Luck in Wesnoth for dummies?

[Sauron]

I think there should be a non-arrogant, explanatory sticky thread that answers most questions regarding luck and RNG - especially those made by people who are a bit ignorant about RNG, probability and statistics. The whining about RNG is generic - so should be the answers. It is better way than 'Luck in wesnoth - rationale' - at least more explanatory and less self-assuring arrogant.

Luck in Wesnoth for dummies (FAQ):

1. The game is cheating, it says my mage should hit 70% times - and still it missed all his shots and got killed next turn by 2 grunts, despite it had 60% defense.

The standard answer is either 'you're dumb if you are placing mage in reach of 2 grunts' or 'In a long run the damage will even out' or 'that's the beauty of the game, don't like it - stop playing'. It is obvious that RNG guys return - and having nothing explanatory (Rationale is not really explanatory, it just says that you don't want to change the status quo) - they spam the forums with 'My Little Pony Strikes Again.' threads.

Answer should be more or less like that:
Imagine you are playing a dice game with a friend. If score is below 4 you get 0 points and on 4,5,6 you get 1 point. After each of you had 10 rolls (on the same dice) you have 3 points, despite you 'should' get 5. What is more - your friend got 8 points! Was he cheating?
Wesnoth battles are resolved much the same way this imaginary dice game is.

2. But I am getting bad luck much more often than good luck, the development team should do something about it!

The standard answer is 'You just memorize extreme bad luck, especially due to dire consequences it had for outcome of the battle, while extreme luck is often taken for granted - and we easily get tempted to diminish luck role in games we win - because it allows to delude ourselves we won by our 'great skill'.' I agree with that. I could even add 'Note, that if you are getting extremely unlucky - it means that someone got extremely lucky - precisely the same number of times. Have you ever seen in these forums players complaining about lucky wins?'

3. If the random number generator is so fair and works so as you claim, why is that either me or my opponent are all the time above or below expected damage?

If you imagine you played with you friend 10 times the 10-dice roll game - it will very rarely end up in 5:5. Still - if you sum up the points after those 10 games - both of you should be very close to 50.

4. But I don't care if it evens out in 10 battles, when my valuable units are dead I can't beat my opponent! This game is cheating and unfair. Why don't you change something about that?

Well, here we've reached the 'Rationale' point.
Standard answer:
Noy: 'The skill in Wesnoth is management of bad luck, if you cannot do it - switch to My Little Pony Coloring books, weakling.'
Dave: 'This is my game and I want it to be like that. If you don't like it as it is - find another game. We're not changing anything.'
Others: 'Well, most of time it should be not a problem to make up for the loss, all that is required - is patience, cautious planning and good strategy. Uncontrolled losses are very often a result of BAD MANAGEMENT'.

While most of time losses are resulting from overexposure of units on unfavorable terrain, at improper time of day, with uncovered flanks, after attacks that were too dependent on LUCK, sometimes that point IS correct. Much less often than it is claimed by beginners or people who are accustomed to blaming everything but themselves for their own mistakes. Sadly it is the beginners who cluelessly complain - not experienced players.

Returning to our dice-game analogy (bearing in mind that in Wesnoth we can use maneuver, unit composition, strategy, while here - we do not) - if in one of the 10-roll games you get 0 and your friend 10, you most probably will not make up for the game in 9 remaining. You can either say, 'well, ok, that was really extreme outcome' - and start another game from scratch - or try your luck and play 9 remaining rounds. Sometimes Wesnoth rewards the latter attitude. But most of time it does not, because a good strategist should be able to make a good use of the once gained advantage.
The solution might be changing the system. Maybe instead of using one dice roll to decide your points you should use an average of 2 or 4 dices? This would make extreme results less probable. This is what is already implemented in a mod of Wesnoth [linked here]. There are more solutions, you could take a look at these too:
[WML] Zookeeper's Less Luck era
[C++] Damage System MOD(or Less Luck MOD) by A&J.
If you're a creative person - you might either help developing one of these - or come up with your own.



Any opinions?

[Eloquentia]

I think you're right, it is annoying. Not only the answers, also the themes. Every player should understand that probability means probability and not Guarantee.

[Icarusvogel]

What do you mean, opinons? Do you expect any non-"ihatewesnoths" to dislike this? Great text. I love the way you explain it - short, and to the point.
P.S: That thread in the link really shocked me. "Get another job". Honestly, Wesnoth has been my favourite game for 2 1/2 years now, and I have not discovered a single flaw in the way the game works.

[AI]

The solution might be changing the system. Maybe instead of using one dice roll to decide your points you should use an average of 2 or 4 dices? This would make extreme results less probable.

