Dice Functionality by jwheath

[foggy crypt]

Welcome @tender flicker! Any feedback from the community will show up here.
Please note that this thread discussion is not shared with SMG.
It is solely for the RISK Community to discuss ideas & provide constructive feedback!

[wide sable]

You don’t need to put the ✅YES/❌NO on every post. Also this channel isn’t really for polls on ideas people have already suggested, including the developers in this case, but rather for new ideas

[tender flicker]

I include this information because some newer users may not recognize that clicking on the icon records a YES vote and clicking on the icon records a NO vote. Often my submissions are based on conversations occurring on other discussion channels. The poll helps gauge the level of support for the concept. Additionally this information gets shared with the developers, whereas general channel conversations do not.

[wide sable]

It’s pretty clear what the emojis mean. People may be new to the game/server but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand basic concepts. But sure if you really want to include it whatever. With regards to what you’re posting, posting an idea from another channel is fine. But posting a poll of support for an idea that has been posted in this channel before is not the intent of this channel. It’s supposed to be people posting new ideas that they have and players can provide feedback in the form of voting so both the creator and the devs can know if it’s a good idea or at least a well supported one

[tender flicker]

I find that when an idea is generating a fair amount of discussion it is often beneficial to see what level of support it has.  In the case, of the BB dice adjustments, I would expect this to have support, but perhaps I am wrong.  If so, I will stand down on this topic.  I encourage you to submit ideas that you have.  If I agree with them, I will give you, my vote.  If not, I will ignore it.  I would suggest that you to do the same with my submissions.

[tiny basin]

The issue with removing the current bb, is that players have spent a lot of time building an intuition for how bb works.

If rather than removing it, they added a 3rd dice option, like Super-Balanced, then players would still have access to the current bb, but also have the option for a lower variance option

[tender flicker]

Yes. It is clear that the is a core group of individuals that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo when it comes to the existing dice formula. I am a fan of the concept of balanced blitz. Anytime outcomes are less luck based and more skill based, it is good in my book. However, if this is not a concern for the majority, then there are plenty of other issues to focus on.

[hazy rapids]

you cant just pull the "some people like it this way because they are abusing it" to everything everyone says man ... its risk, it has like 2 rules. attacker roll 3, defender rolls 2, ties go to the defender. that was never supposed to be skillful. its supposed to be RNG.

and its the same RNG whether you are the best player on earth, or the worst player.

the fact that you can have big swings using BB in terms of troop loss should be thought of as the tradeoff for being able to guarantee the bigger outcome of a take or not.

[tender flicker]

True random is the dice option that you are describing.  It produces random results by design.

Balanced Blitz is advertised as reducing extremes.

Ultimately it is a matter of what you view as extreme.  I recently posted three examples of balanced blitz attacks between similarly sized army’s where the victor retained the majority of their troops.  To me, battles between similarly sized Army’s should be relatively close, not wipe-outs.  If you disagree that is your prerogative.

[tiny basin]

Balanced blitz seems to fit the average player. Those who want higher luck have True Random, but those who want lower luck currently have no other dice option.

Introducing a super-balanced option would be ideal for those players.

[meager kernel]

The reason I voted against this is mainly because of the discussion we had. That's also the problem with voting on polls, instead of ideas I would say, that it's unclear what the goal/idea is.

Based on the discussion we had it's clear to me that @tender flicker doesn't actually want a solution that further reduces "extreme outcomes". Because I showed what such a solution would look like and he didn't seem to like those results. So there is a misunderstanding of what are likely outcomes to begin with. The actual idea, in my words, seems to be to change the troop distribution in a way that's not achievable with/based on rolling dice. Because further reduction of unlikely outcomes is not gonna lead to what is envisioned.

With regards to actually creating an option that further reduces unlikely outcomes, my opinion would be there isn't much benefit to do so. I do believe in the design philosophy that feature bloat can be a serious issue. Thus without strong reasons or requests to do so, I think you risk splitting the available pool of players for each game further, without much gain.

[tender flicker]

I was simply providing an idea that I thought might make the game more skill-based.  I tend to focus on the issue vs the solution.  There are usually lots of ways to address a problem.  For example, with dice outcomes, you could easily create a separate win/loss calculation and a troops lost/remaining calculation that produced more realistic outcomes.  While I’m not sure that Discord polls are very representative of the player base, they are what we have.  So if there is not broad support for one idea, I move on to the next one.  I think that there are plenty of opportunities to improve the game.

[meager kernel]

I'm just very confused by this poll considering the discussion. You're not gonna find a solution if it's unclear what the problem is. In the discussion it was explained that reducing "extreme outcomes" will not be a solution for what you experience to be problematic battle outcomes. So even if the devs would implement this straight away, it will never fix the "problem".

[tender flicker]

In real life, it would be highly improbable that if two similarly sized/equipped Army’s entered into an engagement that the result would be a blow-out win for one.  Yet this happens with some regularity with balanced blitz.  The poll was simply to see if there was broad interest in reducing these types of unrealistic outcomes.  There are ways accomplish this.  However, if there is not broad support (which is what the poll results indicate), then it tells me that it is better to focus on other areas.

