Approved Looking at the strategy of Random Battles through an interview with bartimaeus (randbats player)

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Malley

Dominachu
First up, I'll come clean and say that bartimaeus is a personal friend. I won't try to hide any potential biases (although I will try to remove them). Some hard facts though: he has been #1 on the Random Battles ladder multiple times, and held the highest GXE on the ladder (86.2 I believe) for a long time, until some of the more random elements were removed and the teams generated became more reliably viable, with the result that higher GXEs became easier to attain. He hasn't laddered seriously since that change, so I can't directly compare him to the people at the top of the ladder now.

Essentially, I feel that random battles aren't treated with enough respect - the idea that they are 'skill-less' is fairly widespread - and so I would like to write an exposition on the skill and strategy involved, looked at through the lens of an incredibly skilled randbats player. I am fairly competent in randbats myself, so the interview would be complementary to the investigation of randbats strategy as a whole - rather similar to how TV documentaries use a presenter and an expert guest. I would be the presenter, as it were, and bartimaeus (a rather awkward person) would be the guest.

I can talk at length about why randbats is definitely not skill-less, but in short: you have to figure out how your team works in seconds - win cons, synergy, etc. - while also engaging with opponent's team in the manner of DPP and earlier, with no team preview. There is a massive number of variables, and the skill comes in processing them all as efficiently as possible and then battling as normal based on that.

An additional option is incorporating the thoughts of Tom Bus into this, who is a very good 'standard' battler and who also reached #1 on the randbats ladder. I've talked to him a few times and we're in a private room together, so I could approach him about some input if that seems like a good idea.

I look forward to hearing your views,
Thanks
 
Can confirm that randbats require at least some skill because I always lose at them. )':

Anyway, this sounds like it has a lot of potential. Out of curiosity, how are you planning to format this? Would it have an interview section then a report-style section explaining things further (or vice versa)? I'm willing to approve it, though I'll leave the thread open a while longer for others to comment.
 

Malley

Dominachu
I've just been running through a few formatting ideas, and I think that a straight interview with well-informed, fairly deep questions should work. It's open to a few outside factors, though - I've asked the people currently working on randbats development for some sort of statement/insight into the recent changes, which could add another level to the piece, and I'm also yet to contact Tom Bus. If he's interested then the interview layout should still work, but there would be the possibility of interaction between his opinions and bartimaeus's if anything pertinent came up.

e: Tom Bus is in now.
 
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Malley

Dominachu
Great. Ready to go with the interviews whenever. Is it worth aiming to publish in the next issue?
 

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okay we can work with this

tagging Jellicent to give you access to the Article Workshop, Malley, and you can also join us on #thesmog IRC channel for live chat with other writers/contributors, if you are inclined to do so. remember to keep everything within the Workshop and the IRC channel private, please. :]

edit: OH whoops xd
 
He already has access to the AW, ante. He's on GP rofl.

But yea, I approve this too. We're releasing soon, so you'll probably want to do it for next issue, Malley.
 

Malley

Dominachu
Okay, having read your article Oglemi I'll definitely have to change what I was intending, but I think it can still work. I have a decent amount of material just on how it's changed recently (Thanks The Immortal), plus interviews with people who played at different points in its development. I'll also try to focus on what it is that makes someone really good, not just competent, if I can flesh that out in the interviews.

If it's not too awkward, I think it would be best to do the interviews, then judge based on them whether there's enough new and interesting content to fill an article. If there's not, it may be best to put the piece on hold.
 
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