The problem is that the probabilities shown aren't the actual probabilities anymore then.

[lmelior]

The problem is that the probabilities shown aren't the actual probabilities anymore then.

Sure they are, as long as the actual probability is 50%.

One solution might be the use of a quasi-random number generator (as opposed to pseudo-RNG), through either a "shuffle bag" or a low-discrepancy sequence.

http://mcarthurgfx.com/blog/article/a-l ... -generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-discrepancy_sequence

A shuffle bag is just like the letter bag in Scrabble or a deck of cards - you have a set probability of getting a particular letter or card at the beginning, but the probabilities change as the game goes on. Sampling without replacement, in statistics lingo. To make it even more "fair" each side should have their own shuffle bag. You could even scale the "randomness level" by modifying what goes into the bag, e.g. for low randomness, you could just put ten values (5, 15, 25, ... , 95) into the bag. I think this follows the "rubber band effect" idea that's already been proposed and rejected however.

The low discrepancy sequences wouldn't suffer from that, though there might be more predictable sequences (high-low-high-low) as a result. I'm not sure.

[Soliton]

It is better way than 'Luck in wesnoth - rationale' - at least more explanatory and less self-assuring arrogant.

Posting badly paraphrased explanations of others and below your own "true" explanation is what now?

[Sauron]

@AI
I understand you mean my mod and my mod's approach. It is wrong thread for discussing that. The issue was already discussed in mod's thread anyway. Short: yes, the probabilities do change. It is the cost of lower variance. The EV remains the same. The defenses work the same - or even more as expected. Sure the probabilities box requires corrections in the mod - but discussing it in this thread is off-topic.

@Imelior
Worth giving a try, but maybe switching to normal distributions with customizable mean and std deviation is a simpler solution. On the other hand - how to match your post with 'luck for dummies' thread?

@Soliton

Posting badly paraphrased explanations of others and below your own "true" explanation is what now?

An 'outrageous act of flamewar-inciting' of course. First of all I want to show what an average RNG guy can find in forums and how explanatory it will be for him (note - you're dealing rather with ignorant than a MIT student). Second - if my paraphrasing is bad, please step in with a better paraphrasing. I am open for suggestions. I did my best, but I am far from perfect. Third - I don't see how "true" instead of plainly true my explanations are. Fourth - if Dave or Noy find my paraphrasing abusive - I apologize them. Still - I tried to catch mainline of their pages long posts in forums - and that's what I managed to produce for brevity purposes.

[Soliton]

An 'outrageous act of flamewar-inciting' of course.

I'm glad we agree. So I suggest removing all of that. If you want a simple/neutral explanation of luck issues I don't see why you need to show that your explanation is better than others.

[Gambit]

I think there should be a non-arrogant, explanatory sticky thread

Dave thought so too...

[Sauron]

Soliton, we both know I was sarcastic. Since I want to show what an average RNG guy can find in forums and how explanatory it will be for him I have to paraphrase/sume up what is waiting out there for him. It is also the commentary to the 'customer management policy' at Wesnoth Co. So no showing off 'I am better bigger and while your answers are tame my are super cool' on my part. Of course discussion opening post is far from what I would like to see as 'Luck explaining sticky'.
Target might be something like

Luck in Wesnoth for beginners (FAQ):

1. The game is cheating, it says my mage should hit 70% times - and still it missed all his shots and got killed next turn by 2 grunts, despite it had 60% defense.

Imagine you are playing a dice game with a friend. If score is below 4 you get 0 points and on 4,5,6 you get 1 point. After each of you had 10 rolls (on the same dice) you have 3 points, despite you 'should' get 5. What is more - your friend got 8 points! Was he cheating?
Wesnoth battles are resolved much the same way this imaginary dice game is.

2. But I am getting bad luck much more often than good luck, the development team should do something about it!

Try being honest with yourself. You just memorize extreme bad luck, especially due to dire consequences it had for outcome of the battle, while extreme luck is often taken for granted - and we easily get tempted to diminish luck role in games we win - because it allows to delude ourselves we won by our 'great skill'. Note, that if you are getting extremely unlucky - it means that someone got extremely lucky - precisely the same number of times. Have you ever seen in these forums players complaining about lucky wins?

3. If the random number generator is so fair and works so as you claim, why is that either me or my opponent are all the time above or below expected damage?

If you imagine you played with you friend 10 times the 10-dice roll game - it will very rarely end up in 5:5. Still - if you sum up the points after those 10 games - both of you should be very close to 50.

