The Confusion Experiment

The Confusion mechanic is a prevalent theme that Nature players (and anyone running a Wild Hog) regularly have to make decisions around. Understanding the odds of successfully hitting a target with a confused attacker is essential to maximizing your odds at making the best decisions.

But does Confusion actually work the way most people think it does?

Its description states:

"When a confused creature attacks, there is a 50% chance that it attacks a valid random character instead."

When exactly 2 viable targets are on the board, this should amount to a 75% success rate in hitting the target you are aiming at, and progressively less when there are more creatures on the board.

For some people who might be wildly unlucky, sometimes it seems their confused creatures will attack things they're not aiming at more often than not. So the question is, is the description above accurate? I like to be wary of untested claims.

We all know games can have bugs. It could be completely possible that the description's wording is wrong, or that the code does not function as intended. A bug on something like this might be hard to detect for players unless they are specifically looking for it. So lets run an experiment to test it out.

Let's entertain at least two possible scenarios:

If the description is accurate:

• 50% chance to attack the intended target
• 50% chance to attack a random valid target (including the intended target)

If bugged:

• 50% chance to attack the intended target
• 50% chance to attack a random valid target (excluding the intended target)

The common interpretation of Confusion is that the former is true. This simple experiment aims to confirm whether this really is the case.

The difference is up to a 75% chance versus a 50% chance of hitting the intended target in this case.

So, without further ado, on we go with the experiment.

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Setup:

• 1 Wild Hog (confused)
• 2 targets (creature, enemy god)

Sample size:

• The Wild Hog will attempt to attack the enemy god 100 times.

Expected outcome:

(50% + (50%/2)) accuracy from the Wild Boar

= 75%

= 75 successful hits on the intended target

Results:

= 69 successful hits on the intended target

(Some confirmation.)

Final word:

Though it was lower than I would have liked, this does offer some degree of confirmation that the description of Confusion is accurate, and that the execution is not bugged. The observed accuracy is somewhat adequately higher than 50%.

100 attacks is a relatively small sample size, but I think it's enough for one independent party performing the experiment, at least for now. Experimental results are, after all, best when reproduced by multiple independent parties, so you are welcome to test this out for yourselves and publish the results to add to the certainty.

Rigorous scientific process can be somewhat overkill for such a trivial thing as this, and I do agree... But for players who might one day compete in tournaments with thousands of dollars on the line, certainty in this information could prove useful.

Still, to everyone regardless, I hope you enjoyed reading this and found that it was worth your time as a GU player.