War #3 - Feedback

[YoungSot]

Skill is largely about adapting to circumstances and preparing for any type of luck. Taking away the possible number of situations you have to deal with makes the game much easier to predict and therefore requires much less skill to win.

Skill definitely includes adaptability and preparation. It's about being able to make the proper choice given many options and variables. But the possibilities you're taking into account don't have to be random randomly determined ones, they could be the various possible actions taken by your opponent. Each time you eliminate a "random" influence, the competition moves closer to being determined entirely by contrasting your decision-making skill vs your opponent's decision-making skill.

[Sir Valimont]

Random pairings without constraints benefits the faction with the better card stock and does not allow any fair handicap to the faction with less effective cards.

A fair handicap? What are you talking about?

There is no handicap necessary for teams that are losing. If you are losing, you are losing. That is the definition of losing. When someone has an advantage over you, it's an advantage. The constraints for acquiring that advantage are completely fair.

It is an utterly pointless effort -- and in fact it is a harmful effort -- to try to remove the possibility that a team feels they "just got unlucky" and that's why they lost several times in a round.

You are trying to solve a non-issue and you are damaging the fabric of the game doing so.

Anybody with the appropriate foresight and skill can overcome the absolutely minor difference that "bad matchups" might make in War.

[Sir Valimont]

Skill definitely includes adaptability and preparation. It's about being able to make the proper choice given many options and variables. But the possibilities you're taking into account don't have to be random randomly determined ones, they could be the various possible actions taken by your opponent. Each time you eliminate a "random" influence, the competition moves closer to being determined entirely by contrasting your decision-making skill vs your opponent's decision-making skill.

This is like saying taking baseball and turning it into a competition where people line up behind an auto-pitcher, swing and hit one ball, and measure who got it to go farther, turns baseball into more of a game of skill.

I know a thing or two about skill and strategy in War. It is a basic and obvious fact that being matched up against multiple opponents from the same team in a round is a factor that positively contributes to the amount of thinking and skill required.

Theory is well and good but here is reality:

This rule makes War require less skill. Not more skill. Less skill.

[Kael Hate]

Random pairings without constraints benefits the faction with the better card stock and does not allow any fair handicap to the faction with less effective cards.

A fair handicap? What are you talking about?

There is no handicap necessary for teams that are losing. If you are losing, you are losing. That is the definition of losing. When someone has an advantage over you, it's an advantage. The constraints for acquiring that advantage are completely fair.

Agreed a losing team requires no handicap.
But a team that is weaker because they are forced to choose a weaker set of cards is hardly fair is it?

It is an utterly pointless effort -- and in fact it is a harmful effort -- to try to remove the possibility that a team feels they "just got unlucky" and that's why they lost several times in a round.

You are trying to solve a non-issue and you are damaging the fabric of the game doing so.

Anybody with the appropriate foresight and skill can overcome the absolutely minor difference that "bad matchups" might make in War.

I'm sure you are aware of Jan-Ken-Bon (Paper,Scissors, Rock for westeners), the most famous of fair games.

If everyone is allowed all 3 options it matters not who plays who. But if we say that each player may now only use 2 of the 3 options, is it not unfair when the player without Paper is forced to play someone with rock multiple times? The player without paper can at best draw and never win when it comes to that matchup, buts instead of having a variety of opponents to balance that, he is forced to lose even more.


The same situation occurs here. When one team who has access to an abundance of fire cards from the opening of the game has a large selection of the same opponent strong against fire. Yes he may have meta but this will only offset one or two matches and often not make the game fair becuase he has to still run 50% of a losing deck.


As for Handicap: Handicap is not to balance the games as they go on, handicap is to balance disadvantages of stock from the word go. Do you understand Rally racing where cars of different potential are given a handicap in the opening of a race so that it doesn't affect the result when comparing the skill of a driver?

[majofa]

Although in most tourneys posting decks is a good idea......the UW tourney seems to be way too much copying of decks. It happened last WAR, and it seems to be happening again.

