Actually the probability I “misunderstand” is this rare event is happening 8 or 9 times a day in maybe 20-30 games I tend to play and I’d like a lot of mythic ingots. The point is it is exceedingly common, but every time someone complains it’s dismissed as “a rarity”.
1 Like
I don’t think anything ever gets “proven” by collecting exxagerated reports of events. People claiming that TDS ressurected 7 times in a row as if that happened regularily and all that…
But seeing some posts in here i guess this is the official exxageration thread anyways so i guess that fits well.
1 Like
Tossing a coin 50 times could give the same result 50 times, and yet it doesn’t means the universe is favoring that particular result. It’s an oddity as event sure, but it’s still possible.
A player playing 50 battles during a day could see these events 50 times and it would still be inside the realm of possibility/probability without meaning that the A.I is actively luckier than a player.
Again, since there is a heavy personnal investiment from the players about the only acceptable outcome that validates the egocentric view that he/she/it must win everytime, and any discrepancy to this fantasy caused by the reality tends to birth such threads claiming the A.I cheats.
This is the post I base it on: Short testing of resurrection rates - #7 by akots
I haven’t seen @akots post an analysis of stuff in a while but I always looked forward to the math posts. I myself argued with this analysis at first, but when I went to look up the algorithms in question I found that outside sources verify these tests are proven to determine, from a small sample size, whether an event is independent.
This is important because if events are not independent, normal probability does not apply and things do not behave the way most people understand probability.
I imagine akots quit posting such analysis because “shrug” is about the best response I ever saw to it. Most people looked at it, decided it was wrong, and didn’t even bother to go read about the math and whether people who do statistics for a living trust them.
Anyway, the only “change” I want to push for (because fixing an RNG is a difficult prospect) is I’d still love to see free turns capped or a mode without them. Again: they make me angry far more often than they make me happy.
2 Likes
Yeah i saw his test and i found it to be inconclusive with this small samplesize and him making his assumptions from a sample set with significantly above average resurrection procs aswell as proc streaks if i compare it to my own experience with the troop.
His math may be sound and his conclusion from his sample set right but it did not fit with how the troop behaved for me in over half a year of playing nothing other than TDS teams, in a time when you would also meet TDS very often.
1 Like
I made peace with the RNG.
While my kraken may never devour i sit in comfort knowing that someone in this world has a kraken with a 100% devour rate 
Been playing daily for over a year. You can make all the claims you want devs but your testing is inadequate. The AI cheats. A lot. Period.
One thing to note is that there are two separate pseudorandom number generators (pRNGs) at play here. The client pRNG is responsible for things that occur within a match — gem creation and fills, AI decision making, respawn/devour/etc. proc chances. The server pRNG is responsible for matchmaking and chest opening.
The most likely implementation of their client-side pRNG algorithm is either System.Random (since they’re a C# app) or UnityEngine.Random. The former is available for perusal here:
The latter is not open-source; it does not forward to System.Random, but rather to Unity proprietary native code, which you can see by inspecting the Unity C# bindings here. I highly doubt IP2 are using any other Random algorithm as they have no need for cryptographically-secure guarantees and those are slower, to boot.
Their server-side pRNG library is anyone’s guess, since we can’t be sure what language and architecture are supporting their web services.
3 Likes
Jokes aside, i would like to ask something Lyya: In cases with streaks and repetitions of events/drops can it be explained as a failure to load/create a new event/drop and the system simply uses the last result calculated or something in this sense?
I have a “small collection” of great drops in the times i used to farm Arcane Traitstones like 3 consecutive Arcanes and 4 consecutive Celestials and 3 consecutive Treasure Gnomes during a normal week with no Vault Event.
(I also found money on the street today, so i bought Divine Protector. Thanks RNG!!! 
)
Without seeing how they use the results of a pRNG call, that’s certainly possible. Code like the following could theoretically exist:
void IAmABadMethod()
{
GemColor color = GemColor.Red;
while (BoardNeedsMoreGems())
{
try
{
DoSomethingThatMightThrow(); // Could jump to the finally block in an exceptional case and skip GetRandomColor()
color = GetRandomColor();
}
catch {}
finally
{
AddGemToBoard(color);
}
}
}
or perhaps something like this:
void IAmABadMethodAlso()
{
GemColor color = GemColor.Red;
while (BoardNeedsMoreGems())
{
if (ItsTimeForANewColor()) // Could return false and skip GetRandomColor()
{
color = GetRandomColor();
}
AddGemToBoard(color);
}
}
In both cases the calling patterns would allow for color to not be updated in the loop based on exceptional or conditional behavior. There’s really no way to know, short of seeing the source.
2 Likes
See this is the thing, The devs TOLD us it’s fair and reasonable, They TOLD us they ran cpu vs cpu tests, they TOLD us that it’s “Luck Based” Unles they programed in “Luck” for the cpu…Ut’s total Horse S#1t for the simple fact they TOLD us that’s what they did. I still don’t buy it…because they have offered up proof of a lot of other things…like bugs and how to get around them…But not once have they released any footage of these cpu vs cpu matches they told us about…That is fishy in my opinion. And through all of this MANY sheeple has stated “Get over it, it IS luck because the devs told us so!” Besides this is a mute point that i am trying to make anyway…because nothing will change and I am at a level now where Most of this game is EXTREMELY easy…But still enjoyable.
