You guys are making a big mistake with the d6

From two perspectives:

1.) d20s are more relevant to the theme you are going for.

and more importantly

2.) I dont want to get into game theory and design too much, unless the devs show interest but it boils down to randomness. Games introduced the dice to add variety/strategy to games. Take a game like chess. It is static and never changes/repetitive, therefore the game is predictable and whoever has learned more pre-planned moves first will be the winner.. Not the more strategic player.

Dice rolls are unpredictable and therefore the game will change from match to match, making it practically impossible to memorize and pre plan out the game. It encourages the more strategic player on the spot to win.

The problem is the dice roll can add too much randomness and take strategy out of the game if the dice are too unpredictable and too important. You go from checkers on one extreme to monopoly on the other.


It basically boils down to d6 providing too much variation between each number. Combined with how your armor works(things like rolls of 3 or more preventing most damage or 5 or mores preventing all damage). The PvP in your game will boil down to all luck on the level of monopoly.


I highly recommend two fixes if you want to have a good/serious pvp game.
-Change to the d20 from the d6. This way if you want something to have a very powerful effect you can make it only proc on a 20 or 19.. instead of on a 5 or 6. Which is the difference of a game changing effect happening 5% of the time instead of 17% of the time.
-Make armor more static. Ie. Certain armor always reduces damage by 2 and if a certain number is rolled THEN the damage is dropped by 1 or 2 more... So although the die roll is important and adds bonuses, it isn't so game changing.

 

Why do you think it's better to have 'game changing effects' happening 5% of the time rather than 17% of the time? It depends on chance either way, and I think it's probably better that the probabilities the random events are large enough to be worth taking into account in strategic planning. ("I'll move in to attack, and there's a 50% chance they'll block . If they block, I'll do X, if they fail to block I'll do Y." - compared to "there's a 5% chance they'll block... do I even need to consider that possibility?")

If a particular match comes down to the point where a dice roll can decide the game, I'd much lose because of a 33% event rather than a 5% event. 33% is something large enough that you really need to take into account in your planning and strategy. If that 33% event happens, you can still call it 'luck', but it shouldn't be unexpected. On the other hand, a 5% event is far less likely - but it can still decide the game. Surely allowing such low probability events can't be seen as making the game less luck dependent. A single 5% event has a similar probably to four 50% events happen in a row. For example if I have Block and it fails 4 times in a row, I'd say that's bad luck, but at least I have the option of changing my strategy after seeing it fail the first two or three times; whereas if I have some card that fails only 5% of the time, and if that 5% event is important, there's no planning I can do to mitigate it. Either the 5% event happens or it doesn't happen, and so the outcome is decided on luck alone.

I agree that we don't want the game to be completely luck based, but that doesn't mean it can't have a lot of randomness in it. For example, Poker has a lot of randomness - and yet there are still Poker champions who consistently beat lesser players. Similarly in Card Hunter, strong players are able to consistently defeat weaker players despite all of the randomness in the game mechanics.

We don't want this game to turn out like Monopoly, but I'm sure we also don't want it to be like a version of Checkers where you have a 5% fail every time you try to jump an enemy piece. In a game like that the strategy would be essentially the same as normal checkers, but every so often the game would just say "screw you" and you'd lose because of luck. There's a difference between 'playing the odds', and 'being lucky'. The presence of randomness in Card Hunter doesn't mean you have to be lucky to win. There are lots of tactical options available so that players are able to plan around the randomness.

In any case, for Card Hunter I think the decision to use d6 is pretty deeply embedded. Game balance, mechanics, and graphic design have all been developed and tested with d6. It's apparently working pretty well, and so I very much doubt it will be changed now.

 

Not really. The foundation of P&P RPGs was with d6s and is still used in most P&P RPGs. The 6 sided die is also understood by all players - gamers or not.

You're suggesting that a d6 is more unpredictable than a d20? It's simply a granularity issue. If the devs wanted something to happen in increments of 5% of the time, they'd likely have designed it that way. They obviously didn't want that granularity and went with the D6 instead.

 

any effect is "game changing", the magnitude of effect is what is in question . you just cut out and quoted 2 words from my entire post without context... And I spent my entire post explaining the answer to your question. but the first things out of your mouth is asking this anyways.

not going out of my way to be rude, but because I dont like wasting time posting on forums Ill just be blunt..
the couple people who responded are clowns with the IQ of a pea( no offense), I cant be expected to waste time explaining silly semantics to random interneters.

I'll keep this here for the devs to see, and if they want to discuss this or clarify something then I'll help out.

 

Way to add to a discussion. I was genuinely interested in having this discussion even though it is unlikely that anything currently implemented will change in the few days left until going live. Interesting that you don't seem to care about this enough to explain/back up your suggestion just because we interneter peas don't agree with your view on this big mistake.

Hopefully you'll enjoy the game and offer your dev experience in other areas here on the forums.

 

Being offensive and adding no offense at the end of it does not make it less offensive.

If you do not want to waste time with silly semantics, they why bring up this issue at all.

 

So short-tempered...

Look, you may think that you 'spent your entire post explaining the answer', but the body of your explanation was this:

The parts before that were about why randomness is useful, and the parts after were your suggestions. - So your argument seems to me that the dice rolls play too large a roll in the game, and so the game is decided by luck (like Monopoly) etc.

