Question about so-called "Luck Accounts"

[Ashantara.8731]

Edit: The question has been answered a while ago:

No need to comment any further - thanks. 😉

Edited November 26, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Omega.6801]

First time I hear about ANet trying to implement something with luck that backfired leaving some accounts "luckier" than others.

My bet is you are being had by your acquaintance. Words are cheap. I can tell you now that on my alt-account that I created 6 months ago I had already drop three Queen Bee Infusions, a pair of Invisible Boots and two Confetti Infusions, must be a lucky account, right? Except that account doesn't exist and I haven't had these drops.

Edited November 15, 2021 by lokh.2695

[Ashantara.8731]

26 minutes ago, lokh.2695 said:

My bet is you are being had by your acquaintance.

Usually, that would have been my assumption as well had I not been present myself on some of those occasions (he would have to be a pretty sad sob if he did not ping from his inventory but used chat codes in those instances; I probably should have asked him to spam-ping the items ).

Therefore, I was curious if anyone had information on that claim, since I can't believe any game developer would deliberately (or accidentally) do that to their playerbase.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Danikat.8537]

I've never heard that rumour either. I have heard all kinds of rumours about how rare drops work, including that someone at Anet manually assigns them or that it's on a timer so there's a 30 minute or 1 hour window when each infusion/invisible boot box/whatever can drop (people said that about the mini polar bear in GW1 as well) or the drop rate is fixed to 1 per day. I've also heard that the lucky accounts are not random and it's either the people who buy the most gems or restricted to people who never buy gems to help keep them hooked so maybe they'll spend real money one day. As far as I know none of those are true either.

Based on people I know who appear to have lucky accounts there's two possibilities (besides simply lying):

1) It doesn't happen as often as it seems but they bring it up at every oppertunity. If anyone in one of my guilds talks about black lion chests/keys one person will join in to say they got all the account bound drops with their first 3 keys. That only happened once, about 2 years ago, but they talk about it every single time so some people end up thinking it happens to them every time the chests are updated.

2) They farm a lot. One of my old guild leaders used to claim she had a lucky account and was always getting precursors. It was kind of true, she did get a lot more precursors than most people but that's because she spent most of her time farming exotics and gold to buy exotics and putting them in the Mystic Forge. During the HoT beta she was telling everyone how even on a beta character she got a precursor, then later explained she'd made a character, opened all the equipment boxes, put it all in the Forge, deleted them and made another and kept on doing that until she got her "lucky" drop.

Or a combination of the two. In that case confirmation bias may play a part too, they may genuinely believe they have a lucky account and are more likely to get rare drops, which encourages them to spend more time farming because they're sure it will pay off.

[Randulf.7614]

The lucky account myth was debunked by Anet a long time ago. It was propagated by disgruntled players and was never a thing

[Zok.4956]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

An acquaintance of mine has had 6 Chak Infusions and several others dropped, as well as a couple of Invisible Boots boxes and tons of Precursors, and he has only been playing for ~4 years. Most accounts that were created on release can count themselves lucky if they have had one such drop in 9+ years.

There is probably some exaggeration in the statement of your acquaintance. But even it is not, it is still not unusual for a perfectly random distribution.

A random distribution does not mean that all get the same. It usually means that there are a very few very lucky players/persons that get/win a lot and most (unlucky) players do not. Like in every lottery.

The speculation that Anet has a bad random algorithm is mainly based on a lack of understanding of how random distribution works.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Zok.4956

[Strider Pj.2193]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Usually, that would have been my assumption as well had I not been present myself on some of those occasions (he would have to be a pretty sad sob if he did not ping from his inventory but used chat codes in those instances; I probably should have asked him to spam-ping the items ).

Therefore, I was curious if anyone had information on that claim, since I can't believe any game developer would deliberately (or accidentally) do that to their playerbase.

Have them screen shot their inventory and post it in discord.  If their answer is ‘no’ then maybe, just maybe, your acquaintance is a young cat.  🤷😬

[Hashberry.4510]

We see patterns in clouds.

[kharmin.7683]

I see dead people.

[Randulf.7614]

Given how easy is to link items you don’t have and exaggerate or lie about drops, I wouldn’t give credence to any claims. This is how the lucky account myth got spread in the first place. 6 chak infusion drops whilst plausible, is prob false. Or they bought them 

Ive seen people admit to keeping a rare item and posting it in chat every now and again claiming it’s a new drop.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Randulf.7614

[kharmin.7683]

No exaggeration here.  8+ years.  Not one precursor or other unique drop.  😞

[Tachenon.5270]

Precursors are a hoax! Well, except for the one I bought off the TP some time ago. It never became a legendary, though, once I began to appreciate all the stuff I didn't want to do that I'd have to do to make it so. Hmm, now I'm wondering which one it was and what I did with it...

 

Top Drop of All Time for me remains that jetpack thingee from that LS1 Molten Facility dungeon.

[mercury ranique.2170]

There is no such thing that makes one luyckier then others unless it is the statistical luck anyone can have.

On a rare occasion I also met people who seems to be extremely lucky.
They also had very simular behavioral profiles

Obviously, some people can be extremely lucky. Statistics even demand this. But it also happens that people are not always honest about their wealth and luck. 

I never questioned them and if needed I congratulated them when they where once more "lucky". For the rest I kept up the respect and ignored it.
 

[Strider Pj.2193]

25 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

No exaggeration here.  8+ years.  Not one precursor or other unique drop.  😞

Same here.  😬.  Been playing since about 2 weeks post release….

