r_rolo1
King of myself
True, but we also don't know if the archer in question was using a composite bow or not
The AI CHEATS! (Admitted to by Sid) lol
- Thread starter Dearmad
- Start date
Great discussion here. I commented in the "What are you most worried about ciV?" thread about this.
I called it "babying the player".
For most of my games, I like to play without reloading. So, I'll accept bad results and good results equally.
It'd be a real shame if Firaxis doctored the results because they felt some players weren't mature enough to accept defeat at times.
I called it "babying the player".
For most of my games, I like to play without reloading. So, I'll accept bad results and good results equally.
It'd be a real shame if Firaxis doctored the results because they felt some players weren't mature enough to accept defeat at times.
Psyringe
Scout
No, that leads to the same problem, just in a different situation.
Imagine this: You have a unit that's very valuable to you, let's say it's the only unit in the area that conveys a certain bonus to the others, and you can't replace it easily should you lose it. You have the opportunity to attack an enemy unit with it. If you do, your chance of victory is 99%. Now let's say the game displays 90% instead.
The player who understands odds and chances evaluates the situation and decides that a 10% risk of losing this very important unit is too high, so he retreats - unnecessarily.
The player who doesn't understand odds and chances thinks "90% - huge number, that's a certain victory", attacks blindly, and most likely succeeds because in reality the chance of victory was 99%.
The only solution that doesn't favor stupid behavior is really to be honest with the calculations. Giving players false values will always put those at a disadvantage who understand the meaning of these values (unless he knows that they are rigged, and consciously mimicks the stupid behavior they favor).
KrikkitTwo
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The problem is the existence of odds that are calculated in complicated ways.
Players' generally Aren't able to deal with probabilities well especially if they are near 1 or 0.
I know it irritates me when I lose my Great General unit.
The combat calculation needs to be simplified DRASTICALLY... so that not only are all the rule Known, but all the rules are easily understood in a precise way.
Simple model of Combat
Unit 1 Has Strength 5 after all modifier
Unit 2 Has Strength 10 after all modifiers
Unit 1 takes 30 hp x 10/5 =60 hp of damage
Unit 2 takes 30 hp x 5/10 =15 hp of damage
One unit, randomly selected 50:50, takes 2x damage, the other takes 1/2 damage
Therefor there are only 2 possible combat reults each with equal odds
120 hp damage to the 5, 7.5 hp to the 10 (5 is killed, 10 probably isn't.. unless it was really weak)
or
30 hp damage to the 5, 30 hp damage to the 10 (both probably survive)
Players can easily understand that, and it provides the necessary uncertainty.
Players' generally Aren't able to deal with probabilities well especially if they are near 1 or 0.
I know it irritates me when I lose my Great General unit.
The combat calculation needs to be simplified DRASTICALLY... so that not only are all the rule Known, but all the rules are easily understood in a precise way.
Simple model of Combat
Unit 1 Has Strength 5 after all modifier
Unit 2 Has Strength 10 after all modifiers
Unit 1 takes 30 hp x 10/5 =60 hp of damage
Unit 2 takes 30 hp x 5/10 =15 hp of damage
One unit, randomly selected 50:50, takes 2x damage, the other takes 1/2 damage
Therefor there are only 2 possible combat reults each with equal odds
120 hp damage to the 5, 7.5 hp to the 10 (5 is killed, 10 probably isn't.. unless it was really weak)
or
30 hp damage to the 5, 30 hp damage to the 10 (both probably survive)
Players can easily understand that, and it provides the necessary uncertainty.
Dearmad
Dead weight
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Huh?
Just throw the dice with the odds presented and don't "f" with the player. Sid is wrong in that he thinks all players are like the immature fools he was talking about who, btw, were Civ Revolution players anyway.
DESIGN the game so that when two units meet the odds presented work for the player in a way that overall moves the game in a way you want, as the designer, and then roll the odds.
Honestly.
GalCiv doesn't have this problem.
Blood Bowl doesn't have this problem.
Multiplayer almost by definition CANNOT have this problem...
Only Sid did in how he caved to whiny immaturity with his half-baked game design theories... he need to go back and read Chris Crawford's take on the philosophy of good game design if he thinks he's some sort of innovator on this.
Just throw the dice with the odds presented and don't "f" with the player. Sid is wrong in that he thinks all players are like the immature fools he was talking about who, btw, were Civ Revolution players anyway.
DESIGN the game so that when two units meet the odds presented work for the player in a way that overall moves the game in a way you want, as the designer, and then roll the odds.
