FBSS rarity?

[fischsemmel]

Post is getting old, but figured I'd come back and edit it incase anyone using search function digs this up looking for fbss rarity or drop stats or whatever.

I camped frenzy in 2 sessions. First one was 18 hours, killed 108 pops, 7 of which were frenzied ghouls, but just got 7 rings as loot. Second session lasted about 3 hours, killed 17 pops, 4 of which were frenzied ghouls, and the last one of those coughed up the sash for me.

[guineapig]

In all honesty, with the rate at which haste belts are rotting in sky you are better off just grinding your melee character to 46 then buying a Sky stone. for 100 and change.

Just my opinion of course, but I think too much time / platinum is wasted on a 1AC zero stat item in classic where most of the mobs you will be fighting have ridiculously low hit-points to begin with.

[guineapig]

Anyway, it's hard to judge the true rarity of the item since you are dealing with 3 placeholders that all have the same chance of spawning the frenzied. So basically how many hours you end up spending at that camp is going to depend on how lucky you are with multiple random chances.

[fischsemmel]

In all honesty, with the rate at which haste belts are rotting in sky you are better off just grinding your melee character to 46 then buying a Sky stone. for 100 and change.

Just my opinion of course, but I think too much time / platinum is wasted on a 1AC zero stat item in classic where most of the mobs you will be fighting have ridiculously low hit-points to begin with.

I'm leveling my melee character along with a friend's shaman, and it will probably be at least a month before we are level 46, if not longer.

Ridiculously low hp mobs or not, 21% haste on a 1 ac belt obviously has a much, MUCH larger impact on my little rogue's killing potential than any other belt I could get, especially when I'm primarily playing in 2-3 person groups.

The frenzy camp IS kind of nice though, assuming that the average time it would take to drop isn't any longer than it has taken for me so far. You only need to pay attention for like 10-12 minutes out of every 28, which leaves a lot of time to hold the camp and also do some reading/studying/housework in the meantime

[fischsemmel]

Anyway, it's hard to judge the true rarity of the item since you are dealing with 3 placeholders that all have the same chance of spawning the frenzied. So basically how many hours you end up spending at that camp is going to depend on how lucky you are with multiple random chances.

It's not hard, it just takes a large amount of data. That's why I submitted my info from what I've done so far and asked about it on here instead of just assuming that my experience is the typical experience :p

Remember, I didn't ask how long it would take for me to get a fbss... I know that random chances mean I might NEVER see one, or that I might see one on my next kill. I asked about the average, ballpark-ish time required to get one.

[soup]

You the guy I saw selling 8 Moonstone rings? ;)

[fischsemmel]

You the guy I saw selling 8 Moonstone rings? ;)

Yeah. I vendored hem about 20 seconds after I auctioned, haha. No idea what they actually sell for to players, but I'm not one to sit in EC for very long :)

[Jadian]

i've seen 3 drop in about a 5 hour span. Luck of the draw man. BTW that whole time I never saw a Frenzied pop on the right side (if you are facing the fountain). Dunno if that one has a lower % chance to spawn Frenzied or if it really is just that random.

[Droodler]

It's tough to make good estimates without some assumptions.

Here's a Bayesian method I just used to calculate the probability of getting an FBSS.

We start with a prior probability of getting 1 FBSS every 10 hours (this is arbitrary). Since you had 109 attempts in 18 hours (or 6.1 attempts per hour), that means our expectation rate of FBSS is 1/61.

If you use Laplace's rule of succession and fit a beta distribution to that prior, we get Beta(2,61). This distribution looks like this:

http://i.imgur.com/fe4AJ.jpg

Now, when we include the information that you provided (101 tries, 0 successes) we end up with a Bayesian that looks like this

http://i.imgur.com/LhYbO.jpg

In this one, the blue is the prior probability, the red is your findings, and the gold is the posterior probability. So, this tells you what the FBSS drop rate is most likely to be based on the data available.

Some statistics on that post distribution:

Mode: p -> 0.00606061

Expected value: 0.011976

From this data, I calculate the FBSS rate per bloodthirsty ghoul killed to be 1.20%.

