V&V mechanics, "NoGoingBackLevel"

[nidpants]

i could have waited for approval or whatever to post this to the Ludus Magnus forum, but i realized i only have one simple question. if you understand how the V&V system works then you might be my guy.

there's a property called "NoGoingBack". all the reference material i've been able to find (Sulla71's guide, and a few other posts dealing with V&V's) cite this value as being the level which the trait may not descend beneath due to an anti-trait

my question is: once you hit the NoGoingBack level, is it possible to lose points to where you may still descend but still exceed or equal the NoGoingBack level?

for example, if NoGoingBackLevel is 2, and you achieve level 3, can that third level be lost again, back down to level 2, or does it NEVER descend?

if no one knows the answer, i'm going to have to investigate

[The Stranger]

once you hit the no going back level, you cant go back that also is for every other level past the nogoingbacklevel, i thought i never saw it atleast

[nidpants]

i definitely appreciate the feedback. i'm probably going to run some tests when i get home, modding the V&V's to test this for sure.

[The Stranger]

i you do i would apreciate it if you would tell me the outcome of the tests

[Captain Fishpants]

Once a general has a trait that equals or exceeds the "No Going Back" level no anti-trait will have any effect on him.

The intention with anti-traits was to make sure that we didn't end up with any "sober drunks" or "pious atheists". However, we also realised that some some traits needed a 'tipping point' at which the behaviour being modelled finally couldn't be countered.

[The Stranger]

he captain. could you explain how i could enter the battle-editor

[Captain Fishpants]

he captain. could you explain how i could enter the battle-editor

Sorry, not my area of expertise.

[nidpants]

thank you Capt. Fishpants!

while we're on the subject, does "NoGoingBackLevel" integer refer to the separate *levels* (i.e. the difference between Drunkard, Sot and Paralytic) or to the points values of the trait family regardless of the effects?

[Captain Fishpants]

NoGoingBack refers to levels, not the points collected for those levels. By separating out the points and the levels we were able to be a bit subtle in the way VnVs got worse or better. You have to work quite hard to get GoodCommander 5, for example (16 points earned, and therefore at least 8 more really outstanding victories in your general's career after GoodCommander 4) to get the Command +5 bonus it confers.

The other nice bit of subtlety in the system is the separation of triggers and the traits. More than one trait can be fired off a single trigger (event), and more than one trigger can potentially dish out the same trait.

I now have to report for termination for revealing the inner workings of the game.

[player1]

When we are about VnV, is anybody in CA team avare of the problem that PostBattle event gets checked twice after manual battles (leading to more powerful human ganerals on average, since AI relies on autoresolve)?


P.S.
Luckly we made partial fix for that (see bugfixer).
As several other VnV related problems (hope to see them fixed in expansion officialy)

[HarunTaiwan]

Just send them an invoice for your services.

[Captain Fishpants]

When we are about VnV, is anybody in CA team avare of the problem that PostBattle event gets checked twice after manual battles (leading to more powerful human ganerals on average, since AI relies on autoresolve)?


P.S.
Luckly we made partial fix for that (see bugfixer).
As several other VnV related problems (hope to see them fixed in expansion officialy)

If you're talking about the "Scarface" bug (BattleScarred trait), then I Know about this one, and am of the opinion that this pair of triggers solves the problem.


;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and not CultureType roman

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects Brave 1 Chance 15

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1R
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and CultureType roman

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects RomanHero 1 Chance 15


The "not CultureType roman" condition prevents BattleScarred from being dished out twice, and the "GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6" raises the bar a little bit. No invoice - in either direction - necessary, Harun. I'm sure that the community had already worked out a broadly similar mod for the unicode text file.

Right, back to the grindstone.

[player1]

I wasn't talking about that one in particular.

I was talking when generally all PostBattle triggers get checked twice in manual battle (not with autoresolve). So you could get general getting two command stars after same battle (from 0 to 2). We partially fixed it by using some complex scripting (see bug-fixer files for details).



As for Battlescarred, there is another issue out there.

It seems that code reads GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle as ration of remaining HP in manual battales (as you noticed), but in case of autoresolved battles, it gets read as ration of lost HP.

So just changing "< " to ">", fixes manual battales, but bugs autoresoved battles (mostly affects AI generals).

I think GeneralFoughtInCombat is affected too by this. It seems always true when fighting manual battale, while working as inteded in autoresolve.

Thus we used PercentageBodyguardKilled as close substitue. Not perfect, but works well for both manual and autoresolved battles.



This affected apprearance of some retinue memeber too (like Heric Savior).

[Camp Freddie]

Erm... Come on CP, surely you know the glitch where GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle returns opposite values for manual and autocalc battles. Even at >0.6 it'll trigger when you don't use your general in a manual battle, since it actually acts as GeneralHP*Remaining*RatioinBattle.

