“Red Light Syndrome”
We tend to notice things more when they are unusual, when they are annoying, and when they happen at what seems like a bad time.
Ever tried to drive somewhere and you hit every red light? Ever noticed that this always seems to happen when you are running late or in a hurry? Of course the traffic lights don’t know anything about your schedule. You just notice the red lights more when you hit a lot of them, and especially when you are in a hurry. I’ve actually tried to look at this phenomenon and noticed that sometimes I actually hit all the green lights. But I have to pay attention to notice them. When I hit all the red lights I need no effort to notice it.
This happens in games as well. You notice the 0/6 because it irritates you; you notice the 4/6 much less because it’s a good outcome (and also because you “expect it” since you are “overdue” from having so many 0/6 results).
I have in the past remarked that I never seem to get 3/3 from hard missions. Yesterday I paid close attention and it happened to me 3 times, on different characters. But I probably would have glossed over it if I hadn’t deliberately been paying attention.
The “in a hurry” part comes in with a game when you are trying to get that last shard or item drop. You have 79/80 shards and you sim 10 times and get 0 drops. Clearly the game must be deliberately torturing you by lowering the odds! It’s not true. I’ve actually examined this and found no difference in drop rates as I approach an unlock point. It just seems this way because you are paying much more attention to shard #80 than, say, shard #17.
So, no, the game is not trying to prevent you from getting that character you want. You are just noticing every failed attempt because it's important to you.
The same thing happens when you are running low on a resource. Say you only have enough energy for 4 tries at something.. you'll notice if you fail at those 4 much more than 4 tries first thing after a refresh.
