Spinning the crystal... does it even matter?

Just curious.... how do you guys open your crystals (the ones that matter, e.g. 6* champ crystals)... do you let your crystals spin the entire cycle or you just push 'open all' at once?

Probably more important (maybe a question for @kabam)...does it actually matter how you open the crystals? At what point does the game assign the champ that will come out of the crystal? When you get or form the crystal (out of required amount of shards)...or when you actually open the crystal?

Thank you.

Comments

DNA3000

"random" and "odds" can mean many things... no different than how "4 out of 5 dentists recommend"... depend on which 5 dentists you ask, and the statistic may be meaningless.

For example, take lottery scratch-off tickets.

If on Day 1, there were 10M tickets made, and 10 1-Million dollar winners... then your odds of getting a Million Dollars on one is at its core on any single tickets: 1 in a million.

but... what if a month goes by. Some of those tickets are sold. Do we know how many? No? Do we know how many of the Million dollar tickets are left? Well... depends on how much research we do. But reality is... without more information... we really don't know what our odds are of winning.

Maybe all 10 were already sold, and our odds are 0. Maybe all 10 are left, 5 Million were sold, and our odds just doubled to 1:500,000. We don't know.

That's easy to understand... but now to the question of spin or pop. This gets into how random is random.

again starting with lottery scratch tickets... they are usually sold in a line, in numerical order. They are typically ordered in such a way that there are guaranteed to be certain numbers of low-level winners, with maybe 1-slot for a high level winner. They aren't going to put say all 10 million dollar tickets in a row, sold from the same store, possibly to the same person who just went in and dropped $100 on some tickets all at once. Thus the fact that you "hit it big" on a ticket really does mean that the odds of you hitting it big on the next ticket, or even any one ticket in that sheet, are effectively zero.

So... does this relate to MCOC? If I hit pop 10, how does it work? Will MCOC pick 10 random numbers, and independently decide whether or not each one is a "winner"? If so, then I would argue... no, the 10 events are not independent. Computers are virtually incapable of making an independent random event, and most often will use the milliseconds of an event + some complicated math functions to "look random" and in the long term, generate "valid drop rates", however... If at 14:12:01.123456 seconds you hit the button... I would argue you are not going to get 10 truly independent events. Yes, you can find repeats in random numbers, and your first event picking the digits in question should find a "fairly random set", in that it isn't something you can predict and game around... but is it truly independent? Well, that depends on just how good of a random number generator is chose, how large the seeds and exponents and modulo divisors are in the calculation... and unless Kabam is prepare to provide that algorithm... I'm going to say that at best "we don't know", but the most likely answer is... no... they aren't purely independent events.

Will the difference be significant? Again Don't know without the algorithm, but I suspect the answer is probably not.

Lootboxes basically work the same way in every game, with some minor implementation differences. There's a reward table with explicit or implicit weights assigned to each drop. A random number is generated that picks a drop using a pigeonhole algorithm of some kind. Then you get that drop.

Also, you're generally wrong about lottery tickets. It would actually be illegal in a lot of places if lottery tickets were designed that way. Lottery tickets are not loaded or weighted. The distribution of prizes is engineered by adjusting the drop odds, and relying upon the fact that basic statistics will drive the numbers reasonably close to the desired reward ratios. The only random ticket games I can think of that are designed the way you describe are things like the McDonalds Monopoly game.

For lotteries where the prizes are big enough that their results are widely publicized, we know that sometimes there's one winner, and sometimes there's more than one. The same is true for lower tier prizes: the number of winning tickets fluctuates. The winning numbers are not predetermined, so there's no way for the lottery operators to specifically print only a certain number of winning tickets. In fact, although most lotteries will assign numbers to your ticket randomly, most will also allow people to pick their own numbers. Obviously, there's no way to control the number of winners in such lotteries.

And really, people should probably stop saying "computers are incapable of making an independent random event" because that's one of those statements that is technically true but also misleading to the point of being false.

