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Does fog of war in RTS games make the gameplay luck based?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by splattenburgers, May 21, 2020.

  1. splattenburgers

    splattenburgers

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    In chess there is no fog of war and both players can see the entire board and all the pieces, and then make a move accordingly. Chess is considered and almost entirely skill based game. In most strategy games however there is fog of war which means nether side can see what the other is doing. Doesn't this just mean the game becomes more random and less skill based since bother players have to make guesses about what the other player will do, and then just hope that their guess turns out to reward them? Would an rts game with no fog of war be more skilled based?
     
  2. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Fog of war makes the game more skill based, because you don't know what the opponent is doing and are theorizing about strategies, and are preparing for anything. It is also probably supposed to simulate real war conflicts where exact condition of enemy is not known.

    Not having fog of war would make the game more arcade-like. Because RTS tend to have strategies that allow early win via rushing.

    And speaking of chess, chess is not real-time. It is turn-based. In case of turn-based games seeing entire map is not uncommon.
     
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  3. BrainwavesToBinary

    BrainwavesToBinary

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    I think the premise that FoW makes a game more "random" and "luck" based is false. I think chess isn't a very good comparison since it is pretty different from RTS, but your premise doesn't require the comparison, so let's break it down a bit.

    Let's imagine a two-player RTS game, and at some particular moment in the game, someone is launching an attack and the other is postured defensively. The attacker is using the map's layout and their set of units in a deliberate manner to accomplish an objective in line with their overall strategy. The defender, knowing at least the map layout near their base, has an idea where choke points might be, and where open, defensively difficult areas are, and deploys units and other defenses appropriately. The attacker comes out of the fog and the defender responds - the game is ultimately an action/reaction cycle until one team is victorious. There's nothing random about it, and there is quite a bit of skill in the way a given team may effectively win the game. Like chess, you are still having to think ahead and anticipate how your opponent will respond to your moves, except it's in real-time.
     
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  4. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    4X games are turn-based and usually have fog of war.

    In my opinion the answer is yes, it does make things more luck-based, but not necessarily all that much. One of two players might stumble upon a new resource, well, source, while the other is unable to find it. The middle of a map might have features preventing passage that an attacker encounters and thus affects their attack in ways they didn't predict.

    "More" luck-based doesn't necessarily mean "very" luck-based.
     
  5. No. It's all wrong. Chess is a tactical game and if you're doing right it's all about pattern-recognition and finding a canned response to the pattern you're seeing.

    FoW does not make a game luck-based, especially if you provide scout units. If you do not, players will use the lower level units to scout. The game complexity rises because of the need of scouts, but using them cleverly gives advantage.
    Obviously when I'm saying does not make luck-based I'm talking about the entire session. On the short term (first rounds or minutes depending on TB or RT) it may become luck-based with an extreme case (player find the only places where there are no enemy/ally, other players find her/him right away).
    RTS without FoW isn't patter-recognition and isn't really strategy anymore, it's a clicking game and basically the session will go to the person who has the more precise and fast click and knowledge where to click. Either one of those is subpar, the sesison will be either stalemate or goes to the opponent.
    With FoW you can delay the clicking game, because of the more careful exploration and preparation for anything and everything.
    TBS without FoW is basically a tactical game, very similar to chess, albeit with a significantly bigger board.
    With FoW you can alleviate this and bring in the careful exploration and more strategic thinking (leaving units at places where you may expect some scouts or enemy units and all that).

    This is my take on the subject in a nutshell.
     
  6. BrainwavesToBinary

    BrainwavesToBinary

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    Isn't the "luck" in your example due to the random map generation or the random spawn assignment on a premade map, rather than the existence of fog of war?
     
  7. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    If your strategy is to just build units and throw them at the enemy then yes fog of war would definitely bring a lot of luck into the mix, since you will depend entirely on luck that you sent the units to where the enemy base is, and with your own base undefended it will be luck that the enemy doesn't find your base first. That isn't much of a strategy though.
     
  8. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Only in part, because the issue being raised there isn't reaching the resources, it's finding them in the first place.

    Imagine you and I are playing an RTS with full FoW - you don't even know the terrain until you've looked there. We both immediately send scouts out to start mapping. One of my scouts sees a resource load in the first 15 seconds. None of yours do until 90 seconds in. I've potentially had over a minute of additional time to act on exploitation of a specific resource location, and it came down to pure luck.

    On the other hand, if we both started the same game with terrain and resource visibility but unable to see each other then we could both immediately act to exploit a specific resource location. There'd still be some luck due to distance and accessibility, but almost certainly far less than also not even seeing our goal.

    Of course both players and game designers can act to control both aspects of luck in most cases anyway. Even if you don't know where a resource location is, as a player you can start prepping parties to go and take / defend them, and you can move them out into the map so they're likely closer when you find one, and so on. As a designer you can make sure that accessibility and distance are relatively equally balanced between different starting locations. I suspect that Starcraft II doesn't hide the terrain because they expect after a few matches you'll know it anyway, so that's reducing cognitive load in a way that also reduces a bit of luck, along with restricting the number of maps in play in any given season and also designing them by very strict rules in the first place.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
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  9. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    To have a go at answering the question...
    The premise here is flawed. You're assuming that in an RTS with fog I can't see what my opponents are doing, but that isn't necessarily the case.

