Quickness

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Habiki
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Location: China

Re: Quickness

Post by Habiki » 16 Apr 2018 12:50

Worshippers take a vow of secrecy regarding the inner workings of the Circle, so this is likely one of the reasons this discussion seems so one-sided. So I will speak generally, but it has basically been noted that the Worshippers are the highest taxed layman guild. How much, only the wizards know, I suppose, since tax numbers are left ambiguous. The balance team has theoretically already done the math of experience capabilities like [quickness- high tax] = [special attack - low tax]. Should there be an evil layman guild with high tax and quickness? Don't really care, but sounds like that's been hinted. Does it need to be quickness to make a highly taxed evil guild powerful? I don't think so since other offensive spells / attacks can be just as good.

I really don't know if I can say quickness is king, because I haven't been in many guilds. As Alisa said, quickness has already been nerfed, which is what I'd like more information on. Before the nerf, I saw the max possible quickness stacked and stacked, and the result was quite sick. It was basically game breaking. Is quickness game breaking now? In my opinion, no. Nothing close to that is possible anymore because a cap was put in place I think.

Double guild quickness abilities, I don't have the knowledge to speak on, but it seems to me that it would be pretty much impossible to reach the max without layman guild quickness + occupational guild quickness ( + quickness items? Don't know how good occupational quickness can be). There is also a quickness potion which I've never used.

Since we are on this topic, can we please talk about the cap? Is it a soft cap leading to diminished returns, or is it a hard cap and no diminishing returns, or a soft cap with a hard cap at the very top? How much is the cap, 50% time reduction for same attacks? Gorboth has recoded the imbuements so they give diminished returns, ie two pronounced is never as good as one intense and two intense is on one person should never be as good as one intense on each of two people.

One other thing that has come to my attention is that some guild specials aren't affected by quickness... I believe maybe Blademasters and Ogre specials are not, for example. Maybe Wizards should consider this when doing guild recodes.

Lastly, it's great to know the quickness in vitals. What surprised me is how little benefit quickness equipment changes this meter. Basically all items (except maybe intense quickness imbue which I haven't tested) give less than one level of quickness. I think SoH, Golden Gauntlets, Fur Robe, Brown Boots, Quickwood Hoopak, pronounced imbue, all give less than one full level of quickness on the vitals meter. If you stacked all the the items together that you can... you might get something like two or three levels or quickness but you'd have pretty crappy AC (armour protection).

Zugzug
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Re: Quickness

Post by Zugzug » 16 Apr 2018 13:12

Since people here are interested in how to measure quickness, I will go a step beyond what I already wrote and share with you all, in case you are interested.

N.B. This is lua code for mudlet, and works best in a place where a) the npcs are many to a room and tightly packed and b) the player is either going on a kill-script to minimize the time between end of one npc combat and start of the other. I am sure that something like this would be very easy to concoct for cmud, or perhaps even the webclient, but I have zero knowledge of both.

Trigger to whatever message signifies the start of your special attack, in my case this is:

Code: Select all

^(?:> )?Your muscles tense as you prepare to impale\.$
What is being executed is:

Code: Select all

impaleHouLast = impaleHouCurrent
impaleMinLast = impaleMinCurrent
impaleSecLast = impaleSecCurrent
impaleHouCurrent = getTime(true, "hh")
impaleMinCurrent = getTime(true, "mm")
impaleSecCurrent = getTime(true, "ss")

impaleDiff = ( impaleHouCurrent * 3600 + impaleMinCurrent * 60 + impaleSecCurrent ) - 
    ( impaleHouLast * 3600 + impaleMinLast * 60 + impaleSecLast )

if impaleTimeAvg == nil then
    impaleTimeAvg = 0
    else
end
if impaleTimerCount == nil then
    impaleTimerCount = 0
    else
end

if impaleDiff > 6 and impaleDiff < 24 then
impaleTimeAvg = ( impaleTimeAvg * impaleTimerCount + impaleDiff ) / ( impaleTimerCount + 1 )
impaleTimerCount = impaleTimerCount + 1
else
end

cecho ("<white> " .. impaleDiff .. " s. / " .. round(impaleTimeAvg, 2) .. " avg / " ..
    impaleTimerCount .. "\n")
You would also need to add this script to make sure you can properly round the numbers using round() function

Code: Select all

function round(num, numDecimalPlaces)
  if numDecimalPlaces and numDecimalPlaces>0 then
    local mult = 10^numDecimalPlaces
    return math.floor(num * mult + 0.5) / mult
  end
  return math.floor(num + 0.5)
end
The last if check in the trigger above should be (I guess) your "normal speed" time between specials + - 50%. If going without a script, just wait a little bit after each room before moving on to the next so as to not skew your data.

