I've been playing HS for months, and I've noticed quite a few things throughout my experience. Was wondering if any of you agree to the following theories, or if I'm just imagining things.
RNG is not random.
1) I first noticed this when the Hunter trap Misdirection was really popular. More often than not, it would hit the opponent's face, even with minions on the board. Good if I'm using the trap, bad if I'm triggering it.
2) Arena. I felt that losses always led me to players that I could beat, whereas wins led me to players that were good. My guess is that matchmaking pairs you off with players of similar scores, which is half RNG, but not completely random.
3) Constructed. Streamers have complained about it, and I've noticed it too, but when you switch classes, the opponent's hero always changes. Like if you go on a losing streak playing as Druid because you keep getting paired with Hunters, the moment you switch to Priest to counter Hunter, you never run into one. I tested this theory the other day in Casual. Lost a couple games playing Handlock and Ramp Druid because of Hunters, so I decided to switch to Priest and conceded every game that wasn't Hunter. I conceded about 20 games, switched to Hunter, then finally got a Hunter matchup. WTF. I think the algorithm is something like Blizzard will look at the most played heroes/decks, analyze yours, then match you up based on that data. If they keep track of how many hounds unleashed by UTH, I'm sure it's a simple task to analyze the deck being used, and pairing you off favorably/unfavorably depending on whatever factor.
Ladder is easier to climb in the middle of the month.
I know most of the popular streamers and dedicated players want to get Legend rank asap, so they'll grind ladder immediately when the new season starts. That's why last month, I didn't get too serious about ladder until most of the streamers were Rank 5 and up, which is when I started grinding. Reached legendary within a week or so. Given it was my first time, I'll have to test this again this month (if I decide to try again).
Random numbers can be weighted and still random. For example if I have Soulfire and Doomguard in hand with 3 other guards then playing Soulfire you would think the chances of discarding the Doomguard was 1 in 4 but that assumes even weighting in the RNG but if the RNG is weighted something like Doomguard - 40%, Card 1- 20%, Card 2 - 20%, Card 3 - 20% then it's still Random just not evenly weighted.
Has Blizzard ever confirmed or commented on weighting in RNG in HS?
I started to keep some track of my matches since a while, due to I too have felt something was wrong statistically.
My results can be resumed as follows:
Not so random randomness
As I was saying just for fun in another post, I had the clear feeling randomness in HS isn't that random: Stalagg / Feugen combo really happens way too often in opponent's first 10 draw, according to my tracks 11 out of 14 deathrattle shamans had seen both cards with still 20ish cards in their decks.
4 times out of 4 my opponent shot my face with Ragnaros while I had 8 life or less despite I had between 3 and 7 minions on the board.
5 times out of 9 my opponent played Brawl having only 1 minion in play and me having 4+, resulting in killing all my board and save his single minion.
99.99% of the times (really, I can't remember a single time I did not have this thought) I planned a move pondering the risk between the worst possible outcome and the chance of my opponent to actually draw it, ended up in that very outcome. Sample: when an opponent just played Hex or similar and therefore I consider his eventual second Hex is somewhere between his remaining 24+ cards in deck and play my big threat, a second hex immediately follows. Playing poker I'm aware of the concept and chances of "outs" and I have to admit in HS outs are way too frequent to be drawn, against the statistic. Basically, whenever I calculated a 70%ish outcome vs a 30%ish outcome, that 30%ish happened more frequently than the 70%ish.
Mad Bomber / Arcane Missiles and similar cards, do quite too often the best possible outcome as damage distribution / targets being hit (lost tracks of it but it was surely above 50% up to my last check).
I do not believe in conspiracies but I have strong reasons to believe randomness in HS is influenced by some hidden AI that pushes some results out of their randomness.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Why balancing the game nerfing strong cards rather than boosting crap cards into playable ones?
As I was saying just for fun in another post, I had the clear feeling randomness in HS isn't that random: Stalagg / Feugen combo really happens way too often in opponent's first 10 draw, according to my tracks 11 out of 14 deathrattle shamans had seen both cards with still 20ish cards in their decks.
