Parry Branch from Multiple Skills?

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Seriously, why do I need to branch parry from dual wield? Couldn't I just as easily learn to put my sword in the way of someone elses if I was only EPing? Or even ETWOing?

As it currently stands non-warrior guilds are give two options:

A) Use a shield to provide defense, and never learn the parry.
B) Run around Dual Wielding and hope you survive the 15-20 days you need to branch.

Preferably, I would like to see it added to be branchable from general offense.

I guess I could understand not learning to parry while you're using a shield (why distract your killing hand to defend yourself when there's a perfectly good shield handy), but at the very least it could be added to Etwo as well?

Or maybe I'm talking out of my ass and it already is?

Thoughts? Clarifications?

[Synthesis]

Morgenes has already said that if you are good enough with two-handed, they will manually branch parry for you.

All you have to do is send in a request via the request tool when you think you're good enough with the skill.

Apparently, in the current version of the game, it isn't possible to code a skill tree such that a particular skill can potentially branch from two different base skills.

Also:

Skill Dual Wield                                                   (Combat)

   This automatically-used skill is invoked whenever your character fights
with a weapon in his/her secondary hand (see "help es"). It represents your
character's proficiency in fighting with two weapons.

Notes:
   It is somewhat easier to parry using two weapons.

   No shield can be employed when using two weapons, and your character is
thus somewhat easier to hit.

See also:
   skill parry


From this, it is reasonable to infer that if you ep a shield and es a weapon, your dual wield skill will improve.

[Ourla]

It smells twinky in here.

[Riev]

*sniff sniff*

Do you guys smell that?

....

*sniff*

Smells like closed thread.

[Synthesis]

Why the fuck would they lock a thread for quoting an Imm and a helpfile?

[Thunkkin]

Why the fuck would they lock a thread for quoting an Imm and a helpfile?

Actually, I think it's important that etwo-ers know about this:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,30295.msg358874.html#msg358874

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,30290.0.html

[FantasyWriter]

I don't feel like looking it up, but Morg said that they tried making it where it would also branch off etwo and shield use, but it was possible to do with the current code.
If you feel that you have gained a sufficient level in one of those skills, email your clan staff CCing Morg and they'll take a look at it and give you parry if the skill you are 'branching from" is high enough.

Edited to add: oops.. thanks thunkkin

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Woop! Sorry, I guess it does say that after all.

In that case I apologize for not reading every post from every threat. Ever.

Alright then, should that be added to the helpfile somewhere, you think, to help avoid another stupid chump like myself from making this mistake?

[Salt Merchant]

Why not set up the code to check etwo skill level upon login and have it automatically email the staff and player when the skill level is high enough?

This could conceivably be done for merchants that have just achieved master crafter status as well.

[Dalmeth]

Because it's just frikking irritating to track a character down at any given time.

[Salt Merchant]

Because it's just frikking irritating to track a character down at any given time.

What are you replying to here?

If it's about automatically emailing the player when his skill gets high enough, then at least he won't have to guess when the skill is high enough and risk sending in requests that are only a waste of time for everyone. Sounds like less irritation to me, not more.

And the staff should be cc'd on the automatically generated email to verify and in case they're feeling proactive.

In fact, maybe the request itself should be generated automatically, if that's possible.

[Xygax]

If we were going to write code to automatically notify you when you should have a new skill branched, why wouldn't we just write the code to cause the skill to branch?  I'm so confused.

-- X

[Sephiroto]

If we were going to write code to automatically notify you when you should have a new skill branched, why wouldn't we just write the code to cause the skill to branch?  I'm so confused.

-- X

I was just about say this too.

[Armaddict]

Xygax:

I think what he means is that since you can't have code that says "This skill OR this skill OR this skill reaching this point WILL BRANCH this skill", maybe those other two skills could have it coded to notify you when they have reached that certain level so that action can be taken without you having to do guesswork and bother the staff to check on it.

[Salt Merchant]

If we were going to write code to automatically notify you when you should have a new skill branched, why wouldn't we just write the code to cause the skill to branch?  I'm so confused.

-- X

Why not indeed?

But the point here is to not try to use the branching code as it stands, which (presumably) checks every time the relevant skill ticks up. Instead, it would be a log on check, implemented separately and not modifying anything, so as not disturb the branching code that can't be modified to work off of more than one skill.

[Xygax]

Xygax:

I think what he means is that since you can't have code that says "This skill OR this skill OR this skill reaching this point WILL BRANCH this skill", maybe those other two skills could have it coded to notify you when they have reached that certain level so that action can be taken without you having to do guesswork and bother the staff to check on it.

