I'm pretty sure chess avoids this problem.

The NPCs are not as skilled as the players and have no knowledge of how to counter the dominant strategies and level the playing field again. For this reason its generally more difficult to find dominant strategies in PvP situations. Of course there will always be dominant players and gear but its not the strategy as much as it is the player. If the AI for the game could be improved to learn some basic counters to common strategy then the game would seem less predictable.

As bwight noted above (+1 btw) the biggest reason chess is so lacking in dominant strategy is because it's a PvP game, with balanced teams. If you played chess against a computer who made predictable moves as a response then it wouldn't be very long before someone came up with a dominant strategy at all. The random element of the human player is the biggest counter to the dominant strategy.

Getting back to the OP, this doesn't mean that you should just start randomising the chance to win, but adding variation to an encounter can make the encounter more interesting, and even better would be if you could get the boss to react to what the players are doing (in an intuitive way).

it wouldn't be very long before someone came up with a dominant strategy

I think you and bwight might be mistaking what is being referred to by dominant strategy. This link might clear that up.
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/cogsci.htm

Chess only lacks dominant strategies when both opponents are equally skilled at playing. If a professional is playing a novice the professional has a few dominant strategies up his sleeve that give him the upper hand.

I'm not so sure. A lot of high-ranked chess players have to rake a few games before seeing any actual tendencies. A best of 7 could really end 4,3, which isn't that representative of difference in skill and/or use of a dominant strategy. The strategy would therefore be called a viable option, not a dominant one.

[quote name='PyroDragn' timestamp='1347411198' post='4979126']
it wouldn't be very long before someone came up with a dominant strategy

I think you and bwight might be mistaking what is being referred to by dominant strategy. This link might clear that up.
http://levine.sscnet...eral/cogsci.htm
[/quote]

You're right, my definition of dominant strategy does not match with what is described in the article you posted. So i'll agree with you that Chess does not have a dominant strategy. A dominant strategy by definition in the article you posted is a strategy that works regardless of what the opposing player chooses to do. I think though that most MMOs do not have a dominant strategy, at least by that definition, maybe some RTS games do.

[quote name='bwight' timestamp='1347393754' post='4979032']
Chess only lacks dominant strategies when both opponents are equally skilled at playing. If a professional is playing a novice the professional has a few dominant strategies up his sleeve that give him the upper hand.

I'm not so sure. A lot of high-ranked chess players have to rake a few games before seeing any actual tendencies. A best of 7 could really end 4,3, which isn't that representative of difference in skill and/or use of a dominant strategy. The strategy would therefore be called a viable option, not a dominant one.
[/quote]

I was talking about a professional playing against a novice player. If a pro was playing a novice i'd be surprised if the novice even won a single game. However, still there is no dominant strategy because the pro will always change his strategy based on what the other player is doing, this goes against what we just learned is dominant strategy.

I think you and bwight might be mistaking what is being referred to by dominant strategy. This link might clear that up.
http://levine.sscnet...eral/cogsci.htm

Dominant strategy equilibrium – strategy profile in which each player plays best-response that does not depend on the strategies of other players

I'm going to unfortunately disagree with Bwight and say that my definition of dominant strategy did match the above, and I still think that chess (probably) has dominant strategy.

Dominant strategy as I understand the above means "what move you make so that no matter what your opponent does you are in a better position to win" or perfectly, en-route to a guaranteed win (or at least a guaranteed non-loss, for example in the case of Tic-tac-toe).

This is not the same moving to put you in a better position than you are currently. Nor is it the same as moving to put you in a better position than your opponent. This'd depend on how you define 'better position' though.

Imagine the following scenario:

Two players want to kill a mob/boss. The boss is a pansy and does no damage, but he has a large amount of health so he takes a while to kill. Once he reaches 80% health he will randomly kill either 'Everyone within 10 feet' or 'Everyone more than 10 feet away.' There is a time limit to DPS him down to 0.

Now, the "Dominant Strategy" is for one person to be within 10 feet, and the other to be more than 10 feet away. Once he reaches 80%, one player is going to die, and the other player is free to DPS him down to 0.

However, if you consider that if you had both stood within 10 feet, and he killed everyone more than 10 feet away, you would be in a better position than the above, since neither of you die.

The dominant strategy isn't oriented towards "the best possible position" but towards "the best possible position considering every situation" or even "in the worst case scenario"

Talking about chess specifically, in the end-game dominant strategies become clearly apparent. In the following example:

(Image and quotes from: http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/can-we-solve-chess-one-day/ )

Here White can give checkmate—in 99 moves. I don’t think a human would even find the first move, let alone all 99.[/quote]

Computers have currently 'solved' perfect play for 5 pieces on the board. 3 pieces plus the 2 kings.

...if you got down to 5 pieces, you might as well be “playing chess against God”[/quote]

Actually up to six pieces, and currently working on seven; the problem is getting to the point where we know every possible move right from the beginning of the game.

Now, none of this proves that there is a dominant strategy for the game of chess. But, if you got a chess board and placed the two kings and any three other pieces, there is definitely a dominant strategy for one of the players. The fact is that, from the start of the game, the teams are perfectly balanced, but one player moves first, and the other responds. This lends itself to a slight bias toward one player or the other, and makes it more probable for a dominant strategy to exist for one or both players.

We'll know in a few years once the computers have figured it out.

But, if you got a chess board and placed the two kings and any three other pieces, there is definitely a dominant strategy for one of the players.

But then you're not playing "Chess", you're playing "Some Game PyroDragn Made Up Using Chess Pieces and a Picnic Blanket". Just because a "strategy" happens to be "dominant" in a particular scenario does not mean that its a dominant strategy for the game in general. I think you're having a semantics issue here.

My favorite, and what I believe to be the simplest, example is the pistol from Halo 1. It became a dominant strategy among experienced players to use the pistol because it could kill at any range in 3 shots, which resulted in a higher DPS than most other weapons. Any weapons that could beat the pistol in DPS suffered from fallbacks that maintained the pistol's dominance: the shotgun could only beat the pistol in DPS at very close range and was useless medium-long range, the sniper rifle and rocket launcher had a much more limited clip/ammo capacity, only 1 or 2 of any existed per map, and all had to be found in-game (whereas players started with a pistol). This makes the pistol a dominant strategy because no matter the scenario, a pistol was not only a good bet, but an advantageous one (if you could land the shots, of course).

Hope that cleared it up.

But then you're not playing "Chess", you're playing "Some Game PyroDragn Made Up Using Chess Pieces and a Picnic Blanket". Just because a "strategy" happens to be "dominant" in a particular scenario does not mean that its a dominant strategy for the game in general. I think you're having a semantics issue here.

The point I was making was that, if you play a game of chess and you get down to a situation with 6 or less pieces on the board, there is an absolute, demonstrable, perfect way to play, ie, a dominant strategy. Currently we're working on being able to understand with a 7 piece scenario. Then will come 8, then 9, etc etc. When we get to the point of having calculated every possible move from the start of the game, then we'll know how to play "the perfect game" it'll just take a while until we get there.

yeah in about ~100-500 years of computer calculation, but maybe the computer that performs this caclulation may crash or run out of electricity, then its all from start. Of course if they use many computers it could be reduced.