I have a question here about unholy blessing. Now I am fairly familiar with the spell and getting charges both old and new system.
The new system says that an a-p can get multiple charges from experienced players but no charges from weak players. From my personal experiece, I think the code has hurt the overall ability for ap's to get decent weapons drastically.

My concern is basically that I have only ever received two charges from a kill but once (and I have killed some experienced people). The amount of time I have received no charges is about 30% of my total kills. I had spoken to another ap before and he said that 11 of 14 kills did not give him a charge.

This just doesn't seem fitting in my mind. We all know ap's have a hell of a time in Thera because everyone wants them dead and the weapon the ap has worked so hard to create can be lost in the blink of an eye (disarm, death, death from ridiculous gangbang...the list goes on). So now it seems things have been made even harder for ap's with this new code. Basically the class is very difficult to play effectively and requires a lot of patience, patience I think a lot of people are not willing to put in.

Perhaps this may be why the players of CF find ap's one of the least fun classes to play, the sheer difficulty of playing them. I am not even going to go into the huge rage delete issues with ap's once they lose their weapon.

The new code, I assume, was designed to stop ap's from picking on weaker people and reward them for taking down the big boys. Unfortunately, the entire essence of the ap is to crush the weak and take advantage of their weakness while they can and now, they get no reward from it. The code basically encourages ap's to gangbang more powerful people who they could not normally kill themselves, something I don't think many people are fans of.

In summation, I just think the new code could use a bit of tweaking giving the chance of getting multiple charges more on par with the chance of getting no charge. i.e
pk ratio less than 30% = no charge,
pk ratio 30-70% = 1 charge
pk ratio 70-85% = 2 charges
pk ratio 85-95% = 3 charges
pk ratio 95+ = 4 charges

or something to that effect (I am not clear on the exact coding of pk ratios right now but you get the idea).

Alternatively, go back to the old system (it still prevented multi-killing and at least an ap knew he would get a charge if he got the kill. As it is now, it is just just a gamble.)

Another option could be to keep the present code but allow the ap to keep 50% of the souls he has collected upon destruction of the weapon (harness it within his unholy blessing spell or some such.)
Just something to lessen the blow of losing that weapon which is now even harder to make (hopefully we get fewer rage deletes this way.)
This would make it easier to start up another weapon because when you first bless a weapon, you wipe all enchantments from it making it weaker for about 8 kills (maybe 30% more depending on the people you kill) until it equals the enchantments of what it was originally like. I hate this feature by the way.

Anyway, enough of this, I just notice a fair bit of discontent about the class lately and their rarity attests to this. Perhaps something can be done to the ap to make it more enjoyable and less stressful?

Any words Imms?

P.S. I understand that it may have been made more difficult for ap's to get powerful weapons intentionally to make people not rely on them so much. If this is the case, can anything be tweaked to ap's to compensate for this?

Unfortunately, the entire essence of the ap is to crush the weak and take advantage of their weakness while they can and now, they get no reward from it. The code basically encourages ap's to gangbang more powerful people who they could not normally kill themselves, something I don't think many people are fans of.

I don't get this.

In other words, you'd like to repeatedly pick off the newbiest player you can find, but you have some problem with going after an experienced player 2-on-1?

Given that the average player is usually worth >1 charge, you could also learn to beat down average players 1-on-1. Otherwise, collecting meeker souls makes for meeker weapons.



valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Given that the average player is usually worth >1 charge, you could also learn to beat down average players 1-on-1.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this is blatently and patently false. I slew my share of people, and I'd like to think that several of them were above avg players, and to be honest I didn't average 2 charges per kill. Usually one charge per kill actually, I think I may have gotten two charges *once*. I also don't agree with the main thread's idea about basing it solely on ratio, after all if you did that you'd just find someone with a good ratio (3 charges) and then just multikill them until they were worth 0 charges and get a quick/easy 15 charges on your axe. I'm not sure where you're hitting at here valg, if the average player is more then one charge then why is it that no one has noticed that except you? It isn't as if we're all only aiming at the utter newbies.

