The Other Worlds Shrine

Your place for discussion about RPGs, gaming, music, movies, anime, computers, sports, and any other stuff we care to talk about... 

  • Mathematical approach to gaming, or not?

  • Because playing them is not enough, we have to bitch about them daily, too. We had a Gameplay forum, but it got replaced by GameFAQs.
Because playing them is not enough, we have to bitch about them daily, too. We had a Gameplay forum, but it got replaced by GameFAQs.
 #128715  by Don
 Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:12 pm
Take a game like WoW. Everything in WoW is basically know-able. You kill a level 70 Greater Bear and it gives you 250 XP. If you get a stopwatch out and decided it took you 20 seconds to kill the Greater Bear, you can reasonly extrapolate that killing Greater Bears will net you about 30000 XP per hour (adding 10 seconds per downtime per mob), and chances are this number will be pretty close to the real thing if you actually looked at the start of your XP bar versus 1 hour later.

If you cast an offensive spell in WoW, you know the range of damage is will fall in. With the help of some easily available mods you can easily determine what your DPS while doing action XYZ is versus action ABC and see which is better. When you put on a new piece of armor it tells you that your mitigation is now 35.28% and your dodge is now 15.25% and you can determine that this is always better than having a dodge of 17.21% and mitigation of 30.92% with the help of some basic math.

Now compared to a game like EQ, where practically nothing is know-able. People don't even know how much XP they gain per hour because 1 hour in EQ is roughly defined as a period you play before you pass out from boredom. People often quote XP gain rates faster than being able to kill every mob in the zone instantly, probably because if you sat down with a stopwatch you'll find the number to be depressingly low (I suppose this case is more of denial than a lack of information as a stopwatch can easily tell you what the rate is). If your armor rating is 5302, it tells you absolutely nothing because the hit distribution is on some kind of weird Gaussian distribution that you don't know any of the parameters or coefficients. EQ sort of has damage meters, but so far it has proved to be quite ineffective at telling people they're playing the game the wrong way when they're only doing 1/3rd the damage compared to someone of the same class/gear.

Now my question is, which way is the right way to play a game? Obviously WoW's method is better if you're trying to win, but EQ's method might be better if you just want to have fun: until you start losing and have that cut into your fun, anyway. Cookie cutters occur because they're usually the most efficient way to cut a cookie. Take Diablo 2, a closely related cousin of WoW. Again you've a game that is totally know-able. The min-max strategies are well known, but the game also won't stop you from trying to make a throwing barb or any of the whacky combinations of talent trees, though you might have a very hard time getting anywhere in Hell difficulty if you don't take one of the tried and true boring methods.

As a person that strongly believes in mathematics, I usually go with the method that is most likely going to win a game, but you can only play through so many Hammerdins or your overpowered class of the month before it gets old. In an ideal world, I'd like a game where you can just mess around and still win, but that's probably not possible. I suppose if you can only pick one, then I'd rather win than having fun, but not necessarily at all costs. What about you?

 #128716  by Zeus
 Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:26 pm
As one who strongly believes in having a good time, I play a game for fun and will just take whatever is the best approach that comes to me while I'm playing the game. The deeper I'm engrossed in a game the more willing I am to develop strategies or think about "how" I'm gonna do something. But never EVER does it become something which feels more like a task than an entertainment choice. The second a game becomes "work" I stop playing it.

Probably explains why I've dropped some of the later Guitar Heros. I was so engrossed with the first two 'cause I loved playing them. But the third? Not so much, felt more like work (I'm talking about Expert). I'm sure I can do it I just don't want to put that kinda of effort forth to do the "non-musical" tasks I was being forced to do.

 #128719  by Shellie
 Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:32 pm
I agree with Zeus. I play in a way that's fun for me, whether or not it's the best way.

 #128724  by Don
 Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:18 pm
Well, doesn't the inability to beat a game on everything it has to offer diminish the fun factor somewhat? I was never able to get to Night Terror in Soul Calibur 3, and while that didn't make me feel like I didn't get my money's worth, it certainly influenced in my decision to not buy Soul Calibur 4 even if I had a PS3/XBox 360.

I guess it depends on how you space out your content matters a lot too. There's nothing wrong with some ultra hardcore difficult stuff that requires hours and hours of practice to play as long as not being able to do them doesn't profoundly impact your abilty to enjoy a game.

To add to this, Shin Akuma in Alpha Collection is one of the most mathematic fight I've ever seen in a video game. I think it was Garford who said that if you can beat him once, you can always win doing the exact same thing you did before. You throw a fireball, he always jumps over you and hit you with the same combo. If you're blocking when he does a roundhouse he'll walk up and throw you while you're still in your blocking animation. It doesn't get more mathematical than that. There are some very precise combinations that will beat his AI that otherwise will counter anything you can do, and the whole fight is about always doing the things he can't counter exactly. Yet I actually enjoyed the fight, even though I only beat him like once or twice, since not beating him doesn't really affect your ability to enjoy the game. Further you can simply select him to fight in Alpha Collection as opposed to the usual way (don't lose a round for 8 fights or whatever) which can be quite time consuming. So that I think is a good example of having a very methodicial encounter in a game.

 #128738  by Zeus
 Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:45 am
Don wrote:Well, doesn't the inability to beat a game on everything it has to offer diminish the fun factor somewhat?
No. If it becomes a chore to try and do everything to beat something, it's no longer fun. I'm a competitive person and love to finish games.....if they're fun to play. I loved Viewtiful Joe but do I want to play it on Adult or V-Rated? FUCK THAT SHIT. It was a hard enough game on Kids mode.

 #128749  by Louis
 Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:59 am
I'll admit. I'm one of those "mathematical" MMO gamers. I have spreadsheets to calculate stats for different equipment combos. I've done this since EQ. Albeit, most of the modern MMO games have additional factors (different types of mitigation based on stats and skills) but I like the problem solving involved with maximizing my experience.

I have already developed formulas for WAR and I've found the system to be rather simplistic compared to other MMOs. It doesn't appear that stats scale at all based on level.

LotRO, on the other hand, I've yet to come up with a strategy. I'm playing a Captain now and I've yet to rank and scale what statistics are important. For the most part, I've just been concentrating on survivability (armor, morale, vitality).

 #128757  by SineSwiper
 Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:33 am
louis wrote:LotRO, on the other hand, I've yet to come up with a strategy. I'm playing a Captain now and I've yet to rank and scale what statistics are important. For the most part, I've just been concentrating on survivability (armor, morale, vitality).
Power. Capts need power more than that barbarian on Gauntlet needs food. BTW, you should dive into the LOTRO Capt forum resources for some more info.

That, and in LOTRO, morale is always important for every character. You tend to die pretty often in Rift and the like until your morale is at least 3000.

 #128759  by Louis
 Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:40 am
Thanks. I've already started scanning through the link you provided.