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Avernum 6 and the key to survival


Brocktree

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A thought experiment on how to maximise your survival in Avernum 6 and Avernum 5 follows:

 

Assume you are a level 20 character with 4 endurance (99hp), an armour rating of 60%, and elemental resistances of 30% on Torment. Torment imposes a -30% penalty on all resistances and armour, and all resistances/armour are capped at 90% (penalty inclusive). I give you 150 skill points to invest in order to increase character survivability. How would these skill points best be invested?

 

Option 1: Increase endurance

Sinking 150 skill points into endurance raises your PC's hit points from 99 to 330.

Option 2: A mixture of hardiness, luck and resistance

 

The optimal investment for elemental resistance is resistance 14, hardiness 11 (note: the skill points required to unlock resistance's have not been counted towards the 150 skill point limit for the sake of simplicity). This your resistance to elements to 68%, and your armour to 69%.

 

An optimal mix of luck and hardiness (H = 20, L = 10) increases resistance to elements to 66%, which is slightly lower than the optimal hardiness/resistance combination. However, it is the better combination for damage reduction overall, as armour increases to 82%. Luck increases mental and stun resistance to 44%.

 

Option 3:

 

Parry and riposte

 

The optimal combination is 13 parry, and 10 riposte

 

Chance to parry/riposte in melee 57%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 43%

 

26% chance to parry ranged attacks. Chance to not parry is 74%.

 

26% chance to parry non-area of effect spells (Windows version). Chance to not parry is 74%.

 

0% chance to parry area of effect.

 

Let's look at each of these three build options in game relevant scenarios:

 

Scenario 1:

 

Warped wolf hits for 80 physical damage twice each round.

 

Over 10 rounds, does 1600 damage

 

As armour+penalty = 30%.

Damage each round = 112

Over 10 rounds = 1120

 

If take option 1: Guaranteed survival, can heal

 

If take option 2: Armour + penalty = 52%

 

Damage each round = 77

Over 10 rounds = 770

 

Guaranteed survival

 

If take option 3:

 

Damage each round = 112, 56 or 0

Over 10 rounds = 482

 

If hit twice a round (20% probability), die. Largest *average* damage reduction.

 

Scenario 2:

 

3 Warped wolves hit for 80 physical damage twice each round.

 

Over 10 rounds, do 1600 damage *each*

 

As armour+penalty 30%.

Damage each round = 336

Over 10 rounds = 3360

 

 

If take option 1: Die

 

If take option 2: Armour + penalty = 52%

 

Damage each round = 231

Over 10 rounds = 2310

 

Die

 

If take option 3:

 

 

Damage each round = 0, 56, 112, 168, 224, 280, 336

Over 10 rounds = 1446

 

If hit twice (probability = high?), die. Largest reduction in average damage.

 

Scenario 3:

 

Mage hits for 120 energy damage twice each round.

 

Over 10 rounds, does 2400 damage

 

As armour+penalty 0%.

Damage each round = 240

Over 10 rounds = 2400

 

 

If take option 1: Guaranteed survival, can heal

 

If take option 2:

 

Armour + penalty = 36%

 

Damage each round = 154

Over 10 rounds = 1540

 

Death

 

Largest reduction in average damage

 

If take option 3:

 

Damage each round = 112, 56 or 0

Over 10 rounds = 1776

 

If hit twice a round (55% probability), die. However, *average* damage reduced.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

OK, OK, I know. A number of assumptions I have made are pretty rough. However, I think we can come to a couple of conclusions:

 

1. In most cases, Parry is much, *much* better at reducing average damage suffered over time than the optimal investment in luck and hardiness. Even for targeted magic based attacks (for which Parry/Riposte only provides a 1% chance to block per point), the benefit provided by hardiness+luck isn't that much higher than Parry. Given that targeted magic attacks are not commonly used, Parry comes out a clear winner.

 

Ergo: Parry is far better at reducing average damage over time than an optimal luck+hardiness combination.

 

2. When it comes to surviving each individual round of combat, an investment in Endurance is much, *much* better at guaranteeing your survival than an investment in luck+hardiness.

