Do you believe in luck? It's no doubt to anyone that the concept of luck exists in Infinity, or any tabletop game for that matter. We are rolling dice to determine outcomes of engagements, inherently there is some luck involved in this game. But is there a member of your club who is regarded as "luckier" than everyone else - they always seem to crit when they need it, they deploy their hidden deployment hacker in ZOC of your TAG even though they deployed first, they never seem to fail an ARM save, ect. or perhaps you know someone who is the opposite - they are "Unlucky". They fail to push a button on several orders in a row, they never EVER seem to make that WIP 15 roll to impersonate, ect. While luck may play a part in our games, a skillful player will stack the odds and mitigate the chances of luck turning against him or her. I also see infinity as a game with not a lot of randomization, although there is always that chance of a critical or a failed ARM/BTS save that can sway the tide of the game. Do you perceive yourself to generally be lucky or unlucky? Do you know someone who is? How big of a role do you think luck plays in infinity? How do you deal with a "lucky" or "unlucky" player?
I found that those who I remember as being un/lucky are always those who make a big show out of it. Lost a game to crits? lament over it the whole time an any roll. Passed that armor save again? celebrate as it was the most important roll in the game, even though it clearly wasn't (and the next one failed anyway). Those things happen to everyone, but we only remember them when they are pointed out, and they somehow lead to a certain renown, especially if the person doing it is obnoxious by pointing out EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! so no, I dont believe in (bad)luck, only in showmanship
Interesting take, but to play devil's advocate, the whole concept of "losing a game to crits" almost furthers my argument that someone's inherent luck can determine the outcome of the game before any strategies or plans are laid down. perhaps it isn't that extreme but I trust you see what I'm getting at
I like this old quote. "Winning or losing is always happens in the battlefield" I don't mind about 'bad or good luck' because I think luck is can be controlled(of course not always :P) if I lose, that's my bad. I just think "maybe my tactics aren't good enough." sometimes I got good result, sometimes I'm not. If I was lucky, it's good. if I wasn't lucky, well, life is not sweet always. :P
A lot of it is perception. I've seen "lucky" players that are very good at quietly stacking the odds in their favor and "unlucky" ones who make bad decisions and blame the outcome on the dice. But I've also seen my fair share of both lucky and unlucky dice rolls, where a very unlikely thing (either good or bad) happens. At that point it comes down to how many backup plans each player had whether it swings the game or not.
I don't believe players themselves are lucky or unlucky. However, I do believe luck can unfavorably sway a game. (Maybe not win or lose it though). For instance: My Druze Mimetism Sniper had a 4.975% chance of dying to my opponent. This was because I took the time and effort to stack the odds in much in my favor as possible. He got pasted my opponent's first attempt and it had a largely negative influence on the rest of my game. (I recovered and didn't lose, but I was in a really tight spot for a while). I was frustrated about losing this piece mostly because I had stacked the odds (heavily) in my favor. My opponent made a foolish move and should have been punished by losing a strong piece. Instead, he got really lucky and took out my strong piece early in the game.
It is a 20D if the dice is well balanced a lot of random stuff can happen in any game of infinity. We all do some base math before doing anything but when lady luck is not on your side you could end up losing tags or HI to combi rifle aros. Mmy recommendation is getting a box of lucky charms and loading up on luck with your breakfast XD
Do you know anyone who is consistently lucky? They almost cit too much? We've all been lucky or unlucky in our individual games on a roll by roll basis, but when we take a step back and look at it cumulatively, we might be surprised by how many games an individual has "won due to a lucky roll" On a side note - has anyone relied on luck to win a certain roll or incorporated it in part of a plan?
