Some of us wiki editors had an idea: What if we make a Google document recording successes, failures and rare successes for luck challenges?
So we did. Our progress can be found on this page, and we obviously wouldn’t mind more people adding to it/using it to figure what’s the best ppa for a given situation and whatnot.
Notes:
Due to the sheer amount of dream challenges, we’ve separated these to their own page. The same is done for Item conversions, as it’s really convenient to keep them on the same place.
We haven’t listed all actions left, due to the sheer amount of them. Luck challenges (even if they have rare successes!) are on one page, and actions that don’t have luck challenges but have rare successes have their own.
When several storylets/actions use the same name, try use the wiki name of the storylet - this way we prevent doubles and everything duplicating.
As this is a wiki project, we may use the statistics on the wiki in the future, just so that’s said =)
Fidgeting Writer page note:
Please add your results to the top section. The bottom section is just for experimentation as we try to work out the cost columns G-N. Columns A-F work fine, though!
Help would be appreciated to fix columns G-N. If you want to tackle them, go ahead. I’m already at my wits’ end.
Well, I’m not 100% sure if it applies to FL too, but in StoryNexus Luck is Narrow - difficulty quality with multiplier of 10, meaning that chances for success must be in increments of 10%. This does not apply to Rare Success.
At the risk of clubbing an already dead badger, may I venture a suggestion?
Why not ask the devs for the code snippets that lie behind the luck descriptions? I see no reason why they would not acquiesce to such a simple request as t’would take but a moment of their time. 'Tis but the slightest hint of a gesture of thanks to the loyal, paying, well-behaved, supporting fan-base they have managed to accrue.
On the other other hand the descriptors for Luck difficulty checks are already known, it’s still worthwhile to plot out results b/c some descriptors cover a range of values
That’s the thing, I would think that a 10% margin is already a pretty damn good approximation, considering you do not have Infinity to roll&document. How much closer can you possibly hope to get and and not chalk the difference up to the fringes of the Bell’s curve?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all OCD on number crunching as well (serves me well professionally), it just seems you’re already as close as you’re gonna get in one lifetime. Having said that, I’d still contribute to the spreadsheet for the heck of it rather than approach it as a result-driven venture.
They’re more like educated guesses, I would say; as there’s no developer confirmation (Both the spreadsheet results and comparisons to old luck branding, as well as some StoryNexus info). So for some of the uncommon descriptions (A sure thing. Or is it?/How can you fail and The odds are strongly against you here) it would still be nice to have more results. Otherwise, you have a point.
Arbitrarily, but each halving of the margin requires quadrupling the number of samples taken.
For a 1% margin (at a standard 95% confidence level), this means over 10000 samples. edited by xKiv on 8/12/2014
Aximillio: I just peeked at the spreadsheet you linked, and I’m damned if I could make out anything beyond a green box with the figure 1345 on it.
Given that:
I have a classics background;
I know nothing about spreadsheets;
Most of the arguments in this thread are Chinese to me:
Could I possibly ask you if there is a simple answer to the question, Does the indication "A matter of luck: it could go either way" in FL really represent a 50:50 chance?
OK, if there is no simple, straightforward answer, would you say that it represents roughly a 50:50 chance?
Failing that, I would even be satisfied to know that at least that indication does not allow for huge variations - i.e., that it does not represent 50:50 in some cases and 99% against in others.
According to those in the know, it represents either 50:50 or 60:40 in the player’s favour. That is, it’s a range of two different possibilities, so it’s always at least 50:50, and sometimes better.
Silentarius, what you want to do is click on the tabs at the bottom of the sheet. If you were to select ‘Luck Challenges’, you would see a list of actions, and the results from attempting them. The first option, poking about in the ruins, is a matter of luck challenge, and of over 2,000 attempts, 51% were successful.
Another example from the spreadsheet is ‘release a bat into the cloud’, with 55% chance of success over several hundred attempts.
Short form: I suspect FB like to have finer control over the RNG than 10% increments, and the summary text picks the closest description, so if they’ve set the odds between, say, 46% and 55%, then the game will tell you that it is a matter of luck.
There really is no hint that your run of bad luck is nothing more than a run of bad luck.