In a recent discussion about new affixes (i.e. randomized names for looted items), some problems were mentioned:

• stacking of attack or defense modifiers can give large values
• such values get difficult to balance (one hit kill, or mostly, no damage at all)
• such items are ridiculously rare (especially attack)

Here I'd like to start a new discussion, so the other one does not get off-topic. I don't see a better place than the wish-list, however, this does not mean that I wish the proposed ideas will be used. Rather, I just want leave some notes here that may be useful for future discussions. Please note that I don't want to discuss any imbalances between attack and defense boosters here.

So, what is it about? Multipliers for affixes and how they stack. How are item stats added up or multiplied? And what can we do about super rare items? For this, let us first look at additive stacking. We know this well from affixes that raise stats or skills, for example:

• Spidersilk Fish: Agility +10
• Eagle's Fish: Agility +20
• Spidersilk Eagle's Fish: Agility +30

Things are different for modifiers to damage (or protection), defense and attack. Here the factors are multiplied, for example:

• Ancient Fish: Defense *1.5 or +50%
• Fish of the Defender: Defense *2 or +100%
• Ancient Fish of the Defender: Defense *3 or +200%

If we add up the percentages instead, we get 50% +100% = +150% or a factor of 2.5. Not a huge difference. But we soon get there.

If you consider attack and defense modifiers, the bonus is not only applied to that particular item, but to all equipment. Consider 3 ancient items of the defender, two weapons and a helm.

• Multiplicative: 3³ = 27 or +2'600%
• Additive: +150% +150% +150% = +450% or a factor of 5.5

Now that's a significant change. And it gets even more pronounced if you take into account more defense modifiers from spells. This concept applies to attack and defense equally.

Side note: For damage or protection stats (same affixes on weapons or armor), the bonus is only applied to the given item. For the combat rules, though, the overall attack or defense modifier is multiplied, respectively. So, if damage and attack stack additively each, and you want to maximize the product, you will want to ramp up both factors.

Okay, so we could make all item buffs stack additively each. But what about other random loot properties? Another term, the value in tria, is straight forward. Currently, each affix raises the price by a factor, e.g.

• Ancient Fish: Value *3 or +200%
• Fish of the Defender: Value *5 or +400%
• Ancient Fish of the Defender: Value *15 or +1'400%

It is trivial to see how the percentages could be summed up, which would greatly lower the value of such rare items. However, that does not have to be a reasonable thing to do. Exponentially large tria values for the rarer items are okay. I mention this, because it may get relevant if you address a more interesting property: Rarity.

So, we said that items with very good attack properties are incredibly rare to find. You can look up the rarity percentages in the Hydlaa Museum if you inspect the short sword collection. Single affixes typically have a rarity of 0.1% to 1.1%. There's a few more common excpetions, such as "of the Defender" with 2.7%. If you look at rare weapons in the museum, you observe rarities in the order of 0.0000005%. Whoah... that's how many zeroe? Ouch, that's a chance of 5E-9 or one in 200 millions. The fact that such items are found in the museum is just the result of a bug, which once allowed much higher loot rates. So, why are these so extremely rare?

My guess is that the rolls for random affixes are independent: For each part of the name, adjective, prefix and suffix, there is a seperate chance to get a bonus. So, if you are looking for a particular combination of affixes, the rarity values need to be multiplied. Let us look at the inverse probability N = 1/p, the expected number of attempts it takes to find an item. How does it look for affixes with a moderate rarity of 0.5% or N=200 each?

• Spidersilk Fish: N = 200 or 0.5%
• Spidersilk Clacker's Fish: N = 40'000 or 0.00 25%
• Spidersilk Clacker's Fish of Seduction: N = 8'000'000 or 0.00 001 25%

That's lottery. But it can get even worse. There's also a few affixes with N=1'000 or 0.1% rarity, and one particularly useful prefix with 0.07%. Let's consider 0.1% each, although there's no suffix "of Imbalance" with this:

• Masterwork Fish: N = 1'000 or 0.1%
• Masterwork Quake-Steel Fish: N = one million
• Masterwork Quake-Steel Fish of Imbalance: N = one billion

One in a billion? You're kidding! Okay, it's just an estimate for a worst case, but remember the best items in the museum, their rarity is not all that far from this!

So, what could we do to make rarity additive in some sense? First thought: Nothing, it's natural that independent probabilites are multiplied, and things need to be normalized. Still, we can use the following steps to get a compromise:

• Let the loot table define how many affixes the item will have, if any.
• Assign the needed affixes without any bias (uniform trial probability).
• Then decide if the set of affixes is kept or removed (acceptance probability).
• The inverse acceptance probabilities (N) of the affixes are stacked.

