Discussion of Limb Counting, What's Right and What's Wrong.

Jacen

We've had several tangents in several threads on limbcounting and the pros and cons, but never a dedicated thread for discussion. Here's a few topics to begin discussion on.

1.) Targeted weapon attacks should/not rebound targeted limb damage when hitting rebounding.

2.) The limb damage formula used by Achaea should/not be made known to the playerbase.

3.) Limb breaks, with the exception of torso, should/not be made visible roomwide, as opposed to only the victim.

4.) Salve applications should/not indicate which specific limb is being applied to.

As for my opinions:

1.) I was staunchly against rebounding limb damage in the past; now, its really doesn't matter to me. Rebounding isn't as important defense as say, focus or insomnia, but it is useful. I never smoke skullcap and I have learned to adjust to it. I think so long as any limb damage/resetting techniques are visible to the attacker, those techniques are acceptable.

2.) Completely undecided on this one. Revealing the formula would allow any decent scripter to have a self limb counter, and automatically cure torso when its broken, as was pointed out by @Iocun in a different thread. Revealing the forumula would have the largest impact on monks, as the only factor that changes their limb damage, knuckles, are visible on their person and thus easily accounted for. Blademaster bands are not so easily visible, and Knight weapon stats are invisible. As it stands, there are certain health ranges randomly distributed over the range of maxhealth that offer increased protection against correct limb breaking, which gives an small but tangible advantage to that small portion of Achaea. Revealing the limb damage formula would remove this. Undecided at this point, would like to hear from more experienced players.

3.) In favor of showing limb breaks for all but torso. I don't understand why the paralysis message is visible but not limb breaks. 

4.) In favor of this as well, for pretty much the same reasons above.

Nemutaur

1) Nah, this is fine. It forces you to make a choice and drop rebounding to help your offense to progress while sacrificing some defense.

2) Some people already have reverse limb counters for monks at least but i'd keep the formula(s) hidden.

3) No, firstly I'm not sure what implications this would have for group combat but fake salve applying and psyching out a monk is sometimes one of the only defenses someone has to an otherwise simple and foolproof prep.

4) No, it's not that hard to figure out what healed if a person applies to legs and both were broken.

Garao

!) No. Not sure why that's even a topic for discussion.

2) I've said this before... there are very accurate formulas out there that are next to ALWAYS correct. If they aren't, then figure it out as you're fighting. Gawd damn.

3) Salve breaks have no specific limb to be cured at time of application (Apart from whether or not it's arms or legs.). 

4) You should nearly always know what limb was cured by a salve application. (Possible mistakes for fake applies, lag spam applies, and even then it isn't exactly a total mystery.)

I don't want to sound patronising or condescending, because questions are always encouraged It would be better if you posted questions in class questions (or learned in game, but either is fine) so you can learn more before suggesting discussion about certain changes like this. It sounds like you're confused on how limb damage works, soo

Mishgul

limb damage combat is fine as is.

Jacen

2.) I'd put my counter up against most out there (I know for a fact that its at least as accurate as Penwize's) and I'm constantly finding incorrect breakpoints, due to my haphazard combos of kicks and punches. I understand that prepping two punches at a time is the efficient way to do things, but relegating monk to an axe-throwing, two punch class just doesn't seem acceptable to me. The kicks are there, the flavor is nice, we shouldn't be punished for using them. This goes in to 4.) in that sometimes I'll double break, but they'll only cure one limb, and I'll be clueless as to what limb was cured. Again, my fault for using kicks, but I think Tekura accuracy is a sufficient deterrent to using kicks already.

Its often said that defense in general is OP. These are small nerfs to defense that will aide all limb counting classes. With guarding likely to be nerfed soon (and rightly so), unartied monk will be a laughable class as it stands.

Aktillum

Parry more.

Garao

You doublebreak but they only cure one limb? How does that work? 

Or do you mean to say you thought you were going to double break, but they stood up after only curing a single leg? If that is the case, pick a random leg, go forward with the intent of breaking it. If it breaks fairly soon, you can assume that was the leg that did not break. If it doesn't, keep your count on that leg, and go for the other leg as the former clearly wasn't prepped (I.e, did not break within a few punches). 

If you mean that it really was a doublebreak but you're not sure what limb they're curing. The left side always cures first, it is why people go for mangle 'locks' with axekick on the right leg. 

Antonius

Jacen said:

This goes in to 4.) in that sometimes I'll double break, but they'll only cure one limb, and I'll be clueless as to what limb was cured.

Salve apply messages already include the body part - head, torso, arms or legs - if you specify it in the command and, unless it's changed, arms and legs always cure in the same order if both are broken (I think it's right first, but I'd have to check). Knowing what has been cured shouldn't ever be an issue.

1. I'm not a fan of limb damage rebounding, mainly due to the massively disproportionate costs on each side. If I hit rebounding, I take some damage and delay my offense by a single attack - since I get to control when I do it, I can make sure it happens at a time when taking that damage isn't going to really harm me at all. My opponent, on the other hand, could be looking at completely losing an entire round of prep work if a limb breaks when they don't expect it to.

2. Knowing the formula would be nice offensively, but would be even nicer defensively. I'd prefer not to see it happen. Yes, some people already have them, but they at least require a certain amount of effort on the part of the individual - making the formula public would open them up to absolutely everybody.

3. Fake applies are a valid tactic, and not one I have a problem with; if you don't know when you're going to get your breaks, that's on you.

4. As I already mentioned, I don't see any need for this.

Garao

@Antonius read my post :P

Haha! Fair enough!

Antonius

@Garao: Your post wasn't there when I started writing mine an hour ago!

Vaehl

1.) Targeted weapon attacks should/not rebound targeted limb damage when hitting rebounding.

Lmao.

