Is your random number generator broken?

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  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    Today's climb on the Coulson PvP. I really wish I could get a look at their code. As a programmer, this sort of result happening to me again raises an eyebrow.

    I'm not saying that it being RNG is impossible. But I am saying a random seed value in a database failing to update gets a better cut from Occam's razor.

    Screenshot_20170303_143834.png
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    And today's lightning round.

    Screenshot_20170308_140705.png
  • 8punch
    8punch Posts: 97 Match Maker
    i remember when i was stupid enough to play online casino. you have the possibility to ask the online casino for an email with an explantion of their random generator in roulette.

    so i asked for the paper. and guess what the maximum a ball could fall on a color. lets say red. was 36 times!

    that means if a ball falls 36 times after each other on red it was still acceptable!

    after reading that i directly stopped playing.

    actually you would expect this to be the same in marvel puzzle quest. what is the maximum number you can get same cover with the same color after each other? what would be the maximum when demigure says this is not random anymore?
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    For me it's been 7... (Or was it 9)?
    On multiple occasions.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Piro_plock wrote:
    carrion pigeons wrote:
    Random is an idealized word. In real life there isn't any such thing as true randomness.
    Quantum mechanics would like to disagree icon_e_biggrin.gif
    I agree with the rest of the post though.

    If we don't fully understand something or lack the ability to predict the outcome (such as quantum mechanics) we may think it's random, but it actually is not. Everything has a cause, even if we don't know what the cause is.

    The RNG in the game can be easily understood though, but not be predictable. It's simply an equation that produces a number that does not repeat for a very long time if it's used repeatedly by "seeding" the next calculation with the results of the previous calculation. If that was done, it would give a predictable sequence of numbers that don't repeat for a very long time. But, RNG functions usually are "seeded" with a value of time in seconds, since time is always changing, thus producing a "random" number every time it's calculated. Of course, the results are then divided to fit into the range of values that you need, for example, numbers between 1 and 13 (representing available 2*s).
  • mpqr7
    mpqr7 Posts: 2,642 Chairperson of the Boards
    / Joke! /

    It's so weird.. lately whenever I pull LTs, Heroics and Event tokens, the only 4*s I get are from the twelve that were most recently released in the previous season! Is this some sort of bug? Are other people seeing this as well?

    / End Joke!!! /
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's 7.
    Just got 7 yellow storms.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    The odds of getting 5 Red moonstone covers in a row from Elite tokens is approx (75% x 1/13 x 1/3)^5th power = 1 out of 400,000,000 (approx). Those odds may seem small enough to never happen, but there are over 5 million downloads of this game. Let's say the active player base is 1 million and each player pulls 5 elite tokens per day. That's 1 million chances per day to get 5 Red moonstones in a row. After an entire year, the odds are 91% that it will happen to someone. Of course, some players are opening 10 or more elite/heroic tokens per day, making the odds closer to 100% per year. But those are just the odds of getting 5 Red moonstones.

    If you calculate the odds of getting any 2* cover 5 times in a row, that probability is 1 out of 7,300,000 (approx), which would happen about once a week to somebody in the game. So, the point is, these seemingly rare events happen more often than you think. You're just one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones to see it.
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    bbigler wrote:
    The odds of getting 5 Red moonstone covers in a row from Elite tokens is approx (75% x 1/13 x 1/3)^5th power = 1 out of 400,000,000 (approx). Those odds may seem small enough to never happen, but there are over 5 million downloads of this game. Let's say the active player base is 1 million and each player pulls 5 elite tokens per day. That's 1 million chances per day to get 5 Red moonstones in a row. After an entire year, the odds are 91% that it will happen to someone. Of course, some players are opening 10 or more elite/heroic tokens per day, making the odds closer to 100% per year. But those are just the odds of getting 5 Red moonstones.

    If you calculate the odds of getting any 2* cover 5 times in a row, that probability is 1 out of 7,300,000 (approx), which would happen about once a week to somebody in the game. So, the point is, these seemingly rare events happen more often than you think. You're just one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones to see it.

    So, what are the odds of that person also getting two runs of 4 in a row within the same week?
  • dsds
    dsds Posts: 526
    bbigler wrote:
    The odds of getting 5 Red moonstone covers in a row from Elite tokens is approx (75% x 1/13 x 1/3)^5th power = 1 out of 400,000,000 (approx). Those odds may seem small enough to never happen, but there are over 5 million downloads of this game. Let's say the active player base is 1 million and each player pulls 5 elite tokens per day. That's 1 million chances per day to get 5 Red moonstones in a row. After an entire year, the odds are 91% that it will happen to someone. Of course, some players are opening 10 or more elite/heroic tokens per day, making the odds closer to 100% per year. But those are just the odds of getting 5 Red moonstones.

    If you calculate the odds of getting any 2* cover 5 times in a row, that probability is 1 out of 7,300,000 (approx), which would happen about once a week to somebody in the game. So, the point is, these seemingly rare events happen more often than you think. You're just one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones to see it.
    But what about same 2* cover with the same color because that's what everyone is posting about? I counted at least 5 or 6 people getting 2* covers 5 times in a row. And if you consider that it is in the new lightning rounds, it hasn't even been a week yet? Also consider that lightning rounds aren't everyday. Just 3 days in a week. So it would 2 weeks to get an equivalent of one weeks worth? I am not saying it's not possible, but pretty unlikely. And not all 5 million players can get 5 elite tokens from lightning rounds. I am assuming that everyone who posted is opening tokens from lightning rounds?

    Sorry I don't play the game anymore, but the math sounds interesting.
  • crackninja
    crackninja Posts: 444 Mover and Shaker
    In the roulette example above, I'm actually more concerned that they're is a hard stop that 36 reds in a row is okay, but the 37th time it forces a different outcome. I'll take fully random and the goofy streaks that come with it any day.
  • Piro_plock
    Piro_plock Posts: 287 Mover and Shaker
    bbigler wrote:
    Piro_plock wrote:
    carrion pigeons wrote:
    Random is an idealized word. In real life there isn't any such thing as true randomness.
    Quantum mechanics would like to disagree icon_e_biggrin.gif
    I agree with the rest of the post though.

    If we don't fully understand something or lack the ability to predict the outcome (such as quantum mechanics) we may think it's random, but it actually is not. Everything has a cause, even if we don't know what the cause is.
    Sorry, one last remark on that topic. Quantum mechanics IS random at its core. Interpretations that include local hidden variables (i.e. something deterministic) have failed to reproduce experimental results. In other words, God does play dice.
  • Cousin Simpson
    Cousin Simpson Posts: 1,086 Chairperson of the Boards
    firethorne wrote:
    That means the draw would have to pre-exists as a random element of my information in their database, and gets regenerated when "saved." This makes a lot of sense. Its purpose would be to prevent save scumming of their token draws (opening a token on one device, then force closing before it saved, and opening again on a different device). That was a problem at one time that was fixed.

    I've wondered for a long time how far in advance the pulls are determined. I guess that makes me a bad programmer, since always queuing up a cover one pull in advance is a much better way of approaching the issue than laying out a fixed path from now unto infinity.

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