Replay Last Turn Button (If both players agree) To get rid of hax

[tehy]

I've been meaning to pitch this for a while now, so here goes:

We're all pokemon players here. One thing we can all agree on is that hax is enraging, terrible, and no fun. Do I need to elaborate on this further?

Now, a lot of people say "That's part of the game, deal with it." That's fine, but I know a lot of people who would just wipe away even favorable hax if they could (But don't want to, say, replay the match over again.) When I get cheap hax and win, I've drawn before. (Unless I had the game on lockdown anyhow.)

So, what I'm proposing is a new button, similar to the Draw button. Basically, if both players click this button, the previous turn will... happen again. It'll be redone. The hax could theoretically occur again, but seeing how unlikely that is for 10% effects and 6.25% crits, that usually won't be a problem. (Higher-percent effects are usually less severe forms of hax, so they're more rarely a problem, although Gyarados flinches on your Skarm or such can be brutal.) There could be an auto feature that totally disables secondary chances, but because of stuff like Scald crits, I'm not a big fan (The burn isn't egregious, so you should get another chance at it.)

I really don't know how hard this would be to program, but it seems like it shouldn't be too straining in theory. You're just redoing the same thing you did last turn. If it's really hard, sorry about it.

Basically, this button allows for a quick (Hopefully), easy way for two players who both wish a crit, freeze, or lesser form of hax hadn't happened to make it not happen. If you are one of the people who believes that "Hax happens", then you can go about your merry way and not care anyways.

Any questions, comments, complaints, feedback, insults, feel free to post them here. If you think this idea blows I want to know why. If you think it could kick more ass I want to know how. I can probably come up with answers to any concern, so fire away. It'd be great if one of the PS site staff weighed in, because I'm not sure if I want this in if it's too much effort (Especially considering how much work they're probably already doing).

 

[Cathy]

This is a fairly problematic idea for a variety of reasons. Those reasons have been discussed in detail elsewhere (some relevant comments can be found here), so instead of reviewing the usual issues yet again, I'd instead like to pose an interesting question for discussion:

Suppose you've played partway through a battle and want to redo a turn. Is it possible to construct a battle that plays exactly the same up to that point, but which then goes differently on the next turn?​

Obviously this problem isn't fully specified, but my point is that it's not clear whether the answer is "yes"; it may be "yes" sometimes and "no" other times. The in-game random number generator ("RNG") has a period of only 2**32. In order for it to be possible to "replay" the battle such that it is the same up to that point, but different on the next turn, you would have to locate in the output of the RNG a sequence of numbers that gives the same result as the original battle up until the critical turn, and then a different result on the next turn.

So, how feasible is this really? For some average length battle, does there really exist another battle that is exactly the same up until the critical turn that you want to replay and is then different on the next turn?

Let's suppose you're 50 turns into a battle, and then on the 51st turn there's some undesirable "hax" and you and your opponent decide you'd like to replay it -- i.e. you'd like to construct a new battle that plays the same for the first 50 turns, but then differently on the 51st turn. We'll make a conservative assumption that each turn generated 6 random numbers -- so we have a sequence of 300 random numbers that we need to locate in another position in the output of the RNG such that the next number is different from the original battle. What is the chance that such an alternative reality battle actually exists in the output of the RNG?

Now, you might say that the sequence of numbers doesn't need to be exactly the same, so long as it gives the same observable results -- and that's correct. To model that, we'll say that rather than the sequence needing to match exactly, only the lowest byte need to match from each pair of corresponding entries in the two sequences being compared.

Here's a program I wrote to solve this problem by brute force:

rng.js (brute force solution)

var rng = {
    seed: 0,
    advance: function() {
        this.seed = (this.seed * 0x41C64E6D + 0x6073) >>> 0;
        return this.seed >>> 16;
    }
};

function randomSeed() {
    return Math.floor(Math.random() * 0xFFFFFFFF);
}

function isObservableMatch(v1, v2) {
    // only the lowest byte needs to match...
    return ((v1 % 8) === (v2 % 8));
}

function isReplayable(rng, seed, length) {
    rng.seed = seed;
    var sequence = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < length; ++i) {
        sequence.push(rng.advance());
    }
    var last = rng.advance(); // the turn that we want to replay
    for (var i = 0; i < 10000000; ++i) {
        var nextseed = randomSeed();
        if (nextseed === seed) continue; // don't try the original seed
        rng.seed = nextseed;
        var matches = true;
        for (var j = 0; j < length; ++j) {
            if (!isObservableMatch(sequence[j], rng.advance())) {
                matches = false;
                break;
            }
        }
        if (matches) {
            // the battle matches so far, but we still need to make sure the
            // last turn is different from the old battle!
            var advance = rng.advance();
            if (!isObservableMatch(last, advance)) {
                console.log('last = ' + last + ', advance = ' + advance);
                return true;
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

