Opinion on the Dice system

[Shark 0]

Hello there players,

 

Recently I had you all, try two different dice system methods. I now want feedback and the opinion on which dice system should be used from here on out. 

 

Please cast your vote for one of the above options, if you feel that something needs to be adjusted, please post below.

[Moartea 0]

I like the built in dice system, beacuse each time I try to use the 3rd party, I dont get any info on the page. It blank to me, and I hate not seeing my dice rolls.

[Guest]

The built in system seems to work well, beyond the honor code. I don't know how many players will adhere to it (not that I distrust you guys! Lots of love!) Or for how long. That said, it adds a semi-realistic feel to the system, and can be used for dramatic effect in role plays.

Still, it's entirely possible to do good writing without dice rolls. I've done it before and don't mind doing it again if it comes down to it.

[Cindel 0]

The purpose for 3rd party rolls was so GM's or other players could verify them, making it much harder to 'cheat.' I'm not sure if people realized that though. The trade off between the two systems is having to spend more time on rolls but being trackable vs quick and easy but no way to verify the results.

[Cayden 0]

The purpose for 3rd party rolls was so GM's or other players could verify them, making it much harder to 'cheat.' I'm not sure if people realized that though. The trade off between the two systems is having to spend more time on rolls but being trackable vs quick and easy but no way to verify the results.

I'm pretty much all for third party systems for this exact reason.  Generally speaking most third party dice rollers are reliable and avoid the pitfall of an honor system.  Not that I don't trust players, but if a life is on the line you can absolutely bet players will cheat to avoid the fate, as sad as that is.

[Cindel 0]

I don't even trust myself lol. :D

[Cayden 0]

I don't even trust myself lol. :D

I wasn't going to say it, but yeah.  The temptation is there for even people who really want to be honest.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

I've noticed that the built in one will change if you refresh the page, meaning you can roll until it is favourable.

As such a system (maybe built in) would be needed where you select 'roll dice' and the answer will be publically be shown with no possibility of rerolling.

I must admit I can see why people would attempt to do anything to not die, because it means they lose their character (if its in SAO that is, not Alfheim).

[Guest]

If you just spend the time making your character hard to kill, even bad rolls won't matter.

To quote a famous player, "once the numbers are high enough, you're practically invincible."

[Rebekah 0]

Well, I suggest a mix of both systems. I do realize that people may "refresh" to get a better role, but I do think for simplicity reasons, avoiding the 3rd party app would be useful, and allows me to quickly post efficiently. As for fighting mobs, it is often on the small scope of things that it does not really make a huge difference, especially when you get stronger.

 

However, that said, for stuff like Gemini Quest, or any boss battles, I think that those are better served with a 3rd part apps, that way it can be verified. Other than that, I like the dice system, it makes it fair when roleplaying battles.

[Ourian Clemmens 0]

honestly, I don't like either one... I liked the old method of Dice Rolls because someone can just refresh the page and reset the dice rolls until they get something they want with the third party dice roll, and the built-in one is completely honor based since the dice roll isn't displayed on the post, not to mention they can still refresh the page to reset the dice rolls. Really, the dice roll system we were using before the site upgrade was the best because the player had no control over the dice rolls at all and didn't even know what they were until the post was made. Sure, you had to edit the post to suit the Dice Roll outcome, but it was way more efficient than the two current dice roll systems.

[Shark 0]

I understand that Ourian, but we can no longer implement the system the same way unless someone makes a code in java that does that. If you think another system should be used that isn't listed then please explain and describe what you think. 

 

I am looking passed the cheating portion of all of this because I want us to grow as a community. Trust is key in a community, I do understand that people will still cheat, but some people just have to talk things out and gain the respect of others. If players are cheating to escape death, then it won't be any fun for anyone. Just accept the fact of what happened in the battle and whatever happens, happens. You can always create another character. It's not like the person typing actually dies so there isn't any risk to the actual person. 

 

Just my two cents on the matter.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

If you just spend the time making your character hard to kill, even bad rolls won't matter.

To quote a famous player, "once the numbers are high enough, you're practically invincible."

That's a fair point, cheaters would just godmod/powerplay/metagame their way out of sticky situations.

Well I also have the trust that people here write in the interest of good storytelling rather than 'winning'. I suppose this is reinforced with the lack of PvP between actual player characters and the focus on coop.

