Venom the Duck: A Study
DrZola
Member Posts: 9,124 ★★★★★
I had asked on another thread linked here
(https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/1227757#Comment_1227757 )
whether Venom the Duck’s buffs were equally random. Since I got no official response, I teamed up with someone and recorded fights and buffs generated.
For each of the following scenarios (No Synergy/Offensive Synergy/Defensive Synergy), we staged fights and recorded 200 instances of Aberration buffs generated by VtD (600 total buff instances over three different scenarios).
Here are the results:
No Synergy
Fury 15.5%
Power Gain 16.5%
Precision 19.5%
Regen 14.5%
Armor Up 18%
Perf Block 16%
Offensive (Frenzy) = 51.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 48.5%
Offensive Synergy (added Carnage)
Fury 26.5%
Power Gain 22%
Precision 18%
Regen 11.5%
Armor Up 8%
Perf Block 13.5
Offensive (Frenzy) = 66.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 32.5%
Defensive Synergy (added Agent Venom)
Fury 12.5%
Power Gain 11.5%
Precision 11.5%
Regen 17.5%
Armor Up 23%
Perf Block 24%
Offensive (Frenzy) = 35.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 64.5%
Conclusion is pretty straightforward: each Aberration buff appears to have an equal chance of being generated when there is no synergy partner present. When there is a single synergy partner present, the +25% chance appears to provide a multiplicative increase (not additive) to the roughly 50-50 chance a buff is either Offensive (Frenzy) or Defensive (Survival).
Would more trials have produced a more precise result? Probably, but recording 30 minutes of VtD against 1.1.1 unawakened Dr. Strange and then skimming through to chronicle 600 buffs is tedious, and 200 trials per scenario seemed to provide sufficient directional accuracy.
Based on this test:
1) Each of VtD’s buffs is equally probable
2) Synergies increase the probability a type of buff will occur by something like 25% x 50%
3) Nothing can be said about other scenarios (AW, AQ, different opponents or quests), but it is reasonable to expect the same rules prevail everywhere
Did “clumpiness” occur? Of course. In some sequences, the same buff recurred up to 4 times consecutively. At other times, a particular buff didn’t occur over 20 instances. In one instance, a particular buff (Regen) occurred 8/14 times to start a fight. But that is consistent, I think, with randomness.
I think this answers my question. I hope this will be helpful. Special thanks to former forums member Hamin.
Dr. Zola
(https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/1227757#Comment_1227757 )
whether Venom the Duck’s buffs were equally random. Since I got no official response, I teamed up with someone and recorded fights and buffs generated.
For each of the following scenarios (No Synergy/Offensive Synergy/Defensive Synergy), we staged fights and recorded 200 instances of Aberration buffs generated by VtD (600 total buff instances over three different scenarios).
Here are the results:
No Synergy
Fury 15.5%
Power Gain 16.5%
Precision 19.5%
Regen 14.5%
Armor Up 18%
Perf Block 16%
Offensive (Frenzy) = 51.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 48.5%
Offensive Synergy (added Carnage)
Fury 26.5%
Power Gain 22%
Precision 18%
Regen 11.5%
Armor Up 8%
Perf Block 13.5
Offensive (Frenzy) = 66.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 32.5%
Defensive Synergy (added Agent Venom)
Fury 12.5%
Power Gain 11.5%
Precision 11.5%
Regen 17.5%
Armor Up 23%
Perf Block 24%
Offensive (Frenzy) = 35.5%
Defensive (Survival) = 64.5%
Conclusion is pretty straightforward: each Aberration buff appears to have an equal chance of being generated when there is no synergy partner present. When there is a single synergy partner present, the +25% chance appears to provide a multiplicative increase (not additive) to the roughly 50-50 chance a buff is either Offensive (Frenzy) or Defensive (Survival).
Would more trials have produced a more precise result? Probably, but recording 30 minutes of VtD against 1.1.1 unawakened Dr. Strange and then skimming through to chronicle 600 buffs is tedious, and 200 trials per scenario seemed to provide sufficient directional accuracy.
Based on this test:
1) Each of VtD’s buffs is equally probable
2) Synergies increase the probability a type of buff will occur by something like 25% x 50%
3) Nothing can be said about other scenarios (AW, AQ, different opponents or quests), but it is reasonable to expect the same rules prevail everywhere
Did “clumpiness” occur? Of course. In some sequences, the same buff recurred up to 4 times consecutively. At other times, a particular buff didn’t occur over 20 instances. In one instance, a particular buff (Regen) occurred 8/14 times to start a fight. But that is consistent, I think, with randomness.
I think this answers my question. I hope this will be helpful. Special thanks to former forums member Hamin.
Dr. Zola
28
Comments
I believe we both wound up using the Dr. Strange fight in 1.1.1 for our data sets, which would mean there were six different fights against that quest. Again, minor differences in values, but overall consistent with each other.
Dr. Zola
What star rating did the VTD’s happen to be?
Don’t know if I believe it though, my 6* feels like a 45% chance for armour up and 45% for perfect block
Dr. Zola
Nice to get some evidence of 'equality' in the randomness!
At times I observed sequences that felt like they were stuck in a rut—5/7 Fury, or 4 straight PB. I suppose all pRNG engines do this because this can happen randomly in nature, but the odds of getting the same buff over and over are reasonably low. I’d have to check the raw data, but over 200 buffs I’d often have more than a couple sequences of 3X/4X duplication.
Dr. Zola
Worth upgrading or not as a 5* duped??
With the right buffs, he’s a great AQ path runner of low maps and can own Incursions. Lack of immunities limits his usefulness, however.
Dr. Zola
Dr. Zola
Now the real question: R5 material for you? Despite all the awesome cosmic champs?
Actually, I have an awakened 6* (and 5*, and 4*, and 3*, and 2*). So I could field a full flush, raft, sord or twack of ducks.
I do like my VtD, but I prefer immunity champs for all the weird things the game tosses at us. He may get R2–but I need my Void and Aegon at R5 first. VtD is more like a vintage convertible you take out of the garage on a sunny spring day.
What would tempt me is if Howard got a solid stealth synergy buff with VtD. I have both at 6*’s and can only imagine how ducky they might be together with just a little tweaking.
Dr. Zola
I don’t like ramp up champs as I’m exploring 6.4 so no use of a single champ for entire lane.
Further he isn’t got any immunities so I’ll pass ranking him up.
Dr. HORROR_PUNK
Dr. Zola
If you wanted to be accurate to within one percentage point (i.e. between say 15.5% and 17.5%) you'd have needed to do about ... 1667 buff measurements for the baseline case, or about 5000 total across all three scenarios. A bit more than four hours of recording time given your original test. I don't think that's something a lot of people would be looking forward to doing.
At least when someone says they can tell when an RNG is broken just by looking with their eyes during game play, you now have a much better context with which to judge that claim.
I always bring venom as a synergy partner because as Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.
Some of the “clumpiness” still puzzles me—if I have it correctly, the probability of getting three consecutive identical buffs is less than half a % point. Not impossible, but it occurred several times across 200 total buffs instances in the No Synergy test. Instances of four consecutive identical buffs also occurred more than once in the synergy scenarios. I haven’t calculated the probability of the frequency of either occurrence but I suspect they are low.
I will add this: it is unfortunate players feel like they need to do this to verify the game’s verbal product descriptions. But that’s where we are—I asked a question, no one answered, so I found a partner in crime and we limned it for ourselves. My hunch was that it was probably equally random, but I wanted to check. Looks like it is.
Dr. Zola