Waterd

Anyway im not sure what good this conversation is for me, The idea was to ask if there is a plan, it seems there isn´t. So im arguing that there should be a plan to solve this problem? yes but with who? lets say that i convince everyone here, so what? Unless im talking with some designer about the issue or im given an answer of what the plan is or designer explanation of why there is no plan to solve this issue, I think this conversation is fruitless. So for now im done.

My optimal play is not made up. It´s the same used on games that are analyzed at top level like Chess and poker. I could link you to articles done by pro players in poker to see for yourself. People are never like ¨Well you should Limp J3s because you know, otherwise you are there waiting boring for 2 hours before playing a hand, and who is willing ot do that? pff, limp that J3s, is optimal¨ No, it doesn´t work that way, human will to get bored, human free time in real life , human willing to spend money are not factors accounted when analyzing what is the optmal play. The fact that you want to include them is a very very personal thing you want to make. But actually nobody in any game that tries to find optimal play actually does. So it´s not ¨my strange definition¨ is how is used by people that try to improve at games. I already gave examples of games considered RPGS that do not do that, like fire emblem and Mansion of madness. I already answered those questions. Optimizing is maximizing the chances of succeeding. RTwP do not have goals per se. However in the case of PoE combats are obstacles in achieving a goal. So the goal of the fight would be to get the result that will help us the most to complete the goal of the game. However results are defined in terms of success. Optimal is that which has achieved the most chances of success. If you are thinking in terms of final results, then you are not thinking properly of the problem. that was not the result, the question is what EV your actions had when you made it, the resources you actually have when you finished the actions do not directly correspond to that ev so is mostly quite useless to analyze that. If your actions lead to the same chances of reaching your goal, then I agree that it doesn´t make the difference, but if some actions lead to 95% chances of completing the goal and another to 87%, then one was better than the other. I´m glad you are understanding, thats the reason games need timers too. I´m glad we are starting to understand each other. Clearly my job is done he. Is true that TB have the same limitations, and that´s why it´s bad that singleplayer Turn based games mostly lack clocks per turn (with some very notable exceptions, lucky for me, almost all multiplayer turn based games do have clocks, go figure). In turn based games though is easier to add a clock. That is why board game timers are sold. I use them also for my CRPG games without timer. The problem is that I have to decide how much time to assign to the game, since the designers don´t specify, which I think it´s terrible. However I generally use the 1 minute per turn rule that has been suggested in some games in the past, i even saw that recommendation again in mansion of madness. The true is that most turn based games i know that use clock recommend 1 minute per turn, so i transfer that to most of my turn based games. It´s ideal? no, I wish the game designer would do the work for me, but I live with it, if you want to talk about pushing turn based games to have better clock systems, im all there for you to help support the cause, it would make my life esier. Just recently I had the complain for Auro, which is a turn tactical game based on rougelikes (http://www.auro-game.com/) that it doesn´t have timer. The designer told me that his idea is that players do not spend more than 20 seconds on each move. He says he is considering implementing the clock for the game,, well for now im going to restrict to that, i try to not take more than 20 seconds per turn. I wish it was implemented on the system, but oh well, I can kind of live through it, however i still criticize the decision. It is however the job of the designer to tell us the time we have to think for each turn. The fact that Ive had to become designer in many of the games i play do not excuse the designer for not doing his job, IF he wants to create a game. If he wants to create a toy, sure go ahead.

If the games are harder how is that gonna help, before i paused non stop now im gonna pause less? you are just wasting my time.

I agree those are all questions a designer should be asking themselves.

I already have it. I already played BG1 and IWD2

Yes you are intentionally arguing about how optimal certain actions are to human goals. Which is irrelevant.

You keep bringing things that have nothing to do with optimal play, again i dont want to respond to strawmans.

