šŸŽ²šŸ˜¢ PRNG dice support group ā€” and ranting

  • 2024 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18

    How the ā€œheckā€ do you lose 9 INF attacking West Russia R1?


  • Thats easy. Play 1942 Online. Its a typical result


  • Really get some strange results. There seems to be some tendency towards favourable defensive rolls. My latest painful attack was last night. I found that I had a very strong play of taking a factory with Japan instead of Germany and so I played the somewhat unbalanced attack:

    1 tank, 3 fighters and 2 bombers

    Against

    2 infantry and 1 fighter

    I always cringe when attacking only with tanks and fighters, but with the bombers I felt pretty safe. Basically we both lost everything and I couldnā€™t take the factory with Japan. I still think I am winning that game, but still had to impart the customary abuse to the computer screen.

    I donā€™t remember all the dice rolls because it went for a few rounds, but the first round was I missed everything: four 5s for the tank and fighters and double 6 for the bombers.

    I also notice my opponents having crazy bad attacking rolls and consistent better than average defence (for me). Planning to try to find more defensive strategiesā€¦ but not always possibleā€¦


  • @Daen-Hudspeth I know you listed that suggestion quite a long time ago (to simulate the rolling of dice graphically). I still thought Iā€™d answer it though.

    Simulating a die roll graphically requires a known outcome in order for the die face to be represented ā€œupā€. There is nothing more random about a GPU (or even the integrated graphics portion in the case of an integrated chip).

    The way to generate better random outcomes (or in this case psuedorandom outcomes) without relying on expensive entropy devices is to have a better seed and a better algorithm for generating pRNG based on that seed. Also rotating the seed frequently is necessary (maybe even every dice roll).


  • Thereā€™s definitely seems to be something weird going on which is more pronounced when one obtains some significant advantages on the board. Itā€™s like thereā€™s a kick back to help the embattled forces. I only started actively playing this online A&A a couple of months ago, just before the reset. I was losing my fair share from some bad play and unfamiliarity with this version. I didnā€™t have this sense of something weird going on nearly as much as I do now, especially in the last few weeks and really bizarre this last week. ā€˜Coincidentallyā€™ it coincided with me having a good start to season 2 and reaching platinum. Now it feels a bit horrendous to be honest, especially this last week nearly getting in to the top 10. To the point where I am overcompensating (over defending) which can also lead to mistakes. Maybe just finish my current games and call it. The way the rolls come out on these long runs with the heavily numbered combats and then consistent hit/miss combos with the small attacks, not to mention the timing of AA hitsā€¦ The way itā€™s often all ā€˜coordinatedā€™ has this unnatural weirdness. So okay, in real life yes I have ā€˜missed with everythingā€™ on a decent sized attack (say 10-15 units) and maybe even twice in the same game/day, but here it happens on consecutive rounds of combat, only to be followed by heavy losses for the other smaller battles/bombing runs. I have virtually stopped doing bombing runs now. After all that, next game Iā€™ll have a rare run of rolls, but mostly when it really doesnā€™t matter. Okay rant over, but yeah I dunno šŸ¤Æ


  • Very first battle after I write that and roll 4 1s with 4 at 3 against 1 at 3 lol. Just to rub it in lol.


  • Nah thatā€™s it. I might finish the current games. Really good job on this version of the game, but for this weirdness with the `rollerā€™. Taking screenshots is a pain, but I did just for the bizarreness.! Just ONE OF MANY. Even more pronounced again this last week. One of them I felt bad because I had made a blunder and missed a sneak attack on Japan. Yet miraculously defended it, even to excess. I know how it feels from the other end and it happens way too much compared to over the board. SOmething is going on where the game tries to balance back out, but the effect is that it often rewards bad play. When defenders roll with just one (3sided?! :face_with_rolling_eyes: ) dice and consistently hit (attackers miss). Again and again. I wish there was some way to see the overall detailed stats of the dice rolls. The in game log is not enough to see definitively.

    Anyway, just a game and other things need doing. Thanks for the games to everyone I played :duck:

    I did manage to hit infantry on the next round of rolls, but of course took another in return.

    AAjoke.png


  • @DrSfloon thanks for the contributions! I really like the 3 sided dice comments.

    If youā€™re on discord, youā€™re more than welcome to hop into a server the community has setup. https://discord.gg/45Cxbcg

    Psst we have dice emojis


  • This post is deleted!

  • Is there any way to flag up a game to some kind of devs to look at?

