Is the lottery rigged?

[Mixxiphoid]

There is a player that won the lottery twice in short succession. I'm not sure about the math behind it, but it seems a bit suspicious. I have been in the lottery screen full days and haven't won, so I'm not sure what to expect here.

Would it be possible to change the score in memory and the server would take over that value?

[Luko]

Did the other player jump in at place #1 or did he overtake you ?

I only saw that updating the leaderboard is lagging, but your case shouldn´t happen

[Mixxiphoid]

Originally posted by Luko:

Did the other player jump in at place #1 or did he overtake you ?

I only saw that updating the leaderboard is lagging, but your case shouldn´t happen

I don't know, but I looked at the winners list and saw one player twice there.

[Barbe-bleue]

I had pointed out to the developer that another player had appeared 2 times in a short space of time as a lottery winner. Now a user wins twice in a row. It's even more sucpectful. Personally, I've never won and I've left the program running for over 200 hours.

[Mixxiphoid]

Originally posted by Barbe-bleue:

I had pointed out to the developer that another player had appeared 2 times in a short space of time as a lottery winner. Now a user wins twice in a row. It's even more sucpectful. Personally, I've never won and I've left the program running for over 200 hours.

I noticed that as well this morning. I have won once and having it open 24/7. I guess I should consider myself lucky?

[PixelPulseGames]

Thank you for your curiosity on the topic.

I can give you some more details on how the system works:

I am very careful with regard to these things, so I made it 100% impossible to change your score. Your game client basically just asks my game server, "Can you please update my score?" The server will then check internally if the player has waited long enough or not (and there is nothing anyone without access to the actual server can do about that). If the player has waited long enough, the server will update the score and return the info about when you can ask for the next update. If you did not wait long enough, the server will just return the amount of time you still have to wait.
Basically, no matter what you do, the server will only grant a point if you actually deserve it.

Then, at the end of a lottery, all players will basically get a probability of winning. The higher your score was, the higher that probability is. You can imagine a "total" pool of 100%, and each player gets a piece of that. Players with a larger score will get a larger piece.

Regarding the participants list:
It is possible that the ordering of the participants changes slightly, and here is why: To avoid having every participant ask my server at the exact same time every 5 minutes, I tried to balance it a bit. So, basically, my server will tell you to ask again in 5 minutes and then a random number of seconds on top of that (max of 3 seconds) to spread out the total requests by a tiny bit. So, even if you technically have the same score as someone else, it is possible that their score updates, for example, 2 seconds earlier, which would overtake you on the participants list. This, however, makes absolutely no difference because the top people all have the same score anyway, so the ordering there does not really mean anything. Your chances have not necessarily increased or decreased by going up or down on the list.
Maybe I should add a placement number to make this clearer.

Thanks again for the question and I hope this clears it up. If you want to know more, fell free to ask me here, write me privately or ask on the offical discord server.

[PixelPulseGames]

Also:
Even though I am very confident in the lottery not being hackable, I always investigate when a player wins more than once. I can see the exact score that was used for the winner calculation, and I can assure you that (even though I must admit it's very unlikely) that player just got really lucky and won legitimately.

[Mixxiphoid]

Originally posted by PixelPulseGames:

Also:
Even though I am very confident in the lottery not being hackable, I always investigate when a player wins more than once. I can see the exact score that was used for the winner calculation, and I can assure you that (even though I must admit it's very unlikely) that player just got really lucky and won legitimately.

Do you have a percentage on what really lucky means? Because it happened at least twice.

[PixelPulseGames]

Hard to say. It depends on how many people participated and with what score. The Chance of winning twice in a row must be less than 0.1% though. However I can assure you that this will not happen again any time soon. (And if it does I will change the logic a bit to make sure it won't again).
Rest assured that I am actively observing this to guarantee a fun experience for everyone.

Originally posted by Mixxiphoid:

Originally posted by PixelPulseGames:

Also:
Even though I am very confident in the lottery not being hackable, I always investigate when a player wins more than once. I can see the exact score that was used for the winner calculation, and I can assure you that (even though I must admit it's very unlikely) that player just got really lucky and won legitimately.

Do you have a percentage on what really lucky means? Because it happened at least twice.

[Barbe-bleue]

And now a player wins 3 times in the last 5 lottery draws! There has to be a problem somewhere. No?

[Mixxiphoid]

Originally posted by Barbe-bleue:

And now a player wins 3 times in the last 5 lottery draws! There has to be a problem somewhere. No?

Nah mate, pure luck! </sarcasm>

The lottery is actually rigged just by introducing a factor that isn't based on RNG, like accumulating points based on activity...

It would make more sense to just distribute rewards randomly to players that are online every hour.

[PixelPulseGames]

Originally posted by Barbe-bleue:

And now a player wins 3 times in the last 5 lottery draws! There has to be a problem somewhere. No?

You are correct this is a mistake on my side. After I wrote in this thread I changed a part in the script that is responsible for choosing the winner and I made a small mistake querying the database. (The change involved just a shape change of the database to include more information). The bug was found and eliminated. Thank you for notifying me.

[PixelPulseGames]

Originally posted by Mixxiphoid:

Originally posted by Barbe-bleue:

And now a player wins 3 times in the last 5 lottery draws! There has to be a problem somewhere. No?

Nah mate, pure luck! </sarcasm>

The lottery is actually rigged just by introducing a factor that isn't based on RNG, like accumulating points based on activity...

It would make more sense to just distribute rewards randomly to players that are online every hour.

While I do understand what you mean, this certainly does not qualify as beeing "rigged". This is just the basic concept of a Tombola. The more tickets you buy the better are your chances at winning. Only that here this is completely free and you gain this "advantage" by merely ideling in the game. The advantage here can be achieved by everyone equally, nobody is able to get more than anyone else unfairly and the logic is purely random. So "rigged" really doesn't qualify here.
Additionally I decided to do it this way to reward players that actually idle the game. There are many people who just open the game once for 5 seconds and I really don't think it's fair for that person to have the same chance in the lottery as someone who plays and idles a lot more. Remember that my game is free and I get a lot of downloads from players who just open the game without any intention of actually playing it. So with your suggestion, all the prizes would go to such players (that won't even ever know they won, as they never open the game again) and the "actual" players would never win anything.

[Mixxiphoid]

The player that won recently 3 out of 5 has won again...

@PixelPulseGames I understand you are trying to convince us, and I want to believe you, but the statistics are not on your side.

[Barbe-bleue]

Here are the stats I can compare between this player (4 times lottery winner) and myself:

Four-time winner
Number of times lottery winner: 4 (or more)
Achievements: 6/13
Unique Items: 9 (Ok… he may sell them)
playing time for this game: ?

Me
Number of times lottery winner: 0
Achievements: 11/13
Unique Items: 34
playing time for this game: 264.6 hours

I really must be the unluckiest of all unlucky players. No?

[Mixxiphoid]

I won the lottery once (before it was patched) and got 381 hours into the game. I got 10/13 achievements.

I won 4 rare tickets though :(...