Although I believe that unpredictable events are inevitable in the long run, I would not say that prediction isn't one of the most valuable things to learn in toribash. If you are a defensive player you need to know when to start a counter (starting too early means it isn't a surprise and your opponent can save it and starting too late means you get rekt) while as an offensive player you need to know your opponents weak spots (in terms of where there balance is and, more importantly, will be in the next turnframe) and when it is best to utilise them.

However, to say you can predict an opponents movement accurately just makes the fact that you occasionally lose indicate that you are an idiot. I doubt you would play the game the same way if you could see your opponents real time ghost because this allows accurate prediction in a way that simple ingame experience can not.

I agree that improvisation is a good method of fighting in TB. Everything that happens is unpredictable. I was constantly in fights where i could beat my opponent simply by changing one or two joints using the same technique.You just have to be prepared for the unexpected as best you can. So in a nutshell, answering the first question, TB is unavoidably haotic. But when you really think about it, so is life. But it doesnt mean TB is any less fair. Just deal with whatevr life/toribash throws at you. And I believe instead of prediction, mild anticipation is what you should aim for. Making predictions blinds one's mind to other possobilities. Just a thought.

i think luck is the constant.
skill is only relevant to the top 10%
everyone else is just going through the motions, only action, no reaction.

a top player can lose to a less experienced player, because the less experienced player brings luck into the equation.
a match between 2 less experienced players can go either way, regardless of skill, because of the luck element.
while a match between 2 players in that top 10% has less of the luck element.

i agree with ferras that toribash is pretty balanced, but its only balanced when skill is a factor.
and competition can only be balanced when leagues are separated into a tier system.


i have a 70% winrate and i still think its down to luck. even when i was actually good.

A high win rate doesn't mean squat unless it's in the ultimate servers, and even then it assumes everyone else is playing to win as opposed to playing for fun.

There are a great number of factors that introduce uncontrollable aspects into the game. Probably the most annoying ones are unregistered dq's because the engine can't handle all the object collisions. After those are glass wrists, double grab mechanics, dc's/lag from a very full server, and so on.

Just as an aside, screw pure usertext, it shouldn't exist. Especially since /opt transparency 0 is no longer a thing, and many laptops can't reliably handle shaders. I'd like to be able to see my opponent's damage taken, thank you.

Luck? How is your opponents moves luck to you? That's like saying every multiplayer game is based on luck... The game itself uses rounding when calculating, and that's about the closest you get to luck not considering feet getting stuck underground etc.

Stop BSing saying that you cannot predict your opponent hence a element of luck, that argument should just be kept out of any multiplayer environment as reading your opponent is one of the essential counter-stones of playing with hidden information in any game.

Then again being good at playing this game and "mastering toribash and being able to accurately read your opponent" is two widely different things as it in most cases comes down to experience in making estimations based on having been in a similar situation

toribash=love, toribash=life.
I can sometimes predict the most likely 2 or 3 things to happen (based on which moves the opponent could use on me most effectively) but try to counter the wrong one and get dq'ed despite knowing that there was a 50% chance of this happening. I find fighting people I can't predict continuously many times helps me to grow as a tb player because you learn new ways of fighting.

K K i see your point. Just saying that you can never truly know what will happen and when in a fight. This level of uncertainty is just part of toribash. However, yes it does help you grow as a player learning possible ways to counter such events. Thats where your skill applies. Knowing how to gracefully react to unpredictable events and winning despite bad luck fracs, dms, and decaps. But then still, you agree that Toribash has chaos written all over it right?

Smogard,
Humans are unpredictable and chaotic, and because of the turn based nature of the game your reaction to their action must start before the action happens (you can't react halfway through a turnframe). Each turnframe can bring entirely new movements from the opponent and it is hard to be ready for all of them. In real time games you put a lot down to how quickly and accurately you react to events (especially is FPS games) as well as timing (such as in sport games and racing games and stuff). In toribash you must react to things at the same time as your opponent .

This means it is potentially more chaotic than other games because you are not always given opportunities to react to unexpected events such as random wrist fracs or max contacts glitches.

I agree with proton. Not being to react a movement in the middle of the movement causes it to be much more chaotic. It makes you completely change everything you just did in that last turn frame
unlike other games where if you tweak your move slightly to the left or right you can still get a hit. I think it requires much more skill than luck in this game, mainly because you have to react well enough(a.k.a a save) so that you opponent won't dq you. Everything is determined by one movement, not a series of attacks. It takes skill to save not luck that your opponent doesn't want to let go of you. I'm not saying luck isn't a factor in some games, i'm saying it requirews much more skill than luck to win matches.

You basically have to predict probabilities a lot more because that is the only thing you can use to judge how successful certain moves will be. You are faced with a balance between covering as many possibilities as possible (the moves most well know for doing this are probably the tripod and quadrapod stances where you stabilise yourself with 3 or all 4 of your limbs making there fewer weak spots in terms of balance) and trying to guess exactly what sort of thing your opponent is going to do so you can prepare an attack which is strong against it.

As BenDover said, as long as both players know what they are doing, having good predictive skills will increase the likelihood of winning, whereas if your opponent is just fighting randomly then prediction becomes much less useful.