Club Champions (Pelinor Discovers RNG)

[Pelinor]

Regarding Club Champions

Today my club took on Chad again. I held back since I have the girl. My position is to guarantee we beat him and I can hit him with over 200m impressions by myself so it is a good spot for me to be in. Working together we set things up so @matt would finish with over 62% of the impressions (it cost him over 90 tickets to do this). The shard range was 1-55 and he recieved two shards for his 90 tickets. According to the Champions Reception Desk, 90 tickets cost 10,260 kobans! Put another way, if he had the koban equivalence of those 90 tickets he could have played the Epic Pachinko draft option, gotten his choice between TWO girls and still have had over 4,000 kobans in his pocket. It would have been a poor deal had he recieved 55 shards but he is the kind of guy that tries to help promote club growth. This reward system for having clubs contribute hundreds of tickets and giving absolute crap as a reward for playing together to achieve a goal has got to change. The rewards have to reflect the effort made by the club, not some weighted RNG result which promotes disgust with the game feature. Hell, my "booby prize" for participation was worth more than what our top impressions leader got! 

Balance the feature or give clubs the ability to turn it off, not ignore it, remove it from view. I am so mad at what the game did to another player by design that if I could, I would donate half my market inventory in affection items to him to make it right.

[jelom]

@Pelinor Yes, RNG can be frustrating sometimes, but it will even with time. Don't worry about that. I can tell from your numbers that not all members in your club contributed to that battle, and that is one of the most important points to assure higher shard range for everybody with less battles.

Comparing the cost of tickets as if they were bought with kobans is a fallacy because we get so many of them with missions, villains and especially with PoP, that I am sure no one uses kobans to get tickets nowadays.

[DvDivXXX]

@Pelinor As I said earlier in the patch notes thread:

On 2/21/2021 at 8:39 PM, DvDivXXX said:

If you have more questions in that vein, please make a new thread in the noob question section. Thanks.

So, I've moved your latest post here as well as the first reply to it. This isn't relevant to the official thread in announcements. Feel free to ask your questions and rant away here, but not there.

[Pelinor]

5 hours ago, jelom said:

@Pelinor Yes, RNG can be frustrating sometimes, but it will even with time. Don't worry about that. I can tell from your numbers that not all members in your club contributed to that battle, and that is one of the most important points to assure higher shard range for everybody with less battles.

Comparing the cost of tickets as if they were bought with kobans is a fallacy because we get so many of them with missions, villains and especially with PoP, that I am sure no one uses kobans to get tickets nowadays.

True, not everyone contributed, but 17/29 isn't bad and we planned it so Matt would be the leader. Our third place contributor used less than 30% of the tickets Matt used and he received 19 shards! Trust me, I know RNG at least as well and probably better than you and the resulting numbers can easily be weighted to provide reasonable results. The first place contributer who is very active should never recieve such a slap in the face when compared to what the rest of the club got thanks to his efforts.

 

On this we can agree, the value of tickets is far lower than it was when first introduced, yet this is the value the developers are still showing for the game. Has the value of tickets declined by 50%? Matt would still have enough to get a girl in Epic Pachinko. By 90% maybe? He could still get a legandary item in Mythic Pachinko. No matter, I do hope we can agree the reward of any game activity should be consumate with the effort made most of the time.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Pelinor
comments on the second paragraph

[Pelinor]

@DvDivXXX, my apologies. Last night I thought the post was direct feedback on the mechanics and results of the Club Champions feature. This morning, I can see how it could be taken otherwise. 

[DvDivXXX]

23 minutes ago, Pelinor said:

Trust me, I know RNG at least as well and probably better than you and the resulting numbers can easily be weighted to provide reasonable results.

You think you do, but you're missing the point of where RNG comes into play in this feature's mechanics as they currently are. Instead, you complain that your club mate's result on this "sample" of ONE run doesn't meet your expectations, based on factors that do NOT impact the result in the way you assume or wish.

Each participant gets a random number of shards within the range they end up with. That's it. One guy can have a 1-8 range and roll 8 while another has a 1-150 range and rolls a 1. THAT'S the RNG we're referring to.

