Remove random factor (half gripe, half suggestion)

[Alcibiades]

answer here

 

[Garrett]

woo for an old thread bumpage


keep da random factor, i know in a text game of pixels and underlying ones, zeros and equations... it's all about weighing side A vs side B

but the 'fun factor' of the randomness allows you to 'imagine' that some of your troops are more experienced...

or

you've done something 1000 times... today you don't quite focus on it and screw it all up... or possibly you become the hero and make it better than before...

to me this is what the random factor represents and people should quit trying to bring the calcs down to the last millionth decimal place.


Some may call the random factor luck, but being able to predict 100% of all outcomes is not skill. And since everyone loves attacking at 40% of their score, there is really not alot of skill.

Bring the game to 100% predictablility and I'll write a script to play for me.

 

[pinpower]

Those of us who used to play other games with fully known stats knows why this is the case. In say Planetarion, you calculate each attack down to the last unit, and you calculate each defence down to the last unit. The element of surprise is gone, and it's more about finding the right target and making sure his alliance is busy defending somewhere else than anything else.

I like this unknown factor about bush. That you have to try and fail a couple of times instead of having a battle calculator which will tell you exactly how the battle will go.

Agree 100%

If the exact same thing happened every time so you could just plug numbers into excel or something (1,000,000m poms + 1,000,000 gardeners v 2,439,439 SAs = X Amount distracted, X amount killed) then the game would be insanely boring.

I like the Random factor and hope it stays!!!

 

[BlackWolf]

I am much for removing random factor. It doesnt give anything for this game. You still cant know how well units really do, you cant really work things out and Azzer could instead before every round add some random numbers for every unit, to make it impossible to count units real strengths out. But random factor as it is, is way way to huge point on close combats as it is currently. Maybe it cant change fights so badly, but yes it does change outcomes too much like in f0xx's example.

Learning the game and having skill in it should be to see how battles go, with current random factor thing it actually doesnt remove learning but extends learn curve way higher. Its awesome that bush doesnt give out units strengths but I also think that if 10 hippies block 10 gardeners they always should do so not block 8 once and 12 next time. Same time we have people who complain and suggests game to be easier to understand for everyone and how they want skill to make difference, then these players come here and tell how skill shouldnt have difference on outcome but random factor should... or well you can always send to someone 40% of your size to make damn sure random factor cant screw you up.

If randomness would only be at level of very very small percentages it might work, shaping millions of units battles outcomes just a bit to make hard to calc, but to change blocking numbers by millions is way way bad. specially cause it gives some routes with right kind of units huge benefit over others to use randomizer for their advantage.

This game has so many units and so many battles are fought on so many layers so we dont really need randomizer for anything. Its advantages are so small in comparison to its disadvantages.

 

[f0xx]

Those of us who used to play other games with fully known stats knows why this is the case. In say Planetarion, you calculate each attack down to the last unit, and you calculate each defence down to the last unit. The element of surprise is gone, and it's more about finding the right target and making sure his alliance is busy defending somewhere else than anything else.

I like this unknown factor about bush. That you have to try and fail a couple of times instead of having a battle calculator which will tell you exactly how the battle will go.

Agree 100%

If the exact same thing happened every time so you could just plug numbers into excel or something (1,000,000m poms + 1,000,000 gardeners v 2,439,439 SAs = X Amount distracted, X amount killed) then the game would be insanely boring.

I like the Random factor and hope it stays!!!

While I partially agree, on the other hand I don't. Why? Because the stats of the units are hidden. NOONE EXCEPT AZZER KNOWS THE EXACT STATS OF THE UNITS. How can anyonw create a somewhat accurate battle calculator when you have so many unknown factors? You cant. That's why the random factor is not needed. When the outcome of a BR, i.e. whether you land or not, depends ENTIRELY on a factor, which is random, like in the examples I gave in the first post, then you know you are not playing a war game, but a card game.

Skill should be > random factor.

 

[Asmodeous]

Skill should be > random factor.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

Some of the greatest battles in history were won due to a random factor.

 

[DarkSider]

Random factor is ftl, 100% predicted BR's are ftl aswell. It's just gives a bad taste your unit to perform between -10% to +10 depending of pure randomness.
Remove the randomness and bring back a bit of a negative & positive unit exp to get different ratio's

 

[StormyWaters]

While I partially agree, on the other hand I don't. Why? Because the stats of the units are hidden. NOONE EXCEPT AZZER KNOWS THE EXACT STATS OF THE UNITS. How can anyonw create a somewhat accurate battle calculator when you have so many unknown factors? You cant. That's why the random factor is not needed. When the outcome of a BR, i.e. whether you land or not, depends ENTIRELY on a factor, which is random, like in the examples I gave in the first post, then you know you are not playing a war game, but a card game.

Skill should be > random factor.

After a couple of battles with varying units it would not be hard to accurately obtain values to create a calculator, even it it is a little off. It would be easy to tweak it so it can be almost 100% correct.

I, myself have never played with experience so I cannot say how that works out, but I do personally enjoy the randomness factor.