 

Endurance also guarantees your survival against one to several strong enemies. As long as your hit point reservoir exceeds the damage dealt by your enemies per round, then your character is virtually invulnerable, as a priest can restore their health to maximum.

 

Note that parry *does not* necessarily guarantee you survive each round, it simply increases your likelihood of doing so.

 

A guarantee to survive a round is infinitely more valuable than a *possibility* to survive a round + high average damage reduction over time.

 

However, there comes a point where even very high hit points won't save you from a mob of enemies. When a mob of enemies damage output exceeds your hit points, then suddenly parry becomes very attractive. A high likelihood to survive a round is better than guaranteed death any day.

 

But then again, why are you getting mobbed? Most swarms can be thinned out with daze/terror/charm.

 

Ergo: Endurance will guarantee your survival against one to several powerful enemies. However, against mobs of enemies that cannot be broken up, and whom deal damage that exceeds your hit point capacity, parry greatly increases your chances of survival. Hardiness+luck is worthless.

 

3. Hardiness/luck/resistance comes out the clear loser in increasing survivability over each individual round, and decreasing damage load over time.

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

Game mechanics, and why hardiness/luck/resistance suck.

 

In a previous thread, I made this observation about hardiness, luck and resistance:

 

"As you can see, we have a paradox of sorts. As you continue investing in hardiness, you get diminishing returns on it. This should be a driving force for you to unlock resistance, so that you can gain damage resistance at a lower skill point cost. However, due to the multiplicate nature of Avernum 5's armour system, you also get diminishing returns on *resistance* and *luck* as you increase hardiness (and vice versa). This is directly related to the observation that many players have made, regarding the fact that it is better to have one thick layer of armour, rather than several layers of moderate strength armour, due to the multiplicative mathematics."

 

The multiplicative nature of Avernum's armour system is what kills damage reduction skills. Give that you are likely to have at least 70% in armour mid-game, and will hit 85%+ with wards, even a very large investment in these skills will make very little difference.

 

In essence, the effect of these skills is detracted from as your character becomes stronger (ie. gains more armour). To further sour the deal, there is a penalty to all armour and resistance values, and a cap.

 

Now compare this to endurance. Each point's value *increases in value* as your character levels up. As your character becomes more powerful, so does your investment in endurance gain more value.

 

Parry's bonus is static. It applies a flat bonus for each point, which is not effected by any other character variables.

 

In conclusion, invest in endurance and parry. Don't waste your time with damage reduction skills.

 

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This analysis certainly fits with the conventional wisdom. Endurance is universally acknowledged to be essential, Parry is universally acknowledged to be pretty good, and the other skills are mostly ignored beyond the first couple of virtually-free points of Hardiness.

 

All other things being equal, taking half as much damage and having half as much HP would be better than taking twice as much damage and having twice as much HP, because it'd make healing easier, but that isn't enough to save Hardiness in practice.

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Trust me, you assumping is outrageous. It is insame to invest 150 points into endurance or hardiness/luck.

 

Now suppose it is 30 points to invest, hardiness/luck combinition gives 23% all damamge reduction plus 12% mental/stun resistance, while parry gives 21% melee, 14% ranged, and 0% against area-effect spells.

 

Quote:

The multiplicative nature of Avernum's armour system is what kills damage reduction skills. Give that you are likely to have at least 70% in armour mid-game, and will hit 85%+ with wards, even a very large investment in these skills will make very little difference.

You are doing maths wrong. First, if you have 70% in armor, wards will only bring it up to 79%. Second, if your hardiness/luck gives you 20% damage reduction, they always do so, although better armor makes the number difference less significant, the EFFECT always remains the same, unless you reach the cap. Third, the cap is nothing to worry about. My party are divine touched, with all the best protective gears, still, none reach the cap. Only the armors fighters reach the cap when steel ward is used. I do not use steel ward by then anyway, because element damage poses a greater threat and none of my parth member reach the cap for element even if warded.