Really you did not answer my question. You pointed to a blank space. It depends, if the options are DESIGNED by the designer then he is the designer, these have to be extremely discrete options though, and generally the designer needs to specify the effect on the game and know why he is adding that option. Otherwise yes, it gives the player the job to be a designer. Based on the rest of this paragraph it seems you are missing all my explanation on what´s a game and what isn´t and the definitions we are working on here, I won´t repeat myself. You also proceed to do strawmans like talking about human optimization that are irrelevant to the topic. You are suggesting that the person that did achieve optimal winning chance by not pausing can´t achieve that by pausing it? unless you are suggesting that, your point is moot. If it potentially does, it does. It doesn´t matter the final result only the expectation of the result. We can´t know the future, we can only make predictions of the future, so the only result that matters to us when we do an action is what was the average expected value of the action. it doesn´t matter what actually happens after we do the action, it matters what on average is expected to happen after we do the action. That is how optimal play is analyzed when information is incomplete. Ok, you are wrong. This is just a fundamental mistake that would require me an essay to explain you how you are wrong, Since i wont i guess our conversation is over. It is known fact that over infinite time, all problems with a solution can be solved. And yet the only thing that stop us from solving the problems is that our time isn´t infinite, if you don´t understand this really your mistake is so fundamental that a few paragraphs won´t help you. For that same reason it doesn´t serve any purpose that i explain you why turn based games need to have clocks since you don´t understand the concept of how time makes problems easier to solve. You are wrong again for exactly the same concept, yes it´s binary, or it should be minimized or it´s irrelevant.

I don´t get what i get from playing BG2 with those mods.

Where did you present me with a road trip example and i answered that? I just answered to this argument several times. The goal of the game is defined by the game, not the player. The moment the you define the goal then you become the game designer. If the goal of the game doesn´t involve time in anyway, and ingame time is not a resource, you can just add time as a value just because in your life it´s convenient. IF YOU DO that, then you have become the game designer, and the software a toy. We are no longer talking about the same game, or even a game anymore. If you take 1 hour 1 year 10 years or 100 years to finish the game. The GAME doesn´t care in anyway, doesn´t account it, and it´s not used to define in anyway the score or success of the ingame goal. You can talk how it affects your life, but you can´t talk about how it affects the game state, because it doesn´t. Btw, read my argument of wealth and crystals in starcraft of why also is a terrible idea to use real life resources as ingame resource. So accounting for real life time, as long as the ingame goal doesn´t. When I say optimal play (that is the use of optimal play in most models of decisions making theories but, whatever let´s imagine for a second i came up with an invented definition, i have zero interest to discuss what the different fields use as definition) When I say optimal play, I mean the play the maximize your chances of success, using the goals defined by the game. There is a failure state and winning state. Optimal play are those that maximize your chances that your run ends in a winning state. Pausing after every event does You are just implying that having more time in the clock on chess doesn´t gain you anything. That a player with a 10 minute in the clock is in the sam esituation than a player with 2 hours in the clock. That a match with top players will have the same results on average when a player has 1 hour in the clock and the other 10 hour in the clock. You can say Something that is known to be false ¨Yes, the result on average will be the same¨ or acknowledge that is true and then it contradicts the follwoing comment as a valid argument on hose pauses and times don´t gain you anything. Going on It seems you did follow the logic. Yes, indeed. Which is why turn based games need to have clocks. But i want to deal with a problem at a time. time/speed efficiency is only relevant if it´s part of the goal, when thinking about optimal play, otherwise is irrelevant. My goal is NOT AT ALL minimize time, because that´s not the game goal,

It doesn´t matter of the player is willing or not. When you analyze optimal play, WILL of the player is not something you account for, is irrelevant. I already explained in two posts the absurdity of using real life time resource as ingame resource.

