Why Cronk's Test is Inconclusive - The Stats

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Deceptionist wrote:

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realatomicpanda wrote:

If he was including weapons in this list, which I believe he was, it seems fine to me. If we're thinking along the stereotypical class lines of strength = melee and int = caster, then it makes since there there are far fewer caster weapons available than melee weapons.

Why?

Simple. Casters don't rely entirely upon their weapon to do damage. Melee characters do.

Consider something like an FP witch, who gets her base damage from skills, some bonuses from gear, some from passives, and so on. She doesn't have to hunt high and low for a good wand in order to be useful. To a physical cleave marauder, a good weapon can make all the difference in the world, so it makes sense to throw more weapons at him. He needs them.

Hello again, RAP,

I think you are missing the context Cronk was heading after in the very beginning: The lesser quantity of Witch items reduces the drop rate, regardless if you're depending on wands for damage or not. It decreases the drop rate for the weapon (you still want a good wand, no?), and so as you level, and you do more than 4 places as Cronk did, the numbers will remain the same, as in, you gain much more of everything else besides those wands, which is the entire point behind Cronk's research -- to reveal the drop-rate-bias in RNG when it comes to Witch gear.

Not only that but witches require stats on their weapons to supplement skills. A melee ele or physical upgrades weapons for higher damage. Witches still need higher weapons for higher stat rolls. Its the same premise. Witches do need weapons as much as everyone else

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Deceptionist wrote:

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realatomicpanda wrote:

If he was including weapons in this list, which I believe he was, it seems fine to me. If we're thinking along the stereotypical class lines of strength = melee and int = caster, then it makes since there there are far fewer caster weapons available than melee weapons.

Why?

Simple. Casters don't rely entirely upon their weapon to do damage. Melee characters do.

Consider something like an FP witch, who gets her base damage from skills, some bonuses from gear, some from passives, and so on. She doesn't have to hunt high and low for a good wand in order to be useful. To a physical cleave marauder, a good weapon can make all the difference in the world, so it makes sense to throw more weapons at him. He needs them.

Hello again, RAP,

I think you are missing the context Cronk was heading after in the very beginning: The lesser quantity of Witch items reduces the drop rate, regardless if you're depending on wands for damage or not. It decreases the drop rate for the weapon (you still want a good wand, no?), and so as you level, and you do more than 4 places as Cronk did, the numbers will remain the same, as in, you gain much more of everything else besides those wands, which is the entire point behind Cronk's research -- to reveal the drop-rate-bias in RNG when it comes to Witch gear.

If you consider a character as building towards a specific weapon type, the difference won't be there. The lack of variety of weapons for witches is the same as the lack of variety for an archer or a 1H sword user. You can't just say that a Dex user can utilize both a sword and a bow drop. This is why you should be ignoring weapons in this discussion, the game pushes you towards only using a single weapon type.

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Deceptionist wrote:

while also notifying everyone that the smaller amount of Witch gear is what causes the RNG to be unfavorable towards the Witch.

As far as armour goes, witches have as much as anyone. In fact, looking at all armour pieces, 61/356 are pure int. Cronk simply chose a level band which supported his theory that witches are hard done by.

In terms of weapons, yes I agree witches are worse off than others.


However, all this talk of "RNG being unfavorable to witches" is pure bull. Cronk's own data shows that his drops match the available items pretty well. The only thing that possibly needs changing is the implementation of a pure int 2hander class of weapon, which would balance out the weapons table.

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dlrr wrote:

In his third test he specifically showed Int had more items than hybrids. Your bolded statement misses that.

You're using different words to say the same thing. You're saying it should show a pattern. I've shown that it doesn't always have to be the case. I don't think I'll be replying to you on this anymore (though of course I might change my mind later) as it's clear neither of us would budge.

TL;DR, in his third test, Cronk also removed another 10% of the gear in the formula to further break it down, which was 35% of the loot when INT still was last, then he removed 10% more of the gear, and then finally, INT beat only 2 other attributed rolls, which is still fucking insane at 25% of the loot (this means that he is only crunching numbers, but on the grander scheme of things, of which our characters play on, the witch gear is instantly back in last place when you introduce all of the loot back into the formula). As you can see, when INT appeared to not come in last -- but it certainly didn't come in first, or second, or third, or fourth either.

You're still misunderstanding the depth of Cronk's assessment, and I don't even go to school.

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Grimmhammer wrote:

In terms of weapons, yes I agree witches are worse off than others.

You accuse Cronk for picking and choosing, but that's what you're doing right now in actuality. The entire point of Cronk's assessment is that Witch gear is undermined based on the smaller number of gear the Witch has. The wands count as gear, they are for the Witch, thus why Cronk refers to it as Witch gear being unfavored by RNG and the mechanics that govern it. There is no spinning or twisting this. The numbers don't lie, especially when you know that a small sample size WITHIN the RNG is going to involve smaller number of rolls.

Cronk has a big enough sample size.

Witch doesn't have a big enough gear pool.

Agreed here! Next I'd like to see someone starting up a thread stating oh how hard it is to be a bow ranger... there just aren't enough bows around! QQ

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AtheistGod wrote:

If you consider a character as building towards a specific weapon type, the difference won't be there. The lack of variety of weapons for witches is the same as the lack of variety for an archer or a 1H sword user. You can't just say that a Dex user can utilize both a sword and a bow drop. This is why you should be ignoring weapons in this discussion, the game pushes you towards only using a single weapon type.

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AtheistGod wrote:

If you consider a character as building towards a specific weapon type, the difference won't be there. The lack of variety of weapons for witches is the same as the lack of variety for an archer or a 1H sword user. You can't just say that a Dex user can utilize both a sword and a bow drop. This is why you should be ignoring weapons in this discussion, the game pushes you towards only using a single weapon type.

