The Math Of Farming

[Ham606]

 Ham606, at this point I think it's down to personal preferences the way one wants to play. Don't get me wrong, I still have fun playing the game, Nightmares included, even thought I have very little odds to get a rewards I don't own already. Point is

 

 

 

counts as a lie to me, as long you have been driven to think something different to reality. To say, both Streamline and Armored Agility are gold mods.

 

I don't pretend DE gives out their schemes, yet

 

 

would be a far more honest way to "inform" us of such rarity. 

 

Having fun tramps everything else in the gaming scene to be fair. The trick is to learn to build your fun away from drop-rates and "colourful pixels" as we used to call loot back in the day.

 

On the other matter though. You did say that not being told the whole truth counts as a lie. While that may be accurate, if you did not ask for the whole truth up front it probably means you know where you're going to get tangled in. After all if you don't ask the questions you will hear no bullS#&$. It is self-explanatory, isn't it?

 

People assume a lot of things and that is one of the main reasons why misunderstandings tend to happen that often. On a more personal note though, when you figured out that Warframe operated the whole RNG thing, you must have thought "slap me on the knee and call me a dinosaur, there is going to be a lot of farming!" So in theory you sort of knew before hand that there would certain mods (or loot in general, yes I'm looking at you Loki Prime Systems) that would be hard to get.

 

@GoneBank: That would help. Up to a point at least. An ultra-rare mod might be a mod that has a low probability of dropping and then someone comes along and picks it up in the first try. So does that count as still an ultra-rare mod? Maybe instead of ultra-rare name those mods "Forget your sleep?" :D

 

At the end of the day as long as we all have fun, the occasional "whine" about loot and drop chances is acceptable I think. (Again, I'm looking at you Loki Prime Systems). The math as I said is interesting for those who understand it, but I don't think it would help me as a player in any way, mainly because I don't want to become any more miserable than I already am, with my luck and those damned Loki Prime Systems :D

[Hypernaut1]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

We might have noticed that Cephalon Simaris and Conclave, Syndicate rewards have moved towards a more predictable form of getting rewards. I think the response has been good, perhaps we could have more of that.

I think DE does a good job at balancing RNG gameplay with non-RNG gameplay. Both serve its purpose. There are things you can work towards as a goal, and there are things you hope to get lucky with. reality is, most of the content in this game DOESNT rely on heavy RNG. Its not hard to get Ash, but it takes luck to get Ash prime. i think this is fair

[MechaGent]

@OP: Welcome to the Gender-Neutral Fraternity of People What Like Mathing in Warframe! In regards to your OP, though I realize I'm not the first, your math does indeed make sense. This was actually how I got started Mathing Warframe myself, I believe. I'd link the original thread, but I can't seem to find it. It probably got deleted though, as I did not take discovery of how low the drop rate is on certain items *cough*Four Riders*cough* as well as you did, and the moderators (quite rightly, might I add) frown on long-winded rants. In any event, thanks for posting this, as your explanatory style is much better than my own.

[unknow99]

RENEGAAAADE?!!

 

Where are you?!!

[Renegade343]

RENEGAAAADE?!!

 

Where are you?!!

I am finally here. 

 

Anyways, I think the original poster might do better with some proofs of how he came up with the formuale, other than searching on the Internet. I will be back shortly. 

[RiouHotaru]

The math is exactly why I'm worried about the Starmap 2.0

 

It wasn't running Void missions that bugged me, or wore me down.  It was the hilariously low chance of something I wanted that bugged me.  People have been asking for weighed odds when running longer endless missions, like how going 20+ minutes in survival would increases the odds of a rare item in rotation.

 

Blowing up the void to spread out the rewards so people will play other content is fine and dandy, but only if the actual odds of getting the item you want actually improve.  Right now I've got almost a 5-6% of getting Ash Prime Systems from Rotation C.  If the Void blows up and that part winds up somewhere else with only a 5-6% chance to drop, then effectively nothing has changed save the content I'm running to try and earn said piece.

 

Again, it's not the content itself, but the math behind the content that causes the fatigue.

[Renegade343]

Anyways, I think the original poster might do better with some proofs of how he came up with the formuale, other than searching on the Internet. I will be back shortly. 

