Armageddon General Discussion Board

Strength really really needs a fix.

Currently it appears to be the only stat that matters in combat. And even max combat skills barely even seem to factor against strength.

Back in the day when we had full-guild magickers and boosted-gain rangers it was not such a big deal if you couldn't hit as hard as a dwarf. Back then the primary goal was to branch parry to give your character some survivability.

But now, playing a low strength combat character is a CHRONIC disappointment. Even after 20 days of constant sparring and grinding against known training mobs, you're still going to get beat out by a two day dwarf.

This is without how much of a pain in the ass it is to carry anything but a single skin of water around.

It's a broken, frustrating mess.

Back in the day parry wasn't "fixed", and I (could be wrong but) agility also meant a lot more.

Strength has always been the #1 stat, it has just become increasingly moreso and obvious after some code changes.

Tie endurance into carry weight so strength isn't such an absolute when it comes to wearing heavier armor.

Strength could stand to be leveled out among the races. The ranges for humans seems fine.

Bump it up some for elves, bump it down for dwarves and half-giants. Muls are fine.

Alternatively. It might just be easier to apply bonus damage after locational modifiers.

So that dwarf with +4 doesn't get +8 that on neck hits. And the elf is not similarly penalized.

isn't it world appropriate that an average dwarf should be able to defeat most humans in direct combat?  they are little hairless balls of muscle.

Strength is an overwhelming factor in fights for humans because we are all roughly as fast as each other. Elves have superhuman reflexes as per the docs, don't they?

Elven agility is pretty fucking good, can confirm.

Strength governs the hp damage per blow.

Dex governs things like how fast you attack and also dodge.

Do you know how anybody kills half-giants in hand-to-hand combat? By being faster than them.

I'm suggesting that all is balanced and whatnot - I've just come back and I've experienced very little combat as of yet. However, based on my own current character stats and combative results, I have a feeling I'm still right.

So I think things are alright as they are. Dwarves were terrors back in the day, and they'll always be that, because that's what they are supposed to be.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on November 23, 2018, 12:20:06 AM
Do you know how anybody kills half-giants in hand-to-hand combat?

You don't beat half-giants in hand-to-hand combat.

The problem is not that dwarves have good strength. Once again, the problem is that strength is too good. Maybe a dwarf might beat a human generally? But a human with extensive combat training shouldn't have to expect to get rolled by every dwarf.

And if you roll badly. Then tough luck for you kiddo. You should have prioritized strength. Suicide and try again.

I don't know if you've just had bad luck my guy but I've played a human assassin with poor strength that could spar warriors who had more than three times my playtime.

Quote from: tapas on November 23, 2018, 12:27:39 AM

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on November 23, 2018, 12:20:06 AM
Do you know how anybody kills half-giants in hand-to-hand combat?

You don't beat half-giants in hand-to-hand combat.

It can happen.

Quote from: 650Booger on November 23, 2018, 12:03:38 AM
isn't it world appropriate that an average dwarf should be able to defeat most humans in direct combat?  they are little hairless balls of muscle.

Yea, his case was an instance of a warrior that trained for 20 days, so a third of a year (assuming he meant IRL playtime). This warrior being beaten by a zero-experience dwarf seems pretty reasonable actually, a 20 IRL day trained warrior could even be beaten by a more gifted human with no experience I'd imagine, I'm visualizing a brawl though.

What's the main problem people have with strength as is though?
Is it that having strength affect combat so wildly means that cumbersome RNG (when you roll stats) determines how powerful your character can be? Or is it that race-differences in combat ability become too pronounced due to different strength rolls?

For the latter, even with strength advantages, it seems that non-humans are still rare enough and non-prominent enough to maintain a low-fantasy vibe, why bother with "nerfing" their strength?

QuoteQuote from: tapas on Today at 12:27:39 AM



Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on Today at 12:20:06 AM

Do you know how anybody kills half-giants in hand-to-hand combat?




You don't beat half-giants in hand-to-hand combat.

My Human PCs do....no problem.
My elf PCs do downright easily.

And honestly, if you have a 20day heavy combat PC and you are getting beat by a 2 day dwarf....Um....no you are not. That or you did something DRASTICALLY wrong in your combat training, like...you have no combat training. OR...it is not a 2 day dwarf.

Does strength mean something to combat? Yup, Should it? Yup. Is it a majority? Nope...not even close.
I find the stats and races to be quite balanced....long as I actually play to the strengths of said race.

Pardon my incredulity. But did it involve 20+ arrows?

For the elf....20+ days played ranger with a pair of clubs...and not verses newb HGs either.
Cannot damage what you cannot hit baby. There are players that still play that can back that up in fact, not sure on the HG players, but I know the player of the warrior tribemate still plays. It was at the span, 2 elves verses 2 HG, one elf KO'd early and mine killed one HG in melee then had to chase the other back to Tuluk.

Oh, and my Elf had just short of AI agi and only VG str.

You're underestimating the effect of agility on combat. HGs have the worst agility of the playable races, which both effects how much they dodge, and how many attacks they get off. Obviously, the defensive and offensive skills change this as they go up, but that agility is the HG weakness.

A day one HG will probably kill a day one human, but that's because they only have to hit you a few times. When the skill levels of the participants rises, the results change a little bit. It's not ever going to make fighting a giant hand to hand safe, but it makes it possible.

Just stay away from that head shot.

Hell...always think fighting the HG is stupid...even if you drastically outskill them...just like RL...there is always that chance for the lucky (or unlucky) Shot.

There can be no doubt that strength makes a tremendous difference in a fight. Strong characters have an advantage that allow them to trounce characters that are significantly more skilled.

I'm not sure I find this reasonable. Skill should play more of a role in such in fight. Why should strength give both a bonus to damage and a bonus to the chance to hit, for example? Perhaps the latter bonus could be reduced somewhat.

I'm not sure strength helps you to hit. It just makes a nick a solid hit.

Quote from: X-D on November 23, 2018, 02:37:00 AM
... fighting the HG is stupid ... there is always that chance for the lucky (or unlucky) Shot.

Yep.

also arguing combat code with x-d is about the worst thing you can do.

i know a lot about combat and how it works. x-d knows what i would refer to as "everything a reasonable player could possibly know and then some" about how combat works.

HGs are not even in the same range of consideration.

For ordinary combat comparisons, the balance consideration is between dwarves, humans, half-elves, desert-elves, and city-elves.  Also, you can't speak about d-elves and c-elves like they're the same, because they aren't.

The current class breakdown is seriously going to muddy the discussions as well, because there seem to be pretty huge differences in starting and capped base O/D.

The best bet, like I've said before, is to stop playing city-elves, unless you're doing it as a miscreant or artisan.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on November 23, 2018, 02:41:35 AM
I'm not sure strength helps you to hit. It just makes a nick a solid hit.

Staff have said strength influences your tohit chance.

Low halfgiant agi is real. I would not be surprised if a low agility giant died to a high agility elf. It probably only got a turn to attack 4-5 times to the elves 30 chances. And double that for dual wield. What surprises me is that the giant didn't just run off when he realized. Was probably hoping for that 1 big hit to one shot.

I kind of like the current balance.  High agility humans/elves just shouldn't stand with dwarves - you're going to get Oberynned.  I really feel that's how it should be.  There are a ton of different ways to do combat in the game that favor agility (thrown weapons, the various kinds of archery, poison, and surprising the hell out of someone before they get their weapons out).

All the classes cap O/D at the same point.

HG are an outlier, especially if you are considering any before a year or two ago, as there was a way for them to become essentially immune to elf level melee damage. That won't happen now.

Lostinspace: I am pretty sure the HG player was not watching his stun...likely because it is not something that a HG normally needs to pay a lot of attention to. My elf used dual blunt because he was too weak to do real HP damage through armor but had the agi to get several light head/neck/body blows in quickly...which add up fast and could usually KO a human in a few seconds, dwarves as well. And he was a rather known Red Fang and raider so, he did not wanna kill if he did not have to.

Anyway, I think the stats balance is fine.

No it isn't. Powergamers should not be the standard that balance is held to.

Whatever man, you are applying a label to something without any knowledge on it. What is a "powergamer"?

And what should the standard be?

I know that very same elf would have been dead by the no emote salarr crew leader attack when he was 2 hours old if not for his crazy AGI. Ooops...wait, powergamer..does not count.

So desert elf very good strength and dozens of days of playtime is supposed to be an example of strength being balanced because you whooped some newbie half-giants?

EDIT: Re-read the posts. So 20+ days of playtime (this is X-D playtime, not normal player playtime) and very good DESERT elf strength, against as you say, non-newb HGs.

a powergamers word is probably the best persons word to take in this situation because it means he has considered nearly every facet of how the stats and skills work in symbiosis. it means that he knows more about combat than you do, and would know more about what was balanced than you do.

For those of us power gaming by prioritizing stats in character creation I'll give you my super helpful tip to making a successful combat character.

Prioritize strength, hope for other good stats.


Or if you want to keep your characters alive a while do what I do and prioritize endurance on every character. You can get mauled by a drov beetle as a 5 day burglar and survive with AI endurance human.

Not when the logic is "If I can do it, so can you". Not everyone is X-D and expecting anyone who wants to play an effective combat character (or like, an elf who wants to carry a full skin of water) to pursue his knowledge is unreasonable.

MeT, I wonder if Strength influences the actual to-hit number, or if it relates to breaking through armor and shield use after the dodge has been calculated. If I remember right, I think dodge is calculated first, and then a new series of calculations are required for shield use, and finally for the actual contact. If strength affects the actual to-hit number, then yeah, I'd agree that should change. But I think agility is used for that first set of calculations.

But I really want to encourage people to think about things from a IC perspective here, regardless. Humans should absolutely understand what dwarves are, and they should plan appropriately. Jump them with your buddies if you're scared of them. Don't expect to be able to beat dwarves, or muls, or HGs, by yourself. Yeah, they're strong; they're animals, they're beasts. Treat them like they are what they are.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on November 23, 2018, 01:19:35 PM
MeT, I wonder if Strength influences the actual to-hit number, or if it relates to breaking through armor and shield use after the dodge has been calculated. If I remember right, I think dodge is calculated first, and then a new series of calculations are required for shield use, and finally for the actual contact. If strength affects the actual to-hit number, then yeah, I'd agree that should change. But I think agility is used for that first set of calculations.

But I really want to encourage people to think about things from a IC perspective here, regardless. Humans should absolutely understand what dwarves are, and they should plan appropriately. Jump them with your buddies if you're scared of them. Don't expect to be able to beat dwarves, or muls, or HGs, by yourself. Yeah, they're strong; they're animals, they're beasts. Treat them like they are what they are.

If that were the case we would see Meks more or less ignoring shields with their huge str. Block seems to function the same regardless of your opponents strength, weapon skill, etc.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 12:03:20 PM
Low halfgiant agi is real. I would not be surprised if a low agility giant died to a high agility elf. It probably only got a turn to attack 4-5 times to the elves 30 chances. And double that for dual wield. What surprises me is that the giant didn't just run off when he realized. Was probably hoping for that 1 big hit to one shot.

In a glad match years ago, the elf was winning, but a half-giant just spam-bashed the elf, never missing and slaughtering said elf who dodged all attacks while unbashed.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 01:41:05 PM
If that were the case we would see Meks more or less ignoring shields with their huge str. Block seems to function the same regardless of your opponents strength, weapon skill, etc.

Not necessarily. A skilled shield user will still set a high enough DC for the Mek that the Mek will fail to breach the shield. The Mek's high strength just means that they have a higher chance of beating the DC set by their victim.

I have played effective melee combatants with strength last in priority. I have also defeated HG in melee with humans. I have seen HGs beat by dwarves and elves. I do not see strength as the only significant factor in combat. It has an effect, just like agility, endurance, tactics, equipment, skills, and experience with combat.

I don't see anything that needs changing.

Quote from: MeTekillot on November 23, 2018, 12:45:58 PM
No it isn't. Powergamers should not be the standard that balance is held to.

Powergamers should not be standart - strength doesn't allow me to powergame.

Pick one and defend it. Drop the other.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on November 23, 2018, 01:50:10 PM

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 01:41:05 PM
If that were the case we would see Meks more or less ignoring shields with their huge str. Block seems to function the same regardless of your opponents strength, weapon skill, etc.

Not necessarily. A skilled shield user will still set a high enough DC for the Mek that the Mek will fail to breach the shield. The Mek's high strength just means that they have a higher chance of beating the DC set by their victim.

I propose an experiment. Next time you have master shield use go hit something weak, and then only count the times you're hit and the times you block. Defend for a good while, at least 10 minutes.

Now go find something stronger, again only counting hits and blocks, not dodge/parry. If you're correct this number should change in a measureable way as you fight stronger and stronger opponents. If I'm correct as your time defending approaches infinity you should see that you block the same percentage of the time regardless.

Quote from: cnemus on November 23, 2018, 02:08:31 PM
I have played effective melee combatants with strength last in priority. I have also defeated HG in melee with humans. I have seen HGs beat by dwarves and elves. I do not see strength as the only significant factor in combat. It has an effect, just like agility, endurance, tactics, equipment, skills, and experience with combat.

I don't see anything that needs changing.

A problem here is that dwarves are a long step toward being muls, but only require 0 karma. This can't really be said about humans, because strength is so important. And definitely can't be said about elves or half-elves.

I think the frustrating part of stats, is that human 'Average' feels like the threshold of playability for most of them. Poor agility -sucks-. Poor strength -sucks-. Poor endurance -sucks-. Your PC feels like they should be in a wheelchair with any of these.

Poor wisdom (magickers excluded) is actually still pretty playable if you have a decent grasp on how the skills work.

The threshold changes if it's your primary stat, but if you prioritize something it will almost always be a VG or higher.

Quote from: roughneck on November 23, 2018, 03:25:23 PM
I think the frustrating part of stats, is that human 'Average' feels like the threshold of playability for most of them. Poor agility -sucks-. Poor strength -sucks-. Poor endurance -sucks-. Your PC feels like they should be in a wheelchair with any of these.

Poor wisdom (magickers excluded) is actually still pretty playable if you have a decent grasp on how the skills work.

The threshold changes if it's your primary stat, but if you prioritize something it will almost always be a VG or higher.

Try a poor agility HG, 2 inventory slots is ye most frustrating mechanic I've ever encountered.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 03:32:26 PM

Quote from: roughneck on November 23, 2018, 03:25:23 PM
I think the frustrating part of stats, is that human 'Average' feels like the threshold of playability for most of them. Poor agility -sucks-. Poor strength -sucks-. Poor endurance -sucks-. Your PC feels like they should be in a wheelchair with any of these.

Poor wisdom (magickers excluded) is actually still pretty playable if you have a decent grasp on how the skills work.

The threshold changes if it's your primary stat, but if you prioritize something it will almost always be a VG or higher.

Try a poor agility HG, 2 inventory slots is ye most frustrating mechanic I've ever encountered.

I've done it! Sucks.

The trick is to carry a Mary Poppins style agafari trunk around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AivZSC9J3Rs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AivZSC9J3Rs)

Or be a Nilazi.

I think whomever recommends elves to favor agility based combat (thrown weapons, bows) Have not actually done it themselves before :).

Thrown weapon is strength based. When a dwarf throws a weapon with that skill on master, they might deal immense damage, while an elf with master weapons and Extremely good agility will deal so little, the target wont even get to moderate injury.

I too think that strength is far too advantageous, compared to other skills.

Here's a question.
Can a human with an exceptional strength reach the level of weapon skill/offense to have a 50/50 chance to hit a celf with AI agility and maxed out defense(Or Delf. Whomever has the higher cap on agility. I think Celves have higher, then delves).   

If a human can reach the point that 1 in 2 hits will hit that maxed out elf with reliability, then strength by faaaaaaaar outperforms agility. If a human reaches a point in weapon skill/offense to have an 80-90% chance of hitting 'anything' regardless of agility. Then discussing whether or not strength is OP is, I think, silly.

