Ladder Site Online...

[Death]

oh I bet you can :p


if rock paper scissors was a skill, rps tournaments would have repeat champions.

[Eskon]

Likewise, Wesnoth is a game of risk management and consideration of a thousand tactical and strategical factors. To remember the unit's terrain defenses, their damage and resistances is only about 5% of the game proper. It's about pure studied knowledge as much as I can become a chess grandmaster by reading My System and any number of books on Opening Theory and other parts of the game. If this stuff were easy, you'd think you could make an AI of barely decent playing level. (No offense to the AI creators intended, I know how hard this stuff is)

[Rigor]

OMG this is cool!

http://worldrps.com/play.html

death this link was really cool, thanks a lot!

about the discussion:

interesting...i for example dont remember every possible value (thief vs horseman, daytime 5-3 // 10-2, once backstabbing/ and not bs situation you know it for both units by heart?), but more or less most attack/def. situations - but - this clearly IS an advantage, if u know it.

i am mostly approximating values, only in dense situations i care to know the exact numbers that effect of each battle. and i think there was this spreadsheet that tells you each outcome for every unit, but i dont know where i saw it anymore.

about the rules: well yes, this is an interesting point: there are the normal rules (upkeep, backstabbing, skirmishing, zoc), and then, there are situations where you can use your superior knowledge of them to for instance take a unit that has been pinned in a village...OUT of this village, place it on a hex besides that and "slip" a duellist or a skirmisher inside instead. not many players use this little trick to hold the village for longer than the other unit would. and not many players would have this idea to use this specific rule in wesnoth to do so. just an example. if u find it bad, however, forget it already. XD eventually if u find it good ill post it somewhere in the strategy guide

personally, i think it's a bad idea. and for a quite different reason: I'm not a unimapper. In fact, I far prefer less played maps to, say, freelands x100. However, suppose I want to play a ladder match on Sullas. I don't want to be forced to use the random map mod just hoping to land on that map.

speaking of which, how would you enforce it?

i have been thinking about this one myself. my idea is, when you want to play a ladder game, you can have a fast game, or have a game on <insert map that takes long> and when i open a ladder game i make sure i got the time to finish it. so, in the end, with such a mod enforced, i imagine you would play fewer games a day, and those you play with more caution because you have to be prepared for any situation.

[Rigor]

ah yes, while doing housework a thought crossed my mind: when your so much in mood for a freelands game on a competitive level you could say "lets play this one more seriously, like on the ladder" - because the ladder is the ladder. and not a friendly game where you pick your favorite stuff. what do you think?

[eyerouge]

@Death

if all games are skill based, then the word skill really doesn't have a lot of meaning.

It's not clear who you are discussing with, nor do I know who in his/her right mind would claim all games are skill based. As for me, if you had read before replying:

All games which are somehow determined by the player are skill based per common sense definition. To be more precise, "skills" are the same things as the players abilities at handling various relevant elements of the game, and/or his opponents ditto.

For example, games of pure "luck" like Lotto don't fulfil my criterias since the outcome of what happens in the game can't be affected to any degree by the player. You can't, by picking the numbers x y z, affect how the game responds or what happens in the game world. You can't interact with it, nor does it even have mechanics for interaction. The game runs it self and you are just a spectator as a player even if you have the psychological illusion of thinking you do have an effect on it. (And when you finally win lotto you didn't win because of your "skills" - since skills are still defined as something which effects the game. Lotto is not affected. It affects you when it randomly picked you. It's actually just a random sequence of matching identities/symbols.)

for example, i hardly think that clicking on a hex, then clicking on another hex, is the same as taking an aimed shot on the move in counterstrike, or clicking a million times in starcraft.

No, of course you don't. But who in here does? Or claims there is just one skill? Clearly, as I wrote in my previous reply, a player can be skilled in a million ways. I even gave examples of that within a Wesnoth context. (And beside - how does any of this relate to what you said - that Wesnoth is not a skill based game? All my questions to you in my previous post are still unanswered by you: If it's not skill based and the outcome of every game depends mainly - but no exclusively - on skills, then what does it depend on in your world?)

the difference is that in these other games, you can be extremely skilled without even really knowing what to do or where to go.

Yes, of course: Because every game would have "skills" as something defined according to it's own ruleset, it's own contect. As you may be able to imagine having skills in hockey isn't the same thing as havign skills in soccer. Yet, a hockey player on the soccer field playign soccer probably lacks skills. Why? Because we're talking about different things, yet using one word - "skills". The same goes for Chess, Go or Domino and Poker for that matter. Not to mention Counter Strike or Wesnoth.

I'd argue that the main problem here is still lingual: You have a very uncommon way of using the word "skills". Almost as if you had defined it universally and only in relation to one given game world/context.

in wesnoth, the whole game is knowing what to do or where to go. you guys are confusing knowledge with ability.

In Chess it's the same. Ehrm. Your claim is even valid for tic-tac-toe and for Ping Pong or Martial Arts for that matter. I just don't get it.