In my post, I've attempted to explain that although there is a lot of luck in the game, it is still a game of skill and strategy because the elements of luck can be planned through; and I've pointed out that there is empirical evidence for this in multiplayer matches. Blindsight has pointed out that the only thing gained by using d20 rather than d6 is granularity in the range of probabilities that the game can use, and I argued in my post that using this granularity to create very small (or very high) probabilities may actually make the game even more dependent on luck rather than less.

(I also think it's worth pointing out that even if there was no dice rolls at all, there would still be a lot of randomness in the game from the random drawing of cards.)

All you've said is that d6 has 'too much variation' between neighbouring numbers, and that dice rolls can 'take strategy out of the game'. You've not explained how you think the variation between the probabilities on d6 is bad, and I've refuted your argument about strategy been taken out of the game, by pointing out that skilled players can consistently defeated weak players in multiplayer games.

Now you've come back just to call me and Blindsight stupid. In my opinion you need to work on your communication skills. Here's my suggestion to you: If you disagree with something I've said, try to explain why you disagree without resorting to insults. If you can't explain it, or you don't think it's worth explaining: say nothing.

 

Am i the only one thinking that this thread is of sufficiently low value that it should just be removed on the basis of how the OP is behaving?

 

At face value it seems like he's referring to the fact that the probability differential between sides of a d6 is far larger than that of a d20. The d20's increased granularity can support more potentially distinct outcomes, or it can support variables levels of success/failure. As it stands, the minimum difference in probability between two non-equal outcomes is 16.6666667% and the maximum is 83.3333334% -- or an outcome can be 100% depending on depending on external factors (ie other cards.)

I'm not him, so I can't elaborate on the reasons why he feels that to be good or bad.

 

Locked perhaps, but not deleted. Leave it so when other people search his post history before they respond to him in the future, they know exactly what they're getting into.

I like d20s and i like 5% increments of randomness, but there's nothing in the game right now that i think would be significantly improved by making the switch. If they want to add it in the future it's always an option.

 

I think the d6 was an excellent choice, though I might have rounded off a little of the "luck" by using two of them. That would also provide a wider range of outcomes and finer granularity at the extreme ends. (Assuming that that finer granularity is actually desirable.)

That aside, D20's are sort of "weird" to non-gamers. Everybody grows up with, and feels comfortable with D6's. D6's are the better choice for a game that's trying to attract as many paying customers as possible.

Try showing someone who doesn't play D&D a D8 or a D12. They look at it like it's an alien construct.

 

Nah, man, the D4 is the really freaking weird one. I don't even know how you're supposed to roll that one. My mind, it needs assistance.

 

Too late.

Do tell.

I see.

Be sure that we're all yearning for your helpful advice because it's so diplomatically given. Take care.

Sorry I did not notice this earlier.

 

Yes come over to the dark side we have milk to dip our cookies in while we share stories of sarcasm long forgotten!

 

Probability distributions don't favor a D6 over a D20 in game design. Adding more dice to each roll or random modifiers to different dice and rolls are usually the problem with probability in any game. It can lead to feast or famine outcomes meaning more outcomes can be wild successes or severe failures. Also long as you balance your game for the probability distribution for the die type you choose its mostly irrelevant which die you use. Its all just percentages really. Case in point I like that John stated it started with just percentages and moved to a D6. Though only thing I like about the OPs comment was partial successes. So like an armor that on a 1-2 prevents nothing, 3-4 prevents 2, 5-6 prevents 4 or even an armor that prevents 1-6 based on die roll. Starting the topic as he did and then basically bad mouthing anyone who speaks up is not an effective way to drive dialogue.

 

(just to be sure)

The original pyramid d4 has the numbers along the centre of the edges. You read them by reading the number closest to the table. This picture shows a roll of 4 on the d4. It's a little counter-intuitive as all other dice you'll read the number on the top rather than the bottom.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Dice_(typical_role_playing_game_dice).jpg

There is a variant of the pyramid d4 in which the numbers are set in the corners. These are more intuitive to read the number on the top.
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/dnd_dice_tower.jpg

Then there are atypical d4 shapes. This one will actually have the number "face up". (It's the die in the upper right.)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81n5KTVm9AL._SL500_AA300_.png

Here's another atypical d4 shape, based off the d6.
http://www.g2ch.com/product_thumb.php?img=images/cd4__obl_g.jpg&w=250&h=250

(Old joke time)
Q: What kind of person uses a d100?
A: A person who can't roll 2d10.

 

As has been pointed out, it's all about granularity.

Epicteus said: " This way if you want something to have a very powerful effect you can make it only proc on a 20 or 19.. instead of on a 5 or 6."

This is correct. A D20 would give you the option of that. But maybe having to make an effect that unlikely simply means the effect is overpowered.

It's not as if Card Hunter *lacked* randomness. But randomness tends to come in the form of "no attack cards this turn". It's supposed to be survivable.

 

I had a strat-o-matic style basketball game that used two different colored d6's. The outcome would be read as a two digit number 11,12,13...65,66. I really liked that system for that application. They were able to get very fine granularity without resorting to scary, weird dice.

Of course, that approach required consulting a chart to determine outcomes.