Cheating the dice

[x_equals_speed]

Edit: Late to the party? So this started as trying to figure the dice, turned into the dice probably can't be figured and wound up discussing the merits of that. If the thread seems too long just read TreasureCat's post on page two which sums it up pretty well without reading a bajillion words from me ;)

So the wheel, pendulum and cards can all be mastered - you can (at least in theory) get good enough at them to always win. The dice felt like the odd one out for having no player skill element but I thought the cards were random for the first few levels of HoF1 so I've been trying to work out if there is one and I'm just missing it.

I've tried every which way I can think of involving tossing the dice and don't seem to be able to influence the outcome a sausage with how hard I throw them and in which direction.

Now I'm wondering if the "roll dice" button is there for a reason. Maybe there's something to do with the timing with which you click on that button which influences the outcome. The dice spin slowly in the air, so maybe clicking on it at the right moment gets a particular result?

If there is it's not anything simple like "the face up number is rolled" or "the number facing the camera is rolled" or "the number most recently revealed by the spin is rolled" but then we get two rolls. Maybe the first roll is to establish a pattern and the second is to exploit it. Like on roll 1 the number showing on a particular face of the die will be rolled so on roll 2 you can use that knowledge to throw a six (on at least one of the dice)

There are so many possible permeatations of that though. Also the model becomes complicated enough that you can overfit the data and create a model that works for any situation (In extremis one 'pattern' per roll that exactly maps the relationship between the first die orientation and roll onto the second relationship between die orientation and roll)

I feel like the dice are making me into some sort of conspiracy theorist, seeing patterns everywhere. Maybe it really is just random or a physics model sufficiently chaotic that you can't predict it.

Without going into detail on what it is, I'd like to work it out for myself if it exists, has anyone found a way to cheat the dice?

[Emilio]

Short answer: It's random and it is also the gambit with the biggest ''cheats'' in form of Colbjorn and the equipment/blessings to make up for the randomness.
It is a game of calculated risk and as such shouldn't be treated as some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
''I don't win 100% of the time therefor it's badly made''

Long answer: It's not random according to the devs.
So if you want to always win you could in theory spend months making a program that perfectly calculates the angle of the dice depending on how it's thrown for constant 6'es.
But at that point you could spend time playing the game and getting equipment to help you instead.

In the end since it is a game of chance and calculated risk with the most cheats and it really is just up to people to accept that they sometime wont win and have to have a little bit of luck.

[x_equals_speed]

There's equipment, blessings and companions for all of the minigames. I'm not sure what that has to do with the minigames themselves though. It's not like any of them change the core nature of the challenge, a slower pendulum is still a timing challenge, fewer card switches is still a visual tracking challenge and so on. Adding or subtracting from the dice doesn't change what you do during the dice challenge.

My interest is in whether the dice challenge is a dexterity challenge in how they're thrown, a pattern recognition challenge in when to throw or something else entirely. Or possibly no challenge at all and it really is the odd one out and has no meaningful gameplay.

I'm not sure why you would want a game that you won 100% of the time and it sorta seems at odds with what you're saying in other places to ask for that. Personally I'd want to lose a fair portion of the time. I certianly don't think that you should view games that you don't always win as badly made.

Writing software to deconstruct a physics sim of dice rolling is an interesting idea, but it's not for me. I mean I guess it could be an interesting challenge from a coding point of view, but there are probably easier ways to implement actual cheats. I think if it does turn out to be essentially random it's probaly better just to live with it than spend hours trying to rewrite part of the game. Even the very best games have the odd element that's not as tightly designed, if you went around trying to "fix" all of them you'd never get to play anything!

Do you have a link to what the devs said on the subject? Did they say something more akin to "It's not random, there's something to find" or "It's a deterministic simulation, but sufficiently chaotic you shouldn't try to figure it out"?

[Emilio]

I don't want to win 100% of the time either. That's why I used the little ''.

Like I said it's a game of calculated risk and a little bit of luck there is on a technical level no actual skill involved which is why it has the best equipment/blessings and companion abilties to stack it in your favor a little more.

