Random Achaea Thoughts

Exelethril

Feel free to post random thoughts about Achaea here, not necessarily thoughtful/logical but not asinine.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being targetted by some people of the A-team and do nothing but illusion touch tree/eat kelp, whether their aff tracking scripts would just hit me over and over again with paralysis/asthma.

Jovolo

Haha. That's pretty funny. Also ironic though coming from a Greeny. Everyone is guilty of it nowadays

Aepas

my random thoughts on that automation is that I wish offensive affliction tracking would go away in general. I hate seeing the scripts that are pretty much just mash F1 and it chooses your venoms for you.

Granted the higher tiers won't fall for this kind of stuff, but I still rather enjoyed combat more when it was more memory muscle and anticipation. It is what it is though.

I wonder what achaea would be like with a more enforced RP policy. I'd like it

Austere

Depends on the user more than the script, I would think.  I have a fully functional backup offense,  just because I know how quickly one unchecked illusion can throw things off.  I don't think it's fair to single out the A-Team at this point,  though.  I have helped people from Eleusis,  Targossas,  and Mhaldor set up my scripts.  People can complain all they want, the fact is such scripts have been around for at least three years.  The elitist attitude of a certain someone selling their system for way more than it was worth was the reason behind my releasing.  I hate price gouging.  I realize that maybe three people in Achaea can utilize my system to it's max.  Everyone reading about how amazing aff tracking is automatically thinks one button kill.  Is it doable?  Yes.  Is it recommended? No.  The more you rely on a machine to do,  the less situational awareness you have.  There is a reason no afftracker (to my knowledge) comes with fully thought out attack scripts. I have taken out a lot of things,  just to avoid giving away tactics and theory that have taken me a long time to learn. .  Have some random kid download and install my script.  Guaranteed that be can't get a kill.  Now if he can figure out what to do and how to do it,  he deserves the kill, whether he is manual or auto.  I know of at least two people that strictly use my offense tracker to track offense.  They are still fully manual,  but like the functionality of being able to review logs easier or at a glance decide their next aff. Honestly,  I think the best offense relies on a combination of manual and automatic. 

Edit: sorry about the book report response.  I tried to tone down it a bit,  but felt it was all relevant. I support the system because I can't use it currently,  others can,  and I love random donations.  If a divine ever stepped in and asked me not to,  or banned the logic behind them,  I would stop.  I would estimate that I have cleared 170 credits through my system. It's not really worth the return to do it the way I do,  but it opens up more difficult classes to novices.  Isn't that the goal?  To encourage combat? 

Atalkez

All alias offense ftw

Adaele

Packs hold so much,  they are like a TARDIS!

Aziik

@Adaele and you can put a pack in a pack...so a TARDIS within a TARDIS *Insert theme music here*

Jovolo

Atalkez said:

All alias offense ftw

It doesn't count if the aliases preset your offence to the same effect as automation

Cooper

I have Austere's tracker, but haven't used it in a fight in any way. It's fun to mess around with it though. 

I feel it's more fun to decide what to do myself in a fight, even in groups, even if it's not the most efficient. 

I didn't know the A-team coordinated their attacks with a group affliction tracker though, that's actually pretty disappointing for me to learn.

Also, big huge lulz to an Eleusian complaining about auto anything. I could probably pull up 3 or 4 logs in the last week of getting killed by Eleusis in under a second with attacks from 6+people. One of them was full health, cage, burst in .6s. Was hilarious. 

Exelethril

Cooper said:

I have Austere's tracker, but haven't used it in a fight in any way. It's fun to mess around with it though. 

I feel it's more fun to decide what to do myself in a fight, even in groups, even if it's not the most efficient. 

I didn't know the A-team coordinated their attacks with a group affliction tracker though, that's actually pretty disappointing for me to learn.

Also, big huge lulz to an Eleusian complaining about auto anything. I could probably pull up 3 or 4 logs in the last week of getting killed by Eleusis in under a second with attacks from 6+people. One of them was full health, cage, burst in .6s. Was hilarious. 

I'm not complaining, it was a quip. I don't even know if they coordinate their attacks with a group affliction tracker but there is efficiency in what they do.

Austere

Cooper said:

I didn't know the A-team coordinated their attacks with a group affliction tracker though, that's actually pretty disappointing for me to learn.