    Iā€™ve essentially been completely been rolled off this one game where my opponentā€™s forces literally ā€œhit everything in sightā€. The combat that initiated it was one where I really think itā€™s a suicide attack like 95%+ of the time. Not only did the attack succeed, but it did so in combination with me being smashed in the retaliatory attack from me. Both times (and other smaller attacks elsewhere during those two rounds have meant that a game that was completely in control and I would even say winning advantage is lost in the space of a round and the only way I can think I made a mistake was to try a consolidate a fleet at a key position. I never resign after a run of bad rolls, but in this case thereā€™s just now way back. The Japanese position in the pacific can be very fragile to this kind of thing. Itā€™s round 5 and all I have left is 14 infantry/artilleries lol. All fleet and aircraft. The position just looks bizzarre. The round before this last round Japan earned 47 IPC and I wasnā€™t worried about anything in the position. The only mistake I can think of is that I should have set the Japanses subs to be saved until after a round of combat for submerging. I would normally do it, but it feels like literally a billion to one shot how all of it combined in one round to shonk a dominating position. Is there some way people cheat? Because I canā€™t think of anyone normally doing the intial attack.


  • But yeah the 3 sided dice. Sometimes thatā€™s what itā€™s like. Either a 1,2,3 dice or a 4,5,6. But some of this crazy rolls stuff is not the exception but the rule! Especially the consistency of single unit defensive hits.


  • They take bug reports at https://beamdog.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3 . Not sure how they respond in the case of reporting bad dice as bugs. Never tried it.

  • Founder TripleA Admin

    Theyā€™ve done a bunch of statistical analysis. I think the only way to make it ā€œbetterā€ would be to do whatever online gambling sites do ā€¦ but thatā€™s costs money. Do you want to front that?

    But forum rules still preside, no personal attacks. And no ad hominem at the Beamdog developers. You can express frustration without name calling.

    Basically this thread is ā€œold man yelling at cloudā€ when you get some bad dice online.

    5b601bd9-5076-446f-9e1b-46fd3f956883-image.png


  • Yeah but the point is, it should be "bad `online diceā€™ " than ā€œbad dice onlineā€.

  • '12

    If there is a bug, I wonder if it might be that whatever twiddles the dice rolls so that a player canā€™t lose the tutorial battles is not disabled in the main game.

  • '12

    Having played this a bit now I think the complaints seem overblown. The amount of ā€œbadā€ rolls doesnā€™t seem out of line with what I might experience in real life. I think most of these issues are psychological as the importance of the roll matters more when the attack or defense was critical to you. For example the very first SBR attack in this game I did, the defending AA shot down my Bomber, which of course starts to immediately make me suspicious of the dice as emotionally we feel anything with a 49% chance or less shouldnā€™t happen. Youā€™re likely to overlook all the times things went heavily in your favor when it was irrelevant- like having everything on your side hit when you are moving a stack into a spot with one defender, or having no enemy defenders hit when you are sniping off single pieces. The DEI attack is also a 2/3 chance, so you should still expect to see wins here a lot if players do it consistently. And while losing a battle at 98% odds of victory really stinks, the 2% loss chance is still a chance. People win the lottery all the time.


  • And do you have at least 150 games played?


  • Also, my complaint is that the dice perform a ā€œtit for tatā€ in combat.

    I miss
    They miss
    I hit
    they hit
    i miss
    they miss

    And usually on the way out when its the last enemy unit, it will hit.

    and nearly always if you got overwhelming force, the enemy will force you to ā€œpay the tollā€

    from which if the total value of the enemy is say 6 IPC, during combat they will exact 2 hits overall

    It is a tendency. it may not happen 100%, but the average is what im speaking about.

  • '12

    @Imperious-Leader said in šŸŽ²šŸ˜¢ PRNG dice support group ā€” and ranting:

    And do you have at least 150 games played?

    Nope, nor would I need to if the RNG was really as broken as claimed. I havenā€™t seen the behavior you describe of one side always guaranteed to get a hit if the other does. The battles where I send in overwhelming force to clean out 1 - 2 units wins with no losses in line with probability.

    Your struggles more than likely actually confirm that the RNG is fine. If all rolls for all players have a nice distribution curb, then somebody is going to lie on the lower end where they feel ganked all the time. Nobody wants to be Hurley from LOST and thereā€™s no way to say the game would ever switch to feeling right for you. Flipping tails 1,000 times in a row doesnā€™t mean you canā€™t get tails again on the next flip.

    Growing up my father would always gripe about the ā€˜law of averagesā€™ and imply the universe was against him if he lost too much family game night. Sadly that isnā€™t how probability works. If youā€™ve been ganked 1,000 times you can get ganked 1,000 more.


  • Well i suggest you get more games under your belt and have a look. I play every day since day one and have an acute familiarity with these results. And in spite of the dice, i win anyway. Iā€™m just pointing out something some people who donā€™t play often have an opinion of. I know how probability works. Iā€™m saying the dice roller algorithm isnā€™t exactly set up right. You do know there are different ones right? This game just happens to use the wrong one. Its no different than the dozens of alterations the game has gone thru, with glitches and many odd occurrences that the developers deny is a problem, then magically get fixed on the next patch. And if you want to try its still very hard to take the Artillery from Philippines on a transport for one example. Other examples were skipping of phases. nice.

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