And talking about the whole 'celves' should favor agility based tactics, instead of strength ones. While true. Many people who recommend that, dont really know what they're talking about.

Thrown weapons are 'not' agility based tactics. They're strength based. Half-giant movement speed is higher then Celven one.

Bow weapons rely heavily on strength and agility both. Agility to hit. Strength to the damage range. But generally, on high enough levels, both agility and strength becomes moot. You always hit, but rarely enough to disable in one shot. Bow combat is more employing the keyboard twitch skills, then any other stat. Once again, Half Giants walk faster then Delves. And Bow combat shouldnt even be a factor in the cities.

Blowgun Combat (Now ... THAT is curious. I have no idea. Somehow I suspect/hope/dream that agility is THE stat for it. I have hope)

Stealing all weapons/cures, then backstabbing. That is indeed the strategy of a Celf and agility plays a vast role in stealing skill. Though it doesnt allow Ninja OHKs and dissapear into the night, type of kills like dwarves are capable of, for example. Except with stealth skills, even humans can reach a near perfect stealth skills and this type of combat situations are picked when a person is resting/sitting/unprepared. Therefore scan is out and anything short of critical failure is safe for all stealth races. Therefore agility is while important, is not paramount.

Strength effects
Encumbrance level (which affect defense/offense,etc)
Damage  (With an extra oomph, if you use etwo and is always a factor, regardless of weapon skill)
Type of weapon one uses
Type of armor they use.
Type of bow they use.
Quantity of Ammunition.
How prepared they are at 'all' times.
Possibly (I have no proof of this) to hit chances? Maybe only with etwo

Agility effects
Evasion  (Potentially not enough to outperform the accuracy given by skill accuracy bonus)
Accuracy  (Potentially moot, as skills can often reach a near perfect accuracy range)
Success on stealth/steal skills.
Speed of how often you hit. But is there a difference between celven AI, and celven EG? Or does this cap out?
Backstab accuracy (while skill will eventually bring backstab to 100% hit chance, it will not do so against an opponent that is already in combat. While maybe with high agility it can. So yes. While celven max damage is around 60 with backstab compared to 90 with humans. A situation where 2 celves backstab at the same time with reliable success does exist.)

Am I missing anything?


Overall. Its not that strength is overpowered. Its that its effects are always high and impactful despite the skill levels. While agility is impactful when skill levels are low, it loses more and more utility as one gets more and more masterful. Until eventually invalidating the stat to a vast (but not whole) percentage.

In the end, you can end up with two pcs, who never miss in combat and hit with a near similar frequency. Except one has good agility and exceptional strength. While the other has AI agility and good strength.  The one with exceptional strength will win 100% of the time.

"I think whomever recommends elves to favor agility based combat (thrown weapons, bows) Have not actually done it themselves before"

I sadly can't expand on this as I've never played an elf with garbage agility + strength.

Quote from: Dar on November 23, 2018, 04:36:06 PM
I think whomever recommends elves to favor agility based combat (thrown weapons, bows) Have not actually done it themselves before :).

You're fairly on point with throwing - I would never use it with low strenth against PC's, however it's effective against NPC's in some situations.

Dead wrong on bows though. High agility is beneficial, mobility is -very- beneficial, particularly if you're familiar with the kiting technique, which works amazing in Arm if you can type and think fast.

Agility is also very beneficial for dodging arrows, which matters if you're in a bow vs bow situation.

I guess I am confused. It was my understanding that Armageddon was not supposed to be a fair or balanced game as far as skills,classes, attributes and races go.

I have two questions:

What problem are we trying to solve?

For staff:
Is the game supposed to be completely balanced and fair across all classes, races, and skills?

[quote author=roughneck
Dead wrong on bows though. High agility is beneficial, mobility is -very- beneficial, particularly if you're familiar with the kiting technique, which works amazing in Arm if you can type and think fast.

Agility is also very beneficial for dodging arrows, which matters if you're in a bow vs bow situation.
[/quote]

Mobility and agility have nothing to do with each other though. An HG with poor agility is faster then a Celf with AI agility. Also has more endurance to outpace them.

Quote from: Krath on November 23, 2018, 06:12:55 PM
I guess I am confused. It was my understanding that Armageddon was not supposed to be a fair or balanced game as far as skills,classes, attributes and races go.

The "this game is not ment to be balanced" is becoming the new phrase given in and out of place. Yes. The game is ment to be unfair. People on higher step of the social ladder should be more influential then you are. Characters of higher karma rate tend to have extreme level of deadly power. Gladiator slaves that are bred for combat probably are stronger, faster, resilient compared to free folk. But there 'are' costs. Usually in freedom, interaction, rarity, karma costs, etc.

We are discussing concepts that are equal. Where one concept should be equally good, but in a different niche. When one concept so definitely outpaces the other three, it becomes a concept that everyone chooses. If you make slashing weapons be more accurate/faster/deadlier/lighter/cheaper then any other weapon skill, do not be surprised when 98% of the playerbase choses to prioretize slashing weapons. And the last 2% have different weapon on them either due to some roleplayed choice (noble with a fancy rapier) and full understanding that it will lose them a fight, or characters whose lifestyles do not involve fighting at all. These situations are not normal and the phrase "this game is not supposed to be balanced", does not apply. Please stop using it as a catch all phrase.

Quote from: Dar on November 23, 2018, 06:19:21 PM
[Mobility and agility have nothing to do with each other though. An HG with poor agility is faster then a Celf with AI agility. Also has more endurance to outpace them.

You have said this twice, and it appears to be true when walking, but I'm pretty sure a human can run faster than a half-giant, and an elf can run much faster.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 06:48:11 PM

Quote from: Dar on November 23, 2018, 06:19:21 PM
[Mobility and agility have nothing to do with each other though. An HG with poor agility is faster then a Celf with AI agility. Also has more endurance to outpace them.

You have said this twice, and it appears to be true when walking, but I'm pretty sure a human can run faster than a half-giant, and an elf can run much faster.

If you're kiting with a bow, you're either a desert elf with uber run + stealth, or you're mounted on something fast which also keeps you safe from charge/bash... and even if someone is able to run in and attack, you take your hit, flee, and then peg them with two arrows while kill lag wears off.

And agility factors in this how?

Once you are skillful enough with archery, you always hit and have chances for crit shots.

I actually know relatively little about archery, but I know an elf running has way less movement lag than a giant and wanted to point that out.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 07:11:44 PM
I actually know relatively little about archery, but I know an elf running has way less movement lag than a giant and wanted to point that out.

I have recollection of it different. Give me a few days and I'll be able to be more educated on the issue

Quote from: lostinspace on November 23, 2018, 02:57:27 PM
I propose an experiment. Next time you have master shield use go hit something weak, and then only count the times you're hit and the times you block. Defend for a good while, at least 10 minutes.

Now go find something stronger, again only counting hits and blocks, not dodge/parry. If you're correct this number should change in a measureable way as you fight stronger and stronger opponents. If I'm correct as your time defending approaches infinity you should see that you block the same percentage of the time regardless.

I'll brush up on things again when I have time and skill, though I have to make sure whatever I do is IC. You could be right.

Strength does effect the to hit on at least one combat skill, (ETWO) Agi for dual, and, I believe single hand weapon. AGI is a HUGE bonus to all ranged other then throw. The difference between say a dwarf ranger with max archery and good agi and a half-elf ranger also with maxed archery and EG agi is HUGE. (I know, no rangers other then ones still alive from before the change but I have not played a new class yet). Agi also effects parry, dodge, likely shield use (though I have never checked) and over all has way more affects on other skills then strength, some of which I cannot mention on the GDB.

Myself, I am fine with strength affecting to hit, a stronger person can swing the weapon faster...otherwise they would not be doing more damage. There is a reason why men hit balls farther then women in the sports where you hit balls, and it is not agility. It is club/bat/racket speed based on greater strength.

Again, I say things are balanced fine, if anything HG's are way under powered, as is the str stat IMO, but play to the strengths of the race/class/stat if you are that worried about it and you will be fine.

Oh, I know of at least 2 celf warriors in the last year that were just downright scary because of that agility.

Dwarves need a strength reduction, or some karma requirements.

Strength would be fine, if encumbrance was based off a percentage, of your cumulative physical statistics. That is, 33% strength, 33% agility, 34% endurance. Strength to handle the mass, agility to better move under burden, and endurance to cope with it consistently.

I find it absurd, seeing dwarves in full plate armor, a Salarr warehouse worth of weapons, and two or three large bags full of loot, whilst the elf next to him struggles with minimal leather armor, a couple weapons, and food and water.

There is more to shouldering a burden, than sheer brawn. The code should better reflect this, imo.

As far as combat goes, I feel the strength scale, could stand to contract some. A little more for elves, a little less for dwarves and muls, as if the human physique is the standard, none of the common races, except half-giant, are so vastly different in proportions, that it warrants to astronomical differences, that exist currently.

Quote from: Vex on November 23, 2018, 11:07:21 PM
... encumbrance was based off a percentage, of your cumulative physical statistics. That is, 33% strength, 33% agility, 34% endurance. Strength to handle the mass, agility to better move under burden, and endurance to cope with it consistently.

This is a clever idea, and I like it. I'd factor agility in less, however.

40 Strength
20 Agility
40 End

Agree with 7DV.  Excellent idea, Vex.

Um...no. In reality it is Strength to handle the mass, Strength to handle the weight and strength to reduce endurance costs. Only other thing that helps handle the mass is extra mass.

Take a female gymnest and a male power lifter, give them each 200lbs and see who handles it better and longer...Hell, give them each 1/3 own weight just to make it fair and see who does better, it will be the same each time.

Interestingly....Arm already works properly there.

Where Arm fails, though, is stats being fixed.

Maybe, at least, there should be some hidden encumbrance skill you can train by carrying around heavy stuff.

shrug, like say a packmule skill like in fallout? :)

I would actually not be totally against such an idea long as it was not something major, like raise enc range by as much as 20%...Hell, I would not mind if nothing was changed stat wise and no skill added just pad the encumbrance levels a tiny bit. Say, 5-10% greater range in them.

Agility and strength aren't equal insofar as COMBAT goes, but if they were, agility would be OP instead. Because agility DOES matter for ranged stuff like bows, AND stealth, AND craft successes. If agility were equally as important to melee combat as strength, it would be the far more useful stat overall. As things stand, strength is good for toe to toe combatants, while agility is good for stealthy utility characters who want to be able to get in and out of situations easier.

The utility of agility is rarely brought up in these balance discussions, but from a game-level standpoint, it needs to be considered. I think strength is fine, as is.

Kill all half-giants, though. I've never liked them in the setting.

The solution I was aiming for, was not realism.

Rather, it was to provide some respite to elves and younger characters, who are crippled by low strength, as well as to people who feel pressured into selecting strength as primary, even when it makes more sense to choose something else, without upsetting combat solutions.

It would, as a byproduct, mean dwarves are slightly less able to maximize their defenses with best in slot armor, on top of their huge offensive benefits, but I don't feel that is a bad thing, for an already extremely beneficial zero karma race. Muls and half-giants, by virtue of already having monstrous strength and endurance, would barely feel the difference.

I don't feel strength, as a combat mechanic, is wrong. I would just like to address the issues it poses, when it comes to encumbrance.

One thing I'm remembering is that sizing armor also seems to effect the weight of it, although I can't check logs to confirm currently. Does this also work for dwarves? When they size down human armor are they reducing the weight as well? Or how about when a tall elf has to upsized a breastplate, is that increasing the weight?

If that's the case, maybe looking into reducing the weight change when gear is resized, as dwarves might be double dipping with lighter armor and more strength while elves are getting double penalty for heavier armor and less agility.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 24, 2018, 01:02:51 AM
One thing I'm remembering is that sizing armor also seems to effect the weight of it, although I can't check logs to confirm currently. Does this also work for dwarves? When they size down human armor are they reducing the weight as well? Or how about when a tall elf has to upsized a breastplate, is that increasing the weight?

If that's the case, maybe looking into reducing the weight change when gear is resized, as dwarves might be double dipping with lighter armor and more strength while elves are getting double penalty for heavier armor and less agility.

There is a bug with tailoring.  I noticed it as a human (max size) resizing half-giant gear; the weight was reduced to 1.

I filed multiple bug reports because, quite frankly, I felt like I was cheating by walking around with heavy gear weighing 1 stone.

In my note on this to staff, the only suggestion I made was to be sure a character's gear is properly weighted is to look at each character and each piece of equipment.  A siege shield that weighed 1 stone comes to mind after resizing.

Personally, checking each and every resized piece of gear sounds like an enormous pain in the ass, and the imms shouldn't feel comeplled to do that, at all.

Still, there are probably lots of people walking around with heavy gear that weighs far less than it should, and if the player knows that and still uses the gear, they're cheating.

It'd be better to just not make tailoring effect weight at all, when considering this from a workload to result ratio.

I had assumed tailoring used some percentage of the items base weight and that these multipliers could just be tuned, but if each item has a hard coded weight for each size category that's a disgusting amount of work to fix. Also if downsizing is bugged to give even lighter gear then that's probably helping the dwarves as well.

Quote from: X-D on November 24, 2018, 12:02:33 AM
Um...no. In reality it is Strength to handle the mass, Strength to handle the weight and strength to reduce endurance costs. Only other thing that helps handle the mass is extra mass.

Take a female gymnest and a male power lifter, give them each 200lbs and see who handles it better and longer...Hell, give them each 1/3 own weight just to make it fair and see who does better, it will be the same each time.

Interestingly....Arm already works properly there.

I'll take stab at this.  Strength is important, sure.  But endurance is also the ability sustain physical effort.  Take your analogy of the male power lifter and your 200 lb burden.  Who is going to be able to hold up the weight longer?  Your powerlifter or his identically strong twin brother who has severe asthma?

Having endurance reflected in your ability to wear and maneuver in armor is reasonable.  You aren't just dead-lifting it.   You are doing effort over time.  Endurance.

Agility, as a small fraction is also very justifiable.   Take two identical twins.  Only difference this time?  One is clutzy, one is a trained parkour fanatic.  Who is going to move around easier, (same strength/same endurance for both), if they both are running an obstacle course in chainmail?

I'm sticking with 40/20/40.

Endurance is already factored in by being the stat that decides not only how much stam you have but how fast it regens. While strength decides how much a set weight will reduce the stam provided by endurance. Bringing up the twin with asthma is fine as that person would tire sooner with no load at all....IE, has low endurance. If you had the twins, one who because of a disease or spell had half the strength of his very strong but asthmatic brother but was very durable otherwise could very likely walk the same distance, though the one with asthma is even losing less stam per room because he is not as encumbered, the other has 30% more stam...But even better, that one will regen his stam faster and finish first. Quite realistic and already handled IG.


Given str and end being the same, the more agile one would likely complete an obstacle course first. But that is represented IG as well by how agility effects things requiring it...such as climb, stealth and more. Given that the low AGI person would lose stam by failing his climb checks and other things...this is already well represented by current code. In fact...there are certain room flags that penalize you in stam if you have lower agi...perhaps that should be used more.

Quote from: Seeker on November 24, 2018, 02:40:11 AM
I'll take stab at this.  Strength is important, sure.  But endurance is also the ability sustain physical effort.  Take your analogy of the male power lifter and your 200 lb burden.  Who is going to be able to hold up the weight longer?  Your powerlifter or his identically
strong twin brother who has severe asthma?

If the one with asthma doesn't have an asthma attack during the competition, they'll be completely the same. If he does, asthma makes one brother unable to breathe. He can't use his muscles to their full extend, his strength, with no oxygen going there. He has lower strength because of a disease, he'll be able to hold the weight less.