1 Like
If they would provide such footages would you believe them or even consider they were running a different A.I vs A.I just to trick you/us?
One thing is to have suspicions about something that feels sketchy, and other thing is to have such a disposition to an engraved idea in your brain about the devs purpposedly using a cheating code for the A.I. or that they simply doesn’t understand their own game code in a way that it gives the A.I. some sort of advantage…
This is the sort of thing that you and others should examine in yourselves to effectively conclude if anything the devs say/show will or won’t have any impact in your experience.
3 Likes
I sure hope you’re not holding your breath waiting for the source code. As a thought exercise, what would it take to convince you that the code is “fair?”
Edit: sniped!
1 Like
The format around each type of card in the previous versions left them with a more beautiful style and differentiated according to the level of each one. So why do not the developers of the game come back with the old model of the cards instead of just leaving them with two colored lines at their ends?
Exactly this is the issue. The RNG in this game is very streaky. The RNG doesn’t favour the AI over the human player (both are equally (un)lucky), but it is human nature to focus on the negative so we remember the bad RNG streaks more clearly (recall bias). It’s just the streakiness of the RNG that makes players notice the bad RNG rolls more…
3 Likes
Why would I care about said code? I am not a programmer. and I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had it.
And to convince me? set up a Player vs Computer and a Computer vs Computer and let it run out 50 to 100 matches each…and either livestream it or put it up on youtube after the fact…Visual Proof is MUCH easier to believe than the word of a corporation.
1 Like
Sometimes it’s just different experiences being reported. Opening Event Keys for Sin of Maraj troops mostly everyone on the forums got more copies of Lust than Wrath… and then there is me:
My streakiness seems more inclined about being unlucky at getting Pride… But well, cest la vie…
Jumping into this with my own anecdontal observations…
I have a strong tendency to play on the low-end side of the system, so I more often than not see easy matches than end-game meta matches unless I actively choose to do so.
I’ve really got no way to prove any of this objectively (or fathom how to do so because of the number of confounding factors at work), but I am more than sure of the following:
– When the devs state that the AI is not cheating, this is a CORRECT statement.
This has been shown a zillion times and can be easily duplicated again today. The AI code hasn’t been changed in ages and makes the same matching patterns today as it did ages ago.
– When the devs state that the AI is NOT rigged, this is a CORRECT statement.
– When the devs state that games are fair, this is a CORRECT statement.
These are a bit harder to explain.
Rigged implies that cheating is occuring, or that the AI is breaking the game’s rules. Neither of these are occuring at all. The AI is behaving exactly as it was programmed.
This also coincides with the concept of fairness, which I also believe is happening. But this requires some setup to explain.
– Well, if the AI is not cheating and the games are not rigged and are fair, what is Gard’s name is going on? Because there are definitely shenanigans happening…
I’m going to try to explain this somewhat poorly. If another can re-package these thoughts in a better way, please do so.
The game itself is completely fair. However, I believe since at least the introduction of Raid Boss mode, that environmental variables now exist that manipulate the “world” in which the game board exists. I’m suspicious that some of these variables, at times, can be altered in real-time based upon the status of the match (number of turns taken, lopsidedness of match, level of opponent, and so on). These include “lucky” drop rate modifers, among any number of events that could be impossible to ascertain on their own.
Another way to kind of frame this is consider the difficulty settings in Explores and Story Mode. Imagine that for PvP and all the 3.x new game modes, similar difficulty settings exist, but with additional difficulty levels and settings. These settings are invisible to the player and are auto-selected by the game world based upon a number of factors (progress into an event, team score, enemy level, etc.) These additional difficulty settings influence both sides equally, and are therefore fair. However, because the CPU team is often allowed to exceed level 20, these settings benefit the CPU team far more than the player (the gap in benefits increases further and further the higher the CPU team is leveled past 20. [Note: I believe that opposing Team Score is used as a proxy for CPU team level in PvP mode for determining the invisible difficulty setting]
In all 3.x game modes, outside of Bounties, there is no way to revert back to a lower “difficulty” level, which often results in extreme frustration.
This worries me greatly, as in about 48 hours, 4.0 will be upon us, and if anyone read between the lines on delve level selection, there is no way to lower the level of a delve. Difficulty levels can only increase, which is a core motivator for the primary gameplay loop of the Underworld. Very much not looking forward to this.
2 Likes
At high stakes battles like Raids/Invasions where even a Peasant can have 100+ of attack/armor/health ANY skull drop favorable for the A.I have a immense impact in the battle, the number of times the A.I can kick your “tush” in such scenarios (with other variables like gem drops/cascades too) exponentially feeds the general notion that things are unfair for the player.
Instead of getting slightly mad because of bad run in GW/PVP we have two weeks “dedicated” to make people extra mad at an occasional lucky A.I that casually have 100+ in each stats at some point and forward.
I also considered this at a personnal level, but i decided to simply sigh and move on with such battles, i don’t feel particularly challenged by Raid/Invasion, at best i’m happy when we get a decent weapon and reasonable troop to play with.