Once again: we don't need "completely random" or "independently random" results. There isn't even a proper definition of what those terms mean. We just need the drops to appear to be random: to pass sufficiently strong randomness tests. Since the game is based on the Unity engine, it is reasonable to suppose that they are likely using Unity's RNG. Which is a matter of public record: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Random.html states that the Unity random is an implementation of XORshift128. The XORshift algorithm is documented in this paper: https://www.jstatsoft.org/v08/i14/paper. As to your objections on the strength of the generator, I will quote from the paper:

If β is a uniform random choice, (the seed), from Z, then each member of the sequence βT, βT2, βT3, . . . is also uniformly distributed over Z, so we have a sequence of ID, Identically Distributed, uniform elements from Z, but they are not IID, that is, Independent Identically Distributed. But it turns out here, as for many RNGs, functions of the ID elements often have distributions very close to those of the same functions of elements of an IID sequence. That is the remarkable property of certain choices of functions f ( ) over seed sets Z that justifies their usefulness in computers for the past fifty years.

which addresses the issue of random distribution and correlation, and

Simple and very fast (125 million/sec), the elements in its cycle of 2^192−2^32 easily pass all the tests in Diehard.

which addresses the issue of sufficiently random for purpose (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diehard_tests for a discussion of the tests being referenced).

unknown

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TrubluMate

Did you know Apple game centre occasionally will congratulate you sometimes on pulling a five or six star.
It’s only done it once for me, on a grandmaster as soon as the spin started. So if Apple game centre knew I was pulling a five star from a GM crystal, obviously the champ is assigned as soon as you go to open it whether it be spin, pop or quick tap.

Malreck04

@DNA3000 Thanks for the demonstration, I knew that for any particular champion Crystal opening the reel only shows a limited set of champions, regardless off the actual pool/pull.

CoatHang3r

I don't recall Otriux (or anyone else) demonstrating this or mentioning direct evidence for this (i.e. from data mining) but I could simply not remember (or not seen ti) and, unfortunately, it is worth testing. I spun out a 4* basic and let it stop on their own, went frame by frame, and recorded every champ that showed up in the reel.

Was Duckslug and not quite what I remembered but the near miss was mentioned.

“Once the spin is ready to stop it just inserts whatever you drew into the carousel so that it lands on that prize. As part of the prize draw coming from the server, the server also tells your device a "near miss item" prize to place just before what you're getting. (I don't know specifics, but this means Kabam can intentionally inflate featured draws as near miss - this should be a surprise to no one who has spun a crystal)”

He explains it in detail here. https://www.reddit.com/r/ContestOfChampions/comments/5liw9v/crystal_spinner_carousel_explained/

*there might have been an otriux post similar to what I recall, that had different details I just cannot remember his Reddit handle to search for it.

Kerneas

It makes a big difference. I have saved hours of time over the years of popping.

Escornaboi

It makes me laugh to see that this topic is still generating debate in the middle of the year 2022. In the game's FAQ there is (or was) a specific section clearly explaining the system for opening the windows. I will summarize and explain it:

1) The character is ASSIGNED when claiming to obtain the crystal or when claiming the crystal (in the case of shard crystals).
2) The assignment is done on the Kabam server, not on the phone or tablet.
3) By turning or opening a crystal, your copy of the game is synced to the server.
4) The turning system is a simple entertainment and a way to add excitement to the moment. It is also a visual representation of the synchronization that is done with the server, so that to exactly match the character that is going to match the one shown on the screen, sometimes "strange jumps" occur.

These "strange jumps" have been the cause of all kinds of conspiracy theories for years, when the opening system has always been transparent and public.

Conclusion: use the spin system if you are on a Youtube broadcast and use the direct opening if you are playing for yourselves.

Malreck04

It makes me laugh to see that this topic is still generating debate in the middle of the year 2022. In the game's FAQ there is (or was) a specific section clearly explaining the system for opening the windows. I will summarize and explain it:

1) The character is ASSIGNED when claiming to obtain the crystal or when claiming the crystal (in the case of shard crystals).
2) The assignment is done on the Kabam server, not on the phone or tablet.
3) By turning or opening a crystal, your copy of the game is synced to the server.
4) The turning system is a simple entertainment and a way to add excitement to the moment. It is also a visual representation of the synchronization that is done with the server, so that to exactly match the character that is going to match the one shown on the screen, sometimes "strange jumps" occur.

These "strange jumps" have been the cause of all kinds of conspiracy theories for years, when the opening system has always been transparent and public.

Conclusion: use the spin system if you are on a Youtube broadcast and use the direct opening if you are playing for yourselves.

It’s ironic how confidently you’re telling other people what’s up when your very first point is wrong

DrZola

The game assigns the champion when you 'tap to stop' (for spin) or 'open crystal' for pop.