... Seems good to me. Let's take two twins, one of which has a deficiency that lowers his immune system, endurance. They'll hold the weight for the same amount of time. Err.. Mine's also a bad analogy of course, I doubt you can find a disease/condition that doesn't lower the strength but lowers endurance :D

Quote from: Seeker on November 24, 2018, 02:40:11 AM
Agility, as a small fraction is also very justifiable.   Take two identical twins.  Only difference this time?  One is clutzy, one is a trained parkour fanatic.  Who is going to move around easier, (same strength/same endurance for both), if they both are running an obstacle course in chainmail?

Agile one of course. It is going to be the same whether they are completely naked or overburdened. But he won't go "easier", he will go "faster". Quite big difference there.

Again, looks good to me.

I think the true problem with strength being a limiting factor on playing a combat PC is that it's random rolls. Let's just have a point assignment system. Rolling is pretty dumb.

Quote from: Is Friday on November 24, 2018, 07:03:34 AM
I think the true problem with strength being a limiting factor on playing a combat PC is that it's random rolls. Let's just have a point assignment system. Rolling is pretty dumb.

Let's agree that having all combat PCs be equivalently powerful in combat ability ruins some fun diversity.

In general most people find it more fun to RP the strongest character than a weaker one, but they'd prefer RPing a weaker (but reasonably competent one) to continuously suicide re-rolling for the strongest character. The current randomness allows there to be a spectrum of characters, strength wise.

Without it, damn near everyone would be optimize stats, which in a multiplayer RPing experience means you have less variability in combat-effectiveness in the people you're RPing with (since you don't have constant dungeon-master oversight to throw scripted variable challenges at you).

Given that skills cap, I think this stifles some diversity, everyone would optimize stats, and eventually everyone would reach master-master-master.

No, you're just going to give people the opportunity to play what they want.

Your argument is "allowing a diversity"? That seems silly. You're really just punishing players who want to play a particular concept within the confines of the rules using these random rolls. If I want to play a slick, agile backstabber--I should be able to do that. If I want to play a brute, I should be able to do that.

There's plenty of players, myself included, who will prioritize agility or endurance when it is appropriate for the character.

All you'd have to do to make it fair is create a point of diminishing returns for each stat and increasing cost. e.g. It takes more points to go from 15->16 strength than 10->11 strength. e.g. If you have a PC with 18 strength you have no more than 9 in each other stat.

re: Your points about everyone reaching master->master->master.

Impossible without extreme gaming ability and luck, especially with high stats. High stats actually stunts your growth in a lot of ways. I've played a lot of combat PCs since 2007 and there's nothing I know better in this game than skill gain.

high stats stunts your skill growth at a certain point which means you have to do utterly outlandish and ridiculous things for a chance at skill growth (weapons comes to mind in this).

i don't exactly know how it is now, but hopefully that has changed somewhat?

Doesn't the preferred stat priority during the character creation help with making sure you're 'tall muscular man' is actually muscular?

Quote from: evilcabbage on November 24, 2018, 08:50:46 AM
high stats stunts your skill growth at a certain point which means you have to do utterly outlandish and ridiculous things for a chance at skill growth (weapons comes to mind in this).

i don't exactly know how it is now, but hopefully that has changed somewhat?

Nah, if you spend 30 days IRL time logged in the Byn, have exceptional str as a fighter, don't weigh yourself down, and aren't surrounded by muls and badasses, you will be stuck at apprentice weapon skills, even if you use the same weapon the entire time.

Even if you stare at the screen for 8 hours a day and spar everyone you possibly can.

THEN you spar the guy who has "been out hunting" for "a couple of years" and he absolutely rips you to pieces.

Having said that, does it make playing in a clan any less fun, even if you are a hulking brute that destroys almost everyone despite your apprentice level skills?  For me, it didn't.   until the new classes were introduced and my legacy warrior was getting riposted by fighters left and right.

High strength is detrimental only if you're relegated to fighting other humanoids.

Wait, are we on the [redacted] or the GDB?

Quote from: mansa on November 24, 2018, 09:36:44 AM
Doesn't the preferred stat priority during the character creation help with making sure you're 'tall muscular man' is actually muscular?

Yes, and this is an aside, but an interesting thing that me and seidhr figured out is that if you ONLY prioritize strength (or any other stat), then the game automatically assigns priorities to other stats.

IMO, that's why you don't see rolls with multiple exceptionals or Xgoods anymore; if you prioritize one stat, the game, instead of making the other stats "completely" random, just assigns them to random prioritization.

So, I choose strength as my primary stat.  The game continues with the "prioritization" mechanic, assigning your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices for you.

I have not rolled a character with no prioritization yet, so I don't know, if you refuse to prioritize a stat, whether or not it is completely random or if the game just randomly selects the prioritization for you, if that makes sense.

If you go "no prioritization" then you get a little bit higher than if you prioritize overall. But in doing this, you often do not get the stat you want as the highest.

Unless you already know the effects of guild/race/age and your wants align with the natural bonuses.

Quote from: Is Friday on November 24, 2018, 12:59:33 PM
If you go "no prioritization" then you get a little bit higher than if you prioritize overall. But in doing this, you often do not get the stat you want as the highest.

Unless you already know the effects of guild/race/age and your wants align with the natural bonuses.

As someone who dies 'A LOT' and having tried both prioritizing and not prioritizing stats, I haven't really noticed any difference. Is there any way to verify what you are saying here?

Quote from: Boogerbear on November 24, 2018, 10:41:47 AM
Wait, are we on the [redacted] or the GDB?

Haha. I know, I thought the same thing. But I've noticed a little more staff leeway and staff transparency in considering the bones of the game upon my return, which I frankly am glad for. Discussing numbers regarding coded mundane skills in no way tells you about secret locations, story plots, characters who are still living, magickal whohaw, and so on and so forth. The moment that happens, we've crossed the line.

It's like discussing being an FBI agent. You can learn about all of the requirements for being one (discuss the code), but you won't learn a secret within the FBI until you actually get to join the FBI (play the game). Well ... that's a bad example, but we're not supposed to know the FBI's secrets ...

Quote from: Boogerbear on November 24, 2018, 11:01:56 AM
IMO, that's why you don't see rolls with multiple exceptionals or Xgoods anymore; if you prioritize one stat, the game, instead of making the other stats "completely" random, just assigns them to random prioritization.

I just saw a character with three exceptionals a few days ago.  Dead within a couple of hours.

Being observant is also good.

QuoteEnter your priority: strength

Using stat order of: 'strength endurance wisdom agility'

On the lines below you must enter your main character description.

Yeah, I didn't catch it because of the scrolling text after that part.

I had to figure it out when seidhr was like, but dude, you prioritized X stat as your lowest, so why are you bummed?

I had just been unobservant and not noticed.

I'm glad he pointed out that the stat I wanted *was* prioritized (automatically), though, because I am a dumb man sometimes and would likely not have realized it otherwise.

Good to know that multiple high stats are still possible and it's not a downward-curving chain like I had wondered.

Encumbrance in relation to strength and gear/weapons weights should probably be looked and probably re-balanced, with a greater range for gear weights. For example, some leather sleeves can be surprisingly heavy, even though chitin and shell sleeves are not much more heavier

Not too concerned with dwarves with exceptional strength doing a lot of damage out of creation and having the ability to wear stone armor without breaking a sweat, however on the other side of the coin, an elf with average to good strength should still have no issues with most leather and chitin gear, along with weapons.

double post

Quote from: Brokkr on November 24, 2018, 02:54:05 PM
I just saw a character with three exceptionals a few days ago.  Dead within a couple of hours.

Makes sense that the people who churn through characters are more likely to see great stats at some point, compared those who play their fewer characters carefully and live longer.

For the record, in more then 20 years I have had about 49 PCs...of them, 4 had stats I considered unplayable, 2 more had bad but playable. The rest were good or WOW! I have ordered stats I think...3 times now....maybe 4...pretty sure 3.

Anyway...I had mentioned increasing the encumbrance range...I have been thinking about that and take it back. Instead how about increasing the weight reduction or encumbrance of worn items?

As we all should know, items being worn encumber less then items in inventory or container. Increase that reduction by some %. This I think would solve some problems without breaking anything and should be pretty simple.  Elves would be able to wear at least leather without having issues but still not able to carry a bunch of extra crap. Which I think is perfectly fine.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 23, 2018, 12:19:32 PM
All the classes cap O/D at the same point.

HG are an outlier, especially if you are considering any before a year or two ago, as there was a way for them to become essentially immune to elf level melee damage. That won't happen now.

I just saw this...WOW. That does not even make any sense at all. -ALL- classes CAP O/D at the same point? How is that realistic at all? Would you mind explaining the logic behind this change Brokkr?

This seems pretty reasonable to me. They don't start as t the same point, and the others don't have the same cap on weapon skills or combat skills. Off/Def don't even show up in your skill list either. Pretty sure all the mundane classes have the same cap on contact and barrier too.

Quote from: lostinspace on November 24, 2018, 04:52:49 PM
This seems pretty reasonable to me. They don't start as t the same point, and the others don't have the same cap on weapon skills or combat skills. Off/Def don't even show up in your skill list either. Pretty sure all the mundane classes have the same cap on contact and barrier too.

A fighter/Enforcer/raider should not have the same O/D cap as a Stalker/scout/infiltrator/miscreant. Please explain the logic behind this except that it is "equal and Fair" to all classes.

I do also agree that heavy combat classes should naturally have a higher karate skill offense/defense cap.

I suppose I assumed that next to no one hits those caps to begin with, so what does it matter? I don't actually know that to be true however. I'd be interested  in what percentage of characters have reached max offense in the past. For now it seems like the big head start the heavy combat guilds get is a fine advantage. If everyone starts maxing out their offense maybe we should re-evaluate.

Pretty sure staff said that improving off/def was made easier some time ago...so...likely many have.

This is kind of funny to me cuz it seems like the O/D thing was never a problem until Brokkr pointed it out. Did any of you guys even suspect this was the case before he said something? I didn't.

Anyway. I don't think this is any kind of problem. I'm sure the O/D caps are offset by your class and your other skills.

Quote from: X-D on November 24, 2018, 04:26:19 PM
For the record, in more then 20 years I have had about 49 PCs...of them, 4 had stats I considered unplayable, 2 more had bad but playable. The rest were good or WOW! I have ordered stats I think...3 times now....maybe 4...pretty sure 3.

How would you rank these? (From a consecutive string of characters):

Extremely good, extremely good, below average, poor.
Extremely good, very good, average, average. (young character)
Exceptional, extremely good, average, poor.
Exceptional, very good, very good, below average.
Exceptional, exceptional, above average, average.

A distribution like "Very good, good, good, above average" seems to be rare. It's always extremes at both ends for me.

Quote from: JohnMichaelHenry on November 24, 2018, 05:41:59 PM
This is kind of funny to me cuz it seems like the O/D thing was never a problem until Brokkr pointed it out. Did any of you guys even suspect this was the case before he said something? I didn't.

Anyway. I don't think this is any kind of problem. I'm sure the O/D caps are offset by your class and your other skills.

Essentially where I'm at, who even knows if they've hit the cap before. Can anyone here definitively say they have hit offense/defense cap before.

Extremely good, extremely good, below average, poor. Playable

Extremely good, very good, average, average. (young character) Good

Exceptional, extremely good, average, poor. Good

Exceptional, very good, very good, below average. Very good

Exceptional, exceptional, above average, average. Wow

I can say with Oh...99% certainty, I have hit the caps with at least 6 likely more PCs.

The cap is the same.  The rate at which you learn is different.

I know how many times X-D has hit the caps, with 100% certainty.

Distributions are just math.  If you roll 4 times and order the rolls, from best to worst, you get a declining curve unless other factors are added/subtracted (which for stats, is the case) before you see the results.  But in general it is going to look like a decreasing curve, with the same likelihood of having at least one really poor stat as one really good stat.

QuoteI know how many times X-D has hit the caps, with 100% certainty

Ooohhh...so, at least once then...woohoo.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 24, 2018, 06:45:57 PM
I know how many times X-D has hit the caps, with 100% certainty.

This made me lol. I do not know why though.

Quote from: Krath on November 24, 2018, 04:57:39 PM

Quote from: lostinspace on November 24, 2018, 04:52:49 PM
This seems pretty reasonable to me. They don't start as t the same point, and the others don't have the same cap on weapon skills or combat skills. Off/Def don't even show up in your skill list either. Pretty sure all the mundane classes have the same cap on contact and barrier too.

A fighter/Enforcer/raider should not have the same O/D cap as a Stalker/scout/infiltrator/miscreant. Please explain the logic behind this except that it is "equal and Fair" to all classes.

Why wouldn't it be equal? O/D cap has very little to do with overall power. It's one factor amongst many. You can't claim that because a warrior has the same O/D cap as a merchant that they're anywhere near equal in potential combat capability. So why are you stressing about the fact that one of the half-dozen factors in the combat equation happens to be equalized across classes?

You know the classes have the same height and weight distributions too. Those are stats, they effect combat, should they be "balanced" as well?

If you think that O/D has little to do with overall power you are -very- sadly mistaken.  Brokkr, can you go into the details of how O/D affect combat?

Quote from: Krath on November 24, 2018, 09:43:56 PM
If you think that O/D has little to do with overall power you are -very- sadly mistaken.  Brokkr, can you go into the details of how O/D affect combat?

The learning rate is different. If a warrior needs a year+ to one day maybe cap out with O/D. A merxhant would need 4 years. Its still possible. There is no need to artificially create an absolute deadend. But by the time that merchant hits that max offensw, 30+ game yeara will pass.

to my knowledge offense/defense has "never" capped at different levels for anyone, from the guilds of before to the classes of today (confirmed by brokkr).

so as far as i know, no change was made on that front. why is this an issue?

Quote from: evilcabbage on November 25, 2018, 09:08:21 AM
to my knowledge offense/defense has "never" capped at different levels for anyone, from the guilds of before to the classes of today (confirmed by brokkr).

so as far as i know, no change was made on that front. why is this an issue?

It was always my understanding that O/D had different Caps prior to the implementation of the new classes.

Brokkr, can you provide clarity or do us old timers and new timers have to continue to speculate.

Editted to clarify my pist

QuoteO/D had different Caps prior to the implementation of the new classes.

Erm.  This was never my understanding.  I understood it to be similar before...same cap for all, but different learning rates.  It was the skills on top of it and influencing it that made big disparities of 'power'.

Far from sure of it, but that was always the allusion to offense/defense that I saw in the sporadic discussions that were allowed on the topic.

I'm going to preface this with while I am generally supportive of more information in the hands of players, I believe there is an inflection point where certain information tends to increase tendancies towards focusing on skills, min/maxing and being codedly "the best", which is almost always at the cost of role playing. If I seem cagey in some of my replies, it is because strength and off/def fall pretty squarely into that space.

That said...

The old classes did not have off/def caps.  You didn't see many merchants wrecking face, and despite the addition of weapon skills to Heavy Merchantile classes, which does increase their combat power somewhat, I don't expect you'll see them wrecking face much either.

The new classes have, in general, a slightly better rate of learning for off/def than the old classes did.  This is partly because there is a dramatic cutoff when we talk about learning off/def, and that is the changes made that incorporate the differentials between your off/def and your opponent's off/def in the chance to gain. Before this change there was the possibility of getting to off/def cap by fighting relatively safe NPCs with high agility and low off/def scores. And hardly anyone ever hit the off/def cap. I'd give you a sense of how far you are off in your calculations, but see my first paragraph.

If you try to learn from those low off/def NPCs now, the low off/def scores of your opponent will create a situation where you literally have zero chance to learn off/def from those NPCs, irregardless of skill failures. You will only learn through taking very real risks, or a situation of having PCs that are relatively near your skill level.

That said, those calculations also make it easier to relatively decent ranges of off/def skill given a moderately skilled opponent. It can be relatively complex, especially when you factor in stats, and I am not going to unravel it all (see first paragraph). Best bet is to focus on getting decent enough to do what you want your character to be able to do, rather than worrying about getting to caps (a very, very OOC thing).

