How to analyze loot

[Kosh]

Very nice work!

It always seemed to me that loot was not really continuous, there are jumps and you cant really get all values.
Have you tried fitting a discrete distribution model?

Correct me if I am wrong, but all your models assume independence, do you have any ideas for models that do not assume this?

[jdegre]

Originally Posted by Acronoid

I disagree. EU is not a very complicated system. The viewer may get this view, but actually the code must be quite simple and fast. I also disagree the analysis in small parts. I prefer to analyse the different systems in work in EU in total for each system, and try to analyse the relation between them if existing. Subdividing to much leads to fragmentation and to many pieces of the puzzle.

the analysis of how EU works have involved the effort of hundreds of people during several years. some parts are already more or less clear (with the help of hints from MA), while others are still very controversial and stalled from some time. it is great that you think it is so simple, and you're welcome to contribute with your insight.

Originally Posted by Acronoid

If all systems would be in calculation directly in code at any given time, it would mean a stress on the servers and server database of such size that it would be impossible for more then 10-20 ppl to be active in the system.

i'm sorry but this reasoning is completely flawed. "it must be fast, therefore it must be simple", right?. there are thousands of examples of computing systems which are extremely complex and very very fast.

all the "systems" or aspects that i mentioned as examples (loot system, armor decay, effect of attachments in weapons, general weapon efficiency, skill system, etc.) are involved and must be "calculated" for every single mob you hunt at any given time, regardless of how much you think the servers might be stressed

Originally Posted by Acronoid

I could explain my views and discoveries about the EU "dynamics" but I'm still experimenting and nobody want to read a 50 page reply I guess.

hehe, i'd love to read it, so go ahead please. in fact, your comment reminds me the famous cite from fermat: "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain."

[Legion]

Originally Posted by jdegre

the analysis of how EU works have involved the effort of hundreds of people during several years. some parts are already more or less clear (with the help of hints from MA), while others are still very controversial and stalled from some time. it is great that you think it is so simple, and you're welcome to contribute with your insight.



i'm sorry but this reasoning is completely flawed. "it must be fast, therefore it must be simple", right?. there are thousands of examples of computing systems which are extremely complex and very very fast.

all the "systems" or aspects that i mentioned as examples (loot system, armor decay, effect of attachments in weapons, general weapon efficiency, skill system, etc.) are involved and must be "calculated" for every single mob you hunt at any given time, regardless of how much you think the servers might be stressed



hehe, i'd love to read it, so go ahead please. in fact, your comment reminds me the famous cite from fermat: "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain."

totally agree with you that teh system can be a darn complex one, it doesn't have to be simple to be able to cope with the amount of users, ma has a huge server park i bet :P

Also yep i would love to read those 50 pages aswell

[falkao]

Originally Posted by mantra

Well, I do not understand a singe word out it, but looks very mean!

I mean.........I guess 99% of the players have no idea what it is, or how it can be useful. Or it is just me?

Would you explain the subject like....you have 1 apple and 1 banana..you know..lootpool for dummies.

It is not the time atm to draw final conclusions. When this time has come, there will be some easier explanations. This thread is about "how to analyze" and not "how loot works". So some patience please.

[Yirrk]

ow ow ow you made my brain hurt!
Waiting eagerly for the layman's version - I have pretty poor math skills. + Rep for your hard work. Suggest your final results you make available via PM only: MA sees this stuff they'll change the game to make your work invalid.

[Legion]

Originally Posted by Yirrk

ow ow ow you made my brain hurt!
Waiting eagerly for the layman's version - I have pretty poor math skills. + Rep for your hard work. Suggest your final results you make available via PM only: MA sees this stuff they'll change the game to make your work invalid.

Most likely they wont change it. The only time they actually made any major changes was when i "broke" the system or rather found a bug in it some years ago that was possible to abuse to always be in the good loot zone.

[kalanen]

Originally Posted by Yirrk

MA sees this stuff they'll change the game to make your work invalid.

Bleh. More peeps start to use the results as a guideline, more fucked up the system gets. System is fool proof (from MA's point of view).

say, 100 hunters use data to "predict" the peak. One of them hits the peak and 99 loses their asses of because there's a pit right before and after every peak.

All calculations are cool but your ability to react ingame conditions will always be the shit!