Since players usually manual battle, they would get loads of scarred traits even when they kept their general safe. The double combat trait glitch made it worse and the lack of 'and culturetype not roman' in one of the triggers meant that after Roman manual battles, the scarred trait would be checked 4 times at 30% chance when the general was uninjured. Your suggestion fixes this a bit, but unfortunately it still won't work fully.

We couldn't work out a way of distinguishing autocalc from manual battles in the trait triggers, so we had to abandon the use of GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle.

In our mods, we've had to use generalbodyguardpercentagekilled instead of GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle since that trigger works for both autocalc and manual.

Oooh, P1 beat me to it! Still, P1, shouldn't that be "less than" for manual and "greater than" for autoresolve?

CP's fix doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces the effect because "chance" has been changed to 10% from 30% and the non-roman trigger now only applies to non-romans.

This is fine for autoresolve (triggers when over 60% of HP is lost) but to get it to work in manual battles you'd need the following:
_____________________________________
Trigger battle1
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle < 0.4
and not CultureType roman

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects Brave 1 Chance 15
____________________________________

Also, the double combat bug trait (introduced in v1.2) must be fixed somehow.

[Camp Freddie]

Hmmm... sorry if that post seems a bit hostile!

It's good to see you around Captain FP, especially with all the recent hostilities. I hope everythings going well with the expansion pack.

[player1]

Yes, it's great thing to discuss details with coders.

[nidpants]

i have another question about the V&V mechanics...specifically the list of triggers.

am i to assume that *every* single trigger is checked, pretty much all the time? if that's the case, then why

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and not CultureType roman

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects Brave 1 Chance 15

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1R
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and CultureType roman

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects RomanHero 1 Chance 15

why not just
""
;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6

Affects BattleScarred 1 Chance 10
Affects Brave 1 Chance 15

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle1R
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and CultureType roman

Affects RomanHero 1 Chance 15
"""
^i took out the "not CultureType Roman" tag, and deleted the redundant "Affects BattleScarred" tag.

i don't mean this as a form of expediency, just a question as to whether this would physically work. if you removed the "not CultureType" tag from the "battle1" trigger, it would still check both triggers when a Roman general finishes a battle, correct?

==============================================

but my big question is: there sure do seem to be a whole lot of traits which, well, would never actually advance past the coming of age. it might just be because i'm working with an outdated version of the trigger list (v1.00, that damned patch keeps corrupting in transit to my computer), but many of the negative traits (Bad--, nothing sticks to my mind) have only ONE trigger in the entire list, that is in the "birth" triggers. there are even a few traits that don't have ANY triggers, not even birth triggers (such as "AssassinCatcher")

is the trigger list vastly revised in the patch, or am i missing something?

[Simetrical]

Erm... Come on CP, surely you know the glitch where GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle returns opposite values for manual and autocalc battles.

Even some dedicated forumites don't know that, really. It hasn't been played up as much as the siege-load issue. Still, it is at least noteworthy.

Trust me, Captain Fishpants, we really appreciate your coming here and explaining things to us. Don't mean to hijack this thread, but there are three significant trait problems that controlled testing has shown to exist in the hardcode:

1) The PostBattle trigger triggers twice after every manually-fought battle, but once after autoresolved battles.

2) The GeneralFoughtInCombat condition always returns true for manually-fought battles.

3) The GeneralHPLostRatioInBattle condition works as expected for autoresolved battles, but the sign needs to be reversed for manually-fought battles.

Now that I look at them lined up like that, it occurs to me: did you perhaps do trigger/condition testing mainly with autoresolved battles? Well, anyway, if you'd just bring these issues to the coders' attention, we'd all be very grateful.

-Simetrical

[Captain Fishpants]

Yes, it's great thing to discuss details with coders.

FYI, I'm not a coder. I have a wide range of duties that mostly involve adding small dollops of fun to our games. Sometimes, I get to put a joke or two in as well.

However, I am talking to a coder or two about traits and ancillaries at the moment for reasons that may be obvious, but I never know whether I can talk about.

snip

i don't mean this as a form of expediency, just a question as to whether this would physically work. if you removed the "not CultureType" tag from the "battle1" trigger, it would still check both triggers when a Roman general finishes a battle, correct?

==============================================

but my big question is: there sure do seem to be a whole lot of traits which, well, would never actually advance past the coming of age. it might just be because i'm working with an outdated version of the trigger list (v1.00, that damned patch keeps corrupting in transit to my computer), but many of the negative traits (Bad--, nothing sticks to my mind) have only ONE trigger in the entire list, that is in the "birth" triggers. there are even a few traits that don't have ANY triggers, not even birth triggers (such as "AssassinCatcher")

is the trigger list vastly revised in the patch, or am i missing something?

You're right, battle1 would be checked for Romans as well as everyone else. We could have had 6 triggers (one per culture), but this way makes it expilicit that it should apply to everyone except the Romans.

And at the moment there are some traits that don't get advanced; many do, but not all. And yes, there are even a couple that don't get used at all yet, such as noctophobia and noctophilia. So no, you haven't missed anything.

