There are some skills for which it is impossible to accurately determine the relevant factors. To do so would require thousands of hours of gathering sample data in order to establish a statistically significant correlation.

Here are a couple of them and the subtler factors that could logically have an impact (and aren't completely obvious).

Assassinate (from the point of view of the assassin):

Stalk amount (is more ever worse?)
Stalk quality (is stalking within-room better)?
Vuln hitting (is it better?)
Weapon skill (is having higher better?)
Weapon weight (is heaver or lighter better)
Weapon type vs class (Is using a target-unlearnable weapon better?)
Carried weight (is lighter better?)
Wearing glowing (does it hurt?)
Wearing humming (does it hurt?)
Target Position (is sleeping/resting better?)
Time of day (is night better?)
Darkness (are dark rooms better?)
Target Con (is low con better?)
Target Dex (is high dex worse?)
Self Dex (is higher dex better?)
Self Str (is higher str better?)
Self damroll (is higher damroll better?)
Self hitroll (is higher hitroll better?)
Self Food/drink (is full/sated better?)
Target Food/drink (is full/sated better?)
Target health (is lower hp better?)
Self Preps (is haste/quicken better?)
Target preps (is dam redux worse?)
Target preps (is haste/quicken worse?)
Poison Darts (is (sleep || confusion) better?)
Size differential (is target-bigger better?)
Self Morale (is higher better?)
Target Morale (is higher worse?)

Choke (from the point of view of the whip-spec):

Target Entanglement (is entangled better?)
Vuln hitting (is it better?)
Weapon skill (is having higher better?)
Weapon weight (is heaver or lighter better)
Weapon type (Is whip or flail better?)
Target Con (is low con better?)
Target Dex (is low dex better?)
Target Str (is low str better?)
Self Dex (is higher dex better?)
Self Str (is higher str better?)
Self hitroll (is higher hitroll better?)
Target health (is lower hp better?)
Self Preps (is haste/quicken better?)
Target preps (is dam redux worse?)
Target preps (is haste/quicken worse?)
Size differential (is target-smaller better?)
Self Morale (is higher better?)
Target Morale (is higher worse?)
Target saves (is sv paralysis worse?)

And for that matter, what about bash? Everyone always says "it's mostly xyz" and that's fine, but how many small factors are there that you could never, ever figure out? The basic problem I have with this sort of stuff is that it just makes people superstitious. We're all relegated to practicing voodoo because there's no way of knowing what really matters and what doesn't.

Exploit a vuln.
Wait for them to rest/sleep
at least 10 stalks at 75% (I felt comfortable dropping 1 stalk every 5% but always shot for 7 even after perfection)

rinse repeat ~45 times.

Congrats you've perfected assassinate.

I had choke with a duergar and it worked an assload.

decided to delete my post. I'm not giving anything away.

>Assassinate (from the point of view of the assassin):
>Choke (from the point of view of the whip-spec):

I'm not going to run through the code for each, and spell it all out for you. Needless to say, most of what you ask about don't apply.

>I'm not going to run through the code for each, and spell it
>all out for you. Needless to say, most of what you ask about
>don't apply.

Alright, that's your prerogative. But actually it *is* needed to say. Absolutely all of those things make perfect sense to me as things that should affect success. Even with you saying that most of what I ask about doesn't apply leaves me pretty clueless as to what does. I guarantee that at least some of the things you think are intuitively obvious make no sense to me, and vice versa.

Also, this is an RP game. Maybe I'm just an RP nazi, but I feel that if you can't explain what you're doing IC in a sensible way, then you shouldn't be doing it. I mean seriously, asking a friend if you can choke him 100 times and then another 100 times with a -str to establish a meaningful correlation? That makes no ic sense at all. So what next? Roll a human and then an elf and try choking in real pk while wearing +/- stats to make them the same except for str? Okay, well first of all that makes no sense either, and even worse you're never going to get a decent sample that way.

And forget about assassinate. It takes 20 minutes just to set one up. Even if I cheated and multi-charred myself some experimental characters, isolating all the potential variables would quite literally take years of constant experimentation.

>>I'm not going to run through the code for each, and spell
>it
>>all out for you. Needless to say, most of what you ask
>about
>>don't apply.
>
>Alright, that's your prerogative. But actually it *is* needed
>to say.

Because you can't use the skill unless I answer all of those questions? People have played very successful assassins, maybe asking on the forum looking for tips, maybe asking another assassin in game about how he stalks his prey. You don't have to do statistical analysis on a skill with every permutation to understand how they work.

