Ok, so you don't really want to talk about MUD's, do you? By ruling out the possibility of groups (which I suggested, WAAAAAY back up there), you are implying that the ONLY criteria you're willing to discuss is balance of races in one-on-one PvP duels. I submit that this is an extremely narrow slice of the mudding community, and if you're basing your entire game around it, good luck to you!



I know this, having used them. There are goals. Namely, the goal is to maximize the number of wins the NPC receives, while minimizing the number of losses. Even further, to consume the least resources possible (potions, scrolls, mana, whatever). Moves that work well get emphasized, moves that fail get diminished. Given enough battles, and a deep enough number of layers, AND enough CPU power, the NPC will gradually find what moves work best against various states the opponant can be in. It won't ever be great (lacking inspriation, desperation, and blind luck), but it can become respectable.

I notice you ignored the other half of that paragraph, which seems to be a theme… since you didn't have an answer to it.



Which means you have closed your mind and will only hear what you want to hear. I believe that concludes this discussion for all practical purposes.


You DID ask. I answered. I'm sorry my answer did not match your desired answer.

Its for this reason that most MMOs explicitly state that they do not balance around 1v1 pvp. However In most cases i find that race has little bearing on the outcome. DAoC is a pretty good example of the massive combat dynamic. One on One border land fights were pretty common when you were getting xp for your artifact gear though. I found race had little bearing, more it was on the class and how badly you got jumped.

I miss that game, Animist for the win.

– Quix is obviously knowledgeable about EVE online, and I agree. Its more like the exception then the rule though. I loved EVE except for the amount of time it took for skills, if you got into the game much later then others it felt really crappy to have to wait 16-20-+ real hours to get a skill up while not really doing anything to actively get it up, or just outright buying it.

Otherwise I was only able to PVP a small amount in the game before i moved and had to cancel. It was pretty fun, Ive been thinking on reupping the account.

-Syn

I didn't say that. I merely said that you can't use RPS-style balance for PvP even with teams on MUDs because of the lack of players. It may work for games like DAoC, but that's because they have some 2348523485 players online at any given time. It won't work when you have 20-30.

That said, if you think solo PvP is "an extremely narrow slice of the mudding community", you're sorely mistaken. It's quite a large chunk, actually.



I didn't answer it directly because my answer to the first half indirectly answered it. No; it's not learning, because for the NPC to know that its goal is to minimize damage to itself (by countering your shield-bash in this example), you must first condition it.



No; it means that I recognized the fact that it's not a concrete topic, can be neither right nor wrong, and that we have differing opinions that don't seem to be wavering. I'm doing the thread and everyone reading it a favor by not pursuing it further into personal squabble.

Balancing races in a game is a big deal, and should be done thoughtfully and frequently (assuming one adds any form of new content at all). That said, balancing races is not a one size fits all deal, as this discussion has pointed out time and time again. If I speak strictly in the context of the current discussion, being a one on one dual between two players at the same level with identical builds with exactly the same equipment, and one player is an orc and the other is a halfling, I think Kavir provided a workable solution to the problem way back, being that if a race excels in one stat area then other races should excel in different stat areas. Kavir provided a nice system where orcs are strongest, halflings are quickest and elves are the most accurate. In this way, at the same level with the same basic (read unenchanted) equipment, we have a situation where:

An orc deals the most raw damage on contact, but connects less often than an elf, and makes fewer swings per minute than a halfling.
A halfling has the highest rate of attack, deals less damage on contact, and connects less often than an elf.
An elf connects the most often, has a lesser rate of attack than a halfling, and deals less raw damage than an orc.

In this scenario, there is no clear winner based on race. Each player has an equal chance of maximizing their advantage (strength, accuracy, speed) to win a fight. If this system were truly balanced out, any fight between equally equipped characters of similar skill/ability and similar level would be won or lost on player actions and random numbers.

Another solution is to make races cosmetic, this has been covered and would work equally as well.

Also, if you are using stats and description as the main differentiating factor in races, how important is each stat point to the outcome of a fight? How easy is it for players to overcome a stat deficit? How weighted are certain stats to certain tasks, and how easy is it to pursue an alternate stat to gain a different advantage? Take the above situation. If orcs have a +5 to strength, while halflings only a + 1 to speed, and players can gain stat points, the orc player can get faster far easier than the halfling can get stronger. At the same time, if the halfling player dumps stat points into speed, he should be able to defeat orc players above him far easier than orcs can compete. I illustrate here that all stat points must be equal. Each point must have an equal effect on increasing/decreasing a players overall position. And, as a by product, all races at all levels need to have the same total stat value. All of this can go out the window if players cannot earn/buy stat points after creation.

