The problem with chance, and how you could fix it.
The most unlucky of unlucky may fret no more!
Today, I was watching a small streamer on YouTube called Aeureas. He was streaming a game called Wizard101.
For those of you who don’t know, Wizard101 is a kid-friendly Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO). In Wizard101, you create a wizard that battles monsters and finishes quests, with the end goal being to defeat Malistaire, a villain that tries to bring chaos to the world. (Link here for anyone who wants to check it out)
While I was watching the stream, Aeureas invited participants of the stream to play along with him. He was creating a new series on YouTube, where he was going to play the whole game on a new character. People who played along with him created a wizard of their own. Everything was going fine in the stream (for me anyway) until I stepped onto Cyclops Lane (an in-game street full of monsters). To get access to a dungeon, I needed to get a Warlord’s pass. A Warlord’s pass was an item you got by defeating a Warlord and stealing it from him. Every time you defeated a Warlord with this quest, there was a ⁵⁴/₁₀₀ chance that you would get the Warlord’s pass. Everyone in the stream got it on their first try, except for me.
So I tried again, and again, and again, and again. Eventually, it was down to the 11th try. I finally got it, but it didn’t matter anymore. A few hours had passed, and the whole stream went along without me.
Looking at the statistics, there was only a 1.125% chance that this happened, yet it did. Even in a less extreme situation, this problem could be easily avoided. What if, every time I defeated a Warhorn and didn’t get the pass, the chance would rise by 5%? Let’s try with this example:
After using this example, it gets a little boring, since it eventually turns into you getting the pass every single time! Let’s try a code, that only helps you with the odds of getting the Warhorn pass, once you try beating the Warhorn at least five times:
Now the outcome is more variable but helps the player with bad luck. If Wizard101’s developers were to implement this, to make this luckier for some players, and unlucky for others, they could make a new gear for wizard’s that would increase a wizard’s “luck”. This luck could increase, or decrease the help in battle.
No matter what happens, at least I got the Warhorn’s Pass eventually.
Edit: 7/4/2017:
While playing on Wizard101 with my sister today, she came upon the quest of getting the Warhorn pass. I joked how I probably shouldn’t help her because of my bad luck.
On the first battle, we didn’t get the Warhorn’s pass. I thought it was going to turn into a bad situation.
On our second battle, another wizard joined us named Gabriel DeathBringer. Even with a new wizard, we didn’t get the pass.
On our final and third battle, my sister got the pass. Not lucky, but better than unlucky!
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