168 réponses à ce sujet

[bEVEsthda]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.

You'll have to fill me in on the specifics for this, since it's been almost a decade since I took stats classes.

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

[Dean_the_Young]

bEVEsthda wrote...

I was also surprised by Sid Meier's lack of sophistication regarding the "psychology" of 2 vs 1 and 20 vs 10.
The players expectations are completely correct, from the perspective of wanting a realistic game or a simulation type of game. The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.
Further, the odds of 10 winning against 20 (everything else being equal) is infinitesimally small. It's not at all the same as 1 vs 2, as Sid Meier suggests. Most strategy games players are aware of this. They would be, from playing RTS games and the likes. That Civilization did this differently and players perceived it as doing this wrong, is not a question of Sid being "mathematical and scientifical" and the player to have an egomanical, psychological reaction. The analysis is wrong.

Your counterargument rests on an underlying assumption that absolute difference matters. A two to one has a difference of 1 while a 20 to 10 has a difference of 10, to which 10 would be greater excess than 1, and that would be a very relevant distinction if absolute differences were what dictated the combat odds.

But they aren't: the system he was talking about measured relative proportions, not relative differences. In a relative proportions system, the difference doesn't matter, only the ratio: 1 to 2 is indistinguishable from 10 to 20 because 10 to 20, when the common demoniminator of 10 is removed, simplifies to 1 to 2.

Relative proportions rather than absolute difference is how a great number of things are measured in the world, for a variety of reasons. You'll find it frequently used in pretty much any field in which statistics is used, from finances to chemistry to, meaningfully, the military.


This confusion is what feeds into and supports Sid's point: that people have unsteady understandings of how numbers are used and relate to eachother. Which is, as far as psychology goes, Really Old News.

[Dean_the_Young]

bEVEsthda wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.

You'll have to fill me in on the specifics for this, since it's been almost a decade since I took stats classes.

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

You're math is in error... or rather, your math is correct, but you argument is wrong. What you described is what happens when you take two random sequences, not one. By creating new iterations, you changed the problem being asked.

In the problem posited by Sid, there's only one iteration: one red blue tank with twice the likelhood of hitting the red tank, with a winner takes all outcome.

[bEVEsthda]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

bEVEsthda wrote...

I was also surprised by Sid Meier's lack of sophistication regarding the "psychology" of 2 vs 1 and 20 vs 10.
The players expectations are completely correct, from the perspective of wanting a realistic game or a simulation type of game. The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.
Further, the odds of 10 winning against 20 (everything else being equal) is infinitesimally small. It's not at all the same as 1 vs 2, as Sid Meier suggests. Most strategy games players are aware of this. They would be, from playing RTS games and the likes. That Civilization did this differently and players perceived it as doing this wrong, is not a question of Sid being "mathematical and scientifical" and the player to have an egomanical, psychological reaction. The analysis is wrong.

Your counterargument rests on an underlying assumption that absolute difference matters. A two to one has a difference of 1 while a 20 to 10 has a difference of 10, to which 10 would be greater excess than 1, and that would be a very relevant distinction if absolute differences were what dictated the combat odds.

But they aren't: the system he was talking about measured relative proportions, not relative differences. In a relative proportions system, the difference doesn't matter, only the ratio: 1 to 2 is indistinguishable from 10 to 20 because 10 to 20, when the common demoniminator of 10 is removed, simplifies to 1 to 2.

Relative proportions rather than absolute difference is how a great number of things are measured in the world, for a variety of reasons. You'll find it frequently used in pretty much any field in which statistics is used, from finances to chemistry to, meaningfully, the military.


This confusion is what feeds into and supports Sid's point: that people have unsteady understandings of how numbers are used and relate to eachother. Which is, as far as psychology goes, Really Old News.

I'm not sure you understand me correctly here. I wasn't exactly making a "counterargument". It's OK to have a system presented as doing this or that with the figures. Like representing combat strength as an odds-component in a random selection. It works for the games' purposes. But it's not OK to expect players to accept it as realistic, and analyse that those who don't, are irrational by some "psychological" reason.

In terms of both qualitative strength and numerical strength, of combat forces, relative proportions can't be used.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 10 février 2013 - 01:55 .

[bEVEsthda]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

bEVEsthda wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.

You'll have to fill me in on the specifics for this, since it's been almost a decade since I took stats classes.

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

You're math is in error... or rather, your math is correct, but you argument is wrong. What you described is what happens when you take two random sequences, not one. By creating new iterations, you changed the problem being asked.

