Luck rant [split from Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale]

[arakis]

After 2 years, this is the day when i stop playing wesnoth online. and most of the time, in general.
You know, for 2 years i was hoping that developers will do something about that luck.
And today, when i was cruising the forum, i stumbled on this horrifying mind flow from one developer that tries to explain why they refuse to fix one thing that makes this game unplayable in many cases: luck insanity.

It is facinanting that same author of the one page mind flow giberrish says 2 directly opposite things:
1. luck is important part of this game and better player can lose
2. luck is fair in general and can be overcome with good strategy

ok, claim no 2 is a total lie but even if it isn't: those 2 claims are in contradicion, so make up your mind????

Well, you don't have to. Despite you being stuck with your head in the sand and refusing to see what everybody see, we all know what's the truth.
We all know that luck is the thing that decides the game, unless you are playing against total noob (sometimes even than). We all know that AI has much better luck in general. We all know that luck can turn victory into defeat and vice versa. We all know that you can miss almost dead unit with several magical attacks (and i mean missing 7 to 8 times magical in the row). We all know that there is nothing (and i mean nothing) that can counter the lack of luck.

and i must say that i do not believe the developer claiming that he didn't see "too much" unfair game. I had "black weeks" when my luck was about -70% inflicted and +70% taken for several days, game after game, same thing. If i ever knew that i would stumble on developer saying what he said, i would save 50 or so games so he can watch how much times, for instance, red mage can miss on ranged.

This topic has shattered my big illusion. Too bad for this "nice try" of a game, because that luck is the only thing that keeps it from becaming more famous. I presented Wesnoth to many people, and what was their first and only major objection? Luck, of course.

The most sad thing is that luck can be easily fixed, and results and be much more realistic, maintaing the unpredictable factor, just in much less extent. But...as authors said once...they do this for themselves...

After all, we are all just a bunch of idiots that are complaining about luck, when everything is perfect in that matter. It really doesn't matter that so many people are complaining every day while playing online, we are all just selfish, frustrated, winning hungry bad-losers that can't stand to miss, to lose, to fail. And a small group of programers has declared the "ultimate truth" that everything is just fine.

Where have i seen such a behaviour? Oh yeah...i ran away from that 3 years ago, when i switched to linux...you guys should work for microsoft PP

goodbye

p.s. many greetings to c2p, with whom i played many games as ally (you know me under nick kamikaza) and i can't remember that we lost a single 2vs2 game. not only we played well, he was always lucky

[arakis]

and what are those "obvious" reasons?

[zookeeper]

1. If a moderator splits your post(s) to another thread, don't delete it and repost back to the original thread.
2. The reasons? A generic luck rant about devs having their heads in the sand and completely pointless, baseless and proofless "we all know the AI has much better luck" and "luck can be easily fixed" stuff, all in a thread which is intended for actual discussion.

[Ethnar]

After all, we are all just a bunch of idiots that are complaining about luck, when everything is perfect in that matter. It really doesn't matter that so many people are complaining every day while playing online, we are all just selfish, frustrated, winning hungry bad-losers that can't stand to miss, to lose, to fail. And a small group of programers has declared the "ultimate truth" that everything is just fine.

Quoted for truth.

[Tomsik]

It is facinanting that same author of the one page mind flow giberrish says 2 directly opposite things:
1. luck is important part of this game and better player can lose
2. luck is fair in general and can be overcome with good strategy

It's not contradicting at all.
Also, I like luck factor, it's fun.

[Noy]

*yawn*

*puts on his ultimate truth cloak and goes out for breakfast*

[hiro hito]

i take advantage of this new thread about luck (and before it is locked ) to say once again that this game deserve to be more strategic...

when you read all game comments on the ladder, many of them talk about luck... And many (locked) threads on the forum talk about luck... and during games on servers, many players talk about it....

Just a question (please dont take it bad):
when you developpe an application (in exemple a game like Westnoth) and you succeed and have a big community around this project, big enough to have advertising on the site ( and ask for donation).... what is your aim then? is it just to keep the maintenance clean? or to try to have a bigger community and try to make players more regular (or trusty) and happier...?

"happier" doesnt mean that developper should answer " yes" to every request! I think luck system become a subject that should be rethink (maybe not completly but with less random), and apparently i am not the only one....

