views on playing defensive in MP

[max_torch]

I have noticed that a lot of people complain when you play defensive, when you just stay back and wait for the opponent to attack.. and they say it is because if both just stay back the game would never end.. some even say that it is cowardice, what are we supposed to say to these people? Isn't it that there's nothing wrong with playing defensive? if they want a fast game maybe they should go play starcraft..

[tekelili]

I have proposed several times a huge redefinition of competitive gaming in BfW. Basically it involves players biding for sides before start a new game. In such enverioment one of the sides would be forced to win game in a reasonable turn amount (probably randomly generated in a reasonable range), and would lose game once turn limit is reached. That would completly solve problem you described, wich is vey real right now and doesnt make competitive game comfortable.

However, my propose (wich I name "dinamic balance") had zero acceptance in past.

[Velensk]

I think you mean dynamic.

What you propose isn't a horrible idea but it's also not what most competitive players are looking for. Also, it doesn't handle the case of both people having figured out what the minimum 'decent' bid and both players want to bid it, who gets the right to bid first? Unless you're looking at heavily asymmetric sides/maps the whole thing will fall flat because even the worst match-ups in the game don't merit a even a 25 gold deficit on an otherwise almost balanced map. Generally speaking, the common competitive mindsets doesn't want this kind of asymmetry even if they have some control over it. It's my assumption, that if a scenario is played to death, the dynamic balance you describe will stop being very dynamic. I believe this would be the case even if you could work it so that opening resources could be bid in increments less than 25.

I think you'll find that scenario balance as I think you're proposing is every bit as delicate as what currently exists and requires at least as much effort. I've played games of similar style, mostly board games, and I'd say that in general even some of the tougher wesnoth match-ups have, on average, better balancing on most maps. This isn't because the scenarios can't be balanced, but it's because you need to produce many of them to achieve even half the variety of play and the more of them you make the thinner you spread your testing. Of course, I think the balance is also a function of the people who make/play them and what they're interested in about the game they're playing as a lot of war gamers are as much/more history buffs than tactical calculation nuts but even then if it were easy to balance they'd still do a better job of it.
-The thing about balance is that if an exact balance is known (or indeed could be), even if it's perfect, it's still a less compelling game than one where it isn't known. In order for it to be known both sides need to know with a fair level of precision the moves that will give them the best odds possible. Even if both those odds are 50% then all you've done is reduce the game to a roll of the dice with some options for better judgement calls in how you respond to the initial results. Among expert players that won't amount to much opportunity to outplay or make mistakes. Eventually, any matchup on any map will become to some extent solved (allowing obviously for the chaos of battle and difference in opening bids) but the more constrained you make the parameters of the engagement the less time it'll take. Thus, new scenarios will be needed at a steady rate.
-In any case, it's a ton of work. You'd have to redo multiplayer from the ground up supplying more maps than ever. You'd have to convince expert players to test for you (which I can tell you, is a longstanding difficulty for me as they tend to prefer to play the game they've built their skills for and not suffer through incomplete products), and if you're talking about doing this for mainline, you'd have to remove an existing intuitive system and put in place one which requires a bit of explaining. This all for something that should require a commitment to even more effort in the form of a continual flow of new scenarios which isn't what many people are looking for anyway.

>>All that said, if you do want to put the effort into making it happen, it could become the basis for a ladder I would be far, far, more interested in than the previous one ever could interest me. The last one I only joined because I thought it'd become harder to get good games if I didn't join. I got into the 10-20 range at one point without trying very hard. I stopped playing because I realized that it could make loses that would otherwise be hilarious be painful for no rational reason. I never felt like I needed the ladder to play the game I wanted to and it annoyed me as other players that I was interested in playing with only wanted to play ladder matches. If I thought that there was a reliable organization out there that would be constantly pumping out fresh scenarios to play that were at least reasonably balanced and constantly rotating I could well be interested in playing multiplayer again. It would also allow you to create new dynamics that are interesting because the balance of such things is not known (not just asymmetric sides and income or even a time limit for one side). You'd need far more interested people than me and you'd need to be reliable in the creation/testing/balancing of these scenarios but it could be great.

