My review of the damage formula and random factors

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Sep 17, 2009 22:03

Subject: My review of the damage formula and random factors

ahbritto

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Joined: Jun 05, 2009,
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First off my qualifications for review:

- I love the game
- As a game author I was awarded: Best Strategy Game, MacWorld Game Hall of Fame 1991

A little disclosure:

Prior to reviewing the formula I disliked the random factors.

My conclusion:

The formula is excellent and the random factors are wonderful.

Here's why:

The author's of the formula had little choice for the formula after they decided to factor in as many elements as they did. These are elements such as attack strength, defense strength, gang up, health, and randomness. The formula simply achieves their obvious design goals.

My initial dislike of the randomness I now attribute to the bug in the currently released version. The bug exaggerated the randomness.

As designed, the randomness is very minor and can occasionally be exceptional. What this randomness does, is it transforms UniWar from a chess like game into a simulation. In real battles, there are unexpected and uncontrollable out comes. The randomness in the formula brings those factors into the game.

One player complained that he didn't like his game being determined by luck as often a battle is won by a single critical strike. And, at the time I agreed. Now, seeing how minor the randomness is designed to be, I have a new outlook.

The new outlook is: a skillful player will take random factors into an account and not play so close to the edge. That is, they will work to neutralize and balance the random factors. Very occasionally, the random factors may change the fate of the most skillful player. But, that is the nature of war. Which is the very experience I believe the author's are trying to bring to the game.

To the authors:

Great job!

-Arthur Britto
Author of Armor Alley

Sep 18, 2009 02:29

Subject: My review of the damage formula and random factors

Hachiman

Messages: 118,
Joined: Jun 25, 2009,
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I generally agree - a small random factor actually adds to the strategy (and means balanced maps are less likely to have a single optimum 'solution').

But lets see what it is like when it works as designed, before we decide it is the ideal system.

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