We can't?  This code stuff is hard.

-- X

ps:  If it's not clear from the sarcasm, what I'm trying to suggest here is that the email notification is not easier to implement than the smarter skill-branching.

[Armaddict]

Ah, I see.  XD

[Salt Merchant]

Xygax:

I think what he means is that since you can't have code that says "This skill OR this skill OR this skill reaching this point WILL BRANCH this skill", maybe those other two skills could have it coded to notify you when they have reached that certain level so that action can be taken without you having to do guesswork and bother the staff to check on it.

We can't?  This code stuff is hard.

-- X

ps:  If it's not clear from the sarcasm, what I'm trying to suggest here is that the email notification is not easier to implement than the smarter skill-branching.

I would suspect it is. For one, it doesn't actually add a skill. And Arm clearly already has an automated email system that could be invoked (e.g. an email is automatically sent out when a character dies). It should be simple.

[Xygax]

Yes, but so's fixing the skill system.

-- X

[Salt Merchant]

Yes, but so's fixing the skill system.

-- X

Not to be antagonistic, but if that's true, why not just put the fix in?

To quote Morgenes directly:
If you feel you should branch parry from two-handed (you have trained two-handed enough to get it branched), you can submit a request and we will review your skills.  Unfortunately Arm 1 won't allow us to let you branch parry from both/either skills.

Morgenes is a prominent coder of the game, but he seems to feel here that the effort involved isn't worthwhile (which presumably indicates that it's significant).

[Sephiroto]

Although I don't know Arm's code, the following idea seems like it might help Morg figure out a way.  I was thinking, couldn't you just assign a variable to all characters who branch parry.  Like pv for "parry value"  Once certain skills reach branch level for parry the game checks for the variable "pv" (parry value).  If the variable is "no", then parry activated in the skillset.  Once parry is added the variable is changed to "yes".  Then, if the code ever checks skills again the value for pv will be "yes", but since the pv must equal "no" for parry to set at the newly branched level it would never be bugged back to newly branched value and should continue to go up normally.

Or maybe they can make it work, but like you say, it might not be worth the extra effort due to the new codebase for 2.Arm

[Xygax]

Well, I didn't say I felt it was worthwhile, either.  I'm just saying that one solution isn't easier than the other.  Perhaps some pseudo-code will prove instructive:

Code Select Expand

if (should_branch_skill(ch, SKILL_PARRY)) init_skill(ch, SKILL_PARRY, 10);
Isn't easier or harder than:

Code Select Expand

if (should_branch_skill(ch, SKILL_PARRY)) send_email(ch, "You should ask a staffer to branch parry for you.");

The hard part (if it is hard, which may be debatable), is the "should_branch_skill()" part, not the email or init part.  Those parts are easy.  We could probably relatively quickly hard-code an answer for the parry question in any case.  Sure, designing and coding an improved data-structure for the skill-tree might be the more generic/clean long-term solution, and perhaps that's what Morgenes is referring to as non-trivial, but all of the discussion here has been around building the notification.  As you note, Salt Merchant, the email notification is easy.  What no one here seems to have considered is that if we're going to hard-code a check for whether the skill should branch or not (or improve the skill-tree structure), we'd have already done the "hard part".

-- X

[Salt Merchant]

Well... I figured the hard-coding in of a check for the skill level to be trivial. It's just an in-memory check whether a property has increased past a certain value. One "if" statement, really, just as in the pseudo code.

Code Select Expand

if (get_val(peon, SKILL_WHATEVER) > ARBITRARY_NUMBER) send_email( get_val(peon, EMAIL), "You can branch! Oh joy\n");

Easy, players are happy, less burden on the staff. What's not to like? 

Code Select Expand

if (get_val(peon, SKILL_WHATEVER) > ARBITRARY_NUMBER) add_skill( peon, SKILL_PARRY, 10);

If the above works, so much the better.

[Xygax]

Admittedly, CVS annotate only accuses me of touching 98570 lines of code in Arm's .c and .h files (probably inflated by one or two runs of "indent" on our source code, so there's a grain of salt for you) of Arm's 234256 total lines, so I might not be a "prominent" enough coder for Salt Merchant. 

-- X

[Salt Merchant]

Admittedly, CVS annotate only accuses me of touching 98570 lines of code in Arms .c and .h files (probably inflated by one or two runs of "indent" on our source code, so there's a grain of salt for you) of Arm's 234256 total lines, so I might not be a "prominent" enough coder for Salt Merchant. 

-- X

Gah... you've probably expended more effort refuting me than it would take to put the feature in!!

I'm going away to sulk now.