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Re: dice sucks

Postby iAmCaffeine on Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:29 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
BuckNasty00 wrote:I've been rolling crap for like a month now. Whatever bug is in the system needs fixed. Its ridiculous. I can have a 20 troop advantage and lose.

I'm sure CC will just tell me that sometimes it happens blah blah blah

what are the chances of it happening. very small. I never had the crap dice rolling in real life i have on here. and its game after game day after day.


I just checked -- it wasn't a bug. We had programmed it so that BuckNasty00 would get worse dice, because (according to the code comments) he's kind of a dick. If you file an eTicket they might remove it -- gl.


:lol: :lol:
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Re: dice sucks

Postby europeanson on Tue Jul 21, 2015 10:26 am

seriously my attack is at 0% and my defend is -48% , makes it very hard to want to play on this site any longer , been like this for 2 months
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Re: dice sucks

Postby owenshooter on Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:57 am

europeanson wrote:seriously my attack is at 0% and my defend is -48% , makes it very hard to want to play on this site any longer , been like this for 2 months

can you please post the evidence that you have had these stats for 2 solid months? thank you...-Jésus noir
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Streaker on Wed Jul 22, 2015 3:10 am

europeanson wrote:seriously my attack is at 0% and my defend is -48% , makes it very hard to want to play on this site any longer , been like this for 2 months


Possibly, if you only played 5 games last 2 months.
Your long term 'luck' is as average as it gets. You know, we can all see that on your profile...

Actually, my defend is currently at -53%, this website must be broken.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby clangfield on Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:45 am

europeanson wrote:seriously my attack is at 0% and my defend is -48% , makes it very hard to want to play on this site any longer , been like this for 2 months

Last 5 battles: average dice 4.40, luck +36%... but of course that doesn't count :)
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Re: dice sucks

Postby dICE man on Wed Jul 22, 2015 10:36 pm

I don't appreciate everyone talking all this sh$& about me.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Streaker on Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:00 am

dICE man wrote:I don't appreciate everyone talking all this sh$& about me.


Then stop giving out bad rolls to everyone!
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Re: dice sucks

Postby nvrijn on Tue Aug 11, 2015 2:12 am

If the dice generation method has not changed recently (one 50,000 roll file that is repeated over and over

WHAT??? I thought there was a random number generator used for each dice roll. Is this "piano roll" of Dice rolls strategy correct? If so WHY is it being used?

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Re: dice sucks

Postby iAmCaffeine on Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:31 am

Originally, I believe, because it was cheaper.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby degaston on Tue Aug 11, 2015 11:14 am

iAmCaffeine wrote:Originally, I believe, because it was cheaper.

They could get 10,000 new rolls every day for free from random.org. They could add those to the existing data, and retire the old data. Or with just two days worth of data and a little bit of programming, they could easily generate 100 million rolls that would be more random than what they are doing now.

At this point I think it's just some combination of laziness, apathy and misplaced priorities (Conquer Stars? Tic Tac Toe?) that keep it the way it is.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Dukasaur on Tue Aug 11, 2015 4:20 pm

degaston wrote:
iAmCaffeine wrote:Originally, I believe, because it was cheaper.

They could get 10,000 new rolls every day for free from random.org. They could add those to the existing data, and retire the old data. Or with just two days worth of data and a little bit of programming, they could easily generate 100 million rolls that would be more random than what they are doing now.

At this point I think it's just some combination of laziness, apathy and misplaced priorities (Conquer Stars? Tic Tac Toe?) that keep it the way it is.

Degaston, your own data shows the 50K file has been replaced at least a year ago, possibly more. It was the 3.51 averages that led you to uncover the problem with the 50K file, and 3.51 averages are becoming steadily less common, which implies that the problem was solved. Obviously the distortion caused by six years of the 50K file is not going to disappear from people's dice stats overnight, and the longer they've been members the slower the correction will be, but as 3.51 get less and less common there is obviously a correction taking place.

Two years ago, when you posted your research, more than 99% of members had a 3.51 for all three dice stats. Today I randomly chose a starting point on page 3 of the scoreboard and checked 25 members in sequence. I found six with all 3.51s, twelve with a mixture of 3.51s and 3.50s, and seven with all 3.50s. You can do a larger sample if you'd like, but I think that it's fairly indicative that half or less than half of all active members have 3.51s now.

