Must-Hit-By Calculator + Fake AP Slots

[Village WolfParticipant]

On Nickels said

@Village Wolf As it turns out, Coin Kingdom isn’t a fairly distributed must-hit either. The must hit by $1,000 goes to and hits at $990 almost 100% of the time and it will almost always happen in a pick ’em bonus.

So I played around with the app and knowing Coin Kingdom tends to hit early means all-else-equal a player who knows this can take the play at a lessor number. Pretty slick!

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 6 days ago by Village Wolf.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

I wouldn’t say Coin Kingdom hits early, as hitting at $990 is getting toward the top of the meter since it resets at $800.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

General question on the calculator: I am wondering if it would make sense to have it more of a yes/no? Play it now. Don’t play. Is that too black and white or more useful? Of course, we’d keep all of the other stats—how much you could lose, how +EV the play is, etc.—and just remove the yellow section in that meter, essentially.

If you sit down to play, regardless of how it’s going, you’re going to spin until you trigger the must-hit you’re chasing. At least that’s how I view this.

[Village WolfParticipant]

On Ben Rosenthal said

I wouldn’t say Coin Kingdom hits early, as hitting at $990 is getting toward the top of the meter since it resets at $800.

Good point! After reading your statement it finally clicked that the app is too generous for Coin Kingdom since the formula assumes that there is a “fair” chance the machine will hit the jackpot on any spin.  Thanks, learning a lot on this thread.

[David YounghansParticipant]

On Ben Rosenthal said

General question on the calculator: I am wondering if it would make sense to have it more of a yes/no? Play it now. Don’t play. Is that too black and white or more useful? Of course, we’d keep all of the other stats—how much you could lose, how +EV the play is, etc.—and just remove the yellow section in that meter, essentially.

If you sit down to play, regardless of how it’s going, you’re going to spin until you trigger the must-hit you’re chasing. At least that’s how I view this.

Colored sections of the meter are now green in both of those situations (+ev only if committing, +ev on the very next spin). Still kept the distinction in the wording.

[RMunchkinParticipant]

I would find it much more useful if it told you what the break even point was.

[Short Coin CharlieParticipant]

This is getting to be a longer thread, and I’m responding without a complete review. Apologies if I bring up anything that has already been addressed (but I’m too busy posting to read all that)

First comment is that I get a few plays here and there on the widely available Konami Quick Strikes (with the “Range” of the Minor from $25 to $50 and the Range of the Major from $250 to $100). Most of my plays are on the Minor because that’s what I seem to find. For someone like me, and for anyone who’s new to being a slot AP, we are going to want a calculator with more precision on the entry point if that’s possible. When playing for a Minor, I usually ignore the Major meter is and figure out the EV for the meter by itself. So I would like a calculator that makes precise, lower denominations on the main calculator – something like $46.55 may or may not be a play, depending on the reset point and the meter rise, etc.

Second comment is a little longer, and again, parts of this may have already been addressed above. I’m still not 100% sure what Base Return I’m supposed to be entering. Is it

a) the RTP of the machine as a whole, day in day out – this would be the easiest for me to hazard a guess at

Suppose we have two Konami machines side by side, one is just a regular slot machine, another is a Quick Strike MHB. I think it’s fair to  assume that if Casino Raisonable sets their RTP on most machines to 90%, then it would be fair to assume 90% for both Machines A and B. It’s just that the 90% return in Machine A comes from base game and bonuses only, while the 90% return of Machine B comes from base game, bonuses, and the MHB meters

See the second picture – there are Konami MHBs out there with 0.25% meter rise on the Major, 0.75% rise on the Minor. If the Base RTP of that configuration happens to be 90%, then the Base RTP is only 87% without the MHB component. Base RTP without MHB depends on the meter rise, a higher meter rise will lower the RTP of the reels-only, if we assume that the machine as a whole must return 90%.

b) the RTP of the reels-only – this would be nearly impossible for me to estimate on the floor, because it depends on a number of variables (see second picture and also comments just above)

