Gauntlet RNG - Locutus/Guinan/Caretaker
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I'd like to see an official post or reply by someone from DB stating everyone has an equal chance at obtaining these crew from Gauntlet. There is so much speculation that the RNG is skewed by some "behind the scenes coding". With the huge amount of data points we have and number on drops from person to person, it is easy to think there is some funny business going on. Just put it to bed with an official, unambiguous statement.
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Can you link said data? I haven't seen anything conclusive based on gauntlet drops before...
If the average chance of a guinan in a box is 1/1000 (I don’t know the actual odds) someone with 3,000 boxes would not get a guinan 5% of the time. On the other side of the spectrum a player with 3000 boxes would have a 18% chance of 5 or more Guinans if each box was a 1/1000 chance.
Everything I’ve seen anecdotally matches up with the guinan distribution being something along these lines, sure it **tsk tsk** to be one one of the 5% but the distribution of guinans seems to be along the lines of something explained by normal probability.
Note that I can still place very highly like this if my wins are high in points.
Also, you probably have your best chance at getting the gauntlet special character by streaking longer. You get more boxes with an equal rate to drop the legendary every time. After 15 or 18 you're at the highest chance to drop, but you don't have to fight back up through the lower chances at 3-12 any more.
In my play style, I don't rank any lower by going for streaks early on. Usually I can hit 24-33, but sometimes good or bad luck makes that go higher or lower. At that point I'm ranked 20-40, and the last 2 or 3 4 hour refreshes if I go for points then I can still get 5 or 7 of the best or second best reward boxes (finish top 5 or 11-15, avoid 6-10).
I have a grand total of 9 legendary drops (2+6+1), and only one came from the reward loot box for rank. All the rest came from streaks.
Just my data point, take it as you will.
So when you said
You didn't actually MEAN we had a huge amount of data collected or had anything that could lead someone to conclude there was "some funny business".
That wasn't an "accusation of shenanigans" or anything like that.
I meant it as, some people posting on here FEEL LIKE something isn't right. It's super easy to make them feel better by just coming out and saying there is no funny business was going on. I'm trying to frame this conversation in a way that is constructive man.
I would defintely like someone from DB to say "Yes, all players have exactly the same chance of a drop at all times." But I honestly don't think that's the case, whether intentional or not. I suggested in another thread that maybe it was based on a range of account IDs. Or maybe it's based on some other factors. I seem to remember reading a post from a guy (can't remember if it was here or on the old forums) that said his wife played also. He came home from work and his wife had just won a Guinan. So he fired up the game (based on a gut feeling) and also won a Guinan within a few minutes. Maybe physical location is a factor in the formula (zip codes, time of day, etc.)? I honestly don't know. I'm just guessing like everyone else. The point is, I don't think it's a straight-forward 1/1000 chance or whatever the odds are. I think there are other factors in the formula. Which TOTALLY makes sense if you're DB and want to KEEP a rare character rare (what's the benefit of having a Guinan for gauntlet if everyone else has one too?)
I don't think we're going to get an official statement from anyone at DB on this though. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I don't think I am.
Took one gauntlet and ~100 rounds for caretaker.
Guinan is coded to be as rare as being hit by the common cold. Some people don't catch it for years, some people get it 5 times in a year.
I don't think DB is playing God in this instance, I really don't.
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I just said why in my post- to KEEP a rare character rare. To keep people spending money in gauntlet chasing that character. At the end of the day we all know that EVERYTHING DB does is in pursuit of profit. I suppose you want to argue that point with me too?
Agreed.
With the way that small things go wrong, I think it’s ridiculous to assume that DB has not only somehow decided it’s a good idea to make the programming for gauntlet drops exhibit bias, but actually pulled it off without making it too obvious.
I’m not even sure how something like that would be programmed, but it sounds kind of convoluted. (:
Remember, this is the same DB that has given us Augmented Romulan shuttles today. ;P
It's not even about drop-distribution. Though I have very little faith in their RNG I think this whole randomized reward system idea itself is much bigger problem. It's so unfair if two players put the same effort into getting Gauntlet exclusive character and first of them is rewarded with 5 stars whereas second gets 0 stars. DB, you made a very discouraging system, period.
You can pursuit profit in different ways. This one is very harmful and mischievous.
