[QUESTION] Blackjack against Bruce with masculinity on the line

[belegost]

When playing against Bruce and betting your masculinity, auto-play option becomes unavailable, which is fine. However after spending whole last evening trying to win it seems like this is either not possible or at the very least, extremely unlikely.

 

For the record: I tried this on a couple of different characters, on a modded game (but nothing that touches the bar the characters within or card game mechanics) and I had a save which I did while inside the bar and kept reloading after losing. All characters had low int stat (I like the random brainfarts you get with low int, so I always keep it at 1 or 2 at most), but I do not know if stats have any relevance.

 

Here are my findings:

 

• the most points I could get was 18
• the average points on a very good attempt hovered around 15
• on most attempts the score was 10-12 for first several rounds, then quickly dropped and hovered between 2 and 8 before inevitable loss
• Bruce (or the game) appears to cheat. If you go first on a given turn and get a blackjack, in 4 out of 5 cases he will get blackjack as well
• similar with standing on 20. He will get either 20 right away or (rarer) a blackjack
• if you stand on 17 or less in your hand Bruce will always win with either 19, 20 or blackjack
• if you bust, Bruce will never bust but will stand on 19, 20 or blackjack
• Bruce never stands below 18 in hand
• Bruce appears to bust only if the score is below 10 and it is "safe" for him to bust.
• the more score you have, the higher the likelihood for him to win on a given turn. If you consistently get high hand or blackjack he will always match your hand or get blackjack himself until you start losing and the score drops

 

I spent a lot of time trying to win, several hours at least, but was unable to despite many, many, many, many repeated attempts. What is the logic behind blackjack? Do your own stats matter (e.g. intelligence)? Is there any strategy to win against him? Why does Bruce cheat?

Edited February 19 by belegost

[belegost]

Tested once again this morning. Bruce got 3 blackjacks in a row and he consistently kept getting 3 blackjacks in a row, every single time I reloaded the save file.

It appears that that there is no "randomness" to the game and the result is already pre-determined in advance.

 

EDIT:

did further testing. The hands appear to be pre-determined in advance. Every single time I reloaded I got the same hand on the first 3 turns and Bruce got the same hand as well. Did not try beyond that as the attempt ended after that with Bruce winning.

When is the moment that the result resets and gets determined anew?

 

EDIT 2:

did some more testing. Managed to win after purposefully going bust on my first 2 hands. This is the moment when the score shifted. Bruce kept matching my blackjack with his blackjack on several subsequent turns until I managed to get him to bust twice in a row and then narrowly winning the last hand.

 

However, he only handed me 100$ as a reward. How can I force him to take the pill? If there is a certain number of won games required?

I am not going to continue playing and repeating it ad nauseam, if the odds are so much stacked against me, because this is not fun in any way.

Edited February 19 by belegost

[Farseer Nobundo]

1) I've observed the game's behavior in various situations.

If you keep loading the same save and repeat the same actions, the outcome is always the same. The game probably uses some pseudo RNG that doesn't depend on system time. What exactly plays the role of seed value, I don't know, haven't inspected game code in depth.

If you want a different sequence of actions, try entering bathroom, leave it and then try again. You probably had a bad luck.

 

2) If you want Bruce to take the pill, you need to buy it first.

[belegost]

40 minutes ago, Farseer Nobundo said:

If you keep loading the same save and repeat the same actions, the outcome is always the same

That's how I was able to finally win, when I realized that. I memorized the pattern and doubled down on a critical hand, winning in one, fell swoop. However due to behaviour I described it is highly unlikely to win without save scumming.