(function(rng) {
    var total = 1000;
    var replayable = 0;

    for (var i = 0; i < total; ++i) {
        if (isReplayable(rng, randomSeed(), 300)) {
            ++replayable;
        }
        console.log(replayable + '/' + (i + 1) + ' (' + Math.round(replayable / (i + 1) * 1000) / 10 + '%) were replayable');
    }
})(rng);

For each "battle", instead of searching the entire RNG space, I searched a random subset thereof consisting of 10,000,000 sequences of 300 values each, each starting from a random initial seed. This should be representative of the actual value.

I tested 100 random battles and the output was:

0/100 (0%) were replayable
​

Redoing the experiment with a sequence length of only 20 (instead of 300) gives a nonzero "replayability" ratio, but it's very small: out of 100 battles tested, only 5 were replayable. These correspond to battles of no more than 5 turns each.

In other words, under my extremely generous assumptions, there's little to no chance that there actually exists an alternative reality battle in which the first set of turns played the same as the original battle, and then things go differently on the next turn. With less conservative assumptions, the chance is even lower.

So, one fatal flaw with your idea is that most of the time, once a battle has been underway for some time, it's actually impossible to "replay" the most recent turn and get a different result, because there does not exist a battle that is the same up to that point and then different afterward.

 

[Soul Fly]

I'll be honest.

I love this thought, and I think it's great. Seriously, I have raged a lot over hax to know how it is.

But.

I don't like the idea. I'm not being rude. I respect you and all the other devs of showdown VERY VERY much but this just doesn't cut it.

ISSUES:

• There will be a lot of Bad Blood.
  Both in the ladder and oh god, I don't even want to think about vital tournament matches, (though it would be stupid to include a hax replay clause in the tournament scene imho)
  Because yes, lot of us are honest. But a lot of us are selfish assholes. People in the ladder don't know each other, it's just a fleeting encounter for a single match. Yes, a very shitty bit of hax happened, and the player benefitting from it disagrees. I mean why would he? He doesn't give a fuck about credibility. It's a fucking ladder and an alt which can be discarded at a moments notice.
  .
  .
  .
• How much hax is too much?
  Some entire pokemon strategies revolve around hax. Pokemon like Jirachi, Skymin, and Togekiss exist entirely to propagate hax. Their entire playstyle revolves around it, whether you like it or not. So we should just abandon entire strategies in favour of 'fair play'?
  Why don't we all just go and play fucking chess then? That's what pokemon is if you care to eliminate the element of 'chance'...
  .
  .
  .
• We are interfering with a fundamental fabric of the game.
  Our goal is to recreate Cartridge mechanics faithfully. It's not or job to 'fix' it. As like with all other kinds of Sports in the world. 'Deal with it.'
  The world's best Tennis player may get an ankle sprain on the eve of his most important match, is the match invalidated in such a circumstance? never. Doing so would set a bad precedent. I sure as hell don't want to see an exception in competitive pokemon. Nothing warrants it.
  

 

[tehy]

@cathy: I think I could understand everything you're saying, but ow, my brain.

All right, so if I might ask-why can't you just reset the RNG? The results of the RNG itself aren't important, just how they translated into the battle(Like, it's not important if the RNG got 71, or 72, or 73. Just that Focus Blast hit, didn't crit, didn't SpD drop.) . If you could reset it without wiping away what it caused (I.E. everything else in the battle), then that would solve it. Of course, this is probably too simple for you to not have thought of it, so it's probably too hard or impossible or blah. or it'd take far too much time.

What happened over there was people trying to create a fake RNG and value some things above others, which is... probably possible in some ways but just lame.

