Strategy: Do not attack, if it would cause you to loose. Possible or bug?

[Maraxus]

I just had a strange fight and got to ask: Can people really do that?

Since turn 2 my opponent has been switching between Strategy 2 and 3. No idea what that is

Rounds 2-5 each round: He attacks, then I attack.

Round 6 and 7: He attacks, then my trigger triggers and I go into parry mode

Round 9 He attacks

Round 10: I attack and then my second trigger puts me into tank mode.

Round 11, 13 and 15: He attacks. Now he is at 1 Endurance left. I'm at 18 Endurance. Hitpoints are 532 to 508 in my favor.
He continuous to keep switching between Strategy 2 and 3, like he did since round 2.

And then 15 and 18 the audience are starting to throw stuff at the gladiators and I take damage. In round 20 he takes some damage, too and again in round 30. (I guess he took less because he attacked longer and maybe because of luck and/or presence?)

In round 35 Endurance is still 18 to 1 but HP are 93 to 216 against me and I'm declared looser by the enforcer.


So my question: Is this possible or some kind of bug?

What I find weired:
1. Does Tanking really mean not ever attacking at all - not even once every 10 rounds? This sounds dumb given that there is not even a trigger "Every 5th round"
2. What exactly makes one loose endurance? I lost endurance between round 11 and 15, and I did not even attack.
3. And most importantly: How did he manage to stop attacking? It was not a change in strategy, he kept switching between 2 and 3 like before but he decided not to make that very last attack that would have caused him to go unconcious. - I'm just asking, because I want to do that, too.

[Maraxus]

WTF??? THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE AT ALL!

It happened again although this time my opponent stopped attacking at 16 Endurance.

Thinks that make this even worse then the last time:
- He attacked last in round 13, I attacked last in round 15, yet in round 18 the audience are starting to throw stuff at me.
- I included a line in my tactics to start attacking once I'm very injured. Whatever this means, it did not trigger. I just gave up in round 32 despite the fact, that it just said I appear to be winning this duel. :mad:

Yes, Yes, I read before that there are plenty of factors, that determine the outcome of the fight - so write them into the game!!! It can't be, that all the in game texts only give is some vague flavor text in the metaphor of the game, while the metaphor is so insufficient in describing the actual thinks that happen. When I give my gladiator the order to attack before the audience throw him to death, I want him to do exactly that.
And I do not want to "figure out, how to set a number of abstract parameters, to make the value of uncertain variables go up" - unless I know the parameters and how they factor into the variables. I do not think this is fun.

[Avengelyn]

Maraxus -

There is a "known" situation in the game to where 2 strategies causes a lock up in the loss of endurance for both fighters. For example, if your running tank and your opponent does counterstrike, minutes can fly by without any loss of endurance for either fighter, till the crowd starts hammering the contestants. Its lame, makes zero sense, and has never been explained adequately.

Regardless, if you dont want to lose via the crowd, make sure your strategies are ordered correctly and set in such a way that you at least make an attempt to swing at your opponent at the end of long fights.

There was a more detailed post in the bug section of the forums titled "no endurance lost in a fight". Check that out for more details.

Avengelyn, Manager of Lethal Formula

[Maraxus]

Yeah, I was mad at the second post because I did plan exactly this in but I guess 121/629 health is not "very" injured, although it's obviously already "willing to give up" - I should get more "grim determination" I guess my opponent seamed to have had more grim determination on his Theatrix. Anyway, now my dude is no longer supposed to tank while moderately injured. Hope, that works.

What annoyed me specifically in the first one was, that he had a strange "secret" strategy that allowed him to continue, while he still had endurance and then stopped attacking, while he did not have endurance. If it had been the order of:
1. We both fight
2. I switch to tank, while he continues to bash at me
3. He switches to Strategy X
4. Neither attacks anymore
5. Crowd kills me first, because I was longer idle

This would have been me being outsmarted. But the point here is 3. He did not do that, he had one strategy (well, two strategies in even/odd switcheroo), that he played from the beginning, that allowed him to attack me while he had endurance and allowed him to preserve the last point of endurance while he had not. And from what I can see by reading the ingame description, such a thing should not be there.
It could be a number of ways this works, most likely something like: The strategy and the current health/endurance status both give -% number of attacks and if you get to -100% you attack no longer. This would make sense on a numbers game point of view but the game does not give the numbers, so this is only speculation and it does not really make sense on a "simulated humanoid being" point of view.

Endurance seams to be subtracted based on the attacks you do and those done against you. The second part is not really good. At least there should be different results on my endurance depending on whether my gladiator watches the opponent fumble his weapon, whether I parry or whether I am hit (and in the last case how much damage I take).

[Dainoji]

There is a "known" situation in the game to where 2 strategies causes a lock up in the loss of endurance for both fighters. For example, if your running tank and your opponent does counterstrike, minutes can fly by without any loss of endurance for either fighter, till the crowd starts hammering the contestants. Its lame, makes zero sense, and has never been explained adequately.

Counter striking requires the opponent to attack so that you can then "counter" the attack. If a glad is tanking and thus not attacking, the opposing glad using counter strike will also not attack. It makes perfect sense and can be used as part of a more advanced strategy if you use the right triggers.

[Dainoji]

WTF??? THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE AT ALL!

It happened again although this time my opponent stopped attacking at 16 Endurance.

Thinks that make this even worse then the last time:
- He attacked last in round 13, I attacked last in round 15, yet in round 18 the audience are starting to throw stuff at me.
- I included a line in my tactics to start attacking once I'm very injured. Whatever this means, it did not trigger. I just gave up in round 32 despite the fact, that it just said I appear to be winning this duel. :mad:

Yes, Yes, I read before that there are plenty of factors, that determine the outcome of the fight - so write them into the game!!! It can't be, that all the in game texts only give is some vague flavor text in the metaphor of the game, while the metaphor is so insufficient in describing the actual thinks that happen. When I give my gladiator the order to attack before the audience throw him to death, I want him to do exactly that.
And I do not want to "figure out, how to set a number of abstract parameters, to make the value of uncertain variables go up" - unless I know the parameters and how they factor into the variables. I do not think this is fun.

Maraxus, If you are looking for the kind of game that lays everything out there in plain sight and requires no investigation on your part, this is probably not the game for you. Getting good at this game will require you to read your fights carefully and find out why things are happening. In most cases everything has a reason and if you aren't understanding why, think on it more, test, read the guides and ask questions here. If you'd like to stop attacking, drop your AL down to 1 and use a slow fighting style like tank or parry-X and you'll almost go inactive. There are times you might want to do this. If you don't want the crowd to get angry at you them make sure your attack frequency is sufficient enough not to anger them. What is sufficient? You'll have to figure that out on your own through reading your fights. Try and not fall into the trap of thinking something is broken when you simply don't understand it and instead try and understand it and then use it to your advantage in your strategies.

Triggers like very injured or slightly tired work off of a % of your health or endurance. Again read your fights play with the triggers and you'll figure out where the lines are drawn. The pit fights are a good place to test.