Talk:Tactics

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Penalty equivalent to 25 bonus for 'upper body' or 'lower body' focus. 
Penalty from 0 to 25 bonus for focusing on specific areas, depending on how big the area is (bigger areas incur a lesser penalty).

Wait, it can be harder to focus on a larger, more general area (upper body or lower body) than to focus on a specific part of that area? --Ilde 00:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I though that Very Odd as well; but that's what it says in the mudlib. See my comment inline in the article, reproduced here: <!--Chat: Yeesh, that's harsh! You get a bigger penalty for focusing on the entire upper/lower body than a single area?! Well, that's what the mudlib says, at any rate. Anyone feel like doing some research to confirm this (and then submitting a bugrep)? --> --Chat 16:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Ahhh, I didn't see the comment. Hm... okay, on one of my alts, with a dagger bonus of 24 while focusing on the upper body I was still able to kill a roach. Hypothetically if the penalty is equivalent to -25 bonus, that should have completely wiped out mine. Any indication it's different at low bonuses? --Ilde 18:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Not specifically. Be aware, though, that there are lots of other effects (eg. see the stuff I just added re: to-hit/defend and attitude) that can affect your to-hit chance. One thing of note in particular is that there's a random number between -25 and +50 (weighted slightly more towards negative numbers - it's not a flat distribution) that's added to each combat roll, giving a degree of variability. If there's not much difference between the attacker and defender skills, then that random number's likely to have quite a significant effect. --Chat 19:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Ahhh. So much for my clever idea, then. --Ilde 19:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Hrm... On a re-read, what's being modified here isn't so much the bonus, but more the raw win/lose chance.
What happens is that you get a bonus comparison (see here for how that works), which gives you a percentage. This percentage can be greater than 100 or less than zero at this point! You then add or delete a modifier based on a terribly large number of things (of which focus is one) to this percentage. You then cap the result so it's between 1% and 99%, and then do the win/lose check. So if, for example, the roach's dodge bonus is only 12, then the bonus comparison gives 100%, and the -25 focus modifier changes this to 75% - so you'll still hit 3 times out of 4, even with a negative modifier that's greater than your bonus.
I'll update the articles to try to make this clear. --Chat 19:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I see, I see. So it's somewhat testable still, just the long way, counting hits vs misses on various settings. --Ilde 03:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)