Honestly.
GalCiv doesn't have this problem.
Blood Bowl doesn't have this problem.
Multiplayer almost by definition CANNOT have this problem...
Only Sid did in how he caved to whiny immaturity with his half-baked game design theories... he need to go back and read Chris Crawford's take on the philosophy of good game design if he thinks he's some sort of innovator on this.
I'm genuinely curious about this, not asking it to be patronizing, but doesn't an awful lot of the concern here essentially come from labeling CiV's considerably different way of handling combat strength as "misrepresenting odds" or "lying to the player"? Neither of those seem accurate to me. I mean, it seems pretty much like a "what you see is what you get" approach, which is exactly what you had in CIV, just calculated differently to avoid 
. Sort of like how strength's influence on combat changed drastically from Civ II to Civ III; nothing was being distorted or covered up, it was just a shift in calculations.
The other thing that a lot of posters here seem to take for granted (or ignore) is that we don't really know how much of an impact HP has on strength. I'd argue that both from a realism standpoint and a gameplay standpoint, a spear should lose to a tank. But, I'd also argue (and I don't think we have confirmation on this either way) that I can see it taking a little chip out of the HP, which, unless it's a Japanese tank, would not only reduce the amount of damage needed to destroy the tank, but would also make the tank less effective at fighting, variable by the degree of the effect.
That said, it's late and I'm pretty well exhausted, so I may have missed some crucial posts or totally misconstrued an awful lot of what was said, so feel free to totally dismiss what I said if I'm way off base. And again, I'm totally serious on that; I can hardly formulate a coherent sentence right now, let alone string a few thoughts together on a pretty complicated topic.
. Sort of like how strength's influence on combat changed drastically from Civ II to Civ III; nothing was being distorted or covered up, it was just a shift in calculations.The other thing that a lot of posters here seem to take for granted (or ignore) is that we don't really know how much of an impact HP has on strength. I'd argue that both from a realism standpoint and a gameplay standpoint, a spear should lose to a tank. But, I'd also argue (and I don't think we have confirmation on this either way) that I can see it taking a little chip out of the HP, which, unless it's a Japanese tank, would not only reduce the amount of damage needed to destroy the tank, but would also make the tank less effective at fighting, variable by the degree of the effect.
That said, it's late and I'm pretty well exhausted, so I may have missed some crucial posts or totally misconstrued an awful lot of what was said, so feel free to totally dismiss what I said if I'm way off base. And again, I'm totally serious on that; I can hardly formulate a coherent sentence right now, let alone string a few thoughts together on a pretty complicated topic.
Psyringe
Scout
I can't speak for the others of course, but at least in my criticism of Meier's keynote speech, I was addressing the approach to game design which he advocated there. If he produces future games along the guidelines that he laid out in this speech, then he'll produce games that are less enjoyable for me. That's my concern.
Whether or not Civ5's combat suffers from the player-pampering that Meier seems to advocate, I can't tell. I don't think we know enough about Civ5's combat engine yet to determine this, so I'm reserving judgment on this issue. That doesn't change the fact that I strongly disagree with the approach that Meier laid out in his keynote speech though.
Guardian_PL
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I think that pursuing discussion about it is futile.
If people can't understand that as soon as you'll ramp up the difficulty all the "cheating" will become negligible (because we have like seven different difficulties, not a crappy Easy/Normal/Hard like it is in most shooters you're referring to), and on top of that are telling me what I said while their conclusion is
I should have stop posting here while still on the first page.
To me, Sid's speech was spot on. Yes, it's hard accept that his points were true, and sometimes it's hard to accept that humanity in general is stupid and vane. But stupid people or children need entertainment too, and that's why we have this "pampering" you're talking about.
Reasonably thinking/experienced players will play on Monarch+ and I'm sure they won't feel pampered one bit. So in my opinion the solution is perfect and Civ5 will be more realistic then previous installments, if you can't get the idea of completely different approach to combat then I can't help you ^^
Just one thing that made me O_o:
Multi-spear attack
Seriously, it does happen. You have one turn. Ten Spearmen units surrounding a lone Armour unit. You sacrifice them, one after another (all the while moving your units close so they'll get maximum bonuses to their strength), and gradually you ARE wounding the Armour unit, and it eventually dies, all within the same turn.
I just don't understand how you can base on incorrect assumptions (like that units don't get bonuses, or that I'm talking about attacking with all units at once, not one after another) all the while telling others that it is them that are incorrect.
Anyway, I'm seriously tired with the whole thing so I'm out of here, enjoy your discussing.