Finally, the decision to limit the number of times Bad-*whatever* fired was deliberate, otherwise we can't give general's "experience". Occasionally getting bad traits is fair enough, but these blokes are supposedly the cream of the crop, and should tend towards being good at their jobs.

Back to the grindstone!

[JeromeGrasdyke]

You appear to be correct on all three counts - the "hp lost ratio" and the "post battle" triggers were both bugged, and the GeneralFoughtInCombat was a knock-on effect from the hp lost ratio. Thanks for bringing it up. I'd like to read everything on the forums, but sadly there are only 24 hrs in the day, and things occasionally slip the net...

[Kraxis]

Hey Jerome... Nice to see you, both of you in fact, and in one thread. Especially considering the less than stellar support you get here nowadays.

Anyway, now we have caught your attention, could you post how the traits would look if they are to work properly. I know we have made our own little fixes, but I fear we might have done something wrong somewhere. Lets just call this a comparison.

[player1]

The thing is, you can't really "fix" the problem by just editing text files.

You can only make workarounds, like using PercentageBodyguardKilled instad of GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle, etc...

And I guess that expansion would get true fixes, instead of workarounds anyway.

[SigniferOne]

Welcome back Jerome!! :)

By the way, when I went to try and search for your posts with the built-in Google search engine (to see if you've made any other posts recently), I typed in this search string: "Jerome", and here is one of the ads that appeared:

"Sexy Jerome Singles
View photos, personals and hot
profiles of sexy local singles.
www.infobert.com"

[Colt45]

"I'd like to read everything on the forums, but sadly there are only 24 hrs in the day, and things occasionally slip the net..." - Jerome/CA

Im sure we could set up another known/possible issues list, like Ive seen before. This would save a lot of reading for you. I would hate for some known issue to slip by because of devs couldnt catch everything.

[Simetrical]

It's great to know that we've been able to help. A suggestion: while obviously many bug reports are false, and obviously you can't look into everything, what if the Guild and/or TWC officially collaborated on extensively testing and compiling bug reports, and sent them to you with detailed accounts of the tests that went into them? If you've taken a look at the Ludus Magna, you've seen that there are those in the community who have a good grasp of the scientific method. The official endorsement by the Guild/TWC could be substituted for any trustworthy volunteers who are committed to making absolutely sure of everything they send in—I'm sure we'd all recognize that this would be a rare opportunity to benefit everyone (including ourselves), and great care would be taken not to squander it by sending you frivolous reports. This would also do much to improve your image in the community, needless to say.

Edit: I also think that such mature, intelligent organizers could tell the difference between stuff that's weird (e.g., one or two Egyptian unit sizes) and stuff that's clearly broken. The list of the former is rather large, but the latter isn't too long at all.

-Simetrical

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Welcome back Jerome!! :)

By the way, when I went to try and search for your posts with the built-in Google search engine (to see if you've made any other posts recently), I typed in this search string: "Jerome", and here is one of the ads that appeared:

"Sexy Jerome Singles
View photos, personals and hot
profiles of sexy local singles.
www.infobert.com"

ROFL ... that's funny. It's good to be back.

But about the idea of a list of community issues, I think that's a fine idea. There might be some problems putting it together in that some people think, "oh, this is a huge problem" while other people are of the opposite opinion, but then you'll always get these things when lots of people try to work together ;) It will definitely help flag some areas for us that you guys have noticed as being either broken or not working as well as they could.

[econ21]

But about the idea of a list of community issues, I think that's a fine idea.

Thanks for the greenlight, Jerome. I wonder if the .org could follow up on this in an organised way? The first step would be finding someone who would be willing to collate issues, perhaps in a stickied thread. It's rather a big undertaking and would have to be done by someone who is into the detailed mechanics of the game. [EDIT]Any volunteers?

[Camp Freddie]

Jerome & Captain:

Thanks for dropping by, it's great to have some feedback and to know that you're working on those trait glitches.

If you can fix some of these trait triggers, fix the double trait problem, the load game problem, reduce the rebel annoyances and beef up the battle AI a bit - then I'm totally sold on the expansion pack!

There are loads of bug-lists around, but they do tend to be semi-useless because of the issues Jerome mentioned. I'd love a well moderated bug/glitch-sticky - but it needs to be really well moderated and seperated into bug-categories, like 'game-breakers', 'annoyances' and 'tweak suggestions'.

If a mod (or group of mods) has the time to do this, it'd be great.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

If you can fix some of these trait triggers, fix the double trait problem, the load game problem, reduce the rebel annoyances and beef up the battle AI a bit - then I'm totally sold on the expansion pack!

Rest assured, all of these things are on the to-do list (in fact, most have already been done). And quite a few other things as well. The work, eet is proceeding apace, Cap'n. Great sig, btw

[Camp Freddie]

[burns] Excellent... [/burns]