[Cindel 0]

The 3rd party dice system CAN be verifiable.  We can track rolls related to posts using the right one.   If people keep rolling for better results, when someone checks their account they'll see all those rolls. I wrote a quick sample when the staff were discussing options. You can try it here: http://www.cydel.net/dice.php This was only a proof of concept though. For proper verification i can still improve it.  Adding user accounts so no one else can enter your character name, adding another field containing a link to the post the rolls were used for, and it already has a time stamp.  The time stamps can be compared to the time stamp of the post that used the rolls.  If someone rolled 5 times in one minute, and only posted one of those rolls, that would look pretty suspicious.

 

I never finished it though, because well it's work.  So if its something the community doesn't want, I'd rather not waste time on it.

[Cayden 0]

The 3rd party dice system CAN be verifiable.  We can track rolls related to posts using the right one.   If people keep rolling for better results, when someone checks their account they'll see all those rolls. I wrote a quick sample when the staff were discussing options. You can try it here: http://www.cydel.net/dice.php This was only a proof of concept though. For proper verification i can still improve it.  Adding user accounts so no one else can enter your character name, adding another field containing a link to the post the rolls were used for, and it already has a time stamp.  The time stamps can be compared to the time stamp of the post that used the rolls.  If someone rolled 5 times in one minute, and only posted one of those rolls, that would look pretty suspicious.

 

I never finished it though, because well it's work.  So if its something the community doesn't want, I'd rather not waste time on it.

Last time this discussion came forward, I brought up the Dice Roller Orokos.  It is a third party dice roller, that would take about a minute to set up an account for, and about five to ten seconds per post to make the roll, copy it and paste it into a url for each attack roll.  This is perhaps a difference in seconds between copying the insecure dice rolls at the bottom of the page, vs posting from an outside site.  Compared to the old system of writing half a post, then editing the post for the dice roll actually quicker.

It has trackable listing for an account name and thus you can easily separate monster rolls from PC rolls.  

[Cayden 0]

I understand that Ourian, but we can no longer implement the system the same way unless someone makes a code in java that does that. If you think another system should be used that isn't listed then please explain and describe what you think. 

 

I am looking passed the cheating portion of all of this because I want us to grow as a community. Trust is key in a community, I do understand that people will still cheat, but some people just have to talk things out and gain the respect of others. If players are cheating to escape death, then it won't be any fun for anyone. Just accept the fact of what happened in the battle and whatever happens, happens. You can always create another character. It's not like the person typing actually dies so there isn't any risk to the actual person. 

 

Just my two cents on the matter.

That is a pretty decent viewpoint, but I'd argue if you're going to go in that direction just ditch the rules because people can, and will cheat.  I'm not just saying that as a hypothetical by the way, as far as I can tell either the dice roller included with the new forums is hideously broken, or the vast majority of players in the 1-10 forums are fudging their rolls.  Let me provide examples.

So the very first thing I did was take a total of all player rolls that I could find on the floor 1-10 forums and enter them into an excel sheet.  This is pretty much all player activity since the new dice system came into effect.  This is what I found.  All of these stats are pulled from a sample size of 109, which is significant even if I would prefer more.

The average player roll on a battle dice is 6.935.  That is, when rolling to hit the typical player roll on a d10 is effectively a 7.  Statistically speaking, the typical roll on a d10 should be 5.5. 

Players rolled 17 rolls of 10 over 109 total rolls, or roughly 1.5 times as many as they should have.

Players rolled 19 rolls of 9 over 109 total rolls, or nearly double what you would expect.

Players rolled 2 rolls of 2 over 109 rolls.  This is easily the most glaring statistic because it is almost impossible.  Players rolled 1/5th the number of rolls of 2 you would expect over a statistically significant sample size.  Either the dice roller is broken, or a lot of people are being dishonest.

Players rolled 2 rolls of 1 over 109 rolls.  Again, 1/5th the possible number of rolls.  Also it is important to note that I went back and looked.  Both of the rolls of 1 I found were at the end of combat when the result was already assured. 

The loot system is effectively worthless.  Of the three loot rolls I found listed, all three were rolls of 20.  This is a 1/8000 chance incidentally.

 

I could go on and on.

 

The most important thing to note is this isn't skewed by single players.  While I could easily point out that certain players are blatantly cheating, such as one player who missed only once over a number of rolls and made an alarming number of 10's, it is not limited to bad apples.  I don't want to point fingers but I captured the results by player and there was only one exception out of all the players I looked at that could fall into the realm of actual probability.  If you remove those numbers from my totals there are actually zero rolls of 2 over 100 posts.

 

My point is that if you're going to go with an unverified dice system, you're effectively looking at freeform with built in godmodding.  Everyone is going to cheat and feelings are inevitably going to get hurt when someone eventually goes back over their opponent's thread and points out that person has rolled 9 or 10 for his last 15 rolls.

