God's imitator

Chapter 459 New Gameplay
He Xiaojun carefully examined the new rules: "Sure enough, the emperor is definitely not an ordinary player. He is a strong person disguised as a novice. Now he simply creates his own rules. Is he no longer pretending?"
"That's right. The rules of 'Number Bomb' have been basically dismantled. The strategy component is decreasing and the luck component is increasing. Therefore, the stronger players can no longer obtain high returns from it and will tend to change their strategies."

"Hmm? Wait, something doesn't seem right."

"This is the emperor in a 'reversed' position."

Because players in the game are generally sensitive to information about their factions—for example, He Xiaojun himself is a reversed player, so he would naturally assume that reversed players are teammates, while upright players are enemies.

The emperor he lost to before was the rightful emperor.

In this match, the one who created the "Sage" rule was the Emperor in reverse.

These are two completely different players.

He Xiaojun remarked, "Sure enough, the 'Emperor' tarot card is a very popular tarot card, and strong individuals will definitely scramble to choose it."

"I just wonder what it would look like if the two emperors, upright and reversed, were paired together."

On the screen, the game in the room was about to begin. He Xiaojun stopped thinking about it and focused intently on the game.

If these new rules prove effective, they could very well replace the previous "digital bombs" and become the mainstream rules in the next phase.

……

Inside the room, '↑Demon' had already finished reading the original rules.

【Rules of the "Digital Prisoner"】

[All 22 wooden boxes were filled with 500 wealth coupons.]

[However, each wooden box contains 1 to 22 wealth vouchers with a face value of 100, while the rest are wealth vouchers with a face value of 1000.]

The serial numbers on the wooden boxes do not have a clear correspondence with the number of '100-yuan wealth coupons'; they are in a scrambled state.

[In a prison that can be viewed as wooden boxes numbered 1 to 22, prisoners numbered 1 to 22 are held in an irregular order.]

The goal of the "Thief" player is to rescue prisoners from jail.

The thief has two opportunities to act. Before the first action, they can choose any number 'a', representing the number of 100-value wealth coupons in a certain wooden box. After that, they can randomly open 7 of the wooden boxes.

If the number 'a' is present, the first action is considered 'successful'.

[In the second operation, the opened wooden box will be closed again, but the status of the wealth vouchers inside will remain unchanged.]

At this point, the sage designates a number 'b', which also represents 'the number of 100-value wealth vouchers in a certain wooden box'.

The thief player can also open any of the 7 wooden boxes again.

If the number 'b' is present, the second action is considered 'successful'.

Both operations were successful, allowing us to steal all the wealth vouchers.

[If the operation is successful, you can choose any 7 wooden boxes to steal the Wealth Coupons.]

Even if both attempts fail, you can still choose any 5 wooden boxes to steal the Wealth Coupons.

Clearly, when stronger players play the role of the "sage," they are often unwilling to use defensive strategies, but will try their best to maximize their gains through original rules.

↑The Demon fell into deep thought.

Actually, he had an easier way at this point: he could have simply chosen the first strategy and taken the wealth vouchers from the 10 wooden boxes.

With this method of placing wealth coupons, you won't lose too much even if you take them randomly.

But '↑Demon' still decided to seriously consider the rules and possible strategies for this time.

This is partly because '↑Demon' considers himself a fairly skilled player who can vaguely discern the underlying principles of this gameplay, and he wants to try to crack it; and partly because even if he fails to crack it this time, the experience gained might still be useful in subsequent games.

Judging from the case of "digital bombs," once a "wise" player proposes a new rule, many other "wise" players will spontaneously imitate it.

For 'wise men', imitating such new rules often brings them additional benefits. For example, the wise men who first imitated the 'number bomb' rule all tasted the sweetness of success.

For 'thief' players, it doesn't matter if they can't crack the original creator's game; as long as they can crack the subsequent 'imitators' games, they can still gain extra profits.

Therefore, it's better to seize the opportunity to battle against the creator, carefully consider the rules, and prepare for the future.

The demon was rapidly calculating in its mind.

"This looks like a variation of the '100 prisoners' problem, but since the number has changed, I should first consider what the expected payoff would be if a purely random strategy were used."

"If the expected return of a purely random strategy is acceptable, it means that the expected return of using a special strategy will be significantly improved, which makes it worth trying."

"If the expected return of a purely random strategy is very low, then the expected return of a special strategy should not be increased by 'several times,' since there are only two chances instead of a hundred..."

"First, calculate the probability of each of the four possibilities, then multiply each by its payoff, and finally calculate the total expected payoff."

"If both attempts are successful, the probability of success on the first attempt is 7/22, there is no doubt about that."

"The key is the second time, what number will the sage give?"
"He certainly won't give me the numbers I saw when I first opened the box. He can't bet that I didn't remember them when I opened the box before, can he?"
"Therefore, he will definitely give the numbers from the wooden box that has not yet been opened."

“这样的话，7次机会猜中的概率就是7/（22-7）=7/15。

"There's no time for precise calculations, but we can roughly record it as 1/3 and 1/2."

“那么两次都猜对的概率就是1/6，猜对一次的概率是1/3×1/2+2/3×1/2，全都猜错的概率是2/3×1/2。

"The earnings for these three scenarios are 22 boxes, 7 boxes, and 5 boxes, respectively."

"So the final expected return should be..."

"Approximately 3.6 + 3.5 + 1.7 = 8.8."

"A completely random guess, the expected return is 8.8 boxes of wealth vouchers."

Time was very limited, and the calculations for '↑Demon' were rather rough, with approximate values ​​used in several steps of the calculation.

But it is generally correct.

↑Demon continued to think: "Using random guessing, the expected return is slightly lower than the first strategy 'randomly taking 10 boxes,' but if I use the '100 Prisoners' strategy, the probability should be significantly improved."

"But we must also consider that as the designer of this set of rules, the Emperor must be aware of the existence of the '100 Prisoners' strategy. If he has designed a trap specifically for this strategy, then my use of this strategy may result in nothing."

"I should use the first opportunity to test the waters randomly, and then consider whether to adjust the strategy on the second opportunity."

After considering it, he said, "Let's do it your way."

The Emperor nodded: "Then please confirm the first number, and then open the seven boxes."

"However, as a 'sage,' I can offer you a friendly reminder:"

"In this game, there is a subtle connection between tarot cards and numbers. Fate has already been predetermined. Go with the flow of this connection, and fate will give you the reward you deserve."

After a moment's thought, '↑Demon' said, 'I've chosen the number 15.'

After that, he began to open different wooden boxes one after another, but none of them included the number 15 wooden box, "Demon".

　Asking for a monthly ticket~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)