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Ground floor!  Now to balance testing time versus being sure I get a slot... and I'll see if I can't make a corrected size chart in the next few days for the new race sizes, but my time's a bit sparse.
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Jul 22, 2011 08:57
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Well, for anyone who may read the thread while making my mistake, note that after you create a fighter character, you have to apply to join the tournament; you can't just make a character and be done with it. I'd be a few spots higher in the list if I'd figured that out from the get-go. Not that it matters.
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Jul 22, 2011 11:38
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Shorter Than Some posted:Edit, also I followed the last thread for a bit but then lost track, I don't know if their were any tournaments since the adventure update which changed combat (especially combat AI) a bit, but if there was could clue me in as to whether it has changed the viability of any builds massively? If you have any specific questions I'd be glad to pontificate on something approaching their point, but it'd be hard to just give general pointers. Whips and scourges are less murdermonsters now, and picks are more competitive, though.
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Jul 22, 2011 23:01
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Some statistics as of now, through #73 Robo-Prancer MK.II: Gremlin: 4 Gnome: 3 Kobold: 4 Stranger: 4 Serpent: 6 Soldier Ant: 2 Dwarf: 5 Elf: 3 Goblin: 3 Human: 11 Molemarian: 2 Werewolf: 6 Tigerman: 6 Minotaur: 6 Troll: 4 Yeti: 4 Median Size: 70 Mode Size: 70 Mean Size: 71.4 Female: 15 Male: 58 It seems it's the tournament of the humans this time. Of special note I'm gonna say that antwomen are definitely higher-tier than they're represented so far. If you're looking for a unique niche that isn't a joke, try an ant. Gremlins, on the other hand, have actually been buffed but are still a risky proposition like you wouldn't believe. Also invite some friends for a nice, big tournament.
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Jul 23, 2011 02:57
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I have. I'm 90% sure that individual weapons and shields each get their own parry/block chance.
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Jul 23, 2011 06:04
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The game models bleeding out pretty well, actually. The larger you are, the more little cuts you can take. If you have better endurance/recuperation/toughness, you can take hits better. Not sure which exactly governs what there. Only a few things will make you bleed out in short order. Major damage to the heart, gut, or the removal of limbs will do it--in ascending order of how much time you have left. I've seen a few unfortunate gladiators attempt to keep fighting while down up to three limbs, though that's never ended well for that guy. Edged weapons with a larger contact area deal more grievous blows, though they are less effective against armor they can't cut through. A spear point doesn't leave much of an injury; it's more a pin-prick. A great axe or halberd against a soft target will often bisect the unfortunate victim (in a test, I saw a human halberdier cut a yeti in two at the waist). Keep in mind that weapon size is independent of its wielder; a yeti holds the same dagger that a gremlin does. You don't get much of a bleeding problem from bashing weapons, and there's a few other ways to kill a target.
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Jul 23, 2011 06:59
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Shorter Than Some posted:Is there any way to save a build to make testing less tedious? Yes. If you have problems with that, though, probably better to ask in the games thread than here.
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Jul 23, 2011 16:57
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Orv posted:Something I kept considering during the last tournament was a dual-spear ant woman. I'm almost tempted to give it a shot, but I suspect the results would be. . .well, messy. The only problem with this concept is the cost of paying for two decent spears. Otherwise, or if you're willing to gamble with one or both made of cheap material, this is quite a decent set-up. Ants are a pretty good race, and I think spears may be their best choice as far as edged weapons. Shorter Than Some posted:How is dual wielding at the moment? Is it still you get parries but no attacks with the offhand? If so is there a way to guarantee which hand is the primary? So for example you don't buy a steel sword that never gets used. Okay, this is going to be a little complex. Your gladiator, assuming he has more than one weapon in his hands, picks which one he's using semi-randomly. Most of the time, a gladiator with decent weapon skill with one option and less/none with another will pick his best option. So if a spearman had a dagger in his offhand, he would favor the spear most of the time. I'd say 'all' the time, but once I saw this reverse itself, out of say a dozen tries. Not sure what was different there. Now, if you have several weapons that all use the same skill--say a wooden short sword and an adamantine longsword--the one he favors using seems to be random. It doesn't line up to what order you give them to the fighter or any other variable I can seem to control. However, off-hand weapons (all but the one randomly favored one) still count for two things: they all get their own parry chances, I'm pretty sure, and if a random chance for an attack comes up they'll use them then. If you're testing and you see a gladiator mix up his normal attack with bites and punches, that's these random chance attacks; an off-hand weapon can be used as well. So two weapons of the same skill but different materials/types is inherently a gamble. Two identical weapons is an expensive but interesting proposition. A good weapon and some off-hands of a different skill (and one you have less ranks in) is an alternative to a shield that gives you more offensive chance at the expense of more points and less defensive power, especially against bows.
