Does anyone know if only one instance of a particular server can be open at a time? e.g. if someone has found a .74 server, can anyone else get .74 while the first person is still on their run?
Because last night during peak time, 2 friends and I were all trying to get get 72/4/6 or 8, after about 20 minutes of trying (lol) none of us got those. We got 70 and a couple of odd 70s a couple of times (got 70 6 times between us).
I read about this sometime back, say about a month or so ago.
I have been doing runs, and while on the runs I try to decide, without first looking, if my ip is under 100 and even or over. Here is what I have noticed.
I run currently at 308 mf with my NV stacks.
It seems there are more mobs,elites, and goblins when the ip number is below 100 and even. When the number is higher than 100, I do not seem to see as many elites. I have done enough runs to notice a difference in the number of mobs and elites and thats about it.
What this means to me is, with more mobs and elites you have a greater chance at good drops compared to less mobs and elites with fewer chances at drops.
Pony level seems unaffected.
Want to try what I do and see for yourself? Easy
Start in Leorics manor. There is always one set of elites inside just past the waypoint, if not, you are over ip 100. Sometimes under 100 will have 2 sets. Go outside, if there are 2 sets of elites, you are under 100 and even. With one set could go either way, but if there are two inside Leorics and one outside you are still under 100.
Now head to Festering Woods. If you are not over 5 nv stacks before you go into the small dungeons you are over 100. If you leave both small dungeons and only a 4 nv stacks your are over 100. When you are under 100 you will always have 5 nv stacks before you go into either small dungeon in the festering woods assuming you did leorics manor and cleared the festering woods first.
I have done hundereds of these runs, more than I care to remember, been working on Paragon wearing Cain's gear.
Somewhere in the code for Diablo 3, there's this line of code (I'm simplifying for brevity)
if(round(rnd()*2000 + 0.5) == 2000) then
make_legendary();
end if
That's really it, it all comes down to the rnd() -- the random -- function. That function returns a random number on the interval [0,1), and it's the same for all servers. And when I say same, I mean exactly and completely identical. It's not magic, we know completely and exactly how it works; there zero chance that it can behave differently.
Zero, exactly zero.
So the only way that there could be "loot servers" is if Blizzard programmed there to be loot servers. Why would they do that, what's their motive? What do they hope to achieve? Think about that, and whatever you come up with, I say can also be implemented more easily that will mathematically be the same without needing loot servers.
What we are are seeing here instead is the tendency of humans to remember better things that reinforce their beliefs and disremember things that run contrary to them in this case they can travel to some place of rainbows and unicorns where legendaries fall from the sky because, you know, the actual place of rainbows of unicorns was nerfed in 1.0.3.
All that for this; I wanted to ask you believers a question. After having read that, what was your reaction? Did you continue to believe that loot servers exist or did I make you realize there can be none and if you didn't change you mind why not and if so what was about what I typed that did?
This is a very naive view of the random number generation on computers. A computer can not throw a dice, it has to determine the "random" number through some algorithm using, ideally, a seed that is as random as possible. This also means that if you use the same seed, you get the same sequence of random numbers.
So, in order to not get the same loot drops on every server, you have to make sure that the seeds are different. I don't know how Blizzard chooses the seeds. Ideally you would measure some random noise, but that's unlikely, since it would be too expensive. I would use a combination of drop time (in miliseconds) and player ids. The drop time is a reasonably random input, and the player id would make sure that drops at the same time don't create the same item.
Now, I think it is extremely unlikely, but not impossible that Blizzard screwed up here and created loot servers, or at a situation where a combination of server number and player id leads to higher legendary drop rates. I highly doubt that there are loot servers. But the rng() function is more complicated than you imply in your post.
I'm going to mark you up as someone who wants to believe but is having trouble with the mechanics since you have enough knowlege about how rnd() is implemented. You allow for the possibility of loot server existance, though, because your knowledge is not complete. It's that impricise knowledge, however small, that admits the possibility.
