"The analysis on this sub is great... but I think we need to look into taking a more parsimonious/simplistic look into some things."

#PokemonGO: Parsimony is an attitude in science that you eliminate more simplistic, obvious solutions before moving to more complex ones. A simplistic, bastardized, made up example:Not-parsimonious: the glass spontaneously shatterred due to a quantum-field flip resulting from a gravitational wave from a solar flare in the 5th dimension.Parsimonious: The window broke because a brick went through it.Basically, parsimony tells you to rule out that the window broke due to the brick before trying to explain the breaking due to the other crap I made up.The reason I talk about this is because of what our sub looks into. Particularly when looking at 2k, 5k, and 10k egg distribution. There has been a ton of data collected on things like: how many of each egg do you have? Where are you? Is it the same spot? How frequently do you spin? What direction do you spin? Are you using the infinite incubator or not?The problem is that the most obvious solution is that NOTHING matters. It's COMPLETELY random. Here are the reasons that this is a more simple, and reasonable, explanation for why you are getting mostly 5k eggs:Programming-wise, it's simpler. Easier for someone to put in a line cod that says, essentially, "make it random" than "if you have x amount of x egg and are at this longitude and if infinite incubator then greater chance of...."Incubators are the biggest money maker. The easiest way for Niantic to prevent against breaking the game and abusing the egg system is to make it so you can't. Meaning, PURE CHANCE.It's probably the case you don't roll for eggs. You roll for Pokemon In addition to being simpler to program (i.e., you roll a random number/Pokemon once, then put it into the corresponding egg, compared to rolling an egg then rolling ANOTHER Pokemon), it accounts for why you guys keep getting so many 5k eggs. Here's a simplified version:Let's say there are only 5 Pokemon you can hatch out of eggs. Each of those has a certain percentage chance of being rolled.Spearow: 20% chance, 2kLickitung: 25% chance, 5kGoldeen: 25% chance, 5kDrowzee: 25% chance, 5kOnix: 5% chance, 10kYou can see here that there's not a 75% chance of rolling for a 5k egg per-se, but there's a 75% chance that you are going to get a Drowzee, Goldeen, or Lickitung.Even leaving out percentage rolls, let's assume EVERY Pokemon has a completely even chance of being rolled (in this example, 20% chance). You're STILL going to get 60% 5k eggs because there are simply MORE Pokemon that fall into the 5k egg category. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think that the combined number of Pokemon that you can get in 2k AND 10k eggs is about 2/3rds of what you can get in a 5k egg. So you're getting so many 5k eggs just because a majority of the Pokemon you can roll for happen to be put into 5k eggs.In the more likely event, all of the 10k creatures probably have a very low roll number. If you combine all of their percentages, it probably adds up to a 5% chance of getting Chansey OR Onix OR Porygon OR etc...Egg hatching is designed to be a roulette wheel, essentially You know what Vegas does with roulette wheels, right? Nothing. Every single spin is 100% random. It works better that way. There are no underlying mechanics to get certain payoffs in certain situations. The roulette wheel is a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, which produces the highest and steadiest amount of responding. It means that you get random amounts of rewards and random times. Sometimes you go 1,000 spins before getting a $5 payoff. Sometimes you get $100 payouts two spins in a row. ANY sort of predictability IMMEDIATELY decreases the amount of spins you take. Therefore, Niantic would actually go out of their way to make sure that it is as random as possible. Any sort of predictability with eggs would immediately decreased how much hatching would be occurring.Edit: I'm going to add this as a counter-example: a FIXED ratio schedule of reinforcement. Let's say Niantic made it so that every 9th egg was a 10k. What ends up happening is you would get your 10k egg, have a break in responding for awhile, then keep going. The reason is because you "know" that the next 8 eggs aren't going to be anything worthwhile. However, once you get a few spins in, the responding remains unbroken until the next 10k, then there's another pause. If you don't believe me, look at the daily spin/catch bonuses. On Day 1 and 2, you may not be entirely motivated to go out, and you won't be distressed if you break your streak. Days 6 and 7, on the other hand, I'm sure you will do basically anything to make sure you get. And once you get them and the counter resets, you aren't as motivated. It's because you KNOW when it's coming. With a variable schedule, your thought process is "it could be the next one!", which is why responding NEVER stops, independent of if you just got a good payout or not.My point is that there is no reason to believe that there is some crazy underlying mechanic waiting to be abused. It's random. Just like the items. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2ignLpc