The current problem, now that Valken has stopped communicating here, is that some people don't seem to understand what's meant by random here. Just because you can describe a percentage of time that an action occurs doesn't mean that it isn't random. If there are different likelihoods that certain actions produce a trip, but you can NEVER produce an action that trips 100% of the time, then tripping is random, plain and simple.
It doesn't matter if say, walking has a 2% chance every step, while dashing has a 10% chance every step. That doesn't make it not random. In fact, if you can honestly determine those numbers through some method, that demonstrates that it IS random. You cannot perform a certain movement that will always produce a trip. Every movement that can trip will do so only SOME OF THE TIME. Do you realize the implication there? The same input will produce different results on different trials. That means that there is some element of chance involved--that it is random.
Valken, if you still bother to check these boards, let me say something to you. I'm awestruck sometimes at how petty this community can be, and YOU, not your opposition here, are a fantastic example of that pettiness. You want so much to demonstrate that this community can be too harsh in its defense of widely regarded fact. You want to make us look foolish, but you fail to see the issue from any perspective but your own, shallow view.
Yes, many times in the past, communities in the world that were sure of something were shown to be completely foolish in their beliefs. And yeah, maybe those communities ought to have been more accepting of other points of view. This fact has NOTHING to do with this situation. One group, "us," has done or observed empirical testing on the subject. We have demonstrated with absolute accuracy, in the video you were shown, that identical inputs provide different outputs. In our structured, definable system, brawl, we have shown that some element of chance pervades. Something "random" occurs.
We've done empirical testing, and we've made simple observations of general gameplay that support it as well. We're ingrained in our belief system because we've seen our hypothesis demonstrated experimentally time and time again. Then, along comes someone else, someone who opposes our belief system. Someone who says "I don't think tripping is random." Well that's great. If this person happened to show us something notable to change our minds, maybe we'd even praise them. But all you have done is said that you don't think tripping is random. You've given insubstantial possible explanations for the testing we've done that supports our point. You've supplied little-to-no support of your own. The only believably valid thing you've done is attacked the idea of randomness.
Even that has received at least one valid refute from our side. mugwhump put it quite well a page or so back. Brawl isn't a natural system, it's a created, controlled system. The game mechanics work in a programmed, intended way. Certain inputs give you expectable outputs. Pressing left doesn't make me do a somersault and then fall through the stage or levitate. It makes me move left. The game is structured in a very simple input-output way. We tell the game to do something, and it does that thing. It's a user interface designed to react correctly to our inputs. If IDENTICAL inputs provide different outputs, then there is something out of our control at play here. There is something that decides, ambiguously, if we trip or not.
Now here we are, comfortably believing what we've shown to be true through experimentation. An argument we can easily refute comes our way. Why should we give a flying **** about what that argument says if we can, without even trying, refute everything it says with our empirical testing. Why should we listen to you if you can't give any substantial rebuttal to our beliefs other than "you COULD be wrong"
OF COURSE WE COULD BE WRONG. Maybe we are. But you can't just waltz in here and say "you could be wrong" and expect praise. We don't care that we could be wrong. We've shown, for now at least, that what we believe is plausible, that it seems to hold. Sure, there could be some variable we haven't taken into account that explains all of this. But unless you're going to TELL us what that is, then why should we care what you say? Of course we can be wrong. That fact alone shouldn't make us believe every crackpot who comes along with some lack-of-an-explanation for phenomena we have at least somewhat accurately described.
Get off your horse and down to reality. And stop posting the same thing over and over again. We don't need 5 of these threads.