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Jul 24, 2011 21:51
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Shorter Than Some posted:Thanks, why would you say spears are the best edged weapons? They aren't for everyone. Edged weapons have to balance point costs versus contact area and strength versus weapon's power. If it costs too much, you don't have enough to buy your other useful things. Contact area is a double-edged sword; the smaller the contact area, the more likely you are to do some damage through armor, and more so as you have more strength. Small contact areas, though, don't injure the enemy as much; one knife hit isn't as likely to debilitate as a halberd hit. Large contact areas are worse against armor but a clean hit can lop off necessary bits of the body. Ants are very strong for their size, but they're small and their weapon options are limited. Their best options for edged weapons probably are a toss-up between spear, battleaxe, and longsword, and of those I've seen best results with the spear. I'd lean other ways for other races.
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Jul 24, 2011 22:55
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Suran37 posted:Wait, am I to late to apply to enter the tournament? Email Vox Nihili with a build at iamvoxnihili (at) gmail.com You're in time for a battle royale, with several gladiators having a last-man-standing match for the last regular spot in the tournament. But if I were you, I wouldn't delay too much in getting the build in; Vox hasn't given a hard deadline, but it could be pretty much any time now.
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Jul 26, 2011 22:31
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Battle Royale, ZeeToo, Atom Ant in Adamant, 50 Battle Royale, ZeeToo, Binary Mary, 50 Battle Royale, ZeeToo, Crotch Rot, 50 Battle Royale, ZeeToo, Podima, 50 Watch this still go bad for me.
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Jul 28, 2011 05:21
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drat. I had a 2/3 chance of that gamble paying off well... not so hot a start this time as last tournament.
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Jul 28, 2011 09:52
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I threw 50+ dwarf contestants into an all-independent free for all. Martial trances can happen like this, but it's rare.
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Jul 29, 2011 09:22
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I have frittered away all my remaining money! Let's see how good my instincts are. 
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Jul 30, 2011 07:57
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Dirty Frank posted:A Troll, Elizabeth Bennet is no speciesist, in fact some of her best friends are Trolls! And this Troll is a Lord which must count for something, as long as he's civil all will be well. In reply, Lord Zybourne adjusted his monocle and top hat, and spewed forth a strange line which, according to leading cryptologists, suggested that a copy of her shall be sent to the back of the line.
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Jul 30, 2011 10:07
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Copper shields. Adamantine scourge. Platinum breastplate. Some interesting equipment load-outs.
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Jul 31, 2011 08:30
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Maugrim posted:Encouraging for my gremlin, but I suspect it's a result of the small sample size and is shortly going to change.. Gremlins have always been fairly unpopular since their introduction. Not completely clear on why. Serpentmen are easier; biting as a sub ability didn't work yet when they were implemented, so why not take an antwoman, with the same size and point totals but with four arms? Serpentmen are, uh, a little better than a 0-3 race now, though. With first round point totals, they tend to destroy everything smaller. Boing posted:I am never wrestling a yeti If a yeti is trying to wrestle you, you don't really get a choice. ZeeToo fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Jul 31, 2011 |
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Jul 31, 2011 10:01
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Oh biting Good news: they bite anyway. It might be wise to pick up a rank or two if you advance, but if it's not your primary attack type, don't stress it too much.
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Jul 31, 2011 10:17
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That's much more sensible than my build
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Yeah, I have to agree with Vox that what we've seen of the little guys isn't spectacular as far as builds go. Incidentally, although it's too late for this round, there's a few of us hanging around on synirc at #arenachallenge who love to run tests and meddle in people's builds for those who advance and want a little aid in not getting creamed right off. Feel free to drop by.
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Jul 31, 2011 22:26
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Vox Nihili posted:I don't believe so, though archery is probably still worth investing in. Every shot is absolutely vital as a ranged gladiator. I actually have to say that Krysmphoenix seems to be right on this one. Trying to shoot without archery seems to make shots go far wide.
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Aug 4, 2011 21:20
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Bozikek posted:Thanks for the quick reply! I'm sure there is some memory foolery possible, but not worth it. There sure is! If you wanted to, you could copy the base creature from the raws, paste it in again, and change its name in all the relevant fields from "gremlin" to "maugrim" or whatever.
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Aug 4, 2011 21:59
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The Lord of Hats posted:Wow! Pretty sure that's the first upset of that magnitude that we've seen in Arena Challenge history. Magic Dagger might have something to say about that.
