New Triggers

[Dainoji]

Hey Nate,

What do you think about some new triggers to cover all the affects that happen in combat. We have triggers for being on the ground or stunned and some other combat related affects, however there isn't one for reduced attacks like in the case of hamstring. I don't know off the top of my head what affects are left out, it might just be the reduced attacks as I know we've got triggers for bleeding, stunned, on the ground, disarmed...not sure if that trigger would end up being too powerful or not, but it would certainly open up the defensive glads ability to tank n' spank better.

[sevenseas]

yeah i wondered that too, something to go to when hamstrung or under shock and awe, and to deal with strength of the crowd. Maybe it would be too powerful.

[Alba Kebab]

I'd really appreciate triggers for "when opp is using 2-hand weapon/1h weapon/dual weapons".

[Lunarion199]

- To add to it, now that we have different races available, there could be triggers like "Opponent is human" or "Opponent is urk".. maybe.

In fact I would request a redesign of trigger system. For example,
- Start of fight: Activity 5, Aiming torso, Defending torso, Blood Lust 3
- Opponent is very injured: Activity -1, Blood Lust +2
- Opponent is War: Defending head
- Opponent is Trug: Activity +2, Aiming head
- Opponent is dual wield: Aiming weapon arm
- I am very tired: Activity -2, Blood lust -2
So if the opponent is a dual-wielding war trug and very injured, our slave will have Activity 6, Aiming weapon arm, defending head, blood lust 5 and upon being very tired Activity 4, Aiming weapon arm, defending head, blood lust 3.

So instead of the triggers running in If-ElseIf-Else fashion they could run like check condition1-then also condition2-then also condition3 and so on.
Thus the overall strategy will be cumulative of the individual strategies. In case of non-cumulative strategies like Aiming or Defending, the lowermost set strategy will have the final effect.

Could this perhaps help us strategize better?
regards

[sevenseas]

lol...i think ya lost me on that last one lunarion especially the
So instead of the triggers running in If-ElseIf-Else fashion part.

[Stablemaster Silverheart]

*Raises his cup in agreement*

Triggers for different weapon types and/or armor types would be nice. I can't see anyone using a race specific trigger though except parry against a Trug since they have less stamina

[Nate]

Since today is a day of bringing old threads back from the dead and I mentioned I'd start a new thread on new trigger suggestions, this thread looked like a perfect candidate to have a second chance at life! :)

If you have any suggestions you'd like to add regarding new triggers, fire away! See what I did there? Yes, I know, I'm very clever... :p Keep in mind triggers that somehow would simply negate large groups of other triggers or would give unfair advantages probably won't be considered for obvious reasons, however, feel free to add whatever come to your mind if you are so inclined.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

P.S. These new triggers would probably be unlocked once a gladiator got to level 50 or maybe Blood Gods. I guess it depends on the trigger. I don't want to overwhelm newer players.

[Kreegan]

"Opponent is using (insert type) weapon" will be quite handy.

[oedi]

I have a defense bonus
opponent has a defense bonus

[Adoede]

Here are some triggers I've always wanted:

Opponent is using a defensive style (parry-x, counterattack, tank)
Opponent is using an offensive style (lunge, slash, bash, berserk, kill shot)

or more specifically

Opponent is using tank style
Opponent is using parry style
Opponent is using counterattack style
Opponent is using attack style
Opponent is using berserk style
Opponent is using kill shot style

[Apoca1ypse]

"Opponent is using (insert type) weapon" will be quite handy.

With the nature of some weapons, it would allow some styles to get totally blown away.


Opponent is using a defensive style (parry-x, counterattack, tank)
Opponent is using an offensive style (lunge, slash, bash, berserk, kill shot)

Same for triggers based off the opponent's fighting style. That could also lead to a fight where glads keep just changing strategy in reaction to their opponent's strategy change



I know I wouldnt use them, but I think triggers like the following would be good.

I/My opponent is stunned
I/My opponent has an offensive bonus
I/My opponent has an offensive penalty
I/My opponent has an defensive bonus
I/My opponent has an defensive penalty

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Kreegan

"Opponent is using (insert type) weapon" will be quite handy.
With the nature of some weapons, it would allow some styles to get totally blown away.

This is one of the concerns and the reason they are not in the game currently. I'm not 100% convinced it would be an issue, but chose to err on the side of caution.



Originally Posted by Adoede Opponent is using a defensive style (parry-x, counterattack, tank)
Opponent is using an offensive style (lunge, slash, bash, berserk, kill shot)
Same for triggers based off the opponent's fighting style. That could also lead to a fight where glads keep just changing strategy in reaction to their opponent's strategy change

Same as above, however, the main reason is "trigger battles" would happen a lot with gladiators switching back and forth. This could be addressed by limiting the number of times strategies can change per round but that could come with its own issues.