@Soul Fly: Bad Blood:
There's bad blood when the hax itself happens too. If the player is the kind to rage they'll be the kind to rage anyhow. I'm sure there would be a little more anger but honestly, it's the same kind of anger when a player won't draw or let you mitigate the hax with free turns or something. And that stuff can already exist. I admit people might get a little more mad on occasion but w/e, I trust people not to go batshit because the opponent could undo a crit but he won't. I have a feeling it'll happen a good bit though;this is a nice counter-argument and I'll have to think about a way to stop it if there is one.

How Much Hax Is Too Much: That depends on the two players. I'm pretty sure 30% is around my threshold in that I'm fine with it if it doesn't cost me a game. 60% is fine if it doesn't go on way too long. Clearly anyone using these mons is not too guilty about haxing people and will not agree to undo the hax.

Interefering with a fundamental fabric of the game:
To answer this, let's consider the Draw button. It doesn't exist ingame, you'd just consider it a draw between both people. (If you were near each other, you can't do this otherwise, since you can't communicate.) But we created the Draw button to replicate a mechanic that people would do. In the same vein, someone might replay the entire match to undo it. I'm hoping this button is a much quicker way to do that. After all, just like here, if both players agree they wanted to do it they could.
Why wouldn't you want to see such a precedent? If the other player agreed it should be fine. The real problem is that people depend on them to do stuff at a certain time because of tickets tv a set time and place. If Pokemon Battles were as professionally recognized as tennis and you would buy spectator rights (Two-tier:Comments and not), and this took a lot of time, I'd agree with you.

@Cathy: I just realised: Wouldn't it be possible to act as if, say, both players just reconnected, kind of. You would basically import all the battle conditions and memory and such to a new battle and start it on turn 1, the turn right before it all happened. And of course that could be problematic as well.

Also, this got moved. Thanks to whoever did that I suppose, silly of me to post it in suggestion box I guess.

 

[Soul Fly]

@Soul Fly: Bad Blood:
There's bad blood when the hax itself happens too. If the player is the kind to rage they'll be the kind to rage anyhow. I'm sure there would be a little more anger but honestly, it's the same kind of anger when a player won't draw or let you mitigate the hax with free turns or something. And that stuff can already exist. I admit people might get a little more mad on occasion but w/e, I trust people not to go batshit because the opponent could undo a crit but he won't. I have a feeling it'll happen a good bit though;this is a nice counter-argument and I'll have to think about a way to stop it if there is one.

Well, look. I'm not trying to argue, but the game mechanics are set in stone. People can bitch about it but you can't say blame someone for bad sportsmanship or for the hax. Under the system you're proposing if I refuse to undo a hax move, that will automatically tag me as a d-bag and squarely put the outcome in my hands. I shall then actually be responsible for my actions. That kind of 'punishment' to a player for being lucky is flat out judgemental

How Much Hax Is Too Much: That depends on the two players. I'm pretty sure 30% is around my threshold in that I'm fine with it if it doesn't cost me a game. 60% is fine if it doesn't go on way too long. Clearly anyone using these mons is not too guilty about haxing people and will not agree to undo the hax.

Well that's pulling numbers out of the air. Considering how people rage over moves like scald. If a politoed manages to burn a physical sweeper midsweep people will certainly call it hax and bicker over replaying the move. Fuck the stats. THIS promotes bad sportsmanship instead of just dealing with the fact and moving on.

Interefering with a fundamental fabric of the game:
To answer this, let's consider the Draw button. It doesn't exist ingame, you'd just consider it a draw between both people. (If you were near each other, you can't do this otherwise, since you can't communicate.) But we created the Draw button to replicate a mechanic that people would do. In the same vein, someone might replay the entire match to undo it. I'm hoping this button is a much quicker way to do that. After all, just like here, if both players agree they wanted to do it they could.

PS! doesn't have a draw button and there are good reasons as to why it doesn't have it. We shouldn't be using PO's draw button as a precedent as it is often criticized as the worst feature ladder players have to deal with (moaners).

The 'Draw button at best is a convenience, like simulator chat is mainly a matter of convenience (so is stuff like knowing exact HP percentages, using damage calculators, float over bar for possible abilities and typing) you can easily do all this stuff via 3rd party means (irc, google, bulbapedia.. etc) but what YOU are proposing is that we interfere with the core fight mechanics.