a) There may be times where is nothing is happening, sure, there is also lots of times where something happens every fractions of a second for several seconds. b) Knowing all that would not reduce the need to pause, I don´t know how you get to that. Driving is not a game, so you can analyze optimal play in driving, it makes no sense. In the instances where driving is a skill tested in a game (like in a real race) going as slow as possible will make you lose vs other racers. You can´t define optimal way to drive, since optimal needs to reference a goal. GENERALLY people drive to save time. So if you wanted to analyze how to minimize the amount of time to reach certain destination by driving, thus driving slowly would not help. The ingame goal is not to finish the game as fast as possible, if it were you had a point. But it´s not, so moot point. I think how I would solve the problem is irrelevant to the topic so far, i could still, for academic curiosity try to answer that. Possible solutions other than just inherently changing the system to Turn based or purely real time A) Redesign the game around non controlled pause. So the system pauses itself everytime X event happen. I proposed in one of the first posts that it should only pause when a character have an action to make and you can only give orders to that character. (ideally also you have certain time controllers to control how much time you have to give the orders, but that is a sideline topic) B) Create pause as a resource, pauses are something you gain per combat, or per x seconds or in some way, and you can only pause that number of times, you may even stack them in certain quantities etc. C) put realife timelimits to the game, so real life time have an effect ingame, so pausing will make you lose time and thus drive you off your goal. this also has the benefit of solving the exploration problems. Though for several reasons that are long to detail, for this particular game Im against using real life time as an ingame goal (though it´s better than the actual state of infinite pauses) This is independent of outside of the game, quality of experiences of pause. You can create this second type of pause where you can´t assign orders, and even black out the screen, however this is not necessary really as long as it´s labeled as a convenience pause, if you want to cheat you can, it´s ok as long as it´s clear that you are acting outside the game rules when you are pausing the game this way and it´s only there for life convenience pauses.

Iuoco. I have nothing important to say to your post, im not ignoring it. No, pulling a character back from the acher will not get them killed faster, is pretty easy to get them out of the acher range and make them focus another target, Ive done it all the time in IWD2. Btw the results are not win vs loss, is % of sucess, our EV of winning. so yeah if you got with a move 95% of winning and with another 95% of winning, they are for all purposes of analyzing how optimal the result are, the same result. Is hard to believe though that in a game so complex as these, is even possible to get to two game states with exactly identical expected win ratio. unless those are 0% or 100%, in which the game is either impossible or so easy that is not a game anymore.

Stop bringing what people want or not want to do, is irrelevant. We are talking about is optimal play on the definition already discussed, for that what people ¨want, have fun with etc¨ is 100% irrelevant. You claim that a player doesn´t kite will be more successfull than one that kites? even if that is true , and your tactic work, then you are implying the game is absolute shallow, if having more information on the game state, do not increase your chances of making better players, is because your play is already capped at 100% chance of sucess, if you can do that, the game is really shallow. So I disagree from your appreciation of IWD tactics, but, if what you say is true, then the game is shallower than my wildest expectations. And then it also become pointless for the purposes of designing PoE, since hopefully it won´t be as shallow as you claim IWD2 is. Sure, if in IWD2 kiting was possible or not is irrelevant to the discussion, I agree. I was just explaining why I think in IWD2 extreme pausing is optimal, and just describing a common iwd2 scenario. It doesn´t have to neccesarily apply in PoE. Though it´s hard to believe still that other complex tactics where changing directions every certain fraction of second isn´t optimal. If people could pause in starcraft2 like in IWD2, I can assure you players would be pausing that often or more. Even if kiting isn´t viable in PoE for whatever reason it is expected that other tactics that involve lots of pausing will be, unless there is a specific goal to remove micro as much as possible for the game. I could see that as a partial solution to the problem, based on the videos I saw of combat, this is not the case, but do you have any reason to think such work is in progress? Sure, except as i said there are several things to react to on a second, even if the correct reaction is to not do anything at all. You have so much time, soooo much that you have more than enough time to assign for all the pauses i mention and then to also do all those interesting tasks. It´s like having a million dollars, and tell me i shouldn´t buy 100 candy because that money could be used to buy a burger, except since i have a million dollar, i can buy both the 100 candy and the burger. When it comes to finding optimal play, yes thats the assumption one has to make. Otherwise you woudl be implying that optimal play is subjective because a game can assign resource to players based on resources from real life and we get into really just crazy territory, and into the territory where designing games is a pointless endeavor. Since designing challenges is pointless since designers are unaware of the resources available to the player. Read again my analogy about designing games where teh amount of crystal you have in starcraft equals the number of total pennies that you have as real life wealth. Then your success in starcraft becomes too related to your total amount of wealth your willing to spend in the game. Similarly you are wanting to connect success in the ingame goal with the amount of free time the player is willing to spend in the game. That is really the realm of absurdity.

