A lot of games use 1DN rolls, they are quick, easy to implement, and WRONG.Anybody played . . . any tabletop game, or sit down D&D ever, how many dice did you bring to the table . . . I'm going to guess more then 1. (like a small bag of them). Just one action on a tabletop game will take upwards of 5 dice easy. Why? Because multiple dice = somewhat predictable behavior.
You're standard 1DN takes 2 operations, + Random # generation or lookup. The generation of Gaussian Random numbers adds an extra 5 or 10 operations, more if you use a low efficiency algorithm, and then takes get this 2 operations. If you do your RNG in advance or during slow cycles with not much on the CPU. it's the same!!!So you've got a epic dude of Epic-ness kickass sword, expert training, Years experience. This guy is made of win.
This guy encounters a spider in the woods. Attacks, Rolls for 0 - 85 attack. gets a 3. doesn't kill the spider. Wait, What??
I understand there maybe should be some chance to miss. but then just say miss, don't embarrass . . . everybody . . . with a hit of 3.
If your TOP hit is 85. you aught be doing 60 - 65, reliably.
that's 20 + 17D5. which is a lot of operations, or Gaussian(62.5, 5) which is 2, and a Gaussian look-up.
Same goes for Armour, You're amour that gives 8 protection should almost never roll 0, unless the attacker has some special for a chance to ignore Armour.
1DN should be used exclusively when it is logically defensible that all possible outcomes aught be equally probable . . . which is in thermodynamics, or nearly never.
If anybody thinks 1DN rolls are a good idea, Speak now, or rally behind me in this crusade against the misuse of random damage, and all other occurrences of 1DN.
Robbie Price
I hate this system too, it has to change. I played many games over the years, board games and RPG and this system is by far the worst I have seen. I loved how Rolemaster did it, but I know I'm not going to see that in this game, but would be greate imo
Goodmorning all
By the time you're rolling 10D2, you really are wasting processing time. and it's not intuitive the curve you'll get as a result
One could fix that by adding M+ 10D2. to bring the probabilities into line.. but it's just easier to do
Level 1 = Gauss (11.5, 5)
Level 10 = Gauss ( 15,2.5) subject to the constrains reroll if outside of [min,max].
15 might be too low, or 2 too narrow . . . but it's really easy to see. easier to vary (Gauss (10+lv/2, 5 - lev/4), and easier to balance.
I agree Robbie, much better to use Gaussians. A lot of flexibility with those things.
In this case, the "Focus" stat of the hero increases (or one could use a stat called accuracy), which causes the standard deviation to shrink and the height of the curve to shift forwards (to an extent). This would increase automatically at level, at different rates for different Champs/ Classes
Also "crit" or "luck" stat, which gives a % chance to apply a multiplier to the damage done.
perhaps some classes focus more on luck, and other focus more on accuracy.
The Communist Party of Elemental disapproves of 1DN model and joins the rally.
The Fascist Party of Elemental disapproves of 1DN model and joins the rally. Tactical Battle arm bands are passed around.
Now if we could only get the moderate left and the moderate right to join the political tides, I'm glad to see I have the extremists :- P
The question on how the rolls are done is irrelevant - no matter if it is done by rolling x D2, using Gauss, or measuring ambient temperature - the issue is that even distribution is counter-intuitive and unfun, and needs to be replaced by a better one (e.g. bell distribution).
The Pastafarian Party supports this movement! (May you all be touched by His Noodly Appendage)
Dude. Gauss IS bell curve/ bell distribution.
Also, Not all Bells/Gauss are equal. We have at least 2 variables with Gauss (height of curve and standard deviation). I only hope we can make Gauss skewed right or skewed left as well (and skewed by how much).
the liberals are for a new system
Catholic fundamentalists throw their vote for "1dN is the work of satan!"
Seriously, we need gaussian! 1dN randomization is not enough to have interesting choices, it could work in a game like GC II, because in the end the statistics will favour the better fleet.
But in a game where tactical combat is present, you need the ability to weight your options. The only way I could see the current system working is by separating "to hit" and "damage" rolls. That way you can keep 1dN for attack (like d&d) because in the end is just a 0/1 situation (you either hit or miss, so nothing wrong with an omogeneous distribution of success rate). But totally random damage in the 0-80 rng?
Hell no!
At least open up those files for modding (if it is doable... don't know much about elemental files structure, yet)
edit:spelling
As a Collectivist (wiki it if need be) the knight could never stand alone against 1000 peasants as long as 999 of us are willing to give up our lives for the common good. It is an illogical statement to say that the attack/defence would ever be a factor, however. The only thing that should allow a better equipped soldier to lose is pure exhaustion from being attacked by 1000 peasants. Eventually his muscles would give out and he would just faint. No matter how many times you try it, a club just can't break through steel armor. Especially when the knight has a horse and can attack more and then retreat. This should not be in your equation for attacks and defense and whathaveyou.
I suggest that we take a look at morale after we have won this battle. It should reflect a certain level of... shall we say exhaustion. Anyways good post and I like the Gaussian push.
Fight the good fight!
From https://forums.elementalgame.com/394530 I declare Victory is ours "
Battle Improvements
Damage Calculations “A lot of games use 1DN rolls, they are quick, easy to implement, and WRONG.” (https://forums.elementalgame.com/392880)
"
Go us
Well, that has been there for awhile. Under ideas. Not major, or minor, but ideas. However, indeed at least its there. That's actually how I found this thread the first time tbh.
Yeah, what Tasunke said!
Let's keep it up... Is wishful thinking on my part to believe the majority of players would want this changed?
