Fight Statement Interpretation

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 3:35 pm

I'm just making sure. Maybe I have it all wrong. In one minute I saw all these sentences:

"...swings way wide, as if attacking the air."
"...misses with a poor attack."
"...swings while off-balance, clumsily missing his opponent."
"...thrashes, wildly missing his opponent."
"...misses with a poor attack."

Later, I saw others similar ("...out of control and misses widely!" to these.

This indicates either (a) an offensive effort that is too high, or (b) a fighter is just too raw, lacking any skills to settle down and hit the opponent.

That's what this indicates/means, right? But, this fighter has more than 9 fights, yet I've been seeing this a lot, and I keep dropping the OE and activity level. How low? Below 5 for both. And yes, it's a P-Strike. Unless fighting a TP, this usually ends in a loss. And still these -- indicators. I guess I'm going to drop the numbers until those comments go away -- but that fighter is going to be a sitting duck!

Thoughts? I'

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

I have never seen that many failed attacks in one minute.

The warrior likely just doesn't have a high enough Attack. Probably some combination of a mediocre set of attributes, a low skill base style, being hosed in Attack, and/or lack of Attack learns.

I would send him straight to the Dark Arena.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:06 am

That IS a LOT of whiffs!
I tend to agree with OAB.
Very low attack base or attack skill quantity.
Doesn't like the weapon. (Was he suited?)
He doesn't want to attack. (OE too high?)
My first experimental thought was to plate him and parry him on low/mod.
Good luck.
I would want to find the root cause rather than DAing. (Differing from OAB)

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:40 am

OAB's given most of the reasons you could see so many bad attack messages (and given the number of messages you've seen, the warrior is almost certainly very low attack).

Other Contributing factors:
A) Weapon - Unsuited (as Consortium suggested), or simply a weapon the warrior 'doesn't like.' I'd try out SC, LO, BA, or BS (assuming you can use them)
B) Opponent's defenses. You crit more against warriors with terrible defenses. You also flail more against warriors with great defenses. Because flailing is more rare, this isn't usually talked about.
C) Just plain bad luck. As with much in this game, the dice do impact number of flails.

Since we know the attack is really low, you need to alter your strategy (if you aren't DAing the warrior). The warrior isn't going to win a ton of fights from its offensive prowess. So you have to start thinking about how to win defensively.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:40 am

OAB's given most of the reasons you could see so many bad attack messages (and given the number of messages you've seen, the warrior is almost certainly very low attack).

Other Contributing factors:
A) Weapon - Unsuited (as Consortium suggested), or simply a weapon the warrior 'doesn't like.' I'd try out SC, LO, BA, or BS (assuming you can use them)
B) Opponent's defenses. You crit more against warriors with terrible defenses. You also flail more against warriors with great defenses. Because flailing is more rare, this isn't usually talked about.
C) Just plain bad luck. As with much in this game, the dice do impact number of flails.

Since we know the attack is really low, you need to alter your strategy (if you aren't DAing the warrior). The warrior isn't going to win a ton of fights from its offensive prowess. So you have to start thinking about how to win defensively.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:04 pm

I tend to think those indicate that you're whiffing your attack rolls. You're failing to meet a minimum value to get an actual attack statement and make the defender defend. This could be for all of the reasons above -- low attack skill, improper weapon, OE far from favorite, etc.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:23 pm

Well, I've been debating about sending this fighter to the D.A. It just doesn't seem to add up -- and I'm sure there's a good reason for this...

I'll go ahead and lay it out there. At this point I don't know that it makes that much difference; he's going to die or I'm going to DA this clown. But I had hoped to find his rhythm...

Oh, and I made a mistake earlier. I said that the OD and AL were both below 5. I've done that before, but not this time. I've been steadily lowering the OE and AL incrementally to try to find the rhythm that works. Since this was going to be a fight against a TP, I was running 6-1-6 straight across. The fight went 8 minutes, but eventually this PS won. Well, why not? He does tremendous damage. Sooner or later he has to hit SOMETHING (and he did) and when he connects, it's pretty much all over. This time he was using a QS, which he's well-suited for, and I feel it gets the most bang out of that damage rating (of the weapons that he's suited for).

11-14-17-11-14 (+1)-4-14 P-Strike. 7-9-0 record. Skills?

ATT: 0, DEC: 6, INIT: 3, PAR: 4, DEF: 2, RIP: 5 but no EX yet. That means, what? 1.25 skills/turn? Not so good.

How have I run him? 10-10-1 (with and w/o DEC.) Out-jumped either way. Armored up and 1-3-1 PAR, but basically just a target. Even using the tactic the boy can't block enough sun to make shade. No attacks but lots of pain. Against anything offensive, he's toast. Against a Parry-Whatever, he can win, IF the other guy plays it safe and defensive too. IN FACT, he's made crit attacks with the QS before. This last fight, though, against another TP -- he just swung like a blind man until he finally got a lucky shot in. It seems to me that the quality of the other fighter (or at least their level of skill compared to him) has a lot to do with the ability of this PS to crit or just wave his stick around.

In this case the other guy went desperate right after the PS went desperate (from fatigue -- doing an impersonation of a human fan is tiring) and that's about it. All those misses happened in minute 4 (where he missed the most often) but there were plenty of other examples across all 8 minutes.

