Curse

JustJasmine · Dec 28, 2008, 05:51 AM // 05:51

I'm curious why GW won't give an actual drop rate on the MPB. I have seen Gaile and Regina asked repeatedly on several venues if they could give the actual drop rate and neither of them have ever answered.

ragweedultra · Dec 28, 2008, 06:01 AM // 06:01

About 75 runs, and no MPB. Seeing all the stats from uberleet"pro"(nerd)s running 24 accounts at a time has made me decide to give up entirely.
Do people really use cupcakes for this? O.O

This thread is hilarious to read.

JustJasmine · Dec 28, 2008, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragweedultra

About 75 runs, and no MPB. Seeing all the stats from uberleet"pro"(nerd)s running 24 accounts at a time has made me decide to give up entirely.
Do people really use cupcakes for this? O.O

This thread is hilarious to read.

I used cupcakes from some. I'm one of those people that hoard things all year long so I had a stack of 250 cupcakes. With all the crap I have in my inventory from past events it is amazing that I don't have Max Drunk and Sweet Tooth title, but until this I just sort of used what I had when I needed it. During this MPB grind I decided forget it, I'm just gonna use everything! I eat a fruitcake everytime I get in the outpost to run to the Warden. Then I zone, eat another fruitcake and run to the Warden again to get the quest. Then I get in the quest and drunk spiked eggnogs the whole time! I used a few cupcakes but really it only increased my run time by like 2 minutes it makes the run to the end of the door take about 2 minutes where as it would normally take me 3-4 minutes.

As of tonight I now have 3397 Minutes towards my drunk title and 2643 minutes towards my Sweet Tooth title and still a week to go! Woot!

stretchs · Dec 28, 2008, 06:26 AM // 06:26

I have done approximately 100 runs, each time I go in, I used a Candy Apple, a Slice of Pumpkin Pie, and a Pumpkin Cookie. Not because I needed to, but it was an easy way to work on my sweet tooth title, once I got to the doors, i worked on my drunkard. After completion, I would use a fruitcake and a tonic so that I was multi tasking my farming

JustJasmine · Dec 28, 2008, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragweedultra

Wait... But you only run one account? o.0

Yeah I only have one account. I'm too OCD to have more than one account. I have 1 account with 1 Character of Each Profession, all Level 20, all have beaten all 3 Campaigns. And now I am using my Main Character as a title holder and working on getting Max Titles with her. If I had a second account I would have to beat all three games with another Character again and then I would probably have to do it with more than 1 Character just because I would want more than 1 Level 20 Character on that account. -- Yeah I'm OCD weird with numbers. My friend keep teasing me because I won't stop the MPB run and go to sleep until I have a number of Snowman Summoners that is dividable by 5! So if Im tired and I did it 221 times I have to do it 4 more times because I have to have 225 Snowman Summoners since that is what I am using to count how many times I have done the quest.

And me talking this much is what happens when I'm doing a quest that has me sitting here waiting for snowman to kill Grenches! LOL!

thor hammerbane · Dec 28, 2008, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Another guildie of mine looted a bear, that makes two bears in two days for a relatively small guild of 25 or so members :P
First guildie-got on first run
second guildie-said he did around 25-35

Khazad Guard · Dec 28, 2008, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragweedultra

Do people really use cupcakes for this? O.O

Best place to use consumables ever! I only use thme on my main character though, and she's an Elementalist:
-Enter dungeon and use a Birthday Cupcake, Slice of Pumpkin Pie (have several stacks in storage), Spiked Eggnog and Transmog. Tonic (have a heap from Halloween)
-Run to the end, drink two Eggnogs (or other Lvl 1 beverages)
-AFK for a bit
-Come back and kill the little Grentches (best was 5 mins... .75s Snowballs ftw)
-Collect the Shards, open chest, collect drops and map travel back to Kamadan
-Use a Fruitcake to get reward from Rift Warden, travel to another district
-Use a Fruitcake to take quest from Rift Warden, repeat!

Of course I sometimes use a tonic when taking reward, or retaking quest. It's just an easy way to use them and it actually contributes to making the quest more efficient.

Feathermoore Rep · Dec 28, 2008, 08:12 AM // 08:12

This thread is epic i swear....

Yes no real statistically accurate data will be generated by this thread for all the previous reasons stated and others that haven't been stated. If you don't know, please wait till you take statistics in high school/college or go read a few lessons online about it to refresh your memory.

That said, If you do a study on your local college campus with 1000 random students out of a campus that say has 25k students, will you generate any relevant data about the campus as a whole? No. Does that mean your data is useless then? No.

The data is still useful, but just not as an accurate means to describe 100% of the student body. Same pertains to the drop rate. Data is data. You can still use it to provide a estimated range for the drop. However the data that really needs to be collected are sucessfull drops.

If 10 people report in that they got an MPB, with the following runs:

40,602,234,408,10,502,1452,1285,342,740. The data is small but it still give you an estimate. For all intents and purposes you can throw out the 10, 40, 1285, 1452 stats as extreme outliers. This leaves you with a range from 234-740 with an average of....~472 runs. Now to me this is relevant data. This tells me i should expect to do at least 500 runs in order to guarantee that i get an MPB. And that there is a possiblity that i will not get the MPB even in that amount of runs.

Now does that mean that the drop rate is approximately 1/500 runs. Not necessarily but i wouldn't say that the drop rate is more than 1/2000. Sure its statistically and randomly possible that the drop rate is 1/2000 or higher and every person who got one did it in way less than estimated run rate, but probability tells us that its mostly not the case.

I'd venture to say that 1/500 is probably a good guess, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was higher around 1/1000 runs.