"More than one" does not equal "two". I disagree that he was "blatantly and patently false".

If you multi-killed someone, you would quickly learn that does not help your axe much. Ghostly opponents have little soul to tap into.

Your experience of how many charges you received is exactly what we expected and intended with the code.

Well, more to the point is : "Can you get fractional charges off someone?" As in, do those fractions add up or is it just rounded off and then never touched again? If its just rounded down, then there can be no "More then one" and "Less than two" because as an AP there is no distinguishing point between. Let me give you an example, if I have the ability to make 1.2 skins of water, but in my inventory there is only one and that one nor future ones are distinguishable to that fact that its really 1.2 and not simply 1, then how is that any different than one?

Now on the other hand, if you kill 4 people worth 1.25 charges and in the end wind up with 5 charges then kudos and my mistake, but if that is not the case and 4 people worth 1.25 charges is simply 4 charges, then I'm going to stick with my original statement because then fractions don't involve me and are thus not entered into my own equation, which is the one winding up in my axe at the end of the day.

I kinda like the code, as is, to be frank, though I'd like it if you could get quest charges and little trinkets like that. Some things that certain combos offer over others is nice little trinkets that make things a bit more interesting. Ragers/Orcs are good examples of combos I might play simply because they get a lot of nice spotlight time and a bit of effort would probably yield good results in game if my RP is recognized, appreciated, and rewarded. Valg/Scion was a cool as hell setup as is, don't get me wrong, but we do appreciate the extra lovin tossed around here and there, and we do take notice of who's givin and who ain't.

Fractions are definitely meaningful (i.e., 1.2 is genuinely preferable to 1.0 in a charge sense to the A-P), but not in the sense that you suggest.

1.2 charges on a guy gives 20% chance of 2 charges and 80% chance of one.

Therefore if you killed 5 such people you would expect to have 6 charges. However, you might only have 5 or you could have as many as 10 (which would be very unlikely).

>1.2 charges on a guy gives 20% chance of 2 charges and 80%
>chance of one.
>
>Therefore if you killed 5 such people you would expect to have
>6 charges. However, you might only have 5 or you could have
>as many as 10 (which would be very unlikely).

Why would 1.2 charges give you 80% chance of 1?

1.2 would give you 1, and 20% chance of 2.

Thus the drunk spake, and then was sworded!

I think we might be saying the same thing.

>>1.2 charges on a guy gives 20% chance of 2 charges and 80%
>>chance of one.
>>
>>Therefore if you killed 5 such people you would expect to
>have
>>6 charges. However, you might only have 5 or you could have
>>as many as 10 (which would be very unlikely).
>
>Why would 1.2 charges give you 80% chance of 1?
>
>1.2 would give you 1, and 20% chance of 2.
>

If you have a 20% chance of getting two charges (which I think we are both saying), and the only other possibility is getting one charge (which I think we are both saying), then the odds of getting one charge must be 80% (100% - 20%).

20% prob of 2 charges, coupled with
80% prob of 1 charge
===========================
100% prob of either 1 or two charges

>Thus the drunk spake, and then was sworded!

>I think we might be saying the same thing.
>
>>>1.2 charges on a guy gives 20% chance of 2 charges and 80%
>>>chance of one.
>>>
>>>Therefore if you killed 5 such people you would expect to
>>have
>>>6 charges. However, you might only have 5 or you could
>have
>>>as many as 10 (which would be very unlikely).
>>
>>Why would 1.2 charges give you 80% chance of 1?
>>
>>1.2 would give you 1, and 20% chance of 2.
>>
>
>If you have a 20% chance of getting two charges (which I think
>we are both saying), and the only other possibility is getting
>one charge (which I think we are both saying), then the odds
>of getting one charge must be 80% (100% - 20%).
>
>20% prob of 2 charges, coupled with
>80% prob of 1 charge
>===========================
>100% prob of either 1 or two charges
>
>>Thus the drunk spake, and then was sworded!
>

Mmm...Probability and Statistics...I hated that class.

