[HN Gopher] Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale (2008)
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Luck in Wesnoth: Rationale (2008)
Author : tosh
Score : 36 points
Date : 2021-09-11 16:54 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (forums.wesnoth.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (forums.wesnoth.org)
| rpmisms wrote:
| I adore this game, big nostalgia trip for me, and the luck system
| is what makes it great. Really feels like a D&D campaign.
| pugworthy wrote:
| People do seem to detest the concept of random number generators
| in games. They feel like the "luck" is completely out of their
| control.
|
| Yet if you give a player a set of dice to give them perceived
| control over the random number generator, they are much more
| happy.
|
| Dungeons and Dragons and other dice-based RPGs are a great
| example. If they roll a 20, they are overjoyed with the results
| and feel incredibly lucky. If they roll a 1 they are sad or mad,
| but chalk it up to bad luck.
|
| But if it's a random number generator that they have no control
| over, they feel it's "random" and there is no luck. And they
| blame the random number generator for bad results. Even if it's
| just the same as using dice, without the physical interaction.
|
| I've always thought that even if you just let the player click a
| button to activate the random number generator, you give them a
| sense of control. Perhaps you let them hold the button down for a
| while just like how players rattle the dice for longer hoping for
| "luck" in the results.
| reidjs wrote:
| I love analyzing game mechanics. I haven't played Wesnoth, but
| other games that handle luck well are Darkest Dungeon and Faster
| Than Light. The article makes a good point about how a lot of the
| challenge is in distinguishing bad luck + good strategy vs normal
| luck + bad strategy
| haolez wrote:
| Yeah, I feel that. Some weeks ago, I was playing Battle
| Brothers and I lost a game because I failed three 80% checks in
| a row. It was incredible bad luck, but the decision to "all in"
| in these three checks was mine. Maybe I could've found a
| strategy that wouldn't ruin me in case a check fails,
| regardless of how high its probability is.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I've played this game a bunch, mostly in the player-vs-computer
| mode. Maybe removing luck would work for player-vs-player mode,
| but against the computer it would just reduce the game to feeling
| like a puzzle. Planning contingencies and managing risk is the
| main skill the game tests, and what gives it the 'battle game'
| feeling.
|
| There's an observation to be made in these game -- people
| wouldn't complain about the dice, if their plans didn't fall
| apart when they missed a roll. The problem is in the fragility of
| the plans.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Wesnoth has a scaling problem for its difficulty curve in
| general.
|
| Because level 2 (and lvl3, lvl4) units are so much better than
| base units (especially since they only cost 20 gold to pull
| out...), you often times end up in a situation where the
| developers had either more units than you, or fewer units than
| you, at particular points of a campaign.
|
| For long campaigns with like 20 levels, it leads to innate
| imbalances. If you managed to keep your units alive and coming
| back in all levels, you'll have a much easier job at the end
| than another player who lost a unit once or twice.
|
| -----------
|
| The fact of the matter is: an Orc Warrior with 50% night attack
| bonus with 10 damage per swing x 3 can one-shot your tier1, and
| even tier2 units.
|
| Your typical land routes have 40% evade, meaning there's a 21%
| chance that the Orc Warrior hits with all attacks and deals 45
| damage, more than enough to kill any tier 1, and most tier2
| units. And you have nothing you can do about it.
|
| Even if you mitigated this issue to the max: say with an Elvish
| Sorceress in a Treeline (70% evade), there's still a 2.7%
| chance she dies. There's no higher evade than 70% in the game,
| and Sorceresses / Archers (with 70% evade) have rather low HP
| to boot.
|
| So you're ultimately relying upon luck to survive the night-
| attacks by Orcs.
|
| Losing that Elvish Captain or Sorceress early in the campaign
| very well could lead into cascading failures, an inability to
| complete say the 9th chapter (when things get difficult).
|
| --------
|
| Sure, there's a day/night cycle. But campaigns inevitably lead
| to night-only scenarios (ex: caves) where you have to just deal
| with Orc Warriors and their 20% chance to literally one-shot
| any unit of yours, with no way to reasonably beat back the
| night-bonus. (No forests exist inside of caves, so you have no
| opportunity to reach 70% evasion).
