[21:02] Chatter[Dartenian] Okay, a couple of known issues before the more recent arrivals panic. Messaging from combat is having some issues specifying the correct attack type. No worries. We'll get that fixed. Parry/Ddoge will be acting funky for a bit. Working on that now.
[21:03] Chatter[Uzmam] I do like that I'm told that I'm vastly better than goblins. Makes me feel important
[21:04] Chatter[Karthor] Oh I like that comparison line after getting attacked.
[21:05] Chatter[Dartenian] Let's give folks a couple more minutes to respond to the late opening of the instance, then I'll give folks an overview and help get a few folks updated if they really need it.
[21:05] Chatter[Dartenian] And yes, I added that comparison line for Test instance so that you guys have an actual idea how your base skills stack up against your enemy.
[21:05] Chatter[Dartenian] That should help a bit with testing.
[21:10] Chatter[Sortny] I really hate this fatique
[21:10] Chatter[Denarin] Healme should take care of the reallly slow fatique regen at the moment.
[21:10] Chatter[Karthor] I think that comparison line might be boogered up when evasion stance is set to zero...I'm at 100/100 in shield/parry and defending just fine, but it says my defense is vastly inferior.
[21:19] Chatter[Dartenian] Okay, I think we've given folks enough time to get in now. I'd recommend everyone get to a safe place for a moment and we'll discuss a few things that should help folks out here.
[21:21] Chatter[Dartenian] Okay, tonight is going to be mostly just helping me find and deal with the test-breaking bugs. I'll try to get as many of those squished as possible.
[21:21] Chatter[Dartenian] The next two nights, we'll do some REALLY crazy and fun stuff once the ugly stuff is fixed tonight.
[21:22] Chatter[Dartenian] For example, I'll let you guys fight human-controlled critters. Possibly even be in control of said critters if I can swing that. And I'm pretty sure I can.
[21:22] Chatter[Dartenian] We'll also let you guys test elemental weapons tomorrow -- meaning weapons that can inflict fire, cold, or electric damage.
[21:23] Chatter[Dartenian] But for now, let's find and fix the basic stuff that still isn't quite right.
[21:23] Chatter[Dartenian] Let me go over roundtime real quick first.
[21:24] Chatter[Dartenian] Those of you who were testing back in Aug/Sept said it was looking a little too long overall. I agree, so I updated that a bit. Let me explain how roundtime is working.
[21:24] Chatter[Dartenian] There are now TWO factors determining your minimum roundtime.
[21:24] Chatter[Dartenian] First is your strength and the weight of the weapon, same as you guys are used to.
[21:25] Chatter[Dartenian] That particular factor should be pretty much the same. Light weapons are always going to be slightly faster than larger weapons.
[21:25] Chatter[Dartenian] However, there is another component that has always been in the code, but never completely implemented. The actual attack command you use sets a roundtime.
[21:26] Chatter[Dartenian] A jab is much faster than a lunge, for example.
[21:27] Chatter[Dartenian] What is happening, and why some of you may be seeing longer roundtimes than you expect, is that it will now use whichever of those two roundtimes is longer for you. However, before you panic...
[21:27] Chatter[Dartenian] The attack-type based roundtime can be reduced...by skill in the weapon in question. And fairly quickly.
[21:28] Chatter[Dartenian] In MOST cases, faster than the average player would reduce the weight/strength based roundtime.
[21:29] Chatter[Dartenian] This is mainly a feature to help prevent new players from screwing themselves up at very low skill/stat levels, but it is also a way of penalizing folks who are using a weapon they know nothing about, even if they are stronger than the hulk.
[21:30] Chatter[Dartenian] If you have more than 250 ranks or so in your weapon, you should NOT be seeing a huge increase, if any at all. If you are, let me know.
[21:30] Chatter[Dartenian] It's possible a few of the slower attacks may be 1 second longer than you were used to in Prime, but once I'm finished, they'll be worth that one extra second. Promise.
[21:31] Chatter[Dartenian] Okay, that slides us into Balance.
[21:31] Chatter[Dartenian] Combos are gone. Completely.
[21:31] Chatter[Dartenian] You can use whatever attacks you want, in whatever order you want.
[21:32] Chatter[Dartenian] If you have a moment, type JAB HELP FULL
[21:32] Chatter[Dartenian] All of the basic MELEE combat verbs should now have expanded help options. <command> HELP should give a brief summary. <command> HELP FULL will give a full breakdown.
[21:33] Chatter[Dartenian] With the removal of combos, I am working to make each attack type unique, so that each has some definite pros and cons.
[21:34] Chatter[Dartenian] Jab, for example, is a fast but weak hit, that has a tendancy to build balance. You trade damage for speed and balance.
[21:35] Chatter[Sortny] But you have to remember Dartenian there is a person by the name of Listia....