If you like the above ideas, then stick with them, and use that as the model. It will work quite well for solving the problem of balance, and is probably the easiest if you have already developed significantly in a restrictive framework. I, however, prefer a different approach. Make each and every single race play as a completely different beast.

Orcs are large, and powerful. They have naturally thick skin which causes them to take less damage. They can wield two handed weapons in one hand. They have a natural affinity for axes and clubs. They gain a boost to strength and a penalty to accuracy and dodge from rage. Wearing full plate, and wielding two large axes, an orc is not fully encumbered, but is slowed slightly in his movements, which will make it harder to dodge. The player decides that this penalty to dodge is offset sufficiently by the natural thickskin ability (damage reduction) and engages in combat, holding his rage ability until mid fight.

Halflings are small and fast. They have heightened reflexes that grants them a boost to dodge. They have an increased jumpback range. They have increased accuracy when wielding short bladed weapons. They are nimble and can recover from attacks than knock them off balance quickly. Wearing chitin armor and carrying a spear, a shortsword, and a small shield, the halfling is barely encumbered, offering no penalty to movement. Out matched in size, armor strength, and raw power, the player decides to go for it, banking on speed.

Elves are graceful and brilliant, but frail. They have a sixth sense that allows them to feel their target, granting them a higher hit rate. They have an affinity for any ranged attacks. Their heightened perceptive powers grant them a better chance at stiking weak points in armor. Elven magic grants them the ability to temporarily shift the odds in their favor. Being of normal size, the elf goes into battle wearing leather armor and carrying a bow, throwing knives, and a rapier with a medium shield. Slightly encumbered, the elf has a slight reduction in movement, but doesn't anticipate charging or jumping all that much. Praying to be able to stay out of range and reduce his opposition to shreds, the player initiates combat.

Who wins in this situation? The player that hits the hardest? The player who attacks most often? The player who connects the most? In a well balanced game, it's a toss up. Each build tries to maximize a different aspect of the fighter class to best suit their race, while minimizing any penalty to the other available aspects. This make the game more exciting, and still well balanced for a duel. In this way, races become much more similar to RTS races also, as style of play is effected much more than ability to play.

Well said.

Uh, I wonder if the point got lost in translation because the whole point was that it would be dumb to make conclusions about 5th vs. 12th grader intelligence based on the level of math they can complete. A brilliant 5th grader might still fail utterly whereas a mediocre 12 grader might scape by.


Like quixadhal, I don't understand what you think you are saying here. There are utterly obvious goals and "bad things". It is a good thing to win. It is a bad thing to lose. It is a somewhat bad thing to use resources. It is a good thing to win but a better thing to win with lots of HP left. Forget the pointless conditioning vs. learning vs. absorbing vs. whatever the heck you want to call it.


That argument sounds an awful lot like Searle's argument that a computer can never, ever replicate human understanding because humans have a "special organic spark of life"…

Depending on what exactly your game looks like, it is in fact very likely that an AI agent could beat the pants off of human players if somebody spent the time to work on it. You might argue that people probably wouldn't spend that time, and you'd probably be right, but you can't claim that no agent would ever do better than humans at the game.


Obviously it isn't, for you are cheerfully calling things unbalanced that I and quixadhal called balanced. I wouldn't have said what I said if I didn't feel it were relevant: your reply wasn't terribly helpful. There's obviously a fundamental disconnect somewhere.


In that case, one wonders why we're having the discussion in the first place! :wink:


Unless you are proposing a rather novel combat model, then what this approach does is make people the same, but with different labels. If I hit twice as often but for half the damage, then my expected damage dealing capacity is the same as yours. But I don't have to really do anything about it; my character keeps happily whacking away and I just watch that my more frequent but weaker hits.

It seems to me that this system reduces all of the fighters to being basically the same, only superficially different. I suppose that some players would find it to be a fascinating array of options but I view it as somewhat shallow and only deceptively different.

Well presumably you wouldn't leave the combat there - you'd introduce other factors such as weapons, armour, skills, spells, styles, and so on. A flaming weapon which inflicts a fixed amount of fire damage on every successful attack would be more beneficial to someone who hits more often, while a "poison weapon" skill which allows you to inflicts a fixed amount of damage for the next 60 seconds (and which can be renewed but doesn't stack) would be more beneficial to someone who has a high chance to hit - and an "ambush" skill which allows you to inflict triple damage with your first successful attack in combat would be more beneficial to someone who usually inflicts large amounts of damage.

You made your point quite clear; it's just that you also made my point, as well, unintentionally. I was just pointing it out.