Obviously, you would need hundreds of samples to get to "good" values and under normalized situations where you don't hunt npcs (this screws with special timing as per the latest anti-bounce change), or perhaps grabbing the most useless to you weapon (in case you are melee class) and going to fight some npc for a long time who you know isn't big enough to damage you really, while you are not strong enough to damage him without a proper special/weapon

Enjoy, and feel free to post something like this if you have done it for other clients.

edit/add: If your client supports epoch time or unix time (seconds since 1970) then writing a script like this would be even simpler.

edit2: just to clarify, this trigger augments my normal "starting special" message like this:

Code: Select all

Your muscles tense as you prepare to impale. 12 s. / 14.29 avg / 7
(last special took 12 seconds to execute, there are now 7 samples in the pool and the average time is 14.29 seconds)

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Alisa
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Re: Quickness

Post by Alisa » 16 Apr 2018 17:25

Zugzug wrote: Obviously, you would need hundreds of samples to get to "good" values
Have to correct you a bit, thousands to tens-of-thousands for a reliable data. Since 200+200 tests showed a result with an 8% certain unreliability(or however to explain it in english)


You need to make a database in Cmud to get it to do average. Personally, i just export data into excel/sheets since im lazy, and its easiest.

I should really look into mudlet...
Epic sharing on setting it up, hope people use it.

Zugzug
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Joined: 20 May 2017 15:25

Re: Quickness

Post by Zugzug » 16 Apr 2018 17:48

Alisa wrote:
Zugzug wrote: Obviously, you would need hundreds of samples to get to "good" values
Have to correct you a bit, thousands to tens-of-thousands for a reliable data. Since 200+200 tests showed a result with an 8% certain unreliability(or however to explain it in english)


You need to make a database in Cmud to get it to do average. Personally, i just export data into excel/sheets since im lazy, and its easiest.

I should really look into mudlet...
Epic sharing on setting it up, hope people use it.
I am obviously only talking about impale here, but in my experiments the "normal speed" average settles on 15 seconds after maybe 40-60 impales and hardly ever moves after that. Same with using imbues.

I would guess that if you cannot get good information on 200 data points, then something is wrong with the code, or perhaps there are more variables to your specials timing than just normal distribution. For example, your spells could be sped up/slowed down automatically based on your mana levels or use some other esoteric factors besides quickness that would influence the interval between their casting.

Saimon
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Re: Quickness

Post by Saimon » 17 Apr 2018 00:46

Arman wrote: If layman guilds can have x amount of combat aid, does it matter how they get it? Whether it is stat boost, quickness, direct damage, poison/bleeds damage, evades, or heals? x combat aid is x combat aid?

It isn't a rhetorical question by the way... its one we in the admin have wrestled with since we started applying caid limits. And we do get it isn't as simple as that.

We can determine caid through formulas that are largely in isolation of other game factors. So for example, a stat boost to discipline should/could/does(doesn't?) have minimal combat aid applied to it... because in isolation it has very little influence in combat effectiveness. Unless, you have another guild that has a special whose effectiveness is strongly weighted towards the players dis... which in that case means that dis-boosting ability will provide considerable aid. How do we account for that? Likewise with physical and mental stats. To a spellcaster, strength is largely useless... most of the time they don't do white damage and none of their abilities depend on it. While for a warrior it is a primary stat that plays a big part in their damage output. Similiar scenario for int and wis. How do you account caid benefit based on these different scenarios?

Quickness is another one where, in isolation, the formula for aid vs quickness benefit is pretty clear... but not so much when you look at guild permutations and mortal meta :). That is why I am asking these questions, and I would appreciate feedback on how much quickness makes a difference. Our formulas aren't perfect, but one thing we aim to provide is consistency through standardised code... and if an ability/formula ends up being a bit out of whack we can make changes to it globally rather than in isolated guilds cases - which comes across as picking on a specific guild.

I'd like to also flag that some abilities the admin have decided to keep away from layman guilds, such as rescue/move behind abilities. I am not sure quickness abilities needs to be considered in the same boat... I am not convinced the issue isn't something else, that we have necessarily got to the bottom of the underlying cause of the symptom people are seeing. I am thinking it might be something else... however changing that will be a real PITA.
Lets back to the quickness issue.