Also, "knowing what to do" is evidently just four words that could cover the rules and tactics/strategy and info of thousands and yet millions. Chess and all the books about the game would be a fine example of that.

Furthermore, there is a link between ability (that one possess or wishes to acquire) and knowledge. How that link looks varies on context, as does most things in this discussion.

i think the real concern most people have is "complete fairness," something which I think is an impossible (okay, impractical) goal for wesnoth.

What's not fair right now as all is? Nobody forces anyone to participate in any ladder game which he/she believes has problems associated with it. Every time a player accepts to play as P2 or P1 he/she clearly gives the system his/her blessing and ok-sign.

Also, to repeat myself yet once more since nobody reads anything in here: If you with fairness mean the P1-P2-hysteria then it's still not a real problem unless people ate of equal skills. People just perceive it as one because they don't comprehend the game enough. (Reason for why P1 has a 60% win factor is still more likely to depend on other factors, i.e. him/her choosing the map and the other person accepting playing on a map he/she were clueless about.)

correct. just to be clear, i would say that player strength is a gauge of how well one can read a situation, which boils down to how well one knows/remembers the game rules and values... and then remembering and evaluating possible combinations of moves.

but there isn't anything beyond that.

Building a rocket and flying to the moon boils down to how good you're at physics/math and maybe mechanics/chemistry, and how to control it, remembering and evaluating possible combination of moves yadda yadda.

but there isn't anything beyond that.

Hopefully this travesty can prove to you that everything in the world can be summed up. The lingual process of doing it doesn't capture the reality or complexity. Not for Wesnoth, not for rocket science, and not for anything else in most cases.

What you in the quote call "a players strength" most people would call "a players skill". Again, it's a lingual question. That said, it's hard to use a forum where we communicate with language if we don't solve such obstacles, like we're doing now for an instance.

I think Eskon wrapped it up nicely.

There seems to be a discrepancy between having so called knowledge (what you speak of isn't even defined as knowledge in at least Sweden - it's called "memory") and being able to handle/apply the things you memorized in a creative or productive manner.

[SalsaRocoto]

Hey all,

the fixing of grrr's RDM addon is ongoing but not yet successfull. In the mean time, I posted a random starting position version of 2p - Hamlet. Would be great to have some people to test it.

It has been posted here

To install it, simply unzip the file in your data directory, restart Wesnoth and "2p - Hamlet - random start" should appear in your map list when you create a game.

Cheers

[Rigor]

i just want to inform you all...that we are working on something awesome. that being said, i will leave the rest to your own speculations.

[Doc Paterson]

I propose grrrs addon (how to get it: start wesnoth, click on Addons,
filter "grrr" and download the competitive gaming addon) to be used for
ladder game setups, where you will play one out of 17 randomly chosen maps,
and be randomly assigned to p1 or p2.
Those maps will be all 11 default 1v1 maps (except Cynsaun Battlefeld) and
there will be 6 new ones:

Astral Port
Elensefar Courtyard
Crescent Lake
Serpent Ford
Unfolding space
Fast to Madness

On the one hand, it's very good to be testing new maps, and if you don't care much about guaranteeing (or coming close to it) balance for ladder games, it's fine to allow this batch to enter the group. I think some of the above are exceptional; Astral Port for example, but even the excellent ones need balancing work, and are not going to give ladder users the same shot at a "fair" match. Also, it seems incorrect to exclude Cynsaun Battlefield when these are being included, because even though the balance there is a bit less predictable and solid than the other mainline 1v1s, I personally believe that it's better balanced than many of the above. If the aim is to collect balancing data and propose useful changes, Cynsaun ought to be in there as well. I continue to work with it by the way, and I feel that the 1.8 version is the best yet. The difficulty is perfecting the balance of a map so large.

Anyways, even though we'd be dealing with several maps where the balance is shaky, legalizing them for ladder games might be the best way to get people to actually play seriously on them, in great enough quantities that we'll get some solid data.

That about sums up my mixed feelings on this.

[Rigor]

truth is, i do care about the representation of ranking through a close-to-perfect ladder system and im glad that in between your comment i heard those words:

it's fine to allow this batch to enter the group

talking about a shaky balance, we wont see footie/ulf combo balanced out until 1.9 (*cough ulf arcane -20%?*), so i think this "risk" of making the "not perfectly balanced" maps be played +1000% and see unfair results because of that is a *rather* small one, especially since excellent swordsmen should be able to swing any sword, and thats where they would also win on maps that are poorly balanced. however, i nevertheless think that the maps i hand-picked with grrr are perfectly fine to serve the ladder community for ranking issues.

thanks for your feedback about cynsaun, i was considering to include it - but - i still kind of want to keep it out because i simply dont think anybody should be forced to play the biggest map in wesnoth even if the chance was only 6%. call it personal preference, im not saying dont play this map on the ladder, au contraire, i would love to see a showdown between two top players on that map, but almost NEVER you will find the time to play that game till the end without saving it, especially not between skilled opponents.



for lazy people

so my reason to exclude it is: the exhaustingly long game time you'd need to plan in every single time you are playing with grrrs mod simply doesnt make it a good idea.

the maps are ok for rating.