Most skills have at most a handful of factors that go into them. Bash is probably one of the more complicated ones, stalk/assassinate is not, and choke is one of the simplest leveraging almost purely your skill with a whip.

If there is a factor to assassinate that affects how one approaches the skill, e.g. "stalks count for more when you're in the room with the person", then it would be nice to know about it.

I/we don't need exactly numbers, just some indication that it "matters".

That said, my working assumption is that if something "matters" to a significant degree then it will be explicitly spelled out in the help file. Ergo, if something is fairly counter-intuitive and isn't spelled out in the help file then I assume it's not a factor.

Pretty sure we got all the details then as well. Can't remember them that well off the top of my head but maybe a search will bring up something more accurate.

What I do remember is learning that one stalk is one stalk, after a certain number more won't help your chances a lot, and using a weapon they're vulnerable to increases the chances of assassinate working. Just as using one they're resistant to lowers it.

And using hand-to-hand ignores all that, and gives you straight odds regardless of damage type.

Bash was just size comparison, weight comparison, skill percentage. Then some diddling factors I can't remember. All of these don't affect the actual lag of the skill - they only effect whether or not it hits. The lag is entirely random, and even a gnome can lag a giant for 4 rounds if he hits a bash. In fact, I had a svirf lag me for 3 rounds as a minotaur shaman :P

Enjoy.

Generally speaking... if a skill/spell/affect/etc has that large of an effect, we'll put it in a helpfile. Stop number-crunching and start playing the ####ing game. My next response won't be as useful.

>Generally speaking... if a skill/spell/affect/etc has that
>large of an effect, we'll put it in a helpfile.

Be we have none, zero, nada chance of ever learning the unknown number of minor effects. If a skill is 50% based on one factor, and then has 50 1% factors, there is no way to tell the difference between that and 50% just being random.

You say "play the game" and that's all well and good when you don't have to worry about whether you're just imagining things or if there really is a pattern. What happens when you fail choke 10 times in a row doing everything you know to do? How do you just "play the game"? Do you assume it's simply bad luck and continue trying the same stuff, or do you start trying random ideas that makes sense to you? If you apply that same approach to bash, then what happens?

How long are you supposed to beat your head against a wall trying random things before deciding that "oh this skill must just have a large luck component?" Or are we not supposed to care if our skills work? Maybe "just play the game" means ignore the actual mechanics and do what makes sense to you even though it might be the exact opposite of what works.

Zulgh says ask on the forums or ask IC. As far as I'm concerned it's not really possible to RP asking about these things IC. You just end resorting to nonsense like "Oh, you need to carry about half as much as you could in order to evade blows best" Or "don't let them even sense you in the general area when you're learning their movements" That's just craptastic rp, sorry. You can't really describe gameplay concepts IC in a way that isn't just a schitty veneer of ooc talk and I'm only powergamer enough to want to really know how my skills work, not to just throw RP in the toilet for the sake of canvasing the other players IC.

The bigger issue, which affects forum inquiries as well, is that nobody else has any clue either. I don't trust that Isildur or anyone else knows the details unless they're looking at the code for the same reason I don't know the details. Namely, that it is impossible to tell the difference between pure chance and a handful of small influencing factors when you're basing it on the small number (statistically speaking) of assassinates you've tried. Anyone who thinks they know these things without seeing the code is provably wrong, so what good is asking on the forum when it's other players who say random stuff they believe but have no real basis for and coders who say "nyah nyah I won't tell" or just "there's a lot of misinfo in this thread" Where do you think all the misinfo comes from? It's because people try things and see a pattern where there isn't one. I phrase it in a number-crunchy way, sure but the point is that human perception of random events f-ing blows.

>How long are you supposed to beat your head against a wall
>trying random things before deciding that "oh this skill must
>just have a large luck component?" Or are we not supposed to
>care if our skills work? Maybe "just play the game" means
>ignore the actual mechanics and do what makes sense to you
>even though it might be the exact opposite of what works.

You shouldn't even beat your head against the wall in the first place. Everything has a large luck component. Most combat skills work X% of your skill, and that's all there is to it. A decent number of others factor in one of your stats and/or one of your enemy's stats.

Other factors usually involve other skills. For example, if I have sure footing that can help me when someone tries to bash me.

Honestly I'm not sure what you want, except to bitch.

>Most combat skills work X% of your skill, and that's all there is
>to it.

Sure, but how do you tell when that *isn't* the case? There's no way to tell the difference between a skill that is all luck, some stats, or some skills. At least not without trying different things. Maybe it's all bash's fault, but pretty much forever I've had the impression that most skills depended on a few different factors that it was important to figure out. The fact that it's mostly straight skill-checks is news to me.