I spin the important the crystals out, pop the rest.
I read somewhere a long time ago (from a Kabam person) that the champion is actually chosen when you get the crystal itself, so that spin/pop has the same result because it was already assigned.

This is why the pool of champs is fixed for the crystal based on when the crystal was created, and not whatever the current pool is when the crystal is opened.
No it's the opposite. The pool depends on the time of opening, hence a lot of people save their crystals until a specific champion enters the pool. The only exceptions here (that I can think of) are event cavs and featureds, which have a set pool that won't change.
Not saying you are wrong because I clearly don't work there, but from a programmatic standpoint that seems weird. It would make more sense to have 1 root crystal behavior instead of multiple crystal behaviors.

Also, if it is the time of opening then that would indicate that the spin and pop would have different results potentially if the decision is made at 2 different times instead of already being decided before either action happens.
The crystal results are determined when the crystal is "opened." At that moment the game servers randomly choose the drop based on the crystal's drop tables. The moment a crystal is "opened" depends on player actions. If the player "pops" the crystal the crystal is opened at that moment. If the player spins the crystal the crystal is opened either when the player taps the crystal to stop it, or after a maximum amount of time has elapsed.

There aren't two different behaviors. There's just one behavior. Randomly choose the drop based on the drop tables when the crystal is opened. When the crystal is technically opened is different depending on player actions, but that is irrelevant to the crystal opening systems.

Not only is this the most reasonable way for these crystals to work, it is how the vast majority of lootboxes work in every game everywhere. Nobody predetermines lootbox contents when they are first generated because that would require saving a lot of extra data for no reason. It doesn't matter to the game servers if they roll at crystal formation time or at crystal opening time, but if they roll at crystal formation they then have to save that data until the player opens the crystal. That just doesn't make practical sense.

We also have unambiguous proof that crystal contents are not determined at crystal formation time. Basic crystals that are formed then kept for months or even years can and do drop champions that did not exist when the crystal was formed or awarded. This is literally impossible if the crystal's drop was predetermined at formation or award time.

Absolutely no one cares about the notion that the crystal might be different based on when it is opened. The crystal's content only need to be generated randomly. It doesn't matter when that random result is generated, and it doesn't matter if that random result "would have been different" given different circumstances. Random is random.

This is my understanding as well. The only question is when the “opening” actually occurs—I would think it happens when the crystal cracks open (accompanied by a flash). This happens either when the spin times out or when the player taps the screen to stop the reel.

The reel is purely entertainment—what you see isn’t what is in the crystal. Adjacent champ profiles aren’t “near misses,” as much as we might like to think so. Whether they are intentional insertions to entice more spending is something I cannot confirm.

If I could, I would replace the slot machine type animation with something much more ambiguous (maybe with the crystal shaking and and changing colors and cracking but by bit before it actually pops and without any champ display). That would clear a fair amount of confusion (but also produce fewer reel thrills).

Dr. Zola

Scarcity27

Just to once again test what the pool depends on, since it's still a debate, I've bought 3 4* basic crystals, a few PHCs and a few 3* crystals. The newest champion in the basic pool is Spider Man 2099. Now, I'm going to wait to open these crystals until Peni is in the basic (remember, I acquired these crystals when she wasn't in the basic) and see if she shows up in the reel/pulls.

Blayzen79

I just pop all crystals these days then it saves me the wait for disappointment lol kabammmed

SummonerNR

Interesting to see what parts of this thread disappeared between last night and now. It seems like you can talk about how the spinner works and how RNG and "entertainment spinners" work in general, but you can't post any actual data on how often certain rarities are represented in the MCOC spinner.

You posted that data in your very own post last year. And if you wanted it to remain open to continued comments you might not have wanted to use the word “dishonest” in the title.
However, the post and it's data remain up and freely available for people to see your work.

To quote Kabam's closing statement there, which has been said MANY, MANY times over the years…
“… the Crystal Spin animation is only for entertainment purposes.”

If you were always seeing just 2* as the surrounding champs, or during spin, in line with actual odds, it wouldn’t be very “entertaining” now, would it.
So they may show a higher propensity of bigger champs during the spin (Entertaining) and in the final NEIGHBORING slots. But has no bearing on the ACTUAL champ you get.

