Nosave Parry

[MeTekillot]

New Byn Drill: Apartment Gank

Strip the runner down and throw them in the circle with someone with a dagger. They gotta get the dagger from the guy who is stabbing them. Helps raise weapon skills, defense, offense, and disarm

[BadSkeelz]

I actually ran that once in the AoD, but we gave up on it because we (Being me and another newb) didn't think an unarmed man could disarm someone. Certainly not at our skill levels.

[Synthesis]

Advanced weapon skills may need balancing and reworking if they actually became common in the game world.

Is there a reason for this?  I've asked before and gotten only vague answers.  Are these more powerful than normal weapon skills in some way?  Do they build on each other?  Are the weapons of those types just 'better' than other weapon types?

I had said if they were no different, then I didn't see why they were so hard to get.  But that if they were superior to the other ones, then they should remain hard to get.  I keep hearing inferences of both types.

I suspect it has to do with your Skill in a weapon also improving your defense against said weapon. Since few people have advanced weapons skills, they're at a disadvantage against them. That's just conjecture, though. If you're getting beat on by someone who actually managed to branch an advanced weapon, they could probably beat you with anything. I've only ever seen two wielded in three years by non-Templar PCs. Not much data to work with.

I remember the Byn had barehand training days where you got to train without weapons (and therefore parry).  I bet other sparring clans have something similar?

They do. It still makes raising weapon skills difficult because no one (to my knowledge) has "Beat on an unarmed man with weapons" day. Attack an armed warrior with high defense = parrying and no gains.

If an armed warrior is only parrying you, either your base offense + weapon skill is already very high, or he doesn't actually have high base defense.

Training armed vs. unarmed is useless almost always, because base offense + weapon skill is almost always greater than base defense (vs. humanoids), so you'll always get hit.  If someone is good enough to dodge you unarmed, they'll also dodge you just as much while armed (even more while etwo'ing).

[BadSkeelz]

If an armed warrior is only parrying you, either your base offense + weapon skill is already very high, or he doesn't actually have high base defense.

I think the problem is when your base offense + weapon skill is very high compared to your opponent's defense. This is the Plateau, where two PCs of not very high absolute skill are evenly matched enough that they cannot progress while fighting each other. And then of course there are the 90 day warriors who just parry everything thanks to master parry (Which may mean their actual absolute defense is surprisingly low, but I'm not sure on that), which prevents anyone from sparring them actually learning about weapons. Either way, you wind up with at least one PC who cannot raise their skills in training and thus find themselves outmatched in the field. Either their offense is too low they can't hit anything, their defense is low because they've parried away hits that would have raised it, or both.

Training armed vs. unarmed is useless almost always, because base offense + weapon skill is almost always greater than base defense (vs. humanoids), so you'll always get hit.  

If someone is good enough to dodge you unarmed, they'll also dodge you just as much while armed (even more while etwo'ing).

Ah, wouldn't they parry you (assuming they have the skill) since they now hold a weapon to parry with? That's been my experience. Edit: Though I see what you mean, Parry being the last check before armor for defense. It's just rare to run in to anyone who can actually dodge unarmed against an armed opponent.

Armed vs. unarmed is not a very good training method for several reasons, this I agree with.

[Inks]

Turning parry off wouldn't help anything. as much as you say.

If you're parrying, it means you're not good enough to dodge that attack in the first place.  From my observations, the combat code doesn't run a parry check until you fail the dodge check, and it doesn't run a block check until you fail both the dodge and the parry check.

Turning parry off wouldn't help the attacker train, because then they would just get a useless hit instead of a useless parry-fail.

Not entirely true. Dodge is 100% taken into account before parry, as Synthesis said. Nosave Parry would however help the defender's defense, which with time, would lead to more dodges from the warrior. Nosave Parry would also be extremely useful for preventing guild sniffing. So this would be a good change for two reasons.

[wizturbo]

Either way, you wind up with at least one PC who cannot raise their skills in training and thus find themselves outmatched in the field. Either their offense is too low they can't hit anything, their defense is low because they've parried away hits that would have raised it, or both.

Teach command is very powerful while skill levels are low.  If there's a character out there who cannot raise their skills because their opponents are too strong, teaching them will very quickly get them up to speed.  I've had characters get fairly decent skills without ever actually engaging in coded spars purely through the teach command...unless staff went in and mucked around with my combat skills while I wasn't looking, which is very doubtful.

[Asanadas]

If an armed warrior is only parrying you, either your base offense + weapon skill is already very high, or he doesn't actually have high base defense.

And he doesn't have high base defense, because ever since he branched parry, if he's fighting with a weapon that can parry then he isn't getting base defense fails.

Please no ban.

[RogueGunslinger]

Base defense fails are stupidly easy to get. It's really not like offense where you just stop missing.

[Inks]

^

[Asanadas]

Base defense fails are stupidly easy to get. It's really not like offense where you just stop missing.

Yes, they are stupidly easy to get. However, when I was playing my warrior, I had to come up with questionable reasons to actually get them.

Here, new recruit, let me fight you holding a towel in my off-hand while you have a shield and wooden sword.

I'm not saying they couldn't be gotten -- it's just like punching little creatures outside the walls, though. Acting with first-blush sense in an RPI is counter-intuitive to the legacy of code that we have.

[Malken]

Throwing myself into the tok's den a few times a day hoping for an army of toks to jump my kickass warrior so that he could finally fail his defense skill brings back fun memories.