It's obvious to you because you're a human. When you find a computer that "knows" what "good" and "bad" are without being conditioned, you let me know. We'll make billions.



I probably shouldn't have said "never"; I really meant to say that they don't now. Whether or not they ever will is a matter of opinion. I happen to believe they never will, but many people disagree.



I can very well claim that, and the reason is because no matter how "skilled" an agent is, its designer will always be equally or moreso skilled by definition. In fact, most of the time the designer isn't even the most skilled player on the game.



I know the general definition of "good", and I'm sure you know the general definition of "good" as well; however, we can still have differing opinions on whether or not some arbitrary thing, action, or whatever is "good". It's all about context, not definition.



I was referring, of course, to whether or not "not fighting" is considered strategy/skill. Our discussion is not on this topic.



…minus the fact that you're completely disregarding player skill. What if the person who hits twice as fast decides to hit and run? He's taking no damage at all because he's able to get in and out before the slower player can finish an attack. Etc., etc., etc…



Yes, if they stand still and wail on each other until one of them dies with no strategy involved and no outside factors, you could probably consider them "the same", but you can't make the same claim in general/reality.

KaVir nicely pointed out that that isnt even really close to true. You want to see a white box, so no matter what anyone does you see the white box /shrug

-Syn

Are you being serious? Have you never looked at game-playing AI before? It is extremely easy to encode the factors I listed as being positive or negative. What exactly is so hard here?


No, it is a matter of fact; either they will some day or they will not. Perhaps you're using the term "matter of opinion" in a non-standard way, but this is certainly as much a matter of fact as whether or not the Earth is round. (That it is a matter of fact does not change, even if you consider the question 1,000 years ago in a time where people thought it was flat.)


This basis for conversation is all but useless. I tell you that we don't share definitions, and you tell me that's not a problem at all. But how do you expect useful conversation to be held if we do not agree upon the most basic issues' definitions?


Oh that's funny, now we're talking strategy, where a weak player will not survive head-on assaults, but if that weak player uses strategy, he may overcome weaknesses and win a battle otherwise guaranteed to lead to defeat. Hmm…!

Same response to everything KaVir said (ignoring Syn's cheap insult): that precisely makes the point that strategy is fundamental, and can be used to enhance strengths and defeat weaknesses. Whereas a "straight" fight could be doomed to fail, you take advantage of equipment etc. to bolster your chances of success.

It's funny because all along you guys have been saying how race alone shouldn't dictate a fight ceteris paribus, but then here you are changing the ceteris paribus condition to introduce precisely the kind of strategy (hmm, strategy) that tips things one way or the other.

It wasnt a cheap insult, and you fail at ignoring the comment.

I personally never connotated 'all things being equal' However you glaze over the important portions. Like i said, you are focused on the white box, you want to see it, thats all your seeing.

The assertions that a race can be unique, while balanced and not the determining factor in a contest of player vs player has pretty much been proven. That really was the entire goal. You want to pick apart semantics to an argument that was already validated, thats nice good for you.

You also are mixing examples to try and prove a distorted view that does not exist. Ceteris Paribus, to which I might add why dont you just say 'all things being equal', in the first instance we are discussing has to do with the fact that a race can be unique but not the major factor for victory. The second extension to that, is when you take away that statement (instead of steamrolling it into all parts because you want to) is that… all things being equal, it then falls to play style, equipment, player skill, and numerous other factors that make the chief condition for victory.

Somehow it has gotten mingled, however, on the stance KaVir specifically is taking, and that I have been agreeing with, the strategy comes from the tools presented, that doesnt mean that any one tool is an advantage in and of itself, it is up to the player to make it an advantage and exploit potential weaknesses. If another player doesnt do this, they will lose. A 'weaker' character has no real meaning in this context unless you define weaker explicitly. Is someone who is faster 'stronger' in a combative sense? Physical strength? Big huge muscle bound player with no dexterity who cannot move quick enough? Which is the weaker character? What makes them weak? What basis are you using for determining what is weak, what is strong, and why that strategy is inherently bolstered by a race?

Why not by the sword, or the magic, or lack threof? Why do you assume balanced = the same crappy thing over and over with slightly different math behind the scenes? Have you no vision?



Haha, nice. It is fact, either the sun is there, or it is not! :rolleyes:

-Syn

No…! Really??


Yes, indeed, it is a matter of fact just as that is. Your point is?

1, your lack of candor speaks volumes, thanks for validating my points with a childish retort.

2, You obviously have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word fact actually means. Neither of the statements we made were fact. They former being a postulation at best, the latter being an ambiguous example of why the former was simply postulation and not anywhere near fact.

