118 ShadowScreem combines ... 0 skillups

[Kaylya]

Roll a die 100 times. Tell me if you get a streak of 3 in a row somewhere in there. Heck, use a 20 (or more) sided D&D die if you want.

Pure randomness *IS* streaky.

Since I don't have a die handy, and I am bored - a coin flip test.

T H H T T H H H H H H T T H H T H T T T

Ok, on 20 tosses
9 Tails
11 Heads
(About right for a 50% probability and a fairly small sample)

Streaks
1 streak of 6
1 streak of 3
4 streaks of 2

[MrLenale]

Answering Question

Wailing and shrieking substance is best farmed in Hollowshade Moore. Whatever race (Owlbears, Sonic Wolves, or Grimlings) controls the south island is what is important. If wolves are there, they will drop substance. If Owlbears are there, they will drop substance. It is my experience the substance ONLY drops when they are on the south island. Learning to "help" during the zone wars is essential.

If this isn't your cup of tea, Sonic Wolves in Tenebrous Mountains drop substance. Owlbears in Paludal Caverns also drop substance. (There are only 6 Owlbear spawns in PC, so the farming is VERY slow. (8 minute spawn timer btw)

[Bixxboxx]

There are 7 owlbears in paludal cavers. One that swims in a circle around the ancient sensate, 2 in a small offshoot cave in the center of the zone and the famous 4 that spawn in a cave on the way to shadeweavers.

I have found with run3 I have just enough time to run around killing these, arriving just as they spawn.

[Aethn]

Just an update:

279 ShadowScreem combines, ONE !!! that is right just ONE skillup.

Oh, that took me 78 hours farming to get that skillup.

[Bennan]

Point taken kaylya.

The only thing that concerns me, is the device used to come to the final result. We know from your example, its a coin. What if someone had a 20 sider and one or two of the edges are frayed away, making it more likely that certain numbers would have a greater chance. i.e a bug in the software at V.I......

279 attempts for one skill up. I think I would just cry, and yeah lots of crying.

[cattywumpus]

There are 7 owlbears in paludal cavers. One that swims in a circle around the ancient sensate, 2 in a small offshoot cave in the center of the zone and the famous 4 that spawn in a cave on the way to shadeweavers.

I have found with run3 I have just enough time to run around killing these, arriving just as they spawn.

Don't mean to nit-pick but Yelloweyes can drop substances also, so there are actually 8 owlbear spawns that can drop substance in Paludal. Good luck getting him though, C1 is always camped.

[Thorac the Rogue]

Why?

I'm lost here. If you're at 243 AND have a +15% item, why on earth (Norrath, Luclin, etc) would you spend 80 hours pharming items for a skill you've completely mastered?

252 is the MAX you can use - assuming what I've read here is correct.

+5% for Geerlok/Trophy means you had MAX smithing at 240 - real skill.

With a +15% item (I'd sell body parts for that...) you were done at 220.

I'm still beating my head against a rock trying to get the 220 (210+geerlok) to make the Planar Rings & Sheets - 196 and pharming.

Maybe I'm just grumpy at not being able to get a skill to a useful level, but when someone is past the max and having problems, the solution seems easy - go try another skill - you've mastered this one!

[Bennan]

If it was me, if I was at skill 243 or even 220 with the 15percent modifier, I would not consider that I have mastered Smithing.

It would always nag at me, that I could not call myself a Grand Master of Smithing, but thats my reasoning.

btw \auctioning first born for the 15percent smithing item

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

Yelloweyes is not always camped but the bandits are. The groups I was in considered him a nuisance and would have loved to have one person taking him exculsively. The other option would be to request looting rights since the substances are worthless to non-smiths.

[aramere]

326 combines for one skill-up. I'd better feel some RNG love soon :shock:

[Grug]

I think the RNG is streaky on purpose. That does not mean that it does not generate random numbers or that the distribution of those numbers is not reasonable flat over a large number of trials. It simply means that it is built to generate a higher chance of a positive outcome at some times and a lower chance of a positive outcome at others.

