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 Ailaros wrote:
Furthermore, the winner of any given event, and thus the aggregation of events (a game, or a tournament), is thus determined by the actual results of individual die rolls.

Except that's not true. Let's just simplify it and say that all rolls are a 4+:

If luck is the dominant factor the tournament winners should be random. The deciding factor should be who rolls more 4+s, which is an entirely random factor. Player skill in choosing which 4+ rolls to attempt will of course swing things a bit and maybe the best players will win a bit more frequently, but there should be very little consistency in tournament winners.

If player skill is the dominant factor the tournament winners (and high-place finishes) should be consistent. The deciding factor should be who is better at choosing which 4+ rolls to attempt, and the actual rolls should involve enough dice over the course of a tournament that they become predictable and equal for all players. Exceptional luck will of course swing things a bit and occasionally the best players will lose when they "shouldn't", but there should be a lot of consistency in who wins.


Now if we look at the results of competitive 40k we see the same "best" players winning over and over again. The same people consistently win tournaments (or finish close to the top), and they even more consistently win in non-tournament games. So, either you have to claim some kind of superstitious belief about "luck" (which any casino owner will tell you is pure stupidity) that allows these players to continue to roll significantly above average even over long periods of time, or you have to accept that 40k is based on skill, not luck.

Finally, you're also ignoring the entirely non-random aspects of the game: metagame analysis, list construction, most movement, target priority, etc. All of them make a huge difference in who wins, and none of them involve rolling dice.

Then you and your gaming group have very different luck than anything I've experienced. Outliers are much more common where I'm from.

Or you're just having a problem with confirmation bias and forgetting all of the (much more common) times where the dice were just boring and average while remembering the spectacular rare event where they weren't. And you're also taking single events out of context. Obviously you'll see better or worse rolling in specific cases, but that usually averages out over an entire game and the winner is decided by skill, not just a string of good rolls.

If you don't believe it, how about this: next time you play a game, record the value of every single die you and your opponent roll and total it up at the end, for each player. Tell us the final outcome of the game, and how many of each number each player rolled. Oh, and be sure to use the same dice for each player, to rule out manufacturing issues in the dice favoring one player.

Peregrine wrote:If luck is the dominant factor the tournament winners should be random. there should be very little consistency in tournament winners.

This would only be true over an infinite number of tournaments.

For a tiny number of tournaments, there is absolutely no guarantee that this is true.

Peregrine wrote: the actual rolls should involve enough dice over the course of a tournament that they become predictable and equal for all players.

Once again, not true. You're talking about a very tiny number of die rolls compared to infinite. Seriously, the law of large numbers only works in the case of very, very large numbers.

Peregrine wrote:So, either you have to claim some kind of superstitious belief about "luck" (which any casino owner will tell you is pure stupidity) that allows these players to continue to roll significantly above average even over long periods of time, or you have to accept that 40k is based on skill, not luck.

Over short periods of time, yes.

Casinos operate in the world of large numbers. Tens of millions of dollars per day. Trillions of individual instances of chance. Every day. For a casino, they can talk about random chances with a fair degree of certainty.

But we're down in the realm of tiny numbers. I really don't understand why you don't believe in the existence of luck at this level of scope.

Peregrine wrote:Finally, you're also ignoring the entirely non-random aspects of the game: metagame analysis, list construction, most movement, target priority, etc. All of them make a huge difference in who wins, and none of them involve rolling dice.

I am. The reason why is because there are limits to these things. Limits that are really easy to hit (I mean, really, how hard is it to copy a netlist, etc.). Once these things become roughly equal between two different players, it becomes a control variable, and can be safely ignored.

Peregrine wrote:

Then you and your gaming group have very different luck than anything I've experienced. Outliers are much more common where I'm from.

Or you're just having a problem with confirmation bias

I hereby present to you my entire battle report archive. Yes, it's not completely documented, but there is a LOT of data here. One of the reasons why I've been doing this all these years is precisely so that when someone comes by and claims confirmation bias, I can present them with a huge amount of actual data.

If you can't find obvious trends in the die rolling and its impact in these games, then you must have an unshakable faith in the absence of the existence of luck.

 Ailaros wrote:
This would only be true over an infinite number of tournaments.

For a tiny number of tournaments, there is absolutely no guarantee that this is true.

You'd need an infinite number of tournaments to guarantee that skill was dominant over luck.

You don't need that many tournaments for the plausibility of the same people doing consistently doing well in tournaments by sheer luck to decline to the point where the more likely explanation is that they're just better players.

Once again, not true. You're talking about a very tiny number of die rolls compared to infinite. Seriously, the law of large numbers only works in the case of very, very large numbers.

And wrong again. The law of large numbers only guarantees that the results will converge on the exact average for very, very large numbers. For much smaller numbers the results will almost certainly be within a reasonable margin of the exact average, close enough that outliers can be ignored and the majority of events in the game will be fairly close to average.

But we're down in the realm of tiny numbers. I really don't understand why you don't believe in the existence of luck at this level of scope.

I believe in the existence of luck at small levels.

I do NOT believe that some people are simply blessed with amazing luck that goes way beyond the limit of plausibility. Even a single game of 40k involves enough rolls for the average results of MOST games to be fairly close to the mathematical average. It's a small enough number that exceptional cases will happen, but they're just that: exceptional. In other words, not frequent enough for a player to consistently do well in tournaments just by having games like that.


PS: you don't need millions of events to get the average to converge within a reasonable margin of the mathematical average. A skilled poker or blackjack player can expect to play for a night and consistently make a profit, while a "skilled" lottery player can not.

I am. The reason why is because there are limits to these things. Limits that are really easy to hit (I mean, really, how hard is it to copy a netlist, etc.). Once these things become roughly equal between two different players, it becomes a control variable, and can be safely ignored.

Err, no, those are not easy limits to hit. And no, you can't just get a netlist and expect to win. Successful tournament players may tend to use popular archetypes (after all, they were popular for a reason), but the people that win are the ones who understand the game well enough to analyze the specific tournament's rules and expected metagame and fine-tune the "netlist" to best suit that particular player and event.

Then again, you're the one who called people TFG sociopaths for playing a gunline army in 6th, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you'd ignore the skill part of army list construction.

I hereby present to you my entire battle report archive. Yes, it's not completely documented, but there is a LOT of data here. One of the reasons why I've been doing this all these years is precisely so that when someone comes by and claims confirmation bias, I can present them with a huge amount of actual data.

I just looked at a couple reports, but I don't see any useful data in there. You've highlighted certain memorable events, but you haven't compiled an exact count of each player's rolls. Of course if you're doing it that way you're going to find a lot of exceptional events, because you only include details and discussion of the events that are more interesting than "my infantry squad fired lasguns and did an average amount of wounds, then my opponent failed an average amount of saves". That's textbook confirmation bias.

Also, if you're so certain that it's entirely about luck and not skill, why the hell do you bother playing the game? Why not just roll a die, and on a 4+ you win? Or why not play a different game where you're actually playing the game, and not just writing down the results of the random number generator?