Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
Back when they first added 5 star champions to the game, I pulled original spidey six times in a row, was really annoying, I just wanted a new five star champion but had only spidey for ages... if that can happen with basic crystals it's far more likely to happen with featured ones... simple logic tells you that lol
@Balm82 while I can see why you would get to that conclusion on hearing something like Pseudo RNG and assuming that must mean there's some flaw in it, it's simply not the case. These extremely informative comments by @DNA3000 explain the flaw in this kind of thinking
Yea he’s the guy thats always on this forum telling everyone they are wrong.
Computers cant do random, its a fact.
Did you read the comments? It explains that even thought computers can't do true random, that doesn't matter and it's indistinguishable from true random and it's absolutely not predictable.
DNA is one of the more patient and helpful members on the forum, something tells me that the fact you're so against him may point to the fact that you are one of the people who is wrong a lot..
Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
If I've done the calculations correctly (or rather if I've fed them to Wolfram Alpha correctly, I'm not solving them by hand) you will get five Taskmasters in a row on average every 8,308,824 openings. But since players open variable amounts of crystals, its hard to say what the odds against ever seeing this is. My guess is that this sort of thing happens about once per year out of all players opening those types of featured crystals.
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation. It is solving this set of recursive equations:
Assuming I set them up correctly. It has been a while since I've done these types of calculations. To determine the average number of openings given distributed openings among multiple players, you'd have to probably solve a generalized markovian, at which point I would probably write a python script to simulate the result a billion times and spit out an estimate.
@Broken Taskmaster is a great champion that only lacks in his unfortunate low base damage but if awakened and played properly he is a power house, he is an annoying defensive champion and great offense if played right. The stacking concussions can lead to outstanding AAR and also he gains the burst from the said concussions.
Hate to say it but there’s no such thing as RNG, games like this use Pseudo RNG, which is basically a predetermined pattern.
To make it truly random you need a random source, like nature, wind blowing, waves crashing . . . Small companies dont pay for that kind of thing.
You will get the champs you want when they allow you to.
Fortunately, we don't need "truly random" numbers. Saying something isn't truly random in this context is saying nothing at all. Consider any source you personally consider to be random, like wind blowing (which is not "truly random" but whatever). Now record that source. If a computer program uses that prerecorded source, is it random? If it is, then any math function that encapsulates that numeric sequence is equally random (and it is a proven statement that all numeric sequences are constructable from mathematical functions). Conversely, if that isn't random, then "true randomness" doesn't exist, because there's no way to generate "true randomness" in a way that it is used instantaneously.
We don't need "truly random." We just need sequences that are unpredictable, cannot be manipulated by the players, and generate results indistinguishable from statistical randomness. Most pRNGs do, for the trivial case of selecting one of a couple hundred different options for a lootbox.
Yea he’s the guy thats always on this forum telling everyone they are wrong.
Computers cant do random, its a fact.
what? You clearly don't have any knowledge in computer science if you're saying this. Sure, computers can't do random but pseudo RNG isn't a "predetermined pattern". Maybe read a few articles before you make this absurd statement. Read about something called the "Mersenne Twister".
Also, think about this logically... Kabam doesn't benefit from constantly frustrating you. If the crystal algorithm was truly a controlled thing, then it would want to prevent you from quitting due to many bad pulls. Clearly, upon scrolling the forums, this isn't true.
Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation.
Ok I’m trying to make sure I have this right, so I worked out how many times before on average 5 crystals would be opened independently and they would all be taskmaster.
But what you calculated is say if someone just kept opening crystals how many on average before they get 5 taskmasters in a row?
And yet, every day they do random enough for everyone's purposes. Video game lootboxes are the easiest kind of random they do. The encrypted connection your browser uses to get to these forums, or your online banking account, or any other secure site requires that your computer generate random numbers for those connections to work. If the RNG they used was not statistically random, these connections would be trivial to break.
"Computers can't do random"? In an academic debate, maybe. In the real world:
Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation.
Ok I’m trying to make sure I have this right, so I worked out how many times before on average 5 crystals would be opened independently and they would all be taskmaster.
But what you calculated is say if someone just kept opening crystals how many on average before they get 5 taskmasters in a row?
Yep. You did the Yahtzee calculation: roll five, check if all Taskmaster, if not, reroll all five, check again.
I did: roll one. Roll another, roll another, roll another, roll another - check if the last five are Taskmaster, if not, roll another - check again if the previous five are all Taskmaster, if not, repeat.