You are still neglecting the 30% chance of getting no soul at all. If the average hovers around 1.2, then the other ap's must be having a grand time getting 2 souls more than they get 1 because my average is about 0.7 .

No matter, an A-P should kill who he wants to kill, not have his choices affected by whether he gets a soul or not. It's called roleplaying. I just thought the code might have needed a bit of looking into. Thanks.

>No matter, an A-P should kill who he wants to kill, not have
>his choices affected by whether he gets a soul or not. It's
>called roleplaying. I just thought the code might have needed
>a bit of looking into. Thanks.

Well, the gathering of souls into an axe is an in-game phenomenon. Though the idea of getting 1.2 souls on average probably isn't somethning that would occur to that fire giant AP. Anyhow, the point is that it does make IC sense for APs to consider the souls aspect when choosing targets.

nt

Which do you think would be more potent? The soul of a hardened, battle-tested paladin who strikes fear into the wicked? Or the soul of a meek guy who couldn't run away quickly enough?

All the involved echoes have the weapon absorbing some portion of the victim's essence. A stronger foe lends more potency than a weaker one, and an AP knows this in an IC sense. There's nothing OOC or numbercrunchy about it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I am all for slaying goodies because I think it is good roleplay for an anti-paladin. These fearsome paladins you speak of do not exist, or I haven't met any yet. I can't remember the last time I got a charge from a paladin. The ones who consistently give the most charges are ones that can hide in some manner, plain and simple.

Now, if I choose to hunt an evil assassin over that paladin who hates everything I embody simply because I may get more charges from the assassin is when I say that numbercrunching is affecting roleplay and to me, I don't think this is right.

An ap should kill whomever he wishes (compliant with his role) without worrying about how many charges he is going to get. I hope this is clearer now.

If you don't like thinking of paladins as being meek and humble, you could think of them as having some sort of divine soul protection such that it's hard to snag more than a wisp of their essence.

That said: the difference between number crunching and hard experience is more in how they go wrong than in where they happen to agree.

Kill whoever you want as an AP, but realize what the deaths mean.

Killing the weak may be good RP for you, but realize that a weak soul does not give you much to work with for your weapon. A hero warrior who's never PKed in their life will not give you anything. For whatever reason, they lost PK fights, so they're worthless to you.

Killing a paladin may or may not be good RP for your AP, but again realize that unless that paladin actively slays evil and wins, again they're worthless to you.

Killing an assassin that has a ton of kills and few deaths under his belt will give you a strong soul for your weapon. What AP really cares if other evils survive? Very few APs would care if an assassin lives or dies, but if that assassin helps improve your personal weapon, kill them. Kill the strong for a strong weapon, kill the weak because you think they suck.

If *I* were an AP, since I guess we're doing floating point math, I'd rather have the value 1.2 get calculated, rather than 1.0, since it's possible there's something like this in the code... if(v>1) GiveCharge();

Or not. I'll take remaining rampant speculation elsewhere.

-Laries

I would suspect that it also has to do with the last pk death timer.

Valg: Given that the average player is usually worth >1 charge, you could also learn to beat down average players 1-on-1.

Boldereth: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this is blatently and patently false... if the average player is more then one charge then why is it that no one has noticed that except you?

The expectation value most often hovers around 1.1 or 1.2. This means that most of the time, your average victim is worth 1, and sometimes 2. (Yan and I tested this extensively on the full variety of cases.) Since 1.1-1.2 is greater than 1, I'm going to go ahead and politely ask you to get off that limb, and close your piehole.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

My general point from this post is that depending on how you calculate the expectation will affect your answer.


If by expectation you are using:

A / B

where

A = the sum of charges by killing all characters
B = by the number of characters

you will actually get a somewhat artificial estimate of the average charge that APs will gain by hunting random victims, although you DO get an accurate estimate of the average charge per player.