Why hello, AG. (I already see the clever undertones of your name, Mr. demi-god.)

You're right, there aren't very many bows and 1H's, I do agree.

However, if I might contest: Wands have the most rash rolls next to staves in the game. Bows can easily get attack speed, projectile speed, elemental damage, and so can swords with critical hit chance, and the likes. Wands, on the other hand, have a much more complex system that follows the weapon's base. I have found 1 awesome wand, and several awesome bows and 1H weapons. Call it a small sample size, but I and others agree that wands are by far the most scarce, the most complex and the most eronious type of gear in this game at the moment.

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Deceptionist wrote:

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Grimmhammer wrote:

In terms of weapons, yes I agree witches are worse off than others.

You accuse Cronk for picking and choosing, but that's what you're doing right now in actuality. The entire point of Cronk's assessment is that Witch gear is undermined based on the smaller number of gear the Witch has. The wands count as gear, they are for the Witch, thus why Cronk refers to it as Witch gear being unfavored by RNG and the mechanics that govern it. There is no spinning or twisting this. The numbers don't lie, especially when you know that a small sample size WITHIN the RNG is going to involve smaller number of rolls.

Cronk has a big enough sample size.

Witch doesn't have a big enough gear pool.

And here is my major disagreement - you HAVE to pick and choose in a certain respect. As another poster has said, you could argue that archers dont have a large enough gear pool, simply because bows are a small part of the loot table, and there are no other ranged weapons for dex users.

FACT: Witches have an equal ARMOUR pool to the other classes.

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Grimmhammer wrote:

And here is my major disagreement - you HAVE to pick and choose in a certain respect. As another poster has said, you could argue that archers dont have a large enough gear pool, simply because bows are a small part of the loot table, and there are no other ranged weapons for dex users.

FACT: Witches have an equal ARMOUR pool to the other classes.

FACT: Wands count towards the general system: Witch Gear

FACT: Regardless of the Witch having the same Armour amount as any other "class", the smaller number of Wands makes the Witch Gear become undermined in comparison with other "classes".

FACT: AtheistGod hasn't responded to my refutation.

FACT: Nothing more could be said until AtheistGod contests my contest.

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Deceptionist wrote:

Cronk has a big enough sample size.

Witch doesn't have a big enough gear pool.

I want to jump back in and say that, before any want-to-be math professors jump on this, telling a new player that they don't have any gear because they don't have a large enough sample size isn't going to keep them around for long. Statistics (regarding video games) is a hard topic to approach because all we end up having in a thread regarding RNG are math majors (or persons that took a stats class in college) screaming that this small sample size is not enough. And that, mathematically, it will all "come out okay" in the end. One person, in cronk's thread, even went so far as to suggest that he find "440,000" items and THEN see the results.

That's bogus. You can clearly see the trend already playing out with his <500 analysis. That trend pretty clearly suggests that there is no weighting on drops. Do we know this for sure? No. GGG has said specifically before that they don't tell these numbers for a variety of reasons (among them specifically mentioned was the ability to change them rather frequently, though I think that specifically was referred to blue/rare/unique drops).

The Problem:

I don't play as much as many other people, but my character levels combined probably puts me between 200-300 character levels earned. I sincerely doubt I've found 100k items (excluding currency). How long do you expect players to go without an upgrade? 5 levels? 10, 15, 25 levels? Overall, I think POE does an excellent job at balancing power and pace. At the lower levels I find it very common to go ~5 levels without having upgraded a number of pieces. Frankly, at this difficulty skill trumps difficulty in most cases. However, once you get to your thirties (and obviously beyond) your EXP required grows substantially -- along with your time to level. Again, POE does a pretty fabulous job at difficulty curve (a few areas have already been smoothed out since OB launch).

Well, wheres the problem?

What are the odds of you finding a wand?
What are the odds of the wand being rare?
What are the odds of it rolling the stats you want (not life steal, ugh)?
What are the odds of this wand also rolling well, for it's level?
What are the odds of this wand (or any other item) also having the desired/minimum sockets?
What are the odds of the sockets being linked in a desirable fashion?

Ultimately, it sucks (that's the technical term, write it down) when you have a loot dry spell. There's nothing else to say about it. Your character progression feels much slower. If you're playing with friends you feel like you're falling behind.

Rebuke: That's why they give you currency--to spend!

Totally agree. According to Cronk's numbers STR have the advantage and I've even had a dry spell on my marauder. It happens. RNG swings both ways (for most people, mine's stuck on "FU").

But why do players that value INT more than anything else have to spend more? Why do STR players, gradually, "save" more currency?

Rebuke: Well, wands aren't that important!

Way to never play a caster. The weapon is as important as it was in D3, even though our spell dps isn't tied to the weapon dps. See, these wands come with "Modifiers". These "mods", as we like to call them, give bonuses. Wands can give some pretty nifty bonuses. Like, Cast speed and Spell Damage. Significant sources of damage. I can't believe someone actually said witches don't need wands.

Rebuke: No, seriously, it'll be okay in the end!

Yes, yes, we know that. Video games are about perception, not math, to most people. Perception is important.

Edit:

Rebuke: Wands don't count because everyone is forced towards a single weapon type

False. I avoid weapon types on most of my characters. My marauder especially. There are plenty of other nodes that give comparable damage or attack speed. You don't have to force yourself into, say, maces. Witches (spell casters, really, but witches is just easier to type) that want to use spell damage weapons won't find the mods too often on anything but wands. (Read: you cant get those on 2hers) Item mod spreadsheet