RNG Fairness

[VarHyid]

If what I stated is correct, then in all fairness, they should roll back EVERYONE's bids, because if 0 (zero) was counted as a possible RNG choice, then EVERY roll is invalidated and needs to be done again.

If the zero was only added and the count was not shifted by 1 because of it, then there’s absolutely no need to re-roll and the result is fair because the odds were equally lowered for everyone.

For example, if 4 people entered the lottery, each would have had a 25% chance to win, but if they dropped a 5th “zero bidder” into the mix, all it means that now all 4 real people simply had a 20% chance of winning… and there was a 20% chance that the drawing fails and hits the zero. If it didn’t, though then how exactly is it unfair?

Only those cases where zero actually won need to be re-rolled (and the single bidders should just get the house, of course).

[Evergrey]

If the zero was only added and the count was not shifted by 1 because of it, then there’s absolutely no need to re-roll and the result is fair because the odds were equally lowered for everyone.

For example, if 4 people entered the lottery, each would have had a 25% chance to win, but if they dropped a 5th “zero bidder” into the mix, all it means that now all 4 real people simply had a 20% chance of winning… and there was a 20% chance that the drawing fails and hits the zero. If it didn’t, though then how exactly is it unfair?

Only those cases where zero actually won need to be re-rolled (and the single bidders should just get the house, of course).

Because like you said, instead of a 1/4 of winning it turned out to be a 1/5.
The 0 just acted as a ghost-vote with no person behind it.
If the winning roll was, let's say a 23 (on a roll of 1-100), then person nr.1 would've won on a 1/4 with a 25% win rate. But thanks for the "ghost" that means the 2nd person won due to nr1 got shifted lower.
Meaning the results were altered due to the ghost, ending in that all results were tainted.

[VarHyid]

Because like you said, instead of a 1/4 of winning it turned out to be a 1/5.
The 0 just acted as a ghost-vote with no person behind it.
If the winning roll was, let's say a 23 (on a roll of 1-100), then person nr.1 would've won on a 1/4 with a 25% win rate. But thanks for the "ghost" that means the 2nd person won due to nr1 got shifted lower.
Meaning the results were altered due to the ghost, ending in that all results were tainted.

You can’t assume that if only there was no zero in the mix, the roll would have hit exactly one number higher. It’s much simpler, there were 4 win states and one lose state. All 4 win states had equal chances. If the lose state would have hit, the we just re-roll. There is no taint here… or let me put it this way - the taint was the possibility that the results may hit the fail state.

[Evergrey]

You can’t assume that if only there was no zero in the mix, the roll would have hit exactly one number higher. It’s much simpler, there were 4 win states and one lose state. All 4 win states had equal chances. If the lose state would have hit, the we just re-roll. There is no taint here… or let me put it this way - the taint was the possibility that the results may hit the fail state.

Mm.. I think I understand now.
Just my head having a little trouble binding dots together today.
Lack of sleep and long day out.
But yeah, if there was a re-drawing without the 0 then yes, it would become a "normal" rng.
My bad.

[S0lara]

You can’t assume that if only there was no zero in the mix, the roll would have hit exactly one number higher. It’s much simpler, there were 4 win states and one lose state. All 4 win states had equal chances. If the lose state would have hit, the we just re-roll. There is no taint here… or let me put it this way - the taint was the possibility that the results may hit the fail state.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification. What you said makes sense.

[Nihility]

You can’t assume that if only there was no zero in the mix, the roll would have hit exactly one number higher. It’s much simpler, there were 4 win states and one lose state. All 4 win states had equal chances. If the lose state would have hit, the we just re-roll. There is no taint here… or let me put it this way - the taint was the possibility that the results may hit the fail state.

I know that but the human perception will be... I was 6 and 5 was picked... that effing zero screwed me and now I hate S-E forever. No amount of reasoning will make those people see otherwise and therefor the flaw in the system kind of taints the whole thing.

