Questions?

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 5:39 am

Ichabod wrote:

gentleben - One other thing about those wit charts. The 17 you were looking at isn't the number of skills, that was the wit required for that specific statement. Pulling attack, for example, from the list gives this:

Quote:

=====================================================================
THIRD STATEMENT - ATTACK

high-order (10+ base)

21 Knows every weak and sensitive location to be struck on the human body
17 Uses an unusual fighting style, deadly to slower, less active foes
15 Makes very clever attacks
13 Landing blows on vital areas
8 He lands blows on less protected areas

---------------------------------------------------------------------
low-order (7-9 base)

21 Is always thinking of feints and ploys to be used in attacks
17 Has a very clever fighting style
15 Has an unusual fighting style that confuses many opponents
13 Makes clever attacks
8 Makes clever attacks

=====================================================================

That that means is that ANY warrior with 8+ wit starting with at least 7 and no more than 9 base attack skills will get the low order statement. The specific statement you receive is determined by his wit, which are the numbers on the left. The same applies to the high order comments, except that the warrior needs 10+ attack skills to get it.

So a 21 wit warrior with 7 base attack will get the statement "Is always thinking of feints and ploys to be used in attacks", while a 13 or 14 wit warrior who starts with 10 or more attack skills will get the comment "Landing blows on vital areas".

OK...
I don't know quit how to ask this but here it goes.
Lets say with your example, we have a 21 Wit with a 7ATT Base(low order), if he gets the projected "Is always thinking of feints and ploys to be used in attacks" statement we don't know if he got bonused or hosed, because he could have gotten any thing from a -4 to a +2 and never leave the low order, correct?

And the same in the reverse, a 21 Wit with a 13ATT Base(high order) if he gets the projected "Knows every weak and sensitive location to be struck on the human body" he could have anywhere from a -3 to a +4 and we would never now untill we find out how many skills it takes to get the next level for that skill, correct?

A Very Dizzy Gentleben

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 5:47 am

I have another question on another subject that Darque brout up in another thread.

Is there a compiled list of in fight statements (positive and negative) that would help us new/returning managers that might help us say "hey he is doing good in that minute I do it again" or the more common "oh s#^%, what the hades happened in that minute?"

Or any other helpful statements to let us know which direction to go and when we are there (if ever).

The Really Tired of Thinking and Typing Gentleben

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:56 am

For most skills, the only way to know ahead of time if the warrior is bonused or hosed is if he crosses one of those thresholds for a wit statement. So if you have a 17 wit guy who should start with 8 attack but get "uses an unusual fighting style....", then you know he's at least +2 attack. You won't know the specifics until he gets his expert (or higher, if he gets multiple attack skills that turn).

However, in your example, where the guy has 21 wit and gets "is always thinking of feints and ploys to be used in attacks", you know his starting attack is going to be 7, 8, or 9. It can't be lower than 7 or he wouldn't have a statement in attack at all, and it can't be higher than 9 or he'd have the high-order attack. If Mr 21 Wit was -4 attack, then he'd have 3 base attack and wouldn't qualify for the statement at all. The X to Y base in the chart headers means that the base skill needs to be between X and Y, inclusive.

For parry and defense, you can also look at the activity statement, while for init and riposte together, you can look at the quickness statement. See Terrablood's site for the details.

Now regarding your second statement: criticals are an obvious measure of performance, but other than that, reading fights can be an acquired skill. Criticals are those really descriptive statements about what a warrior did. For example:

Quote:

Mr21Wit ducks low, SCIMITAR slicing suddenly upwards! - critical attack
Mr17Wit's body is a blur of motion as he leaps away from the attack! - critical dodge
Mr17Wit pivots, steps one way, then jumps to the other side of his opponent! - critical riposte
Mr17Wit launches a wickedly angled lunge with his LONGSWORD! - tactic indicator
Mr21Wit's SCIMITAR rings as he makes a brilliant and masterful parry! - critical parry
Mr17Wit curses as his LONGSWORD is broken by the blow! - ruh roh
Mr17Wit is too hotly engaged to draw his backup LONGSWORD!
Mr21Wit leaps to his left! - decise check
Mr21Wit leaps into the air, taking a furious slash! - another crit
Mr17Wit is struck on the RIGHT ARM!
Spectators cringe at the horrific power of the blow! - massive damage