Your number is smaller, but because each roll is five crystals, doing it your way you end up opening 5 x 7,962,624 = 39,813,120 crystals total (five at a time). My calculation looks at opening one crystal at a time and looking at the previous five, which means there are more ways to end up with five taskmasters.
To be clear, your way, if you roll one Groot and four Taskmasters, that's a complete failure. You reroll all of them. My way, if you roll Groot and then four Taskmasters, that's a fail but you have a chance to get to five in a row with one more crystal and could theoretically hit it on crystal #6. The 24^5 calculation presumes this is not an option.
Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation.
Ok I’m trying to make sure I have this right, so I worked out how many times before on average 5 crystals would be opened independently and they would all be taskmaster.
But what you calculated is say if someone just kept opening crystals how many on average before they get 5 taskmasters in a row?
Yep. You did the Yahtzee calculation: roll five, check if all Taskmaster, if not, reroll all five, check again.
I did: roll one. Roll another, roll another, roll another, roll another - check if the last five are Taskmaster, if not, roll another - check again if the previous five are all Taskmaster, if not, repeat.
Your number is smaller, but because each roll is five crystals, doing it your way you end up opening 5 x 7,962,624 = 39,813,120 crystals total (five at a time). My calculation looks at opening one crystal at a time and looking at the previous five, which means there are more ways to end up with five taskmasters.
To be clear, your way, if you roll one Groot and four Taskmasters, that's a complete failure. You reroll all of them. My way, if you roll Groot and then four Taskmasters, that's a fail but you have a chance to get to five in a row with one more crystal and could theoretically hit it on crystal #6. The 24^5 calculation presumes this is not an option.
Yeah I got you! 7.98million events seems smaller than yours but that’s 7.98m lots of 5 crystals.
Any champion 5 times in a row from a featured crystal is about a 0.0000003% chance (1/24 ^ 4). To get specifically taskmaster it's 0.00000001% chance. (1/24 ^ 5)
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in a million 7.9 Million
If I've done the calculations correctly (or rather if I've fed them to Wolfram Alpha correctly, I'm not solving them by hand) you will get five Taskmasters in a row on average every 8,308,824 openings. But since players open variable amounts of crystals, its hard to say what the odds against ever seeing this is. My guess is that this sort of thing happens about once per year out of all players opening those types of featured crystals.
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation. It is solving this set of recursive equations:
Assuming I set them up correctly. It has been a while since I've done these types of calculations. To determine the average number of openings given distributed openings among multiple players, you'd have to probably solve a generalized markovian, at which point I would probably write a python script to simulate the result a billion times and spit out an estimate.
Did you know that you can actually get paid to sit and bash a keyboard all day in order to create a random set of characters? Or indeed move a mouse around a picture and let the binary code give you the random numbers.
...and this is proof that getting 5 taskmasters in a row is rigged? And Kabam decide all the champions you get?
@Balm82 while I can see why you would get to that conclusion on hearing something like Pseudo RNG and assuming that must mean there's some flaw in it, it's simply not the case. These extremely informative comments by @DNA3000 explain the flaw in this kind of thinking
Actually, there are companies that audit and check the pseudoRNG of systems such as casinos - without independent auditing one cannot say for certain Mcoc is working properly.
I never said rigged! But I can see why people would think that. Its more like a hidden mechanic. These days many champs can do the same thing, and players should understand what the champs they have can do.
“ You will get the champs you want when they allow you to.”
If Kabam allow you to get champions then what is that other than rigged? If that’s a turn of phrase then fair enough, but I’m sure you see the implication it causes.
And yet, every day they do random enough for everyone's purposes. Video game lootboxes are the easiest kind of random they do. The encrypted connection your browser uses to get to these forums, or your online banking account, or any other secure site requires that your computer generate random numbers for those connections to work. If the RNG they used was not statistically random, these connections would be trivial to break.
"Computers can't do random"? In an academic debate, maybe. In the real world:
It’s easy to sound smart when one is in a field uncommon to most and commonly spoken by one daily.
1. Enough for everyone’s purposes - ? Ugh what? Everyone? Enough? 2. Easiest kind of random - video game casinos are in this same category as per the papers I’ve read and are noted to be easily flawed 3. the same code for rng in banking, browsing and mcoc is being used? monitored? verified? 4. trivial to break - only this parameter ensures security? 5. what of the papers that are not in the field of security, but in other fields of rng
“The amount of energy necessary to refute **** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” - and I don’t type quickly so many that many orders of magnitude.
If because its ‘random’ you pulled Herc as your first 2 5* which is completely plausible then you would ruin the game until Book2 . So no they dont allow you access to certain champs.