So DA this guy, right? Or keep trying to make that damage rating work for me? Confused

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Jul 18, 2006 Posts: 1170

While many managers will say that Pikers are junk, don't bother making them. I tend to disagree and have had some success with them. The trick though is this.....they need to be good at something. What I mean is when I create a Piker, it is usually designed to run fast and/or hit hard like a normal ST or BA or designed to be more defensive with High HP/Carry/parry skills. Also, since Pikers start with such a low skill base, it mandate that all my Pikers have at least a 17 WT to try to learn well enough to eventually make up for that.

What I see with your guy though is a mediocre WT that will cause him to always be a poor learner. He's also not good at anything...he's not fast, doesn't have good attack, can't parry.......you see my point.

My 2 cents is this.....Pikers can win, but must be carefully designed to do so. This guy is designed to continually disappoint you. I am more patient than most when it comes to DAing, but in this case I suggest you do yourself a favor and DA and cross your fingers for a better RU.

Good Luck.

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

DA.

In my experience, the weaker-than-average styles need stronger-than-average numbers in order to be successful.

Weak style + weak numbers = bad warrior

Send it on its way.

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:55 am

KidArcane wrote:

11-14-17-11-14 (+1)-4-14 P-Strike. 7-9-0 record. Skills?

ATT: 0, DEC: 6, INIT: 3, PAR: 4, DEF: 2, RIP: 5 but no EX yet. That means, what? 1.25 skills/turn? Not so good.

Well there's yer problem! He starts with a 2 base attack and hasn't learned any. I think my grandmother has 3. 1.25 per turn is about par for the course with an 11 wit. Still, I'm amazed he won 7 fights. Fight a lot of stand-ins did ya?

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:39 am

Otto_X wrote:

Well there's yer problem! He starts with a 2 base attack and hasn't learned any. I think my grandmother has 3. 1.25 per turn is about par for the course with an 11 wit. Still, I'm amazed he won 7 fights. Fight a lot of stand-ins did ya?

Nope. Does TREMENDOUS damage. (Can yer grandma hit like that??) And occasionally, surprisingly, makes critical attacks with a QS vs other defensives. Makes their smug little grins turn into grimaces of pain. Very entertaining (when it happens).

Yeah. Sigh. Bon Voyage, big guy. I was hoping he'd learn more attack, or maybe be blessed in something (PS's usually have a good skill base somewhere...) but not this guy.

Thanks for the input, everyone. Sad

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:45 pm

I think the problem we all run into is that we tend to make crappy rollups into Parry-Strikes. That's because when we get a GOOD rollup, we are more inclined to make it an AB or LU or ST, etc. We need to bite the bullet once in a while, and actually consider using a 21 WT on a PS. My last really good one was x-x-x-21-15-4-13. Not enough SP for a ST, not enough WL for a WS/PL. I have one coming up who's 11-9-6-17-17-11-11, he did OK (6-3) in the last tourney, and now I'm working on his physicals for the next one. All I'm saying is, give PS's a fair chance at rollups, the same chance as any other fighter, and you might be surprised.

Advanced Expert Poster Joined: Apr 11, 2005 Posts: 113

My main problem with PS's is the skill distribution in their learns. They never seem to focus on 1 or 2 areas, instead they seem to learn everything. My most successful ones have been designed and run like WOS's, this is where their favorite rhythms tend to be also. I've had so-so success with ones designed and run as strikers.

Here are three PS's I'm currently running in ADM and are generally typical of the ones I design.

7-14-10-21-17-4-11
10-14-7-17-17-6-11
10-15-7-13-21-5-13

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:33 pm

Quote:

Nope. Does TREMENDOUS damage. (Can yer grandma hit like that??)

Have you seen grandma with a purse or umbrella? You won't see my warriors facing off against angry grandma.

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:07 am

Assurnasirbanipal wrote:

OAB's given most of the reasons you could see so many bad attack messages (and given the number of messages you've seen, the warrior is almost certainly very low attack).

Other Contributing factors:
A) Weapon - Unsuited (as Consortium suggested), or simply a weapon the warrior 'doesn't like.' I'd try out SC, LO, BA, or BS (assuming you can use them)
B) Opponent's defenses. You crit more against warriors with terrible defenses. You also flail more against warriors with great defenses. Because flailing is more rare, this isn't usually talked about.
C) Just plain bad luck. As with much in this game, the dice do impact number of flails.

Since we know the attack is really low, you need to alter your strategy (if you aren't DAing the warrior). The warrior isn't going to win a ton of fights from its offensive prowess. So you have to start thinking about how to win defensively.

AHA! Someone else thinks/believes as I do. I always thought an opponents DEF can change whether you throw crits or not; in frequency terms. I imagined it was like trying to parry in D&D... the attacker rolls, with all it's modifiers like fave weapon or rhythm, the "target" alsorolls to see how he defends, with all modifiers as attacking only different in areas, these numbers are compared and it figures if you: throw a crit, make a regular attack, whether your attack succeeds, whether your opponent parries, dodges, or you make a wild swing, etc.

I noticed when fighting guys whom I knew had a master in DEF and/or PAR my guy with AdEx+ would not throw as many crits. It was not all that frequent but when I did match them again, again I could hardly throw a crit whereas my guy was throwing 30-40% crits against offensives. Being in a small arena like Tobir I tend to match the same warrior many times.

As to the issue that started this thread.... I have found PRs and WSs tend to swing wild a lot, I graduated one right after I came back in 2001 who had 30+ fights and he'd still go out there and whiff an attack or 2 some fights. I found out I was WAY off on his faves. He was LO/LO and I was running 10-6 to 7-1 range depending on challenge.

I wouldn't panic yet but if he hits Ex+ ATT and 15 fe, and it still swings wild it may be you need to change things up, I agree!