To get an estimate of what APs actually get per kill, assuming they hunt everyone equally, you would need to do something more like:

( C / D ) / E

where

C = sum of (charge on each individual character times probability of AP killing that particular character character)
D = sum of probabilities of said AP killing each character
E = number of characters


The effect of this is that the harder to kill characters will not contribute much to the expected charges per kill unless the number of charges is at least inversely proportional to the APs ability to kill them. That assumes the AP hunts people at random. My guess is that the number of charges is not as generous as inversely proportional to an APs ability to kill them. This would mean that an AP randomly hunting victims would expect less than one charge per kill.

This might indicate that an upwards tweak on number of charges per kill is needed. However, as I believe APs can function without charges too (after all, they got their first ones), I wouldn't personally tweak the current system. Also, calculating probability of each AP killing each character would be quite hard.

Your initial argument is part of why we tweaked it up (by raising the minimum value) until the unweighted average was slightly higher than one.

We're fine with the existence of a tradeoff between hunting weaker characters (and gaining charges only slowly, but with less risk of being defeated), and being a guy who intentionally goes after because they're tough.

I also think the difference between an AP with 0 charges and an AP with, say, 15 charges, is very small. +70 hp, +70 mana, +8/+8 hit/dam is nice and all, but it's just not a big difference, especially considering you probably stripped around +3/+3 or so off of the weapon by blessing it in the first place. The controls are pretty nice, and those don't go away when you die. Given the number of APs (or members of any class) who go on PK runs of much longer than 15 or so with no losses, I think most people vastly overestimate the importance of the weapon's current charge.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Unfortunately, the entire essence of the ap is to crush
>the weak and take advantage of their weakness while they can
>and now, they get no reward from it. The code basically
>encourages ap's to gangbang more powerful people who they
>could not normally kill themselves, something I don't think
>many people are fans of.
>
>I don't get this.
>
>In other words, you'd like to repeatedly pick off the newbiest
>player you can find, but you have some problem with going
>after an experienced player 2-on-1?

No, I like to roleplay and pick off the anti-thesis of my class (eg. storm giants) repeatedly if possible (not just kill everything that moves in a desperate quest for charges). I leave the equipment of my victims so that they can come after me and we can fight again once they unghost. (Makes it funner for the both of us and I would a think a good thing to do for cf as a whole). I wouldn't say cabaled paladins and shamans are the newbiest of players so I don't think it is right for me to get no charges from these players because we are natural enemies and fight each other very often.
Basically your code indicates to me that I should fully sac all the equipment of these players because if they come after me again within a short time, I have nothing to gain soul wise but everything to lose (especially if they come after me in groups which is what is happening now, i.e. three camo'd sylvans summoning me into the copse of trees on the eastern road).
Your code tells me that what I should be doing is taking everything from these people so that I cause them to log off in frustration so I have fewer threats and hopefully can get a charge from them a couple days later when they do log back on. This just isn't my style and I don't think many people would enjoy this.
What I am saying is that the ap should be rewarded for slaying his anti-thesis time and time again (they do have the option of logging off or avoiding you afterall), not be punished by possibly dying and not growing in power from another conquest if they do come after you.

I still believe it entirely natural for an ap to crush an opponent while he is weak (soon after death) and as I said, he has nothing to gain from this anymore.

And yes, I would rather kill that storm giant repeatedly (one on one be he experienced or newbiish) than be forced to gangbang powerful people in large groups (I find no sport in this) and I think I am not alone when I say that I wish this aspect of the game could be eliminated.

In my case (I don't know about other ap's) I must disagree when you say that the average charge is greater than one because in over fifty kills (many random and cabaled), I have gotten two charges only once and no charges over ten times. I would have to think that everyone I have killed, with the exception of one, would not have been below average.

By the way, when you say the average is greater than one, are you indicating that there are partial charges so that if I kill someone once, get no charge, then kill him 30 minutes later, the two charges may add together to give me a full charge on my second kill...or that of all the ap's out there who can collect souls (what, all two of them?) the other ap is getting two charges more than they get no charge? In this case I will have to speak with him.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I still think something needs tweaking but as always, it is ultimately up to you all to decide. Thanks.

We didn't touch the portion of the code that has to do with spam-killing the same people. That's never worked.