So you say that you never said it was rigged, and then you say that they don’t allow you access to certain champs? You are extremely inconsistent with your opinions. You’re quite obviously accusing them of rigging it by everyone’s definition of rigging.
Pick a stance and stick with it, if you’re going to accuse Kabam of rigging it you’ll need some strong evidence.
@Balm82 while I can see why you would get to that conclusion on hearing something like Pseudo RNG and assuming that must mean there's some flaw in it, it's simply not the case. These extremely informative comments by @DNA3000 explain the flaw in this kind of thinking
Actually, there are companies that audit and check the pseudoRNG of systems such as casinos - without independent auditing one cannot say for certain Mcoc is working properly.
Those independent audits are relatively simple, and far less stringent than something like DieHard or UO1. I've seen those audits: they focus on two specific things that gaming commissions are concerned about: payout odds and results skewing. They test the machines code and logs to ensure that a) the average payout of the machine is consistent with the intended payout odds, and b) the statistical distribution of the output (slot wheels, cards dealt for poker machines, etc) corresponds to the statistical expected distribution of those outputs. In the world of pRNG testing, these are trivial tests, but they correspond to what gaming commissions are most concerned about: fairness, and the appearance of fairness (which are two different things).
Technically, an independent audit doesn't verify anything is working properly. It determines if something is working within certain limits. No test an auditor can perform in a relatively short period of time can "prove" the RNGs in the slot machines don't have some sort of flaw. In fact, audited machines have subsequently been discovered to contain flaws. But the question is degree of certainty. If you want to know if MCOC's crystals contain some sort of subtle one in a billion flaw, there's no way for the players to ever figure that out. But there's also no way for the players to ever notice. Conversely, if you want to disprove a crystal conspiracy like "the crystals generate tripes way more often than real random crystals would" that is a testable premise, because any such flaw would materialize in testing that players could conduct. You wouldn't need an independent audit to prove such a flaw existed.
And yet, every day they do random enough for everyone's purposes. Video game lootboxes are the easiest kind of random they do. The encrypted connection your browser uses to get to these forums, or your online banking account, or any other secure site requires that your computer generate random numbers for those connections to work. If the RNG they used was not statistically random, these connections would be trivial to break.
"Computers can't do random"? In an academic debate, maybe. In the real world:
It’s easy to sound smart when one is in a field uncommon to most and commonly spoken by one daily.
1. Enough for everyone’s purposes - ? Ugh what? Everyone? Enough? 2. Easiest kind of random - video game casinos are in this same category as per the papers I’ve read and are noted to be easily flawed 3. the same code for rng in banking, browsing and mcoc is being used? monitored? verified? 4. trivial to break - only this parameter ensures security? 5. what of the papers that are not in the field of security, but in other fields of rng
“The amount of energy necessary to refute **** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” - and I don’t type quickly so many that many orders of magnitude.
1. I've described what "enough" is in this context several times in this thread: histographic spectral fidelity (all reasonable pulls and sequences of pulls are equally likely), unpredictability (players have no way to determine future pulls by observing past pulls) and immutability (players cannot influence future pulls in a predictable way by any opening strategy). That is "enough."
2. Slot machines are not in the same category as online gaming lootboxes in this context for a number of different reasons, mostly related to money and their regulated industry status. But within the context of software implementation, they also suffer from the fact that they are implemented within strict hardware limits, which can place constraints on the RNG implementation that you wouldn't have in an online game. In an optimized hardware implementation, it is harder to implement a good RNG than in an online game with practically unlimited entropy sources and no real limits on the size of implementation (relative to the rest of the systems).
3. Now you're getting silly. In the context of what I was saying, I was talking about a browser connecting to such services. Of course the code is going to be the same: it is the same browser.
4. If you're asking for a lesson in information systems security, that's beyond the scope of this thread. Saying that something would be trivial to break if it contained a particular flaw does not say that this is the only important parameter. It says it is a critical one.
5. If you had actually read the links as opposed to just their titles. or if you were just remotely familiar with what RFCs are, you'd know that RFC 4086 is not a "paper." It is a best practices working document whose intended audience are people who implement software systems for, within, or connected to the Internet. It is basically a rubber meets the road guide to help people who work in the real world. It is presented to counter the notion that "computers cannot do 'real' random" means anything of practical value. In the real world "computers cannot do real random" means the same thing as "nails are not true fasteners" means to carpenters.
If because its ‘random’ you pulled Herc as your first 2 5* which is completely plausible then you would ruin the game until Book2 . So no they dont allow you access to certain champs.