As for the original topic. I don't feel under obligation to say anything however I have my sympathies for the other side. It's not really a matter of what people think about it, it's frequently not fun to play against and/or use up much more time than your opponent may be willing to spend on the game, however neither is it fun to pick a sub optimal approach just to break a stalemate giving your opponent the advantage. Personally, after a lot of time playing I feel like really this is a function of map and opening bid as much as anything. Frequently if both players make a defensive bid then neither can ever put themselves in a great position to attack for some match ups. Personally, I like making aggressive bids and play on open maps as I feel most of the time this gives me no less a chance to win (frequently much higher) and helps prevent the game from turning into a stalemate. That said, I feel the fundamental dynamics of Wesnoth on anything other than a very small map are defensive. This is even the case for the most brutal and aggressive match-ups (such as drakes vs undead) which merely redefine what it means to play defensively. This can still lead to some very dynamic games but it does mean that games between two expert players that aren't determined by the opening bid, or where the opening gives one player sufficient momentum or position (relative to ToD) advantage will tend towards a standoffish game.

I will say that I find that players that are overly defensive and wait for their enemy to attack them frequently do it wrong. Generally speaking, unless the map has only one front or all fronts are very tight (such as the Freelands). Every faction has a way to break down any defense any other faction can create before critical mass can be achieved and if you're overly passive in your defense they'll have more free reign to set up to do this to yours. Even when you're waiting and trying to bait your enemy into attacking you, you need to be assertive if your opponent is skilled.

[tekelili]

it doesn't handle the case of both people having figured out what the minimum 'decent' bid and both players want to bid it, who gets the right to bid first?

Bid would be simultaneous and secret, and the case both players biding same amount, would be solved by previous coin-flip of wich player is "side 1". Bid would be done with 1 gold as difference between next step and a case of tie in both players bid would be optimal, because that would mean both players agree that is a perfect balanced match up and none of them is willing to play different side from wich they got if they have to bid 1 gold more.

The supply of new maps would be hugely increased, because a lot more map designers could increase the map pool, given that requirements of new maps balance to be accepted in the pool would be hugely decreased, and even some random maps generators (with reasonable algorithms and outputs) could become accepted in the pool. When players are going to balance the match up in initial bid, you no longer need endless discussions about map or faction balance, just some reasonable settings inside a wide range.

[gfgtdf]

@tekelili
If i understood you proposal correct it seems to me like this could be best done with a mp [modification].

[tekelili]

@tekelili
If i understood you proposal correct it seems to me like this could be best done with a mp [modification].

I agree. I have all details in my mind, even chance of negative bids and randomly generated intial amount of gold for sides. If I didnt consider develope it is due to 2 problems:

1- Initial bid is like an initial turn in wich players evaluate map and settings. This need a clock to be operative, and clock should run for both players. This technical issue is beyond what BfW UI allows right now.

2- Propose of such [modification] would be competitive game, and a ladder should accept such mod. This again is beyond my resources.

[gfgtdf]

1- Initial bid is like an initial turn in wich players evaluate map and settings. This need a clock to be operative, and clock should run for both players. This technical issue is beyond what BfW UI allows right now.

You could just put a [delay] of ~5 seconds in a start event where the players could watch the map and then have everyone make one bid after it (in the start event.

2- Propose of such [modification] would be competitive game, and a ladder should accept such mod. This again is beyond my resources.

I don't know much about ladder. So you say this wouldn't make sense for non ladder games?

[tekelili]

I don't know much about ladder. So you say this wouldn't make sense for non ladder games?

Rather than wouldn´t make sense, is more than it wouldn´t worth my effort. Profits of a ladder are too big for players (inform about oponent skill, chose oponents inside a range, and elo profit/punishment that encourages sportmanship and responsable create/join game). Without a ladder support my mod wouldnt attract players that can profit from a ladder under current competitive settings.

