Deeds - Discussion and Critique

I mean, yes, but its not that “<10 of a given number out of 137 total rolls did not show up on any die in 200 trials” that is being misrepresented as the chances for “8 rolls of a given number in 137 total rolls” to appear on - your expectation for “8 of 137” is really low, and you would not expect to have 9 or fewer rolls of a given number with a sample set of 137 rolls even if you performed the trial hundreds of times. Feeling that 8 in 137 would be too much of an outlier for a “fair die” is a perfectly reasonable assumption that can be backed (more on this below), but it was using 8 in 137 in the first place that was wrong.

The problem is that the test was flawed from the beginning because counting individual deeds as samples which does not give a distribution anywhere close to that of a dice roll. We are looking at a distribution of colors, which is the distribution of tasks and can’t simply add the number of deeds from those tasks and count each one as an individual roll - it doesn’t work like that. Each deed was part of a larger task that it cannot be separated from. While in the very long term “number of deeds earned of a given color” should also follow a distribution where they are similar to 1 in 6, to compare our experience of color distribution it to a dice roll, we have to look at the color distribution of tasks.

What we actually have going on here:

  • Deeds tasks have appeared 27 (correct me if I’m wrong here, I’m not keeping track specifically, I just went back and did a manual count of the tracking in this thread), therefore, our color distribution sample size is 27
  • Of those 27 samples, some give an output of 4, some 6, and some 9. This is irrelevant to our color distribution calculation.
  • If we look at color distribution alone, we get the table below (again, basing it on the task count in this thread)

If we were looking at just the distribution of deeds using the (fallacious, in this case) assumption that we can just do a number of deeds calculation (lets say the circumstances were different and we always only ever got one deed at a time, thus each deed was able to be taken as a sample) and we got 8 purple out of 137 when the expectation was supposed to be 1 of 6(~23.8 purple), the cumulative probability of such an event would be ~.01%. In this instance, we would have ground to stand on as “evidence” (we would also be outside 99.9% confidence level estimates that this would sample set could be used to describe the stated rate) with this many samples. But that isn’t what is going on here, this is not what the data is saying. We aren’t likely to see anything remotely approaching a distribution of the amount of colored deeds approaching that of a “fair dice roll” until we have seen mythic tasks rolled a couple times for every deed color at least a once and legendaries multiple times, which could take years.

The table:

Blue Green Red Yellow Purple Brown
Epic 3 2 4 4 2 2
Legendary 1 1 1 2 2
Mythic 2 1
Total Color Task 4 5 6 6 2 4
Total Deeds 18 32 31 28 8 20

Assuming that it is completely random and follows a normal distribution following the assertion that it is such (every deed color task of a given rarity has the exact same chance to appear as any other one therefore the chance of any given color to appear is exactly equal and also has a normal distribution), the cumulative probability to land 2 or fewer out of 27 with an individual rate of 1 out of 6 is approximately 14.9% (a ~10% chance to hit exactly 2) - for any one given color. If you go back up to the dice roll simulator and input the number of trials as 27 and run through it several times, you’ll note that a great majority of samples have something land with 2 or fewer, and some of those times it is the “5” that gets the 2 rolls, as expected.

Note that this does not definitively prove “deeds are completely random”, nor really anything. The results are simply inconclusive. If we had access to more sample sets, it would only take a few sets of the size that we have to see if we are skewed away from purple or not. A die that only rolled a “5” twice out of 27 times isn’t all that uncommon, but 8 or less out of 108 is far more suspicious (and multiple sets would see very quickly if there is a specific trend on colors). I’m not sure “how confident” we need to be for it to measure as proof for a simple check to be done, but at the rate we are going now, getting, say, 4x as many samples (108) samples would at least be outside of 95% confidence level estimates for being ‘correct’ but it would take over a year to get there at this point, by which time it would be too late to matter (and I’m not sure we’d even get any action from that).