[21:35] Chatter[Dartenian] JAB LIST should work, but some targetting stuff I updated for missiles probably broke it. Easy to fix when I have a sec, but not really high priority.
[21:35] Chatter[Dartenian] Only really an issue if there's a person named LIST, since PvP fighting requires the full name be spelled out. For exactly that reason.
[21:37] Chatter[Dartenian] At the moment, not anything that favors balance building, but that may change. Let me finish the balance discussion first, though!
[21:38] Chatter[Dartenian] Some attacks, as the help stuff shows, do either favor or disfavor balance. Lunge, for example, is a bad idea if you want to gain or keep a high balance.
[21:38] Chatter[Dartenian] But...
[21:39] Chatter[Dartenian] Most of them will also say something like, "Attacking again too soon can make this worse."
[21:39] Chatter[Dartenian] If you want to build balance, there are several ways you can do it.
[21:40] Chatter[Dartenian] The first is to focus on balance-positive attacks like JAB, but don't spam them full speed ahead. Pace them a little if you want to maximize balance building -- ie wait an extra second or two before attacking again.
[21:42] Chatter[Uzmam] any chance we'll get some messaging like 'you've fully recovered from your last strike' or something? I hate being able to personally gauge when something is "really" ready
[21:42] Chatter[Dartenian] I will add that as a toggle option once I get to the messaging stuff, yes.
[21:43] Chatter[Dartenian] But I suspect it will annoy more people in the long run than it will please, so it isn't there until I get to the toggle stuff.
[21:43] Chatter[Dartenian] For something like Jab, you can probably build balance even spamming it, but it won't be as consistant or as good as waiting an extra second or two after each jab.
[21:46] Chatter[Dartenian] For now, just remember that if you want to recover balance, slow down a bit. That will help regardless of your attack type, but the slower the attack type, the longer you will want to "recover" to minimize loss (lunge, I'm looking at you) or maximize gain (jab).
[21:47] Chatter[Dartenian] I also want to make it clear that balance isn't as absolutely critical as it is in Live. It still makes a big difference, but it's not quite as nasty overall.
[21:49] Chatter[Dartenian] Any questions on the balance stuff?
[21:49] Chatter[Karthor] You said there were several ways to improve balance...how would one do it with only balance-neutral or negative maneuvers? I'd rather not HAVE to rely on magic...
[21:50] Chatter[Dartenian] By slowing down a little. Let me clarify.
[21:50] Chatter[Dartenian] I mentioned when we discussed roundtimes that each attack type has a default roundtime. For example (making up numbers), Jab might be 3 seconds, Lunge might be 7 seconds. That's the default, not what you will get once you train your strength up and your weapon skill up.
[21:52] Chatter[Dartenian] If the attack shows as being balance neutral, what that means is that if you wait at least HALF that default roundtime before attacking again, you will get a balance modifier of +0
[21:53] Chatter[Dartenian] Er...a balance modifier based on how long you waited, I should clarify. Lunge gives, say, a -2 balance by default (again, not exact, but to illustrate). So at 3 seconds, you get -2 balance. At 4 seconds, -1. At 5 seconds, 0. At 7 seconds, +2.
[21:54] Chatter[Dartenian] With something like jab, it might be more like +0 if you spam, +1 if you wait 2 seconds, +2 if you wait 3, etc. And that INCLUDES your actual roundtime. So if your roundtime is 2 seconds on a jab, then you will get +1 every time.
[21:55] Chatter[Dartenian] Potentially +2 or +3 if you wait an extra second or two before hitting the next attack.
[21:56] Chatter[Dartenian] Does that make sense?
[21:56] Chatter[Karthor] Ah okay, so if you wait long enough you'll get positive modifiers even from negative maneuvers. And that'll still let you build balance faster than it naturally drifts to neutral, even going so slow? Guess I'll have to just try it out.
[21:56] Chatter[Dartenian] As a general rule, yes. There is ALWAYS a chance you will get a negative modifier from the really nasty attacks like LUNGE. But those are very rare.
[22:03] Chatter[Dartenian] Okay, there is a chance for a random -1 to +1 on balance with each attack, so it won't always do exactly what you expect, but a vast majority of the time if you wait 3+ seconds on balance neutral or improving attacks, you will maintain or gain balance.
[22:12] Chatter[Dartenian] I'll be adding ways to make it recover faster, especially between fights. But non-stop fighting is intended to be somewhat fatiguing.
[22:34] Chatter[Uzmam] retreat meant to be this hard to pull off?
[22:34] Chatter[Dartenian] No, it's not.
[22:41] Chatter[Taleek] We just jumping in.. or is there a format we a following?
[22:41] Chatter[Uzmam] Hey Dart, I geuss it's okay to post the log of you explaining stuff to the Test forum?
[22:41] Chatter[Dartenian] Just jump in for now, and let me know if you have any problems or questions. A nd yes, posting a log to the test forum is more than fine.