If you're saying removing the randomness would increase the amount of skill needed to play the game, I'll argue against you. The fact is new people really don't have a knack for knowing how the randomness will behave, such as what the worst possible outcome of a battle could be. However an "experienced" player should have a general idea. If you remove this an inexperience player could calculate the outcomes easier, after just a couple of battles and be on par with you so called "experienced" players.

 

[Garrett]

i mean honestly, there is a best ratios thread and it usually if not entirely centers around performance vs flak.

so if any of the ratio's you encounter don't meet the highest posted, then you obviously didn't plan well enough.

otherwise, please be gracious and post new ratios....

the 'best ratios' thread pretty much describes worst possible scenario for attacker/best possible for defender.

now wily's problem was addressed in the help section, but the original gripe by le f0xx had the gurus in the 'blocked him from getting lucky' battle report performing at 5.33 units block : 1 guru.

the best ratio is 5.99 for gurus thus far. Therefore f0xx did not plan for worst case scenario... in fact gurus average 1 guru to 5 flak blocked...

the BR in which f0xx landed the guru's got 4.85:1... so guru's underperformed, and f0xx got LUCKY... his attack was actually poorly conceived and 1 time the random factor let him get land when the average is that he should have NEVER landed.

So considering 1guru:5flak has been common knowledge for a very long time, i dismiss the original post and any counter arguments for flat removal as this is now a thread over crying about not getting lucky every time you send.

 

[Enrico]

Jeez, this is silly..

Okay, say 10 hippies "normally" block 10 gardeners, but can block only 8 when they are unfocused "underperform" and will block 12 when they are pumped from having a new batch of weed nearby "overperform"-

Now the wise player will then just calculate with the hippies ALWAYS blocking just 8 gardeners. Any more, and it's a bonus.

It's just a mental change, think of the units as most of the time overperforming a bit, and some of the time overperforming a lot, and you are good to go!

 

[Alcibiades]

i mean honestly, there is a best ratios thread and it usually if not entirely centers around performance vs flak.

so if any of the ratio's you encounter don't meet the highest posted, then you obviously didn't plan well enough.

otherwise, please be gracious and post new ratios....

the 'best ratios' thread pretty much describes worst possible scenario for attacker/best possible for defender.

now wily's problem was addressed in the help section, but the original gripe by le f0xx had the gurus in the 'blocked him from getting lucky' battle report performing at 5.33 units block : 1 guru.

the best ratio is 5.99 for gurus thus far. Therefore f0xx did not plan for worst case scenario... in fact gurus average 1 guru to 5 flak blocked...

the BR in which f0xx landed the guru's got 4.85:1... so guru's underperformed, and f0xx got LUCKY... his attack was actually poorly conceived and 1 time the random factor let him get land when the average is that he should have NEVER landed.

So considering 1guru:5flak has been common knowledge for a very long time, i dismiss the original post and any counter arguments for flat removal as this is now a thread over crying about not getting lucky every time you send.

As usual i find myself agreeing almost word for word with Garrett. 8) I don't think i've ever seen a BR that was truly incomprehensible or unfair due to the random factor.

 

[f0xx]

the BR in which f0xx landed the guru's got 4.85:1... so guru's underperformed, and f0xx got LUCKY... his attack was actually poorly conceived and 1 time the random factor let him get land when the average is that he should have NEVER landed.

Please Garrett, 1:4,85 ratio for gurus VS flak is pretty high itself. In the second BR the gurus got an "unreal" ratio of 1:5,33. The usual ratio in which gurus perform is not 1:5 but more like 1:4,5 and even 1:4 (this is the ratio most defence planners use when they plan defences).

i mean honestly, there is a best ratios thread and it usually if not entirely centers around performance vs flak.

This I won't even take seriously. You aren't really expecting a player that has any confidence in his skills to look at that thread and base his tactics around those ratios, are you?

The gurus in the second BR were 10% stronger than those in the first no matter how you look at it.

 

[DarkSider]

Jeez, this is silly..

Okay, say 10 hippies "normally" block 10 gardeners, but can block only 8 when they are unfocused "underperform" and will block 12 when they are pumped from having a new batch of weed nearby "overperform"-

Now the wise player will then just calculate with the hippies ALWAYS blocking just 8 gardeners. Any more, and it's a bonus.

It's just a mental change, think of the units as most of the time overperforming a bit, and some of the time overperforming a lot, and you are good to go!

Not everything it's about 10 hippy vs 10 gards. While i do agree you currently have to take into account bad luck in your attacks, i think it's unfair when for example you defend with lethals against lethal incoming to take more or less damage 100% on chance. If hostile agents fire with 10% more by chance and then your tl's underperform that's quite an important difference from the average confrontation.
It's not like you can't have a very good estimation if you gonna pwn or get killed and if it's worth staying and fight it's just better imo to avoid randomness where it's possible. And also a battle calculator can be made with the average values aswell, you don't need spot on values anyway
It's like the highly sofisticated harvester calcs saying you need 1263992 harvesters .. while it's cool to show the exact number it's not something you actually need.