As side note, I did years ago an add-on called Ladder2000 that offered a powerfull tool to analyze balance with a data base. I did a huge effort developing and maintaining (introducing reports) in the hope it usefullness would push someone to provide me a little detail I couldnt develope: An automatic system to convert games reports into data base format. I got zero help, and I learned I should never start projects that need colaboration from anyone.

[iceiceice]

Without a ladder support my mod wouldnt attract players that can profit from a ladder under current competitive settings.

So, I would say that if you want to make a new ladder you should just do it. There can be multiple ladders. Moreover, the old ladder is weaker than ever -- the ladder council seems disbanded, Cackfiend is gone, many old veterans don't play anymore, although many still do, and there are many new players also.

It's not clear how new maps can be added to the official ladder pool anymore, or how maps can receive balance updates. I'm the (most active) maintainer of RBY but I don't want to just stick new maps in there because I'll just start an argument, and I'm not a good enough player to do this authoritatively. It's not clear how anyone can declare themselves to be the new ladder council either. If all balance changes to the map pools will be done by consensus then IMO that means its frozen forever .

An automatic system to convert games reports into data base format.

IMO that is an quite complicated thing to develop. Last year a student more or less proposed an entire GSOC about this.

SoC_Ideas_Multiplayer_Data_Analysis

Also a big part of the ladder8 project that was abandoned was trying to parse WML save files in ruby.

https://github.com/f6p/ldr-wip

Maybe I didn't understand though, are you trying to parse save files, or like, wesnoth ladder outcome report pages?

[Horus2]

I think the answer for OP's question is to be find from a different perspective.

I'm a very aggressive player and there are reasons behind it: defending in wesnoth is not that rewarding gameplay experience.
When you position units for an attack, multiple units have to be able to reach multiple target in the present, as in the future, and you have to adjust your units for you plan A, B and even C if you are a diehard like me. You have to be able to pressure multiple points, but still out of the range of a wrecking counterattack; you have to be able to follow your opponents and take villages with fitting units if those are abandoned, as well as calculating an escape route if things starting to be grim.
Now the defense is: place tough guys on vills, form lines, and retreat if the critical mass is reached, to form another "seems about right" line. Aside one or two or three cornerstone defending units, the positioning of the rest is much more vague and unimportant. When i'm forced to play defensively because of ToD not favoring a bull rush, i start to feel uncomfortable. I like to use the full mobility of units, maximising range to build threats. The very fact that a big mass of units have tons of unused movement points because it is not important, we are just holding a line... that makes me think "whatever".
Of course it is not that bipolar as someone reading this would expect, you still have to prepare for counterattack and such... but the difference between the two roles is notable, and this is what most of these players know, at least subconsciously.

[Implementor37]

I like the idea of an Elo-esque rating system instead of the ladder. Perhaps there is a way to tie it to the list of registered nicks? ($nick.rating variable) Then in the MP Preferences section, put a check box saying something like "Display/Use Rating" which if checked will calculate rating for completed games. This gives users a way to opt-out of a rating system, while enabling those playing MP to get an idea of the difficulty of a potential matchup.

[iceiceice]

tekelili: I think the dynamic balance idea makes a lot of sense, and I agree with what you say about a bidding process potentially being able to smooth out minor imbalances in most if not all maps, among high level players.

Here's the parts I'm not sure about:

• Is the idea that both players will bid for P1 vs P2? Or just that one player will bid and the other will choose? Bid and choose is a pretty standard way to do things like this I think, but I guess you also want to have the sides be random and so that 's why you have them both bid?
• The bid is before they see their factions, right? Should they give different bids for different faction matchups? If not then I guess its still not going to be that balanced even after the bid. Because suppose there is a map which is imbalanced by way of having too strong P1 chaotic rush. You have to bid up the P1 price then to try to counteract it, but then if you get P1 and you random loyalists or something, you just get disadvantaged.
  
  Otoh if the bids are dependent on the faction then when you see your starting gold at turn 1 you have some information about the opposing faction.
  
