Anyone seeing statistically low drop rates from the Black Lion Chest?

[RoseofGilead.8907]

On Tuesday I opened 5 chests and got a weapon skin, a wardrobe unlock, and the branded relic package. I opened five more yesterday and got a skin, a wardrobe unlock, and the dragon fireworks package. When I opened 10 last week, I got nothing of great note (I think one wardrobe unlock and one weapon skin). RNG is RNG.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I opened 6, and got one Weapon Unlock which gave me a Gem Store skin worth about 25 Gold. Also, 2 Mini-pets I didn't have.Sometimes I'm lucky with Keys, and sometimes I'm not. I'm guessing nothing of note has changed.

[DeanBB.4268]

I'm fine with the gambling aspect, but I just keep saving my keys until something that interests me is added, either as a guaranteed drop or unlocks I like. I din't care for the last offerings, nor these latest ones. I already had a skin of interest (I forget - mount or glider?) from the last chest, and don't care for any of these current weapons. I have about 60 keys saved up now.

[Teratus.2859]

I'm not usually that lucky with them myself but I opened 13 recently and got 3 golden keys, the new glider and backpack combo, couple of wardrobe unlocks and a Embelished greatsword skin so it was a good luck payout ^^

Gonna keep those golden keys for when another must have black lion only thing happens or a really awesome premium mount skin gets added to them.

[OutOfOrder.3719]

Some black lion chests are “looser” or “tighter” with the chance of receiving items from the uncommon/rare category.

The Branded Teal Chest was very easy to obtain the uncommon category, the Dragon Bash chest is tighter and harder to obtain the uncommon items.

Opened 54 keys on one account with 19,500 AP and obtained the Dragon fireworks after 12 keys along with : embelished warhorn, pistol, mace, scepter, rifle, staff, longbow and a Dragon jade blunderbuss. Extremely lucky batch of 54 keys.

On account two with 5,000 AP, I opened 86 keys and obtained the Dragon fireworks package after 20 keys. Also obtained Omniberry and Mithril Harvesting node. 2 embellished longbow, 2 embellished pistol and 1 embellished Mace.

I still think the average rate is 1 uncommon/rare comes from opening 10 chests is business as usual.

During the Branded teal chest, I obtained the Branded glider/backpiece in exactly 9 keys on both accounts. Also very lucky.

Although this is just perception, I would say it’s easier now to obtain the uncommon exclusive monthly item with 25 keys than it was from previous black lion chests .

When the hummingbird skin was released, I obtained the skin after 14 keys and then 33 keys on the other account.

[OutOfOrder.3719]

Despite my recent good luck on receiving the monthly exclusive item by 25 keys in 2019, it’s still quite normal for most players to open 60 keys to get that exclusive item.

The only time that it is abnormal to get the desired item if you open 100 keys or more and you still don’t get the item. That’s extremely bad RNG .

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@OutOfOrder.3719 said:Some black lion chests are “looser” or “tighter” with the chance of receiving items from the uncommon/rare category.There's no evidence of this.

The Branded Teal Chest was very easy to obtain the uncommon category, the Dragon Bash chest is tighter and harder to obtain the uncommon items.And no evidence of this either.

I would say it’s easier now to obtain the uncommon exclusive monthly item with 25 keys than it was from previous black lion chests .The evidence does not support this statement.

[Daddicus.6128]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Daddicus.6128" said:"Statistically significant" is an imprecise term in an already-imprecise science. But, there is a concrete definition to the fuzziness:"subtracting three times the standard deviation" is used to answer the question: what's the likelihood that the rate we see is the actual rate

That's a different question than: "if we know the drop rate, what's the chance that this outcome would occur?" That chance is 38k:1, which is horrible luck. It's entirely human when suffering awful luck to presume that means that the odds are worse now. The bettor's belief that the odds are rigged isn't, by itself, evidence.

The problem with using the OP's data set is: we already know that (whatever the truth is) the OP's results involve bad luck. So it's not a representative sample. That's because the OP didn't come to the forums (or the wiki) to state their results every other time they opened 100; they only presented them today. That data is self-selected; it's not 100% random any more.

Note further that the very first response is from someone getting 3 uncommon from just 10 chests.(edit: and note again: many other people have gotten average and better than average results from their small data sets)

The best way to check is to collect as much data as possible. Over the last 18 months or so, I've done as best I can with that, scouring reddit & youtube for people who show

all

their data from a single set, hopefully of 250 or 500 keys (just because it's a pain to document, each individual having very unique presentation styles).I don't have any from this particular chest. For the ones I do have (four sets with the last 18 months), the odds have remained the same: 10% chance of uncommon or better.