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem here. The problem, as I see it, is that it is literally impossible to get any evidence that might qualify as actionable from our end before it is too late to matter, especially with writs coming in. This is combined by knowing that they don’t sample the output of any RNG or RNG plus calculation process until after ample player complaints with enough “evidence” that it is impossible to ignore. This was the underlying cause of the recent trust issue (and many in the past), and why when we get response clearly stating “The deeds that show up are completely random. They are not skewed towards any color” it gets colored to mean “As far as I personally know, and I may or many not have checked with the people that actually implemented it, we intend for the deeds that show up to be completely random but we never actually checked if they were”. The problem is because we know they don’t sample output for any process that involves RNG, any assertion that involves them being confident that things are working correctly is only because there is no overwhelming evidence to suggest otherwise - it is an assumption that everything works correctly, which is kind of an untenable position when things often don’t and why the faintest whiff of things being out of whack is now easier to latch on to than people trying to explain why it isn’t significant evidence.

I don’t know the solution for the trust issue other than to earn it back over time, but sampling anything that uses RNG with or without a calculation should be part of the QA process, for everything. Whether or not players are saying it is wrong, just, like, automatically as part of the QA, sample the output to verify that the input plus the process gives you the desired result. Thats just what I’ve been trying to say. This probably won’t help with trust in the short term, but it might in the long term when it leads to a reduction in errors. Plus a bonus of, you know, potentially catching the errors before they become problems.

As it stands, even if things are broken with this, nobody will care anymore by the time we could potentially see it because “things worked out in the end” with writs. Which means it can continue being “not worth the time” to properly sample outputs and let some people be mad every once in a while “because they don’t understand probability” because that has lower cost and will blow over, even, apparently, if it turns out things were totally wrong and needed to be fixed on more than one occasion. Even if there is basically no evidence to support a problem here, this larger issue bothers me because the processes need to change or we will run into a another “x troop was not in chests” or “portal rates wrong” somewhere down the road. They should have already done the sampling by this point to make sure the system works as intended, not “because we only got 8 purple deeds so far”.

I’m going to adhere to “this was a bad way for deeds to be distributed in the first place”, though, because it involves a lot of watching and waiting for RNG to do its thing and not a lot of proactive gameplay. And that is what is leading to a lot of frustrations with the system now. Hitting a 2 of 27 somewhere and having “clumpy” break point upgrades was likely to happen just because of how the system was implemented.

tl;dr: We can’t tell if deeds are “completely random” or not from this, there is basically no evidence here to suggest that it isn’t random, it would be basically impossible for us to collect enough evidence to “prove” it isn’t random, even if we do it would take so long that it wouldn’t matter, devs say it is random but wouldn’t have explicit knowledge if it were bugged somehow because they don’t sample so :man_shrugging:, and I wish they would sample all outputs regardless so they would know if it was bugged, and therefore be able to fix it before it reaches us, and then we would could eventually have higher trust in confident assertions of how things work and that they work correctly.

Edit: As for only Purple deeds showing up on flash offers so far, well, theres at least two highly plausible explanations (and at least one less plausible one) for this. Instead of me stating what those are, someone should ask this question during the next QA Stream and see what the official word is (Why have all deed flash offers so far been for purple deeds?) and let the individual decide whether or not they want to believe it from there.

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The argument Salty is making here is completely flawed.

Why SHOULD they be random, when they could be pseudo random like the Soulforge? Why aren’t they on a cycle or rotation? Heck, why aren’t we guaranteed one Deed task every day?

The claim that “it’s random, you gotta deal with it” is moot when every player is suffering equally under this system.

The facts are the facts:

  1. Due to certain colors of kingdoms being associated with certain skill points, certain deed colors (namely, Purple) are more valuable than other colors.
  2. Deed distribution is important enough that the devs decided to make it the same for all players.
  3. Deed distribution has made the more valuable deeds highly unavailable, unless you are a paying user.
  4. The current system of deed distribution has given paying players a distinct advantage, in the form of additional points in a valuable stat.

I’m going to take Salty at her word here that this distribution was not deliberately designed to drain money from player’s pockets. However, the fact remains:

This system has harmed players. It does not matter if it was random, or unintentional.

It’s a repeat of the Soulforge incident in many ways. The team probably didn’t mean to make players wait months and months for Infernus to come back to the Soulforge, but it happened, and it hurts players, and they need to fix it.

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Tha’ts exactly what leaves bad taste in the mouth, isn’t it?

When you roll a dice several times and get unlikely result you shrug it off. When you roll a dice several times, having desirable outcome at mind, and get unlucky on it - you feel a bit tilted. When you roll a dice several times, having highly desirable outcome at mind, and get unlucky on it, while some guy keeps telling you “give me money and you will roll what you want”, basically, it starts to look scetchy.