As a second check, I resorted the list by Games Completed. Then I moved down the list and started at 200 completed games (so only players with a reasonably large data pool would be included) and started upward, looking only at the dice stats of those who have joined in the last 18 months. Looking at the first 25 members who fit that description, I found eleven that had all 3.50s and fourteen that had something else. Among those "something else" members, however, there were more 3.49s than 3.51s. There were also a few 3.47s and a 3.52. Overall, an average somewhere below 3.50. Clearly, members who have joined in the last 18 months do not have a tendency toward 3.51s like the older members do.

I really hope you take another look at the data. I'm following your own reasoning. The overwhelming prevalence of 3.51s in the past proved the problem with the 50K file, and the fact that 3.51 are steadily declining in frequency proves that the problem has been fixed.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Aug 11, 2015 4:58 pm

The "prevalence of 3.51s" is not what degaston found. What was found was that the distribution of rolls for long-time players was significantly non-random, by directly looking at the number of each times each result came up. If this resulted in a skewed average, that was merely a consequence of the skewed distribution, not the problem itself.

It would entirely be possible for a non-random distribution to still result in a 3.50 average, for example, if we have a 20% excess in 3's and a 15% dearth in 4's.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby degaston on Tue Aug 11, 2015 5:03 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:The "prevalence of 3.51s" is not what degaston found. What was found was that the distribution of rolls for long-time players was significantly non-random, by directly looking at the number of each times each result came up. If this resulted in a skewed average, that was merely a consequence of the skewed distribution, not the problem itself.

It would entirely be possible for a non-random distribution to still result in a 3.50 average, for example, if we have a 20% excess in 3's and a 15% dearth in 4's.

I was assuming that they manipulated the new file so that all of the numbers occur an equal number of times within the file - except that two numbers must have an extra occurrence because 6 does not go evenly into 50,000. But even doing that does not make the dice generation truly random. I'll post more on that shortly.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Dukasaur on Tue Aug 11, 2015 6:13 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:The "prevalence of 3.51s" is not what degaston found. What was found was that the distribution of rolls for long-time players was significantly non-random, by directly looking at the number of each times each result came up. If this resulted in a skewed average, that was merely a consequence of the skewed distribution, not the problem itself.

It would entirely be possible for a non-random distribution to still result in a 3.50 average, for example, if we have a 20% excess in 3's and a 15% dearth in 4's.

It would be entirely possible, yes, but Occam's Razor doesn't slice here. If someone changed the system, there's no reason to assume they would go to great lengths to mimic a random distribution instead of just taking one of several possible avenues to get a random distribution.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby degaston on Tue Aug 11, 2015 6:59 pm

Dukasaur wrote:Degaston, your own data shows the 50K file has been replaced at least a year ago, possibly more. It was the 3.51 averages that led you to uncover the problem with the 50K file, and 3.51 averages are becoming steadily less common, which implies that the problem was solved. Obviously the distortion caused by six years of the 50K file is not going to disappear from people's dice stats overnight, and the longer they've been members the slower the correction will be, but as 3.51 get less and less common there is obviously a correction taking place.

Two years ago, when you posted your research, more than 99% of members had a 3.51 for all three dice stats. Today I randomly chose a starting point on page 3 of the scoreboard and checked 25 members in sequence. I found six with all 3.51s, twelve with a mixture of 3.51s and 3.50s, and seven with all 3.50s. You can do a larger sample if you'd like, but I think that it's fairly indicative that half or less than half of all active members have 3.51s now.

As a second check, I resorted the list by Games Completed. Then I moved down the list and started at 200 completed games (so only players with a reasonably large data pool would be included) and started upward, looking only at the dice stats of those who have joined in the last 18 months. Looking at the first 25 members who fit that description, I found eleven that had all 3.50s and fourteen that had something else. Among those "something else" members, however, there were more 3.49s than 3.51s. There were also a few 3.47s and a 3.52. Overall, an average somewhere below 3.50. Clearly, members who have joined in the last 18 months do not have a tendency toward 3.51s like the older members do.

I really hope you take another look at the data. I'm following your own reasoning. The overwhelming prevalence of 3.51s in the past proved the problem with the 50K file, and the fact that 3.51 are steadily declining in frequency proves that the problem has been fixed.

I'm aware that they replaced the data file, and believe that the bias was (mostly) removed, but that doesn't make the dice rolls random.

Randomness is about every possible event having a specific mathematical probability of occurring, and when you're reusing a 50k file, certain events are going to have either a higher or lower probability than they should.