|
| ------
|
| Orc Warriors are among the more "fair" units as well. I recall
| maps with "lancers", who are daytime units and level 2, but
| with 12x3 attack. Except... lancers deal double-damage to all
| units (and all units deal double damage to lancers).
|
| So really, lancers are 24x3 on the charge, before the daytime
| "sun" bonus kicks that up to crazy numbers. With a crazy 10
| movement, you can't even outrun these guys or hope to fight
| them at the night time. They have the highest movement in the
| game.
|
| As such, your only plan is to send units in, and hope that they
| miss. If lancers get lucky, your units die and I guess you just
| restart the level. There's no strategy to it: your units have 6
| movement, and lancers have 10. You just gotta run in there and
| hope for the best.
|
| ----------
|
| Strangely enough: I think luck in the PvP world is a bit more
| fair. I'm well accustomed to games of chance (Pokemon,
| Backgammon, Poker) in the competitive world. Furthermore: the
| PvP world in Wesnoth is mainly played with tier1 units (so no
| "luck factor" in determining if your tier2 units survive:
| because you simply don't have any tier2 units in battle). The
| games end up more fair. Maybe the enemy gets lucky and kills my
| tier1 elf fighter due to luck. Oh well, it was only 14 gold,
| and I can build another.
|
| The campaign is where stupid lancers feel like you're just
| playing vs a slot machine however. A line of enemy lancers just
| isn't fun to go up against. There's no strategy involved in
| fighting vs it (and it also would never come up in a PvP
| setting, since Knights are often times a superior unit over
| lancers and are the preferred promotion path)
| bee_rider wrote:
| The Orc infantry line has big attacks and pays for it with
| high damage variance (and also a total lack of ranged attacks
| until T3, which can leave them quite vulnerable). The
| solution is to avoid fighting them full powered at night with
| your valuable units -- sacrifice some T1 units if you have
| to, hit the orc with a bunch of archers, slow them with a
| Shaman to reduce their damage.
|
| Caves are particular challenges, and of course there's a map
| editor so somebody can just design a really poorly balanced
| campaign. But the Wose fairs not too bad in a cave because,
| well, they weren't really planning on evading anyway.
|
| E: Regarding this lancer issue -- sounds like a bad map, but
| even the biggest attack can only kill one unit per turn. Set
| your T1's up to block your good units. Then, get revenge on
| your turn. Plus, as a bonus, Charge works both ways -- some
| of your T1's might get some big hits in or even some kills.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Orc Warriors aren't even the highest variance in the game
| though! That's just... typical Wesnoth. Really, Orc
| Warriors don't have much more variance than Elvish Heroes.
|
| When we start talking Horsemen, Lancers, Thunderguards,
| Ulfserkers, Griffons, Wraiths... these are the real "high
| variance" units of Wesnoth. (Wraiths have self-healing on
| their hits. So its very "sharp" when they hit. If they "get
| lucky", a Wraith may be at full health after killing 3
| units, because they self-healed). EDIT: Oh yeah, and Trolls
| too have way more variance.
|
| That's the thing: the default level of variance in Wesnoth
| is really damn high. Far more variance in this game than
| pretty much everything else I've ever played. And when we
| get into the lol "variance as a strategy units" (aka:
| lancers/wraiths), its pretty much like playing against a
| slot machine.
|
| > The solution is to avoid fighting them full powered at
| night with your valuable units -- sacrifice some T1 units
| if you have to, hit the orc with a bunch of archers, slow
| them with a Shaman to reduce their damage.
|
| 2x attacks from the Shaman is pretty low accuracy. Assuming
| your typical 40% evade chance, there's a 16% chance that
| your shaman misses both slow-attacks. If the Orc is
| standing on its advantaged hill or mountain terrain, you're
| basically screwed (slow probably will miss more often than
| hit).
|
| No T1 unit has a chance of killing an Orc Warrior. None at
| all. Slow is probably your best bet (-50% damage), but its
| really not that reliable of a strategy.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Well, it is possible that this just isn't the game for
| you.