(In actuality WiFi battles for tournaments takes place with people in touch over IRC so if they choose to 'draw' they can do so by simultaneously disconnecting or reporting 'draw' as a result. Ladders don't exist in WiFi so your point is baseless there. Hax don't matter in friendlies)

Why wouldn't you want to see such a precedent? If the other player agreed it should be fine. The real problem is that people depend on them to do stuff at a certain time because of tickets tv a set time and place. If Pokemon Battles were as professionally recognized as tennis and you would buy spectator rights (Two-tier:Comments and not), and this took a lot of time, I'd agree with you.

No. You're wrong. TV times and money has no meaning in such a matter. Yes they are important. but they aren't important enough to be of consequence when such a decision is being taken. such rules are followed even in lowly district level competitions with little or no money involved, please do not draw upon semantics or pull out facts from ass please. Say if a world class player injures himself in the middle of the match, the other side is given the win, simple. Even if the other side disagrees or feels bad about it.

Find one instance from the history of world sports where a match was backtracked and played from xyz moment just because an unforseen situation occurred.

I challenge you.

 

[tehy]

All right, let's see:

As to your first, yeah, I saw that potential as soon as you wrote your first post. I don't have a great way to answer it. I'm hoping that players will not rage too much about it, they might anyhow. I had an idea where if you press it, a message shows up on the battle chat saying what it is and saying "Your opponent has no obligation to press this;raging overmuch if he does not is banworthy behavior/not allowed/frowned upon (Whichever of those 3 slashes we can make applicable lol.) If it's not too much trouble, though, there could be a test trial.


I officially acknowledge this is a problem with my idea. If anyone has any ideas to fix it (Unlikely in this case but still), tell me them please. If not, this may be a reason not to implement it.


As to the second:Yes, but what does that matter? If 2 players agree it's enough hax they can undo it. If 2 players disagree then...well, that's where problems arise, but yeah.

As to the third: Eh, fair enough, I am doing that. I don't think it's that big of a deal, really. As long as both players agree something should happen, who cares? They could also agree to go play in hackmons or something, and we allow that. (Not at all the same thing but you get my point.) As long as 2 players are down with it going against game mechanics isn't such a big deal. And by definition they'd have to be or else the button is just ignored.

As to the fourth: I'm not pulling facts from my ass. You were talking about world-class shit, and even if the player WANTED to in this case, he couldn't because of these reasons. Even in low-level district competitions, though, you usually can't postpone a match because the rules disallow it-they've got to get a move on. Also, the player probably wants to win more than in a ladder match (I can't PROVE this but come on.), and is more willing to accept luck.

As for overall luck in general in sports, not just injuries in sports but crazy shit (Hail Mary passes!), it can be acknowledged that that stuff is at least part skill-no matter how lucky you got, you still needed a player to throw a ridiculously long and accurate pass, a receiver to catch it, defenders to fail at stopping him. Or a halfcourt buzzer-beater, you still need a player able to hit that shot. So that stuff shouldn't be undone, because it was semi-skill based. If you needed skill to crit, this discussion would never be happening. Meanwhile, luck in sports is so widespread that it's hard to draw a line. There's similar here with 60%, 30%, etc, but at least we have percents on those and can measure them accurately. Imagine I told you a player hit a fade-away jump shot from seventeen feet. Pretty lucky, eh? Now imagine it's Kobe Bryant, who specializes in this shit. (Took several the other day as I recall. We lost. All that needs to be said). So every person would have a far different version of sports hax. Oh and did I mention that a lot of rabid fans are often happy even with a ridiculous call (Super hax if i ever saw it) that helps them? Ohio State V Iowa I think it was, where it was clearly not a charge but it was called one anyhow and they won? You think their fans are sad about it? No, because fans are irrational and only want to win, not win fairly, and they would be pissed. Other than Serene Grace, Pokemon themselves can't increase secondary chances, and other than certain abilities/items, Pokemon can't increase crit rate or hit rate.

 

[Soul Fly]

Other than Serene Grace, Pokemon themselves can't increase secondary chances, and other than certain abilities/items, Pokemon can't increase crit rate or hit rate.

Focus Energy

So there and my point still stands.
Fans don't come into the equation. Rules are rules. They are standardized throughout and luck is a part of the game.
If you are looking for pure skill, try Chess please.

 

[tehy]

...