Edit: @Tangle What are you so sad about, random lurker who never posted on this forum?

Edited February 23, 2021 by DvDivXXX

[DvDivXXX]

29 minutes ago, Pelinor said:

The first place contributer who is very active should never recieve such a slap in the face when compared to what the rest of the club got thanks to his efforts.

That's a fair point, as feedback slash suggestion. I agree, FWIW. I'd rather see the minimum rise based on participation rate than just the maximum. Give me a 10-20 roll over a 1-100 anytime.

I just want to be clear you understand how the feature works as it currently is, and that your complaint is not that it doesn't work as intended, but rather that you find the way it's intended to work a bit lacking. In that case, fair enough.

[Pelinor]

It has been several runs, my club just didn't see such an obvious disparity in results until last night. That's why I am strongly suggestioning a weighted RNG return for this feature. The weighted result would take into account where the player finished compared to the rest of the participants as well as the level of participation by the rest of the group. It's a fairly simple tweak and while horrendously bad results could still happen, the overall feel to the players, in regard to this feature, would vastly improve. If a weighted RNG system is being used already then my feeling is it needs to be tweaked a bit more than what the results have indicated during this features first month.

[DvDivXXX]

Our last posts came almost at the same time, but they still basically answer each other.  

I'm not sure what type of weight you're suggesting on the RNG, and it could be many different things, but the basic idea is the same: a higher floor based on participation rate rather than the same floor for everyone. I agree with that suggestion (others have expressed similar feelings). I think the simplest and clearest way to tweak that would be what I mentioned above: the minimum amount of shards should increase rather than staying at 1 for all participants.

[Tangle]

Remember, you started this........

As a "retired US Navy Analyst" I can tell you for certain that your algorithm is flawed if the "more than random" shard generated is "1".  If the algorithm was written with even a decent chance of ROI then the RNG would always fall somewhere in the middle. In our club "sample" this has not been the case. I cannot speak for other clubs, but know this...something isn't right. Random Number Generators are math based algorithms written to favor an outcome. For companies who manufacture games with RNG, the algorithm is "always" written in favor of the company. Yes, there are folks who have benefited from some favorable RNG, however "Club Champion" and "Mythics" are not RNG favorable to the majority.

[Pelinor]

@DvDivXXX, I believe we are both suggesting a similar tweak when it comes to the outcome. A simple floor raise based on club activity a nice idea and one I have not mapped out to see potential results. Another idea would be a minimum shard count of (C*P*A)/2 where C=contibution, P=participants and A=absent players. I only have last nights number to go on but under this idea Matts minimum shard results would have been 60.2*.586*.414=14.6 shards. Divided by 2 and rounded down for game balance purposes and we have award range of 7-55 (55 was his potential largest shard drop). I'll run a complete set the next time my club beats up on Chad.

[Kenrae]

47 minutes ago, Tangle said:

Remember, you started this........

As a "retired US Navy Analyst" I can tell you for certain that your algorithm is flawed if the "more than random" shard generated is "1".  If the algorithm was written with even a decent chance of ROI then the RNG would always fall somewhere in the middle. In our club "sample" this has not been the case. I cannot speak for other clubs, but know this...something isn't right. Random Number Generators are math based algorithms written to favor an outcome. For companies who manufacture games with RNG, the algorithm is "always" written in favor of the company. Yes, there are folks who have benefited from some favorable RNG, however "Club Champion" and "Mythics" are not RNG favorable to the majority.

I don't know which RNG generator they are using but, knowing Kinkoid and their technology skills, I'm fairly certain they're just using the default generator that comes with PHP standard libraries. That generator isn't "written to favor an outcome", it just tries to be pure random. So, any outcome in the range can happen at any time.

Most generators in the videogame industry are like that, or at least try to be like that. Heck, if an algorithm is written to favor an outcome, it can be said it isn't a Random Number Generator anymore but something else.

FWIW, I'm an engine programmer in the videogame industry.

