Wesnoth for chessplayers - with parameter Random Set Off

[pauxlo]

SKAcz, did you have a look at the already existing non-random modifications I mentioned in my last post? If not, try it.

I think you will not persuade any developer here to include what you want into the core game, as it changes the game to be not the same game anymore.

Either live with this, or do the work yourself - what you want is possible with WML and/or Lua, so go learn how to use them to create an era doing what you want. Then you can put it on the addon server and we can discuss about an existing variant of the game, and how much it is better or worse than the default.
(If you need specific help, post in the WML workshop or Lua labs.)

[Dixie]

Either live with this, or do the work yourself - what you want is possible with WML and/or Lua, so go learn how to use them to create an era doing what you want. Then you can put it on the addon server and we can discuss about an existing variant of the game, and how much it is better or worse than the default.
(If you need specific help, post in the WML workshop or Lua labs.)

The funniest part being: it would be really easy and not too long to do. Hell I could possibly do it for you, if you wished, if only to un-rust myself a bit around WML. But if your point is about having it in the core game, then i guess you should forget about it. I see three main balance problems with this system, however:

1) Dodging blows is a big part of the game. With such a system, units like fencers, assassins, saurians and many more would become virtually useless. Watching what terrain you place you unit on would serve no purpose anymore. You have to find something to replace this. The easy answer could be "replace the chance to hit/dodge with a damage boosting/nerfing %", but I personnally feel it would interfere with resistances and be less flavourful. And wouldn't it make units like Heavy Infantrymen less flavourfull, too, and grossly equivalent to fencers or spearmen? Why have more resistances if terrain defense is gonna negate it anyway?

2) Dodging is so important that there are "anti-dodgers", which would become useless with your system. I'm thinking about mages, for instance. Why recruit a 20 gold mage if you can have a thougher 14 gold bowman with about the same damage output, and both will lend all their strikes? Note that this is highly dependant on what you do with problem 1.

3) Possibly the hardest case to solve: hit-dependant weapon specials (such as slow and poison). With such a system, they would be inflicted 100% of the time. Making that sole parameter dependant on a chance to hit based on terrain defense feels UNKISS and out of place in a deterministic optic. This one is the only one I have really no idea how to solve.

And before finishing, I'd say: these problems wouldn't be solved by playing mirror matches. Maybe it would be less apparent, but not solved. Assassins are important in a nrotherners mirror match, but they would be swept far too easily by 100% cth orcish grunts. Like, one-hit kills or almost. It makes no sense for a 17 gold unit with very low damage output.

[MCP]

The assassins may not be so easily killed by grunts if they did average damage.
Orc Grunt Damage*Strikes*(1-Assassin Blade Resists%)*(1-Assassin Dodge%). 9-2 for orc grunts, 26 HP for standard assassin.
9*2*(1-(-30%))*(1-60%) = 9*2*1.3*.4 = 9.36. Three orc grunts could kill it, 9*3 = 27 unless the assassin has more HP from a trait.

Now what I am thinking is, the assassin can still serve the purpose of poisoning units and running, if 'no luck' simply means units do average damage always. No chance for being lucky or unlucky, just plain old boring average damage.

[Gambit]

I like ham sandwiches. But I wouldn't attempt to make turkey taste just like ham.
I also certainly wouldn't expect the turkeys to do it.

This post by Caphriel is really all that needs to be said.

[Caphriel]

Well, it does now, anyway. I fixed the link to the wiki page, which was mysteriously missing

[SKAcz]

Well my idea was simply parameter like size of map

<------------------------+-------------------------------------------->
0 random , softened random , total random number

first just will finish idea, about middle values (many other solutions are maybe in topic u gave me link about random maybe):

* start value of luck_stack can be set random (0-100)
then only after some period we can reveal when unit will hit and when not
* if luck_stack implemented as shared for all units plus set random
then only after special events is possible calculate if units will hit or not maybe
* shared luck_stack or nonshared can be reset/re set random by some events (like every day morning or every week (7 days) )

here also somebody presented idea of calculate some medium damage instead, by some formula,
maybe can also have same effect
and will offer something on scale 0<---------->100 normal randomness