EDIT: Here is a cumulative probability function based on a geometric distribution. The x axis is the number of frenzy/bloodthirsty you kill and the Y axis is the probability of having looted at least 1 FBSS.

http://i.imgur.com/P6fxt.jpg

EDIT: If anyone has more data, I would be happy to throw it in here.

[guineapig]

I asked about the average, ballpark-ish time required to get one.

In that case you will need a ton of people responding to this thread.

My guess is that there are somewhere between 600-700 sashes in the game right now.

I'm basing this guess on the number of days the server has been live, rounding down to 400 due to server down time and the first month when the population was low and leveling up. Then I'm guessing that about 1-2 sashes drop on average per day.

[Droodler]

One more thing you might find useful

Here I plotted the chance of getting at least 1 FBSS vs number of hours spent camping, using all the above data/assumptions

http://i.imgur.com/IfSte.jpg

[BobSmith]

Droodler, can you put that in layman's terms?

That last chart was clear, but I did not understand the rest.

[Droodler]

Droodler, can you put that in layman's terms?

That last chart was clear, but I did not understand the rest.

Bayesian statistics involve three things: a prior distribution, a likelihood, and posterior (the result)

The prior distribution is what we expect the outcome to be before we apply the data. It is an assumption made from existing data or assumptions you make. Here, I made the assumption that 1 FBSS every 10 hours was reasonable. I made a prior based on this, that in 61 attempts you would get 1 FBSS.

Then what you do is take into account the actual data. Here, the OP said he had 109 spawns with 0 FBSS. I used that to create a likelihood (the red curve).

Then you combine them to get the posterior. That is the gold curve.

To interpret this graph

http://i.imgur.com/LhYbO.jpg

Think of the x axis as the probability of a single spawn dropping an FBSS. The Y axis is a density, so you can interpret the height of each curve at a point as the probability of that being the ACTUAL FBSS drop rate.

You can see that in the prior (blue curve), the expected FBSS drop rate is around 0.018. In the post, it is 0.012.

The cumulative function I think you understand.

[fischsemmel]

In that case you will need a ton of people responding to this thread.

My guess is that there are somewhere between 600-700 sashes in the game right now.

I'm basing this guess on the number of days the server has been live, rounding down to 400 due to server down time and the first month when the population was low and leveling up. Then I'm guessing that about 1-2 sashes drop on average per day.

No, I won't need a ton of people responding. I only need a significant amount of data like what I provided to get a ballpark figure for how rare FBSS drops are. The number of them on the server, the time the server has been, how often they are farmed, all that can contribute to the answer I want... but I hardly need 100+ people to tell me how long it took each of them to get their FBSS in order to have a ballpark figure.

Without finding my statistics textbooks from undergrad, I'll venture a guess that the data from 80 hours of farming frenzy would be more than enough to get a pretty darn good idea of the drop rate of the thing.


And re: all the charts, why would you take the time to put all that up there based on an assumption that you had no foundation for? Or did you actually have a reason to believe that 1 FBSS drop per 10 hours at frenzy is about average, and I just missed it?

Edit - Oh come on. You admitted that the 1 in 10 hours figure was totally made up, but you still bothered to make those posts?

[Messianic]

And re: all the charts, why would you take the time to put all that up there based on an assumption that you had no foundation for?

My guess is....fun? Trying to be helpful?

Edit - Oh come on. You admitted that the 1 in 10 hours figure was totally made up, but you still bothered to make those posts?

THIS IS A TRAVESTY

I AM DISAPPOINT

[fischsemmel]

I'm all grumpy now.

"Hey guys! Let's just assume for fun that the frenzy has a 99% chance to spawn and has a 99% chance of dropping the FBSS! This means that I got totally screwed by farming frenzy for 18 hours and not getting even a single FBSS!"

^ = totally true... but totally useless. But totally a good idea to put in this thread, because I had fun typing it and I was trying to be helpful, right?

