Solved Rebalancing the Fighting System

[Pieter Boelen]

Sulan's modified file should not require a new game to be started.

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Tested with a new game anyways and my observations so far seem to reveal the following:
I'm getting melee experience at every level, no matter what level my opponent is. Tried levelling up during a fight with level 10 - 20 characters and levelled up to 200.
While the increase in melee became less and less the higher I levelled, I was definately getting small bits of experience in melee. A lot more as soon as I killed a character.
The only exception are the unarmed citizens that always spawn, I seem to be getting no experience at all for them.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

A lot more as soon as I killed a character.
The only exception are the unarmed citizens that always spawn, I seem to be getting no experience at all for them.

That is both intentional; I saw the code responsible for that.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers Baste,

The way I understand it, the level of opponents are calculated like this: Half of player's level + random number up to player's level - player's Luck divided by 3 x 2 divided by 3 plus difficulty value minus 1 divided by 5 + 0.5

Great thanks for posting this. Now this is very interesting.

That looks complicated, and I'm not sure if I expressed it correctly mathematically. Here it is in LAi_CreateOfficer, for both officers and opponents:

I think you expressed it correctly. And it is not so complicated as is looks first, once you get that there are 3 parts, one about the impact of pRank, one about pLuck, and one about difficulty.
I just calculated a bit by looking how the singular parts may look like when I put in some numbers ... to make it short:
Both pLuck and difficulty do not have much of an impact.
But pRank does.
This is because pRank is only devided by 2, and additionally there is this Rand(pRank) that gets into the whole unmodified). This is mainly responsible for the great range of levels ... both enemies and officers.
This means, the higher you advance in level, the higher the range of enemies / officers rank may be.

Unfortunately, this does not explain why fencing seems to be more difficult especially at lower levels. In fact, from that formula, I would expect to become much more difficult at higher levels.
So this does not solve our problem.
At least it is good to know we can exclude this from the list of possible causes.

Also, I don't mean to nag, but I would like some confirmation on whether or not my changes to the file I uploaded works.

Oops. I admit I did not use it, because especially in this game actually playing, I did not suffer from that problem. I'll use it now and look how it works in the next few combats.

Edit:
Just fought a patrol of soldiers that interrupted my smuggling, did not gain melee, but defence.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok Baste I tried some fighting at Philipsburg. The Sewer there is bad for me because the point of view is right on top of my character which means I could not see what I was doing. So left after a short fight. Then went outside of time and got into a good fight where we were outnumbered. Survived but did not get any melee points. More testing needed.

 

[Skyworm]

I too did some more fighting.
This included several groups of enemies in jungle, and several ship captains fighting in duels.
I gained at least 1% defence in any combat, but not a single % melee in all combats.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have gone up 2 skill levels without even 1% gain in Melee. I lost another officer too.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

When the fencing skill increase stops, are you still getting those log messages I put in?

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

I have gone up 2 skill levels without even 1% gain in Melee. I lost another officer too.

Seems to be different for me,

When the fencing skill increase stops, are you still getting those log messages I put in?

For me, the increase never stops, I'm constantly getting those message, even at level 200 I was getting around 5 points of melee xp according to them. But maybe the increase is just too little to result in advancing in % ?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

But maybe the increase is just too little to result in advancing in % ?

Could be.

 

[Skyworm]

Arghs - not sure what messsages you mean. I look into it.

Here we go. This now is a typical fight, looks like all others I had lately. Unfortunately, I still can't upload anything here, but this should work, too.

Note that I gained 3% defence, but no melee.
Character rank is 8,
melee is 95% 6-5
defence is 79% 4-5

Defence I gain in any combat, but melee has not changed since I was in that dungeon to practice, and that was very early in the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed I'm not even SEEING the Fencing log message there. That should give us a bit of a hint.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just wanted to throw out there: How quick IS your fencing? If you ALWAYS block between slashes, even if just for a split second, you can IMMEDIATELY attack again and don't have to wait for the animation to finish.
Most of you probably already know this, but on the off-chance that you don't, it should give you a nice advantage.

 

[Skyworm]

You mean: I block ... and don't need to wait until my opponent slashes into my block, but can strike immediately, for böock will be "up" for some seconds even if the animation shows me striking?
I think I was half aware of that.
But I admit I don't like it. I like fencing look like .. well ... fencing. Which means I usually remain in blocking animation, until my opponent has actually attacked me, and then strike at him. It just looks better.
That may sound stupid not to use an advantage, but if I would use it, it would cut into my immersion, and immersion is the very cause why I enjoy playing games.

But back to our subject.
In this game I am doing much better at melee than in any game I did before. That can be for several reasons:
- I focused on getting my melee skill up very early, by practicing in the Jamaica dungeon
- maybe this practice not only helped the character to get his skill up, but also the player
- maybe my choice of weapon is slightly better, and I set the game so I could buy good armors earlier

Still the problem remains, that melee skill seems to get stuck and not further advance at some point.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I mean that Attack>Block>Attack is quicker than Attack>Attack is.

That skill increase thing will need to be checked. Suppose I'll need to do a bit of actual playing myself for that, which I will be doing soon after (or while) I help Don Lasagnetti with his sidequests.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Logs?

I'm at level 22 and a teacher got me up to level 5 melee, but on my own I have gained not even 1% while fighting from one end of some islands to the other and back.
Oh yeah, I got caught on a smuggling run but fought my way out and did not meet any ships on the way out, but my reputation went from HERO to NEUTRAL. Back up to Bloke now.



Skyworm: Are you converting your screenies to jpeg first? You should be able to post.

I just downloaded your pic and uploaded it. I do not understand why you can not.

 

[Skyworm]

Skyworm: Are you converting your screenies to jpeg first? You should be able to post.

I should be able, and in fact I was able to upload things here, both pictures and zips, but since few days, it's not possible any longer.
Error is this:
The following error occurred

There was a problem uploading your file.

Unfortunately, that doesn't tell me anyting useful.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Skyworm's screenshot proves that something is indeed actively preventing the Fencing skill increase.
Once you're up to Beta 2.5 WIP 1 and run into this problem, please make a savegame and post it.
Then I can test the scenario and see what is going wrong.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It is working at the start of beta 2.5.

 

[Skyworm]

Here too, so far the same as in the previous game.