Luck rant [split from Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale]

[AI]

It is certainly beyond the capability of a pitcher to predict a sudden gust of wind that sends his ball off course moments after it leaves his glove. Please explain to me how this differs from the harddrive of the host of a wesnoth game spinning down a little slower than usual, causing the RNG to get a different seed.

(sounds to me like these are both deterministic events that are nonetheless, completely unpredictable. One can try to mitigate their potential effects (by using a 4-strike unit to increase probability of getting the kill or throwing the ball more towards the center to decrease the probability of it going wide) in both cases, that makes them both risk-management involving 'luck')

[appleide]

Take away random and you do not have wesnoth.

Anyone is free to start up their own wesnoth server and allow only Sauron's mod be played on it.

Less-randomness is fun, only for a little while.
You may like to argue games like starcraft are non-random (as much) and competitive, and because wesnoth is competitive too, it should too be less-random.

Starcraft is not turn-based. In real-time, people are random. They may mis-click, thought for a moment enemies were coming from the left rather than the right, forgot for a moment they were playing zerg, etc.

Wesnoth is turn-based. People have alot of time to think about their moves. This causes people to be consistent more of the time. Randomness here brings fun to the game.

Look at another classic turn-based game, Monopoly. It's really random. That's what makes it a classic.

I could go on... MtG, Cluedo, poker, black jack, Hearts, Solitaire, Civilisation,... (practically every turn based game besides Chess).

[Ethnar]

It is certainly beyond the capability of a pitcher to predict a sudden gust of wind that sends his ball off course moments after it leaves his glove. Please explain to me how this differs from the harddrive of the host of a wesnoth game spinning down a little slower than usual, causing the RNG to get a different seed.

Pitcher should be prepared and adjust his throw so the wind won't ruin the throw. He is aware of the weather given day, he can adjust to those conditions.
Player in Wesnoth cannot get any idea about what the next rolled number will be.

(sounds to me like these are both deterministic events that are nonetheless, completely unpredictable. One can try to mitigate their potential effects (by using a 4-strike unit to increase probability of getting the kill or throwing the ball more towards the center to decrease the probability of it going wide) in both cases, that makes them both risk-management involving 'luck')

Still, in baseball game the result is never beyond your influence. You can do many things to make sure next throw will be good and if your decisions are correct - it will be.
In Wesnoth, you can only increase the probability, you cannot overcome it. Even if you pick 3 units with 4 hits to kill 1hp unit, they can still miss and you cannot do anything more about it.
Again, in competitive games (Wesnoth is for fun, right? ) you have absolute control. You may fail, but that's because of lack of your skill in given situation. (baseball again)
Also, by all means I support random in Wesnoth, but hoping for it to be a competitive game - can't be as it is now.
I don't know if it'd be good for Wesnoth to aim to that, but hey, I hate competitive games after all.

[zookeeper]

It is certainly beyond the capability of a pitcher to predict a sudden gust of wind that sends his ball off course moments after it leaves his glove. Please explain to me how this differs from the harddrive of the host of a wesnoth game spinning down a little slower than usual, causing the RNG to get a different seed.

The effect is only psychological. Yet quite a large one if you'd ask me. In the case of baseball, it's very natural for me to feel like missing the ball was my fault and that I could do better. In the case of an RNG, none of this would be true.

[AI]

It is certainly beyond the capability of a pitcher to predict a sudden gust of wind that sends his ball off course moments after it leaves his glove. Please explain to me how this differs from the harddrive of the host of a wesnoth game spinning down a little slower than usual, causing the RNG to get a different seed.

The effect is only psychological. Yet quite a large one if you'd ask me. In the case of baseball, it's very natural for me to feel like missing the ball was my fault and that I could do better. In the case of an RNG, none of this would be true.

Same thing occurs when people substitute an RNG for dice: they feel like they lost control even if they didn't have any in the first place.