4 times out of 4 my opponent shot my face with Ragnaros while I had 8 life or less despite I had between 3 and 7 minions on the board.
5 times out of 9 my opponent played Brawl having only 1 minion in play and me having 4+, resulting in killing all my board and save his single minion.
I do not believe in conspiracies but I have strong reasons to believe randomness in HS is influenced by some hidden AI that pushes some results out of their randomness.
The sample sizes are too small. In statistical analysis any sample size under 25 is considered irrelevant.
I know, that's why I am keeping to track my matches, but the concept behind seems already clear due to the fact I'm not the only one suspecting it and seeing it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Why balancing the game nerfing strong cards rather than boosting crap cards into playable ones?
where'd you get that minimum of n=25? having less samples just increases the width of your confidence interval, but if there is a strong enough effect, you can absolutely have less than 25 samples and make a valid conclusion. not saying that it applies in the case on this conspiracy theory, just saying in general.
where'd you get that minimum of n=25? having less samples just increases the width of your confidence interval, but if there is a strong enough effect, you can absolutely have less than 25 samples and make a valid conclusion. not saying that it applies in the case on this conspiracy theory, just saying in general.
If you know about CI's then I'm sure you know where n = 25 comes from.
Of course but whats the point of having a low sample size with a wide CI in this case? The effect, if it exists, will be weak enough that even 25 would probably not be enough.
As others have pointed out, it's the result of statistics.
When given a string of coin flips (heads, tails, tails, heads) it's pretty easy to determine when a human has faked the coin flips and when they were real because in real coin flips the unexpected does happen a small but significant portion of the time. Humans will be unlikely to string too many heads or tails back to back because they don't feel it looks 'random' but when flipping a coin a hundred or a thousand times these strings do occur. So a run of good or bad luck looks constructed to the human mind, when in reality it's just hitting a rare but not impossible set of chances.
How about every time you soulfire with Jaraxxus in hand, no matter how many other cards are in your hand, it discards Jaraxxus every time. Like, literally, every time, without exception. I have not experienced it any other way.
How about every time you soulfire with Jaraxxus in hand, no matter how many other cards are in your hand, it discards Jaraxxus every time. Like, literally, every time, without exception. I have not experienced it any other way.
Of course you have the feeling that rng is always against you. You dont remember the times when it went your way and you won a game as much as the times where the rng cost you a game on the spot.
The arena one is not even coincidence, the matchmaking system tries to match you up with players that have a similar record for the current arena run.
Yea but besides that, I am quite certain they are just coincidences.
No they are not, point 3 is very true, I played 20 games with warrior the other day without playing 1 mage, then I switched to handlock and got 3 in a row, this kind of thing has happened more then just once.
So, what's your point? That everyone always gets unfavorable match-ups? That's impossible, since by definition 50% of all players at any time have an equal or favorable match-up.
Or do you seriously want to claim that blizzard conspires against YOU PERSONALLY and a select other few to screw you? That's insane.
As said, this is the typical problem with human perception; Streaks occur randomly far more often than people expect them to occur, as well as the fact that we all like to see ourselves as better than we are ("the underdog, winning against the odds"), so we perceive simple random bad luck as the natural state, while we forget about all the times we had unusual luck.
Just ask yourself: Why does nobody ever state "wow, I had an unusual amount of luck lately, there has to be something wrong with the game" ?
Also, before thinking about conspiracies: Always ask yourself about the risk vs outcome for the claimed offending party. Very often - like here - there would be a huge risk, with little to no expected positive outcome. Which means its irrational to assume a huge firm would do it.
My point is...when you change hero you tend to matched up against different Heros then the one you were using before.
I mentioned nothing about unfavorable match ups.
The problem is: this can't happen unless Blizzard consciously programmed the algorithm to do that. Meaning, once we assume that your claim is true, another question pops up: What is the intent of this? And what do they win by it?