P.S. Is there anything that favors really light, really balanced weapons anymore? (In the previous proposed plan balance of the weapon actually affected roundtime, which would help in desirability versus all of the people who think forging 160 stone god-like slice greatswords is ok, because right now this is the default win-mode of combat)

~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://drzeal.forumotion.com Learn How to PvP!

Everything still goes to bugtracker per Socharis. Most of the Exp stuff seems to be updated. Just started bumping the old combat ones listed if I can find them.

I can't find Soch's post about the bug site, can someone post a link?

GENT

>>One of my previous concerns is for the Light Edge weapons that weigh a lot, such as a Dao at 31 stones. Because it is a "Light Edged" weapon its damage is sub par, but then you have some heavy edge weapons which may weigh only sub 40's stones but will do a lot more damage.

This is one reason they're being renamed "Small Edge" and "Large Edge," I believe, and the damage templates are directly influenced by weight.

>>Likewise, how will RTs of huge 100+ stone weapons compare to RTs of 15 stone weapons?

The cap put on attack roundtimes a while back will mean that while a 15-stone and a 100+ stone weapon will have the same speed, you'd see the lighter one speeding up a long time before the heavier one as you train your skill and stats.

Killing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay

---

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

There's a lot more too it than you're theorizing, Leilond. Fatigue and balance and required "soft" rest time Roundtime all have varying effects with the weapon types. From my understanding, and limited testing, there's no flat equality to the performance of the weapon types simply because they each have a hard capped Roundtime (admittedly this is hard to know because I can't hurt anything remotely close to level right now). And you're ignoring the 2HE weapon use-with-shield drawbacks, as well as the dual wielding restrictions. As a 2HE/2HB primary melee char, just want to note that from my perspective, I very much regret not training at least one smaller weapon for the above reasons.

It would be sweet if there were a way to influence the random +-1 in balance when you perform a maneuver. A very good tactician should be able to roughly predict the outcome of his/her balance prior to executing a series of attacks IMO.

~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://drzeal.forumotion.com Learn How to PvP!

>I also want to say that experience will be based on how fast the attack can be launched, and the degree of challenge, so training small weapons should be a lot more viable since damage is no longer the primary factor in experience gain. Damage is also now being capped (like it was back in the days of yore), so there won't be as severe a difference in damage between a bastie and a dagger. The bastard sword will absolutely hit harder most of the time when it hits, but the gap shouldn't be nearly as extreme most of the time, and the dagger is actually more likely to hit in the first place. Higher damage is meaningless if you can't hit anything with it!

As someone who plays a high strength Tog with big weapons, this worries me.

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Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance

> So two-handed weapons are basically the no defense melee weapons? Shield is hindered, parry isn't as good with large weapons..

No defense would be a bit of an exaggeration (actually, a huge exaggeration!), but as a general rule, it is true that they typically aren't as good for defending as smaller weapons, especially when the latter are combined with shields. On the flip side, it is equally true that two-handers typically do more damage, and do often have a higher chance to stun, among other things. It's simply a matter of trade-off; damage for defense. Otherwise, there would be zero reason (other than RP) to train anything except the hardest-hitting two-handers. As they say, the best defense is a good offense. A dead, disarmed, prone, or stunned opponent isn't as likely to kill you as a live, active enemy. Or at least that's my general experience.

But seriously, no defense? Not even close. I think you'll find two-handers combined with a solid focus in parry (and evasion, of course) will be very effective.


- GM Dartenian

Though my soul may set in darkness it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night! - Sarah Williams

>Let me clarify a few things real quick...

Thanks for the explanation. I'm still a little worried, but I'll wait until things get rolled out before I get too paniced.

---

Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance