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QW.nu polls
2009-01-09, 16:58
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251 posts

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Jul 2007
To my mind the more important factor is, whether the attacker lands a direct hit or not - regarding "speccing excitement" -, and not how exactly the damage is calculated. However, when a direct hit occurs, the calculation should be as fair as possible, i.e. static. It is about the fair play here, the good feeling that after a man-to-man duel the skill decided the outcome and not a die.

Overall, I fail to see how the game would become boring without the RL damage randomness, when we have enough luck influences like packet loss or fluctuating latency already. Proven in Renzo's field test no one seemed to lose the joy of QW. You kept playing - just that it was fairer than usual.
2009-01-09, 17:07
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Feb 2006
One thing that everyone seems to have missed: 100 + rand(20) is fair!

Huh, you may say. It's true, though. Everyone has the same probability to make maximum damage. Everyone has an even amount of luck (ignoring superstition here). It all evens out over time.

So to underscore it one last time - either mode is fair.
2009-01-09, 17:32
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Jul 2007
Writing about "as fair as possible" and "fairer" implies that the randomness isn't unfair. There are different qualities of fairness though and the static damage is fairer than the dice rolling.
2009-01-09, 17:43
Moderator
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Apr 2006
raz0 wrote:
One thing that everyone seems to have missed: 100 + rand(20) is fair!

I have to say when it comes to qw, I disagree on this point. Even if this is on the other subject, but I recently played such a povdmm4 round where I actually spawned EVERY SECOND TIME to the upspawn for the first two minutes. Random shit in QW just doesn't work properly, who knows what gives but it's very common to see "ra spawns" in dm4 for the other player, bad spawnluck streaks on dm2 after dying or some players getting telefragged more by spawning players.

But again, this wasn't about spawns or telefrags, instead something that requires skill (dhs are hard to make) and then considering the possibilities what happens next if we have random or not.
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2009-01-09, 19:01
Administrator
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Feb 2006
Renzo wrote:
"but it's very common to see "ra spawns" in dm4 for the other player, bad spawnluck streaks on dm2 after dying or some players getting telefragged more by spawning players."

Thats what make qw fun
2009-01-09, 19:24
News Writer
169 posts

Registered:
Dec 2007
I voted static for one simple reason, no matter if I lose or win I want to know that I lost or won because I was better then my opponent or my opponent was better then me. Never do I want to lose a game cause my opponent got lucky neither do I want to win a game because I got lucky.
The QW community should like communities do in all other games/sports try to remove luck by as much as possible.
2009-01-09, 22:29
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Nov 2007
Nobody has really mentioned this, but I'd expect there to be a lot more instances of both players dieing with fixed damage. We wouldn't see as many tight battles ending with one player barely alive. That makes it much less exciting if you ask me.
2009-01-09, 22:57
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Jun 2007
agreed dustin
Chosen
2009-01-09, 23:12
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462 posts

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Jan 2006
Dustin wrote:
Nobody has really mentioned this, but I'd expect there to be a lot more instances of both players dieing with fixed damage. We wouldn't see as many tight battles ending with one player barely alive. That makes it much less exciting if you ask me.

Why would you expect that?
2009-01-09, 23:20
Member
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Feb 2006
btw, you guys realise that RL direct hits isnt exactly common

i checked some logs from my last 4on4 and duel games. in 4on4 20mins vs equally skilled opponents, all players got between 5-15 direct hits each.

In duels vs equally skilled opponents on dm6, i would also get between 5-15 direct hits.

Imo directhits are so rare, that changing this is just for cosmetic reasons and in that case, non-random looks better
2009-01-09, 23:48
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Jan 2006
blAze wrote:
Dustin wrote:
Nobody has really mentioned this, but I'd expect there to be a lot more instances of both players dieing with fixed damage. We wouldn't see as many tight battles ending with one player barely alive. That makes it much less exciting if you ask me.

Why would you expect that?

I'm curious to know too.
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2009-01-10, 00:16
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Dec 2006
Willgurht wrote:
btw, you guys realise that RL direct hits isnt exactly common

i checked some logs from my last 4on4 and duel games. in 4on4 20mins vs equally skilled opponents, all players got between 5-15 direct hits each.

Well... 8 players with 5-15 dh each, that means approx 80 dh per game. Personally I wouldn't call that rare, that's 80 times you're getting this random amount of damage applied.
2009-01-10, 00:26
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Jan 2006
HangTime wrote:
Willgurht wrote:
btw, you guys realise that RL direct hits isnt exactly common

i checked some logs from my last 4on4 and duel games. in 4on4 20mins vs equally skilled opponents, all players got between 5-15 direct hits each.

Well... 8 players with 5-15 dh each, that means approx 80 dh per game. Personally I wouldn't call that rare, that's 80 times you're getting this random amount of damage applied.

