experiment

[oedi]

Im doing a little experiment with one of my new theatrics gladiators. Its still early in his career, he`s currently 160-26-10. Its not one of the new HoL recruits. Hes one of my traditional builds stat and skill wise. High strength, int and presence. 10 weapon, 10 brute force, 1 feint, 7 create distance, 8 gratious violence.

The experiment is with the fight strategy, or more the lack of fight strategy.

Ive run him 6 activity, bash, torso, torso, 6 blood lust for his entire career. I expect i need to tinker with his strat in the not so far future, but until it really starts to hurt his W/L ill keep his strat like this.

My questions to the forum are:

Is the low end that weak, with all the inactive glads still lingering in the ranks?

Did I just get lucky and hit spot on with strat favorites?

Or are strats overrated, and its the stats and skills that really means something?

[Dainoji]

Bash 6 6 is a solid set up so I wouldn't say you "lack a strategy" or have a bad one. I've found strategies to be very important, one of the most important things at the high end when most everything else is equal. Rage has it the easiest, often you can go with one strategy set to berserk and you'll do well, but if you want to do well against as many opponents as possible you'll need to add more triggers. It's the 80/20 rule. The extra triggers will get you that last 20. For Theatrics and War I think the one trick pony is a lot harder to pull off the higher you get. One trick ponies can still be effective even at the high end and likely by design but if you want to eek out the very best and be the very best I don't think you'll do it without a bit more sophistication.

With only 180 fights under your belt that glad has been swimming in the shallow end with all the players who don't really know what they're doing yet and or are inactive. Early on stats are very important since a glad doesn't have much else but the higher you rise I've found strats to become king especially in the blood games when you know your opponent.

[oedi]

Bash 6 6 is a solid set up so I wouldn't say you "lack a strategy" or have a bad one.
This is my favorite start strat for a theatric (slash or lunge accordingly with the apropriate weapon)


With only 180 fights under your belt that glad has been swimming in the shallow end with all the players who don't really know what they're doing yet and or are inactive.
thats what I belive and hope is the answer too.


the higher you rise I've found strats to become king especially in the blood games when you know your opponent.
I do of course totally agree with you on this, I was just very surprised that i didnt have to start tweak my strat earlier.

[Prinny]

Most of my glads use just 1 strat most of the time, Shikii and Yuki Onna only know 2 while Laharl uses 3-5 (tinkering with them atm to see what it results into) So idd say it is quite possible to just run with 1 or 2 simple strategies.

[Alba Kebab]

Lower ends are pretty easy, After my first 3 glads(2 of which already sold), all my later glads pretty much breezed through the lower rank with ease.

[oedi]

I thought id make an update on my little 1 strategy project . I dont think this is the best set up for any gladiator but i use this as a reference to better understand the other fighting styles when used on similar gladiators.

Back to my gladiator. He is currently # 1 in maximus with a W/L % 68,8. Fight record 414-188-26. Using BF, CD, A&M, SM, GV, AM, SoC, FB, SO, HS. Still a young gladiator with 86 trained skill, and no stat trains. He has inherited an old set of purple armor.

[oedi]

Just a little update on my subject 30. Now in the upper part of primus, still only using the same strat. Record: 719-439-43, 100 skills and 53 stat trains.

skills http://postimage.org/image/swbo2isun/
stats http://postimage.org/image/c7a86lw9b/
buffs http://postimage.org/image/w4g5fkf4f/
strat http://postimage.org/image/tw1yy880f/
achievment http://postimage.org/image/5knkdfekv/ gave him 6 achievments when he got a kill in the current BG.

[Cynaidh]

Really does make you really think that stats and skill build are 90% of it if not more, if strategy makes that small of a difference.

[Dainoji]

So since hitting Primus where the real game begins and being matched up with managers who know what they are doing on a consistent basis and glads who aren't sub standard he has a record of 305-251-17 for a 54.9% win ratio and moving in a downward trend I presume, which also by the way almost matches his BG win ratio currently at 50%. I think this is a neat experiment that shows that actually your strategy is very important just a lot more so in the end game where the majority of your opponents are managed by experienced players. Personally I think this is awesome as it follows one of the great game design rules of "easy to play, hard to master" which explains my continued enjoyment after almost two years. :)

[sevenseas]

Challenge! Ok...i would like to see one of you Top seaters to try a new experiment, take a man into say the top 15 (or win the BG) without spending one dime of real money. I know a glad can still be competitive without spending cash on him....but can he be a champ?

[oedi]

Depends a little on what you mean by without spending money. I got fulll stable upgrades and I run memberships, but all that does is to speed up the progress. I dont use auto heal or auto repair, which give a small benefit in regular area and BG. And now that purples can be bought with gold, everyone can have that aswell given time. Only thing that can be bought and give a huge advantage in the game play is a full set of achievements. I run most of my gladiators with only gold achievements and an example of success with only gold achievement is Minde, currently # 9 in Primus using 250hp and 100hp buffs.

[sevenseas]

Oh:o...yeah that's what i meant. Lol I'm just trying to figure out how you guys are so consistently successful. Especially after you started this thread, and both you and Prinny showed us that strategies aren't as big of a factor as I thought. So if it's not the grade of the gear your using....it's not how much you spend...it's not attributes....and it's not strategies...it's got to be the build and the hidden attributes of your glad then, right? I'll call it the build and the breed. Does that make sense?

[Nate]

I can take a mediocre gladiator in the simulator and give him a great strategy and increase his win percentage by a very large margin and conversely I've taken many of the game's champions and given them simplified strategies and seen their legendary image tarnished faster than a high ranking general with a book deal! Depending on who you are fighting, sometimes just changing where you are aiming or defending can make a huge difference! Be careful when you try and boil any system down to a single factor as you'll usually end up with the wrong conclusion.

To answer your question Sevenseas the reason those managers stay at the top is because they wash my car. :p

[oedi]

Be careful when you try and boil any system down to a single factor as you'll usually end up with the wrong conclusion.
Breaking a system down to single factors is important, but the crucial thing is to find the order to put things back together.
You could say that strategy is the most important, because its what wins you close fights in the end game, or the least important because you dont really need one until the end game.

[sevenseas]

:confused: uh....Nate can i wash your car too?

So i guess the answer is manager experience then...damn it's tough to break into the top 30. I tweak and i tweak and i can't really beat any of the top 30 consistently, we'll see if my new builds make a big difference. I have SilverBack, Snot Rocket, and Bigger Buzz mostly unlearned now and am busy building in the new skills i want...I even had Silver back #29 for a minute but that was short lived:( I'll keep trying and keep asking questions and I'll eventually see the throne a little closer.

[oedi]

http://i45.tinypic.com/2dt1yf.jpg
retired today :D

[Alba Kebab]

Strategies are also quite important if your glad is on a strat different to most of your peers, one of the most annoying(or challenging) aspect of tweaking strat is how to make it work for all situations.
Suject thirty for example is on a set strat everyone knows about and which I can have Nittz beat easily if I tweak his strat towards it, but Nittz still lost to thirty several times because the strat on Nittz is geared towards other faster theatrics and when he meets thirty it suddenly becomes a lot less effective.

[sevenseas]

Yeah it seem that knowing your opponent is a bigger key than i thought, i'll keep playing around till the change and maybe we'll all be kinda on the same level for a while.