Thanks for the transparency, I really appreciate it.

The old classes did not have off/def caps.  You didn't see many merchants wrecking face, and despite the addition of weapon skills to Heavy Merchantile classes, which does increase their combat power somewhat, I don't expect you'll see them wrecking face much either.

Are you saying that a legacy Warrior/ranger/whatver could gain off/def indefinately?

Quote from: Brokkr on November 25, 2018, 02:54:34 PM
I'm going to preface this with while I am generally supportive of more information in the hands of players, I believe there is an inflection point where certain information tends to increase tendancies towards focusing on skills, min/maxing and being codedly "the best", which is almost always at the cost of role playing. If I seem cagey in some of my replies, it is because strength and off/def fall pretty squarely into that space.

That said...

The old classes did not have off/def caps.  You didn't see many merchants wrecking face, and despite the addition of weapon skills to Heavy Merchantile classes, which does increase their combat power somewhat, I don't expect you'll see them wrecking face much either.

The new classes have, in general, a slightly better rate of learning for off/def than the old classes did.  This is partly because there is a dramatic cutoff when we talk about learning off/def, and that is the changes made that incorporate the differentials between your off/def and your opponent's off/def in the chance to gain. Before this change there was the possibility of getting to off/def cap by fighting relatively safe NPCs with high agility and low off/def scores. And hardly anyone ever hit the off/def cap. I'd give you a sense of how far you are off in your calculations, but see my first paragraph.

If you try to learn from those low off/def NPCs now, the low off/def scores of your opponent will create a situation where you literally have zero chance to learn off/def from those NPCs, irregardless of skill failures. You will only learn through taking very real risks, or a situation of having PCs that are relatively near your skill level.

That said, those calculations also make it easier to relatively decent ranges of off/def skill given a moderately skilled opponent. It can be relatively complex, especially when you factor in stats, and I am not going to unravel it all (see first paragraph). Best bet is to focus on getting decent enough to do what you want your character to be able to do, rather than worrying about getting to caps (a very, very OOC thing).

Correct me if I am wrong. But if your sparring partner has better stats, but lower off/def, then you will not see any progress? Even if they consistently beat you out of the sparring ring?

This would make strength and agility far more important.

Quote from: Hauwke on November 25, 2018, 03:48:31 PM
...
Are you saying that a legacy Warrior/ranger/whatver could gain off/def indefinately?

Quote from: Brokkr on November 25, 2018, 02:54:34 PM
...Before this change there was the possibility of getting to off/def cap by fighting relatively safe NPCs with high agility and low off/def scores. And hardly anyone ever hit the off/def cap....

...[new changes to offense/defence skill progression] also make it easier to [gain] relatively decent ranges of off/def skill given a moderately skilled opponent...

1) Fighting "offence" and "defence" have always had a cap.   The cap was/is the same for all classes.


It appears that there's now a comparison between the the people in the fight, and incorporating their skills into the equation whether they should 'gain skill' or not, rather just a flat rate of 'fail 100 times and get 1% gain'

I would assume that if you're fighting someone better than you, it's more like 'fail 50 times and a chance at 1% gain' and if you fight someone worse than you, it's more like 'fail 1000 times and get a 1% gain'.



This would have your character not be able to get better after fighting the same npcs again and again, seeming reaching an artificial cap of skill progression.

Quote from: Marauder Moe on November 24, 2018, 12:05:43 AM
Where Arm fails, though, is stats being fixed.

Maybe, at least, there should be some hidden encumbrance skill you can train by carrying around heavy stuff.

An 'armor use' skill is actually a nice QOL thing that could give the two top combat tiers some nice bonuses. Maybe have it increase the worn weight reduction %. (Alternatively, it could be like the pain tolerance / stam recovery thing and just be a coded benefit). Soldier/Fighter would obviously derive the most benefit, but it could give Infiltrator / Scout / Soldier tier a nice help.

Yeah...I don't know about that one.

I have worn armor MANY MANY MANY times, Own quite a bit, some I have made some others have made...Been slowly working on a nice bronze set...anyway.

Thing is, Armor is...well, harder to put on right then anything. Quality armor put on properly is actually less noticeable to your movements etc then a couple layers of heavy clothing with a leather coat.

Something like an "armor wearing" Skill is pushing the realms of believability for me...alright, not pushing, outright breaking.

I think it should be more to reflect the physical conditioning.

Well, like I said before...just increase the weight reduction to worn items a bit...if you want, even base it on class to show that these classes are a bit more used to wearing armor...So an elf fighter could wear slightly heavier armor then an elf miscreant of the same strength. Really would not affect the already strong races much anyway.

Quote from: X-D on November 25, 2018, 09:04:44 PM
Well, like I said before...just increase the weight reduction to worn items a bit...if you want, even base it on class to show that these classes are a bit more used to wearing armor...So an elf fighter could wear slightly heavier armor then an elf miscreant of the same strength. Really would not affect the already strong races much anyway.

I like it.  I'd give it numbers like:

If "heavy" combat -> armor weight  = weight * 0.75
If "light" combat -> armor weight = weight * 0.85

At one of the Luirsfest, an elf kicked a dwarf's butt and neither were greenhorns to the art of fighting.

In all fairness though, the dwarf never managed to land a hit.

Quote from: Cind on November 25, 2018, 10:12:34 PM
At one of the Luirsfest, an elf kicked a dwarf's butt and neither were greenhorns to the art of fighting.

In all fairness though, the dwarf never managed to land a hit.

Well, for every example like this, there are probably a hundred of the reverse. Realistically, dwarves are an "I win" button at character creation time. It's no mystery why the toughest raiders have been dwarves. It's no mystery why fresh-from-char-creation dwarves kick the asses of humans who have been training diligently for an in-game year or more.

Wait wait wait...the toughest raiders have been what now? Dwarves? HAHAHAHAHA. Oh...that is funny. No, the toughest raiders have been Elves and Gith...possibly halflings in there too. But Since two races were removed from play, in one case existence and the one that is playable the raiding tribes have been closed to play....

In fact, Black moon was mostly humans...with a reasonable spread of other races....Though...I only ever had run-ins with humans and do not personally remember any other races.

Dwarves....giggle.

Quote from: X-D on November 27, 2018, 12:22:51 AM
Wait wait wait...the toughest raiders have been what now? Dwarves? HAHAHAHAHA. Oh...that is funny. No, the toughest raiders have been Elves and Gith...possibly halflings in there too. But Since two races were removed from play, in one case existence and the one that is playable the raiding tribes have been closed to play....

In fact, Black moon was mostly humans...with a reasonable spread of other races....Though...I only ever had run-ins with humans and do not personally remember any other races.

Dwarves....giggle.

Given the context of the conversation, did I really need to say "these days"?

Yes, the unseeable desert elves with their single-shot arrows of doom were nigh invincible, but they were/are confined to their corner of the world for the most part. The Red Fangs are gone. I haven't seen a gith raider that wasn't staff run for twenty years. Not going to name names, but in the present, dwarves are the top of the PC combat-character food chain.

just wanted to say, fresh from creation dwarves do not kick the asses of humans for a year if they're the same class or similar class.

Really unsure why some players are so intensely invested in gaslighting the rest of the playerbase about the stat system.

If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Quote from: Hauwke on November 27, 2018, 06:43:10 PM
If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

Skilling your PC up properly means doing it in an IC appropriate manner.  It has nothing to do with whether that PC will be skilled or not.


Right?

if you skill them up properly (and this does not imply gaming the system), for one ic year, and a brand new dwarf comes out of the box with the same class, and you immediately enter life or death combat, your pc will win. human or elf or dwarf or whatever.

you will win because skills matter a lot more than some of the people in this thread seem to be giving them credit for. stats matter when two people are evenly matched. in such a disparity of skill (one ic year), the skills matter far more.

strength is not the end all, be all of stats. it's one of the two primary combat stats. that does not mean it's automatically the most important stat, or even the stat to worry the most over.


edit: you may not see journeyman/advanced combat skills in any way shape or form, but most of your defensive ones will probably be doing pretty well, and your offensive ones won't suffer either. if you think you can game the system with drinking, or with heavy weights, prepare to be superbly disappointed.

Quote from: Brytta Léofa on November 27, 2018, 07:01:20 PM

Quote from: Hauwke on November 27, 2018, 06:43:10 PM
If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 27, 2018, 07:05:22 PM
Skilling your PC up properly means doing it in an IC appropriate manner.

Absolutely true, but

Quote from: Brokkr on November 27, 2018, 07:05:22 PMIt has nothing to do with whether that PC will be skilled or not.

if you get married and never have sex, in most cases one will suspect that something is not working quite right.

Oh, you are having plenty of sex, just no children.

I just spurted my coffee out.

It was funny.

Quote from: Eyeball on November 26, 2018, 11:18:43 PM

Quote from: Cind on November 25, 2018, 10:12:34 PM
At one of the Luirsfest, an elf kicked a dwarf's butt and neither were greenhorns to the art of fighting.

In all fairness though, the dwarf never managed to land a hit.

Well, for every example like this, there are probably a hundred of the reverse. Realistically, dwarves are an "I win" button at character creation time. It's no mystery why the toughest raiders have been dwarves. It's no mystery why fresh-from-char-creation dwarves kick the asses of humans who have been training diligently for an in-game year or more.

Quote from: X-D on November 27, 2018, 12:22:51 AM
Wait wait wait...the toughest raiders have been what now? Dwarves? HAHAHAHAHA. Oh...that is funny. No, the toughest raiders have been Elves and Gith...possibly halflings in there too. But Since two races were removed from play, in one case existence and the one that is playable the raiding tribes have been closed to play....

In fact, Black moon was mostly humans...with a reasonable spread of other races....Though...I only ever had run-ins with humans and do not personally remember any other races.

Dwarves....giggle.

I agree to the extent that elves were much easier to make into murderers and fearsome raiders in the recent past, but with Tuluk and the Jaxa Pah closed for a while now... and then there's the soldiers of 'nak who have fewer 'victims' that they are literally being paid to get rid of, so they're probably harder on those that remain. I think a bigger playerbase and more career options for elves that help them survive to that point were better for the pc elf population in general.

There are elves who don't need those things, obviously. But I assume you'd need to know what you were doing, and like the other races have a bit of luck. You're lucky to survive a year in this game just being a friggin' House crafter, much less be involved in combat every other time you log in.

Quote from: Synthesis on November 27, 2018, 07:30:48 PM

Quote from: Brytta Léofa on November 27, 2018, 07:01:20 PM

Quote from: Hauwke on November 27, 2018, 06:43:10 PM
If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

Additionally, since you can't really tell whether you're losing to an NPC because its O/D are higher than yours, or because its stats are simply better, theoretically there is the possibility that you could get your ass kicked by a particular mob in perpetuity and never (or only rarely) get better at fighting it.

Quote from: Synthesis on November 29, 2018, 10:17:39 AM

Quote from: Synthesis on November 27, 2018, 07:30:48 PM

Quote from: Brytta Léofa on November 27, 2018, 07:01:20 PM

Quote from: Hauwke on November 27, 2018, 06:43:10 PM
If your pc that has been around for a year and you get beaten in a straight up fight by a brand new pc, even a dwarf, you were not skilling your combat pc up properly. Being able to hit a scrab reliably is not the only important part of combat.

Is it possible to "not skill your combat PC up properly" if you join one of the major fighting clans (Byn, AoD, Garrison, etc.) and follow the prescribed training regimen?

It depends.  In the past, the jman plateau in human-centric fighting clans was a very real thing.  I suppose it's theoretically possible that the recent skill vs. skill change could be changing how the plateau works, but historically, the chokepoint seems to have been what counts as a failure, not chance of learning from a failure.

Additionally, since you can't really tell whether you're losing to an NPC because its O/D are higher than yours, or because its stats are simply better, theoretically there is the possibility that you could get your ass kicked by a particular mob in perpetuity and never (or only rarely) get better at fighting it.

Or even the same PC that you spar with every day and lose to. This seems like it'd be a problem, to me. If all this was done to prevent power gamers from twinking up their skills on high stat mobs, but it also damages regular players' ability to improve skills through legitimate play, is it really worth it? Or does it end up being more damaging to the game?

It does end up damaging players who don't prioritize combat stats. That's seems certain.

it means stop fighting the same animal all the time and fight a variety.

Quote from: evilcabbage on November 29, 2018, 05:14:29 PM
it means stop fighting the same animal all the time and fight a variety.

oh geeze thanks why didn't i think of that

By which I mean to say...in a particular ecosystem, at a particular skill level, there's typically only 1 critter at a given time that will allow you to fail, without wrecking your face.  The only exception to this is the Happy Hunting Grounds.  Everyone who has half a bit of experience grinding it out in a particular ecosystem knows what the critter progression is.

Additionally, if O/D failures work the way I think they work, it's possible for your O/D to continue to rise while you're never getting any better at any of your combat skills, which over time only further exacerbates the problem of finding something that a) will give you fails and b) has a reasonable O/D differential.

Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 29, 2018, 06:58:36 PM
Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Just out of curiousity, why do you say it's not a problem most PCs would get near having? I've sort of noticed a jman plateau on weapon skills, myself, and while I don't get to see what O/D is at, it doesn't feel like my PCs improve a whole lot, despite consistently getting beat on by other PCs.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 29, 2018, 06:58:36 PM
Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Weapon and style skills are the main problems, yes.  I'm not sure about kick/bash/disarm. I haven't got any one of those to improve  (visibly...e.g. from novice to apprentice) at all since the new classes went in (which I assume is for a good reason, not a bug, so I won't address those).

Not sure what you mean by "most players," either.  At 7 days, with a jman weapon skill, I'm already at the point where generating weapon failures on non-uber critters is difficult, even though I'm still getting my ass kicked* by mediocre mobs when they roll good stats.

Presumably, my O/D is going up, since I'm still getting rekt...so to me it seems like at 7 days, I'm already squarely within that problem range where there are three categories of critters in the world:  1) too easy to generate any skill improvement from; 2) the ones I can hit 99.9% of the time, but that also hit me 50% of the time; and 3) the ones I -might- be able to get a failure from, but I would run an unacceptable risk of getting instagibbed by.

Now (again, presumably), my base O/D might continue to improve to the point where I can reliably dodge those next-tier mobs.  However...at that point, will my base O/D be so high that now I can't successfully learn from missing attacks on them?  By the time I can successfully dodge them enough to hunt them without risking an instagib, will my base O/D be so high that now I can hit them 99.9% of the time, even with a jman weapon skill?  Will my low chance to learn and my low chance to miss synergize to make it incredibly rare to get a skillgain?  At this point I feel like I'm just describing the jman plateau.

Anyway, the reason this matters with respect to strength is that since it's very difficult to break out of the jman plateau, it's better to be able land hard hits to non-critical areas, because non-critical areas are going to be where most of your hits land.  If your strength is low, armor proportionally absorbs a much higher percentage of your potential damage output to those non-critical areas.  So...if you're going to get stuck at jman, it's better to be landing 12-damage leg shots.

*by "ass kicked" I mean taking more than moderate condition damage in a single 1v1 encounter, not actually being nearly killed by a jozhal

Quote from: Synthesis on November 29, 2018, 08:54:02 PM

Quote from: Brokkr on November 29, 2018, 06:58:36 PM
Do you mean weapon skills, when you say combat skills?  Not going to be a problem most characters are ever going to get near having.  Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

Weapon and style skills are the main problems, yes.  I'm not sure about kick/bash/disarm. I haven't got any one of those to improve  (visibly...e.g. from novice to apprentice) at all since the new classes went in (which I assume is for a good reason, not a bug, so I won't address those).

Not sure what you mean by "most players," either.  At 7 days, with a jman weapon skill, I'm already at the point where generating weapon failures on non-uber critters is difficult, even though I'm still getting my ass kicked* by mediocre mobs when they roll good stats.