If we're going to lapse into computer-nerd speak between us computer-nerds, then yes I do know how pseudo-random algorithms work and the need of chosing a random seed, id mention in passing that /dev/random is a choice on modern Linux and Linux-like OSs, but lets take your example of id+time. How is that going to lead to 2000 being chosen more often for a population on some servers and not others? If your reaction is "I'd don't know, but maybe it could" I'd challenge you to think more deeply. We both know that even choosing seeds 1 and 2 will end up with wildly different sequences, and it centanly won't effect the probability distribution of rnd() which is the important thing when dealing with large populations making large number of random rolls.
Somewhere in the code for Diablo 3, there's this line of code (I'm simplifying for brevity)
if(round(rnd()*2000 + 0.5) == 2000) then
make_legendary();
end if
That's really it, it all comes down to the rnd() -- the random -- function. That function returns a random number on the interval [0,1), and it's the same for all servers. And when I say same, I mean exactly and completely identical. It's not magic, we know completely and exactly how it works; there zero chance that it can behave differently.
Zero, exactly zero.
So the only way that there could be "loot servers" is if Blizzard programmed there to be loot servers. Why would they do that, what's their motive? What do they hope to achieve? Think about that, and whatever you come up with, I say can also be implemented more easily that will mathematically be the same without needing loot servers.
What we are are seeing here instead is the tendency of humans to remember better things that reinforce their beliefs and disremember things that run contrary to them in this case they can travel to some place of rainbows and unicorns where legendaries fall from the sky because, you know, the actual place of rainbows of unicorns was nerfed in 1.0.3.
All that for this; I wanted to ask you believers a question. After having read that, what was your reaction? Did you continue to believe that loot servers exist or did I make you realize there can be none and if you didn't change you mind why not and if so what was about what I typed that did?
Interested....
Can't help but post
Has your small brain even think this might be just a bug or something intended to work a certain way but works differently
+ you seem to have never worked in a big corporation to know how things work..
I'm going to mark your response up as righteous indignation
But as to the possibility of "something" creeping in? No, sorry, that was an aspect of my original post, nothing really can go wrong; it's too simple. And even if it were a bug it would manifest across all servers not just some and even if some programmer when out of their way to include the server identification as part of the seed which would be a poor idea and extra work to do it (give them some credit at doing a good job), it still would not affect the random distribution properties of rnd(). No, the only way this could happen was from intent and speaking of big corporations, this would mean a "loot server" project and a manager and reporting and it would have to go through QA which means money which means justification. What's the justification?
But you probably already thought of this yet you still want to think there's a way loot servers could exist, why?
I'm going to mark you up as someone who wants to believe but is having trouble with the mechanics since you have enough knowlege about how rnd() is implemented. You allow for the possibility of loot server existance, though, because your knowledge is not complete. It's that impricise knowledge, however small, that admits the possibility.
No, you got me wrong there. I'm pretty sure that there are no loot servers, and I don't want to believe in them.
If we're going to lapse into computer-nerd speak between us computer-nerds, then yes I do know how pseudo-random algorithms work and the need of chosing a random seed, id mention in passing that /dev/random is a choice on modern Linux and Linux-like OSs, but lets take your example of id+time. How is that going to lead to 2000 being chosen more often for a population on some servers and not others? If your reaction is "I'd don't know, but maybe it could" I'd challenge you to think more deeply. We both know that even choosing seeds 1 and 2 will end up with wildly different sequences, and it centanly won't effect the probability distribution of rnd() which is the important thing when dealing with large populations making large number of random rolls.
Ok. Id + time was my example, and should hopefully lead to an algorithm that does not depend on servers. But I'm no expert in RNG implementation.
A sufficiently bad rng that uses the server ip as one of the seed values could lead to loot servers. It depends on the implementation of rng(). My argument is not that loot servers exist because "maybe it could." However the opposite argument, namely that they don't exist because it's unlikely is also not very convincing.
Blizzard would not implement rnd(), they'd use the system-supplied one which though pseudo-random, at least has uniform distribution.