[Legion]

Originally Posted by kalanen

Bleh. More peeps start to use the results as a guideline, more fucked up the system gets. System is fool proof (from MA's point of view).

say, 100 hunters use data to "predict" the peak. One of them hits hitst the peak and 99 loses their asses of because there's a pit right before and after every peak.

All calculations are cool but your ability to react ingame conditions will always be the shit!

completely true.

Also i think when more ppl start to use star's webpage to see what to hunt it will be more profitable to find the mob that still drop good but not that many hunt. :P ie the ones that will use the page to find the most globaling mob might loose more than the one that finds the mob that loots good but not many hunts.. hmm did i say the same thing twice now? :P

[Doer]

Originally Posted by kalanen

*read it once*

*opens can of beer*

*starts reading it a gain*

Mmm, lucidity through beer. o.O

What insight do your beer goggles give you?

[Dawis]

Hi all.
Let me start with acknowledgment of respect I have for author of this topic. It seems he have done quite an impressive analysis. Unfortunately my experience in mathematical statistics is not sufficient to quickly understand all functions and method of measurement he suggests by reading the topic and I do not have time to pay it necessary attention to get in depth understanding of methods presented here this time.

However I have some concerns about fundamental aspects of this measurement.
I hope I can explain reason for my concern point by point outlining how i understand this experiment:

1. This is not an attempt to offer real loot function underneath the EU, this is simply statistical research of results this function gives - thus real loot we get over time. Which is ok - you can`t prove any reasonable theory about loot function anyways - so lets just analyze what is coming out of the black box.

2. It is a bit difficult to get large samples of data even for results of this black box - loot we get. Each avatar can only get full data about his own results - and even that is not easy - so more acurate data we want - more difficult it is to get in large enough samples.
We can escape this problem, by reading only globals that appear into the system - because system offers a nice way to get access to data about all loots above 50 ped. (big respect to person for building the http://87.62.217.174/login.asp system which allows everyone to access this data easy)
As I understand author of this thread uses results of this system for building his theory.

3. As I understand basicly author wants to know how good this or that monster "loots" comparing to other monsters by analyzing long term global data on each monster or even - all monsters together.

Let me outline some conclusions I get so far:

1. As author already states health of the monster is an important factor. Although we wanted only to analyze monster loot data with statistics and to not care about any possible details of loot function, we must assume that health plays important role in results of this black box loot function - or else we will get strange results. It is simply obvious that there is strong relation between size of the loot and size of monster health.

2.To make our results more precise thus we can assume that we measure results of loot function with respect to monster health. Thus we still assume that loot function is black box, and we analyze only results we get from it, but we acknowledge that health is a known parameter to this box. To analyze loot result itself thus we must somehow extract the effect of monster health from it.
One easy way to do this is assume Loot = health * C(x) where C is constant generated at event x by our black box of loot function which inner workings is not our concern.
This provides us with easy solution of only measuring Loot / health not plain loot.(we assume loot proportionaly increases by increasing monsters health)
Thus by measuring Loot/health we measure how good is loot with respect to monster we are hunting.
As I said I did not have time to understand all maths behind authors theory, but I believe author has taken health into account correctly.

Now let me finally get to point of my post - the main problem I see:

1. Although there is strong corelation between monsters health and size of it`s loot we loose much of this corelation if we look only at globals we get from this monster. Why?
Simply: If monster monster A has 200 health and monster B has 2000 health it does not mean that every global you get from monster B will be 10 times as big. Not even close, becasue you will get a lot small globals from B, as oposed to only rare globals from A.
This raises a problem, because current method uses data we get from globals. Only possible solution I currently see is - increase minimum global date we take into account from monster B proportionaly.
Let me explain:
1. Killing 1000 monster A you will probably get 2 globals
2. Killing 1000 monster B you will probably get 20 globals

Of course you will get lots of small globals from B - because loot proportionaly increases with size of monster hp. So to save corelation between monsters health and monster loot in B case we look only at the globals which exceed 500 PED.
Math nehind this is easy:
Monster A health 200
Monster B health 2000
Ratio = 10
Assumption - loot should be 10x greater from B

We cant get acces to all loot date - we get only global data. So minimum loot we see is 50 ped.
In A case this means we measure only the best loots from A monster (pikes of loot function).
In B case this means we measure not only the best but medicore loots to.

To compensate this we multiply minimum measurement requirement by 10 in B case. So we get aproximately even amount of data samples in both cases.

Ok.. I am exausted for now