Menkent

If they wanted crystal openings to be entertaining they could have wolverine pop up from the edge of the screen and slash them open. They chose to make it look like a roulette wheel or slot machine... but with a disproportionately high display of jackpot wins. Yes, they obliquely admit that (on the forum), but that doesn't make it any better for people who've never been to the forum and/or aren't mathematically inclined.

GroundedWisdom

....or people could learn to accept the outcomes.

BLOODY_ASSASIAN08

I just saw your post and popped 1 anthromorphic crystal for the first time I m popping a cavalier Crystal. And I got this...

DNA3000

It makes me laugh to see that this topic is still generating debate in the middle of the year 2022. In the game's FAQ there is (or was) a specific section clearly explaining the system for opening the windows. I will summarize and explain it:

1) The character is ASSIGNED when claiming to obtain the crystal or when claiming the crystal (in the case of shard crystals).

To reiterate: this theory cannot possibly be true, because crystals that are held for extended periods of time and contain pools that are updated periodically can drop champions that did not exist when the crystal was formed or claimed. It is literally impossible for such a crystal to have had its contents determined prior to opening.

DNA3000

I don't recall Otriux (or anyone else) demonstrating this or mentioning direct evidence for this (i.e. from data mining) but I could simply not remember (or not seen ti) and, unfortunately, it is worth testing. I spun out a 4* basic and let it stop on their own, went frame by frame, and recorded every champ that showed up in the reel.
Was Duckslug and not quite what I remembered but the near miss was mentioned.

“Once the spin is ready to stop it just inserts whatever you drew into the carousel so that it lands on that prize. As part of the prize draw coming from the server, the server also tells your device a "near miss item" prize to place just before what you're getting. (I don't know specifics, but this means Kabam can intentionally inflate featured draws as near miss - this should be a surprise to no one who has spun a crystal)”

He explains it in detail here. https://www.reddit.com/r/ContestOfChampions/comments/5liw9v/crystal_spinner_carousel_explained/

*there might have been an otriux post similar to what I recall, that had different details I just cannot remember his Reddit handle to search for it.

That was discussing featured arena crystals, and I believe that is discussing a slightly different implementation detail. When a crystal has different rarity tiers, those tiers are not represented in the same ratio as their drop odds. That is observably true. Instead, the spinner is loaded (in the technical sense) with a “display set” of drops of different rarity tiers with different odds. That seems to match observations. But when it comes to individual rarity tiers, I believe something slightly different happens, the crystal designer doesn’t hand pick those to engineer “near misses” (and observation suggests that’s not likely to be a thing within a rarity tier), rather the servers randomly pick a subset of the entire rarity set to display. It seems this is dine for efficiency purposes, and it is done at the time the spinner is initialized. So if you spin multiple crystals back to back the spinner will look the same or similar, but if you back out and restart the spinner system the spinner will look different between otherwise identical crystals.

To put it more simply, if you spin a PHC, 4* champs will show more often than they drop, but 4* Hercules will not, across all players spinning crystals, show up more often than 4* Groot.

I_tell_no_tales_1

Well spinning or Popping doesn't matter as the champion is decided as soon as you click on open crystal
Cause people pop many crystals at the Same time
So if we Take that in consideration the theory that says the champion is decided when you put the crystal on reel or the theory that says that happens when you click pop or tap becomes invalid
Maybe I am wrong but this is just the most realistic theory That I can imagine

Escornaboi

It’s ironic how confidently you’re telling other people what’s up when your very first point is wrong

My information is in accordance with how the information in the game's FAQ was described in its version in Portuguese and in Spanish in its section "Crystals. Spinning system". Currently, this information is only available in English, in which it is explained in another way and no longer refers to the moment of obtaining it (which was in Portuguese/Spanish versions).

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

Semantic and translation issues aside, the rest of my information is fully adjusted to what is currently indicated in the FAQ. You can put the irony aside, @Malreck04.

SummonerNR

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

An interesting addition in that FAQ above is recognition of the “Multiple Crystal openings” incorrect quantity issue. They’ve mentioned it before too, just pointing it out because the newer Support site FAQ/Articles have a whole ton of more information up there than in years past.

