Board Game Arena

In texas hold'em many pro players say that if an amateur plays 100 games against a top player, he will win 20 games and lose 80.
I think it's true for many games, wingspan included. if you are a noob and play a game with an experienced player who knows how maximize their chance , you will probabily lose unless you are very lucky. if the level of players are the same, luck will plays a more consistent role.

Why bother playing board games at all if you're afraid of luck getting in the way?

At this point, you may as well try for the Olympics or try becoming a professional Football/Soccer player if you want skill only. But even then luck is a factor.

I wish the original poster well. That's a valid opinion and take away to playing games with luck elements at a high level. I really appreciate the element of luck in forcing adaptability and to add an element of mystery to the equation. It's nice to play to find out what happens, despite everyone's best effort to minimize risk.

Lots of us have probably played those 12 round games that were ultimately decided in round 3, and everyone is just playing it out, never to catch up.
Luck makes it a bit less boring, keeps people motivated to go to the next stage. They might get a lucky break!

SluggerBaloney wrote: ↑10 January 2023, 22:10

sorryimlikethis wrote: ↑10 January 2023, 04:55 Do you think you're understating how "very simple" it is to play Wingspan competently? Seeing as there are people at the top with 80+% win rates? And you are stuck on 60% complaining about luck?

Again, when you try and insult me vs discussing my point, you just prove me right. You have no argument so you just get nasty. Sad.

That's not an insult, just the data. You are sitting at a 40% winrate in Can't Stop with over 500 games. Do you think you're just getting below average luck that consistently? Wake up. Just because the game looks super simple and all luck to you doesn't mean that it is.

I was wondering how top players deal with a starting hand without wetland birds and a bad market, so i went to check on games they play and found out : they just randomly draw one from top of the deck.

aint it funny how skilled players seem to get all the luck?

Dave101tt wrote: ↑04 May 2023, 04:28 aint it funny how skilled players seem to get all the luck?

A fantastic attitude for trying to improve at a game

Madlaine wrote: ↑25 February 2023, 18:50 I was wondering how top players deal with a starting hand without wetland birds and a bad market, so i went to check on games they play and found out : they just randomly draw one from top of the deck.

Did you find one replay where this happened? Two? Or do you have some real significant statistics to back a claim like that? Obviously there is luck in Wingspan but nowhere near how much you think there is

sorryimlikethis, what a haymaker! Your reply floored him 4 months ago and he's yet to regain consciousness. Darn near banished him to the shadow realm!

The concept of luck in games is very simple:
luck is random, statistically it affects you exactly the same as all the other playes.
This statement made, the consequence is very simple: if you are a better player, in the LONG PERIOD you will win more often than weaker players.

SPOILER: you can't assess how good or bad a player is, based on one lucky/unluky game.

Fullstop.

BStaude wrote: ↑11 May 2023, 02:25 sorryimlikethis, what a haymaker! Your reply floored him 4 months ago and he's yet to regain consciousness. Darn near banished him to the shadow realm!

This sounds borderline offensive.
The user you're insulting stopped replying simply because the user you're idolising, was... a tad offensive, to begin with?

I mean, there were many replies (and counter-replies) and only his and Fletcheese's were a tad offensive.
Why was there a need to compare the % of wins or for those shady "350 games" or "7th. attempt" things?
Or for those "wake up!" or "ridiculous"?
I would rather call that an offensively presented data, not just data.
Same as if I now say that the guy asking those questions has a lower ELO than SluggerBaloney, regardless of the % of wins; moreover, the % of wins can be pulled down if one is playing & winning training mode games, by the nr. of wins staying the same, while the nr. of games played going +1.
So one might argue that the % of wins might be less important than the ELO, given this "training-mode games" handicap.

I agree and disagree with SluggerBaloney.

The game is not same-level-luck, as Can't Stop or Backgammon; in Backgammon, avid players say there are thousands and thousands of books written about its strategy, but for me, it's a lot more luck; same as in Love Letter: some Arena winner in a season kept praising the game for its... supreme strategic power, but that player hasn't even made top 10 since then; so again, another luck-based game that people tend to over-inflate.

As Balloney put it, if the players in a Wingspan game are the same level (skill-wise), the luck is what makes the difference.
And sometimes, you simply can't win, no matter what, which is established almost from the start.
These things cannot happen in Chess or Puerto Rico, or even 7 Wonders, for instance.
Or are less extreme, like in Tokaido, where you can improvise.

So yeah... I have >80% win rate in this Wingspan Mumbo Jumbo, I also play & win training mode games (that are counted as losses, so my % of Wingspan wins decreases), and I still say that most of what SluggerBaloney said, is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but true: including the ego and all those other stuff.

I'm sorry I'm the only one with this pessimistic opinion.