How Unlucky am I?

Answer: Not that unlucky really...

So I think I was a very lucky player early on in D2R, got multiple HR drops which combined with trading and running Ubers got my Infinity just before Chrissy. I then got another

Sur rune shortly after that but since then been in a dry spell. I wasn't counting but estimate 70-80 Cow/ AS/ Chaos/ Nhil runs with nothing much to show from it.

Then old mate posts about his 500 cow runs and get's about 5-6

Ber worth of value and I'm like sweet - let's just copy that.

240 Solo Cow Runs later (and 140 Solo Chaos) and I have a

Gul rune, 2

Mal runes and a couple of smaller runes as well. So I wondered how unlucky I was and what were the chances of turning this around...

Using this a source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/commen ... ing_guide/

This source has chance of getting a

Sur rune in value from solo cows at 167 Runs. Chance of getting

Sur rune in value in Chaos at 1 in 378.

So in my simple maths mind, my odds of getting "nothing" in my runs (just since I started counting) are:

(1-(1/167))^240 x (1-(1/378))^140
= (1-0.5899%)^240 x (1-0.2646%)^140
= 99.40125%^240 x 99.7354%^140
=23.6585% x 69.014%
=16.33%

Pretty much a 1 in 6 chance of this occurring! Which yeah, is on the unlucky side, but by no means that unlikely at all. Has to happen to somebody... Going to see if I can repeat the effort over another 260 cow runs and if I don't get a HR (I'm probably about a

Sur in value off an Enigma) by then I might just paypal one haha!

So keen to hear if my maths is right and see what other "unlucky streaks" folks are on?

Good luck All!

pretty sure when they say

Sur rune in value, they are talking about adding up the value of all the drops you get, so while you havent gotten anywhere close to

Sur in value, youve gotten

Gul and 2 Mals which i guess is like 1/7 of a

Sur or something? so its not entirely correctly when you say youve gotten "nothing", but you certainly havent been lucky.

however if you manage to get lucky and get a

Ber rune for example, that would already account for 334 runs worth of value in that one instance, which would then immediately erase all the talk about you being unlucky in the previous x number of runs, so you just havent done enough runs for the value to average out to the statistics, its just how rng is, everyone has dry and hot spells so i wouldnt worry about "calculating" how unlucky youve been

for context ive had a stretch of over 1700 runs without a high rune in

Travincal (although i did get a bunch of other things that had a lot of value), and ive also had a stretch of 1200 runs where ive gotten

Jah 2x

Ber

Lo

Ohm

Stone of Jordan along with other things, this came right after the 1700 run dry spell btw so the Doom and Gloom of that stretch was pretty much erased after that, it rarely works out where each number of set runs will give you equal value, it tends to rollercoaster and only average out to a certain number over a ton of runs

I did 200 cow runs and the cows dropped two

Mal runes as their highest welcome to the

Club.

I got a

Jah before but lost it from the rollback

Back in my D2 days (2000-2006) i had easily way over 6000 hours (most likely closer to 10k) in Diablo. I had NEVER any rune higher then

Vex to drop. And two weeks ago I had

Ohm from cows (and the next day my HC necro died). So welcome to RNG.

It's pure RNG - as you can see from my (link in my signature) experiment and 100 cows runs there - 1 x

Jah and 2 x

Ohm in 100 runs is damn good. I might not have anything in the next 10000 though. Sometimes in two runs back to back you can get a loot worth all those {putYourTagetNumberHere} runs.

I ran 206 Chaos runs before I saw a high rune, luckily it was a

Sur. Then I did close to another 100 runs before I saw the next, and it was a

Lo, not bad. I did get really lucky b4 Xmas and got a

Ber and a

Zod back to back doing cows. But then again I ran cows non-stop till up till then, and I wasn't counting so god knows how many runs I did to get there... It's just RNG really.

Read this topic today, then started to play (had more than month of a dry streak) - and received a

Ber from simple random mob just out of wsk2 waypoint 1ppl! Can't complain at RNG for some time, i guess.

Congrats @Asha on the

Ber, that's awesome!


Thanks all for replies. Yep, get that it's RNG, is just interesting to me to see where on the bell curve you lie and what chances of the luck repeating that way,,,


And @GeminiK , get that my 1/7th of a

Sur pushes me up the bell curve a bit, just don't know how to do that maths haha.

Happy hunting all!

RMac85 wrote: 2 years ago

So keen to hear if my maths is right and see what other "unlucky streaks" folks are on?

I was on a super unlucky streak with identifying a lot of torches without identifying a single paladin or sorc torch.

I don't remember how many torches it was, but I did count my odds and it was around 3% chance for this to happen.

So, not quite "am I cursed?" territory, but... Getting close!

It sucked, because paladin/sorc were my most playing classes (like most people, I suspect), sorc for farming keys, and paladin for farming ubers... So even outside the value of those torches, it made farming harder. (I was using a Necro torch on my paladin, just for the 20 all res... Feels bad)

But shortly after, it seems the luck gate opened, and I ID'd 2 sorc and 1 paladin torch on the same day. Not just that, but 2 of them were pretty good (18/17 sorc, 20/17 pal).

Honestly at this point I would've been ecstatic with a 10/10 sorc and 10/10 paladin, so yeah it kinda made my day! I didn't want to see my unlucky streak get to the point where I was <1% to go so long without pal/sorc torches.

My luck with the game has also been limited so far.


And I find myself in a dilemma.

Problem number one, I simply don't have the time to make 500+ cow runs like others.

The time I have, I play solo or in the lobby. In a group, the chances of getting better loot are simply much greater, but that's where my second problem comes to light.
At an age of 43 I actually lack reaction speed I've had 2 or 3 times the chance to hit a HR, but I just haven't managed to click it fast enough. My biggest fail was to mishit a

Jah. I saw it dropped, I clicked, but hit a

Super Mana Potion. I clicked again and hit another useless item. Then somebody else came and and took the rune from under my nose... hahaha

This then frustrates me so much that I play solo again. But that doesn't make it better.

But, that's still the game, and yet I love it. I'm not as fast as others, but I'm still making steady progress.

Already posted about torches (but this unlucky streak ended) so figured I may as well talk about an ongoing unlucky streak;

I've never found a

Jah or

Ber rune. I never kept track of how many runs I did, but if I had to guess I'd say... 100 cow runs (solo, or duo with a friend - we share all drops), 100 tele

Baal (so, just the waves and

Baal), 500 full clear of

Chaos Sanctuary, maybe 100

Travincal, 100 pindle, 1000 shenk, 200 andy, 100

Duriel, 500 meph, 500 countess, 300 summoner, 200 nilathak.

(I don't even know if these mobs can all drop

Jah/

Ber, but just listing everything I ran).

I found 1

Ohm, 4

Lo, 1

Sur, 1

Cham, but I have never found any

Jah/

Ber. No

Zod either in D2R, though I did find one a decade ago, in the original game.

Edit: Oh, I also ran the 3 mini-uber instances probably 100 times each (I assume they can probably drop some runes, but I don't recall ever finding

Ist + in there).

Numik wrote: 2 years ago

Back in my D2 days (2000-2006) i had easily way over 6000 hours (most likely closer to 10k) in Diablo. I had NEVER any rune higher then

Vex to drop. And two weeks ago I had

Ohm from cows (and the next day my HC necro died). So welcome to RNG.

This guy OG D2ed. I also poured thousands of hours into primarily high-level farming, saw a

Zod and

Cham drop in pub games, but otherwise, never had higher than a few Ists. Flash foward to D2R and I got a

Jah rune rushing a guy through Hell

Chaos Sanctuary, a

Vex from Hephasto (not even on my Hellforge quest), and a

Sur from

Chaos Sanctuary. Definitely seems like the rates have changed, but it's still very much RNG. I'm hoping the drops stay relatively consistent and they aren't just priming the economy, but it seems... better. I won't say good, but it doesn't hurt as much to get/use runes these days, despite not having hordes of duped runes floating around.