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Aug 12, 2011 21:19
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Nethris posted:That seems like it would require testing before trying that - unless bows are doing a heck of a lot more damage swung in melee than I think they are, you really want your fighter to prefer the actual melee weapon and without testing I'd be worried it might pick at random with swords since it and the bow will be at the same skill level (like it does with 2 actual melee weapons of the same type). If it's smart enough to always prefer the sword that's a great idea so you'll actually have skill swinging the bow if you lose the sword of course, but trusting it works like that seems chancy. The AI knows enough to pick a random available weapon that uses its best skill. So if a swordsman is given an axe and a sword, he'll use the sword. If he's given a bow and a sword, but no arrows? Anyone's guess. As it happens, a heavy bow is a surprisingly good bashing weapon, though, so it's not a terrible choice to go bow-and-sword.
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Aug 13, 2011 06:58
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Yeah, I don't like giving out more info than we've already seen; it really weights things in favor of people who, like me, are dirty testers. If people wanna volunteer information, that's one thing, but I think otherwise a lot of fun lies in anticipation. Especially in the first round, when crazy untested builds haven't been winnowed at all. It's more fun for me, at least, and if others hate betting ignorant... well, there's all other rounds, too.
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Aug 18, 2011 10:08
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Jazzimus Prime posted:And poor SynthOrange drops to 0-7 in first round betting. Cripes, that's starting to look like my betting record in this year's Zoofights.
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Aug 19, 2011 01:18
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Bows are sort of wimpy now that silver bolts don't punch through steel like it was mist.
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Aug 22, 2011 23:15
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drat, I didn't expect Robo-Prancer to win at all, much less so cleanly. ...I think it actually might be doing x40 damage. 
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Aug 25, 2011 23:56
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Red Dragon posted:Minotaur detective? Ben Mattock, Minotaur Detective? We had a goblin private investigator last tournament. 
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Aug 27, 2011 23:51
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SynthOrange posted:Have we ever had a double kill? I cant see it happening unless its with two ranged fighters. No, we haven't seen that. It wouldn't be possible without at least one ranged fighter, and I think it might need two, yeah. Even so, the game would provide a "photo finish" by which it logged first, so we'd have a winner. The Lone Badger posted:Did he investigate the colouration of his opponents' kidneys? Really, I don't think there was much left to look at when he was done.
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Aug 28, 2011 05:38
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Revenant Threshold.... can I ask why you went with this design? That just seems odd. I suppose it did let you win, so if you want to keep it a secret, okay. I'm just being nosy.
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Aug 30, 2011 00:59
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Next up is my fight. The anticipation is just going to make the victory (or, hypothetically, defeat) all the sweeter (more bitter).
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Sep 4, 2011 07:06
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 Ah, well. That uncertainty is part of the charm, and I suppose I had to get knocked out in the first round of some tournament. Been lucky there so far.
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Sep 6, 2011 21:51
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Baron La Croix posted:Turns out I don't know poo poo about this game! Yeah, 'fraid not. Tiny little guys with platinum can't swing them hard enough to really do much damage. Notice that all your hits were just causing 'bruising', which is the second lowest rank of damage, after 'denting', which basically reads as your attack bouncing off. He probably would have done more damage with iron or copper as his material of choice, if you'd kept the weapon type. I suppose at some point someone (or several someones) should throw together a mildly comprehensive strategy book so people don't accidentally step into known really weak builds.
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Sep 17, 2011 07:14
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JosephWongKS posted:In the same way, are contestants allowed to have their serpentman gladiators' arms disabled at the start of the match? That's not possible without messing with the game pretty heavily (as in, make a new species that copies the serpentman raws, but with everything that references their arms being edited out). So guessing no.
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Sep 22, 2011 14:22
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Yeti taken.
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Sep 24, 2011 22:17
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I forgot to name my gladiator.  YETI works, I suppose.
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Sep 25, 2011 09:41
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Yikes, you're right, Zarah. That's worrying enough to take the sting out of my goofy loss.
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Sep 25, 2011 16:25
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I am 100% sure that armor use does not improve armor blocking skill. I can be wrong, granted, but I am certain. In the last tournament, I ran a bunch of mirror matches with oak weaponry/full armor in the slots, and 0 vs 14 armor use. No other differences. The 14 guys won half the time. In that tournament, I was under the (mistaken) impression that armor use doesn't do anything at all, because even with a fully-slade-armored gremlin the differences were small enough in the footspeed that I thought it was just random generation, so it's possible it's there and just small. If you want to test if it affects stopping penetration, start pairs right next to each other and count futile hits before one side gets seriously injured, and let us know. I ran a steel-clad goblin with 0 armor use last time, though so I've already put my money where my mouth is on this.
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Sep 26, 2011 07:25
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G0-B0T is going to win this whole thing.
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Sep 26, 2011 21:22
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Wood's an all right investment if you expect to be bitten or something; teeth don't seem to have a ton of purchase through even that much. Generally speaking I'd say that the rules is you should get metal armor or none, though.
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Oct 6, 2011 00:07
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