Holdback

[MeTekillot]

A command to cap the severity of a hit you'll do. Would range from grazing to unspeakable.
So
Holdback 1
You will attempt to only graze your opponents.

Would feature in prompt.
Would add style points to combat.
Would make subduing people easier.
Shouldn't work for half giants.

[kahuna]

This has been proposed before in the past if I remember correctly. It's a great idea, I think we can evolve this into something even better just call it 'effort'

effort 1 - Ok you will fight at 1% of your capability.
effort 100 - Ok you will fight at 100% of your capability.

The command could alter your skill levels so you can dupe people into thinking you're weaker than you really are? Could make for interesting combat scenes.

[Riev]

Admittedly, percentages don't work because you could work out the math and find the sweet spot, etc etc.

holdback would be better... because you're intentionally capping your damage. Not affecting how OFTEN you hit, or miss, but just the damage output. Then it won't HAVE to affect skillgains

[kahuna]

Admittedly, percentages don't work because you could work out the math and find the sweet spot, etc etc.

holdback would be better... because you're intentionally capping your damage. Not affecting how OFTEN you hit, or miss, but just the damage output. Then it won't HAVE to affect skillgains

Who said anything about skill gains? Effort would simply divide your current skill level by whatever number you input.

If you put effort 1 it divides all your skills by 100

If you have 40 in a skill it becomes 1, it can round any number down or up.

[Heade]

Admittedly, percentages don't work because you could work out the math and find the sweet spot, etc etc.

holdback would be better... because you're intentionally capping your damage. Not affecting how OFTEN you hit, or miss, but just the damage output. Then it won't HAVE to affect skillgains

Who said anything about skill gains? Effort would simply divide your current skill level by whatever number you input.

If you put effort 1 it divides all your skills by 100

If you have 40 in a skill it becomes 1, it can round any number down or up.

He was referring to how skillgains currently work, and how it'd have to work in such a system. If the skillgain system continued to recognize the person's skill at what it really was, then someone could use holdback to train someone else who would enjoy significantly higher skill gain from fighting someone way more skilled than they are, despite there being no danger involved in the mock combat, which sort of defeats Brokkr's stated purpose for the current system of requiring people to take risks to break through the "plateau".

On the other hand, if skillgains were tied to the modified skill of the person utilizing "holdback", then the "sweet spot" thing that Riev referred to would come into play, allowing people to game the system to affect skill gains.

And eliminating skillgains for people fighting against someone using "holdback" isn't an option either, as people would then game the system by using something like "holdback 99", where they give 99% of fighting effectiveness, eliminating their opponent's opportunity to get skill gains while retaining the majority of their own fighting effectiveness. You could basically secretly sabotage other people's training efforts under such a system.

So, there are things to consider no matter how it is implemented. It's not super simple.

[Riev]

Thank you, Heade.

Though I do agree on the "potential" to reduce your damage. You're still hitting all the goddamned time, but now you're trying to do less DAMAGE. Maybe it doesn't always work, I don't know.

Anything else would trigger my code abuse senses. Even that reduces the risk of a Byn Runner fighting an HG Tower.

[kahuna]

Admittedly, percentages don't work because you could work out the math and find the sweet spot, etc etc.

holdback would be better... because you're intentionally capping your damage. Not affecting how OFTEN you hit, or miss, but just the damage output. Then it won't HAVE to affect skillgains

Who said anything about skill gains? Effort would simply divide your current skill level by whatever number you input.

If you put effort 1 it divides all your skills by 100

If you have 40 in a skill it becomes 1, it can round any number down or up.

He was referring to how skillgains currently work, and how it'd have to work in such a system. If the skillgain system continued to recognize the person's skill at what it really was, then someone could use holdback to train someone else who would enjoy significantly higher skill gain from fighting someone way more skilled than they are, despite there being no danger involved in the mock combat, which sort of defeats Brokkr's stated purpose for the current system of requiring people to take risks to break through the "plateau".

On the other hand, if skillgains were tied to the modified skill of the person utilizing "holdback", then the "sweet spot" thing that Riev referred to would come into play, allowing people to game the system to affect skill gains.

And eliminating skillgains for people fighting against someone using "holdback" isn't an option either, as people would then game the system by using something like "holdback 99", where they give 99% of fighting effectiveness, eliminating their opponent's opportunity to get skill gains while retaining the majority of their own fighting effectiveness. You could basically secretly sabotage other people's training efforts under such a system.

