Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Dr. Zola
its predictable because its the truth, and some people are just to self centered to see otherwise
Probably not self centered (it’s “too” by the way, not “to”). Too skeptical or cynical, perhaps.
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Dr. Zola
its predictable because its the truth, and some people are just to self centered to see otherwise
It’s called healthy skepticism, not being self centered, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t have it when it comes to things of this nature. No need for a tin foil hat but trusting 100% makes you a sheeple.
Hard to believe all champs have same drop rate. Had 50% of champs I’d be happy to pull and pulled 0 out of 7.
There has to be a weight on each champ you can get... they don't disclose this, all they say it will be 100% 5*.
The only thing Apple requires them to disclose is drop rate of what you get in general. Here, it is 100% a 5* champ. The odds of which of those champs you get is not required by Apple sadly so they will not disclose it. An awful lot of She Hulks and KGs getting pulled today
Quit pandering to the base of unlucky souls noob. You’re easily one of the luckiest in the game with feature pulls and you know it. That’s probably your first bad batch while I’m like 4/35
Hard to believe all champs have same drop rate. Had 50% of champs I’d be happy to pull and pulled 0 out of 7.
There has to be a weight on each champ you can get... they don't disclose this, all they say it will be 100% 5*.
The only thing Apple requires them to disclose is drop rate of what you get in general. Here, it is 100% a 5* champ. The odds of which of those champs you get is not required by Apple sadly so they will not disclose it. An awful lot of She Hulks and KGs getting pulled today
Nowhere does Apple say that. Apple says that the drop odds for random lootbox type rewards must be disclosed to players in a manner that allows them to see the odds prior to purchase. In other words, the odds can't be revealed to you in a pop up after you buy the thing. Nowhere does Apple say that vendors must provide drop odds "in general." Because Kabam explicitly states that the odds of any particular champ dropping are equal within a specific rarity tier, the posted odds for individual crystals plus that statement satisfy Apple's requirements. If the odds of individual champs were substantially different other than what the rarity odds specified, Kabam would be in violation of Apple's App Store guidelines.
Quit pandering to the base of unlucky souls noob. You’re easily one of the luckiest in the game with feature pulls and you know it. That’s probably your first bad batch while I’m like 4/35
The vid and post is from a friend, told me to wait until they opened and made this video.
I havent opened any, did go 0/4 ghost and got her from basics, ima stick to basics lol
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Dr. Zola
its predictable because its the truth, and some people are just to self centered to see otherwise
It’s called healthy skepticism, not being self centered, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t have it when it comes to things of this nature. No need for a tin foil hat but trusting 100% makes you a sheeple.
I would argue sheeple are the one’s who rely solely on groupthink as evidence, especially when that groupthink is demonstrably unreliable or false (Not to say that groupthink is inherently wrong but it can often be unreliable and false.)
That said the debate becomes one of ideology... but I found this little excerpt from a book titled “The Knowledge Illusion” that might shed some insight onto what is happening in these debates and is applicable to both sides. Take from it what you will, I for one am thanking my early exposure to Monty Python for educating me on groupthink early in life.
,providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel antiscience prejudices by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues like Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we cling to these views because of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don’t like too many facts, and they certainly don’t like to feel stupid. If you think that you can convince Donald Trump of the truth of global warming by presenting him with the relevant facts — think again.
Indeed, scientists who believe that facts can change public opinion may themselves be the victims of scientific groupthink. The scientific community believes in the efficacy of facts, hence those loyal to that community continue to believe they can win public debates by marshaling the right facts, despite much empirical evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the traditional belief in individual rationality may itself be the product of groupthink rather than of empirical evidence. In one of the climactic moments of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” a huge crowd of starry-eyed followers mistakes Brian for the Messiah. Caught in a corner, Brian tells his disciples: “You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!” The enthusiastic crowd then chants in unison: “Yes! We’re all individuals!” Monty Python was parodying the counterculture orthodoxy of the 1960s, but the point may be true of the belief in rational individualism in other ages too.