As for the developer quote I honestly don't remember what thread they said it in. But what they said exactly was about, ''The dice can technically be calculated as it uses an actual physics engine''

[x_equals_speed]

Well if I didn't ask for it and you didn't ask for it, who are you quoting?

Sure, I can see the steps you'd take to maximise your chances given it's random. They're pretty obvious. I use them, I probably win more often at the dice game than at the pendulum game.

My interest isn't "What can I do to win more often?" as much as it is "Where is the gameplay here?" During the card game I'm trying to track a card, during the pendulum game I'm trying to figure when the movement of two or more things at different speeds will intersect, during the dice game I'm ... waiting for it to be over?

If that's the tone it does sound like there's nothing to find here. That's kinda disappointing. I'd have liked for the dice game to have had some gameplay in it. I felt so sure that it would do, since everything else in the game is so tight and cheating fate is something of a theme that's (in all other places in the game and in the original) nicely reinforced by supposedly random games that are actually skill playable.

[Emilio]

The developer (it was either Morgan or Lee if I remember correctly) said it in a thread similar to this about the dice. Search for dice on the forum and look through every thread and you might find it.

Like i've been saying from the start the dice gamble is just a matter of calculated/mathemacial risk.
So unless you consider taking a risk actual gameplay then no, the dice has no deeper gameplay implications.

[x_equals_speed]

The reason I didn't search before posting is that I'd hoped there was something to it and I wanted to figure out how it worked for myself rather than being told, thus not wanting to read every thread on the subject. But aye, if there's nothing, you're right: There's no reason for me not to search the discussions and find it myself.

I buy into Sid Meier's definition, that a game is a series of meaningful choices. Whether that's a strategic choice like which starting equipment to take or a split second choice like whether to dodge, block or attack - whenever you're making choices you're playing a game.

From the moment the minigame starts it to the moment it ends there are no choices that aren't obvious, so I'd say the minigame itself contains no gameplay.

That said Hand of Fate 2 is choc full of meaingful choices, at basically every level. You choose which cards to include going in, then a level down make choices about which pieces of equipment to go with and whether it's worth exploring that extra card or not, whether to buy food or equipment, then a level down you're making choices within particular encounters - what sort of risk for what sort of reward right down to microchoices in stopping the pendulum now or waiting for the return swing. There are a lot of encounter cards that are based on choice, things like 'Dark Alley' giving an choice between a particular opponent or a particular treasure or 'Caravan Raid' letting you choose how many things to take (at increasing risk with the option to revise that choice after each grab).

It's a really great game. I'm presently badly injured and can't sit in a chair, I'm meant to be doing 10 minutes at a time as I can stand the pain - so I have maybe an hour a day in which I can use my desktop and I'm spending most of it on HoF2. I guess the reason that I was willing to look so hard for a meaningful choice within the minigame was that I've generally been so impressed with how the game handelled choice so I figured there had to be one. Ultimately the dice game represents maybe 1% of time spent with the game, so while I find it a lil disappointing, it's far from spoiling my enjoyment of the thing.

[Skatters]

I am so very glad, personally, that the dice are DICE. And I dont think thats disappointing at all - it becomes a game of odds, risk, and gambling (have you ever played Swindlestones, in Sorcery?). In HoF2, the dice can be played well, but will always contain an element of chance that might just bite you - I dont think that means it adds 'no meaningful gameplay'.

The rerolls or 'extra dice' from companions/blessings add to this, subtly differently than the 'retries' of other minigames. But overall, I feel its just differently minded to the cards, pendulam, or wheel. The physics engine of it is fantastic, and it feels very realistic. Dice is a game of odds and thinking and calculated risk taking, not sleight of hand and skillful dexterity (and as a professional juggler, I've certianly attempted sleight of handing dice for many hours...)

In the other mentioned thread, somebody suggested making the dice throwing some kind of 'pull back and release' skill based mini-game (where releasing at the 'correct point' would yield better results... like wii-golf or something) to make it feel more 'masterable' by the player - I personally think this would be an awful and even immersion breaking idea, and would take away from the spirit and realistic/tabletop flavour of the game. Though perhaps some would feel that adds more 'gameplay' - I hardly think it'd be a worthwhile alteration to a good dice roll simulator... so that you can think about them as actual dice.