I know someone who pulled Herc twice within their first three 5* pulls. So I guess they are fine with players ruining the game until Book 2 as long as it takes three 5* crystals to do it.
I'm doubly amused that Kabam literally gave away 4* Herc just before people starting rolling alts to farm units for gifting. For a company that is supposed to be manipulating crystals to ensure that players don't get too powerful champs too early, they seem to be horrible at it.
“The amount of energy necessary to refute **** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” - and I don’t type quickly so many that many orders of magnitude.
To prove something is false given no common reference takes a huge amount of time. To prove someone doesn't know what they are talking about to actual people with expertise takes almost no time at all.
This is something the Dunning Kruger crowd doesn't understand. Short of showing my pay stubs, it would be difficult for me to prove that I have game development experience to a random person. But it isn't hard to demonstrate to other people with that experience. Or for that matter, to actual game developers.
Arguing whether computers can generate "truly random numbers" is mostly a philosophical or academic debate. We can go around and around arguing semantics. But for the people who actually work in connected fields, they know that assertion is meaningless and they understand what I'm referring to when I talk about "random enough" because that's essentially a term of art. We might debate the parameters of what random enough is in different areas, but we wouldn't argue whether such a thing actually exists. We'd immediately peg anyone debating the existence of "random enough" as someone with no knowledge or experience talking about things they know nothing about.
If someone thinks that pRNGs are not "truly random" and thus are not truly fair or proper, I doubt anything will convince them otherwise. But the world isn't going to stop and wait for them to change their mind either.
Comments
Pretty damn unlikely for one person, but with how many people open crystals it would be surprising if it didn't happen to someone.
If the odds of something is 0.5, then you'd expect 2 events on average will get you one occurrence. So you'd expect about 330,000 events before someone got 5 of any champion in a row from featured crystals. And you'd expect about 7.96 million events before someone pulled specifically TaskMaster from 5 crystals 5 times.
I don't know if these stats will help you feel better about 5 TaskMaster's @Broken (I rather fear your username just got a hell of a lot more appropriate), but at the very least you can now consider yourself one in
a million7.9 Millionhttps://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2057143#Comment_2057143
@Balm82 while I can see why you would get to that conclusion on hearing something like Pseudo RNG and assuming that must mean there's some flaw in it, it's simply not the case. These extremely informative comments by @DNA3000 explain the flaw in this kind of thinking
DNA is one of the more patient and helpful members on the forum, something tells me that the fact you're so against him may point to the fact that you are one of the people who is wrong a lot..
Before someone jumps in to correct that number, that's not the odds against five crystals all simultaneously being Taskmaster. That would be one in 24^5 = 7,962,624. But the average number of consecutive openings required to get five in a row is a completely different calculation. It is solving this set of recursive equations:
Assuming I set them up correctly. It has been a while since I've done these types of calculations. To determine the average number of openings given distributed openings among multiple players, you'd have to probably solve a generalized markovian, at which point I would probably write a python script to simulate the result a billion times and spit out an estimate.
Thanks for the @SpideyFunko now for buisness
@Broken Taskmaster is a great champion that only lacks in his unfortunate low base damage but if awakened and played properly he is a power house, he is an annoying defensive champion and great offense if played right. The stacking concussions can lead to outstanding AAR and also he gains the burst from the said concussions.
We don't need "truly random." We just need sequences that are unpredictable, cannot be manipulated by the players, and generate results indistinguishable from statistical randomness. Most pRNGs do, for the trivial case of selecting one of a couple hundred different options for a lootbox.
Also, think about this logically... Kabam doesn't benefit from constantly frustrating you. If the crystal algorithm was truly a controlled thing, then it would want to prevent you from quitting due to many bad pulls. Clearly, upon scrolling the forums, this isn't true.
But what you calculated is say if someone just kept opening crystals how many on average before they get 5 taskmasters in a row?
And yet, every day they do random enough for everyone's purposes. Video game lootboxes are the easiest kind of random they do. The encrypted connection your browser uses to get to these forums, or your online banking account, or any other secure site requires that your computer generate random numbers for those connections to work. If the RNG they used was not statistically random, these connections would be trivial to break.
"Computers can't do random"? In an academic debate, maybe. In the real world:
RFC 4086: Best Practice Randomness Requirements for Security
TestUO1: A successor to the Diehard statistical tests for software random number generators
I did: roll one. Roll another, roll another, roll another, roll another - check if the last five are Taskmaster, if not, roll another - check again if the previous five are all Taskmaster, if not, repeat.
