Smuggler Archive
Thread: Random prediction on slicing?
Cloudchasing
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:22 am
#54
Samaw wrote:
Does anyone else feel that they can predict the weapon slice with about 80% accuracy?
Of course!!
I can predict with 50% accuracy that any slice on a weapon will be damage.
Once it is determined within 50% accuracy that it will be damage, I can the predict with a FULL 30% accuracy that the slice will be between 18% and 32%, possibly.
Dude, how much longer do we have to answer this QUESTION?!!!!!!!!
Samaw
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:27 am
#55
have you tried using a tell slice to see what color give is doing what at the time and then slicing the important weapon and only doing it if the color is the one that gave you damage on the tell slice or the opposite if the tell was a speed slice.
Cloudchasing wrote:
Samaw wrote:
Does anyone else feel that they can predict the weapon slice with about 80% accuracy?
Of course!!
I can predict with 50% accuracy that any slice on a weapon will be damage.
Once it is determined within 50% accuracy that it will be damage, I can the predict with a FULL 30% accuracy that the slice will be between 18% and 32%, possibly.
Dude, how much longer do we have to answer this QUESTION?!!!!!!!!
NickHeel
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:43 am
#57
*sneaks in like Snidley Whiplash*
*pulls classic TNT & alarm clock bomb from behind his back*
*wires it into the corner of the thread*
AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!! 
*rubs his hands together all evil like*
yimaz
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:44 am
#58
I usually just call Miss Cleo (physic friends)before I slice any personal weapons. 
NickHeel
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:53 am
#59
yimaz wrote:
I usually just call Miss Cleo (physic friends)before I slice any personal weapons.
DUDE! Stay away from my mom!
Maxil
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:54 am
#60
*hears the faint beating of war-drums as the smugglers begin to get home from school/work and will read this post...*
DRWolfe
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:58 am
#61
I'm sorry, I know I'm supposed to let this die, and I have been away from slicing for awhile, but what the ... is a "tell slice"?
Pyrewolf
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:37 am
#62
I think you're all being a little hard on Samaw. He's alleging to have found somewhat of a pattern to slicing and he's being mocked and laughed at without remorse. It's precisely this sort of attitude that anyone with a new idea that does't fit within an accepted paradigm faces.
Some of the greatest minds in history were ridiculed at the time for their unusual ideas that dared to challenge the status quo. Without those who were willing to explore new ideas and present them at signficant risk to their credibility, we might still believe the earth to be flat (indeed, some still do). Remember, Copernicus' ideas wereridiculedin his day. As were Einstein's.
Now, I'min no waycomparing this to anything so fundamentally important as the nature of worlds or E=MC^2 Rather, I'm pointing out that it's essentially the same attitude, the same resistance to new or different ideas, the same close-mindedness. Ask yourself, do you consider yourself close-minded? Think about it.
To the issue at hand: Yes, it has been stated by a developer on at least one occasion that slicing is totally random, that nothing affects it. However, even assuming that the developer that made that statement has specific knowledge of that particular subsystem which is no doubt buried somewhere deep in millions of lines of code (which is debatable in itself; there's enough evidence that many times the devs themselves are unaware of exactly how a particular game system really functions), there are scenarios in which one might imagine this system could be predicted with some reasonable degree of probability over what would be expected if it were truly random.
Scenario number one: A bug in the code. An unexpected result of a particular routine that allows for outcomes to be predicted. This might be classified as an exploit. So far, I have seen no evidence of this.
Scenario number two: Analysis of the system results in certain conclusions that can be drawn about the generation of random numbers, and techniques developed to take advantage of the particular structure of those systems.
I see a lot of people referring to the (presumed) fact that the RNG from which slicing, and probably many other player-initiated actions pull their numbers from is constantly being polled and therefore essentially unpredictable. The assumption is that there is a single server from which these numbers are acquired. However, remember that each planet is actually comprised of a cluster of servers. Isn't it more likely, then, that random numbers are pulled from the local server RNG? Indeed, but so what? Well, essentially what that means is that at any given time you're not competing for random numbers with everyone onthe 'meta-server', rather, you're competing only with those on your particular server in the cluster. Keeping in mind that the great majority of random events are player-initiated (lair spawns, combat, crafting, slicing etc.), one could use this observation to their advantage by seeking out isolated regions at off-peak hours so as to essentially have an entire RNG to themselves, therefore largely removing that particular argument.
Having maximized our access to sequential numbers from the RNG, we can move on to the meat of the matter. I think we can all agree that slicing, as well as other types of random results driven events, are often "streaky" in nature. This is no secret; it has been observered by many time and time again. Consider also, the code that determines the red or blue wire very likely pulls from the same RNG as the code that determines a particular slice result. You may draw your own conclusions from here.
Clearly, as I've outlined above, slicing randomness is far from the sure thing some make it out to be. There areaspectspresent which I very much doubt were taken into consideration when previous tests have been done. It would be a mistake to discount something based on tests which may not have taken into account certain variables.
Could it be more than pure random chance when a pattern appears to emerge? It would seem the nature of the system at least allows for the possibility. Whether it is, and whether one can learn to take advantage of it with a reasonable degree of reliability, I leave as an exercise to those with more patience and interest than myself.
I want to say, though I reside on the same server as Samaw, I don't know him personally. I think, however, it behooves the smuggler community to be a little more open-minded about such matters. One should at least allow for the possibility in their mind that commonly held beliefs may not always be the correct ones.
Nicolas_Frost
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:06 am
#63
Yes, we understand what you are saying, please understand what we are saying:
We have done this before. We have tried all kinds of ways, people would fully buff thier minds as much as possible, for example. In the end, all methods to do this proved that they did not work. Please drop this.
We have done this before. We have tried all kinds of ways, people would fully buff thier minds as much as possible, for example. In the end, all methods to do this proved that they did not work. Please drop this.
Zhagadska
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:37 am
#64
DrevenStrobe wrote:
I have results of my testing. (talk about a waste of time).
i cant believe you actually did that 
dont we have a thread where Wayne keeps track of his thousands of slices over time already? we shoulda just used that
SpinningCloud
Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:53 am
#65
Pyrewolf,
Some of us have been around since way back into beta and seen EVERY imaginable non-random slicing theory and actually gone out of our way to analyze them.
THIS one is NOT new. People have tried numerous times to correlate wire color to slice...NUMEROUS times. All have proven bogus.
And yes, I agree that each server probably uses it's own RNG. So what? Since just about everything every player can do uses the RNG I doubt you could find yourself in a situation where you could pull enough consecutive random numbers to even BEGIN to analyze them in a statistically significant way.
Furthermore, as anyone that has used RNGs can tell you, the RNG returned to the high level routine that reports it to YOU as an integer slice number from 15 to 35 has REALLY produced an RN with many more significant digits. And the new seed it feeds to itself has many more significant digits than the TWO you actually see. There is NO way you can find a pattern when the numbers reported to you have lost SO much of their significant information as to their origin and as to the generation of the next number. Get it?
We're hard on him because we've been down this same road SO many times it nauseates us...though I must say not nearly as much as it does calling us 'Smugglers' seeing as how we don't smuggle a freaking thing.