Also: You chose Warrior vs Mage, as well as Handlock vs Mage as examples, two match-ups were one class is clearly favored, so I heavily doubt that you weren't complaining.
Mad Bomber / Arcane Missiles and similar cards, do quite too often the best possible outcome as damage distribution / targets being hit (lost tracks of it but it was surely above 50% up to my last check).
I've seen it 5 times in a row now that the person who plays Mad Bomber has been hit in the face 3 times haha, so basically a 2 mana Flame Imp. Obviously, depending on how you want to look at it, that could still be weighted perfectly since I could look into it as "First time, when I played it, it hit my face 3 times. Second time I see him get played, my opponent gets hit 3 times in the face."
I by no means am buying into a "Conspiracy theory" of sorts. It is very annoying though. Another extremely annoying thing that happens is when Knife Juggler throws at the same target 3+ times in a row (from unleash the hounds or snake trap or whatever). Also, I've seen Knife Juggler kill Leeroy a lot more than what should be evenly weighted haha. I'm sure Leeroy's got a knife magnet in the coding. Obviously he is not played very often, and it has only worked against me once, but sometimes I feel like the Knife Juggler isn't completely random.
Also, Ragnaros used to hit the face almost all the time for me. Now, he has hit a minion at about an 80% clip in the past couple weeks haha.
I really try to believe it all works the way it's supposed to in the long run. It just seems very annoying in the short term.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
My point is...when you change hero you tend to matched up against different Heros then the one you were using before.
I mentioned nothing about unfavorable match ups.
The problem is: this can't happen unless Blizzard consciously programmed the algorithm to do that. Meaning, once we assume that your claim is true, another question pops up: What is the intent of this? And what do they win by it?
Also: You chose Warrior vs Mage, as well as Handlock vs Mage as examples, two match-ups were one class is clearly favored, so I heavily doubt that you weren't complaining.
Well I actually won 2 out of 3 vs mage so there are no complaints. I'd just rather not have to face mage as handlock. I also Mage with water elementals can destroy warriors.
I play 99% shaman on ladder. During previous seasons it was obvious Blizzard gave me only hunters. Nothing to do with the meta, nothing. Onlye Blizzard wanting me to loose games and others to have favorable ones.
I once had that weird theory that "luck" follows the same pattern as this described in observer effect in physics. When you play "normally", in any game that involves RNG, it is obvious to some that another player "has luck" (remember Amaz Rag at dreamhack?). However, when you try to determine it by observation, the observer effect comes in and you receive the perfectly even percentages ;)
Well claiming what you said is a "Theory" would be incorrect because thoses arent theories. but anyway, its the fact of its just bad luck. Just like when you play Magic the Gathering, you are going to have times where you draw the card you need, same will go for the person youre playing; they will draw the card they need to win the game or make the game go in their favor.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hearthstone is a game of "copy and pasting"
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I've been playing HS for months, and I've noticed quite a few things throughout my experience. Was wondering if any of you agree to the following theories, or if I'm just imagining things.
RNG is not random.
1) I first noticed this when the Hunter trap Misdirection was really popular. More often than not, it would hit the opponent's face, even with minions on the board. Good if I'm using the trap, bad if I'm triggering it.
2) Arena. I felt that losses always led me to players that I could beat, whereas wins led me to players that were good. My guess is that matchmaking pairs you off with players of similar scores, which is half RNG, but not completely random.
3) Constructed. Streamers have complained about it, and I've noticed it too, but when you switch classes, the opponent's hero always changes. Like if you go on a losing streak playing as Druid because you keep getting paired with Hunters, the moment you switch to Priest to counter Hunter, you never run into one. I tested this theory the other day in Casual. Lost a couple games playing Handlock and Ramp Druid because of Hunters, so I decided to switch to Priest and conceded every game that wasn't Hunter. I conceded about 20 games, switched to Hunter, then finally got a Hunter matchup. WTF. I think the algorithm is something like Blizzard will look at the most played heroes/decks, analyze yours, then match you up based on that data. If they keep track of how many hounds unleashed by UTH, I'm sure it's a simple task to analyze the deck being used, and pairing you off favorably/unfavorably depending on whatever factor.
