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Message: <blockquote data-quote="helium3" data-source="post: 3922256" data-attributes="member: 31301">A couple of things, which unfortunately is all circumstantial evidence at best. One is all their squawking about "the accident of math." If your stated position is that a logical analysis of the old system allows you to discover a region where the "algorithms" that it's constructed from provide for an optimal play experience, I can assume that you're equally or more proficient in the techniques that allowed for the creation of the old system's rule-set. I would err on the side of more proficient, since you're also claiming to have found something the previous designers missed and have solutions for it.Obviously, the assumption I'm making above completely breaks down if you're (a) lying through your teeth or (b) not as competent as you believe yourself to be. I'll admit either of those could be true in the actual case, but if they are then we might as well just stop paying attention because the new edition is going to suck.The other bit of circumstantial evidence is a post by someone on the design team where a coy reference was made to the "Negative Binomial Distribution" and how it was a significant part of their overall design approach. Now, I have a fairly hefty background in mathematics but I had no idea what a "Negative Binomial Distribution" was. I looked it up on Wikipedia, read the entry a couple of times, pondered a while and finally asked if he meant that they were focusing on the number of times a character would have to attempt an action before experiencing success. He responded in the affirmative. From this, I think it's a fair assumption to make that any design group that's throwing around lofty terms like "Negative Binomial Distribution" has at least a couple of members that are pretty darned proficient with statistics and mathematics in general. Why would you hire someone like that if you weren't going to utilize their expertise?Again, as with the previous assumption it's entirely possible that the poster was coached to use overly technical language in order to fool us into assuming things about the design team's approach that isn't true.I disagree. I think most people wouldn't be able to finish the article if it read like a scientific paper. I think what people really want are what's more commonly referred to as "hand waving." They want the designers to talk about why the new system is better than the old one with concrete examples that don't require the use of equations.Also, I'm sorry you think it's ridiculous.</blockquote>

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