[Done for V0.38] Change the reincarnation rules

TheMormegil · Post by **TheMormegil** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:58 am

The reincarnation rules seem bizarre at the moment.
As a test, I reincarnated a character who was archmaster in all classes.
Health, stanima and mana were halved and secondary stats were lowered by 3-6 points.
Then I reincarnated an identical character except he was only neophyte ninja and level 0 in other classes.
Health, stanima and mana were halved and secondary stats were lowered by 4-6 points.
This seems a bit odd...I think it would be better if the penalties were lower the fewer levels the character had before reincarnation.

Post by **Sophia** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 5:57 pm

This is because DM and CSB actually use different methods for determining the stats of a reincarnated character.

CSBwin lets the designer specify "DM Rules" or "CSB Rules."

RTC on the other hand tries to guess which ruleset it should use based on the character's initial stats and it doesn't always do a very good job...

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:11 pm

Wait... Stats shouldn't be lowered, but raised!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:23 pm

In CSB they are lowered because you are dealing with a hugely powerful character, one that can gain back it's levels very quickly due to the layout of CSB - hence two rulesets

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:25 pm

Paul's docs prove otherwise

http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/doc ... arnate.png

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:33 pm

Paul's engine contradicts his own docs then, you reincarnate in the CSB dungeon and stats are lowers

I just reincarnated Aroc as proof and went from 54/39/44/34/44/35 to 50/37/43/30/40/34 which is how it's always been reported by people

I agree though, his doc does say that the onyl difference between the two is the halving or primary stats first. Oh, wait, this is his new rules - he maybe has the optional values as negative. So for DM rules there is no touching of the primary stats, but you could increase or decrease them depending on the number/number (2/1 not 1/2) , and then at the 'addition' stage afterwards is either negative or positive depending on the assigned numbers too - DM being a positive distribution, VCSB neing negative.

Post by **Sophia** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:35 pm

Actually playing CSBwin proves otherwise to the otherwise.

Suule wrote:Paul's docs prove otherwise

http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/doc ... arnate.png

TheMormegil · Post by **TheMormegil** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 5:44 am

RTC on the other hand tries to guess which ruleset it should use based on the character's initial stats and it doesn't always do a very good job...

Interesting, and on further investigation it seems that which ruleset RTC uses is based solely on the sum of health, stanima and mana.

H + S + M > 200 = CSB Rules.
H + S + M < 200 = DM Rules.

I think a system where the character is regressed through the levels he has but only taking half the penalties would be better.
That way the extra work will pay off but not to a massive extent.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:36 am

Really, I think a few points different between systems is nothing to get so wound up about.

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:57 am

Well I agree there.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:02 am

I think it's not the points differences it's the fact the CSB reincarnate rules apply in an unexpected way

I would ahve been hit by this 'feature' too, as I have a few large stat charatcers that would break the 200 mark in primary stats (because they are tanks) but all charatcers have DM like starting levels of experience. I would therefore start gettg complaints when they reincarnated the tanks and suddenly had pathetically reduced charatcers the magic users could have beat

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:33 pm

I think, the choice between DM or CSB reincarnation rules should be optional. It should be set in the config file, but the dungeon designer should be allowed to override the config file (which should result in a short information line at the beginning of the game).

Beyond that I would welcome the possibility to have the option of reincarnation when makeing up a new adventure with old characters.

TheMormegil · Post by **TheMormegil** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:03 pm

Really, I think a few points different between systems is nothing to get so wound up about.

Was this aimed at me?
I'm not wound up, I just think RTC could be better if the system was improved, hence the suggestion.
Especially for new dungeons (it works OK for DM) a more graduated approach would be better.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:42 pm

I think so, but I think it is misunderstand as you weren't complaining about the points assignment but when it was applied

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 3:26 pm

TheMormegil wrote:Interesting, and on further investigation it seems that which ruleset RTC uses is based solely on the sum of health, stanima and mana.

H + S + M > 200 = CSB Rules.
H + S + M < 200 = DM Rules.