 

Another advantage for hardiness/luck investment is healing/regeneration. Edurance does best in helping survive one round. Then if your prist can only restore a small portion of it, do you think you can survive the next? For parry, if you successfully parried, you cannot benefit from them

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Originally Posted By: Brocktree
The optimal combination is 13 parry, and 10 riposte

Chance to parry/riposte in melee 57%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 43%

Chance to parry/riposte ranged 41%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 59%

Chance to parry/riposte spells 22%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 78%

Again, I don't think your calculation is right.
Chance to parry/riposte both ranged and non-AOE spells is 26%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 74%
Chance to parry/riposte AOE spells is 0%. Chance to not parry/riposte is 100%

Riposte works only for incoming melee attack. Targeted spell is not treated differently from ranged attack. (2% per point for both)
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The calculations are definitely incorrect, although yours aren't perfect either:

Quote:
PARRY (Cost: 3 -- Train: 453, 499, 408 per sp @ Fort Remote)

+3% chance to parry hand-to-hand attacks (Max: 50%)

+2% chance to parry ranged attacks

+1% chance to parry missile-based magic attacks

Unlocks after buying 3 Dexterity, 5 Defense

Need to buy 6 points of this to unlock Riposte

 

RIPOSTE (Cost: 5 -- No Trainers)

+3% chance to riposte hand-to-hand attacks (10-cap) (Max: 50%)

Unlocks after buying 6 Parry, 6 Blademaster

13 Parry and 10 Riposte would give:

30% chance to Riposte hand-to-hand attacks; if that fails, 39% chance to Parry them. Total chance to block them: 57%

26% chance to parry ranged attacks.

13% chance to parry single target spells.

0% chance to parry AoEs.

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Originally Posted By: Hume
I am quite sure that in the Windows version I played, parry skill can parry 2%*(skill level) for both single targeted spell, and multi-targeted spell (i.e. lightning spray). Not 1%

I should have said "missile-type spells" and not "single target spells" as you are right that Lightning Spray works the same way as Smite. The important part is that it is missile-type and not AoE.

I have not played Windows A6. I probably tested all these numbers on the Mac version, but this is now long enough ago that I don't really remember. Can anyone else confirm either a 1% or 2% parry rate against missile-type spells on either platform?

Riposte only activates on melee attacks.
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I thought riposte activated on missile attacks, because I have received successful *parries* from PCs with points in riposte only, with the associated message '0% chance to parry'. I assumed that this was because they were using their riposte skill to parry ranged attacks, but now I see that I'm wrong.

 

Strangely enough, a character with 1 in riposte (and no parry skill) can riposte melee attacks at 3%, or *parry* melee attacks at 0%. Weird. Does anyone know why this is?

 

Originally Posted By: "Hume"

Trust me, you assumping is outrageous. It is insame to invest 150 points into endurance or hardiness/luck.

 

This is a thought experiment. I'm trying to gain some sort of idea as to what distribution of skill points would provide the player with a 'survivable' PC.

 

Quote:

Now suppose it is 30 points to invest, hardiness/luck combinition gives 23% all damamge reduction plus 12% mental/stun resistance, while parry gives 21% melee, 14% ranged, and 0% against area-effect spells.

 

Not if your armour is already 70%.

 

 

Quote:

. Second, if your hardiness/luck gives you 20% damage reduction, they always do so, although better armor makes the number difference less significant, the EFFECT always remains the same, unless you reach the cap.

 

As better armour makes the number difference less significant, I would say that the effect is *not* the same. Spending 150 skill points to block an additional 50 points of damage is a waste, when you can use those skill points to purchase 200hp of health.

 

 

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Quote:
This is a thought experiment. I'm trying to gain some sort of idea as to what distribution of skill points would provide the player with a 'survivable' PC.

You are proving too little, if you do it this way. You showed that spending all your points in hardiness/luck is inferior to parry/reposte, all all points into edurance. But clearly all three options are far from optimal, so there can be little value in your analysis.

Instead, if you assume already invested 50 points on all three categories, and have an additional 20 points to spend, don't you think your finding will be more benefitcial?

Quote:
Not if your armour is already 70%.

You still do not get the point. Okay, if your armor is 0, you are fighting someone does 20 damage. Hardiness/luck reduce that to 16, by 20 percent. Now your armor reached 80%, you are fighting someone does 400 damage. It will be 80 damage without hardiness/luck, 64 damage with them. The point is, the percentage of damage reduction remains the same. You don't think your foes does less and less damage as the game progress because you get better armor?

