RNG in Cyanide Blood Bowl

Ken

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They get to catch the snotling on a 3+, or 2+ if its an accurately thrown snotling, right?

I'm imagining a snot getting treated like a bomb, last one holding him when he dies has to pay for the dry-cleaning
 

John McGuirk

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To drop a quick plug here, coaches involved in this season's Crunch Cup may be interested to know that their total luck tallies for d6, 2d6 and block dice - both pure, and also in comparison to that of the opponents they faced - have been lovingly scraped from the stark edifices (edifici?) of the BBM stat mines, and will be no-less-lovingly rendered in (quasi-) readable form in the season's finale edition of the Crunch Cup Courier! Goodness, that was a long sentence. Definite emphasis on the quasi.

So yes: all your suspicions as to your team's slice from Nuffle's garters of generosity are set to be either confirmed or thrown into world-shattering disarray! :D
 

Minnels

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Looking forward to it! :)

What you guys do in the courier is amazing. Love reading it <3
 

Mr Suplex

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This:

And:


RNG has been checked, and it's more than capable for this purpose - it's actually more random than your average real D6 or Block dice.
It's also perceptual bias - you remember the bad rolls (the 5/6 chances that failed) more than you do the good rolls (when you rolled that 6 for the interception for example).

What do you mean by this? Can you explain? I have a few people in my league complaining that the RNG is highly flawed, and I'm curious how the RNG was checked. I think its fine, but I'd like to point them toward evidence that it is ok. Thanks.
 

phototropia

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does anyone know how is the RNG implemented in cyanide anyway?

time seeded random ?
 

Mr Suplex

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I've read that it is based on something called a Mersenne Twister, but I don't know much more than that. Was hoping to get a link with some better info to quiet down all the folks in my league complaining about it.
 

Nikolai II

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Mersenne twister: Mersenne twister - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The best explanation I'd give is "imagine cutting out a million cards, all with a one and a skull on it, then cut out another million with a two and a skull/pow symbol, etc.".."then take the six million cards, shuffle them thoroughly, and stack them so you can't see the front side"

That's basically the Mersenne. The same deck will be reused forever. The twist (or seed) is the only nearly random thing - at the start of the match you cut the deck, so you start basically anywhere. And with six million rolls (actually loads more) you won't be able to tell which streak you are in before the game is already over.*

So even if all the rolls are already there when you start playing (just as the cards when you are playing blackjack) it's still random enough.

(* Also the game will toss some cards without looking at them at certain points in time, adding further randomness. Each individual "dieroll" will still have an almost perfect 1/6 to come up. The error is somewhere in the seventh or eight decimal - still more stable than most tabletop dice where difference will pop up in the fourth or possibly fifth decimal)

Anyway, most of the discussions were in the Cyanide forums, and I don't know if they survived their accidental wipe of their own forum. But this Steam thread is pretty amusing, although the OP there is probably the one your disbelieving players will try to agree with. :p
There has to be some bug with the die rolls - Steam Users' Forums
 

Mr Suplex

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Mersenne twister: Mersenne twister - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The best explanation I'd give is "imagine cutting out a million cards, all with a one and a skull on it, then cut out another million with a two and a skull/pow symbol, etc.".."then take the six million cards, shuffle them thoroughly, and stack them so you can't see the front side"

That's basically the Mersenne. The same deck will be reused forever. The twist (or seed) is the only nearly random thing - at the start of the match you cut the deck, so you start basically anywhere. And with six million rolls (actually loads more) you won't be able to tell which streak you are in before the game is already over.*

So even if all the rolls are already there when you start playing (just as the cards when you are playing blackjack) it's still random enough.

(* Also the game will toss some cards without looking at them at certain points in time, adding further randomness. Each individual "dieroll" will still have an almost perfect 1/6 to come up. The error is somewhere in the seventh or eight decimal - still more stable than most tabletop dice where difference will pop up in the fourth or possibly fifth decimal)

Anyway, most of the discussions were in the Cyanide forums, and I don't know if they survived their accidental wipe of their own forum. But this Steam thread is pretty amusing, although the OP there is probably the one your disbelieving players will try to agree with. :p
There has to be some bug with the die rolls - Steam Users' Forums

Thanks, much appreciated...and my apologize for the thread necromancy.

Yeah, I've read that Steam thread as well, and came across VoodooMike's name, but it does seem that much of the original content has been lost. I'll try first with explaining that it is a Mersenne Twist and see if that can squelch the whining. :cool:
 

Nikolai II

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The big thing is that people are wired to see weirdness when they fail, and to want to have the odds work in their favour.