I actually like the dice the most. But then, I enjoy punishing games of calculated risk and reward.

[Connatic]

Originally posted by Skattotter:

...
In the other mentioned thread, somebody suggested making the dice throwing some kind of 'pull back and release' skill based mini-game (where releasing at the 'correct point' would yield better results... like wii-golf or something) to make it feel more 'masterable' by the player - I personally think this would be an awful and even immersion breaking idea, and would take away from the spirit and realistic/tabletop flavour of the game. Though perhaps some would feel that adds more 'gameplay' - I hardly think it'd be a worthwhile alteration to a good dice roll simulator... so that you can think about them as actual dice.

I actually like the dice the most. But then, I enjoy punishing games of calculated risk and reward.

Exactly, might as well add somekind of pin-ball game and remove the dice entirely.

Dice are random and it's what I expected. Not sure why dice being random is a bad thing.

[x_equals_speed]

A game of odds, thinking and calculated risks sounds great. AS does one of calculated risks and reward.

It'd be good if the dice game were one of those things, but it's not. At no point can you say "I don't like my odds, I'm gonna back out" or "I'm willing to risk what I've got for a chance at a big win". There's a single target number to aim for and one right way to do it, there's never a trade off to consider.

I mean there are ways the dice game could be about calculated risk:

Suppose you could reroll as many times as you like, but took a pain card each time. You could choose how much you felt this reward was worth to you, decide how bad the pain was likely to be in your situation weighed against the anticipated reward and make a meaningful choice based on calculated risk.

Suppose when you clicked roll the dice came up values based on the sides of the dice facing the camera, with probability equal to the area the face is taking up on screen. You'd pick a moment based on some fast mental maths and a risk profile of what the 1-3 dice were showing you.

Suppose there was a "success" and a "great success" level rather than one target level. If you hit success you'd have to choose whether to risk failure to reroll into the better category. Even on a failure you'd likely choose which dice to keep differently depending on which level you were hoping for.

There are lots of ways the dice minigame could have some gameplay in it, that would mean you ever made a calculated risk during the minigame - but you don't. There literally can't be a situation where this is the "high risk high reward" option and that is the "low risk safe" option beuase there are only two outcomes and one of the options will be better for getting the desirable outcome than the other.

[Ninian]

The dice aren't really random in the sense that a computer spits out numbers arbitrarily. There are elements you can influence such as how hard you throw them and the fact you can see the dice before you throw them. It's still meant to be random to some degree, but it's never ever beyond your ability to fudge the results with the right blessings and the ring that gives +2 to the end result. Take this from someone who's 100%'d the game, including achievements. In fact, if a certain blessing and ring are both in play, you actually get +8 to all your dice rolls, which is pretty much a free win on any of them. (the blessing adds +2 to each die and the ring adds +2 to the end results) I never felt the dice were unfair, as someone who's seen it all now.

What I do with dice, usually, is that I use the ability to peek around the dice to see if any of the high numbers are on the left or right of them. Or in general, if they're closer to me or facing away. If the 6's are far away from me or otherwise not visible, I roll them hard. If they're close to me, I try and drop them gently in the opposite direction. Even still I don't win every dice challenge, but I win them often enough to be satisfied. I'm okay with this game having chance elements because that's the nature of card games in reality. What I find most fun about HoF as a series is that you kind of get both and that sufficient skill in combat can mitigate almost any troubles you have with bad luck streaks.

If you need to pass a dice challenge for a card's token unlock, play the Tower and just keep trying while stacking up blessings using Fairy Ring + Wishing Well, as you will get the OP dice blessing eventually. If you're trying to get through the Moon's gold token challenge (which has the most unforgiving dice gambit in the game) try to get the +2 ring before the second map and stack your encounters deck with blessing opportunities. Also obviously Colbjorn is your go-to companion if dice gambits are driving you up the wall.



