[MUD-Dev] Re: Less numbers, more roleplaying.

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:
> On 27/11/97 at 11:28 AM, Richard Woolcock <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> said:
> >Appologies for the length of the examples in this mail...
> >Adam Wiggins wrote:
> >> 
> >> [Richard Woolcock:]
> 
> >> > So called 'Intelligent' mobs should go for the weakest opponent.
> >> 
> >> They should?  I consider myself intelligent, yet I always consider
> >> the most dangerous opponent to be my first target in a combat
> >> situation.
> 
> >Hmmmm I'm not sure now.  Certainly, you'd be more worried about the most
> >dangerous opponent, but equally, which would you rather have?
> 
> Run some examples thru a simulator.  This is actually a non-trivial
> simultaneous equation.  Some variables under consideration for each
> protagonist are:

This is interesting (I seem to be saying that a lot!). Basically the
definition of 'dangerous' is not as trivial as it sounds by this reasoning
(which makes some sense).
 
>   How much X damages you per blow.
>   How many blows from you required to remove X.
>   Damage to your defences from X per blow.
>   How much are X's blows affected by the damage you inflict on X?
>   How much are your blows afftect by the damage X inflicts on you?
>   etc...

Which means that opponents who rarely hit, but inflict high damage are
considered alongside those that hit often with small damage, and so forth,
if the averages are comparable, and so on. This generally makes life very
awkward.
   
> It gets even worse if the values for each of the above are actually curves
> which decay based on the state of X.  It could very easily end up with the
> optimal order of attack changing ov every blow, requiring the entire
> equation set to be re-solved each time.

This could probably be tackled by integration if you have a defined
formula, and wanted a rough assessment of the total 'danger' a target
offered. I intend to approach this by simplification, and by making NPCs
attack a random target. If this begins to present problems, I will weigh
the random variables by the *size* of targets - they'll swing at larger
things more often.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	ICQ: 5580107
"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world." -Einstein