Issues not appearing and recurring

[Seranatitem]

Hello I've been noticing for some time that I've been getting issues that I've had in the past as well as just today after waiting Six or Five hours or however long I am supposed to before getting a new issue which hasn't yet arrived for me.

[North Krualstiken]

We have what, 500 issues? They will tend to repeat.

[Ectique]

Hello I've been noticing for some time that I've been getting issues that I've had in the past as well as just today after waiting Six or Five hours or however long I am supposed to before getting a new issue which hasn't yet arrived for me.

Your country would stagnate pretty soon if they didn't repeat Well, that depends on how often you do them, I guess. I've answered over 75 since my founding, apparently. Well, this nation's founding.

[Flanderlion]

Hello I've been noticing for some time that I've been getting issues that I've had in the past as well as just today after waiting Six or Five hours or however long I am supposed to before getting a new issue which hasn't yet arrived for me.

They are putting out issues all the time, so you will get new issues likely sooner rather than later. Look at the issue URLs, if they are 500 and something they are new. I had a glance at your nation, but you answer very different to me, so I recognised very few of the issues. If all else fails, answer issues drastically different. It will mess up your nation, but you will see different issues.

[Bears Armed]

We have what, 500 issues?

Nearer to 600, now.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

600 isn't enough to avoid repetition for any length of time, of course. Hell, even 2000 wouldn't make much difference.

Say you have a pool of 500 issues to pull from, and each update you got 1 random issue.
(This isn't the way it works, of course, as the pool changes according to what validities you meet, and the game weights more recent issues to be more likely to appear. However, we'll use this example as our "spherical cow")

So, with 2 issues, your chance of no repeat is: 500/500 x 499/1000, or 99.8%
With 3 issues, your chance of no repeat is 500/500 x 499/1000 x 498/1000, or 99.4%

By 27 issues in, there's just over 50% chance that you've seen at least one repetition.
If we're talking 4 issues a day, then that's less than a week before you're more likely to see a repetition than not.

Let's up the numbers, and assume we get to the point where there are 2000 eligible issues for you to pull from. That's four times the effective pool. So are we talking 4 times as long before repetition?

Afraid not, now its 53 issues before there's a 50% chance of at least one repetition.

20,000 issues? Now it's a whopping 167 issues before you have a 50% chance of at least one repetition. Which is just 6 weeks.

So, no matter how many issues we add, you are ALWAYS going to be seeing repetitions. Play for long enough, and it will become actively surprising to see new issues.

However, because the clever way the game weights new issues with higher priority, you can be pretty certain that if you write a new issue, you've just brought a brand new experience to a huge number of NS gamers. A recent issue added to the game got answered 2100 times in 30 days, so when you write, you're writing for a decent audience.

So pop by the Got Issues forum, and start drafting!