Uh no. That's obvious. Pretty much anything involving a business plan is about making money. It's worth keeping in mind that even charities need to be looking closely at their budget, so remember that money is very important in almost every dealing you do. However, back to what we were discussing, instead of getting side-tracked on unnecessary accusations.
So you're saying that anyone who spends money on the game is LESS likely to receive Guinan because DB has coded the gauntlet so that big spenders won't get her to drop? Something like that? If you have a mechanism, a way you can conceive that might make DB more money, it gives you an avenue to explore for evidence.
With my suggestion, you can ask around as to whether the big spenders are less likely to receive Guinan than low spenders.
Get some data, it might be interesting.
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Besides, they just fired all their real coders, they no longer have the ability to modify the RNG if they wanted to..lol
If they did, would you believe it?
For the record, I'm not making an accusation- just highlighting a possible motive for why they MIGHT go that route.
I didn't make any accusations. I said I had suspicions. And I NEVER said it was based on spending- in fact, that thought never even crossed my mind. I just said that I SUSPECT that there are other factors in the formula than just straight RNG. I can only speculate what those factors may or may not be. I don't think it's a stretch to think that maybe DELIBERATELY keeping a rare character rare would incentivize spending by those chasing the character. If everyone had an equal chance, after a while, MOST people would have that character, but that definitely doesn't seem to be the case, does it? Nope. You have a bunch of people with multiple copies, and a bunch of people with none. Look through those threads I started again. How many players with Guinans only have 1? Not too many. They either get drops over and over or none at all. Nothing about that seems skewed to you? Really?
Most of the people in my fleet have 1-4 copies, in the middle of the likely distribution. It’s just that in the forums the outliers are more likely to respond .
Care to speculate on a mechanism?
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Often, the simplest answer is the explanation. And that, in this case, is 'luck' or 'RNG' which isn't quite the same, but similar.
RNG can explain what's going on here. Unfortunately we don't know how it works. Luck can also explain it. But luck is really vague. With RNG we have odds. Odds and mechanisms to create those odds.
But we don't have either.
Unlike shuttles, we don't really have much data to work with. And that's the best answer I can give you. No data. I don't really know what to say. I just feel the odds are very low, and I also think they are random. It doesn't matter how much you spend, or your rank, it's mostly about how many rounds you do. Both of mine turned up in boxes at the end, one of which I only ranked 63. I have never spent dil, and I have never won a gauntlet - haven't even ranked in the top 10. I have done less than 3000 rounds.
I guess that's luck, more than anything.
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I ran a quick trial (in a spreadsheet so I couldn't actually get particularly large numbers).
I gave 1000 "players" a 1% chance and gave them 100 trials to achieve it. Basic probability says we should end up with approximately 1000 total successes
My first sample yields 980 successes. However, when you look at the distribution of successes, you'll see it's totally uneven.
Subsequent trials yield similar results:
What you would (eventually) see if I went to thousands of trials apiece (like we see in the gauntlet) is an actual normal distribution (AKA "Bell curve" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution)
The idea that a handful of players, especially ones who are more likely to have more successful rounds (what I expect the population of the forum is) are more likely to end up with multiples of a rare drop. That doesn't preclude the idea that you can get completely neglected by the RNG (over 1/3 of every sample above were left without a 1% drop, despite 100 trials).
So, to answer your questions, YES you can have a correctly running RNG and still yield significantly different results to two players with similar playing patterns.
Because RNG can be such a fickle mistress is why I would like to see some form of performance reward in the gauntlet that would (eventually) guarantee access to the rare drop. Something like granting a token to the top 10 of any given gauntlet and giving a copy of the 5* to anyone who turns in 10-20 of those tokens.
Dude, thanks for posting that! Is there any chance you could do another one based on 7000 rounds? That's where I'm at, as well as quite a few others who've posted without a drop.
I can do a variety of things, but I'm not sure how much basis they have in reality. Odds are, you have 7000 gauntlet rounds. At most, I would guess you have opened 1500 streak boxes. This would also not account for end of gauntlet boxes.
Similarly, I don't have any specific details on the drop rate for the different boxes.
I can make numbers tomorrow (and probably will) but I can't really say how useful they are.
a 3 streak odds are not equivalent to people who farm streaks and get streaks upwards of 15+.
comparing probability with hundreds of varying scenarios is futile.
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There is no basis for such claim.
I would if they do it by obeying Apple's App Store Review Guidelines.