 

[Garrett]

i mean honestly, there is a best ratios thread and it usually if not entirely centers around performance vs flak.

This I won't even take seriously. You aren't really expecting a player that has any confidence in his skills to look at that thread and base his tactics around those ratios, are you?

The gurus in the second BR were 10% stronger than those in the first no matter how you look at it.

did I say base? nope. take into consideration? yup.

it would be foolish for someone to not use all knowledge available to their advantage. do I look at the thread often/always/more than 5-7 times a round? nope, but then again I estimate high or rely on killing outright.

while you don't need to base your attack around it, it does provide some worst case scenarios. knowing that there is a high average to begin with as an experienced player, sir, you knew full well or miscalc'd in undersending the high average even with the '5' being extreme in your words.

maybe the random factor needs tweaking or applied differently, but exact kill ratios and putting things down to the exact unit is dry and uninteresting. then we will have truly driven the game to 100% activity and alacrity. we have bots already

[edit] yes for defense planning you always go way low because you want to ensure no loss/mental mistakes. but i'm not talking about you defending. I'm talking about you using the defenders mind to plan your attacks. Hence you getting blocked sometimes.

 

[TheNamelessWonder]

(haven't read anything but the title of this thread)

On the contrary good sirs, I like the random factor, and in fact I'd like to see it become greater. In a battle any number of factors could alter the battle of power on any given day, and in any case a bit of unpredictability is always fun.

 

[BlackWolf]

Now I dont have huge hungover and my brain actually works (like it ever does)... What some of you people doesnt seem to understand is that its next to impossible to make working battle calc. It would require you multiple different calculations based on 0 facts.

Its not as simple as some may think. First of all even if Azzer would reduce randomization to 1 it would still take numerous attacks and defences to work out for example how well does hippy vs geo. Why? Cause when you change that geo to gardener you would need to put that hippys amounts to completely new system and situation.

Basicly if I decide 10 hippies blocks 1 geo as such I would give hippy power of 1 and geo def of 10. What if I add gards in it? Then I add next unit and next unit and all the time it comes harder and harder to actually find the right numbers.

Add to that how you cant unless you break EULA to plan attacks ahead of time. So you cant know if attacker sent 100 gardeners and 10k geos. Or if he sent 105k gardeners and 5k geos. Making battlecalc would be extremely difficult without having numbers to start with. It would be huge job and would require insane amounts of time invested to it.

And for what? If Azzer changes units stats even byt bit your screwd again. It is as possible now to make battlecalc as it would be then. Randomization doesnt change that! I could as easily do calc that instead of gurus 1:5 would use ratio of 1:5 +-10% Or just make worst case scenario calc. Whole thing is as f0xx said you want game to be about skill or about randomization?

I still have not been given single point that would show how randomization gives something for the game. Instead I can think of multiple ways why it doesnt.

One idea I got was to Azzer make simple code that would before each round starts random +-1-10% for every unit there is in game and add those as values for that round. It would be kinky not to know how units perform on that round but to know you can find out.

 

[DarkSider]

TheNamelessWonder i don't think many if any argued against slightly different ratio's. What we have a problem with is the total randomness instead what you say a number of factors to change the battle.
I'd rather have the weather, the date, the number of attacks done by each party recently, damage taken, damage done/damage taken, l/f etc affect the unit performance instead the randomize function in PHP. Where you can avoid random things to happen it's better to have reasons for those happenings.

 

[WackyJacky]

The random factor is awesome. I have landed loads of attacks I shouldn't have because defenders sent enough, but the random factor + the layers of flak I used saved me.

Even with the random factor it is not hard to know how well you will do, especially when flakking. As people have said you just have to guess the worst case scenario. Don't remove it.

 

[Alcibiades]

One idea I got was to Azzer make simple code that would before each round starts random +-1-10% for every unit there is in game and add those as values for that round. It would be kinky not to know how units perform on that round but to know you can find out.

I have to admit, i'm a fan of the randomization but that discussion is not something i really wanted to be party to.

The above suggestion however, *really* tickled my fancy for some reason. Perhaps a further discussion of that could be profitable rather than scrapping Random factor entirely and without going the EXP route of DS.

 

[SadYear]

One idea I got was to Azzer make simple code that would before each round starts random +-1-10% for every unit there is in game and add those as values for that round. It would be kinky not to know how units perform on that round but to know you can find out.

I have to admit, i'm a fan of the randomization but that discussion is not something i really wanted to be party to.

The above suggestion however, *really* tickled my fancy for some reason. Perhaps a further discussion of that could be profitable rather than scrapping Random factor entirely and without going the EXP route of DS.

Doing so would mess the units hierarchy A LOT. You'd have to learn the basics of who pwns who everytime a new game starts.

I'd choose [some randomized battles with units following an established hierarchy] over [100% predictable battles with a weird hierarchy] any day.

Imagine if by chance, a route gets all +10% while both its predator and prey get -10% ? Way to f*** a team setup.