In the end, it's only luck

[Madlaine]

No matter how good you try to be, if your long strategy kicks in or not, if your opponent is lucky on the draw, you loose. I don't see the point of competing on this game anymore. I lost the taste after several tight loo that sent me way off the top ladder (i took me 8 win straight to go top 100 to top 20, no way i can do it again).
Lost last game by 1 single point due to my oppenent scoring an amzing 18 on bonus card and it sent me 15 places down the ladder, ridiculous.
I said it many time but this is my last, i quit this game.

[nccc]

bye

[Lumin_S]

Most games on BGA have some element of luck, and Wingspan is definitely one of them. It's part of the game. I'm at #1 on the ladder right now but have also had a couple unlucky games to drop me down before getting back up - it happens to all of us because of how the game is designed.

There are also many games on BGA with little to no luck involved. Agricola has somewhat less luck involved but there are still unlucky moments, though rarer. Patchwork and Terra Mystica are great perfect-information games to try.

[Jellby]

Drones vs. Seagulls, if you like the bird theme

[Strode]

The fact that a game has some luck doesn't mean it's *only* luck. If you don't outplay your opponents by enough, the luck could do you in. Any game with any amount of luck allows for the possibility that luck can tilt the scales one way our another.

[michaelHastriter]

When you reach a certain skill level, luck becomes more the reason why you lost and not lack of skill. If you feel you reached that skill level then so be it but over a long stretch of time everyone has the same luck so please don't stop.

[Ze Monstah]

Compared to other half-luck / half-brain games, this game certainly is more dependent on luck, if all brains are decent (yours and the enemies').
Perhaps the brainy part is more important when the total nr. of wins is concerned.

But the way you sometimes lose drastically to players, not because of strategy, but because of how everything gets served to them on a silver platter, makes the game seem more luck-dependent.

Unfortunately: the cards the players start with, the 3 cards available, the bonus cards, the end-of-round goals and the order of start are way too important to give this game a competitive vibe similar to other games.

If you always start with stinky cards while the enemy gets golden ones, if you start last most of times, and most of those times, the enemy has a wonderful card in the 3 available ones, card needed for both end-of-round goals and for his/her bonus card, then there's no need to think you're not brainy enough... Just too unlucky compared to others.

But on the longer run, your total nr. of wins might be decent enough, if your brain is decent enough even when you are cursed.

Regardless, very stinky situations happen in this game, sometimes.

[cosmosis]

I think a good way to judge whether a game is 'just luck' is to look at the ELO distribution. The less luck, the higher ELOs the top ELO players can achieve. (One caveat here is that the game has to be popular enough or be on the site long enough to have enough data for this distribution to develop). Also, the correct way to do this would be to look at the mean, standard deviation, etc of the distribution but this will just be a quick look.

In Wingspan, the top players are breaking 600 on the ELO rating at the moment.

Let's compare it to other popular games:
Some games that have little luck:
Terra Mystica top players around 700.
Caylus top players are around 1000!

A game that has a lot of luck:
Can't Stop top players are around 460

Wingspan does seem to fall somewhere in the middle. I feel like it is a fairly even balance of luck and skill. There are definitely a lot of luck components, but you also have to constantly react to the changing state of everyone's boards and that takes skill.

Similar to you, I have lost games to very unlucky circumstances (opponent rolling a mouse on 1 die at the end and beating me by a point). I have also been top 20 and then slid back out of the top 100, and while it's temporarily discouraging I like the game enough to continue, I still feel I am improving, and I hope to achieve top 10 sometime.

[SluggerBaloney]

Deleted

[cosmosis]

if your opponent is lucky on the draw, you loose. I don't see the point of competing on this game anymore.

Of course. Wingspan is one of the most variance heavy games on this site. It's up there with Can't Stop.

The cards you start with are random
The cards in the tray are random
The cards you draw from the deck are random
The round goals are random
The food you get in the feeder is random
The bonus cards you get are random
All of the "hunt" scoring cards are random
Who goes first is random

It is a game with variance, but not even close to Can't Stop. Another statistic to show the difference: the site's top Wingspan player wins ~90% of their 2-player games, while the top Can't Stop player wins ~60% of their 2-player games.

Many of the random things you mentioned in Wingspan are mitigated (e.g. you can trade any 2 resources for another 1, or draw x cards choose n). In Can't Stop, there is no mitigation to a bad roll.

It's fine being competitive even in luck-based games but you have to go in with the right mindset. Competitive poker players, for instance, need to expect to have long losing streaks.