Still, does that mean you're going to consistently get them? Oh no. No no no. I'm not even sure I'd bank on cows for runes, if that's specifically what you're looking for. As mentioned, anything talking about X rune's value is talking about nothing. That's talking about a lot of

Conversion work based on a bunch of subjective and fluctuating market assessments of a supply and demand system that is as predictable, as, well, stocks. Maybe less! Unless you're scraping together all of the potential items/runes/gems of "value" and converting them up, you're not likely to hit the benchmarks they're citing.

I say, find something you can form reliably, and something you don't mind farming, and do that. I enjoy a route through some of the typical bosses like Countess, Andy,

Arcane Sanctuary,

Mephisto, and maybe

Lower Kurast,

Shenk the Overseer, or

Eldritch the Rectifier to mix it up. That way, even if they aren't dropping high runes or

Eth bugged valors, at least I have the opportunity to drops keys and essences, which I'd argue are more quickly and reliably going to add up to the value of a given rune than hoping to punch it out of a cow. Just my thought.

I run cows all the time on my necro and people say they get tons of high runes, me Ive gotten a

Pul and a

Gul. Now bases for items I find like crazy and trade for runes but yeah, I reluctantly do cows now if i clear everything else. Also rng just hates ne cause I have a stash full of

Terror and Destruction keys and have literally only got one Hate

Key from

The Summoner since launch

I feel like I’ve been pretty unlucky since launch but it also comes down to my play time. I have kids and a 50+hr week job. I don’t get on till my kids are in bed so that leaves from 8pm to when I’m tired to play.

That being said, I’ve found stuff I can use such as a

Shako,

Homunculus, war travs and stuff, a low Mara. Never anything good for trading just self use stuff. I’ve found 2

Ist runes, a few

Mal and lower. No HRs. My necro is level 91 1/2 all from solo play/mf.

Few nights ago I had a Griffon’s Eye drop from baa wave 2 or 3. Finished my mf run, internet went out so I had to wait 10-15 min to even get on to identify it. Suspense was gonna keep me awake anyways so I waited. Got on, cleared my inventory of junk and identified my drops from the run. The griffins rolled 20/15, needless to say I lost my shit haha.

Ended up selling it off for a 15% superior

Mage Plate Enigma, a 267/38 Beast,

Ber, 2x

Sur, 3

Lo and 4

Vex. It basically made up for a the lack of play time and poor drops I’ve had since launch.

1 item can turn everything around. Dry spells are pretty Normal in D2 and anyone that says they never have them is lying or considers garbage to be treasure lol.

I probably do 50-100 trist runs every time i play cause they take no time at all.

I have found

Jah and

Mal rune wise but TONS of charms and jewels and items that ahve sold for a lot.

Cows is where find alot of high runes to be honest. But its also the best place for bases and those sell for a lot.

ggs wrote: 2 years ago

This guy OG D2ed.

I OD'd on Diablo 2 (together with HoMM3). I was unable to touch that game for past 15 years. I've made many attempts but always gave up after a day or less (including mods). Even now I can't play it for more then 3 hours, and I'm already making a break till Ladder start.

Numik wrote: 2 years ago

ggs wrote: 2 years ago

This guy OG D2ed.

I OD'd on Diablo 2 (together with HoMM3). I was unable to touch that game for past 15 years. I've made many attempts but always gave up after a day or less (including mods). Even now I can't play it for more then 3 hours, and I'm already making a break till Ladder start.

I get that. I almost went back a number of times, but Blizz did me the cruel mercy of expiring several of my toons, and it irked me so bad that I couldn't bear to log in, so the rest eventually did as well. I heard there was something later about being able to log in and

Revive expired toons or something, but after jumping through some hoops to find my login, they were still very dead. I think the biggest punch in the gut was still being able to see them in the toon screen, but not being able to do anything with them.

Update:

Answer: Not unlucky at all - just got a

Ber on Cow run 268!

Soo happy to be on the other side of the bell curve!

Thanks @GeminiK for the prophetic comment that this could happen haha!

How good is Diablo!