[Pelinor]

37 minutes ago, Tangle said:

Remember, you started this........

As a "retired US Navy Analyst" I can tell you for certain that your algorithm is flawed if the "more than random" shard generated is "1".  If the algorithm was written with even a decent chance of ROI then the RNG would always fall somewhere in the middle. In our club "sample" this has not been the case. I cannot speak for other clubs, but know this...something isn't right. Random Number Generators are math based algorithms written to favor an outcome. For companies who manufacture games with RNG, the algorithm is "always" written in favor of the company. Yes, there are folks who have benefited from some favorable RNG, however "Club Champion" and "Mythics" are not RNG favorable to the majority.

@Tangle, The holy grail of true RNG is to provide true random numbers in a given range. The true average is a number .5 higher than the highest number in the range divided by two. Weighted RNG's are designed to favor certain outcomes while still allowing for the minimum and maximum results stated. Based on what I have seen the Club Champions feature is using a straight RNG, depending on the algorithm it could be a poor one with swings up and down as much as 12% from the holy grail RNG goal. My sense of fairness tells me the straight RNG algorithm is unsuited for any feature designed as a community effort activity. Mythics is a individual activity and as such it is better suited to the staright RNG (even if I do curse at the results on occasion).

[DvDivXXX]

4 hours ago, Tangle said:

Remember, you started this........

Not really, although we're all supposed to be adults on this 18+ forum, so let's not speak like two year olds, shall we?

As for your bullshit argument, well it is bullshit even if you invoke a lame argument of authority to try and make it sound legit. RNG is random. What you describe would be called "pseudo-random" at best, and there are regulations for that in the industry. It's also much more difficult to set up from a technical perspective, and fairly easy to detect with a large enough sample from reliable user data. So it's in anything but the company's best interest to use pseudo-random or weighted or otherwise altered number generators and falsely claim they're random. They're just random.

Most players of game of odds have little to no basic understanding of how random works and what you can or cannot predict, what an expected result or an average might be, and so on. The human mind is hardwired for superstitious bullshit based on the most trivial anecdotal evidence by default. Something happens twice and your brain sees a pattern where there's just a coincidence. It takes calm, patience and proper data to go past this kind of bias, and most people just cannot get into this mindset, even when faced with evidence to the contrary of their claims. I should know, I've dealt with gamblers for most of my career, and it's often been my job to analyse their actual stats and explain their results to them. Out of thousands of players I've done this for over the years, only a tiny minority ever opened their mind to what I was showing them. The vast majority was unable to move outside their comfort zone of pseudo-religious beliefs in "the game is rigged" and other bullshit conspiracy stuff.

So yeah, I don't care if you've worked for the Navy or if you have a lot of experience with algorithms. You have no knowledge of this game's specific algorithms, and very little, statistically irrelevant anecdotal data (if I can even call it that) to draw any conclusion from. So your bullshit claims are invalid, and your self-important whining is not welcomed here. Cheers.

[KelvinSmythe]

51 minutes ago, DvDivXXX said:

Not really, although we're all supposed to be adults on this 18+ forum, so let's not speak like two year olds, shall we?

 

Pretty rich to whine about tone while applying a passive-aggressive title to someone's post. Not to mention the fact that your entire post is written in the shittiest way possible, but because you're a volunteer janitor for an adult game forum, you think you get the right to treat others poorly. Your reply is a crappy post all things considered, and self-important, indeed. I'm sure this criticism will live for <5 minutes before you delete it, but at least you'll know it was levied. Do better.

[DvDivXXX]

46 minutes ago, KelvinSmythe said:

I'm sure this criticism will live for <5 minutes before you delete it, but at least you'll know it was levied. Do better.