If people can't understand that as soon as you'll ramp up the difficulty all the "cheating" will become negligible (because we have like seven different difficulties, not a crappy Easy/Normal/Hard like it is in most shooters you're referring to), and on top of that are telling me what I said while their conclusion is
I should have stop posting here while still on the first page.To me, Sid's speech was spot on. Yes, it's hard accept that his points were true, and sometimes it's hard to accept that humanity in general is stupid and vane. But stupid people or children need entertainment too, and that's why we have this "pampering" you're talking about.
Reasonably thinking/experienced players will play on Monarch+ and I'm sure they won't feel pampered one bit. So in my opinion the solution is perfect and Civ5 will be more realistic then previous installments, if you can't get the idea of completely different approach to combat then I can't help you ^^
Just one thing that made me O_o:
And it is still not a problem at all to me, and I can totally accept that sacrificing an army in order to defeat one unit of technologically advanced enemy can and should be done.
I only know that you're here to discuss things for the sake of discussion alone, and repeatedly deformed other posters' arguments or dismiss them while twisting your own only to create yet another wall of text and tell others what they said, and what you hadn't had said at all :/3) Not the same thing , and you know itYou were talking of a multi-spear attack on a tank, and that simply doesn't happen in civ V as far as we know ATM. Anyway, due to 2), irrelevant.
Multi-spear attack
Seriously, it does happen. You have one turn. Ten Spearmen units surrounding a lone Armour unit. You sacrifice them, one after another (all the while moving your units close so they'll get maximum bonuses to their strength), and gradually you ARE wounding the Armour unit, and it eventually dies, all within the same turn. I just don't understand how you can base on incorrect assumptions (like that units don't get bonuses, or that I'm talking about attacking with all units at once, not one after another) all the while telling others that it is them that are incorrect.
Anyway, I'm seriously tired with the whole thing so I'm out of here, enjoy your discussing.
Psyringe
Scout
I'm sorry - if you're referring to me (it's a bit hard to tell, as you seem to be addressing rolo, me, and others all together, and it's hard to see which part of your post has which addressee), then I can only assume that you haven't understood what I was saying. I didn't even talk about "cheating" on a moral level, we all know that things like AI bonuses are still necessary to provide a challenging experience. What I said was that the combat system that Meier advocated rewards stupid behavior by intentionally giving false information. The intention is to pamper the player's false assumptions about probabilities, one side effect is that this puts the people who can actually deal with probabilities at a disadvantage, because they now base decisions (which would be reasonable under normal circumstances) on data that has deliberately been rigged. I even gave examples.
Also, take a minute and think what a combat engine that prevents two improbable losses in a row would do to multiplayer, or to competitive high-level single player games. Have you realized that such a combat engine would allow you to safely defeat any enemy unit as long as you can throw two units with about 30% chance of victory against it successively? You'd see kamikaze duos all over the field. Is that how a strategy game is supposed to be played?
Again, I don't think you understood my point. I wasn't even debating that many gamers indeed are as dumb, egotistic and immature as Meier described gamers in general, in fact I explicitly said that I agreed with that assessment. So you're really arguing against things I never disputed.
I did, however, make the following points:
1. I resent the notion that players in general are dumb and immature. One look at the CivFanatics strategy sections should tell anyone that there are indeed gamers who are very different.
2. I think that it's a wrong approach to pamper stupid behavior when this makes the game less enjoyable for the players who have grown beyond such stupid behavior.
3. I resent the implicit assumption that players cannot learn about the deficiencies of intuition, and I'm sad that the rigging of a perfectly fair combat system is considered a better option than helping the players to understand what's really going on.
I'm repeating myself, but again - I don't think you understood the criticism, at least not to its full extent, I'm sorry. The problems I described are inherent to the rigged combat system that Meier described. They don't go away on higher difficulty levels. With that combat system, on Monarch+ the system still favors stupid behavior because it still gives people false data to base their decisions on.
Whether or not Civ5 will have a realistic combat system is a matter I didn't address at all, it's of no consequence to the problems I described in any case. Further, we don't even know whether Civ5 will have such a rigged combat system, so I wasn't talking about any Civ5-specific implementations at all.
I know you weren't addressing me with that part of your post, but I'd like to state you are leaving the realms of factual discussion, and are entering the realm of personal accusations and flames with such statements. I suggest taking a break.
Moderator Action: Please everyone remain civil - no need to attack other users while discussing their posts.
r_rolo1
King of myself
@Guardian_PL
First, where is my distortion of posts? Feel free to point it... most likely it is a misunderstanding of both sides, either in the expression of the point or in the compreension of my side.
