Luck and Competitive Games; My Outlook

[DS Ultimate Debate]

Before I start, yes I do think that a lot of tournament players and organisers haven't really thought the rules through properly, and some of this does bug me. But this is a neutral analysis, I'm not going to use emotion for this case, but some sort of logic for my arguments with good reasoning, it's not a rant. With that out of the way, here's my view:

'By and large, luck based elements in games are not a thing that should be removed, but countered'

And

'The only bad luck based element is one that cannot be countered/negative effects avoided and retried'

Now, the first part, to a lot of readers will probably shout 'casual moron' and 'newbie relying on luck', especially to some of the more outspoken people who play games for competition/tournament purposes. No, I have played games for a long time. I practice and use every single technique that the pros practice and use, I learn from what they've written, and I have never, without any real evidence, called something 'cheap' or 'unfair'. However, my reasoning for this part of the argument, is that luck based elements should not be seen as a bad thing. No, they're part of the game, and more precisely, a skilled player should be able to work around any kind of luck that goes against him on any particular day. If you need an example of what I mean, take Super Smash Bros and items. Many, many people say to ban them for any higher level play of the game. Myself however, will argue that quite honestly, there is not a single item that cannot be worked around, countered or avoided. Status items like the Mushrooms, Lightning and Metal effects? If you're suffering under a negative condition, then you can work around it, by playing less agressively than usual and keeping a safe distance from the opponent. If your opponent is under a positive condition, then you can use it against them. For example, remember that giant and metal characters fall really, really quickly, and knock them off that ledge. Attack items and projectiles? They can be caught, they can be sidestepped, air dodged, dodged on the ground, jumped over, run from and a whole host of different things that you most likely should know how to do by now. Heck, Assist Trophies and Pokemon can easily be dodged in the most cases (and assist trophies can sometimes actually be killed outright and attacked), and the Dragoon can simply by dodged by rolling/sidestepping/air dodging at the correct time, almost on a frame by frame level. Nothing there is truly luck based other than what items appear. Same for Mario Kart, Blue Shells for example are complained about, and items often banned, but let's be fair here, there have always be in game ways to dodge the Blue Shell, usually by things such as a well timed mini turbo boost or mushroom. None of these things, as a result of that are critically unbalanced, and to be fair, players should be trying to adapt to so called 'luck based' elements, and coming up with strategies to counter whatever events happen. Banning stuff like this, at least to me puts many, many supposed pros at the same level as the scrubs many of them complain about.

This doesn't however mean all luck based elements are fair. Some I don't think are, just a few smaller selection than the vast majority of video game players. The second part of my argument, is that a luck based item is only unfair if the negative effects cannot be avoided or countered, or retried. For example, compare these cases. First one, relatively fair to me, a Bob-omb appears in Smash Bros. You can dodge the explosion/object, you can throw it at someone else (who can dodge it, catch it in mid air, shoot it down, etc), and in general, there's never a point where you have to be hit by the item. Contrast with a horribly unbalanced luck based element, where your character has a random chance, with no way of dodging, of being hit by an instant death bolt of lightning from the sky in an instant. You can't dodge this event. There's no counter other than 'sucks to be you', and it cannot be foreseen when it will occur. This is a more unfair element, and a true 'luck based' one in a game. Another luck based one would be something like 'Get a Rope' from Mario Party 5. Pull a rope. Hope you don't get an anvil to the head. That's it. No way of winning via skill, just pure luck, hence it's not a greatly balanced element of the game.

So in conclusion, I think that an element having some basis in 'luck' should not be enough to disqualify it from any form of play of a video game, nor to be shunned, since most of these elements can be countered (and quite frankly, if you either can't dodge them or can't be bothered, get a new hobby). Agree? Disagree? Feel free to argue below.


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[Chrisjh0223]

[QUOTE]Contrast with a horribly unbalanced luck based element, where your character has a random chance, with no way of dodging, of being hit by an instant death bolt of lightning from the sky in an instant. You can't dodge this event. There's no counter other than 'sucks to be you', and it cannot be foreseen when it will occur. This is a more unfair element, and a true 'luck based' one in a game. Another luck based one would be something like 'Get a Rope' from Mario Party 5. Pull a rope. Hope you don't get an anvil to the head. That's it. No way of winning via skill, just pure luck, hence it's not a greatly balanced element of the game.[/QUOTE

You have covered great points, especially with this part I'm quoting. I myself have experienced luck in video games, notably the powerups obtained from item blocks in Mario Kart DS. I always found it unfair when I got struck by lightning, there was no way to counter it. Because I was in the lead, I was last to get back to normal but at least I still won those races. The blue shell is near impossible to dodge, you have to do some boost combo with SSMTing and a mushroom boost item.

Also, luck plays a role in Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge when you or someone else picks up a crate in multiplayer. In this game, crates always give you something good, and never something bad. You might get a certain amount of money, or a "heal all your structures and units" crate, or map completely revealed. It could be a powerup crate, where the unit who picked it up (and other units adjacent to that one) may get a speed boost, or an attack power boost, or a shield boost, or a veterancy rating boost. Or the crate may give you a free ground vehicle (spawns right where your unit picked it up), ranging from any of the harvester types to any of the higher tier battle armaments or even an MCV. Luck (pure chance as the veterans of these games call it) plays a major role here. If you got one of the other faction's MCVs, then you can build up the other faction's tech tree very easily; people who lose to you in this case will complain that you got lucky due to a single crate and had easy access to a whole other category of weapons as well as your own without using Engineers to take over enemy technology with complex invasive strategy. The people would rather have you gotten a little boost of money or a small other thing, not a whole other base with easy access to another faction's tech tree. Because of the aspects of crates in multiplayer of these games, people prefer having crates disabled.

This is more balanced in the other C&C games and in fanbase modifications of Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge. In the latter two cases, crates can give you negative things as well, such as temporary chemical radiation (kills off infantry in the vicinity instantly, inflicts steady damage to vehicles and structures), massive explosive damage, genetic alteration to a soldier, or even reshroud your entire map bar spaces with your units and structures. This is what most players of the games prefer, having luck be more balanced so there's actually risk in picking up the crates. The other C&C games have negative and positive results in picking up a crate in multiplayer, so the fanbase naturally saw the risk in picking up any crate in those games and agreed that it was fair and balanced to have them enabled. I agree with all these fanbases.

I remember when my brother saw crates in Tiberian Sun skirmish. If it was too close to the base (or especially inside the base), then he would not get it due to fear of it being a negative crate. Only if a crate was far enough away from the base would he get it. For instance, once he was scouting with a Recon Bike and saw a crate in the middle of the map. He said "sure, I'll take this one" and his bike got a speed increase. Later on, he saw a crate a little bit away from a Tiberian field so he sent a mini-gunner (who was guarding the harvesters) to get it. It was a chemical trap, so the soldier died in a green mess with radiation soaking the ground for a minute after that. My brother said in effect "ah well, I can't win em all. This is why I don't like getting them in my base."

There was once a major incident when I was playing the first Red Alert in multiplayer. I was playing as Russia (very formidable war machine) and spotted a crate in my well developed base. I sent a nearby grenadier (grenade throwing soldier) to get the crate, only to have it explode with the effect of a nuclear warhead. All of my buildings and vehicles in the vicinity took heavy damage (it took a while to repair all of that, loading vehicles on and off the Service Depot for repair) and lots of men died in flames. I learned a very important lesson that day, DO NOT pick up crates in the middle of your base.