If anyone has links to full results, I'd be happy to add them to my collection. And, as always, I'll report on the data I have, not how I'd like to see it.

Until then, the evidence I see doesn't support the claim that the odds have changed significantly.

I agree. And, it would be important, if the numbers were run, that ALL data be included.

The wiki famously has this issue in reverse: rate info pages have to warn people to only go there with all their data (or all over a time span). If they only come to report really nice (or, in this case, really bad) drops, it skews the data.

What I do is decide whether I'm going to add it to the data set BEFORE I open whatever container it is.

But, I understand probability and statistics, so I know how to not bias the data. Not everybody does, unfortunately. "Ooooh, I got a permanent bank contract. I think I need to report this data." :(

[Daddicus.6128]

@Excursion.9752 said:On launch day I opened 25 chests got 5 skins and a Glyph along with the new Dragon Back/glider Item.Rng is Rng last time I opened 25 chests I got only one skin and that was it. I've started to count to 3 before I open the next one because most RNG is based of system time so I give it a second to change a little haha.. Its just in my head I think.

:)

It's interesting: casinos used to have this very problem when they were mechanical. Some people could time their slot-machine spins and raise their odds.

Electronic slot-machines don't have that issue, but now people don't trust them.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Daddicus.6128" said:It's interesting: casinos used to have this very problem when they were mechanical. Some people could time their slot-machine spins and raise their odds.That's largely a myth. There were some mechanical slots that worked like that; most did not. Some were rigged by cheaters to work like that. And gambling lore ran away with it, with people believing that it applied to all or most slots.

It didn't happen with all machines; only ones that had been tampered with. So when you refer to "some people," you are referring to (mechanical) hackers, not the average mope playing the slots.

for example

[Daddicus.6128]

No, it was real. Not since the 1960s has it been a problem, but it was before that. The ability to cheat is why casinos switched to electro-mechanical slots in the 60s. Those could still be cheated, but it was orders of magnitude harder.

By the 90s, slots were almost universally digital, and thus unable to be cheated (except by the owners or maintenance people).

But, this in't relevant to this thread. :)

[trixantea.1230]

I'd like to ask, did a stealth nerf happen to BLC drops recently?

[Warlord.9082]

Probably, don't remember the drop rates being as bad as they currently are. But then again, ANet does more than that, like for example collapsing the trae post in Januari... Almost overnight a lot of items went from valuable to essentially worthless.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@trixantea.1230 said:I'd like to ask, did a stealth nerf happen to BLC drops recently?There's no evidence that one did.

@Warlord.9082 said:Probably, don't remember the drop rates being as bad as they currently are.There's no evidence that the drop rates have changed at all.

But then again, ANet does more than that, like for example collapsing the trae post in Januari... Almost overnight a lot of items went from valuable to essentially worthless.The main reason for some items tanking in market value is the increased supply from a variety of sources, including:

• People returning to the game for LS4.5-6 and special events.
• Dragonfall map itself, which is lucrative, if done right.
• The bonus events, that we've seen fairly often

The values didn't change overnight; they changed over time. And more importantly: there was nothing stealth about it, as everything was announced ahead of time.

[Warlord.9082]

I suggest you read my post again...

[Solvar.7953]

I tend to buy a batch of 25 keys when on sale, and open 5 chests whenever a new chests becomes available (I figure since I play the game, I should support it, and since 90% of the stuff on the gemstore is cosmetics I don't care about, keys are about the only thing 'interesting', though I know they are a terrible deal).That way, I wouldn't be too disappointed if I didn't get anything, and I would be happy if I did get a nice drop (I got the nightfang griffon skin & gecko springer skin, for example).My biggest complaint is the amount of drops that have 0 value to me. I only need so many teleport to a friend, or hairstyle change kits (basically 0) for example).I'd be happy if we could just trade that stuff in for black lion statues (even if at half price or something, so buying the hair kit costs 7 statues, but I could sell it back for 3). At least that way, I could get some nominal value for all the stuff that drops.

[Vancho.8750]

The best time to open chests is when they drop new episode or expansion, when there is a lot of people returning so they change the the drop rates to get some non crappy stuff in the first chests. Also they should disclose the drop % for the stuff in the BL chest, i know it is a Chinese law and China bad, but at least is one of the better ones. I also wonder if Chinese client has the %. And i hope they don't pull EA with less then 1% crap, 0.00001% and 0.1 are quite different.