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jessyb03 wrote:My first ambush was of 3 wolverns and if I kept my distance I would survive. But after about 20 more steps, another ambush happened with 7 more wolverns and I instantly died.

• I was still able to cheat during a certain time before I got killed: inma and frillyar. Even if fluffies killed by frilliar are not counted, killing extra mobs can help.
• I tried to drop food items one by one and by various numbers. The probabilities to get a certain number of extra mobs while dropping n items separately or at once appears to be different and it should not be the case

// generation of a binary random variable  X with probability p of being one ( Bernouilli alternative). Each X=1 in a trial will make an xtra mob spawned.
//p belongs to [0, 1] interval and can be a function of the character level, but should stay relatively low or the quest may become unfeasible to high levels.
//I assume here that rand(0,1) returns a random real number uniformly distributed in [0, 1] as described in the wiki.
//The optional argument lets you vary the seed of the sequence .
//
if (rand(0,1)≤p) then X:=1 else X:=0; // rand(1)
//
//generation of a random integer variable Y  Y = k in {0, 1, 2 , ... n}, which will be the number of mobs spawned. 
//[i]n[/i] is the number of food items dropped. Trials are supposed to be independent, thus Y is the sum of n previous X variables (Binomial variable).
Y:=0
repeat from i  = 1 to n {
    if rand(0,1)≤p then X:=1 else  X:=0;
    Y:= Y+X;}
//
//there are faster ways to generate Y with large trial number n but I could not find  the necessary math functions in doc.
//then you call  spawn (Y [mobs #], mobmaxlevel(char(level))); 
// 

Nard wrote:The cause of the problem as we could see in a discussion I had with Jenalya is the uniform distribution generated by the function rand(). This distribution should not be uniform. I suggest the following algorithm in pseudo-code form.:

Code: Select all

// generation of a binary random variable  X with probability p of being one ( Bernouilli alternative). Each X=1 in a trial will make an xtra mob spawned.
//p belongs to [0, 1] interval and can be a function of the character level, but should stay relatively low or the quest may become unfeasible to high levels.
//I assume here that rand(0,1) returns a random real number uniformly distributed in [0, 1] as described in the wiki.
//The optional argument lets you vary the seed of the sequence .
//
if (rand(0,1)≤p) then X:=1 else X:=0; // rand(1)
//
//generation of a random integer variable Y  Y = k in {0, 1, 2 , ... n}, which will be the number of mobs spawned. 
//[i]n[/i] is the number of food items dropped. Trials are supposed to be independent, thus Y is the sum of n previous X variables (Binomial variable).
Y:=0
repeat from i  = 1 to n {
    if rand(0,1)≤p then X:=1 else  X:=0;
    Y:= Y+X;}
//
//there are faster ways to generate Y with large trial number n but I could not find  the necessary math functions in doc.
//then you call  spawn (Y [mobs #], mobmaxlevel(char(level))); 
// 

note: I'm not sure that it is necessary to have the probability of the mob number to increase if their level does.

cody wrote:I disagree with that. It is good to reward the braveness to fight many fluffies at once with less extra mops. After all fluffies can easiely kill a high level player, if there are many of them. Furthermore with your solution the best strategie would be to drop one food item at a time, which is only feasible with a patched client.

Freeyorp101 wrote:tmwAthena uses a mersenne twister to generate random numbers, not rand() directly.

Nard wrote:

Freeyorp101 wrote:tmwAthena uses a mersenne twister to generate random numbers, not rand() directly.

what I suggest here is to generate a random number according to binomial probability distribution function instead of the uniform one given by the script function rand(). I don't want to replace the server one, which seems nice to me at the moment. Sorry if the form of the pseudo code I used could make you believe the opposite.
On another side, it could be interesting to scripters to have additional functions for random number generation without modifying the existing one. I think that this quest is an example.