Game Theory, Discussion 1

Fun read, at least the first page, Until it turned into some other strange argument. I am going to have to say from my experience that the skill can be translated across multiple games. Simply because a great GvGer not only plays the bar he is using well but has the fundementals of the game down.

Along with keeping up with the pressure of PvP, someone who understands the games structure and laws so to speak, will do well in any genere of that type of game. You see this all the time in FPS, my friend who was awsome at golden eye was a deadly Halo and Call of duty player. Yet he had a more difficult time with gears because it had slightly different game play, (obviously I assume with all of that I have said that experience plays an important factor as well.)

Just wanted to point out, because it came up but in a different contex, that I remember reading how poker and chess are auctually very similar. The article stated that a good chess player could quickly pick up on poker and become a great player. I not very good at either so I would not know

Finally, did not see were it started, but the whole spaming skills on recharge was a poor example. If such a tactic worked, starcraft and guild wars would be bad games. Even the zerg, facing a decent player cannot rely upon this tactic. In guild wars you do not spam your skills (and skills that can be spamed still need to thought about such as guardian), you anticipate and use them when they will cause the most damage to the opponents team, and not just pure damage, but say d-shot damage. While fireball is not a great skill, if we have to use that example I would say it works best against clumped up targets that your garenteed a hit, I.E a good LOS so it wont miss. If you spam it, you will be wasting your energy.

- These two statements from two posters are contradictory. I'm going with moriz on this one. Controlling scout to do meaningful actions all the while managing unit production and economy is a demanding task for human player, but not for computer, which in theory can micromanage any number of units. Hard part for computer program is to determine which actions are meaningful. That's why the more formanized and limited the game, the better computers perform.

So why is Guild Wars a simple game? There's only two things player can do outside his skillbar: run and attack. Whenever not running, player should attack to do the maximum amount of damage to enemy. Perhaps the most demanding task in Guild Wars is to balance one's skillbar. Computer bot doesn't have to do it, as player can do it instead. If the bot has Fireball on his bar, he tries to predict when there's going to be maximum number of enemies clumped together. That is the most effective use for the skill. Minion masters summon new minions when they have less than 10, which is the perfect use for the minion skill. Monk casts Guardian on targets under melee pressure, which is the most useful purpose for the skill. I see no reason why bot couldn't easily achieve perfect play and beat other human teams if the teams had same skillbars.

You cannot simplify guild wars down to 'run and attack.' If this is the case then I can call chess simple by either 'attacking or defending'. Hurrrrrr... chess is so simple!

Hrm, I do like how you went from claiming that if you had 7 heroes you'd be able to micro them and win to if all 8 were bots that no one controlled, but instead were programmed. It's a good way to try and not look terrible! Unfortunately your argument still fails and what you said in the above quote was already discussed. It IS possible to make a bot team that could beat a human team assuming they're running the same build (so no build wars). But the amount of time, effort, size of computer, etc that it would take would be astounding. You're trying to simplify guild wars way to much when it simply isn't like that. You could tailor 8 bots to play one build to perfection. But half of competitive play now a days is build warsing the other team to win. Trying to tailor 8 bots to run every build would be nearly impossible. The same skill has many different uses across different builds. Even if you had infinite time, infinite space, and infinite knowledge, simply programming these bots would take a very very very long time.

Now I understand that you're either gleefully sitting behind your computer laughing at your successful troll OR you're just trying not to look bad after you got proven wrong after every post you made. But if it's any consolidation, I'm sure there are other people in the world that share the same ridiculous mindset as yourself - and would agree with every word you typed!

Actually from what I read, we both pretty much agree that you were completely wrong about SC.

Ok you have said something true. Now the question is, why the hell are you talking about computers when earlier you said the game was so simple YOU would be able to control it?

If you think balancing your skillbar is the most demanding task in Guild Wars, you will never ever reach the top levels of this game. At least not in Prophecies/Factions when I played extensively, where team strategy and correct decisions on the fly in response to your opponents were the most demanding tasks.

I'm not even convinced this could happen...at least it couldn't happen by human programming for a game as complicated as Starcraft or Guild Wars unless you are talking some sci fi. Maybe if aliens came down and showed us how to program the perfect computer bot for these games it could happen. Hell even for a game as simple as chess the "perfect" bot has been beaten by grandmasters several times and has had several flaws. But for argument even if we say that a perfect program for chess could be created, chess is MUCH simpler than GW or SC, and good luck programming anything useful for those games unless you give them cheat codes.

And this is all beside the point, that you were earlier claiming that with perfect play you could micro all your heroes efficiently or that Guild Wars and Starcraft are simple games. That is where this all started, and that is why people think you are nuts. Slowly back away from these claims and we can (maybe) get this thread back on track.

Ok, this was kinda interesting thread (before all this easy/hard, bot/human flame started). I'll do my best to ignore the flame.

While quite interesting, 1st post is quite controversial. I'll try to break it into parts and answer them separately (some of this stuff was mentioned before but I want to voice my opinion as well)

1. "veteran Guild Wars players are better suited to evolving and adapting" hypothesis.
I'm not sure if I fit this category, but I fit the description given by the OP. I played for more than 2 years but I don't feel like I'm all mighty and awesome at the game. I know the ropes but for the most part I just Crit Barrage my way through the game with 3 Necro heroes and henchies tagging along. It works like a charm and I hardly need to adapt. If I fail horribly I'll probably bring a different build to counter this situation. But truth to be told, it's not necessary in most situations. Crit Barrage is enchantment dependent build but I breeze through enchantment stripping with ease. I just target call and henchies drop the enemies for me. If I feel like my team needs me I just target call those with enchantment stripping powers 1st and use my full power after they're dead.

Actually as far as I can remember I changed my builds and tried to adapt way more when I was new to the game. Now that I have my trusty highly customizable heroes I just roll through everything with the well-rounded team and don't bother for maximum efficiency. If someone fails the team will still be victorious. I recall getting through the Hells Precipice mission with 2 fire ele heroes on my team without too much trouble. I felt like mobs didn't seem to die fast enough but I didn't bother to think about it twice. It was a final mission after all =)

2. "players would be further entertained by an additional power to gain after max level" hypothesis.
I'm not sure about this one. GW was positioned as "less grind involved, it's skill that matters" title. In fact we have this stuff in the form of title dependent PvE skills. And I don't like this pressure of "you gotta max those titles to get the best out of your skills" stuff. I consider fun I get from playing to be my reward and that's enough =)

3. "GW players will start playing other MMO games" hypothesis.
For me that's no true. If a game has monthly payment requirement, it's not for me. If it has micro-payments and privileged accounts it's not for me as well. I don't want extensive amounts of grind to get to the top. I want instant map travel and ability to respec freely. GW is still pretty unique.

4. "ex-GW players will for communities in other MMO games" hypothesis.
I'm not sure about this one. I've played quite a few MMOGs before I started playing GW and I never saw this happening. I saw guilds moving to the next games but I never saw communities based on "previous game" filter. On the other hand I have no proof of this being uncommon so I won't comment on this one =)

Bottom line: ex-GW players dominating other games is not likely IMO

I think the statement was more aimed towards top PvP moreso than the average PvE'r. There are simply to many gimmicks that are shoved down an average pve'rs throat for them to learn much about adaptation and effective play styles.

wut ur saying is the basis for true artificial intelligence as it requires robots to make independent thoughts and execute decisions based on that. true ai is wut robots need, and the ai in games is scripted ai, designed to react a certain way based on what happens in game. since true ai has not been developed in the real world, im going to say that ur oversimplifying gw pvp just a lil bit.