My overarching point was that a pokemon can't put in extra effort or something and increase the criit rate. One pokemon can't be better at hitting than another, etc. (Although this is where EVs come in and that's a whole nother argument). So no, it doesn't still stand. Any 2 pokemon have the same crit and miss rates, any 2 players do not. If you want we could do something super weird like equate abilities of pokemon to abilities of players and suggest that running Zoom lens is equivalent to like having greater talent, (This isn't sarcasm to prove a point, this would be genuinely interesting and it might even end up invalidating my argument, probably not though) .but I don't know how relevant that is to this discussion.

Fans DO come into the equation. Would YOU, as a professional player, want to piss off all of your fans? No. And that's another reason why this wouldn't happen in higher ranks. In general, the reason this kind of thing doesn't happen is because... if there's an injury you have to postpone the game until it's healed, which can take a long time. Fans would be PISSED about that, so the league won't even bother. As for smaller-level competitions, because those are tournaments, you can't really postpone them without holding everyone else up. You could theoretically do it with an NBA season and at worst affect 4 teams, 2 of whom were actually in the game. And theoretically, just those 2. Same goes for other leagues. In the playoffs it'd be the same situation as in lower-level play.

I'm.... looking for pure skill in a different format, or at least the possibility of it. Or at least the possibility of the most egregious cases of luck being wiped away.

 

[Joim]

If you are looking for pure skill, try Chess please.

I'd like to sum the whole thread in this sentence. Sorry, but the idea is awful.

 

[jrp]

actually, chess has luck elements in it, so you can't really say that it's 100% skill.

only way you're gonna get rid of hax is if you petition gamefreak to remove luck elements from the game :P

 

[Zarel]

tehy, don't worry about Cathy's post, she just took the opportunity to comment on an interesting mathematical property of the Pokemon RNG. Resetting the RNG works fine.

Anyway, Soul Fly makes a better argument for why this is a bad idea. The existence of an optional anti-hax feature makes people shame others for not using it, so it's not quite as "optional" as it sounds, and in general just gives one more thing for people to disagree about and hate each other for: even if people agree that certain things should be replayed, they might disagree on how bad the hax should be before a turn is asked to be replayed.

Another flaw is because hax is a part of the game. Messing with it screws up cost-benefit analyses. For instance, Shell Armor would become less useful if it were common to replay a turn after a crit that mattered. And people would pick Hydro Pump over Surf more often if they could ask to replay a turn after missing it four turns in a row.

 

[yee]

There is such a HUGE HUGE HUGE point IMO that has been missed. I'm very interested in this, but not at all for games that count. For test games, when hax happens it always unreasonable to play over and expect to get the same game after 10-15 turns or so, and it may have been interesting to know how each team would respond in the observably more likely situation where there was less hax. I think having it as an optional feature decided before the game by both sides (to remove the "bad blood" problem) in challenges has a fair amount of potential to be something cool.

 

[tehy]

Yeah, Soul Fly's argument for the hate is definitely strong. I had a couple ideas behind countering it and they'd go like this.
Basically, when you first click it or ever click it, there'd be a message that appears in the battle chat. It'd say something like "Your opponent clicking that is his choice and if he does it you should GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND THANK HIS WHOLE FAMILY. If he does not move on.". Theoretically, raging about this could be mute-worthy. Or ban-worthy even.
Of course, while this would probably reduce the outer rage, I don't think it would stop people from hating other people because they wouldn't click this button. But if it reduced outer rage, i mean... eh. And it might not even do that, who knows.

One insane idea I just had is crowdsourcing this but considering chat quality that is a really insane idea. And it's not like we need to devote a group of people to this because that would be dumb.


It would be a cool clause though, and I wonder if it was implemented if people would be interested with it being on the ladder. Of course, this would be like a 1-year challenge-only test run, and then ask peoples opinions. This is kind of a skewed-ass sample though, because Challenges often occur between friends (or tourney people but you get my point), so they might have positive experiences that ladder players wouldn't.

Edit: Zarel you make a good point but I'd like to point out that this would probably be a rare possibility. (I mean, people even letting you undo hax at all.)
Another good idea would be to make this feature only once every 10 games or something. Also holy shit great because you can just say "I removed hax 4 games ago so I can't now sorry" and hopefully deflect some hate if you have to. (Although since i'm saying it out loud here at the very genesis of the idea, this lie would be kind of suspect. But hopefully unprovable. It'd also be interesting if there was a way to show you had done it, and then that could be counterfeited so you couldn't know if they had done it or not without super-stalking them.)

