• Limonene@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    >not a single balance update since the 8th century

    You’re just begging AnarchyChess to correct you.

    • nadiaraven@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      OK, I looked it up on Wikipedia. The bishop and queen were the last to have their moves set changed to the modern form in the 15th or 16th century. But even since then there have been some tweaks, such as the 3 move and 50 move rules for draws, and the orientation of the board. So you could maybe argue no balancing since the 16th century, and only a few bug fixes after that.

      • ColeSloth
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        11 months ago

        En passant wasn’t even added until 1880.

          • ColeSloth
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            11 months ago

            It’s French for “in passing”. It’s a special move for taking a pawn with another pawn, if the first pawn tries using its double space first move to go past an enemy pawn.

              • ColeSloth
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                11 months ago

                Are you like an idiot or something? You actually thought asking “what’s en passant?” Was going to come across as funny or sarcastic? Do you actually think everyone knows what en passant is? Most people don’t know how to play chess, yet you think asking what en passant is, is some sort of witty thing? Moron.

      • lordmauve@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, chess was really hard when the board had to be vertical. Horizontal orientation was a huge improvement to the player experience.

    • ColeSloth
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      11 months ago

      Castle was put in place around the 17th century, and en passant wasn’t put into the rules until 1880. Both were balance issues being solved.

    • The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websiteOP
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      11 months ago

      Funny story time:

      I had someone cheat against me the other day (without me realizing it, because I don’t have the game sense to tell), then offer a draw in a clearly winning position. I guess they were trying to avoid detection, but I decided that I didn’t want their handout, declined the draw offer, and resigned.

      The system immediately flagged them as cheating and refunded my elo, so I guess all’s well that ends well.

            • The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websiteOP
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              11 months ago

              Oh no, it’s completely free to play. What I meant was that when a game is over, the winning player gains rating points and the losing player loses rating points, proportional to the rating difference between them.

              Since I had lost that game, I lost rating (elo) points. But, since the system recognized that it was against a cheater, which isn’t fair, it gave me the points back when they banned him so that my rating would be unaffected.

    • Kogasa@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      I bet a bot can beat you at Counter Strike too if we made them as strong as possible like chess bots.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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    11 months ago

    Not quite true. Before the ~15th century, the queen moved like the king and the pawns could only move 1 square from their starting square. These changes were made to make the game more exciting and less slow.

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It doesn’t get balance updates because the sides are virtually identical, it’s not hard when your game design doesn’t take risks

    • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      You are quite correct that an asymetrical game is much harder to balance.

      However having identical sides and a symmetric playing field doesn’t always guarantee a balanced game. For example, if one piece or position dominates all others it can lead to a lack of viable options and just one way to play, making the game uninteresting. You don’t just want the players to have equal strength, you also want the universe of possible playing strategies to contain many different strong options.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Actually it has had balance changes. Chess clock for instance is a balance update between the players, but there’s also been balancing between pieces. En passant and castling but also changing how the pieces work (for example bishop).

      Despite the obvious symmetry of the game there’s still a lot to balance.

    • waratchess@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I think they meant balance as in the pieces haven’t received nerfs or buffs.

      • Bayz0r@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yes and this isn’t necessary because the two sides are completely identical. No differences in pieces or terrain or anything so there’s no need to change a piece to make it stronger or weaker.

    • jorge@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      It is too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces, etc.

      Polytopia addresses these limitations.

    • nieceandtows@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Eh. My last move was to tie a ballistic missile to a pawn and roll it down a pinball machine. Their move is to keep it from hitting the bottom and exploding. That would keep them occupied for a while.

  • De_Narm@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Well, balance is quite a bit easier if everything is a mirror match. And they still fucked it up, white has the starting advantage.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Nah, staring position is zugzwang, black gets to capitalise on whites blunder in the opening.

    • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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      11 months ago

      Having your opponent make the first move can absolutely be an advantage since it hints to the strategy they’re going with.

      I typically choose black for that reason.