i just want to express my disappointment

[Byakuren]

i've been trying to get a set of blueprints and somehow i am unable to get the missing one. some might say that i'm just unlucky, but that would be wrong. i am 100% sure that this game has a way to lower the chance of getting the blueprint you are currently missing to make you spend real money instead. i know that, because other games do that as well. i hate being manipulated and this is why i am never going to spend money on this game.

 

[Knight of ICE]

You are not manipulated. The chance to get the one BP you are missing is 1 in 9 and not everyone is missing the same BP, so how would they manipulate that? I know it is frustrating if you keep missing out on that one BP, but it is still luck and nothing else.

 

[Byakuren]

i am not frustrated. i'm just disappointed in this game's predatory design.

 

[Nidwin]

i am not frustrated. i'm just disappointed in this game's predatory design.

The design isn't predatory but RNG as Ice explained and you will get your missing BP if you hang on. Time and patience are key in this game. Look at the bright side Byakuren, the joy it will give you once you get that last missing print. Good luck.

 

[Knight of ICE]

i am not frustrated. i'm just disappointed in this game's predatory design.

There is no predatory design. For beginning players most BP's you get is from aiding. When you aid there is a small chance you will get a BP from the age of the building you are aiding. If in that age there are 2 GB's, the chance to get a BP from one of the two is equal at 50%. Then there are 9 BP's for every GB. Do you really believe that with odds like that it is needed to lower the chance for one specific BP in any way? Not just that. but make it so it is a different BP for any player?

 

[Deleted member 127677]

I think people will believe, and share the belief, as it’s always the same, one print short or, later on, significant discrepancies in how many you will have for 1 out of 9 of one particular building, after years of play. It can vary by 100s or 1000s, depending how actively you’ve been getting them. If it was true RNG, would you not expect them to be roughly equal?

 

[Byakuren]

i am not a new player and

There is no predatory design. For beginning players most BP's you get is from aiding. When you aid there is a small chance you will get a BP from the age of the building you are aiding. If in that age there are 2 GB's, the chance to get a BP from one of the two is equal at 50%. Then there are 9 BP's for every GB. Do you really believe that with odds like that it is needed to lower the chance for one specific BP in any way? Not just that. but make it so it is a different BP for any player?

yes, i do believe there is a need to lower the odds. this way a player is more likely to spend money on the game. if there is RNG in a game that can be monetized then it's definitely going to be abused by the developer, because you can't prove that it's fair or unfair. just call it 'unlucky' if someone gets screwed by the system.

 

[Knight of ICE]

If it was true RNG, would you not expect them to be roughly equal?

If I look at mine they are roughly equal. Yes it can vary. Not that strange since there is more than one way to get BP's. Flip a coin 10 times and if it lands on tail 8 times there will always be people claiming the coin is rigged.

 

[Deleted member 127677]

i am not a new player and

yes, i do believe there is a need to lower the odds. this way a player is more likely to spend money on the game. if there is RNG in a game that can be monetized then it's definitely going to be abused by the developer, because you can't prove that it's fair or unfair. just call it 'unlucky' if someone gets screwed by the system.

That ‘unlucky‘ gets said a lot when you question percentages and probability. Probability nevertheless never works out not to equal out at some point. I’ve seen the same with ToR and also questioned it on Gbg, but stats are easier to compile for ToR, and it shows same pattern.

 

[Deleted member 127677]

If I look at mine they are roughly equal. Yes it can vary. Not that strange since there is more than one way to get BP's. Flip a coin 10 times and if it lands on tail 8 times there will always be people claiming the coin is rigged.

Totally, but it will eventually land 50% of the time on one side or another. With the stats we have here, that equalling out does not seem to happen. Not arguing with you. Just saying this is what it looks like to many, and that is what we base our assumptions and beliefs on. Notice I’m saying assumptions and beliefs already before you do

 

[Forwandert]

Just post in the server chat that you're looking for specific bps from a gb and ask if anyone's levelling. Normally if there's a new gb out it can be a pain getting the last few whilst hardly anybody has any but in general any bps are widely available.

They never perfectly balance out but ones I have enough bps for 1000s of levels the gap between highest amount and lowest is only 120ish bps.

 

[Knight of ICE]

Totally, but it will eventually land 50% of the time on one side or another. With the stats we have here, that equalling out does not seem to happen.

According to your own statement it eventually will

 

[klods hans]

Invest fps in GBs you need bps for. Make sure to secure a reward spot so that no one else can pass you.
Ask guild mates and friends to level a GB you need bps for.

 

[Vesiger]

People always assume 'random' ought to mean 'evenly distributed '. It doesn't.
True random values clump, to the extent that a lot of software that aims to generate a random selection of backdrops, music tracks etc. actually resorts to *faking* the results to something that looks more 'realistically' random to the users: generating a list of all the possibilities, and then removing items from the list of potential future selections once they have been picked, in order to ensure you don't get the same thing twice in quick succession...