Quote:

As better armour makes the number difference less significant, I would say that the effect is *not* the same. Spending 150 skill points to block an additional 50 points of damage is a waste, when you can use those skill points to purchase 200hp of health.

Suppose a boss does 100 damage, your priest heals 50 damage. Block an additional 50 points means you can fight till he die (or your priest out of mana), 200hp only means you can last 4 more rounds.
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Originally Posted By: "Hume"

Instead, if you assume already invested 50 points on all three categories, and have an additional 20 points to spend, don't you think your finding will be more benefitcial?


My own thought experiment is pretty flawed.

I admit that finding the optimal distribution between hardiness/luck, parry/riposte and endurance would be best. But I'm not that masochistic.

I may actually spread 150 points equally between all skills, and maybe at a 50%/25%/25% split to see how that impacts on damage reduction. Is that essentially what you are suggesting?

First I'll need to correct my erroneous calcuations for parry/riposte, though.

Quote:

You still do not get the point. Okay, if your armor is 0, you are fighting someone does 20 damage. Hardiness/luck reduce that to 16, by 20 percent. Now your armor reached 80%, you are fighting someone does 400 damage. It will be 80 damage without hardiness/luck, 64 damage with them. The point is, the percentage of damage reduction remains the same. You don't think your foes does less and less damage as the game progress because you get better armor?


I understand what you are saying. However, I'm observing that contending that 20% armour results in 20% damage reduction can be a little misleading. If one has an armour rating of 50%, and invests in hardiness to get another armour value of 25%, that hardiness will not block 25% of the *overall* enemy damage. What is does is block 25% of the damage *that has not been blocked by your other armour*.

In otherwords, instead of hardiness 25% blocking 25 points from a 100 hit damage strike, it will only block 13 points. Had you had a 0% armour rating before investing in hardiness, you would have blocked 25 points.

Or a scenario which would never happen in a real game, but demonstrates the point quite nicely. Let's say you have an armour rating of 98%, and you pump hardiness to 25 points to gain an additional armour rating of 50%. This will tip your overall armour class to 99%, which essentially translates to an extra 1 point of damage defended for every 100 damage points. Investing so many skill points into hardiness, to gain what amounts to a measley 1 point damage reduction for every 100hp strike, is a huge waste. Now, if you had an armour rating of 0% initially, then it would be much better.

Essentially, the more effective your armour rating, the less value a further investment in armour has.

Quote:

Suppose a boss does 100 damage, your priest heals 50 damage. Block an additional 50 points means you can fight till he die (or your priest out of mana), 200hp only means you can last 4 more rounds.


I've never had a problem with my priest being able to heal in excess of 200hp.



*Edit*

Parry does grant 2% to block per point against lightning spray. I just tested it. I've corrected the calculations for parry in my original post.
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Originally Posted By: Brocktree
Or a scenario which would never happen in a real game, but demonstrates the point quite nicely. Let's say you have an armour rating of 98%, and you pump hardiness to 25 points to gain an additional armour rating of 50%. This will tip your overall armour class to 99%, which essentially translates to an extra 1 point of damage defended for every 100 damage points. Investing so many skill points into hardiness, to gain what amounts to a measley 1 point damage reduction for every 100hp strike, is a huge waste.


You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Reducing the damage you take per hit from 200 to 100 and reducing it from 2 to 1 both double the number of hits you can survive, which is the thing that matters most of the time.
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Done some more number crunching!

 

I've added three additional options for skill point distribution

 

Option 4:

 

Equally distribute points between parry/riposte and hardiness/luck.

 

Parry 9, Riposte 5, Hardiness 12, Luck 8.

 

Option 5:

 

Equally distribute 150 points between endurance, hardiness/luck, parry/riposte

 

Endurance from 4 to 10 = 211 hit points

 

Hardiness 10, Luck 6, 7 Parry, 3 Riposte

 

Option 6:

 

Equally distribute 150 point between parry/riposte and endurance

 

Parry 9, Riposte 5

 

Endurance to 13, hp to 261

 

 

And *drumroll*, a table comparing damage per round, average damage over 10 rounds, and survivability, between all 6 skill point configurations for all three scenarios.