That said the debate becomes one of ideology... but I found this little excerpt from a book titled “The Knowledge Illusion” that might shed some insight onto what is happening in these debates and is applicable to both sides. Take from it what you will, I for one am thanking my early exposure to Monty Python for educating me on groupthink early in life.
In another game life I spent a gigantic amount of time ripping apart the mechanics of an MMO, literally down to how the game servers tracked time and in what order the game mechanics were processed. I could tell you, better than the content developers, precisely what the game would do in a particular situation. One of the things I studied was how the game processed random numbers. In rewards, in combat, everywhere. I analyzed fifteen million random rolls in one year long test and discovered there was an itty bitty skew in combat rolls due to an incorrect round off algorithm (one part in twenty thousand). I submitted about a dozen bug reports just involving either random generated results executed incorrectly, or described differently than implemented. I also proved false literally hundreds of errant conjectures about how the game was broken in some way.
I learned two things from that experience. One, yes, you can't convince everyone that thinks the system is broken that it isn't broken with any amount of evidence. There is no such evidence that will convince some people.
But two, the point isn't to convince everyone. The point is to convince those that can be convinced by the evidence. Those are the only people you can help. You don't help them with evidence based arguments because you think evidence based arguments will help everyone. You help them with evidence based arguments because the people who can be helped with evidence based arguments are the only people you can reach at all. Unless you're a prophet or a telepath, everyone else is beyond your help.
This is why I open basic and 1 of 10 are good in basic. Have more chances. For me I need science and skill champs best I have is 5 star r4 modok and 5 star r4 korg. Great for defense but have none for offense.
This is who I pulled from basic yesterday, this is after 4 trash featured pulls. No one in the current crystal is a game changer for me have stark 5/65 except aegon for lol.
Grats man, i did 4 for ghost in featured and i...got none of featured champs
We are at the mercy of whatever the quality champ drop rate algorythim is. Nothing you can do about that. Just expect the worst and be happy when something less than awful pops out.
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Dr. Zola
its predictable because its the truth, and some people are just to self centered to see otherwise
It’s called healthy skepticism, not being self centered, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t have it when it comes to things of this nature. No need for a tin foil hat but trusting 100% makes you a sheeple.
I would argue sheeple are the one’s who rely solely on groupthink as evidence, especially when that groupthink is demonstrably unreliable or false (Not to say that groupthink is inherently wrong but it can often be unreliable and false.)
That said the debate becomes one of ideology... but I found this little excerpt from a book titled “The Knowledge Illusion” that might shed some insight onto what is happening in these debates and is applicable to both sides. Take from it what you will, I for one am thanking my early exposure to Monty Python for educating me on groupthink early in life.
,providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel antiscience prejudices by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues like Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we cling to these views because of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don’t like too many facts, and they certainly don’t like to feel stupid. If you think that you can convince Donald **** of the truth of global warming by presenting him with the relevant facts — think again.
Indeed, scientists who believe that facts can change public opinion may themselves be the victims of scientific groupthink. The scientific community believes in the efficacy of facts, hence those loyal to that community continue to believe they can win public debates by marshaling the right facts, despite much empirical evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the traditional belief in individual rationality may itself be the product of groupthink rather than of empirical evidence. In one of the climactic moments of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” a huge crowd of starry-eyed followers mistakes Brian for the Messiah. Caught in a corner, Brian tells his disciples: “You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!” The enthusiastic crowd then chants in unison: “Yes! We’re all individuals!” Monty Python was parodying the counterculture orthodoxy of the 1960s, but the point may be true of the belief in rational individualism in other ages too.
What you’re saying makes sense. I think there is a lot of groupthink on these forums. Seems basically like bandwagon mentality. But I think a healthy skepticism on both sides is important.