the point is simply that if units atacks and have only 20% or so, it never can that all 8 such attacks will fail or 2 such will be successful, like is wide normal random number of type roulette. simply chessplayers cannot handle that real units behave like or shoot or miss total, will atleast make some damage even if missing the main target (even good civilization 2 worked like berserk atleast, repeated fight atleast 10x if i good remember so it was far more real, the civ 1 on ther way was too bad in this, used same as wesnoth but even 1 attack only, problem of all this games are that are not open source and have a tons of bad properties (even all free versions i know have many problems, it cannot be compared to wesnoth which running very good in last years and allow also fast games with several units, well the too random number is only last big problem here seems, because otherwise could be wesnoth called something like "living chess", with pieces of much more realistic what computer allows to handle - i had feeling wesnoth can fill this hole among chess board game and next generation of strategy game played on computer platform) and are not easy playable on internet for chessplayer who likes various time control, size maps etc. and solid low level of random also in moment when trying take game seriously, simply if 100 units vs 100 then standard random number only is maybe totally fine, but if we wish game where few/several units only fights (nice is such game we can finish in 30mins or in 2hours , not looooong game so), then here is problem why this topic i created for ...), in normal random number simply You can twice in a row have 20% lucky in a row in important "all in" battle, thats all - thats unpleasant, here is no unit u can count on if is battle of few units only and not of 10 or 100 to be random averaged on whole battle front ...



Thanks to all who answered and will answer,
well if could be done (what the luck_stack or somehow, to replace random events by periodic or other)
as era which is easy downloadable for everybody it could be maybe solution, I dont know ...

PS. I personally like most multiplayer wesnoth with neutral armies also maybe, not 1 vs 1, cos there if one is unlucky somebody is lucky and fill the space, so still the game is interresting and have many opportunity windows (not like in 1vs 1 where all what u lose opponent get as advantage). But this is not important. Important is what chessplayers saying about game 1 vs 1 ...

[Crendgrim]

I didn't read all, but I don't think / remember it was mentioned yet:
You want to change Wesnoth, so more (chess) players will like it. Actually, don't you think that all the users who like and play Wesnoth would be disappointed about that?
If you create an option to change randomness by personal taste, it would be much harder to find fitting games on the multiplayer server.


Crend

[Reepurr]

I've just skimmed the thread.
It doesn't seem like you're listening to anyone.

First off, follow this link and it might solve all your problems. I'm pretty sure this same thing's been mentioned before...

Also, may I note what happens to these threads?

[Caphriel]

He doesn't seem to be reading the responses, but I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming it was a language barrier issue.

[SKAcz]

Well actually "If you create an option to change randomness by personal taste" I think it allows all chessplayers start with game where simply can anybody start for them from standard environment without need to download something else - so simply way for advertisement among chessplayers. Well - if you dont add this option, the number of games will be same on server , because no new chessplayers will appear - thats the idea, its not about removing or decreasing but about adding and increasing. But i think that I already try explain it, its same like with other parameters ...
But I got it : here is no interrest to comepete with chess, ok well other game has to take this challenge, wesnoth showed the way , some game I hope will finish it to develop chess for computer era.

[Danceman]

I have been playing Orions Belt for over two years (www.orionsbelt.eu) and after the universe wars I started to play only the tournaments but been looking for another game that would be similar and open source. I found Wesnoth. But what has made me a bit confused is the randomness of the attacks. In Orions Belt this doesn't happen. In many ways Orions Belt is more like chess than Wesnoth. Battles are way more harder than in Wesnoth. The proof is Orions Belts bot is very bad because its much harder too do a AI for it. Theres also three other features it has that Wesnoth doesn't have (I think), it has range attacks but from a distance, not like Wesnoth that the unit is right next to the attacking unit. Some units with range can catapult (attack over other units). Also in Orions Belt you can split units because in the game a unit is a representation of a stack of units. This is important because its main strategy is around this, canon folder, weaker units that defend the stronger units. Also the 6 moves rule (all movements per turn can only be less or equal to 6 moves) which makes it very strategic (helps to predict what your adversary can do much like in chess), where in Wesnoth has many moves per unit.

Heres a example:
http://s1.orionsbelt.eu/Battle/Battle.aspx?Id=58831793

I have been poking around to see if it would be possible to build a campaign or map around this concept.

Would this be possible? Would this make Wesnoth a even better game?

[hiro hito]

What is boring is that RNG peak can screwed an interesting "strategic match". What is boring is that 95% of match comments is about luck/unluck better than good moves/bad moves. What is boring is that this game has huge potential but it seems that no interesting thing will happen again (like Time Of Day, Fog of War.....)

