Dice

[cknuckles]

So far, I have been exceedingly unlucky at this game. Any tips on what I might be doing wrong? I just played a 1 on 1. On maybe the 2nd turn, my opponent(1 space in front of me) makes the turn, and all i need is an 8 on the d12, but roll a 7. It happens, I get it. Then he proceeds to roll exactly what he needs for the next 10+ turns while I fail to make multiple turns in the same span by 1-2 spaces, or when I get in a turn and shift up to try and make up some ground, needing only to not roll a 12 for example, I of course roll the 12 and tear my car up.

How much of this is just me being bad at the game, and how much of it is some just pure luck? This has tended to happen to me often in my first few games here.

[Rsabbado]

My opinion is that the game has a learning curve, in which it doesn't matter how lucky you are, if your opponent has experience in the game, he will most likely win everytime. Once you reach the plateau at the top of the learning curve (and it's really not a very steep curve) you are probably on par with most other player around. Knowing how to build a car taking in consideration number of players, number of laps,weather conditions and the track itself is important. Then winning becomes a matter of reading your position, your opponent's position, trying to plan at least one move ahead, and mostly... A LOT of luck.

This is a game where you can do everything right and still lose if the die is not on your favour, and one bad roll on a specific point can be the difference between first and last position (or fireballing after a corner). By then, your greatest enemy becomes your own capacity to endure frustration.

My suggestion is not playing 1 on 1, unless you set it up for at least 3-car-team per player. It will lesser your chance to be unlucky with all your cars. Plus, the game mechanics on dealing with limited space and crashing is severely reduced with few cars on track. I never play the game with less than 6 cars on track simultaneously. Actually, I play it the most with 10 cars (2 teams of 5 cars per player). If you can't find someone to play with this settings, feel free to invite me.

[Khayzhard]

From my personal experience, I'm becoming more and more convinced that BGA often tends to "reward" players with good or higher ELO, to the detriment of players with medium and lower ELO.

I've seen this happen too many times to think there isn't something weird about BGA's RNG (or whatever tool or algorithm BGA uses to generate the dice rolls). I'm not talking about rolling high or low values, but getting the "right" values to enter a curve perfectly, perhaps landing exactly in the final square; or getting that 20, or 12, or whatever it is, to enter the next curve at the limit.

Skills related to proper positioning or car mapping only matter up to a certain point, in my opinion (I'd say less than 30%); what really matters is the way BGA "rewards" and "punishes" certain groups of players (based on ELO, from what I've seen). You might disagree with my opinion, of course, but this is what I've noticed in my experience with the game.

Ultimately, it's still a fun game, and that's why we keep playing it.

[BarnardsStar]

I've seen this happen too many times to think there isn't something weird about BGA's RNG (or whatever tool or algorithm BGA uses to generate the dice rolls).

So you haven’t even educated yourself enough to know how the rolls are generated, but you’re convinced it isn’t actually random. You should probably learn more about how things work before claiming they work in ways they cannot possibly work.

I'm not talking about rolling high or low values, but getting the "right" values to enter a curve perfectly, perhaps landing exactly in the final square; or getting that 20, or 12, or whatever it is, to enter the next curve at the limit.

Well, this should be easy to prove. Go get yourself a BGA Studio account, register for (read-only) access to the Formula D source code, and show us where the code is looking at players’ Elo values, and tweaking the dice roll to alter it for higher-Elo players. (You won’t find it, of course, because game code doesn’t have access to that sort of thing. But you should look anyway, if only to convince yourself.)

Analysis of the game situation would be non-trivial; figuring out the “right roll” for any situation would not be super simple (though admittedly easier in Formula D than in many other games), so it’s not exactly something that could be snuck in. If it’s in the code you should be able to find it.

Skills related to proper positioning or car mapping only matter up to a certain point, in my opinion (I'd say less than 30%); what really matters is the way BGA "rewards" and "punishes" certain groups of players (based on ELO, from what I've seen). You might disagree with my opinion, of course, but this is what I've noticed in my experience with the game.

You keep using the O-word and not citing any evidence whatsoever. And you’re not even stating an opinion; you are stating something of a factual nature and hiding behind that word. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts.

[Khayzhard]

@BarnardStar
As I said before, this has been my experience with the game (both positive and negative; I want to clarify this: "Lady Luck" has been kind to me, too, when I've played against lower ELOs; this isn't a rant; it's just what I've seen with my own eyes). However, if all the other players (I think I might include you, too, judging by your reply) have never encountered situations where, statistically, the "right" rolls have never happened more often to those with higher ELOs... it means I was just unlucky to play in so many games where "the statistics" didn't seem fair to me, and I misunderstood everything.

[BarnardsStar]

@BarnardStar
As I said before, this has been my experience with the game (both positive and negative; I want to clarify this: "Lady Luck" has been kind to me, too, when I've played against lower ELOs; this isn't a rant; it's just what I've seen with my own eyes). However, if all the other players (I think I might include you, too, judging by your reply) have never encountered situations where, statistically, the "right" rolls have never happened more often to those with higher ELOs... it means I was just unlucky to play in so many games where "the statistics" didn't seem fair to me, and I misunderstood everything.