Presumably, my O/D is going up, since I'm still getting rekt...so to me it seems like at 7 days, I'm already squarely within that problem range where there are three categories of critters in the world:  1) too easy to generate any skill improvement from; 2) the ones I can hit 99.9% of the time, but that also hit me 50% of the time; and 3) the ones I -might- be able to get a failure from, but I would run an unacceptable risk of getting instagibbed by.

Now (again, presumably), my base O/D might continue to improve to the point where I can reliably dodge those next-tier mobs.  However...at that point, will my base O/D be so high that now I can't successfully learn from missing attacks on them?  By the time I can successfully dodge them enough to hunt them without risking an instagib, will my base O/D be so high that now I can hit them 99.9% of the time, even with a jman weapon skill?  Will my low chance to learn and my low chance to miss synergize to make it incredibly rare to get a skillgain?  At this point I feel like I'm just describing the jman plateau.

Anyway, the reason this matters with respect to strength is that since it's very difficult to break out of the jman plateau, it's better to be able land hard hits to non-critical areas, because non-critical areas are going to be where most of your hits land.  If your strength is low, armor proportionally absorbs a much higher percentage of your potential damage output to those non-critical areas.  So...if you're going to get stuck at jman, it's better to be landing 12-damage leg shots.

*by "ass kicked" I mean taking more than moderate condition damage in a single 1v1 encounter, not actually being nearly killed by a jozhal

I get the impression you can still bump combat skills with the traditional high agility, low O/D critters, you just won't be improving your base O/D in addition to your skills.

Your O and your D do two different things and don't go up based on the same things as each other.

So if your journeyman weapon skill isn't going up, your O probably isn't going up either.  Thus, most people are not going to have this problem, unless you train in very specific ways.

As far as weapon styles:

Shield use-If you can't get to go up I don't know what to say.
Dual wield-Goes up like it always did, not impacted by opponent O/D.
Two handed-We recently fixed this.  Due to math being hard, a sign was switched and for awhile it was easier to learn on easier opponents, rather than easier to learn on harder opponents.

kick/bash/disarm - Not relevant to anything in this entire thread, really.

It is also worth noting that the O/D learn change didn't get rid of the plateau.  It moved it a bit higher.  It made it quicker to get to.  It is still hard to get to the upper reaches of skill.  It is easiest for heavy combat to get good at combat because their chance of learning is greater.  As you move each category from there to heavy merchantile you will find it harder and harder to learn O/D and weapon skills, due to the chance of learning from a failure being smaller.

so the plateau is something that is both accepted and intentional among staff? is it meant to represent something akin to 'the average of warriors reach this level, and those who go beyond it are above and beyond the average warrior"?

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

Be a Bynner and fight every one of the Runners all at once. Bound to hit you at least once!

Quote from: roughneck on November 30, 2018, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

Doesn't that then present problems as well? The things that we aren't allowed to do in favor of realism are weigh our PC's down to drop combat efficiency (despite the fact that this is a common thing for martial artists and military organizations to do; train with excessive loads to try and normalize operating under tough conditions), You can't fight drunk (except that is a tactic martial artists have used to train, again, under circumstances when you are impaired, in the same way the military will train you to fight while hungry, exhausted, thirsty and homesick), and lastly you can't fistfight animals, despite being able to do so with PCs and NPCs because it presumably raises O/D, but it's unrealistic to fight animals barehanded (despite the fact that crocodile wrestling and hog tying are definitely a thing in the real world).

All of this, yet my PC is supposed to either say "Now all of you come at me at once!" under the pretense that they'll hopefully be so disoriented that they'll fail to whack a few newbies (which I can imagine happening in in a Jackie Chan movie, sure, but in real life I doubt I'd learn much from being dog piled) or alternatively go out and fight the horrors that lurk on the periphery of the Known (which is laughably unrealistic in the context of the game world. If my PC is expected to go out and tango with something like a bahamet with something short of a full hunting party. That's about as fantastic as any of the magick in the game available to your average PC. Yet it's apparently supposed to be one of our only recourses).

Why is the line drawn where it is between these two sides? It seems completely arbitrary, considering neither seems far more or less realistic than any of the others. And understand me when I say, I hate all of these options because I find them laughably unrealistic, on the whole. There needs to be a better option for late-game players to improve that doesn't require any of this garbage.

You probably have a different perspective, but let me change that last sentence for you:

QuoteThere needs to be a better option for way to limit every late-game players to improveing to an exceptional level, so that it is still exceptional for them. that doesn't require any of this garbage.

What has been weeded out, like fighting weighted or drunk fighting, is easy skill failures in low risk environments when you aren't practicing with someone better than you.

Find and practice with someone better than you.
Find and kill something that takes some risk.*

*A bahamet may or may not be a good candidate for this, based on a number of factors, one of which is the title of this thread.

Actually, the idea is simple


Train with other PCs.

As you train, their skill levels will increase to your heights fast, or your skill levels will increase faster to reach their hights.

Once thats done, since your skills are all roughly equal, you progress at a neutral pace. Not faster since your opponent isnt higher then you. Now slower, since your opponent is not lower then you.

This discourages loner training tactics and encourages pc interactive tactics. Win win win.

Or am I missing something?

Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

Quote from: JohnMichaelHenry on November 30, 2018, 06:19:07 PM
Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

Originally it was the branching of A-Weapons skills, but since that appears to be out the window, yes, now it is primarily about PK and safety in my opinion. That said, you may be surprised how much plots in this game revolve around PK. these are primarily player created plots in my experience, because it is one of the things in their direct control and is actively encouraged by staff.

Try, for example, playing a Guild Assassin with middling combat skills. Do you think you're faster than the flee code? Imagine trying to kill someone in a world where everyone spam-walks. Let's also assume that you'd like to be a little less banal than locking someone in an apartment and shanking them because it's pretty lame. How do you propose to complete contracts? Poisons? What if they have cures? Surprise? What if they have guards constantly?

Try playing a a bynner, an organization where it's inhabitants are actively killed off, and you don't necessarily want to lose your PC because you've played for literal weeks getting up to that middling ground. Would you rather be a pretty okay fighter or an excellent one when are hired to fight Ur-Zadan the Dragon's Son, Lord of the Sixth Circle, alongside Templar Akhana Oash?

Let's say you want to lead a hunting party, but not any hunting party, you want to take your party to the edge of the Known and beyond. But the edge of the Known is dangerous, you don't know what you'll find. Would you rather be pretty good or amazing at killing things then?

I'll grant you that they aren't very useful if that isn't your focus, like for being aides or merchants, but very often killing expediently is a huge part of plots, both staff created and player. You gotta respect that being better at killing bigger and badder things will give you more safety (and more of a center role) in these plots.

Quote from: Dar on November 30, 2018, 06:05:46 PM
Actually, the idea is simple


Train with other PCs.

As you train, their skill levels will increase to your heights fast, or your skill levels will increase faster to reach their hights.

Once thats done, since your skills are all roughly equal, you progress at a neutral pace. Not faster since your opponent isnt higher then you. Now slower, since your opponent is not lower then you.

This discourages loner training tactics and encourages pc interactive tactics. Win win win.

Or am I missing something?

It depends on what counts as a failure.  If parries and blocks -really- generate offensive skillgains, then yes, sparring other PCs will be useful.

I think the history of sparring clans has demonstrated that, more than likely, parries and blocks don't count--otherwise becoming exceptional would not actually be exceptional.  Getting parried or blocked by a skilled warrior is not exceptional.  What is exceptional is something straight-up dodging you when you're at (master) slashing.

Quote from: JohnMichaelHenry on November 30, 2018, 06:19:07 PM
Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

Survival and adventure-ability.  Master weapon skills aren't necessary for PK, and their utility is pretty limited in that regard, unless you have some circumstance/stat/other skill that synergizes with stand-up DPS.  (And that's where strength comes in:  higher damage per hit synergizes very strongly with the reel code.)

I mean, I've had two human warriors that branched multiple advanced weapons.  Between the two of them, I think I got a single PK (some poor sap shadowed me into my apartment and backstabbed me, probably thinking I was a merchant, since I was dressed for some party or something...then I wrecked his ASS while he was trapped in my apartment). 

Every single other PK interaction with them was lopsided in a way that (master) slashing and (master) parry couldn't compete.  Noobs don't come at you when you're pro, and the playerbase is small enough to remember who's been around for a RL year.  What comes at you are semi-pro muls and HGs that are landing grievous wounds to your foot, d-elf arrows landing at 30-60hp plus poison, and magickers.  Against those matchups, weapon mastery only helps you get away.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 30, 2018, 05:59:19 PM
What has been weeded out, like fighting weighted or drunk fighting, is easy skill failures in low risk environments when you aren't practicing with someone better than you.

Find and practice with someone better than you.
Find and kill something that takes some risk.*

*A bahamet may or may not be a good candidate for this, based on a number of factors, one of which is the title of this thread.

I'm not going to lie - I'm not fond of the idea that we can't trained weighted in order to simulate harsher circumstances, and I'm also not fond of the idea that a drunk Bynner, which honestly is sorta in character, can't improve himself. I've always felt like these sort of IC loopholes are just fine, and very easily fit into the world in any number of ways, without feeling twinkish at all. I don't agree with fighting animals barehanded though ... that's stupid.

But I am alright with the current state of things - if advanced is the new "master", then yeah, a true master will be a true master. I'll live with that.

So far...And I know this is totally OOC for me, but I am in full agreement with Synth.

Quote
Noobs don't come at you when you're pro, and the playerbase is small enough to remember who's been around for a RL year.  What comes at you are semi-pro muls and HGs that are landing grievous wounds to your foot, d-elf arrows landing at 30-60hp plus poison, and magickers.  Against those matchups, weapon mastery only helps you get away.

Totally true cept that...even the semi-pro muls and HGs do not come after you because the players know it is an unacceptable risk...but otherwise yes, that is all weapon mastery does.

I'm going to make some assumptions below, and if they're incorrect, please do correct me.

There are several hundred thousand people living in Allanak if I recall a breakdown provided by the imms some time ago on the GBD.  For ease of discussion, let's not bother counting other places such as Luir's, Red Storm or the various other villages/tribal camps, and let's also exclude Tuluk since it's closed to play.

There are less than 200 active players week-to-week currently, per the website stats, but let's make it 200 for ease of calculation.  Let's assume there are another 100 PC inactives that have relevancy (ie. exclude those who don't have any significant amount of play-time and are unlikely to be played) to make 300 active or potentially active player characters in the world.  Of those characters, let's say half are combat-oriented, and with the new class system, let's specify that 1/3 are heavy combat.  Of those roughly 100 heavy-combat characters, only a portion of those will be played and survive long enough to become truly skilled - let's say 1/5, though I think that's fairly generous.  So that's maybe 20 characters that might have the potential to become exceptional, with only another portion of those actually active, though that portion would be relatively higher compared to the general active/inactive character ratio - so let's say somewhere around 20 just to have a round number.  Of the active player population, that's about 10%.  Of the Known's population, that's some miniscule percentage.

Given that PC's represent a very small percentage of the Known's population, it seems odd to me that there seems to be an aversion to more player characters becoming exceptional at combat amongst the PC population.  20 people or less out of hundreds of thousands doesn't seem particularly off to me in terms of how many people should be exceptional in a given population.  Sure, not every person in the Known that is exceptional at something will be played by a character.  But I've always thought that it was accepted that PC's can and should have that potential, within relative reason - PC's can and always have been potentially representative of the exceptional part of the population that are accomplishing things.  PC's are a major driver in the plots of the world - yes, they don't have to be exceptionally skilled to do so, but those that are have the potential to affect the world in more significant ways, or have an easier time doing so.  I'm not sure if the philosphy surrounding that has changed, and if the glass ceiling has been lowered, but we've already seen sorcerers and psionicists removed and not wanting to see more PC's master combat seems to fall in line with that idea.

It doesn't seem to have been a problem in the past to have a number of PC's running around at the same time that have been exceptional at combat.  I've played on and off since the really early days of the game (back when you could see the Offense and Defense skills in your character sheet, and the actual numerical level of skill you had in them) - enough to have seen good examples of such characters and such times.  As Synthesis and others have already pointed out, combat skills are far from the end-all to character success or even survival.

I also agree with 7DV - I also dislike that characters motivated to excel at combat are OOC'ly being barred from doing what should be IC to them to improve their combat prowess.  Brokkr mentioned finding and practicing with someone better than you and taking risks should be IC actions - if your character is going to weigh themselves down, or go into a spar drunk, doesn't that fall into line with those ideas?  By being weighed down, your opponent will be better than you, and it's a risk that your character takes in that they will be less able to defend themselves.  IC'ly, your character consciously would know that and would be specifically stepping into that situation.  Same with being drunk (okay, volition for entering combat when drunk isn't necessarily the same, but there's an opportunity for roleplay there!).  Or whatever other coded methods there might be to do this - as has already been pointed out, people IRL do these sorts of things.  If it's the level of risk vs. reward that's the concern, then why not allow it but make it slow or cap it.  Or increase the associated risk, by increasing the chances of a serious (or even fatal) accident.

I'd also like to point out that needing to find a higher skilled PC to be able to have the chance to improve at an any appreciable rate beyond the plateau effect Synthesis pointed out severely disadvantages those who wish to play independents, in small iso-clans, or those who play off-peak.  Essentially, those players will have an automatic artificial knee-capping for their characters, and that seems unfair, given the challenges they already face in playing the game.  Sure, I accept that maybe not everyone should automatically be entitled to be able to reach the heights of skill available to everyone else in the game, or even play the same sort of characters as others, but that shouldn't be predicated at all on what time in the day someone can play the game. 

We've got along with the karma system for many years now.  If it's somehow truly an issue that too many characters are getting too good at combat and if that's really caused problems for the game, tie the system to karma, if need be - allow those who have earned the trust to excel, to actually be able to excel if it fits their character concept, and in doing so, to help drive certain stories forward that only those characters can.  But I still feel that having a handful of PC's that are excellent at combat isn't problematic, and never has been.

Finally, to tie this all back into the topic of the thread: strength is a very significant factor in success at combat, and that's just luck of the draw.  A character out of the gate that is very strong can and will win combat against even moderately skilled opponents - human characters are capable of starting with levels of strength that can heavily skew combat, and dwarves, muls and giants can far exceed that still.  If a PC is able to get to higher levels of skill more easily after putting in the time and effort to get there, both IC'y and OOC'ly, that can and will attenuate the effect of higher levels of strength in combat (to a certain extent of course, say, bahamets), which is IHMO, the way it should be, both from an IC perspective as well as an OOC perspective.

We may simply have different definitions of excellent.  To further discuss this, I'd have to get into a bunch of detail that I am not going to get into.

Yeah, this is far enough, I think. You've done an awesome job, Brokkr, in this thread, laying things out for us. I'm not complaining, really. I'm disagreeing with this or that. No foul meant.

In the end, really, anyway, I don't come here for the stats or skills. I come here for the stories. But oh, I do like like chatting about the gears of the world, though. I do.

Same as 7DV.

Although, I have copied Brokkr saying "take risks", To have just in case in the future I do so with a PC and have staff going Hey...this Pc takes odd risks. Which has happened in the past to myself and others.

8)

Partly kidding there, I actually work really hard to make sure the risks my PC takes are calculated IG and IC.

Quote from: IntuitiveApathy on November 30, 2018, 10:11:00 PM

Given that PC's represent a very small percentage of the Known's population, it seems odd to me that there seems to be an aversion to more player characters becoming exceptional at combat amongst the PC population.  20 people or less out of hundreds of thousands doesn't seem particularly off to me in terms of how many people should be exceptional in a given population.  Sure, not every person in the Known that is exceptional at something will be played by a character.  But I've always thought that it was accepted that PC's can and should have that potential, within relative reason - PC's can and always have been potentially representative of the exceptional part of the population that are accomplishing things.  PC's are a major driver in the plots of the world - yes, they don't have to be exceptionally skilled to do so, but those that are have the potential to affect the world in more significant ways, or have an easier time doing so.  I'm not sure if the philosphy surrounding that has changed, and if the glass ceiling has been lowered, but we've already seen sorcerers and psionicists removed and not wanting to see more PC's master combat seems to fall in line with that idea.