Then if just to reroll all the ones that landed zero which seems like an unreasonably high amount if you go around and read boards. What happens to the people that had no idea and got their money back and lost there lottery ticket? Are they just out of the competition?

and if they just do another round of lottery. The people that won, won and yay for them... now the field of rewards is cut down drastically and nearly the same amount of people are competing again. Many of whom should already be done with it but instead have a ton of extra competition for less resources just because

what is the fair thing to do? Literally every option is bad for a ton of people and the FC house ward restrictions and people only wanting large are making things far worse even in the old zones.
can't relocate to mist or lavender beds because all the opened up ones are in the FC wards.

I didn't even try, I like my house in the goblet and now I'm worried that my area will die off and go ghost town because it's an FC ward. Just seems like everything is bad now XD

[VarHyid]

I know that but the human perception will be... I was 6 and 5 was picked... that effing zero screwed me and now I hate S-E forever. No amount of reasoning will make those people see otherwise and therefor the flaw in the system kind of taints the whole thing.

That's correct. You'll never fix the perception of odds.

Then if just to reroll all the ones that landed zero which seems like an unreasonably high amount if you go around and read boards. What happens to the people that had no idea and got their money back and lost there lottery ticket? Are they just out of the competition?

(...)

what is the fair thing to do? Literally every option is bad for a ton of people

They should just re-roll based on the old data set. I'm sure they have a snapshot of all the tickets along with the names of the participants from the moment the entry period closed. They should simply use this data set to roll on all the plots where the result was 0. I think that would be the fairest solution - those plots didn't get a winner so we'll just roll again, there will be no new participants, everyone who had a ticket in that time will get the same chance they had if there was no bug.

That said, realistically, there are of course tons of other issues like the ones Breezelyn mentioned earlier and I could add even more to the list, for example - if those who participated and took their refund have already spend the gil on buying things from the market end up winning the new roll, what should happen to the gil? Should they trace every single penny and return it to the owner, then also return the items purchased on the market? That's just unrealistic and at that point we're basically talking about a full complete server rollback which will make tons of other people upset. Why should everyone who didn't even participate in the housing lottery have their progress rolled back.

It really is a mess and as you've said, it's unavoidable that some people will remain upset even if you make the mathematically and logically correct decision. I just hope whatever decision they make, it will be one that causes the least amount of additional damage.

[S0lara]

I completely agree VarHyid. What really sucks, is that the longer they wait, the more complicated this is going to become.

[S0lara]

If the zero was only added and the count was not shifted by 1 because of it, then there’s absolutely no need to re-roll and the result is fair because the odds were equally lowered for everyone.

For example, if 4 people entered the lottery, each would have had a 25% chance to win, but if they dropped a 5th “zero bidder” into the mix, all it means that now all 4 real people simply had a 20% chance of winning… and there was a 20% chance that the drawing fails and hits the zero. If it didn’t, though then how exactly is it unfair?

Only those cases where zero actually won need to be re-rolled (and the single bidders should just get the house, of course).

Ugh, VarHyid, lol. After reading this...I hope you are not right. If they did that, then that is shady, lol. I think that since they officially came out and said the zero's were unintended, then the "zero bidder" was not supposed to be factored into the percent chance of each person bidding.

[VarHyid]

Ugh, VarHyid, lol. After reading this...I hope you are not right. If they did that, then that is shady, lol. I think that since they officially came out and said the zero's were unintended, then the "zero bidder" was not supposed to be factored into the percent chance of each person bidding.

I’m not sure how else to clarify this. Everyone’s odds went down equally. One real person did not get lower odds of winning, but all real people had the same equal possibility that the roll fails.

In other words, the fact that instead of a 25% chance you now had a 20% chance is irrelevant for your personal fortune. You still had a real 25% chance of winning against any other of the 4 real people, only all 4 people had an equal chance of being collectively screwed by a zero. If they didn’t, though, and zero didn’t won, then they all had a 1 in 4 shot of being a winner.

—-edit—-

Let me put it like this - the percent chance for each person winning did not change at all. What changed is that the possibility of everyone losing was introduced.