[Nergal]

Some of you may also know that a Parried attack gives no skill-gain benefit to either the attacker or the defender. It isn't a failed attack, so the attacker's weapon skills and offense do not raise; nor is it a failed defense, so the defender's defense remains unchanged.

This statement isn't actually true. A successful parry is a success for the person being attacked and a failure for the person attacking, as one would logically expect.

[Desertman]

There already is a nosave shield ability: it's called remove shield

I honestly thought about including it, but really, if you don't want to block with a shield, don't use one.

As for Dman's thoughts... I don't disagree that the system as it stands is wonky. However, there's something to be said for the "Learn by Failure" system. It makes it so you level up fastest when you don't know anything, while slowing your rate of advancement the deeper into a skill you go. Skill Gain Rate decreases the more skilled you become. That seems nicely organic to me.

If you learned on success, I think you'd see a lot of people floundering at the bottom of the pyramid as they repeatedly fail while a fortunate few are able to skyrocket to godlike levels, their successes building on each other in a runaway reaction.

The big problem with the Learn by Fail system we have is that for weapon and combat skills, it becomes unreasonably difficult to fail if you're behaving reasonably. More experienced PCs parrying all your attacks away (negating everyone's advancement) is a big reason for this.

You are misunderstanding my idea, though I admit I didn't go into very much detail.

I STILL want the current system of learning when you fail at the EXACT SAME RATE it sits at now.

I just ALSO want you to learn when you succeed....just much more slowly....and not if you have recently "learned from a failure".

The argument being, "You learn more from your mistakes, fine, but you also learn some through just basic correct repetition.".

[Asanadas]

A successful parry is a success for the person being attacked and a failure for the person attacking, as one would logically expect.

Just so I'm crystal clear, a person's weapon skill goes up when they "fail" their attack because it was parried?

[Desertman]

A successful parry is a success for the person being attacked and a failure for the person attacking, as one would logically expect.

Just so I'm crystal clear, a person's weapon skill goes up when they "fail" their attack because it was parried?

Yes.

[RogueGunslinger]

Well that's interesting. Just sort of confirms what I learned earlier. Doesn't matter if you are failing, they still go up slow as fuck.

[Asmoth]

I'm super surprised that this much code discussion is being tolerated. On my previous account I got banned for weeks sometimes for discussing mechanics.

Not that I give a shit about what you guys are doing because I've always thought you should be able to know how the game works.

I'm just pleasantly surprised they are finally letting up on that.

[Desertman]

I'm super surprised that this much code discussion is being tolerated. On my previous account I got banned for weeks sometimes for discussing mechanics.

Not that I give a shit about what you guys are doing because I've always thought you should be able to know how the game works.

I'm just pleasantly surprised they are finally letting up on that.

It has been common knowledge that you learn from failing for as long as I've played this game. I remember this actually being stated on the website somewhere around 15 years ago.

If someone parries your attack, of course you have failed to hit them.

I think they are allowing this to take place, because that is just basic common sense in my opinion.

All they are confirming is, "Well, yeah...if you don't hit them, you don't hit them. How is this a question?".

*shrug*

[Delirium]

Experience really does not back this up, but hopefully it is true, as it definitely makes more sense.

The combat code just works in strange ways sometimes, so it's easy to decide that it considers a parry a would-be success when you don't seem to learn by fighting PCs you can't "full miss".

I had a combat PC that plateaued hard and after 30 days played was still stuck at the same skill level, and only ever sparred someone who she couldn't miss any more, but would "parry" her blows.

I had a combat PC, same class, with admittedly better wisdom, that mastered the same exact skill in 10 days played because, I assumed, they primarily hunted instead of sparring.

Both PCs had decent wisdom, even if the second one had better wisdom, and in the first case, the skill went from novice to advanced very quickly, and then just lingered at advanced for the rest of the time I played her, during which time I rarely sparred anyone that I could actually "full miss" on. So to me, that seemed to confirm parried blows are not nearly as valuable, if at all.

Either way, I'd still like to see nosave parry for other training and roleplay related reasons. It'd be a solid way to add choices to mundane combat.

[Synthesis]

Experience 100% does not back that up, unless a parry-fail gives a much, much, much smaller skillgain than a dodge-fail.

[BadSkeelz]

Some of you may also know that a Parried attack gives no skill-gain benefit to either the attacker or the defender. It isn't a failed attack, so the attacker's weapon skills and offense do not raise; nor is it a failed defense, so the defender's defense remains unchanged.

This statement isn't actually true. A successful parry is a success for the person being attacked and a failure for the person attacking, as one would logically expect.

Experience 100% does not back that up, unless a parry-fail gives a much, much, much smaller skillgain than a dodge-fail.

My reaction is the same as Synthesis'. I wonder if it's some sort of bias on our part or if the values are indeed different.

All the same, thank you for the information Nergal.

[Nergal]

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm gobbling up this code knowledge like its juicy, delicious steak.

[Synthesis]

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

All that is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't change the UNDENIABLE FACT that sparring "quick" critters will jack your weapon and style skills up faster than anything else.  So much faster that, even if parry-fails do "technically" count, they practically do not, over any reasonable period of time.

[BadSkeelz]

I don't think we can really speculate on why that might be, Synthesis. I mean, we could, but it may get the thread locked.

Anyone able to think of any downsides to PCs being able to forgo the Parry save and just take the hit? The one that comes to mind is that it could let sparring PCs raise their defense up perhaps unreasonably fast as they suffer more fails.