How do you guys make random more random?

[Zevia]

Usually when you say "random", people will pretty much expect a different result at every draw. But really you can draw a '5' three times in a row with it beeing completely random (not matter how small the odds are). The problem is that's the kind of result that people tend to perceive as not random.

Strongly agree with this, for the aforementioned reasons. I could have a random number generated from any possible range and method and, however unlikely, it's still possible to get the same value multiple times in a row. While the theorycrafting behind getting a truly random number is still an interesting discussion, I think for the purposes of game-making, players don't generally care for truly random behavior (even if they feel a sense of reward from "getting lucky" sometimes).

It's why the standard "95% HIT" on every Actor combined with "5% EVA" on every Enemy feels like your accuracy is much worse than 90% - when you miss a couple times in short succession, the natural reaction is to get frustrated that the developer would make their enemies so obnoxiously difficult to hit and waste your turn (and time), even though the reality is that you're still very likely to land your attacks.

 

[bgillisp]

One thing to remember is people perceive randomness wrong most of the time. Apple used to have the Shuffle algorithm on their ipods set to be random, as in, the next song it would play would be picked randomly from the songs on the ipod. People called in to complain that it would play the same song 2 or 3 times in a row, forgetting that by definition of random, that can and will happen!

Eventually Apple got tired of this and changed the algorithm. So it is actually not random now, but only picks from the songs it hasn't played yet.

 

[TheoAllen]

So it is actually not random now, but only picks from the songs it hasn't played yet.

I remember in a good old Winamp. When the random is basically shuffle the order of the playlist.
Like as if it's shuffled, you hit the back/next button, it will be exactly the same song.
You forgot what was the song played last time, you hit back button and you could find what song was it.
Afaik, modern players don't do this anymore.

 

[Aloe Guvner]

@bgillisp Yeah to that point about the shuffle algorithm, I would actually agree with the people complaining. If the mode was named "random", then sure, but the mode is "shuffle". If I was to draw from a shuffled deck of cards, I would not expect to draw the King of Hearts twice in a row.

Afaik, modern players don't do this anymore.

You may be interested in Spotify, it does this

 

[_Shadow_]

Seems I am late for the party.
Better randomness can be achieved by generating or modifying a seed or a result on a random function.
Random function on JS an other languages, is a great tool depending though on where you are gonna use it.
In cryptography, using just a random function to create pseudorandom data, would possibly be disasterous, since they follow a very specific pattern that can be attacked. Meanwhile, if you just wanna generate pseudorandom numbers for a game, I think using the built in function with the timestamp as seed, would be a sufficient solution. Always think if more "random" randomness is worth the time and effort.