[Cindel 0]

That is a pretty decent viewpoint, but I'd argue if you're going to go in that direction just ditch the rules because people can, and will cheat.  I'm not just saying that as a hypothetical by the way, as far as I can tell either the dice roller included with the new forums is hideously broken, or the vast majority of players in the 1-10 forums are fudging their rolls.  Let me provide examples.

So the very first thing I did was take a total of all player rolls that I could find on the floor 1-10 forums and enter them into an excel sheet.  This is pretty much all player activity since the new dice system came into effect.  This is what I found.  All of these stats are pulled from a sample size of 109, which is significant even if I would prefer more.

The average player roll on a battle dice is 6.935.  That is, when rolling to hit the typical player roll on a d10 is effectively a 7.  Statistically speaking, the typical roll on a d10 should be 5.5. 

Players rolled 17 rolls of 10 over 109 total rolls, or roughly 1.5 times as many as they should have.

Players rolled 19 rolls of 9 over 109 total rolls, or nearly double what you would expect.

Players rolled 2 rolls of 2 over 109 rolls.  This is easily the most glaring statistic because it is almost impossible.  Players rolled 1/5th the number of rolls of 2 you would expect over a statistically significant sample size.  Either the dice roller is broken, or a lot of people are being dishonest.

Players rolled 2 rolls of 1 over 109 rolls.  Again, 1/5th the possible number of rolls.  Also it is important to note that I went back and looked.  Both of the rolls of 1 I found were at the end of combat when the result was already assured. 

The loot system is effectively worthless.  Of the three loot rolls I found listed, all three were rolls of 20.  This is a 1/8000 chance incidentally.

 

I could go on and on.

 

The most important thing to note is this isn't skewed by single players.  While I could easily point out that certain players are blatantly cheating, such as one player who missed only once over a number of rolls and made an alarming number of 10's, it is not limited to bad apples.  I don't want to point fingers but I captured the results by player and there was only one exception out of all the players I looked at that could fall into the realm of actual probability.  If you remove those numbers from my totals there are actually zero rolls of 2 over 100 posts.

 

My point is that if you're going to go with an unverified dice system, you're effectively looking at freeform with built in godmodding.  Everyone is going to cheat and feelings are inevitably going to get hurt when someone eventually goes back over their opponent's thread and points out that person has rolled 9 or 10 for his last 15 rolls.

 

There is no doubt people are rolling what they want.  The built in dice system is no different than open RP, it only serves to give people a guideline to follow.  People can chose to ignore it or not, there's no way to enforce it.  Its safe to say that the majority of players will alter their rolls to something they desire with this system.  The question is, do people want that? If everyone can "cheat" then no one is really cheating anymore.  But this type of system will remove any kind of competitive play or special loot / item mechanics based on the roll system.  But maybe people want free form over structured and rule based?

[Cayden 0]

There is no doubt people are rolling what they want.  The built in dice system is no different than open RP, it only serves to give people a guideline to follow.  People can chose to ignore it or not, there's no way to enforce it.  Its safe to say that the majority of players will alter their rolls to something they desire with this system.  The question is, do people want that? If everyone can "cheat" then no one is really cheating anymore.  But this type of system will remove any kind of competitive play or special loot / item mechanics based on the roll system.  But maybe people want free form over structured and rule based?

Oh I absolutely agree.  My point was that if you're making a freeform system it is probably simpler just to make a free form system.  I just wanted to make it clear that we aren't talking about small scale theoretical cheating, but a pattern of behavior that pretty much renders the dice obsolete.

[Cindel 0]

For those interested in a verifiable 3rd party system, I updated what I was working on here: http://www.cydel.net/dice.php

I'm interested in any suggestions or concerns you may have with it.  (Still very much a beta)

[Lessa 1]

I agree with those who are suggesting this is practically free-form now. But I will continue to use the dice system. One of my favorite parts of this site is that it challenges me. In a true free-form, I might land or miss hits to fit the story I have in my mind. When the dice is involved, I have to do the exact opposite. And in my mind, that is so much more challenging.

I'm going to continue using the system we have on the site. It requires me to copy/paste, but that is still easier than using a third-party. I do all of my posting on my phone or iPad, so flipping pages back and forth isn't especially easy. And I now people will cheat. But I won't. And the people I roleplay with won't. Sure, we'll see an increase in high loot drops. Bosses will go down faster, as we'll have better rolls than before. But if we all make an effort to be as honest as possible, it will become clear very soon who is cheating. I'm already seeing some very telling signs.

Of course, my first choice would be to have someone code us in our old system. But until that is on the table, let's use what this site gives us, and make a collective effort to be more truthful. Isn't it more fun that way anyway?