Your number is smaller, but because each roll is five crystals, doing it your way you end up opening 5 x 7,962,624 = 39,813,120 crystals total (five at a time). My calculation looks at opening one crystal at a time and looking at the previous five, which means there are more ways to end up with five taskmasters.
To be clear, your way, if you roll one Groot and four Taskmasters, that's a complete failure. You reroll all of them. My way, if you roll Groot and then four Taskmasters, that's a fail but you have a chance to get to five in a row with one more crystal and could theoretically hit it on crystal #6. The 24^5 calculation presumes this is not an option.
If Kabam allow you to get champions then what is that other than rigged? If that’s a turn of phrase then fair enough, but I’m sure you see the implication it causes.
It’s easy to sound smart when one is in a field uncommon to most and commonly spoken by one daily.
1. Enough for everyone’s purposes - ? Ugh what? Everyone? Enough?
2. Easiest kind of random - video game casinos are in this same category as per the papers I’ve read and are noted to be easily flawed
3. the same code for rng in banking, browsing and mcoc is being used? monitored? verified?
4. trivial to break - only this parameter ensures security?
5. what of the papers that are not in the field of security, but in other fields of rng
“The amount of energy necessary to refute **** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” - and I don’t type quickly so many that many orders of magnitude.
Pick a stance and stick with it, if you’re going to accuse Kabam of rigging it you’ll need some strong evidence.
Technically, an independent audit doesn't verify anything is working properly. It determines if something is working within certain limits. No test an auditor can perform in a relatively short period of time can "prove" the RNGs in the slot machines don't have some sort of flaw. In fact, audited machines have subsequently been discovered to contain flaws. But the question is degree of certainty. If you want to know if MCOC's crystals contain some sort of subtle one in a billion flaw, there's no way for the players to ever figure that out. But there's also no way for the players to ever notice. Conversely, if you want to disprove a crystal conspiracy like "the crystals generate tripes way more often than real random crystals would" that is a testable premise, because any such flaw would materialize in testing that players could conduct. You wouldn't need an independent audit to prove such a flaw existed.
2. Slot machines are not in the same category as online gaming lootboxes in this context for a number of different reasons, mostly related to money and their regulated industry status. But within the context of software implementation, they also suffer from the fact that they are implemented within strict hardware limits, which can place constraints on the RNG implementation that you wouldn't have in an online game. In an optimized hardware implementation, it is harder to implement a good RNG than in an online game with practically unlimited entropy sources and no real limits on the size of implementation (relative to the rest of the systems).
3. Now you're getting silly. In the context of what I was saying, I was talking about a browser connecting to such services. Of course the code is going to be the same: it is the same browser.
4. If you're asking for a lesson in information systems security, that's beyond the scope of this thread. Saying that something would be trivial to break if it contained a particular flaw does not say that this is the only important parameter. It says it is a critical one.
5. If you had actually read the links as opposed to just their titles. or if you were just remotely familiar with what RFCs are, you'd know that RFC 4086 is not a "paper." It is a best practices working document whose intended audience are people who implement software systems for, within, or connected to the Internet. It is basically a rubber meets the road guide to help people who work in the real world. It is presented to counter the notion that "computers cannot do 'real' random" means anything of practical value. In the real world "computers cannot do real random" means the same thing as "nails are not true fasteners" means to carpenters.
I'm doubly amused that Kabam literally gave away 4* Herc just before people starting rolling alts to farm units for gifting. For a company that is supposed to be manipulating crystals to ensure that players don't get too powerful champs too early, they seem to be horrible at it.
This is something the Dunning Kruger crowd doesn't understand. Short of showing my pay stubs, it would be difficult for me to prove that I have game development experience to a random person. But it isn't hard to demonstrate to other people with that experience. Or for that matter, to actual game developers.
Arguing whether computers can generate "truly random numbers" is mostly a philosophical or academic debate. We can go around and around arguing semantics. But for the people who actually work in connected fields, they know that assertion is meaningless and they understand what I'm referring to when I talk about "random enough" because that's essentially a term of art. We might debate the parameters of what random enough is in different areas, but we wouldn't argue whether such a thing actually exists. We'd immediately peg anyone debating the existence of "random enough" as someone with no knowledge or experience talking about things they know nothing about.
If someone thinks that pRNGs are not "truly random" and thus are not truly fair or proper, I doubt anything will convince them otherwise. But the world isn't going to stop and wait for them to change their mind either.
You pop a crystal you get a champ or particular resource.