939 bonuts choices.... is it random?
i'm not convinced it's random, and feel I get 3 donuts a LOT less than 1/3 of the time, and go through runs of several "doh, only one". anyone else got any feels about this? has it been discussed b...
Forum Discussion
"KILLAchievement;c-1628114" wrote:
Here is why I don't believe it is random. Last night I cleared my KEM farm and had 8 rounds of bonuts. I then opened it up on my iPhone this morning and it had not saved. So I went to my iPad which I used to clear the farm and it said my other device didn't save the town, so I went back to the iPhone, opened it and it saved the town (dumb me for losing what I did last night!). Then I continued to play on my iPhone. Then when I cleared my KEM farm, all 8 choices for 3 bonuts were in the exact same box order as they were last night when I cleared them. So therefore they cannot be random, or they randomly generate a certain amount in advance. The chances that all 8 boxes were generated at random a second time, on a different device none the less, and happened to be in the exact same order as the night before...well those odds would be ridiculously high.
Also on another note, the excavation gems were in the exact same squares too.
I think what is needed here is an understanding of random numbers generated by computers. Computers can't just think up a random number like a human can (although there is some argument that humans can't either). Computers can only execute specific instructions. When a programming language implements a random number generator, typically it is a series of complex, chaotic math functions performed on a starting number (called a seed) to yield a seemingly "random" result. Often the last result is used as the next seed.
Now, because of this, when a random number generator is given the same seed, the same sequence of "random" numbers are generated. Not ideal when you need true randomness, but there are ways of improving the randomness. One trick I use is to seed the generator with the current time as it's highly unlikely that people will do things at the exact same moment.
On the other hand, using a repeatable sequence of "random" numbers can be useful. For example, a player could keep interrupting a random event before the game is saved in the hopes of getting a more beneficial outcome the next time. So EA could combat that by using the same seed, so that the random events happen the same way (perhaps using the last save time or something).
I'm not saying for sure that this is what EA is doing, but as a computer programmer myself, it seems like a reasonable theory.