As DNA mentioned most people do not want to hear facts or evidence to prove them wrong. I would like to think my skepticism is my starting point until I discover evidence to solidify my position. Yeah, of course I’ll admit I’m slightly skeptical of RNG in this game. There’s so much of it everywhere it’s hard not to form your own opinion on it whether positive or negative. The problem is there is really no true evidence Kabam could really publish that would really confirm or deny whether RNG is equally weighted or not unless some programmer analyzed their system and was able to say with 100% conviction that everything is equal. Even then, like DNA said most people wouldn’t believe it. You basically have to take the mods word on it and who knows if they even know. On the other side, you can’t prove RNG is not weighted equally too. There’s certainly plenty of people with great luck in the game and it seems they are blessed beyond belief with every pull. That’s where it evens out. Some people are just lucky and others aren’t. It would be really interesting to gather the data from the game from all the 5* ever pulled and see where the data points lie.
Also, when you’re unlucky and constantly get kicked when you’re down by RNG, that basically becomes your evidence. If only 5% of your pulls are good and others pulls are 50/50, it’s hard to not incorporate that into your thinking. I think a lot of people here have personal experiences with RNG and just band with others with likewise the experiences. I don’t know if I would necesarily call it groupthinking. I would more or less call it complaining about crappy pulls. Then again I don’t really know. What constitutes groupthink?
Cue up the predictable shutdown post: “I’m sorry you were unhappy with the champs you got. Everyone has the same drop rates unless otherwise specified. Etc. etc.”
Dr. Zola
its predictable because its the truth, and some people are just to self centered to see otherwise
It’s called healthy skepticism, not being self centered, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t have it when it comes to things of this nature. No need for a tin foil hat but trusting 100% makes you a sheeple.
I would argue sheeple are the one’s who rely solely on groupthink as evidence, especially when that groupthink is demonstrably unreliable or false (Not to say that groupthink is inherently wrong but it can often be unreliable and false.)
That said the debate becomes one of ideology... but I found this little excerpt from a book titled “The Knowledge Illusion” that might shed some insight onto what is happening in these debates and is applicable to both sides. Take from it what you will, I for one am thanking my early exposure to Monty Python for educating me on groupthink early in life.
,providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters. Scientists hope to dispel antiscience prejudices by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues like Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports. Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans actually think. Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we cling to these views because of group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don’t like too many facts, and they certainly don’t like to feel stupid. If you think that you can convince Donald **** of the truth of global warming by presenting him with the relevant facts — think again.
Indeed, scientists who believe that facts can change public opinion may themselves be the victims of scientific groupthink. The scientific community believes in the efficacy of facts, hence those loyal to that community continue to believe they can win public debates by marshaling the right facts, despite much empirical evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the traditional belief in individual rationality may itself be the product of groupthink rather than of empirical evidence. In one of the climactic moments of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” a huge crowd of starry-eyed followers mistakes Brian for the Messiah. Caught in a corner, Brian tells his disciples: “You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!” The enthusiastic crowd then chants in unison: “Yes! We’re all individuals!” Monty Python was parodying the counterculture orthodoxy of the 1960s, but the point may be true of the belief in rational individualism in other ages too.
What you’re saying makes sense. I think there is a lot of groupthink on these forums. Seems basically like bandwagon mentality. But I think a healthy skepticism on both sides is important.
As DNA mentioned most people do not want to hear facts or evidence to prove them wrong. I would like to think my skepticism is my starting point until I discover evidence to solidify my position. Yeah, of course I’ll admit I’m slightly skeptical of RNG in this game. There’s so much of it everywhere it’s hard not to form your own opinion on it whether positive or negative. The problem is there is really no true evidence Kabam could really publish that would really confirm or deny whether RNG is equally weighted or not unless some programmer analyzed their system and was able to say with 100% conviction that everything is equal. Even then, like DNA said most people wouldn’t believe it. You basically have to take the mods word on it and who knows if they even know. On the other side, you can’t prove RNG is not weighted equally too. There’s certainly plenty of people with great luck in the game and it seems they are blessed beyond belief with every pull. That’s where it evens out. Some people are just lucky and others aren’t. It would be really interesting to gather the data from the game from all the 5* ever pulled and see where the data points lie.
