When will B1t's Crew get experience for the last battle?
The rolls changed /6 sounds good.
CodeNut wrote:
It has already been given:
http://hovercraftbattles.110mb.com/Ranks.htm
Okay thanks. Different link from the OP. Kinda confusing.
Vogt stopped running the Hovercraft battles and I don't have the kind of financial assets to maintain something on a page like awardspace (I looked up the information). So for the purpose of maintaining the battles, I essentially cloned the website with substantial editing to the rules page (to reflect accuracy to the game), updated ranks page, and a use for the combat page.
Maybe I can see if Virrago can edit that first post to include the new link sometime, though.
OK. I've been thinking about a way to level the field between ranked and non-ranked captains. The roll to 6 on ballistics and shields, might not solve the problem in a fair way as I see it. So, I propose the following: A Skill roll.
A Skill roll will apply only if there's a rank difference greater than 1, i.e. if both players are of the same rank it won't apply. Roll base number will be 3, as any other battle roll.
If a higher ranking player wins the roll, s/he will keep her/his base statistic (ballistic, shield) at her/his current level, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 captain wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, s/he keeps her/his ballistic stat at 2 (given s/he has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.
If a lower ranking player wins the roll, the higher player will have it's base statistics (ballistic, shield) lowered at the same level of the lower ranking player, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 and a Rank 0 captains make their Skill roll. The Rank 0 wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, The Rank 1 captain will have her/his ballistic stat at 1 (given the Rank 0 captain has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.
If there's a tie, re-roll, as usual.
At the end of the particular engagement, stats reset at their normal level, and won't be carried, i.e. each round will require a Skill roll, when appliable.
I called it a Skill roll, but the name can be changed. As I said, the roll will be a random 3, as any other battle roll.
What do you think? Will it work?
TekMon wrote:
OK. I've been thinking about a way to level the field between ranked and non-ranked captains. The roll to 6 on ballistics and shields, might not solve the problem in a fair way as I see it. So, I propose the following: A Skill roll.A Skill roll will apply only if there's a rank difference greater than 1, i.e. if both players are of the same rank it won't apply. Roll base number will be 3, as any other battle roll.If a higher ranking player wins the roll, s/he will keep her/his base statistic (ballistic, shield) at her/his current level, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 captain wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, s/he keeps her/his ballistic stat at 2 (given s/he has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.If a lower ranking player wins the roll, the higher player will have it's base statistics (ballistic, shield) lowered at the same level of the lower ranking player, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 and a Rank 0 captains make their Skill roll. The Rank 0 wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, The Rank 1 captain will have her/his ballistic stat at 1 (given the Rank 0 captain has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.If there's a tie, re-roll, as usual.At the end of the particular engagement, stats reset at their normal level, and won't be carried, i.e. each round will require a Skill roll, when appliable.I called it a Skill roll, but the name can be changed. As I said, the roll will be a random 3, as any other battle roll.What do you think? Will it work?
I could see this being abused by players setting stats low (i.e. ballistics at 0) thereby making other players miss while keeping a normal chance to evade (i.e. ship configuration 4 hull, 2 shields) leaving them with stronger than normal ramming capabilities, low chance to be hit, so long as they succeed.
Neoteny wrote:
<.< >.> What? High Hull stats? What are you talking about *hides the stats of all EPN captains*...
TekMon wrote:OK. I've been thinking about a way to level the field between ranked and non-ranked captains. The roll to 6 on ballistics and shields, might not solve the problem in a fair way as I see it. So, I propose the following: A Skill roll.A Skill roll will apply only if there's a rank difference greater than 1, i.e. if both players are of the same rank it won't apply. Roll base number will be 3, as any other battle roll.If a higher ranking player wins the roll, s/he will keep her/his base statistic (ballistic, shield) at her/his current level, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 captain wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, s/he keeps her/his ballistic stat at 2 (given s/he has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.If a lower ranking player wins the roll, the higher player will have it's base statistics (ballistic, shield) lowered at the same level of the lower ranking player, for the next regular (ballistic, shield) roll. For example, a Rank 1 and a Rank 0 captains make their Skill roll. The Rank 0 wins the Skill roll and a ballistic roll will resolve, The Rank 1 captain will have her/his ballistic stat at 1 (given the Rank 0 captain has the regular ship configuration) as the base for the ballistic roll.If there's a tie, re-roll, as usual.At the end of the particular engagement, stats reset at their normal level, and won't be carried, i.e. each round will require a Skill roll, when appliable.I called it a Skill roll, but the name can be changed. As I said, the roll will be a random 3, as any other battle roll.What do you think? Will it work?I could see this being abused by players setting stats low (i.e. ballistics at 0) thereby making other players miss while keeping a normal chance to evade (i.e. ship configuration 4 hull, 2 shields) leaving them with stronger than normal ramming capabilities, low chance to be hit, so long as they succeed.
I visualize the Skill roll as a way to level the battlefield, between higher and lower ranked players, "de-pumping" higher stats when needed. Hull must be kept, in my oppinion, because a veteran player deserves her/his hovercraft lasts longer. The same goes for energy and the combat phases it gives.
Regarding the potential abuse of higher ranked players ramming with their hovercraft, we can add that if s/he lost the Skill roll, s/he lost automatically the hull point, without any additional shield check, giving to the lower ranked the chance to go directly the ballistic roll, with its own Skill roll, and possibly inflicting additional damage.