How many of them are from spawns, where you'd kill anyway rnd or no. Would also be interesting to know how many rockets were shot total.
2009-01-10, 00:30
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Dec 2006
!phil wrote:
the only real time i see this being any kind of issue, is in the "extreme". the extreme as the original post mentions is the direct quad rocket. with 110, quad rocket is 440, end of discussion. with 100+rand(20), quad rocket is 400+rand(80), up to 480 damage. max hp in quake is 450. as was said, it is unlikely you will be killed, but there is still this "luck chance"

imho, this "luck chance" should be left as it is. it gives more depth (if not skill depth) to the game. imagine someone getting hit with a quad rocket. with static damage, the result will always be the same. if you play the same scenario it will be the same each time. but if a quad direct rocket has a chance of killing, or a chance of not, and if someone got killed in such a situation and it was an important kill, or if someone survived and it was an important survival, it is much more interesting to analyze

I actually find this kind of argument pretty hard to accept (bringing the quad-rocket issue into it)
In my opinion, the idea that fixing rl damage at 110 would be bad because then you can never kill a player with >440h+a by quad-rl is no different from the idea that you could never kill a player with >110h+a by a normal rocket. If a player has 116h, there is a "luck chance" that he can be killed by a normal rocket. Fix the damage at 110, and there is zero chance. How is that any different from the quad situation?

Take dm6 for example. There is no quad on that map, but there is mega, and armours. So if you fixed damage at 110, a player with 116h would be unable to die from a single shot. Currently that isn't the case.

So for me this whole "special case" about when a player is fully stacked with RA and 2x mega is a bit of a moot point - it's actually no more special than situations which are far more likely to occur and be of relevance in games.
2009-01-10, 00:36
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Dec 2006
qqshka wrote:
Jjonez wrote:
Also, can we look at this from the other side maybe? Which game or sports exactly has managed to exclude any and all luck factors? Except for pure thinking games where time and physics don't really matter (chess or crosswords), I can't think of any.

Btw, some pure thinking games have luck factor too, - poker, and it's significant and exciting part of the game

IMO, if a so called 'pure thinking' game has a luck factor, then actually, it isn't a pure thinking game afterall. It's a thinking+luck game
It could be argued that even chess has a small element of luck to some degree, in terms of whether you are playing as black or white (the degree to which this influences the game depends on the players involved - for example some players tend to fare better with white, maybe due to limited opening knowledge)
2009-01-10, 12:23
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462 posts

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Jan 2006
A single hand in poker is not really all that exciting. If all games were played with a single hand, it'd be very much a game of luck, but not that interesting. It's when you play hundreds and thousands of hands it becomes more of a game of probabilities and less of luck. Again interesting is when skilled players can calculate these probabilities and keep winning in the long term. You could easily add more luck factor into the game, but could you easily remove it?
2009-01-10, 17:26
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386 posts

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Apr 2006
^bump^ to return it to the front page of qw.nu. I'm interested to see how the vote goes.
2009-01-11, 02:47
Member
252 posts

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Dec 2006
I laugh at all the doomsday speakers, that say if you make this change then further changes will be made and make qw wimpy. Discussion alone can only go so far. Why don't we, immediately, make it a toggle in KTX, in the configs enabled and only toggleable by admin, and see what discussion comes after further testing?
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2009-01-11, 03:39
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10 posts

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Jan 2007
decrease rocket dmg to 90 +-5, remove telespawnfrags & while you are at it, reduce lg dmg to 85% or....
spawn with 125 health lolz

but random is what makes qw a little bit more fun than other games imo
2009-01-11, 08:35
Member
485 posts

Registered:
Feb 2006
Remember that dealing with random outcomes is also a skill. Both technically being ready with a plan, and also mentally dealing with luck. Some people get discouraged when they get a bad first spawn, and as a result play worse. In the long run this will hurt their results, as opposed to the person who who can keep their game up regardless.

Understand that when you remove randomness from the game, you also remove from a type of skill. It's not as simple as less random -> more skill.

That being said.... This rocket damage seems like an issue where only the hardcore duel players should care about it. Lower skilled players have so much "human randomness" and 4on4 so many random events, that this kind of thing is insignificant. Practical solution is to do what ever the HC-guys want to do.
2009-01-11, 10:43
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462 posts

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Jan 2006
Inferno wrote:
decrease rocket dmg to 90 +-5, remove telespawnfrags & while you are at it, reduce lg dmg to 85% or....
spawn with 125 health lolz

but random is what makes qw a little bit more fun than other games imo

Most games are more random than qw. At least most weapons in qw shoot where u aim.
2009-01-11, 13:56
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347 posts

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Feb 2006
Stev wrote:
if (health > x) do_this();
else do_that();

This still exists in the current model, it's just at 120 instead of 110 [...]