Example: even after reading the source repeatedly (all 10 lines of it), a DM was still hesitant to accept digital character rolls and eventually banned them entirely, causing people to bring dice to school. (Yes, there were people playing D&D during classes)

[JW]

I guess what it comes down to is that you can predict and control the outcomes in real life (and non-random video games) whereas in Wesnoth and dice you cannot.

The former accurately shows who was the better competitor on that day whereas the latter does only when chance allows it. (which may be 95% of the time, though this is less than 100%.)

I cannot be any clearer than this.



And Doc: Just because someone says he is lucky does not mean luck was involved. In fact it shows more a lack of understanding of the factors involved, which means I was really faulty in claiming people don't say that they are lucky. To reference this in a way to touch on the discussion in another thread, I could say I've been saved by God/chosen by the Devil and that he blessed me to achieve victory, but that doesn't make it true.

Again, I still contend that most good managers wouldn't talk about luck much as they understand the factors of the game more. This is more of an expectation (that I believe to be true) than it is a building block for my arguments, so pointing out excecptions would really just be an interesting field study than evidence countering my position.

[Doc Paterson]

And Doc: Just because someone says he is lucky does not mean luck was involved. In fact it shows more a lack of understanding of the factors involved,

I agree completely that people are often terrible judges as to the magnitude or influence of luck. Note that I didn't say that I believed that luck was much (if any) of an influence in baseball. Certainly though, players talk about it a real lot.

Again, I still contend that most good managers wouldn't talk about luck much as they understand the factors of the game more.

I don't know, I did a quick search a found a few instances, including this one by Joe Torre (surely a great manager): "The last 3 years were difficult. I think it started probably with losing to the Red Sox. Because that becomes a mortal sin. And even though the Red Sox were obviously a very good team that year, we got lucky early. They didn't play well. Then we had two leads in Games 4 and 5 we couldn't hold onto."

He's talking about the other team performing in a way that was out of the Yankees' control, but beneficial to them. There are a lot of cases like that in sports, and whether or not they should be labeled "luck" is very debatable. It's also difficult to know how to class injuries, wind changes that assist or rob home runs, sicknesses, correct or incorrect guesses that decide the game, etc. etc.

[turin]

I never said that "luck is an influence in baseball" as in "games of baseball are decided by luck, not skill", but rather than the result of each individual at-bat in baseball is, while influenced by skill, to a not-insignificant extent determined by luck.

[Ethnar]

I never said that "luck is an influence in baseball" as in "games of baseball are decided by luck, not skill", but rather than the result of each individual at-bat in baseball is, while influenced by skill, to a not-insignificant extent determined by luck.

So what are you basically saying is that there is an option that a player, in good shape and fine morale, may have absolutely no chance to hit a baseball ball that was thrown by a pitcher, because there are some outside factors that render him powerless?
I'd really like to read some about such case, as I highly doubt it. Rules would probably be adjusted (cancellation of the game if storm has started) to avoid situations like that.

[Rex Umbrarum]

I never said that "luck is an influence in baseball" as in "games of baseball are decided by luck, not skill", but rather than the result of each individual at-bat in baseball is, while influenced by skill, to a not-insignificant extent determined by luck.

So what are you basically saying is that there is an option that a player, in good shape and fine morale, may have absolutely no chance to hit a baseball ball that was thrown by a pitcher, because there are some outside factors that render him powerless?
I'd really like to read some about such case, as I highly doubt it. Rules would probably be adjusted (cancellation of the game if storm has started) to avoid situations like that.

Yes but a baseball hit is fairly complicated gusts of wind much less significant than storm level could mess up the hit, making it a pop fly or some other bad thing. (I'm not a baseball expert)

[AI]

I guess what it comes down to is that you can predict and control the outcomes in real life (and non-random video games) whereas in Wesnoth and dice you cannot.

For some values of 'control'.

Practically, one cannot control (or react in time to) sudden gusts of wind any more than one can control or predict the RNG. Theoretically however, if you know all the factors involved, you can both hit every ball exactly how you want it and predict (and even control) the RNG.