 

http://www.box.com/s/bzqmyhcjg156tzqrdlnx

 

Hume was right, sort of. On the surface, configurations 5 and 6 have equal 'survivability' across all three scenarios. However, as you are less likely to be hit 5 or more times on configuration 6 (due to the higher riposte/parry), it has the highest survivability. This is offset by the bonus to mental and stun resistance that configuration 5 affords, as well as the slight damage reduction to AoE attacks.

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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
I really think that your comparisons do not work here. It would be FAR more useful to list three numbers (damage reduction %, damage avoidance %, HP multiplier). As it is I can't tell very much from looking at your tables.


I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you are asking for.

What I have done is simulate a number of different character 'builds' in Excel, and assess their performance is three difference scenarios. I then calculated the damage taken each round, the average damage over 10 rounds, and whether they would survive each round.
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The survival over 10 rounds is an issue since you are basically making up numbers for damage taken (which varies widely depending on what you face, and often will vary even within a single battle) and HP (which is level-dependent). You are also making up numbers for armor/resistance from equipment which is very relevant given your inclusion of the Torment penalty. And finally, you are making up the ability to fully heal every round, which may be realistic, but having to fully heal every round usually isn't what you are aiming for.

 

Basically your data says "here's how six builds do on one arbitrary and fictitious scenario." I would find it more useful to see data that says "here's how six builds do on reduction, avoidance, and HP increase" and then be able to think myself about how those builds might do on different scenarios.

 

Also, the most dramatic results in your data are only dramatic because the builds involved in them ignore the most basic principles of the skill system in A6, like the double diminishing returns (due to skill point cost and percent compounding). Of course the builds without ANY extra Endurance die easily. And of course the builds that completely ignore certain defensive skills do worse.

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So you would simply like the damage reduction, chance to parry/riposte, and HP increase afforded by each of the 6 builds?

 

Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Brocktree
Or a scenario which would never happen in a real game, but demonstrates the point quite nicely. Let's say you have an armour rating of 98%, and you pump hardiness to 25 points to gain an additional armour rating of 50%. This will tip your overall armour class to 99%, which essentially translates to an extra 1 point of damage defended for every 100 damage points. Investing so many skill points into hardiness, to gain what amounts to a measley 1 point damage reduction for every 100hp strike, is a huge waste.

 

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Reducing the damage you take per hit from 200 to 100 and reducing it from 2 to 1 both double the number of hits you can survive, which is the thing that matters most of the time.

 

I sort of understand what you are getting at, in theory. So why doesn't this work out in practice?

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Let me put it this way. People on this site does not need scenarios to be convinced which built is better.

 

All these skills percentage based, it means it does not matter what damage the attacking opponent does, what you armor is, etc. Introducing them only makes the simple questions complex.

 

The best shopping guide people need is how much additional (damage reduction or life increase) divide the skill points cost for every new levels of the skill.

 

HOUSE of S did an excenllent job

http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189322#Post189322

, the table in the middle of the thread

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Originally Posted By: Brocktree
Originally Posted By: Lilith
You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Reducing the damage you take per hit from 200 to 100 and reducing it from 2 to 1 both double the number of hits you can survive, which is the thing that matters most of the time.


I sort of understand what you are getting at, in theory. So why doesn't this work out in practice?

I think you might be applying the torment penalty as a straight -30%, so that going from 80% to 90% armor reduces 100 incoming damage from 50 to 40.

I'm pretty sure the torment penalty is multiplicative like armor pieces. Like a separate armor piece with (-25) or something armor, or a 1.25 total damage multiplier (that doesn't increase damage above the base value in case of little/no armor). Also, unsure of exact value. If exactly 30 armor is needed to overcome it, the value would be 1/(1-0.3)=1.43.

Using 1.43, 100 damage would be ... 100 damage without armor. Or 1.43 * (100-90) = 14.3 with 90% armor value. 28.6 with 80% armor.
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Originally Posted By: Brocktree
I sort of understand what you are getting at, in theory. So why doesn't this work out in practice?