So you are telling me ok, i have 20 years to finish the game, ok whatever, it´s still optimal to pause the exact same number of time, stop bringing that argument. Yes, you need to do that, to play your best. Yes I need to do that, because that´s the best play, regardless. Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

Same probability of success = same results, so yes. In the case you described, assuming you use 6 characters, I think it makes a difference if the archer hit, if the archer does indeed hit, then it may be better to slow down and put other character in front to take the damage instead, or depending on the amount of damage, it may be ideal to heal the fighter. OR i may notice that all their archers are targeting the same fighter, so it´s better to put it back, or shield him or heal him. Until that point also i may notice that one of his archers took more serious damage , thus is better to redirect my ranged attacks to the now may day soon archer. I think a lot of these situations in tactical combats, and i think in this case is no different, the only way to know or the properly analyze if i must make any kind of change of gear is to pause every time any damage happens , or any spell is cast or even early on when even any attack happens. I played Ice wind dale 2 in hof and really the best way was to spread thing the damage through all your characters and also the focus, and it required multiple pauses to change and rechange the position of your summons, and specially to run away from melee characters, for example the best way to neutralize melee characters , since yours run faster than them was to every-time a melee character start walking in the direction of character A, you move character away, , but you need to put Character B enough in the path but not quite to allow character to throw the spell or the attack,as to not lose attack or spell actions, as soon as the enemy approach character you make character B walk away until it isn´t pursued anymore so he can use his spell or attack actions. Tactics like this require extremely frequent pausing too. In order for you to limit your opponent on who they attack and rotate characters movement attack and who are in target of their archers, require very frequent pausing. I think Icewind dale 2 (the game i have more experinece with of the RTwP) even on HOF is an extremly ¨easy game¨ since the decisiosn one should make are pretty basic and repetitive HOWEVER, executiing them is infuriatingly annoying, slow and repetitive. Add to that that the combats are extremly slow since is optimal to pause extremly frequently, it all makes for a very boring experience, compared to any turn based game.

This is a semi valid claim , i disagree though. No, there is only one optimal play unless you mean there are a lot of plays with the exact same result, which seems really only possible if the game is really really really shallow. So assuming the game has any kind of challenge at all, I will go ahead and claim there is only one optimal action. If i have to decide if pause or not to pause, here is the problem. Is there a chance that by pausing I can have an opportunity to notice and improve an action of my units? If the chance is anything at all above zero, then the right answer, is to pause. Since Pausing now has a EV of increment my chances of winning, but pausing has a cost of zero, any moment i´m trading a No cost action (like pausing) to increment my chances of winning no matter how small, i´m incrementing my EV of win rate. Since pausing have a positive Expected value, I should do it whenever I can. Since I can pause extremly frequently, then, I should do so. Your claim may be that there is ZERO chance, that a pause 0,3 seconds later may increase my winrate at all. I say that the having more information about the game state, has a chance of making me play better. I consider that on average I would do better actions if i´m more informed than if im less informed, that is considered a general rule of decision making. A better informed player has more chances of making a better decision than a less informed player. Since then we conclude that Pausing is +EV win rate, everytime the game state change, and the game state changes that often or more, then is easy to conclude I should pause that often.

Diminishing returns only work when you spend a finite resource to do an action, since game time is infinite and pauses are infinite, diminishing returns is irrelevant. I mean sure, every pause gives you less of a gain, but since you spent a infinite resource, it doesn´t matter.

Yes, and a fun game is one where exploting things is fun (see for example starcraft, league of legends, Chess, MTG, Street fighter, etc...) The rest of the comment seems to indicate you missed the thread.

Azreael ultima i already responded to that argument, repeating myself is pointless and your argument isnt new so i dont have anythign to add. Yonjuro You can´t actually without pausing as often as physically possible. It´s rational if i want to keep playing the game, instead of creating my own game. It´s optimal to minimize the risk by grinding easy enemies. I disagree the word optimal do not have meaning without that function I already redefined optimal for what i mean. Optimal is whatever action that maximize tthe chances of completing the objective. That is optimal play.