EDIT: Also, if you want a relatively quick way to practice dice gambits, replay the beginning of Star. The first card you step on has a multi-step dice gambit with pain cards that resolves faster the quicker you can clear the target.

[Anthary]

In my opinion the dice game is the only game that actually makes you feel that you can't always have your way (aka "cheat"). It is the only one that requires a slight of hand rather than the sense of hearing or seeing. I do not know if it happened to others , most probably to those who perfected the game, but I was lucky enough to get a result of 3 on a beat 4 which is the equivalent of getting a result of 18 on a beat 18, aka the reverse of the get 3x6 achievement. The feeling is still indescribable. While yes you don't do much in the minigame other than roll the dice, is it not the same as you don't do much when you pick 1 card out of 4 ?. The actual meaningful choice is which of the dice to reroll. While yes it is not requiring for you to strain your eyes, it is still a choice based on your own whim. As someone who loves math, logic, chances I find the bones the most challenging to master.

You say that the other games require a meaningful choice and to an extend some skill. How can you say that in a three fast shuffle card game. Do you even know what card is what at the end of it? Is your choice not random in the end? Have you ever said to yourself "Darn I lost the card I was following, welp time to gamble." I am pretty sure you did. The wheel is the same one slip and you are almost at the corner of the desired card, but it is still almost and you did not get it.
Thou not many pendulums are hard, I know of some that are extreme. The speed of both the hand and the block are at their top and there are red blocks in the way, not to mention the goal block is just a little line. A one in million chance as they say is your luck there to time it correctly.

I feel a bit saddened that you dislike dice so much because if you "really" do not know they are at the core of boardgames/tabletop. And we all know HoF is that and even more.

[x_equals_speed]

Now we've got a claim that there is a gameplay element to it and that what you do in the minigame - the way that you throw the dice - makes a material difference. If that's true, then great! That's what I thought the situation was when I started the thread and one I'm far happier with.

Who's right about that?

Of course I've said "Darn, I lost the card, time to gamble" but the important part of that is "I've lost the card". I failed to do something well, so my odds went down. What I did or didn't do was meaningful. That's what I want out of a minigame.

Again with the wheel, one slip and you screw it up - but it's your slip to make. You do a thing, you might do it wrong, but what you did it mattered.

I can see how hypothetically if one of the other games is hard enough then it could become like the dice (if they are effectively random). I think a fast3 shuffle is trackable (but hard) - but if you imagine you modded the cards to move at a speed that was literally too fast for the human eye then it would be just like the dice. You'd have a chance of winning, the game would be perfectly compeletable, you could mitigate the cards with the right stuff (marking a bad card, getting a second chance) and nothing you did during the minigame would be meaningful. I don't think many people would see it as an improvement.

I don't dislike dice - I dislike the idea of a minigame in which no non-obvious choices are made - those aren't the same thing. A die doesn't inherently mean that there's no choice to be made or that choices aren't meaningful, plenty of games use them to great effect. I enjoy a game of Dead of Winter, but think Snakes and Ladders is boring. They both use dice, the reason I dislike S&L isn't that it has dice, it's that you don't make any kind of choice.

Though if you think dice are at the core of boardgaming you've missed out on some of the best things to come out of the last decade or so of board game design. A lot of designers moved away from favouring dice and it resulted in hundreds of fantastic games out there that don't use dice. Race for the Galaxy is one of my all time favoriate games - give it a go if you ever get a chance!

[Anthary]

I never said that throwing the dice in a "certain" way can result in instant wins. I meant it more in general that when you throw dice it is something physical that you do. That you have power over.