Nah, I don't feel like removing your snappy shit talk is worth it at this time. If anything, it would reinforce your completely backwards perception of my tone and intentions. Some people can't get past the concept of a forum moderator also being a forum user, and they tend to judge everything a mod says through their ideals of how a mod should speak. I see you're one of them. Cool story bro. This also keeps you from understanding why something is okay or not, or why we remove a post, among other things. You're convinced we're abusing our mod powers to apply censorship and whatnot. So you assume that posts we remove or give warnings and penalties over must be a part of the rebellion against the evil mods' reign of terror or some other bullshit. And you think you're being bold by picking up a fight with me over tone and netiquette, and that of course this "criticism" will be perceived as a threat to my power trip and I'll censor it. It's all in your head, though. You're close to borderline in the form, but what you're saying isn't offensive enough to warrant mod action. You're wrong, but that's okay.

See, I focus on what people actually say (or what I think they're trying to say, at least) a lot more than how they put it. You should give it a try, and maybe you'll understand that minor stuff like my "Pelinor Discovers RNG" joke in this thread's title (which Pelinor himself can edit out at any point if he feels like it, by the way, and he doesn't seem to get offended by it like you are on his behalf) matters very little compared to the efforts I put into answering Pelinor's questions in the previous and this here thread, splitting posts to create this new thread for him, and actually discussing the topic he brought up with him (and others). Or how the fact that I've called Tangle out on his childish approach and bullshit claims on the topic at hand, and that I debunked them cleanly, based on my knowledge and experience in the matter (which I share with most savvy players who pay attention to stats), is a lot more important than the fact I didn't beat around the bush in doing so. If all you got from that was that I'm "treating others poorly" or that I feel entitled to do so because I'm a mod, then that's too bad for you. It's not on me though, so keep it to yourself please.

[Pelinor]

19 hours ago, DvDivXXX said:

my "Pelinor Discovers RNG" joke

I like the joke, but to put it in perspective to understand why I find it funny. I have been playtesting and designing tabletop RPG's for over half a century, my first round of beta testing was with a game called Chainmail when Jeff Perren invited me to sit in on a developement session that went for almost 72 hours! I have probably rolled more dice and constructed more results tables than anyone here.

[DvDivXXX]

I didn't know that, obviously. Regardless, contrary to some around here, you know I'm not out to get you, on the contrary. So when I help you out or engage in a discussion with you, even if I throw a joke your way in the process, or I'm using dirty words here and there (not used as insults though), you don't focus on that, let alone take it as a personal attack and dismiss everything else I say because of it. Thanks for that.

Had my intention actually been to belittle you or whatever else a few wannabe rebelz around here love to pretend mods do, then I probably would have made a snappy joke at your expense, and left it as that. So why would I give you a separate thread and stick around discussing with you? Damn, I'm so evil I end up being nice. ^^

[Observer_X]

1 hour ago, Pelinor said:

I like the joke, but to put it in perspective to understand why I find it funny. I have been playtesting and designing tabletop RPG's for over half a century, my first round of beta testing was with a game called Chainmail when Jeff Perren invited me to sit in on a developement session that went for almost 72 hours! I have probably rolled more dice and constructed more results tables than anyone here.

You really collaborated to Chainmail development? Did you collaborate with TSR too?

[Pelinor]

2 minutes ago, Observer_X said:

You really collaborated to Chainmail development? Did you collaborate with TSR too?

Yes, with the original three book set of D&D (they started out as notes on 3x5 notecards and table napkins at a local all night restaurant). I drifted away from the original group sometime around 1975-76 but I still have very fond memories of playing in one of the Legion halls (or maybe it was a IOOF lodge). Back then people couldn't believe a crowd of 500 would get together to play minatures. Today such a low attendence would be total failure but back then it was awesome enough to make the news in our local paper.

[Pelinor]

I mentioned using a CPA approach to give club champions a better feeling of fairplay with a floating floor and cap on the players shard range.  Using data from my club this would be the results. Light Blue shows numbers generated by the game (where known).  Light Green shows the results of two CPA styled formulas.  The minimum shards formula centers around how many tickets were used by the player =(B3*0.7)*(0.3+0.001)/2+1.  The maximum shards formula centers on a modified average of tickets and impressions. I have a modification of plus one to handle results less than one =(B3+C3)/2+1.  In the chart below we had 21/30 (70%) of the clubs members beating on Chad and 30% (9/30) who decided not to try or help out this time around. On Impressions, whole numbers represent millions while less than one decimal numbers represent thousands.  Player levels this round ranged from 167-387. While his results were not as bad this time, Matt collected 10 shards for his effort.  Omni also collected 10 shards but had a much smaller impact on beating Chad.  The same results could have happened under my CPA approach, but I think you can see the appearance of the CPA approach is much more fair and will most likely play out more favorably for the majority of people.