No it does not. For x > y it is more like:
if (health > x) do_this();
else if (health > y && calculate_risk() > z) do_this(); // calculate risk, and do above if risk is worth it
else do_that();

Stev wrote:
[splash damage] can result in less than 110 damage, which means the calculated risk element still applies whether you have fixed dh damage or not.

"I have x health and armor points, so there's a y% probability that my opponent has to hit me at least twice to kill me"
... is very much different from ...
"I have x health and armor points, so if my opponent only hits me with y% chance, I will survive"

You can't really, in any meaningful way, calculate the probability of your opponent hitting you since there is way too much variance. The events are not random in the same way.

blAze wrote:
Claiming that players would do these kind of calculations and somehow base their game on that sounds really far fetched.

I am sure people didn't believe a person could realisticly time three items at one point too. Sure, we won't see this applied by just any noob in an unimportant 1on1, but I do think it's realistic in top-level 1on1 competition. Those close battles with lots of CS leaves the players ample opportunity to base their decisions on probability.
2009-01-11, 16:28
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NeFuRii wrote:
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, as the topic becomes quite large, i stopped really following all the posts, but...why is this related to direct hits only? Splash is random too, right? So...we're dealing with rocket hits that are 1) close and that are 2) direct. Why are they talked separately? Im assuming people who want static, would want it for both types, and those who want it random, also would want it for both. If the majority votes yes, shouldnt both damages become static? Ofcourse if vote is 'no', nothing will happen. Direct hits are only less frequent than splashes, however its hard to predict how much damage your splash did, since it doesnt seem very easy to calculate exact damage only by guessing the distance, so its not likely that static splash damage would become much more predictable than with random.

eeeeh? Splash damage already is static i really hope? The only way it varies is the distance to the target, but it's no _random_ generator. :}
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2009-01-11, 17:20
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Jul 2007
NeFuRii wrote:
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, as the topic becomes quite large, i stopped really following all the posts, but...why is this related to direct hits only? Splash is random too, right?

Renzo, in his original post, wrote:
This change affects direct hits ONLY, so splash damage is not affected.
2009-01-11, 17:56
Member
386 posts

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Apr 2006
raz0 wrote:
For x > y it is more like:
if (health > x) do_this();
else if (health > y && calculate_risk() > z) do_this(); // calculate risk, and do above if risk is worth it
else do_that();

Stev wrote:
[splash damage] can result in less than 110 damage, which means the calculated risk element still applies whether you have fixed dh damage or not.

"I have x health and armor points, so there's a y% probability that my opponent has to hit me at least twice to kill me"
... is very much different from ...
"I have x health and armor points, so if my opponent only hits me with y% chance, I will survive"

I can't accept your reasoning as I understand it. It only stands up if you know with a reasonable certainty that you're going to get hit directly. Let's say, generously, there's a 10% chance you get wanged in the face with a rocket (but, of course, this chance is based around your skill and ability to dodge when pitted against your opponent's aim and prediction). This is a far more significant risk calculation factor than random damage.

You still have to plan to avoid the direct hit, and, if you do get hit directly, having pure, uncontrollable chance decide whether you win or lose that fight is unacceptable to me in a game based so heavily around skill.
2009-01-11, 18:07
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Jan 2006
raz0 wrote:
I am sure people didn't believe a person could realisticly time three items at one point too. Sure, we won't see this applied by just any noob in an unimportant 1on1, but I do think it's realistic in top-level 1on1 competition. Those close battles with lots of CS leaves the players ample opportunity to base their decisions on probability.

Timing items has been an essential part of the game as far back as I can remember. On the other hand I have never heard of anyone basing their actions in the game on calculations about the random damage of rl direct hits. My opinion remains unchanged, the latter is unrealistic and far fetched. Even if there was some once in a lifetime real life example of this, making every rl fight of every game mode (1on1/2on2/4on4) more fair and skill dependent outweighs it easily.
2009-01-11, 18:59
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NeFuRii wrote:
pattah wrote:
NeFuRii wrote:
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, as the topic becomes quite large, i stopped really following all the posts, but...why is this related to direct hits only? Splash is random too, right?

Renzo, in his original post, wrote:
This change affects direct hits ONLY, so splash damage is not affected.


yea, i know this topic was only about direct. I just didnt know splash was already static. The more the reason for direct to be static too. It would simply be consistent.

That's why it's so utterly weird. The coder must've been drunk when he added that random piece of code.
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2009-01-11, 19:20
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I vote to increase RL damage to 120.
2009-01-12, 00:59
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Apr 2006
empezar wrote:
I vote to increase RL damage to 120.

^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Why doesn't it work ! *sniffles*
Keep to the topic please =|
biomass
2009-01-12, 13:33
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biomass wrote:
empezar wrote:
I vote to increase RL damage to 120.

^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Why doesn't it work ! *sniffles*
Keep to the topic please =|

It is a viable suggestion though. Why 110 and not 120? Or 100? (although 110 sounds perfectly good to me)
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