DISPLAY ISSUE WHEN OPENING MULTIPLE CRYSTALS

When opening a large volume of crystals of the same type, they may appear to reward a much larger amount of items like energy refills, health potions, or catalysts than those crystals should. The crystals will reward the correct amount of these items, even though they are displaying the incorrect amount. Our technicians are aware of this display issue and are working to resolve this as soon as possible.

.
And SigStones are another common “incorrect quantity” item that people always post about up here when opening large amount of crystals at a time.

13579rebel_

I pop cavs GMS and 5 stars and spin 6 stars and 5 and 6 star nexus

mostlyharmlessn

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

An interesting addition in that FAQ above is recognition of the “Multiple Crystal openings” incorrect quantity issue. They’ve mentioned it before too, just pointing it out because the newer Support site FAQ/Articles have a whole ton of more information up there than in years past.

DISPLAY ISSUE WHEN OPENING MULTIPLE CRYSTALS

When opening a large volume of crystals of the same type, they may appear to reward a much larger amount of items like energy refills, health potions, or catalysts than those crystals should. The crystals will reward the correct amount of these items, even though they are displaying the incorrect amount. Our technicians are aware of this display issue and are working to resolve this as soon as possible.
.
And SigStones are another common “incorrect quantity” item that people always post about up here when opening large amount of crystals at a time.

I take issue with them brushing off the incorrect quantity "display bug"

The fact is programmers reuse functions throughout a program. If they can't get the math function to display proper results, there's a good chance they are also using the same function somewhere else in the game and that is causing another undiscovered issue, or issue we know exists, but hasn't been fixed because it's also using the same bad function.

DNA3000

It’s ironic how confidently you’re telling other people what’s up when your very first point is wrong
My information is in accordance with how the information in the game's FAQ was described in its version in Portuguese and in Spanish in its section "Crystals. Spinning system". Currently, this information is only available in English, in which it is explained in another way and no longer refers to the moment of obtaining it (which was in Portuguese/Spanish versions).

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

Semantic and translation issues aside, the rest of my information is fully adjusted to what is currently indicated in the FAQ. You can put the irony aside, @Malreck04.

It isn't. You state that "the character is ASSIGNED when claiming to obtain the crystal or when claiming the crystal." However, the FAQ states: "when you tap on your crystal and spin it on your device, you are actually spinning it in our servers. The item will be logged in our servers first, and then the information will be synchronized with your device to show you what you got in your crystal. This only takes a few seconds." This implies that the item that is dropped by the crystal is not determined until the player spins or opens the crystal, because if the crystal drop was determined when the crystal was formed there would be no item to log. The server would already know what item was in that crystal, and would only need to send that information to the game client.

This "predestination" theory is almost certainly what @Malreck04 was referring to, because the notion that crystals are predetermined keeps coming up repeatedly on the forums and in the subreddit, and it is one of the few crystal theories that we can prove unequivocally false. We can rule out a lot of crystal rigging theories statistically, we can rule out many others by reasonable inference, but the idea that crystals are predetermined is ruled out by three completely separate lines of thought, one of which is 100% impossible to refute. a) Lootbox mechanics are well known in the gaming industry, and they all basically work the same; b) it would be impractical to store predestined crystal data and also unnecessary; and the show stopper c) no predestined crystal can contain drops that did not exist when it was formed, but virtually all crystals have exhibited that behavior.

DNA3000

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

An interesting addition in that FAQ above is recognition of the “Multiple Crystal openings” incorrect quantity issue. They’ve mentioned it before too, just pointing it out because the newer Support site FAQ/Articles have a whole ton of more information up there than in years past.

DISPLAY ISSUE WHEN OPENING MULTIPLE CRYSTALS

When opening a large volume of crystals of the same type, they may appear to reward a much larger amount of items like energy refills, health potions, or catalysts than those crystals should. The crystals will reward the correct amount of these items, even though they are displaying the incorrect amount. Our technicians are aware of this display issue and are working to resolve this as soon as possible.
.
And SigStones are another common “incorrect quantity” item that people always post about up here when opening large amount of crystals at a time.
I take issue with them brushing off the incorrect quantity "display bug"

The fact is programmers reuse functions throughout a program. If they can't get the math function to display proper results, there's a good chance they are also using the same function somewhere else in the game and that is causing another undiscovered issue, or issue we know exists, but hasn't been fixed because it's also using the same bad function.

The crystal display bug is almost certainly not a question of a programmer actually forgetting to do math correctly. It is almost certainly an abstraction problem.