I agree with this. It feels a bit like dropping the glass ceiling on the heads of masters and just saying "well of course it's possible, you just gotta earn it" as people have struggled to make a MMH and there hasn't been a Red Robe since when? Senior Noble?

That said, I can appreciate the response. Though I'm not a fan of the system and think that it's clunky, hurts indies, and incentives bad play I can try to work inside of it. Thanks, Brokkr.

I'm a little confused. When I was in the Byn my, third to last time there (several years back,) every fucker I saw was weighed down for their sparring matches. I was weighed down because I didn't have an apartment to put my crap in and I didn't trust those fuckers, and all of those guys had their crap with them.... I think I had a pack full of rock greb. No one said anything about it then, so I guess I don't see the reason for disallowing it, especially since we all know it helps higher tier warriors train better.

If I recall, putting shit on to the point of being...I forget, maybe heavy+, straight up disallows certain combat fails.

Don't @ me tho I could be making that up.

God. This is so frustrating.

I don't know why we're even talking about skill gaps and O/D here.

Skills seem to matter exactly jack shit anyways when you're hitting for bounces and grazes. And I'm not saying that lightly.

It takes me 10 minutes for my highly trained character to kill a mob. This character has spent huge swathes of time in the sparring ring. The same mob took 10 seconds on my last character with barely any training.

ANY five day dwarf with a bit of armor could walk up and have a good chance of killing this character. If not they'd basically be invincible in their chitin armor.

Yes. I'm more afraid of being alone in a room with a dwarf than I am with a magicker. But "stats are fine".

The more burdened you are, the less you learn.

I don't know Tapas,




PS: I should stop typing on the phone, lol.

No.

Skills and learning are not the problem. This is a high skilled character. The problem is that skills don't do much when your damage is capped so low.

Quote from: tapas on December 01, 2018, 06:17:31 PM
No.

Skills and learning are not the problem. This is a high skilled character. The problem is that skills don't do much when your damage is capped so low.

At this point, I would suggest to put in a request, as you're talking about in game events with a current character.   We can give our advice and experience, but if you want more indepth information you're going to have to put in some questions with Brokkr or other staff to see if their game design expectation is a reality.

In my opinion, a low strength character practically needs to have high two-handed just for the damage boost. Forget everything else about the skill just the damage boost is enough to make them reasonably competative again once it gets middling, then once it is really high they are very much capable.

Not more so than a high strength doing the same, but still, it makes them usable.

Quote from: tapas on December 01, 2018, 04:40:11 PM
God. This is so frustrating.

I don't know why we're even talking about skill gaps and O/D here.

Skills seem to matter exactly jack shit anyways when you're hitting for bounces and grazes. And I'm not saying that lightly.

It takes me 10 minutes for my highly trained character to kill a mob. This character has spent huge swathes of time in the sparring ring. The same mob took 10 seconds on my last character with barely any training.

ANY five day dwarf with a bit of armor could walk up and have a good chance of killing this character. If not they'd basically be invincible in their chitin armor.

Yes. I'm more afraid of being alone in a room with a dwarf than I am with a magicker. But "stats are fine".

If strong dwarves are the new problem now, perhaps we simply have to counter them the way people who have never relied on strength would; noncombat and/or sneaky means.

If you've got five poisoned arrows in your quiver and are a great shot and are hellbent on taking down the dwarf who singlehandedly destroyed the Blackwings, shoot them once and pretend to take off, waiting until they swallow their cure. Then, come back and shoot them four more times. Overkill? They did destroy 400+ virtual elves. The people who cause these kinds of things to happen should be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Oh, wait, dwarves are almost immune to magick and poison. Who in the world thought that up? I'm sure four arrows to the heart will give them a shitty time, though, if not outright kill them. I know I'm suggesting killing combat-overpowered characters through elvish means, but sometimes people who've spent the last game year in the Byn or so forget that these are means they can use. There are reasons pcs stay unmanifested for ages before becoming known as witches; they join clans, make friends, and seal their reputations as whatever sort of personality and levels of drive they have. Then--- those clans and friends now have the means the solve a problem that might mean their downfall, because believe it or not some humans are loyal to each other.

If you don't have a lot of extra time or money to spare you can always go rinthi style and get your blade whetted with some poison as a self-defense measure. Its super easy to hide that you have that and can save your life from a strong person someday. An animal getting bloodburned would keep fighting you, but a pc might stop.

Quote from: Brokkr on November 29, 2018, 06:58:36 PM
Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

I have a belated question about this. Does this mean that if my offense gets high enough to where I can no longer raise it doing the things I normally do, I can't start training a new weapon skill? Let's say my character hunts rhinos for a living. It's all he does. Rhinos can get you up to 50 offense and no further. To get any higher, I have to hunt tigers which I don't do. In the process of hunting rhinos up to 50 offense, my piercing skill also hit 50. But my slashing skill is 20, and since my offense is now 50, I can't raise slashing above 20 fighting rhinos, even though I'm demonstrably worse at fighting them with a sword?

Quote from: roughneck on November 30, 2018, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

Quote from: Eyeball on January 29, 2019, 01:24:31 PM

Quote from: roughneck on November 30, 2018, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

Quote from: Brokkr on January 29, 2019, 01:42:01 PM

Quote from: Eyeball on January 29, 2019, 01:24:31 PM

Quote from: roughneck on November 30, 2018, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

If you define exceptional as one in about 23,000 PCs who try. That's what those odds yield. I.e. pretty much no PC (or even a player who goes through a hundred or more PCs) will ever be that sort of exceptional.

If someone does get there, it's because they've found a way to eliminate the risk.

Quote from: Eyeball on January 29, 2019, 06:46:54 PM

Quote from: Brokkr on January 29, 2019, 01:42:01 PM

Quote from: Eyeball on January 29, 2019, 01:24:31 PM

Quote from: roughneck on November 30, 2018, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on November 30, 2018, 02:04:02 PM
If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

If you define exceptional as one in about 23,000 PCs who try. That's what those odds yield. I.e. pretty much no PC (or even a player who goes through a hundred or more PCs) will ever be that sort of exceptional.

If someone does get there, it's because they've found a way to eliminate the risk.

At all times, there one PC that is more skilled, more buff, stronger, more agile, more magickally scary, more politically savvy, more mudsexable, more [insert trait here] than EVERY other PC in the game.

"Exceptional" is a comparative. It means better than most. If more people were exceptional, they wouldn't be exceptional anymore. Exceptional people are the exception.

I recently played a character with weapon skills boosted to journeyman. They also had poor strength.

Even with those boosted skills, I would describe the amount of time required to get from "awful-bad" to "reasonable" as excruciating.

And that was with logging in on early mornings just to hit those skill timers. It also meant still getting stomped by the guy that rolled exceptional strength.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that the system doesn't work at all.

Quote from: tapas on January 29, 2019, 07:24:54 PM
I recently played a character with weapon skills boosted to journeyman. They also had poor strength.

Even with those boosted skills, I would describe the amount of time required to get from "awful-bad" to "reasonable" as excruciating.

And that was with logging in on early mornings just to hit those skill timers. It also meant still getting stomped by the guy that rolled exceptional strength.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that the system doesn't work at all.

Sounds like it's working perfectly. Their strength is exceptional. Yours is poor. That means you should expect failure, often, whenever you're dealing with them. No matter how good you get, you will never match or outdo the exceptional, if you are poor.

However, if you have poor, for combat, it is most likely you selected a primary class that didn't focus on combat. Or a race that is known for being not very strong. Or you prioritized something other than strength.

In addition, that exceptional strength guy - if he was loaded down at unbelievably heavy in his pack, but had no armor on, and your journeyman self got him in the neck with a tainted arrow, he'd probably die just as easily as you would if he was wearing light gear, was unencumbered, and had a +20 death deadly wicked metal razor-sharp blade of doom and desturction.

Quote from: LizzieSounds like it's working perfectly.

So the bottom line is that, since no one is going to be going very high on offense/defense/who knows what else, strength is now more important than ever and stronger characters are always going to be totally dominant over "average" characters since the latter will either be of middling skill levels or dead.

No, not at all. An exceptionally strong elf who shows up out of chargen, is not going to be a match for a poor strength half-giant who's been wandering the wastes for the past 5 RL months.

An AI half-elf with 1 day played as an independent hunter type, won't hold a candle to a dwarf Byn trooper with poor strength but 20 days played with dual-wielded clubs. If the dwarf can get the first shot in, the breed will hurt.

Strength is not the end all and be all of combat. There are a number of variables that go into it, some of which are no-brainers and some sunken deep within the code that neither you nor I know a damned thing about.

QuoteSounds like it's working perfectly. Their strength is exceptional. Yours is poor. That means you should expect failure, often, whenever you're dealing with them. No matter how good you get, you will never match or outdo the exceptional, if you are poor.

QuoteStrength is not the end all and be all of combat.

(https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/488/c6bf9b08586c241b021dd04c204b7a85.png)

Quote from: tapas on January 29, 2019, 10:49:05 PM

QuoteSounds like it's working perfectly. Their strength is exceptional. Yours is poor. That means you should expect failure, often, whenever you're dealing with them. No matter how good you get, you will never match or outdo the exceptional, if you are poor.

QuoteStrength is not the end all and be all of combat.

(https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/488/c6bf9b08586c241b021dd04c204b7a85.png)

If you're comparing strength to strength, and not taking into consideration anything else.

It's not reasonable for strength to always trump skill the way it does. Two people fighting with rapiers? The one with greater skill should win most every time, regardless of how much of a beast the less skilled opponent is, because that is the way they work. Finesse. This isn't reflected in Arm's combat system.

A lion is far stronger than a man, yet a man, weak or strong, can kill the lion with a well-placed spear thrust. This isn't reflected in Arm's combat system either. You have to just wear down the opponent as though you're using a club, and strength matters hugely in doing this.

I've played an average strength desert elf that branched advanced weapons, and I've played an exceptional strength human warrior that did the same.

The latter felt like a death dealing machine, frequently two-shotting rantarri with stun damage from a warspear, running over things like bahamet with ease. The former still bounced against gurth sometimes even at his peak.

They both seemed defensively identical despite one being an elf with elf agi and the other having average human agility. I might have noticed a bit faster attack speed on the elf but it wasn't anything to write home about.

Strength is very, very, very important. Agility you can take or leave. The ultimate determinant of combat prowess, however, is not strength, but your hidden offense and defense skills (in my opinion).

But here's the rub:

If you're playing Armageddon for an engrossing combat system with well thought out and balanced facets, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. This extends beyond the unequal weighting of stats.

At risk of being crotchety, the simple fact of the matter is that the code that governs combat in Armageddon is very bad. Everything from the janky nature of combat delay management, to spam-flee shenanigans, the leaning on of one-hit kill mechanics, all the way down to the inherently grindy and non-compelling skill-up mechanics for combat abilities... the list goes on and on.

I'm not assigning blame or just trying to dump on the game or anything, I swear. The fact of the matter is that Armageddon is many decades old now and is a Frankenstein's Monster of coding effort, and nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the combat code. It's a mess. It's not fun to fight in Armageddon, least of all when you can lose 50+ day characters to some serious jank as ancient pieces of code slam up against each other in unexpected ways.

I guess my ultimate point is that, yes, strength could be reworked to be more balanced in combat, but combat in Armageddon is never going to be good, and therefore shouldn't take center-stage as far as balancing effort is concerned. Reworking strength is like peeing into a hurricane in this regard.

The game is worth playing for a lot of notable reasons, like theme, and worldbuilding, and so forth. But combat is not one of them and I don't think it's within the power of any staffer or coder to adequately fix at this point.

I doubt that completely fixing the combat code is impossible. I just think it would be one of those really serious projects that would take real time to accomplish. But yeah, Armageddon as a primarily combative experience can be ... confusing. It's certainly the moments of absolutely awesome RP that drag me back time and time again.

I find most the combat code to be way more realistic then many of you give it credit for.

This coming from somebody who fights, past and present, unarmed, armed, blunt weapons, live steal over the last 30 years. Now no, I have not been in a sword to sword real life or death fight. But, without that, here is the thing. IRL armor, weapons, skill, stats pretty matched, fights take a while...often coming down to who has that last bit of wind or...that lucky shot. If not matched, fight take moments. In a real life or death, it only takes that one shot, that spear between the ribs and the fight is over, oh, it might be a minute till the other persons body realizes it...bit it is. That 140lbs guy comes against me, I don't care if he is bruce lee fast, when I get ahold of him, and I will, I am going to do things so nasty to him it would be NC17...and there is nothing he can do about it. You can be the toughest guy around but if that other guy lands a rocking surprise blow to the side of your head, you WILL go down, maybe not out cold but stunned and unable to react and they will finish you then. I find, over all, arm combat code well represents this.

Now...is flee janky...no, starting combat is. There is no reason why, if I start combat with you and you run I should not be able to follow instantly. Now, combat skills....is it realistic to not be able to just try disarm, disarm;disarm.......no, But, the delay is the current way to stop people from simply spamming it because there is no other negs. If it was me, I would get rid of the delays to all those skills, But I would replace them with serious negs. Disarm and fail, You cannot parry for 1-2 rounds, Bash and fail, you fall and cannot block or parry for 1-2 rounds, Kick and fail loss of next 2 rounds of attacks, Riposte and fail no parry for a round, hack and fail chance to break weapon...Oh wait, but there is more, Even if you succeed your defense at least should be slightly reduced for a round. Get rid of the delays and replace them, this allows greater tactics in combat. Get rid of the start combat delay other then for flee. If you start the fight you should be stuck for a good time.

Oh, and as to the stats.
AI agi or AI str....I would pick AGI. If I have a human fighter with AI agi and you have one with AI str, all other stats being ave for both...and both have 10 days played in the byn...I WILL DECIMATE YOU. Of course, I will not be using the same weapons, skills or tactic as I would if I had the AI str fighter........

Is it nice to have high str...yup, but Agi affects more things then str, for long term survival...take the agi.

My preference for survival is prioritize endurance. An extra 20-30 hp has been the difference between life and death many times, and the extra stun and move points give more time to escape before getting knocked out and more time to react to some poisons.

It doesn't help with offence, but with flee how it is you can almost always get away if you survive the first 2-3 rounds.

Meh, While I tend to usually agree with X-D, I have to disagree this time. Strength is far superior to agility, based on my experience, when it comes to long lived pcs.

I'm seeing a lot of  anecdotal evidence suggesting suicide for low roll characters and once you roll high to take very low to middling risks until you can play with the big boys. Additionally, it sounds like, all things equal many races will just be worse and will require so much more effort to raise themselves up to the point high-cap strength races start from.

Assuming only exceptional PCs are exceptional (from Brokkr's comment) what's the incentive to screw around with a poor PC (or an average or good one for that matter)? In the end you will have to work so much harder than the high roll dwarf in your squad to become useful, let alone not a liability.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 02:20:52 PM
I'm seeing a lot of  anecdotal evidence suggesting suicide for low roll characters and once you roll high to take very low to middling risks until you can play with the big boys. Additionally, it sounds like, all things equal many races will just be worse and will require so much more effort to raise themselves up to the point high-cap strength races start from.

Assuming only exceptional PCs are exceptional (from Brokkr's comment) what's the incentive to screw around with a poor PC (or an average or good one for that matter)? In the end you will have to work so much harder than the high roll dwarf in your squad to become useful, let alone not a liability.

Again - if you're rolling up a "poor" strength character, then you're not making a character with the primary goal to do well in combat.  There are a pretty wide variety of options that will net you better than "poor" almost every single time, with only a very unlucky random misfortune of the dice roll. Your stats are dependent in part on which options you pick during chargen, including prioritizing.

