Hullo, hullo! In case it hasn't been made clear before, the Mage over in Shadowglen is a complete and utter TOOL. Supposedly, based on previously recorded data by another user, the ratio for mage amulets to shard/tome ratio is approx. 1:6--for every 6 shards, 1 tome is likely (note: not guaranteed).

However, rumors have it that the Mage has been jipping users of tomes. So how can we find out if Mage truly is following the previously-reported ratio, or if the rate has recently changed? Simply put, statistics.

We need a large sample to work with (represented as N), so I'm asking y'all! Post the amount of amulets you turn in, as well as the number of tomes and shards you get as a result. The goal is 2000 amulets.

Assuming the amulet-to-shard/tome rate has changed within the last few months...

So every amulet counts. I will then calculate the appropriate measures to compare for any changes in this sample to previous samples.

battlechat

Turned in three amulets today, got three shards and no tomes.

I also tested 3 amulets myself; 3 shards, 0 tomes

(Assuming the 1:6 ratio exists, out of the proposed 2000 amulets, 333 should be tomes, while 1667 should be shards)

10 amulets = 1 tome and 9 shards

From 14 amulets, I got 13 shards and one tome.

So far, that makes:

Amulets - 30 Shards - 28 Tomes - 2

Thank you x3

Thank you too~ I'm keeping a spreadsheet, and my totals equal yours! So far, so good. ^^

Just the other day I turned in 21 amulets and got 21 shards. I no longer turn in amulets. I sell them and buy tomes or boosters.

Today I turned in 3 amulets and got 1 tome.

Turned in 10 yesterday and got 1 tome.

I have gathered some stats over the years on Mage amulets.

These are old, from 2008-2009 :

Amulets -1000 gave me 186 tomes (18.6%) Amulets -2000 gave me 162 tomes (16.2%)

I never cared to update my petpage anymore, but I kept tracking amulets I was giving. These are more recent :

Amulets -3000 gave me 178 tomes (17.8%) Amulets -4000 gave me 171 tomes (17.1%)

I'm pretty sure I brought up the 1:6 ratio in the first place, with my own tracking of tomes.

Thank you for the 08-09 list. After performing a one-way chi-square with the info from the 08-09 list, 348 tomes and 1652 shards out of 2000 amulets does not yield any significant results. Thus, for that 1 year span, I am 95% confident the Mage was abiding by the 1:6 ratio.

How recent are your amulets 2001-4000? Data within the last year (Jan '14 to now) is valuable. Anything older would require me to increase the N and encompass a longer timespan (which isn't a problem honestly).

2013-2014?

I very much doubt the Mage odds were tricked recently though. It's been steady for years.

I turned in 3 amulets today. 3 shards, 0 tomes. -.-

Edit: Turned in 3 more, 3 more shards.

Eh, good enough of a time range. This data collect-a-thon is mostly to determine whether or not the recent claims of the ratio being off are true. Plus, I get some practice in. ^^

To everyone else reading this thread: I'm increasing the N, so our new numbers are as follow.

Assuming the 1:6 ratio is true... N=3000 amulets Frequency Expected of Shards (Fe)= 2500 (Fe) of Tomes= 500

There has been people claiming that their odds were one in 20 for as long as I remember. Turning in small samples at a time, individually, might not yield the results you seek. People would have to share every amulet result with you for it to be coherent, while they are more inclined to share the big failures, then move on, but possibly omit the occasional one amulet = one tome they'll get.

There's nothing to chi-square. No official source ever said 1:6 was the correct ratio, that's my own data. It's not the expected frequency as much as the one I tested myself. Let's put conspiracy theories where I get all the luck and the rest of the population gets none aside, anyone with a big amulet record will tell you it's around that. Anyone with sparse amulet turning, however, will feel like they get a lot less than they actually do

That's why I'm compiling all small samples into a giant one. It's not to prove for every 6 amulets you turn in, you're guaranteed one tome. Amulets being turned in is purely independent chance, so all participants/users are equally likely to get one or the other result.

Even if one user turns in 5 amulets and gets 3 tomes, and another turns in 5 amulets and gets 0 tomes, neither user has good or bad luck. That's gambler's fallacy--I've turned in 9 amulets and gotten 0 tomes, so this 10th amulet means I've got to get a tome by now! No. That's not how chance games work.

Since ratios are a bad reporting measure in this case, I can easily formulate a new percentage by collecting as much data as possible. Instead of a ratio, it would instead be the likelihood of getting a tome when turning in a mage amulet is ___%.

so far, 16% seems about right.

stats are never meant to prove anything. I can either be 95% or 99% confident in what I've found, depending how I set my alpha level, but that's about it. I still have a 5% risk of making a Type I error.

That's not my point, but good luck.

In your thread, my posts aside, people turned in 64 amulets and got 4 tomes. Where's your 16% from ?

Last weekend I turned in 129 amulets in one sitting and got 24 tomes.

METROID

I will go turn in 6 of each flavor and post, but as many years as I have been turning them in.....Maybe it is just me, but I have noticed on different days it seems like a certain flavor will give me percent. As in one day fire amulets will seem a lot hotter ratio than say water.

ok back with results and kind of proves me point as in some days some seem hotter than others

turned in 6 of each return was: 4x light tome 2x magma 1x death 2x life

the rest were all shards and I did 6 amulets of all 8 flavors :P (Excuse my lack of battle terms, never been good with those) LoL

hey brat have you noticed the same thing?

I sometimes get bad streaks of nothing for 20 shards before a tome, and a good streak afterwards of 1 in 4 for the next batch of amulet type.

It depends if the mage is a nice or grumpy mood. If it's grumpy, either stop and resist the temptation to continue sharding, or kick the random number generator by shaking up the page a bit (refreshing). Or just give the mage the bird xD

From my observations, ideally it's about 1 in 6, but the bad streaks makes it more like between 1 in 7 or 8. The rule of thumb varies depending on peoples luck.