In the problem posited by Sid, there's only one iteration: one red blue tank with twice the likelhood of hitting the red tank, with a winner takes all outcome.

This is true. That's his system. But again, you can't be surprised by players reacting as thinking it's unrealistic.

A real battle is not one random event. Not even between only two tanks. It's an evolving process. What then would affect absolutely the likelyhood, is not that the blue tank has twice the chance of hitting the red. What one then has to take into account (in a realistic perspective) is the actual, absolute (not relative) hit-probability of every shot. This will then be what is important to decide the winning odds. Not that the relative hit-probability is 2:1.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 10 février 2013 - 01:53 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

Ah okay. I was stuck thinking odds, but yeah with some conditional probability.

Civ4 actually does do something similar to that.

It really depends on what the attack/def power measures and the specifics of how your combat resolution works.

I disagree with the notion that the resolution must play out the specific way that you described. There's several situations that can be designed where winning 1 against 2 is not 16.7%.

The obvious example: take two units, one that has twice the chance to hit of the other, and receiving a hit is a loss, then it's back to 33%.

This is why the evolution of Civ games eventually had hit points added to it, and eventually in Civ4 they removed the attack/def values and simply used a power score, with combat resolution being a series of attacks where the relative power affected how much damage could be done (continuing on until a unit is dead), with each unit having 100 hitpoints and damage reducing the relative power by the percentage of health remaining.


Yours is just one way of resolving combat, but it's not the only way.
(A full breakdown of Civ4's combat is here if you're curious). It takes into account both the ratio of the powers as well as the difference between powers. You get something similar to what you describe, but not quite. ).

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 10 février 2013 - 01:57 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Not to try and squash conversation, but can we take the statistical analysis of Tank v. Tank to PM? It's really off topic to the current discussion at hand.


Given that the concept for a RNG outcome of being bad, as in a preset attribute that could not be "fixed" with a reload seems to have been met with some resistance, I would like to point out very few people have responded to my second option outlined (after all, this is the reason I put forth different options/styles in the OP).

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

Saving baskets of kittens, or proving an innocent man accused unjustly or even a piece of mind that someone did not suffer when they died.

I think what would have been a good alternative to the Leandra quest would be if you took the right proactive steps to warn her and track the killer down, she would be mid-"surgery" or something similar. She would still die, but could express gratitude for not being turned into a monster before she died. Similarly, if our Hawke did things kill the wrong suspect in Act 2 or didn't pay attention to the Lillie's line your mother says, we would have gotten the same scene we saw in DA2, where she has been turned into a zombie. If, in that ending, she would have said "kill me, save me from being this horrible monster" with her dying breaths, that would have felt significant.

Same end result - Leandra is killed by a Mage serial killer - but the nuances that we would have made her ending more palatable to her would be worth it.

[bEVEsthda]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

Ah okay. I was stuck thinking odds, but yeah with some conditional probability.

Civ4 actually does do something similar to that.

It really depends on what the attack/def power measures and the specifics of how your combat resolution works.

I disagree with the notion that the resolution must play out the specific way that you described. There's several situations that can be designed where winning 1 against 2 is not 16.7%.

The obvious example: take two units, one that has twice the chance to hit of the other, and receiving a hit is a loss, then it's back to 33%.

This is why the evolution of Civ games eventually had hit points added to it, and eventually in Civ4 they removed the attack/def values and simply used a power score, with combat resolution being a series of attacks where the relative power affected how much damage could be done (continuing on until a unit is dead), with each unit having 100 hitpoints and damage reducing the relative power by the percentage of health remaining.


Yours is just one way of resolving combat, but it's not the only way.

Absolutely. I always understand that game designers are tempted to do something simple. And while I would dearly like to see more accurate simulations, I rarely have any problems accepting whatever. I just do and play the dam game.

Again, my comment concerned Sid Meier presentation of gamers' reactions, when they questioned the realism of his system. Of course he wanted to do something humorous of it, and tie into his analysis of players "egomania" and "paranoid" psychology. My point is that his system was natural to perceive as totally unrealistic. Not a reaction to be surprised by.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 10 février 2013 - 02:20 .

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

Saving baskets of kittens, or proving an innocent man accused unjustly or even a piece of mind that someone did not suffer when they died.

I'd rather there was the option to choose.  I might not care about kittens, and want to keep my gold.