If you want to play the badass raider who can back up his claims with brute strength, pick a class, subclass, and race that supports that decision.

You're overlooking part of my question, Lizzie.

What's to stop me from suiciding over an average character when they're so much less than everything above them? Why shouldn't I dive off the shieldwall with a PC who's rolled good in every stat? If I want to be the best why should I settle for anything else?

Because it is against the rules. Because this is a role-playing game first. I think strength should be toned down and stat rolls shouldn't be so random or widespread but let's not muddle the issue with poor arguments.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 03:31:54 PM
You're overlooking part of my question, Lizzie.

What's to stop me from suiciding over an average character when they're so much less than everything above them? Why shouldn't I dive off the shieldwall with a PC who's rolled good in every stat? If I want to be the best why should I settle for anything else?

Because no matter how awesome your stats are when you start up, there is already at least one PC, if not many, who can easily kill your brand new character right out of chargen. It's futile to think otherwise. If you're in it for the PK, strength is not, and will not, be the only deciding factor, and in some cases, won't be a factor at all.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 30, 2019, 03:47:07 PM
Because it is against the rules. Because this is a role-playing game first. I think strength should be toned down and stat rolls shouldn't be so random or widespread but let's not muddle the issue with poor arguments.

I don't understand how this is a poor argument if the design allows for this, it's the optimal sterategy to be competitive, and there's not necessarily any way you can prove people are doing it as opposed to risk taking. I'd be willing to bet a large margin of people do this and it's why CGP was implemented. Yet that's a poor change if it can still be effectively done and is still a "good idea" due to how valuable a high strength rating actually is. If the rule isn't working you either change the rule or target the problem the rule stems from.

So that means effective ways of dealing with this that I see would be to:

1. Make suicide okay or give infinite rerolls (not advocating for this at all)

2. Change the (dramatic) effect certain stats have so it wouldn't be so incentivized to suicide and reroll

3. Hide all stat scores so investment can occur and players are less likely to rerollby the time they realize thier PC is useless.

4. Offer in game ways of raising stats permanently so that there is an alternative to rerolling.

5. Bring back merit based stat increases.

Until one of these occur you will continue to have problems arising from stat issues. These will be pertinent to every player who uses the combat system regardless of Pker, PKEer, or whatever.

Ever been to America? There's an opioid crisis there and last time I checked illegal use of opioids was against the rules, yet there's plenty of conversation about why it's happening and how it's happening to better deal with it. Would you suggest that they'd be better equipped to deal with the issue by "not muddling things" with discussion topics surrounding things "against the rules"?

Please share the insider info you seem to have with the rest of us, considering you understand which aspects are important and which are muddling.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 04:10:30 PM
it's the optimal sterategy to be competitive

Suiciding is typically fairly obvious.

Optimal sterategy (?) to get the most powerful character possible, and thus be competitve, is to get 3 karma, then play a sorcerer subguild.

You won't get to 3 karma if we see you suiciding.

Ergo, suiciding is not the optimal sterategy to be competitve.



In a more serious vein, there are plenty of people who have effective, long term characters with meh stats.  The best stat roll I have seen so far (which was an extreme tail situation) died within a couple of hours.

The optimal strategy to be the most powerful, in my experience, is simply to survive the longest while garnering connections, allies, and skills. 

If all things are equal, or even slightly unequal, stats becomes an issue that should be addressed from a gameplay enjoyment and balance standpoint. Not because a bunch of people are supposedly suiciding to game the system. Honestly If someone wants good stats that badly, I say they can have them(also they could probably just spec-app for them, I've done it before).

But what they're losing in time and goodwill with the staff is, like Brokkr said, far more of a loss than they would get from an AI or two.

I really like your proposed ideas for changes. Except number 1, of course. I'd add flattening out the statrolls so AI and Poor are basically gone, and maybe de-randomizing rolls somewhat so that you have more of a say in how they're allocated at character generation.

I can agree with this. It could be possible I'm mistaking the chicken for the egg here, as my most influential and long lived characters also happen to be some fairly good rolls and I imagine that helped them to become as long lived as they were. I will admit though, it is anecdotal and others experience's may vary.

And I appreciate it. After reading through my comment it reads as pretty derogatory. I apologize if I came off that way. Perhaps I've been reading too much Hitchens? Thanks for remaining cool headed, RGS.

I'm surprised we don't have point allocation with some rolls on top of that, tbh.

It's all good, I shouldn't have called your argument poor. That was unnecessarily inflammatory.

Quote from: Brokkr on January 30, 2019, 04:53:31 PM

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 04:10:30 PM
it's the optimal sterategy to be competitive

Suiciding is typically fairly obvious.

Optimal sterategy (?) to get the most powerful character possible, and thus be competitve, is to get 3 karma, then play a sorcerer subguild.

You won't get to 3 karma if we see you suiciding.

Ergo, suiciding is not the optimal sterategy to be competitve.

In a more serious vein, there are plenty of people who have effective, long term characters with meh stats.  The best stat roll I have seen so far (which was an extreme tail situation) died within a couple of hours.

If players are consistently going to unrealistic lengths over something like stats (or even just seriously considering it), shouldn't the possibility that the stat system is part of the problem be considered?

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 30, 2019, 10:47:10 PMI really like your proposed ideas for changes. Except number 1, of course. I'd add flattening out the statrolls so AI and Poor are basically gone, and maybe de-randomizing rolls somewhat so that you have more of a say in how they're allocated at character generation.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 11:21:01 PMI'm surprised we don't have point allocation with some rolls on top of that, tbh.

+1

Several mechanics of the game are too heavily skewed towards one stat or another, like strength hugely affecting offense and inventory space being determined by agility alone. Maybe this could be adjusted by reducing how drastically stats can affect something and taking other factors into account (e.g. size of PC and types of objects in inventory).

Quote from: Eyeball on January 29, 2019, 11:28:22 PM
It's not reasonable for strength to always trump skill the way it does. Two people fighting with rapiers? The one with greater skill should win most every time, regardless of how much of a beast the less skilled opponent is, because that is the way they work. Finesse. This isn't reflected in Arm's combat system.

You still have a good chance of dying if you go attack a lion with a spear, no matter how good you are.

However, the game doesn't really work like you describe it. If it did? You could never kill a dorf as a celf. But with a bit of combat experience? It's not just possible, but actually pretty easy.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 30, 2019, 10:47:10 PM
The optimal strategy to be the most powerful, in my experience, is simply to survive the longest while garnering connections, allies, and skills.

Abso-fucking-lutely the truth.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 30, 2019, 10:47:10 PM
I'd add flattening out the statrolls so AI and Poor are basically gone ...

Fuuuck no!  :P

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on January 30, 2019, 04:10:30 PM
4. Offer in game ways of raising stats permanently so that there is an alternative to rerolling.

5. Bring back merit based stat increases.

I like both of these ideas very much. I'm not interested in the other three (even though I know the first one was sort of a joke! Hehe). I'm not sure what the merit thing you're talking about is, but I think I'm okay with it.

I like #4 the best, so I'll expound on my personal vision of such a thing. In every case, the chances of raising a stat are small, like 1/1k or so, and even less for frequent things like walking. So if you really need to see your stats rise, you have to put in the work, in game. And you'd be expected to RP it, so if staff felt like you were not RPing it enough (note that nobody expects you to emote all the time, but be real about it), they could delay your ability to learn for a while.

• 
  Strength/Endurance: Hard Labor jobs include salting, obsidian mining, glass mining, foraging stones, mining clay, dragging heavy loads, fighting with heavy loads WORN, not in inventory. I actually argue that we should be able to go back to the getting better at fighting with heavy loads WORN, not in inventory, too, but that's a different topic.
  
• 
  Agility: Possibly running, successful dodges against dangerous foes, climbing.
  
• 
  Wisdom: Uh .... drawing a blank here. I think maybe wisdom ought to just be what it is. After all, it goes up constantly from the time you first log into the game.
  

I still favor the point allocation system. Always did. Same with skill selection, by way of main class templates with 'extra' points to allocate, in substitution of the whole subclass system.

Example for point allocation system:

You roll up a human warrior/clothworker, the most generic combo I could think of. (I realize warrior is no longer a thing, this is all a hypothetical anyway)

As such, the fact that you're a warrior will automatically prioritize strength. So no matter what all your stats are, strength will get a natural +2 bonus at the very end. Humans will get no plus or minus, they are the default. Subclasses would get no bonus or penalty. The warrior class would also come with a coded guarantee to never get a "poor" in strength, but could still get a poor in other things.

You could random roll, and not allocate. If you do, here are the possible results:

Possible stats: poor, below average, average, good, very good, absolutely incredible No more extremely good, it devalues "average" too much.
Poor = 2% chance of showing up on any stat. No more than one stat getting it.
Below average = 10% chance, no more than 1 stat getting it.
Average = 40% chance, and any or all stats can get it.
Good = 32%, up to 2 stats getting it.
Very good = 12%, with up to 2
AI = 4%, with only one.

Math: 2+10+40+32+12+4=100 with that 2 on "poor" eliminated for warriors, and adding that 2 randomly to still equal 100% allocation.

OR - you can allocate. There would still be an RNG. Your character still would be locked out of getting a poor in strength. But you may now weigh the stats. You can go up or down as many as 5 points in any stat, as long as the end result of all allocated stat points combined equals 0.

So maybe you want strength to get an extra +5 bonus.
You want to make sure your agility has at least something in it, so you give it a +3
Wisdom, you'll take your chances.
Endurance, screw that, you'll wear better armor and ride a mount. -8


And NOW the dice rolls and the result will be random. Then it applies your allocated points, and then it adds another +2 to strength.

The only way your warrior character would end up with poor strength is if you allocated -negative- points to strength in custom allocation, AND the RNG decided that was where you'd get the "below average" stat, before the custom points were applied.

There's still a random roll, no matter which way you do it. But now, you have a better chance to weigh the priorities, in the manner you wish them to be weighed, AND there would be guarantee that one stat specific to your main class would never be poor unless you intentionally allocate it negative points.

A desert elf might also get a +2 in agility, automatically, no matter what, and their guarantee is that they'd never roll poor strength, because poor strength desert elf is almost unplayable (not entirely but almost). A half-giant would be guaranteed never to get poor wisdom, but would get a -2 penalty to the wisdom roll, otherwise, and a +2 to agility (since it makes zero sense for a humanoid with hands the size of watermelons to NOT be able to hold 5 twigs). And so on. Each class and race could have its own specific conditions, with humans being the default 'average' that has no penalties or bonuses.

This system would mean that you're much more likely to have all average stats. But it also means you will never have a poor in a stat specific to your main class, or race (or both), unless you intentionally allocate it as such.

You currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

Quote from: Brokkr on January 31, 2019, 11:39:00 AM
You currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

But as a player, do you know what those choices are, that would give you that chance? I mean, for example:

If you pick a city elf and put strength last in the current prioritization options in chargen, is that one of the combos that could result in a poor strength? What I intend by the question, is are players in conscious, intentional control over the choice of creating a circumstance in which "poor" can be a result?

If not, then my above post is intended to create that conscious decision.

Stat ranges are relative to race, so picking elf has no bearing.

Picking strength last just gives a (low) roll in the normal range, so that has no bearing.

Picking a guild can have bearing, but only 2 of the normal guilds will negatively impact strength, and only 4 of the normal guilds have any negative at all.

Which leaves the most often responsible culprit.  Age.  Given that we would likely leave aging alone or only slightly modified, this means your suggestion also doesn't address the typical cause (note that str has a fairly small window where there isn't any negative, and there is no age that doesn't have something negative).

To me it's not so much about the risk of rolling a poor in a stat I care about. That's almost impossible. I've never seen poor in anything but my fourth priority. It's more the fact that when I make a character, it's pure blind chance whether I get awesome stats that will make my character way more effective, or something mediocre that I merely have to tolerate. It's nearly impossible to roll stats so bad that your character is screwed, but it's very much possible to roll stats so great that your character is (or will be) much more competent than most others of the same class and race. And it's not because I must have that, it's simply the fact that it's possible. I don't think it should be.

I think stats should be rolled from a base that's uniform across characters of that race so you can't randomly get one with two exceptionals, an extremely good, and above average as the lowest. I've had some rolls that were unreasonably good and the benefits were frankly excessive. You can usually count on landing one high stat if you didn't do something daft like minimum age with strength first, but if you happen to get three high stats, it's almost like you've unlocked some kind of prestige class.

An actual allocation system sounds a little too gamey for me, but I think every character's combined base stats should come out to the same aggregate sum, before whatever modifiers exist for age and class and whatnot. Leave the randomness within those confines so there's no longer such a thing as objectively superb or awful stats.

If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

Is there more possibility for str/agi to be equal in damage capabilities in melee?

Quote from: Brokkr on January 31, 2019, 03:15:58 PM
If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

That's why I don't suggest a 100% allocation system. Everyone would get the usual random roll to equal a total of 100 points, minus 10 points. That 10 points can be used to flesh out the stats in a way that best suits the character's profile, according to how the player sees that character. It isn't likely to result in an actual bump, and because the base roll is still random, the player won't know what the end result is until he shows up in chargen. Plus the odds of getting either extreme would be minimal, and the odds of getting "average" would be the most common.

Quote from: Brokkr on January 31, 2019, 03:15:58 PM
If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

I think having a finer tune control over a character's statistics is much more appropriate for a role-play intensive MUD, for a number of reasons. Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more. You can undercut an entire concept this way. Say you want the quiet bookish type, roll  wis, agi, str, end, and get a totally above-average distribution and suddenly you have dysynchrony between the twiggy nerd you were trying to play and the stats you ended up with. A point buy system allows people a finer control over their character design and allows people to actually plan for the character they want to roleplay.

Point buy is probably a distant second to stat-increase, as that is even more reflective of reality. If you want to get stronger, you go to the gym. More wise, you familiarize yourself with philosophy, et al.

People attempting to maximize a stat isn't 'gamey'. It's realistic. I work out six days a week because I'm trying to maximize my STR. Am I gaming a system IRL?

That being said, a fear of the system being 'gamed' simply loops up back to the beginning of this thread. Brokkr, if you're worried about people leaning to heavily on one stat or the other when you allow point buy ins, then it simply is continued evidence that certain stats (rhymes with 'bength' for people in the back) matter more. If that's your concern, make it so min-maxing has consequences by making other statistics matter on a similar level.

--sorry Namino, I managed to modify instead of quote and toasted your post.  Hopefully this fixes is. -Brokkr

Quote from: Namino on January 31, 2019, 04:01:01 PM
Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more.

You chose the wrong age.  If you had chosen a different age, you could have been fairly close to the big bruiser type.

Quote from: Brokkr on January 31, 2019, 04:19:14 PM

Quote from: Namino on January 31, 2019, 04:01:01 PM
Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more.

You chose the wrong age.  If you had chosen a different age, you could have been fairly close to the big bruiser type.

Since we now know that the #1 variable with regards to stat rolls is age, might we have a breakout of those ages, so we can more appropriately prepare our character backgrounds to fit what we are hoping to do with our characters?

For instance:

I want my outdoorsy character to have the possibility of becoming a master woodworker.  This means I need my character to have decent strength (not necessarily awesome, but definitely better than "above average"). It means she should have at least reasonable endurance (better than average) since she'll be chopping logs, or possibly just acquiring them from someone else, and need to be capable of hauling 2-3 of them at a time without being completely exhausted after 2 rooms in the city. She'll probably need something better than "below average" wisdom, or she'll be really old (and therefore eventually too weak) and won't be able to carry those logs around anymore by the time she's good enough to master the crafts.

My character is a half-elf.

What age-range should she be?

When we introduced the new classes we discussed the possibility of including the stat bonuses each got in the helpfiles.  Ultimately, majority of staff feedback was to not include them.  The prevailing reason is that we do not want folks to focus overly much on min/max of their stats.

Which is the same reason I am not going to give you the information as regards to age.

