FTA and 2(3) actions on first turn

[wonderpug]

(09-10-2012 10:09 PM)Xpander Wrote:  What I was saying there is that if both players pass, then the game is reset. All that happened was nobody did anything. There is no bonus 5 wits. Both players get an equal number of wits to work with. I was referring to something Joggies said in his post. I understand why people use that as an example, since p1 essentially gets to respond to p2 with 5 more wits if he saves up. My point was that by saying that, you're essentially ignoring all kinds of other things like board position, build capacity per turn and various other things specific to the game...essentially oversimplifying a complicated issue.

I understood your both players pass scenario, but you're changing the situation. The "why doesn't P1 always pass his first turn?" question is most certainly an oversimplification, but the "why" aspect helps one ferret out all the more complicated reasons. He doesn't give himself 5 free wits because he wants those bonus wit spaces claimed, or he wants to have a chance at nabbing an enemy medic or sniper, or he wants to get some map vision, or he doesn't want to lose that turn's chance to medic boost.

(09-10-2012 10:09 PM)Xpander Wrote:  It's entirely possible that there is FTA. I'm not saying there isn't like Garcia seems to think. What I'm saying is that it's not proven. There's a big difference there. As I mentioned earlier, the only proven case has been addressed.

Hard proof would definitely be great, but from what we've heard from the devs the match result data pile is so massive it's hard for them to do large scale analyses. The reason they ended up releasing data on just the top 100 players was because they said that was a more manageable data set. It will definitely be very interesting to see the results from the World Cup.

But just because we can't get hard info on win/loss for going first vs going second doesn't mean we can't talk about things.

Take the Glitch map, for example. Start a Pass & Play match and imagine that you're the second player to move. What do you have to do to make sure you don't lose your medic to a runner P1 may have deployed? He's not safe where he's standing, moving the heavy to the wit space won't give you visibility, and any place you move the medic to boost the heavy will be under threat.

So ok, you decide to scout. You spawn a runner. You can instantly rule out a few spots a medic-killer runner might be, but not all. You still don't know if your medic is safer where he is, or safer if you move him over to your spawn point.

So now you claim your bonus wit space with your runner. Great visibility! And oh crap, there's a runner in the hex 3 spaces from the enemy spawn, the one that touches one hex of the double barrier, the single hex barrier, and the edge of the double-hex hole. What do you do now with your remaining 3 wits? What can you do to save your medic?

There are only two things you can do. One, you can retreat your medic down the back door alley of your base. Well that's a waste.

Option 2 is to move him into the nook between your heavy and your base. Well great, he's safe, but now he's in a dumb position. He can boost the heavy from where he is, but you'll have to move him again to get him in position to boost newly created troops. Another wit wasted.

And what did P1 have to do to get P2 to have to go through all that? Spend 2 wits to spawn and move a runner. In his turn P1 could have also moved his medic to the good spot between the heavy & spawn spot, and boosted the heavy.

Is this not a decidedly better first turn for P1 than it is for P2?