Arman you have written you have formulas to translate speed into combat aid? But are these formulas equal to everyone? Will the Monk/Minstrel have the same increase in his dps as Calia/Minotaur? In my oppinion everytime you think about real benefits players receive from speed you need to think about his/her guild configuration as well. It is not a secret Calia, SU and mages are these guilds that receive the biggest bonus from speed, while guilds like Monks, Ogres and BM as someone wrote here not that much. Maybe it is connected with the fact that Monks and Ogres make a lot more damage (as % of their total damage) from white hits than from specials. And maybe some specials (like battack) are not speed sensitive?

People almost always will choose better attack than better defence. Besides the best defence is fast and strong attack. All BDA can confirm it. They were not that powerfull becuse could tank long but had quite huge offensive power. In most of guilds significant majority of damage comes from specials. And speed boost allows to have more special attacks in the same time = more damage. So that is why almost all winers of previous event choos speed stone and not damage or stat increase stone. I dont know if our enchanter has some counters what kind of imbues are the most frequently choosed by players but I think speed and heal are in top 5. Stats and damage imbues will not give as much increase to almost all specials as speed.
So if you ask me if spped is a King I think maybe not the King (as dex was among other stats some time ago), but has very high position. And if there would be more guilds with speed bost, propably quite a lot people would join them. Currently we have only one lay with speed. These Occ with speed boost are not very easy to join, besides majority of people build their private lore based on the Occ guild. And lay guild is an addition to the Occ that reduces shortages of their Occ guilds in offence, defence or heal power.

So maybe get a Calia/EW with speed spell and Mergula sword on back of for instance Neidar with stubborn rage and kill some big mobs. Next replace EW with speed spell with Minotaur guild (lay guild with probably one of higest caid since it is only one and only offensive special) and repeat the test and see if the increased by the speed spell swarm was "more powerfull" than Normal swarm + gore.

Or you can repeat it with any other guild combination and for instance a ring with pronounce speed imbue. I think the results will not be equal with your theoretical formulas. If I could suggest something I would suggest to validate if all specials/spells from all guilds are influenced by speed? If not, correct it. And after it I would open Warlocks and move to another important issue to correct on Gen....

Johnny
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Location: Washington State

Re: Quickness

Post by Johnny » 17 Apr 2018 21:19

Fast is smooth and smooth is fast right? How about bringing discipline into the quickness. The more discipline you have compared the the average of the rest of your stats the faster you move. If it's substantially lower than your average then you move slower?

Zugzug
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Re: Quickness

Post by Zugzug » 17 Apr 2018 22:59

Johnny wrote:Fast is smooth and smooth is fast right? How about bringing discipline into the quickness. The more discipline you have compared the the average of the rest of your stats the faster you move. If it's substantially lower than your average then you move slower?
You'd like to make dwarves the quickest race? You mad, bro :)

Johnny
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Location: Washington State

Re: Quickness

Post by Johnny » 17 Apr 2018 23:52

Zugzug wrote: You'd like to make dwarves the quickest race? You mad, bro :)

gorboth wrote: Most Clan members I look at have dis lower than their average, so things would not change much for them unless they wanted to respec their stats and sacrifice str and con.

G.
This would just be looking at Clan members though and not the entire dwarf population. So the majority of dwarves and other races wouldn't see a boost in quickness since the dis is lower than their stat average. Gimli from the LoTR films even said "I'm wasted on cross-country! We dwarves are natural sprinters! Very dangerous over short distances"

sylphan
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Re: Quickness

Post by sylphan » 17 Apr 2018 23:55

Johnny wrote:Fast is smooth and smooth is fast right? How about bringing discipline into the quickness. The more discipline you have compared the the average of the rest of your stats the faster you move. If it's substantially lower than your average then you move slower?
And what meaningful relationship do you see between discipline and quickness?

Johnny
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Posts: 226
Joined: 02 Apr 2010 09:33
Location: Washington State

Re: Quickness

Post by Johnny » 18 Apr 2018 00:26

sylphan wrote:
Johnny wrote:Fast is smooth and smooth is fast right? How about bringing discipline into the quickness. The more discipline you have compared the the average of the rest of your stats the faster you move. If it's substantially lower than your average then you move slower?
And what meaningful relationship do you see between discipline and quickness?
Fast is smooth and smooth is fast. If you aren't disciplined then you're more likely to make mistakes slowing you down (e.g. not positioning yourself properly to execute an action).

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