Version 0.8 mapeditor

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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby KGB » Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:02 pm

SnotlinG,

SnotlinG wrote:So you would still need to attack with one unit to get to know the enemystack.


I am not sure how this would work then. Lets say I use a crow to scout an enemy stack/city so I know the units in there. Then I select my own hero stack. Now how do I use this calculator? Must I then go to some other menu and manually drag/drop units for both sides (or maybe just the other side as it can auto-fill with my selected stack) then run a simulation? That's not only time consuming, it's very manually labor intensive and how would a player properly fill out an enemy hero for example or indicate a blessed unit?

SnotlinG wrote:Maybe having it enabled in non-ladder games only would be a good idea also.


Absolutely unequivocally Yes. I still think it should not be in fun games either. Only solo games against the AI.

At the same time to prevent players from simply creating their own more sophisticated calculator I strong suggest the game no longer show any combat strengths/hits/bonus's and instead just show the units involved and the battle sequence itself.

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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby SnotlinG » Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:21 pm

KGB wrote:I am not sure how this would work then. Lets say I use a crow to scout an enemy stack/city so I know the units in there. Then I select my own hero stack. Now how do I use this calculator? Must I then go to some other menu and manually drag/drop units for both sides (or maybe just the other side as it can auto-fill with my selected stack) then run a simulation? That's not only time consuming, it's very manually labor intensive and how would a player properly fill out an enemy hero for example or indicate a blessed unit?


Thats what we are brainstorming here :D
But for example the game could remember "known" stacks for this turn (i.e. scouted stacks), and then you could select one of your own stacks and maybe klick on a advisor button (somewhere) and then select the scouted enemy stack... But Im open for better ideas :)
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby LPhillips » Sat Apr 21, 2012 5:52 am

I'm on board for just giving a very clear calculator for solo games against the AI, and maybe the plug-and-play version as a "simulator" for Gold members. In-game aids are always a negative, last-ditch tool in development. The only exception is to give them early in a tutorial-type setting, and then remove them in normal play. The reason they are avoided is twofold: they take some of the enjoyment of accomplishment out of the game, and they actually cause people to learn less and learn it slowly.

Edit: if a plug-and-play simulator is provided in any way, then all enemy unit strengths need to be hidden in competitive games (non-AI), and I would suggest that you make the simulator a bit tough to abuse. For example: the user must input each unit individually and manually adjust all unit bonuses to run a simulation. This should make it something people are unwilling to reset dozens of times in a turn.
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby hungrytales » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:21 pm

LPhillips wrote:For example: the user must input each unit individually and manually adjust all unit bonuses to run a simulation. This should make it something people are unwilling to reset dozens of times in a turn.

That is what I thought we were discussing in the other thread. I never realized you and KGB had something completely different in mind (that is, sth more streamlined, more automatic, more casual - even without the need for a unit commitment...really?). Now I'm utterly baffled. It was so fine a discussion we had there, but it seems we didn't even know what exactly we were talking about :? .

That was also my point when I said the main disadvantage of having a calculator is it would alter gameplay towards hardcore. I use one sans GUI (by actually typing units and their respective bonuses in Eclipse) - now that is hardcore, and I still use it. But definitely NOT always :). I'm not that mad and if any calculator developed for the game comes attached with a need for any additional commitment I'm sure people are sane (or at least lazy (isn't it the same? ;)) enough not to use it extensively.

I also have to stress again I'm totally against KGB's proposal to cut players off all the information regarding their opponent's armies. I think the idea to leave a player constantly in the dark every time something hits him will surely end in a hell of frustration coming out of a lot of people. When I'm hit I like to have at least some notion of what hit me. Cutting people off too thoroughly will also limit their ability to formulate any reasonable strategy and hence basically will move Warbarons away from a strategy genre and closer to games of chance. After all that is the point in knowing the odds, right? To mitigate their influence in favor of reason.

Now, you could argue that taking all randomness out we end up with a dull game. Well, we all know it won't be ever obligatory. Those who'd like to spice things up and trade better strategy for better surprise can always just ignore a calculator.

Summing it all up, we have three main choices here. You can either employ KGB's solution and in effect end up with a game of chance. You can provide a calculator. Or you can do nothing and then somebody sooner or later will do that for you.
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby KGB » Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:49 pm

hungrytales wrote:Well, we all know it won't be ever obligatory. Those who'd like to spice things up and trade better strategy for better surprise can always just ignore a calculator.