Super edit: Hey, I see a lot of people viewing this. This suggestion hinges on how the people feel about it, so if you're reading, maybe just leave a quick post with your thoughts. After all, if everyone hates it, then what I think has no value, and if everyone likes it, then it has more value. (Not absolute value, mind)

 

[Chaoswalker]

I know this would never be implemented, but it gives me an interesting idea. Now when I sit down to design something, I always lean on the side of determinism. I hate losing a game because 20% of circumstances were out of my control. Luck is an important part of 'fun' games though, as it allows for some random "oh snap!", and can give even little Tommy his moment to ruin your mons. It also means there are "risky" moves, which make a game interesting. So I wonder... what if luck was a resource? What if getting a critical hit hit or a scald burn dropped your chances for another such occurrence for the next five turns? What if having hydropump miss or ironhead not induce flinch lowered the chances of a failure next turn? Let's say a player has a "hax number". It ranges from -3, to 3. If a chance event occurs in your favor, your hax number goes up 1. If a chance event occurs to your detriment, it goes down 1. So long as your hax number is 0, everything occurs as usual. If it is 1, your chances of using hax goes down 25%. If it is 2, your chance of getting useful hax goes down 50%. If it is 3, you have no chance of receiving beneficial hax. The hax system works in your favor the same way for the negative values, with 3 guaranteeing you get that scald burn or focusblast.

 

[tehy]

Chaoswalker, Cathy posted a link about just that if you're interested.

Basically it's not happening, and honestly, I don't think it should.

Edit: Gronkspike, that's much of the same. It's way harder to program and kind of stupid and such. I honestly don't think that will work out, especially considering all the stuff you'd need to work out. You're not removing a huge part of the game, maybe, but you're changing it hugely.

 

[Gronkspike9348]

One idea i have in mind is to have a "hax counter," as in, if hydro pump misses, u get 80% in your hax counter... if flamethrower misses, you get +95% on your hax counter. The game could then be programmed to make sure the "hax counter" comes out to as even as possible for both players. (visual representation would be nice) i believe this would make the game more fair, without having users deciding to take back a move, and not removing a huge part of the game. Comments?

 

[Mr.E]

Super edit: Hey, I see a lot of people viewing this. This suggestion hinges on how the people feel about it, so if you're reading, maybe just leave a quick post with your thoughts. After all, if everyone hates it, then what I think has no value, and if everyone likes it, then it has more value. (Not absolute value, mind)

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

This also applies to the above post.

 

[tehy]

Actually fuck it I'm deconstructing that paragraph because why not:

First sentence: I saw a lot of people viewing this, but saying nothing. I figured I needed feedback, so I was hoping for a lot of quick posts saying if they wanted it or not, and how they felt about it.

Second Sentence: Clearly any feature which requires a user to cooperate needs people to want it. If they don't want it they won't use it and it's a massive waste of fucking time.

Third Sentence:If everyone hates my idea, how I feel about it is... virtually pointless, and I'd gotten a lot of negative feedback at that point. If the majority of the population feels this way, I may as well shut it down, or alter it to Yee's idea of a challenge clause. If everyone likes it, then this idea is more valuable. The last part is where it gets a little weird but:Even if everyone's totally in favor of it, that won't mean the reverse of the first thing-my ideas are totally worthless if no one wants it, but not totally perfect if people DO want it. A little rambly and dumb at this point, sure, just a minor thing I wanted to write.

It didn't seem especially incoherent to me, or overly rambly. It has a main point, sticks to it all right, etc, etc.

I also like that you didn't even bother to leave an opinion. Do you want this? Or not? Or did you literally just come here to be a douchebag?

Edit: Oh yeah, final point. If you really are saying that about Gronkspike's post... I skimmed through it, read about half the words, got what he was saying. Went back later and confirmed that I was basically right. How could I have done that if it was the most incoherent thing you have ever read? (Well, the smartass answer is that you only read super-coherent things, but you get my point.)

 

[Joim]

actually, chess has luck elements in it, so you can't really say that it's 100% skill.

only way you're gonna get rid of hax is if you petition gamefreak to remove luck elements from the game :P

The only luck element in chess is your oponent making a bad move or blundering due to failing to see a piece or something. That's not luck, it's lack of skill and it can be evened out if you make mistakes too.