 

I did get a permanent bank access fro buying BL keys….  But that’s not really a lucky drop…. Effectively paid for it.  🥴

[kharmin.7683]

My luck would be that I would get a precursor drop for a legendary I wouldn't want anyway.

[DeanBB.4268]

Two legendary precursors for me, the shield and short bow, one from the chest at Morgan's Leap in Caledon, one from a green unid from the Star of Gratitude. Many years between those two drops. Made the legendary shield back in the day and sold it for my permanent bank access, a much more useful acquisition for me.

But yeah, random is as random does.

[Excursion.9752]

I have one of these lucky accounts! Mine just happens to be the bad kind. 🤣

[kharmin.7683]

5 minutes ago, Excursion.9752 said:

I have one of these lucky accounts! Mine just happens to be the bad kind. 🤣

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

Yeah, I don’t believe in your friend’s good luck. Anyone can ping things. You can even ping items from the trading post into chat. He’s probably just teasing you to see your reaction. 

[Blude.6812]

2 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

The lucky account myth was debunked by Anet a long time ago. It was propagated by disgruntled players and was never a thing

Actually I remember that they talked about outlier accounts and some have them but Anet have never addressed the issue.

[Randulf.7614]

59 minutes ago, Blude.6812 said:

Actually I remember that they talked about outlier accounts and some have them but Anet have never addressed the issue.

Yes they have, on one of the old forums years ago. There are no such things as lucky accounts in GW2

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

Yeah, the lucky accounts thing was debunked a long time ago. I've a friend who has gotten 3 boxes of Invisible Boots, but it's also true they farmed the Treasure Mushrooms A LOT. They're still very lucky to have gotten 3 (and they definitely got them as each time they sold them and went on a skin-buying spree afterwards to stockpile stuff as an investment to sell later at a profit) , but definitely their persistence was also a factor. Alternately they also do the weekly keyfarm and save up the keys, but often don't get the exclusive skin from a given chest when using up those farmed keys.

Meanwhile I, who heavily farm the black lion keys with alts/lots of efficient mapping, always manage to get the chest exclusives and quite often the mount skins as well when they're in the chest. But it's also true that because of my extensive farming, I have 8-9 times as many farmed keys to lay down on a given chest than my friend so I have far more chances. Sometimes I'll get the exclusive with less than 10 keys and save the remainder of my key stockpile for a later box. Sometimes it's taken me 60 keys to get it. Sometimes when there's a guaranteed item I want (like WvW reward track potions) I'll liquidate my entire stash of keys in order to get easy Gifts of Battle and just sell-off any skin drops etc that I get for gold. Key for key comparison my account appears to be luckier than theirs, but it's also just probable that because I have so many free keys I've farmed that I get closer to the statistical average chance overall while my friend has just simply had normal bad luck within the drop chances.

So basically yeah, some people will do something for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time and get stupendously lucky to get that mega rare drop after a handful of tries, while others may farm something for months/years and not get it. Both have the same chances to get said item on any given try, and more rolls of dice may statistically mean mean you're more likely but at the same time more tries isn't a guarantee you'll get it. It just means you've taken more tries at it.

[Ashantara.8731]

4 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

The lucky account myth was debunked by Anet a long time ago. It was propagated by disgruntled players and was never a thing

Ah! Do you happen to have a link I can send the people who made the claim? Something official will certainly silence them and keep them from spreading any more rumors on the matter.

2 hours ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

I did get a permanent bank access fro buying BL keys….

I got two over the years, and other valuable stuff from BL Chests. So this isn't me being one of those "disgruntled players" Randulf mentioned. I was merely curious if that claim was actually a thing.

18 minutes ago, Alaia Skyhawk.5064 said:

Sometimes I'll get the exclusive with less than 10 keys and save the remainder of my key stockpile for a later box. Sometimes it's taken me 60 keys to get it.

Well, this thread wasn't about the usual RNG in this game but about a supposed account buff. I mean, c'mon, even with a lot of farming, how likely is it that someone gets 6 (!) Chak Infusions and all the other stuff he claimed he had received? (It's not even a player who farms at all.) He was probably using chat codes after all then - how sad.

4 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I have heard all kinds of rumours about how rare drops work, including that someone at Anet manually assigns them or that it's on a timer so there's a 30 minute or 1 hour window when each infusion/invisible boot box/whatever can drop (people said that about the mini polar bear in GW1 as well) or the drop rate is fixed to 1 per day. I've also heard that the lucky accounts are not random and it's either the people who buy the most gems or restricted to people who never buy gems to help keep them hooked so maybe they'll spend real money one day.

I suppose the rumor mill never stops grinding. Some deserve a thumbs-up for creativity.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Ashantara.8731 said:

Ah! Do you happen to have a link I can send the people who made the claim? Something official will certainly silence them and keep them from spreading any more rumors on the matter.

I got two over the years, and other valuable stuff from BL Chests. So this isn't me being one of those "disgruntled players" Randulf mentioned. I was merely curious if that claim was actually a thing.

I suppose the rumor mill never stops grinding. Some deserve a thumbs-up for creativity.

Nah. It’s deep in either of the old forums. It was an official post - possibly by the economist at the time - and pretty much put to rest the weekly threads we were getting on the subject. Have barely seen a lucky account thread since then.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 minute ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Have barely seen a lucky account thread since then.

Yay me then! 😂