Ok, so I tried to throw in an example of everything I can think of above. Leaving the two terribly-named warriors to their thing, here's what we have there:

Critical Attack
These indicate a skilled attack rather than a normal one. You make more crits with higher attack rating, with more experience, if you're using your favorite weapon, if you're using your favorite offensive effort, and if your opponent has poor defenses. (In basic, you'll see quite a bit fewer crits when facing, say, a TP, than when swinging at a basher.) When managers talk about "crits", they're almost always referring to these.

Critical attacks are harder to defend against than normal, and have restrictions on how they can be avoided: a warrior can only either critically dodge an attack or stop it with a normal parry. Critical attacks can actually get around parries, a change introduced a long time ago to stop the then-dominance of TP's in the game. Slash crits twist around parries, lunge crits slip past them, and bashing crits smash through them. Crtical attacks can also break the parrying weapon. For this reason, parry is considered vastly inferior to defense at the ADM level.

As mentioned above, crits can be slashing, lunging, or bashing. The type of damage on that particular attack does NOT need to match the way the crit reads - a leap into an incredible flesh-splitting lunge with a longsword can be a slashing crit, and hacking at your enemy with your broadsword may smash through their parry. What these damage types do, however, is generate a secondary effect: slashing crits do bonus (often massive) damage, lunging crits have a chance of knockdown. Bashing crits aren't so obvious - the suggestion for their effect that I agree with is that they ignore the effects of armor on damage done. They also seem to take more likely to throw the defender around if parried. Anyway, these secondary effects are why the scimitar and longsword are typically considered the best weapons in the game - the scimitar has a MASSIVE bonus to damage done on slash crits and can sometimes lunge, while the longsword seems to have about a 50/50 split on slash and lunge crits.

Critical Dodge
These happen more often with higher defense skill, more experience, and when your guy is on his favorite activity level. They are the only way to dodge a critical attack.

Critical Riposte
These I'm not sure on the exact effect, so other folks may chime in with corrections. My understanding is they give a greater than normal bonus to your initiative and possibly attack for the following attack, and possibly lessen the likelihood of a decise check allowing the other guy to retain the initiative.

Tactic Indicator
If a warrior uses the lunge, slash, or bash tactics, that can be indicated in the fight itself. If you ever see someone launch a wickedly angled lunge with a longsword or make a menacing underthrust with their short spear, for example, then they're using the lunge tactic. If your guy is using decise but is just standing around, then your opponent is using responsiveness. The rest of the tactics don't have indicators that I'm aware of. Sorry, but I don't know every indicator, nor do I know of an existing list of them.

Critical Parry
Like critical dodges, these happen more with higher skill, more experience, and when using the favorite activity level. Also note that high activity lends itself to preferring to dodge, while low tends to lead to more parrying. Also, it's possible that you'll parry better while using your favorite weapon. You will never get a critical parry when parrying a critical attack. A critical parry has a chance of breaking the attacking weapon.

Damage Statement
This just means the guy got hit really hard. Slashing crits tend to result in these, and so does fighting a guy with high strength or large size. Guys who are large, strong, and throw lots of slash crits don't typically need many hits to win.

Decise Check
This means your guy used a decisiveness roll to take the initiative. You see it most commonly at the start of the fight, but it can also be used to counter a riposte attempt. You'll even see that sometimes after the other warrior made an attack or two.

So those are what the obvious statements mean. If a strat change results in a lot of criticals of any type, it's possible you nailed something right. It's also possible that it just happened to work because of the opponent's strategy - no one fight indicates anything. Just watch for your guy to do well in response to strategy changes, and that's really an acquired skill. Don't be afraid to do odd stuff, either - the most common example of an 'odd' approach that actually works is the offensive total parry. These guys are expected to stand there and wear you down, and instead they're swinging back and doing everything they can to drop you in the first minute.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:10 am

Nice overview! I'll be adding a lot of this to the skills sticky for new players. The Enchiridion also has some of Managerr's research from awhile back on different crit statements, so I'll re-review that for content as well.