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If I may add one more: rolling the dice from a dice-maker who has a history of releasing loaded dice while claiming they are not, and before the very first roll you are pessimistically predicting an unfavourable outcome, that is gradually reflected by the reality of the state of affairs…

:sweat_smile::thinking::vulcan_salute:

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29f36a04b6dbcf96ad0124d106f07e1f

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Hanging my Forum hat

If anyone wants to carry this torch, today is a good day to start.
:relaxed::pray::vulcan_salute:

(with apologies if this post gets deleted or edited because it is considered off-topic by the powers that be)

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Green Legendary Adventure Board Task

Nov. 26, 2019 | Day 85 since first Deeds in AB:


Non-Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete
Imperial 14/102 620
Blue 18/146 690
Green 38/146 327
Red 31/176 483
Yellow 28/176 535
Purple 8/176 1,870
Brown 20/176 748

With Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete Price [USD]
Purple 16/176 935 $17

NOTE: These tables do not include the original freebie deeds given out by mail when deeds were introduced.

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it was 32/146 Green Deeds (378 days needed at this rate) 2 days ago?

I think today’s deeds weren’t added to the counter. I’m up to 42 green deeds now counting the mail freebies.

:smile_cat: I was still working on the table. It should be up-to-date now.

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Thanks for picking up the torch. You rock :slight_smile:

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Red Legendary Adventure Board Task

Nov. 27, 2019 | Day 86 since first Deeds in AB:


Non-Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete
Imperial 15/102 585
Blue 18/146 698
Green 38/146 331
Red 37/176 410
Yellow 28/176 541
Purple 8/176 1,892
Brown 20/176 757

With Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete Price [USD]
Purple 16/176 946 $17

NOTE: These tables do not include the original freebie deeds given out by mail when deeds were introduced.

9 Likes

Blue Legendary Adventure Board Task

Dec. 3, 2019 | Day 92 since first Deeds in AB:


Non-Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete
Imperial 16/102 587
Blue 24/146 560
Green 38/146 354
Red 37/176 438
Yellow 28/176 579
Purple 8/176 2,024
Brown 20/176 810

With Flash Offer Table

Deed Type Amount Days Needed To Complete Price [USD]
Purple 16/176 1,012 $17

NOTE: These tables do not include the original freebie deeds given out by mail when deeds were introduced.

5 Likes

I can see how this suggests that RNG is biased against magic, but in truth you need significantly more sample data than is currently available. RNG is not cumulative. If you roll a dice and hit a 6, the chances of the next roll being not a six are not increased. Microprocessor RNG is no different. The biggest obvious flaw of gems RNG being suspect is when the AI ignores a quad (that no human would) and the resultant sky fall of gems shows precisely why. That’s just wrong. We can’t see what’s above the board and that concept should be no different for the AI.

1 Like

I am starting to believe that purple deeds are excluded from legendary (and above) tasks so we can only roll the dice when the devs decide to offer deeds at epic task rarity (4 deeds).
In this case both view points are correct. Devs can claim that all colours have equal drop chance and we can see unfavorable RNG at purple deeds.

Also I do agree though that we need more data points for any insightful conclusion.

Devs can keep their Purple Deeds. What a puny plan. I have seen the vids of players completing Crypt Keeper faction delve. Complete it with Magic buffs they did? No, survive the true dmg and get lucky with casts the key was…

Give me the deeds of life, and my troops will survive forever, racking up millions of victories. muahaha.

Unfortunately if your opponents are getting the same deeds, your million victories will take forever to get :sweat_smile:

In general the game seems to be reluctant to provide means to boost magic (which would speed up games) while being happy to provide additional armor/life boosts (which slows games down), that’s why everyone is so suspicious about purple deed scarcity…

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It’s largely irrelevant. If devs maintain a lower drop rate for magic etc so be it. Magic is overrated. Smash teams with fireblade incendiary teams and you will realise how pathetic magic so often is.

+1 to magic is pointless.

I have 3 Nysha medals, but I’m using 2 Gaards and an Anu for my Tesla team :innocent:

p.s. the bronze/silver/gold elite level for Tesla is incredibly worthless

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Cmon, Salty! RNG are not exactly random. They depend on a function.