I know I wouldnt use them, but I think triggers like the following would be good.

I/My opponent is stunned
I/My opponent has an offensive bonus
I/My opponent has an offensive penalty
I/My opponent has an defensive bonus
I/My opponent has an defensive penalty

Clearly since most of those are already in the game except for "I am stunned" which wouldn't make sense, since you are stunned and incapable of changing strategies and the defensive bonus ones. ;) Might have to change the "Apoc is still a Ninja" comment and replace it with "Apoc used to be a Ninja!" as Ninja's need to be very observant of their environment! ;)

Keep the ideas flowing if you have them! If it looks like we can add them without upsetting balance we'll make it happen. Thus far I don't see a problem introducing:

- more fine tuned bleeding triggers
- defensive bonus triggers
- race triggers

Questionable triggers thus far would be:

- weapon triggers
- fighting style triggers


Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Kreegan]

Maybe some clarification on what "Opponent attacks more" and "I attack more" mean then. Does it mean higher offensive activity during the round or more attack attempts during the round on either side? If it's the former, then a trigger for more/less blows landed per round will be useful.

[Apoca1ypse]

Clearly since most of those are already in the game except for "I am stunned" which wouldn't make sense, since you are stunned and incapable of changing strategies and the defensive bonus ones. Might have to change the "Apoc is still a Ninja" comment and replace it with "Apoc used to be a Ninja!" as Ninja's need to be very observant of their environment! ;)



I agree with the I am stunned being a counter intuitive trigger for flavor reasons. Doesn't mean I cant want it :p Also, I had a feeling some of the other triggers were present, but I was too tired to double check. Even ninja's get sleepy at times :p



The bleed rate triggers are something I have found myself wanting at times, and I think they would be a beneficial trigger for niche builds :)

[Adoede]

...the main reason is "trigger battles" would happen a lot with gladiators switching back and forth. This could be addressed by limiting the number of times strategies can change per round but that could come with its own issues.

This already happens with the activity level triggers and with the "I attack more/Opponent attacks more" triggers. I imagine it would be more a "theoretical" problem than an actual gameplay one. For instance, if my opponent goes to parry-x mode, I might want to do the same. But he's not likely to switch out of parry mode just because I switched to it too. If the opponent goes into counterattack, I might slow my activity level to reduce the number of attacks he can reflect. But that's not likely to start a trigger war either. In fact, I can't think of a realistic scenario that this would actually start a trigger war in game.

[Lunarion199]

Could these be possible?
* I have suffered serious injury on head/torso/hands/legs
* I have dealt serious injury on opponent's head/torso/hands/legs

[Sotc]

Aside from the issue of trigger wars, I would be against having triggers which detect the strat your opponent is using.

I feel like it would detract from the value of scouting out your opponent beforehand and also would ruin the element of surprise when you adjust your strats in a novel way for a particular matchup. This reduces the value of the manager doing legwork on opponents before matches or being creative with strats and changing them up fight to fight.

For reasons apoc mentioned above, I don't think that detecting the opponents weapon is a good idea either. Certain matchups would be blowouts.

In short, some triggers are best left alone; they are just too powerful and devalue the manager's role in active strategy management and scouting.

[Adoede]

I actually think the triggers are fine as is.

[Kreegan]

In short, some triggers are best left alone; they are just too powerful and devalue the manager's role in active strategy management and scouting.Thing is, you don't need scouting to figure out what weapons the opponent uses and the strategies are fairly easy to deduce for the majority of the fighters. Some of them (normally Rages but not only) use no more than 1-2 strategies 90% of the time.

I actually agree that weapon-based triggers might be a bit too much but on the other hand it will be good to force those "lazy" styles which are efficient with almost no strategy involved to move their asses.

[Apoca1ypse]

Thing is, you don't need scouting to figure out what weapons the opponent uses and the strategies are fairly easy to deduce for the majority of the fighters. Some of them (normally Rages but not only) use no more than 1-2 strategies 90% of the time.

I actually agree that weapon-based triggers might be a bit too much but on the other hand it will be good to force those "lazy" styles which are efficient with almost no strategy involved to move their asses.

rage has inherently less variation in strategies because of how the class is designed. You can already use the "If my opponent is rage" trigger if you're that worried.

Also, since the fight engine change a year ago, I went from using 2 lines to using all 5 strategy lines on my rages. Rage has a little bit more diversity in strategies now and isnt as "set and forget" as it once was. The other classes also changed a bit too. Lazy managers are already getting a bit of a penalty because of this, so no need to go further.

[Kreegan]

There is quite a big difference between 2H Rages, mace-armed Rages and blades-armed Rages so "Opponent is Rage" is not a panacea.
Yes, it was fairly monotonous prior to the changes of the skill tree, with 10 - Berserk - 10 being ubiquitous for Rages, but at the moment every 100/100 Rage can afford to go Berserk in nearly all cases without too much troubles. You run a berserking speed Rage with barely above 100 endurance placed 9th in Blood Gods. :)
Still, Rages aren't really a concern as each Rage build is vulnerable to at least two other builds, the point is that in general the game needs a few triggers to make all who have comfortably set a couple of straight-forward "brute force" strategies and forgot about that section to actually implement some creativity in their game. There's too much reliance on simple "hit it until it drops" approaches in the end game.

[Sotc]

What's wrong with hitting with brute force until it drops? That's pretty much the whole rage profession in a nutshell.

I'm not following your argument where you say that having this weapon detection trigger will force more creativity in strategies. Can you explain this further?

[Kreegan]

I encourage you to read my posts again, I already said that I agree with the statement that weapon-based triggers may result in some balance issues, although maybe not incredibly severe.
Also, "hitting until it drops" is somewhat appropriate for Rages (even though there are too many 100/100 Rages which just use Berserk almost all the time) but this phenomenon is well-spread among other builds as well and is most pronounced among those with 30-40 points in the Rage tree. The emphasis is obviously in critical hit spam, injuries, knockdowns, etc. which basically requires 1 main Spartaaaa strategy and 1 or 2 secondary strategies, maybe to cover low health or endurance. In such a situation, a trigger like "I have serious injury" will be pretty useful for Wars (tank when appropriate) and a trigger like "The opponent hits me more often / I hit the opponent more often" will help War and Theatrics with switching between defensive and offensive stances, eventually resulting in the opponent burning more endurance than usual or exposing him/herself when the time is right for you. There can be many combinations in theory.

[JerimyA5]

My main thought on triggers is simply that it would be nice to have a second set of triggers for the new content such as conquest and gauntlet. A second set for when we're fighting more than one enemy seems like it could be a good idea to me. Not so much for when we're running the new stuff ourselves, as one could simply change their strat before starting, as I do. But it would be helpful for anyone else using the glad as part of their team.

[Adoede]

Reviving an old thread.

I've noticed that there are a few fighting styles that I have a hard time setting tactics against because there isn't a good way to trigger against them at the moment. In particular, Power-theatrics and Offensive Wars. There's currently nothing to allow us to trigger a different strategy vs. counter-attacking power-theatrics at all in the game. Likewise against offensive wars, they require a different strategy than other offensive glads because of their armor and defense.

Could we add a new set of triggers for
"Opponent is using an offensive style" (Lunge, Slash, Bash, Berserk, Kill Shot)
"Opponent is using a defensive style" (Parry X, Counterattack, Tank)

That seems broad enough so as not to nerf any particular builds unfairly, yet useful for the way I want to use tactics. With the proliferation of Power-theatrics and War glads of varying types in Blood gods, this would help us develop more effective strategies to help counter each type. (Though trigger-wars might be an issue)

If not these, then perhaps Nate could think up some that would address this lacuna more effectively. I know what I want my glads to do against these types, but I can't set them up to carry out those strategies without sabotaging my other strategies.

[Kreegan]

There are actually many styles which can't be countered precisely with the current triggers but that's not necessarily bad thing in all cases. The armour-piercing speed plague in Blood Gods doesn't need any extra buffs or helping hands, it's already performing far too well. Besides, there are... how many... 5 or so Power Theatrics in the entire bracket, against more than two dozens or so speed builds.

That said, I'm not against generic triggers which can backfire if they are overly relied on.

[Apoca1ypse]

The fight triggers are fine as they are. If you allowed strategies based on opposing abilities (counterattack, berserk etc) you would end up with gladiators just in a cyclic change of strats instead of swinging.

Also, if you add too much flexibility or scope to a set and forget strategy, you would eventually end up with someone making a strategy/build setup that will beat everything. I'm sure many of you were already frustrated with Arrrrrghpirates domination and 85-90% w/l for a few seasons. Giving the option to have someone go 95% w/l with a set and forget strategy is unacceptable in my opinion.

If you really want to have a better matchup vs particular strategies, learn your fight que or check who your opponent is for the next BG fight, and change your strats between the fights to that they are tuned towards the gladiator you are about to face.