Ladder is easier to climb in the middle of the month.
I know most of the popular streamers and dedicated players want to get Legend rank asap, so they'll grind ladder immediately when the new season starts. That's why last month, I didn't get too serious about ladder until most of the streamers were Rank 5 and up, which is when I started grinding. Reached legendary within a week or so. Given it was my first time, I'll have to test this again this month (if I decide to try again).
Got any conspiracy theories of your own?
Those aren't conspiracy theories; they are coincidences.
Informational Thread For NEW/Intermediate Players Includes: Streamers, Youtubers, Threads, and Websites!
Yea but besides that, I am quite certain they are just coincidences.
Informational Thread For NEW/Intermediate Players Includes: Streamers, Youtubers, Threads, and Websites!
Random numbers can be weighted and still random. For example if I have Soulfire and Doomguard in hand with 3 other guards then playing Soulfire you would think the chances of discarding the Doomguard was 1 in 4 but that assumes even weighting in the RNG but if the RNG is weighted something like Doomguard - 40%, Card 1- 20%, Card 2 - 20%, Card 3 - 20% then it's still Random just not evenly weighted.
Has Blizzard ever confirmed or commented on weighting in RNG in HS?
I started to keep some track of my matches since a while, due to I too have felt something was wrong statistically.
My results can be resumed as follows:
Not so random randomness
As I was saying just for fun in another post, I had the clear feeling randomness in HS isn't that random: Stalagg / Feugen combo really happens way too often in opponent's first 10 draw, according to my tracks 11 out of 14 deathrattle shamans had seen both cards with still 20ish cards in their decks.
4 times out of 4 my opponent shot my face with Ragnaros while I had 8 life or less despite I had between 3 and 7 minions on the board.
5 times out of 9 my opponent played Brawl having only 1 minion in play and me having 4+, resulting in killing all my board and save his single minion.
99.99% of the times (really, I can't remember a single time I did not have this thought) I planned a move pondering the risk between the worst possible outcome and the chance of my opponent to actually draw it, ended up in that very outcome. Sample: when an opponent just played Hex or similar and therefore I consider his eventual second Hex is somewhere between his remaining 24+ cards in deck and play my big threat, a second hex immediately follows. Playing poker I'm aware of the concept and chances of "outs" and I have to admit in HS outs are way too frequent to be drawn, against the statistic. Basically, whenever I calculated a 70%ish outcome vs a 30%ish outcome, that 30%ish happened more frequently than the 70%ish.
Mad Bomber / Arcane Missiles and similar cards, do quite too often the best possible outcome as damage distribution / targets being hit (lost tracks of it but it was surely above 50% up to my last check).
I do not believe in conspiracies but I have strong reasons to believe randomness in HS is influenced by some hidden AI that pushes some results out of their randomness.
Why balancing the game nerfing strong cards rather than boosting crap cards into playable ones?
The sample sizes are too small. In statistical analysis any sample size under 25 is considered irrelevant.
I know, that's why I am keeping to track my matches, but the concept behind seems already clear due to the fact I'm not the only one suspecting it and seeing it.
Why balancing the game nerfing strong cards rather than boosting crap cards into playable ones?
where'd you get that minimum of n=25? having less samples just increases the width of your confidence interval, but if there is a strong enough effect, you can absolutely have less than 25 samples and make a valid conclusion. not saying that it applies in the case on this conspiracy theory, just saying in general.
If you know about CI's then I'm sure you know where n = 25 comes from.
Of course but whats the point of having a low sample size with a wide CI in this case? The effect, if it exists, will be weak enough that even 25 would probably not be enough.
Even if these absurd theories were true, what in the world would Blizzard gain by annoying their playerbase?