And I think some people can be very possessive about their stuff, though I don't care so much.

[nightscrawl]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

I actually did address this in my long post on the first page.

To be honest, unless the intangible reward (ie freeing slaves) is VERY good and compelling, I don't think most players will opt for it if they know the consequences. You can comment on meta knowledge all you like, about players ruining their own first-play experience by looking things up, but the reality is that it DOES happen. People don't want to get burned because of perceived "mistake" on their part. It happened with friendship/rivalry, and it will happen with this, only on a much more severe scale.

To my point about the intangible reward being really rewarding, I would have taken a considerable hit to my personal power level if I could have saved Leandra's life. Something on that level is worth it to me. With other examples that you cite, it would depend on my mood at the time and the amount of such quests I have to deal with. I'm willing to play the hero and take a hit for those kinds of causes, but how many hits can I take before I start to severely damage my progress in the game?

It's very much about risk versus reward. Is the intangible reward enough? For some, yes, for others, no. That can depend on many factors, but back to Leandra again; I had previously mentioned that some players didn't feel an emotional connection to their Hawke or Leandra. I don't think those players would consider the possibility of saving her compelling enough reason to take a hit to personal power level. Then you have the types that want to "win" no matter what, so they take the hit to feel like they won by saving her.

I think what would have been a good alternative to the Leandra quest would be if you took the right proactive steps to warn her and track the killer down, she would be mid-"surgery" or something similar. She would still die, but could express gratitude for not being turned into a monster before she died. Similarly, if our Hawke did things kill the wrong suspect in Act 2 or didn't pay attention to the Lillie's line your mother says, we would have gotten the same scene we saw in DA2, where she has been turned into a zombie. If, in that ending, she would have said "kill me, save me from being this horrible monster" with her dying breaths, that would have felt significant.

Same end result - Leandra is killed by a Mage serial killer - but the nuances that we would have made her ending more palatable to her would be worth it.

Yes, I do like that. You still have the requisite death, but the different stages make it a lot more variable. The more ways there are to do a thing the better, IMO.

[nightscrawl]

Wulfram wrote...

And I think some people can be very possessive about their stuff, though I don't care so much.

Possessive about pixels? I have no idea what you're talking about...

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

Saving baskets of kittens, or proving an innocent man accused unjustly or even a piece of mind that someone did not suffer when they died.

I'd rather there was the option to choose.  I might not care about kittens, and want to keep my gold.

And I think some people can be very possessive about their stuff, though I don't care so much.

Oh, absolutely. Sorry, I implied that in my mind.

The option for the quest end to result in you cutting your losses and walking away, keeping all your gold/equipment/stats intact, but watching the kittens being eaten by a Hurlock would need to be included. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 10 février 2013 - 02:37 .

[vicegt]

Wulfram wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

Saving baskets of kittens, or proving an innocent man accused unjustly or even a piece of mind that someone did not suffer when they died.

I'd rather there was the option to choose.  I might not care about kittens, and want to keep my gold.

And I think some people can be very possessive about their stuff, though I don't care so much.

especially when it's part of a unique item set. like the legion of the dead or champion armor set. maybe have the item in question not be part of your own inventory but the promised reward. like if you decide to not put the soul's the kitten basket in to the item it's destroyed but you get a huge EXP bonus for doing or if you do put there soul inside the item you get something that is way powerful. like the sword from fable 1 were you:devil:/spoiler, stop reading now/:devil: ether kill your sister or let her live. 

Modifié par vicegt, 10 février 2013 - 02:45 .

[Fast Jimmy]

[quote]nightscrawl wrote...

[quote]Fast Jimmy wrote...

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?[/quote]
I actually did address this in my long post on the first page.

To be honest, unless the intangible reward (ie freeing slaves) is VERY good and compelling, I don't think most players will opt for it if they know the consequences. You can comment on meta knowledge all you like, about players ruining their own first-play experience by looking things up, but the reality is that it DOES happen. People don't want to get burned because of perceived "mistake" on their part. It happened with friendship/rivalry, and it will happen with this, only on a much more severe scale.

To my point about the intangible reward being really rewarding, I would have taken a considerable hit to my personal power level if I could have saved Leandra's life. Something on that level is worth it to me. With other examples that you cite, it would depend on my mood at the time and the amount of such quests I have to deal with. I'm willing to play the hero and take a hit for those kinds of causes, but how many hits can I take before I start to severely damage my progress in the game?