Since the ladder is born (i know it is unofficial), i noticed that there are many more interesting games, with player who care about strategy and ask for it, and more interesting games on official map. So the "general" tendancy of westnoth player is about duel and skill competition... But sometimes, we dont even know why we lose a game... even campain players dont like to load/ reload all the time to wait for a good rng!!!

[Wintermute]

*puts on his ultimate truth cloak and goes out for breakfast*

Is that the one that's +9 smite vs. Trolls?

[mrmoose]

i take advantage of this new thread about luck (and before it is locked ) to say once again that this game deserve to be more strategic...

ok maybe this is just my take but does it not involve more strategy if u are not sure how the rng will treat you? it seems less strategic to be able to just point and click and know that a unit will die whats the fun involved with that? i notice everyone here complaining about bad rng and i will admit at times i do it as well, but do we ever see any post on the forums saying "wow my unit on 30 defense with 1 hp just doged 4 strikes to survive" everyone is so prone to complain about the rng but personally i believe the rng is what makes this game what it is today. again whats the fun in just pointing and clicking and knowing a unit is going to die. also look at ur stats after a game and tell me how common it is that u end up 50 damage under inflicted. or any amounts of numbers that can really ruin a game. as noy has said before that happens maybe once every 20 games. peopel claim something with a 5% failure rate needs to be changed well 95% sucess rate sounds pretty good to me if this game were 100% satisfaction guarnteed with the rng it would really lose its luster.. k im beating this idea in the ground sorry im just sick of reading so many post complaining about the rng when frankly thats what the heart and soul of wesnoth is thats what makes it so diverse and different

[hiro hito]

at this point of "complaining", i dont think it happens once every 20 match... We can " turn" the problem and say "why do i win " instead of "why i lost this game".... if you prefer hear that it's ok.... Sometimes i win game and my opponent have nothing more to do than surrender because rng was on my side....

edit: i would say that "fair game" with unbalanced rng in each side happens once every 20 match.

[mrmoose]

at this point of "complaining", i dont think it happens once every 20 match... We can " turn" the problem and say "why do i win " instead of "why i lost this game".... if you prefer hear that it's ok.... Sometimes i win game and my opponent have nothing more to do than surrender because rng was on my side....

edit: i would say that "fair game" with unbalanced rng in each side happens once every 20 match.

lol seriously... hiro i want u to check ur stats this week when u play and tell me how many games ended up with so far numbers off ev that it reflected on u losing or winning the game. im not going to deny that u wont be right on ev every game but i cant imagine it being so bad as to ruin 19 out of 20 games u play. so are u suggesting wesnoth takes out its luck factor and u get exactly what ev says u will? even a thunderer with 70% chance to hit still misses 30% of the time and i guarntee we will be hearing u back on the forums complaining about ur thunder missing. are u not still rellying on luck this way? i mean 3 out of the 10 times u use a thunder ur going to miss how are u supposed to know when ur miss is coming? the rng really isnt as off or as bad as people are claming here

[Limabean]

Wel, I guess i'll just give my luck opnion before this thing gets locked... I think a wesnoth completely without luck would be boring, but it isn't perfect now either. I would prefer for the rng influence to be toned down just a little bit. For example, missing 4 times with a 70% cth is just ridiculous (and it has happened plenty of times, believe me). I would think a guarantee of 1 hit in a situation like that would be good. Luck would till play a major role, but it might not be enough to completely ruin a perfectly good strategy.

[mrmoose]

Wel, I guess i'll just give my luck opnion before this thing gets locked... I think a wesnoth completely without luck would be boring, but it isn't perfect now either. I would prefer for the rng influence to be toned down just a little bit. For example, missing 4 times with a 70% cth is just ridiculous (and it has happened plenty of times, believe me). I would think a guarantee of 1 hit in a situation like that would be good. Luck would till play a major role, but it might not be enough to completely ruin a perfectly good strategy.

yes but how many times does the rng pay u back for this? example being hitting a unit 3 times on 70 defense?

[SkeleRanger]

But the random factor allows a player to lose and still maintain their self esteem. Just blame the RNG.

Actually I agree with Tomsik that the random factor is what makes Wesnoth fun. I mean if the game was entirely strategic then you just have to find the best strategic way to play the game and then you would always win. Boring... This way Wesnoth still has a strategic element but it has a greater number of random situations to use it in.

Devs. If you get rid of luck in Wesnoth I swear I will leave and never play it again.

[Baufo]