If it doesn't, then it's probably because there's more than one kind of damage out there and it's impractical to get all of your resistances to the 90% cap. At some point, you're resistant enough to melee attacks that you want to start worrying more about elemental damage, which requires different defensive skills (less Parry and more Endurance).
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Originally Posted By: Hume
Let me put it this way. People on this site does not need scenarios to be convinced which built is better.

All these skills percentage based, it means it does not matter what damage the attacking opponent does, what you armor is, etc. Introducing them only makes the simple questions complex.


This is where I don't agree.

I acknowledge that you can't draw any hard conclusions from my three scenarios. Obviously each encounter in the game is different, and the three thought experiments I put forward aren't representative of the whole game. However, simply shooting off the damage reduction %, health point increase etc. is useless, since parry, hardiness/luck and endurance all increase your survivability in different ways. You can't make any meaningful comparisons by simply comparing damage reduction vs chance to parry vs HP increase per skill points invested.

Quote:

The best shopping guide people need is how much additional (damage reduction or life increase) divide the skill points cost for every new levels of the skill.


Which doesn't tell you anything. For example, let's say 50 skill points grants you +50 to hit points if invested in endurance, +15% armour if invested in hardiness/luck, or 15% chance to parry. OK, what now? On face value, you can't tell me which is more valuable, without at the very least plugging those values into numerous scenarios, or play testing.

Quote:

HOUSE of S did an excenllent job
http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189322#Post189322
, the table in the middle of the thread


The table is excellent, I agree, and I did something similar for damage reduction/skill point for hardiness, luck and resistance. But it doesn't work in this case, because we aren't comparing one independent variable (eg. damage output, or damage reduction).

I'm happy to give those values, because I needed them before I can number crunch for each scenario. However, it's important to remember that the proof in the pudding is in the eating. We've had a number of theoretical discussions and thought experiments on this forum before. One involved most reaching a general concession that archery was superior to melee in Avernum 5. The other involved the belief that warriors had not place in Avernum 5. Both of these had some sort of mathematical basis, and both are not true to gaming experience.

Essentially, gaming experience is king. All calculations, and even thought experiments, merely remain (educated) speculation, until you test out a build in the game. Since I can't be bothered creating 6 different characters with 6 different builds and running them through Avernum 6 (I'm not even 2/3's of the way through my current game), the best I can do is some contrived simulations in Excel.
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Originally Posted By: Brocktree
Essentially, gaming experience is king. All calculations, and even thought experiments, merely remain (educated) speculation, until you test out a build in the game.

I actually disagree with this. If gaming experience directly and objectively contradicts thoughtful calculations, then obviously gaming experience wins. However, I frequently have the experience of interpreting gaming experience in one (incorrect) way until I look into it more thoughtfully and realize what is actually going on. So I would say that "what actually happens" is the final arbiter, but that thoughtful calculations trump subjective experience.

A great example is the loyalist class resistances in G5. Nobody noticed them for a year (was it longer?) despite all the playthroughs people did with varying classes, and based on these gaming experiences, people (including myself) continued to state over and over that the rebel classes were mostly equal and in one case better.

Or consider Luck and item drops. For a long time it was assumed that Luck affected item drops in all SW games, because it did in some of the older games. A number of us played through A4 and believed based on our gaming experience with A4, that Luck did indeed affect item drops. It doesn't, though; we were allowing our beliefs to bias our interpretation of what happened. But we all do that all the time.
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

I actually disagree with this. If gaming experience directly and objectively contradicts thoughtful calculations, then obviously gaming experience wins. However, I frequently have the experience of interpreting gaming experience in one (incorrect) way until I look into it more thoughtfully and realize what is actually going on. So I would say that "what actually happens" is the final arbiter, but that thoughtful calculations trump subjective experience.


I believe the complete opposite. Dissecting the game mechanics and running simulations is good for attempting to explain in-game phenomena, and such activities provide some predictive value. However, the only way to truly know if your predictions hold true is to 'test drive' them in the game, because there are so many variables that you just can't incorporate into such calculations. Some of these variables are just too complex/numerous, or worse, are unknown.

Honestly, I don't think you can have a completely informed opinion on how to best play a game, if you haven't played that game through to completion.