It’s important to keep in mind that this RTP figure and in a) above, especially on Konami games, includes the EV of astronomical line hits that we will likely never hit, or at least not hit while pursuing a Minor meter. (I’m referring to line hits like a perfect board of the top paying symbol or being awarded 500 or more bonus spins, possibly hitting a taxable jackpot, etc.)

c) the RTP I am expecting to have while playing/waiting for the jackpot(s) to arrive. This is also easy to estimate because it’s more of a measure of a player’s risk tolerance (as in, “I could easily lose 50% of my coin in on the base game while waiting, and I don’t feel like losing $300 going for a $50 prize today, so I will assume I’m going to get taken off at 50% while waiting)

So I’m still not sure which of these I should input to the calculator.

Disclaimer: others have probably presented these same ideas elsewhere, and presented them more clearly than I have in my picture. But I didn’t copy anyone’s work, and I also offer no guarantees that my calculations are error-free

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Short Coin CharlieParticipant]

On RMunchkin said

I would find it much more useful if it told you what the break even point was.

Good point, as a recreational player who’s trying to make their entertainment dollar go farther might be really happy with a game in a 99% state, while part-time AP can be content with a 101% earn. But a full-time AP may not want to invest their time in a $5/hour opportunity, they might need something north of 105% before getting involved…

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

• First comment is that I get a few plays here and there on the widely available Konami Quick Strikes (with the “Range” of the Minor from $25 to $50 and the Range of the Major from $250 to $100). Most of my plays are on the Minor because that’s what I seem to find. For someone like me, and for anyone who’s new to being a slot AP, we are going to want a calculator with more precision on the entry point if that’s possible. When playing for a Minor, I usually ignore the Major meter is and figure out the EV for the meter by itself. So I would like a calculator that makes precise, lower denominations on the main calculator – something like $46.55 may or may not be a play, depending on the reset point and the meter rise, etc.

Ah, right. It would be handy to be able to input a figure rather than move the slider. I’ll see if David sees this before I ping him with another email.

• Second comment is a little longer, and again, parts of this may have already been addressed above. I’m still not 100% sure what Base Return I’m supposed to be entering.

So if you scroll down on the calculator on “How to use this — plain-English guide,” we do have this currently: “Base return % — how much the machine pays back from everything except this jackpot. If you have no idea, 80% is a conservative guess.”

Does that make sense or am I overlooking something obvious?

 

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

^ from above regarding more precision, we can type in whatever numbers we want instead of using the slider (see attached).

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

David added a new feature for the calculator: right-weighted distribution (see attached photos). This will be handy for must-hits that don’t have uniform distribution (i.e., those that won’t realistically hit at any point).

Games from AGS (River Dragons being the most popular) and a few others, such as Coin Kingdom, will be prime candidates. I’ll add specifics in the forthcoming game write-ups.

I was telling David that I was working on a post for Coin Kingdom, so the timing is excellent.

If anyone wants to play around with the calculator and leave feedback or questions, this is the spot to relay anything.

• This reply was modified 1 week ago by Ben Rosenthal.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

Update from David:

Added an Overall RTP % field, in case the player knows this from a PAR sheet or some other source. It works like this:

• Base Return % = expected payback ignoring the jackpots (what most MHB calculators use).
• Overall RTP % = overall expected payback including jackpots (what a casino means when they say “our slots return 90%”).

Type in either, the other fills itself in. Whichever you typed last stays fixed, and the other recalculates when you change the seed, must-hit-by, rise, distribution, or meter count.

Example: Pin Base Return and switching to Right-weighted lowers Overall. Pin Overall and the same switch raises Base Return instead.

—

It’s going to be rare when the PAR sheet is known, but this can only help in rare cases where this info is available. As he mentioned, if you don’t know the overall RTP, just put in whatever base return % you feel comfortable with; 80% is the default conservative figure. That will then auto-fill the overall RTP %.

[Author]

Posts