I'm writing this because I think it's an issue that underlies a lot of the complaints we get about game balance-- the most recent log about a Legacy being one of many things that reminds me of it. Some of this is obvious to most people, but I know from reading that I'm talking about some common mistakes in places.

There was a study published about 25 years ago by Daniel Kahneman (who won the Economics Nobel in 2002 for this and related studies) about what basketball fans call the "hot hand". (Logicians tend to call it the "Gambler's Fallacy".) I ran across a layman's version of it in a Steven Jay Gould essay about Joe DiMaggio a while back, and it's stuck with me. (link)

Short version: You usually cannot watch more than 10 minutes of broadcast basketball without an announcer crowing about what player has the "hot hand". You see a guy make 4 shots in a row, and everyone's trying to force that guy the ball, the crowd boos if the coach takes him out, etc. Quoting Gould here: "Everybody knows about 'hot hands'. The only problem is that no such phenomenon exists." Basically, the chance Dwyane Wade (or whoever) will hit a shot is statistically unrelated to the chance they hit their previous shot. This isn't merely a textbook theory-- some sad-ass interns got stuck crunching every shot by every player for season after season, and that's what the numbers say. Similar studies have shown in baseball that there is either no such thing as a "clutch hitter", or else the effect is so small as to be unmeasurable. (I've seen estimates that "clutchness" could impact a player's batting average by no more than .002 or .003, which is insignificant in terms of a manager deciding who to put in, compared to many other factors. See this for more.)

Now, most people can process why CF's code (generating near-random series of ones and zeros) should be more random than hitting a basketball shot. The code isn't "pumped up by the crowd", "gaining confidence", "taking advantage of a rattled defender", or whatever other rationalization people are using to explain a favorable streak. Yet people often interpret logs as if the unusual is commonplace, or else as if they are studies rather than anecdotes.

What's interesting is why most people (myself included) have to consciously fight the tempting idea of a "hot hand", and it's also why the CF forums make me think of this topic so much:

A) Selective memory: Streaks and extremes stand out: You're not so likely to remember the time when you tried 10 dirt kicks and 5 of them landed, even though that may have happened a lot. You're much more likely to remember the time you missed 10 in a row, and you accused Nepenthe of setting your "Dirt Kick luck to zero" or something else Hasturian. Teleport is the best example of this-- even after the changes, your chance of dying to a Teleport is fairly low, yet most people would guess higher, because they remember the times it got them killed better than the times it landed them on some random road.

B) Memetics: People prefer talking about the unusual: The above is amplified by the circulation of logs-- comparatively rare streaks seem more common because people are more likely to post fights where something really unusual happened. Also, these logs generate more discussion. The simplest example of this is people posting logs where they improved on a skill 3 times in a row or whatever. (Seeing enough of these logs might make you think the RNG is streaky like that. It's not-- see below also.) Another example is: If you went only by logs, you'd assume that most CF fights end in a PC death. The reverse is true-- the loser usually escapes, and defense has the upper hand.

C) Perspective: It's only a streak to you: Going back to the log of 3 skill improvements in a row, while that may look like a streak to you, it's not a streak as far as the RNG is concerned. The RNG has probably output tens of thousands of random numbers in between those skill improvements-- while you were waiting for that combat round, it's been taking care of all the swings and misses for you and everyone else in the world, and each swing generates tens or hundreds of accesses to the RNG. So even if the RNG is imperfect (ours was chosen more for speed than for pure randomness), any actual (local) streakiness has long since washed out. This perspective can show up in many ways, thanks to our brains' ability to cluster information-- witness the people that swear that you get more skill improvements right after a death. (The improvement code has no idea if you're a ghost.)

D) Internet Tough Guy Syndrome: A lot of anecdotal information gets amplified, intentionally or not, thanks to what we'll charitably call the "artistic license" of making a better story, or advocating a specific position. If someone thinks X is overpowered (correct or not), they'll probably only post the log where X worked really well. Not everyone can test everything, so most people rely on word of mouth, and the voice of one loud person too often ends up as "what everyone says".

Anyway, the next time you're claiming that Skill X sucks (or is overpowered), make sure you've guarded against the above. Check it yourself if you can. Make sure you've seen something a bunch of times. If your evidence is on the shaky side, it's very rare that something is so broken that it can't wait another day or week, especially for an ability that's been in for a long time already. Take the long view.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com