name	tickets	impressions	Game range	Min Shards	Max Shards	CPA range
Matt	70	99.4	1-80	8	86	8-86
Zapp	53	54.6	1-?	7	55	7-55
Zori	18	20.6	1-?	3	20	3-20
Starkos	11	18.3	finisher
Soggy	11	18.1	finisher
Omni	22	15.5	1-16	3	20	3-20
Pelinor	5	15.4	finisher
Wombled	18	13	1-?	3	17	3-17
Jumin	27	6.42	1-5	4	18	4-18
Adpool	6	6.19	1-?	2	7	2-7
Muttley	26	4.85	1-?	4	16	4-16
Nate	10	4.76	1-5	2	8	2-8
Lautaro	8	4.57	1-?	2	7	2-7
Cryo	6	3.47	1-3	2	6	2-6
YPC	8	2.37	1-3	2	6	2-6
Brooklyn	10	2.23	1-?	2	7	2-7
Peter	2	1.02	1-?	1	3	1-3
DerpyBack	3	0.403	1-?	1	3	1-3
judojan	1	0.168	1-?	1	2	1-2
schoontje	1	0.111	1-?	1	2	1-2
Bobby	1	0.0641	1-?	1	2	1-2

 

So there you have it. I didn't just give negative feedback on what I see as wrong with the Club Champions. I have also provided a fix which addresses the issue as I see it.

[Observer_X]

23 hours ago, Pelinor said:

Yes, with the original three book set of D&D (they started out as notes on 3x5 notecards and table napkins at a local all night restaurant). I drifted away from the original group sometime around 1975-76 but I still have very fond memories of playing in one of the Legion halls (or maybe it was a IOOF lodge). Back then people couldn't believe a crowd of 500 would get together to play minatures. Today such a low attendence would be total failure but back then it was awesome enough to make the news in our local paper.

Well, there is a reason if at GenCons there is a plate in memory of Gary Gygax... 🙂

I didn't think I'd ever talk (even if only on a forum) with someone who has experienced the creation of my favorite RPG up close. Despite the flag on my profile, I am not American, and the D&D phenomenon in my country only took hold in the late 80s with the box set edited by Frank Mentzer (which if I'm not mistaken is now called "Original D&D": I still have two of the boxes on the bookcase next to me as I write these words) which paved the way for AD&D manuals. I suppose you have already heard this, but I must admit that I envy you a lot for having been part of that reality while it was born, indeed, more, for helping it to be born and develop: not being able to live "up close" (also for the fact that at that time the language barrier was much more marked) the development of D&D when I was young, was a reason that made me feel sorry for not being American.

Once again, my apologies to fellow players for the off topic.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Observer_X

[Kenrae]

5 hours ago, Observer_X said:

Once again, my apologies to fellow players for the off topic.

Well, it's clear RPGs are one of the main influences to this game, no need to apology  
I've always been more of a RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu guy, or Chaosium in general, but no RPG would exist without Gygax & co. Knowing about those days first hand is always interesting  .

Edited February 25, 2021 by Kenrae

[Chrystoph]

In the current system, the upper limit on shards progresses, but the lower limit stays at 1.

I would like to suggest that the system be modified so that every other progression raises the lower limit by one.

Ex: starting value is 1 to 3, first progression - 1 to 5, second progression 2 to 5, etc

This gives a definitive progress that rewards participation without making it a gimme. The effort would still be required, but the payout better justifies the expenditure.

[Pelinor]

I can see where you're idea would place more control in the clubs hands, or more specifically, in the hands of the heavy hitters in the club. I think I still prefer my "floating floor" idea 

 but either one would be an improvement over the current system imho