No, I will play them, I will play designed games, because that´s the point of playing games other people design, for their design, i dont want to waste my time trying undesigned things and hope that is gonna be fun (almost always the answer is they are not) So by knowing someone actually tried to make it fun, there is a decent chance for it be fun for humans so there is a reason for me to spend time trying that game. My arguments is that there are a lot of persons that find pausing every half second unfun. Your recommendations of redesigning the game are not good for the reasons i already stated many times along the thread. I already answered the other points and questions you made in your posts in the thread. There is no point for me to repeat myself, just read the thread.

Optimal I mean what action maximizes the chances of succeeding at the goal. Optimal play is course of action that maximizes your chances of achieving your goal. You are presenting decisions rules that can be used to find what is optimal, which sure can be used, whatever, I dont see how is that relevant to this conversation. In BG1 example you presented 4 possible rules that you can play with. So I agree they are 4 different games. Is the job of the designer to tell me the rules, and is my job to find the solution. If the designer tell me those 4 games are fun, because he designed them to be fun, then sure i will play any of them. Because the rules allowed me to do so, and I find when i search for the optimal play, to be the optimal play, and so if i want to play the game, i have no other option than to do what´s optimal. Again you seem to miss that is not my job to look for fun in a game, it´s my job to look for what´s optimal play, looking for optimal play, hopefully is fun. The job of the designer is to find in what system, the search for optimal play is fun. If i have to search what is fun, and create my own rules , then im no longer the player, im now the designer, wether i can then play my own game or not is irrelevant. I was just given a toy, i made it a game, and now i play my own game.

Minecraft is totally a toy, 100%. I agree toys are tools to facilitate games A game is the system of rules with a goal. Yes all games have goals to reach that is a inherent property of games. From wikipedia on games: I also like this gamastura article http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167418/what_makes_a_game.php However I do not intend to discuss semantics. What i talk game here i refer to a system of rules for players to interact with and do goal-oriented actions. That´s why i clarified it in a post above I was referring to that to game. Yes, but then again, if so why limit resting? I think maybe he doesn´t realize how unfun it is for some people to pause every half second? OR maybe he has a plan for this, then i ask, what it is?

Again Primejunta seems to imply im wrong and sawyer does not intend to Design a game where players are expected to look for optimal play and have fun in the process. If that is so if i have a way to confirm that, then yes, I have no other action than just walk away. Again, is true that most CRPG aren´t like that. however I gave examples of ¨arguably RGPS¨ in Fire emblem and battle for wesnoth and tabletop rpg in descent , mice and mystics and Mansion of madness where that does hold true. So it´s not crazy the idea that some PoE is intended to be like that. It´s just a matter of if Sawyer wants to create that. Evidence suggests he wants(for reasons i already stated). If im wrong though i would like to see evidence to confirm it. I will say though that people like me exist and true generally stay away from CRPG for that reason. But It´s not that hard to create certain OPTIONAL hardcored rules for this kind of players. I would be willing even to help design them if it´s a desired feature.

My goal as a player is not to have fun, my goal is to optimize my decisions, fun should be a subproduct of that. That is what optimal play is. When people analyze optimal play fun is not on the ecuation. A good game design, makes it that the search for optimal play, produces fun for the one involved as a subproduct. Is hard to believe that if they willingly not maximize the use of a resource they have, specially one that is infinite. All pauses will be usefull, regardless of if i change inputs or not. Every pause will allow me to reanalyze the game state to verify if there is anything i can do to improve the course of action. You can´t talk about fun and enjoyable when talking about trying to find optimal play. Sure, again i can create my own challenges, but then the software becomes not a game but a toy in which i create my own rules. Ive been doing that in many CRPG. The point is what is the game, the game is defined by a set of rules and optimal play is my best course action using those rules to get to that goal. If in doing that I don´t need to notice things in real time because i can pause, then i won´t or else im not longer playing the game and start playing a selfmade game where i create my own rules.