4. But I don't care if it evens out in 10 battles, when my valuable units are dead I can't beat my opponent! This game is cheating and unfair. Why don't you change something about that?

Most of time it should be not a problem to make up for the loss, all that is required - is patience, cautious planning and good strategy. Uncontrolled losses are very often a result of BAD MANAGEMENT.
While most of time losses are resulting from overexposure of units on unfavorable terrain, at improper time of day, with uncovered flanks, after attacks that were too dependent on LUCK, sometimes that point IS correct. Please note that it is much less often than it seems to be - due to factors described in point 2.

Returning to our dice-game analogy (bearing in mind that in Wesnoth we can use maneuver, unit composition, strategy, while here - we do not) - if in one of the 10-roll games you get 0 and your friend 10, you most probably will not make up for the game in 9 remaining. You can either say, 'well, ok, that was really extreme outcome' - and start another game from scratch - or try your luck and play 9 remaining rounds. Sometimes Wesnoth rewards the latter attitude. But most of time it does not, because a good strategist should be able to make a good use of the once gained advantage.
The solution might be changing the system. Maybe instead of using one dice roll to decide your points you should use an average of 2 or 4 dices? This would make extreme results less probable. This is what is already implemented in a mod of Wesnoth [linked here]. There are more solutions, you could take a look at these too:
[WML] Zookeeper's Less Luck era
[C++] Damage System MOD(or Less Luck MOD) by A&J.
If you're a creative person - you might either help developing one of these - or come up with your own.

but I think there's still a lot of place for improvement - hence the thread.

[Sangel]

I believe that a "Luck in Wesnoth: Explanation" sticky along these lines could be more practical (and generate fewer arguments) than the current "Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale" sticky. It could explain how luck in Wesnoth works (and why the game is not rigged against you), and then have a section entitled "Why does Wesnoth work this way?" that links to the Rationale thread. It could also have a section entitled "What if I don't like the level of luck involved in Wesnoth", which would present options such as practicing better "luck management", helping with the new experimental fork (once it has its subforum and such), and, yes, playing a game that's less dependent on luck. The trickiest part would probably be in achieving a tone that's informative without being condescending; open about the influence of luck without being defensive or apologetic.

Having such a thread could be quite useful; instead of having to rebut "Wesnoth is rigged!" claims over and over, people could be pointed to the thread. Similarly, people claiming that there's too much luck in Wesnoth could be directed to the thread, which would further direct them to productive ways to address said concern.

[Yogibear]

I believe that a "Luck in Wesnoth: Explanation" sticky along these lines could be more practical (and generate fewer arguments) than the current "Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale" sticky. It could explain how luck in Wesnoth works (and why the game is not rigged against you), and then have a section entitled "Why does Wesnoth work this way?" that links to the Rationale thread. It could also have a section entitled "What if I don't like the level of luck involved in Wesnoth", which would present options such as practicing better "luck management", helping with the new experimental fork (once it has its subforum and such), and, yes, playing a game that's less dependent on luck. The trickiest part would probably be in achieving a tone that's informative without being condescending; open about the influence of luck without being defensive or apologetic.

Regarding this topic , one of the best suggestions i heard for a long time. Thank you for being constructive with this .

[hiro hito]

i would add one point to the FAQ:

* What is my level as wesnoth player when:
- my statistics were negative all match long, my opponent had better stats than me, and I win the match: you are a top player.
- my statistics were closed to my opponent's statistics all match long, and I win the match: you are a good player.
- my statistics were positive all match long and my opponent was unlucky, and I win the match : you are a good player (?!)

- my statistics were negative all match long, my opponent had better stats than me, and I lost the match: you are ... ?
- my statistics were closed to my opponent's statistics all match long, and I lost the match: you are ... ?
- my statistics were positive all match long and my opponent was unlucky, and I lost the match : you are ... ?

Unfortunatly, I can't give an answer to the 3 last questions.... And I am sure that many players want to know it.

Any answer?...

[Pentarctagon]

- my statistics were negative all match long, my opponent had better stats than me, and I lost the match: you are ... ?

unlucky

- my statistics were positive all match long and my opponent was unlucky, and I lost the match : you are ... ?

in need of improvement

[Sangel]

Regarding this topic , one of the best suggestions i heard for a long time. Thank you for being constructive with this .

Well, it was Sauron's idea originally. I just fleshed out the implementation a little further.

The more I think about it, the more I think the FAQ form would be most appropriate:
How does luck work in Wesnoth?
Does the difficulty setting change the odds in combat?
Why does the AI seem so lucky, then?
Why did the developers choose this model for luck in Wesnoth?
If I don't like how much luck affects the game, what can I do about it?