Split from "Make all stats useful for all chars"

[partial]

The burden of proof is on the side who wants to change the status quo.

I don't see why that would be the case either from a logical or game design perspective.

for the same reason that the plaintiff has the burden of proof in a court system where innocence is presumed

[Arrhythmia]

The burden of proof is on the side who wants to change the status quo.

I don't see why that would be the case either from a logical or game design perspective.

for the same reason that the plaintiff has the burden of proof in a court system where innocence is presumed

Except, the reasons for that are completely inapplicable.

[partial]

How are stats complicated?

... they do a few main (pretty comprehensible) things, and then a bunch of little (kinda random) things. The commit logs from the last few days show a bunch of little things being removed.

is that enough to trash the stat system completely?

and do those oddities arise from the existence of the stat system? or just awkward implementation?

[partial]

Except, the reasons for that are completely inapplicable.

prostats is the default/null position
nostats challenges the default

the burden of proof is on the party that challenges the default

how could it be any other way?

[Arrhythmia]

Except, the reasons for that are completely inapplicable.

prostats is the default/null position
nostats challenges the default

the burden of proof is on the party that challenges the default

how could it be any other way?

The reason we assume the defendant is guilty and the prosecution must prove his guilt is because we believe that punishing an innocent man is far worse than letting a guilty man go. This has nothing to do with the status quo.

[partial]

It's analagous in the sense that if stats were not working then they would already have been cut or reworked.

The presumption is that the devs/community want to make the best game possible, and if stats detracted from this goal then the devs/community would have worked it out. Nostats folks want to change the game, prostats folks don't.

The burden of proof is on those who declare, not on those who deny.

[partial]

For the record, I don't have a strong opinion either way.

I don't think stats are broken, but I also don't think they are integral to the fullness and variety of gameplay. I would be happy to support an alternative if it made more sense, but at this time I don't see any huge glaring reasons to change the system.

[Arrhythmia]

It's analagous in the sense that if stats were not working then they would already have been cut or reworked.

This logic makes no sense; it implies Crawl would've emerged from Linley Henzell's head fully formed without flaws, like some sort of Video Game Athena.

[partial]

That's a stretch (actually it doesn't seem to follow at all).

We're getting off track.

I simply wanted to point out that the burden of proof is on the side that wants to change the current system regardless of the topic of discussion.

[johlstei]

It's analagous in the sense that if stats were not working then they would already have been cut or reworked.

The presumption is that the devs/community want to make the best game possible, and if stats detracted from this goal then the devs/community would have worked it out. Nostats folks want to change the game, prostats folks don't.

The burden of proof is on those who declare, not on those who deny.

Presuming that the status quo is good and worth protecting as a purposefully induced bias that is useful when said status quo is "a human is not imprisoned", it's not a good bias to preserve or consider at all when making design decisions in a video game.

[Siegurt]

Well, yes, but the bias for video games (actually software development in general) is "don't waste the developer's time" In particular this is volunteer time which has an even higher burden of "proof" than regular software development.

The reason that the default burden of proof in video game design is for stasis over change is because stasis requires no work, change requires work. Getting people to do specific work requires convincing, getting people to do whatever they feel like doing does not. Hence the burden of proof lies on the people who want specific action taken.

To put it another way, without any proof, I can make any claim I'd like and declare that it would be better for the game, but will anyone act on it if I haven't stated my case in a way that convinces them? No. In fact, to convince someone to take an action to better the game, you need to not just convince someone that it's definitely better, but that's it's better by a *worthwhile enough margin that it's worth their time to take action* which is an even higher burden of proof than simply proving that change is better than stasis.

[partial]

Thank you for articulating that Siegurt; it's what I was trying to get at (and I was failing miserably hahaha)

[dowan]

It's sort of like saying "I think the game would be much better if the combat system worked in an entirely different way than it does now, so the devs should spend 80 hours coding it up to work the way I want. If you don't want the devs to spend 80 hours on this idea, you have to prove to me that the current system is better than the imaginary system in my mind"

How can we 'prove' a different system is worse, when that different system doesn't even exist yet! You have to point out the flaws in the current system, and show that your proposed new system fixes those flaws, without introducing enough new flaws to make it just as flawed as the old system. And since you want the devs to spend time on it, you're also saying 'My proposed system is not only better than the existing system, it's also better than the existing system with the 80 hours of improvements the devs would have been working on instead of my proposed system"

If there wasn't such a standard, the devs would do nothing but code up people's half assed ideas they can't be bothered to back up with proof.

EDIT: Well, it looks like the posts this was responding to were deleted while I was writing up this response. Oh well, trust me, it made sense in context...

[Rast]

This is the worst fucking thread in CYC right now.

Which is saying something.

[duvessa]

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2840&p=35468#p35468

[Sar]

Good thinking! Posting a link to the best Tavern post is a nice attempt to improve the quality of this thread!

[Siegurt]

Well, I guess it could be worse if it was this instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ednKK8GlvwI