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Exploding Penguin -> Common Misconceptions (9/27/2013 0:57:39)
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Been a short while since I last published a mini expose or essay-type post. So, I've decided to address many common misconceptions, typically hosted among the forum members, but also from in-game players too. Here's my disclaimer-type statement I always put at the beginning of these:
This is partially subjective and based off of opinion, so please keep your personal speculations about my opinions to yourself unless they contribute to the subject at hand. Also, since I will be addressing the topic of general speculations and opinions as well, you may find some ironies. Do not point this out because to be honest, nothing is more annoying than someone posting only to point out another person's flaws rather than to contribute to a thread. Of course, everyone is free to disagree with what's stated here, but I actually did a fair amount of research as you will notice I link to several online articles. I suggest you read all of them as I did myself to fully understand what I'm talking about, although some may be too complicated for certain people. However, please note I greatly appreciate those who actually read through the entirety of these threads I make and put some thought and consideration into it before posting their comments, feedback, questions, etc...
Now then, I'll get on with the actual content of the post:
Misconception 1: Luck
So, luck in itself is a very shaky and ambiguous topic. Many people complain that they as individuals are particularly unlucky, but mathematical statistics otherwise prove that with enough trials you will typically have minimal standard deviation from otherwise average results. Of course, people will have developed thoughts based off of winning/losing streaks, but if you cumulatively look at it many emperors, grand emperors, legends, etc... will have very balanced and logical results when it comes to finding total blocks, deflections, crits, first strikes, etc.. when relatively compared to the opposing players' odds of having these things happen. But, some people still insist on them being more unlucky than others, where I find extremely difficult to believe unless that person is one out of a minute fraction of one percent. However, just to satisfy those who think they're more unlucky than others, I have found a great article for you to read thoroughly and digest the information of. It's honestly a great read, although some are skeptical about wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator
Somehow, someone will find a way to blame the RNG or PRNG for their supposed "misfortune," but that's beside the point. If you read the article on PRNGs (pseudorandom number generators), then you will recognize that aside from otherwise seemingly random results, there IS slight flaw in ED's supposed "random" number generator, for those who have complete faith in random probability. Now that I'm done with this little prologue, I'll actually get into the misconception portion of luck.
So taking this little excerpt from the beginning of yet another wikipedia article, I will begin to dissect the misconception of the phrase "anti-luck."
quote:
Luck or chance is an event which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense. In the prescriptive sense, luck is a supernatural and deterministic concept that there are forces (e.g. gods or spirits) which prescribe that certain events occur very much the way laws of physics will prescribe that certain events occur. It is the prescriptive sense that people mean when they say they "do not believe in luck". In the descriptive sense, luck is a word people give after the occurrence of events which they find to be fortuitous or unfortuitous, and maybe improbable.
Cores which are considered anti-luck are:
-Lucky Strike
-Aim Assist
-Nanosteel Armor (possibly, depends on your point of view. However, this is similar to the other supposed anti-luck cores in a certain definition, so I will stick with nanosteel armor as an anti-luck core)
Cores which are considered luck-based are:
-Primary/Gun/Auxiliary Mastery (+4% crit chance)
-Ninja Reflexes
-Deflection Shield
-And other similar unnamed cores that hold similar effects
As you can see, both will alter the algorithm for determining a block, deflection, or crit in a very slight manner (pretty much just initiating the coded algorithm using the PRNG and adding or subtracting a set number). But, going a little bit into the philosophy of karma of how everything balances out equally, if you are lucky then someone must be unlucky? Think about it and digest it, I'll leave it up to you whether or not you agree with it, but to me it's seemingly true in all feasible real-life situations. But, if we refer back to the quote:
quote:
Luck or chance is an event which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result.
This stands true to the phrase "anti-luck", as it will change the desired result of the opponent, whereas "luck" cores change the desired result of the user. However, both are "beyond one's control," meaning that "anti-luck" is in fact, equivalent to "luck." And, being "unlucky" is reaching an undesired result which was beyond your control, so logically it can also be called "luck." Therefore, when addressing the PRNG and situations relevant to that, the only appropriate logical term would be "luck." However, anti-luck is useful for abbreviating the above categorized cores, but the term itself is quite misleading.
So that's it for misconception 1, it was pretty much just a word scramble and me nitpicking on slight flaws in the usage of phrases. Also, another briefly discussed misconception of luck is that it is truly random, whereas there are slight discrepancies in the system as the PRNG is not truly random. It is up to the reader's discretion whether or not you would actually recognize that as making a difference, but it's just food for thought for some people.
Misconception 2: Opinions and Subjective Comments
So, obviously all humans have opinions and really we can't say anything that doesn't have an opinion aside from solid facts. But, analyzing the facts is also based off of opinion. One can always analyze the first set of facts with factual methods, but it would just spiral until eventually it would have to be analyzed by opinion, meaning opinion is unavoidable when analyzing facts. Why do I bring this up? Because it is going on consistently in the balance section of the forum namely. So there is a common misconception that bias is really not improving balance at all, but this is only partially correct.
The misconception that bias is not very helpful for determining balance changes is, for the most part, incorrect. While there are a few unnamed forum members who hold severely radical opinions that make worthless posts that have no purpose otherwise to state their opinion which no one cares about, since opinion will have to come in at some point to analyze the numbers which lead to beliefs in imbalance, really the only thing that changes balance is bias itself. BUT, in support of those who firmly believe that bias really doesn't help balance much, you can read this article as it does prove something: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(science)
Having a neutral point of view is typically the optimal thought process needed for approaching things such as threads in the balance section of this forum. The article supplied, if you didn't want to read it, basically just sums up how one should try to eliminate all possible opinion when analyzing observations. This is extremely important when considering numbers, especially damage counts in ED. For example, bludgeon is a commonly discussed skill for its fairly moderate damage boost and low energy cost. While maintaining a neutral mindset will definitely help in raw calculations, in the end "overpowered" or "underpowered" will have to be determined off of bias as well, much like how outliers are determined by 1.5x z-scores of the average when considering data (which was designed off of a system with mathematical, logical but also biased methods). Also, it really doesn't hurt to see slightly tilted viewpoints on something to help apply buffs, nerfs, and changes to rebalance stuff.
Conclusively, objectivity (minimalized, but still existent bias and opinion) is optimal for balance discussion. Those small bits of subjectivity will give a wider range of viewpoints for the staff to consider when rebalancing skill(s), and even if you wanted to have entirely no bias at all (Which is logically impossible), it would be unavoidable when you finally came to classifying "underpowered" and "overpowered." Therefore, opinions and subjectivity are actually a necessary element of any discussion and particularly balance, although it should be kept to close to minimal amounts.
Thanks to all who read this and the attached articles (maybe, if I'm lucky, 1% of viewers actually read 95% of the post and articles?)! This may have been a boring and dull philosophical post, but hopefully you learned something from it, or at least were brought into a separate viewpoint of certain things! Feedback, comments, etc... are all welcome as I would love to hear everyone's opinions.
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