Unofficial Guide to Probability

I have a bachelor’s degree in Probability and Statistics.

What is Probability and how does it affect the way I play LioDen?

As most of you know, LioDen is a place of chance, and if that’s news to you . . . surprise! I’ve seen many misconceptions about this ‘chance’, which in our case is also known as Probability. Things like breedings, explore encounters, genetics, mutations, and breeding items are left up to chance.

Probability
The likelihood an event is likely to occur. It is measured by the ratio of the true cases to the entire number of cases possible.

Random Number Generator
This is also known as the RNG. Everything behind the scenes on LioDen is done via coding, and coding is usually done with letters/words/numbers, and every interaction that involves probability is directly related to the RNG, because ultimately, the RNG decides what happens.

Statistical Independence
Two identical situations do not rely on another. The previous outcomes of the same situation do not affect what the outcome of a new situation will be.

Math? What? Ew!
I’m sure that’s what some of you are thinking, but rest assured, it’s not as hard as you may believe.

Example #1

Let’s pretend we have a bag of rocks. There are 4 rocks in our bag. 3 rocks are white and 1 rock is red. The red rock is special, and if you draw the red rock, you win a prize. The probability of choosing the red rock is 1 / 4 ( number of red rock / total number of rocks ), which is 25%.

Of course you want to win the prize, so you reach your hand into the bag and pull out a rock, unfortunately, your rock is WHITE! You don’t win this round. The white rock you chose at random is put back into the bag.

Do you want to try again? Absolutely! And here is where people make the mistake. Theoretically, you believe you now should have a better chance of picking the red rock, because ideally, the red rock should be chosen once out of four times; HOWEVER, that is not the case. Each time you reach into the bag is independent from the last, meaning you start over. The rocks don’t know which one you picked last time.

This is the same with the ‘chances’ you take on LioDen. If your Lioness has 35% fertility, you could breed her twice, you could breed her thirty-five times, or you could breed her fifty times. It’s luck. If you are using a Crunchy Worm { Upon use, a lioness's next breeding will have a 25% chance to duplicate the mother's looks onto 1 cub from the litter. This item will not copy mutations } you could get one cub that is a duplicate of its mother or you could get none. You could even use four Crunchy Worms and get ZERO cubs that are duplicates of the mother.

Why again? Because the new Crunchy Worm has no previous knowledge of the fact that you have used other Crunch Worms, so they are starting fresh and do not take into account what happened in the past.

Example #2

Now, let’s look at a ”live” example using https://www.random.org/

We type in the minimum as 1 and the maximum as 4- again the probability being 1 / 4 ( 25% ), since there are 4 total numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and they all have an equal chance of being chosen by the RNG. Again, in theory, when ran 4 times, each number should appear once, but that is not the case.

2 , 2 , 2 , 1

Each number had a 25% chance of being chosen during our independent runs, however, 2 appeared three times in a row. If 2 was the number you were looking for, you would be incredibly lucky because that has a 1.563% chance of happening. Overall, to get each number once, ( not necessarily in numerical order) there is a 9.375% chance.

See for yourself, follow the link to the random number generator. Some of you may get 1,2,3,4 and I congratulate you, but I would suggest trying again to see if you would be so lucky twice.

With all this being said, don’t be discouraged or scared when encountering the Probabilities of not only LioDen, but the world. Occasionally, luck will be on your side. Short-term, probability tends to look bleak, but in the long run, after what can sometimes be thousands of, if not more, runs- probabilities do tend to average to what they actually suggest.

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below and I will answer to the best of my ability!