Second, I'm confused. You are clearly saying that you have no issue with spears killing tanks ( or whatever lowish unit killing a high tech ones ) if you provide support from the sides. i obviously have no issue with that, but I really can't see how to conciliate that position with the one that people in general are stupid and need to be pampered by removing the visual spectacle of a spear event, like Sid suggests. If a person can't stand a spear event, it will not stand it with or without support ( and, no matter how much you had said, battles in civ V are still 1:1 ... if you want to say otherwise, you have to acept that civ IV battles are also coordinated moves of the same kind, since medic II units can heal units in the adjacent tiles ... at best it would be a matter of degree ,not of substance ).
Ok, you can imagine that units are doing coordinated attacks just because you are using them in sucession, but you can imagine that with any civ game so far ... but the people that get pissed with the spear event will continue to see the simple fact that spears beat tanks. My point was that: if people can't stand the first spear beating a tank, they will not acept it easily with any spear, no matter how much spears you pour in the equation ( believe me, I have my fair share of discussing in this kind of threads ), so the point of making that suposed change in pretty small in adressing that. OFC, this assuming that the persons are as Sid suggests they are... You can acept it, but you are miles away higher in tolerance to the spear event than the archetypical player in Sid's mind, simply because you can acept the concept of a spear event , even if heavily mitigated.
On the odds tampering: Psyringe said it all. It is bad policy to assume players are stupid ( and worse, say it out loud
), especially when you are in business of selling a heavy mind usage game My point, since the beginning, was that, in spite of some people would feel better with this, there would be others that would not feel as well and that Sid clearly had taken sides when that wasn't needed ( check my posts in page #2 , before saying I'm twisting my point ) . I can think in diferent combat system, unlike you are sugesting, I even suggested one... I just want one that does not lie in the players face and that acheives both realism and gameplay qb. And IMHO what is being sugested does not fulfill that, because it sacrifices both realism and gameplay to not break the ilusions of a certain sector of the players. But I already said too much...
Just to end, people on monarch+ will not feel pampered, but people that play high levels don't want to be pampered anyway . But that is irrelevant, unless you rig the combat engine to give diferent results at diferent dificulty levels to the same battles , and not even Sid suggested that
First, where is my distortion of posts? Feel free to point it... most likely it is a misunderstanding of both sides, either in the expression of the point or in the compreension of my side.
Second, I'm confused. You are clearly saying that you have no issue with spears killing tanks ( or whatever lowish unit killing a high tech ones ) if you provide support from the sides. i obviously have no issue with that, but I really can't see how to conciliate that position with the one that people in general are stupid and need to be pampered by removing the visual spectacle of a spear event, like Sid suggests. If a person can't stand a spear event, it will not stand it with or without support ( and, no matter how much you had said, battles in civ V are still 1:1 ... if you want to say otherwise, you have to acept that civ IV battles are also coordinated moves of the same kind, since medic II units can heal units in the adjacent tiles ... at best it would be a matter of degree ,not of substance ).
Ok, you can imagine that units are doing coordinated attacks just because you are using them in sucession, but you can imagine that with any civ game so far ... but the people that get pissed with the spear event will continue to see the simple fact that spears beat tanks. My point was that: if people can't stand the first spear beating a tank, they will not acept it easily with any spear, no matter how much spears you pour in the equation ( believe me, I have my fair share of discussing in this kind of threads ), so the point of making that suposed change in pretty small in adressing that. OFC, this assuming that the persons are as Sid suggests they are... You can acept it, but you are miles away higher in tolerance to the spear event than the archetypical player in Sid's mind, simply because you can acept the concept of a spear event , even if heavily mitigated.
On the odds tampering: Psyringe said it all. It is bad policy to assume players are stupid ( and worse, say it out loud
), especially when you are in business of selling a heavy mind usage game My point, since the beginning, was that, in spite of some people would feel better with this, there would be others that would not feel as well and that Sid clearly had taken sides when that wasn't needed ( check my posts in page #2 , before saying I'm twisting my point ) . I can think in diferent combat system, unlike you are sugesting, I even suggested one... I just want one that does not lie in the players face and that acheives both realism and gameplay qb. And IMHO what is being sugested does not fulfill that, because it sacrifices both realism and gameplay to not break the ilusions of a certain sector of the players. But I already said too much...Just to end, people on monarch+ will not feel pampered, but people that play high levels don't want to be pampered anyway
. But that is irrelevant, unless you rig the combat engine to give diferent results at diferent dificulty levels to the same battles , and not even Sid suggested that Guardian_PL
Emperor
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Wow, Psyringe and r_rolo1, I am genuinely impressed with your responses, and if I offended you I'm sorry.