You don't think the important bit is that you lost the card. You think the important thing is to follow the card hence why you are frustrated with losing it. Is it considered failure to do something if you never tried it to begin with? Do you not consider if you reroll 1 or all dice to be meaningful?
When do you know you slipped, when you tell the wheel to stop or when it actually shows you what you got? Do you honestly believe that your outcome is not just as random as it is supposed to be with the only benefit is your supposed guess of how many cards the wheel is going to skip on its stopping motion. Is it not the same "gamble" as with the dice.
I commend you for starting the game with the notion that the card game put the cards randomly.
It is the perfect example of you choose your fate based on chance. Your "choice" being an illusion that you eventually pierce and realize that you can improve your odds with "skill".
But this skill only applies on 1 shuffle and even then it is half the time a gamble.
Believe me if you think you make a meaningful choice during all but the dice you are in an illusion of your own. If you are not with the ring/armor or both your chances of following a card are pretty low. Maybe you are a chosen individual and can track the fast shuffles but I am not and if I do not stack against fates chance I rely on my wits and gambling. Why do you think relying on oneself wits and estimating his chances is not meaningful. During a fast3 shuffle do you always pick the first card?(because it is a non meaningful choice so why bother).

Originally posted by x_equals_speed:

I can see how hypothetically if one of the other games is hard enough then it could become like the dice (if they are effectively random). I think a fast3 shuffle is traceable (but hard) - but if you imagine you modded the cards to move at a speed that was literally too fast for the human eye then it would be just like the dice. You'd have a chance of winning, the game would be perfectly compeletable, you could mitigate the cards with the right stuff (marking a bad card, getting a second chance) and nothing you did during the minigame would be meaningful. I don't think many people would see it as an improvement.

This is entirely your opinion and Yes many people would not see it as an improvement. I honestly do not know why anyone would want that.

The fact that you think you have no non-obvious choice is your own. If you imagine the dice game be a game of cards. You have a deck of 18 cards each with a number and they are stack on top of each other. The dealer says shuffle once, maybe twice and choose either the top or the bottom card. The choice is there it is "obvious?" and yet it is random what the outcome is, is it not? And then if you fail you can redo the process giving you the sense of unlucky ness lets try to pick the card on the bottom this time.

I said dice are at the core of board games because that's how I grew up, playing Don't be mad , Monopoly , Backgammon. It does not matter what you roll but what you do after it. In our situation it is rerolling and evaluating your odds of winning(just like with the other mini games). The process of the first roll is the process of the shuffle or the rotation of the wheel. You do not control that you control the outcome. In the card games is the choice of a card or when to stop the wheel, with the dice it is the rerolling.

To finish it off. Yes the dice are the most random of gambles. Yes you can try to manipulate the result with slow or hard toss. No they are not there just to pass the time and No they are not entirely without choice. If you try to beat some of the later levels without gambling equipment or blessings you would actually find the card games more punishing than the dice.
The equipment and blessings are to improve your odds on said gamble not make you never lose.
I do not know how much you have completed of the game but When you get to Judgement you will appreciate the bones a lil bit more and probably get just what you wanted out of them.

[x_equals_speed]

I genuinely can't follow your reasoning for some of this post. There are individual statements that make sense, but I don't see how they follow from each other or lead to the conclusion you end up at. Some things aren't true - for instance I'm not frustrated by losing a challenge (unless it was easy and I really screwed up) so much as by having no input into the outcome of one - but most of it individually is.

I'll do my best to answer your questions.

"Is it considered failure to do something if you never tried it to begin with?"

On what level? The game doesn't know how hard you tried so will award the fail consequence regardless. In most things in life deciding not to try is to fail.

"Do you not consider if you reroll 1 or all dice to be meaningful?"

Not at the moment, because there is a correct choice and it's obvious. It's a choice on a par with "should I click continue or hit ALT+F4" technically it's a choice and both options will do something, but it's not meaningful because you'll always do the one correct thing.

"When do you know you slipped, when you tell the wheel to stop or when it actually shows you what you got?"

It depends how badly wrong I get it, sometimes on hitting the button, sometimes as it slows down, sometimes only when it shows the result.

"During a fast3 shuffle do you always pick the first card?(because it is a non meaningful choice so why bother)."

If I've lost the card I'll click one at random, if I think I've followed the card I'll click the one I think it is. On fast3 I'll think I've followed the card about a third of the time (and having thought I've followed it will turn out to be wrong maybe half the time from that - which is still better than the one in four chance if I didn't try to follow it)

Sometimes I'll switch which card I'm following - like if a success goes into the middle of the deck and a fail goes on top I might decide to follow the fail instead to be able to pick "A random one from the things that aren't that fail" since it's easier to follow the card that goes to the top or bottom than either of the middle slots.

