Exceptionally bad rolls

[Fade2gray]

Ok. So I need to ask this for the sake of my own sanity. Has anyone else been rolling exceptionally badly more frequently since the recent updates? I've noticed that I've been rolling all 1s with handfuls of dice quite often lately. Maybe it's just a psychological trick brought on by seeing the percentage odds, but I feel like I'm failing rolls with odds in the high 80s and 90s more often than I'd expect.

[rill15]

It's psychologically intriguing question, but I think the reason why you get more failing rolls is merely based on the coincidence.

Though I presume that now we can see the success percentage, it has much more chance to feel "90% success, but I fail? it's ridiculous"

[Hannibal_PJV]

90% means that every roll of them will fail... and that is a guite a lot. I have had those in tabletop version. I have 5 dice and I only need two of them more than one... or one with more than two: I rolled, 1,1,1,1 and 2... not likely but those happens

[King_Momo]

Was playing solo Sajan and came up against a Goblin Henchman. Used Amulet of Fists and a Blessing of Erastil so 4 dice altogether and chance of success indicator said 99%. Rolled and got 4 1s. Was too stunned to take a screen shot....

[MrBishop]

Turning off the check success %, increases chance of success by 10%.

[thelee]

In my experience, people overweight probability of success, even when the numbers are right there. I.E. you show someone 50% chance, and even though they intuitively know what a coin flip is, they may still end up disappointed with the results (especially given how prone to apparent "runs" of failures something like that would be). 80% chance of success on a die roll sometimes feels like a near-sure thing, but 1/5 failures is still pretty common and it won't be that uncommon to have runs of failures. Even 95% chance of success... if you ever played Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale those 1/20 chance of critical hits or critical failures come up a lot more than you might intuitively think from such a huge, seemingly-near-100% number.

 

Anyway, don't be like those people on Diablo 3 or World of Warcraft forums who are constantly alleging that the RNG is broken It's a natural tendency to try to find meaning in random patterns, but they're just coincidences

Edited June 30, 2017 by thelee

[thelee]

Put another way, it's like all the polling numbers in the run up to recent elections. Not to drag politics into this, but Fivethirtyeight (i think) had 70% Ossoff winning a Georgia election. Or, the way they put it more humorously, it was a 70% chance of Ossoff winning, and a 30% chance of DATA IS A LIE, PROBABILITY HAS FAILED US, POLLING IS POINTLESS. (Spoiler: Ossoff lost.)

 

Or in Pathfinder terms: my check against this Warden of Runes has a 91% chance of success, and a 9% chance of THIS FRICKING GAME IS BROKEN AND THE DEVELOPERS SUCK AT SEEDING THEIR RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR.

Edited June 30, 2017 by thelee

[Ethics Gradient]

...  SEEDING THEIR RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR.

 

The game uses standard Unity Random functions.  After the first call to the RNG, it automatically seeds itself and instantiates a single stream of random numbers for later requests.

 

You could make an argument that the game could shift to a multiple-stream RNG using System Random functions, or even cryptographically secure random numbers using another library, but both are likely to be tremendous overkill for tossing a virtual d20.

[Splutty]

Humans are incredibly bad at random.

[Gamerfergy]

This issue has come up in other "board game to digital" games that I've played. I think this happens mostly because a person is able to play many more rounds of play digitally than in the board game version over the same period of time. For example, with PACG (board game) completing 1 scenario could take several hours with a friend. When you play the board game, you think take a lot longer to consider your options. You actually don't roll that many times during a game.

 

In contrast, I could probably play 3 scenarios in an hour or two on PA (digital). I play much faster (don't have to consult the rule book every 10 minutes! ) and hence make many more die rolls.

 

Plus, when you play a board game with a friend, when you roll badly your friend might say "wow, you suck at rolling dice"......When you play a game by yourself digitally and you roll badly you might think "wow, this app sucks at rolling dice!