It's gone so bad that many computer game designers have had to remove randomness, since it upset people. Instead automatic results have been added in the later editions of Civilization and Europa Universalis, since people got upset their large armies could get beaten by more primitive (Civ) or smaller (EU) armies, despite this being things that have happened in real life..
 

20phoenix

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It's gone so bad that many computer game designers have had to remove randomness, since it upset people. Instead automatic results have been added in the later editions of Civilization and Europa Universalis, since people got upset their large armies could get beaten by more primitive (Civ) or smaller (EU) armies, despite this being things that have happened in real life..

Have you got any information on this? I'm a massive CK2 fan and am looking at picking up EU4 in the steam sale. However reading this has put me off a bit. Part of the reason I love paradox games is that element of the unknown. I despise strategy games which are all about fast twitch responses and/or zerg rushing. That just not strategy.
 

Minnels

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Have you got any information on this? I'm a massive CK2 fan and am looking at picking up EU4 in the steam sale. However reading this has put me off a bit. Part of the reason I love paradox games is that element of the unknown. I despise strategy games which are all about fast twitch responses and/or zerg rushing. That just not strategy.

Buy it! I liked CK2 but just love EU4.
The fights have dice rolls and they can screw you over (or make you win fights you should have lost) but most of the time you can count on terrain, good leaders and tech if you want to win hard fights. It's a game about numbers... lots of numbers.


Oh... and nice information on how cyanide dices work. Why make it random in this way? It kind of explains why it feels so less random than rolling a dice irl. They totally need to make a new shuffle machine for those cards :p
 

Nikolai II

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EU IV isn't gimped by it, and as I said, it's because "it makes sense", so it won't hurt your immersion. The changes were made in EU3, and part of the reason was that weak armies would otherwise (quite logically) run away to fight another day, causing micromanagement as you ran it down. First solution which is what I meant was to include an "auto-kill" function based on relative army size.

They also made gameplay changes* to Hearts of Iron which made it act less like a historical battle simulation and more like a game, but neither makes EU or HOI into bad games.

(In HOI units did not fight worse as they took losses, which a math buff noted meant that HOI battles played out close to real battles in that an initial advantage didn't equate a continually improving situation. (And also correlating with the note that 90% of casualties are caused by 10% of the troops, usually artillerymen.)
But they changed it anyway to the more game-like "personnel losses lead to an equal percentage loss of combat effectiveness)

Aneeway.. Blood Bowl. VERY swingy.
(Paradox games, very complex.)
 

Valcurdra

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Thanks to the experienced players that posted about the RNG in cyanide BB.

I am on a shocking streak with interceptions and was starting to question the randomness.

10 of my last 11 throws have been intercepted including 2 in which i had safe throw and failed the roll lol.

Guess its just bad luck
 

Nikolai II

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Something is trying to teach you about risk management - like "don't give them a chance to intercept at all".

If I intercept with a player that would gain a skill from the intercept, I'm close to 50% success rate it seems. :rolleyes:
 

Jakerbeef

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That was an interesting point about the instantaneous nature of online BB. A guy goes from failed Dodge to dead apo dead in microseconds. Whereas in TT the whole grim moment is stretched over a paralysing half minute or so, complete with sweaty palms and brow furrowed agony.
 

Valcurdra

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Something is trying to teach you about risk management - like "don't give them a chance to intercept at all".

If I intercept with a player that would gain a skill from the intercept, I'm close to 50% success rate it seems. :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong I never throw over a player unless I have no choice.

Only tends to happen on broken plays or most commonly in shorthanded situations.

Also for the record got intercepted by a mummy twice in one drive the other day. Total is up to 13 of last 15 throws over an opponent intercepted now.

Also forgot to mention during this streak I have never gotten an interception in my favor either.

Actually enjoying keeping track of this now!
 

Nikolai II

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Sounds like you're in an interesting streak, and a less likely one than when every sideline bounce I kicked would always become a touchback. Always. :D
 

Mephiston

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I remember that when I was playing the TT version of BB many years ago... between 1996-2003... that it felt like when ever I rolled 2 D6's together, especially on armor and injury rolls, that I would always roll a 6 on one dice and a 1 on the other (and it did feel like most of my rolls where 7's... which of course is statisticly correct).

Which was mostly frustrating when it came to armor rolls and injury rolls, since most opponents I played against had 8+ in AV, and a 7 or less on the injury table was Stunned (3rd ed BB rules). So a lot of the frustration came from being oh so close, but yet so far away from getting through armor, or knocking someone off the pitch.

Of course I am sure I was mostly imagining it... and we (as humans) do have a tendency to remember the really good, and the really bad, parts of something, and forget about all the stuff inbetween those. XD
 
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