So for general purposes and knowledge, I'd say this thread is worth its value even if most of the posts are another xxx runs and no MPB. Those few posts of xxx runs and got my MPB do hold some value.

snodaard · Dec 28, 2008, 08:40 AM // 08:40

can you get tonics from the chest? ^^

Well I did like 40 runs now and I can't realy imagine why you guys can ever do the quest over and over for sometimes more then 1000 runs O.o could be my point but wtf-.-

JustJasmine · Dec 28, 2008, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by snodaard

can you get tonics from the chest? ^^-

Yeah the Yuletide tonics drop from the chest.

TheHaxor · Dec 28, 2008, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamagawa

Must be fun, being a destroyer of other peoples ideas. Have you ever considered having any of your own, or do you fear that someone might reject your own ideas?

If you cared to read some of his later posts, then you would find he actually came up with a pretty sound method for determining the drop rate with a decent confidence interval.

Minami · Dec 28, 2008, 11:45 AM // 11:45

I sent u a PM Jasmine

As for the farming, done about 300 runs so far. Tons of cc shards ftw

But I soooo want the little cutie bear! ^_^

Keeping my cc shards for now just in case Anet pulls a mini pig stunt and u can exchange 2000 cc shards for 1 bear ^_^

Zomeone · Dec 28, 2008, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Hi guys and chicks,

Thought i'd participate in this conversation. I did over 100 runs to get a miniature polar bear, frustrating... And i finally realized that it's not worth it, i don't care even if it's the rarest mini in the game, it's still virtual item. So, i made myself a REAL polar bear minipet, i posted the photo here. I'm actually proud of myself, took 3 hours to make and it's more real than the virtual minipet... lol

makosi · Dec 28, 2008, 01:25 PM // 13:25

That's cool, Zomeone. You left out the polar bear's neckerchief and bell though!

Now where did i leave my collage & crafts stuff? I'm at the desperation stage of polar farming too.

Lystra · Dec 28, 2008, 01:42 PM // 13:42

Zomeone...that's awesome lol. I'm voting it for thread mascot

Get a scarf and bell on it and give us a higher res image please

End All · Dec 28, 2008, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Hey guys!

Been trolling this thread for a while, finally figured I'd comment. Just giving statistics here, not deviating into the debate.

185 runs = no magical, golden letters yet. I'll post updates as I go.

Good luck, and happy gaming, regardless (=

Rexion · Dec 28, 2008, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Zomeone's MPB is worth S/B 5000e!!!
i'll take

*just kidding*

I'm starting to do the runs cause I want the drops, I really won't be upset if a MPB doesn't drop.

JSpayde · Dec 28, 2008, 04:28 PM // 16:28

I quit polar bear farming after a guild mate of mine got it in one (out of one run total), sold the damn mini, and started gloating to me at 8am about how much ecto he made and how he beat Guild Wars. He doesn't even like GW and he gets the effing polar bear.

Screw you ANET.

Dante the Warlord · Dec 28, 2008, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamagawa

Lets give two scenarios:
1) drop rate of 1/500: 10 people who get the mini report they got it after 40,602,234,408,10,502,1452,1285,342, and 740 runs. Several other also tried to get the mini and failed.
2) Drop rate of 1/10,000: 10 people who get the mini report they got it after 40,602,234,408,10,502,1452,1285,342, and 740 runs. Thousands of others never got a mini.

What you'll really be looking at is some people had time for 40 runs. Some had time for 234 runs. Some had time for 1452 runs. On average, people getting the minis had time for xxx runs.

What's going to be really different is the double-drop rate for those who are getting the mini. The odds of getting 1 mini in n runs is 1 - (1-drop rate)^runs. The odds of getting two minis in the same number of runs is going to be roughly (if my math holds out): (1 - (1 - drop rate) ^ runs) ^ 2
At 1:500, 40.0% of the people who get in 500 runs get 2 minis. (2:5)
At 1:2000, 4.9% of the people who get in 500 runs get 2 minis. (1:20)
At 1:10000, 0.24% of the people who get in 500 runs get 2 minis. (1:420)
At 1:100000, 0.0025% of the people who get in 500 runs get 2 minis. (1:40199)
I'm inclined to say that 1:2000 may be low, or 1 in 20 people who do 500 runs would already have 2 minis.

I'm also inclined to think (given that a number of people who say 'so-n-so got it on his first/third/seventh run') that we might possibly be looking at a different sort of drop rate mechanic than a flat 1:n ratio, but possibly a diminishing returns system. If Arena-net is normally kosher with giving out drop rates (I don't know, I've never asked them, and rarely dig through the detail they do make available), but were unusual in declining in this instance, it might be that they don't want this being farmed and have given it something other than the traditional 1:n drop ratio. Making the actual mechanics known or knowable would enable farmers to get a hold of the mini, defeating the purpose of the effort put in to provide a different drop-rate. Arena Net has used diminishing returns before, for the nightfall green armors, for the gold/grape ratio from chests, gold item drop rate while farming, etc... It may be that the mini in this instance is another return that diminishes over time. I might suggest we have some of our more ahem, energetic, farmers who got one mini already switch to doing the runs with some other characters, as it can be demonstrated that many of the diminishing returns ArenaNet implements are character based, not account based.

No reason to expect this is what's going on here, but if switching characters is followed shortly after by 2-3 people with double minis, it would be a significant data item. If people switch and still don't get double minis, it's still an important data item.

//Yamagawa

Much better statistical data.. i agree very much with this. Still suffers from voluntary response bias though

I pwnd U · Dec 28, 2008, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Somewhere around 215-220 runs now, no Mini Polar Bear.