Mystery Heroes (When is RNG not RNG?)

[RageCage-11479]

I’m sure most of you who play a decent amount of Mystery Heroes have recognized certain anomalies. I’ve noticed a tendency to repeat the same hero 2-3 times in a match. This doesn’t happen every now and then. This happens with a fair amount of frequency.

I wonder if there’s ever been a blue post about the formula that determines the “random” hero we get in Mystery Heroes. It doesn’t feel very random to me. I’ll go on runs where I’m Hanzo 3 times in a match. Or I’ll be Tracer twice in a row. Both of these should statistically be very rare. They’re not.

A better method would be to randomly select one of the available heroes you haven’t played during that round. When you die, that hero is eliminated from the pool until you go through all the remaining heroes. This would guarantee variety and make it feel more random.

[Darkstorm-1696]

Without seeing stats it is impossible to tell, although this is my main mode as well and i find it totally random

Getting the same character multiple times a match is still random and i don’t think it happens as often as you are making out, at least not for me, it is human nature to notice these kind of things more than when nothing out of the ordinary happens

But as i said, it is impossible to tell without the stats on it and they would be nice to see

[Bombz-1611]

It’s not generating truly random values. Pseudo-randomness can always be skewed by something (usually time), and the method Overwatch uses does seem to tend toward repeating the same characters a few times for each player.

Over time, it evens out well enough. My Mystery Heroes playtime stats are all roughly equal (except newer characters).

[RageCage-11479]

But as i said, it is impossible to tell without the stats on it and they would be nice to see

That would be a very interesting post if Blizzard collated ALL their data so far.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

Well, Jeff did comment on this issue once:

@JeffreyKaplan

We’ve discussed putting logic like this into the mode numerous times. Every time we get close to doing it, someone argues with us that the point of the mode is to allow for “broken” comps and that’s what makes it fun for them (i.e. 5 Mercys and a Bastion).

I’m really torn because I understand both arguments. For me, personally, it’s frustrating that the game doesn’t build better comps. But I also understand the fun in “whacky” comps in this arcade mode.

Perhaps we can try an alternate game mode to Mystery Heroes at some point… “Slightly Balanced Mystery Heroes” or something along those lines.

[Ramanga-1428]

Gambler’s fallacy, hello!

In short a truly random algorithm should produce this outcome, more frequently than you might think.

[RageCage-11479]

I’m really torn because I understand both arguments. For me, personally, it’s frustrating that the game doesn’t build better comps. But I also understand the fun in “whacky” comps in this arcade mode.

Whoever says this is making a garbage argument. If you want whacky comps, play No Limits. Mystery Heroes, in my opinion, should be to rotate randomly through all the heroes. You might get whacky comps, you might get garbage, you might get strong comps. The point should be to have an Arcade mode to expose players to heroes they don’t normally play.

[Zence-1613]

But he said some people don’t like that. Its not his decision, its echoing what some of the playerbase is saying

[OxfordComma-11798]

In my experience Mystery Heroes picks a handful of heroes for you to play for the day/match and then cycles those as you get killed and respawn. In a typical match, when I die and respawn I’ll get one out of the same pool of 4 to 5 heroes over and over. Sometimes the pool changes slightly between matches, other times it doesn’t really change until the next day.

Like, if I play Mystery Heroes on a Wednesday, it might cycle me through Hog, Mei, Mercy, Winston, and Genji, with an occasional different hero mixed in. 85% of the time I’ll get those 5 (in this example) and occasionally someone else will pop in but then as soon as I die on that new hero it’s back to one of the 5 I named, then playing MH on Thursday it might be Rein, Zen, Soldier, McCree, and Reaper with other heroes occasionally sprinkled in.

[Crusher55-11700]

A better method would be to randomly select one of the available heroes you haven’t played during that round

That’s not random then.

[NovaCloud-2391]

Late response but I agree that their seems to be a hero pool that you get for the day. I find it frustrating as hell. Wish it felt truly random instead of getting sym constantly in every game as an example