>Honestly I'm not sure what you want, except to bitch.

Well, clarity in the helpfiles would help, for one thing.

If every helpfile had something like:

Choke:

Blah blah knockout blah blah

This success of this skill is based only on skill percentage and chance.

or

Chop

Does damage

The success of this skill is based on chance.
The damage of this skill is based on normal melee damage, size and strength.

That would be pretty useful. Even more useful would be something like:

Dirt kick:
one-tick blindness

This skill is based almost entirely on chance and skill percentage, and somewhat on a dexterity comparison.

Basically anything that makes it not a complete and total guess as to which skills have success based on logical factors and which are just random, and which of the numerous sensible factors were included.

>
>This success of this skill is based only on skill percentage
>and chance.


Dude. 90% of the skills in the game only have a couple factors that aren't too hard to figure out. You're asking the Imms to put a disclaimer into every single helpfile? That's an enormous waste of time, when they can just say it once here and be done with it. Did you never play DnD? This is just glorified dice-rolling, there's #### you're never going to figure out and you're not meant to. It adds to the interest of the game. I find that the more I know about the mechanics of the game, the less interesting, surprising, and fun it is. It's like the DM doing a couple mystery rolls behind his screen and you hold your breath waiting for the outcome. Surprise and chance are what keeps things fun. I don't understand why you can't appreciate that and want to get rid of it.

Having your skills fail, and dying like a chump when you overextend yourself and take a chance on them ####ing sucks. He's trying to get more information and figure out if he can make X skill work so he can be more successful and win, instead of fail and die.

I don't understand why you can't appreciate that.

>Dude. 90% of the skills in the game only have a couple factors
>that aren't too hard to figure out.

Well fine, then only put the related-factors description on skills that have some. An absence of that description can mean "skill roll only"

> This is just glorified dice-rolling, there's #### you're never going
> to figure out and you're not meant to.

In D&D you have rulebooks that very explicitly outlines all the game mechanics. For a million reasons D&D is not like CF. The biggest one is that you have a human instead of a computer applying the rules.

> I find that the more I know about the mechanics of
>the game, the less interesting, surprising, and fun it is.
...
>Surprise and chance are what keeps things fun. I don't
>understand why you can't appreciate that and want to get rid
>of it.

Well, I feel the opposite. And if you don't want to know how the skills work, don't read the helpfiles. You can go ahead and hamstring yourself in the name of mystery and surprise if that's what you find fun.

Personally, I find it fun pitting my creativity, quick-thinking and tactical intelligence against other people on a relatively equal footing. There's nothing especially fun about being surprised by failure (or success) simply because I'm ignorant of the rules. What is fun is being surprised by a really clever use skill that I could've thought of, but didn't, or thinking of a clever choice of skills that surprises my opponent. Or engineering situations where the odds are stacked in my favor (or having the reverse done to me). But having the outcome determined by factors beyond my ability to discover? Not so fun. You can't learn from your successes and failures if you can't understand what contributed to those outcomes, even if that just means knowing that it's straight-up chance.

Indeed, I have no problem with chance-based outcomes, when it's knowable that chance is what you're dealing with. If the situation is "well, if I can land an impale now I'll gain the upper hand, but if I miss I'll probably die" that's a fun thing because I'm taking an informed risk.

>>Dude. 90% of the skills in the game only have a couple
>factors
>>that aren't too hard to figure out.
>
>Well fine, then only put the related-factors description on
>skills that have some. An absence of that description can
>mean "skill roll only"

I'm fairly certain that even if I posted the code for the skills you have questions about, it doesn't end there. It will turn from the number-crunching into "Why doesn't choke use my Dex? Why doesn't choke use the victim's Con? Why does bash use Str? Why does choke have an automatic 30% failure rate?", etc. As I see it, there is no answer that is going to make you happy. I'm not going to spend my time justifying every line of code to you.


>> I find that the more I know about the mechanics of
>>the game, the less interesting, surprising, and fun it is.
>...
>>Surprise and chance are what keeps things fun. I don't
>>understand why you can't appreciate that and want to get rid
>>of it.
>
>Well, I feel the opposite. And if you don't want to know how
>the skills work, don't read the helpfiles. You can go ahead
>and hamstring yourself in the name of mystery and surprise if
>that's what you find fun.
>
>Personally, I find it fun pitting my creativity,
>quick-thinking and tactical intelligence against other people
>on a relatively equal footing. There's nothing especially fun
>about being surprised by failure (or success) simply because
>I'm ignorant of the rules. What is fun is being surprised by a
>really clever use skill that I could've thought of, but
>didn't, or thinking of a clever choice of skills that
>surprises my opponent. Or engineering situations where the
>odds are stacked in my favor (or having the reverse done to
>me). But having the outcome determined by factors beyond my
>ability to discover? Not so fun. You can't learn from your
>successes and failures if you can't understand what
>contributed to those outcomes, even if that just means knowing
>that it's straight-up chance.

This boils down to you are a "Min-Max/Number Cruncher". Our help files will never end up at the level of detail that will make you happy, partially because things get changed/tweaked all the time making that level of detail potentially useless when they fail to get updated.

>I'm fairly certain that even if I posted the code for the
>skills you have questions about, it doesn't end there.
>...
>As I see it, there is no answer that is going to make you happy. I'm >not going to spend my time justifying every line of code to you.

I think you're wrong about me personally, but I understand why it might seem that way from your perspective. I make a conscious effort to focus on general systems rather than fine details. Probably I should focus more on including a constructive suggestion with any critique I make, which I failed to do in the original post.

Anyway, I'm sorry that I'm coming off as seeming to want to bitch for the sake of bitching. I assure you that's not the case, but I'll drop the discussion anyway. I appreciate everything you all do for the game and the time you've taken to respond to this thread even though you feel it's pointless.

>I understand why
>it might seem that way from your perspective. I make a
>conscious effort to focus on general systems rather than fine
>details.

Can you explain to me how that correlates to your original post? I fail to see how this is focusing on the general system, than the fine details...


Assassinate (from the point of view of the assassin):

Stalk amount (is more ever worse?)
Stalk quality (is stalking within-room better)?
Vuln hitting (is it better?)
Weapon skill (is having higher better?)
Weapon weight (is heaver or lighter better)
Weapon type vs class (Is using a target-unlearnable weapon better?)
Carried weight (is lighter better?)
Wearing glowing (does it hurt?)
Wearing humming (does it hurt?)
Target Position (is sleeping/resting better?)
Time of day (is night better?)
Darkness (are dark rooms better?)
Target Con (is low con better?)
Target Dex (is high dex worse?)
Self Dex (is higher dex better?)
Self Str (is higher str better?)
Self damroll (is higher damroll better?)
Self hitroll (is higher hitroll better?)
Self Food/drink (is full/sated better?)
Target Food/drink (is full/sated better?)
Target health (is lower hp better?)
Self Preps (is haste/quicken better?)
Target preps (is dam redux worse?)
Target preps (is haste/quicken worse?)
Poison Darts (is (sleep || confusion) better?)
Size differential (is target-bigger better?)
Self Morale (is higher better?)
Target Morale (is higher worse?)

>Can you explain to me how that correlates to your original
>post? I fail to see how this is focusing on the general
>system, than the fine details...

Choke and assassinate were examples of the system "Black Box Skills". The questions in parenthesis were a rhetorical device intended to illustrate the kinds of questions I ask myself when trying to get the most out of a skill. I also began and ended the post with general discussion of the issue as well as made the thread title "Black Box Skills" rather than "Choke and Assassinate"

In later posts I tried to speak more generally about "a skill," specifically to avoid harping on those examples too much, though I also did refer back to choke and assassinate a few times in subsequent posts. Reading back over the thread I understand where you're coming from and why it comes across as nit-picking, but I also think that if you were to reread my posts you might see how I was emphasizing the general issue even when using examples to explain my point.

But regardless of my intentions, clearly it was a poor choice to present it the way I did and I'll avoid structuring things this way in the future. Mea culpa.

P.S.
I answered this question because it's a fair question directed specifically to me, but I'm absolutely not trying to continue debating the original topic.

"Indeed, I have no problem with chance-based outcomes, when it's knowable that chance is what you're dealing with. If the situation is "well, if I can land an impale now I'll gain the upper hand, but if I miss I'll probably die" that's a fun thing because I'm taking an informed risk."


The Imms have just told you, repeatedly, that a lot of it is chance and mystery. You have just been informed. Now you're taking informed risks. Just like we've all been doing for years; I don't know why you've suddenly chosen now to bring it up.

Seriously, if that's really all you were worried about, you wouldn't be fighting this hard. It really sounds to me that you're really just interested in winning, which is why you have such a hard time enjoying the system as it is now. You're not winning, and you're blaming it on something else, something you have no control over.