Quote:

A great example is the loyalist class resistances in G5. Nobody noticed them for a year (was it longer?) despite all the playthroughs people did with varying classes, and based on these gaming experiences, people (including myself) continued to state over and over that the rebel classes were mostly equal and in one case better.


Ahh, but did anyone play through the entire game with a Shaper class? I did not, because the general consensus at the time was that they were inferior to Rebel classes. I also suspect (but don't know for sure) that those who played those characters didn't even bother taking them out of Whitespires. If I had wanted to test those characters, I would have used cheats to increase the PC's level, and compared the resultant HP, spell energy and essence with the Rebel PC. As the resistances don't show up on the character sheet, I probably would never have noticed them except after a few hours of gameplay.

Quote:

Or consider Luck and item drops. For a long time it was assumed that Luck affected item drops in all SW games, because it did in some of the older games. A number of us played through A4 and believed based on our gaming experience with A4, that Luck did indeed affect item drops. It doesn't, though; we were allowing our beliefs to bias our interpretation of what happened. But we all do that all the time.


A person can play through the game on two different luck settings and record the number of times each item is dropped. This would provide the best indicator as to whether luck affected item drops. Again, real game experience trumps supposition any day.

While what we do is partly an intellectual exercise, I'm doing it with the ultimate purpose of improving my gaming experience. I *hate* playing 2/3's of the way through a long game like Avernum 6, only to realise that I've wasted a large number of skill points.
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Regarding Luck, we ran several trials at different Luck settings and had empirical evidence to support the conclusion that more Luck increased item drops. Then we asked Jeff to resolve the argument and he said that Luck didn't affect item drops in Geneforge.

No, we had empirical evidence to support the conclusion that MAYBE Luck increased item drops. The tests left lots of room for speculation. Additionally the strongest "evidence" was tests that Synergy did, and his testing in other areas proved to have been compromised by bias.
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This is a good thread. I had no idea how powerful parry was until now. There's one problem, it still doesnt state whether parry blocks more damage from melee or ranged weapons. Im not talking about parries, im talking about how much damage is negated. I would say it would lower the damage from melee more than ranged but i dont remember reading that under your list.

 

You know what would be deadly, if jeff made ranged monsters that have almost as much parry as melee ones!

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  • 3 years later...

 

Originally Posted By: Brocktree

 

 

Originally Posted By: Lilith

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Reducing the damage you take per hit from 200 to 100 and reducing it from 2 to 1 both double the number of hits you can survive, which is the thing that matters most of the time.

I sort of understand what you are getting at, in theory. So why doesn't this work out in practice?

I think you might be applying the torment penalty as a straight -30%, so that going from 80% to 90% armor reduces 100 incoming damage from 50 to 40.

 

I'm pretty sure the torment penalty is multiplicative like armor pieces. Like a separate armor piece with (-25) or something armor, or a 1.25 total damage multiplier (that doesn't increase damage above the base value in case of little/no armor). Also, unsure of exact value. If exactly 30 armor is needed to overcome it, the value would be 1/(1-0.3)=1.43.

 

Using 1.43, 100 damage would be ... 100 damage without armor. Or 1.43 * (100-90) = 14.3 with 90% armor value. 28.6 with 80% armor.

 

This is the first post suggesting that armor penalty in torment is multiplicative. Mivayan is right except about the number. It is (-50), or 2* damage in torment. I have not tested, but the (-25), or 1.43* can be what is in Hard difficulty.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This is the first post suggesting that armor penalty in torment is multiplicative. Mivayan is right except about the number. It is (-50), or 2* damage in torment. I have not tested, but the (-25), or 1.43* can be what is in Hard difficulty.

The double damage on Torment and the armor penalty are two different things. What it means is that anyone with armor less than 36% (or whatever the number is) suffers the full 2*damage of any hit, i.e. armor is useless on Torment in the beginning of the game. At least this is how I understand it.
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The double damage on Torment and the armor penalty are two different things. What it means is that anyone with armor less than 36% (or whatever the number is) suffers the full 2*damage of any hit, i.e. armor is useless on Torment in the beginning of the game. At least this is how I understand it.

 

Your understanding is incorrect. Double damage and armor penalty do not exist at the same time in any single game.

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