"The Win Formula" -- Lights, Camera, Action!

[Fishin]

It'd probably be best to translate the forum descriptions/names into something random as well since not everybody checks the front page.

Anyways, I'd have no problem playing a drive-by hero/villain.

 

[maddog]

I can drop in at sometime and say how awesome the win formula is

 

[Colonel M]

Anything you'd like me to do, I'll do it.

This is gonna be intense!

 

[DougJustDoug]

I realize that most badgeholders would oppose any kind of Win Formula. That's the point of the joke. Most of us need to support this ridiculous notion, and help it gain momentum -- while the general public has to sit back and watch this madness unfold, saying to themselves "They can't be fucking serious!" We need just enough dissenters (ie villains) to give the general public hope -- "Ok, I know I'm not crazy, because <villain> is saying exactly what I would say!" But we can't have very many villains, since the overall feeling of the thread needs to be one of overwhelming community support.

This is a performance, and that means people need to act. Act like you like the formula. The best actors will be the ones that can convincingly support this assinine idea, and actually make it look like a good idea. I'm sure you guys are up to the task, if you put your mind to it.

It might be cool if some people do a "Fake Out". For example, here's a sample of a short "fake out" post:

This is ridiculous. I've read the reasoning posted above, and I do not like this formula at all. I'm shocked by some of the logic I see here. With all due respect to everyone that has been working hard on the formula, I do not agree with it. I think critical hits should factor MUCH more heavily into the formula than the current proposal. I also think we should place a huge "hax weighting" on Freeze status -- since I consider it the most unfair and game-changing event in any given match. If these concerns could be addressed in the formula, then I would support it fully, and look forward to it's implementation.

"He fakes to the left... he goes to the right... he shoots... he scores!"

 

[Articuno64]

i could play the part of the Wise Old Veteran, as i am completely out of touch with the game, and today's players don't know me enough to be able to figure out whether i am seriously supporting the formula or not

EDIT: hahaha the fakeout post is awesome, but i'm afraid that it would give something away

 

[Great Sage]

There's some non-badgeholders with PR access, so how do we deal with them?

 

[darkie]

That's even better, Great Sage. They'll act like it's true and act however they would if it weren't a prank.

 

[Ancien Régime]

i'd make a good melodrama hero; i'm pretty sure i'm known for going batshit crazy over luck

 

[Firestorm]

Here's the thing - if you want to take a part in this, make sure you took part in PR before, as in posted a few times. If someone like cookie or Hazerider starts posting and they've never posted before, then it's obvious "something is up"

Yes, I want to do something for this but I haven't played Pokemon in a year let alone enter Stark Mountain. Not to mention my team relied entirely on playing off probability when I did play XD This will be the first Stark topic I follow in a long, long time.

I also support the idea of making the process public after the event.

 

[Kumar]

signing up for wise/grumpy old veteran.
maybe i can switch sides in the middle :D!

 

[Surgo]

It's possible we could get more people from IS who don't normally participate in PR in later (like a week or two in, once things get heated) because this would be such a big deal.

Also Doug you are such an evil genius lol. This is great.

 

[Shiv]

even though I'd love to do this, I really don't think I cant since I don't participate in stark at much anymore.

at best I can make a couple of random posts or whine in #smogon or something.

 

[Jumpman16]

ill play any role you cast me in and i do ping pong stuff already so yeah

 

[X-Act]

... um, I think I've already been cast a role, since I'm already being explicitly mentioned in this.

I've been thinking about the fake formula, and, to be honest with you, I'm finding it hard to write down a believable formula (simply because it's not believable!) I'm gonna start surely from the win formula used by Glickman and "try to adapt it for Pokemon" (yes, there is a real win formula based on the two players' ratings/deviations alone).

I might get the ball rolling sometime next week, and then probably disappear to do my real act!

 

[august]

I can drop in and support the win formula whenever / if needed, or do the opposite and oppose it, whichever is needed

 

[Blue Kirby]

Being a "Theorymon Hero" sounds like a lot of fun.

EDIT: Wouldn't really fly though, would it? I guess "Battling Hero" will have to be the go. :D

 

[Articanus]

I'll volunteer to be one of the people to "oppose" the whole formula, and I wouldn't mind taking a limited-time-ban as long as I was promised to get my stuff back after the whole ordeal.

Just from the other thread. I called villain first!!!

I'd probably be the "battling" one personally, and I have a bunch of arguments pertaining to specific team types already(Explosion teams).

 

[Lee]

I'd like to think I'm recognised in Stark as being a little more of an in-game player than most so I think I'd be perfect for playing a villain role and harping on about how we shouldn't fiddle with game mechanics etc!

This all looks so fantastic, I can't wait. xD

 

[Kevin Garrett]

I can see myself playing the "Battling Hero" or "Battling Villain" well.

 

[jumpluff]

even though I'd love to do this, I really don't think I cant since I don't participate in stark at much anymore.

at best I can make a couple of random posts or whine in #smogon or something.

just make fun of it in fluo and smogon or some shit, be aloof but amused imo. its not like you care about d/p much

 

[ToF]

I think I should be the zealous poster supporting the formula considering how much I hate hax and how much I hate losing to it lol.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Here are a few changes and other sundry thoughts regarding The Win Formula.

Intro and Act 1 Changes

• When X-Act proposes his formula, it should be presented as simply a statistics report he is working on.
• He would like to make a report that shows "What percentage of matches are won because of hax?"
• He received a bunch of statistical data from me, and now he is trying work up a good statistical definition of "What is a hax win?"
• He thinks it might be helpful later on, if we ever decide to test things like OHKO moves and Evasion, since those are considered hax today.
• This should be very non-threatening to everyone. Since it's just statistics, no one should react negatively AT ALL.
• A few interested parties will chip in and help X-Act form a good definition of "a hax win".

The Formula
For all intents and purposes, assume we have near-unlimited access to information about battles. We don't -- but just assume we do. To make a believable formula, we need to incorporate some battle data that is practically impossible to collect.

For example, here's a rough outline for a formula that uses all sorts of data realistically unavailable to us today. But, I'm going to act like it's available at my fingertips:

There are two variables that indicate a "true win":

P = The number of pokemon left at the end of battle. In most close matches that are the target of this formula, the winner should have 1 or 2 pokemon remaining.

R = A Glicko rating assessment of whether or not the player "should" win. This is along the lines of the calculation that X-act mentioned earlier.​

There are three categories of statistics that indicate the impact of hax on the win.

O = Offensive hax assessment. Critical hits are a big part of this one. Criticals against opponents with defensive stat boosts are weighted even more heavily. But, also repeated hits at near-max damage also factor in. These are hax related to the player doing more damage to the opponent.

S = Status hax assessment. Getting low-percentage secondary status on moves (like Paralysis on a Thunderbolt). Getting multiple turns of Full Paralysis. Freeze of any kind. Basically, this is an assessment of how often status hax worked in your favor.

A = Accuracy hax assessment. How much did moves missing and/or hitting work in your favor. Did you hit a lot of Hypnosis? Did your opponent's Meteor Mash miss you multiple times? Did the game turn on a big Fire Blast miss at a critical juncture? That's accuracy hax.
​

P and R add to your 'Win Calculation'. O, S, and A subtract from your Win Calculation.

If ((P + R) - (O + S + A)) is less than zero -- then your win was a "Hax Win".

Maybe this isn't the right formula, and it certainly has no math detail behind it -- but hopefully you get the idea. As the discussion progresses we can add other variables, just like I mentioned in the script. We need to work up a formula that seems somewhat interesting and believable, and the variable letters can be fit to spell "April Fools". And we have to think outside of the box as it pertains to information available to the calculation.

If you really asked me to extract the number of times Meteor Mash and Fire Blast missed in a given battle -- I'd tell you to go fuck yourself. It's unbelievably difficult to collect that kind of data from battle logs. But for purposes of this April Fools joke -- my answer will always be,

"Yes. That's a great idea! I'll get right on it. In fact, I have some code that already does something like that."

So, put on your thinking caps, and get creative about how we could mathematically evaluate a "hax win".


Transition to Act 2
In the discussion thread, after the formula gets some help and support -- then we'll propose that it really be used on the server to determine the winner of a match. That's the start of Act 2, when things start getting heated.


Handling X-Act's Departure
Since X-Act is leaving for a while, and won't be able to actively post in the discussion thread. He needs to act like this is a team project by him and Caelum.

"Caelum and I have been working together on this for a while. I'm going to be getting married soon and I won't be able to work on these statistics as much as I hoped. So, I'm posting here in Policy Review to see if other members of the community can help us get this thing into a workable state. Caelum will likely be doing most of the work on it for the next several weeks, and I'll join back in later, after my wedding."

This will make it very clear that Caelum is taking the ball and running with it. In fact, it can be a key part of the plot later when we are debating the server implementation. Comments like "X-Act never intended this", and "Caelum has taken this too far" can be possible bits of drama we play up.

With this hand-off from X-Act, Caelum is free to add all the detailed math smokescreen we require to keep this stuff above the heads of most readers.


Getting Into Character
We need lots of heroes here, and most people signing up for roles want to bitch about the formula. For all you people that have a hard time "getting into character" to support this idea -- think of it this way: If we really and truly could eliminate bullshit hax wins, but still keep all the basic luck elements in the game -- would you oppose it? I think very few of you take joy in winning a match that you "should have lost". I also think most of you hate it when your opponent gets lucky as hell and wins a match that they should have clearly lost. Tap into those emotions when feigning support for this idea. Use that as "character motivation".

In fact, we should have a LOT of "Reformed Villains" -- people who were skeptical about the idea, until they realized that this formula will eliminate large, unfair streaks of hax, while still allowing luck to be a big part of the normal ebb and flow of a match. I'd like to see many people post something like

"I really hated this idea when I saw it. I thought it was ridiculous. But, now I see that it won't change the way the game is played at all. It won't ban pokemon or moves. It will make a clear and accurate assessment of whether or not luck had too much of a part in deciding the game. I've never been proud of winning based on hax, and I don't like when some noob beats me because he got extremely lucky.

Luck is a part of pokemon and always will be. That will never change. But, it should never be the primary reason for a win. If this formula helps eliminate those cases of extreme luck -- then I'm all for it."

Say it however you want, but you get the idea. It's OK to admit that you are a proponent of luck in pokemon. You can even admit that you originally disagreed with the formula. I think it will be even better if many avowed proponents of luck, throw their support behind this idea without admitting any change in philosophy. I can imagine the general public sitting there reading the parade of support, being crushed when a longtime supporter of luck lines up behind the idea.

"Et tu Hipmonlee?..."

 

[obi]

I'd like to think I'm recognised in Stark as being a little more of an in-game player than most so I think I'd be perfect for playing a villain role and harping on about how we shouldn't fiddle with game mechanics etc!

We aren't fiddling with game mechanics, though. The rules of the game remain the same, we're just changing the win condition. This is no different from banning a Pokemon (it's essentially saying "If you use this Pokemon, you automatically lose.").

 

[Lee]

I would have thought that changing something as basic and consistent as 'this is what you need to do to win a match' would have fallen under a game mechanic but I see your point, yes. Win Condition sounds a lot less controversial.

 

[Tangerine]

Well,changing the win condition *is* changing game mechanics ("faint all Pokemon" to "play the best match possible" or in our case, flip a coin). Clauses add another way that "you lose", but doesn't change how you win.