SwineTiger

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:17 am

Give me a little bit to edit it before you copy it over, please. I'm seeing a number of spelling mistakes that I need to go fix.

Edit: Ok, I think I have it cleaned up. Now as to the Enchiridion, whom would I contact to get a copy? I've never even seen the thing.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:27 am

I always edit everything I repost, but it helps to have it in good shape beforehand, so thanks! PM me your email and I'll send you the Enchiridion.

ST

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:49 am

Let's say that for instance that DM-81 due date is Sept 23, 2008.

The time right now at my house is Sept 22, 2008 1044 am

The time at the top of the forum is The time now is Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:44 am.

The due date, is it based off of the time zone in Arizona, or the time stamp on the forum?

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:00 am

gentleben wrote:

Let's say that for instance that DM-81 due date is Sept 23, 2008.

The time right now at my house is Sept 22, 2008 1044 am

The time at the top of the forum is The time now is Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:44 am.

The due date, is it based off of the time zone in Arizona, or the time stamp on the forum?

The dates are pure in-house time at the RSI mansion. (The site time supposedly corresponds with that time.) Remember that a Sept 23 due date will run "overnight" that night of the 23rd. (again Tempe time)

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:04 am

Swine,

Can I still just write random nubers down in my Battle Card and hope to win by chance that I hit on the majic 10-1-10 style for this loser warior ideology or should I actually try to figure out what numbers work.

Purple Sage

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:19 pm

PurpleSage wrote:

Swine,

Can I still just write random nubers down in my Battle Card and hope to win by chance that I hit on the majic 10-1-10 style for this loser warior ideology or should I actually try to figure out what numbers work.

Purple Sage

Hey P.S., stay with the random any time you fight us. Wink

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:43 pm

Seems like its the same old concernatron. They got skills but do they have flavor. Ah the days of smash mouth my warrior put a fire cracker under your warriors boots. Is the conspiratron still into DA da da till I get the right numbers? Ah the joy of seeing thier team records plumet and then abandoning the team. The love of seeing thier envolvement in the social aspects of the game. Criminny it will be so wonderous. Does the consortium even feild a team in the no touney arena. I would think not but I can be wrong. To see all the plethera of skills of the consortium put on an even ground with no prize added warriors. Envy? perhaps.

Sincerely and with respect to the consortium long may they fester
Purple Sage

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:20 pm

We've been trying for some time now to get him to return to 81. Kellumbo has even pledged not to downchallenge there for a year and Tripwire has pleged to start using avoids in his conflict with Elephant, but those haven't been incentive enough yet. Sad

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:54 pm

I see a plethera of information about bonuses and all kinds of data and analysis. I have an Aimed blow I am working on. On in AD .

5,8,8,15,21,6,21
Right handed
Intelligent
Makes very cleaver
rarely makes mistakes
is always thinking ahead
cannot take alot
very little weight
quick and elusive
making even dangerous opponents look harmless
and does little
Did he get screwed or is it impossible to tell?

Sincerely PurpleSage

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:09 pm

Plug his numbers into Terrabloods Web Page warrior design and see what his starting skills should be. Then compare them too what they actually are and you will see if he is bonuses or hosed. Naturally you will need atleast and expert in the skill area too tell.

Though if they don't have an expert, you could compare wit statements too get a general idea.

Welcome back.

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:43 pm

Mang,

Don't throw me to those data wolves yet I have to figure out how to do it. the init lines and studff I have tons of questions I'll call you when I get at least my Lapur team figured and the paperwork ready to send. I figure I'll fight what I have and send a note to Reality/duel2 that I need an update on my Ad warriors and a team roll-up for 81. Is it a themetic arena? are they doing much roll play? I will try to get some time to read their newslettersd before I submit a team. So good to see you on line. I have posted a bunch.

sincerely Purple Sage