[talyian]

In some competitive games like Dota and LoL, the random distribution for critical hits is weighted so that it ramps up over time, resetting after a successful crit. (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Random_distribution) This both reduces the chance of two high rolls coming up twice in a row as well as long periods of low rolls.

It doesn't have the "you are doing really well, and now you are due for a failure" since "not a critical" isn't really that negative of an outcome.

For something like D&D, the same kind of "better-than-random" distribution just comes from adding dice. 4d6 is much more consistent than 1d21+3.

[gozur88]

Dota was my first thought when I read the article. Good Dota players pay attention to their crits, and if they haven't had one in a few hits they adjust strategy with the expectation of higher damage, something you would never do if it was truly random.

[joefkelley]

Yeah I've definitely seen Arteezy on PA hit neutrals until he gets a few non-crits in a row, then go gank.

[DINKDINK]

Fascinating! I wonder if the distribution is engineered like that to avoid specious cheating claims. E.g. Player:"Look at this video of Famous_Player getting 3 crits in a row! They're probably cheating!" So much potential for fallacies; Gambler's Fallacy, Silent Evidence Fallacy..

[sillysaurus3]

Nah, Icefrog doesn't make decisions like that. It's all about what makes the game more fun.

[DINKDINK]

Ah yes, I meant to say "In addition to" the reasons you stated.

[awodol]

There isn't really a possibility to cheat game mechanics in those sort of games thankfully since things like critical hits are all handled server side.

[tvararu]

Interesting, when I used to play League of Legends I was sure that the crit chance wasn't random at all. In my experience, at 25% crit precisely every 4th strike would crit, at 50% precisely half, and at 75% every 4th strike I'd do wouldn't be a crit. It seemed fully deterministic which I thought was an interesting way to make the mechanic more skillful as you could count in your head when you'll get a damage spike; you could fire some useless shots on minions then dive in for a trade on your enemy laner knowing that you'd win because of your guaranteed crit.

[morley]

I've heard Blizzard does the same thing for valuable random drops (like legendary drops in Hearthstone and Diablo 3): instead of being random, there's a proc rate so you can't get screwed by chance.

[r1ch]

They do it in Hearthstone for pack openings, the players call it the "pity timer" - you're guaranteed to get a legendary card after opening 40 packs or something like that.

There are even websites like https://pitytracker.com/ that keep track of where you are in your chances.