Mirek
Member
posted 06-21-18 11:00 AM EDT (US)
While playing the last mission in Keepers campaign, Gabriel cast Power leak. I had lots of mana at hand, so I cast two Disjunctions with 75% chance of success. First one failed, second one succeeded. Before my Spell ward came online, that pesky highman made another Power leak. So after some hungry times I started dispelling again. EIGHT DISJUNCTIONS IN A ROW FAILED, even with the projected chance of success way above 50%. I even tried to load an old saved position and retry all the dispelling with different amounts of mana. No way - over twenty failed dispels in a row. If the presented percentages are valid, the chance of this happening is one in several thousand.
So either I was extremely unlucky, or there is a bug in probability calculations, or there is some other mechanism at play. Any thoughts?
Troyer IV
Member
posted 06-22-18 06:30 PM
EDT (US)
1 / 6
The way the programming works, if I remember from a thread loooong ago is that each iteration has the same string if every action prior is the same.
So say you open the save on Day 21 or whatever, and go straight to Disjunction each time. Each time you'll get the same result. Because it's the same string each time.
Now, if you open Day 21 and do some other stuff, that changes the string, thus altering the new iteration. And that will potentially result in a new sequence that gives you a success.
It's true of every event, be it a spell or fast battle. Same stuff Everytime from a loaded save file with the same action taken each time. Gotta change up the actions taken to result in something different.
That's all I can really offer.
Mirek
Member
posted 06-26-18 02:33 PM
EDT (US)
2 / 6
Thank you, Troyer.
Saved random seed is probably not the cause, I tried disjuncting many times over without loading. And after the load, I certainly didn't do exactly the same things as before.
I'm not even sure if the seed gets saved in AoW at all. I tested it by loading positions just before a fight and replicating the same opening moves (TC). The AI responded the same, but probability outcomes (hit/miss, special attacks etc.) ended differently almost every time.
If I were a programmer, I would happily calculate and save result of next iteration of every particular action in advance to prevent players from save/load cheating. Like in HOMM: if astrologers proclaim a week of plague, I can't change it by loading autosave and ending the turn again, because the result was calculated a week ago. But this can only work for fixed probabilities, not for Disjunction. And it doesn't explain so many failed rolls.
Well, never mind. I'm just too nitpicky :-).
Troyer IV
Member
posted 06-26-18 05:15 PM
EDT (US)
3 / 6
Nah, I get it. That's super bizarre. You clearly know more about it; I was regurgitating something I'm pretty sure I read on this site years ago, so no worries.
Mac_Biodiesel
Member
posted 03-06-19 11:18 PM
EDT (US)
4 / 6
Troyer is correct, and it's easy to reproduce if you set up a large battle of say 4 stacks of 8 against 3 stacks of 8. Save right before it, and do auto combat. Reload and do auto combat. Rinse and repeat, and you'll see the exact same result every time.
That said, I'd think that if you changed the amount of mana spent on Disjunction, then that would be enough to change the seed, but maybe not. Regardless, I don't think it's a bug. Either very bad luck (which I've also had with disjunction) or the seed.
Mirek
Member
posted 05-15-22 07:59 AM
EDT (US)
5 / 6
After some extensive experimentation (had to dispel seven Masteries and two Power leaks while playing Last stand before destruction), here is the result: the amount of mana you put in Disjunction doesn't matter at all. The result is completely random and known in advance, before you start casting the spell. There may be some minimal amount you have to invest, I think the threshold lies somewhere around 10 % probability, but there's definitely no point in using more than that. Also, the random seed probably doesn't get updated when Disjunction is cast, so there's no point in casting it several times in a row.
Winning strategy: try Disjunction. Failed? Go have some fight to shake the random number generator, then try another Disjunction. Repeat until success or out of mana.
int19h
Member
posted 07-30-22 06:26 PM
EDT (US)
6 / 6
The random seed is persistent, but it seems that some actions that have a random element do use it, while others do not.