2.) The limb damage formula used by Achaea should/not be made known to the playerbase.

Lol.

3.) Limb breaks, with the exception of torso, should/not be made visible roomwide, as opposed to only the victim.

Rofl.

4.) Salve applications should/not indicate which specific limb is being applied to.

...Lol.

Ok, now Garao can speak for me.

Tvistor

Good work not making anyone feel bad for posting ideas, Vaehl.

Vaehl is a bad idea.

Jacen

Vaehl

srry.

Achilles

Vaehl is just a series of bad ideas

Vaehl

Achilles said:

Vaehl is just a series of bad ideas

Shouldn't you be off whining about Occultists being overpowered somewhere?

Tvistor

Won't reply unless you tag him with his truename.

Tanris

1. Rebound mechanics actually good. Requires you to make a payoff between offense and defence or take that risk.

2. Don't even think a limb counting formula is necessary in the first place personally. Just prep limbs equally and you'll either learn breakpoints from experience or will at worst overbreak one limb (assuming no pre damage, which is a different argument entirely).

3/4: Fake applies are legitimate.

On monks: you can kick but swk is there to deal with tekuras terrible accuracy (which still isn't as bad as it used to be pre traits because now everyone has sub 13 dex due to minmaxing int/str/con). If you struggle with tracking kicks, don't use them and prep with punches then set off breaks with kicks. If somethings inefficient, using it for something non optimal just because its there isn't doing yourself any favours. (Rsl, anyone.) If you can count with kicks, awesome, you'll probably prep much faster than other monks (and hit parry a good deal more), but don't honestly see the issue there.

Tvistor

I don't even know how you prep with kicks, unless one kick translates into a certain amount of punches universally.

(I have never played a limb damage class)

Cooper

Just take the time to learn kick/punch breakpoints if you want to use kicks.

Test this:

0 kicks X punches

1 kick X punches

2 kicks X punches

3 kicks X punches

4 kicks X punches

And code that into your limb break tracker.

Jacen

Tanris said:

1. Rebound mechanics actually good. Requires you to make a payoff between offense and defence or take that risk.

2. Don't even think a limb counting formula is necessary in the first place personally. Just prep limbs equally and you'll either learn breakpoints from experience or will at worst overbreak one limb (assuming no pre damage, which is a different argument entirely).

3/4: Fake applies are legitimate.

On monks: you can kick but swk is there to deal with tekuras terrible accuracy (which still isn't as bad as it used to be pre traits because now everyone has sub 13 dex due to minmaxing int/str/con). If you struggle with tracking kicks, don't use them and prep with punches then set off breaks with kicks. If somethings inefficient, using it for something non optimal just because its there isn't doing yourself any favours. (Rsl, anyone.) If you can count with kicks, awesome, you'll probably prep much faster than other monks (and hit parry a good deal more), but don't honestly see the issue there.

No clue how to split the quote up so sorry for bad formatting. 

1.) I see your point, but I also see @Antonius's point as well. Its not really a big deal, because I've learned to fight without it, but when I first found out about rebounding limb damage, it made me sick. 

2.) I think my biggest point here is the absence of variety if you stick to the swk/punch/punch method. Monk prepping is twice as fast with kicks without much of a sacrifice at all, with swk accuracy terrible and axe throwing better, but expensive to get in to. I guess I just need to slow my offense down, hinder and punch more, and stop kicking.

3-4.) Hmm... I guess my question here is why are fake salve applies legitimate? And why does #4 affect fake salve applies?

Tvistor

I always found the double-edged nature of rebounding extremely interesting.

Tanris

Double salve applies are legitimate because for some people (either through inability to afford a good curing system, or unwillingness to invest in such) or due to level constraints (or fighting a hugely artied opponent as someone with no arties as an untanky class) they are the only way to survive reallistically. There are some inevitable situations/matchups where a setup is going to kill the person 100% of the time with nothing they can do about it. Deceiving a person into not getting that setup for as long as possible is the only recourse in those situations, and one of the few real intellectual barriers a limb based class must overcome.

Seeing when a limb breaks is relevant because the point of fake apply is to make someone think they've broken the limb when they haven't.

Cooper

I don't care about fake applies. What I care about is pre-limb damage. Ugh, that is so annoying to go into a fight and having to reset people's limbs before you can start the fight. And then sometimes you don't know if they had pre-damage or if they fake applied, and then it gets really messy from there.

Jacen

@Tanris I meant why does showing what limb was applied to affect fake salve application? If they have the ability to execute that simple defensive maneuver, at least we should make them work hard enough to pick the correct limb, which isn't difficult at all against monks and knights.

@Cooper. What sort of solution do you see to this?

My point in making this thread was to allow some of the ideas about unbalanced classes/abilities that I'm sure the ACL is throwing around to filter down to us mid/low tier fighters. I think the ideal situation is for combat to be balanced around as many levels as possible

Garao

'Tanris takes some stuff from a vial and rubs it on his legs.'

What are you suggesting at this point?

Cooper

There isn't a solution, other than paying careful attention to the timing of the applies and knowing your opponents. It doesn't need fixed because it isn't broken.

Jacen

Tanris takes some salve from a vial and applies it to his right leg

Garao

umm

For clarity, limb curing does not work like that. The exact limb to be cured is not specified at the initial apply @Jacen. For example, if you only had a broken right leg, and apply restoration. 3 seconds after you apply restoration your left leg breaks. Your left leg will cure. etc

Eld

Specifying which side also wouldn't really work for faking salve application by, say, applying mass to legs, or applying mending when neither limb is crippled, since there isn't an effect on a particular limb in those cases and you don't target the side in the application.

Iocun

They could just let us decide which side to apply to! But somehow I think people who play limb-breaking classes would dislike this even a tad more... :P