  So maybe its only useful for maps where there's a strict P1 vs P2 advantage and not a factional one?
• I'm not sure how useful it is for players that are beginners, or aren't really familiar with the map, because they may just introduce more imbalance with bad bids.

[max_torch]

So does this mean that people are righteously complaining about the other guy just staying home and building his army? That they have a good point? Is it bad ettiquete to complain about it or to make the game last long by being passive?

[tekelili]

@max_torch: What you have pointed is a problem carved in the very soul of BfW design, imho. Active player can wipe unactive player´s army in just one turn. In order to give tools to unactive player, BfW feature a huge bonus to static units in form of terrain defense and zoc. To a minor extend, proximity to a higher level unit (leader) and reinforces source (keep) also allows unactive player discourage active one from attack. As I said, this attack discouraging is totally neccessary. To balance this mechanic, BfW features some bonus to attack, main one is TOD. This balance in the bonus to unactive/active player is very fragile and, in some cases, push both players to be defensive in order to reach optimal strategic.

I love BfW design, but still I think it needs some extra polishment to avoid this problem. That is why I propose a balance system that introduces a turn limit for one of the players.

@iceiceice: My proposal is that both players bid knowing absolutely everything (factions, map, leader, initial gold, wich side has turn limit to win). I am not giving all details here because is not the place, but the soul of my proposal is that both players end playing a game that they described as balanced with their bids (or to be fair, a game that they described as not unfavourable umbalanced for they side they are playing).

[iceiceice]

tl dr; You should just play the game however you like.

No game is perfectly balanced. Even Chess, the iconic strategy game, is believed to have significant P1 advantage. (I have no idea how you would rebalance chess though ).

There are some wesnoth matchups that are better than others in terms of how fast and volatile they are. Fastest is probably Drakes vs Undead. Slowest is probably... Knalga vs Rebels? I'm not sure. (Not counting mirrors, mirrors are extremely slow.)

There are usually things you can do though to make the matchup more volatile if you desire that. For instance if you get Knalgan you can Hodor rush. Sometimes this leads to a glorious win in spectacular fashion. Sometimes you just get hosed. I generally tend to Hodor rush because its my preference to try to be tactical and aggressive -- playing dwarves on a large map is pretty technical imo, if you distribute your dwarves badly you can just get picked apart. If it turns out you are vs Undead, the Hodor rush works out great. If it turns out you are vs Orcs, it's almost irrecoverably bad. (Although I've seen players continue to Hodor vs Orcs and win anyways.)

Here's the fastest ladder game I played, Hodor (P1) over Elves on Clearing Gushes: http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A58%3A26

Here's one vs GaretJax's Drakes on The Freelands: http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A35%3A26

Here's one from yesterday where I got crushed by Solymos' Drakes on Clearing Gushes: http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A23%3A32

Hodor doesn't work so well as P2, also Solymos is much better than me nowadays

I can't remember who played the game I saw Hodor over Orcs, it was on Tombs of Kesorak. I think maybe Honor was in it, hard to say.

If someone is criticizing you for "camping" and "banking", you should probably just think of this as trash talk / flames. Sometimes camping and banking is absolutely the correct thing to do, for instance if you are rebels vs orc you should almost surely bank during the day and not get aggressive in between the night attacks. (Depending on map I guess). Sometimes camping and banking will cause you to lose by throwing away the advantage. Its usually not a good idea to camp and bank if you have more upkeep than your opponent at that time. It's not always going to improve your odds of winning.

There are many high level players that I have known that have said that the game is biased against attacking, and that whoever attacks first usually loses. But they still keep attacking anyways it seems :p

I think it depends very much on the map. Some maps are just much more defensive than others, if I had to give examples I would say Fallenstar Lake is a bit campy, and in 2 v 2 Clash has more stalemate potential than the others.

I think that whatever imbalances in the game exist due to defender advantage are probably much less significant than what factional imbalances exist in matchups like Knalga / Rebels vs Undead. But I'm not a high level player. I think most of these supposed imbalances can only be relevant at the highest levels of play, if you are not there, then the mistakes that you will inevitably make with every play are going to drown all of this stuff out.