Abyssea, Moon Phases, And Drops.

When things can't be explained..a kitteh dies.

**Fixed** Have a good day peoples I'm off to work.

Perfect. There are far far to many cats in the world.

You're an idiot. Moon phases affect various quests, NMs, and weapons. We've had how many years to test moon phase data on crafting/drops with absolutely no concrete data supporting day/moon theories? Jaerik made a great post on this topic a while back, somebody should dig that up. Basically said players have a tendency to vastly overestimate the complexity of implemented systems.

you have no grounds to call me an idiot

The only commentary I can add to the crafting theories is my experience as an MMO developer, and that is this cardinal rule:

It's a well-proven fact that it is very easy for a computer program to read a list of numbers and tell you if the numbers are truly random, or if it was a "random" list generated by a human. Why? Because it's a verified facet of human psychology: human brains are pre-wired to detect patterns, even when those patterns do not exist. Witness how easily we find faces in things like clouds, or lumpy mounds of dirt on Mars.

Human psychology believes that "random" and "pattern" are mutually exclusive concepts. As such, lists of random numbers generated by humans are very easy to detect because they contain no patterns or streaks. They are patterned in their forced randomness. Truly randomly generated lists by nature contain "streaks" -- in this case, things like 8 HQ's in a row, or 8 breaks in a row. The presence of streaks, like six C's in a row on a multiple choice test, is usually proof that the list is truly random and not merely an attempt at randomness by a human.

Unfortunately, humans don't understand this concept very well. They are hard-wired to detect streaks and patterns and attempt to figure out why. As such, 6 HQ's in a row will provoke a conscious attempt to figure out why it happened -- same with breaks -- on the assumption that there must be a reason because obviously there's a pattern here. Testimonials from other people that they get more HQ's when facing a certain direction or at a certain moon phase only serve to heighten people's assurance that these are not random streaks but pre-coded parts of the crafting system, despite the fact that paradoxically, the presence of these testimonials and streaks actually serves as proof that the system is purely random anyway.

Once someone has decided that these things all matter, psychological Confirmation Bias tends to make them pay more attention to the streaks that confirm their bias while mentally discounting examples in the other direction as unimportant or not representative of the larger trial set. They will see a streak of 4 HQ's in a row as a significant event worthy of attention, but the streak of 20 NQ's immediately afterwards is discounted, because it's believed to be unimportant due to the (flawed) sense of relative probability in the subject's mind. Just look at Gambler's Fallacy and similar problems with humans' concept of probability. (Gambler's Fallacy in particular is rampant in online games, especially for HNM drops at high level.)

As a developer, over the years, I've encountered this many times. The fairest and easiest to code/balance crafting systems are purely random. It is ludicrously difficult to code and QA balance test a crafting system that has 10+ independent variables. The amount of statistical analysis and design required to create a system like this, without exploits or without mathematical edge cases that break the system, would take an entire team years to develop, and every time you add a new item you would have to crunch the numbers again to ensure you're not introducing a factor that will break the system balance, making it take weeks to add a new crafting item instead of hours.

Ironically, however, the truly random systems, which are easiest to code, will end up being the systems that players decide have the most inherent, measurable factors. They see random systems and invent reams of material about how they are not truly random, and as a result, they often attribute godly levels of design and programming talent to the team in the process. Plus, it invests in them a sense of being on the "inside" and understanding how the game works, which tends to keep them as subscribers longer. It's a win-win, proving that in the end, purely random seeded systems based on one or two small independent variables like skill level are ideal for MMO development, and FF11 is no different.

While your secont post being a quote over people buying into somthing just to explain somthing is valid, your inflamitory post before it shows your own stance, that due to popular belief, old testing, which once again may not be relevant anymore, as this is a game, not reality and as such the mechanics can be changed on a whim, there is no evidance for or against moon phases, spinning the camera while crafting or even crossing your fingers. Im not saying there IS any such proven mechanics behind this, and all your frowning, or following of popular belief will not change that. What i am looking for be it coincidental or not is data, to approach this scientifically, because you will learn this or should know this, public opinion doesnt equil fact, but we can go on living with your flat earth and the sun revolving around it mindset, or we can think outside the box. Thankyou for your time, your opinion and statement is noted, i respectfully dissagree, have a nice day.

Edit:
Oh and as to that comment about programing somthing to be random, Last i checked it is impossible for any computer to be truely random, it can only imitate a random concept based on coding algorithms pre-loaded into it, and while no patern may exist traditionally, it is impossible to truely be random. Only nature in select instances can provide randomness, and as such have gone off game to take a quote about this.

"I assume because it is never an infinite set of variables to choose from. If it were,the computer would never decide,thereby causing an infinite loop(instance where you must use ctrl+alt+del.). For example in VB.net when setting random numbers using the RAN command you are setting random numbers but within a certain frame of numbers,its not infinite in the way infinite is normally percieved."

There you have it, the comment about being truely random and having anything to do with computers has been disproven. Move along now.

The problem is that no amount of data you gather will prove this hypothesis. It may support the possibility, but never prove. The only way to prove this is to go into the actual coding of the game and check it.

tl;dr you're wasting your time.

You can't absolutely prove, but you can provide evidence suggesting a correlation or lack thereof.

this guy is why we need forum sigs

...how do you check the moon phase?...

Have fun "trolling" every board with possibility of new discoveries.