 

[fred54]

I’m not at all sure about the fairness of bp trades.

Obviously, in theory, the chance of getting a specific bp is 1 in 9. But there was a GB in which I wasn’t particularly interested, so I just let bp’s build up. By yesterday I had bp’s in eight of the nine slots. One slot had one bp, three had three, one had four, and three had five. That’s a total of 21 ‘spare’ bp’s. I traded randomly but never filled the empty slot.

It wouldn’t be difficult to develop an algorithm which biased the positioning of the post-trade bp towards a non-empty slot, wherever that slot was. I suspect that’s what’s been done, pushing players to use diamonds and, ultimately, real money.

 

[Forwandert]

I’m not at all sure about the fairness of bp trades.

Obviously, in theory, the chance of getting a specific bp is 1 in 9. But there was a GB in which I wasn’t particularly interested, so I just let bp’s build up. By yesterday I had bp’s in eight of the nine slots. One slot had one bp, three had three, one had four, and three had five. That’s a total of 21 ‘spare’ bp’s. I traded randomly but never filled the empty slot.

It wouldn’t be difficult to develop an algorithm which biased the positioning of the post-trade bp towards a non-empty slot, wherever that slot was. I suspect that’s what’s been done, pushing players to use diamonds and, ultimately, real money.

It's a 10 year old debate at least, of course it's set up like that. Players actively seeking bps for a certain gb never have issues. Players passively seeking bps will have less opportunity to gain them and might feel the need to buy with dia.

 

[Paladiac the Pure]

I’m not at all sure about the fairness of bp trades.

Obviously, in theory, the chance of getting a specific bp is 1 in 9. But there was a GB in which I wasn’t particularly interested, so I just let bp’s build up. By yesterday I had bp’s in eight of the nine slots. One slot had one bp, three had three, one had four, and three had five. That’s a total of 21 ‘spare’ bp’s. I traded randomly but never filled the empty slot.

It wouldn’t be difficult to develop an algorithm which biased the positioning of the post-trade bp towards a non-empty slot, wherever that slot was. I suspect that’s what’s been done, pushing players to use diamonds and, ultimately, real money.

There is nothing wrong with this - this is exactly how "random" (or RNG) works. You can experiment it yourself, using dice. As much as it might seem nice to complain about the push to force players to use real life money - this particular issue is a non-issue. Every game that exists that has RNG chances has players constantly crying about how unfair or wrong things are. But random is just that - random. A 1 in 6 chance (like a die) does not mean you will get 1 though 6 with six throws of the die. Some people might get all 6 in the six chances, but some more only get 2 of the numbers in total, and the few odd people will get the exact same number all six times.

 

[DJ of BA]

When I asked this question over 5 years ago I was told by several players that had been around since the very early days of the game that there was an Algorithm applied to Blueprint collection, supposedly it randomly "chooses" a BP from each current available GB when a player starts a city, this BP Fragment then has a much lower chance of being awarded than the other 8, evidentially this was either until the GB was levelled to L 30 or you had 30 sets in inventory after which all BP fragments then had equal chances, I must admit this does seem to happen as is borne out by historical observations and others I have talked to, it was just a way to "slow" down player progress at the time.

Now whether this is true or not, this has been the norm for well over 5 years, so it is not one of the current "cash income" changes instigated by INNO, its been happening from way before the current owners came into the picture.

 

[fred54]

I understand how randomness works. But if I roll a die twenty times and get twenty ones then it’s reasonable to question the fairness of the die.

In FoE the chance of getting a duplicate post-trade bp is 8-in-9, or 88%. The chance of this happening twenty times in a row is around 8%.

I could believe this if it only happened occasionally. But it seems to happen all the time. I’ve been trying to build the Arc for several weeks, and I’ve just had a frustrating five minutes where I’ve traded and traded my way through sixteen ‘spare’ bp’s trying to fill that ninth slot to no avail.

 

[Emberguard]

In FoE the chance of getting a duplicate post-trade bp is 8-in-9, or 88%. The chance of this happening twenty times in a row is around 8%.

If you're using the trade function, I would be choosing two slots to trade from. That'd change it to 7 remaining slots

I could believe this if it only happened occasionally. But it seems to happen all the time. I’ve been trying to build the Arc for several weeks, and I’ve just had a frustrating five minutes where I’ve traded and traded my way through sixteen ‘spare’ bp’s trying to fill that ninth slot to no avail.

If you're trying to hit a specific spot, then you're aiming for 1 in 9 chance to hit it. Because there's 8 slots you don't want and 1 slot you do want.

Are you saying the duplicate blueprints are different slots within the other 8? Or the exact same slot each and every time?