    I am able to see what my opponents are doing as long as I am willing to spend resources (money, units, time, attention) to do so. In other words that's another strategic decision I'm making. If I'm playing Starcraft 2 and I send a zergling or a marine to your base then I'm deciding to spend some minerals making that unit, I'm deciding to send them towards your likely spawn locations rather than adding them to my army or sending them to other locations (such as resource patches), and I'm choosing to watch what they're doing where that attention could be going elsewhere. I'm making those decisions in the belief that knowing what you're doing will have more of a benefit to me than one more unit in my army, or having earlier warning if you move to a resource patch, or whatnot. For instance, by discovering what you're building I can better know what units to specialise in to counter you when we enter combat later on.

    That's one example of many possible ones. The unknowns usually only make things significantly more "luck based" to players who ignore what's under the fog, or who are new to the particular game. To players who treat scouting as a fundamental aspect of the game it's adding far more to the strategic nature of the game than it is to the luck.

    Remember, it's not as if you have no idea of where your enemies are in most RTSs. Once you've played a bit you'll have a solid idea of the spawn locations, resource layout, how each map works, and the value of different specific things you might learn from scouting. From there you can narrow down your scouting decisions dramatically, and easily identify likely scouting locations or paths for your opponents.
     
  10. frosted

    frosted

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    I used to wonder about this a lot.

    Very basically - in all limited information games, from starcraft to poker, the higher the skill level goes, the more information players know.

    In poker, the cards are hidden but very strong players will be able to guess your cards in most cases.
    In RTS, fow obscures the map, but very strong players use scouts and regular contact to keep tabs on what the other player is doing and their power level.

    In these games, as you move down the skill level to newbie, the entire experience feels utterly random since newbies won't know how to infer clues or cheaply probe their opponent. In games where you obscure information a lot of the skill cap is in learning to gather more information about the game state.

    Now this really only works in games where people are willing to invest considerable time at "getting good". If a game is more casual, most players will never really get good enough to make the experience not feel random.

    Basically: limited info = more skill needed to not feel like its random.
     
  11. Owen-Reynolds

    Owen-Reynolds

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    In World of WarCraft they'd talk less about luck and more about the Skill Cap -- the total amount of skill if takes to be really good. With a class or build where all skills had fixed-cool down times - no randomness -- you could make a single "spell rotation" (the order you cast them). Those were easy to memorize or macro -- a low skill cap. The more random the skills were, the more your rotation was "if A has procced .... otherwise if B's on cool-down for 10 seconds or more ... otherwise ... ." More randomness gives a higher skill cap, since you need to deal with so many more possibilities.

    So, sure, Fog of War adds opportunities for good or bad luck, but it also raises the skill cap. You have to learn all about scouting and make all of those extra decisions.
     
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  12. BrainwavesToBinary

    BrainwavesToBinary

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    "Pure luck" is a strong way to refer to it, imho:) Sure, to the extent that you perform the mental equivalent of flipping a coin to decide which direction to send your scout(s) first, there is some luck there. However, I think that is of marginal importance in comparison with the random map generation and/or random spawn assignment.
     
  13. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Yeah, angrypenguin hit it pretty comprehensively.

    I almost mentioned poker (or many dice/card games really) too. There's "luck" involved, but skill can mitigate a lot of it. When I was a kid playing backgammon with my father and his friend (both 20 years older than me) I lost a lot, and not just because I was "unlucky."
     
  14. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    You're making some implicit assumptions, there. First, you're assuming that the map isn't truly random (so there is some basis on which to make that decision) and second, you're assuming that the players have prior experience on which to base that decision.

    In most real games both of those assumptions will be true. But I was deliberately being non-specific to examine that factor in isolation.

    Plus, I did follow up directly with how both design and prior knowledge can immediately start reducing the impact of that luck.
     
  15. Zuntatos

    Zuntatos

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    fog of war is one of those mechanics that makes a game feel more luck-based/random for new players, while making it much more complicated for experienced players. typically you can counteract a good portion of the luck/randomness with either guesstimating or scouting mechanics, but both rely on your knowing what you're doing
     
  16. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    This describes almost all games with systems you have to learn proficiency in.
     
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  17. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    regardless of genre i think some things you want to consider are:

    player attention span

    player expectation of work to gratification ratio



    it's going to vary from audience to audience. some play games to chill out and get serotonin fix for low effort after long work day. others got nothing but time and want to really get into something, develop skill.

    fog of war is just a tool in the toolbox. try it out and see if it works for your game and audience. Maybe controlling flow of information means you can more casually introduce people to your game without overwhelming them, but skill focused players can eventually work around your imposed limitations. You won't know unless you try.