ZERO fives two games in a row

[Germanicus Maximus]

Their RNG has the feel of a 1975 RNG for a FORTRAN program running on a Motorola 6800. Change the seed, get a new set of numbers? Yes, but when the seed isn't changed between rolls (and the seed is a number between say, 2 and 12) the result is sometimes the same as the seed. Anyway, it sucks to play Catan because the numbers repeat, and the folks that bank on this that I've played against aren't cheaters, they just aren't nice. I didn't see anyone write up a bug, perhaps because like me, they didn't have the game number handy. If the game number is necessary, then why vote? I didn't play in your game.

[Stroom]

Their RNG has the feel of a 1975 RNG for a FORTRAN program running on a Motorola 6800. Change the seed, get a new set of numbers? Yes, but when the seed isn't changed between rolls (and the seed is a number between say, 2 and 12) the result is sometimes the same as the seed. Anyway, it sucks to play Catan because the numbers repeat, and the folks that bank on this that I've played against aren't cheaters, they just aren't nice. I didn't see anyone write up a bug, perhaps because like me, they didn't have the game number handy. If the game number is necessary, then why vote? I didn't play in your game.

This is the kind of person who does not understand how randomness works.

[SadPuffin]

I would like to add that this situation is significantly worsened by BGA's current rules for Catan with the new "random number placement" nonsense. That inevitably results in players having all of their eggs stuck in one basket, needing 5s or whatever for a fair shot at winning. It skews the game far more heavily toward luck and it just isn't fun anymore. I used to play like ten games a day but I haven't played in weeks because that new rule is horrid.

[MouseRat23]

The thing that really ticks me off about all of this is that statistics at the end of the game are just wrong. I've charted multiple games and they just don't add up. Look at the number of turns and then add up all the rolls from the statistics and they never match up. I also just finished a game were no 5s rolled the entire game. 7s were also barely rolled. I know I'm probably just frustrated because the robber sat on my 8 spot for so long and I went multiple rounds (like 5 rounds) without receiving a single card while 9 after 9 after 9 was rolled. No one can convince me that BGA doesn't have a serious number lock problem. Feels too much like there is something in the algorithm that is broken or manipulated.

[euklid314]

The statistics at the end of the game are always correct. The only thing that is truely very confusing is the fact that the numbers given are percent values, not absolute values! So, if it says 8 for rolled 5s, this does not mean that 8 5s had been rolled but 8% of all rolls were 5s.

The total number of rolls can be extracted quite easily because each players number of moves is included in the statistics.

Since you wrote that nobody can convince you that your expectations on the behavior of random number sequences might be incorrect, I will not try.

[Mathew5000]

The thing that really ticks me off about all of this is that statistics at the end of the game are just wrong. I've charted multiple games and they just don't add up.

Are you aware that the statistics are showing you not the actual number of times each number was rolled, but the percentage of times?

If you want to improve this, please vote for this suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=72332

[MouseRat23]

The thing that really ticks me off about all of this is that statistics at the end of the game are just wrong. I've charted multiple games and they just don't add up.

Are you aware that the statistics are showing you not the actual number of times each number was rolled, but the percentage of times?

If you want to improve this, please vote for this suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=72332

I was not aware that it is percentage. Thank you for clarifying that for me!

[MouseRat23]

The statistics at the end of the game are always correct. The only thing that is truely very confusing is the fact that the numbers given are percent values, not absolute values! So, if it says 8 for rolled 5s, this does not mean that 8 5s had been rolled but 8% of all rolls were 5s.

The total number of rolls can be extracted quite easily because each players number of moves is included in the statistics.

Since you wrote that nobody can convince you that your expectations on the behavior of random number sequences might be incorrect, I will not try.

Sorry, I probably came in a little hot after a disappointing series of games. It just feels manipulated, which I realize could just be largely a biased perspective on my part. I'll keep playing the game, but will probably complain a little here and there about it

[badboymikecool]

I too once foolishly thought that the dice rolls were not random, so I made a Python script and scraped the dice roll frequencies from 1,119 Catan games and found the following distribution:

- 2: 2.7%
- 3: 5.8%
- 4: 8.3%
- 5: 11.1%
- 6: 13.9%
- 7: 16.3%
- 8: 14.2%
- 9: 11.2%
- 10: 8.3%
- 11: 5.5%
- 12: 2.8%

[Sjarmtrollet]

I would like to add that this situation is significantly worsened by BGA's current rules for Catan with the new "random number placement" nonsense. That inevitably results in players having all of their eggs stuck in one basket, needing 5s or whatever for a fair shot at winning. It skews the game far more heavily toward luck and it just isn't fun anymore. I used to play like ten games a day but I haven't played in weeks because that new rule is horrid.

Then just don't play in the arena. It's completely in your power to only join games without random numbers.