The first point gives us the option that the most powerful enemies can drop long item names much more frequently, but you don't get a chance to find a super rare item when molesting gobblins. Maybe that will be tricky to implement, but it could be very useful to tune those loot rates.

The second point means that each affix gets the same chance to be considered. For simplicity, assume there are 30 adjectives,  prefixes and suffixes each. Then the trial probability for each affix is one to thirty. However, if you are looking for a certain combination of two or three affixes, the inverse trial probability ramps up to N = 900 or 27'000, respectively.

The third point introduces an acceptance probability. For our example and a single affix, this is simply the rarity times 30. So, the worst acceptance on a single affix is N = 1000/30 or about 33 tries.

The fourth point implies that combinations of precious affixes are not penalized too heavily in terms of rarity. We simply add up the inverse acceptances N. Let us come back to the example of 0.5% rarity on each affix:

• Spidersilk Fish: N = 30*200/30 = 200 or 0.5%
• Spidersilk Clacker's Fish: N = 30²*2*200/30 = 30*400 = 12'000
• Spidersilk Clacker's Fish of Seduction:  N = 30³*3*200/30 = 900*600 =  540'000

So, the double affix is more than 3 times easier to find, and the triple affix goes down from N = 8 million to a bit more than half a million.

For the second example, we considered affixes with N = 1'000 each. Again, there's no such suffix, but it seems a simple estimate for a worst case:

• Masterwork Fish: N = 30*1'000/30 = 1'000 or 0.1%
• Masterwork Quake-Steel Fish: N = 30²*2*1'000/30 = 30*2'000 = 60'000
• Masterwork Quake-Steel Fish of Imbalance: N = 30³*3*1'000/30 = 900*3'000 = 2.7 millions

All right, the rarity of a powerful double affix goes down from N = one million to 60'000. That's a huge difference. The worst case number of 2.7 millions is still terrible, but it is almost 3 orders of magnitude better than before (one billion).

One more side note: We simplified things, as we considered 30 prefixes, adjectives and suffixes each. If you plug in the actual numbers (it's around 20 for the suffixes), the situation does not get worse, but even a little better.

Okay, that was a lot of reading and lots of numbers. Maybe some of you will make sense of it. If it helps to get new rules done one day, that would be even better.

After the rule changes for skill progression (removal of theory lessons including PP/tria costs), I have  repeatedly seen complaints in the spirit of "PP are useless once you maxed the stats".

There is a strong connection to one of the oldest recurring discussions: A majority of players just maxes out all six base attributes, as there is no incitement to specialize or reason to keep them low. Hence stats lose much of their (rp) meaning and potential for individuality.

I'd like to throw in a (relatively) simple idea that would make it arbitrarily difficult to bring all six of those stats to rank 400. Yes, stats - skills are an entirely different topic.

Let us assume you have a strength rank of R=300 and you decide to raise any of the other five stats by 1. Suggested rule: There is a probability of R/2000, in this case 15%, that this upgrade will degrade your strength by one. If you are (very) unlucky, raising one attribute could even lower two or more of your other attributes.

It is not hard to see that when all six stats go towards 400, this rule implies some sort of equilibrium - in average, you can gain just as many points from training as you will lose by doing so. In other words, the rule does not imply a dramatic change at low ranks, but it gets extremely hard to bring all stats somewhere near the maximum.

Maxing only one attribute is equally demanding as with the current rules, but raising several stats to very high ranks gets more and more tedious. Also, there is a bit of elasticity, as switching to train certain stats will steadily degrade previously raised other stats.

Maths section for people who like to work with equations and plots:

If you like to, you can see this as a differential equation. For the particular case where a player wants to keep all stats equally trained, you can expect

  dR/dx = 1 - R/L,

where L=400 is the stats limit for rank R, x is the number of upgrade steps spent on one attribute, and 6x is the upgrade total. This leads to

  R(x) = L (1 - exp(-x/L))

if we define R(0) = 0. If the cost for one upgrade step is R progression points, we can integrate R(x') from x'=0 to x in order to get the accumulated PP costs P(x). That should be

  P(x) = Lx + LĀ² (exp( -x/L) -1)

That's nice for plotting, but it does not really tell us anything useful. So, let us invert R(x) for the number of steps x(R) needed to reach rank R and insert this into P(x) to get P(R), the costs for reaching rank R. That should lead to

  P(R) = -LĀ² ln(1 - R/L) - LR,

which is nice for plots and comparison with R(R-1)/2. Also, you can see that this goes to infinity for R towards L. Another useful result: You can take the PP costs for maxing all six stats with the current rules and see how far you could get your stats with this in the new system. That should be an average of R=280, which gives us an idea how player stats could be scaled down if such a new rule was added. E.g. a linear approximation for starter stats of 100 could be

  (if R>100) { R = R *0.6 + 40 }.

