FTA Bonus on Highlevel Games means nearly Autowin

[Harti]

(08-15-2012 05:41 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  Harti, by less over-doing what do you mean exactly? Putting the wit spaces in more defensible positions? Only putting 3 wits per side on large maps but doing something like 2 wits per side on smaller ones?

All of that exactly.

By the way, the additional bonus spaces raised a lot of issues (i.e. crashes) with replays, stepping on bonus spaces and stuff; so I'd assume it isn't very easy to make adaptive changes to maps like that, shifting bonus spaces around, not even for experimental purposes in beta.

I'll still try to get OML to test that once again sometime.

What I used to suggest for spicing up gameplay (roughly): "Have more bonus spaces around so that a well-prepared flank can push towards a wit space" or something like that. I feared Outwitters would become stalemates in competitive high level play (which it does on SFI and Peekaboo, and probably will on other maps sometime).

What I suggested a few weeks ago (for balancing FTA) is basically that there's +1 extra bonus space per side on each map (that makes 3 on big, 2 on small maps), 1 of which is located very closely to one's base (only to make sure it nearly doesn't affect how the map plays), and reduce the wit income to 4. Make the bonus space pre-occupied by P2.

The math:
P1 has 4 wits. They have to use 1 wit to have a predeployed unit step on the additional bonus space. For the currently known rushing techniques they'll be 1 wit short even if they abandon all their bonus spaces.
P2 has 5 wits (+1). They needn't step on the bonus space (+1), granting them 2 more wit to spend for defenses.




@Teck: Good idea but this isn't helpful most of the time. You can remotely guess what they did (except on SP and Peekaboo) without messing up your own opening, so it wouldn't give P2 much of an advantage. Most of the time they will merely see P1 to be in a favorable position they cannot defend against.

[garcia1000]

I think its fine that P1 is nearly autowin in games between highly skilled players. In Chess, White starts with a huge advantage for grandmasters, and Chess has been around for thousands of years.

[P1noyboypj]

I feel like i should post I was typing out a chess comparison, but I guess someone beat me to it. FTA is exactly the same advantage just like chess. Chess is more "balanced" since it has been tested over time and there's only one "map" to balance. Outwitters is balanced though because it takes wits to actually move forward, so in theory, you can be more conservative and get more wits on defense since they move to you. Having said that, the obvious problem would be all games would be a stalemate, which from experience doesn't happen much.

Here's a pro tip for everyone: scout. Always. And scout some more. Master your openings like chess and you will be prepared for everything. If player 1 is too aggressive or tries to wait for the right moment, you will know if you scout. This game is about wit management and not FTA.

As a quick fix, rates games can be a best of 2, same or diff map, with players alternating FTA. If its a tie, no rating change (not lower rated player gets points please).

I'd rather have the devs (who are doing an awesome job btw) concentrate on map and team balancing than worrying about FTA, where quite often the mistake of one wit can be the diff between a win or loss. If they can just keep/make maps balanced, FTA will just be a "white" advantage like in chess.

[awpertunity]

(08-17-2012 01:25 PM)P1noyboypj Wrote:  I'd rather have the devs (who are doing an awesome job btw) concentrate on map and team balancing than worrying about FTA, where quite often the mistake of one wit can be the diff between a win or loss. If they can just keep/make maps balanced, FTA will just be a "white" advantage like in chess.

The FTA in chess is only about 52-55% wins for White. While it's true we may not be able to negate FTA completely, I think the point of this thread is that the advantage is a LOT larger in Outwitters than in Chess.

(08-17-2012 01:25 PM)P1noyboypj Wrote:  Here's a pro tip for everyone: scout. Always. And scout some more. Master your openings like chess and you will be prepared for everything. If player 1 is too aggressive or tries to wait for the right moment, you will know if you scout. This game is about wit management and not FTA.

As a quick fix, rates games can be a best of 2, same or diff map, with players alternating FTA. If its a tie, no rating change (not lower rated player gets points please).

You are just contradicting yourself here... If the game is all about wit management and not FTA, why should the lower rated player not get points in a 1-1 tie? The higher rated player should be able to win even going second according to you.

[wonderpug]

Let's say there's no FTA. Is there an advantage to starting a match with twice as many wit? You go first, but I start with 10 wits instead of 5? Because everyone should just pass their turn if they are player 1, without even thinking about it.

But... Maybe you want to just take your bonus wit space(s) first...

Maybe you want to put a runner over there to scout, or to have a chance at nabbing that sniper or medic next turn...

And since you can only heal once per turn... Maybe just boost this one unit so you can boost the other next turn...


Hard to resist doing even one of those things instead of just flat out passing your turn? There's your FTA.

[P1noyboypj]

In regards to ties giving lower rated person points: From playing various other games competetively, it further discourages players from playing very low rates players. Risk doesn't justify reward. Keep in mind this is if two games are played

In regards to FTA in general, I'm just suggesting there's another option to FTA. Just make maps balances or make rated games in pairs. Sometimes lowering FTA would make p2 the new white in some cases.

And no I'm not contradicting myself. I'm just throwing multiple options out there...

