• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 03:06
CET 08:06
KST 16:06
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT29Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book19Clem wins HomeStory Cup 289HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview13Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info8
Community News
Blizzard Classic Cup - Tastosis announced as captains3Weekly Cups (March 2-8): ByuN overcomes PvT block2GSL CK - New online series13BSL Season 224Vitality ends partnership with ONSYDE20
StarCraft 2
General
Blizzard Classic Cup - Tastosis announced as captains Weekly Cups (March 2-8): ByuN overcomes PvT block GSL CK - New online series Weekly Cups (Feb 23-Mar 1): herO doubles, 2v2 bonanza Vitality ends partnership with ONSYDE
Tourneys
Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) RSL Season 4 announced for March-April Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament PIG STY FESTIVAL 7.0! (19 Feb - 1 Mar) $5,000 WardiTV Winter Championship 2026
Strategy
Custom Maps
Publishing has been re-enabled! [Feb 24th 2026] Map Editor closed ?
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 516 Specter of Death Mutation # 515 Together Forever Mutation # 514 Ulnar New Year
Brood War
General
Recent recommended BW games ASL21 General Discussion BSL 22 Map Contest — Submissions OPEN to March 10 BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BSL Season 22
Tourneys
ASL Season 21 Qualifiers March 7-8 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues BWCL Season 64 Announcement [BSL22] Open Qualifier #1 - Sunday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2 Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Zealot bombing is no longer popular?
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread PC Games Sales Thread Path of Exile No Man's Sky (PS4 and PC) Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Mexico's Drug War Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread YouTube Thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [Manga] One Piece
Sports
Formula 1 Discussion 2024 - 2026 Football Thread General nutrition recommendations Cricket [SPORT] TL MMA Pick'em Pool 2013
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Laptop capable of using Photoshop Lightroom?
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
FS++
Kraekkling
Shocked by a laser…
Spydermine0240
Gaming-Related Deaths
TrAiDoS
Unintentional protectionism…
Uldridge
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1563 users

Random generator - not always 1/3?

Forum Index > BW General
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 20 2006 22:07 GMT
#1
This is no "I got my worst race 5 times in a row" whine thread.

In the bw.de-forum someone stated that the random generator of BW isn't Laplace-like anymore when at least 2 players choose random.

For example the probablilty of a mirror-matchup in RvR is 1/24 (it would be 1/3 with a Laplace-generator).
Also one race isn't picked more than 3 times in a game.

He said he disassembled the code to find that out. Can anyone confirm this or give more details?
ShabZzoY!
Profile Joined July 2004
Great Britain760 Posts
February 20 2006 22:28 GMT
#2
Its rigged to make at least one of each race with 4 players and theres lots of other quirks.

Theres a tread where it was discussed at length
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 20 2006 22:30 GMT
#3
Link plz, I didn't find it with the search function.
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28752 Posts
February 20 2006 22:35 GMT
#4
well

random vs random = only 1/24 becomes a mirror matchup (I used to think 1/27, but 1/24 makes sense too)
but picked vs random = mirror matchup 1/3 of the time.

also if 4 people all go random (say a 2v2), it always becomes 1/1/2 (or, I guess you might get something different 1/24 of the time)
(if I play 2v2 all random and both me and my team partner gets zz, I can always assume that my opponents are tp)

so yeah he's right, but it's nothing new, although it might very well be new to a lot of players. =]
Moderator
Asta
Profile Joined October 2002
Germany3491 Posts
February 20 2006 22:37 GMT
#5
he said:
2 random players: chance of a mirror match up at 1/24
3 random players: not 3 times the same race
4: no race 3 or 4 times, only one race two times
5: no race more than 2 times
6: no race more than 3 times, at most one race 3 times
7: no race more than 3 times, exactly one race 3 times
8: no race four times or more

from my experience it might be true that there are such regulations (3v3 is almost always pretty balanced, you never get less than 3 different races)
ShabZzoY!
Profile Joined July 2004
Great Britain760 Posts
February 20 2006 22:47 GMT
#6
Here it is, dont recall how useful the thread was
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=21905
Esp1noza
Profile Joined September 2003
Russian Federation481 Posts
February 20 2006 23:04 GMT
#7
I noticed that myself too some time ago. In ~ 100 rvr games I played with my friend we got mirror 4 times. We would like to rvr but random generator is definetly biased! Is it a bug or a feature? More seems to me like bug. So why they don't patch it? Did blizzard even knows about it?
BroodWar forever
oHInsane
Profile Joined February 2005
France727 Posts
February 20 2006 23:08 GMT
#8
I don't think it is a bug, i think they did it on purpose but why? i don't have any idea about that ^^
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28752 Posts
February 20 2006 23:09 GMT
#9
I don't think it's a bug, and personally a good part of why I love rvr is I don't have to worry about mirror matchups. =[ I'd hate if they changed this.