ROTFLMAO. That's the funniest statement I've read yet regarding a calculator. If you believe that, I have some nice land here in Florida I'd like to sell you. Waterfront land too, sometimes called by others a swamp ;)

hungrytales wrote:Summing it all up, we have three main choices here. You can either employ KGB's solution and in effect end up with a game of chance. You can provide a calculator. Or you can do nothing and then somebody sooner or later will do that for you.


How do you see the game turning into a 'game of chance'? I don't see that at all. I too have a simple calculator like yours that I was using to test Piranha's code and I also use it to get an idea of 'theoretical' odds.

But in actual game play I am *long* past the point of needing to input units and run simulations to get an idea of the battle result. I can predict within 10% just about every battle or certainly 90% of the battles I am involved in. So the idea that the game will turn into chance if you hide all the numbers is flat out wrong. Experience will tell you which battles you are likely to win and which ones you aren't. I don't know how long you've been playing the game but are you telling me you have NO idea what your chances to win are if you attack 6 Scouts with 3 Lt Infantry?

I think a manual calculator where you manually select units and enter strengths is the stupidest of all the ideas. Who wants to spend 10 minutes entering units? I'll tell you who, serious hard core players who are desperate for any tiny advantage and players with a LOT of free time on their hands (typically teenagers). I especially don't have a lot of time to waste entering units into a calculator as I find that I already spend 30-60 minutes a day playing turns in several games. Being forced to spend another 20-30 minutes entering units into a calculator is not something I look forward to.

1) Hide all values in ladder games - no one is forced to play the ladder.
2) Show everything in games with the AI and provide and automated calculator for learning for Gold/Silver members.
3) In Fun games allow the person who sets up the game to select whether the numbers are hidden and the manual calculator (drag/drop units) can be used. That way some fun games can have the numbers + manual calculator but you can chose to turn off the numbers/calculator if you want to.

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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby LPhillips » Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:09 am

Providing the calculator in a limited way is the very best way to control potential abuse.

At this point, regarding everything in the most recent post, KGB and I have reached consensus.
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby hungrytales » Mon Apr 23, 2012 7:22 am

@KGB
I'm at work now and cannot take time sufficient for refuting you in a thorough fashion, but let me tell you one thing. You are losing your composure. ROTFLMAO? Well, maybe. It's called reductio ad absurdum and these are your claims that got reducted not mine :P. Stay tuned.
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby KGB » Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:19 pm

HungryTales,

I am laughing at your suggestion that players can voluntarily not use a calculator to handicap themselves. Not at your arguments for/against a calculator. It's like saying you can voluntarily pay more taxes to the state if you think you haven't paid enough taxes.

Who would ever do such a thing? That's why each game needs a fixed set of rules and why I suggested that in 'fun' games the creator of the game could allow/disallow a calculator by selecting whether all the numbers are hidden.

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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby hungrytales » Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:36 pm

(it's long but it's a good read. Bear with me :) )

I am laughing at your suggestion

I seriously doubt it, KGB. If so, it has to be a nervous laughter at best. You've lost track of solid argumentation and skidded in the realm of puny ad personam for some time now. You've been presented with sound arguments like my pointing to the fact that the idea of a calculator as a seperate tool involves certain level of commitment (therefore preventing it (or at least limiting it to some extent) from being overused) or Chazar's comparing Warbarons to chess during the discussion on the amount of needed randomness and what you do you just ignore them, or pretend you don't get them, or pretend you can just laugh them to silence. Well, you can't. You have to prove them wrong.

It's like saying you can voluntarily pay more taxes to the state if you think you haven't paid enough taxes.
Now here we have a nice example of this eristic tactic. I hardly see any analogy, really. And believe me - I'm trying :). But to show you how unsound it all is let me follow you through with this example.

Who would ever do such a thing?

Well, I'd think there are plenty of people out there doing that already. And for a multitude of reasons of which most can be boiled down to foolishness and naivety, I guess. You'd probably like a specific counter-example so I'll give you precisely that. Did you hear about Agnieszka Radwańska? She plays tennis and she happens to be from the same country as me. Well she decided to pay her taxes home which basically equals deciding to voluntarily pay more taxes to the state. Call it genuine patriotism or genuine naivety, whatever. QED.

That's why each game needs a fixed set of rules

Why, I thought it was my point :>. Nevermind, let's move on to the earlier post. Now, that is a sight to behold, cause it consists mainly of two paragraphs and in one you flat out contradict yourself and in the other, at last, you made me understand what lies at bottom of your agenda.

