I failed 80% job chance cards 17 times in a row, and still counting. Oh dear

[andecoco]

The chances of this are literally less than one in a hundred billion. I always picked the 80% success chance card, and I lost 17 times in a row. And this is me estimating the success rate very mildly; I also have the "better chance card chances" LTA benefit.

Please tell me I'm doing something wrong. I find it incredibly hard to believe that my luck is bad enough that I'm one in a hundred billion.

By the way, I'm also counting only one character's chance cards. I have another one, said character's father, who's already lost five in a row. But, you know what, I'm ignoring him for now.

edit

I stuck this in general discussion because I thought that this might just be a gameplay "feature" or thing I'm unfamiliar with. Also, because I like complaining. If this is actually a bug, sorry; I guess it should be in technical help.

[MattShizzle]

I always ignore chance cards because they almost always ended up bad for me.

[smellincoffee]

I wonder if sometimes the chance card probability doesn't get broken somehow. I once did a Legacy in which all of my torchholders became Mayor. I saw that chance card about sea transport and trucks dozens of times. I always chose the seaport, and despite having the eighty percent right perk, seaports were NEVER the answer. My choosing the seaport became a running joke in the story thread I made for it at another forum...so much so that when I started another legacy, someone wanted to know what my new founding sim's attitude would be toward seaports. :lol:

[maxon]

The chance cards just go off percentages. You're having a run of bad luck.

[Ghost sdoj]

I used to wonder if EA broke that perk, because my sim was right a lot more often before he took it.

[Peni Griffin]

The thing about statistics is this: People don't intuitively grasp them. No matter how improbable something is, if it isn't impossible, in a large enough sample, it will happen. And only the anomalies will stick in your mind.

So even if you've calculated the odds correctly (and you probably haven't, if you haven't down actual math), given the huge number of samples of people choosing chance cards, what happened to you was bound to happen. You're just the one it happened to.

In San Antonio in summer, there is always a 20% chance of rain. But it never rains. Same deal.

[Mootilda]

I seem to remember seeing a bug fix for the 80% chance cards, which implies that the 80% chance cards are actually broken.

[andecoco]

The thing about statistics is this: People don't intuitively grasp them. No matter how improbable something is, if it isn't impossible, in a large enough sample, it will happen. And only the anomalies will stick in your mind.

So even if you've calculated the odds correctly (and you probably haven't, if you haven't down actual math), given the huge number of samples of people choosing chance cards, what happened to you was bound to happen. You're just the one it happened to.

I'm a mathematics/statistics major. :lol: But you're mostly right; I'm just mad.

Invariant unconditional probability of 20% failure on chance cards given LTA benefits that guarantee 80% success rates. Failed 17 times in a row. Thus, 0.20^{17}=1.3\cdot10^{-12} (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.20^{17}), or 0.0000000013% chance of happening. Just over one in a hundred billion. So I exaggerated slightly. :P There are only 7 billion people on this planet. This should never have happened.

[nikel23]

Perhaps you can spawn a Chance Card Tester, and choose the force outcome to clear (or success if you want a cheaty way and are fed up with the failure outcomes :rolleyes: ). I don't really understand about the broken benefit, because I barely even get a failure outcome, and no, I don't use cheat. But this chance card only works for career chance cards, not for hobby nor tour chance cards. Unless, that's what you people meant by broken. I almost always fail in hobby chance card.

[poisonapple88]

I normally have good luck with the LTA perk. Bianca Monty just got promoted to Captain Hero from one of those. Now she's flying with perma-plat. I never do it without the perk though. I always get fired.

[hannahmh87]

I usually pick the right answer - I did actually once find a guide which gave you all possible outcomes good and bad but that is on my old computer. Now I just pick what I would do.

[Issie]

I normally have good luck with the LTA perk. Bianca Monty just got promoted to Captain Hero from one of those. Now she's flying with perma-plat. I never do it without the perk though. I always get fired.

Original poster already stated they have the LTA perk.

It may be broken by the looks of it, maybe google to see if there may be fixes if that is the case.

[DJ.]

Well, that's weird. I always succeed at chance cards - I always pick the second one (if it's [A] [B] [Ignore], I choose B).

But, I always fail when it comes to Bon Voyage tour chance cards.

~DJ.

[Fivey]

Sometimes I just have bad luck, and sometimes good luck.

For instance, my legacy foundress, Trina, had horrible luck. She was in the slacker career, but never got above Projectionist because she would always fail that chance card. That chance card always fired her. She only died platinum because her husband adored her and dated her constantly as an elder.

A few generations later, legacy heir Alec scored a lucky chance card at Rogue Botanist, which promoted him to Ecological Guru. For those who don't know, the R.B. position is at about level 4 or 5. He skipped about five job levels with that chance card.

[iCad]

Are ya sure you don't have a hack that changes the percentages? I have one (Cyjon's maybe? I don't remember) that makes it so that all the outcomes are equally likely. I wanted it that way because after a while, I knew which option to pick that would usually guarantee success, which made chance cards far less chancy than they ought to be, IMO. (I love chance cards and the randomness they induce. Just when I think I've got a Sim all planned out, bam they get fired and, by my rules, that career is then closed to them which means a life path change for them! :lol:

If you don't have a hack...Yeah, that's quite a run of bad luck you've got going there! But, that's probability for you. Maybe you should buy some lottery tickets, since you seem to running into a situation of one-in-a-billion odds. :lol: Your Sim's bad luck might translate into good luck for you. ;)

[whiterider]

Could be that both options have skill requirements for the positive outcome, especially if it's a custom career. I don't know if the skill requirements are absolute, but even if they just weight things differently it could make a difference.

[Saturnfly]

I like it when chance cards fail, it makes the game more interesting. Rather than "So and so did this, succeeded, and are awarded with so much money, they couldn't possibly spend it all".

Sometimes I like it when my snobby rich sims have to pay lots of fines, or lose their jobs over some ridiculous mishap or because they thought streaking was a better way to liven up a dull party.

Although, for some reason I always fail the culinary chance cards. I've only ever had 1 sim reach level 10 with that job. It's always "So & so got demoted to fast food manager!" -.-