Attack summary: accuracy

[riverjack]

Currently the attack summary in regards to accuracy reads like this:

Accuracy = 5 + weapon(5) + bows(8) + dex(10) + bonus(7)

How about:

Accuracy = 35 (attack(5) + weapon(5) + bows(8) + dex(10) + bonus(7))

[Cory Trese]

We'll see if we can fit it onto the screens.

[fallen]

riverjack - why is this more helpful? It is misleading about how the dice are rolled in my opinion. The first two pools are Strong dice, the last 3 are Standard dice. Saying "35" does not help represent the dice pool reality.

[samopop]

(edit: sorry, started writing this before fallen's reply above.  The second paragraph is still relevant though.)

I think putting a single total like that would be a bit misleading since some of those are strong dice and some are weak dice.

A weighted sum could accurately represent the effective number of dice (e.g., to get an effective number of strong dice you add the strong dice and 3/5 * weak dice), but that could be confusing when someone sees that the total does not equal the sum of the parts.

[Cory Trese]

Great points everyone

[riverjack]

Dec 9, 2014 11:18:45 GMT -5 fallen said:

riverjack - why is this more helpful? It is misleading about how the dice are rolled in my opinion. The first two pools are Strong dice, the last 3 are Standard dice. Saying "35" does not help represent the dice pool reality.

Indeed i forgot about the two different dice pools. Doh :-)
just wanted to point out that having 5 different numbers to figure out the accuracy total was perhaps a little confusing a 4am.

Definitely '35' was the wrong answer here. However something like:

Accuracy = 10 strong (5 + weap(5)), 25 weak (bows(8) + dex(10) + bonus(7))

A total of the numbers was what i was striving for.

[samopop]

I think the primary point of riverjack's thread was to recommend that there be a single number we can use to quantify the accuracy of an attack. The unit used doesn't really matter. Thus, I propose something like:

Accuracy 25 = attack(5) + weapon(5) +
3/5 * [bows(8) + dex(10) + bonus(7)]

The advantages of this presentation are twofold:
1) it gives a single number that can be used to compare/contrast
2) it teaches the player that certain bonuses are more/less effective than others, which is not explicit anywhere else in the game (and, I assume, often forgotten and/or confused by players).

The disadvantage of this presentation is that it takes up more space

[Cory Trese]

Yeah, but 25 vs 35 doesn't tell you much. If 12 of the 25 are Strong and 5 of the 35 are Strong, then you're not able to use 25 vs. 35 in any meaningful comparison

[samopop]

Dec 9, 2014 16:30:35 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Yeah, but 25 vs 35 doesn't tell you much. If 12 of the 25 are Strong and 5 of the 35 are Strong, then you're not able to use 25 vs. 35 in any meaningful comparison

  Sorry, I don't follow.  I was suggesting that the weighted average is the only total you would see.  In our running example, you would only see 25.  You could then compare that number with another talent/ or weapon or bonus and all you would see would be the weighted total for that combination.  All listed totals would be weighted totals and directly comparable.

[mrsarfa]

samopop - I think the point was that a higher number isn't necessarily better. In the example Cory Trese gave, a total of 25 might actually put you in a better position than a total of 35 if 12 of the 25 are strong, but only 5 of the 35 are.

[riverjack]

Dec 9, 2014 16:30:35 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Yeah, but 25 vs 35 doesn't tell you much. If 12 of the 25 are Strong and 5 of the 35 are Strong, then you're not able to use 25 vs. 35 in any meaningful comparison

And that is confusing as hell... :-)

Yes two grand total numbers showing total of strong and total of weak would be nice and helpful when trying to work the best gear into the three available slots.

I find myself referencing the forum quite a bit in regards to combat mechanics to figure out just what everything does. I know for the most part how it works yet being as my generation missed the whole dice game thing (class of '99) I still find myself having to look outside the game to figure out what is what.
For example, there is nothing in the game to tell you in accuracy rolls what stats are used for strong and what are used for weak rolls.

Having a more informative summary telling the player "ok this is your amount of strong points from such and such and this is the amount of weak points from the other stats" would suggest that, ok its best for me to work on getting my strong points built up. Lets face it the accuracy race is a huge huge part of this game.

[samopop]

Dec 9, 2014 17:08:04 GMT -5 mrsarfa said:

samopop - I think the point was that a higher number isn't necessarily better. In the example Cory Trese gave, a total of 25 might actually put you in a better position than a total of 35 if 12 of the 25 are strong, but only 5 of the 35 are.

  Thanks for the clarification.  I *thought* that I was properly taking that into account by using a weighted sum with 3/5 weight for weak dice making it such that a sum of 35 is (almost) always better than a sum of 34 (regardless of the constituent dice).  I must be missing something?

  To expand: each weak die results in a hit 0.3 times and each strong die results in a hit 0.5 times.  If you define "accuracy" = 0.3 * (# weak dice) + 0.5 * (# strong dice) then "accuracy" will tell you the *mean* number of hits you will get.  This single number is not the entire story because the probability distributions of hits (actually normal distributions with mean given by "accuracy") will have different widths based upon the combination of weak/strong die used.  More weak die will result in a wider probability distribution of hits and more strong die will result in a narrower distribution of hits.  However, I think that the single number representing mean number of hits gives you 99% of what a player would want to know.

[vintoks]

Some kind of way displaying the totals of strong dice and weak dice would be helpful.

The math isn't hard, but when you are bouncing around gear between characters and want to quickly figure where everyone is at in the accuracy or defense pecking order it would make it A LOT easier.

With something like this added you could figure out where all 4 of your characters stand in say 20 seconds instead of 3 minutes.