If Ashtan is using a group affliction tracker,  it is not mine.  I wrote a few things wonky enough to avoid party relays(Without major drawbacks and erroneous relays). One paralysis trigger firing would cause everyone in the party to repeat it.  All stabs would still be single line relays (dstab included(one party echo per venom)). People would instantly notice that it was full combat info relay. This is not currently the case. 

Kuy

Some of Ashtan does. I still don't understand why people are so adamant against scripted offenses. There are downsides and upsides to scripted, script-enhanced, and full manual offense.

It's just the evolution of PK. I understand that some people feel it sets an unreasonably high entry bar since we don't all come from coding backgrounds. However, anyone can learn to do it. You just have to try. If you don't want to, that's great. It doesn't make you any more or less of a combatant.

Ruth

I am thinking about how I may further develop Ruth's character in light of new responsibilities, different focuses and obligations!

Kuy

Ruth said:

I am thinking about how I may further develop Ruth's character in light of new responsibilities, different focuses and obligations!

I think Ruth needs a son.

Sarapis

I'm more about Deep Thoughts than Random Thoughts.










And one all the Garden can relate to:

Sarapis

Kuy said:

Some of Ashtan does. I still don't understand why people are so adamant against scripted offenses. There are downsides and upsides to scripted, script-enhanced, and full manual offense.

It's just the evolution of PK. I understand that some people feel it sets an unreasonably high entry bar since we don't all come from coding backgrounds. However, anyone can learn to do it. You just have to try. If you don't want to, that's great. It doesn't make you any more or less of a combatant.

For the same reason people are against steroids in sports.

Austere

Sarapis said:

Kuy said:

Some of Ashtan does. I still don't understand why people are so adamant against scripted offenses. There are downsides and upsides to scripted, script-enhanced, and full manual offense.

It's just the evolution of PK. I understand that some people feel it sets an unreasonably high entry bar since we don't all come from coding backgrounds. However, anyone can learn to do it. You just have to try. If you don't want to, that's great. It doesn't make you any more or less of a combatant.

For the same reason people are against steroids in sports.

The difference being,  kills using steroids makes your epeen larger, but in rl... Not so much. 

Also, I think that a better comparison to steroids would be artefacts. .

Kuy

Sarapis said:

Kuy said:

Some of Ashtan does. I still don't understand why people are so adamant against scripted offenses. There are downsides and upsides to scripted, script-enhanced, and full manual offense.

It's just the evolution of PK. I understand that some people feel it sets an unreasonably high entry bar since we don't all come from coding backgrounds. However, anyone can learn to do it. You just have to try. If you don't want to, that's great. It doesn't make you any more or less of a combatant.

For the same reason people are against steroids in sports.

This isn't really a good metaphor for those of us who taught ourselves how to code, though. A sport related metaphor for those folks would be someone who trained harder than others to reach a level they haven't quite reached themselves.

I'm rather proud of myself for learning how to make my own aff tracker, even more proud of my logic for herb stacks, and even more proud of my anti-illusion checks. Is any of it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it still my brain-baby? Yup.

Sarapis

Austere said:

Now if he can figure out what to do and how to do it,  he deserves the kill, whether he is manual or auto.  

Um, no. This is no more true than it's true to say that if I can figure out how to build a robot to hit home runs for me, I deserve to win baseball games. 

Herenicus

edit: more to the point, I want combat that relies more on human reflexes and intuition than somebody's background in computer science. Players shouldn't need to be a programmer or keep one on retainer to enjoy PvP. Encouraging this trend will reduce the audience for PvP, making it more of a minigame between code enthusiasts than a storytelling mechanism to discover and enjoy. 
       

Sarapis

Kuy said:

This isn't really a good metaphor for those of us who taught ourselves how to code, though. A sport related metaphor for those folks would be someone who trained harder than others to reach a level they haven't quite reached themselves.

I'm rather proud of myself for learning how to make my own aff tracker, even more proud of my logic for herb stacks, and even more proud of my anti-illusion checks. Is any of it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it still my brain-baby? Yup.

A better metaphor, then, is writing a chess program that plays chess better than you do and then claiming victory at chess when the program wins a chess game. What you're good at in that case isn't playing chess. What you're good at is writing a program to play chess instead of you. They aren't the same thing at all.

Cooper

There's been a definite mindset swing with Achaea over the years. Part of me still feels like I did 15 years ago - scripts are bad, manual is good, systems are for noobs, etc.

But it is getting more and more difficult to compete with those who don't mind letting scripts handle large portions of their offense.

