I am Sickened!

[elvenchipmunk]

I don't know what anyone else has had in relations to this topic, but I guess we'll see. It seems as though whenver I'm out hunting in the wild, say, a gizhat. I bring him down to terrible condition and only receive a few hits myself. Then all of a sudden, the stupid thing goes uber on me and claws me very hard three or four times. Now this hasn't only happened with gizhats, and has happened many, -many- times. It seems as though when animals are lower in health, their fighting ability improves, and I just find this ridiculous. You'd think that the lower -anything- was in health, they'd be worse at fighting, because you'd be barely clinging to life, bleeding everywhere and becoming faint.
This may just be coincidence, but it seems to have happened to me way too many times to be a coincidence.

[sacac]

I'll remember that, when you have me backed in a corner.
*mental note* Never get so desperate that I fight better and offend pooor anyone.

I think that is perfectly fine, Stop a few people from killing everything and using an ability called "Judgement", or maybe hunt with someone?

Why wouldn't it attack you more if you got it to the stage where it fights harder or dies. Sorta like backing it into a corner.

[Agent_137]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=epinephrine

[elvenchipmunk]

I see. Thanks for the link Agent, I kind of thought it had something to do with adrenaline, but I didn't think it would make something extremely uber, only slightly.

[sacac]

And you shouldn't be able to kick a mekillot, or let your shield absorb a hit from a gizhat/behemoth/mekillot/worm/silt horror, Those are pretty goddamn big things, They should only take a hit to kill you, I don't care if your cuirass of eliteness absorbs it all or not.

[sjanimal]

Elven Chipmunk,

You're completely right.  Sometimes the code does something cheezy.  Sometimes people try to make excuses for it instead of acknowledging it, or fixing it.

Question to you:  Do you think it's a big enough deal that someone should spend four hours fixing it?

You've made quite a good point, though.

yours,
-sjanimal

[SRB]

I think the staff posted awhile back that in actually animals do not receive a bonus when fighting with low health. It could be seen as a mere coincidence.

Such perks could have been coded into the game though lately, I am not sure.

[elvenchipmunk]

No, I really doubt it's coincidence. It's happened far too many times to just be merely coincidence. I just wanted to know if anyone else playing the game has experienced this, because I just don't think it's right.

[moab]

the staff has posted that this is pure chance.

[Xygax]

Yeah, I always thought there was some sort of statistical anomaly here, but having examined the code fairly closely, I do not believe there is any coded bias.

Call it the Ghost in the Machine, if you like.

-- X

[John]

Call it the Ghost in the Machine, if you like.

So it's Saikun's fault then? Anyone know what sort of beer he likes?

[Angela Christine]

I have a theory:


- NPCs are rolled up with random stats, within a certain range for that type of NPC.

- NPC's skills improve as they use them, just like PCs.  Well, maybe not exactly like PCs, I bet they "learn" faster than PCs, because NPCs never get more than 6 1/2 days of play time before a reboot resets them.  PCs have limits built in to how fast they can improve, to make skill spamming useless and therefore discourage twinking.  Repeating a skill 100 times in ten minutes probably won't make a PC any better than using it 3 times in 10 minutes.  However, NPCs are not smart enough to attempt twinkery, so anti-twinking restraints are unnecessary.  If they do not suffer from the same restraints, then doing something 100 times in ten minutes might allow them to improve very quickly.

- The creatures mentioned when this topic comes up, at least the ones I've noticed, have all been non-aggressive NPCs.  Since they are non-agressive, the battle quoted may have been the first combat they were involved in durring this uptime.


You probably see where I'm going with this.

An NPC is in it's first non-virtual battle, with whatever it's initial skill rolls were, and at first it doesn't fight very well.  The battle goes on for a long time, many rounds, and as it fights the NPC improves.  The more it fails, the faster it improves.  So near the end of a long battle the NPC may be noticably more skilled than it was in the begining of the battle.


Or not.  Just more wild speculation.


AC

[sjanimal]

AC,

Oh god, that's brilliant.  I feel like I've noticed that too.  I don't have enough statistical data to verify it...but, it would explain a lot of things.

[Xygax]

AC's theory is interesting, except that I'm fairly confident NPCs are subject to the same "anti-twink" restrictions players are.  Not for he sake of realism really, so much as that it's easier to treat all "characters" as "characters".  So, probably, if an NPC DOES learn some amount of skill during a battle with you, it won't be much, not enough to turn the tide, likely. (maybe enough to make it look like the code is "cheating", but I don't think quite enough, really.

btw, nice .sig, AC

-- X

[Cenghiz]

Then I will believe raptors have unbelieveable wisdom. If you can't kill a raptor fast, it starts tearing the meat off your bones.

[Zharal]

In my opion its just a role of the dice, sometimes there good, sometimes there very bad..

[Pantoufle]

I died to a vestric once.  I swear!  Out of the blue he started beating the crap out of me and I tried to flee, ran out of stamina, and the little rodent-bird chased me down.  I was so embarassed  :oops:.

[Delirium]

If you can't kill a raptor fast, it starts tearing the meat off your bones.

Maybe that's because it's a vicious, nasty predator with sharp, sharp teeth and claws? Just an idle thought...

[wizturbo]

If you can't kill a raptor fast, it starts tearing the meat off your bones.

Maybe that's because it's a vicious, nasty predator with sharp, sharp teeth and claws? Just an idle thought...

Yeah...what SOOOOOO many people fail to recognize in-character is that the beasts many people go around joyhunting are incredibly dangerous creatures that have claimed countless lives.  But since their coded parry skill or whatever generally keeps them safe, they feel that there is no reason to fear them.

[sacac]

And I'd go as far to say every creature bigger than your leg is dangerous.
I completely agree with Wizturbo.

[John]

I tried to flee, ran out of stamina

So that's how you run out of stamina. Sorry, I remember back in my newbie days running out of stamina while in battle and haven't been able to work out how. I probably kept failing flee.

[Koala]

Call it the Ghost in the Machine, if you like.

Something makes me believe in this statement if there is no coded thing, which increases the challange rating of the critter just before it falls down to the ground.

[jhunter]

Maybe ginka is getting awfully close to becoming self aware.

Once it does...I believe it will reduce the planet to a desert wasteland...build itself a body...

The sorceror king, Muk Ginkolnes is standing here, an aura of brilliant electric-blue light surrounding him.

*shudders*

[Cuusardo]

I do agree with the whole animals being vicious predators thing.  Far too many people will just blithely go out with absolutely NO fear at all of these beasts that they are hunting.  The average hunter should be terrified of a tembo (for example), but far fewer people are than should be.  I think this comes from people either getting too cocky (So they're bigger than me, I've got a sword!), or having a hack and slash mentality (I'm going to go out and kill stuff to increase my l33t skillz!)  Yes, a gizhat may not be aggressive, but if you piss it off it's going to do everything it can to kick your ass.  Same with any creature you run outside and attack.

[hcwalker]

... I too have had the feeling that  animals become more powerful in combat as their health wanes.  I once thought there might be some sort of "berserk" ability or skill that would kick in as they began to desparately cling to life.  On further reflection I do not think this is true for the following reasons:

1.  Hunter-type characters kill the majority of what they hunt and don't think twice about it when the combat goes as planned.
2.  For obvious reasons, we preferentially remember combat that goes badly.
3.  When things start off badly in combat, we flee to fight another day, and generally forget about it.
4.  Sometimes combat starts out flawlessly against a significant foe so naturally we continue the fight, however the skills of that foe inevitably begin to win out over time, and we become painfully aware of that as opposed to scenario #1 listed above.

In other words, I think it's all just recall bias.