Re: "Quantity" and "Contest" Ratings

From: aescleal_at_...
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 08:58:18 +0100 (BST)


>From playing it looks like 20 points is about a multiplication of between 4 and 6, not 16 or so that doubling every 5 point would indicate - and that's with an extended contest played out over a large number of exchanges.

With a simple contest going from 14 to 19 against a default resistance is only about ~1/6 more likely to suceed - again based on experience, not theory!

Cheers,

Ash

> from: Kevin Blackburn <kevin_at_...>
> date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 22:44:56
> to: hw-rules_at_yahoogroups.com
> subject: Re: "Quantity" and "Contest" Ratings
>
> I was writing the following to convince myself while contemplating
> porting the HW rules to another game, so it is rather assertive in its
> tone. Still, it might interest:
>
> HeroWars appears to have two types of abilities or ratings, and the
> confusion between them causes some difficulties.
>
> The first type is a quantity rating. Some base quantity is set to
> a value of 12. Each doubling of the underlying quantity is worth a 5 to
> the rating, in a logarithmic manner  thus multiplying the quantity by
> eight is only a 15, not, for instance 20 for a linear relationship
> between multiplier and bonus. This is reasonably explicit in the rules.
> A classic example of a quantity rating is Wealth.
>
> The second type is a contest rating. Again, there is a base rating
> of 12. However, the 5 comes if a given contestant is twice as likely to
> win over someone with a base rating. That is, if you arranged a sequence
> of one-on-one contests, the 17 rating would win twice as many as their
> 12 rating opponents. A rating of 2W would win four times as many, and so
> forth. There is an assumption that a 2W rating would win twice as often
> over a 17 rating  which is an assumption about the rating scale
> rather than a property of probability. In particular, it is clear that
> this sort of contest rating is not intended to be such that someone with
> a 17 rating could take on two contestants with a rating of 12
> simultaneously as an even fight  in many contests (combat in
> particular) the two can gain all sorts of leverage over the one. The
> classic hero wars contest rating is Close Combat.
>
> The contest style of rating loosely fits the HeroWars contest
> mechanics of a one-on-one rating rather well, with the probabilities
> associated with the dice rolls seeming roughly to have the right effects
> (there is a variety of complications caused by the result of a contest
> being on a scale of complete victory to complete loss of 9 steps, if you
> count a draw). Indeed, considering the probabilities associated with a
> contest is the most obvious way to derive the existence of contest
> ratings.
>
> Carrying out a contest with either or both of the ratings being quantity
> ratings begs the question of whether this is a fair model. A good
> example is matching the run fast contest rating against a
> Speed quantity rating. Run fast developed as a character
> trait, built on with a 1HP per 1 mechanism is best seen as a will I
> win in a foot race with other people. A rating of 17 is probably not
> intended to mean I run roughly twice as fast as a normal person.
>
> A normal person can perhaps run at 8 miles per hour over a distance,
> though a four minute mile is going at a rate of 15 mph. Thus if Run
> Fast was a quantity rating, a top modern athlete would be at a rating
> of around 17 compared with a base human 12 (presumably all humans other
> than perhaps role-players have some basic ability to run). A riding
> horse's trot is some 12-14 mph, and its gallop maybe 34 mph (a 2W over a
> distance on a quantity scale, unachievable by real world humans). Looked
> at another way, a top athlete might be one in a thousand adults (some
> 2^10 adults) who are in principle capable of running a mile, so at 12
> (10 * 5) = 2W3.
>
> A major point of the HeroWars system is to avoid anyone having to worry
> about detailed arithmetic. Perhaps the appropriate advice to a games
> master is to let players know whether their abilities are contest
> or quantity ratings, and to be aware there treasured multiple
> masteries will suddenly collapse into a more meagre rating if the
> contest is suddenly against a quantity. The game master might also want
> to have some idea of the translation for any ratings that seem crucial.
> This translation should take into account any magical nature of the game
> world  perhaps you want a good Orlanthi to be able to outrun a horse.
>
> (If you like this sort of nonsense, then I could follow up with related
> stuff on how to run a Many-onto-one combat)
> --
> Kevin Blackburn Kevin_at_...
>
>
>
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