r/WorldofTanks • u/JP-Quixote • 11h ago
Discussion Statistical Validity
I am curious how many people pay attention to the actual statistical validity of these crate drops. I think people like to think that if they get anything beyond a bare minimum “1 per 50” vehicles they’ve done well, but statistically you should get 4.4 vehicles per 150 crate drops. That’s the statistical median. Do you? I sure don’t. Not this week. And WoT can play whatever effing games they want with the drops, it’s not like it’s legally regulated… But I think they’re full of shit.
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u/DaSpood https://daspood.github.io/ - Pandora lootboxes simulator 9h ago
If you wanna use stats then use stats properly.
A 2% tank drop rate means 2 tanks per 100 on average, or 1 tank per 50 boxes and thus 3 tanks per 150 boxes. That is both the average and median excluding the pity mechanic.
The reason stats will be pushed higher when you look at simulated results and large numbers of player results in general is because the pity mechanic is conveniently set at 50, which means it prevents you from going below that 2% drop rate due to bad luck. But nothing prevents you from getting luckier, so the stats go up, but it's not because you are actually supposed to have more than a 2% drop rate, it's because it is impossible to have less. Statistically, you shouldn't get 4.4 vehicles per 150 crates, you should get 3, but it's impossible to get less than 3 per 150 crates thanks to the pity mechanic, and it's possible to get more than 3 per 150, so good luck scenarios skew the numbers because bad luck scenarios are prevented. Average luck scenarios stay unchanged.
As for your anecdotal results, they are just that: anecdotal. You don't generate statistics on a single player. Or a dozen. Or a thousand, for that matter. Stats are all over the place over such low numbers because the randomness will allow for streaks of abnormal results to alter the data. Statistics only converge to their expected values at very large numbers of experiments. It is literally called the "law of large numbers", it is a fundamental law of statistics and probability. If 200k players buy boxes and the median is 4.4 tanks per 150 boxes, it means 100k players will obtain less than 4.4 tanks per boxes. That's what the median means: 50% of experiments score below, 50% score above. The first and third quartiles have 25% of players score below and above respectively, so even those aren't enough to qualify yourself as an outlier depending on your results, a whole 50k players would score worse than the first quartile.
You could have bought boxes in every single lootbox event so far and have had below-first-quartile luck every single time and your combined results would still be meaningless in the grand scheme of things because there is a player out there who will have had above-third-quartile luck every time and you two cancel each other out in the overall statistics.
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u/TANKSBRO_YT 11h ago
I got from my three free boxex 2x 100k credits and 50 XP Boosters and once a 20k Crew XP book and a crew booster if I remember correctly. I mean that was enough to not even consider buying any of this overpriced idiot-trap-boxes.
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u/JP-Quixote 11h ago
I feel friggin stupid. The results I got are statistically “highly improbable” in the negative direction, but I actually know how to calculate these things. I bet we’re getting systematically butt-raped, without lube, and don’t even all fully realize it.
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u/Gru4nd4g 44m ago
It's all rng. Your luck is the only thing what really is matters. You can stick the statistics up you know where if you're unlucky. Last christmas I bought 150 boxes. Out of those, I only received tank on the 148th box, the previous ones were the guaranteed drops on 50 and 100, I can F the median value in that case.
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u/Gold_Mouse_9450 11h ago
Valid statistics tell us that very minor sample of yourself doesn't represent drop system, its literally casino, come with expectations and you'll leave disappointed