People come to these forums all the time with accusations against the RNG. Some think it favors high Elo players, some think it favors low Elos. Some think it favors newbies, some think it favors old hands. Some think it favors premium players, some think it favors non-premium players. They are all correct, in that an RNG may be seen to favor each of these groups, and they are all wrong, in that the RNG will not be seen to consistently and universally favor any of these groups.

If you just want to come here and sling unfounded accusations without data or other evidence, if you have no interest in actually investigating to see if you are wrong or right, if you just want to rant (and you are, despite your claims otherwise), then that’s fine, but let’s be clear about what’s actually happening.

[Rsabbado]

@BarnardStar
As I said before, this has been my experience with the game (both positive and negative; I want to clarify this: "Lady Luck" has been kind to me, too, when I've played against lower ELOs; this isn't a rant; it's just what I've seen with my own eyes). However, if all the other players (I think I might include you, too, judging by your reply) have never encountered situations where, statistically, the "right" rolls have never happened more often to those with higher ELOs... it means I was just unlucky to play in so many games where "the statistics" didn't seem fair to me, and I misunderstood everything.

Everyone has anecdotal stories about RNG in BGA, not only in Formula D, but other games that use RNG. I've been trying to reach a high ELO some time ago, but then all of a sudden I started losing for people with very low ELO, which dropped my rating severily, and goes against your suspicions. I was once playing a 1v1 in 2-car-team and I rolled five 7s in a row in 4th gear. It's frustrating and lets you thinking it's not possible, but taking all the 4th gear dice rolled in that match, it fell near the expected probability.

Also, the function that is used in BGA Studio to execute dice rolls is the same for every game that uses RNG, which means that it would not be viable to have RNG acting in a specific way in a specific game. What you are experiencing (and many people do) is basically cognitive bias, since millions of RNG executions are made in a given time slice, it's very easy to have some statistical improbabilities to happen with some frequency.

Truth is, if you want to have enough evidence, you have to enter hundreds of game replays, take note of every single roll on them (and if they were favorable to the player or not), so you'll have a sample space that is viable to determine if there are any deviations in the RNG function. Taking only your personal experience is hardly enough to base your distrust.

[BarnardsStar]

Taking only your personal experience is hardly enough to base your distrust.

They're not taking their personal experiences, though. It's worse: they are taking only their recollections of their personal experiences. They are remembering all the times things seemed weird, and forgetting all the times things seemed normal, or the times when the RNG favored the lower-Elo player. It's cognitive biases all the way down.

[Khayzhard]

First of all, I want to thank Rsabbado for his polite and conciliatory response. It's true that, to rigorously evaluate this matter, a large-scale analysis would be necessary. I'm aware that this is how a truly scientific method works.

Nevertheless, I'd like to point out just a couple of things: as you can see, my account is quite old, and if you look at my account details, you'll see that I've played a lot of games here on BGA, including dice games (like Can't Stop, for example) where RNG plays a major role.

Furthermore, before posting in this thread, I'd posted very few messages on the forum (just do the math). I want to emphasize this: about 5 messages in about 13 years of membership. This should make it clear that, if in 13 years of membership, I haven't been a user who complained about games, but now I've exposed myself in this way, I probably did so after careful consideration and after seeing with my own eyes that in most cases what I described above happened.

This is just to explain something about me.

However, as I said in my previous message, I don't rule out the possibility that it was all a misunderstanding on my part; and, with the details about myself I mentioned earlier, I think it at least demonstrated that I'm not the type of person who enjoys bringing to light observations that are... how can I put it... very "forward-thinking" just because I love to complain.

That said, and before concluding, I must say that I'm quite surprised by the tone of BarnardsStar's responses. I don't know if he's a BGA programmer or a high-ELO Formula D player, but from the beginning I got the impression he took my words very personally (even though I always spoke generally, never referring to any specific user). My friend, allow me to offer you just one humble piece of advice: don't react so angrily and don't become too antagonistic when you read something you disagree with. A forum is meant for discussion, not for being aggressive with others just because we don't like what they say. There are many ways to respond to someone, and yours doesn't seem to me to be the best.

Best regards.

[BarnardsStar]

Nevertheless, I'd like to point out just a couple of things: as you can see, my account is quite old, and if you look at my account details, you'll see that I've played a lot of games here on BGA, including dice games (like Can't Stop, for example) where RNG plays a major role.

This game is no different. All the games are supposed to use the same RNG (in fact, are mandated to do so for dice rolls), which means that in order to do what you say is happening, the game itself would have to be tweaking the dice rolls to help the high-Elo player, which means the game would have to analyze the game state to figure out what roll would be most helpful. (The game would also need to know who the high-Elo player is, and the API doesn't give it any way to determine that!)

I gave you a way to look at the source code, but you don't seem very interested in actually finding out if your claims are true. I am neither a BGA dev nor a high-Elo player, but I am not a fan of people who come in here with conspiracy theories and no interest in investigating them or backing up their claims. Any antagonism you see is based on this behaviour.

I mean, you haven't even provided a single example, let alone anything conclusive.

Furthermore, before posting in this thread, I'd posted very few messages on the forum (just do the math). I want to emphasize this: about 5 messages in about 13 years of membership. This should make it clear that, if in 13 years of membership, I haven't been a user who complained about games, but now I've exposed myself in this way, I probably did so after careful consideration and after seeing with my own eyes that in most cases what I described above happened.

It might mean that about you, but it doesn't mean it about most people. I can only judge on what I see.