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Baldur's Gate Missing isn't fun or how I failed statistics at high school and blamed D&D for it.

The Great ThunThun*

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"Missing isn't fun." , said the sweaty man seventh time in his career. He added grazes, so you would hit when you miss. But now the boss was dying too fast. "What do, what do???, Aha, let me just add to the HP of the boss! Problem solved! Jshven, yuo are a Genius!."

But then the reports came in, "The game is boring." "The mechanics are MMOlite". "I can't seem to finish the game."

"All fault of the low attention span of the gamers, they can't play tactical games where they have to focus on the enemy and right click. And learn to press a few buttons now and then. They don't appreciate my genius.", said Jschven sadly. "It's not like games were good in the good old days!" He posted that chart with the levels of grief again, thinking this was the anger phase. "They will grow out of it, soon they will learn to accept that this is the new shit." But they didn't and Jschven is now working for MacroHard. "Which other games need a remake? Aha! Maybe its time for doing that Darklands thing I have been talking about. Yes! Yes! If any game needs a historically accurate, socially aware update, its that flawed gem! Let me think, what I can get rid of, Witches, tick. Shrines and Saints? What the heck is that? Scrubbed. Skills? These many? Speak Common? Dohoho who wrote this??? I must create a psuedo-Latin-Gaelic-Germanic language in which to name everything. Let me throw some darts. And Religious Training? Who needs that??? Proud and loud atheist here! Gods are manufactured by men! If that don't blow their minds, nothing will. Let me paste it on my iMac. They are gonna love this!!"

They didn't miss him.
 
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Somberlain

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You'll thank Jshven when a Ghul or Fampyr makes xir final attack on your critically wounded party member and you only have time for 1,2 attacks to stop it. Your attack misses but you still kill the monster :littlemissfun:
 
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J1M

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Ironically, reaching the hit cap is one of the most satisfying sub-goals in RPG character development. It is also one of the more interesting stats because the value of additional hit has clear break points.

The modern game designer is right though: it is not fun to miss. Too bad they can't see that is exactly why it is so satisfying to overcome later.
 
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Elephantman

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Sergiu64

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"Which other games need a remake? Aha! Maybe its time for doing that Darklands thing I have been talking about."

Incidentally Darklands had something called Partial Penetration which could be seen as a graze. Of course it was a bit more deterministic and had everything to do with the penetration value of the weapon used and the armor type of the target.

I guess you could use 'Vulnerable' attack as well which added a random bonus to your penetration value to the attacks, but significantly decreased attack speed.
 

Volourn

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Misisng is HELLA fun. Fukkin' barely dodging the dragon's bite or shaking off the kraken's tenteacle grab or dodging most of the flames from a fireball is one of the best parts of D&D. FUKK OFF.
 
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Elephantman

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Explain with more than two words please.
Its just a quip for 3d6, etc.
More dice means getting closer to a normal distribution. Which is DnDs simple, mechanical way to reduce variance around a certain outcome/value. "Conceptually" about the same as grazes on a flat distr if you keep the average constant.

Honestly though, I dont know what VD is trying to solve and I believe that he doesnt quite either.

As a sidenote, when he talks about RNG, he comes across a little bit like those loonies on the interwebs who dont believe in probabilities.
His example, for example, rolling 31 and missing the range of 1-30 by one and calling it really "close" is kinda humorous. Because its not really "close" in a statistical sense. Its a full miss... Because its a single roll, with a flat distribution, each outcome having the same probability. It doesnt matter if you roll 31 or 99 to miss.
Now if you rolled on a normal distribution, you could get really close to the average and miss it. You can form a statistical interpretation of "distance" that is meaningful and can be "close" or "far" and behave like a distance.
Also, he says crits are "conceptually" the same as grazes and it maybe true depending on how you interpret "concepts" but crits increase variance, grazes decrease it. Mathematically, the degree with which crits and grazes change the average might be small but in real games (especially turn based ones, where you can focus down and get initiative on enemy dmg output) crits feed positive feedback loops that faaar outweight their mathematical values.