The code path that displays crystal results and the code path that adds stuff to our inventories are completely different code paths. The code path that determines crystal drops and adds them to our inventories is pretty solid, as it is extremely rare for that to go wrong. But the code path that displays crystal drops must go through a lot more layers of the game client. There is no "function" that does this. There are functions that call functions that call functions. No programmer displays anything: they call other functions or extensions that do so. And those things call other functions or routines within Unity. I don't know what specific sort of anomaly is causing the item quantity display error, but it isn't a simple question of a function being written wrong.

You might think "so what" - whether it is a function or a function that calls a function or a function that calls many functions, that's still a programmer error. Except in game engines like this, abstraction means what a "programmer" means is not what it means in conventional programming. You can be a VBA programmer that makes dynamic spreadsheets in Excel, but if there's a bug in Excel, you being a programmer helps not at all in fixing it. You don't have access to Excel code, because that lives in a different abstraction layer from you. There are game designers that work on things like designing crystals, and there are game mechanics designers that once upon a time designed the crystal display system, and there are game programmers that implemented the engine mechanics for crystal display primitives. These all live on different abstraction layers, like VBA lives in a different place from Excel's C++ code. If the display error lives in the crystal display mechanics, only a system engineer could take that apart and figure out where the bug was, and to fix it might require tampering with something that a lot of other stuff has been built upon since then. If the problem is in the crystal primitives, that would require an engine programmer to troubleshoot and fix, and that would require making changes to the raw engine, where modularity aside you can bring down the entire game.

People do not even *look* at these implementation details often, so it is entirely possible that the only humans that really understand how they work no longer work for Kabam (that happens a lot in the game industry, actually, because you need a lot of low level programmers and designers to launch a game, but not many or even sometimes any to support one most of the time). So if Kabam decided they wanted to fix the crystal display problem, that might require first getting the right sort of expertise on contract, and then giving that person weeks or months just to familiarize themselves with the game engine (no two games built on Unity look remotely the same) so they don't completely break everything when they fix what they think the bug is. Kabam as to prioritize whether all that effort is worth fixing that specific bug that only affects crystal displays.

SummonerNR

It’s ironic how confidently you’re telling other people what’s up when your very first point is wrong
My information is in accordance with how the information in the game's FAQ was described in its version in Portuguese and in Spanish in its section "Crystals. Spinning system". Currently, this information is only available in English, in which it is explained in another way and no longer refers to the moment of obtaining it (which was in Portuguese/Spanish versions).

The actual official info is here:

FAQ. Crystals spin system.

Semantic and translation issues aside, the rest of my information is fully adjusted to what is currently indicated in the FAQ. You can put the irony aside, @Malreck04.
It isn't. You state that "the character is ASSIGNED when claiming to obtain the crystal or when claiming the crystal." However, the FAQ states: "when you tap on your crystal and spin it on your device, you are actually spinning it in our servers. The item will be logged in our servers first, and then the information will be synchronized with your device to show you what you got in your crystal. This only takes a few seconds." This implies that the item that is dropped by the crystal is not determined until the player spins or opens the crystal, because if the crystal drop was determined when the crystal was formed there would be no item to log. The server would already know what item was in that crystal, and would only need to send that information to the game client.

This "predestination" theory is almost certainly what @Malreck04 was referring to, because the notion that crystals are predetermined keeps coming up repeatedly on the forums and in the subreddit, and it is one of the few crystal theories that we can prove unequivocally false. We can rule out a lot of crystal rigging theories statistically, we can rule out many others by reasonable inference, but the idea that crystals are predetermined is ruled out by three completely separate lines of thought, one of which is 100% impossible to refute. a) Lootbox mechanics are well known in the gaming industry, and they all basically work the same; b) it would be impractical to store predestined crystal data and also unnecessary; and the show stopper c) no predestined crystal can contain drops that did not exist when it was formed, but virtually all crystals have exhibited that behavior.

That's the part that they were probably referring to as having implied something differently in the original Portuguese or Spanish language versions of the Knowledge Base FAQ’s. Probably on the old Support site before the revamp of the site in the past year+.

I think they are saying the old language version descriptions of Crystals had apparently implied the character was decided upon obtaining them.

They admit that it does say upon “opening” now, and not upon obtaining.

Issue was in the tone of the person who was replying to his original statement.