So, there are things to consider no matter how it is implemented. It's not super simple.

I mean you could just code it to take into effect current skill levels for skill gain. Lowering the skill level wouldn't change anything. It's a pretty simple if/else/if statement.

[LindseyBalboa]

I like the idea of being able to 'hold back' or adjust your 'effort' level, especially if there's a decent chance you might strike too hard every so often, dependent on your weapon skill level, perhaps. Whatever level you adjust down to, though, should be the level that is checked to see whether or not a training partner is going to gain skill. If you hold back down to their level, then you're not really testing them much.

[Brokkr]

Admittedly, percentages don't work because you could work out the math and find the sweet spot, etc etc.

holdback would be better... because you're intentionally capping your damage. Not affecting how OFTEN you hit, or miss, but just the damage output. Then it won't HAVE to affect skillgains

Who said anything about skill gains? Effort would simply divide your current skill level by whatever number you input.

If you put effort 1 it divides all your skills by 100

If you have 40 in a skill it becomes 1, it can round any number down or up.

He was referring to how skillgains currently work, and how it'd have to work in such a system. If the skillgain system continued to recognize the person's skill at what it really was, then someone could use holdback to train someone else who would enjoy significantly higher skill gain from fighting someone way more skilled than they are, despite there being no danger involved in the mock combat, which sort of defeats Brokkr's stated purpose for the current system of requiring people to take risks to break through the "plateau".

On the other hand, if skillgains were tied to the modified skill of the person utilizing "holdback", then the "sweet spot" thing that Riev referred to would come into play, allowing people to game the system to affect skill gains.

And eliminating skillgains for people fighting against someone using "holdback" isn't an option either, as people would then game the system by using something like "holdback 99", where they give 99% of fighting effectiveness, eliminating their opponent's opportunity to get skill gains while retaining the majority of their own fighting effectiveness. You could basically secretly sabotage other people's training efforts under such a system.

So, there are things to consider no matter how it is implemented. It's not super simple.

I mean you could just code it to take into effect current skill levels for skill gain. Lowering the skill level wouldn't change anything. It's a pretty simple if/else/if statement.

Let me put what they are trying to say more simply.  Lowering effectiveness would result in misses that would not have been misses.  Those misses created by lowering effectiveness should not have any chance to improve skill levels.

[kahuna]

Let me put what they are trying to say more simply.  Lowering effectiveness would result in misses that would not have been misses.  Those misses created by lowering effectiveness should not have any chance to improve skill levels.

Sure that's fine. The skill_gain function can be disabled if your effort is set to anything but 100%

I just see this as being useful for extremely skilled characters not completely destroying someone in a spar in one hit.

[Dar]

I would love the idea of holding back damage. Make it something like using hold back would lower the strength benefit to damage by .. 5? (Assuming arm uses d&d type stats)  That would make everyone's hits a lot weaker, but muls and HGs wouldn't even notice.

Are there methods to abuse this? Probably somehow. Is that risk worthy of closing the training gap between two players in the same clan? Absolutely. Anything code related that prevents people from spending time with each other should be given some extra thought in my opinion. Note that I mean code related, not theme related.

[mansa]

Let me put what they are trying to say more simply.  Lowering effectiveness would result in misses that would not have been misses.  Those misses created by lowering effectiveness should not have any chance to improve skill levels.

Hey Brokkr,

That's perfectly alright, and it's sorta assumed it would go that way

We'd like to have the ability to reduce our effectiveness in various skills in order to change the results to be lesser.

[Heade]

I agree that there are methods this could be applied that wouldn't be terrible. Having it solely affect damage rather than overall skill could be a big part of that. Basically, you could set yourself to non-contact or light contact sparring mode, where you would exercise your full skill, but wouldn't put all your force behind your swings. So then, most swings would do nothing, and swings that would have been huge might do a graze or something instead.

As for the ability to feign incompetence in a skill: I like that idea too, but they don't need to be the same command, and lowering overall competence has more implications on skill gains since competence of your opponent affects your chance of gaining skill in combat. So it'd need to be handled carefully, and probably discussed extensively by very analytical people prior to implementation.

[MeTekillot]

I assume the calculation for improved skill gain chance is based off their skills, or their offense and defense. The calculation could just factor in whether or not they're feigning incompetence and take the feigned level as the qualifier for whether or not there's a penalty or bonus to their skill gain chance.