[turin]

I never said that "luck is an influence in baseball" as in "games of baseball are decided by luck, not skill", but rather than the result of each individual at-bat in baseball is, while influenced by skill, to a not-insignificant extent determined by luck.

So what are you basically saying is that there is an option that a player, in good shape and fine morale, may have absolutely no chance to hit a baseball ball that was thrown by a pitcher, because there are some outside factors that render him powerless?
I'd really like to read some about such case, as I highly doubt it. Rules would probably be adjusted (cancellation of the game if storm has started) to avoid situations like that.

The luck doesn't have so much to do with whether the batter makes contact or not, and more to do with where the ball goes after contact is made.

[JW]

Does anyone else think that comparing Wesnoth's RNG to gust of wind is pretty ludicrous???

One completely determines the outcome of every interactive event in a video game, the other negligibly influences few moments in few games of a sport that plays thousands of games a year.

I mean, if this really is the best you have then I think I've made my point perfectly clear. I would say my argument here is like the RNG trumping whatever gust of wind you may be blowing.

[zookeeper]

I guess what it comes down to is that you can predict and control the outcomes in real life (and non-random video games) whereas in Wesnoth and dice you cannot.

For some values of 'control'.

Practically, one cannot control (or react in time to) sudden gusts of wind any more than one can control or predict the RNG. Theoretically however, if you know all the factors involved, you can both hit every ball exactly how you want it and predict (and even control) the RNG.

Clearly his meaning is that while both are similar kinds of randomness, their level of influence is entirely different. Gusts of wind out of the player's control have a tiny fraction of the influence that for example the RNG does in Wesnoth.

And as I said, the psychological difference is really big. If a gust of wind throws the ball a bit off, you won't know that it was just luck. You don't know that it was not your fault. If the RNG gives you luck, you know it was indeed luck, and you know it was not your fault. In baseball, you don't know that, so you generally can't blame bad luck.

[hiro hito]

(Sorry i post the same post i did in Dave's thread because i dont know where to post no more... split thread is sometimes worse than a lock )

Ok, now we all know that Wesnoth is based on luck and how to managed it:

This is one of the key gameplay facets of Wesnoth: managing luck. There are many opportunities to manage how much risk one exposes oneself to, and make backup plans if things go wrong.

I am agree that there are many opportunitis to manage luck, IF this luck is not huge. I never see a match between 2 players with same skill where the "unlucker" has less than 20% at his EV and win the game.... Except if his opponent makes big mistake, which it happens less often than bad luck (i consider bad luck from -20% EV and during more than 2 turns).

I've been playing Wesnoth since almost 3 years and my best position on ladder was 4th... I dont consider me as a top player but i am not a newby .

In Wesnoth, there is a substantial, but not huge amount of luck.

From my poor experience in the game, i can't be agree with that. I can't post all the games i did since 0.9.1 released but i can say that MAJORITY of my games have huge amount of luck especially at the beginning of a match.... I considere ( i am repeating myself) have +/-20% EV for more than 2 turns is good/bad luck...

So we can managed this unluck when it happens if the opponent is really "inferior" or if he does big mistakes... But if 2 players play with same skill and "apparently" there is no mistake so only luck is deterministic.

So the first point is: if you play a match against a player you know (to be as good as you) how to manage luck except wait and hope for luck?

the second point is when a huge amount of luck happens how to manage it when even best players lose by it....?


To sum up: the game is based on luck management and huge amount happens frequently, then it should be possible for an "unlucker" to win by another system... Is there a way? I dont know it....

A rarely see a top player wins when his badluck is so bad.... he can keep playing but it just make the game longer but the result is the same.... I can not see how manage luck when you can lose all your unit in a row... Do you often see top players matches? I think if i were 2nd on the ladder i would proove to the 1st that iam better then him by playing himself ... but top players fight "inferior" players to win points... Why they dont fight each other 1st vs 2nd more often???? Maybe because this kind match is only based on luck and there is no way to manage it between 2 skill players!.