1)
But in actual game play I am *long* past the point of needing to input units and run simulations to get an idea of the battle result. I can predict within 10% just about every battle or certainly 90% of the battles I am involved in. So the idea that the game will turn into chance if you hide all the numbers is flat out wrong. Experience will tell you which battles you are likely to win and which ones you aren't.

But you've earned all this mind-boggling, clockwork-precise experience with all of the numbers still being available, right? So pray tell me, on what will this experience be based in case of new players when you switch off the numbers?

2)
I think a manual calculator where you manually select units and enter strengths is the stupidest of all the ideas. Who wants to spend 10 minutes entering units? I'll tell you who, serious hard core players who are desperate for any tiny advantage and players with a LOT of free time on their hands (typically teenagers). I especially don't have a lot of time to waste entering units into a calculator as I find that I already spend 30-60 minutes a day playing turns in several games. Being forced to spend another 20-30 minutes entering units into a calculator is not something I look forward to.

Read it through carefully, people. I've got enough balls to state it - what KGB defends so fiercely is his own, personal feeling of entitlement. He's just entitled to have an edge. He earned it and he likes it. And hell he will not part with it easily - at least not with no casualties involved, the very game be damned. If that's what it takes, he'll propose a change which is basically going to break it.

Because that's what it is, KGB. I compared switching off battle numbers to FOW - one of the points you chose to ignore. When you switch off those numbers, but still leave players some means to reveal them - then it works like FOW - it becomes a good way of throwing in some randomness to make the game more interesting and challenging. But if you switch them off absolutely and irrevocably it's just a permament FOW. It'd be a rather dumb decision game design-wise to say the least and it won't work.

For those who've followed closely this argument through the other thread (I hope there are any :)) there's this curious hole in your reasoning. You seem to attach so much import to those precious odds. You and LPhillips act like they are everything. Like there's no more strategy and thinking involved beyond them. You even went so far as to invoke poker as a example of just how important they are. Bring on a calculator, you say, and there's no point in the ladder!

Wait a minute...what? :?

Well yes, you say. You take out player's experience in calculating odds and everybody plays the same level. What do you need ladder for? Right. Well, folks, read on what KGB actually answered Chazar to his nifty argument.

Chazar wrote:An experienced Warbarons player has learned from numerous battles how the odds are (roughly). A Warbarons beginner who is brilliant at strategy games in general has a bad disadvantage there: the beginner needs play hundreds of game before he can become competitive - he does not need to get better at strategy, he just need to memorize the odds in order to be perceived as better - is this really what you want? I dislike games where you have an advantage just by tedious unintelligent memorizing. If a player is good at strategy, then he should also have a good chance of winning a game without going through dozens of hopeless games first.


KGB wrote:This comment makes NO sense. I have never ever come across any strategy game anywhere that allowed newbies to compete with advanced players (can you name one?). I consider myself an above average strategy player but to say that I should be able to sit down at a Chess board with Gary Kasparov and have a good chance to win is absurd. But you are saying that in effect, I should be able to sit down with Kasparov and get a chess computer to help me play against him so that I can have a good chance to win.

What's wrong with this answer? It's a perfect strawman :). Of course, you can't simply sit down with Kasparov and win. Ding-dong! That's the point. Because you've got no odds in chess, therefore there actually is something more in games that counts. Then WHAT is KGB talking about? Well, he's not addressing Chazar's point, that's for sure...

Well, I told you. You've got it in plain sight in this post, but I'll say it once again for good measure: a sense of entitlement.
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Re: Version 0.8 mapeditor

Postby LPhillips » Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:47 am

TL;DR.

But the first few paragraphs were enough. Hungrytales, I'll repeat what I stated earlier: you are arguing simply to argue. This is supposed to be an objective discussion, but you've stepped far outside of any accepted boundaries for one. Now you have revealed your cards. It is plain to the reader that you don't argue, you mandate; your beginning position in discussion is absolute conviction of your own superiority, expressed as a commitment to your original position no matter what evidence or argument is presented. This is a common learned behavior.

Step back for a moment. You have been overexposed to the toxic environment of modernist humanism, and you think that your subscription to a certain method of argumentation grants you true superiority. Regardless of whatever points you may make, your borrowed pseudo-intellectualism and your sense of self-importance will disgust your readers and disarm your arguments.

Don't become a forum troll. It's easier than you think.
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