That's pretty much what this covers: Most players that appear lucky are very good at massaging the odds or the outcomes so that a good die roll will be very beneficial but a bad die roll won't have as much impact on their plan. For example taking high-risk high-reward options like using an ADHL in bad range against a TAG is very risky, but the payoff is so high that it's worth trying, as getting the shot off might decide the whole game. Plus we're exceptionally bad at understanding risk and probabilities anyway... ;-)
There's a player in my meta who consistently pulls out crits on almost impossible odds (3 or less on ARO pieces with our without linking). For instance, I had a game against him last week, I was playing shasvastii (with plenty of automedikit troops), and he had the luckiest roll streak I've seen, critting a total of 6 of my troopers with shock ammo (and in various situations, not only rolling the same number). You can guess how good did it fare for me in the end. And, on the other hand, there's me. I tend to have good rolls while having a casual game, but once I'm in an ITS match, even playing the same way as I do, my rolls usually fail me (even to the point of missing 6 shotgun shots while needing 19s or less with my Akal trooper). So yeah, I believe in luck, and it hates me a lot xD
There is one thing that needs to be set clear: There isn't actually a "thing" called "luck". There's a combination between our naturally atrocious instincts for probability and our strong tendency to not only see patterns even where there's none but also our tendency to favor information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses (meaning, our minds will see stuff even when it isn't there, and stuck stubbornly to what they find to the point of discarding contrary evidence). That said, the one thing that has been proven to "alter" luck is optimism. Optimists are more stubborn about getting their objectives, and also more open and alert to new opportunities. This, added to systematically stacking the odds as much in your favor as possible like each and every one of us does, will mean that some people will look like they have some supernaturally increased odds. Then again, even when you do things completely right you can miss, that's OK. Spoiler: It's OK to not succeeed every time
You can, quite literally, not prove this. You're entitled to your opinion just as much as someone else is, but the truth is that none of this is provable one way or another. If someone rolls enough dice they may come out to what the statistical average is - but it's just that - an average. We do not roll nearly enough dice in a single game to obtain what the average "should" be. Averages also do not count for what weight each dice roll may have, meaning that failing an unimportant dice roll has much less of an impact on the game than scoring that critical that thwarts the enemy plan. I agree confidence plays a part in it. I commonly see new players fail every dice roll, is this because they are timid and unsure of what they are doing? maybe, maybe not. this is the very definition of "un-luck"
That is not how it works. You're in fact stating something about reality, that there is a "thing" called "luck" which is as real as, say, sunlight or gravity, instead of simply being a concept, and that it actively affects the universe, therefore it can be proven. The burden of proof in this case rests on the person doing the assertion, in this case you, who have to prove that it is so, not in everybody else to prove that it isn't, you can't prove a negative. Also, opinions are relevant to tastes or preferences, not about facts. You're entitled to have the opinion that gravity doesn't exist, but that won't help you when you exit through the window of a 3rd floor apartment. This is where our atrociously bad instincts for probability appear, we naturally have really bad instincts for this. This is where things like the gambler's fallacy (that tendency that goes "i've gotten a two 3 times in a row, the next one must be a 20!") live. Part of the difficulty of learning to play things like this game is to develop an understanding and a skill that goes against our really bad probability instincts that give us bad advice.
I'm not saying "Luck" definitely exists, or that its a obtainable thing that freely transfers between two people. I'm simply keeping an open mind to it. Comparing a concept like luck to something like Gravity or sunlight is a false equivalency. There is absolutely no way you can PROVE that luck does or doesn't exist. I would be very interested if you had some type of way or machine to measure luck and the existence of such.
I'm not terribly interested in metaphysical discussions about whether or not a universal force called "luck" exists. You can definitely have a single game where you roll noticeably above or below the expected outcome; most people will refer to such games as being either "lucky" or "unlucky".
What's to understand? We all know that a million-to-one chance succeeds nine times out of ten. Has anyone else studied stochastic processes?
Yeah. I know enough to know that the idea of there being "lucky players" in Infinity is bullshit. They're either cheating or just better. People who say "I am unlucky" (who aren't joking around) are just being self-indulgent.
When you spend most of the game consistently rolling over 16 for checks, and under 5-6 for armor, using the same set of dice... kinda WTF. Rolling 20 more than 10% of the game is kinda WTF aswell... Then there was this time Atalanta was firing against Pi Well in her active turn, and the tin can dodge-crit all the time... Sure, statistically it can happen, but realistically it's impressively hard to swallow. And the RNGs always like more tears! Incidentally, the "stacking" in Infinity is more a "DE-stacking the target", it's much better to apply a -3 to -12 to the target than to reach a 20 yourself -.-U
Speaking personally, If we take the common anthropomorphic personification of luck as 'The Lady', then at some point in my life I must have unknowingly and thoroughly scorned her, because I roll my Normal/F2F like I roll my ARM checks, and my ARM checks like I roll my Normal/F2F. While as a man of science, I don't believe that luck exists and it's all just randomness and math, It's pretty hard to accept that when you drop 5-10 orders in b2b into a console and still have nothing to show for it
I actually started really playing Infinity because I went for a good year without rolling over a 10 on d20s playing D&D. I'd go entire game sessions, with 50+ rolls a combat, and not roll over a 10. Well, if I can't roll over 10 on these dice, might as well play a game where rolling under 10 is a good thing. And then I started rolling high when I was playing Infinity. So yes, I do believe in Luck. Doesn't help that Infinity's mechanics are not conducive to easy probability calculations. Sure, rolling 30 d6s for a single attack, you should see about 5 of each number. Lots of the old 40k/Fantasy players could do that in their heads without slowing the game down. 30 rolls is the bare minimum to get close to average rolls, and it's still +- a few. You really want to have 30 chances to roll whatever number it is, so 600 rolls for Infinity. One thing that I have noticed is that heavy dice are easier to predict how they will roll. A friend of mine actually made me a solid silver d20 as part of an Art Metals project. It's so heavy (nearly an ounce of pure silver!) that if I put it facing 16 and roll it, I can get that die to come up either 16 or one of the numbers next to it, after a couple rolls to get used to it.