Moderator
Patriot.dlk
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
Sweden5462 Posts
February 20 2006 23:11 GMT
#10
Well they modified it becouse mirror suck as.

They also modifed things like this in Wc3 TFT.. It's harder to get crossmaped, meaning the startposses is not randomed equally there either=p

Thank god for no TvT when going random
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 20 2006 23:16 GMT
#11
@ShabZzoY!: Thx for the link.

Have you also noticed that random-players are worse in mirror-matches? Now I have two reasons for this:

1. Random players play mirror-matches less often because they are unlikely when they play vs other random players.

2. Random players usually have this advantage: They can put themselves into their opponent's position because they often play the matchup vice-versa. Only in mirror-matches the one-race-only players can do this as well.
SeBASTa
Profile Joined September 2003
China1147 Posts
February 20 2006 23:18 GMT
#12
On February 21 2006 08:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think it's a bug, and personally a good part of why I love rvr is I don't have to worry about mirror matchups. =[ I'd hate if they changed this.



the mirror matchups trend to be zvz

personally i never met pvp and only 1 time tvt,but zvz is very common when i massed rvr games.
En Taro Terran
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 20 2006 23:29 GMT
#13
Yes, ZvZ is also my strongest mirror, really strange.
IdrA
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
United States11541 Posts
February 20 2006 23:31 GMT
#14
On February 21 2006 08:16 Wuselmops wrote:
2. Random players usually have this advantage: They can put themselves into their opponent's position because they often play the matchup vice-versa. Only in mirror-matches the one-race-only players can do this as well.
its more this one, when you play random you have more to learn so unless you actually practice 3x as much as anyone else your not gonna play each race as much. but for example tvp you also learn from playing pvt so you dont need to practice tvp quite as much as if you didnt play pvt. mirror matchups the only way to learn it is to play it, so they dont get to play it from both sides.
http://www.splitreason.com/product/1152 release the gracken tshirt now available
prOxi.swAMi
Profile Blog Joined November 2004
Australia3091 Posts
February 21 2006 18:09 GMT
#15
why didn't blizzard make random truly random?
if a player chooses random he should be able to expect exactly that: random!
Oh no
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 21 2006 18:54 GMT
#16
I don't know if Blizzard already thought about racewars, but if it was really random you would have to restart every second racewar because there are more than 3 players of one race.
haduken
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Australia8267 Posts
February 21 2006 19:03 GMT
#17
There is no such thing as true random in a computer program. It's just not possible. They can be fairly random depending on the size pool but never a true random.
Rillanon.au
Wuselmops
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany346 Posts
February 21 2006 19:18 GMT
#18
Ok, but deterministic chaos would still be close enough to true random to assign races in a computer game... ;-)
Sfydjklm
Profile Blog Joined April 2005
United States9218 Posts
February 21 2006 19:28 GMT
#19
actually its the other way around for me. If i go R, ill get a mirror about 60% of the time.
twitter.com/therealdhalism | "Trying out Z = lots of losses vs inferior players until you figure out how to do it well (if it even works)."- Liquid'Tyler
nysikto
Profile Joined March 2005
Norway337 Posts
February 21 2006 19:31 GMT
#20
well i once played about 10 games rvr vs same person and in 8 of those games we played zvt, tvz about 50-50 there and he got p 1 time but i only got z or t
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
PiGosaur Cup
00:00
#72
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Nina 76
StarCraft: Brood War
BeSt 862
Shuttle 366
Leta 215
EffOrt 124
Dewaltoss 100
ggaemo 98
Bale 71
Icarus 10
NaDa 7
Dota 2
febbydoto15
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K773
m0e_tv504
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King105
Other Games
summit1g8323
C9.Mang0277
Happy171
Tasteless138
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1114
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH211
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• iopq 2
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Lourlo1603
• Rush1252
• Stunt507
• HappyZerGling121
Upcoming Events
GSL
2h 55m
WardiTV Team League
4h 55m
The PondCast
1d 2h
WardiTV Team League
1d 4h
Replay Cast
1d 16h
Replay Cast
2 days
CranKy Ducklings
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
WardiTV Team League
3 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3 days
[ Show More ]
BSL
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
RSL Revival
4 days
WardiTV Team League
4 days
BSL
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Wardi Open
5 days
Monday Night Weeklies
5 days
WardiTV Team League
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Spring Cup 2026
WardiTV Winter 2026
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Jeongseon Sooper Cup
BSL Season 22
RSL Revival: Season 4
Nations Cup 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual

Upcoming

CSL Elite League 2026
ASL Season 21
Acropolis #4 - TS6
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
CSLAN 4
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
NationLESS Cup
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
CCT Season 3 Global Finals
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.