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But what about rock paper scissors lizard spock?
Hmm, I think that's something else.
In both that and Rock Paper Scissors, all choices are available at all times and all choices are equal. Mathematically there is no strategy, and so these games are entirely psychological in nature. Although the games may be random people are not as shown by this on-line rock-paper-scissors game, from the New York Times website. Mabinogi jousting has all these elements too but you cannot reuse the same choice two times in a row and not all choices are equal. Decision-wise this is a non-flat decision space. This means that there are tactics to it that are mathematically based and not just psychological. In some ways you can say that Mabinogi PvP "is just Rock Paper Scissors". It has some similarities but really it isn't. Think of Mabinogi jousting as simplified PvP where mods and OP equipment don't help; it's a more level playing field.
I've ran through the thread without carefully reading, and, well, all the information including actions' descriptions and race bonuses can be got right from Lileas, if someone needs it.
Awesome. Did you checkout the finals on YouTube? I posted a link. The video descriptions give match analysis.
I was just joking lol
Ah, you got me! That's okay, some folks might actually think that though, so consider that answer for them.
I had a teacher back then say, there's no such things as stupid questions, but it is stupid if one is not brave enough to ask.
So, if there's a question, there should be answers.
I think the analysis could help.
AS SW WA AS
Did Musicat+Mari make a mistake in this match? Moissanite draws first-blood with an opening S-hit. They cross while Musicat+Mari counters, forming the SW-split. Next, they cross to W and Moissanite strikes again with an A-hit. Both counter and Moissanite takes it outright.
They did not make a mistake. The crossing to W, in pass three, is a perfectly reasonable move, even if you know you'll get hit. Moving to W, is jousting's version of a sacrifice. When one jouster is at W then both jousters have a chance to score a clean hit the following pass, which can be the start of a reversal. You sacrifice some health for the chance at such a reversal. Versus an elf, the move to W, is less important in this particular case; versus a human it's practically a necessity. From the W their options are to either advance or counter and trust in luck. They did just that but luck was against them; not their fault . . . BUT . . . if you kept a database you'd have some idea which is the preferred choice. But I digress.
It certainly helped the person who actually won the tournament. They used to joust on Alexina, and are ranked 12th overall on Alexina's ladder. I've been doing these analyses for Alexinans for years, and the successful amongst them make use of them. But it's a free country.
Not all the choices are equal, some are less risky than others, some carry more consequnce than others, and some give more benefit than others. In terms of the damage differential that could be sustained on the following pass not all choices are equal. Game-tree analysis can be applied to jousting. If it is only luck then success and failure would be more-or-less equally distrubuted in the historic records of folks. There are years of records for Alexina jousters, and they clearly show that some do far better than others. Luck is an element, to be sure, but it's not the entirety of it. Think of jousting as being like poker. On the fundamental level, poker is all luck, but it is not entirely so as some folks are clearly better at it than others.
But you can never know what a person will undertake, there's never been such thing as 100% probability.
If you're lucky enough, the opponent makes the choice of your guess and doesn't decide not to countercountercounteract (from another angle of view). Not to mention the fact that you know that the said opponent is trying to figure you too, which makes the thing resonate.
And it's not like in chess. In chess you usually would want to make a choice that either forces your opponent to do something or leaves you in the most beneficial position (including making sacrifices). And if the opponent doesn't fall for your current plan, you're still well off. While if the opponent breaks your current plan in Jousting, you certainly fall behind (but again, they can never know your plan for sure, neither can you know theirs (which could as well be letting you fulfil a part of your supposed plan)).
P. S. Seems like I've covered enough possible options and comparison.
Veteran vs Veteran or Rookie vs Rookie that is a big part of it; like James Bond said in Casino Royale, "You don't play the odds, you play the man." In the case of Veteran vs Veteran personal knowledge of the others habits does come into play as you say. Rookie vs Rookie will likely not have such knowledge so their moves may be considered as random making such a match highly governed by pure chance. But Veteran vs Rookies is significantly skewed in the favor of Veterans. The numbers are so skewed that knowledge of the game can only explain the difference. I want to be sure I'm understanding you correctly; are you saying that Mabinogi Jousting is pure chance in the way that Snakes and Ladders is where there is no such thing as "best practises"? To be sure that you are not misunderstanding me, I'm not claiming that Mabinogi Jousting is like Chess, which is void of any luck. I want to be sure we understand each other in these regards before I tackle your other post.