-Syn

"Lack of candor"? I beg your pardon? I thought that it was utterly obvious that the point of my original statement was to point out what I thought about your statement, while ignoring to treat it further. You, for some reason, decided to declare victory, pointing out how I "failed", when in fact you misunderstood what the point was to begin with. I apologize for being too subtle with you – I had thought the meaning would be obvious, but I suppose I was wrong. Sorry…


I don't even know what to say to this. I thought this was soundly explained to you in the other thread already by several people. Just in case you're not being facetious, let me try going over it again…

How exactly is it not a matter of fact to say that either the sun is there, or the sun is not? Our belief is irrelevant: either it is there, or it is not. Opinion does not change the truth value of the proposition "the sun is there".

Similarly, either one day AI will succeed at this task, or it never will. Your, my or drrck's opinion does not change the eventual truth value of this statement. We may hold opinions as to what the truth value is, but our opinions do not change that truth value whatsoever. Either someday it will happen, or it never will. This is a paragon of matter of fact vs. matter of opinion.

If you believe that I "fundamentally misunderstand" what the word fact means, it would be kind of you to put your money where your mouth is and explain precisely why I misunderstand it…

Perhaps I should point out to you, to avoid embarrassment, that I did not (in 'fact' – ha) provide any claims of fact regarding whether or not AI will eventually meet this goal. I merely said that the question is a matter of fact, not of opinion.

If you don't understand those terms, or are not aware of, or do not agree with the usage I make of them, it would be better if you established as much instead of being so snappy and quick to accuse me of such fundamental misunderstandings. I suppose, though, that we're a step up from being "moronic", so I should be thankful for at least that much…

Apparently you've not been reading what I've been saying. I'll requote my earlier explanation:

"Each side can have advantages and disadvantages which balance out - it's when one race has an overall advantage over another that I have a problem with it. In my opinion, given a fight between two warriors, it shouldn't be possible to predict the outcome knowing only their races. Instead it should be possible to predict the outcome based on things which the players can change - their choice of weapons and armour, their tactics, etc. That way they're not forced to lose over and over against the same opponent."

At no point have I said that people shouldn't have advantages and disadvantages, only that those advantages and disadvantages shouldn't be based on something they cannot change (such as most implementations of race).

Also note that this isn't just speculation on my part, it's based on personal experience; I have designed and implemented two separate muds, one where different classes had advantages and disadvantages against each other, and another where the classes were designed to be equally strong against each other. In fact I actually felt much the same way as you and quixadhal about balancing classes, until I'd actually implemented them that way. It was an expensive lesson to learn.

The odd thing is that I do not believe that anybody here is claiming that given only the race and class of two characters, and nothing else (e.g. player skill) the outcome of a battle is predictable. On the contrary, quixadhal and I have said from the start that strategy plays a key role. I've said time and time again that this is not simple RPS where all orc warriors always beat all halfling warriors, just because. What we have been advocating is the introduction of advantages of one race over another such that the disadvantaged character will have to be clever in handling their disadvantage, be it by avoiding the hard fight entirely, or outsmarting the advantaged opponent.

I hesitate to say that we agree given how much verbiage has been spilled to the contrary but I daresay that nobody disagrees that in the end of the day, player skill is meant to matter the most in the end of the day. That is why I've said so many times that this isn't simplistic RPS. So I'm not sure that it's productive to make that point over and over again as if it "proves" one side or the other given that it wasn't contended in the first place.

Now, where we do disagree, I think, is in the source of these advantages and disadvantages. You state that every single one of these should purely depend on something volatile, whereas we have said that some (where "some" is a small number!) may depend on an immutable choice made very early on. It is this point that should be contended. It's not useful for the "sides" in this discussion to lay claim to sole ownership of ideas that we all agree upon.

As for personal experience, I have also seen first-hand what happens when people try to balance classes solely in terms of one-on-one player vs. player "arena combat". The result was a disaster, yielding classes that were hard to differentiate and skills that all looked the same in order to let everybody counter everybody else's advantages. It completely ignored class skills that were not directly related to combat, and vastly over-weighted combat-related skills. It is possible that that was completely due to a poor implementation – the implementation was indeed flawed – but it is my contention that the approach itself is fundamentally flawed due to the very strong skew in favor of one-on-one combat in rather particular settings.

You've been proposing that different races/classes should have advantages over others. Thus, given only the race and class, the likely winner is indeed predictable (to a degree which obviously depends on the specific implementation) - in much the same way as you can predict stock markets, horse races, life expectancy, etc.

For example, quixadhal suggested that a halfling might have 30/70 odds against beating an orc, but that the halfling "could still win if the dice go his way". The halfling will win less often than the orc, which is indeed a relatively predictable outcome.