I don't think there'd be anything wrong with always picking the first card if you totally lost track, as you say it's got the same odds as the others. Personally I think I tend to pick the one closest to the cursor in an act of extreme sloth.

"The fact that you think you have no non-obvious choice is your own. If you imagine the dice game be a game of cards. You have a deck of 18 cards each with a number and they are stack on top of each other. The dealer says shuffle once, maybe twice and choose either the top or the bottom card. The choice is there it is "obvious?" and yet it is random what the outcome is, is it not?"

I'm not sure I follow your example. Is the idea that you have a deck of 18 cards marked 1-18 and are then given the choice to shuffle the deck once or twice and then to choose whether you want the top or bottom card to be your score? If you get to look at the top and bottom card first it's an obvious choice, you pick the highest one. If you don't get to look then it's more of a false choice - you don't have the information to make a meanignful decision, nothing you do will be better than flipping a coin.

When I talk about an obvious choice I'm talking about which dice to reroll. Ninteen times out of twenty it's trivial to calculate which dice should be rerolled, only in a few edge case scenarios is the calculation complicated enough to stop being automatic. There's always a correct answer, it's not like "Should I take 5 food or 5 max life?" which would be a meaningful choice where you need to weigh up the factors and decide what you think you need. It's more like "Should I take 5 food or 10 food?" which isn't so much a meaningful choice as a deliberate waste of time.

I guess if you see the "what to reroll" as the gameplay of the dice, in the way that "when to stop" is the gameplay of pendulum and "how to track" is the gameplay of cards then you could recast my disappointment as "The dice game isn't hard enough" If deciding what to reroll felt challenging rather than obvious and getting the right answer felt rewarding rather than providing a slight (probably less than 5%) advantage I'd feel diferently about it. I'm not sure how that could be done though - if figuring out which dice are best to reroll is hard the difference between the odds for the correct and (most realistic) incorrect answer is probably small enough that figuring it out wasn't really rewarded.

Whatever else comes out of this conversation please google "[Your city] + board games shop" then drop them an email and ask them if there's a good time to come play games in the shop (most shops will have tables set up for this and run the odd games night). There's nothing wrong with the games you grew up with, but if you enjoy HoF for it's board game like qualities and haven't seen what's gone on in the world of board games since childhood you have a lot to look forward to! People tend to be nice and are happy to teach new games and to meet new people. I think you'd have a really great evening.

[Anthary]

"On what level? The game doesn't know how hard you tried so will award the fail consequence regardless. In most things in life deciding not to try is to fail."

Maybe I should have said do you consider failing to follow the correct card if you do not try to follow it at all. The game does not know how hard you did not try and will award the success rewards regardless. Why involve life situations is beyond me. Are you considered a failure at using chopsticks if you never have tried at all ? Oh the shame I am a failure at lifting a watermelon with one arm because I have not tried at all.

"Not at the moment, because there is a correct choice and it's obvious..." + "There's always a correct answer, it's not like"
Correct is a strong word. You always choose the "best" not the correct. You appoint it meaningful/correct depending on your situation. If you dont need gold or max life would it matter what you take making it meaningful/correct.
And did you just say "hit alt+f4".

"It depends how badly wrong I get it, sometimes on hitting the button, sometimes as it slows down, sometimes only when it shows the result."
It was more of a rhetorical question for you to consider the gambling aspect of the wheel and not to answer it so planely.

I am saddened that you miss my point. They are all gambles, they are all chances games. You feel disappointed in the dice because you can't cheat on it, except when you quit the game that is(smooth btw).I wonder how your first experience on The Devil was , if you genuinely did it that is.

Oh sorry for not listing all the boardgames that I play. Wow would you believe it if I told you that I even host such and play deckbuilders. Not to mention I will be a proud owner of Ordeals when it starts shipping.