Originally Posted by
CategoryTheory
No, we disagree there. I say that paper performance translates exactly to in-game performance. If my calculation says that a bullet will do X damage when it hits an enemy, I'm very convinced that the game will produce exactly that result. If the paper calculation says that you will get Y damage overall if Z percent of your targets are out of cover when the bullet hits them, then the game will do exactly that.
The problem here seems to be that you think there are things on that paper that are simply not there, such as, "when you next play mission X, what percentage of your shots will miss?" That's neither in my calculations nor yours (though in mine that can be put in as an estimate, if you like, which you can't so easily do experimentally). So I don't see how it's relevant. Neither of us predict the exact future, nor, as far as I know, are either of us claiming to do so. (I certainly am not.)
This is another source of confusion, I think. There are no ideals here (except what you keep trying to bring to this). I just say "this happens under these conditions." You're absolutely correct that, for this information to be applicable to all players you must separate that from the player's choice about what conditions to meet and the value judgements about whether "this happens" is desirable or not. So don't assign things like "player X."
Let's sum that up again: I am never saying things like an unqualified, "a player will do this much damage." You should assume all the reasonable and obvious qualifications such as, "the damage will be this much from this bullet only if the player hits the target with it." You'll note that the game makes the exact same assumptions on the inventory screen when it shows you things such as the damage of a weapon.