For example, if the rolls were truly random, then someone auto-assaulting from a territory with 13 to a territory with 1 should expect to fail once every 195,505 attempts. With only 50,000 possible starting points in the file, if a sequence that loses 12 in a row exists, then players will hit it about four times more often than they should (assuming that it only occurs once). If it does not exist anywhere in the file, then players will never see this happen when sometimes they should.

Rolling five of the same number should occur once every 1,296 rolls for a 3v2 attack. So in a 50,000 roll file, there should be 6.43 sequences of 5 in a row for each digit. Has someone checked to make sure that they're there? Even if they are, the best you can do is to have the occurrences be either 8.8% high, or 6.7% low.

Rolling the same number seven times in a row should happen only once every 46,656 attempts. Does this occur at all in the data file? If it does, which number is it? Wouldn't it be odd if every time you saw seven in a row, it was always 4's?

I don't know what's in this data file, but I can assure you that there are some rare sequences that are happening too often, and others that are not happening at all, but should. So when the next person starts a "dice suck" thread, how do you know that they don't have a legitimate complaint?
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Re: dice sucks

Postby owenshooter on Tue Aug 11, 2015 7:14 pm

come on... it is still funny...



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Re: dice sucks

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Aug 11, 2015 8:04 pm

degaston wrote:I don't know what's in this data file, but I can assure you that there are some rare sequences that are happening too often, and others that are not happening at all, but should. So when the next person starts a "dice suck" thread, how do you know that they don't have a legitimate complaint?


Well, for one thing, almost no one can distinguish between odds of 1 in 50,000 and 1 in 200,000.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby degaston on Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:40 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:Well, for one thing, almost no one can distinguish between odds of 1 in 50,000 and 1 in 200,000.

No one could have distinguished the 0.2% difference in the number of 1's they were getting without the dice stats,. Apparently that problem was enough for them to decide to try to fix it, but they didn't really fix it - they just hid the problem a little better. Now we have no way of knowing exactly how bad things are.

Personally, I can live with the dice the way they are, and I have never started a dice thread, but I find it hard to imagine a worse method for generating dice rolls (any random function would have a cycle length greater than 50,000), and it bothers me that they care so little about the integrity of the site that they won't use a truly random source.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby mookiemcgee on Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:16 am

wow Degaston, this was an enlightening thread. does this mean when we auto attack with a 50,000 troop stack that the results are predictable?
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:58 am

mookiemcgee wrote:wow Degaston, this was an enlightening thread. does this mean when we auto attack with a 50,000 troop stack that the results are predictable?


Yes, the result is very predictable: your browser will crash.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby degaston on Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:06 am

mookiemcgee wrote:wow Degaston, this was an enlightening thread. does this mean when we auto attack with a 50,000 troop stack that the results are predictable?

Maybe not 50,000, but for smaller stacks I think it could be possible...

First, you'd need to have the entire dice data file. You might be able to collect this by saving the results of large auto-assaults, and then stitching them together. I don't know if auto-assaults are guaranteed to use continuous data from the file, or if they can be interrupted by another user attacking at the same time. If the latter, then that could make things more difficult, but not impossible.

Once you have that, you would need an app that could collect the dice results from an individual attack, and quickly scan the data for that sequence. Then after two individual 3v2 attacks you should have a 99.92% chance of it correctly identifying the current file location. From that, it would be able to scan ahead to tell you what the result of your attack will be.

Too much work for me to bother with. ;)
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Re: dice sucks

Postby WingCmdr Ginkapo on Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:33 am

Does it matter if the dice file is biased or skewed? As long as it is equal to all players what is the issue?

For the theoretical, have an attacking dice file of 50,000 in length, and a defending dice file of 49,000 in length. Now you have a world of possibilities.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:48 am

WingCmdr Ginkapo wrote:Does it matter if the dice file is biased or skewed? As long as it is equal to all players what is the issue?


Doesn't really have a practical effect, so the current owner doesn't really care.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby Dukasaur on Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:44 pm

Fucking dice. I want to smash them with a hammer.
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Re: dice sucks

Postby iAmCaffeine on Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:46 am

Seriously though when are we getting a proper source of random dice? Current statistics prove the system we're using is bullshit. The streaks are real and the dice are "fixed" in that the vast majority of players' results are far too similar. Ever since the dice pool was changed to a stupidly limited amount of 50,000 or something similar the less than stellar results have been noticed. I'm assuming we're still using the same pool, as no admin has ever advised otherwise. This should be high on bigWhams imaginary priority list.
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