[The Black Sword]

I have to say, I really like this for the ladder. 17 maps and randomising p1/p2 position is great, and the extra maps look like they will be really fun to play and provide a different experience to what we already had.

Leaving the option of playing your own agreed conditions is very important too though and I'm glad its in there. I also agree with leaving out Cynsaun, all the other maps can be played in a reasonable time period but I don't feel the same is true of that map, but that's one of the reasons why the optional condition is important, so people can still play the map when they want to.

There was a lot of negativity about the last rules update, so I just wanted to say that I like this idea and thanks to anyone worked on it.

[SalsaRocoto]

For those who are going to use the competitive addon:

it seems that crashes might occur sometimes, if it does please do the following:
1. when you are asked if you want to overwrite replay, always answer YES
2. if the addon crashes, please post the replay on the addon's forum
The replay is found in your saves directory and will be called "1v1_all_-_random_default_ma..._replay.gz"

Last but not least, if you are annoyed by the overwrite message, just uncheck the option "Save Replay on SP/MP Victory or MP Defeat" in the preferences.

enjoy your games

[Quetzalcoatl]

Maybe it would be cool to have 2 sets of maps for ladder games . One conservative and lets say experimental one (I'm not sure if it should be called this way). Conservative could include maps ppl usualy play like for example most of the 1v1 maps and experimental could have the rest of them (or maybe its better to have: conservative, experimental, conservative + experimental). After all it's always possible to restart game if both players hate specific map (so including Cynasum in experimental wouldn't be bad - and it is a chance to finally get a lot of playtesting of this map). This (having conservative set) would/could help making RDM add-on more popular on ladder as most players prefer to play weldyn and freelands and switching from those maps to user made ones could be too shocking for them I think .

This idea is somehow like making one step back (as having all in one random is the perfect case) but if it could make ppl more open minded about maps it could be worth to give it a shot .

Cheers
Q

[eyerouge]

After all it's always possible to restart game if both players hate specific map (so including Cynasum in experimental wouldn't be bad - and it is a chance to finally get a lot of playtesting of this map). This (having conservative set) would/could help making RDM add-on more popular on ladder.

Players that are prepared to restart a game just because "wrong map" was picked by the add-on should really not use it in the first case and should use other settings they agree on instead. That specific type of players can't ever be happy with the addon however it is designed since they, per your definition, aren't happy with all maps. Hence, they are no problem: The addon isn't meant to be used by them if they happen to disagree with what it could result in. The rules still leave the option for them to not use the addon.

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This idea is somehow like making one step back (as having all in one random is the perfect case) but if it could make ppl more open minded about maps it could be worth to give it a shot  :hmm:  .

It makes the addon work in at least 3 different modes, making it even more complicated using it and joining a game where it is used: If I join the game, how do I know which mode it's using, if any? Sure, there could be rules about game naming conventions, but they'll just be a waste of pixels since nobody follows even the existing ones about how to properly name a ladder game in the lobby.

People don't become more open minded because it would exist an extra mode in it. Most people are either very open minded or very conservative. The ones in between are a small percentage, most likely. People in general have a black-and-white perspective.

If they are not open minded they wont join a game where the addon is used. If they are they probably have no problem with user made maps since they are open minded (I myself however am still critical against the ladder using them at all in any legit games, but for totally different reasons that relate to balance issues, fairness and accuracy of rating getting affected by potential map exploits etc...but let's not go into that in here & now.)

[Doc Paterson]

(I myself however am still critical against the ladder using them at all in any legit games, but for totally different reasons that relate to balance issues, fairness and accuracy of rating getting affected by potential map exploits etc...but let's not go into that in here & now.)

As far as the balance/fairness/ issues, I completely agree with you. I'll have likely added 3-4 new 1v1s to mainline by the time the next dev release comes out, but I know that there are many who want the process to be moving faster, and want to have more new maps for ladder games, right now. Whether or not some of the above listed candidates are good or bad maps (in terms of balance/aesthetic/distinctiveness etc.) and/or which ones are worth trying to balance is something that there's not going to be agreement on, between me and the Ladder Lords. If the ladder wants to diverge from mainline and mainline maps in this way, I have no real problem with it. Maybe some people do? I don't know.

The idea, at its core, is a good one, with good intentions. I can't imagine any other way to ensure that you guys get a lot of data for these maps. I just don't agree that the matches played will be particularly balanced matches, and on some of the above, I feel particularly certain. But- (and I'm not being sarcastic when I say this)- if it serves the greater good of giving bored ladder players more maps, and helps gradually improve those maps, so be it. I really do think that those goals are fine goals. I guess that the inclusion process and the quick declarations of "the balance is fine on this one, etc." make me think things could get a little haphazard. It's true that I've always taken a very slow and cautious approach in the balancing and inclusion of 1v1s, and I completely understand if ladder players want to work within a system that moves faster.

[nagyokos9]

Hi Guys,

There is one thing I really miss from Grrr's all random addon: MUSIC.
Is there a way to put music back?

Thanks,
Rudanar_Firmus