I didn't say unlikely, I said impossible; or maybe so unlikely that it's near impossible is how you read it? Would you remain unconvinced unless we were to pour through the source code and see for ourselves? Heh, that's a pretty high bar you set if so.
A sufficiently bad rng that uses the server ip as one of the seed values could lead to loot servers. It depends on the implementation of rng(). My argument is not that loot servers exist because "maybe it could." However the opposite argument, namely that they don't exist because it's unlikely is also not very convincing.
Well, the other thing to bear in mind, besides seeds, is just how many random numbers a D3 server is called on to generate.
Every attack that hits - random damage.
Every mob killed - roll for drops, which involves numerous rolls. Did anything drop? If it was an item, what ilvl? What type? What affixes if it was blue+?
The server would have to generate an enormous number of random numbers, and I would certainly expect that they would all come from the same random generator.
It beggars belief that any "bad seed" could lead to more than usual numbers of legendary drops, and no other visible effect. No "crit" server where you crit a lot more often than normal? No "quiver" server that drops a lot more quivers than normal? (OK, that's every server). No Bashiok server than spawns Bashiok more often than normal?
Somewhere in the code for Diablo 3, there's this line of code (I'm simplifying for brevity)
if(round(rnd()*2000 + 0.5) == 2000) then
make_legendary();
end if
That's really it, it all comes down to the rnd() -- the random -- function. That function returns a random number on the interval [0,1), and it's the same for all servers. And when I say same, I mean exactly and completely identical. It's not magic, we know completely and exactly how it works; there zero chance that it can behave differently.
Zero, exactly zero.
So the only way that there could be "loot servers" is if Blizzard programmed there to be loot servers. Why would they do that, what's their motive? What do they hope to achieve? Think about that, and whatever you come up with, I say can also be implemented more easily that will mathematically be the same without needing loot servers.
What we are are seeing here instead is the tendency of humans to remember better things that reinforce their beliefs and disremember things that run contrary to them in this case they can travel to some place of rainbows and unicorns where legendaries fall from the sky because, you know, the actual place of rainbows of unicorns was nerfed in 1.0.3.
All that for this; I wanted to ask you believers a question. After having read that, what was your reaction? Did you continue to believe that loot servers exist or did I make you realize there can be none and if you didn't change you mind why not and if so what was about what I typed that did?
Interested....
Can't help but post
Has your small brain even think this might be just a bug or something intended to work a certain way but works differently
+ you seem to have never worked in a big corporation to know how things work..
I'm going to mark your response up as righteous indignation
But as to the possibility of "something" creeping in? No, sorry, that was an aspect of my original post, nothing really can go wrong; it's too simple. And even if it were a bug it would manifest across all servers not just some and even if some programmer when out of their way to include the server identification as part of the seed which would be a poor idea and extra work to do it (give them some credit at doing a good job), it still would not affect the random distribution properties of rnd(). No, the only way this could happen was from intent and speaking of big corporations, this would mean a "loot server" project and a manager and reporting and it would have to go through QA which means money which means justification. What's the justification?
But you probably already thought of this yet you still want to think there's a way loot servers could exist, why?
1. From engineering point of view loot servers make sense and it is exactly how corporations use this kind of stuff (yes 99% of big corporations implement poor ideas welcome to the real world)
2. You overestimate blizzard . Most of the time they are just incompetent you don't have to look for other explanations really (ex : patch 1.0.3 , patch 1.0.4 , current PTR )
Sounds strawman to me. Are you saying big corporations make poor decisions, Blizzard is a big corporation which has made poor game design decisions, loots servers are a poor idea, therefore loot servers exist? But even if companies make ultimately bad decisions, for it to be accepted, initially, it had to be protrayed as good.
Put another way, what about the concept of loot servers appeal to you?
2x more chances for oranges and greens tomorrow anyway..... RNG is liking me using this method even if I have just been extremely lucky, though most Legendaries I have found have been garbage, and Damn the Bugged Mempo I found!!! ARG, I doubt they are going to fix the 170-200 main stat affix that they are supposed to have retroactively booo! lol
can you get banned for this? does it still work? any ideas if it will work in 1.0.5?
