The myth of RNG

Daredevil217

So for the last lightning round of the day I hit a node that gave a purple 2* Hawkeye. I hit it again, and it happened again. Now this isn’t unheard of. While rare I do have the occasional same prize streak. Sometimes it’s 70 iso which is more easily unnoticed than a specific cover of the exact same color. I think it actually happed once or twice with Bag-Man! But the streak wasn’t that long. Now normally I stop when the seeds dry up but decided to experiment and just see what happens. I ended up getting NINE purple Hawkeye covers fighting seeds, THEN regular teams, before the well dried up and I got a 70 iso. 

Now im not complaining. Hawkeye is one of the 3 2* I use in DDQ, and bringing him from 107-116 and getting a 3* cover along the way is the bees knees!

However... this was obviously not random- thus- no RNG. This was a player-friendly glitch.

So I thought it could be fun for us to post the streaks we get of the exact same cover dropping. 

Admittedly the glitch is so rare that this thread likely dies off. But has anyone else experienced this? If you did, do you know how many covers you landed?

Daiches

It happens in LR almost exclusively from what we've seen. My longest streak was 7 Yelena black. I've never gotten a two star streak worth remembering (3 or more qualifies as a streak).

Polly_P1

Pulling standard tokens I had 6 purple 1* Spider-Man in a row. I had 20 something to open and out of that 12 ended up being Spider-Man.

gmtosca

Recently, I've noticed some bunching whenever I open several tokens at a time, I would get a string of 4 OBW and then get something and then get another string of let's say, Spideys.

Borstock

It happens from time to time. I personally think it's a connection-based glitch. I once got eight 1*-IM red covers in a row. I noticed my game was a little laggy at the time, because I was playing at work where my connection stinks. I'm basically in a bunker. I don't know if the game works this way, I could just be crazy, but I feel like maybe the connection was so bad that the server didn't have time to "send" my phone the next reward to give out.

Again, the game might not even work this way. I could be totally wrong. Just a thought based on my experience.

Dormammu

This isn't quite the same, but there was this one time when I went two and a half years before getting a Silver Surfer cover.

ZootSax

I got 5 2*'s in a row from LR's once before...and fortunately it was all for the covers which let me finish a 5/5/0 I was rebuilding on my 2* farm, so that saved a lot of annoyance...

ThaRoadWarrior

I've mentioned it before, but I rostered Bagman after getting 5 blue Bagman's in a row from the first run of Sakaar Arena. Figured the game was trying to tell me something. All it was telling me was that I would only ever get blue Bagmans after that

alekthorn

I feel the same way, but with yellow Bag-Man covers. Got 7 in a row last week from lightning rounds.

ThaRoadWarrior

I notice it most with Yelena and Bagman, and both seem to come more form LRs than regular PVP, but confirmation bias being what it is I am never sure. I do hope we get BAgs to Riches this weekend so I can finally get the last 3 non-blue covers I need for my 4/18/2

GrimSkald

This isn't so much a glitch as the simple fact that computers are actually pretty bad at generating numbers that are well-and-truly random.  In general, the random number a computer generates are very "streaky."  It's not bad in the long run, but it creates some really weird runs.

KinDM

Over 10 red moonstone from successive lr matches, ages ago when champing was new. Barely finished her in time. Only time iveI been happy to finish moonstone.

jamesh

I'm pretty sure the game maintains multiple pseudo-random number generators for each user (one for each token type or prize?).  Generating a random number from a PRNG involves mixing the internal state according to some rule, and then deriving a number from a portion of the internal state.  The idea being that (a) the resulting sequence is indistinguishable from uniform random data, and (b) you can't use the sequence of numbers to determine the internal state.

I've seen long sequences of the same character before too (Bag-Man sticks in my memory), and my best guess is that the new internal state for the PRNG isn't being saved correctly.  If you instead try to generate a new random number using the old PRNG state, you'll get the same result.

One possible cause for this would be using a clustered storage system that only offers eventual consistency.  Clustering means the game won't be taken out by a failure of a single machine.  Eventual consistency means that while it guarantees that changes will eventually be replicated to other nodes in the cluster, there may be a period of time when cluster nodes are inconsistent.

If there is a replication delay, it is possible that it will start with an old version of the PRNG state and give you your duplicate covers.

killerkoala

i got 2* cover 7 in a row of the same character and color, a few times all during lightning rounds.

HoundofShadow

I got about 5 to 6 purple covers of 1* BW two to three weeks ago. RNG can be funky sometimes. I would prefer it to be 2* BW though.

Hadronic

GrimSkald said:

This isn't so much a glitch as the simple fact that computers are actually pretty bad at generating numbers that are well-and-truly random.  In general, the random number a computer generates are very "streaky."  It's not bad in the long run, but it creates some really weird runs.

This is just wrong, computers are in fact much better at creating random numbers than humans are at perceiving them. Truly random events are streaky and in 2 dimensions tend to cluster.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1334712/Humans-concept-randomness-hard-understand.html

Hadronic

OJSP said:

Hadronic said:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1334712/Humans-concept-randomness-hard-understand.html

Really? referencing the Daily Mail?

flip a coin for yourself,
is this better?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTXmYzujUrs

Pongie

Streaks I’ve noticed normally comes in fives (for 1* and 2*)

hunky_funky

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've mentioned it before, but I rostered Bagman after getting 5 blue Bagman's in a row from the first run of Sakaar Arena. Figured the game was trying to tell me something. All it was telling me was that I would only ever get blue Bagmans after that

6 blue Bagman's in a row from LR. Who's more? Glad that mine was champed. I sold last one, cause he was maxed, right before they tone down 2* drop from LR and regrete then. Better off duplicate him. This one I'm raising probably a year and he's only 130. You've got no Bagman's what so ever and one day:"Jackpot! Bagman streak!". Definitely a limited character. I think he was in tokens long ago. Why make him limited? He wasn't harming anyone...

ThaRoadWarrior

hunky_funky said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've mentioned it before, but I rostered Bagman after getting 5 blue Bagman's in a row from the first run of Sakaar Arena. Figured the game was trying to tell me something. All it was telling me was that I would only ever get blue Bagmans after that

6 blue Bagman's in a row from LR. Who's more? Glad that mine was champed. I sold last one, cause he was maxed, right before they tone down 2* drop from LR and regrete then. Better off duplicate him. This one I'm raising probably a year and he's only 130. You've got no Bagman's what so ever and one day:"Jackpot! Bagman streak!". Definitely a limited character. I think he was in tokens long ago. Why make him limited? He wasn't harming anyone...

I'm still chasing roster slots to get 1 of everybody above 2*, so rostering a dupe of Bagman seems a little decadent. I just need to get a Jessica Jones and Colossus, and then we can start talking about dupes lol. But I could easily have a 4/5/2 and a pair of 0/5/0 Bagmans by now had I been duplicating him.

HoundofShadow

Anyone looking forward to Bagman's PvP? Could it be this April?