It's very much about risk versus reward. Is the intangible reward enough? For some, yes, for others, no. That can depend on many factors, but back to Leandra again; I had previously mentioned that some players didn't feel an emotional connection to their Hawke or Leandra. I don't think those players would consider the possibility of saving her compelling enough reason to take a hit to personal power level. Then you have the types that want to "win" no matter what, so they take the hit to feel like they won by saving her.[/quote]

I agree (and I also agreed with your first page post but didn't have a chance to respond at the time). 

The number of hits would need to be accurately reviewed, absolutely. Getting too weak so that the game is nearly impossible would be a large pain. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of powerlevelers out there would take this as an added challenge (I solo'd the game on Nightmare and took every quest penalty there was!), but the average player would feel stymied by this. 

I, personally, think execution on the choice would be the most important. Having a scene afterwards where the owner of the kittens, for example, thanks me profusely would not be enough. It would need to have some type of consequence or play into the endings. An epilogue slide where the kittens wound up crossbreeding with mabaris and eradicated the entire giant spider population in Thedas or something. I don't think it would be wise to tie further content to such a choice (as it would really be like the devs are punishing a player if they do, punishing a player if they don't), but incorportaing such choices into the endings/future references could be interesting. To put my two cents in, getting a letter/email from the person (the kitten owner in this choice) would not cut it for me, either. I don't mind text follow-ups, but only in epilogue slides. That just seems like the best place to me from a psychological point of view to tie up loose ends like this.

[quote]I think what would have been a good alternative to the Leandra quest would be if you took the right proactive steps to warn her and track the killer down, she would be mid-"surgery" or something similar. She would still die, but could express gratitude for not being turned into a monster before she died. Similarly, if our Hawke did things kill the wrong suspect in Act 2 or didn't pay attention to the Lillie's line your mother says, we would have gotten the same scene we saw in DA2, where she has been turned into a zombie. If, in that ending, she would have said "kill me, save me from being this horrible monster" with her dying breaths, that would have felt significant.

Same end result - Leandra is killed by a Mage serial killer - but the nuances that we would have made her ending more palatable to her would be worth it. [/quote]
Yes, I do like that. You still have the requisite death, but the different stages make it a lot more variable. The more ways there are to do a thing the better, IMO.[/quote]

I think this was done with the linked video of Petriece (ha-HA! Spelled it right this time) in DA2, where a good chunk of content was given if you made a different choice. The real problem is that this was a poor choice to put that much content into. An aggessive Hawke who always sided against the Qunari is rare enough (since they have the benefit of having the Arishok as their face, an NPC who many fans in the post-DA2 hating phase praised), but to also have a character who trusts and wants to work with Petriece is also rare, since the game made her out to be a total snake in the grass who would stab you in the back at the drop of a hat. So the fact that this choice got branching content based on a series of choices a very small few would even WANT to make, let alone actually decide on, but having things with Leandra, arguably a character Bioware wanted us invested in, remain the absolute same despite possibilities to circumvent those exact outcomes is a shame, in my eyes.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 10 février 2013 - 02:50 .

[nightscrawl]

You know... I'll just be completely honest and say that with Jimmy's system I would have terrible gear and no money because I just have to do those good things. I try to play as an a-hole, but it never works out.

[vicegt]

nightscrawl wrote...

You know... I'll just be completely honest and say that with Jimmy's system I would have terrible gear and no money because I just have to do those good things. I try to play as an a-hole, but it never works out.

witch would mean the game would take hevaly from the old saying" the right thing to do is normaly the hardist"

Modifié par vicegt, 10 février 2013 - 02:59 .

[Dean_the_Young]

bEVEsthda wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

bEVEsthda wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The odds of 1 winning against 2 is only 16.7%. Not 33.3%.

You'll have to fill me in on the specifics for this, since it's been almost a decade since I took stats classes.

Let's consider the case of three tanks, completely equal in technology and skills. Two blue, one red. Blue vs. red.

The odds, for the first tank to hit an opponent, being blue, is 2 in 3, 2/3. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being red, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Blue wins.
The odds for the first tank to be hit being blue, and the second tank being hit being blue, is 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/6. Red wins.

You're math is in error... or rather, your math is correct, but you argument is wrong. What you described is what happens when you take two random sequences, not one. By creating new iterations, you changed the problem being asked.

In the problem posited by Sid, there's only one iteration: one red blue tank with twice the likelhood of hitting the red tank, with a winner takes all outcome.