I mean, this is a very complex field and he should go full bayesian interpretation ^^
 

Sergiu64

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As a sidenote, when he talks about RNG, he comes across a little bit like those loonies on the interwebs who dont believe in probabilities.
His example, for example, rolling 31 and missing the range of 1-30 by one and calling it really "close" is kinda humorous. Because its not really "close" in a statistical sense. Its a full miss... Because its a single roll, with a flat distribution, each outcome having the same probability. It doesnt matter if you roll 31 or 99 to miss.
Now if you rolled on a normal distribution, you could get really close to the average and miss it. You can form a statistical interpretation of "distance" that is meaningful and can be "close" or "far" and behave like a distance.
Also, he says crits are "conceptually" the same as grazes and it maybe true depending on how you interpret "concepts" but crits increase variance, grazes decrease it. Mathematically, the degree with which crits and grazes change the average might be small but in real games (especially turn based ones, where you can focus down and get initiative on enemy dmg output) crits feed positive feedback loops that faaar outweight their mathematical values.

I mean, this is a very complex field and he should go full bayesian interpretation ^^

I guess his point is that a melee battle has a lot of variation in an outcome of a strike. That strike could just miss due to incompetence of the striker, could be dodged actively by the defender, could be parried by the defender, could be blocked by the defender's shield, could result in a glancing blow off the armor that does not damage, could result in a glancing blow that penetrates enough to cause a scratch, could result in a deeper wound, could result in a mortal wound, could result in immediate death of the defender.

Its up to each developer as to how aspie they want to get about representing all these outcomes. One could just go hit or miss. One could add crits. One could add glances. etc. If you want to be totally realistic: a parried blow is not the same as a dodged blow for example - there is some damage to both weapons, the next strike could be harder for both defender and attacker, etc. Most decided to take out such complexities in order to have a cleaner system. But in a computer medium where such simple calculations are done instantaneously by the computer - why not add some more complexity?
 
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Elephantman

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Grazes are not about complexity though.
AOD already had good complexity in form of different attack types, eg to hand, legs, body, etc, as well as different weapon types and utilities.
That said, I trust VD to make something good. I was very surprised about AOD and how well it worked.
 

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Because its not really "close" in a statistical sense. Its a full miss... Because its a single roll, with a flat distribution, each outcome having the same probability. It doesnt matter if you roll 31 or 99 to miss.
This was exactly my thought when I read VD's argument example. From what I remember from high school, every coin toss taken individually has the same chance of landing on either side. It's a number of simultaneous coin tosses that have a progressively smaller chance of all landing on the same side. So 31 is just as probable as any other number from 1 to 100.
 
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Elephantman

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This was exactly my thought when I read VD's argument.
Lets not bend the mans words before the big flip flopping starts.
It wasnt his argument but just an example.

Because if you are willing to bend, you can calc the mean, variance, and all the statistical moments on a uniform distribution and you will get some kind of "closeness" just one more step away.

His argument/problem visually is that an SMG burst up close should not do zero damage, I believe.
 

Sigourn

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I don't mind missing in RPGs. Even critical misses are fun, as they add some flavor to otherwise completely predictable fights. Especially since critical hits are a thing, and both apply to player and enemies alike.
The only solution to the problem of "missing" is to go full action RPG, not crippling a system that works for those of us who like it.
 
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Its just a quip for 3d6, etc.
More dice means getting closer to a normal distribution.

Yes. Someone who understands. CRPGs need more dice. Flat distribution modified with constants has major scaling problems. People should really take more notes from the original Deadlands rule set.

Roll XdY and take the highest. Simulates both scope and reliability. A genius novice (2d10) versus an ordinary veteran (4d6). Who wins? It's an excellent system that helps eliminate extremes with flat distributions and gives you better simulations.
 

Utgard-Loki

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i get why randomization is needed, but at the same time:

PF3c81W.jpg


 

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