Obviously in a real system you would add on other factors (equipment, skills, etc) - but the point is that everyone can add on those factors. While you might argue that the halfling has a greater chance win if he has magic armour and a high weapon skill, there's no reason why the orc wouldn't also have magic armour and a high weapon skill, thus once again leveling the odds.

Here follows a list of some of the other things you and quixadhal have claimed about class/race strength, as you seem to have forgotten your original stance:

"Encoding the factors you listed here" is called conditioning. Whether it's easy to do so or not is irrelevant.



I think you're just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative here. You clearly understood what I meant. Either you have the opinion that they will someday, or you have the opinion that they won't. I think you know full well that I was not positing that there was some other possibility outside of they will or won't.



We do agree on the basic definition of balance. Balance is equilibrium, the lack of bias, etc. The problem is that the same situation can be seen as biased in different contexts and unbiased in others.



No, we are talking about an equally powerful character, not a weak character (you said this yourself, and now you're backtracking and changing it). If they stand toe-to-toe and duke it out, the fight will be a draw. One character is twice as strong, but half as fast. The other is twice as fast, but half as strong. They are balanced in a straight battle, but once you add player skill (i.e. the faster character hitting and running, or whatever), they can utilize their specific strengths to tip the favors in their odds.

1, see above from KaVir, you obviously have no idea what you're even talking about anymore.

2, Ok, lets start off with definitions of fact:

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
# a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred; "first you must collect all the facts of the case"
# a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts"
# an event known to have happened or something known to have existed; "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell"
# a concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are not facts"

# An indisputable truth.
www.carm.org/atheism/terms.htm

# Information that has been objectively verified.
www.pde.state.pa.us/a_and_t/lib/a_and_t/...

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
fact (fākt) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.
2.
1. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact.
2. A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case.
3. Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts.
3. A thing that has been done, especially a crime: an accessory before the fact.
4. Law The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence: The jury made a finding of fact.

Alrighty, so a fact is objectively verifiable. Whether we know so in the future or not can cloud whether anything really can be called fact, however…



The problem is that it actually is there, or it actually isnt, not that it either is or isnt. That is a postulation based on no observation or verifiable proof. A fact is based on proof, events that have occurred and observation. To make a two way statement implies that there has been no observation, or evidence gathering, or measurements.

To claim that is not fact whatsoever. You give two 'possible' outcomes. Neither of which meet the definition or intent of fact. Again you really have no clue how to use the word if this is what you think.

A fact is the things listed above, not a possible postulation which for intents and purposes really is a speculative educated guess. Have you been to the future and seen that one of those outcomes is true? If so, which one, where is the proof and the observations listed? The other one therefore is not fact. The example I gave unfortunately you fell into, you would need to pick one, and prove it for it to be a fact.

Postulations, Educated Guesses, Expected outcomes != Facts, please learn what the word means and how to use it.

-Syn



Unfortunately it is worse then moronic. Though ignorance isn't necessarily bad as long as you learn from it. Hopefully you can.

No, this is not true. You completely forgot player skill. If you have advantages over me but you are incompetent, I will still beat you. If you gave me race, class, equipment AND skill, then I could predict the outcome. But it's funny that I say explicitly the opposite of what you tell me I am saying.

Compare and contrast:

Emphasis added to highlight the contrast. You're telling me I said:

It seems that there's a pretty obvious difference in there… :rolleyes:

For the rest: do you intend on harping on your interpretation of things that were said pages ago, or do you plan on discussing the explanations that have been made since? I mean, you can have this dialogue with yourself, or maybe you can try to actually follow what we say about things and actually pay attention to clarifications. :thinking:


Who gives a flying hoot what it's called??? (You never told me why we actually cared about "learning" vs. "conditioning".) You said that a neural net wouldn't work because you can't encode the good and bad things. I just showed that you can. That it's easy is completely relevant. If it were hard, it'd be completely relevant. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.


If correcting an incorrect usage of a term is being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, then fine, that is what I was doing… Hey, I have an idea: Next time I say something incorrect and you point it out, I'll just tell you that you're just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. :wink:


If we agreed on the definition of balance, why would it be that you claim RPS is not balanced whereas I say it is?


What? I said that the characters have their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this case, a character might have the disadvantage of being physically weak and therefore the character's weakness is to not do well in hand-to-hand combat; the other character's advantage is to be physically strong. Both characters are equally powerful overall, they merely have different advantages and disadvantages, in this case one has an upper hand in straight-on hand-to-hand combat. No backtracking here… I think you thought I was being stupid and so interpreted my words as if there was only stupidity behind them. :wink: