Asking people to aggregate data over a period of time is too much.
Kneejerk reactions are where it's at.
I just killed a champion and only got 1 rare and it was iLevel 57. Game is broke. DEMAND FIX FROM BLIZZ!
No, for example I was farming act 3 and should see < ilvl60 loot 35% of the time. However, the last couple days I have been getting about 60% < ilvl 60.
The thing about RNG is that over a 2 day sample of killing 45-60 elite packs an hour at several hours a day. You're already defying the odds even after 3 packs in a row if you're mostly getting < ilvl 60. But when you're talking about several hundred packs and the same trend continues. You can rightfully question it.
People can say rng is rng but they obviously don't understand probability. You don't need as big of a sample as you'd imagine when something that should be dropping less than 35% of the time is dropping more than 60% of the time.
A few hours of runs should suffice.
I don't disagree, except that your data is not the only data in this equation. That's where you have to be careful.
Say you, generously, kill 1000 champs/rares/bosses over 3 days. Say that, combined, the entire D3 population kills 600 million champs/rares/bosses over that same 3 day period. It is terribly possible for several players to have horribly bad, and horribly good, streaks which are not representative of the overall trend.
What your "statistics" fail to acknowledge is that your individual data can still be an outlier on the graph without the whole trend being botched.
To make this simpler, every Diablofans reader flips a coin 100 times.
The aggregate of tens of thousands of flips shows 50% heads and 50% tails after rounding to the nearest tenth of a percent.
Your flips are 100 heads, 0 tails. Your assertion is that based on your coin flips, tails doesn't actually exist on any coins in the world. That is provably false because, even thoguh it's unlikely, it is very possible with the number of pseudorandom numbers being generated that any one of us sees a bad streak. It does not mean that the overall pattern is any different though.
So, while you can statistically prove that you've been "screwed" you cannot statistically prove that the drop rate has been changed. Statistically proving that the drop rate has been altered requires data from many, many, sources (like all of Diablofans flipping coins) and not just from a very small percentage of the population.
EDIT
For every 1 person who claims that the drops were nerfed, you have someone like KageKaze or Gnarf who went on a hot streak. In the end those hot and cold streaks even out to show us a general trend. Basing our evaluation of that trend only on outliers makes no sense at all. Surely KageKaze doesn't usually have that kind of luck. But, if we were to look at only his data we could all assume that drop rates were hugely buffed.
I understand this completely, however I'd have better odds of winning the lottery than I would to average 60% < 60 loot over several hundred kills which results in a minimum of 3 items per drop.
The fact that others notice this in my "circle" of people while some do not still leaves questions but it's safe to say something was changed or a couple of us are the luckiest unlucky people in the world.
The laws of probability are all that matter when trying to graph something like this out.
The problem here is that the sample size is yet again too small. If you want to prove that there's a change in a random system the more data points you gather the better, this helps to stop outliers from skewing your graph in one direction or another. If I were to take the data points I got from last night I would be making a completely opposite post to the OP right now simply because I had an excellent night as far as ilvl was concerned.
What you're not realizing is that one person's entire data set can be an outlier. This is because one person can be having a really good, really bad, or simply average night. My data could be far away from the main graph, however if you combine my data with thousands (millions?) of other users then you would see that the the average curve would even out to what it should be. If it doesn't, after all that data collection, then I'd agree that the OP had a point. I just think the sample size doesn't prove anything in this instance.
200 packs no lvl51-55 blue/rare, then suddently full of those, i'm sure it's random....
Use your brain
Go look up random number generation and "use your brain" to attempt to understand it. I haven't noticed a nerf at all. Since you did, which meant you knew "for a fact" that there was a nerf, and I didn't, does that mean that both of our experiences are simultaneously conflicting and yet fact? Yeesh.
Asking people to aggregate data over a period of time is too much.
Kneejerk reactions are where it's at.
I just killed a champion and only got 1 rare and it was iLevel 57. Game is broke. DEMAND FIX FROM BLIZZ!
No, for example I was farming act 3 and should see < ilvl60 loot 35% of the time. However, the last couple days I have been getting about 60% < ilvl 60.
The thing about RNG is that over a 2 day sample of killing 45-60 elite packs an hour at several hours a day. You're already defying the odds even after 3 packs in a row if you're mostly getting < ilvl 60. But when you're talking about several hundred packs and the same trend continues. You can rightfully question it.
People can say rng is rng but they obviously don't understand probability. You don't need as big of a sample as you'd imagine when something that should be dropping less than 35% of the time is dropping more than 60% of the time.
*You* don't understand random number generation. Even distribution is *not* guaranteed, yet you speak as though it is. There is a big difference between random within a range and an even distribution of random numbers within a range.
I think there's another variable a lot of the people claiming the drop rates were nerfed have a tendency to forget. That is that Blizzard have never stated that the percentages of certain ilvl drops are at all guaranteed to be rare and/or magical. Another aspect of your unlucky streak might just be that that night the majority of ilvl 62-63 gear that dropped for you was white, and then the next night your average ilvl of drops was lower...
I think there's another variable a lot of the people claiming the drop rates were nerfed have a tendency to forget. That is that Blizzard have never stated that the percentages of certain ilvl drops are at all guaranteed to be rare and/or magical. Another aspect of your unlucky streak might just be that that night the majority of ilvl 62-63 gear that dropped for you was white, and then the next night your average ilvl of drops was lower...
This is very true and something that needs to be taken into consideration. You're only looking at a subset (magic,rare, legendary) of items and not the items that drop as a whole.
1.0.3b hasn't been patched in yet. You're seeing random numbers at work. Quit filling the forums with this stuff, if you're not even informed enough to know what patch we're on.
I think there's another variable a lot of the people claiming the drop rates were nerfed have a tendency to forget. That is that Blizzard have never stated that the percentages of certain ilvl drops are at all guaranteed to be rare and/or magical. Another aspect of your unlucky streak might just be that that night the majority of ilvl 62-63 gear that dropped for you was white, and then the next night your average ilvl of drops was lower...
This is very true and something that needs to be taken into consideration. You're only looking at a subset (magic,rare, legendary) of items and not the items that drop as a whole.
Thanks for bringing that up, Crilljin.
But the rarez! They are the only thing that matters!
I don't disagree, except that your data is not the only data in this equation. That's where you have to be careful.
Say you, generously, kill 1000 champs/rares/bosses over 3 days. Say that, combined, the entire D3 population kills 600 million champs/rares/bosses over that same 3 day period. It is terribly possible for several players to have horribly bad, and horribly good, streaks which are not representative of the overall trend.
What your "statistics" fail to acknowledge is that your individual data can still be an outlier on the graph without the whole trend being botched.
To make this simpler, every Diablofans reader flips a coin 100 times.
The aggregate of tens of thousands of flips shows 50% heads and 50% tails after rounding to the nearest tenth of a percent.
Your flips are 100 heads, 0 tails. Your assertion is that based on your coin flips, tails doesn't actually exist on any coins in the world. That is provably false because, even thoguh it's unlikely, it is very possible with the number of pseudorandom numbers being generated that any one of us sees a bad streak. It does not mean that the overall pattern is any different though.
So, while you can statistically prove that you've been "screwed" you cannot statistically prove that the drop rate has been changed. Statistically proving that the drop rate has been altered requires data from many, many, sources (like all of Diablofans flipping coins) and not just from a very small percentage of the population.
EDIT
For every 1 person who claims that the drops were nerfed, you have someone like KageKaze or Gnarf who went on a hot streak. In the end those hot and cold streaks even out to show us a general trend. Basing our evaluation of that trend only on outliers makes no sense at all. Surely KageKaze doesn't usually have that kind of luck. But, if we were to look at only his data we could all assume that drop rates were hugely buffed.
The problem here is that the sample size is yet again too small. If you want to prove that there's a change in a random system the more data points you gather the better, this helps to stop outliers from skewing your graph in one direction or another. If I were to take the data points I got from last night I would be making a completely opposite post to the OP right now simply because I had an excellent night as far as ilvl was concerned.
What you're not realizing is that one person's entire data set can be an outlier. This is because one person can be having a really good, really bad, or simply average night. My data could be far away from the main graph, however if you combine my data with thousands (millions?) of other users then you would see that the the average curve would even out to what it should be. If it doesn't, after all that data collection, then I'd agree that the OP had a point. I just think the sample size doesn't prove anything in this instance.
Must suck losing out on a few hours of farming, but if you found an awesome item every few hours you would have nothing to do within a week.
Alright bye!! Please don't come back to the forums either.
Go look up random number generation and "use your brain" to attempt to understand it. I haven't noticed a nerf at all. Since you did, which meant you knew "for a fact" that there was a nerf, and I didn't, does that mean that both of our experiences are simultaneously conflicting and yet fact? Yeesh.
*You* don't understand random number generation. Even distribution is *not* guaranteed, yet you speak as though it is. There is a big difference between random within a range and an even distribution of random numbers within a range.
Now where did I put that sarcasm font...
I had to use urban dictionary to find out you're European or something
This is very true and something that needs to be taken into consideration. You're only looking at a subset (magic,rare, legendary) of items and not the items that drop as a whole.
Thanks for bringing that up, Crilljin.
1.0.3b hasn't been patched in yet. You're seeing random numbers at work. Quit filling the forums with this stuff, if you're not even informed enough to know what patch we're on.
But the rarez! They are the only thing that matters!
Next time, Gadget, next time!!
Absolutely true. Nothing more needs to be said about a few people having a bad run, then deducing that Blizzard secretly nerfed the droprates.
In fact, nothing needed to be said in the first place.
Meanwhile, ponder this:
Let's say 100000 people farm ActI/Inferno until they have 100 rares. At a 4.8% chance for a level 63, 730 people will get no level 63 items at all.