You can't get banned for something that doesn't exist. It never worked. There are many posts in this thread showing people being just as lucky on other servers and being completely unlucky on the very servers that are supposed to be "loot" servers.
In the end, any time someone points out a logical flaw in this possibility even existing, there's another "oh well it could be this way..." answer that pops up. We have yet to see any scientifically developed data to support this theory, instead it's an assumption backed by data mined to intentionally skew the results. At this point if there isn't a valued/established member of the community collaborating on data collection and analysis I would just be forced to assume any results are doctored for the sake of ego.
I'm glad waTiem posted here with some sense. Blizzard is only going to use a random number generation technique that is verified to be as random as possible. It could easily be code that they license from a company specializing in random numbers, or otherwise code used in a previous game. It's really not that hard to generate a number that appears random enough to prevent something like loot servers being a reality. A simple distribution test would show any discrepancies in the generation algorithm... and I'm positive that Blizzard has something like this in their own statistic gathering tools used on the live game. They collect ridiculous amounts of data to be analyzed.
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72:1119 blackthrone spurs (40m)
thanks guys, .7*:1119 servers are great
You say it needs to be an even number. Yet I havent found anything on an even number but on numbers that are not even.
Servers that works for me:
21: 1 Legendary
37: 3 Legendaries
91: 1 Set item
It might need to be 2 digit number. But it does not have to be even.
(I have 152MF with 5 stacks)
Also: When using any 2 digit server i get 3-5goblins or more
Because last night during peak time, 2 friends and I were all trying to get get 72/4/6 or 8, after about 20 minutes of trying (lol) none of us got those. We got 70 and a couple of odd 70s a couple of times (got 70 6 times between us).
I have been doing runs, and while on the runs I try to decide, without first looking, if my ip is under 100 and even or over. Here is what I have noticed.
I run currently at 308 mf with my NV stacks.
It seems there are more mobs,elites, and goblins when the ip number is below 100 and even. When the number is higher than 100, I do not seem to see as many elites. I have done enough runs to notice a difference in the number of mobs and elites and thats about it.
What this means to me is, with more mobs and elites you have a greater chance at good drops compared to less mobs and elites with fewer chances at drops.
Pony level seems unaffected.
Want to try what I do and see for yourself? Easy
Start in Leorics manor. There is always one set of elites inside just past the waypoint, if not, you are over ip 100. Sometimes under 100 will have 2 sets. Go outside, if there are 2 sets of elites, you are under 100 and even. With one set could go either way, but if there are two inside Leorics and one outside you are still under 100.
Now head to Festering Woods. If you are not over 5 nv stacks before you go into the small dungeons you are over 100. If you leave both small dungeons and only a 4 nv stacks your are over 100. When you are under 100 you will always have 5 nv stacks before you go into either small dungeon in the festering woods assuming you did leorics manor and cleared the festering woods first.
I have done hundereds of these runs, more than I care to remember, been working on Paragon wearing Cain's gear.
pretty weird
Somewhere in the code for Diablo 3, there's this line of code (I'm simplifying for brevity)
if(round(rnd()*2000 + 0.5) == 2000) then
make_legendary();
end if
That's really it, it all comes down to the rnd() -- the random -- function. That function returns a random number on the interval [0,1), and it's the same for all servers. And when I say same, I mean exactly and completely identical. It's not magic, we know completely and exactly how it works; there zero chance that it can behave differently.
Zero, exactly zero.
So the only way that there could be "loot servers" is if Blizzard programmed there to be loot servers. Why would they do that, what's their motive? What do they hope to achieve? Think about that, and whatever you come up with, I say can also be implemented more easily that will mathematically be the same without needing loot servers.
What we are are seeing here instead is the tendency of humans to remember better things that reinforce their beliefs and disremember things that run contrary to them in this case they can travel to some place of rainbows and unicorns where legendaries fall from the sky because, you know, the actual place of rainbows of unicorns was nerfed in 1.0.3.