[Faello]

Wesnoth isn't a game similar to chess and never will be.

Chess is - first and foremost - a logical game. There's no variation there, just a set of more or less efficient moves that will affect the game situation in the future (some of the chess players tend to call "luck" a situations in which particular move is in 80% efficient in A, B, C, D development of the game and bad if game will go into the 20% direction <it depends on the p2>, BUT in fact it's not a luck, just a lack of the precise knowledge about all of this particular move effects. Most of the good chess players play a decent amount of moves out of memory (including the various "openings" which are the basic knowledge about "what to remember in chess") because they know the best moves for them and for the opponents and how to react on them, because they've already seen them or know the opponent style.

Chess are also too abstract to be considered a 100% wargame in present standards.

Wesnoth is different, as in most of the modern wargames, randomness takes an important part of the games mechanics, which simulates the "real" battlefield situations well (commander can predict that he will win or lose a battle, but he doesn't know that), there's a way to resupply your army, there's fog of war and - what's most important - well prepared attack can fail.

It's the part that some part of the wesnoth players find hard to accept, mostly because of the possibility of the significant RNG variations that tend to happen.

Simple, strong & well executed push in a powerphase can still result in a defeat.

Now, there are good wargames that use randomness to the lesser degree (for ex. Panzer General series) in which damage variation per unit is smaller thus the final outcome is more predictable & acceptable, but...

Wesnoth isn't chess, Wesnoth isn't Panzer General, Wesnoth isn't any other game.

Wesnoth is Wesnoth.

Best wesnoth players are the players that can manage the risk efficiently in micro- and macro- levels.

From the +1k of games I've played and obsed I can say that, most of the wesnoth regulars or newbies whining about luck tend to either overrate their skill level and whine about luck in situations when their win odds were not even at 50%, while good players often whine that their (let's say) 75% win odds attack ended in defeat...

Now, best players around aren't these that just know how to defend or attack efficiently. Best players around are these, that look at the map, asses their win odds as (let's say) 80% and...search for 90% or more win odds, simultaneusly accepting the fact that even if they will find themselves in 90% win odds situation, there's still a 10% chance that they will lose.

That's the thing most of the players fail to accept even if they see it for the long time by their own eyes, and what chess players that play this game simply don't want to accept. It's not only about the total damage output your army can deal assuming that it will miss at some rate and it's not only about number of the pawns/units on the field, it's also about a perfect risk management.

Instead of trying to make a game easier for you, try to actually understand it.

[Chtomorc]

I totally agree with Faello.

RNG is fun IMO... Maybe you loose some fights with high rate of predictable victory, but do you remember all the fights you won with high rate of predictable defeat ?

I don't think the "no RNG idea" fit well with Wesnoth, but if you want it, the game offer liberty to make this idea real. If there are a lot of players, as it's claime, who like this and the add ons is well designed, it will became a standard and live is own life

If you want a game with simple rules and no RNG, play GO. It is a wonderfull strategic game, the rules are clear and simple (more than chess however), but the strategic developpements of the game are almost infinite (more than chess to ).

[Dixie]

Making a deterministic era would be relatively easy, you know? If it's so important to you, go ahead and create it. There are a few unsolved problems before you do, though, and I'm not sure whther or not you can find a nice solution to them:
[quote=Dixie]
1) Dodging blows is a big part of the game. With such a system, units like fencers, assassins, saurians and many more would become virtually useless. Watching what terrain you place you unit on would serve no purpose anymore. You have to find something to replace this. The easy answer could be "replace the chance to hit/dodge with a damage boosting/nerfing %", but I personnally feel it would interfere with resistances and be less flavourful. And wouldn't it make units like Heavy Infantrymen less flavourfull, too, and grossly equivalent to fencers or spearmen? Why have more resistances if terrain defense is gonna negate it anyway?

2) Dodging is so important that there are "anti-dodgers", which would become useless with your system. I'm thinking about mages, for instance. Why recruit a 20 gold mage if you can have a thougher 14 gold bowman with about the same damage output, and both will lend all their strikes? Note that this is highly dependant on what you do with problem 1.

3) Possibly the hardest case to solve: hit-dependant weapon specials (such as slow and poison). With such a system, they would be inflicted 100% of the time. Making that sole parameter dependant on a chance to hit based on terrain defense feels UNKISS and out of place in a deterministic optic. This one is the only one I have really no idea how to solve.
[/quote]