And trying to reduce the learning curve for newer players like you, but --

Altering every helpfile to spell out that the primary factors are skill % and luck - and adding whatever minor factors also exist - is very time consuming. There are also some skills (like assassinate) that I'm sure the IMMs would not want to spell out every minor factor. Further, I think the helpfiles were written from the standpoint of maintaining a non-powergamey sense of "mystery" that immerses people into the environment and rewards really getting a feel for the class combo you're playing - because that takes time and investment, two things that are necessary for quality characters that leave an impact on others and build up the game. That has to be weighed against the competing desire to reduce the learning curve.

Don't you think it would be easier to ask questions regarding specific skills that truly have you stumped? And, by the way, I can't imagine that choke is a skill that truly has you stumped.

Assassinate is a special case. It is a truly sick ability, overpowered and riskless in most situations particularly against battleragers, that is only balanced because not many players have the patience and dedication to master it. Basically, that approach and skill % are the primary factors. If the more minor factors were known (and the myths were entirely dispelled) and less dedication were required .. there would be a lot more assassins and the skill would need some tweaking.

Maybe I'm missing something in your post, but it seems like a case by case question to the IMMs regarding certain, truly mysterious, skills solves your problem.

Listen - we could post all 9 billion lines of code to the entire mud here and there's going to be the same amount of complaining. "How come sure footing only affects bash by 30% instead of 31%?". #### that - you'll never be happy. If you want to know every single piece of information that's out there to know, immort and spend 14 years working on the game and get code access. Until then, be happy with the help files we give you.

Players may post things that, to you, seem stupid or power-gamey

That being said: is this kind of vitriolic rubbish necessary or helpful at all?

>That being said: is this kind of vitriolic rubbish necessary
>or helpful at all?

Put on the Imm-hat and give a better response.

Instead of:

>Listen - we could post all 9 billion lines of code to the entire mud here and there's going to be the same amount of complaining. "How come sure footing only affects bash by 30% instead of 31%?". #### that - you'll never be happy. If you want to know every single piece of information that's out there to know, immort and spend 14 years working on the game and get code access. Until then, be happy with the help files we give you.

I would try:

"We're not going to do that: skills often don't have as many factors as you're imagining, they're often a straight skill and related skill/stat % check (ie. choke checking your choke skill and whip skill). Also, we tweak things fairly often for balance reasons. Updating extremely specific helpfiles alongside that process is too much of a burden, and we honestly don't want to justify every skill's design mechanics, or the changes to them.

Feel free to ask specific questions, but please understand that many imms don't have the code knowledge (and if they do, they may not remember and not have the time or inclination to go searching to look the answer up) to answer you satisfactorily. We make skills, spells, communes and songs to be useful and balanced on the whole. If the approach you're taking with a certain skill isn't resulting in success, try using the skill a different way, or try using a different tool to see if you get better results."

Saying "#### that = you'll never be happy" and suggesting that if you want information, become an implementor was startling in its hostility to a question that, while presented in a rather OCD way, didn't seem deserving of such a childish, bitter answer. Perhaps this is easy to say, since it's not my game or code being questioned, but it seems some posters on "both sides" on these forums are increasingly tense and hostile. Most of us left enjoying this medium are old enough that we can afford to be civil and respectful to each other.

So imms: thanks for fielding questions, maintaining and bringing new things to the game, and whatnot. Let's not be ####s to each other.

How many times have we all read responses like come from an IMM, been surprised that we got such a well written response (no offense, but true) only to have the person they were responding to say "That is not good enough, I want more!" and be a general A-hole? Too be honest, I'd start giving response like Sebeok's too. And it takes a lot to tick me off.

Let us also look at it this way, if someone told me that being a drow assassin, using an iron dagger, against an elf mage, and I have 13 stalks in is the absolute best way to get an assassination to work, and then I miss the next 10 in a row due to said Elf getting lucky, what then? Or what if all 10 worked? Wouldn't you now be bored and wish you did not know all of that so you could have fun trying different ideas instead of just knowing?

One of the best things about CF is that I don't know everything and I get to have fun trying new things out. If I just knew that if I did this with this particular build, it would be an "I WIN" button, I would never play again. Because, what fun is that? unless you like to play naked and get your jollies off growing massive kill counts... But I digress...

>Generally speaking... if a skill/spell/affect/etc has that
>large of an effect, we'll put it in a helpfile. Stop
>number-crunching and start playing the ####ing game. My next
>response won't be as useful.

There's a hidden stat applied to every IP based on the amount of beer sent to various Implementor's houses. More beer = Higher success of all things.

Writers Note: Some or all of of the above statement may be inaccurate, false, or outright lies. However, given a lack of trial and error, or appropriate number crunching, you can't be certain, so may as well try it, right?