|
| I don't really think it is an issue that there aren't any
| T1 units that can easily beat this T2 one. Depending on
| where in the campaign you are, a T2 unit might be a set-
| piece encounter that you have to spend multiple turns
| wearing down. Of course the map designer can do a bad job
| and throw too much at you, but that's the cost of having
| mostly community designed maps I guess.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I enjoy the game.
|
| But I also think that reducing the variance significantly
| would help the game severely. I fully disagree with the
| forum post here.
|
| There's room for luck in strategy games. But I'm not sure
| if some units (see the Lancer) have a role in this game
| aside from forcing the player to hit the "restart from
| last save" button over and over. When the luck-engine is
| unavoidable (due to high movement), you simply can't
| "plan" around it. Your best plan is the restart from save
| button if you get unlucky.
|
| A good game shouldn't have situations like that, where
| the best strategy is just hoping for the best and rolling
| with the luck.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I haven't encountered too many Lancers lately, although I
| guess it could just be a campaign design issue. I've
| mostly been playing the World Conquest map lately, maybe
| they just avoid them because of this. It is a difficult
| campaign -- I haven't managed to beat it yet -- but I
| dunno. I enjoy rogue-likes and rolling with the punches,
| so if a run gets impacted by RNG it doesn't really bug me
| too much.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > E: Regarding this lancer issue -- sounds like a bad map,
| but even the biggest attack can only kill one unit per
| turn. Set your T1's up to block your good units. Then, get
| revenge on your turn. Plus, as a bonus, Charge works both
| ways -- some of your T1's might get some big hits in or
| even some kills.
|
| No. One unit can kill one unit per turn.
|
| One good lancer charge means my Elvish Champion (Tier3
| highest HP infantry for the Elves) is dead, and the
| backline is now exposed. That is a cascading failure where
| my line is fully eaten up and I lose. When I place a unit
| in 60% evasion with 70+ HP (very high in Wesnoth), I'm
| doing so because I need the line to hold in that location.
|
| What's the chance that the lancer is in range? Well, 100%.
| Lancers have the highest movement in the game.
|
| Champions highest evasion is 60% in the forests. Cool, I
| put him there. Well, woops. The lancer hit three times (6%
| chance of happening). Champion is dead. That's not even
| that low of a chance.
| avereveard wrote:
| orc warriors are t2 and won't oneshot ever it's own t2
| equivalent elvish hero, sure, line infantry will kill lot of
| t1 specialists, but that's expected: wesnoth has a lot of
| attrition by design, as it's a necessity, because just piling
| units leads to long, boring turns
|
| anyway, elves have piles of slow, which is the natural
| counter to high damage low attack units.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Elvish Hero is the highest HP Tier2 unit of the elves.
|
| If you go down the list: Orc Warrior has a high chance of
| killing Elvish Marksman, Elvish Ranger, Elvish Sorceress,
| and other incredibly valuable units. And remember: this is
| a hex-grid system. That means every unit in a line will
| fight against 2-units per opponent's turn.
|
| The Orc Warrior by itself already has a high chance (~20%
| chance) of killing T2 units under typical circumstances
| (equal flat terrain at night: advantage to Orcs for sure
| but its not that uncommon a situation). If you're dealing
| with two of them, that's pretty much GGs. You're basically
| hoping for misses.
|
| And that's optimal placement: you can't get any "better"
| than 2-units fighting vs your frontline units. With bad
| positioning, you might have 3-enemies or 4-enemies fight a
| unit (especially if those enemies have Zone-of-Control
| immunity, like Fencers)
| thriftwy wrote:
| In the campaign you are expected to maintain a conveyour of
| promotion where you will hire some t1s, move t1s to t2s and
| t2s to t3s in every scenario but the last.
|
| Playing with a select few of t2+t3 units is fragile and not
| very economical since they're expensive in upkeep. Sure you
| can recall their lot but then you run out of money quickly.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Loyal units are aplenty and don't have any upkeep costs.
