Alright, that was very helpful to me. Thank you, Rigs. : )
I agree that the term “fair” and all its derivatives mean different things to different people. Like any word, it can change in accordance to a value a person holds. The term also innately frames itself to a certain value, so it’s also more nebulous than your typical word. The notion of equality, however, is uniform throughout each instance, and any usage that ignores that is simply misuse. When it comes to games, the framing value is typically either skill, luck, or a mixture of the two.
Fairness and skill are not always related, but in this context they are.
Anyhow, that equality is also the crux of my earlier statement. Take a game like Street Fighter - both players select Ryu. Both players are given the exact same options. Both players are spawned on parallel sides of the screen and beyond the cosmetic background, the game is literally reflected down the center. In regards to skill, that’s equal. Unless you can find something in the code that somehow favors one player, I don’t see how you could argue this situation’s equality without changing the defining value.
Now, presume this game is played by some fictional people of equal skill. In theory, this game should end up in a draw. It probably wouldn’t however. Perhaps player 2’s controller is a nanosecond slower than player 1’s. Perhaps player 1’s spot on the couch is more drafty and distracts him for a moment. Perhaps player 2’s hands get sweatier and he has to clutch the controller tighter which damages his deftness a smidgen. Key here is that none of that is innate to the game. Perhaps player 1 dominated this week, but next week player 2 may. The win/loss ratio is going to straddle the 50/50 line because fairness is a percentage game. No individual match of anything will ever be fair, but overall, the game would be.
That same situation applies with chess. The only innate advantage is perhaps turn order. If it was somehow played simultaneously, the game would not favor either side. External factors, sure, but the game, no.
As for the chap who decries the game as unfair because he lost to a more skilled player- in some frames of reference, he is right. According to a win/loss ratio, the game would not be fair. Coin flips, sure, but a game tailored to skill-based fairness, not really. But, really, that’s not important to anything I’ve said. I’ve never been using that framing context. I never explicitly said so as I took it for a given, so I do apologize for that.
When it comes to the terms “fairness” and “balance,” I don’t think the latter can be used with chess. “Balance” refers to the equality of differences. Chess doesn’t really have any differences. Sure, there are different pieces, but each player comes armed with the same amount and in the same positions. Both players have the same setup, thus there are no differences.
Balance affects fairness, however. Nothing will ever be perfectly balanced; therefore, mirror match’s innate fairness doesn’t exist. As a result, balance is generally used more as an approximation. People typically want the advantages minimized as best as possible - ideally to the point that they are negligible. How small is “negligible” is very much a matter of opinion, but as a rule of thumb “smaller is better.”
Consequently, a game like RAD Soldiers will never be as fair as chess because the former must be balanced while the latter does not. It can, however, be sufficiently fair.
For example, take a game like pokemon, with over 700 creatures, this game will never be balanced, but it’s generally agreed that it’s fair. Everyone has access to every pokemon, so if something like Garchomp is dominating the metagame, everyone can use it. Each individual match is most certainly unfair in some way, however. Because of how unbalanced the game is, some legal teams can be horribly unfair. The best players in the world could lose to the worst entirely due to the team. That’s neither balanced nor fair, but both players will always have the option to switch… or to heckle. That certainly is fair.
Certain elements can be fair even if the overall game or instance of the game is not.
By the way, do bear in mind that the framing value of fairness for this game is slightly changed from my mirror match example above. There is a layer of luck, for example.
Your notion that people want advantage is simply cynical.
Anyhow, I believe when you read my words, you injected a layer of aspects that weren’t intended. With a few extra concepts slurred into it, the meaning of my words drastically changed. In other words, good old fashioned miscommunication. >: P
The dissertations on the individual games would be required for me to actually answer the question. Writing them out would be the easy part; I just don’t wanna analyze all those games.
Also, Rigs, your last paragraph… the discussion and analysis is very important. Counters may be made, but the minimization of unfairness is what many players want. Without analysis, that can never happen. Either way, analysis and discussion over fairness and balance won’t prevent counters from being formed. If anything, it facilitates it by allowing more people to become aware of the issue.
That said, it does raise a couple of notions. It occurs to me that there is no stable metagame as of yet. Analysis is all well and good, but changes probably shouldn’t be made quite yet. Changing things before the analysis has completed is actually counterproductive for reasons you’ve highlighted in your last sentence.
Ciakgb… what are you talking about?