As others have pointed out, it's the result of statistics.
When given a string of coin flips (heads, tails, tails, heads) it's pretty easy to determine when a human has faked the coin flips and when they were real because in real coin flips the unexpected does happen a small but significant portion of the time. Humans will be unlikely to string too many heads or tails back to back because they don't feel it looks 'random' but when flipping a coin a hundred or a thousand times these strings do occur. So a run of good or bad luck looks constructed to the human mind, when in reality it's just hitting a rare but not impossible set of chances.
How about every time you soulfire with Jaraxxus in hand, no matter how many other cards are in your hand, it discards Jaraxxus every time. Like, literally, every time, without exception. I have not experienced it any other way.
I have experienced it the other way.
Of course you have the feeling that rng is always against you. You dont remember the times when it went your way and you won a game as much as the times where the rng cost you a game on the spot.
So, what's your point? That everyone always gets unfavorable match-ups? That's impossible, since by definition 50% of all players at any time have an equal or favorable match-up.
Or do you seriously want to claim that blizzard conspires against YOU PERSONALLY and a select other few to screw you? That's insane.
As said, this is the typical problem with human perception; Streaks occur randomly far more often than people expect them to occur, as well as the fact that we all like to see ourselves as better than we are ("the underdog, winning against the odds"), so we perceive simple random bad luck as the natural state, while we forget about all the times we had unusual luck.
Just ask yourself: Why does nobody ever state "wow, I had an unusual amount of luck lately, there has to be something wrong with the game" ?
Also, before thinking about conspiracies: Always ask yourself about the risk vs outcome for the claimed offending party. Very often - like here - there would be a huge risk, with little to no expected positive outcome. Which means its irrational to assume a huge firm would do it.
The problem is: this can't happen unless Blizzard consciously programmed the algorithm to do that. Meaning, once we assume that your claim is true, another question pops up: What is the intent of this? And what do they win by it?
Also: You chose Warrior vs Mage, as well as Handlock vs Mage as examples, two match-ups were one class is clearly favored, so I heavily doubt that you weren't complaining.
I've seen it 5 times in a row now that the person who plays Mad Bomber has been hit in the face 3 times haha, so basically a 2 mana Flame Imp. Obviously, depending on how you want to look at it, that could still be weighted perfectly since I could look into it as "First time, when I played it, it hit my face 3 times. Second time I see him get played, my opponent gets hit 3 times in the face."
I by no means am buying into a "Conspiracy theory" of sorts. It is very annoying though. Another extremely annoying thing that happens is when Knife Juggler throws at the same target 3+ times in a row (from unleash the hounds or snake trap or whatever). Also, I've seen Knife Juggler kill Leeroy a lot more than what should be evenly weighted haha. I'm sure Leeroy's got a knife magnet in the coding. Obviously he is not played very often, and it has only worked against me once, but sometimes I feel like the Knife Juggler isn't completely random.
Also, Ragnaros used to hit the face almost all the time for me. Now, he has hit a minion at about an 80% clip in the past couple weeks haha.
I really try to believe it all works the way it's supposed to in the long run. It just seems very annoying in the short term.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
I play 99% shaman on ladder. During previous seasons it was obvious Blizzard gave me only hunters. Nothing to do with the meta, nothing. Onlye Blizzard wanting me to loose games and others to have favorable ones.
I once had that weird theory that "luck" follows the same pattern as this described in observer effect in physics. When you play "normally", in any game that involves RNG, it is obvious to some that another player "has luck" (remember Amaz Rag at dreamhack?). However, when you try to determine it by observation, the observer effect comes in and you receive the perfectly even percentages ;)
Well claiming what you said is a "Theory" would be incorrect because thoses arent theories. but anyway, its the fact of its just bad luck. Just like when you play Magic the Gathering, you are going to have times where you draw the card you need, same will go for the person youre playing; they will draw the card they need to win the game or make the game go in their favor.
Hearthstone is a game of "copy and pasting"