Not sure how you arrived at those figures, it's nothing like that! What actually happens is that it takes into account H,S,M and exp levels (all 7 parameters are non-linearly scaled and also with different weights) to come up with a character "rating" (this algorithm is also used to calculate the party rating when importing characters to a dungeon).

If the rating is less than the maximum rating of the original characters in DM, it uses the DM rules, if its greater than the minimum rating of the original characters in CSB it uses CSB rules. If its inbetween it uses a rule that's a blend of the two (in proportion to how close the rating is to the two extremes).

The point about having a single tank character however is a good one. I think the way to solve that though is to have the rules selected by the average rating of all the mirror characters not just the one that's being reincarnated - that way the relative strengths of each of the characters will remain the same.

Post by **Lunever** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 3:35 pm

That sounds reasonable. Yet I would like an option to manually override the automatical algorithm, at least for the dungeon designer.

TheMormegil · Post by **TheMormegil** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:27 pm

Hmm I arrived at that formula from incomplete experiments!
Are you sure exp levels are taken into account?
For example :
H80 S80 M75 Neophyte ninja reincarnates with CSB like rules, becoming
H48 S48 M45 and losing 2-4 points from secondarys.

H80 S80 M45 Archmaster all classes reincarnates with DM rules, becoming H80 S80 M45 and gaining 2-3 points in secondarys.

So the supposed stronger character ends up much weaker than the more powerfull one. Not to mention the multi archmaster could have 255 in all secondary attributes! (250+ in the experiment vs > 60 for the char who reincarnates with csb rules.)

Applying the same rules to all characters in the same dungeon is a start, but which rules should be a choice of the dungeon designer. Only the designer knows what will unbalance thier dungeon.
Also the gulf between the different rules is too large...if you want to do the extra work reincarnating and training in a tough dungeon you should end up with characters which are stronger than they were at their initial level of experience. If you just want it to be harder all the time you can set difficulty in the config file.

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 2:36 pm

OK, for V0.38, the reincarnation rules are keyed off the best possible party selectable from all the mirrors in the dungeon and those rules are applied to all reincarnations (the rules being as I described above).

Also, I've changed the way the "best" is calculated to take into account the additional stats (str, dex etc) - this will also apply to the importing party strength % calculation.

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 2:53 pm

You might still consider allowing the dungeon designer to manually set it to DM rules or CSB rules in addition.

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:19 pm

As explained several posts above this, there isn't such a concept as DM / CSB rules in RTC (it's a CSBWin thing). RTC picks one of an infinite number of rules tailored to the stats of the mirror characters.

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:34 pm

Yes, I did understand that. That doesn't mean, that DM/CSB-rules couldn't have been introduced as an alternative to the automatized reincarnation algorithm. For me as a player the current rules are ok, yet I thought that a dungeon designer might want to tweak them according to his/her preferences.
Never mind, it's not very important imho.

copperman · Post by **copperman** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:58 pm

Allowing "legacy" reincarnaton rules for the designer mightn't be so bad, as long as it doesn't break things or make GG pull out chunks of head fur.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:53 pm

To tweak them, you would include an unreachable character that reduced or increased the level of stats so the rules are applied

Not as elegant as an engine thing, but then again I don't know anyone that has toyed around with the reincarnate rules of CSBwin in a dungeon so seems a waste of time for now, especially if no one has tried out RTC's reincarnate rules properly yet

TheMormegil · Post by **TheMormegil** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:41 pm

no one has tried out RTC's reincarnate rules properly yet

I reincarnated characters to play SS 2.1.
They all ended up as poorer spellcasters at thier original (in-mirror) levels (they had fewer mana points). Also the characters I chose as main spellcasters were weaker all round.

Whilst there are not strictly DM or CSB reincarnation rules, I still think the gulf between the most beneficial reincarnation and the first case of non beneficial reincarnation is too big, but seeing as I seem to be in a minority of one, I'll just have to live with it I guess.

Beowulf, your tweak would only allow less beneficial reincarnation because :

for V0.38, the reincarnation rules are keyed off the best possible party selectable from all the mirrors in the dungeon

Note : Best possible, not average
There is no way around it for the designer if I understand correctly.