Why Upkeep is a Little TOO Realistic, or: Why Math is Awesome.

[Rusty_Shacklefjord]

Consider this:

the break rate for each item is 4% chance per minute played.
- for every 5 minutes played each item has a 20% chance of breaking.
- with only 5 items, on average 1 of them will break per 5 minutes played.
- on average an entire 5-piece outfit will break every 25 minutes.

one tick of income is generated every 5 minutes.
- assuming an average multiplier of x3, you will earn 300 gold every five minutes.
- in 25 minutes you will earn an average of 1500 gold.

upkeep for each item is 7% the cost of the item.
- with a 5-piece outfit you will pay 7% of your total cost every 25 minutes.
- 1500*.07=21428.

Therefore, with an average multiplier of x3 your total cost must be less than or equal to 21428 gold in order to break even.

~21.5k is barely enough money for a set of cheap medium armor and a weapon. Players depending on an average income are forced to wear this sort of meager gear, while long term multi-generational characters with huge stockpiles of money are able to wear whatever they want. I frequently see vets running (or worse, riding) around in full plate with masterwork weapons. Newer players flail impotently against them, then are cut down in a single hit. It reminds me all too much of rich medieval knights in their shining armor, passed down from generation to generation, cutting down hordes of poor helpless peasants. This sort of wealth gap may be realistic, but it's certainly not fun - at least for the majority that are on the receiving end.

[Tears of Destiny]

Your math seems a little odd....

How comfortable are you exactly with using percentages?

[Rusty_Shacklefjord]

Your math seems a little odd....

Odd how?

For the sake of brevity I didn't really explain everything step-by-step, but it seems fairly sound to me.

[Tears of Destiny]

Just curious on why you are adding percentages, otherwise if you break that mathematical law and add instead of multiply percentages, over the course of 25 minutes you have a 100% chance of breaking an item... Which is false.

I understand your line of reasoning, I just don't agree with the steps that you chose to take.

In my opinion, it should be an 18.463% chance not 20%.

[Leshma]

Yeah, he should multiply not sum percentages...

He's not very good at probability and statistics.

[Tears of Destiny]

Think of it this way.

Using very big numbers so it is easy to understand:
Let me say I have a 50% chance of avoiding having an item break every time a tick happens.

If two ticks happen, then using the false addition, I would get the result of 50%+50%=100% chance of avoiding having an item breaking, which is wrong. Perversely, if I then claim that it was a 50% chance of the item breaking, it would be a 100% chance of the item breaking after two ticks, which is false.

Realistically you should multiply each other, so X^T where T is the ticks and X is the % would give me 50%^2 or simply put .5^2 which is .25 or 25% which is correct for the chance of me avoiding a break chance, or to put it in other terms, a 75% chance that an item would break in two ticks.
In your case, the chance of avoiding an item breaking is .96^5 for five ticks.

[Apsod]

What ToD said and this.

one tick of income is generated every 5 minutes.
- assuming an average multiplier of x3, you will earn 300 gold every five minutes.
- in 25 minutes you will earn an average of 1500 gold.

With x3 you will earn 150 gold in one minute and 750 gold in 5 minutes. In 25 minutes you would have earned 3750 gold.

[Rusty_Shacklefjord]

Think of it this way.

Using very big numbers so it is easy to understand:
Let me say I have a 50% chance of avoiding having an item break every time a tick happens.

If two ticks happen, then using the false addition, I would get the result of 50%+50%=100% chance of avoiding having an item breaking, which is wrong. Perversely, if I then claim that it was a 50% chance of the item breaking, it would be a 100% chance of the item breaking after two ticks, which is false.

Realistically you should multiply each other, so X^T where T is the ticks and X is the % would give me 50%^2 or simply put .5^2 which is .25 or 25% which is correct for the chance of me avoiding a break chance, or to put it in other terms, a 75% chance that an item would break in two ticks.
In your case, the chance of avoiding an item breaking is .96^5 for five ticks.

I don't follow your reasoning at all, but it's been years since I've taken a math class and you could very well be right.

Anyway I was actually multiplying, as in:

the break rate for each item is 4% chance per minute played.
- for every 5 minutes played each item has a 20% chance of breaking.
(.04*5=.2)
- with only 5 items, on average 1 of them will break per 5 minutes played.
(.2*5=1)
- on average an entire 5-piece outfit will break every 25 minutes.
(5*5=25)

one tick of income is generated every 5 minutes.
- assuming an average multiplier of x3, you will earn 300 gold every five minutes.
- in 25 minutes you will earn an average of 1500 gold.
(300*5=1500)

upkeep for each item is 7% the cost of the item.
- with a 5-piece outfit you will pay 7% of your total cost every 25 minutes.
(see above, outfit breaks once per 25 minutes)
(also see above, 1500 gold earned every 25 minutes)
- 1500*.07=21428.

(annotated and converted to decimal for your convenience)

[Tears of Destiny]

I think I need to personally sit down with you for ten or fifteen minutes in order to straighten you out as these forums are inadequate... Or an internet whiteboard and some kind of voice protocol program.

I highly recommend cracking open a text book if you still have one left (or doing some internet research on it) and review your statistics and probability, or see a local professor.

[Gorath]

What ToD said and this.With x3 you will earn 150 gold in one minute and 750 gold in 5 minutes. In 25 minutes you would have earned 3750 gold.

Average round length seems to only be about 2 minutes tops.

[Tears of Destiny]

Average round length seems to only be about 2 minutes tops.

On what server?

They seem to usually end between the 2 and 3 minute mark for me on NA_1 during primetime (so since it starts at 7 minutes that is a lot of time), and sometimes slip lower.

[Spawny]

My 2 cents:
Average multiplier assuming a 50% win/loss chance (wich is reasonable for the vast majority of crpg players) is about 1.96 from the top of my head. Just use 2x in your math and you'll be accurate enough.

[Apsod]

Average round length seems to only be about 2 minutes tops.

For me it is normally 2-4 minutes, but what is your point with this?

[LordBerenger]

2+4 = 6 !

[Leshma]

I don't follow your reasoning at all, but it's been years since I've taken a math class and you could very well be right.

Anyway I was actually multiplying, as in:

(annotated and converted to decimal for your convenience)

Dude, your item can break or not during every of those five minutes. Chance for that is always the same and it's 4%. Also probability of breaking doesn't change over time.

Probability for opposite event to happen (item didn't break) is 96%.

So chance for your item not to break during five minutes is 0.96*0.96*0.96*0.96*0.96 or 0.96⁵. We're multiplying because all those events have to occur, item shouldn't break during first, then during second, then during third, fourth and finally during fifth minute. By multiplying we're decreasing the chance for item not to break and increasing the break chance!

Opposite event for item not breaking during five minutes is to break at any given time during those five minutes. Which means that we have to

1 - 0,8153726976 to get the change for breaking.

0,1846273024 is the break chance for item during those five minutes.