[YoungSot]

This is like saying taking baseball and turning it into a competition where people line up behind an auto-pitcher, swing and hit one ball, and measure who got it to go farther, turns baseball into more of a game of skill.

I'm sorry but that's a strawman argument. I only propose the removal of random factors, and baseball already doesn't include many (if any) random factors besides the skill and training of the players involved. The auto-pitcher idea removes every type of skill except one: hitting. so of course that's a boring game.

I know a thing or two about skill and strategy in War. It is a basic and obvious fact that being matched up against multiple opponents from the same team in a round is a factor that positively contributes to the amount of thinking and skill required.

Theory is well and good but here is reality:

This rule makes War require less skill. Not more skill. Less skill.

But reality is tricky, so understanding the underlying theory is necessary IMO.

Yes, you would then have to try to be prepared for the possibility both of facing a new opponent or the same opponent twice. And yes, your preparation would allow you to mitigate the risk of whichever matchup is "worse". It's true the more skilled opponent will almost always still win despite some good/bad luck, but the possibility exists that despite making the best possible decisions, bad luck can still cause a loss.

Yes it adds additional factors to be considered, and the player of higher skill will be better able to compensate, but if players are close in skill, the random outcome could end up determining the final result. Why include such a possibility if it's not necessary.

Unfortunately I have to get back to work, but I look forward to your reply if you choose to respond.

[Kael Hate]

This is really just ridiculous. No team is "forced to choose a weaker set of cards." Are you trying to make the balance between elements more fair because in your opinion some elements are stronger than others? You can't seriously be trying to "compensate" for that in War?

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

[xdude]

This is really just ridiculous. No team is "forced to choose a weaker set of cards." Are you trying to make the balance between elements more fair because in your opinion some elements are stronger than others? You can't seriously be trying to "compensate" for that in War?

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

With all the respect, it is not the Warmasters' job to try and balance the game. Their job is to:

Try to make the game as fun as possibleTry to make the game as fair as possible

Where the game is played by 12 teams. Not 2 great teams, 6 middle teams and 4 bad teams. Just 12 teams.

[YoungSot]

This is really just ridiculous. No team is "forced to choose a weaker set of cards." Are you trying to make the balance between elements more fair because in your opinion some elements are stronger than others? You can't seriously be trying to "compensate" for that in War?

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

But then is War really meant to determine only which is the most skilled team? I kinda think it's also about determining the "best" element.
(which is aether, btw). 

[Sir Valimont]

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

That is completely irrelevant. The job of War is not to fix the game Elements and the differences between the elements themselves. In fact the entire point of War is to enjoy the interchange between the elements and experience their strengths and weaknesses firsthand.

[Kael Hate]

This is really just ridiculous. No team is "forced to choose a weaker set of cards." Are you trying to make the balance between elements more fair because in your opinion some elements are stronger than others? You can't seriously be trying to "compensate" for that in War?

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

With all the respect, it is not the Warmasters' job to try and balance the game. Their job is to:

Try to make the game as fun as possibleTry to make the game as fair as possible

Where the game is played by 12 teams. Not 2 great teams, 6 middle teams and 4 bad teams. Just 12 teams.

There are group of people who find it fun that their element can walk over most others.
There is a group of people who find it unfun when they are on the short end of the stick.

We are trying to:

Try to make the game as fun as possibleTry to make the game as fair as possible

Do you believe that when restricted to a limited set of cards defined by element, that those groups are all equivalent?

That is completely irrelevant. The job of War is not to fix the game Elements and the differences between the elements themselves. In fact the entire point of War is to enjoy the interchange between the elements and experience their strengths and weaknesses firsthand.

It is relevant and there is no fixing of the elements game or the elements themselves. It fixing the situation where a stronger element is allowed to run rampant over the weaker rather than allowing all teams to play various opponents and enjoy a broad array of interaction.

[ShiningSword]

As it is most likely that for this war the rules will stay this way, maybe waiting until it starts before continuing with the debate is better(to see the effect of the new system in the event).