[Harti]

@p1noyboypj:

I understand you're leading the top 100 list and thus got to have superior understanding about how games go strategically but to me it appears that you deny the FTA effects - which is simply wrong. I played Advance Wars competitively from 2008 through 2010 and I've had dozens of discussions on the first turn advantage topic. In many other games there's been thorough analyses about FTA, too. It does exist and it does always affect the gameplay in some way.

The less turns one can take in a TBS, the weaker the FTA effects are. This is why most people don't even realize that Chess has FTA until you tell them. In Advance Wars you can move and attack with any unit you got, so FTA becomes bigger and bigger every turn the game proceeds (you're always ahead in unit count and positioning).
Outwitters is different, I couldn't agree with you more. It's something in between of Chess and Advance Wars. Not as crucial and immediately visible as in Advance Wars, not as weak and subtle as in Chess.

Let both players begin with 10 wit in Outwitters and you'll undeniably consider gameplay to be biased to P1. With 5 you can't do as much; on large maps, that is. On small maps you can already spot the issues in turn 2 (SFI and Glitch, also Peekaboo a little) if player 1 made a good opening.
On the larger maps it usually takes up until turn 8 to eventually notice that the first player has some kind of positioning advantage.

For discussing FTA the premise is ALWAYS that it's a turn-based battle between two similarly skilled players on a symmetrical map. Hence your point of "this is about wit management" is obsolete, because if everybody knew the same tricks to wit management as you do, you wouldn't be able to outplay P1 even with clever wit management. Because they're simply 1 turn ahead.

I find your suggested fix highly amusing: "Just make maps balanced". How is that possible when it's symmetrical? At some point a player hits the center of the map and gains advantage through their attacking range - and that's P1. Always.
(Well, unless going to the center is useless, e.g. if there are hundreds of predeployed Snipers to kill all units coming close to the center. But then again, P1 will be the first person to destroy these threatening Snipers and will therefore be the first to reach the center AGAIN.)


I like the idea of the mirrored rated games very much, though. It would be confusing and disturbing for low-level casual players (who maybe only want to play 1 single game) though.

[connor3491]

I think mirrored games would cause issues. 2x as much playing for half the results. Players going inactive on the second game if they lose the first. Tons of draws. Etc....

I think bigger maps could help with fta ,mbuy then again that might lead to really long games

[P1noyboypj]

Yah I understand FTA may be beneficial, and may be more apparent depending on the structure of the map. All I'm saying is that u can't just say "ok, 4 wits for p1, or 7 wits for p2" with no justification or testing. There should be a philosophy or "root cause" for the problem found out first before saying FTA is the problem.

Pro tips incoming: yes maps can be balanced if they are made in a way of holding choke points. If you, as the defender, put units in a way that they can attack right away (ie next to each other), u can counterattack without moving (and thus are up one wit, or more). Then again, this doesn't always work. Timing aggressiong is key. Even if p1 did this too, p2 has the "advantage" of making units that "counter" p1. This type of game can go back and forth, eventually being a game of specials. But throughout the game, it's all about wit management, an even saving wits for key attacks (or counterattacks). I'm sure there are plenty of games out there where you foiled an attack and just marched over during ur counter to win.

In summary don't get me wrong, 5 FTA might not be right after all. Maybe it should be 4 and 5 for p2 Or even both 4. Or 3. Instead, focus on improving our own gameplay and let devs crunch the numbers to fix balance.

In regards to too many games: I'm just opening the convo for thought. Maybe diff hardcore league? Tournament mode? Would it divide the community? Maybe. That's what forums are for! Discussion!

[CombatEX]

At high levels in chess the adjusted win percent for white compared to black is marginal (around 53-55% or so), but a lot of games end up draws. Reaching a draw even in the highest level games of Outwitters is extremely unlikely. Now this next part is partly speculation, but it is possible that much of the FTA in chess is mitigated by the fact that black can cause the game to enter a draw through proper defense and as a result, the adjusted percentages (when draws are factored into w/l) aren't that favored towards white. One should note however that around 30% of high level games are draws and that that is a huge fraction of game results which are thereby not applicable when converting the comparison over to Outwitters. As such, the w/l percentage in chess games isn't an accurate method of comparison when analyzing FTA in Outwitters. In fact w/l statistics often show something around the following:

White ~37%
Black ~ 27%
Draw ~ 30%

You'll notice that without draws, the FTA could range anywhere from 67/27 White/Black to 50/50 White/Black.

So the question is, if draws were impossible in chess would the percentage still be near 50/50? Maybe. But the fact is we don't know simply by looking at this particular statistic and therefore the analogy is ultimately a poor one.

Now this is just a quote from one guy so don't consider it as any kind of argument in itself, but I think this captures the essence of my concerns with the Outwitters/Chess FTA comparison:

"I don't believe that White has a forced win in Chess. I do however believe that with either 1.e4 or 1.d4, White should be able to obtain some sort of advantage that persists into the endgame. If chess were scored like boxing, with drawn games awarded by some point system to the player (if any) who came 'closer' to winning, then I believe White would indeed have a forced win in theory."
-Grandmaster Larry Kaufman

Is he right? Who knows? And that is the point, without draws we don't know how big white's FTA would be.