I’d just like to point out that our pet rescue streakiness isn’t as bad as @awryan has led us to believe with their guildmates screenshot. We investigated this as it looked unusual, and found that several other pets were found in between the Whelps encountered.
I think it’s less about whether they were all in a row, and more about whether it seems odd that the same pet appeared so many times when there are like fifty others that could have shown up…
It’s not that odd when you look at it more holistically, and streakiness does happen. As I said, we investigated as it looked unusual, and found that there was nothing wrong.
Gnomes are incredibly streaky, they may average out over time but you should not constantly get two or three in short succession.
That’s… not how probability works.
Here’s a blast from the past.
Yeah it is, and it’s called standard deviation.
It is not about them being the only pets, nor are we saying that the results lay outside the realm of random probability. I was just showing how often the same pets are appearing. Again, we have had three Peace Pigeons and two Penguins in the last 24hrs.
There are plenty of pets, so why not implement logic to prevent the same pet coming up in 24 consecutive hours.
To be clear: I am all for some sort of gating on pet rescue repeats. That said,
MATH TIME
How many people do you need to have in a room before there’s a 50% chance that two of them have a shared birthday? There are 365 days in a year (discounting leap day birthdays), so you’d expect the number to be pretty big, right? Nope. It’s 23. It doesn’t matter which birthday the two people share, so the odds change dramatically.
Likewise, assume there are 40 pets that appear with equal probability: 2.5% chance each, whenever there is a pet rescue triggers. Let’s also assume that your guild triggers 24 pet rescues a day. What are the odds you will see four or more repeats of a specific pet in a 24-hour period? Just 0.28%. However, there are 40 different pets in our hypothetical scenario, so multiply by 40 for the odds of seeing any pet four or more times. That gets you 11%, or one out of every nine days. The odds that you will see a pet 3 or more times are a whopping 84%. Five out of six days will have a single pet show up three or more times during that 24-hour period. Probability is weird.
But you also had no Peace Pigeons or Penguins in the previous 70 pet rescues over the last week.
Did anyone suggest that wasn’t the case?
Yeah, CliffyA seems to be conflating appearance rate with clustering. Over long periods, pets might show up at the right frequency, but in the short term there can still be a feast-or-famine aspect to the distribution (and go ask California how they feel about oscillating between record droughts and record rainfalls).
I am not saying that’s what is happening here; I don’t have access to the data (mine or others’) to evaluate that claim. I’m solely pointing out the difference between what CliffyA was referring to and what others were talking about.
He’s not my Guild mate though…
So did you look at my guild or Intrim?
We investigated the Whelp, which would mean that it is Intrim. My bad on confusing him as a guildie!
Point still stands though, that this screenshot is quite misleading. (Unfortunately even if you didn’t take it, you did share it, and were likely unaware of the full context.)
And the code is consistent between all guilds.
Cool, then we both were misled. 
Still, according to your SS… Out of 24 pet rescues in a row…25% of them were whelp. Whether the devs think that’s good or not is not the point here.
This thread is a feature request to remove that kind of streakiness in a 24 hour period… That’s all…
@Grundulum - how do the odds look for 5 or more of any of the same pet in a single 24hr period when:
a) there are 54 pets (75 - 11 event pets - 10 underworld pets); and
b) only 17 pet rescues are triggered in the 24hr period.
Three or more of a single pet: 18%.
Four or more of a single pet: 1.2%.
Five or more: 0.06%.
So yes, the odds are low of 4+ in a single day. But how many days don’t you take screenshots to show how streaky things are? We’re conditioned to remember unusual events and forget the ones that don’t stand out. (And even the 5+ is about as likely as getting a legendary troop from a glory key.) (edit: dropped a zero in my typing, @Namour )
I don’t have the data or expertise to say whether what you saw is merely unlikely, or indicative that something is broken. That would come over many days’ worth of pet rescues, and I assume the devs do have both the data and the expertise to figure out whether something is wrong. Even if nothing is wrong, though, it may be worth acknowledging human biases to placate irritated players (by removing some of the naturally-occurring streakiness of a fair RNG).
Thanks. Appreciate the insights.
At no point did I claim that anything is broken with regard to Pet Rescues. Merely aired frustrations and requested that a rule be put in place to prevent recurrence of the same pet for the same guild within a 24hr period.
Again. Thanks for your stats.
I claimed it. (Cause I smelt it first) 
The devs know it’s not broken because they can see the code. We don’t have access to that (nor should we). But the reason I replaced my beloved Maxima with a Lexus after 10+ years was because I got sick of people asking me “how the hek does that run”. Meaning… If it looks broken to your audience. Whether it actually is or isn’t is mute at that point.
