Opponent's getting the perfect card "EVERY TIME!"

[rocket_ex_virgo]

Why is it that your opponent top decks the perfect card every time their in a pinch, but when you need the same luck the RNG decides to ****** you over. Its annoying as ****.

So my question is: Why does the RNG decide to give your opponent the perfect card every time they need it, but never gives you the perfect card when you need it?

Edited April 8, 2018 by rocket_ex_virgo

[BowserLuigi]

Other guy: Why does the RNG decide to give me the perfect card every time I need it, but never gives my opponent the perfect card when they need it?

 

See the problem here?

[Sadra]

Its just pure bad luck I guess. While I complain about my bad luck from time to time (yes it is annoying) I am pretty sure that the RNG of this card game is fair to everyone. In addition, I don't think that you can find out what your opponent top-decked in this game (its not hearthstone). It might be your opponent conserving resources and actually played the card at the right moment (e.g. your opponent benches a few pokemon, passes, you think that his/her hand is dead where he/she actually had few evolutions and a sycamore in hand so he waited for a turn). This is a common strategy though. I would suggest that to decrease the chances of RNG screwing you up, improve the consistency of your deck. If your deck is already quite good, I hope that your luck gets better in the future. 

[Oldschool1990]

The rng tends to repeat its seeds during peak time when the server is busy, especially on weekends when there are more players online.

 

The thing is that you might end up on the lucky side tomorrow and get 20 matches where YOU draw all the good cards.

 

There are days where I make 350 ladder points in 1 hour (high winstreaks giving like 35 points per win), and then there are days where I make 0 points in 1 hour.

 

All I can tell you is that you might want to avoid playing during peak times.

 

If you are easily frustrated and don't really want to ladder to 2000 or play 24-ticket tourneys, stop it right there, try again the next day with new rng seeds, saves you lots of time and nerves.

 

If you really need some wins, keep fighting through it. I had like a 20 losing streak yesterday due to ridiculous bad rng, but I didn't make a thread about it, I just kept on fighting for my daily 200 ladder points, altho that took 3 hours to get and I was very frustrated from always getting the same bad starting hands with 4-6 energies and no supporters no matter which deck I played. (coinflips were fair tho, atleast the coinflip rng works)

Edited April 8, 2018 by Oldschool1990

[SandaledOtter]

The rng tends to repeat its seeds during peak time when the server is busy, especially on weekends when there are more players

Please, either produce a list of the seeds you're getting, or stop spreading this half-baked theory as fact.

 

If the game is giving each player the same seed each time during these peak hours, then:

1. It is taking the time to track which player it is assigning the seed to, or
2. everyone is getting exactly the same seed every time.

Assuming the second to be true, as the first is ludicrous, there needs to be NO OTHER FACTOR in determining the shuffle of your deck, or you would not get consistently bad shuffles. Any second variable will alter the shuffle in a way that is not always different yet bad.

 

If it were the case that you always used exactly the same single number to determine the shuffle, you would always get EXACTLY the same shuffle during these times. That is demonstrably not the case.

[Princess_Aurora]

Possibility 1:

You joined PTCGO under an unlucky star. Abandon all hope, you’ll eternally get bad hands. Might as well quit the game.

 

Possibility 2:

Everything is normal, it’s just that getting donked is more memorable than a smooth 2-turn win on your side. Can you try to recall the times where you had a perfect hand/draw? It should even out with the bad draws.

 

Possibility 3:

As the other players said, maybe that you played during a period where RNG was overwhelmed, which can cause you to have several dead hands in a row.

 

Possibility 4:

Your deck has too much of a type of card, or dosn’t have a lot of synergy, so you might want to check if you can upgrade your deck by swapping out some cards.

 

Possibility 5:

Someone hired a witch doctor to curse your luck. You’ll have to find the same witch doctor and bribe him/her to get rid of his/her curse.

 

Possibility 6:

Santa wasn’t happy with you last Christmas, so he decided to sap your gameplay as punishment.

 

Possibility 7:

You traded away an Arceus card, and he/she isn’t happy about it. Unfortunately, he/she is the God of the Pokemon world. So.... Your PTCGO career is pretty much donked.

 

Possibility 8:

The Easter Bunny decided to play an april’s fool prank on you, so he/she installed a virus on your device that is designed to make it end up in a wall.

 

Possibility 9:

Your device has been infected by Rotom! Quick, throw a Pokeball at it. Or your cat. Or an orange.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Princess_Aurora

[Mod_Alder]

Its always hard to combat confirmation bias. Im sure your opponents feel that way half the time as well. I once won an entire tournament because of one lucky card draw. Im sure my opponent was not pleased. 

[SingingFlyEx]

Pokémon TCG is an interesting experience of how randomness behaves.

The only way to combat confirmation bias is to take notes of whatever phenomenon is suspected of not being random. If those notes still point towards unrandomness then set up an hypothesis and test it with a rigorous protocol.

 

Another much easier way would be to publish the few hundred lines of code that deal with rng.

If competitive players were more computing aware they'd pressure TPCi into doing that.

[KianEndacott]

So my question is: Why does the RNG decide to give your opponent the perfect card every time they need it, but never gives you the perfect card when you need it?

 

Expect to get shot down asking questions like that - no doubt you'll be accused of 'confirmation bias' and denials that there is any code controlling the coin toss or card draws.  I would agree that in most circumstances it is fairly random as to the draw and coin results and your opponent had a good strategy and some luck on their side, but if you are chasing a challenge then there is a definite bias.

 

For example, today's challenge to evolve 10 'Psychic' Pokemon took me 55 games to complete - less than 1 evolution every five games.  No matter what strategy I tried, I just couldn't get the evolution cards to appear (and in some cases, couldn't even get the basics to appear!).  Yet, in the following 10 games after the challenge was completed, I obtained 32 evolutions.

 

Of course, I'll admit that it isn't a particularly large sample but I'm keeping the logs from all my games to analyse further.  I just don't accept the argument that the game is random at all times...

Edited April 11, 2018 by KianEndacott

[RobRatt]

For example, today's challenge to evolve 10 'Psychic' Pokemon took me 55 games to complete - less than 1 evolution every five games.  No matter what strategy I tried,

Wow, really?  I can't imagine sitting through 55 games for 60 Tokens.  That boggles my mind.

 

I usually choose the Evolution challenges, because they're so easy.  No matter, win or lose, it's usually simple to evolve 10 guys in 2 or 3 games.  Stage 1, then to Stage 2, counts as two evolutions.  I would recommend that you take it easy on yourself, and play Theme Decks for this one.  Hidden Moon, or even the basic Mental Might will do the trick.

[BowserLuigi]

Wow, really?  I can't imagine sitting through 55 games for 60 Tokens.  That boggles my mind.

 

I usually choose the Evolution challenges, because they're so easy.  No matter, win or lose, it's usually simple to evolve 10 guys in 2 or 3 games.  Stage 1, then to Stage 2, counts as two evolutions.  I would recommend that you take it easy on yourself, and play Theme Decks for this one.  Hidden Moon, or even the basic Mental Might will do the trick.

Just sacrifice your win streak (or wait till you lose it) and some ELO and complete evo challenges with a specialist deck only designed to evolve things (they cannot fight, only evolve). The variant I usually use is two sets of 4-4-3 lines and a bunch of draw trainers (sycamore, brigette, ultra ball, the works) with no energy.

[SandaledOtter]

Just sacrifice your win streak (or wait till you lose it) and some ELO and complete evo challenges with a specialist deck only designed to evolve things (they cannot fight, only evolve). The variant I usually use is two sets of 4-4-3 lines and a bunch of draw trainers (sycamore, brigette, ultra ball, the works) with no energy.

Yes, that's the way to go.

 

I have one of these set up for each energy type. Finding  4-4-3 or 4-4-4 lines in some colors can actually be difficult in standard if you don't have an extensive collection.

 

I'll sometimes lose before getting the 10th evolution, and sometimes opponents will concede, but it rarely takes more than 2 or 3 games, and usually just 1.

 

Rather than sacrificing a win streak, I set them aside until I lose, then do the challenges since I have 3 challenge slots.

 

If it takes more than a day, I find there are usually matched challenges, so my grass EVO challenge sitting idle will get paired with a grass damage and then grass KO, and I come here to see if Golisopod's been fixed yet (it hasn't).

[KianEndacott]

Hidden Moon, or even the basic Mental Might will do the trick.

 

It was Hidden Moon that I was using.  I only persisted because of the fact that it is clear the draw is not random like some people like to claim and I'm building evidence to prove it.  This is just one example of many over the last few weeks...

[SingingFlyEx]

I'm building evidence to prove it.

Good job!

You could stream. I'd definitely watch an accelerated video of a guy that needs 55 Hidden Moon games to complete an evo challenge. See if you're often donked T2 by garchomp or what.

It would be very weird if there's a bug that only triggers when there's an evo challenge. Perhaps the account state is part of the random seed cooking formula but even so...

But it could be that there's a bug that affect the random shuffles, causing them to favor/disfavor some parts of a deck for many games in a row.

 

Thinking that the RNG is bugged also has nice side-effects. The other day my son was about to pick his first prize card when I said “No, don't pick that one, you need to pick Lucario! Pick this one!” He was weirded out because I was right

[rocket_ex_virgo]

"The rng tends to repeat its seeds during peak time when the server is busy, especially on weekends when there are more players online.

 

 

The thing is that you might end up on the lucky side tomorrow and get 20 matches where YOU draw all the good cards.

 

 

There are days where I make 350 ladder points in 1 hour (high winstreaks giving like 35 points per win), and then there are days where I make 0 points in 1 hour.

 

 

All I can tell you is that you might want to avoid playing during peak times.

 

 

If you are easily frustrated and don't really want to ladder to 2000 or play 24-ticket tourneys, stop it right there, try again the next day with new rng seeds, saves you lots of time and nerves.

 

 

If you really need some wins, keep fighting through it. I had like a 20 losing streak yesterday due to ridiculous bad rng, but I didn't make a thread about it, I just kept on fighting for my daily 200 ladder points, altho that took 3 hours to get and I was very frustrated from always getting the same bad starting hands with 4-6 energies and no supporters no matter which deck I played. (coinflips were fair tho, atleast the coinflip rng works)"

 

Yeah I guess when they top deck the perfect card so many games in a row its annoying, I guess I just needed to vent a bit that's all LOL

Edited April 19, 2018 by Mod_GuruLot
profanity removed

[Mod_GuruLot]

Yeah I guess when they top deck the perfect card so many games in a row its annoying, I guess I just needed to vent a bit that's all LOL

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[Princess_Aurora]

For evolution challenges, just use the Energy Evolution Eevee. With a well-placed Brigette and a few energy, you'll get 10 evolutions done in no time.

[ShannonBK]

For evolution challenges, just use the Energy Evolution Eevee. With a well-placed Brigette and a few energy, you'll get 10 evolutions done in no time.

that seem great

 

for opponents if perfect card every time, a lot of times is some people with very consistent decks. is not always top deck but is they have very good decks and also people that know how to play its deck and people that play very good and seems they get every needed card