The behavior that people have noted over and over again where positive outcomes often come in groups and negitive outcomes can be sustained for very long periods of time is far to significant to attribute to a normal dirstrabution of possible outcomes.

Consider a random number generator that generates a simple number between 20 and 80. Not a difficult programming challenge, and then you can add a number beteen -19 and +20 that varies with time. This very simplistic generator would then generate numbers between 1 and 100 with a slight bias to the numbers in the middle that are always possible results. Even such a simple system as this would generate periods of time when positive results where not very likely at all 1 to 60 and also periods of time when positive results where much more common 40 to 100. If the chance of skilling up at higher levels gets to be quite small... say 5% or so... then the only periods of time that you will see a skill up are when the number added is between 15 and 20 yielding results 35 to 95 up to 40 to 100. Also note that during this time your chance of a skill up is at times higher then 5% and at other lower then 5%. This would also explain the very long streaks where no positive outcomes happen. Basically, most of the time is spent where the bias number changes the outcomes in such a way as to make a positive outcome impossible... bias numbers between neg 19 and +14 and other periods of time when the chance of the positive outcome is significantly better then 5%.

This is of corse all speculation, but so are the posts stating that the the random number generator is flat and yelds an equal chance for any outcome at anytime. I would howeve expect my simple streaky random number generator to behave much more consistently with the behavior observed in the game then one that simply creates a random number between 1 and 100.

As an example, I have gotten the AC ring to drop in OOT 5 times and I have camped it a total of about 6 or 7 hours. ( 5 very happy friends got the MQ) My shaman spent a lot of time killing seafuries and all I would do is wait for an ac to pop and run over to see if the lucky sole was done with the camp. If so I would take it over. On 2 of those times I got an AC pop on the very next spawn and on the other 3 times I got the ring the camp time was no more then a hour. If the AC did not pop in fairly short order I would just give up and try again some other time. I think the normal spawn rate for the AC is about 1 in 12 hours over a long period of time and lots of people have camped it for much more extended periods of time then this.

Such results are quite possible with a linear distributions of outcomes, but my experience in game leads me to believe that my streak model of the RNG generator is far more likely to reflect game behavior then a linear model. I would not dismiss hundreds of observatoins about how the RNG behaves in the game as just myth

Hope this Stimulates a little thought.

[Anduran the Artisan]

279 ShadowScreem combines, ONE !!! that is right just ONE skillup.

Oh, that took me 78 hours farming to get that skillup.

78 hours for 279 combines, hmmmmm. Maybe you'd be better off doing sickles for skill ups? You can sell them in baz and i'm pretty sure you'll be able to get a lot more than 279 combines done in 78 hours. For the sickles, what you need are 3 imbued emeralds, 6 celestial essence and some random gems and sheet metal per combine, plus the 3 missletoe tempers. So roughly speaking to get your ~300 odd combines, you'd need 2000 celestial essence made... hmmmm, ok, thats 10 bags... ugh, maybe there is no good way post patch =\

-Anduran

[Aethn]

78 hours for 279 combines, hmmmmm. Maybe you'd be better off doing sickles for skill ups? You can sell them in baz and i'm pretty sure you'll be able to get a lot more than 279 combines done in 78 hours.

Accept I smith on Test Server, there is NO economy on Test. I have had 5 sickles in bazaar for a week now at 250 each and no buyers. There are also only about 40 sellers at a time on test, not 500 like on Nameless. If you have 50,000pp on Test you are considered "Bill Gates".

[Graal the Dorf]

I completely stopped smithing after my 1200th straight non trivial combine without a skillup. No, I didn't accidentally put an extra zero in there. That is just not fun at all. Might explain why I don't play EQ anymore.

[Zhorn]

OMG 1200th?

I assume that wasn't all in one sitting?

If I ever get to 40 or 50 combines with no skill up I intend to try that "zone"/"camp"/"reboot" idea someone posted.

That's assuming though that the client has something to do with generating randomness?
I would have thought it would be server side to prevent "Fiddling" by tradeskill haxx0rs.

Alternatively maybe try calling it quits for a few hours and trying again?