This is true. That's his system. But again, you can't be surprised by players reacting as thinking it's unrealistic.

Realism was never the question: people's abilities to understand the odds given to them is. You are aptly demonstrating this.

A real battle is not one random event. Not even between only two tanks. It's an evolving process. What then would affect absolutely the likelyhood, is not that the blue tank has twice the chance of hitting the red. What one then has to take into account (in a realistic perspective) is the actual, absolute (not relative) hit-probability of every shot. This will then be what is important to decide the winning odds. Not that the relative hit-probability is 2:1.

You're shifting goal posts again. Real battles don't depend on dice rolls and red and blue tanks in the first place, but we're discussing video game mechanics and player's difficulties in understanding odds.

Probability is a wide-ranging concept, but ultimately any series of random events can be simplified into a single proportion: you demonstrated this earlier when mistakenly trying to argue that 2:1 odds was something else, which still simplified into a single ratio. The idea of a strategy game akin to Civilization is that all those iterations that would exist if you broke it into piecemiel are simplified into one. A single iteration of 2:1 odds is no different than two, five, or a dozen iterations of differing ratios that ultimately, when aggregated, come out to a ratio of 2:1.

[Fast Jimmy]

vicegt wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

You know... I'll just be completely honest and say that with Jimmy's system I would have terrible gear and no money because I just have to do those good things. I try to play as an a-hole, but it never works out.

witch would mean the game would take hevaly from the old saying" the right thing to do is normaly the hardist"

Precisely! I find so much in video games - especially in Bioware games - there isn't any incentive to being bad. At all. There is being bad and then being good... with the same exact outcomes for both (sometimes, even BETTER outcomes for being good). 

But except for the thrill or the lolz of just being a jerk, they don't really offer any story-telling, character-driven choices. That's what DA:O I think did so well - they offered choices that, if in the ME games, would have been labeled as Paragon or Renegade (thank God they weren't). And you looked at how those choices would affect the world and made the choice. I chose to save the Anvil in my canon playthroughs, because the dwarves are getting pounded by the darkspawn and need an advantage lest they face extinction.

But not every choice can be a world-changer. So, putting aside chocies which cause us to weigh out what we view as right versus the greatest long term reward it may bring to the table, games can instead explore hard choices our character must make about whether doing the right thing would hurt THEMSELVES. Do you stand by your ethics, or do you wuss out when the going gets hard? THAT'S a real ethical question. And its not one I see games asking all that often, which is something I find a little disheartening.




Also, in regards to the idea of losing a reward (like not getting an epic piece of equipment if you save the kittens), I don't think this works. No one trades Connor's soul to the demon for the skill book or the stat boost. The book can be found other places and the stat boost is miniscule, less than a level up. But... what if you LOST aSpecialization, or TOOK a stat hit? Even if the stat hit is of the same amount, it now becomes less about a small reward and instead about a PENALTY. Players will freak out if you say you will take two points of Str/Dex/Mag away, so their class does less damage. Even though it is pitifully small in comparison.

Again... that type of question is what would cause people to think about who they really are and what they really believe. That's one of the most intriguing and, yet, underdeveloped aspects of interactive entertainment/story-telling.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 10 février 2013 - 03:53 .

[bEVEsthda]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
"Realism was never the question: people's abilities to understand the odds given to them is. You are aptly demonstrating this."

"You're shifting goal posts again. Real battles don't depend on dice rolls and red and blue tanks in the first place, but we're discussing video game mechanics and player's difficulties in understanding odds."

"Probability is a wide-ranging concept, but ultimately any series of random events can be simplified into a single proportion: you demonstrated this earlier when mistakenly trying to argue that 2:1 odds was something else, which still simplified into a single ratio. The idea of a strategy game akin to Civilization is that all those iterations that would exist if you broke it into piecemiel are simplified into one. A single iteration of 2:1 odds is no different than two, five, or a dozen iterations of differing ratios that ultimately, when aggregated, come out to a ratio of 2:1. "

I can only see one single purpose for this lecturing post, and it sure as hell isn't about informing me, making me understand anything, or clarifying anything.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 10 février 2013 - 03:19 .

[Straw Nihilist]

But Mr. Bioware...

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
And before anyone says that people would just reload to get the best outcome (or the one they want), do they reload to try to save Leandra in DA2? No. Because the cutscene makes it clear that this outcome was inevitable. So why not still do that? There's no reason to tell the player that he failed.

