939ers: Try Clicking the Center Box FIRST For a Better Payoff in Prize Box Bonuts.
I reached level 939 a week ago and have been KEM farming the whole time since then. Being short of game cash, I avoided spending extra $ on a second or third choice from the prize boxes to get extra bonuts. Then I tried just clicking on the center box ONLY and guess what? You will almost always get 2 or 3 bonuts and only rarely get 1. If I happen to get 1 only, I then spend the $ to buy another box with a guarantee of 2 or 3 from that choice. It seems to pay off far better than randomly choosing the left or right prize boxes first. I'm sure this no great revelation to long-time 939ers but I thought it might help those new to the lofty heights of TSTO's maximum level.
Level 939 (and holding)
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Yes, I'm a real fantasy author!
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I think the game is pretty well randomized here and we've likely all tried out various tactics.
The odds of getting 1 donut on the first box you click is 1/3 and every strategy I've tried, in the long run, works out to this.
Thanks for sharing in any case. If you are right or your strategy keeps giving you a better average, awesome! ... I'm permanently stuck on box 3 first thanks to my early experience.
It came out: 31.666 box left, 34.333 center box, 34.0009 right box.
Same with the boxes from Maggie.
Same with the dog track.
Same with the go-kart track.
^^Yes, this.
This is sometimes referred to in the literature as the clustering illusion — the tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data.
It doesn't matter if it is uniform or not. What matters is that is random. With 300 you should have get roughly 100 each. But if you have 95+95+110 that doesn't mean that it is not random, just that you're sample was probably too small.
Another thing I noticed is if I get 1 on the first try, I go 2 boxes to the right and about 4/5 times that will have 3.
Choose box 1, 1 donut, open box 3.
Choose box 2, 1 donut, open box 1.
Choose box 3, 1 donut, open box 2.
In theory it should be random, practical evidence says it isn't. Just saying.
You may not be familiar with it, but in programming a truely random number is very difficult to achieve and the subject of much discussion amoung computer science experts.
Care to share your stats with us? I have tracked this as well, and simple statistical tests have come back to show a pattern entirely consistent with random assignment of boxes each time. There will always be anomalies such as someone getting 3 donuts in the middle box 10 times in a row that can cause them to attribute the results to a pattern that isn't actually there.
Computers use pseudorandom numbers for that reason, but the results are basically indistinguishable at the level humans generally use them.
You are being far too literal about the 1 in 3 thing. It is not a statistical anomaly for it not be exactly one third each. If you tossed a coin 300 times it is extremely unlikely you would get exactly 150 heads and 150 tails, and even a 130/170 split would not be particularly suspicious given the relatively small sample size.
I have been 939 for a while and my experience would indicate that it is a perfectly straightforward pseudorandom selection every time ... and that is the point. We perceive patterns because that is what humans do and odd-seeming runs of certain results happen because every set of boxes is selected at random at the time, and has zero bearing on what the next selection might be.
It is also easier to program a random selection than a complex pattern, which would make it the logical design choice for something that appears so frequently in the game.
And ... why do do many people call us computer science experts rather than what we are, which is computer scientists?
Edit: I'm presuming you want more than the distribution percentages. Left, center, right.