/sigh

[Messianic]

I'm all grumpy now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCtQmwJ1WAY

[guineapig]

No, I won't need a ton of people responding. I only need a significant amount of data like what I provided to get a ballpark figure for how rare FBSS drops are. The number of them on the server, the time the server has been, how often they are farmed, all that can contribute to the answer I want... but I hardly need 100+ people to tell me how long it took each of them to get their FBSS in order to have a ballpark figure.

Well, if only 10 people reply and 5 reply with smug answers like I got mine third spawn or I got 2 in a row then your figures are going to be pretty darn inaccurate. If you wanted any statistics that are worth using you would want a significant number of replies. Hence why I said you would want a ton of replies to get usable information.... especially on these forums.

The devs would be able to tell you the exact number on the server but I'm not sure they would be willing to do that. It doesn't hurt to ask nicely but keep in mind that they are super busy with more important things.

We already gave you a ballpark though, so I'm not sure what else you want.
If you spent 24 hours there non-stop I'm pretty sure you would get one.
But, there is always a chance that you won't.
That's the best answer you are going to get.

[fischsemmel]

We already gave you a ballpark though, so I'm not sure what else you want


"Info" that has been given in this thread re: the rarity of the fbss:

1. 18 hours, 109 spawn chances, 8 frenzied ghouls, 0 fbss.

2. "i've seen 3 drop in about a 5 hour span."

3. a bunch of charts and stuff by Droodler that was all based on an admittedly arbitrary number

4. "I'm guessing that about 1-2 sashes drop on average per day." -> "My guess is that there are somewhere between 600-700 sashes in the game right now."


Please point me to which one of these, exactly, gave me a ballpark figure for how long it takes to get an fbss drop at frenzy. And remember, people pulling arbitrary numbers out of thin air does not give us anything useful.

[BobSmith]

Thanks Droodler. I understand now.

I checked the latest EQEMU database. The frenzied ghould has a 1 in 10 chance to spawn, and each frenzied ghoul has a 1 in 5 chance to drop an FBSS. I realize this may be very different from P99, but it might be useful as an initial assumption.

[Messianic]

Thanks Droodler. I understand now.

I checked the latest EQEMU database. The frenzied ghould has a 1 in 10 chance to spawn, and each frenzied ghoul has a 1 in 5 chance to drop an FBSS. I realize this may be very different from P99, but it might be useful as an initial assumption.

Do you have the exact percentage amounts? When you start piling probabilities, it can make a good bit of difference.

[fischsemmel]

Thanks Droodler. I understand now.

I checked the latest EQEMU database. The frenzied ghould has a 1 in 10 chance to spawn, and each frenzied ghoul has a 1 in 5 chance to drop an FBSS. I realize this may be very different from P99, but it might be useful as an initial assumption.

If this is accurate for p99, then I did indeed get pretty darn unlucky. 20% chance to drop a fbss means that there was only about a 16% chance that I shouldn't have seen it at least once from 8 frenzied ghouls. And then there is the fact that I saw slightly fewer frenzied ghouls than the average.

Edit - again, assuming those numbers are accurate for p99, I think the average-ish time someone would have to spend at frenzy to get an fbss would only be about 6-7 hours.

[BobSmith]

So if the rates in the EQEMU db are the same as P99, then there is a 1 in 50 chance for each spawn to be a frenzied ghoul with an FBSS. If you kill 6 spawns per hour, then you'd kill 60 in 10 hours. There would be about a 70 percent chance that at least one spawn out of those sixty would result in an FBSS.

At that rate, there is about an 88 percent chance that killing 107 spawns would result in at least one FBSS.

So, either you got unlucky, or the drop rate is lower on P99 than EQEMU.

[Droodler]

And re: all the charts, why would you take the time to put all that up there based on an assumption that you had no foundation for? Or did you actually have a reason to believe that 1 FBSS drop per 10 hours at frenzy is about average, and I just missed it?

There's an entire field of statistics that deals with these sorts of problems. I just applied it to your question.

