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<blockquote data-quote="gideon_thorne" data-source="post: 3928553" data-attributes="member: 17896">To add a comment. In response to an early query about balance being an desirable goal. Yes, sure. Balance can be a desirable goal. But, unfortunately, I think it's an unrealistic one. What is balance after all? One can come up with all the equations in the world where one plugs in the values of X on either side of an = sign and it all looks very good on paper.The thing is, what with all the math in the world, it can't predict the one random variable that no X value will compensate for. That being the players themselves. All the careful calculation in the business can't offset the random creativity of a disparate gathering of individuals.And while, yes, I can agree that group balance and fairness is a laudable goal, it cant, in my considered opinion, be designed into any game system that has as its principle players, people. Certainly not one that relies on random probability as a determining factor. That sort of balance, in my opinion, is an illusion.Clearly, the only real polarizing element here is how much detail one wants in ones random number determination. And for that, I can't help. I'm plain rotten at math. Especially at something as over my head as chaos theory. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing&nbsp; &nbsp; :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="gideon_thorne, post: 3928553, member: 17896"] To add a comment. In response to an early query about balance being an desirable goal. Yes, sure. Balance can be a desirable goal. But, unfortunately, I think it's an unrealistic one. What is balance after all? One can come up with all the equations in the world where one plugs in the values of X on either side of an = sign and it all looks very good on paper. The thing is, what with all the math in the world, it can't predict the one random variable that no X value will compensate for. That being the players themselves. All the careful calculation in the business can't offset the random creativity of a disparate gathering of individuals. And while, yes, I can agree that group balance and fairness is a laudable goal, it cant, in my considered opinion, be designed into any game system that has as its principle players, people. Certainly not one that relies on random probability as a determining factor. That sort of balance, in my opinion, is an illusion. Clearly, the only real polarizing element here is how much detail one wants in ones random number determination. And for that, I can't help. I'm plain rotten at math. Especially at something as over my head as chaos theory. :) :lol: [/QUOTE]

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