What would you change about legendary edition?

[Podfrey]

Ah so the guy who pointed out I was wrong was wrong.
See what I did there?
But if it changes to, or stays nice then it bounces?

Step 1) If Kick Off roll = 7 (Weather) then move to Step 2

Step 2) If Weather result = Nice then move to Step 3 *

Step 3) Ball SCATTERS 1 extra square BEFORE landing (i.e. any player under the ball before this extra scatter does not get a chance to catch). Once landed then it BOUNCES as normal



*NB: Previous weather (i.e. before the change) is irrelevant

[JaM]

Really ?

Huh... I've always assumed it lands, and bounces twice. So a player COULD still catch it.
Guess I should read better.

[Podfrey]

Vamp declares a Block and fails Bloodlust

Accepts the roll and rolls Foul Appearance to hit the Nurgle Warrior

Fails the Foul Appearance roll

Clicks "End Action" to bite the thrall next to him

Turn ends. Thrall is OK. Vamp stays on the pitch.

*sigh*

It's little things like this that are frustrating.

Oh, and I think that if the weather is fine at the start of the game, BB:LE assumes that there must be an extra scatter (TBC).

Single biggest thing for me is still the RNG though...................

[VoodooMike]

Single biggest thing for me is still the RNG though...................

I hope you mean that it is vulnerable to prediction programs.

[Podfrey]

Sorry Mike, but no. The vulnerability in itself is a "bad thing", but the bigger issue is that the Random Number Generator (RNG) it ISN'T random.

There are far too many times when the RNG "sticks" on one number and repeats it. Taken over a long enough sample the total output looks OK, hence why Cyanide defend it. But sometimes it's too often statistically off the scale over batches of, say, 20 consecutive rolls.

[Long_Bomb]

There is a fair amount of research to suggest that players will often reject true probability in Computer Games and I believe WOWW was rewritten to suit what people expected rather than the results true probability should give you. An example would be the same number coming up again and again which we often feel is unrealistic but will regularly happen in truely random events.

[dode74]

Sorry Mike, but no. The vulnerability in itself is a "bad thing", but the bigger issue is that the Random Number Generator (RNG) it ISN'T random.

There are far too many times when the RNG "sticks" on one number and repeats it. Taken over a long enough sample the total output looks OK, hence why Cyanide defend it. But sometimes it's too often statistically off the scale over batches of, say, 20 consecutive rolls.

I do believe this is one of the times I am actually looking forward to seeing what Mike has to say

[VoodooMike]

Sorry Mike, but no. The vulnerability in itself is a "bad thing", but the bigger issue is that the Random Number Generator (RNG) it ISN'T random.

<long sigh>

There are far too many times when the RNG "sticks" on one number and repeats it. Taken over a long enough sample the total output looks OK, hence why Cyanide defend it. But sometimes it's too often statistically off the scale over batches of, say, 20 consecutive rolls.

I have, in fact, looked at the RNG across decent-sized samples. Then I went into the program and found the RNG itself and duplicated it, then ran it through several million iterations to look at number distribution, just in case the modifying numbers they put into the mersenne twister were mucking it up. Then I went into the program and found the routines that convert the 32-bit number into a dice value, duplicated that, and ran every possible RNG output through it.

Also note - don't talk statistics in terms of 20 dice rolls. Statistics are about large samples. It'd be like saying that "statistically" one dice roll NEVER results in the expected value of 3.5... well no shit, that's because that value is based on an infinitely large sample. In small sets your data points will be all over the place, but the real test is whether or not they work across a long period or not. If the statistical patterns were true on a fractal level (which is what you're complaining they're not), you could then talk about the data not being random.

The only thing broken is player perception - computer games have taken to ensuring that players don't fail too many times in a row (usually giving an automatic success after two failures) to better match people's expectations of success. Those systems are what aren't random - the dice generation in BB, however, is.

[Podfrey]

I agree that, over a large enough sample, that each number has the approximate distribution of 1/6. All I was saying was that (IMHO) far too often the numbers come together in "clumps" of the same number.

[dode74]

If they didn't then it wouldn't be random.

[VoodooMike]

I agree that, over a large enough sample, that each number has the approximate distribution of 1/6. All I was saying was that (IMHO) far too often the numbers come together in "clumps" of the same number.

When you roll a six sided dice twice, the second one is just as likely to be the same number the first one rolled as it is to be any of the other numbers. That's what random means. Probability says that over a large enough sample set, they will even out to all occur with equal frequency, but you can't apply that to individual events - that's what I mean about the distribution not being fractal.

What you seem to be asking for is a system that eschews randomness in favour of smoothing out the short-term distribution... say, making sure that if you roll two 1's that the third roll will not be a 1... thats no longer random. It might well have the same distribution in the long run, and might make you feel better, but it won't be proper randomness anymore. A lot of online games do this now to help curb people's complaints. People don't like genuine randomness because they're seemingly incapable of looking for patterns in small samples of data... which they do because they've never taken a statistics class in their life.

In real-world gaming people will often say "oh this dice is sucky" and switch to another, thereby clearing the slate in their head, despite the fact that they've changed nothing at all. if the new dice gives them a 6 they go "oh, that's better" and keep on playing. They also distract themselves by saying to the opponent "oh, this dice is unlucky" and then the two of them yack on with stories of past bad and good luck, and it keeps them from obsessing over the dice rolls that come up. In online games, folks often just sit there and brood about it, and have nothing to take their mind off it.

[Podfrey]

2 in a row? fine. 3? Just as fine, as is 4 or 5. It's not the repeated pattern that I have issues with, but the FREQUENCY which these repeated patterns occur.

[VoodooMike]

2 in a row? fine. 3? Just as fine, as is 4 or 5. It's not the repeated pattern that I have issues with, but the FREQUENCY which these repeated patterns occur.

The frequency is exaggerated by the fact that you only pay attention when you're getting bad results. Its the same way you never notice the really good drivers on the road, but you'll fume about one or two really bad ones, labelling the whole city to be full of them based on that. If you believe that there is something genuinely wrong with the dice generation, start running your matches through dice analysis programs - lots of people seem to use BBManager (though I haven't) so give it a whirl and see what it comes up with.

If you find yourself continuing to say "well yes, every analysis shows that the dice are random but..." after you've examined all the evidence, then its safe to say what's broken isn't the program.

[Podfrey]

I know what you're thinking.........and you are wrong

Gee, thanks for that Mike. Wish you'd said that earlier and saved us all this hassle.

[VoodooMike]

I know what you're thinking.........and you are wrong

Gee, thanks for that Mike. Wish you'd said that earlier and saved us all this hassle.

I absolutely would have, but I've gotten quite a bit of flak for it in the past

What I'm saying is that if you sincerely think your "gut feeling" is a better compass than empirical research and investigation, then there's little point in you being involved in a serious, rational discussion, because you've thrown your lot in with irrational methods of information gathering. It's the conversational equivalent of children playing cowboys and indians and having the argument of "I shot you" vs "nuh uh!". Grown ups typically recognize that issue and agree on an objective method of arbitrating disagreements about that sort of thing - in games we'll have set out rules, like... use a dice roll we can both see to determine if I shot you or not. For disagreements over objective facts we have the scientific method.

The scientific method has been rigorously applied to the topic, and the outcome has been the same every time (unless you count two people who claim to have gotten completely different results than everybody else, but refuse to share their data set for verification). So, if you gut disagrees with the result then your gut is wrong. If you can't handle that fact then there are any number of churchs that would love to have you as a member!

PS: why does this forum always change your name to "Bum Monkey" in quotes?