I've never been able to code more than fairly simple if/then statements (I can do more on zmud), but I am sometimes able to make sense of other people's scripts and edit as necessary. I don't feel that anyone should need to learn how to code in order to be able to fight on Achaea, and it's a shame that it's pretty much become that way.

I am disappointed that (if?) A-Team uses an affliction tracker for their offense because I thought they were just that skilled to know what to do in every situation.

Taraus

Sarapis said:

I'm more about Deep Thoughts than Random Thoughts.

I CAME IN HERE TO POST JUST THAT YOU SON OF A BITCH YOU BEAT ME TO IT

Ruth

Kuy said:

Ruth said:

I am thinking about how I may further develop Ruth's character in light of new responsibilities, different focuses and obligations!

I think Ruth needs a son.

DO I?! Hmmmmmmm

Kuy

Sarapis said:

Kuy said:

This isn't really a good metaphor for those of us who taught ourselves how to code, though. A sport related metaphor for those folks would be someone who trained harder than others to reach a level they haven't quite reached themselves.

I'm rather proud of myself for learning how to make my own aff tracker, even more proud of my logic for herb stacks, and even more proud of my anti-illusion checks. Is any of it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it still my brain-baby? Yup.

A better metaphor, then, is writing a chess program that plays chess better than you do and then claiming victory at chess when the program wins a chess game. What you're good at in that case isn't playing chess. What you're good at is writing a program to play chess instead of you. They aren't the same thing at all.

That's way more than what offense-related scripting does when it's successful. It doesn't fight for you. It doesn't kill for you. It doesn't play the game for you. It's a tool that you use, not something you just turn on. It doesn't save you from staying too long against an occultist, take defense measures for you when a serpent snaps, or properly defend your vitals when a BM double breaks you. Even offensively, it doesn't adapt to every possible situation, the changing prios of a smart opponent, or can it ever be truly illusion proof.

Every argument against a script-infused offensive seems to assume assume it's "set and forget." That assumption is wrong.

Herenicus

Fine, but there will be people who'd rather not PvP against a significant offensive script because, to many of us, it really does remove the human element. And as the scripts become more advanced, the worse it gets.

Nakari

Sarapis said:

Austere said:

Now if he can figure out what to do and how to do it,  he deserves the kill, whether he is manual or auto.  

Um, no. This is no more true than it's true to say that if I can figure out how to build a robot to hit home runs for me, I deserve to win baseball games. 

I think that's an apt metaphor, really. A framework that attempts to reduce automation requires a very specific set of skills (very fast reading/analyzing text, typing speed, memorization) that may or may not be accessible to the majority of people.

Baseball, on the other hand, is not a sport that seeks to encourage accessibility by people who don't possess a certain skill set. Building a robot would obviously never be allowed because it's a very different solution to a game that only encourages and allows one. On the other hand, automation in Achaea allows for a different solution to the problems that combat poses. I know that I, for one, who tends to have a very slow typing speed, and can't come close to handling everything happening in combat, have turned to automation as something that (while I'm also terrible at it) seems to come to me far more easily.

Perhaps most significantly, something like baseball that prioritizes certain skills and offers few other options is not meant to be accessible. On the other hand, we seem to want Achaean combat to be something that people are able to actually aspire to and be able to reach. Automation, while in some ways setting the bar higher, also allows for quite a bit of help in making oneself better. 

So personally, I'd rather that Achaean combat were a game that rewards both the appropriate personal skills, as well as rewards someone for building robots to shore up the skills they have trouble with.

Kuy

Herenicus said:

Fine, but there will be people who'd rather not PvP against a significant offensive script because, to many of us, it really does remove the human element. And as the scripts become more advanced, the worse it gets.

How do you differentiate a properly used (note that I didn't say written) script from someone who is just very efficient in their manual selections? That's a poor stance to have since there's no true way to tell them apart.

When Carmain was the only person who beat my Jester mangle truelock during my fiddling, I didn't give up because his "automated" defense was too good to beat. I spent the next three hours trying new things on @Xinna, @Melodie , and @Aegoth to counter it.

Herenicus

Do you still have to chase balance on the way from point a to point z?

Kuy

Herenicus said:

Do you still have to chase balance on the way from point a to point z?

If you're using all the tools at your disposal, chasing balance isn't a relevant term anymore.

Kuy

Phone won't let me edit. That's not meant to be snarky. If you're not queuing, you haven't properly adapted to the current combat environment. That said, if the question is related to offensive scripting, I would say that anyone using it to its truest efficacy spams just as much as others.