Also, when you’re unlucky and constantly get kicked when you’re down by RNG, that basically becomes your evidence. If only 5% of your pulls are good and others pulls are 50/50, it’s hard to not incorporate that into your thinking. I think a lot of people here have personal experiences with RNG and just band with others with likewise the experiences. I don’t know if I would necesarily call it groupthinking. I would more or less call it complaining about crappy pulls. Then again I don’t really know. What constitutes groupthink?
I'll be honest: I don't think it's pure RNG. I simply don't.
There's something else at play in there. I don't know what it is. But there's something else at play
Quit pandering to the base of unlucky souls noob. You’re easily one of the luckiest in the game with feature pulls and you know it. That’s probably your first bad batch while I’m like 4/35
The vid and post is from a friend, told me to wait until they opened and made this video.
I havent opened any, did go 0/4 ghost and got her from basics, ima stick to basics lol
Also someone else just shared this.
can someone explain the RNG on this and what are the chances for this? Better chances getting hit by a lightning...True RNG huh? lol
Quit pandering to the base of unlucky souls noob. You’re easily one of the luckiest in the game with feature pulls and you know it. That’s probably your first bad batch while I’m like 4/35
The vid and post is from a friend, told me to wait until they opened and made this video.
I havent opened any, did go 0/4 ghost and got her from basics, ima stick to basics lol
Also someone else just shared this.
can someone explain the RNG on this and what are the chances for this? Better chances getting hit by a lightning...True RNG huh? lol
The odds of pulling the same champ three times in a row from featured crystals is one in 576. The odds of being hit by lightning in one calendar year are about one in a million.
The other thing that is overlooked in the RNG debate is the difference between evaluating the RNG for all pulls across the game vs the RNG for individuals.
It may be quite easy for Kabam to do a data dump and say that of the million 5* crystals opened there was a literal even chance for any champ in the crystal. However, that pure RNG is the balance of some players who are skewed one way and other players skewed differently.
Player A may have a higher chance for champs 1-3, whereas Player B has a higher chance for 4-6. When you evaluate all pulls, then the cumulative RNG says there was an even chance for all 6.
The problem is there is really no true evidence Kabam could really publish that would really confirm or deny whether RNG is equally weighted or not unless some programmer analyzed their system and was able to say with 100% conviction that everything is equal.
It is almost impossible to prove the negative: that of all possible ways to tamper with or skew the random rewards exactly none of them exist in the system. And I would never make that claim. It is possible to constrain what kind of tampering could be happening. People used to talk about PHCs being weighted. I did the actual analysis of this back in the day, and I could state with reasonable certainty that PHCs were not being weighted at the time to within about one part in a thousand. Since no one was claiming that Kabam had their fingers on the scales to that tiny amount, that analysis conclusively disproved all of the manipulation accusations that were running around at the time. Incidentally, that analysis of PHCs also ended up agreeing with the eventually published odds of PHC crystals, except it predicted about half the rate of 4* champs, and when the odds were published people noticed a dramatic uptick in the rate of getting 4* champs which suggested my numbers were different because Kabam changed the crystal. Besides that, I was more or less on the money. So that suggests the analysis was probably correct and probably contained enough data to make reasonable conclusions.
I also did two meta-analyses of other statistical data gathering looking for statistical variance in things like 4* crystals, 5* crystals, and (F)GMCs. In all cases I could not find one to within about two percentage points. And keep in mind it was my 5* featured analysis back in the day that first constrained the featured crystal to a 15%-25% chance for featured, that eventually narrowed down to about 20% plus or minus a couple percent.
I've also looked at crystal openings that compare paid vs free to play accounts, and openings verses future openings (i.e. does one opening affect the next one). Out of all of those analyses, only one showed a statistically significant signal, but at a very low confidence level. Back in the day there was a very tiny increase in the number of duplicate champs pulled from sets of crystals relative to the predicted chance. Enough to make me raise an eyebrow, but not enough to be remotely conclusive.
I can't say the random rewards are perfectly random. I don't have enough data to say that. I can say that I haven't heard a theory about a *specific* kind of non-randomness that the data isn't large enough to disprove. Until someone proposes a theory about how the crystals are non-random that a) is a kind of variation that a human actually could detect through observation in theory, b) makes testable predictions, and c) has those predictions confirmed, my skepticism saying don't trust what Kabam says, don't trust player gut instincts, trust the data. The data says the crystal drops are sufficiently random to beat all randomness tests I can think of performing (and have the time to perform). That's an objective statement about the crystals that requires trusting no one.
Comments
Probably not self centered (it’s “too” by the way, not “to”). Too skeptical or cynical, perhaps.
Cheers!
Dr. Zola
Agreed, I did not see them in my pulls.lol
Spark, great champ but I already had him at sig 60 or something and already rank 4, GP is nice... but not going to change my game in any way.
Just popped my last and duped nightcrawler...
So 3 months of saving and not one champ that will be ranked.
It’s called healthy skepticism, not being self centered, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t have it when it comes to things of this nature. No need for a tin foil hat but trusting 100% makes you a sheeple.
The only thing Apple requires them to disclose is drop rate of what you get in general. Here, it is 100% a 5* champ. The odds of which of those champs you get is not required by Apple sadly so they will not disclose it. An awful lot of She Hulks and KGs getting pulled today
Nowhere does Apple say that. Apple says that the drop odds for random lootbox type rewards must be disclosed to players in a manner that allows them to see the odds prior to purchase. In other words, the odds can't be revealed to you in a pop up after you buy the thing. Nowhere does Apple say that vendors must provide drop odds "in general." Because Kabam explicitly states that the odds of any particular champ dropping are equal within a specific rarity tier, the posted odds for individual crystals plus that statement satisfy Apple's requirements. If the odds of individual champs were substantially different other than what the rarity odds specified, Kabam would be in violation of Apple's App Store guidelines.
The vid and post is from a friend, told me to wait until they opened and made this video.
I havent opened any, did go 0/4 ghost and got her from basics, ima stick to basics lol
Also someone else just shared this.
Because its true?
All these pictures of different champs and you still say its weighted?
Perhaps.
Dr. Zola
That said the debate becomes one of ideology... but I found this little excerpt from a book titled “The Knowledge Illusion” that might shed some insight onto what is happening in these debates and is applicable to both sides. Take from it what you will, I for one am thanking my early exposure to Monty Python for educating me on groupthink early in life.
Oh, man. I am so sorry
In another game life I spent a gigantic amount of time ripping apart the mechanics of an MMO, literally down to how the game servers tracked time and in what order the game mechanics were processed. I could tell you, better than the content developers, precisely what the game would do in a particular situation. One of the things I studied was how the game processed random numbers. In rewards, in combat, everywhere. I analyzed fifteen million random rolls in one year long test and discovered there was an itty bitty skew in combat rolls due to an incorrect round off algorithm (one part in twenty thousand). I submitted about a dozen bug reports just involving either random generated results executed incorrectly, or described differently than implemented. I also proved false literally hundreds of errant conjectures about how the game was broken in some way.
I learned two things from that experience. One, yes, you can't convince everyone that thinks the system is broken that it isn't broken with any amount of evidence. There is no such evidence that will convince some people.
But two, the point isn't to convince everyone. The point is to convince those that can be convinced by the evidence. Those are the only people you can help. You don't help them with evidence based arguments because you think evidence based arguments will help everyone. You help them with evidence based arguments because the people who can be helped with evidence based arguments are the only people you can reach at all. Unless you're a prophet or a telepath, everyone else is beyond your help.
That has to be enough, or you go crazy.
i now have combine total of 0-6 of this featueed (2) and last one (4)
didnt get any featured champ, but i did pull the champ i want from basics..ghost
i did the gamble and loss. RNG
Grats man, i did 4 for ghost in featured and i...got none of featured champs
Then i did a basic
What you’re saying makes sense. I think there is a lot of groupthink on these forums. Seems basically like bandwagon mentality. But I think a healthy skepticism on both sides is important.
