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[MadMAxJr]

Stray thought:  Random number generators are evil.  Case in point, Kazz and I playing Wesnoth.

[Norondor]

FUCK GODDAMN WESNOTH, THAT GAME SUCKS

[MadMAxJr]

It's still pretty fun to play though.

BOARD GAMES.  ON THE INTERNET.

[Kazz]

noro is the sort of person who screams at the top of his lungs if he gets killed unexpectedly at TF2

so i'm not surprised that he found Wesnoth's dice too frustrating

[Norondor]

I wouldn't have if they didn't also have the experience system that constantly reinforces the need to force-feed kills to units to get them to higher tiers of power which you both need to win and absolutely can't rely on since a bad roll of the dice ends up killing anything. In the end, you have to quicksave every fucking turn. Guess what? I think Half-Life is a heap of shit too.

[MadMAxJr]

Noro demands to see the dice the universe is rolling against him, because he thinks it is cheating.

[Kazz]

I think Massive Assault has a similar, much worse system.  In MA, there are no dice at all.  Each attack does a specific amount of damage.  Without chance, victory or defeat becomes a foregone conclusion at a very early stage in the game.

Wesnoth is a much better multiplayer game than single-player game (though I tend to think that about everything).  Noro is right about how unsatisfying it is to get dicked over for no good reason.  At least the odds in MP don't start out stacked against you.

[Norondor]

Noro demands to see the dice the universe is rolling against him, because he thinks it is cheating.

Not really? Wesnoth just has a wrong-headed way of dealing with things. You have a lot of forethought and work that goes into a unit who can just be smeared at random, or do absolutely nothing several turns in a row if you're unlucky, so all that strategic thinking ends up amounting to nothing since you just win or lose every combat arbitrarily.

[Kazz]

Some element of chance is necessary to keep things from becoming Chess.  If the best plan always worked, nobody would use anything else, and if long shots never paid off, people would leave as soon as they became outnumbered.

And anyway, it shouldn't be that difficult to keep your upgraded units safer than your mooks.

[Norondor]

Keeping them safe usually means not using them, which means trying to beat down (often-)superior forces with mooks and mooks and mooks and

[MadMAxJr]

It doesn't help when Kazz uses zombie mooks that kill your guys and replace it with an equivalent zombie mook.

[James Edward Smith]

I gotta agree with Norondor. I tried playing Wesnoth for a long time when it first came into the lime light. The only way I ever found I could beat even the easiest of campaigns was to constantly reload from saves anytime I lost a powerful unit. The problem with that should be apparent; you aren't actually PLAYING a strategy game anymore, you are just playing a slot machine that costs no money and has a fantasy theme.

The combination of wildly out of control combat dice with the fact that lost units stay lost when you start the next mission just make that game almost unplayable. I wouldn't mind the retardedly huge combat results variance if I could affect it proportionally, but you can't. If getting attacked when I stand on good terrain or the command bonus that leader units gives actually served to offset the game's dice to anything near the required degree, then the game would be tactical and fun because you could be the first to occupy the high ground and then tell your opponent that the battle was over. But it just doesn't.

Every fight in that game is this:

Orcish Super DeathLord vs Gnomish Toothpicksman

strength 10                     strength 1
fortress 10                      parkinglot 1
Mega Cuirass 10               diaper 1

rolling one d50...

dice 2                            dice 40

Toothpicksman WINS!

[MadMAxJr]

I am told one of the development editions removes the random factor entirely.

[Kazz]

The strongest unit should always win every fight, then.  brilliant, you are game design geniuses.

How many times do I have to say "This is a much better multiplayer game than single player game"?

[Norondor]

One more.

[James Edward Smith]

I am told one of the development editions removes the random factor entirely.

Wow, seriously, are they developing this game by telling Godzilla where to swing a sledgehammer in order to fix their mechanic issues because...

Dur durrrrrrrr durrr dur derp derp derp. DURRRRRRRRRRRRR! Dur, derka durrrrrr derp durrr. Durr durrr durrrrrrrr, durrr durr dur dur derp? DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

No Kazz, I'm pretty sure that's almost the complete opposite of what I said. What I said is that the Strongest unit with the best bonuses (terrain etc) should never lose to the weakest unit with the shittiest bonuses. I don't think that's unfun, I think that's sane.

Of course I want some randomness because it makes the game more exciting and it gives me a chance to still win if the chips are down. But if you have a game where the randomness of dice can fuck you in the ass 5 rounds in a row despite you making the best tactical choices, that game is retarded and called Wesnoth and really not worth the time it takes to play. Other than the latter part of that last statment, I don't think anyone can really debate that. Otherwise the future of strategy games is to remake the card game "war" over and over again with fancier graphics and more entralling scenery and storylines.

[MadMAxJr]

Remind me not to play board games with any of you.

[Kazz]

But if you have a game where the randomness of dice can fuck you in the ass 5 rounds in a row despite you making the best tactical choices, that game is retarded and called Wesnoth and really not worth the time it takes to play.

So even if that has a 0.1% chance of ever happening, any chance at all makes the game awful.

got it.

you'd be pretty fucking ecstatic if you were on the other side of that, you know.


edit: BY THE WAY, all of this is coming from someone who complained last night that i did not invite him to play Wesnoth with me and Max

[James Edward Smith]

A 0.1% chance I would be okay with, but in Wesnoth it seems more like it's a 25% chance that a snail can beat my level 50 snail-stompler when he attacks him on the salt plains. I just don't see the point of making a strategy game where the tactical side of it is so meaningless in the face of the all mighty die roll.

I'm not saying the game is completely terrible, I'm just saying that the proportion between luck and stats is too skewed to the point that I don't enjoy the game anymore because the single player game just seems like no one could ever beat it with out at least 2-5 do overs a battle. I have better ways to spend my time.

Yes, I would laugh if my lactose intolerant amputee-guards  kept stopping your high level calvary charges while they were drowning in a latte lake that I stupidly moved them into accidentally. But I also wouldn't be confused if you never wanted to play the game again.

edit: Now I remember what game we were talking about and don't want to play anymore.

[Kazz]

you know, it's not a surprise or something.  there is even a damage calculator available before you attack which informs you of the exact percentage chances of each outcome of battle.

here, i'll fucking show you.

let's have a big level 2 Orc Warrior confront this weak, pathetic level 0 zombie.  as you can see, the terrain they are standing on give them each a 40% chance to dodge.



according to Geo, the zombie has a 25% chance of killing the orc warrior!  let's see what the calculator says...



hmm.  If the Orc Warrior attacks first, he seems to have a pretty decent advantage.  let's let the zombie attack first, instead.



my oh my.  that still looks like the zombie doesn't have a very decent shot.  well, just for fun, let's have the zombie attack, and see what happens.



look at that!  the zombie did the most damage he could possibly do.  he had a 36.1% chance to bring the Orc Warrior down to 46 HP, and it happened.  he lived up to his FULL OFFENSIVE POTENTIAL, even.

of course, the Orc Warrior slew him.  oh well.  better luck next time, deady.