EDIT: This is an terribly ugly hack, but pushing some buttons might help to see what the idea implies. Maybe it is also useful to mod and test other rules.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--  a terribly ugly hack to simulate the suggested stats rule - by Boni  -->
<html>
<body>
<table border="4" cellpadding="1" bordercolor="#88FFFF" bgcolor="#EEFFFF" cellspacing="2" width="800">
<tr>
    <td>
        <text id="str"> 100 </text>
        strength
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="end"> 100 </text>
        endurance
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="agi"> 100 </text>
        agility
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="int"> 100 </text>
        intelligence
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="wil"> 100 </text>
        will
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="cha"> 100 </text>
        charisma
    </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upstr()"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upend()"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upagi();"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upint()"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upwil()"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upcha()"> upgrade </button>
    </td>
</tr>
</table>
<table border="4" cellpadding="1" bordercolor="#88FFFF" bgcolor="#EEFFFF" cellspacing="2" width="800">
<tr>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="upstr(); upend(); upagi(); upint(); upwil(); upcha()"> upgrade all</button>
    </td>
    <td>
        <button  onclick="reset()"> reset </button>
    </td>
    <td>
        Repeat upgrades
        <input type="text" size="1" value="1" id="looper" >
        times per button click.
    </td>
    <td>
        <text id="PP"> 0 </text>
        PP spent in total.
    </td>
</tr>
</table>

<script>
function upstr()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("str").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("str").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function upend()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("end").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("end").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function upagi()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("agi").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("agi").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function upint()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("int").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("int").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function upwil()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("wil").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("wil").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function upcha()
{
    bak = document.getElementById("cha").innerHTML*1 ;
    p = document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML*1 ;
    l = document.getElementById("looper").value*1 ;
    if (bak+l>399){l=400-bak}
    for (i=0; i<l; i=i+1){
        bak = bak+1 ;
        p = p+bak ;
        gamble();
    }
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = p ;
    document.getElementById("cha").innerHTML=bak ;
}
function gamble()
{
    s = document.getElementById("str").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("str").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
    s = document.getElementById("end").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("end").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
    s = document.getElementById("agi").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("agi").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
    s = document.getElementById("int").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("int").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
    s = document.getElementById("wil").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("wil").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
    s = document.getElementById("cha").innerHTML*1.0 ;
    if (s*0.0005 > Math.random()) { document.getElementById("cha").innerHTML = s-1 ; }
}
function reset()
{
    document.getElementById("PP").innerHTML = 0 ;
    document.getElementById("str").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("end").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("agi").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("int").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("wil").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("cha").innerHTML = 100 ;
    document.getElementById("looper").value = 1 ;
 
}
</script>
 
</body>
</html> (Not sure what to do with this? Just hit the [Select] button, copy paste to a text editor, save as html file and open it in a web browser.)

Some of you may have noticed the book about Runes and Engravings in the Museum of Hydlaa, a guide about rare items i once wrote. Since more information about items is now officially available via analyze spells, I decided to write a more detailed guide. This time, it is about the valuation of such items for barter trade or for markets. I have the impression that players are often not sure about fair prices, so I hope this will help to establish some common sense.

Since the guide is widely OoC and contains plenty of spoilers, I will make it accessible only in the form of in-game books. If you want a copy, just contact Bonifarzia.

May the light guide you.

Because...

• http://planeshift.teamix.org/index.php?page=char_stats is not sorted in any reasonable way,
• http://planeshift.teamix.org/myplane/playersonline/ requires a login and
• lazy me likes to look up quickly who is online,

... I found myself often have a look at Derula's script pages, in particular the sorted plain text list of characters online, which unfortunately was not updated for the teamix migration yet.

So I would like to suggest that either point one or two above gets fixed, so point three is still valid

Overview: Yace is a simple, nonlethal arena game where fighters queue up for some short duels. Anybody can participate free of charge and multiple times. The reward for each victory is one vial of Neoten blood [worth 1288 tria].

The following information will be available on a poster in the arena pit where the game will be held.