All that for this; I wanted to ask you believers a question. After having read that, what was your reaction? Did you continue to believe that loot servers exist or did I make you realize there can be none and if you didn't change you mind why not and if so what was about what I typed that did?
Interested....
I'm going to mark you up as someone who wants to believe but is having trouble with the mechanics since you have enough knowlege about how rnd() is implemented. You allow for the possibility of loot server existance, though, because your knowledge is not complete. It's that impricise knowledge, however small, that admits the possibility.
If we're going to lapse into computer-nerd speak between us computer-nerds, then yes I do know how pseudo-random algorithms work and the need of chosing a random seed, id mention in passing that /dev/random is a choice on modern Linux and Linux-like OSs, but lets take your example of id+time. How is that going to lead to 2000 being chosen more often for a population on some servers and not others? If your reaction is "I'd don't know, but maybe it could" I'd challenge you to think more deeply. We both know that even choosing seeds 1 and 2 will end up with wildly different sequences, and it centanly won't effect the probability distribution of rnd() which is the important thing when dealing with large populations making large number of random rolls.
I'm going to mark your response up as righteous indignation
But as to the possibility of "something" creeping in? No, sorry, that was an aspect of my original post, nothing really can go wrong; it's too simple. And even if it were a bug it would manifest across all servers not just some and even if some programmer when out of their way to include the server identification as part of the seed which would be a poor idea and extra work to do it (give them some credit at doing a good job), it still would not affect the random distribution properties of rnd(). No, the only way this could happen was from intent and speaking of big corporations, this would mean a "loot server" project and a manager and reporting and it would have to go through QA which means money which means justification. What's the justification?
But you probably already thought of this yet you still want to think there's a way loot servers could exist, why?
Blizzard would not implement rnd(), they'd use the system-supplied one which though pseudo-random, at least has uniform distribution.
I didn't say unlikely, I said impossible; or maybe so unlikely that it's near impossible is how you read it? Would you remain unconvinced unless we were to pour through the source code and see for ourselves? Heh, that's a pretty high bar you set if so.
Well, the other thing to bear in mind, besides seeds, is just how many random numbers a D3 server is called on to generate.
Every attack that hits - random damage.
Every mob killed - roll for drops, which involves numerous rolls. Did anything drop? If it was an item, what ilvl? What type? What affixes if it was blue+?
The server would have to generate an enormous number of random numbers, and I would certainly expect that they would all come from the same random generator.
It beggars belief that any "bad seed" could lead to more than usual numbers of legendary drops, and no other visible effect. No "crit" server where you crit a lot more often than normal? No "quiver" server that drops a lot more quivers than normal? (OK, that's every server). No Bashiok server than spawns Bashiok more often than normal?
Sounds strawman to me. Are you saying big corporations make poor decisions, Blizzard is a big corporation which has made poor game design decisions, loots servers are a poor idea, therefore loot servers exist? But even if companies make ultimately bad decisions, for it to be accepted, initially, it had to be protrayed as good.
Put another way, what about the concept of loot servers appeal to you?
Anyway 2x more loots tomorrow woo!
I can't believe this thread is still going.
You can't get banned for something that doesn't exist. It never worked. There are many posts in this thread showing people being just as lucky on other servers and being completely unlucky on the very servers that are supposed to be "loot" servers.
In the end, any time someone points out a logical flaw in this possibility even existing, there's another "oh well it could be this way..." answer that pops up. We have yet to see any scientifically developed data to support this theory, instead it's an assumption backed by data mined to intentionally skew the results. At this point if there isn't a valued/established member of the community collaborating on data collection and analysis I would just be forced to assume any results are doctored for the sake of ego.
I'm glad waTiem posted here with some sense. Blizzard is only going to use a random number generation technique that is verified to be as random as possible. It could easily be code that they license from a company specializing in random numbers, or otherwise code used in a previous game. It's really not that hard to generate a number that appears random enough to prevent something like loot servers being a reality. A simple distribution test would show any discrepancies in the generation algorithm... and I'm positive that Blizzard has something like this in their own statistic gathering tools used on the live game. They collect ridiculous amounts of data to be analyzed.