You're right about the game knowledge and probably about "best practices", but, truth be said, "best practices" also have an at least 50% chance of not working in such situations. It's not the statistics that make the results, but people seem to forget that and think from the opposite. If it practically worked in, let's say, 83% of cases, that doesn't mean it has an 83% chance of occuring - it has its usual 50%. Another bad example, still an example: some people landed critical strikes more often while having a 15% chance than other people while having a 40% chance (it worked more often with lower chance because it was simply by chance). So, if "best practices" were considered best because they worked more often, it didn't mean that they had a higher chance of working. It's something to do with practical application of chances.
Another difficulty in the Veteran vs Rookie case is that the first most likely doesn't know the second's Jousting habits (chaotic things are always dangerous), and only can apply their knowledge if Rookie completely follows a known plain pattern or choices.
And it's not like poker. In poker only the cards you get must depend on mere luck, but then the game's interim and final turnouts depend on your own actions (or inactivity). You may show fearsome confidence regardless of the cards you get, or masterfully pretend to be upset, or do nothing, or raise the odds, and so on. In Jousting you can't act like, "Hey, I've got a great WSA and triple D here, you can't possibly beat it, you give up and I take the bank" >w< I've also heard of a thing called card counting that lets you make better decisions throughout a session of poker. That also won't apply to Jousting here, because you can't exclude what's been used, and it can be used again (however, not right in the next round).
I agree that the knowledge affects the results, but in our Jousting case it only works with some 2-3 features: when a participant uses a certain option and becomes unable to use one other exact option; when two participants use the same option which has different value due to their race. Since that doesn't happen always, and you can't know for sure if it's going to happen or not, the opportunity to apply the knowledge is also defined by chance, thus the role of such knowledge is quite small compared to the role of luck.
In the case of Poker, you are right, in those cases where the deck is shuffled after each hand then it is pure luck and looking for tells. If not though then memory of cards used comes into play. This of course is not, tactical in nature, granted, but is a non-luck-base dimension to play, and something that some folks can be better at than others. Mind you my understanding is that recently a Poker playing AI was developed that consistently defeats the best human players. Apparently, this AI confirmed some long held poker strategies but I am not familiar enough with the game to know what kind of strategies there could be in poker in the first place. I do agree that among the most experienced jousters however, since they know all the facets of the game, it does come down to how familiar they are with each other and how they manage their nerve. If you'd read your very own match writeup you'd have seen me recommending use of a database for just that reason. As you say, best practises can mean best chance but that is not a guarantee. A good example of what you are saying would be the Monty Hall Problem. In this case it is all luck but there definitely is a best practise here. Would you say as you did above that switching or not switching is still "at least 50% chance of not working"? In the end it is luck of course, you DO have a 1/3 chance to lose by switching but not 50%.
Let me ask you, would you say then that Mabinogi Jousting has no underlying tactical components other than statistical ones, because this would imply that if luck rules the day, with sufficient luck, one can always come back and win? I say versus a veteran you can get to a point in a match where the veteran can force a victory and that is by knowing the underlying tactical landscape of Mabinogi Jousting.
It could be just that. The point about poker was that it had an added dimension to it (the art of spotting or faking tells) beyond pure luck such as in a game of Snakes and Ladders. As an aside I recall the report saying that the AI took more chances than human players did; I found that to be an interesting tidbit of information.
In the write-up I had suggested in situations where you do have to make a pure guess, knowing your oppenents history can suggest a better choice. In the heart of it luck, yes, but as you said earlier using knowledge of your opponent to spot "better" choices.
Fair enough, my bad, but what I was looking for was whether you agreed that "best practises" can be a genuine phenomonon in a "random" environment and you do. BTW I am curious, what would be an example of "Statistically approved "best practices" often mean higher overall frequency of successful cases, but not higher chances in each case."
If I understand you correctly then in a situation where one can force victory this is not a "sufficient luck" situation but what they call in game theory an optimal strategy situation. However, take back one pass before that condition goes into effect and one is genuinely in a "sufficent luck" situation. To be fair, one can actually be in a "sufficent luck" situation even after the threshold is reached. If the player in the winning position is not aware that they are or how to execute the winning strategy. In this situation the player in peril "would be lucky" that the other player didn't know to or how to press home their attack. Have i got that right?