having the same Exceptional DI as non-runics was a bug, and "fixed" it last year, resulting in crafters screaming bloody murder till they finally reverted the "fix").
With the streaks prone in the RNG (they didn't fix it, no matter what they think), that's well within the margin of error at that sample size for a 1/25 chance.
Oh, I've been wrong before on a few things - but I generally am right about stuff the devs have stated (especially calling them when they are wrong - for example, 35% DI for runic items was a deliberate change around Publish 19, despite the current batch of devs - TWO OF WHICH WERE WITH THE TEAM IN THAT PUBLISH - thinking that Runics having the same Exceptional DI as non-runics was a bug, and "fixed" it last year, resulting in crafters screaming bloody murder till they finally reverted the "fix").
Interesting thread. I haven't been doing much at sea lately, but a few days ago I opened 20 mibs and got one ASOS (with luck at a pathetic 95). That doesn't prove anything, of course, but I seriously doubt that luck has much (if anything) to do with it.
At this point I wouldn't hazard a guess as to whether or not luck plays a part during the "opening" of an mib. When I've opened 1000 mib's naked and another 1000 wearing luck, I would think that that would be sufficient numbers to make a determination. Since the dev's refuse to tell us, I just decided to find out for myself... (and the rest of you who may be interested, of course)...
I have to admire your fortitude.
I lack the patience and persistence necessary to be good at testing these things.
Yes, I know the feeling. This is the first time in 14+ years that I've decided that I really wanted to do something like this - to prove one way or another what the code really says about an issue. But I don't mind, since getting the gold from the mib's is a big plus.... Not to mention the clean-up points I've accumulated by trashing the rest of what's in the chests... I think my fishermen combined are up to almost 500k points now...I have to admire your fortitude.
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The problem I suspect isn't the MiB code - it's UO's well-known-to-be-flakey RNG.
As you can see in the post directly above (that I've been editing for the past week whenever I've opened mib's), it appears (so far, I'm taking this to 1000 mib's each for luck/no luck) that luck doesn't affect the chance for an mib to become an ASOS at the time of opening...
Ok, Stun another opened 124 mib's - with luck- and got 10 ASOS's.
So, adding it all up, here's the data that I have to date:
893 mib's opened wearing 2725 luck , ASOS's = 41
834 mib's opened naked, ASOS's = 36
I can't see much changing from this, but I'm going to take it all the way to 1000 ea (luck/no-luck)... I'll finish this thread when I get there...
Laters...
So, adding it all up, here's the data that I have to date:
893 mib's opened wearing 2725 luck , ASOS's = 41
834 mib's opened naked, ASOS's = 36
I can't see much changing from this, but I'm going to take it all the way to 1000 ea (luck/no-luck)... I'll finish this thread when I get there...
Laters...
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This is interesting (well, to me it is anyway)...
Stun forgot to "change clothes" before opening 145 new mib's, and opened them with his typical "fishing" attire, which has 500 luck.
Out of 145 mib's he got 12 ASOS's...
hmmmm...
Stun forgot to "change clothes" before opening 145 new mib's, and opened them with his typical "fishing" attire, which has 500 luck.
Out of 145 mib's he got 12 ASOS's...
hmmmm...
I read somewhere on a post (don't remember the sub-forum but it was on stratics I'm pretty sure) that luck is borked and having more than 1100 doesn't work.
there wasn't a lot of details but what I deduced is :
up to 1100 the more you have the better
above 1100 ....I guess it either decreases -likze 1300 is same as having 900) or it just counts as no luck no matter how much above 1100 you are
maybe it's something to consider ? Still a lot of ppl have high luck suits so if it was so obvious a bug, it would be known, no ?
there wasn't a lot of details but what I deduced is :
up to 1100 the more you have the better
above 1100 ....I guess it either decreases -likze 1300 is same as having 900) or it just counts as no luck no matter how much above 1100 you are
maybe it's something to consider ? Still a lot of ppl have high luck suits so if it was so obvious a bug, it would be known, no ?
I suspect they have those suits because most MMO players take the attitude of "if I have a stat, I'm going to maximize (or minimize as appropriate) the ever lovin' h-e-doublehockeysticks out of it". While UO has a higher percentage of people willing to go to great lengths to try obscure tests to quantify such things... it's by no means common. Even so it's pretty hard to pin down what's a bug and what's working as intended when you don't have the formula, or the variables (what's more valuable to the devs, and thus coded in, may not be what's valuable to the players), or the intended end results to compare to. It's kinda like codebreaking - only you don't read the language that has been encoded.
Also, word of such things usually comes out on the forums (which few people read) or the patch notes (which even fewer people read)... and then the information is transmitted via word of mouth, with all the problems *that* entails.
I get what you mean and agree completely, I was more thinking in the lines of : if someone has most of the time the same drops with his toon in 2000 luck suit and with the other in no luck suit he'll begin to wonder. Even more if he has, like you did
, better luck with his third toon in 500 luck suit.If it's only one or two guys who have suits with more than 1000or so luck it may go unnoticed by the "general population", but as far as I can see it's a lot of people on most shards that have suits with very high luck and use them often.
So I repeat what I've read because one never knows what can be true or not and it seems fitting concerning your discovery, but I also wonder how it could be and never have been noticed and reported before at least in the forum here...
The general populace really doesn't communicate among themselves, only with their guildies (at best)... so there's no real way for them the propagate the knowledge of a "luck bug". And even when they do, there's no clear way to tell what's bugged or not because there frequently isn't a "control" to be compared against - and on top of that it's all random, which makes extracting the results of "luck" even more difficult. (And all that is without factoring in the basic greed of many players - if they can't get instant satisfaction, the system is (to them) broken... whether it's working to the designers intent or not.)