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08-19-2003, 12:17 AM

yes, my maths and stats background craves to know more! there was a fascinating thread at another board i lurk at (sorry, cant remember which or find the thread) where they came up with two main hypotheses:

(before i get into this, i must mention this is going to be a bit tedious, and perhaps a bit frustrating since we cant really know as the others have pointed out. furthermore, my examples are really hypothetical as i'm not certain of all the modifiers for the various skills and outcomes.)

a) to determine the result of an attack, the game calculates a series of random values tested against you skills/abilities vs. your opponents skills/abilities, with each subsequent random value potentially resulting in an even better outcome. so, for example, your samurai swings.

i) first, the game *rolls* to see if you hit, based on the cumulative modifiers of relevant skills/abilities (eg sword, close combat, dex) vs. opponent's armour class
ii) if you hit, the game *rolls* to see if you penetrate, again based on relevant modifiers (eg strength, sword, close combat) vs. opponent's armour class
iii) if you penetrate, the game *rolls* to see if the result is a) normal damage, b) lightning strike, or c) critical strike, where, again, all your modifiers apply
iv) if you do normal damage (or lightning strike) the game *rolls* for damage and ammortises down according to damage resistance.

this implies that you have to surpass numerous tests to get to the best results. statistically, that would mean it is exponentially more difficult to get the better results, particularly against opponents with high armour classes.

b) the other hypothesis is that there is a single roll to determine the outcome, and that the likelihood of each outcome is represented, based on your skills/abilities and your opponent's skills/abilities, as a proportion from this single table. so, taking the same samurai swing:

i) as an example, let's say the roll for the outcome goes from 01-100. for a given samurai and given opponent, 01-30 might result in a miss, 31-50 in a no penetrate, 51-80 normal damage, 81-90 enhanced damage (eg head hit), 91-95 lightning strike, 96+ critical strike.
ii) but for a different samurai, with lower skills, the results may be distributed as: 01-50 miss, 51-75 no penetrate, 76-90 normal damage, 91-95 enhanced damage, 96-99 lightning strike, 100 critical strike

in this scenario the distribution of strikes is determined directly from attack and defense stats, and because the result stems from a single "random" event, your ability to get better results wouldnt be exponentially penalised by the need to achieve numerous previous events.

furthermore, each of the above calculation scenarios would apply to each strike, meaning that the more strikes you get, the more chances there are of each outcome. given that many battles will run for a long time, with multiple strikes per round, it may actually be reasonable for the exponential event model (hypothesis A) to be true.

anyway, it's fascinating to me.

in practice, i find that items with high critical strikes (eg staff of doom, fang, stilleto) perform as well or better than classes with high critical strike skill and low critical strike weapon bonuses, given the same number of swings. this would seem to imply that, for comparison purposes, your critical strike skill divided by 10 is on the same scale as the listed instant kill percentage for an item.

08-19-2003, 12:17 AM	#7
sultan Guest Posts: n/a	yes, my maths and stats background craves to know more! there was a fascinating thread at another board i lurk at (sorry, cant remember which or find the thread) where they came up with two main hypotheses: (before i get into this, i must mention this is going to be a bit tedious, and perhaps a bit frustrating since we cant really know as the others have pointed out. furthermore, my examples are really hypothetical as i'm not certain of all the modifiers for the various skills and outcomes.) a) to determine the result of an attack, the game calculates a series of random values tested against you skills/abilities vs. your opponents skills/abilities, with each subsequent random value potentially resulting in an even better outcome. so, for example, your samurai swings. i) first, the game rolls to see if you hit, based on the cumulative modifiers of relevant skills/abilities (eg sword, close combat, dex) vs. opponent's armour class ii) if you hit, the game rolls to see if you penetrate, again based on relevant modifiers (eg strength, sword, close combat) vs. opponent's armour class iii) if you penetrate, the game rolls to see if the result is a) normal damage, b) lightning strike, or c) critical strike, where, again, all your modifiers apply iv) if you do normal damage (or lightning strike) the game rolls for damage and ammortises down according to damage resistance. this implies that you have to surpass numerous tests to get to the best results. statistically, that would mean it is exponentially more difficult to get the better results, particularly against opponents with high armour classes. b) the other hypothesis is that there is a single roll to determine the outcome, and that the likelihood of each outcome is represented, based on your skills/abilities and your opponent's skills/abilities, as a proportion from this single table. so, taking the same samurai swing: i) as an example, let's say the roll for the outcome goes from 01-100. for a given samurai and given opponent, 01-30 might result in a miss, 31-50 in a no penetrate, 51-80 normal damage, 81-90 enhanced damage (eg head hit), 91-95 lightning strike, 96+ critical strike. ii) but for a different samurai, with lower skills, the results may be distributed as: 01-50 miss, 51-75 no penetrate, 76-90 normal damage, 91-95 enhanced damage, 96-99 lightning strike, 100 critical strike in this scenario the distribution of strikes is determined directly from attack and defense stats, and because the result stems from a single "random" event, your ability to get better results wouldnt be exponentially penalised by the need to achieve numerous previous events. furthermore, each of the above calculation scenarios would apply to each strike, meaning that the more strikes you get, the more chances there are of each outcome. given that many battles will run for a long time, with multiple strikes per round, it may actually be reasonable for the exponential event model (hypothesis A) to be true. anyway, it's fascinating to me. in practice, i find that items with high critical strikes (eg staff of doom, fang, stilleto) perform as well or better than classes with high critical strike skill and low critical strike weapon bonuses, given the same number of swings. this would seem to imply that, for comparison purposes, your critical strike skill divided by 10 is on the same scale as the listed instant kill percentage for an item.