By your replies I see that there's still reason for continuing conversation, and on top of that my Internet is back on line so I'll be able to post also from home, not only from work
There seems to be a lot do at work right now :/ , but I'll try later to formulate an appropriate reply to the points you've both raised and maybe we'll get somewhere
Once again, sorry for offending you, I just started to feel that instead of trying to explain reasoning behind Sid's speech (and whether it's good for players or not), we started to have more of a "I get to have a final response, mwahaha" attitude, which obviously leads nowhere
By your replies I see that there's still reason for continuing conversation, and on top of that my Internet is back on line so I'll be able to post also from home, not only from work
There seems to be a lot do at work right now :/ , but I'll try later to formulate an appropriate reply to the points you've both raised and maybe we'll get somewhere
Once again, sorry for offending you, I just started to feel that instead of trying to explain reasoning behind Sid's speech (and whether it's good for players or not), we started to have more of a "I get to have a final response, mwahaha" attitude, which obviously leads nowhere
r_rolo1
King of myself
No offense taken from my side
Jerrymander
Epistemologist
It is bad policy to assume players are stupid ( and worse, say it out loud
Even if it is true?
r_rolo1
King of myself
If is true and players are stupid, they will not understand they are being called stupid So there is no point in calling them stupid
So there is no point in calling them stupid 
Venereus
This Is Streamlined!
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If is true and players are stupid, they will not understand they are being called stupid
Pragmatism at it's best!
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
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I people are stupid then design the game rules so that stupid people will understand them, don't lie about the rules so that smart people can't understand them.
I really don't think it's quite fair to simplify "people generally have perception biases that mean they will often misinterpret statistical odds" down to "people are stupid." I'm pretty sure that the majority of people have a grasp of what 50% odds mean, 75% odds mean, etc., but that doesn't stop them from feeling frustrated when they lose 4 75% chance battles in a row. You can debate whether or not that frustration is reason enough to change the gameplay mechanics, but that frustration hardly makes them stupid.
Playing the "people are stupid" card (at least in this case) really seems to me like a way of trying to make one's self feel superior by misusing evidence to come to a not-really-substantiated conclusion. I could be wrong in my claims about people not actually knowing what odds mean, but I doubt it.
Simplified version: having normal perception biases ≠ stupid.
Playing the "people are stupid" card (at least in this case) really seems to me like a way of trying to make one's self feel superior by misusing evidence to come to a not-really-substantiated conclusion. I could be wrong in my claims about people not actually knowing what odds mean, but I doubt it.
Simplified version: having normal perception biases ≠ stupid.
r_rolo1
King of myself
But it was Sid that used the "stupid" card to justify those suposed changes in the first place Not stupid for having the biases ( because everyone has them ... even yesterday I got a bitter rage moment on seeing a longbow in Civ IV taking out 2 cataphracts and one cuiraseer down before it's demise ), but stupid in how we deal with them. Apparently, mr Sid thinks we are all completely unable to resist the urge to hit the reload button everytime we have a spear beats tank event or of atleast badmouth the game enough for noone in a 50 km radius ever buying the game again ... and because of that he, in his mighty wisdom is protecting us poor lost child of facing those bad emotions. In resume, if anyone is thinking we are stupids , is Sid .... or atleast he is talking and acting like that.
I definitely beleive that odds should be fair and untampered exactly because of that: I beleive that everyone can understand them enough if they actually try, even with inbuilt biases. Aparently others think otherwise ...
Not stupid for having the biases ( because everyone has them ... even yesterday I got a bitter rage moment on seeing a longbow in Civ IV taking out 2 cataphracts and one cuiraseer down before it's demise ), but stupid in how we deal with them. Apparently, mr Sid thinks we are all completely unable to resist the urge to hit the reload button everytime we have a spear beats tank event or of atleast badmouth the game enough for noone in a 50 km radius ever buying the game again ... and because of that he, in his mighty wisdom is protecting us poor lost child of facing those bad emotions. In resume, if anyone is thinking we are stupids , is Sid .... or atleast he is talking and acting like that.I definitely beleive that odds should be fair and untampered exactly because of that: I beleive that everyone can understand them enough if they actually try, even with inbuilt biases. Aparently others think otherwise ...
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