[Short OoC rules:]

• Do not use ranged attacks, armors, shields, familiars, buffs and health recovery during the fight.
• Important: Before a duel begins the health of both fighters is fully depleted.
• Please use bloody stance to keep the chance of blocking low.
• The /group mechanics are (ab)used as a simple queueing system.
• The first three slots of the group window always show the arbiter and the two current fighters.
• Defeated players are removed from and reinvited to the group.
• There is no predefined number of duels, the games keep going for as long as everyone is having fun.

[OoC description]

Imagine this poster (book item) contains a lengthy list of rules written in character. Those are not explicitly given here to keep things short and simple. In summary, The focus of the fights is on fairplay and agility, so many actions with a high risk of injuries are forbidden. The goal is to make the enemy stumble or fall without hurting each other too seriously. For this reason and to give newer players a chance, the character health is depleted such that very few hits - typically the first -will end the duel. The low health is just a trick to bend the mechanics, so please do not RP injuries or sickness unless there is another reason to do so.

The games are organized with the group window - just /tell Bonifarzia if you wish to get invited and enlisted. Once it is your turn, Boni will /challenge you. If you do not wish to play, please accept the challenge and /yield. In that case or if you are AFK, you will be removed from and reinvited to the group, so you can play again later. Once both fighters have entered the pit, Boni will deplete their health (defeat them) using a bow. This action is purely OoC and enforces fairly equal hit points. As soon as both fighters stand back up again, you can /challenge your opponent and start your duel. Please use bloody stance so the chance to block is kept low and does not depend that much on your weapon skills. The winner can then fetch a reward via /trade and fight for another round against a new challenger. The defeated player is removed from and reinvited to the group. You are free to decline the invitation and ask for another one any time later.

When you join the group and are waiting for your turn, you can lower your health such that it can be depleted later quickly. For this you can use /show glyph and hit the research button a few times without selecting any glyphs.

Player killing is absolutely unacceptable, so it is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not use any buffs like "electrotouch" - note that magic and ranged attacks are forbidden anyway, just like armors and shields. Robes are tolerated, unless someone tries to hide armor underneath. In that case, visible equipment on myplane can help. Potions for stamina recovery are okay, but please do not try to recover health with any sort of items or magic during the fight.

Casting spells or /challenges on the fighters during a duel is considered harassment, as it interrupts the flow of the game and the current round will have to be restarted. You can heal after a duel, but this is not quite necessary, as the health will be depleted again when the player wants to engage in another round later.


[I am new here - what do I need to get started?]

If you have read the rules and think this could be fun for you, then you are ready to go. Stats, skills and equipment should not be important for a game of yace, so new players are encouraged to give it a try. If your weapon/melee skill is very low, you may have problems hitting some opponents, but otherwise mostly your timing and tactics will matter.

Events

[Saturday, 16th of march, 22 GMT - event finished]
Champion of the first yace game is Caraick with an impressive number of 15 victories, followed by Hirene (8), Haraun and Firke (4 each). Lumi defeated three of the top players and wins a young talent award. Read the details of all 36 matches here.

[Saturday, 23rd of march, 22 GMT] -event finished
Special thanks to Daevaorn for moderating the second yace games, so I could focus on the administration of the rounds. We had another tournament packed with 30 rounds of action. Lumi dominated this time with 16 victories, winning nearly all of her rounds, followed by Potare and Dalos (each 5 victories). Read the details here.

Further events are to be announced here later.

Comment: This is yet another attempt to promote friendly duels in the arena, and as my last try failed quite miserably, I want to organize this one in a similar fashion as a previous fighting game, but with even simpler rules. Note that the idea is to give trainee fighters a fair chance to earn a few tria and have some dueling experience, while the seasoned warriors might find the event interesting to hone their [human] skills. EDIT: Special thanks to Sarva for updating the events.php so quickly.

Why Yulbar food?



 

With the recent update of the BoNeeMods, a new set of fanart textures for robes is available. The very simple modifications provide color variations for each of the six ways, for all robe models which we already seen in game. As with all texture mods, you simply replace the looks of some objects, which will of course only affect your own client, and act equally on all robes of the same type (race and gender). This means the mods can be nice to make screenshots or to enjoy suitable looks of your character, but the overall use is quite limited.
I would like to open another topic for this to leave room for comments, as the variety of things to comment on the BoNeeMods topic keeps growing. Here are some previews Neeno captured. The full sized images are in the corresponding section of GreatShift.








Azure Robes, Blue Robes, Brown Robes, Crystal Robes, Dark Robes and Red Robes.