[hazy rapids]

it would be highly improbably in real life if eastern united states went to war with western united states too. luckily, this is a game, not real life

[meager kernel]

For the record "In real life" means in an actual war right (don't know why that would be relevant)? Not as in True Random. Because in the context of rolling dice it simply are not "unrealistic outcomes". I still bring it up, since I think it also applies to some of the other polls and I don't understand what's the point of having a discussion, if the solution doesn't address the discussed arguments.

[tender flicker]

Correct.  In an actual war, it would be highly unlikely that a similarly sized/equipped army would have a blowout win against another.  It is relevant because RISK is a war game.  Granted, the original version used dice.  That was the best option in 1957 when the game was invented.  Today, better options exist to make the game more realistic/skill-based.  My polls are not intended to provide specific solutions.  Instead, they are to help gauge areas where there is broad agreement.  The goal is to help identify the improvements that most players would like to see implemented. This poll as shows that updating the dice algorithm is not a priority for many. I accept the results, and will focus on other improvement opportunities.

[meager kernel]

I don't agree with the premise that the game is trying to model warfare. But even in warfare there is a relatively high variation in battle outcome(/casualties?) for smaller number of units, because that's just how probability works.

[tender flicker]

I would say that at its core RISK is a warfare simulation game.  While in 1957 dice was the best option available, today better options exist.  If more people supported a more realistic battle model, I would advocate for this.  However, the poll indicates that this idea is not broadly supported so I think it can be set aside for now.

[meager kernel]

I’m gonna try one last time in the form a story, to see if that can explain it to you. Because I really don’t understand how you can ignore the whole point about variation from the very start of the discussion, or be so confident about it if you don’t understand it.

The red and purple army meet each other (IRL) at the battle of Siam, consisting of 10 troops each, for a battle till death. They’re both well trained and all soldiers are completely equal in strength, this is going to be an interesting fight! One of the red soldiers blows a horn and they begin the attack first. While storming in the direction of the blue army they fire a crossbow, and… headshot! The purple army is now 1 man down. That’s a big blow, because their armies are so small that it will be a considerable disadvantage for the remainder of the fight.

The battle continues for quite some time, it’s really an equal fight, that any of the armies could win. Red loses a man, purple loses one, red loses three more in close combat and almost at the same time purple loses three more as well. There are now 6 red soldiers left vs 5 purple soldiers. The disadvantage of missing an extra man is now really noticeable and the purple soldiers have a hard time to keep up. In the next 10 minutes the purple soldiers manage to kill 1 more red soldier, but due to the increased fatigue the purple army loses 3 more man.

Since it’s now 5 red soldiers still versus only 2 purple soldiers. The purple soldiers stand no chance, while individually not being inferior to any of their red rivals. The last brave purple soldiers are easily stabbed and die. An easy victory for the 5 remaining red soldiers!

Moral of the story:

1. Variation is inherently relatively large in small armies, since missing an extra man is more noticeable than in a large army (for rolling dice in rounds, it’s about repeated sampling);
2. It’s unlikely that one of the armies wins with 1 or 2 soldiers left (or a small number in general), since it’s way more likely that at that point the other army has more troops left and they easily defeat the remaining troops (due to the difference getting relatively larger, for the same absolute difference).

[tender flicker]

I agree that with smaller Armies, things can be more unpredictable.
 
I also noticed that you use a much smaller Army in your example 🙂 .
 
In your story, I would say that you are being very generous to Red.  Especially in round five where both Armies have five troops and you have them eliminating three (60%) of purple’s troops.
 
That said, a battle between peers where the outcome is that one army retains 40% of their troops, is more plausible that the actual BB examples that I provided.  In each case, the winning Army retained 50% or more of their troops.
 
I’m simply saying that a better model could be built if there was broad support for the idea.  For now, it looks like that support is not there.

[wide sable]

The only way I could see improving the model to a less variant one would be one where you lose equal troops. This was suggested by Luci. So if you attack one you lose one. If you attack 20 you lose 20. You could maybe change it slightly so that there could be a slight attackers advantage. Basically remove the dice from the game. But I think the problem with that is that it reduces the skill imo. It just becomes a math game and there’s really no risk at all. I think the current BB provides the perfect amount of risk/chance without it being game ruining in either direction. It also promotes attacking which is key

[tender flicker]

One option would be to base the remaining troop number on the initial troop difference.  If Army A started with 10% more troops than Army B, then they would retain 10% of their troops if they won the battle.  To me, it does not really matter what calculation is used as long as the outcome is realistic and similar conditions do not produce wildly different results.  Otherwise, one might as well play true random.

[wide sable]

That math quickly breaks down. If you ever have twice as many troops, like a 10v5, then you wouldn’t lose any troops. A 200v50 wouldn’t lose a single troop either as they have more than 100% more troops so they would retain 100%