I've been toying with the idea of making my strategy game entirly deterministic and so I thought I would throw the idea to wolves and see what kind of feed back the idea got. Essentially each time you start a new game a new seed would be generated which would be used to determine all the procedurally generated content as well as how all events resolve without player intervention. I would also reduce or remove much the chance from all aspects of the game. This means several thing the main one being that a player with knowledge of what obstacles are between them and a goal could determine if they will succeed or not given their current resources before they even attempt the challenge. What do people think about this? Do you prefer to trust in your planning skills and the winds of fate or would you rather be able to visualize the out come well in advance? In many ways it comes down to a simple analogy, which is better poker or chess?

Chess is deterministic only in so far as the skills of the opponents relative to each other. Chess always starts off evenly. Situations where loss cannot be avoided occur when one player simply outplays the other. It can also occur when one player makes a mistake that they normally wouldn't make; such as the situation where a player makes a move, takes his hand off the piece, and immediately exclaims, "Oh crap! I didn't want to do that!"

If you ignore the psychological aspects of chess and poker, then both are deterministic based upon the pure skill level and judgement of the players involved.

Maybe I misunderstood your idea but it sounds like you want to make a game that may or may not stack the "deck" against the player. It's no fun if an experienced player starts the game, gets a bad seed, and realizes it's impossible to win. His only viable strategic option then is to close the game, and perhaps never open it again.

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Original post by TechnoGoth This means several thing the main one being that a player with knowledge of what obstacles are between them and a goal could determine if they will succeed or not given their current resources before they even attempt the challenge.

Player: "It's a long shot, but it's my only chance: I'm going to swing across the chasm while shooting in both directions at the bad guys, then leapfrog over that pillar just before it collapses."

Game: "No, that won't work. Screw off."

Sneftel, your example doesn´t work because your player input doesn´t fit the challenge. If you think abstract, like chess, it will work...

You don´t *need* a random element in a game to make it fun, not even if the odds are against the player. The player only needs to know that there *is* at least one way to solve the puzzle. The degree of difficulty doesn´t really matter.

Especially in a strategy game this can work, but I don´t think that you can do entirely without some sort of opponent. If you do have someone / thing working against you with the same set of means and methods then it´s only a matter of finding the right tools and giving enough, but not too many options.

Well, I dunno about you but since you ask for opinions...
I am not entirely sure I understand you right, but from what you say it sounds like you could end up in situations where you just can't go any further.
Now, are we talking about one of those stupid MahJong games where you realise that the pile of tiles just can't be cleared because of the way it was generated ?

Because if that's the style of dead end you are on about (i.e. the kind that could be prevented with a good generation algorithm), then it's a big No no, IMO.

If you mean, something like Chess where the player could just end up in a Check Mate, sure. That's cool. That's pure strategy. I think it's rather rewarding for the player because they should realise that if they improve their skill enough, there won't be some random element that will come and still beat them.

Of course, the thesis of the lazy ass who couldn't be bothered becoming good, and would rather know that, yeah, if they get lucky enough, even _they_ can win; is also valid. Really it depends what you want to reward from your players...
(I differentiate that from the underdogs, BTW. The underdogs at least try hard to get better, which is why they deserve that one in a million chance to win)

I think dragging people upwards is rather more, I dunno, morally right, than rewarding laziness. Call me old fashioned. [grin]

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Original post by Sneftel Player: "It's a long shot, but it's my only chance: I'm going to swing across the chasm while shooting in both directions at the bad guys, then leapfrog over that pillar just before it collapses." Game: "No, that won't work. Screw off."

LOL [grin] Yeah, if I were the DM, and if the player came up with something completely far fetched, but something that I just wouldn't have imagine they would dare try, I would give him that one in a million chance.
Possibly because I read too much Terry Pratchett [lol]

Also because getting away with something so outrageous would stay with them for the rest of their adventuring life... (Ah, I still remember when my character took on a Greater Daemon of Tzeench on his own. Ah the memories [rolleyes])

Have you ever played Yahtzee?

While Yahtzee may appear to be a game of pure luck, it is really a risk management strategy game. Clever choices of when and what to reroll, and where to assign your scores can make the difference between winning and losing.

Of course, the element of luck is ever present, but it's hard for even a lucky player to win if he is weak on the strategy side.

Seeding from the start of the game and continueing to use the deterministic approach just forces the play into a degree of loss. For example, lets say I try to attack that Ogre, and the seeds indicate that I'm going to lose. When I reload and try again, I'll lose again. Whats effectively happening is that a game where I'm supposed to manage risk and strategize my way to victory has set up deliberate blocks to prevent me from winning. To make matters worse, if I beat up a rabbit before the ogre, the next pseudorandom number in sequence might assure me victory, so I don't even have a deterministic structure to depend on.

I think what you should rather do is eliminate random from the actual gameplay, for example: An Ogre always beats a peasent, but a Knight beats an ogre. However, you can "Shuffle The Deck" at the top of the game, I.E. use random numbers to generate which enemy AI strategies will be put into play, that way the players focus is now figuring out what the AI is thinking and RTSing the hell out of it.

edit: me am no gud spelring mastar.

My only gameplay experience that comes close to this is Civilization III. Since I know the AI's cheating (production bonuses, alliances and free information) I tend to play with as much randomness as possible. I already know the playing field isn't level, and it's rare that a complex computer game is so well defined that good, fair AI can be written for it.

If you can reduce things to chess, though, and make the playing field as clear as the chess board is, then I'd have less of a problem with it. Generally, though, randomness helps in replay value.

Well there seems to be a lot of confusion going on in this thread so I'll try and resolve the various questions.

What do mean by deterministic?

Well in brief, deterministic means that the same sequence of events will always result in the same out come. For instance in chess the same sequence of moves will always result in the same game; there is no element of chance or variation in the outcome. If chess was nondeterministic that would mean that the same sequence of moves could result in a different outcome. Such as, if you try and take a pawn with your queen but your opponent rolls double sixes, which means you loose your queen instead. If you added rules to chess involving chance does it make chess better? It definitely makes it less strategic and arguably less fun. What do you think? Would chess be as fun if you could win or loose on the second turn because of a lucky roll?

Perpetual Loss

I'm not sure where this notion came from but some people seem to think that if a game is deterministic it means you can reach a point when you can't proceed. This is both true and false. On one had you can reach a point where it is no longer possible for you to win the game, but then that is true with chance games as well. On the other hand it means that if you encounter an obstacle you can learn from past experience what you need to overcome that obstacle. The enemy facility uses level 4 biometric locks on all its doors? Well that means you need a commando with at least a skill of 4 in security and a data spike, or a sat-link and a remote data spike, or some walls taps to blow open the doors, or have already stolen the access codes. So the player has several different methods they can use to overcome the obstacle. However there are two dangers, one they don't have the knowledge in advance and can't plan accordingly and two during the mission something happens that removes one or more of the requirements needed to overcome the obstacle preventing the team from completing the mission.

I should note the mission pass/fail is only as important as the mission itself and it is possible to have degrees of both with some objectives completed and others not.

Procedurally Generated Content

Essentially all the non plot specific events, organizations, and their development is all procedurally generated. There is no such thing as a bad seed that makes the game unplayable since each seed will have its own set of challenges. The last game you played there where several wars being fought around the globe so you had a perfect market for your BioMutants, while in this game there is only one war being fought, so you can either try and start more or explore other avenues for BioMutant use.