FTA and 2(3) actions on first turn

[Syvan]

(07-18-2012 05:29 AM)ArtNJ Wrote:  So far, that I have seen, only on Foundry are the so dangerous that a slip up means your dead. There are a lot of variants, but there may be good defenses to all. Its just really hard to figure them out over the board. It may be good to post the defenses, but only if we are sure there are in fact sound defenses.

That would require revealing the details of the attack
I can find it out for myself, but it would make things much easier if we shared the details. Besides, I won't feel so bad exploiting it on the ladder if I identify it myself.

It appears I have been stumbling through the game so far. Time to fire up the pass and play.

[xSkeletalx]

While there is a slight advantage to being P1, it in no way decides the outcome of the match - I have won several matches as P2 - all it takes is careful thinking and planning, and allowing your opponent to misstep, then taking advantage of those mistakes.

Rushing for a 'quick kill' is not always the correct answer, and in the long run the advantage of being P1 is easily taken away. I don't really feel there needs to be any kind of change to 'FTA'.

[brayton]

I love Go, but nobey gets the rules and plays with me.
In Go FTA is larger, because you dont have the freedom to just take units the same way as in outwitters, because in Go holding the position on the board is a grater asset and there is no movement range or FoW

---

Some maps have great FTA, long nine is fairly bad. In passandplay i lost to my 11 year old cousin, yes i made some not perfect moves, but not mistakes. He runner rushed me, which is not really a good thing for the game, its sorta a cheat. Because when you have 2 spawn points and a map with that oppotunity it only takes a few turns to prepare for a runner rush, and 2 turns to exucute it. It takes at least 3 turns to get any other unit to damage the base, rather than 5 runners which takes a few turns to win.
Foundry is not a good runner rush map, cause the distance there are not many points away from spawns. There is one, but that goes past a spawn. I think its probably just the strategyi need to find to defend, but with FTA on long nine while runner rushing is not good. 2 runners a turn, no need to build any more other units, and dont bother intercepting them with runners, just hit the base, which hard to defend agenst.

[pookywb]

Ooh. Definitely encountered a rush on Glitch. I'm gonna go cower in a corner now. o.O

Moving my runner first would have saved me though.

[Joggies]

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been stated. But the most elegant solution for FTA in this game is not to punish P1, but rather to compensate P2 through a fair, auction-based system.

At the start of the game once teams, map and opponent are chosen, each player should enter a bid to be player 2. I.e. the minimum number of wits they would require as compensation to agree to be P2. The lower bidding player becomes P2 with that many wit points. If bids are equal, both players have effectively agreed the compensation is fair, so P2 can be assigned randomly as normal.

Benefits:
- The FTA is reduced by an amount both players think is fair.
- The amount will be sensitive to different sized maps/teams and therefore self-corrects without developers having to agonise over map balance
- It would be a FUN process, with more decision making and player interaction
- It doesn't punish P1 or reduce the strategic options
- It makes the game richer in strategic terms by opening up more response options for P2
- It would engage the community in the pursuit of trying to determine the fair/optimum levels end up being.

You are all very welcome! ;-)

PS - thanks to the designers for a magnificent game

[calmon]

May be a good suggestion but If a simple reduce of P1 wits is to complicate to understand for the casual player base how should they understand an auction based system? I think the main reason we have this bis FTA bonus is that the developers want the game as simple as possible to understand for everybody.

But maybe good for titan league were FTA matters most anyway but even here I'm more for a simple solution just to prevent a lot auction time before game stars.

[Joggies]

The point you raise is an important principle, but this idea wouldn't come across as adding complexity, if implemented well.

You'd just answer one question before the game map opens - "How many bonus wit points would you require to agree to going second?" [buttons for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

I think new players would completely understand it without any difficulty

[calmon]

(08-04-2012 09:41 PM)Joggies Wrote:  I think new players would completely understand it without any difficulty

Hehe in german there is a saying:

"From your lips to god's ear"

Not sure it has the same meaning in english but its essential my answer

[Joggies]

(08-04-2012 09:50 PM)calmon Wrote:  "From your lips to god's ear"

Alex if you're out there... I think those are your ears being referred to

[Xpander]

I decided to check the forums recently after the patch and the changes to the Foundry to see if there were any threads on the forum about what's being called FTA. Having read all the responses so far, I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks going first is totally different than going second on the same map. It seems that the response of the creators is going to be on a case by case basis and it's an issue they are watching, which is good and the correct response in my opinion. 

One thing that is absolutely clear is that, if you're going second, what you do depends on what the opponent does to a certain degree. This is true pretty much the entire game, except on turn one for the first player. What is not obvious is that if this actually gives P1 an advantage?  I don't think any sort of metrics or anecdotal evidence will settle that question. There are a lot of variables and it's hard to create a controlled environment for this kind of thing. Correlation does not mean causation as the stat buffs like to say. Changing the starting wits or anything along those lines is pretty extreme without hard evidence of a problem. I think looking at specific cases as they come up is a lot easier to prove and fix, hence the changes in the last patch. 

Still, I would be interested to hear results of internal testing, perhaps two equally matched players playing a 100 games on the same map or something like that. Any volunteers?  lol
I'd also be interested to hear about 2v2 since that is not at all discussed and it's a different animal compared to 1v1. 

All in all, great game and great job to OML. You guys have achieved perfection!