 

[tehy]

Joim, to clarify, I think he means who starts.

Which as I recall does enhance your chances of winning. Maybe someone who studies chess should weigh in here, i'm not entirely certain

 

[Raichoice]

this isnt how it works in the game so why have it?
hax are hax and there going to happen

 

[Pikabuster]

There's a way to draw with people on the ladder? I didn't know that. Could someone please enlighten me on how that is done?

 

[Zarel]

I'm going to write an essay about why compensating for hax is bad, and then I'm going to copy/paste it every time someone suggests it. Pay attention, Chaoswalker and Gronkspike9348.

Why it's bad to mess with probability in turn-based games
(This is basically just a summary of my arguments on Battle for Wesnoth forums over the same thing)

In games with luck, it's common for users to complain about situations where they have bad luck, and it's also common for users to suggest ways to compensate for bad luck by screwing with the RNG to "prevent" streaks of bad luck. This is generally a horrible idea.

1. The first problem is that probability is no longer constant. Instead of Hydro Pump being 80% accurate, its accuracy now depends on how good your luck was up until that point. Instead of thinking "I'll win unless he crits, so I have a 94% chance of winning", you now have to think "He hasn't critted in a while... should I be worried?"

I once compared the hit probability calculation for one proposed "luck compensation" system in Wesnoth. It was something like:

Let D be a unit's terrain defense, let K() be the karma function, and let H[n] be a unit's previous hits.
In the old system, the unit's accuracy (barring marksman/magical) would be:
1-D
In the new system, the unit's accuracy would be:
1-D+K(H[-1])+K(H[-2])+K(H[-3])+K(H[-4])+...

You shouldn't have to spend an hour doing calculus to figure out Hydro Pump's accuracy.

2. The second problem is that luck compensation doesn't deal with why hax is a problem in the first place.

Hax is localized extremal rolls, but luck compensation systems only compensate for global extremal rolls, which aren't ever a problem. Problematic situations are things like: Dugtrio misses Stone Edge and Volc OHKOs with Bug Buzz. A luck compensation that would have made the second Stone Edge hit is pointless since Dugtrio's already dead before the second Stone Edge. If this sort of thing happens enough times in one game, we complain about it.

Hax isn't having bad rolls on average. Everyone has average rolls on average, that's just the way luck works. Hax is having bad rolls when it matters and good rolls when it doesn't, and no luck compensation system can account for that.

3. The third problem is that luck compensation comes with its own metagame. A good analogy is poker. In poker, the deck is sort of like a luck compensator: each time an ace comes out, the probability of getting an ace goes down, until there are no more aces. Players who want to take advantage of that are called card counters, and card counting is generally considered a bad thing for the game, since it replaces strategy with a mathematical formula.

Online games have an even worse problem: They're played on a computer, and computers also happen to be good at using mathematical formulas. A lot of online poker systems actually remove the luck compensator by removing the idea of a deck, to prevent people from using card counting programs to gain an advantage.

And you want to add a luck compensator?

4. The fourth problem is that luck compensation actually makes luck a worse problem. Remember when I said: "Instead of Hydro Pump being 80% accurate, its accuracy now depends on how good your luck was up until that point"? Think about that for a moment: Now your luck affects your luck. That's more luck, not less.

 

[Joim]

Joim, to clarify, I think he means who starts.

Which as I recall does enhance your chances of winning. Maybe someone who studies chess should weigh in here, i'm not entirely certain

Actually, the percentage of win of white over black is quite negligible, given that both players must play perfectly for the best result to be achieved: white wins or draw. Statistics show that white has advantage, and, while that is true, tourneys are normally not played to just one match per round, both players play both colours and skill prevails.

 

[tehy]

Well, even if it's negligible, you must agree that's technically still a luck element.

@Pikabuster:Apparently not, I had never actually checked. Just assumed it was there, my apologies.

@Raichoice: Eh, I'm not the biggest fan of cart mechanics. I think we've established quite thoroughly that GF is not that interested in balance (Possibly for doubles). If there's a way to remove some of it without going overboard, I think that would be a step in the right direction.

@Zarel: You don't need to program in Karma! It's already all around us! (JK, I read the thread)
To be fair, I've had streaks where I just had bad luck. It can sometimes be global. But this is rare, and you clearly know what you're talking about overall (This stuff usually does even out)