And yes, the system accounts for partial charges.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I never pk'd the same people more than once, except a few where the kills were at least a week apart. And very rarely did I fail to get a charge.

Perhaps take a second look at how you pick your victims. It could be coincidence, but it might not be.

If you're picking your victim at random, you will be collecting just over 1 charge/kill on average with the newer code. We even put in an immcommand that lets us check that average at a given moment, and it rarely dips below 1.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I would have to say AP concerns have to be one of the most consistent post. Wait about two weeks, there'll be another one, with everyone giving their opinions on how to make the class easier, less annoying or what have you. I love APs to death. The evil essence and all that. They are difficult to play, and maybe they should be. If it was easy to get a lich there would be twenty of them running around with corpses everywhere, and while that would be amusing for the first five seconds, certainly it would get boring. Now think to some of the more successful APs that have been around. Make the APs easier to play you have twenty of them running with a ton of bricks for a weapon. Then their pk range will pretty much consist of other APs looking for charges because everyone else hightailed it as soon as the first one logged. I'm not saying I totally disagree with you. I think the new charge system could use some good tweaking and have said so since it was first implemented. The suggestion of keeping 50% of the charges if a weapon is sacraficed sounds real nice if you're an AP, but not too good to anyone else. I'd say the major issue with APs has been the ease of disarming and sacraficing their weapons, which as far as I can tell has been taken care of. Gang-banging...grow eyes in the back of your head and keep them open at all times. Everything else is a matter of preperation and caution. Except the charges anyway. I'd say a different solution would be instead of no charge give a partial charge. A half or third, and when you get the other half or two-thirds, there, full charge instead of none. Just my thoughts.

but...I can count on one hand the number of aps who have gotten really good axes without perma friends.

You aren't one of them.

Sure, you know alot about the class. But I honestly laugh out loud whenever an ap who had a perma(in char or out of char) posts about the ap class trying to give advice.

First off, I never had an axe. When ever I hear someone mention unholy blessing it is always somehow connected to axes. It does work on other weapons. Perma friends? I never have perma anything. I admit it is more likely to see me with a few of a certain group than others. I happen to be a cabaled AP, more than likely you'll find me with the same cabal mates if I am with someone. If you mean I was always with someone instead of when I was with someone it was always the same people, I don't think so. I could be mistaken, Karel was awhile ago and Stargher for all intent and purposes was a flop. However, my play style rarely changes much, one of my signature limitations. If it's a raid (offense or defense) situation, it's likely someone will be along. If I am hunting, especially with an AP, I try to get my solo-joy in. I know for a fact most of my best fights were one on one, or even number of bodies with Karel. Of course everyone has their own view of things, and unless you keep the same hours as someone (frankly not many people really play my hours) and are constantly at their side, your perma-friends, you really can't know everything and anything about that person. Hence all the differing posts about people in the battlefield. But as I said, everyone has their view of things, and to them it is always the right one. This is just mine.

As for giving advice...I don't really believe I was giving any. I don't really think I usually do, except the occasional advice to grow a set of balls to some people. I was somewhat longwindedly trying to say that maybe the class is simply hard for a reason. Way I see it, the evil classes are inherently harder to play, as I think it should be, it sets loose the proverbial flotsam. While at the same time offers greater long-term rewards. Ya, necros have their asses handed to them on fairly regular basis through most of their life unless their targets are idiots or they're pretty skilled. Yet who wants to tangle with a lich alone really? APs have a hell of a time getting all those charges and controls, yet you think of the heavy hitters, even excluding the ones with "perma-friends", and you think of a person most people don't want screw with alone. A paladin is a paladin, who cares how many virtues he has. An AP is anywhere from your typical mortal to a fist of Hell. That was what I was attempting, obviously unsuccessfully, to convey in my post.

Try not to take this as a defensive post, because I really don't feel slighted or offended by your post. I just try to reply to posts, agree, disagree or to simply clarify.

A good translation of the word 'but' could be "Disregard anything I just said, as what I am about to say is what I really mean." Insert that phrase whenever you see the word 'but', see how it works.