Interesting, I had a PC not all that long ago who got poor wis....and it should not have been from age as he started where even the docs say you should.

You didn't prioritize your stats and wis was lowest, most likely. That is a decision(not to priotitize), as Brokkr mentioned earlier.

I'm pretty happy with the way stats work right now.

I think stats are -okay-, but fine tuning on the upper end (dwarves and muls, not half-giants) could make it a little less wtf.  Elves I'm fine with combat-wise, but think encumbrance needs a look-see.

I actually do not mind just how much damage a dwarf can do in a short period of time, it lines up well with what would really happen if a dude that is just about only muscle bashed your face in with a leg bone. Show me a man who can take a smash to the head like that and I will show you superman.

Actually Heade, it was one of the very few PCs where I DID prioritize. Also Brokkr said

QuoteYou currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

And he also said putting something last does not by itself get you poor. I am sure it was not age, so leaves only main class. Which IMO would be lame and NOT count as making the choice to create the situation since the docs do not tell you that it can.

That being said, I am still fine with how stats work currently, I was just pointing out that far as I know, poor is or at least was possible within the last year without making bad choices.

I don't think anyone is making the claim that it currently isn't realistic. I think most people are saying it isn't fun and could be improved upon (myself included). If the best way to be good at combat is high strength then why make anything other than dwarf fighters? Especially since we now know the skill plateau is a thing. If your Jman/advanced is the same as mine then who cares if it takes a longer to get there because dwarves are thick skulled and dumb? Don't forget, you're here forever.

Assuming I don't have the karma to play a sorcerer, of course.

I actually have a strong desire to play a max strength mul and see just how ridiculous it can get. I assume somewhere between quite ridiculous and ludicrous.

Good luck skilling up a max str mul.  ;D Another race I always had an easy time on with my elves.

Quote from: X-D on February 02, 2019, 12:22:32 AM
Actually Heade, it was one of the very few PCs where I DID prioritize. Also Brokkr said

QuoteYou currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

Right, like prioritizing wisdom last.

Quote from: X-D on February 02, 2019, 12:22:32 AMAnd he also said putting something last does not by itself get you poor.

I missed the part where he said this. Do you have a citation?

Yes, it could be your class, too. If I had to guess, just logically speaking, at who would get a wisdom penalty, I'd probably say warrior/fighter is a good bet. I mean, how wise is it to make your living by fighting people who are trying to kill you? :D

Quote from: Hauwke on February 01, 2019, 10:38:37 PM
I actually do not mind just how much damage a dwarf can do in a short period of time, it lines up well with what would really happen if a dude that is just about only muscle bashed your face in with a leg bone. Show me a man who can take a smash to the head like that and I will show you superman.

Problem is that if you don't have high strength, your damage tends to be laughable. You can score big hits without high strength, but most of the time you're doing nicks and grazes and lightly, even at respectable skill. My last two combat characters, one had above average strength and the other with exceptional. With the first one, it routinely took 10-15 hits to kill anything, sometimes more. I'm talking about things like raptors, chaltons and NPC raiders, not mekillots and bahamets. The second one would kill those same things in 3-6 blows. Both characters were roughly equal in skill.

If we want to start using the realism defense to justify the benefits of high strength, it needs to be said that the damage you do without high strength is unrealistically bad. Now and then you might highroll and score a viciously to the head or whatever, but the rest of the time it feels more like WoW combat where you chop and slash at something for ages. The issue isn't precisely that high strength is too good, it's that ordinary strength is so far behind that it's stupid.

High strength performs pretty much to my expectations of realistic combat. Middling strength does not. Average strength makes you hit like a twelve year old girl. Some of the fights I've had with my mid-strength characters were truly hilarious as I nicked and grazed my way to victory in what amounted to half an hour of in-game time.

If you make a human character with average endurance, he'll have something like 90-100 health. With exceptional endurance, it's about 120-130. Pretty reasonable. If we look at strength, however, and we translate that stat into a similar comparison using the same metric for the sake of illustration, the difference between average and exceptional is more like 50 vs. 200. I would like the difference to be more like that of endurance so that playing a combat character without high strength doesn't feel like such an immense handicap.

Well, to that point....I actually do not disagree. But I do not think str needs be changed so much as agi and skill needs to be bumped a bit to the scoring of crits (head neck etc).

Otherwise, if you are playing a low str high agi human, certain styles are better then others, often not what you would expect either on which ones.

Quote from: X-D on February 02, 2019, 01:54:13 PM
Well, to that point....I actually do not disagree. But I do not think str needs be changed so much as agi and skill needs to be bumped a bit to the scoring of crits (head neck etc).

Otherwise, if you are playing a low str high agi human, certain styles are better then others, often not what you would expect either on which ones.

The other issue is that while agility feels primarily defensive, strength is offensive and defensive from the standpoint that you can wear thicker and thicker armor. It's a twofold boon.

Honestly, it's silly that the wording grazing and such are used with super armored kryl-plated mega-muls. Unless they're dancing around like super heroes you're hitting them square on, it's just not doing much. But realistically speaking when you do hit them it should be vicious gouges to the joints, neck, etc, making armor very polar. If anything the grazings and lightlys should apply more to high agility characters because they can steer the enemies blades to hit them in ineffective or grazing directions (think capoeira).

Oh, BTW Heade.

QuotePicking strength last just gives a (low) roll in the normal range, so that has no bearing.

It appears to me that no one is happy with the current system aside from staff and Heade, our local contrarian. That's bad.

generally I am happy...I just normally agree there is room for improvement.

I'm neither happy nor unhappy about it. It has very little bearing on my game.

Quote from: X-D on February 02, 2019, 12:22:32 AM
I am sure it was not age, so leaves only main class. Which IMO would be lame and NOT count as making the choice to create the situation since the docs do not tell you that it can.

Well, I can't see which character you meant, as I was referring to only the new classes, unless you saw it on a 2nd roll.  Note we have specifically decided not to give stat information on the classes, but it is somewhat logical, and so while you may be making an uninformed or poorly informed choice, it is still a choice.

That said, it was still age.  Wisdom is a bit wonky, and whereas there is a dice associated with a range, there is also a negative to wisdom based on age over the range most every PC is going to be in.  So effectively it has a max of max dice-agenegative.  Not that really matters, as it is just equivalent to have a slightly lower max that rolled dice would suggest, aside from the wonkiness related specifically to poor and AI stat indications.

Ah, Well, I am not complaining mind you, having played my share of low wis dwarves and HGs, a low wis human....Heh, gravy.

Still, you are saying that, for the most part, with the new classes, one needs to work a bit to get a poor in a stat?

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on February 02, 2019, 03:12:53 PM
It appears to me that no one is happy with the current system aside from staff and Heade, our local contrarian. That's bad.

Who speaks most often/loudest on the forums are generally people who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. So, the number of people speaking about this in a thread that represents a tiny fraction of the playerbase isn't necessarily representative of the number of players who feel one way or another about an issue.

Lots of players claim that they don't even get on the forums regularly.

If you wanted a realistic set of numbers to work from, you'd need to poll the playerbase IN GAME, using a non-optional poll that didn't let you log into your character until you answered. And even that will have a margin of error for people who just pick a random option to get past the question because they don't strongly care one way or another.

I also resent being called a "contrarian" in a general sense. There are plenty of situations where I agree with the public opinion, and plenty where I do not. Not being shy about the times when I am not may make things look that way, but it does not take into account the numerous threads I DON'T post in, because my point of view has already been made by someone else. I read every thread on the GDB that isn't in "Non-Armageddon Discussions". If I haven't posted in one of those threads, you can assume I either agree with the direction the thread is trending, don't care enough one way or the other to make a post, or think the idea being presented is so stupid that I couldn't fathom anyone entertaining it, so I don't waste my time.

Two human dudes of equivalent skill, one having Absolutely Incredible strength and Average agility (dude A) versus one with Absolutely Incredible agility and Average strength (dude B) should be more comparable. It's true. "Super Agility Man" should get enough of a boost to landing a +45 dmg neck shots to compensate for "Holy-shit-it's-hercules" being able to +45 dmg his foot twice to victory. Maybe it works like that and I just can't tell because I can't compare skill levels, but it feels like it doesn't.

Quote from: X-D on February 02, 2019, 03:31:22 PM
generally I am happy...I just normally agree there is room for improvement.

+1

Quote from: only_plays_tribals on February 02, 2019, 10:57:15 PM
Two human dudes of equivalent skill, one having Absolutely Incredible strength and Average agility (dude A) versus one with Absolutely Incredible agility and Average strength (dude B) should be more comparable. It's true. "Super Agility Man" should get enough of a boost to landing a +45 dmg neck shots to compensate for "Holy-shit-it's-hercules" being able to +45 dmg his foot twice to victory.

+1

Once upon a time, agility was the uber stat. Maybe things are a little out of wack now, but it was worse before, because agility is arguably the best non-combat stat. There's enough reasons to want a high dexterity score already, I think.

If anything Wisdom seems more like a dump stat, for non-spellcasters. Maybe it should figure a little more into Stun. And endurance could figure more into carry capacity.

Quote from: number13 on February 02, 2019, 11:47:59 PM
There's enough reasons to want a high dexterity score already, I think.

Agreed. There is a lot of utility tied to agility.

I have to agree.

Before the guild changes, merchants had a use for high wisdom. Wisdom helped them with skinning/foraging/scanning/listening. But now there is genuinely no reason for an Artisan to have high wisdom. High endurance for stun/hp is paramount. High strength/agility for utility of carrying stuff around. Wisdom? Entirely irrelevant.

I dont agree with all those weird notions about elves having more strength, or whatever. But, I do think the impact each stat has on things should be reworked. Yes, agility is important in certain aspects. But I am of opinion, that each stat should have their own benefits and penalties. That each stat should be balanced, and it's pretty obviously not.

Is it an easy solution? Probably not. But please do not say that current stats are balanced and each stat equals the other in their own niche. It's just simply not true.

Heade, no reason to resent the comment. I was just calling it like it appeared. To not show any support for a single thing (by maybe not posting in a thread you'd normally agree with) and only speaking up when you have a problem with something? Seems kind of like a contrarian to me. Maybe if there were some construction to go alongside the poking of holes? I mean it just seems like bad practice to show up, say you hate something, and contribute nothing else.

But I'm okay if you don't agree with me. I suppose at the time I didn't realize how many people were so wishy-washy on the subject.

If you'd like I think we should  carry this on through PMs. I hate thread clutter and the threat of moderation over little stuff.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on February 03, 2019, 03:02:17 AM
I mean it just seems like bad practice to show up, say you hate something, and contribute nothing else.

This generally isn't my MO on the things I post about. I tend to explain my positions, so simplifying that down to saying I "show up, say I hate something, and contribute nothing else" is disingenuous. And I didn't do that here. I simply said I like how stats currently work. And I've explained why previously in either this thread, or the one that spawned it.

If agility and strength were equally important to combat, with Agi giving a boost to hit critical locations in such a way that it was equal or near equal in damage output to high strength, then that would make agility king of all stats, because of the vast number of skills related to agility already (hide, sneak, lockpick, all crafting, ranged weapons, etc). Currently there are tradeoffs that are made in stat prioritization. It's obvious that's the case, or no one would care, right? I mean, if there weren't tradeoffs, we wouldn't be having this discussion, everyone would just prioritize strength and generally be happy with their character who could do everything. But that isn't the case. We're having this discussion because people want to do other stuff, that depends on other stats, and they become unhappy when their lower prioritized strength has a negative impact on their character's life.

I do see Dar's point on wisdom sort of being a dump stat at this point for artisans specifically. But artisans aren't the sole successor to Merchants. Also, we should bear in mind that wisdom is the key factor in skills like contact and barrier, which are useful to almost everyone. Some of the "merchant" classes still get skinning, scan, peek and watch. So, it does still have impact for other merchants, just not artisans. This appears designed to be a tradeoff of skills artisans make for being able to have all the crafting skills, but does end up making wisdom a "dump stat" for them if you completely ignore the effects of wisdom on skill gains.

Quote from: gotdamnmiracle on February 03, 2019, 03:02:17 AM
If you'd like I think we should  carry this on through PMs. I hate thread clutter and the threat of moderation over little stuff.

I'd rather not. This isn't going to turn into a flame war in public, because I'm not that guy. So don't be that guy and I think we're good on moderation. ;)

I experimented with an agility-focused combat PC (human) not too long ago. My results were surprising and helped flesh out my understanding of stats.

Based on my experience and research:
1.) You need a base level of strength to be competitive in combat. Having more after a certain point is nice to have, but not need to have.
2.) Your skills are easier to increase to a high level if you do not have high strength. You'll be better defensively overall in most scenarios and clans over time. This does not account for players who play a ton, of course, since players who are on 24/7 are abnormal for data. If you pour 100d into a character your skills will be abnormal regardless of build.
3.) Strength is unnecessary to kill PCs. (See: HELP ELVES, HELP POISONS.)
4.) Strength is less dominant now that we have more skills like Riposte available. You'll have to choose the correct guild for a low strength character, which is sort of the problem... but otherwise if you don't choose below 22 y/o you'll be fine.
5.) Most PCs die to the following scenarios:
   a.) Being tricked into being trapped.
   b.) Being victimized by unbeatable forces.
   c.) Becoming friends with the wrong people who betray them.
   d.) Random NPCs.
   e.) Poison.

In my experience: Strength has little bearing on PvP success in Armageddon. Politics, connections, and poisons are superior in every way. Strength is a red herring.

Now if you're talking about PvE? Yeah, having low strength sucks.

Solution:
Pick over 22 years old. Pick an appropriate guild for your PC. Supplement with two handed if necessary. Pick a guild or subguild with poison if you're afraid of low strength.

Quote from: Is Friday on February 03, 2019, 11:36:02 AM

In my experience: Strength has little bearing on PvP success in Armageddon. Politics, connections, and poisons are superior in every way. Strength is a red herring.

If you have half-giant strength, mul strength, high dwarf strength is it possible to kill a PC in two or three blows. Strength is not a red herring for PvP. See also, the dwarves that were coming out of the Gaj spawn area to attack people at the bar. They did get kills.

If those dwarves had been elves with terradin they'd have the same or better kill ratio. Most PCs are unprepared for combat, period. Regardless of what attacks them--be it a high strength PC or a low strength poison bearer.

Muls and half-giants are behind a karma wall and restricted rules for RP.

Dwarves should be behind a karma wall as well, but that's a different discussion. I've always been of the opinion that HGs should be removed and dwarves need to be restricted karma roles.

I always thought that dwarves being zero karma was a way for staff to figure out who was ready to get their first one or two points of karma, since they both don't require karma but require something more from the player than Get Strong. A lot of people play them as humans with an obsession, which is fine since I feel docs don't elaborate a lot beyond that, but yeah, the strength of a newbie dwarf who doesn't know not to attack bar-sitters is pretty scary. The type of characters I like to play, they usually get wrecked by an untrained mul in one or two hits, except for one who was trained with a shield and was lucky enough to be wielding one.

The longer you play around dwarves, or as a dwarf, with humans or god forbid half-elves to compare, the greater the disparity seems, I think, and I've said this before, but dwarves being 'almost immune' to poison and magick seems like a pair of really unfair traits. Apart from a freaking Arena event, that's how people usually try to kill a high-strength problem. It seems to me like humans and dwarves are the ones who live the longest, because everyone plays humans, and dwarves can become really difficult to kill. If anything, elves should have gotten those immunity traits--- it can be really hard to make an elf that lasts a RL year.

Quote from: Cind on February 04, 2019, 05:59:48 AM
If anything, elves should have gotten those immunity traits--- it can be really hard to make an elf that lasts a RL year.

Not that the game is meant to be 'balanced', but that would be a fun way to balance a c-elf versus a d-elf. The D-elves might get the superior everything else, but c-elf have such shitty lives that they've become practically immune to toxic crap over generations of selection. That would be some awesome flavor.