In the case where a higher rank player has her/his stats at a lower level than a lower rank player, i.e. ballistic 0 - shield 0 or as with Void's sentinel, lower hull integrity; a Skill roll is not needed, as I see it now, because the regular roll will do its work.
It is better with these modifications? What do you think?
What is it that you don't see fair about the /random 6, Tek? All of these rules you're sugesting for skill rolls seem to be making things a bit too complex and disorienting for my taste, and the game is already daunting enough to newcomers.
A high rank player will win always against a lower rank player, because a random 6 still lefts the high rank player with her/his stats intact. For example, RedBindi hovercraft needs the low ranked player to make a ballistic roll of 4 or higher and wait she lost the throw. Of course, that is a 50% throw, but if eventually she keeps earning more experience, the time might come where her ballistic roll might be pumped up to 6 and then current situation will arise again.
My Skill roll proposal is to give a chance to lower rank players and yet to allow higher rank players to play. As it is now, higher rank players are farming XP points from lower rank players. Remember that was the reason Vogt set a rather complicated way to pair battles, even deniying a higher rank player the opportunity to play, if there was not a proper match.
I know the extra roll will be a burden to keep, but what we're looking for is to entince new players and let them know they can win if fortune and a proper battle management are on their side, regardless of the rank of the other player.
A high rank player will win always against a lower rank player, because a random 6 still lefts the high rank player with her/his stats intact.
No, a higher rank player will not always win against a lower rank player if they do /random 6. Let's say that a ship with default stats (3 1 1 1) is shooting at a ship with shields at 3. If the ranked ship rolls a 1, then the unranked ship can win by rolling either a 4, 5, or 6. This way, the new players have a much better chance of doing some damage to the ranked players and surviving longer, while the ranked players do not feel that their accomplishments are meaningless.
Omega0 wrote:
TekMon wrote:A high rank player will win always against a lower rank player, because a random 6 still lefts the high rank player with her/his stats intact.No, a higher rank player will not always win against a lower rank player if they do /random 6. Let's say that a ship with default stats (3 1 1 1) is shooting at a ship with shields at 3. If the ranked ship rolls a 1, then the unranked ship can win by rolling either a 4, 5, or 6. This way, the new players have a much better chance of doing some damage to the ranked players and surviving longer, while the ranked players do not feel that their accomplishments are meaningless.
As stats stand now, yes, the lower rank player might win the roll. I'm proposing the Skill roll as a way to anticipate the time when a 6 base roll won't be enough. In the other hand, I'm not throwing away veteran accomplishments.
On the contrary, the debuff applies only at the resolving combat phase. If the higher rank player wins the Skill roll, her/his stats apply, exactly as it's happening now, while if s/he losts, the stats go down to the same level as the lower rank captain, with a chance of winning the attack roll, either shield or ballistics.
Let's face it. We're discussing this because nobody wants to lose against a higher ranked captain, knowing beforehand that the battle will be lost with the current rules.
OK. I decided to stop being argumentative and decided to bring some simple mathematical analysis, in order to back up my claims about the fairness of a random roll increase against my proposal of a Skill roll to debuff higher stats.
First. The table below shows the results of rolling a random 3 dice, without modifiers, i.e. when both players have the same value at a given stat:
The probabilities are as follows:
Now, let's see the odds, when there's a +1 modifier:
As such, the probabilities are:
If there's a +2 modifier, then the results are:
Then the probabilities are:
At this point, we can see that it won't matter what Player 1 does, he can't win. We can even propose to speed up the battling process, giving the winning roll to Player 2, without the need of throwing the dice.
Nevertheless, let's see how a random 6 dice behave. The following table shows the results of rolling a random 6 dice, without modifiers:
Under this scenario, the probabilities are:
Not bad, apparently, even with higher odds than a random 3 roll. However, when there's a +1 modifier, the results are as follow:
Suddenly, the probabilities for winning are lower than with a random 3 roll:
With a +2 modifier the probabilities are:
With a +3 modifier the probabilities are:
With a +4 modifier the probabilities are:
And finally, a +5 modifier gives probabilities of:
In conclusion. A random 6 gives chance to a lower rank player to compete against a higher rank player, with odds favorable to the higher ranking player, but it eventually will lead us to a situation similar to the current one. My proposal for a Skill roll doesn't have this limitation, though it needs to be tested to see if it will help to promote the hovercraft battles.
That's all well and good for the /random 3 rolls - which are flawed, and that's the goal to fix it.
As it stands, with increasing to a /random 6 roll, a ship with a stat of 0 going against a ship with a stat of 3 would still have a 1/12 chance of success, with a 1/6 chance to succeed or tie. (i.e. this is the equivalent of a ship with a stat of 1 [since we have relatively low 0's] going against a ship with a stat of 4, which, outside of hull, does not exist yet). Under the normal system, the stat 0 would have 0% chance to hit or tie.
A ship with a stat of 0 going against a ship with a stat of 2 has a 1/6 chance of success and a 10/36 chance of success or tie (i.e. shp with stat 1 vs ship with stat 3). Under the current system, the stat 0 would have 0% chance to hit and 1/9 chance to tie.
A ship with a stat of 0 going against a ship with a stat of 1 (stat 1 vs stat 2) has an 11/36 chance to succeed and a 16/36 chance to tie. Under the current system, the stat 0 would have 1/9 (for comparison, that's 4/36 - the /random 6 improves odds 4 times over here) chance to hit and 2 chances to tie.
These rolls are a significant improvement and, I believe, will be what we will use, at least in one test battle, though I do not foresee any difficulties.