Using BobSmith's 1/50 drop rate, here are the recalculated statistics (no time for graphs right now)

Expected drop rate: 1.24%

It's making the most with the least amount of data. Sorry I couldn't magically create data for you.

And yes, you did get unlucky. I did a G test for goodness of fit of the 1/50 chance, and the p-value was 0.1398.

Edit: Based on your results, the FBSS rate is not significantly different than 1/50. With more data, it may be. You didn't get significantly unlucky

[Bubbles]

Between me and a buddy - 63 hours without a sash.

It's probably still the server record.

God i hate that f'n camp.

[fischsemmel]

There's an entire field of statistics that deals with these sorts of problems. I just applied it to your question.

Your "application" of statistics to my question was about as useful as some random scientist taking an hour to explain the inner workings of gravity to someone who asked "How much does this rock weigh?"

Just as the person with the rock would have been better served if the scientist had said "I don't know; I don't have a scale handy with which to weigh the rock," I would have been better served if you had not said anything at all :p

And yes, you did get unlucky. I did a G test for goodness of fit of the 1/50 chance, and the p-value was 0.1398.

Edit: Based on your results, the FBSS rate is not significantly different than 1/50. With more data, it may be. You didn't get significantly unlucky

If 86 out of 100 people would have gotten an fbss where I did not, how can you say that isn't significant?

[BobSmith]

If 86 out of 100 people would have gotten an fbss where I did not, how can you say that isn't significant?

I think he just means that, given the odds, your result was unlikely, but not highly unlikely.

If we have the odds right, then you had approximately a 1 in 6 chance to come away with nothing. An unlucky outcome, but not a rarity.

[BobSmith]

Your "application" of statistics to my question was about as useful as some random scientist taking an hour to explain the inner workings of gravity to someone who asked "How much does this rock weigh?"

No, it was useful and in fact answered your question, you just did not understand.

Your original question was:
I was at frenzy for 18 hours yesterday. Killed 101 bloodthirsty ghouls and 8 frenzied ghouls, but didn't see a sash.

Is that averageish? Somewhat unlucky? Or what?

In Droodler's conclusion he states:
Based on your results, the FBSS rate is not significantly different than 1/50. ... You didn't get significantly unlucky

But to be fair, I did not understand most of what he said in his first post, and I don't expect that most people would.

[Krimsin]

Please point me to which one of these, exactly, gave me a ballpark figure for how long it takes to get an fbss drop at frenzy. And remember, people pulling arbitrary numbers out of thin air does not give us anything useful.

Why do you care? If you want an FBSS get on and farm it.

What do statistics get you other than a chance to gripe about how "unlucky" you are?

KILL MOAR FRENZIES!!

/therad

[guineapig]

Your "application" of statistics to my question was about as useful as some random scientist taking an hour to explain the inner workings of gravity to someone who asked "How much does this rock weigh?"

Just as the person with the rock would have been better served if the scientist had said "I don't know; I don't have a scale handy with which to weigh the rock," I would have been better served if you had not said anything at all



You seem rather ungrateful when people are trying to help you.
I'm just saying...

[Droodler]

Your "application" of statistics to my question was about as useful as some random scientist taking an hour to explain the inner workings of gravity to someone who asked "How much does this rock weigh?"
You fail to understand. Read more about statistics, specifically assigning Bayesian priors. My analysis is perfectly valid and gave you a much more reasonable estimate of the drop rate.


If 86 out of 100 people would have gotten an fbss where I did not, how can you say that isn't significant?

Usually we say something is significant if p < 0.05. SOMETIMES people use 0.10. Your result is not significant.

[BobSmith]

Between me and a buddy - 63 hours without a sash.

It's probably still the server record.

God i hate that f'n camp.

If the 1 in 50 estimate is correct, the odds of getting at least one FBSS in 63 hours is about 99.95%.

You got bitchin' rights Bubbles.

[oldhead]

Between me and a buddy - 63 hours without a sash.

It's probably still the server record.

God i hate that f'n camp.


Heh that sucks... I did a 33 hour run for the FBSS on live.. didnt get one. Ended up buying it then getting a FBSS drop later with my twink that was wearing the fbss I bought.