[Adoede]

Hey Kreegan - Arkal is quite a handful for my speed builds ;)

It's not about looking for advantages so much as that minor annoyance that I can't set my glads up to use the strategies I want them to use against certain opponents. They might still lose 90% of the time against said opponents, but at least it would be due to my poor strategies rather than because of a structural issue in the game. I've been able to employ the strategy I've wanted against all opponents except Power Theatrics and sometimes against Offensive Wars, so I'm not sure which other styles you've run into that you can't properly strategize for.

As for the speed theatrics performance in BG - They're not nearly as dominant as they used to be. In fact, there's not a single one in the elite ranks anymore. Those ranks are now dominated by Rages and Wars with nary a Theatrics to be found. Not that I'm complaining - I rather enjoy this new order with the 2H Rages finally becoming as dominant as we all imagine them to be - nothing more satisfying than reading a fight where your brute has just pulverized the opponent for 2000+ damage in a single hit!

[Adoede]

Apoc - I actually do switch my strats for my opponents in my fight queue already when I'm the one initiating the fight - what bugs me is that I can't properly prepare my glads against the challenges they receive from other glads throughout the day. This is a non-issue with my Rages because their strategies are pretty much the same against all opponents. It's my other glads that sometimes end up fighting with an unoptimized strategy against an opponent they can't trigger against.

At the end of the day, it's not a big deal and if nothing changes, that's ok. But I figure Nate would rather know about on-the-ground gameplay issues like these rather than not know about them. I'm sure he can eventually come up with a better fix as well.

[Apoca1ypse]

Apoc - I actually do switch my strats for my opponents in my fight queue already when I'm the one initiating the fight - what bugs me is that I can't properly prepare my glads against the challenges they receive from other glads throughout the day. This is a non-issue with my Rages because their strategies are pretty much the same against all opponents. It's my other glads that sometimes end up fighting with an unoptimized strategy against an opponent they can't trigger against.

I know what you mean, but I still think it would be unfair if there was the possibility to beat every build with a set and forget strategy. My point about learning fight ques was that it gives you at least some ability to beat otherwise very tough match ups.

If you want perfect tweaking ability for match ups, that is what the Blood Games are for. Arena is more of a "take on all comers"

[Kreegan]

As for the speed theatrics performance in BG - They're not nearly as dominant as they used to be. In fact, there's not a single one in the elite ranks anymore. Those ranks are now dominated by Rages and Wars with nary a Theatrics to be found. Not that I'm complaining - I rather enjoy this new order with the 2H Rages finally becoming as dominant as we all imagine them to be - nothing more satisfying than reading a fight where your brute has just pulverized the opponent for 2000+ damage in a single hit!Actually they are performing very well and the only reason you don't see any of them in top 10 is because Sotc decided to swap races and weapons on Arrrrgh... Speed Elaar Theatrics are still very (even too) easy to manage and overrepresented in Blood Gods. We need more Power Theatrics in the bracket to even the odds for sure. :)

Also, pretty much all speed builds which perform well are Elaars so I'm not talking only about the Theatrics. If something needs balancing in this regard, it's the race rather than the strategy triggers.

[Sotc]

I'm inclined to agree with Kreegan and Apoc. I think it would make developing an "all arounder" strat too easy. And yes I've switched up Arrrrrgh to a more fun build; I'm trying to go for max bleed. Still testing a couple equip setups to see what's optimal. (Any suggestions are welcome =) )

[Apoca1ypse]

My understanding is that Scimitars do the most bleed, followed by cestus

[Kreegan]

The scimitar swings far less often than the cestus though so you won't get so much bleeding per round. Bleeding is also related to armour penetration power so, ironically, Elaars seem to be better in this than Snivlers against Wars.

This whole discussion is not for this topic though.

[Adoede]

If you guys think adding triggers for "opponent is using defensive style" and "opponent is using offensive style" would make crafting an all-around strategy too easy, you'll definitely not like my other secret wish - that we could have multiple equipment setups and have our glads select which equipment setup to use in a given fight according to the opponent style and equipment setup. :cool:

Anyway, it seems I'm in the minority with the impression that the whole point of strategy pages and triggers was to attempt to craft an all-around strategy that could be effective against whatever opponents we wished to prepare for. To me, it makes sense that there should be an option in the way strategies are designed to be able to counter whatever strategies we expect our opponent might use. Ah well. C'est La Vie! I have another idea of how to approach this anyway :)

[Pit Lord]

that we could have multiple equipment setups and have our glads select which equipment setup to use in a given fight according to the opponent style and equipment setup. :cool:

Its OK if my gladiator select gear and strategy after your gladiator ;)