|
| The main campaign absolutely encourages you to abuse your
| loyal units and promote them to tier3 or tier4. Losing a
| loyal unit is devastating however, because you pretty much
| only get one of each type ever (except the mermen: IIRC you
| get like 6 loyal mermen in the default campaign).
| thriftwy wrote:
| I remember playing Northern Rebirth just yet, I think I
| had a few loyal dwarves but that's all. Of course you
| also have a core band of units which come up in every
| scenario. They are often irreplenishable, such as there's
| being only one wizard in the whole campaign.
|
| You need to be extra careful to keep loyal/special units
| from harm, and for the most important ones it's an
| explicit scenario requirement. And that means regular
| career units doing the heavy lifting.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Loyal units need experience too.
|
| Experience is only offered upon killing units, or in
| battles. Either way, it means moving a Loyal unit to the
| frontlines to "feed" them experience.
|
| The risk is inevitable. If the loyal unit misses, and you
| have a bad turn (Ex: Elf Shaman missed the slow attempt),
| then you just hope the AI also has a bad turn on the
| counter-attack. If anything, you need to do this earlier
| rather than later (so that your Loyal units reach Tier3
| or Tier4 at a faster rate, so you really take advantage
| of the Loyalty bonus).
|
| Your slow will eventually miss. Wraiths and other undead
| will "luckily" self-heal themselves to max HP. Orc
| Warriors (A common Tier2 Orc) will "luckily" one-shot
| your (lower-HP) Tier2 units, and royally mess up your
| line. Your opponent will get breakthroughs as a result,
| and your loyal units will die. Even if you optimized your
| unit placement on the highest evasion tiles (70%), with
| the highest HP values with the maximum support across the
| line (ie: positioned in such a way that only 2 units can
| ever attack one unit), these events will happen.
|
| Whether you choose to restart-from-last-save at this
| point is up to you, but the next chapter will only be
| more difficult.
|
| Luck is part of Wesnoth. Period. I can complain about it,
| but the devs have made it clear that this is exactly how
| they want the game to be.
| setr wrote:
| Personally I prefer fudged dice (I forget the proper term)
| where expected damage is maintained, but low rolls and high
| rolls are dampened on repeats, to avoid low-chance sequences of
| misses/crits.
|
| In fact, I'd go further to say it's fundamentally correct --
| repeat bad/great swings of the sword is too rare to really
| account for, has no real basis in "reality" and is purely an
| artifact of the simplified simulation. Their occurrence adds no
| value to the strategy, by either arbitrarily trivializing or
| exploding risk as to be untenable.
|
| It's removal also eliminates the majority of the "unfairness"
| of the dice -- 80% feels like 80%.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think this is fine if you don't show an '80%' there. If you
| show it, it skews the player's perception of what 80% means.
| 80% is a 1-in-5 chance of failure. 80% chance of success
| should mean "I should have a solid backup plan here."
| setr wrote:
| The problem is accounting for the 1-25, 1-125, 1-625
| possibilities that are still legal, but you can't
| meaningfully do anything about (and a 1-625 crit sequence
| trivializes any boss fight, and a 1-625 miss sequence makes
| a trivial enemy impossibly powerful). It really amounts to
| a 1-625 chance that combat just breaks down altogether.
|
| Another alternative is you have so many rolls individual
| rolls don't matter (e.g. mass combat), or you have such
| cheap restarts / difficulty that a 1-625 game breakage
| doesn't matter (ADnD, roguelikes).
|
| Tail risk is probably a the least interesting type of risk,
| unless the game is specifically designed for it (it runs
| long enough that encountering a tail risk is an expected
| proposition)
| dragontamer wrote:
| Fire Emblem feels "less random" because it is.
|
| Most FE games roll two dice and average them together. Ex:
| its not a single-dice roll of 0 to 100%. So when it says 60%
| chance to hit in FE, they roll two dice and average it.
|
| A 60% chance to hit (displayed) is instead 68% true-hit.
|
| A 80% chance to hit (displayed) is instead 92% true-hit.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Also why DnD has different weps that roll 1d20 vs 2d10, 2d6
| vs 3d4 etc. Some things are designed to be swingier with
| more crits but more critical failures, where others are
| designed for consistancy.
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