I'd say total time I was in #1 line for the FBSS would be about 80 hours on live and only got one.


edit - i tend to have bad luck on spawns tho.

[Messianic]

What's so amusing is how much money people could have made in the same 30+ hours they spent trying to farm the FBSS, had they just gone out and tried to earn the money the consistent way. Particularly pet classes.

You could have likely just made the cash and bought like 2 FBSS', even with what they typically go for nowadays.

All I can say is I can't wait for Kunark so all my favorite classic places start opening up :)

[Extunarian]

I found Droodler's analysis helpful and interesting. I'm sorry that he couldn't confirm for you that you were significantly unlucky, and I'm sorry you react with such contempt when you see charts.

[Shiftin]

sky haste belts rot they're going out of style and the first island can be farmed by 1 group, the second island by 2 groups.

[Messianic]

I found Droodler's analysis helpful and interesting. I'm sorry that he couldn't confirm for you that you were significantly unlucky, and I'm sorry you react with such contempt when you see charts.

CHARTS BAD

GO AWAY

[Tovin]

You folks aren't accounting for the time it takes the kill the mob in between spawns. So unless you've got an army of wizzies nuking mobs as they pop, your likelihood starts to decrease. In fact, I'd say it probably takes an extra 1-2 minutes to pull and kill the Frenzied or PH each time it pops. Over 63 hours this time can really add up!

[Droodler]

You folks aren't accounting for the time it takes the kill the mob in between spawns. So unless you've got an army of wizzies nuking mobs as they pop, your likelihood starts to decrease. In fact, I'd say it probably takes an extra 1-2 minutes to pull and kill the Frenzied or PH each time it pops. Over 63 hours this time can really add up!

I just used OP's data that he killed 109 in 18 hours and estimated that, on average, he was able to kill 6.1 per hour. This should already include the extra time required to kill a mob.

[Dantes]

In all honesty, with the rate at which haste belts are rotting in sky you are better off just grinding your melee character to 46 then buying a Sky stone. for 100 and change.

Just my opinion of course, but I think too much time / platinum is wasted on a 1AC zero stat item in classic where most of the mobs you will be fighting have ridiculously low hit-points to begin with.

I would agree with this. This is exactly what I've decided to do. A lack of FBSS isn't really hurting my ability to tank, my Yak still procs a lot. The sky belts are better, and it pains me to remove the 9 AC 9 STA 9 STR mithril plated girth for a lowly 1 AC 21% haste belt.

For a twink rogue/monk it makes more sense, DPS is your biggest deal. Haste is a must. But for a tank, meh.

[Ihealyou]

How do proc rates work? Is it a percent chance per swing, or procs per minute? If its per swing, I can definitely see there being a benefit to getting an FBSS.

[Sparkin]

Well... sky belts have better stats, but less haste. For anybody just doing dps the FBSS is better, and even tanks might prefer it a lot of the time when just doing relatively easy trash I'd think.

Procs aren't based on swing rate.

[guineapig]

How do proc rates work? Is it a percent chance per swing, or procs per minute? If its per swing, I can definitely see there being a benefit to getting an FBSS.


Haste does not effect proc rates.

[Badmartigan]

Well... sky belts have better stats, but less haste. For anybody just doing dps the FBSS is better, and even tanks might prefer it a lot of the time when just doing relatively easy trash I'd think.

Procs aren't based on swing rate.

some belts like the warrior (Contention) and the Monk belt (Tranquility) and rogue belt (Transience) are all 21%.

The hybrid belts and the bard belts are 16%.

[Uthgaard]

You fail to understand. Read more about statistics, specifically assigning Bayesian priors. My analysis is perfectly valid and gave you a much more reasonable estimate of the drop rate.

It is a pretty accurate overall chance. I took spawn percent chance times drop rate. He's off by less than a half a percent.

[Messianic]

It is a pretty accurate overall chance. I took spawn percent chance times drop rate. He's off by less than a half a percent.

BOOYA