But that's because we can tell there was no point where the game branched. Once there are multiple paths, or a timer, or any kind of information to the player that multiple outcomes are possible, you'd have players re-load. 

[In Exile]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
This confusion is what feeds into and supports Sid's point: that people have unsteady understandings of how numbers are used and relate to eachother. Which is, as far as psychology goes, Really Old News.

It's not that we don't understand, it's that our natural intuition is designed for something else, and we need to train it to be good at following mathematical rules.

Our natural number like is something like 1,2,3,4 .. (many), (lots of many). After a certain size of discrete units, we bunch them up and think of their relative sizes. 10:20 and 1:2 are proportionally the same, yes, but the absolute difference of a factor of ten matters. 

2 apples > 1 apple clearly, but 20 apples >> 10 apples. It's that type of payoff matrix, where absolutes matter a tremendous amount, and we can only use up so much in a given period. 

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Given that the concept for a RNG outcome of being bad, as in a preset attribute that could not be "fixed" with a reload seems to have been met with some resistance, I would like to point out very few people have responded to my second option outlined (after all, this is the reason I put forth different options/styles in the OP).  

It's not that the problem is that it can't be fixed by reload. It's predictability. We can't know ahead of time what option we're going for. That's the problem (from my POV).

As people, we like deterministic outcomes. It's how we think.

Would people be okay with losing gold, having equipment destroyed or just feeling like someone "pulled a fast one on you" if it resulted in some in-game good?

Yes to (1) and (2). Not sure what you mean by (3).

Saving baskets of kittens, or proving an innocent man accused unjustly or even a piece of mind that someone did not suffer when they died.

How is that person then pulling a fast one on you, if you got what you wanted? 

And, more importantly, why are you so focused on denying the player a second-encounter? Why can't the reward just simply be the chance to shove a knife down the throat of the "puller of the fast one" later?

Same end result - Leandra is killed by a Mage serial killer - but the nuances that we would have made her ending more palatable to her would be worth it.

The difference, again, is that there's no fast one being pulled. You're still not creating as scene that has the same outcome. A failed quest is different than a quest gone wrong, so to speak. 

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Precisely! I find so much in video games - especially in Bioware games - there isn't any incentive to being bad. At all. There is being bad and then being good... with the same exact outcomes for both (sometimes, even BETTER outcomes for being good).  

Why should there be an incentive to be bad?

That's what DA:O I think did so well - they offered choices that, if in the ME games, would have been labeled as Paragon or Renegade (thank God they weren't). And you looked at how those choices would affect the world and made the choice. I chose to save the Anvil in my canon playthroughs, because the dwarves are getting pounded by the darkspawn and need an advantage lest they face extinction.

Why is that choice "bad"? I'm sure you'll find many players - myself include - that will argue that the choice was good. 

games can instead explore hard choices our character must make about whether doing the right thing would hurt THEMSELVES. Do you stand by your ethics, or do you wuss out when the going gets hard? THAT'S a real ethical question. And its not one I see games asking all that often, which is something I find a little disheartening.

Why would you think it's "wussing out"? Your game will do one of two things: make people confront their selfishness, which is not enjoyalbe because it hits at their self-perception and your game will be put on the self faster than you can say "Crap, I should have made this through kickstarter for a niche audience" or you'll have bunch of selfish players going "LOL, I wsh this game had difficult choices." 

But... what if you LOST aSpecialization, or TOOK a stat hit? Even if the stat hit is of the same amount, it now becomes less about a small reward and instead about a PENALTY. Players will freak out if you say you will take two points of Str/Dex/Mag away, so their class does less damage. Even though it is pitifully small in comparison.

Which most likely will result in players hating your game, not being fond of your fetish to put them through aversive experiences, and you'll wind up wiser for having realized that most people like their entertainment to be rewarding rather than punitive. 
 

Again... that type of question is what would cause people to think about who they really are and what they really believe. That's one of the most intriguing and, yet, underdeveloped aspects of interactive entertainment/story-telling.

No, it won't. It will cause most players to question what kind of jerk designs a game that either punishes them psychologically or materially for playing the game. 

[Beerfish]

As long as their are repercusions for NOT doing the trouble quest that is fine. Don't get involved with Petrice and you might find yourself and the things you face as being worse than if you had.

The worst thing about the Petrice series of quests was how Hawke and the mother superior stood around and watched her get assassinated in the Chantry and shrugged his shoulders.