Now, as I did write this, I feel obliged now to show the proofs. namely how he can obtain the cumulative distribution function and the subsequent formula for k (in this proof, I am using x as k): 

 

Edited August 17, 2015 by Renegade343

[Agentawesome]

They teach these formulas in statistics in school, I learnt it just a few weeks ago. It comes from a study that independent events will have a gradual increase in probability with an increased amount of tries. If anything, it remains a mathematical theory but can be practicalized for marketing or statistic works and does bring a bit of truth with it.

But I see most people prefer the more simple and ignorant approach, luck is luck, isnt it? There's nothing wrong with either way of thinking, its all opinion.

I do understand DE's approach on RNG. We cannot forget the fact that when you get an item once, you never need to get it again (most primes at least). Im assuming that the large RNG wall is to prevent the inflation of prime parts and lowering demand, hurting plat sales in the process. In all honesty, it never struck me hard to attain plat by selling rare parts. I guess DE is doing thier job as Tenno and maintain the market balance.

[GoneBlank]

@Renegade343 Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate the result from first principles. My thinking was that the properties of geometric distributions are pretty well established - so my primary concern was whether the structure was appropriate.

 

I feel somewhat comforted knowing that other people in the community (MechaGent et al) have contemplated this issue and arrived at similar structure of analysis. {Side note: I actually think there is plenty of material in this topic to make an interesting - at least  3/4th year minor thesis.}

 

Originally I was very nervous about posting something with an equation in it (I intentionally limited myself to one equation) - my first warframe thread - I just wasn't sure how it would be received. I was prepared for ridicule. Based on some of the feedback I'm wondering if the forums would benefit from an embedded LaTeX compiler (semi- joke).

 

I think there are lots of interesting behavioural questions that stem from this work. For example, what is the threshold where the expected number of runs to receive a successful drop (to a given level of probability) becomes so large that a player shifts from actively seeking the drop to passively hoping it will one day fall from the RNG gods? At what drop rate do players farm a rare drop most and at what point does it taper? I am curious how much analysis DE has done in this area.

[(XBOX)Archibald Jax]

This is absolutely the politest and most well written thread I have had the pleasure of reading on these forums. OP, thank you for the math. Commenters, thank you for being rational. Carry on.

[TARINunit9]

You forgot the Nekros and Pilfering Swarm coefficient theorum. It goes as such:

If the number of Nekros and Hydroid frames in your team is less than one apiece, the chance that your moronic squadmates will whine and moan like a bunch of prissies approaches 100%

[MechaGent]

-snip-

 

I think there are lots of interesting behavioural questions that stem from this work. For example, what is the threshold where the expected number of runs to receive a successful drop (to a given level of probability) becomes so large that a player shifts from actively seeking the drop to passively hoping it will one day fall from the RNG gods? At what drop rate do players farm a rare drop most and at what point does it taper? I am curious how much analysis DE has done in this area.

 

For me personally, the cutoff point for active/passive farming is the opportunity rate (which may be some sort of fallacy, I don't know). A good example of this is Crimson Dervish vs Four Riders. Both are rare stances, and yet I would rather farm Crimson Dervish than Four Riders, because, for me, part of the fun is in the attempt. A hypothetical farm for Crimson Dervish would be a carefully chosen planet, with three other Tenno to maximize spawn rates, and would be a genuine challenge as you and your teammates attempt to stick it out until the mod drops (endless mission assumed). One's general attention span may be focused on survival, as pertinent enemies are numerous enough that there will, after a certain point, probably always be one in sight. As a counterpoint, we have Four Riders. A Four Riders farm would again be carefully chosen, but this time to minimize the total mission run time while still taking the Manic's spawn mechanics into account. No teammates are necessary (and in fact may be detrimental if everybody isn't well-acquainted and coordinated), as squad size does not, as far as I am aware, affect the number of Manics spawned per mission. As that one Manic is awaited, one might very well dwell on one's motivation for running that mission, thereby affecting themselves negatively in much the same way as how thinking about how much something is going to hurt makes that event seem to hurt more. It is at this point that one may begin to wonder what the actual drop rates of particular mods from that enemy are, as I did, and realize that they are getting 1 opportunity every couple minutes for a mod that has, if I recall correctly, less than a 1% drop chance. I feel confident in stating that this would discourage anyone from actively farming that mod, unless some great positive motivational force was present to counteract.

 

In conclusion: Screw Manics, seriously. Until Four Riders is present in another, normally-spawning enemy's drop table, I will do naught but passively farm it.