I won't declare victory is ours until I can see it, and see that it's not only ADN that are get rid of, but also the uniform distribution.
Because they really are able to replace 1DN by X + 1DN thinking that's what we want -___-
So, you are saying that we can put you in steel armor and I can club you as much as I want, and you will never get hurt?
Believe me, after the tenth time I have hit you on the head, you will start to feel it. If I knock you down, you will feel it.
I am on a horse. The best you can do is scratch at my ankles. I was just trying to make a point though about warding off unnecessary realism that sometimes finds its way into the wrong game mechanics.
Can someone provide the percent chance of missing assuming a bell curve? This didn't make sense to me until I started breaking down the odds for the current system. I was surprised by the results.
Current system with an attack of 6, defense of 8. I am also assuming the range is 0 - 6 and 0 - 8 respectively.
Damage is the first row.
Second row is number of combinations that lead to that. Last row is the chance of it occuring
<1 1 2 3 4 5 6 42 6 5 4 3 2 1 66.67% 9.52% 7.94% 6.35% 4.76% 3.17% 1.59%
Can anyone provide the same for the bell curve or Guassain distributions.
To be honest, I'm really coming around to the system as is. I've just accepted the fact that combat is dangerous. Beef up your hitpoints, since you can't afford to skimp on them.
In Gal Civ, I considered rolling a very low score on an attack to just mean that the hit was a glancing one. However, in this game where my sorcerer ends up doing 5 damage when he's lucky (i usually get 1-2 damage), I just get angry.
At the very least - cap it. Give a max and a min value, such as 3/4. So if I hit someone with a sword that gives me 100 attack, I should do 75-100 damage. If I cast a spell with 20 intelligence, I should do 100-150 damage.
The spell damage...well, that's an exaggeration. But upping spell damage would be much win, too.
I voice my agreement that there are many ways better than 1DN, nearly any of them I would support. Having Attack be different than Damage is useful for detailed battle and makes sense, but that would be icing on the cake. I hope SD will listen to this post.
I think there has to be something in the middle.
1d65 isn't good, but 17d4 is too predictable, imo. I think at some point, you'll just end up having randomness just so you can say it's randomly determined.
Likewise 1d36 would be bad, but 9d4 would be too predictable. 6d6 seems like a happy medium.
Or do (strength + 1/2 weapon attack + 1dN) - (dexterity + 1/2 defense + 1dn) = damage. Then do hit % = 50 + weapon attack - target defense.
Have that rolled for each member of a stack via 1d100
Champions should just get more stat increase from the points on level up so they can keep up with stacks.
There's ways they could use 1DN but do it better and provide more predictability in battle.
This. So much this.
I've been having this same conversation with people for years. Not all of them are ignorant of statistics, but a lot of them are. It's a simple proposition - as you increase the central tendency of your random dice roll, you increase the probability that the higher trait will win, and the lower trait will lose. This is bad for game balance, because it accelerates the point at which the situation becomes unwinnable.
I've done a lot of calculation and experimentation to figure out a perfectly 'fair' dice mechanic - my criteria being 'if your skill is twice your opponents, you should win twice as often as he does.' The system that satisfies my requirements actually is a variation on the 1dN mechanic... it's something that would only work in a computerized environment, so I've never been able to do anything in tabletop.
The basic procedure: X = Attack, Y = Defense, Z = Minimum of Attack and Defense. Now generate 2 random numbers, one between 0 and X+Z and the other between 0 and Y+Z. If the first number is larger, attacker wins. Otherwise, the defender wins. Excluding ties, this generates a set of odds that exactly matches the ration X:Y.
I have a program written in Anydice that demonstrates the operation.
Use something like this, and a hit-miss system, and the stats are totally intuitive. If Attack is 10 and Defense is 20, then the attacker will miss 20 times for every 10 times they hit. Simple and easy to understand. Then you compare damage to hit points - if you do 1 damage and they have 10 hit points, it takes an average of 10 hits to defeat them. Again, simple and intuitive.
Also, I do agree with the idea that squads should not have a single attack value. A squad of 12 units, each with 6 attack, should be attacking 12 times for 6 damage, not once for 72 damage.
I would also like to add that most of the spells have this exact same problem 1DN rolls !! It makes it impossible knowing just how much mana will be used on just an average battle. I really hope Stardock fixes the spells too otherwise next month we'll see this exact same topic with a different title. Any other thoughts?
I dont mind a chance for missing, a chance for a parry, etc ...
HOWEVER, if it hits I'd rather have a reasonable result rather than using a giant mallet to hit for 1 damage. (and the sad thing, is that its possible regardless of the type of armor or damage absorption the player has ... they could be shirtless and still only get dealt 1 damage)
and I'm not even saying that 1 damage should be "impossible" ... but it should be far FAR more likely for (1 standard deviation from the mean) than a 1 or 0.
so ... Gauss (20, 4), or even just 10-30 damage. But honestly, I think its probably just the UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION which feels wrong.
Also, it would be nicer if each soldier is handled separately, rather than combining defense and combining attack. Just because 100 peasants are wearing leather armor, doesn't mean a dragon or a hero can't even make a scratch on em. A hero would probably be able to take down at least half of them, while a Dragon should be taking them out maybe 5 at a time. (more with fire-breath).
Also, I personally feel Run Speed vs Attack Speed is a big deal. The higher your run speed, the less points are required to move a square, and the higher your attack speed, the less points are required to make an attack.
I couldn't agree more with this arguement, mainly since the current system defeats the point of improving your units' stats and equipment. Why bother advancing if you have no guarentee that it'll actually help anything?
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