mdp2021 a day ago

People frequently do not understand the statistics underlying real world dynamics, embrace oversimplified world models, and going against that has them discouraged? That is one strong re-expression of the satanic attitude.

From cinematography, two big examples "that may have people leave the theater, then":

-- in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the Sheriff (Gene Hackman) re-telling the story of English Bob:

> You see, the night that Corky walked into the Blue Bottle, and before he knows what's happening, Bob here takes a shot at him! And he misses, 'cause he's so damn drunk. Now that bullet whizzing by panicked old Corky, and he did the wrong thing. He went for his gun in such a hurry that he shot his own damn toe off. Meantime Bob here, he's aiming real good, and he squeezes off another, but he misses, because he's still so damn drunk, and he hits this thousand-dollar mirror up over the bar. And now, the Duck of Death is as good as dead. Because Corky does it right. He aims real careful, no hurry... [...] BAM! That Walker Colt blew up in his hand, which was a failing common to that model. You see, if Corky had had two guns instead of just a big dick, he would have been there right to the end to defend himself. [...] Well, old Bob wasn't gonna wait for Corky to grow a new hand. No, he just walked over there real slow - 'cause he was drunk - and shot him right through the liver

-- the scene in Vince Gilligan's El Camino, in which a bunch of gunners is so hijacked by the unpreparedness to the havoc that most bullets end on the scenery.

Not documentaries, but statistically relevant like the ten "black" in sequence at the roulette, frequent as the wheel is having well over a thousand spins.

▲ izacus a day ago | parent [-]

People don't need to understand statistics for games, people understand what's fun. And that mechanic wasn't fun no matter how much you "well akshually" it.

There's a reason why pretty much ever single new tactics game got rid of the probability based hit chance. It's a dead end in game design.

▲ 2muchcoffeeman a day ago | parent | next [-]

Doesn’t the new xcom still have percentage to hit based on distance to the target?

Having an RNG hit chance is fine as long as the probability “feels right”. “Point blank” should have a 100% chance.

	▲	mdp2021 a day ago \| parent [-]
		> Point blank If the target is a mime pretending to a statue, yes, probably, it will approximate that. The turn-based animation of UFO/XCOM may have felt so static and poised - but it narrated a military action...

▲ YeGoblynQueenne a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We're talking about X-COM: Enemy Unkown, the Firaxis game, right? I had so much fun with this game that I don't even remember that RNG issue as being an issue. Most likely, if I failed a "certain to land" shot and the squad was in a really, really tough spot, I'd just shrug and re-load a save [1]. I mean, it's not Nethack, is it? [2]

In any case, I really don't get it. So you point your gun at an alien and you see a chance to hit at "85%". What do you do? Do you think to yourself "oh, cool, that's a certain hit"? It's not: there's a 15% chance to miss.

I think ragequtting over that is just the standard phenomenon, in both strategy games and real life, that people never make contingency plans, they just make one plan and assume there's no chance of failure because they're so smart to plan ahead and the competition is clearly too dumb to have any plans of their own. In my book, any plan where one imagines themselves emerging triumphant after beating all the odds like the dice are loaded in their favour by the gods is not so much a "plan" as a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And I, for one, don't find those fun. YMMV, but let's not assume that everyone enjoys the same things, in games or in life.

P.S.:

>> There's a reason why pretty much ever single new tactics game got rid of the probability based hit chance. It's a dead end in game design.

You mean, they still have hit chances but they don't tell you what they are so they can tweak them behind your back, so you win enough to buy their next game? Oldest trick in the book [3].

____________

[1] I hate losing men.

[2] There's an "Iron Man" mode but that turns out to only play the Black Sabbath song in a loop.

[3] https://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

  They wanted Mel to modify the program 
  so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console,
  they could change the odds and let the customer win.

▲ mdp2021 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I was referring to the interpretation of «ridiculous» as "it is preposterous", not at that which means "it is frustrating".

And personally, in front of "UFO: Enemy Unknown" I lived the pleasure of the masterpiece, not the balanced game - some of us have little taste for the win-and-lose. We learnt assembly when we were kids to make those sides of the gameplay adapt to our will - and went on hacking since.

Of UFO/XCOM, one particularly stubborn subsystem to change was having the "radars" not missing any new alien ship.