As DNA mentioned most people do not want to hear facts or evidence to prove them wrong. I would like to think my skepticism is my starting point until I discover evidence to solidify my position. Yeah, of course I’ll admit I’m slightly skeptical of RNG in this game. There’s so much of it everywhere it’s hard not to form your own opinion on it whether positive or negative. The problem is there is really no true evidence Kabam could really publish that would really confirm or deny whether RNG is equally weighted or not unless some programmer analyzed their system and was able to say with 100% conviction that everything is equal. Even then, like DNA said most people wouldn’t believe it. You basically have to take the mods word on it and who knows if they even know. On the other side, you can’t prove RNG is not weighted equally too. There’s certainly plenty of people with great luck in the game and it seems they are blessed beyond belief with every pull. That’s where it evens out. Some people are just lucky and others aren’t. It would be really interesting to gather the data from the game from all the 5* ever pulled and see where the data points lie.
Also, when you’re unlucky and constantly get kicked when you’re down by RNG, that basically becomes your evidence. If only 5% of your pulls are good and others pulls are 50/50, it’s hard to not incorporate that into your thinking. I think a lot of people here have personal experiences with RNG and just band with others with likewise the experiences. I don’t know if I would necesarily call it groupthinking. I would more or less call it complaining about crappy pulls. Then again I don’t really know. What constitutes groupthink?
I'll be honest: I don't think it's pure RNG. I simply don't.
There's something else at play in there. I don't know what it is. But there's something else at play
can someone explain the RNG on this and what are the chances for this? Better chances getting hit by a lightning...True RNG huh? lol
The odds of pulling the same champ three times in a row from featured crystals is one in 576. The odds of being hit by lightning in one calendar year are about one in a million.
It may be quite easy for Kabam to do a data dump and say that of the million 5* crystals opened there was a literal even chance for any champ in the crystal. However, that pure RNG is the balance of some players who are skewed one way and other players skewed differently.
Player A may have a higher chance for champs 1-3, whereas Player B has a higher chance for 4-6. When you evaluate all pulls, then the cumulative RNG says there was an even chance for all 6.
It is almost impossible to prove the negative: that of all possible ways to tamper with or skew the random rewards exactly none of them exist in the system. And I would never make that claim. It is possible to constrain what kind of tampering could be happening. People used to talk about PHCs being weighted. I did the actual analysis of this back in the day, and I could state with reasonable certainty that PHCs were not being weighted at the time to within about one part in a thousand. Since no one was claiming that Kabam had their fingers on the scales to that tiny amount, that analysis conclusively disproved all of the manipulation accusations that were running around at the time. Incidentally, that analysis of PHCs also ended up agreeing with the eventually published odds of PHC crystals, except it predicted about half the rate of 4* champs, and when the odds were published people noticed a dramatic uptick in the rate of getting 4* champs which suggested my numbers were different because Kabam changed the crystal. Besides that, I was more or less on the money. So that suggests the analysis was probably correct and probably contained enough data to make reasonable conclusions.
I also did two meta-analyses of other statistical data gathering looking for statistical variance in things like 4* crystals, 5* crystals, and (F)GMCs. In all cases I could not find one to within about two percentage points. And keep in mind it was my 5* featured analysis back in the day that first constrained the featured crystal to a 15%-25% chance for featured, that eventually narrowed down to about 20% plus or minus a couple percent.
I've also looked at crystal openings that compare paid vs free to play accounts, and openings verses future openings (i.e. does one opening affect the next one). Out of all of those analyses, only one showed a statistically significant signal, but at a very low confidence level. Back in the day there was a very tiny increase in the number of duplicate champs pulled from sets of crystals relative to the predicted chance. Enough to make me raise an eyebrow, but not enough to be remotely conclusive.
I can't say the random rewards are perfectly random. I don't have enough data to say that. I can say that I haven't heard a theory about a *specific* kind of non-randomness that the data isn't large enough to disprove. Until someone proposes a theory about how the crystals are non-random that a) is a kind of variation that a human actually could detect through observation in theory, b) makes testable predictions, and c) has those predictions confirmed, my skepticism saying don't trust what Kabam says, don't trust player gut instincts, trust the data. The data says the crystal drops are sufficiently random to beat all randomness tests I can think of performing (and have the time to perform). That's an objective statement about the crystals that requires trusting no one.