Jozrael

Hey, I'm wondering if anyone else here plays this game. It's a Turn-Based Strategy game, also open source/free (as in speech and beer). I recognize some usernames here that I also see on their forums, so I was curious if there is a crossover =o.

Lasereth

I used to play it everyday about year ago for 6 months or more. I stopped playing because the immense out of luck involved in the game sorta drove me crazy. You're about to win a match and then a mage with 80% chance to hit misses 3 times in a row and you lose because of it. FTL!!!!!!!

Jozrael

Just as a note, they've got 70% chance to hit. Also as a note, about 3% of the time they'll miss all 3 shots. If you use that mage on average once a turn (sometimes it'll be 2, once on yours and once on the opponents turn, sometimes it'll be none) and if you use multiple mages (always fun), let's say 3, that is more likely to happen about once every ten turns than not. Just to give some perspective.

Wesnoth IS a very luck-based game, but the OUTCOMES of games are almost -never- based on luck. In fact, there is a community challenge: to produce a replay of a game that was decided by luck. I.e., you were going to win, and then SOLELY BECAUSE OF LUCK (not bad decisisons on your part) you lose the game.

I'd say a couple thousand games are played a week. None have yet been produced that were lost because of luck.





See, the main skill in Wesnoth is not just tactics: any decent player worth his salt learns that eventually (making them just that: a decent player). You learn what to attack with what, etc. etc. The GOOD players are learning the truly important skills of Wesnoth: risk analysis and management and strategic, longterm thinking. If you go from winning a game to losing it because a single unit missed, then your strategy sucked, no offense. If you will lose if you attack with your mage and he misses, then its simple. Don't attack. Honestly, the thing I don't like about Wesnoth is that at pro-level play games can start to bog down. Players are quite expert at measuring risk and they tend to be somewhat cautious at that level. That being said, there's nothing quite like watching leocrotta and Becephalaus go at it, for example. Both quite offensive players compared to some like Elvenking, a quite defensive player.



So, all that being said, yes luck is a HUGE factor in Wesnoth, but it doesn't decide games. The skill of the players in anticipating AND DEALING WITH the outcome of the luck is what decides each match. There are countless pro games where someone won despite being 'down in the luck', i.e. their expected damage output values (EVs) were far under and their EVs coming in were way up. It's about how you deal with it, not how the dice fall.


P.S. It doesn't stop it from being intensely aggravating when that Great Mage goes 0/4 though

Lasereth

Yeah I know all about Wesnoth, I played it for months and months. It's just annoying when a mage misses all three attacks when the player they're fighting is neck deep in water and then the fighter beside him misses 2/3 attacks also and the unit counter attacks your mage and kills him in one round.

I know that skill > luck in Wesnoth but it's still just aggravating to me that so much IS decided by luck. It's annoying to play someone and they rub their win in your face when they're EV is +30% and yours is -20%. Now THAT is a luck based loss. It's possible to win in a situation like that but it is very unlikely unless the other person is an idiot.

Jozrael

I disagree. I've seen pros beat other pros with EVs that are greater than you just listed. Obviously having luck on your side in crucial points is an advantage but it's by no means crippling. Just because EVs are that high does NOT make it a luck based loss. You probably exposed yourself far more than you should have in certain spots. But I can't really comment on it because I don't have a rep.

But I don't disagree that it's annoying xD. Just the situation you described, happens. Everything happens in wesnoth. And you know what? Sometimes the situation happens in your favor :P. It's all about anticipating all the possible outcomes from an engagement, weighting their possibilities, and then figuring out how to deal with what actually happens.

As I said, not a single replay has been posted to that community challenge

Lasereth

Well that's the thing! I don't want to play a game that annoys the heck out of me, even if it is my fault. I hate luck in any game (one of my main pet peeves) even if skill can outclass it.

I did have a lot of fun with the game. Me and a coworker played it everyday at lunch for at least 6 months, maybe more like 8 months. Great music, cool animations and graphics (for a free game), and awesome units and abilities. I highly recommend it to any strategy game fans.

BTW one funny test we did was Northerners with ONLY trolls versus any other faction. He would always beat me, and I would always beat him with a troll-only army. My coworker actually wrote a program that would run BFW matches like 10 a minute through a non-GUI interface and record the results. He did it across all maps, all factions, all weather types, etc. He fixed the program to run all Northerner trolls versus every other faction. At the end of the day the troll army won something like 80% of the time...very interesting!!

*EDIT* BTW it was the troll whelps not the big ones. You know, the default 12 gold guys.

Jozrael

To each their own . I thought I hated luck in games until I played Wesnoth. It's just on such a different level than other games where luck features prominently, because you can DEAL with it.

If you looked at it awhile ago, I'd recommend checking it out in the near future. The stable version just went to the new 1.4 branch (the dev 1.5 branch already has some awesome features in it, but it's still kind of new) and new graphics are being done by some amazing~ new artists. Check out the elves/mages.

In terms of Northerners, that's really odd. Whelps have some pretty cool abilities like regeneration and their nice resistances, but they're slow, do low damage, and have lower defense than normal. The unit that is the most spammable in the game, some have suggested, is actually the -orcish grunt-. If you're playing against the AI, they don't understand how to deal with whelps with their regenerate as well, so they're quite powerful. A human player can take apart a mass of whelps fairly easily .

Yea, an army of Trolls is a whole nother story. They're level 2 though, so keep that in mind xD.

YamiYasha

Actually, I was referred to this forum by THAT game's forum. lol

But, oh, Wesnoth... *sigh*
It makes me regret not joining it sooner. Not because of the game itself (which is also great BTW), but because of its forums. Players were mature, intellectual people, the kind of people i respect immensely. Part of the reason this is IMO is because SO MUCH of the game is based on luck. This dealing with failure aspect of the game discourages many immature and childish players.


But the forum IS indeed going down slowly.
Highlights of the conversation:

• people are discouraged from contributing b/c it won't be put into mainline
• older members are leaving
• new generation has not had time to absorb the culture of maturity and intellect

My heart aches every time I think about it.

Jozrael

@Yami: At some point in the future, the forum will indeed go down. Many of the regulars left, but the real reason for the lull is that it's no longer summer, when lots of students have the most free time.

Development on the game is still actively continuing, though. The 1.5 branch is extremely vibrant, especially among the WML development side (meaning us campaign or multiplayer scenario creators have MORE tricks up our sleeves to wow you with ;D). I'd hazard a guess that 80% of the developers around 3 years ago are still here, and we've gained MORE than we lost since then. However, it is true that some of the 'forum regulars' have said their goodbyes.

But Wesnoth's forum was never nearly as vibrant as this one. It's really there for the development of the game; other discussions are secondary.

Jozrael

I'd just love to give this topic a nice bump; years later I'm still going strong with it (on my off-LoL time xD).