Report 733

Report #733
Skillset: Discernment Skill: Assessing
 Org: Serenguard Status: Completed Dec 2011
Furies' Decision:
We will investigate implementing Solution 1.
Problem: At the moment, the skills "contemplate" and "discern" do require full-
balance, but consume neither balance nor equilibrium. These skills are very much
important to guardian and mage classes in that they allow them to keep track of
their progress on getting their opponents into insta-kill range. Assess is quite
useful to warriors and monks in knowing the precise wounding status of their
opponents, but it utilizes equilibrium. This skill aims to remove the disparity
between this skill, contemplate and discern, by removing the equilibrium cost.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Similar to contemplate and discern, remove the
 equilibrium cost from assessing and make it a free
 skill that requires balance to perform.
Player Comments:
---[Ixion on 12/4 @ 18:46 writes]:
I agree with this report. I've always been annoyed at the disparity and think
it's a good change.
---[Sidd on 12/5 @ 16:14 writes]:
I don't feel there is a disparity, warrior afflictions allow for tracking of
wound levels with pretty good accuracy, knowing exact levels wouldn't really be
a large boost on top of that. Discern/Contemplate is for things that don't give
different messages which allow tracking, IE, if I haegl you, I get the same line
whether you are at 100% mana, or 0% mana, if you are a PB and getting tendons on
strikes pretty much every hit, you're probably at crit wounds.
---[Wobou on 12/6 @ 01:16 writes]:
Warrior afflictions being random as they are you don't truly know anything. I've
seen puis assaults not trigger an affliction which leaves you with no
information. It's true over time that you can figure it out through repeated
hits but I don't see anything wrong with making assess instant. It should have a
mana cost to prevent spamming it as discern and contemplate do.
---[Sidd on 12/6 @ 15:09 writes]:
When I was a warrior, I had both my affs highlighted and them applying
highlighted so I could see them curing wounds, even if the RNG screws you, you
still hit with a puis assault and paying attention to applies, gives you a
pretty good guess at where their wound levels are. The RNG isn't really much of
a factor. It really isn't that difficult, nor is it really important to know
exact levels. All you really need to know is general levels. If the admin want
to change it, then so be it, I just feel it's extraneous and takes away the
challenging part of warriors and make them more 'automatic'
---[Ushaara on 12/6 @ 20:28 writes]:
Like Sidd, I track affs and applies and use them to estimate wounding levels on
the fly. With some experience it is for the most part a reliable method, however
its reliability fails somewhat when considering limbs, and as Wobou has said,
even puissant attacks can not trigger any affs. In any case, the increased
clarity this change would bring would be welcome and help new warriors over the
initial hurdle of warrior combat complexity. I agree with Wobou in that it
should have a small mana cost like discern/contemplate.
---[Iytha on 12/7 @ 19:33 writes]:
@wobou: Imperfect information is not the same as no information. Sidd and
Ushaara are able to figure in their heads about how many wounds a target
probably has, and I imagine that if I were to switch classes to becoe a warrior,
I would learn to do the same. Even if you aren't comfortable with doing that
sort of on-the-fly calculation in your head, writing a script to do realtime
bayesian analysis to provide the same information would be interesting
intellectual exercise, but not terribly difficut for an experienced coder.
Probably a reasonable market for a plugin like that, too.
---[Ixion on 12/7 @ 22:08 writes]:
@Sidd if it wouldn't be a large boost then there's little reason to argue
against the report. Also, using your own suggested comparison, you can
contemplate right before every haegl to know with reasonable certainty where
their mana will be afterwards. Does this mean someone going for a mana kill
doesn't really need contemplate or discern either?
---[Rivius on 12/7 @ 23:07 writes]:
Ushaara and Sidd do make the good point that warrior afflictions give an
estimation of wound states. However, tracking of wound curing across multiple
body parts, especially given a myriad of skills and specific situations, is
quite sloppy and not altogether feasible. You can also never truly know how much
you do on a particular person per hit with the uneven distribution of armour
stats. There's also the fact that occasionally you just have "bad luck" and
never proc an aff at that wound level, despite being well in there. Truthfully,
I see this being used by more experienced warriors to aid in figuring out
people's curing methods and taking advantage of it. It still requires a great
deal of knowledge and good decision making on the part of the player, and does
nothing more than increase some transparency in combat. Given that you said
yourself, Sidd, that it would not do much to help warriors (which I disagree
with somewhat), I don't see why you would reject the notion of the report. You
say it isn't necessary, and I say I see absolutely no reason why assess should
still consume equilibrium.
---[Iytha on 12/7 @ 23:26 writes]:
I'd like to note, in case it isn't obvious, that I -do- support this report. All
it does is reduce the coding overhead and learning curve for warrior combat
without unbalancing anything or consuming undue admin resources. It's pretty
much exactly the sort of thing I want in an ease of use report.
---[Sidd on 12/7 @ 23:38 writes]:
@Ixion lets check what you just said, "you can contemplate right before every
haegl to know with
---[Sidd on 12/7 @ 23:38 writes]:
Reasonable certainty where their mana will be afterwards." I wouldn't know at
all what their mana was at without first contemplating or discerning. So you're
comparision falls kind of flat in that it requires contemplate to work in the
first place. I just don't think there is a disparity between contemplate/discern
and assess for the reasons I have stated. I really think the joy of warrior is
the mindgame of paying attention to wounding levels and avoiding stance/parry
and I feel this would take away from that and just make it 'automatic,' which is
a part of druidry I'm not liking. Automatic meaning that you write a script that
decides where to strike based on targets wounding levels (which also makes it
easy to guess what's being stanced/parried). I'm not really against the report
for anything other than that.
---[Shuyin on 12/16 @ 20:32 writes]:
I agree with Sidd that you can reasonably guess what wound levels enemies are
at, but I also don't have any strong objections to this report. As similar
report with assay (report 22) was done years ago though, to help give reference
---[Wobou on 12/22 @ 02:18 writes]:
I find making assay instant very different f rom making assess instant. Parry
and stance is the balancing force of warriors so bypassing that (which an
instant assay would let you do) is much more significant than getting your
opponents wounding state more readily. Also in terms of systems that try to
track wound levels, going off affs isn't reliable but works, going off of trying
to catch applies is very easily defeated as you don't know if they are applying
health or a salve, it's just that most people don't bother to do that.
---[Sidd on 12/22 @ 15:26 writes]:
Knowing what level certain limbs wounds are at gives a pretty good guess as to
what's being parried and stanced. Tracking wound levels is a lot easier than you
guys are trying to make it out to be. I never used a system to track wounding, I
used highlights to point out stuff, and kept track in my head. If I wasn't
building wounds, it was obvious, if I was destroying certain limbs, it was
obvious, if I was slowly building over time, it was obvious. All you need to do
is pay attention, and you will know reliably what wound levels you have built
up, it's not about seeing one aff, it's about watching the whole fight and
paying attention to each strike or swing.